by Tom Clancy
“Not exactly,” Alex said, “but there’s a connection, yes. You’ve obviously done your homework.”
Cooper smiled again, another high-wattage, eventoothed, white flash.
Toni definitely did not like her, no question, and if Alex didn’t stop grinning like a fool at everything Ms. Cooper said, he was going to be in trouble.
Obviously done her homework. Yeah. Right.
Sunday, April 3rd
Stonewall Flat, Nevada
Ruzhyó’s preference for a handgun was a small caliber, like those he had grown accustomed to in Spetsnaz. In fact, such weapons were as efficient as the bigger bores the Americans preferred, if one could place the shot properly. A .22 in the eye was easily worth a .357 round in the chest, and it was much easier to shoot the smallbore pistol well: there was almost no recoil, little noise and muzzle flash, and a longer barrel made the weapon more accurate.
Americans were generally taught to shoot for the center of mass, and a bigger bullet was an advantage, given the relative weakness of all handguns, but they could have taken a page from the Israelis or Spetsnaz in that regard. With enough practice, head shots came naturally.
When he had come to stay here in the desert, Ruzhyó had bought two guns, both used. The first was a target pistol, a Browning IMSA Silhouette model, based on the company’s Buck Mark design. It was a straight blowback semiauto, held ten rounds in its magazine, and had a nine-inch barrel topped with a Tasco ProPoint sight. The sight was electronic. It created in the field of vision a tiny, red, parallax-free dot. Operation was simple: You chambered a round, turned the sight on, and put the dot on a target, and if you squeezed the trigger with care, that dot was where the bullet went. At ten meters, he could center-punch a dime with the Browning. At a hundred meters, with the gun propped on a secure rest, Ruzhyó could hit a hand-sized target all day long. He had, in practice, hit a human-sized target at almost three hundred meters, once he zeroed in and knew how much the bullet would fall and drift. Even such a small pellet as the Browning spat would be disconcerting if it hit you solidly at that distance. Not the best choice for long-range gunnery, but in theory, the ammunition he used, CCI Minimags, could fly a mile and a half. A rifle was a better weapon, of course, but the pistol could be hidden under a coat if need be, and still be used to strike a man in the head at distances well beyond that at which most shooters could operate most service handguns.
The other weapon in his small arsenal was a Savage Model 69 Series E twelve-gauge pump shotgun. Also bought on the gray market, in a different town than the pistol, the shotgun was not as good a piece as the more expensive makes that used double-rail slide actions. Having only a single connector from the pump, which was less efficient in case of a jam, the weapon held five rounds—his preference was for #4 buckshot—but it had the short-barreled configuration the Americans called a riot gun, and was close enough to what he wanted when he went looking.
He could have bought a good hunting rifle and scope to increase his range. If, however, somebody wanted to assassinate him from five hundred meters out with their own high-powered rifle, he had better ways of dealing with that than a long-distance sniper duel. He had circled the trailer at ranges where a good shooter could see and hit him, and there were only a few places with a proper line of sight on his home. He had marked these and installed at these places certain defenses. Of course, they could take him while he was away from the trailer, but one could only cover so many contingencies.
Last night, he had cleaned and oiled both guns, then loaded them with fresh ammunition. He had also loaded four spare magazines for the .22, and he had ten extra shells for the twelve-gauge in loops on a belt he could strap around his waist. If he had to use the shotgun to defend himself, the situation would be close-quarters, bad, and he probably wouldn’t get a chance to reload; still, one could not be certain. At that point, it would likely be a matter of selling himself as dearly as possible. He might lose, but if he could help it, the winner would not leave untouched.
He had done what he could. He could have tried to run, but it was probably too late for that. Whatever was going to happen was going to happen, and he was as ready as he was going to get. Now it was a matter of waiting.
He was good at that, waiting. Right now, he would get some sleep. He might not get the chance again for a time. Or ever.
He moved to his bed, set the shotgun and pistol on the floor nearby, and, next to them, a small radio transmitter. He stretched out. He took several deep breaths, relaxed as much as he was able, and, in a few minutes, fell asleep.
He dreamed of Anna.
9
Sunday, April 3rd
Las Vegas, Nevada
“How far?” Howard said.
“About twenty minutes,” Fernandez said.
“Turn the air conditioner down a couple of notches; it’s not that hot.”
Fernandez said, “But you don’t want to let the heat get ahead of you out here, John. Probably be ninety by noon, and you know how these trucks suck up the sun.”
“If this goes as planned, we’ll be on a plane for D.C. by noon.”
“Never hurts to be prepared,” the sergeant offered.
Howard shook his head. He and Fernandez were alone in the command car, a sand-colored Humvee Special. “Automatic transmission, power steering, airconditioning, and you’re worried about staying ahead of the heat? You’re getting soft in your old age, Julio.”
“Perhaps the general would prefer to ride in his horsedrawn carriage next time? I’m sure old Nelly would be more to the general’s liking.”
“Well, at least she wouldn’t complain about the heat.”
“And you could limber up your buggy whip if she did. One of many in your front closet, I am sure.”
Howard smiled. “Okay, let’s hear it again.”
Fernandez shot a quick glance heavenward. “Sir. We’ve got three two-man teams—that is to say, two-person teams—hunkered down watching out there in Cow Skull Gulch. If Ivan sticks his head out the door and we so desire, we can pot him like Davy Crockett barking a squirrel. We’ve got the Big Squint footprint for eight A.M. start-op, and we’ve got a National Guard chopper on standby if we need it—which we won’t—over at Nellis. We’ve got two squads of bored, combatready troops in the transports fore and aft, and we got one broken-down Spetsnaz guy in an Airstream trailer in the middle of nowhere who can’t run and can’t hide.”
Howard nodded. “All right.”
Fernandez caught the edge of his worry. “What, John? You and I could go in and grab this sucker by ourselves—and you could stay in the car. It’s just one guy, no matter how good he might be.”
“Probably what the Germans thought about Sergeant York,” Howard said.
“Jesus. You worry way too much.” Fernandez clicked the AC control down a couple of notches. “Maybe your brain is froze. So how did Tyrone do in the boomerang thing?”
It was not the most artful change of subject he’d ever heard, but probably Julio was right, he ought not to be worrying about this one guy in the desert. Go in with the protocols, hit their marks, and it would be a big anticlimax, they’d drag the guy in and let the headshrinkers go to work on him. “Came in third.”
“Really? That’s pretty good for his first time, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. Beat his personal best, and he was prouder of that than he was the placing.”
“He should be. You’re not so bad a father—for an old guy. I might have a few questions for you once I change my own status in that arena.”
Howard smiled. He could imagine the first time Julio and Joanna’s baby ran an unexpected fever, or spit up something green, or got colic. He’d made a few of those panicky late-night calls to his mother back when Tyrone had been a newborn.
“Something funny, John?”
“Oh, yeah. You at two in the morning with a crying baby. I’m going to have Joanna video it.”
Howard took a deep breath and let it out slowly. This was normal ope
ration jitters, he always got them before the guns went to lock and load. Maybe if he’d been in a real war zone with some battlefield experience under his belt, it would be different. He was sure it must be.
Sunday, April 3rd
Quantico, Virginia
Jay Gridley sat in a motorized wheelchair, staring at two men playing Ping-Pong. His idea of lying around for weeks in a hospital if something happened to you was apparently behind the times. They had guys who’d had heart surgery last night up and walking today, pushing IV poles up and down the halls. Apparently, moving was better than lying still when it came to aftereffects of big problems. Some of them, anyhow.
His parents were on the way to see him. They’d be here this afternoon, and he wasn’t really looking forward to that. They’d be upset and wanting to take care of him, and he . . . he . . . uh . . .
What had he just been thinking?
Another surge of fear washed over him, coating him with another layer of sticky sweat. The physical thing, that was bad, yeah, but they said that would respond to treatment, and in a few weeks, he’d be his old self, could walk, talk, do the funky chicken; but his mind didn’t seem to be working right. He kept running his thoughts together into a big hodgepodge, a slipsum, and then losing them altogether.
That scared the hell out of him. He could interface with VR with a bad arm and leg, hell, with no arms or legs at all, but if his brain didn’t . . . if his brain didn’t . . .
Didn’t what?
He was afraid, and for a moment, he didn’t even know why he was afraid, but then it came back. His mind. His brain. His thoughts weren’t tracking. It was like trying to do calculus as you were falling asleep. You couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t keep the train on the track, couldn’t . . . couldn’t hold on to it!
He had to get to a VR set and get on-line. He had to see if he could still do the most important thing in all the world. It wasn’t just his job, it was his life. He couldn’t imagine himself without being able to access computers.
He flagged one of the nurses passing through the rec room. He didn’t try to talk, that still scared him, too, but he made the two-handed sign for a VR set: forefingers over his eyes, thumbs over his ears.
She nodded. “Sure. Just down that way and to the left. Come on, I’ll take you.”
He waved her off, then used his good hand to operate the wheelchair’s joystick. He would find the computer himself. Plug in, and see what he could do.
If he could do anything at all.
Sunday, April 3rd
The Yews, Sussex, England
Major Peel leaned back in the chair in front of his desk in an office provided by his lordship in what had once been the groundskeeper’s cottage. Three hundred years or so ago, during the Reformation, the cottage-cumoffice had been built—as a Catholic church. In those days, with the Church of England cranking up to full steam, it was worth your neck to be caught practicing Catholicism in some parts of the country, so the faithful rich built small sanctuaries behind their manors and secretly gathered with a select few to worship. As long as they were circumspect about it, and as long as the lord of the manor was sufficiently wealthy and well thought of, local officials turned a blind eye to the practice.
The fact that the king wanted a divorce was no reason to give up generations of cherished belief and ritual, snap, just like that.
The window over Peel’s desk wasn’t stained glass, but it had that triple-hump Father-Son-Holy-Ghost shape inset into the mortared stone, and the desk itself sat upon the spot where once had been an altar.
Peel looked at the computer screen, watching the video, and listened to the report from Lieutenant Wilson, one of his best men. Wilson led the team they had covering Bascomb-Coombs.
“You’re certain he doesn’t know he’s being observed?”
“Certain, sir. He might be smarter than an auditorium full of dons at Oxford, but he doesn’t track very well in the real world. We’ve stayed away from fiddling with his computer hardware and programs—he does have those rigged with safeguards we don’t want to try—but we’ve got spycams planted all over his house and office. There are units in the ceiling over his workstations in his lab and at his home that zero on his keyboard and monitor. He can have the best security in the world in the system, but all we have to do is watch him type or listen to him vox his codes in. And we’ve also got recordings of everything he sees on-screen.”
“And this business with the airports is untraceable?”
“Yes, sir. Everything this chap does on-line is untraceable. He’s rigged some way to overload a virtual reality headset—we don’t have a clue how he did that—and he’s put several snoopers into the hospital with some kind of stroke.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir. There is one small worry we’ve come across. It seems that MI-6 has contacted the head of the FBI’s computer crime unit, Net Force. He’s here in London, working with them.”
“Already? That was fast.”
“Apparently he was in town, attending a conference or some such.”
“Hmm. That bears watching. Keep me posted.”
“Sir.”
“Anything else?”
“Nothing concerned with the project. But there’s a small item you might find interesting. You remember Plekhanov?”
“The Russian who was going to take over Asia? Of course.” They’d had a nice piece of change doing a little training for one of Plekhanov’s groups.
“After his capture, there were a few loose ends,” Wilson continued. “The most notable of which was the Spetsnaz wetwork agent, Ruzhyó.”
“Ah, yes. Nasty piece of work, that one. Got away, did he?”
“Apparently only temporarily, according to what Bascomb-Coombs has learned. It seems they are about to collect Mr. Ruzhyó somewhere out in the American West.”
“Too bad for him.”
“Just thought you’d find it interesting, sir.”
“Yes, well, keep me up to speed on new findings.”
After he clicked off, Peel looked up at the old window. Interesting developments in all this business. While it was not the regiment, it did have its moments. Indeed it did.
Sunday, April 3rd
Stonewall Flat, Nevada
“All set?”
“Yes, sir,” Fernandez said. “Sniper teams in place, ground troops to their positions. The place is surrounded, and the Strike Team is making dust for the trailer now. Off-road, in case he’s got it mined.” Fernandez grinned to show he wasn’t serious about that part.
The two men stood in their modified SIPEsuits next to the Hummer, parked half a mile back on the main road—the only road—leading to Ruzhyó’s Airstream. Howard had his visor up and used his silicone-armored field-grade ten-power Leupold binoculars, sweeping back and forth slowly, looking at the target. “No sign of him. He must not be an early riser.”
“His problem,” Fernandez said. “Our boys’ll be there in a minute, a few flash-bangs, some emetic gas, and Mr. Assassin wakes up half-blind, puking last night’s dinner, and in deep feces. You should have let me lead the team, no point in both of us missing all the fun.”
“You’re about to be a married man with a child, Julio, and if you think I’m going to explain something happening to you to Joanna, forget it. Better get used to sitting at a desk.”
“That’ll be the day.”
“Sooner than you think, Sergeant.”
He looked at the trailer. So far, so good.
Ruzhyó was already awake when he heard the sound of the approaching vehicle. He came up, strapped on the belt with the extra shotgun shells, then picked up the shotgun and slung it over his shoulder by the nylon strap. He collected the pistol and the radio control unit, then walked to the window over the sink. He set the Browning down, hooked the control to his belt, and looked out.
A squat, squarish, dun-colored truck rolled toward the trailer at a good speed, coming up the slight rise ten meters to the left of the driveway, paralleli
ng it. A cloud of pale dust billowed behind the truck.
A military assault? With the driver staying off the road to avoid mines? Smart. If they were military, they’d probably be wearing light armor, so his guns weren’t going to do him much good unless he was very precise with his shooting. Something to keep in mind.
He took a couple of deep breaths and let them out, found a glass and ran a little water into it, rinsed his mouth, then spat into the sink. He put the glass down, stuck the pistol into his belt, and walked to the door.
Guests had come to call, and it was time to put out the welcome mat.
He pulled the radio control unit from his belt. There were four buttons on the device, each of which controlled a signal made stronger by a booster hidden in the satellite dish installed on top of the trailer.
He sighed and pushed the first button.
“What the hell is that?” Howard said.
A circular wall of gray appeared from the ground around the trailer, roiling up into the still-cool morning air. The dark gray cloud obscured the trailer in a matter of seconds.
“He’s got smoke,” Fernandez said unnecessarily into the LOSIR headset built into his helmet. “Slow it down.”
The leader of the Strike Team said, “No shit.”
Howard was aware of the exchange in his own headset, but he was dropping his visor and switching his helmet’s viewer to IR.
Not much help; whatever was making the smoke was also making some heat, and he couldn’t see through it.
He called up the feed from Big Squint’s footprint, but the computer-augmented satellite image didn’t show anything inside the ring of smoke, save the trailer.
“He’s still inside,” Howard said. “So far. Proceed with caution.”
