It was a good plan, even if it was cumbersome, and a lot could happen between one check-in and the next. The storm definitely limited their options.
Sam stood just out of the wind at the edge of the porch, scanning the dense upper slope of the mountain. If an infiltration was planned, it would most likely come through there, where the groundcover was thickest.
Seeing a movement near the top of the hill, he drew back under the porch and swept the area with his goggles. This time all he could make out was branches skittering in the greenish glow of the background.
It reminded him of another place and time.
Mexico.
Waiting for a meeting that turned sour.
More memories flashed.
Riding at anchor in darkness, then two short bursts of a flashlight. Money trading hands. A computer disk. A man's face he couldn't recognize.
Frowning, Sam focused on the present. “I'll check in with Izzy, Weaver. Until I get back, your orders are to stay here and keep an eye on Ms. O'Toole.”
“Understood, sir.”
In the afterimage of another bolt of lightning, the mountain blurred. Fighting his uneasiness, Sam swung over the porch and headed through the rain to the spot where Izzy would be hunkered down, maintaining perimeter surveillance and cursing every drop of rain.
IZZY MOVED OUT OF A TARP-COVERED CRACK BETWEEN TWO rocks as Sam approached. “You saw Weaver?”
“He told me the plan.” Rain drummed on the ground, and more thunder roared in the distance. “What's the prediction for the storm?”
“Another six hours minimum,” Izzy said. “Heavy winds until morning. With all this lightning, I doubt we'll have communications back before dawn. All we get is static soup.”
Sam squinted into the rain, knowing the prediction was accurate and hating it. “I'll send Donegal down. Meanwhile why don't you—”
Sam stopped, registering movement up the slope. He turned, sweeping the area with his peripheral vision, and saw a pale shape beneath the wind-lashed trees. “Did you see that?”
“I saw,” Izzy said grimly. “Let me get a better look.” He scanned the slope with his high-tech binoculars, then without a word handed them to Sam.
It took a moment to adjust to the pale green backlighting. Sam saw shaking branches, waving foliage, and a clumsy shape near two rocks. As he strained for a better view, he heard three sharp barks, followed by silence.
Three meant danger. They'd worked out the basic code through months of training.
“That was Donegal,” Sam snapped. “Something's wrong. Find your team and then pull back toward the house.”
SAM LURCHED UP THE SLOPE, CURSING HIS WEAK LEG. BUT HE forgot about his clumsiness when he saw Donegal on the ground behind a boulder. The dog's body was limp, his head still. His eyes opened when Sam bent close, cradling his head gently.
“What happened to you, buddy?”
The wolfhound's tail beat weakly. He tried to bark, but the sound was faint.
Cursing, Sam cradled the dog and ran up the slope toward the darkened house.
THE ELECTRICITY WAS OUT, THE HOUSE COMPLETELY DARK AS SAM swept the porch with his scope. What had happened to the generator?
He didn't climb the front steps, instead making his way through the lashing rain to a storage shed just off the driveway. He tried the door, relieved to see it was still locked.
He opened the padlock and slipped inside. After setting Donegal on the floor, he shifted several heavy wooden shelves full of garden tools, revealing a solid metal door. Beyond the door a steep stairway led down to the basement of the house. The air was chill and musty as he made his way downward, Donegal now unmoving in his arms. The dog still had a pulse, and there were no signs of blood, which left Sam certain he'd been drugged or poisoned.
“Hang on, buddy,” he said softly as he placed the dog on a soft piece of carpet outside the entrance to the basement. “I'll be back as soon as I can.”
Donegal was too weak to move his tail in response.
Sam reined in his fury, focusing on an unseen enemy who was one step in front of him. War was war, and you played by any rules that let you win. But whoever had hurt Donegal was going to pay. He pulled out his Glock and began a silent climb up the basement steps, ignoring the throb in his leg, prepared for what might be waiting at the top of the stairs. If not for the storm, he would have radioed Izzy and the team, but now he had to work solo.
Where in the hell was Weaver?
At the top of the stairs he paused, ear to the wooden door.
No muted voices, no faint footsteps.
Even then he didn't move, waiting for six minutes by the luminous dial of his watch. Only then did he turn the knob carefully and enter the pantry just off the kitchen.
Lightning reflected eerily off the polished black granite work surfaces as Sam entered at a crouch, gun leveled.
Still no sign of Weaver.
Light was glowing from the corridor outside the living room. Sam saw the fire and wondered why there had been no noise. He tried not to think of Annie lying hurt and bleeding.
Ingrained habits kicked in, making him slow his breath and calculate every move. Down the corridor an elaborate breakfront filled with crystal glowed icily in the flare of distant lightning as Sam passed at a crouch, following the wall and working his way behind the big leather sofa that faced the fireplace.
The couch was empty, Annie's blankets fallen to the ground. There was no sign of her.
A book lay open on the side table. Taylor's last mystery, Sam recalled. He had watched Annie reading earlier that day, struck by her care in using a bookmark to avoid folding down the pages. Annie didn't press books facedown.
Maybe she hadn't touched this book.
Lightning flared briefly, then the house fell back into darkness. Sam crossed the rug, headed for the main staircase, his heart pounding.
Gun drawn, body low, he swung inside the next room and saw Annie sitting in a leather wing chair, her face greenish in the dim light of a banker's lamp.
She didn't move, didn't speak.
Warning bells clanged in Sam's head as he swept the room with the muzzle of his gun; he worked his way slowly toward her, his back to the wall.
“Annie, are you okay?”
There was no sign of blood. She had a book in her hands, and this one, too, was turned facedown, clutched against her knees.
Another sign, Sam thought. “Annie, where's Weaver?”
Her eyes were almost black, her lips pressed in a tight line. Her eyes flickered to the window seat bordered by velvet curtains.
Sam swung around, catching the faint smell of cigar smoke as the curtains parted. “Admiral Howe?”
A tall, uniformed figure loomed into the room. “I got your message,” he said, sounding tired. “I came as fast as I could.” Rain glistened on his hat and regulation raincoat.
“I didn't send any message.” Sam's fingers tightened on his gun. “All the phones are out in the storm.”
The admiral drew noisily on his cigar. “I sure as hell had a message to get up here. Damned bumpy ride it was, too.” Cigar smoke swirled, growing stronger. “Maybe it was from Izzy.”
The admiral patted the pocket of his raincoat. “Now I can't find my glasses. Next thing they'll be telling me I need a hearing aid.”
This complaining was familiar at least. “I doubt it, sir.”
“We need to talk about that day in Washington, McKade. Who did you see and where did you go?”
“Sir, I don't think—”
The admiral plunged on as if he hadn't heard. “Your apart-ment's been entered, and our China Lake research program is at risk. I need answers.”
Sam heard Annie's clothes rustling on the leather chair. Her book fell to the floor.
“Sir, I—”
Again the admiral went right on, as if he hadn't heard. “Time's run out, McKade.” Slowly, as if exhausted, he moved behind Annie's chair. “I need to know what you remember.”
; Sam shot a glance at Annie, who was fidgeting now, her face strained. “Ms. O'Toole needs to rest, sir. Why don't I take her upstairs, then we can go to work?”
“No more time.” The admiral's voice was hollow as he looked at Sam. His cigar fell to the expensive Tianjin carpet and smoldered.
Thunder rumbled over the mountains.
Sam's hand was coming up when the admiral dropped low, his body blocked by Annie's chair, his fingers at her throat.
“Drop the weapon, Commander.” His voice was muffled. “Otherwise your friend is going to die very badly.”
Chapter Forty-four
“AT LEAST SHE'S SMART. ” ANNIE'S CAPTOR WAS STILL BEHIND HER chair. “I told her to keep quiet or I'd have to shoot you.”
Now Sam understood Annie's tense, unnatural silence, and he was starting to understand her captor's muffled voice.
Thunder rumbled in the distance as he turned into profile, making a harder target. “Why?” he asked softly, betrayal an acid taste in his mouth. “Why, Peter?”
“Forget about why, McKade. My time's run out. I need to know exactly what you did in Washington and who you saw before you decided to become a hero.”
“And then you'll kill us.”
Admiral Howe's son shrugged. “We all have to go sometime.”
Sam sidestepped to the left. “I don't know what I did. But I figured out something else in the last week. The man I was trying to remember was someone close to me. Maybe that's why I kept blocking your name.” Sam's hands tightened as he stared into remorseless gray eyes starkly similar to those of his commanding officer. “Did you bug his office at home?” Sam asked his old friend. He tried not to think about the gun Peter now had wedged against Annie's throat. “Is that how you found out everything your father knew?”
“Easy enough with superior equipment and manpower. I had both.” With one hand, Peter removed a small tape recorder from a strap around his neck. “Nice sound quality, wasn't it? New Japanese technology. Splicing together a sample conversation for my father wasn't difficult, since his choice of topics is always limited. National security, Washington politics, and you. Too bad impersonating my father didn't finesse any new information out of you.” His face was hard as he dropped the tape recorder into his pocket. “Empty your pockets, Commander. Everything, including that knife in your boot.”
Peter would remember that. “I don't think so. This way we're even.”
“Except that I've got the girl.”
Sam didn't want to think about that. “Someone said that you had a broken arm.”
“X-rays can be substituted when you have helpful friends. They bought me all the time I needed.”
“Nice.” Sam stared at the traitor before him. “But I still want to know why you sold out.”
“For the game. For the challenge and because I know I'll win.” The admiral's son shrugged. “Remember how you taught me to snap a football? Remember those muddy games on the lawn? Hell, I idolized you, McKade. When I had that losing streak in college, you talked me back into one piece and made me a winner again.”
“Number sixty-one,” Sam said quietly. He'd come so close to remembering.
But not close enough. Now Annie was a target.
“You sold out your country, Howe. That wasn't a game, that was a sickness. ”
“I've always wanted to win. Our family doctor told my father I had an overdeveloped competitive instinct, even at six.”
Sam had seen that part of Peter when they'd been roommates in college, but he'd managed to explain it away. Football was football, after all. Winning was what they trained you to do.
“Stop moving,” Peter snapped, the gun jerking against An-nie's pale throat.
Sam went still, calculating angles and distance and hating the conclusion. He'd never be fast enough to save her. Not from here.
He gave his old friend a cool stare. “They sent me to check out the China Lake research team, I remember that much. I also know that I didn't like what I saw. There were a few too many projects being scrapped as over budget or structurally flawed.”
“The Navy's loss was our gain.” Peter smiled grimly. “Thanks to China Lake we've got some amazing technology in our private pipeline now. It's a damned shame my father can't appreciate how good I am, but he was always too busy trying to pound the rules into me and talk about you.” Peter shrugged. “He always considered you superior son material, especially when you made the cut for the SEALs and I didn't.”
“You're crazy,” Sam snapped. “No one could be more proud of you than your father.”
“What does it matter? Emotions just get in the way of doing the job. As a big, bad SEAL, you know that, McKade. I remember the first time I stole information. It felt amazing. Almost as good as that time I was hit by lightning during practice in college. Remember that?”
Sam nodded. The freak accident had put his roommate out of the game for a year, but made him a college hero. “You milked it for all it was worth.”
“Something I also learned from my father. You were lucky down in Mexico,” Peter continued irritably. “If my people had done their job right and contacted me sooner, I'd have stopped you then and there. Whose idea was it to put you undercover as a prospective buyer for our newest gadgets?”
“Your father's, of course. Maybe he suspected it was you even then. Maybe he hoped I would go easy on you.” It was a risk, but Sam had to take Peter's attention off Annie.
“The old man never wants anyone to go easy. He knows how to play the game, I'll give him that. He taught me more than he knows.” Peter's voice was icy. “By the time I checked out our newest ‘buyer’ and realized who it was, you were almost at the yacht.”
Sam nodded slowly.
Gunshots in the darkness.
The voice, horrifyingly familiar. A man Sam had always trusted.
He remembered his blinding sense of shock when he'd realized that Peter Howe was part of a chain that stretched from Washington to several of the Navy's most advanced research programs. He remembered how hard he'd denied it at first, how he'd refused to say a word to Admiral Howe until he had all his proof.
He was on his way to turn over that proof to the admiral in Washington, only he'd jumped aboard a runaway bus instead.
The past was coming back to Sam in pieces now, his months of undercover work that had revealed long-term tampering with Navy research. Once a project was scrapped by the Navy, the technology made its way into the private sector, where the problems were eventually corrected.
Peter Howe was part of a new wave of industrial espionage, Sam thought grimly. His people didn't steal weapons and sell them to the enemy. Instead they tampered with military records, manipulated research, then sold the “defective” technology to carefully screened businesses. For the insiders who knew what was coming, the purchase became wildly lucrative, and Peter Howe's group had spread their successes over dozens of companies worldwide to make the pattern harder to trace.
The Navy had footed the bill, corporate and government backers had profited obscenely, and good men had died trying to stop it.
“Smart of you to duck into the Metro in D.C. We had three men in place to take you out when you arrived for your meeting at the Pentagon. We were taking no chances.” As he spoke, Peter Howe pulled Annie to her feet. “Then you jumped that damned school bus. Being a hero saved your life, McKade. We could hardly shoot a man surrounded by police cars and news choppers.”
“What happens now?”
Howe moved toward the door, holding Annie in front of him. “For me, more of the same. Our group has a long and lucrative future. For you, I can't be so optimistic.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Sam saw Annie's finger slant down toward the big blue exercise ball he'd left there before dinner.
“Logistics dictate speed, Howe. She's bound to slow you down, and my people will be here any minute.”
Howe pulled Annie closer toward the door. “She's the price, McKade. You want me, you've got to take her out f
irst. Remember what you told me that day after my fourth losing game? If you want to win, there's always a price.”
ADMIRAL HOWE SAT IN HIS STUDY, WREATHED IN CIGAR SMOKE.
Strangely uneasy, he stared at the photos on his desk, stopping at the faces of Sam and his son, grinning and muddy after a rough game of tackle football. Nearby was a college photo of Peter taken during his junior year losing streak.
His jersey read sixty-one.
Howe stiffened.
Sixty-one.
Sam had remembered the number sixteen.
Was there a connection?
Howe couldn't think any further than that. He felt poised on the brink of an abyss …
He sat up, suddenly overwhelmed with the feeling that things were going wrong on that mountain. He had to find out what was happening.
He punched in a string of numbers on his cell phone and grabbed his coat. He was already at the door, waving curtly to his driver, when the line clicked in.
“I BELIEVE MY RIDE IS WAITING. ” LT. PETER HOWE REACHED INTO the inner pocket of his raincoat. “Recognize this Smith and Wesson?”
“It used to be mine. I lost it right after I went into the SEALs.”
The cool eyes turned even cooler. “Exactly. And everyone knows that covert operations can drive men over the edge.”
“So you'll make this look like a suicide.”
Peter Howe nodded. “A messy one, I'm afraid.”
Sam heard a sound down the hall. He prayed it was Weaver or Izzy. “You won't have time to get the ballistics right, Peter. Besides, your father will never believe it. He knows I wouldn't wimp out.”
“My father might not believe it, but he won't be able to prove anything else. Not when I've finished torching the house,” Peter added icily.
He gripped Annie's waist. “Time to go, Ms. O'Toole. We don't want to miss that chopper.”
“Bastard.” Annie wrenched vainly at his arm.
In that same instant, a pale shape flashed across the floor. Teeth bared, Donegal leaped at Annie's captor, gripping his hand. Howe cursed as Annie shoved him back against the blue exercise hall, then dropped out of sight behind the sofa.
My Spy Page 29