Night Moves nf-3

by Tom Clancy

  Cooper gave him a small smile. "Come now, Alex, people who have tea together don't share all their secrets, do they?"

  Alex flushed. John Howard turned and suddenly found a fascinating spot on the empty wall to stare at. Cooper's smile grew bigger and warmer. These actions didn't prove anything, but taken together, on a sudden, deeply intuitional level, an icicle of solid nitrogen formed and stabbed Toni in the heart:

  My God. Had Alex slept with this bitch?

  How? When?

  God in heaven — why?

  Alex cleared his throat and said, "Look, we know Peel is connected to Ruzhyo and the death of a suspected ice man."

  "The fellow in the bookstore was, according to the coroner, a suicide."

  "After Ruzhyo or Peel shot him! Peel knows something about all this. You know I'm right. Pull him in and let's sweat him before more people die and millions of lives are disrupted."

  There was a long pause. Toni stared at Cooper with the new suspicion still piercing her to her soul. All of the rest of this was nothing. It didn't matter about Peel or Goswell or Ruzhyo. None of that was important.

  Had Alex betrayed her? Surely not. He couldn't have. Could he?

  She felt sick.

  Cooper said, "All right. I'll have to get DG Hamilton to sign off on it, but I suspect we can do that much in the interests of national security."

  Chapter 37

  Thursday, April 14th

  M23, South of Gatwick

  Ruzhyo took a couple of deep breaths and blew them out, trying to relax. He had been growing more tight as he drove, gripping the wheel harder, hunching forward, and that wouldn't do, to be tense when he needed to be loose. A tight man could not move properly. Even knowing that, it always happened. You had to work to overcome it, despite all the years and bodies.

  Ahead of him and one lane over, the gray Neon with the two men in it who had been following Peel since London cruised fifty meters behind the major's car, using traffic as cover. So intent on tailing Peel had they been, they had not noticed Ruzhyo.

  As soon as he had spotted them, Ruzhyo had made the call and had spoken but one word: "Company." That had been enough to alert Peel.

  He'd replied. "Got it. I'll call back later."

  They had passed Gatwick Airport a few miles back, still heading south on the big motorway as if going to the Sussex estate. The mobile phone on the car seat next to him rang. Ruzhyo picked it up. "Go ahead."

  "Have they made you?"

  "No."

  "Good. We're getting off at the next exit, about two miles ahead, heading east. Down that road three miles, there is a large oak tree at an intersection with a narrow road to the right. Two miles down that road, on the left is a big sheering barn. We'll have a chat with our company there. Why don't you go on ahead and get set up?"

  "Yes."

  Ruzhyo thumbed the connection off. He accelerated and pulled smoothly ahead of the surveillance car, passed Peel, and was half a mile ahead of them when he turned off the highway at the next exit. The shadowers paid him no attention.

  The oak tree was where it was supposed to be — Ruzhyo measured the distance with his odometer — and the barn, in front of a field of grazing sheep, sat alone and quiet in the middle of a long stretch of nowhere. A perfect place to have a chat you didn't want anyone to overhear.

  Ruzhyo pulled his car into the barn and shut the door behind it. The place was dusty and smelled of dry hay, wool, and something like hot candle wax. Farm smells, bringing with them quick lances of memory from his days with Anna. He checked out the exits. There were two more at ground level besides the one he'd pulled the car into, and two openings on the upper level, with hoists and ropes and pulleys dangling from them. Peel was a professional; he would pull his car in and get out in such a way as to allow somebody hiding in the barn a clear shot at his followers when they left their car. Probably in front of the smaller door on the building's southeast side, he figured.

  Ruzhyo checked the magazine in the Firestar, making certain that a round was chambered. He cocked the hammer and put the safety back on. There might not be any shooting at all; if it became necessary, he had eight shots, and seven more rounds in a second magazine, if he had to reload. No semi auto was jam-proof, but he had adjusted the magazines and polished the feed ramp, and the bullet ogive was clean and rounded enough so there shouldn't be a problem. After firing a few rounds when he'd gotten the piece, he had hand-cycled a hundred cartridges through the action without a misfeed. At this range, if he had to shoot, he'd only need a few to work, and the first one was already there.

  He heard the sound of an approaching engine, easily discerned in the quiet pastures. He took another deep breath and let it out, stretched his neck, and rolled his shoulders. He was ready. He would follow Peel's lead.

  Peel pulled his car onto the hard-packed dirt next to the barn and circled to his left to force the following car to pull in between him and the building. He stopped, loosened his pistol in its holster, and alighted from his car. He kept the door open and stood partially covered by it. He didn't see Ruzhyo, but he had noticed the fresh tire prints leading to the barn, so he knew the man was in there. If it was him, Peel would set up behind that door right across from his car, and he bet that the ex-Spetsnaz shooter was already there. He felt a lot better having an old pro watching his arse.

  The Neon pulled off the road and right into perfect position. The car stopped in a light cloud of dust, and as the reddish gray powder settled, two men got out. They wore windbreakers, and they had the moves of somebody carrying firearms, which they certainly had hidden under their jackets. But they didn't look like coppers, at least not civilian ones. One was a medium-tall brunette, the other a shorter, stockier man with mouse-brown hair cropped short. Were they military? Or Intelligence? What the bloody hell?

  "Good afternoon, gentlemen. May I help you with something?"

  Mouse-brown said, "Major Peel. We wonder if you would come along with us, sir." Not a question.

  "If you'll explain who you are and what you want, maybe we can keep this civilized."

  "We didn't come to answer questions. We'll send somebody for your car. You'll be riding with us."

  "I shouldn't think I'd want to do that," he said.

  "Then we must insist," Medium-tall said. "Please step over here, sir. And keep your hands in plain sight."

  "Insist all you want. I'm minding my own business, and I don't believe it is any of yours."

  The two exchanged glances, and without speaking, split up and drifted away from each other. This was standard procedure if you were facing a man you considered armed and dangerous. Even if he was very fast on the draw, he would have to swing his weapon from one to another with two opponents, and the farther apart they were, the harder that would be — especially if both opponents were prepared to shoot back. They still had not pulled their own weapons, and that was to his advantage.

  "Let's not make this difficult, Major," Mouse-brown said.

  "Gentlemen, I advise you to stand still and keep your hands away from your weapons."

  Medium-tall grinned and said, "Begging your pardon, Major, but either one of us is ten years younger and ten years faster than you. You don't really think you're good enough to take us both?"

  "Maybe. Maybe not. It would be more risky if I were alone."

  Mouse-brown said, "There's no one else in your car, Peel. How stupid do you think we are?"

  "Fairly stupid, I should say. Why do you think I stopped here, sonny? At this particular quiet spot in the country?"

  Mouse-brown paused in his sideways drift and shot his partner a quick glance.

  "He's having us on," Medium-tall said. "A bluff."

  "You think so?" Peel said. He smiled. "You've been behind me since we left London. You think I didn't know that? I've had plenty of time to have a colleague arrive here. You seem like decent lads. Tell me who sent you and what you know, and perhaps you get to walk out of this. Otherwise…" he gave them a broad, theatrical
shrug.

  "Forget it," Medium-tall said. "We weren't born bloody yesterday!"

  Peel raised his voice. "Mr. Ruzhyo! Are you there?"

  The barn door swung up with a creak of rusted hinges and Ruzhyo appeared in the doorway, though he did not step out from his cover. "I am here," he said. He held the silvery pistol in both hands, pointed at Medium-tall.

  The two men started, surprised.

  Men who had been under the gun, under fire, would have known they didn't have a chance. You could be faster than Billy the Bloody Kid from the holster but that wouldn't be nearly quick enough to outdraw a gun already aimed at you.

  The two panicked and went for their guns.

  Ruzhyo had Medium-tall, so Mouse-brown was Peel's. But before he could clear his weapon, Ruzhyo fired—pow! pow! pow! the tiniest hesitation, then pow! pow! pow! again. Six rounds at maybe five meters, and it was so quick it sounded like two bursts of fully automatic submachine gun fire. Damn, he was fast!

  Medium-tall and Mouse-brown went down like sick-led wheat.

  "Shit!" Peel yelled. He finished his draw and hurried toward the downed men. Both were wearing body armor under their jackets, he could see that as he got close. The vests had stopped two rounds each, just as they were supposed to. But the armor had not stopped the rest of Ruzhyo's Mozambique drill: two to the chest and one to the head. Both men had been shot between the eyes, and they were effectively dead before they hit the ground. Peel had never seen the drill performed better, not even in practice, much less in a hot scenario. Ruzhyo was a master shooter.

  "Damn, how am I supposed to find out anything if you don't leave one alive to question?"

  Ruzhyo gave him a Slavic shrug. He popped the magazine from the pistol, let it fall to the ground, reloaded the handgun with a second magazine from his pocket, then bent to pick up the fallen magazine. When he straightened, he reached up with one hand and pried a silicone ear plug from one ear, then the other, and dropped those into his pocket along with the nearly empty magazine.

  Good God. Ruzhyo was so cool as to think about bloody ear protection before he had calmly blasted two armed men as neat and quick as you could possibly please. The man must have ice water in his veins.

  Well, there was not any help for it now. Best find out who these two were, if he could. Peel fished in Medium-tall's pocket until he found a wallet. He opened it, then stared at the ID card behind the clear plastic window. "Oh, Lord! These blokes are MI-6! We've just killed two of his majesty's SIS agents!"

  Ruzhyo shrugged again, scanning the countryside for witnesses.

  Aside from the sheep, who seemed unaffected by the gunshots, there weren't any prying eyes.

  Peel shook his head. "Come on, help me move the bodies," Peel said. "We've only got a few minutes before they are missed."

  They were in the crapper now, weren't they?

  Thursday, April 14th

  MI-6, London, England

  "We have a problem," Cooper told Michaels. "We've lost contact with the team following Peel."

  Howard, Fernandez, and Toni had gone to the cafeteria to grab a quick bite, and Michaels was once again alone with Cooper in the conference room. "Lost contact with them?"

  "More than half an hour ago. Their last report was that they had pulled off the M23 near Balcombe and were about to detain Peel. We've been unsuccessful in our attempts to reach them since."

  "Do you have a way to find them?"

  "Not exactly. The location transponder in their car stopped sending its signal a few minutes after their last transmission. We know where they were. We've sent a military strike team via helicopter to check it out."

  "They're either taken or dead," he said flatly.

  "We don't know that."

  "You wouldn't have scrambled an air strike team if you didn't think it was likely."

  She sighed. Put one hand on his forearm. Her touch was warm. "We do fear something has gone awry."

  He stared at her hand. After a beat, she broke the contact. "No chance for us, is there?"

  "I — it wouldn't be a good idea. I'm sorry."

  "But you did enjoy yourself? As far as it went?"

  "Ah… yes. I did."

  She smiled, but it was hollow. "The good ones always get away. A pity. Your Ms. Fiorella is lucky, you know."

  "I think I'm the lucky one."

  She stepped back, out of his space, and glanced at her watch. "Should be hearing from the strike team shortly."

  "Can we still stop Peel? If he is on his way to Goswell's estate?"

  "Given the current situation, I doubt that DG Hamilton would want to risk another team. It would be safer to bottle him up at The Yews, if that's where he's going, and deal with him later.

  In the MI-6 cafeteria, Fernandez swallowed a bite of what looked like Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes drenched by a half gallon of brown gravy and said, "What's with the sub-commander?"

  Fiorella had come to the cafeteria with Howard and Fernandez, but had quickly excused herself and left, looking pale.

  Howard glanced down at his Thai chicken salad. He wasn't a gossip, but he had known Julio all of his adult life; the two of them didn't have many secrets from each other. And from Toni's face, the nickel had dropped. She had figured out about Michaels' extracurricular activities. Howard didn't need to get that specific, though, so he said, "I think she and the commander might be having some personal problems."

  Julio washed another bite down with a glass of water and nodded. "Cooper," he said. "Boss got biblical with her?"

  Howard raised an eyebrow.

  "She's gorgeous, smart, and she's been giving him looks," Julio went on. "And the boss stares at his shoes every time Cooper gets too close. She looks possessive and he looks guilty. And that looks like a done deal to me. Not that I'm telling you anything you don't already know. You picked it up."

  Howard nodded. "Yes."

  Julio took another mouthful of the brown and steaming goop. "I don't understand what all the fuss about how bad British cooking is about. Nothing wrong with it far as I can tell," he said.

  "Spoken like a true meat and potatoes man."

  "Yeah, well, Br'er Rabbit, why don't you have some more of that grass and twigs you got."

  A young man approached the table. "Colonel Howard? Commander Michaels would like to see you, sir, as soon as possible."

  Julio shoveled another mouthful in, hurrying, as Howard nodded once and got to his feet. Now what?

  Chapter 38

  Thursday, April 14th

  Near Balcombe, England

  MI-6 had sprung for a second copter, and it landed with Alex, Howard, Fernandez, Cooper, and Toni. The strike force copter was still on the ground, and a dozen soldiers in Brit camo and berets, weapons at the ready, moved around the big old barn as the Net Force team piled out of the second bird into the dusty prop wash.

  Toni had tucked her personal pain away into the box of professionalism and locked it tight. Even so, she hadn't been able to look directly at Alex during the short flight.

  A British captain approached and spoke with Cooper. Toni walked around, bent to examine the ground in a couple of spots, then drifted toward the barn. There was a new car parked inside, and it hadn't been there long enough to get dusty. The floor was earth, under a light layer of dry hay. She walked back out and circled the area again. The ground was soft and chalky enough in places to take footprints, but the military force had obliterated a lot of them, their combat boots leaving a distinctive tread. She thought about what might have happened here, given what she knew and what she had seen.

  Alex said, "Toni?" He stood next to Cooper and the British captain.

  She could do this. She could keep her feelings at bay and do her job.

  "This is Captain Ward," Alex said.

  Cooper said, "Why don't you bring Sub-Commander Fiorella up to speed on what you think might have happened here, Captain?"

  A flash of anger enveloped Toni. Bring her up to fucking speed? Yeah, right. She
wanted to smash Cooper's smug face. Instead, she tamped it down and said, "It's pretty obvious, isn't it?"

  Cooper blinked. Did she hear the challenge in Toni's voice? "Oh, really? Why don't you tell us, then?" Yeah, she heard it.

  "Sure. Peel had a backup man. That's his car in the barn. It will be a rental and won't have a backtrail. Probably some dummy corporation post office box and phony ID used to get it.

  "Your agents must have missed the backup. Odds are it was Mikhayl Ruzhyo, who must have some kind of link to Peel. Maybe they were old college buddies or they met in some police action in Africa or SA somewhere. They have history. Otherwise, it's too coincidental.

  "Peel led your men here, right into a trap. Ruzhyo sneaked up on them — no, strike that, you couldn't really sneak up on this barn from the road in a car, and it's too far from anywhere to walk, so probably he was already hiding when Peel arrived. How am I doing so far?" She looked at Alex and his face was frozen into a half-grin. He felt her anger, she knew. She nodded at him. I know, you bastard. And now you know I know.

  Cooper didn't speak, nor did Alex or the captain, so Toni continued: "There are two small spots of blood on the ground, still visible, though somebody kicked dirt over them, there and over there." She pointed. "Were your men armed? And wearing body armor?"

  Cooper just glared at her, and it was the captain who said, "They carried sidearms, and as for the vests, yes, they should have worn them. It's standard for this kind of operation."

  "Right. So Peel or Ruzhyo shot them, most likely in the heads. That's where they fell. Then they shoved the bodies into their own car and left here driving that and Peel's. I imagine if your troops haven't stomped all over them, you'll find his tire tracks and those of your men's car leaving. By now, I'd guess they've driven the car with the bodies in it somewhere it won't be found for a while. Two missing agents are a concern, but not as high-profile as two dead ones. If I were in charge, I'd have the local constables drag any big ponds or lakes within a few miles of here. Deep water is a good place to hide a car."