Pandemic pr-2

by James Barrington

  ‘The virus didn’t kill him,’ Richter continued. ‘Somebody punched a couple of nine-millimetre slugs through his chest, and I had that down to you.’

  Stein turned pale, and shook his head decisively. ‘It wasn’t me. Look, if I’d wanted to take him out I could have shot him by the side of the road somewhere. But I didn’t go back to the hospital just to kill him.’

  ‘So who did then?’ Richter wondered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Stein said, ‘but my guess is that McCready has sent a cleaner here to Crete. He’ll have orders to take out all of us, recover the case and get it back to the States.’ Even as he said the words, Stein glanced around nervously, conscious how the two of them were standing exposed on open ground. ‘We should get the hell away from here. We’re like two ducks in a shooting gallery.’

  Richter glanced round quickly, then back towards Stein and suddenly saw a tiny red mark appear in the middle of the American agent’s chest. It signified a laser sight, almost certainly attached to the barrel of a sniper rifle.

  He reacted immediately. The sniper was going to save him a job. He took one step back towards the car, then shoved Stein sideways and ran off towards the driver’s side of the Seat.

  At precisely the moment Mike Murphy squeezed the trigger, Stein stumbled, lost both his footing and his balance, his arms still lashed together in front of him, and fell sprawling to the ground. The bullet that Murphy had aimed missed him completely, but drilled a neat hole through the right-hand side of the Cordoba’s boot lid then smashed into a rock some twenty yards beyond, ricocheting off it and into the distance.

  As he leapt into the driver’s seat, Richter glanced in the interior mirror. He spotted the bullet hole in the boot lid and he’d already seen the spray of debris from the rock as the 7.62mm bullet had struck it. He didn’t need any particular expertise in trigonometry to estimate the position of the gunman: the sniper was located behind him and on higher ground.

  Richter was armed. He had the 9mm Browning drawn from HMS Invincible’s armoury, and he also had the SIG he’d liberated from Stein after knocking him unconscious. But only a fool or a hopeless optimist would even consider tackling a sniper with a couple of pistols. Richter’s only option now was to put some distance between himself and the unknown assassin. The Seat’s engine screamed as he started it up, then he floored the accelerator pedal in first gear and powered the car away and up the gentle slope, weaving from side to side to present his adversary with a more difficult target.

  Two hundred metres away, Murphy cursed fluently and brought the sights of the Dragunov back to bear on the target area. It was now time to finish the job, but the moment Murphy steadied his weapon and sighted through the Bushnell again, he realized that might not be so easy.

  The Seat was already in motion, gathering speed fast as its unidentified driver accelerated up the road. The boot lid was still up, preventing Murphy from seeing through the rear window, and the driver was weaving about to make sighting difficult.

  Murphy moved the Dragunov over slightly, looking for Stein. His primary target had already scrambled to his feet, and was running as fast as he could towards what little cover the area afforded: a group of rocks and a few stunted trees standing over to the right. Stein could wait, he decided in an instant. The fact that his hands were tied meant that he was unarmed, so Murphy could track him down later and finish him off at his leisure. What he had to do first was stop the Seat.

  Murphy swung his rifle barrel to the left, located the tarmac road through the telescopic sight and moved the muzzle up an inch or two. The blue Seat had already moved almost a hundred yards since he’d fired the first shot, but was still easily within range. Murphy concentrated on it, noting how the vehicle still swung from one side of the road to the other, and settled his aim not on where the car actually was, but where he calculated it would be in about a second. Only then did he squeeze the trigger.

  The shot missed, or at least had no apparent effect, and he fired again almost immediately, and then again – the semi-automatic action smoothly reloading the weapon each time he fired. The car was by then over three hundred and fifty yards away, and gathering speed quickly. The result of his third shot was immediate, though. The Seat lurched, lost momentum, then slid off the road to the right, coming to rest in a cloud of dust almost broadside-on to where Murphy lay hidden. He guessed he’d either hit the mystery driver or burst a tyre.

  Murphy watched the vehicle intently through the telescopic sight, finger caressing the trigger, waiting to see if the driver emerged, but after two minutes there was still no movement. He couldn’t even see the man’s shape behind the wheel, but he knew he still had to be inside the car. Murphy nodded in satisfaction: obviously he was badly wounded or maybe even dead. Just to be on the safe side, he sighted carefully and fired another round through the left-hand side front door, below the level of the window where the bullet was bound to strike him if he was crouching across the front seats.

  Then he turned his attention to the point where Stein had been heading, and quartered the area of ground with his telescopic sight. Wherever the American agent had hidden himself was unfortunately invisible from Murphy’s vantage point. He would therefore just have to do it the hard way.

  He left the Dragunov where it was – it was far too cumbersome to be useful at close-quarters – but ejected the loaded cartridge and removed the magazine, which he placed in his jacket pocket for safety. He then took out the Daewoo pistol, chambered a round, slipped off the safety catch, and began to walk down the hillside towards the road.

  Stein crouched behind a small cairn of boulders, well out of sight of the hill from which he knew the shots had originated – he’d seen the bullet plough through the Seat’s boot lid and strike the ground beyond – and kept worrying at the plastic cable ties round his wrists with his teeth. If he could get his wrists free he would no longer be helpless. He would then be able to fight back, even if the only weapons to hand were sticks and rocks.

  With a sudden stabbing pain in his jaw, his teeth finally snapped together as the tie parted, freeing his arms. He peered around the cairn of rocks he was hiding behind, checking the whole area. The Seat was about two hundred yards away, and off the road. Its engine was still running, since he could just make out a whisper of smoke from its exhaust. He presumed the Englishman was either dead or badly wounded, so guessed that the sniper would be coming to attend to him first. He again checked the hill to his left, but saw no signs of movement. On the other hand, the sniper could sneak down to the road out of sight on the far side of the hill, then cross straight to where Stein was hiding.

  He looked around desperately for any kind of weapon. He seized a fallen branch and hefted it in his hand. The end of it was slightly rotten, but he guessed it could still strike a killing blow, if he got the chance. Then he looked back, towards the hill. Still nothing visible, but he knew the sniper had to be coming for him.

  In the last few seconds Stein had worked out a kind of plan, but it all depended on what he saw when the sniper did come into view. If he was carrying his rifle, Stein would just have to take his chances in a close-quarter fight, though he had no illusions about how successful he would be using his broken branch against a man carrying both an automatic pistol and a rifle. But if the sniper was carrying only a pistol, then Stein was going to run – and he knew exactly where.

  He stared around, but there seemed nowhere better to hide, no better place to wait for the assassin’s arrival. And he had to wait for him to appear before he could begin to run. Stein desperately considered other possible options, but he saw none. To the north of the handful of trees and rocks in which he was hiding the land lay flat and open. If he tried to run across that way he’d be cut down from behind in an instant, and in any case he was half-expecting the sniper to approach from that direction. He rubbed his hands to remove some of the sweat on his palms, took a firm grip of his improvised club, then did his best to blend into the rocks and dirt around him.
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br />   Murphy paused for a few seconds as he reached the road, scanning the terrain in all directions. It had taken him only seconds to get down to level ground, and Stein couldn’t have broken cover in that short a time without still being in sight. That meant his quarry must still be hiding in the same place.

  He jogged across the road, heading for the small group of stunted trees into which he’d seen Stein run only a few minutes earlier, then stopped and again surveyed his surroundings. He decided to circle round slightly and approach the same trees from the east. But at that moment he saw Stein break cover and start to head away from him to the south. Immediately he realized what the other man was trying to do.

  Stein had seen him coming and froze for an instant. He’d moved swiftly around the other side of the pile of rocks, gratefully putting their solidity between himself and the approaching assassin. And then he’d leapt to his feet and started running, hard, towards the road which led south, every pace taking him closer to the blue Seat Cordoba, which still sat motionless with its engine idling.

  If he could only reach the car, he would have some kind of a chance because he knew that the Englishman had both his SIG and a Browning Hi-Power, and with either weapon Stein could confront the sniper on more equal terms.

  He just had to get there in time.

  Murphy stood irresolute for under a second. The effective range of an automatic pistol is generally accepted as between fifteen and thirty yards: heroes who can snap off a shot and bring down a man at fifty yards exist only in the fevered imaginings of Hollywood film directors. When Stein had started to move he was about sixty yards away – therefore already well out of pistol range. Murphy realized he had two choices: he could pursue him and hope to run him down before he reached the Seat, or he could get back behind the telescopic sight of his Dragunov and pick him off before he got that far.

  It wasn’t a difficult decision. Murphy snapped off two quickly aimed shots in Stein’s general direction, neither of which got within fifteen feet of the fugitive, then turned away and ran back towards the hill where he’d left the Dragunov.

  Thirty seconds later he slammed the magazine back into the rifle and cycled the action to chamber a round. Pulling the stock of the weapon into his shoulder, while struggling to control his breathing, he peered through the Bushnell sight for the running target. It looked as if Stein was now less than fifty yards from the Seat.

  Murphy sighted quickly and snapped off a shot. He didn’t see the impact point but it must have passed close to Stein’s left side because he lurched suddenly to the right, then continued running towards the car. Murphy sighted again carefully, then squeezed the trigger.

  A small rock about ten feet in front of him and just to the left suddenly shattered and sent razor-sharp stone splinters in all directions. At that instant Stein knew that the sniper had gone back to use his rifle. He also realized he was as good as dead.

  The agent wasn’t in bad physical condition – he worked out at the local gym twice a week back home – but he’d always concentrated on upper-body exercises. Track and field had never been his strong point, so even the run up the slight slope to the parked Seat had exhausted him. But when a bullet screamed past him he found extra reserves of strength to accelerate.

  And he very nearly made it. He was less than twenty yards from the Cordoba when a 7.62mm round from the Dragunov smashed into his left thigh. It splintered his femur and sent him tumbling and screaming to the ground.

  HMS Invincible, Sea of Crete

  The contact that the Surface Picture Compiler had labelled track two three one had continued heading directly towards Crete. By early afternoon it was only some fifteen miles off the coast, but it had been identified several hours earlier.

  One of the CAP Sea Harriers had been instructed to descend to low level and take a quick look at it while the contact was still around fifty miles off the Cretan coast. The pilot had then radioed the Invincible to report that the ship was an American frigate, and the Ops staff had noted its identification number.

  When it reached twelve miles off the coast, the frigate slowed and began loitering. Just before fifteen hundred local time one of the Invincible’s Merlins, working as part of the Ripple Three ASW screen, reported activity on the frigate’s flight deck. Minutes later a helicopter got airborne from the American vessel, climbed up to five hundred feet and began heading towards the western tip of Crete.

  In the Operations Room on board the Invincible, air contacts are the responsibility of the Air Picture Compilers, and the moment the American helicopter launched it was allocated the label H (for ‘helicopter’) 17. As soon as its track was established – it appeared to be heading directly towards Plátanos – the APC called to advise Ops 3 of the helicopter’s projected landfall. Ops 3 noted the details and immediately dialled the number of the mobile phone he’d been given earlier.

  But instead of the ringing tone he expected, he heard a pre-recorded message in Greek which he guessed meant that the mobile was either switched off or outside range of a cell. He tried again, then shrugged and gave up. He had no other way of contacting Richter, except to try calling him a few more times over the next half-hour.

  At fifteen ten the helicopter began to descend west of Plátanos, until its radar return was lost in the ground clutter. Eight minutes later the helicopter re-appeared, again climbed up to five hundred feet, and headed west back towards the frigate. As soon as it had landed on board, the American ship turned towards the northwest and increased speed to twenty knots, heading away from Crete.

  South of Zounáki, western Crete

  Murphy gave a grunt of satisfaction as, through the Bushnell scope, he watched Stein tumble to the ground. He slipped the magazine out of the Dragunov, pulled out his pistol and jogged down the hill towards the road. He could hear Stein screaming when he was still a hundred yards away. Murphy slowed to a walk as he approached the Seat, moving carefully and deliberately, his pistol held ready in a loose two-handed grip. He could bring it up into aiming position in under a quarter of a second.

  Stein had managed to crawl another few yards towards the car, but was still about ten yards away when Murphy stopped moving and gazed down at him over the sights of the Daewoo.

  ‘Make it easy on yourself,’ Murphy called out, raising his voice over the noises the man on the ground was making. ‘Answer a couple of questions and it’ll all be over. Just one shot, I promise. You’re going nowhere and I’ve got all day. If you don’t tell me what I want to know I’ll take my time over it.’

  Stein looked up at him from where he lay on the ground, his useless left leg stretched out, his trousers soaked with blood, and his screams now moderated to a dull moaning.

  In his career with the Company, he himself had killed many times, officially and unofficially, and he’d always believed he was smart enough to die an old man in his own bed. The realization hit him hard that he was in exactly the same position as many of his victims had been, staring into the relentless barrel of a gun. In the instant that he looked up, he experienced the same feeling of hopeless, helpless dread that he’d induced in so many others over the course of his career. He closed his eyes briefly.

  ‘You’re Stein?’ Murphy demanded, and the man on the ground nodded slightly. ‘What have you done with the steel case?’

  ‘Trunk of the car,’ Stein gasped. ‘In a black bag.’

  ‘Who was the other guy?’ Murphy nodded towards the Seat.

  ‘British Intelligence,’ Stein said, sweat pouring from his forehead. ‘Don’t have a name.’

  ‘British?’ Murphy murmured to himself, a brief smile appearing. ‘That’s not so bad. At least not Mossad. Those fucking Israelis never forget. The Brits have a bunch of rules and scruples. They’re never going to come after me.’ He nodded in satisfaction, lowered the muzzle of the pistol slightly and pulled the trigger. The pistol kicked in his hand, the silencer reducing the sound of the shot to a dull cough. The 9mm bullet hit Stein squarely in the stomach and he clutch
ed at the wound, screaming with the pain. Stepping across to him with unhurried steps, Murphy looked down at him and smiled.

  ‘You said one bullet, you bastard,’ Stein gasped.

  ‘I lied,’ Murphy grinned, ‘and you shouldn’t have run.’ He lowered the pistol, took careful aim and shot Stein through the head. Only then did the screaming stop.

  Murphy gazed down at the dead man with contempt before kicking him once in the ribs, then headed cautiously up the hill towards the Seat Cordoba. Though reasonably certain that he’d find the British agent either dead or seriously wounded, he wasn’t taking any chances. It was still just possible that the man was alive and waiting with a gun.

  He stepped directly behind the Seat, glanced into the wide-open boot to verify that the black-wrapped bundle was still there. With the Daewoo aimed straight ahead, Murphy stretched out his left hand to ease the boot lid downwards a few inches.

  Now able to look over it, as far as he could see there was nobody in the car, either in the front or the back seats. Murphy looked quickly all around him but saw nothing. He eased forward slightly to check the left side of the car first, then the right. That was when he started worrying, because he now registered the blown right-hand front tyre. His bullet hadn’t hit the driver, but one of the wheels, which was what had caused the vehicle to swerve off the road. So where the fuck was the driver now?

  How could he have got out of the Seat without being seen? Murphy knew he’d watched the car for at least two minutes after it had lurched to a stop, and then he’d put a bullet through the front of the vehicle; he could see both the entry and the exit holes.

  Then Murphy remembered something. As the Seat had slid off the road onto the waste ground there had been a short period – just a very few seconds – when the dust swirling around it had almost blocked his view of the car through the Bushnell. It was possible, just barely possible, that the driver, this British agent, could have slipped out of the car through the passenger door.