by Tom Clancy
"I don't know. It seems like a rather gaping hole in your intelligence education."
Moreau flinched and sighed.
"If Spock knows where Fisher is, then one of our cutouts might've leaked it or be on Spock's payroll."
"You're probably right."
THE team got into the city, then ventured northwest toward the outskirts and a bean-shaped lake. Up ahead lay an intersection, with the shoreline road curving toward the northwest, a second road heading west, and a third swinging down east, back toward the city. The rain had tapered off, but Hansen felt the wind continue to buffet the car.
Ames began to pull farther ahead of him, and Gillespie, who was riding shotgun, urged Hansen to accelerate. Ames's car vanished over the next hill.
"Wow, he's really flying. He'd better slow down."
"He knows more than he's saying."
"At this point, I don't care. I'm just glad he came up with something. I'm just glad we're not being played for fools anymore."
"How do you know that?" she asked. "How do you know this hasn't been all planned by them?"
"Kim, please. Just don't go there!"
AMES saw the man coming out of the grass, the suit, the goggles. . . .
But just for an instant. Ames was driving too fast.
"I don't believe it!" he cried. "That's him!"
He jammed on the brakes and threw the Audi into reverse. "I got him! I got him!"
"HE'S on foot, running southeast." Ames's voice shot through Hansen's subdermal. "We need to get back!"
They'd donned their suits, and goggles, and were armed for hunting bear, a.k.a. Fisher, so Hansen immediately flipped down his visor and went to night vision as he swung the car around and found himself now in the lead, heading back down the road they'd just come up. The grainy green fields on either side of the car appeared much more distinct now, unrolling in long, lazy waves.
"SLOW down," hollered Valentina. She was sitting in the driver's-side rear seat of Ames's car and rolled down her window. She directed a flashlight into the ditch and let it pan up toward the tree line. "Wait . . . there!"
Fisher, wearing a tac-suit and Tridents, appeared in the light, but in the blink of an eye he was lost in the trees beyond. Valentina's map told her the trees were simply a narrow stretch bordering two fields.
"Just keep going," she told Ames. "The road will curve around and we can flush him the next field over, behind the trees."
"I hear that, baby. I'm on it!" cried Ames.
"Baby? Shut up and drive!"
ON Valentina's advice, Hansen had veered off and was now heading east toward a wooden bridge. His first instinct was to have Valentina and the others chase Fisher on foot, but there was a good chance Fisher would double back--he was an expert at that--so Hansen sent them to flush Fisher while he served as a blocking force. It was a classic pincer movement, and Fisher would no doubt recognize it, but it was better than a foot chase.
Hansen swung his head around and stole a look at the field, where he spotted Fisher running, but he wouldn't stop and would maintain observation for the flushing team. Trees abruptly cut off his view.
"I've lost him," said Ames.
"Me, too," answered Hansen, pulling up the map on his OPSAT. "All right, we'll search the ditches. You guys check out that wedge of trees. You see it on the map?"
"I see it," said Valentina.
They spent the next thirty minutes combing through the woods and the field and ditches, and the only conclusion they reached was that Fisher had reached the larger forest to the east, where there'd be thousands of acres to search.
Gillespie met up with Hansen back at their car. "Check the map. Anything in those woods?"
"Just a campground. And this little town, Scheuerof, over here," he said, tapping his OPSAT's screen.
"What if he left his car at the campground?" she asked. "To get out, he'd follow this road here through Scheuerof."
"But what if he heads south?"
"I think he'll keep heading east toward the German border. More rural, more cover. But you never know."
Hansen nodded. "Let's take a shot. I say we get up there and see if we can cut him off."
Hansen told Ames the plan, and they met on the road heading east toward Scheuerof. As they passed through the little down, they spotted a police car, lights flashing, heading in the opposite direction, and then, a few minutes later, another one.
Gillespie patched herself directly into the local police channel and reported, "There was some kind of incident up at the campground."
Hansen grinned to himself. "Fisher. We're close now."
"Why don't we just call Moreau? If Fisher's in his car, Moreau can see him right now."
"And he can lie to us about that," Hansen shot back. "No way. We're doing this on our own."
30
NEAR VIANDEN, LUXEMBOURG HEADING TOWARD THE GERMAN BORDER
HANSEN'S determination to work alone and stay the course paid off. They spotted the Range Rover heading east about a mile ahead of them. Gillespie zoomed in with her night-vision binoculars and confirmed that Fisher was behind the wheel. She even saw him consulting an OPSAT, either Ames's or one he'd procured from the weapons cache in Bavigne.
They were racing down a winding road with a series of dips and bends that challenged Hansen's driving skills. Each time Fisher reached the crest of a hill, Hansen was better able to gauge his lead. Audi versus Range Rover? There was no competition, unless Fisher was actually driving Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and planned to fly over the treetops.
"I'm right behind you, Boss," said Ames through the subdermal.
Hansen had not asked the man for an update. "Uh, yeah, I can see you," he said sarcastically, stealing a look in his rearview mirror.
"Don't slow down."
"Ames, we'll catch up to him. Relax."
Fisher disappeared once again. The road grew dark. Hansen accelerated a bit more, rose up and over the next crest, and started down.
Lights appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the road.
Reverse lights.
Hansen's mouth fell open. Fisher had stopped dead, waited for them, and thrown the Rover into reverse. He was now barreling backward, directly toward them.
With the better part of three seconds to react, Hansen jammed on the brakes, and while the Audi's sophisticated antilock braking and traction- control systems immediately kicked in, he still found himself skidding across the road, past the Range Rover, and sliding up onto the right-side shoulder. And then, with a jerk, the car dropped, as though on the rails of a roller coaster, and began to plunge down the embankment.
Hansen corrected course, rolling the wheel and taking the car back up toward the pavement as Gillespie clutched a handle near the passenger's-side window and said, "The son of a bitch was never a good driver!"
As they neared the top of the embankment, Hansen hit the brakes hard, burning rubber to a stop, front tires now up on the pavement, back still on the dirt.
"Now what?" Hansen asked.
"Oh, no," said Gillespie. "This is bad."
AMES had to blink hard as his headlight picked out the two cars seemingly parked in the middle of the road. Without thinking, he just reacted, cutting the wheel hard, sending the Audi into a flat spin across the slick pavement and careening down into the ditch along the left side.
The car wasn't stopped for three seconds when suddenly Ames found his door being wrenched open. He looked up at Noboru, who reached across Ames, unfastened Ames's seat belt, then ripped him out of the driver's seat. "You idiot!" cried the Japanese man, and this was the first time Ames had ever heard the usually reserved operator raise his voice. "I drive!"
Noboru dumped Ames onto the ground and jumped into the driver's seat.
"Ames, get back in the car!" screamed Valentina.
HANSEN gaped at the oncoming vehicle, transfixed, as though watching it all in an IMAX theater.
Fisher had thrown his Range Rover into drive and was now racing toward them. Reflexively, Hansen
leaned toward the passenger's side as Fisher's car struck Hansen's door, the safety glass shattering. The Range Rover then turned, now broadsiding them, tires screeching, engine roaring. They were slammed back down into the ditch. Hansen didn't dare hit the accelerator until he could turn the Audi around. The Range Rover glanced off them, climbed back out of the ditch, and continued up the road.
They were on a thirty-degree slope, and when Hansen finally hit the gas, the back tires spun freely in the mud and began to dig deeper.
"We're stuck down here, Ames! Stay on Fisher."
"This is Nathan! I'm driving now!"
"All right, Nathan, stay with him!" Hansen turned to Kim. "You drive."
Before exiting the car, Hansen hit the trunk button. He climbed up, raced back, and removed the large, carpeted trunk mat from the back and slid it in front of one of the back tires. Then he got the two rear seat mats and did likewise with the other tire. Gillespie eased on the gas, and the little trick worked, getting them up past the mud and onto the harder ground. Hansen hopped into the passenger side, crying, "Go!"
NOBORU followed Fisher onto a side road that was mostly dirt and gravel. The road grew so narrow that only one vehicle could barely pass through. Freshly torn branches lay in the path, and Valentina reported that the Range Rover was definitely ahead, with Fisher hacking his way forward. It was raining a bit harder now, and Noboru switched on the wipers to clear the drops and still-falling leaves and twigs.
The road began turning radically, zigging hard to the right at forty-five-degree angles, and Noboru hit the brakes and rolled the wheel again. And again.
"If you don't slow down, you'll hit a tree," hollered Ames.
"Like you're an excellent driver?" spat Valentina. "Shut up!"
"Yes, shut up!" added Noboru, feeling his cheeks warm as, far in front of them, Fisher's taillights flickered into view.
Fisher had shifted to avoid a big rock in the road and had plowed into a berm on their left, leaving a huge trench where his SUV had pushed through. The canopy above had lowered, and his truck had sheared off dozens of more branches, which littered the road. Through the stands of trees, Noboru thought he spotted Fisher's taillights. He hadn't bothered to switch them off and go to night vision, but Noboru assumed that momentarily he would--once he realized he was still being followed.
Noboru was still a bit in awe that the tip he had given Ames had actually paid off. Noboru had obviously underestimated Spock's influence in the mercenary world. Yes, he'd thought Spock would be the one man to know something about Fisher, but it'd also been a long shot. Still, according to Ames, Spock had been unable to confirm that it was Fisher, only an American. But that was enough, and here they were, pursuing the man.
There was something, though, that bothered Noboru. Spock, given his position, was not a very forthcoming individual. How had Ames gotten him to talk?
HANSEN should have let Gillespie drive in the first place. She was an ace behind the wheel, cutting corners tightly and catching up quickly to Noboru.
"Where the hell did you learn to drive like this?"
"I don't know. I've always liked fast cars. My first was a '98 'Vette. We added a supercharger and custom cam and really ramped up the rear-wheel horsepower and torque. The dyno numbers were great."
"Okay, that's Chinese. Just watch the road and keep turning like that."
She cut the wheel hard. "Hang on!"
AS Noboru came out of the second of two hairpin turns, he spotted the Range Rover straight ahead, and he took in the scene at once.
Fisher was rolling around a boulder at least as tall as his hood, and as Noboru accelerated even more, the berm to their left suddenly exploded in a shower of mud and shrapnel that blasted against the car.
Reflexively, Noboru cut the wheel. Fisher had cleverly tossed a grenade into the berm to force them into the rock. Noboru appreciated the beauty of that plan, even though he was on the receiving end of it. Thankfully, the tires held on the gravel, and they slipped past the boulder with just a slight, glancing blow and the crunch of fiberglass.
They raced forward, and within a minute, the road suddenly widened into some kind of a logging camp with piles of mulch along one side, piles of cut logs, and clearings made into the deeper stretches off to the north.
The road split into three, with the main one heading directly west and the two others north and east.
Noboru slammed on the brakes.
"Why are you stopping?" hollered Ames.
Noboru ignored him and turned to Valentina. "Which way?"
There were tire tracks all over the clearing, and it was nearly impossible to pick out Fisher's.
Valentina was already scanning with her goggles and told him to take the north road. He jammed down his foot, and they lurched forward as Hansen came thundering up behind them.
"You sure he's heading north?" Hansen asked in the subdermal.
"I'm sure," said Valentina. "Got his exhaust trail."
"Roger that."
Noboru drove farther on, the road growing muddier, as Ames informed them that they had crossed into Germany. They came up and over a rise, and there, ahead, lay a wooden bridge with a gaping hole in its center, a hole large enough to permit a vehicle, a Range Rover, perhaps.
"Aw, hell," said Valentina. "I think he broke through the bridge."
"Ya think?" cried Ames.
And then the incessant blaring of a car horn rose from somewhere down below the shattered planks.
Then the horn went silent.
HANSEN eased out onto the bridge and directed his flashlight through the gap, drizzle filtering through the thick yellow beam that found the Range Rover sitting upside down in a ravine about twenty feet below. The door was open. Fisher was gone. Hansen quickly shifted the light around, picking out the banks of the creek below, the water only a foot or so deep, the rocks piled up along the shoreline. To Hansen's left, beyond the bridge, the ravine trailed off into the night. He turned, aimed the light off to his right.
A concrete wall rose alongside the streambed, with more ornate concrete facades on either side of it. In the center lay a rusting steel door. Hansen squinted. On the door was an old white sign with red letters: VERBOTEN. SIEGFRIEDSTELLUNG WESTWALL.
Fisher didn't have time to get out of the ravine, Hansen thought. He must have gone in there.
"We need to get down there!" Hansen ordered.
"Over here!" called Noboru. "I think we can get down here!"
They rushed over to where Noboru picked out a rocky edge of the ravine that would allow them to descend--slowly and carefully--but at least they could get down without breaking out ropes or rappelling gear from the trunk.
Noboru took the lead, and they descended one by one, burning up valuable time.
"Hey, I called up this place on the OPSAT," said Ames. "They called it the Siegfried line. It's a whole bunch of bunkers built by the Germans after World War I. There are thousands of them and tunnels and machine-gun emplacements all up and down it. Goes for, like, four hundred miles."
"Great," Hansen said with a groan. "Another perfect place for him to lose us."
"Not if I have anything to say about it," corrected Valentina, who reached the ground and took off running along the bank toward the door.
Noboru jogged behind her, as did Hansen, who turned back to Ames and Gillespie and said, "Circle around the other side and see if there's another entrance up top."
They nodded and rushed off.
As they neared the door, Hansen motioned to Noboru. "Sorry, buddy. I'm going to post you right here."
Noboru made a face, but he drew his SC pistol and nodded.
Hansen and Valentina reached the door, and Hansen gave it a solid shove with his shoulder. The door seemed to give a little, then bounced back, as though held by something elastic.
"Light," he ordered Valentina.
She moved in with a penlight, and in the gap between the jamb and the door they saw weblike rows of paracord. Fisher had tied shut th
e door from the inside.
Hansen drew his combat dagger--the one that had belonged to Fisher. He got to work on the cord.
31
THE SIEGFRIED LINE WESTERN GERMANY
HANSEN sawed through the first line of paracord and began working on the second.
"It's taking forever," said Valentina.
"Best I can do." The second one gave suddenly, and he began work on the third.
Something pinged hard just inside the door, near the concrete jamb, and Hansen realized with a start that he was taking fire. He pulled back the knife, shuddering as he did so.
"Shots," he said through a gasp.
Her eyes widened. "What did you expect? He's slowing us down even more. Come on."
Hansen took a deep breath--just as another round struck the wall inside.
"That came from a distance," he said, knowing that he would've heard a slight hand clap from inside but hadn't heard anything. "Warning shots."
"Just cut," Valentina urged him.
Hansen thrust his hand back into the gap and began sawing once more. "Kim, you find anything up there?"
"Not yet," she answered in his subdermal. "No other entrances or exits that we can see so far. . . . There could be some farther down the line. Or maybe we went the wrong way. Still, he's got to come out somewhere."
"Roger that."
Hansen cut hard into the last piece of paracord, which suddenly gave, and together he and Valentina shoved open the door.
They flipped down their goggles and switched to night vision. Water seeped down from a large crack in the ceiling, like a varicose vein bubbling with fluid, and, in fact, more water trickled inside from cracks all over the walls and floor, as though the place had become a sponge over time and was slowly being squeezed.
To their left and right lay a central passageway about thirty feet wide and seemingly miles long. Concrete stairwells intersected the passage, assumedly leading up to the old pillboxes and machine-gun emplacements, a few leading downward to who knew where, perhaps living quarters or storage facilities. Between the dust and rank odor of mildew, it was difficult not to cough.