Trade-Off

by Trade-Off (retail) (epub)

  ‘Still out cold,’ he muttered, and replaced the blanket.

  For a few moments the two men sat silently, staring through the windshield. Then Harris glanced down at the dashboard clock.

  ‘Should be here in about thirty minutes, I guess,’ he said. ‘You want to get some coffee?’

  Morgan nodded and pulled open the door.

  ‘OK,’ Harris said. ‘Mine’s black, and get me a couple of Danish or donuts or something. Don’t seem to have eaten all day.’

  Morgan was half-way through his second donut when he suddenly looked down at the dashboard clock. ‘Hey,’ he said, pointing at the time. ‘You heard from Wilson or Rogers?’

  Harris shook his head and took another sip of coffee. ‘Nope. They should have checked in as soon as they’d finished with Reilly. Wonder what’s keeping them? If they haven’t called in ten minutes, I’ll ring Wilson.’

  Beaver Creek, Western Montana

  As Reilly and Hunter walked out of the sheriff’s office towards the FBI Ford, the mobile phone in Reilly’s pocket rang.

  Almost without thinking, Reilly answered the call. ‘Yup?’

  There was a silence at the other end, then a harsh voice, little more than a whisper, spoke. ‘Who is this?’

  Reilly looked at Hunter, who shrugged, and then nodded. ‘This is Sheriff Reilly. Would I be talkin’ to Special Agent Harris?’ The lack of response told Reilly he was right. ‘You was probably lookin’ for Special Agent Wilson,’ Reilly said. ‘He can’t come to the phone right now, on account of the fact that he’s had a small accident.’

  ‘Accident?’ Harris asked.

  ‘Yup,’ Reilly said. ‘Ran into a load o’ buckshot when he climbed in through my window. Gonna be pretty difficult to talk to him, ’less you know a real good medium.’

  ‘And Rogers?’ Harris asked, his voice betraying no emotion at all.

  ‘Funny you should ask that,’ Reilly said. ‘He kinda got the other barrel. Sure hope they wasn’t good friends o’ yours?’

  ‘No, sheriff, they weren’t good friends of mine,’ Harris said, ‘but they were people I liked and worked with. And sheriff,’ Harris went on, menace palpable in his voice, ‘we’re going to be finishing the job they were sent to do. So I’ll be seeing you soon, real soon.’

  ‘You gotta find me first, asshole,’ Reilly snapped.

  FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  George Donahue closed the file on his desk and leaned wearily back in his padded leather chair. He’d not left the building since his return from the White House the previous afternoon, and the Omega Procedures file instructions made it clear that he wasn’t to leave again until after the operation had been concluded.

  He’d tried to take a nap in the early hours of the morning, stretched out on the couch in his office, but despite his exhaustion, sleep wouldn’t come. Eventually he’d got up, ordered himself a fresh pot of coffee, and begun working through the contents of his in-tray.

  He was called to the CommCen at just after ten thirty.

  ‘Kaufmann’s been taken care of,’ the voice from Nevada said, without preamble, ‘but we have a problem.’

  ‘What?’ Donahue asked.

  ‘The Beaver Creek sheriff took out the two members of the Alert Team sent to terminate him. He obviously knows he’s on our kill list, and it looks like he’s running.’

  ‘Shit,’ Donahue said. ‘I thought your people were supposed to be professionals?’

  ‘They are, Donahue,’ Ketch snapped, ‘but sometimes the mark gets lucky, that’s all. We have to retrieve this situation as soon as possible. Reilly is now classified as a Priority One Termination. Notify all Bureau offices that he’s armed and extremely dangerous, and he’s to be shot on sight. Under no circumstances is anyone to approach him or attempt to interrogate him. Even if he’s shot and wounded, he’s to be killed immediately. Is that clear?’

  ‘It’s clear, yes,’ Donahue said, ‘but the Bureau doesn’t operate like that. I’m going to need some kind of cover story to justify it.’

  ‘So invent one,’ Ketch snapped. ‘That’s your job so just get it done. When the Bureau’s alerted, tell the CIA the same, and then get an APB out to every police force in the country. You’ll get a copy of Reilly’s mugshot and personal details within the hour. I want this wrapped up today.’

  Beaver Creek, Western Montana

  Hunter followed Reilly’s directions and pulled into the driveway of the sheriff’s house on the outskirts of Beaver Creek. He turned off the engine, got out and followed Reilly’s stocky figure in through the front door.

  ‘Suggest you don’t go in there,’ Reilly said, gesturing towards the living room door with a nod of his head. ‘Been picking buckshot and brains outta the wall most o’ the night. Not a pretty sight.’

  Reilly led the way into the kitchen, then walked across and opened a door in the corner.

  ‘The den,’ he said, without elaboration. He walked over to the corner of the tiny room and opened a tall cupboard. From it he took a SPAS-12 shotgun, an AR-15 assault rifle, a Colt Commander semi-automatic pistol with two spare magazines and several boxes of ammunition.

  ‘You going hunting, sheriff?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Manner o’ speakin’, yes,’ Reilly said.

  At the bottom of the cupboard were a number of bulky packages wrapped in brown paper. Reilly picked out six of them as well.

  Hunter looked at them quizzically, picked up one and hefted it in his hand.

  ‘Plastic explosive,’ Reilly said. ‘Semtex, in fact.’

  ‘Where the hell did you get all this stuff, Dick?’ Hunter asked, hurriedly replacing the package on the floor.

  ‘Here and there. I kinda hoard things. Never know when you’re gonna need ’em.’

  Reilly went into the bedroom and came back with a small black leather soft bag and a rigid gun case secured by combination locks. ‘Just hold the top open while I get this stuff stowed,’ he said, opening the gun case.

  Three minutes later Reilly snapped shut the locks on the case and closed the zip on the bag. He’d selected a few clothes, some underwear and washing gear and put that in the soft bag.

  ‘You reckon we’ll need that stuff?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘I dunno, really. But judgin’ by the cards that these two guys was carryin’ when they busted in through my living room window, I reckon we’re going up against most of the law enforcement organizations operatin’ here in the States. There’s exactly two of us, so I reckon the more guns ‘n’ stuff we’ve got, the better.’

  Chapter Ten

  Thursday

  Helena, Western Montana

  Hunter parked the Bureau Ford in the short-stay parking lot at the airport, and then he and Reilly walked separately into the terminal building. The sheriff went straight to a ticket counter, carrying his gun case and leather bag, and paid cash for a single ticket.

  Hunter joined the line at a different counter. When he reached the front, he bought a single ticket to Washington D.C. and, like Reilly, paid for it with cash. What they didn’t want was to leave any kind of a paper trail for anybody to follow.

  After obtaining their tickets, both men showed the counter clerks FBI identification in the names of Wilson and Rogers and advised them that they were carrying firearms in holsters, and Reilly also confirmed that the locked gun case contained unloaded firearms.

  The legalities taken care of, the two men sat separately in the bar and ordered drinks. Hunter bought coffee and a sandwich. He hadn’t slept since the previous night, or eaten in over twelve hours, and the strain was beginning to tell. When he’d finished his snack, he reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his wallet and looked through it. The germs of an idea were stirring in his mind.

  Hunter picked up his carry-on bag and left the bar, glancing once towards Reilly, who looked at him incuriously. Twenty minutes later he walked back, ordered another coffee and sat down.

  On the other sid
e of the building, a tall, fair-haired man sat in the departure area waiting for a flight to Denver to be called, Hunter’s ticket clutched in his hand. There was no paper-trail leading from Helena to Washington, but thanks to Hunter’s purchase of a ticket by credit card, and subsequent immediate cash sale to the stranger – for under a half of what he had paid for it – there was now a clear indication that Hunter was heading for Colorado.

  That, he thought, might keep the pursuers off their backs for a few more hours.

  Helena, Western Montana

  John Michaelson had not been a popular choice as Senior Resident Agent at Helena, but his appointment had clearly been justified on the basis of his experience and time served in the Bureau. What most people didn’t like about him was his manner and attitude. He was perennially fussy, giving undue attention to details and, in the opinion of most people who had worked with him, not nearly enough attention to the overall picture. In short, he usually seemed more concerned that all the forms were correctly completed than whether or not a case was actually solved. J. Edgar Hoover would have loved him.

  Christy-Lee Kaufmann should have appeared at the Agency that morning at nine, as she was the Duty Agent for the week, and all the other agents apart from her and Hunter were out on assignment. Michaelson was taking a couple of days’ leave, but he still rang the Agency from home at five past nine, as he always did unless he was actually going into the office, to check that the Duty Agent was there. He got no reply, so he tried again at nine ten, nine fifteen, nine thirty, nine forty-five, and at ten exactly.

  At ten fifteen, he rang again, and then rang Agent Kaufmann’s home number. When he got no answer there either, Michaelson took off his casual clothes, put on his office suit, and drove in to investigate further.

  When he unlocked the door, he could see at once that nobody had been in that morning. The fax machine had spewed paper in a stream onto the floor, overflowing the basket, and the answering machine light was winking. Michaelson tightened his lips and set to work to clear up the mess, mentally rehearsing the dressing-down he would enjoy giving Kaufmann when she finally did turn up.

  Highway US91/Interstate 15, Western Montana

  The estimate from Omega Control of four hours for the arrival of the special ambulance from Pocatello, Idaho, turned out to be somewhat optimistic. Harris had calculated that they could be on their way north back to Helena no later than noon, but the ambulance didn’t appear until well after one thirty. Then the ambulance staff had to carry out the mandatory blood tests and sort out the paperwork. By the time they’d done all that, and transferred Christy-Lee’s still unconscious body to a gurney and loaded it into the back of the ambulance, where there was already one silent and sleeping patient, it was nearly two o’clock.

  Harris and Morgan climbed back into the Buick and headed south for the next interchange, where they could get onto the north-bound freeway to Helena.

  Randy Douglas closed the double rear doors of the ambulance, watched the Buick accelerate away, then walked round to the driver’s side door. ‘C’mon, Bill,’ he said. ‘Let’s get moving. Got a hell of a long way to go now, ’cause of this little diversion.’

  His partner, Bill Robbins, nodded agreement and climbed into the front passenger seat. As Douglas started the engine and the air conditioning kicked in, bringing a welcome blast of cold air into the vehicle, Robbins reached for a road map and began studying it.

  ‘We’ll have to overnight somewhere pretty soon,’ he said. ‘We started at six this morning.’

  Roland Oliver’s rules about driving hours would have done credit to any transport company. A maximum of two hours’ driving before a mandatory twenty-minute stop; a change of drivers at least every four hours, and a maximum of twelve hours travelling per vehicle per day. The vehicle was speed-limited to sixty miles an hour, and was fitted with a tachograph to ensure compliance with the rules by the drivers. All tachograph records were scrutinized at Roland Oliver, and dismissal was mandatory for even a single infraction.

  The drivers liked it. They would perhaps have been less impressed if they’d realized that Roland Oliver’s rules were not designed for their comfort and convenience, but were simply intended to ensure that the precious cargoes the ambulances carried were never involved in an accident or subjected to excessive noise and vibration.

  ‘Yup,’ Douglas said, slipping the auto selector into ‘drive’ and heading towards the pumps. ‘We’ll gas-up here, get out of Montana into Idaho, and then look out for somewhere.’

  Beaver Creek, Western Montana

  The fax machine in the corner of the sheriff’s office emitted a faint ping, announcing the arrival of a message. The Deputy sitting at the reception desk stood up, walked over to the machine and tore off the sheet. He looked at it and stopped in mid-stride.

  ‘Jesus H Christ,’ he muttered, walked back to the desk, sat down and reached for the telephone.

  FBI Headquarters, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.

  Hunter paid off the taxi and he and Reilly climbed out.

  ‘OK,’ Hunter said, as they stood together on the sidewalk, looking down the Avenue. ‘You know what to do?’

  Reilly nodded. ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘Good luck in there.’

  Hunter nodded once, and turned to walk away. As he did so, Reilly’s mobile phone rang. Hunter stopped as the sheriff answered it.

  ‘Yup?’ Reilly said, and listened. After three or four minutes, he ended the call and looked at Hunter.

  ‘One of my deputies,’ he said. ‘Been tryin’ to reach me for a while, but the phone was switched off in the aircraft. There’s an APB out for me, issued by the Fibbies, attention all agencies, plus a shoot-to-kill order. Seems I’m a carrier of some kind of a goddamn fever called Ebola Reston-Zaïre.’

  Reilly said the unfamiliar words slowly, getting the pronunciation right.

  ‘The APB says it’s highly contagious,’ Reilly went on, ‘has better than ninety per cent lethality, and can spread through the air. The only way to eliminate the possibility of a major epidemic is to gun me down on sight. I’m not to be approached except by properly trained personnel wearing protective clothing. The fever’s also making me delirious, paranoid and unpredictable, and liable to acts of random violence. Funny,’ he finished. ‘I feel pretty good, all things considered.’

  ‘Might have guessed,’ Hunter said, nodding. ‘They were going to have to come up with some compelling reason for issuing a shoot-to-kill order. In the circumstances, that’s not bad.’

  ‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Reilly said. ‘What the hell’s Ebola?’

  ‘Ebola’s a very nasty little filovirus that first surfaced in the Sudan in 1976 and killed about one in every two people it infected. Two months after the Sudan virus appeared, another filovirus emerged from the rain forest in northern Zaïre. That was much more lethal, and killed almost everybody it touched. All the filoviruses – and that group includes another one called Marburg – are classified as Biosafety Level Four hot agents.’

  ‘How many levels are there?’ Reilly asked.

  ‘Just the four,’ Hunter said. ‘Level Four is the most dangerous.’

  ‘And what about Reston?’ Reilly asked. ‘The name’s kinda familiar, but I can’t place it.’

  ‘Reston’s about ten miles west of here,’ Hunter said. ‘At the end of 1989 a monkey quarantine unit there became infected with a new strain of Ebola. Ebola Reston looked virtually identical to Zaïre under the microscope, but differed from it in two ways. First, it was lethal to monkeys but apparently harmless to human beings. That was the good news. The bad news was that this variant of the virus seemed to be able to spread itself through the air, maybe even in exhaled breath, though that’s never been confirmed. The others – Marburg, Sudan and Zaïre – could only be spread through body fluid exchange. A marriage of the two strains,’ Hunter finished, ‘would be spectacularly unpleasant.’

  ‘Seem to know a lot about bugs, Mr. Hunter,’ Rei
lly said.

  Hunter nodded. ‘I studied them at Staff College in Britain, with a view to their use as terrorist weapons,’ he said.

  ‘Now that’s a real nasty thought,’ Reilly said.

  ‘Anyway,’ Hunter grinned at him, ‘just take two aspirins and try not to over-exert yourself.’

  ‘Very funny,’ Reilly replied, then looked serious. ‘OK. You take care of yourself in there. If you don’t come out, I ain’t quite sure what I’m gonna do.’

  Hunter nodded and turned away. He walked off down the Avenue towards the looming bulk of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. He’d visited Bureau Headquarters maybe half a dozen times, when he had been doing familiarization training at Quantico, and he still remembered the basic layout and the security procedures.

  The uniformed security guards stopped him, as they stopped everyone, at the entrance. Hunter took a deep breath and produced Wilson’s FBI identity card. The guard looked at it, glanced twice at Hunter’s face, nodded and handed it back.

  ‘Thanks,’ Hunter said, trying an American accent on for size, and pushed his way through the turnstile.

  He walked across the atrium and took the elevator, getting out at the seventh and top floor. Hunter walked down the corridor until he reached a wide oak door bearing the legend ‘Office of the Director’ in large gold print, with ‘George Donahue’ in slightly smaller letters underneath. He pushed open the door and found himself in an airy and spacious office, looking directly at a male agent sitting at a mahogany desk. The only other occupant was a female secretary sitting in front of a computer terminal in the right hand corner.