Endgame sc-6

by Tom Clancy

  “Leave the rope for me.”

  “Roger.”

  From the sound of it, Fisher had no intention of coming up to meet them, and the ‘leave the rope’ line was just BS. He either had his own plan of escape or had already realized that it was too late for him.

  Hansen glanced up the shaft, saw that Gillespie was almost at the top. In a minute they’d drop the rope to him. He took a deep breath and heard the footfalls a moment before the man appeared, brandishing his AK- 47.

  He was one of Zahm’s guards, a heavily tattooed Brit clever enough to escape, and he trained his rifle on Hansen even as Hansen did likewise. Standoff.

  “We can both get out, mate,” he said, his face covered in stubble, his teeth yellow. “No need for a shooting contest.”

  “Here comes the rope!” cried Noboru.

  “Hold up!” shouted Hansen.

  “What’re you doing?” asked the guard, his glance flicking up toward the shaft.

  There were moments, Hansen knew, where muscle memory and reflex took over, where all the calculations in the world wouldn’t help you. You just reacted, barely conscious of the effort, based on the instinct to survive.

  Hansen shot the guard.

  Three rounds punched into his chest. Just like that. No forethought. No afterthought. Just noise. And death.

  The guy fell back before he could get off a shot, and as he hit the floor, a wall of water came blasting through the corridor, sweeping him away and sending Hansen crashing into the wall behind him.

  “Throw down the rope!” he screamed. “Throw down the—”

  Another wave took him under, and the water was so cold that for a moment he swore his heart skipped a beat. Frantically he kicked up, tried to find the surface, but his head banged hard into something metal, and there was only white foam before his eyes, nothing to focus on. He reached out, trying to find the rope, groping frantically like a man with an anchor tied to his waist.

  He was beginning to lose his breath.

  And a bitter resignation took hold. After everything, he would now drown in an air shaft because some asshole guard had decided not to play nice and die when he should have. Where were Dad’s aliens now? Hansen could sure use an alien abduction at the moment. Beam me up, Scotty.

  He reached out one last time, and something brushed against his outer forearm. The rope. He rolled, kicked hard, and took hold, now advancing hand over hand, pulling himself against the current until his hand felt dry, and then, in the next instant his head popped above the bubbling water.

  The gush of water resounded. He was in the air shaft, being carried up. He sucked in a huge breath as, above, Valentina and Noboru screamed, asking if he was all right.

  Sure, he was fine. Couldn’t be better. And how are you?

  He took one more breath and cried, “Pull me up!” And the water once more rose over his head before he could climb any higher. The rope began moving through his hands. He tightened his grip as they hoisted him up.

  * * *

  Not two minutes after Hansen cleared the air shaft, he watched as Gillespie rushed back to it. “He’s not coming, is he?” she said, watching as the water streamed out of the air vent.

  “Tell you what. You stay here and wait,” said Hansen, still shivering and blinking hard. He looked at Noboru and Valentina. “Perimeter search. Maybe he found another way out.”

  Valentina looked grim, Noboru grimmer.

  “Let’s get this done quickly. This entire area is growing unstable.”

  Hansen thought about his rise up the air shaft and decided to hit the meadow hut first. And when he did, he almost laughed. There was Fisher, lying on his side, soaked to the bone, having dug his way out of the hut by exploiting the weakened grout between the cinder blocks.

  “You should’ve come with us,” Hansen said, dumbfounded and grinning.

  Fisher rubbed his sore eyes and shuddered. “Didn’t want to slow you down.”

  Hansen looked at the hut, the water still pouring from the hole in the cinder blocks. “Nice exit.”

  “I’m usually a little more discreet.”

  Hansen grinned. “Gotta move now. Sinkholes opening up all over the place… ”

  THIRD ECHELON SITUATION ROOM

  Kovac burst through the door and marched up to Grim, who was seated behind one of the computer terminals. She didn’t look back at him. Not yet. He panted in anger.

  “What the hell’s going on here?”

  Slowly, she turned around, then glanced past him to Moreau, who was standing in the shadows with a security team.

  “It’s the end of the world,” she said. “Your world.”

  He snorted. “You’re done, Grim. Done. Do you hear me?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Mr. Kovac,” called Moreau. “If you’ll come with us…”

  “What’s this?”

  Grim narrowed her gaze on him. “This is you going bye-bye. Say bye-bye… ”

  He began to hyperventilate. “You have no idea what you’re doing.”

  “I’m curious. Why’d you do it? Not just for the money…”

  “I don’t owe you anything but a pink slip.”

  She dismissed him with a wave. “Marty, get this scumbag out of my sight.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Kovac cursed at Moreau, who looked at Grim. She nodded.

  And Moreau took Kovac by the back of the neck and led him out of the room, saying, “Mr. Kovac, are you familiar with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? Are you familiar with the stories of torture in the Bible? Are you familiar with the barbaric means men once used to extract information from each other?”

  “You can’t torture me! That’s illegal!”

  Moreau cackled like a hyena. The door closed after them. Grim took a deep breath. It was over. Or just beginning.

  PORTINHO DA ARRÁBIDA, PORTUGAL

  Fisher looked much better than the last time Hansen had seen him, three months before. He was refreshed, well groomed, and deeply tanned. The veteran Splinter Cell had stayed in Washington only long enough to have surgery on his ankle and attend three days of intense debriefing. Then he’d vanished off the face of the earth. Or at least that was how Hansen’s dad would have put it. Apparently, Fisher had gotten a one-year lease on Zahm’s old place and was taking time off to relax and enjoy the villa, the mojitos, life… Would his name ever be cleared? No one knew. Not yet, anyway…

  Fisher, Grim, and Hansen were now sitting under an umbrella overlooking the pristine waters, and Hansen was sipping his own mojito. Fisher asked about Kovac.

  Grim explained that two hours after his arrest for treason, he’d tried to hang himself in his cell. A guard saved him. Too bad. Ames’s insurance cache had provided ample evidence to incriminate the deputy director. Unofficially, he was being kept in an FBI safe house, answering questions and naming names. No one was torturing him, of course — wink, wink.

  Hansen told Fisher that Lambert had been right about the size of this doppelgänger-factory operation. At least the Laboratory 738 Arsenal had been taken out of circulation. It turned out that Zahm had leased the Russian test facility from Mikhail Bratus, the GRU agent Hansen had been tracking in Korfovka. Only six of the auction guests had made it out alive, and they were arrested. Ernsdorff, the money man, was found in a hotel room, gutted like a fish.

  “What about our old friend Ames?” Fisher asked.

  BURNING MAN EVENT BLACK ROCK DESERT, NEVADA

  Mere words are not capable of describing exactly what the Burning Man event is or even why it takes place. To state that it is an annual event at which more than fifty thousand artists gather and celebrate the creative process is to lose sight of the intricacies, complexities, and possibilities associated with the gathering. Allen Ames was there for a very different reason, though. He wanted to see the wooden effigy burn, and the compulsion was so strong that he didn’t care how many days he had to wait or how many hippies would not sleep with him, despite employing some of th
e best pickup lines he knew. He would remain until the giant man lit up the barren desert with flames shooting from his appendages. In fact, Ames had already been lying awake in his sleeping bag, imagining that moment and rolling his Zippo between his fingers — the new Zippo he had purchased because that bastard Hansen had never returned his.

  On the third day of the event the Russians finally arrived, and Ames told them what he knew and what he could offer them. They said they’d have to talk to their friends in China but that the offer sounded profitable for all parties concerned. Then they asked why they’d had to meet him in such a strange place. Ames dismissed them without explanation.

  And then, finally, it came. Saturday night. The flames swept up the man’s body, and Ames shuddered and thrust his arms into the sky, dancing with the others, chanting like a madman, howling at the moon, and swigging whiskey straight from the bottle. It was all here: earth, air, fire, and water.

  EPILOGUE

  BOCA WINDS ESTATES BOCA RATON, FLORIDA

  The sixty-five-hundred-square-foot home had been built two years before, in a cul-de-sac overlooking the C-15 canal. The house boasted a clay-colored tile roof, four-car garage, private tennis court, and Olympic-sized swimming pool entirely screened in along the back of the place. The landscape surrounding said pool must have cost a fortune, and Moreau knew as much because he had installed similar plants at his own Florida estate up in Bay Hill.

  Moreau had been watching the place for two days now. He sat in his rental car, parked across the street, sipping a mocha latte. He consulted his watch.

  In the driveway sat the man’s pride and joy: a white 1971 Corvette Stingray, fully stock with no aftermarket modifications to any part of the engine, interior, or exterior. The car had won multiple awards at car shows and was, Moreau had learned, rare because it had not been modified and had some kind of gold certification from Bloomingdale’s or something.

  Too bad.

  “Finally,” Moreau muttered, watching as the old white-haired man emerged from his front door.

  The old man paused, yawned, looked toward the newspaper at the end of the driveway, then started toward it and the Corvette.

  Moreau sighed and pressed the remote.

  After a one-second pause, the Corvette heaved from the ground and exploded in a fireball that knocked the old man onto the ground. Even before the shattered hood and rest of the debris reached the lawn, Moreau was screeching his tires and racing up the driveway. He leapt out of his car, charged up to the old man, and grabbed him by the shirt collar. “Stingray! You son of a bitch! You sent a man to kill me. You think I forgot about that? My God is a God of justice! And you will know his wrath! You will feel his fire!”

  “My goddamned car,” cried Stingray. “Why’d you have to blow my goddamned car?”

  “Because you love that car more than life itself. Hallelujah!”

  “You’ve been waiting a long time to get me.”

  “Building my case. You’re good at cleaning up after yourself.”

  “Look, Moreau, I’m too old for this. Just do me. Right here, right now. Let your God have his way. I can’t do time. I’m too old.”

  Moreau released the old man, reached up to his shoulder holster, and drew his pistol with attached suppressor.

  “Take me out like a man,” added Stingray.

  A gunshot ripped into the brick driveway not a foot from Moreau’s boot. He shot a look across the street, where a figure rose from behind a palm tree on the opposite house’s lawn.

  He did a double take. It was Hansen, dressed in a tac-suit. He cupped a hand around his mouth and yelled, “Can’t let you do that, Marty!”

  “What the…”

  And then Hansen came jogging across the street, still gripping his sniper’s rifle. “Lower the weapon,” he said.

  “Cowboy! Go home!”

  “Grim sent me.”

  “She what?”

  “Let’s go.” Hansen pointed his rifle at Moreau’s chest.

  From the corner of his eye, Moreau saw Stingray’s arm reach to his back.

  Moreau whirled, but not in time.

  Stingray came around with a pistol and fired at Hansen, who staggered back, one hand clutching his abdomen as he fired an errant round into the garage door behind them.

  Moreau fired at Stingray, hitting him directly in the chest, but at the same time the old man got off a round that caught Moreau in the shoulder, near his collarbone, wrenching him sideways.

  Screaming through a curse, Moreau fired three more rounds into Stingray’s chest, and the man fell back across the pavers, blood pooling immediately around his back.

  Moreau stumbled, lost his balance, and fell onto his rump as the flames from the still-burning Corvette began bending his way. He coughed and waved acrid smoke from his eyes.

  Hansen was lying flat on his back, and Moreau crawled over. “Cowboy? You stupid bastard. Cowboy?”

  He reached Hansen and unzipped the tac-suit, revealing a Kevlar vest.

  Moreau swore and said, “Wake up, pretty boy.”

  Hansen slowly opened his eyes. “Why’d you let him shoot me?”

  “I didn’t, you dumb ass.”

  Moreau winced and helped Hansen sit up. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Hansen grimaced, looked down at the slug embedded in his vest. “Just following orders. She wanted me to stop you before you killed him.”

  “So she sent you, and you forced me to kill him. How do you like them apples?”

  Some of the neighbors from the surrounding homes were approaching, gasping, covering their mouths, and Moreau turned to them and said, “Take it easy, ladies and gentlemen. We’re just filming a movie here. Hidden cameras! It’s all make-believe! Sorry for the noise! So sorry for the noise!”

  “That looks like real blood,” said one obese woman, covering her mouth as she stared at Stingray.

  “Yeah, they do a pretty good job with special effects these days. Now, please, off the set. Off the set! We need to do this all over again.”

  “They don’t believe you,” muttered Hansen.

  “I can see that.”

  “Then why don’t we get in your car and get the hell out of here?”

  “Yeah. I think I need a hospital.”

  “What about him?” Hansen asked, lifting his chin at Stingray.

  “He doesn’t need a hospital.”

  Hansen made a face. “The body?”

  “Forget him. I got ballistics covered. And so do you. Get in the car.”

  Moreau smiled at the throng of onlookers, then rose with Hansen.

  “This ain’t no movie,” said a portly black man wearing a polo shirt two sizes too small. “You guys just killed our neighbor, and you’re not going anywhere.”

  “You’re probably glad he’s dead, aren’t you?” said Moreau in a steely voice. “You wrote that letter complaining to the HOA about him. That gives you motive.”

  “I didn’t write any letter.”

  “Oh, no? Better call the HOA… ”

  The guy recoiled and stepped out of the way. Moreau and Hansen got in the car and hauled ass out of the neighborhood, leaving the smoldering Corvette, the shocked neighbors, and the dead spy/car enthusiast behind.

  Hansen frowned at Moreau. “I just want to say, that was a brilliant piece of fieldwork. No witnesses, no footprints, just beautiful.”

  Moreau sighed. “Cowboy, I’m not proud of what I did back there. But let me ask you something… Did you know Ames was tailing you back in Korfovka? Setting you up to die? If you had a chance to take him out, would you?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  Moreau cocked a brow. “All right, then. You and I have a lot to talk about.”

  “Don’t you mean you, me, and Grim?”

  Moreau drew in a deep breath. “No, Son, I don’t.”

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: a4933c96-ab59-47a5-a1bd-e9119c556c75

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 15.
12.2012

  Created using: calibre 0.9.10, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software

  Document authors :

  Document history:

  1.0 — создание файла fb2

  About

  This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.

  (This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)

  Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.

  (Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)

  http://www.fb2epub.net

  https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/