by Tom Clancy
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 doppelganger-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 the 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.”
