by Tom Clancy
Now, seeing four unmarked armored personnel carriers heading toward the compound, Elaine knew what she was seeing: the enemy.
“Arthur—” she said, but it was already too late. The four BTR-40s slowed to a stop, and Elaine saw a woman step out of the lead vehicle, pull something out of the back, and point it in their direction. “Turn around, Arthur,” she said. “Turn around now.”
Her husband looked up, his hands starting to shift on the wheel, but at that moment the woman fired.
Nikita’s shot fell short, burrowing into the ground directly in front of the oncoming Jeep and opening up a crater before it. But that was all right, Gregor thought. The effect was the same. The Jeep slammed into the sudden hole in the ground, driving its grill into the far wall of the crater and throwing someone out of the passenger’s side.
Putting his own vehicle in gear, he motioned for Nikki to get back in. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s finish this and get going.”
At first, Elaine couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t even remember what it was that had happened. All she knew was she was lying down, looking up at a sky that seemed too blue, too peaceful, to belong to anywhere on earth. And then it all came rushing back to her—the enemy carriers, the woman, the rocket exploding in front of them, Arthur ...
“Arthur,” she said. She moved, then, rolling onto her side, and that’s when the pain hit her, a great, white wall of agony that started somewhere down around her toes and ended just past her hairline. She knew then that something was terribly wrong with her, that either the blast itself or her landing on the hard, frozen ground had damaged her beyond any repair, but none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was Arthur.
Ignoring the pain, she forced herself onto her hands and knees and began crawling back toward the crumpled wreck.
Arthur was there. His seat belt had kept him from being thrown from the Jeep, but it hadn’t done him any favors. As she got closer she could see that the steering column had been driven backward into his chest. He was pinned against his seat, and he was not moving.
“Arthur,” she said, her voice somewhere between a cry and a prayer. “Arthur ...”
She made it to his side, crawling through the open doorway and curling up against his motionless body. She knew he was dead. He wasn’t breathing, his wounds had stopped pumping blood, and she knew there was no hope for either of them.
“Oh, Arthur,” she said. Reaching out, she closed his eyes gently and then, fighting the pain that threatened to overwhelm her, she leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. “Sleep well, my darling,” she whispered, and let her head fall against his shoulder one last time.
Gregor approached the broken American Jeep slowly, his Beretta in his hand. He was sure there was no one still alive within it, or at least no one who could be a serious threat, but still it paid to be cautious—especially since it was so difficult to see through the starred and bloody glass remaining in the windshield.
Coming around the side, he looked through the passenger door and took in the scene before him. The man was dead, that much was obvious. The woman, though. She’d been thrown from the Jeep, and had made her way back. She could still be alive.
He raised his Beretta, but before he could fire she turned her head, slowly, obviously in great pain, and looked him in the eye.
“Why?” she said, her voice shattered as badly as the Jeep. “We’re here to help, not to harm. Why kill us?”
Gregor shrugged. “Orders,” he said, in English. And then he fired. The bullet caught her high up in the forehead, snapping her head back against her husband’s shoulder. She slumped forward, falling away from the man she obviously loved so much.
Gregor paused for a moment, then reached out and pushed her back into position, laying her head gently against her husband’s shoulder. Then he turned, got back into his BTR-40, and headed for the American compound.
FORTY-ONE
NEW YORK CITY FEBRUARY 9, 2000
AS HE WALKED UP TO THE DESK SERGEANT AT ONE Police Plaza, Roger Gordian was on edge, uncomfortable.
Part of it, he knew, was the tour of Times Square he’d just taken. The site of the bombing was haunting, filled with reminders of the tragic cost it had exacted. As awful as it had looked on CNN, nothing had prepared him for the emotional impact of being there and seeing it in person.
It wasn’t really the scope of the destruction that caught him off guard. It was the small details that brought the tragedy down to a personal level. A bloodied teddy bear with a bedraggled pink ribbon, much the worse for a month’s exposure to New York’s dirt and weather, had been trapped beneath the wreckage of a sign. He could only hope that the bear’s owner was alive somewhere, free enough of pain and worry to be able to mourn the loss of her toy.
Yes, Times Square had shaken him. And he’d already made plans to help rebuild it. But that wasn’t, he knew, the only reason he felt uneasy. He was all too aware of the risks he was about to take, and the explosive nature of what he was carrying in the pocket of his overcoat.
He walked up to the desk sergeant.
“Commissioner Harrison, please. I have an appointment.”
When his secretary buzzed to tell him Gordian had arrived, Bill Harrison put down the pile of reports he’d been combing for details, pulled off his reading glasses, and rubbed his eyes.
“Give me a minute, then bring him in,” he told her.
He hadn’t slept well since his wife’s death. The department shrink had told him that it was to be expected, but knowing that his emotions were predictable didn’t make them any less painful. Nor did it help him deal with the nightmares. Or the loneliness.
He’d given up sleeping in his bed. The memories of Rosie were overpowering there. He was unable to function when he walked into their room. All her clothes, the smell of her perfume—he’d just grabbed what he needed and put it in the guest room. But even that didn’t help much. Every time he closed his eyes to sleep, he’d dream. In those dreams, he’d replay that night over and over again. And wake up screaming in terror.
Worst of all were the dreams where he saved her, where he got them all out, only to wake up and have to face that terrible truth all over again.
Rosie was gone.
He’d taken to sleeping in an easy chair in the living room. It was so uncomfortable that he never really went completely under. It helped with the dreams, but it wasn’t doing his concentration any good.
And he needed every scrap of concentration he could muster if he planned to solve this thing.
He ran his hands over his face, across his hair, and straightened his tie. Distraction, he told himself. That’s the key to surviving this. Think about something else.
He wondered what the big man wanted with him.
It was a long way from the mean streets of Manhattan to California. Especially the California somebody like Gordian lived in.
Hell, his co-op apartment would probably fit in Gordian’s garage with room left over to park an RV.
So why had Gordian’s secretary called and arranged a private meeting? Police business? It seemed unlikely.
Well, he’d find out soon enough. His curiosity—that endless nosiness that had driven him into police work in the first place—was the only emotion he had that was unaffected by the tragedy.
As the door opened and a man he’d seen on countless magazines and news broadcasts walked in, Harrison stood to greet him. If the grim look on Gordian’s face was anything to go by, this wasn’t a rich man’s idle whim. Gordian walked in quietly and set his coat on the couch, then turned to the police commissioner.
The two men shook hands and introduced themselves.
Formalities completed, the men sat down facing each other and exchanged small talk. Bars of morning light slanted in through the minimalist venetian blinds, giving a strange cast to a stranger meeting. Gordian was no more at ease than he was. Apparently they both felt the awkwardness—Harrison finally decided to cut through the chitchat and go straight
to the heart of the matter.
“You flew six hours to see a man you’ve never met. Me. Your secretary tells me that you’re planning to fly back to San Francisco tonight. I think we can assume you didn’t come here to discuss the weather. Why don’t you tell me why you’re here?”
The moment of truth. Harrison could see it in Gordian’s face.
“It is,” Gordian said, “a very long story.” He paused. “And it may not have a happy ending.” He pulled a thick, rather lumpy envelope from the pocket of his overcoat, which he’d chosen to bring in with him rather than give to the secretary to hang in the coat closet. Odd behavior for a man like Gordian, Harrison had thought. Gordian probably had servants underfoot around the clock at his home. Gordian balanced the envelope in his hands and looked down at it as if he expected it to explode. Then he seemed to recall where he was, and looked up at Harrison. Harrison sat quietly, ready to listen.
“I don’t know if you are aware of this,” Gordian said, “but I spent time as a prisoner of war. I was shot down over ’Nam, and became a guest of the Hanoi Hilton.”
“It’s common knowledge,” Harrison confirmed, totally at a loss to guess where this was leading. What in the world was going on here?
“I came back from that experience a changed man. I wanted to challenge the world, open it up, make sure that nothing like that ever happened again if it was in my power to prevent it.” He paused, looked at the police commissioner. “I have people in my employ all over the globe. They’re working for the greater good of all of us, far from home and vulnerable to the political tides of their host countries. I put them there. I’m responsible for them.”
“I can understand that,” Harrison said. “I send thousands of men in blue uniforms out into harm’s way every day.”
“Then you can understand that there is very little that I won’t do to protect my people.”
“Exactly where do you draw the line? Where do you stop when it’s important to you?” Harrison was beginning to get an inkling, finally, of what this was about.
“It depends—certainly, where law-abiding citizens are concerned, we follow the letter and spirit of the law of the land. Always. I’m proud of my company. But where criminals and terrorists are concerned, shall we just say there are gray areas in my corporate security measures, and leave it at that?” Gordian tapped the envelope against his leg. It rasped a little across the fine British wool of his suit. The tiny noise was loud in the quiet office.
“I’ll make it a point not to inquire too closely into your methods unless I have to.” Harrison, like Gordian, stared at the envelope.
“The Times Square incident was a terrible tragedy,” Gordian said. “I was watching on television when it happened. It reminded me far too much of my days in Vietnam. If I haven’t mentioned it, you have my deepest sympathies.”
Harrison took a deep breath. He could tell Gordian knew what he was feeling now, knew it all the way to the gut from hard experience. Gordian had been there. He’d survived it. Harrison swallowed hard. “Thanks. That means a lot, coming from you.”
“I don’t like terrorists.” Gordian tightened his jaw. “And when they threaten my people, I refuse to sit still, wring my hands, and watch. Some of my employees had family in that crowd.”
“So did I,” Harrison said softly. “So did I ...”
“I’m sorry—I wasn’t thinking ...” Gordian looked appalled, clearly realizing what he’d just said.
“It’s okay. I spend every day going through pictures of the crime scene, looking at the evidence from my men, from the FBI and the ATF, trying to see a pattern, see who did this. Believe me, the reminders are everywhere I turn. I’m going to find out who did this to my wife and my city. I’ve got 400 guys working on nothing but this twenty-four hours a day. We’ll get to the bottom of it if I have to dig the pit myself. We have to. For the city. For the mayor. And for my wife. It’s what’s keeping me going.” Harrison gave Gordian a long, level look. “I’d be willing to deal with the devil himself for a shot at the evidence to break this case.”
Gordian held out the envelope. Hands trembling, Harrison took it. He didn’t open it.
“I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t know what was in there,” Gordian said. “Nor will I say that we went through strictly legal channels to get it. We took some shortcuts.”
Harrison didn’t ask. There were some things a man preferred not to know. “I’ll assume you covered your tracks. ”
“Maybe not—I’ll deal with that problem if we get to it. Everything that we’ve been able to find out is in that envelope, along with the supporting evidence, if we’ve got it. If you’d like me to keep you updated from our end, I will. If you find it in your heart to do it, I’d like you, as far as you’re able under the law, to return the favor.”
“Thank you.” Harrison looked down at the envelope, now in his hands. “I’ll keep your name out of it if I can.” He looked back at Gordian, clearly gathering his things to leave now that his mission was accomplished. “I have one question. Why me? You don’t even know me.”
“It seemed to me that you had the greatest right to it. Use it well.” With that, Gordian shook Harrison’s hand, a warm, firm grip that somehow conveyed sympathy, confidence, and comfort without saying a word. Then he left, as quietly as he had come in. It seemed, Harrison thought, he was so bowled over by the encounter with this man he was unable to move, that Gordian’s reputation, considerable though it was, didn’t do him justice. It had taken balls to do what he had just done; balls, and a finely developed conscience, whatever the man said about gray areas.
He shook his head a little to clear it.
Tearing the envelope open, he poured the contents across his desk.
“Jesus!”
Names, photos, times, points of entry and exit, transcripts of conversations, audio cassettes, video cassettes—they were all there.
He shuffled them around, read snatches. He popped the VCR tape into his machine and watched for a second. His jaw dropped. Then he realized what the two people making out in that tape were saying.
Jesus!
He ran to his office door.
“Jackie,” he yelled, “get me the heads of the Times Square special squad, and get them in here right now. Call the D.A.—we’re gonna need some subpoenas. And call the FBI.”
He turned his attention back to the TV, now officially X-rated.
He was looking at the faces of his wife’s murderers.
It was time to take action.
Security had tightened at the Platinum Club. The number of guards had tripled, and new video cameras hung down from the ceiling beneath understated black plastic bubbles.
Boris smiled to himself as he surveyed the arrangements. Boris wasn’t his real name, but it was the name he was using for this assignment. He couldn’t help thinking that Nick’s effort to increase his security after the break-in was too much like that old American saying—what was it again? Ah, yes: locking the barn doors after the cows had gone.
Too little, too late. That was another American saying, and one that was just as true.
Feeling the weight of the silenced SIG Sauer P229 riding comfortably beneath the jacket of his stolen UPS uniform, he shifted the oversized bubblepak envelope resting on his electronic clipboard and started up the stairs leading to Nick’s private offices.
Two big, burly bodyguards, one with a close-trimmed beard, the other clean shaven, met him at the top of the stairs, cutting him off before he could do more than look around. Right on time, Boris thought.
“I’ll sign for that,” one of them said.
Boris glanced up. There was one of those opaque plastic bubbles up here, too, hanging down from the ceiling at the far end of the plush, carpeted hallway. He wasn’t surprised, though. From what he’d heard about the man, he knew that Nick Roma liked to record everything.
“No problem,” he said, handing the oversized envelope to the bodyguard on his left, the one without the beard, and hold
ing the clipboard out to the one on his right. As that bodyguard reached for the clipboard, Boris pressed a button built into its bottom, triggering its concealed taser and also setting off the small flash unit buried in the envelope.
The taser hit the bodyguard with the beard, burying its tiny dart lead into the soft flesh directly beneath the neatly trimmed black beard. Beside him, the other bodyguard had started to scream as the flames from the suddenly burning package ate at his hands.
Boris was already moving. Drawing his 9mm, he put two quick, subsonic bullets into each bodyguard, and then raced forward toward the door that led into Nick’s private office.
He knew his target was inside. He also knew that the door would be unlocked—Nick relied too much on fallible humans for his personal safety—and that the warning from his security force would come too late.
Nick Roma looked up as the door of his office swung softly open to reveal a man in a familiar brown uniform.
“A package? Who’s it from?” he asked, even as it dawned on him that his personal bodyguards weren’t flanking the UPS man as they should have been. He started to reach for the gun he kept in a drawer in his desk, but his hand didn’t make it that far.
“Our mutual friend, Yuri Vostov, sends his regards,” said the man in the brown UPS outfit.
Nick Roma’s eyes widened in surprise and sudden understanding—an understanding that came too late.
“Wait—”
But Boris didn’t wait. He put two shots directly into Nick’s head, the first right between the eyes, the second—a difficult shot with the head still moving from the first impact—slightly higher. Unscrewing the hot, spent silencer from the barrel of his pistol, he screwed a new one in place, slipped in a new clip, and turned toward the fire exit. He paused only once on his way out, to toss a quick smile and a jaunty wave at the mirror, and then he fled the office.
