by Tom Clancy
“Yes, sir, that’s true. He could have moved on before the travel computer systems all went south. We’ve got mainframe time on Baby Huey, and with British cooperation, Lieutenant Winthrop is back home using it to crunch flight and train and auto rental information, even boat rentals from London to anywhere else. Even a fake passport picture will have to look something like him.”
“He could get one with a phony beard and a wig,” Michaels said.
“We’re redballing any male traveling alone who is anywhere close to the right height, weight, and age.”
“He could hire an escort and travel with her.”
“Yes, sir, and he might find a witch doctor who could turn him into a gorilla, too, sir. We’ve got to start somewhere.”
Michaels smiled at that.
They arrived at the office where Howard had left Toni Fiorella.
Inside, Fiorella and a tall, striking, short-haired blonde stood and looked at an enlarged holoproj image of dozens of faces lined up in rows.
“Got the first run of photos from Jo Winthrop, Colonel,” Toni said. “All with either ears that match our size specs or are covered by hair so we can’t see them clearly. Hi, Alex. Have a good walk?”
“Yeah, thanks,” Michaels said. He looked uncomfortable. Pale.
“Oh, excuse my manners,” Toni said. “Colonel John Howard? This is Angela Cooper. She is our liaison to MI-6. Colonel Howard is the head of the Net Force Strike Teams.”
The blonde extended her hand and smiled at Howard. “How do you do, Colonel. Pleased to meet you.”
He shook her hand, returning the smile. He caught a glimpse of Michaels peripherally. The man had a sickly grin pasted in place, but he looked to Howard as if he was about to throw up.
Cooper released Howard’s hand, and he caught her flick a quick gaze at Michaels. He followed it, and saw Michaels glance away, refusing to meet her look. It was nothing, no more than half a second’s worth of what might be his imagination. But—
Oh, my.
Howard usually went to church on Sundays with his wife and son, but he didn’t consider himself any kind of prophet, able to see more than everybody else could see. Then again, he’d been around the block a time or two, and he liked to think he was not too bad at reading people.
Something was there. Something in the glance that the good-looking dishwater blonde had thrown at Michaels, the way he had refused to engage her, something was going on here.
Howard, like most men away from home a lot, had been tempted by the possibility of extramarital liaisons from time to time. There had been more than a few women interested in getting to know him horizontally, and a couple of them had been attractive enough so the thought had started to cross his mind. Who would know? Who would be hurt by it? How did the old song go? If you couldn’t be with the one you loved, couldn’t you love the one you were with?
No harm, no foul, right?
Fortunately, in all the years he’d been married, all such thoughts had died before they had gotten more than a few steps from wonder toward action. He didn’t think of himself as particularly righteous—he’d sowed a fair number of wild oats as a young soldier before he got married—but he’d put all that aside when he’d said “I do.” Maybe he was luckier than most; he hadn’t slipped since. But he had known a lot of men who had chosen to go and sin some more. He’d seen plenty of these men standing next to women they pretended not to know as well as they did know them.
He couldn’t have sworn to it on a Bible in a court of law, but that little exchange between Michaels and Cooper told Howard something he’d just as soon not know, too: These two had something going on together. And more than that, from how she acted, Toni Fiorella didn’t know it.
Oh, boy. All of a sudden, Howard was very glad he was not Alex Michaels. Very glad.
Tuesday, April 12th
London, England
Ruzhyó saw the shooter the second he opened his car door.
It was good luck, really; he’d just happened to be right next to the car and looking that way as he walked along twelve or thirteen meters behind Peel. If he hadn’t looked at just that instant, it might have been too late, but he had seen the glint of sunlight on stainless steel as the man pulled his jacket shut to hide the handgun tucked into his waistband on his right side. Half a second later, he’d have missed that and not known for sure the shooter was anything other than just another pedestrian hurrying to a late appointment or to pick up something before the shops closed.
The shooter came out only a meter or so behind Ruzhyó, who just kept walking, drifting to his right slightly, as if window-shopping at a hat store. The shooter, a tallish man with thinning, sandy hair, dressed in a windbreaker over a tan polo shirt, khaki slacks, and running shoes, walked past, intent on his target.
Ruzhyó glanced around. He didn’t see a backup man. He moved away from the window and onto the shooter’s tail, hurrying his pace. He reached down to where his mobile phone was clipped to his belt and tapped the “send” button.
The number was preprogrammed, one of two Peel had given him, and the mobile phone on Peel’s belt would now be vibrating with the call. Nobody else had the number, Peel had told him, and if it vibrated, that meant Ruzhyó had spotted a deadly threat too close to use the other number to call and talk about it.
Peel made an immediate right turn and into the door of the closest shop. A bookstore.
The shooter angled that way to follow.
Ruzhyó speeded up so that he reached the bookstore’s door half a meter behind the shooter. It would be easy enough to blast the shooter and put him down and out, but they wanted to keep him alive long enough to find out who had sent him. That might be a little trickier on the street, but inside a shop, with fewer witnesses, it should be easier.
Peel knew what was needed, and he quickly led his would-be assassin down an empty aisle bounded by tall shelves of musty books. Before the shooter could get to his weapon, Ruzhyó got to him. He shoved the little Beretta into the shooter’s spine and said, “Move and you die.”
The shooter was a pro. He froze.
“Clear,” Ruzhyó said.
Peel turned around, his hand under his sport coat at the right hip. He smiled. “Henry? I thought you retired?”
The sandy-haired man said, “I should have, so it seems.”
“Bit late now,” Peel said. “Let’s go somewhere and have a little chat, shall we?”
“That won’t do, Terry, you know that.”
“You can’t win, Henry. My man there is ex-Spetsnaz. He can make you a paraplegic and we still get to have our talk. Why don’t we keep it civilized? We might even be able to work something out so that nobody has to feed the worms.”
“Really, Terry, I hoped you’d think better of me than that—
With that, Henry leaped to the side, a move unexpected enough so that Ruzhyó’s shot missed his spine and punched a small hole over the man’s left kidney. The blast was loud, channeled by the books and shelves so that it lapped back over the three men. They had a few seconds left to finish this at most.
“Alive!” Peel shouted, pulling his own gun.
Ruzhyó tracked Henry’s right hand, knowing that was the one closest to his hidden pistol. He would shoot for the hand, and if he missed, an abdominal shot with a .22 wouldn’t be immediately fatal.
Maybe Henry realized he couldn’t get his own pistol out fast enough to outshoot them. He didn’t even try. Instead, he shoved his left wrist to his mouth and bit down on his watch band. Ruzhyó knew what the move meant, and apparently, so did Peel, who said, “Bugger all!”
Ruzhyó put his pistol back into his pocket, turned, and headed for the exit at a fast walk. Peel was right behind him. People, even bookworms, would come to see what the noise was about.
Whatever poison pill Henry had just bitten into was undoubtedly fast-acting, and there was no way to torture information from a man who would rather kill himself than reveal it. A pro, all right. Henry would probably be dead before any medica
l help could reach him, and beyond help in any event. Ruzhyó respected a man who died well. If you knew your time was up, it was better go out the way you elected to leave. You lost the war, but if you could cheat your enemy of anything at that point, you could carry some small satisfaction with you to your grave.
Outside, on the sidewalk again and moving moderately fast but not running, Peel gained past Ruzhyó and headed for his car. He said, “I rather liked old Henry. A shame.”
As he followed him, Ruzhyó considered how he was going to rid himself of the Beretta. He would have to lose it somewhere as soon as possible. A man was dead in a bookstore, and it would be poison that caused his demise, but even a hollowpoint sometimes retained enough of itself to be matched ballistically to the gun that had fired it. And a gun that could be connected to a dead man was a bad talisman to have around.
31
Tuesday, April 12th
Washington, D.C.
Jay brought Saji a glass of water, shook his head, and said, “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Seated in the overstuffed chair, she smiled. “More than I should, yes.”
He went to sit on the beat-up gray leather couch he’d bought at a garage sale. There was a faint smell of patchouli in the air. Her perfume? Residue from incense clinging to her hair? God, she was gorgeous. “I should know better after all my years on the net, but I didn’t expect this.”
“Does it bother you that much?”
He thought about it for a second. “No. Not really. It’s the mind that matters, not the body.”
“That’s to your credit, Jay. You really believe it. If I had known that when we met, I wouldn’t have bothered with the disguise.”
“So satisfy my curiosity—why did you?”
She swirled the ice cubes in her glass. “You want the quick answer or the lecture?”
“Oh, go for the lecture. Condensed books are usually boring.”
She smiled. “All right. Buddhism is like a lot of traditional religions in that, for a long time, virtually all of the ranking practitioners were men. Oh, there have always been nuns and women laity who walked the path as well as any man, but for a lot of folks even now, there is a gender bias. And in most traditional holy books—the Bible, the Koran, the Upanishads, and most Buddhist literature—when women are referred to at all, it is with a paternalistic and condescending tone, even while supposedly singing their praises: Women are the keepers of life, the bearers of children, the weaker, needsto-be-protected-from-the-harsh-world sex. Blah, blah, blah. Most old-style religions see women more as property than as people. A man has a farm, goats, cattle, and a wife. Women have had the vote in this country for less than a hundred years. You still with me?”
“Flow on, I’m here.”
“Okay. So, the philosophies want to keep the girls barefoot and pregnant, tending the home fires while serious business is conducted by the boys. With few exceptions—various kinds of Goddess worship and Wicca and the like—until very recently, women were not really considered major players when it came to doctrine or practice, even in the more “neutral” religions. There still aren’t any Catholic priests who are women. In some of the Moslem countries, women still can’t show their faces in public. It isn’t as bad in Buddhism as some of the other religions, and great strides have been made in the last hundred years, but there is still a kind of unspoken belief among serious students that women aren’t quite as good at it as men. Physicality discounted, women don’t think the same way as men. Female chess players at the highest levels don’t beat the male champions. Most men are better in spatial tests, in pure left-brain thinking, than women. Men—and some women—see this as reason that they should be in charge. Equality has been a long time coming, and in most places it still does not truly exist.”
Jay nodded. He knew this. And he could see where it was going, but he said, “Still here.”
“In a lot of circles, if they think you’re an old man, you get a lot more respect than if they think you’re a young woman. Truth is truth, but a lot of people look to see who delivers it before they accept it. You know the old Hollywood joke about the producer and the writer? The writer sends in a script to the producer who is in a hurry for it. Weeks pass, the producer doesn’t call back. Finally, the writer calls him. Says, ‘Well, did you read the script?’ ‘Yeah, I read it.’ ‘So, what did you think?’ The producer says, ‘I dunno what I think. Nobody else has read it yet.’ ”
She shook her head. “That’s how it works in religion sometimes. If you have a choice between a seventy-year-old man and a twenty-something girl offering nuggets of wisdom, when push comes to shove, you pick the old guy. Old and wise are better than young and stupid.”
“That’s dumb,” Jay said. “If you can walk the walk as good as an old guy, it shouldn’t matter. It’s what you say, not who says it that counts.”
She rewarded him with a big smile. “I love you. Marry me,” she said.
He blinked. “Huh?”
She laughed, a deep and melodious sound. “We’ll get back to that part of the Dharma later. How goes the monster hunt?”
He sighed. “About to get really scary.”
“That’s why I’m here. I think I should go with you.”
Wednesday, April 13th
London, England
Stephens drove the Bentley along at a proper pace toward the computerworks. Goswell reclined in back, the scent of fresh mink oil hand rubbed into the leather a familiar and pleasing smell. Traffic was, as usual, awful, but Stephens was quite capable of dealing with anything London could throw at him. Goswell leaned back and enjoyed the ride.
A short while later, Stephens said, “Milord. There is a telephone call for you. Sir Harold.”
“Yes, I’ll take it.”
Stephens passed over a mobile phone. “Hallo, Harry.” “Hallo, Gossie. Out and about, are we?”
“In the car, yes. Off for a bit of an inspection tour of one of the facilities. Can’t let the help get too complacent, can we?”
“Certainly not. Er . . . I say, Gossie . . . that is, hmm.”
“Something bothering you, Harry?”
“Well, yes. You had a conversation with a man by the name of, er . . . Pound-Sand recently? Regarding a matter of some delicacy of which we spoke at the club?”
“I do recall that, yes.”
“Er, well, it seems that Mr. Pound-Sand has . . . passed away.”
“Oh, dear.”
“Yes. Quite unexpectedly.”
“A sudden illness?”
“Very sudden, I’m afraid. I am given to understand that it happened even as he was attending to that very matter of delicacy. That, er, it was a more or less direct result of that very thing.”
“How unfortunate.”
“Isn’t it just.”
“Well, these things happen.”
“Yes. Would you like for me to give Mr. Pound-Sand’s associates a jingle? See if one of them might be interested in continuing the matter?”
Goswell thought about it for a second. “That’s decent of you, Harry, but perhaps we should wait a bit on that.”
“As you feel best, Gossie. I’m awfully sorry about this.”
“Tut, tut, not your fault at all, Harry. It’s obvious I underestimated the difficulty of the problem, myself. Think no more about it.”
As Goswell handed the mobile back to Stephens, however, he thought about it. So, Mr. Pound-Sand was now Mr. Pushing-up-the-Daisies. Which meant that Peel was either lucky or good, or perhaps both. On the one hand, that gave Goswell a certain feeling of pride, that his man was adept enough to thwart an assassination by another professional. On the other hand, that also meant Peel would now be on his guard more than ever, and if he had been difficult to remove before, he would be doubly so now.
Hmm. That was certainly food for thought, wasn’t it? “We’re very nearly there, milord.”
“What? Oh, yes. Quite.”
Well. One thing at a time. First he would be
certain that Bascomb-Coombs was out of the loop. Then he would figure out a way to deal with the turncoat Peel.
Wednesday, April 13th
MI-6, London, England
“We got a break, Colonel,” Fernandez said.
Howard looked up from the stack of reports he was reading. They were in Michaels’s temporary office, and the commander and his second were down the hall talking to one of the MI-6 higher-ups.
“How so?”
“Miz Cooper just came up with this.” He passed a hardcopy wax-laser drum photograph over.
Howard looked at the wazer image. “Ruzhyó!” “Yes, sir.” There was a long pause.
“All right, Sergeant, get off the dime. Where and when?”
“Sir.” He grinned. “Yesterday the London police were called to an incident at a small bookstore near Piccadilly Circus. They found a body on the floor, shot. The dead man is one Henry Wyndham, a former MI-5 agent who ran a ‘security service.’ Cooper says that the local authorities suspect Wyndham was a high-priced and very discreet ice man for rich clients, but nobody has ever been able to pin him down. Turns out the bullet didn’t kill him, he apparently croaked from a fast-acting poison. This picture was from the store’s occult door cam, one of two men who left about the time patrons heard the shot. Here’s the other man.”
Fernandez offered another picture.
“Anybody we know?”
“Not us. Cooper is working on an ID.”
Howard nodded. “So, he’s still in London. And he just killed somebody. I wonder why.”
“Why he’s here? Or why he killed somebody?”
“Both.”
“Well, it could be a coincidence, he just happened to be browsing for a nice Agatha Christie novel to while away the hours when somebody got capped the next aisle over.”
“Right. Can we backtrack the dead man?”
“Cooper is working on that, too, sir.”
Howard nodded again. “Good. Would it do us any good to go and talk to the bookstore employees?”