Twice a Spy dc-2

by Keith Thomson

  “Sniper.” Drummond beckoned from the corridor. “Hurry.”

  Charlie set aside his joy at seeing his father to run from the room, just as a second bullet shattered the window, turning the door’s upper hinge to shrapnel.

  Drummond limped down the corridor, leading with a Glock. Charlie scrambled to follow. More glass broke and another bullet disintegrated a tile on the corridor wall.

  Charlie caught up with Drummond, who winced with each step. “You okay?” Charlie asked. Nothing short of a garroting would cause Drummond Clark to wince ordinarily.

  “I’m better off than him,” said Drummond, pointing ahead to the giant Private First Class Arnold, splayed across the floor, unconscious. “The issue is, he ought to have answered the doorbell by now. We have to get up there before our getaway drivers start thinking it’s fishy that nobody’s come.”

  “Our getaway drivers?” Charlie followed Drummond up the short flight of stairs to the consulate’s back entrance.

  “You heard the ambulance, right?” Drummond said.

  “I heard a siren.”

  “With a little convincing, they’ll be our getaway drivers.” Drummond reached into his waistband and passed Charlie a second Glock.

  Taking hold of the heavy gun, Charlie felt an uneasiness that had nothing to do with hijacking an ambulance. These days, that was no more intimidating than hailing a taxi. “Won’t an ambulance be kind of conspicuous?”

  “We’re going to need them because …” At the landing, Drummond’s heavy coating of perspiration blinked between orange and yellow in the reflection of the ambulance parked outside. Still he appeared eerily pale. “Earlier, I tried to make it seem as if I was having a heart attack,” he continued, his breathing labored. “I may have overplayed the-”

  His gun dropped from his hand and bounced down the stairs. He teetered then fell along the same trajectory.

  54

  With his father flung over his shoulder, Charlie backed out the service door and onto the sidewalk, which was lit by the ambulance idling at the curb. Two paramedics, laden with cases and duffel bags, wheeled a gurney from the opened back of the ambulance. A glance at Drummond, now an alarming shade of blue, and they began to run.

  In seconds, Drummond was lying on the thin mattress. One of the medics, a small young man whose name badge read GAILLARD, asked, “Sir, can you hear me?” He shook Drummond gently, trying to rouse him.

  Nothing.

  Gaillard looked up at his partner and said, “Still breathing. Pulse is faint.”

  In seconds, the paramedics transformed their bags into a temporary hospital room. They elevated Drummond’s feet and fitted him with an oxygen mask fed by a cylindrical tank. A heart monitor and a cluster of other instruments whirred to life.

  “BP is seventy over forty,” Gaillard read, which meant nothing to Charlie, but the paramedic’s tone made it clear that this wasn’t good.

  Gaillard’s partner, a slender, middle-aged man named Morneau, hoisted an IV pole and hung two bags of clear fluid on it. “Point four mils of atropine and a milligram of epinephrine,” he said, adding, for Charlie’s benefit, “To get his heart rate back up.”

  Gaillard launched into rapid chest compressions, counting to himself. “Un … deux … trois …” as Morneau scrutinized the readouts. “Dropping,” he said, biting his lip.

  Gaillard ripped open Drummond’s shirt, sending buttons clicking onto the pavement. Next he snapped open a case that resembled a laptop computer. “Trying two hundred joules,” he said, withdrawing a pair of defibrillator paddles. “Stand clear.”

  On the other side of the gurney, Charlie took a step back, at once hoping and bracing himself.

  Gaillard aimed the paddles. Both paramedics’ absorption was such that they seemed oblivious to the tire-screaming arrival of a sporty black Fiat, until a young brunette in a floral-print cocktail dress climbed out of the passenger seat, gun in hand. Stanley followed from the driver’s seat, a sidearm drawn as well.

  Charlie’s jumbled emotions were slashed away by fear.

  Stanley looked through him to the paramedics. “Gentlemen, I’m Special Agent Stanley and this is Special Agent Lanier, FBI.” He waved an FBI badge. “These two men are wanted for capital crimes in the United States. We need to take them into our custody.”

  Gaillard, poised to use the paddles, looked down at Drummond. “He’s in ventricular fibrillation. I need to shock him now.”

  Lanier pointed her gun at him and pulled the trigger. The muzzle flash spotlit Gaillard’s shocked face. The paramedic dropped behind the gurney, apparently dead before reaching the sidewalk. The defibrillator clunked down beside him.

  55

  Shielded from Lanier and Stanley by the gurney, Charlie watched the surviving paramedic, Morneau, leap into the rear of his ambulance and disappear behind one of the van’s double doors.

  Dropping to a knee, Lanier leveled her gun at the section of door likely between her and the paramedic’s heart.

  The roar from the barrel, the metallic fracture, and Morneau’s wail all resounded within the cul-de-sac.

  Charlie looked at his father, hoping the din would rouse him. The only movement was Drummond’s EKG, descending, accompanied by a lethargic blip that lasted for at least a minute.

  Or so it seemed to Charlie, adrenaline surging into his veins, accelerating his mental acuity and, he sensed, slowing the pace of the rest of the world.

  He reached through the undercarriage of the gurney for the defibrillator, on the pavement at the edge of a pool of Gaillard’s blood. He drew it back, trying to weave through the gurney’s elaborate network of springs and crisscrossing shafts. A sharp bolt ripped a red strip into his forearm. He felt nothing.

  Gripping the handles on his side of the gurney, he propelled Drummond toward the ambulance.

  Lanier rotated toward them, slow as a second hand in Charlie’s heightened sense of things. She tweaked her aim.

  Before she could fire, Charlie pulled the trigger of his Glock twice. The first bullet plowed into the Fiat’s passenger-side mirror, sending the mirror’s chrome housing bouncing end over end along the asphalt. Unfazed, Lanier dropped behind the passenger door to the street.

  Charlie’s second bullet sailed into the crack between the windshield and the open driver’s door. Blood spouted from Stanley’s shoulder. Writhing, he fell from view.

  Charlie adjusted the Glock and snapped the trigger again. He was conscious not only of the thwack of the firing pin, but of the explosion of the primer, and the heat pushing on the base of the bullet-hotter and harder until there was enough force to overcome the frictional bond between the bullet and its casing. With a plume of flame, the projectile leaped from the barrel and seemed to wade into the Fiat’s windshield, just in front of the steering wheel. Particles of glass wafted into the air like confetti. Blood spurted from Lanier’s right arm. Her gun arm.

  The front of the gurney banged into the ambulance’s rear bumper. Charlie vaulted in, hauling Drummond after him. Drawing him really; Charlie wasn’t experiencing weight or friction as he normally did.

  The ambulance wasn’t a van so much as a hospital on wheels, its multitude of cabinets, compartments, and pouches crammed with supplies. Charlie set Drummond on the floor, then fired the Glock over his shoulder, exploding more of the Fiat’s windshield.

  Lanier’s barrel, propped on the dashboard, sashayed sideways as it discharged.

  Charlie threw up his left arm, shielding Drummond’s head. The bullet slashed into Charlie’s shoulder, picking him up. Tearing out of him, it dragged him to the floor. He crashed face-first into the grainy metal.

  He tried to use his newfound command of his senses to turn off the searing pain. It didn’t work. He had been hit by a bullet once before-it had just grazed him, really, yet felt like certain death. This was death wielding a razor-sharp scythe. Still, Charlie pulled the second ambulance door shut, grabbed for the IV bar suspended from the ceiling, and hauled himself to his feet. />
  Drummond lay still, two shades bluer than before. Morneau was slumped beside him, trying to adhere an enormous bandage to his own belly, over a hole that oozed blood with each beat of his racing heart.

  “Here,” Charlie said, making his way to the front of the van. He handed the man the defibrillator. “Can you try and use this now?”

  A bullet smashed a cavity in one of the rear doors. The glass casing of a wall clock shattered, raining shards.

  “Now’s not such a good time,” Morneau stammered. “They’re still shooting at us!”

  “I noticed.” Charlie jumped for the driver’s seat and released the parking brake. “How about this? You take care of my father, I’ll take care of them.”

  He mashed the clutch, shifted into first gear, and flattened the gas pedal. The van lurched forward. He watched in his side mirror as the lanky paramedic lowered himself to the floor.

  Another bullet pounded through the back before digging into the radio, releasing an acrid stench of burning rubber.

  “We’ll never get away from them in this thing,” Morneau cried.

  “Best we can do is try.” Charlie aimed the ambulance toward the street behind the consulate. “And if it works, we won’t be dead.”

  With a relenting sigh, the paramedic turned to Drummond. “He probably needs more atropine.” He drew a syringe from a drawer, too slowly, his rigidity suggesting he was bracing for the next bullet.

  “I’ll tell you a story my father once told me,” Charlie said. “My grandfather-well, not my grandfather, actually, but a hit man in witness protection whose cover was my grandfather-he lived in Chicago during Al Capone’s heyday. You know who Al Capone is?”

  “Of course.” Morneau sounded concerned for Charlie’s sanity. But at least he was administering the atropine to Drummond.

  “Every once in a while, Grandpa Tony would hear machine-gun fire. He would peek out his window and see these mobsters racing by in a Cadillac that had been shot up like Peg-Board, and chasing after them were the cops, in a police wagon, same condition. The point is, every single time, everyone was alive. The moral of the story: It’s extremely difficult to fire from one moving vehicle at another with any degree of accuracy. They’re just trying to fluster us.”

  Morneau pressed a button on the defibrillator and set the paddles on Drummond’s chest. The charge wasn’t as percussive or otherwise dramatic as on TV medical dramas-the jolt of electricity merely quivered Drummond, but a healthy pink returned to his face. He opened his eyes.

  “Pulse is much better,” Morneau exclaimed.

  “Dad?” Charlie cried, his excitement tinged by disbelief.

  “I’m fine,” Drummond said, obviously as white a lie as had ever been told.

  Still, the words were music to Charlie. He crushed the accelerator and, with a screeching slide that pushed the van to the brink of capsize, swung onto the street, remarkably with no more disturbance than a compartment door swinging open and a spool of gauze rolling out.

  The sideview mirror showed the black Fiat rocketing after them, however.

  56

  The Fiat was catching up. Charlie saw Stanley at the wheel, face speckled with blood, but as determined as ever. In the passenger seat, Lanier squinted against the onrushing air, aimed a preposterously large assault rifle through the cavity in the windshield, and fired.

  The bullet hammered through the back of the ambulance, struck the metal handle of the open compartment door, and ricocheted into a computer display, smashing it to pebbles. Morneau regarded the computer with heightened dread.

  “It’s okay,” Charlie said. “The bullet didn’t come close to us.” He shifted into second and made for the well-lit cross street about half a mile ahead; it appeared to be bustling with pedestrians and other vehicles.

  “I just thought of one problem,” Morneau said. “In your Al Capone story, the vehicles were not carrying highly flammable oxygen tanks.”

  Charlie nodded. “That is a problem. Pass me the defibrillator?”

  Although clearly puzzled, Morneau handed the device forward.

  Charlie rolled down his window, causing an eruption of blood from the gunshot wound in his shoulder and pain to match. Alternating glances between the Fiat and the road ahead, he tried to aim the defibrillator at the large cavity that had formerly been the Fiat’s windshield.

  “The big red button puts this thing in zap mode, right?” he asked the paramedic.

  “Yes, but it can’t shock anyone unless both paddles are in contact with the body simultaneously, forming a circuit.”

  “Well, what are the odds he’ll know all that?” Charlie let the defibrillator fall out of his window.

  It wobbled backward through the air, its paddles flapping wildly, toward the Fiat.

  Eyes wide, Stanley spun the wheel to avoid the device, sending the Fiat crunching into a parked delivery truck. The Fiat’s hood crumpled, Stanley slumped in his seat, and the fender flopped onto the asphalt.

  “That sounded good,” said Morneau.

  “Yeah …” Charlie hesitated at the sight of Lanier climbing out of the sports car, leveling her assault rifle.

  A monster bullet punched through the rear of the ambulance, sounding as if it had exploded on impact. The entire vehicle jumped.

  “The oxygen tank!” Morneau shouted. “We need to get out!”

  Flames began to sprout throughout the ambulance. Charlie hit the brakes and punched open his door. He clocked the wheel so that the driver’s side would face away from Lanier, allowing the ambulance to provide cover for their egress.

  Morneau hauled Drummond to his feet and dragged him toward Charlie.

  Before Charlie could help, a bigger explosion spat him out the open driver’s door. The ambulance itself disappeared in a blob of fire. Scalded, Charlie fell backward, landing on the asphalt, on his spine, the pain unbearable, then even worse as Drummond and Morneau slammed into him. He was pleased, though, because neither appeared seriously injured. At the same time, shock tugged him toward unconsciousness.

  He would have allowed himself to glide there if not for the click of Lanier’s heels.

  Scrambling out from the tangle of limbs, Charlie grabbed for the Glock beside him.

  The Glock that had been beside him.

  Now, nowhere in sight.

  Stanley rounded one end of the van, leading with a gun. The massive barrel of Lanier’s rifle preceded her around the other side.

  Morneau fainted, probably a consequence of the blood pouring from his reopened wound.

  Seven or eight vehicles, several with flashing lights and sirens, charged toward the remains of the ambulance. Leading the charge were the same two beige Suburbans in which Charlie and Drummond had been transferred from the docks to the consulate.

  As if Stanley and Lanier needed reinforcements, Charlie thought.

  Turning to his father, who lay on the street beside him, he said, “I’m sorry.”

  Drummond’s response was lost under the shrieking halt of the Suburbans. A passenger door opened and Corbitt slid out. He wore a rumpled linen business suit over a pajama shirt.

  Staggering out from behind the van, Stanley said, “Chief Corbitt, your timing is excellent once again.” He waved at Charlie and Drummond. “The rabbits nearly gave us the slip.”

  “Really?” Clasping his hands behind his back, Corbitt started to pace. “Remember how this morning I was telling you that we now have miniaturized digital camcorders capable of recording up to sixteen hours of video?”

  Stanley smiled. “Of course.”

  Corbitt stopped pacing, squaring himself with Stanley. “Tonight, after I reviewed today’s footage from the decanter on the yacht, I decided I’d better get down here.”

  Charlie sensed the odds had taken a fortuitous if not incredible turn. He kept his cheer in check, however. In his experience, such a turn was unprecedented, and, with the Cavalry involved, impossible.

  Stanley sighed. “Listen, Corbitt, there are factors you kn
ow nothing about, and that needs to remain the case.”

  “Maybe so. But until I hear otherwise from the State Department or from headquarters, you two are going into custody.” Corbitt indicated the other members of his party. Six Martinique policemen, two paramedics, and three marine guards had emerged from the vehicles, all but the paramedics carrying sidearms or rifles.

  “What authority do you have to take us into custody?” Stanley shouted.

  “French law,” Corbitt said. “On the way here, we received a report of a Martinican emergency medical technician who’d been gunned down in cold blood.” Turning toward the local policemen and paramedics, the Saint Lucia base chief pointed at Stanley and Lanier. “I believe we’ll find that they’re the ones who did it.”

  57

  “I owe you a pot of homemade chowder,” said Alice over the phone from the American embassy in Geneva. “And whatever else you want.”

  In the Martinique consulate’s secure conference room, Charlie should have leaped in elation and told Alice that he loved her.

  But the ADM was stuck like a splinter in his thoughts.

  She said she didn’t recall Bream by name, only that the copilot who flew her to Newark three weeks ago had been handsome in a roguish way. “Not in the good way, like you,” she added quickly.

  Their catch-up otherwise was of the bullet-point variety, a function not only of his preoccupation but of a rush on her end-a battery of NSA debriefers awaited her. Hanging up, Charlie couldn’t believe he’d neglected to mention that he’d found the treasure of San Isidro.

  Eager to check on his father, he shot out of the secure conference room and into the hallway, hurrying down to the infirmary. Drummond had been under anesthesia for the better part of three hours, during which cardiac catheterization had enabled the surgeons to determine that the extent of the damage to his heart was minimal. As also was the case with the CIA’s Hilary Hadley, Drummond had made it out of the medical equivalent of the woods.