by Scott McEwen
Walton looked up, taking a silenced Walther PPK pistol from inside his white doctor’s smock and tossing the chart onto the foot of the bed. “Where’s the key?” he asked in his deep voice.
Pope was immediately puzzled. “What key?”
“The key Shannon took from Miller aboard the Palinouros.”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Pope said. “Shannon hasn’t mentioned any key.”
“I searched Miller’s body myself, along with his cabin. Don’t play with me. Shannon has the fucking key.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Pope said, “but he hasn’t mentioned it to me.”
Walton held the pistol level. “Where is he?”
Pope pointed at the laptop sitting on the adjustable table angled across his bed. “That’s him moving through the woods.”
Walton stepped around to see the screen more clearly. “Where the hell is that?”
“Somewhere in the Caucasus.”
Walton cocked a suspicious eyebrow. “You mean he’s still chasing Kovalenko?”
Pope shrugged. “He’s a very willful boy. I thought you were headed for Cuba.”
“I know you did.” Walton smirked. “That’s why I’m here. Also, Senator Grieves needed to be dealt with.”
“You’ve already paid him a visit?”
“Yeah.” Walton gestured at the red telephone on the table beside the computer. “Nobody’s called you on the bat phone yet to tell you about it?”
Pope shook his head.
“Maybe it’s because they suspect you had something to do with it.”
“I’m sure somebody does.” Pope’s gaze was set. “If they didn’t, I wouldn’t be doing my job correctly.”
Walton took an empty 100 cc syringe from the pocket of his smock and set it down on the table, with the shiny needle pointing right at Pope. “I want you to inject all that air into your IV line.”
Pope looked at the syringe. “And if I don’t?”
Walton put the muzzle of the silencer against the side of Pope’s head. “Then your brains go all over the wall. Now stop stalling.”
Pope reached for the syringe, and Walton took a step back.
“I can’t reach the line very well.”
Walton stepped around and used his foot to push the IV stand closer to the bed. “Get this heart attack on the road, Bob. You’re not stalling your way out of this.”
“Did you kill Steiner?” Pope asked, reaching to pull the IV stand closer. “I ask because—”
Walton jammed the muzzle of the silencer back up against Pope’s head, saying through gritted teeth, “Do it now, asshole!”
Pope fumbled with the line for a moment. Then he made a sudden grab for the weapon, snatching the muzzle away from his head before Walton could squeeze the trigger.
“Help!” he screamed at the top of his voice, holding onto the gun with both hands, his thumb over the hammer.
Walton twisted the weapon free and shot Pope in the chest as two Secret Service agents burst into to the room. He had time to fire once and miss before they shot him down. He collapsed to the floor between the wall and the bed.
Pope lay back holding his chest. “Goddamn, he got in the same lung.” Then he leaned over the rail and vomited onto Walton’s legs. “Hey. He’s still alive over here.”
One of agents came around the bed and kicked Walton’s gun across the room.
“Finish him,” Pope said. “Finish him before someone comes in.”
“I can’t do that, Mr. Pope. He’s down and disarmed.”
Walton looked up at Pope, holding his shoulder and grinning. “Fuck you, Bobby. By the time I get done testifying to Congress, there won’t be anything—”
Pope shot him in the forehead with a Glock 26 taken from beneath his blanket.
He looked at the stunned Secret Service agents and put the pistol on the table. Then he sat back and closed his eyes. “Sweet Jesus, if this doesn’t hurt worse than it did the first time.”
The agents stood looking at each other. “What do we do?” one of them whispered.
“I suggest putting that gun back in his hand,” Pope said quietly. “You two are in enough trouble already for letting him get past you.” He opened his eyes. “I can make that trouble go away—or not. It’s your call.”
One of the agents retrieved the Walther and dropped it into Walton’s lap. Ten seconds later, a pair of hospital cops appeared in the doorway, weapons drawn.
“All clear in here!” said the agent. “Director Pope needs a surgeon! He’s been shot!”
70
HAVANA,
Cuba
Crosswhite was still at the house of Duardo’s sister-in-law. Agent Mariana Mederos had arrived a half hour earlier, and she stood outside the back bedroom, where Crosswhite sat on the edge of the bed talking with Paolina. His leg wound had been sutured by a doctor that Ernesto had contacted on his behalf, and the pain was being controlled by large doses of ibuprofen and oxycodone. The police had bought Duardo’s and Paolina’s story the night before without bothering to do much of an investigation, and the bodies were removed without a single photograph being taken. In the eyes of the law, it had been a whorehouse brawl that got out of hand, and no one really seemed to care too much about it. The police sergeant told them they’d look for the guy who got away, but everyone knew it was lip service.
“Will you come back?” Paolina asked.
Crosswhite touched her face and kissed her hair. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“For you or for me?” She was on the verge of tears.
“For you.”
“That’s my decision,” she said. “Do you want to come back or not?”
“Of course I do.”
She put her hand on his. “Then I want you to.”
“I do bad things, Paolina.”
“To bad people,” she said. “And someone has to, no?”
He sat staring at her soft brown eyes, feeling his throat tighten. “That’s what I tell myself, but I don’t always believe it anymore.”
She kissed him. “Come back, Daniel.”
“Okay,” he croaked. He cleared his throat. “Mariana, come in here.”
Mariana stepped into the room and smiled noncommittally at Paolina.
“Got any money?” he asked her in English.
Paolina understood the word money. She touched his arm and shook her head. “I don’t want you to pay me.”
Crosswhite ignored her. “Got any money? Real money?”
Mariana let out a sigh and unshouldered her daypack. “How much is she charging you?”
“Cut the fuckin’ attitude, and just gimme some money.”
She reached into the bag and handed him a zippered leather pouch.
Crosswhite unzipped it and peeled off five thousand dollars’ worth of Ben Franklins.
Paolina’s eyes grew huge, and she moved away from him on the bed, shaking her head as the tears began to fall. “No lo quiero.” I don’t want it.
“If something happens to me, I want you well—”
“No lo quiero!”
Crosswhite looked at Mariana. “You’re a girl. Help me out here.”
Mariana stood chewing the inside of her lip, debating whether or not to get involved in this Shakespearean tragedy. “It’s way too much money. She thinks it’s a payoff—that you’re never coming back.”
Crosswhite took Paolina’s hand and folded the money into it. “I’m coming back,” he told her in Spanish. “I swear it. If I don’t, it’s because I’m dead.”
She hugged him and began to cry, and Mariana left the room.
Paolina’s mother was in the salon with four small children, her husband and sister having gone to work.
“You’re with the CIA too?” Olivia asked.
Mariana nodded. “I’m not really supposed to tell you that.”
Olivia smiled. “You’re very uncomfortable here, no?”
“Dan shouldn’t have brought this trouble into your lives,” Mariana said. “Your daughter thinks she’s in love with him.” She shook her head. “It’s not my business, but you should discourage her.”
“We are all in the hands of God,” Olivia said. “God brought them together, and only He can take them apart.”
Mariana glanced at the crucifix on the wall. She wasn’t about to debate a Roman Catholic. “As I said, señora, it’s not my business.”
Crosswhite came into the room, fastening his belt. “You did a good job with the pants,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you knew my size.”
“Are you ready to go? The cab is waiting.”
Crosswhite stepped over to Olivia, offering his hand. “Señora, I’m indebted to your family. Thank you for not turning me over to the police.”
Olivia held onto his hand. “Take care of yourself.”
He looked at the toddlers playing on the floor. “Which is Paolina’s?”
She indicated the little girl with the darkest skin, and Crosswhite touched the child on the head. “Let’s go,” he said to Mariana.
They got into the cab, and Mariana put on a pair of Ray-Bans. “So are you planning to get this one killed, too?”
Crosswhite was immediately angered—even with the narcotic in his system—but he kept his composure. “Be glad you’re a woman, Mariana. I’ve knocked a man’s teeth out for a fuck of a lot less.”
She ignored his threat, entirely unintimidated by him. “What’s next?”
“Do you have a room at my hotel?”
“Right next to yours, actually.”
“Were you spotted at the airport?”
“No one knew I was coming.”
“That’s not what the fuck I asked you.”
She took off her glasses and looked at him. “Quit talking to me like that, goddamnit!”
“Then lose the self-righteous fucking attitude! We’re on the goddamn job here! If you don’t get your fucking head in the game, you’re gonna get yourself killed—which I don’t particularly give a shit about—but you might get me killed along with you, and that I do give a shit about!”
The cabbie looked in the mirror. “Everything okay?” he asked in Spanish.
“We’re just arguing,” Crosswhite said, lowering his voice. “Nobody’s gonna get hurt.”
The cabbie seemed to accept that and kept driving.
Mariana put her glasses back on and looked out the window. “You should know this is a command performance for me. I don’t want to be here.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Pope ordered me. I guess there are only so many people in the agency he feels he can trust right now.”
Crosswhite grunted. “It’s not like him to make such a gross error in judgment.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“You know what?” he said, lighting a cigarette. “You’re done here. I don’t care if you get back on a plane or hang out at the pool, but you and I are done. You’re useless to me.”
She looked at him, realizing she’d pushed him too far. He had enough influence with Pope to hurt her career. “Why didn’t you tell me what you were going to do to Hagen?”
“Is that was this shit is about? You’re still pissed about Hagen?”
“You made me a party to murder,” she hissed. “That’s not why I’m in the CIA!”
Crosswhite didn’t have the patience to get into it with her. “Take it up with Pope when you get back to Langley.”
“I already did that.”
“And?”
“And he said tough shit.”
“Then you’d better get used to it. This is the world we work in. If you had any brains, you’d realize you’re a member of a club now—a very exclusive club. There aren’t too many women who can say that.”
She looked out the window. “I can’t sleep. I’m having nightmares.”
“They’ll go away,” he said quietly. “The important thing to focus on is purpose. What we do is not random; it’s not arbitrary. There are very definite reasons for it.”
She looked at him. “These men should be put on trial. Pope is having them killed out of vengeance.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
“What’s the other way?”
“Pope sees the future. And in it, there are bad guys with nukes. So he’s adopted a zero-tolerance policy.”
“I heard what you said to Paolina. You don’t even believe that yourself anymore.”
He took a deep drag from the cigarette. “I’ve got a lotta blood on my hands, Mariana. A little doubt here and there is what keeps me human.”
They arrived at the hotel and went up to their rooms, pausing in the hall outside their doors.
“Just hang here at the hotel until mission complete,” he said. “We’ll keep the argument between us. Pope doesn’t need to know.” He winked at her. “What happens in Havana and all that shit.”
Mariana keyed into her room and closed the door. She stepped into the bathroom, reaching for the light switch, and was slugged in the stomach harder than she had ever been hit in her life. She grabbed her middle and collapsed to her knees, trying to scream, but there wasn’t so much as a breath of air left in her lungs.
Someone grabbed her from behind, pressing a strip of duct tape over her mouth and shoving her forward onto the floor. Her hands were quickly bound with a nylon tie-down, and two Cuban men carried her into the other room, tossing her onto the bed. One of them jerked her pants and panties down inside out past her ankles, tying the pant legs in a knot and effectively binding her feet.
Mariana’s pain was matched only by her terror. She tried to sob, but the wind was still knocked out of her, and she was having a great deal of trouble breathing through her nose.
“One fucking sound,” the man said in English, “and I’ll break your fucking neck!”
“I’ll call Peterson,” said the smaller of the two, taking a cellular from his back pocket.
71
THE CAUCASUS
When Gil came across the ruptured bodies of Anzor Basayev and the other two security men, he recognized Basayev’s face from the mission dossier he’d been shown in Moscow, making a mental note to tell someone back in the world that at least one high-priority target had been taken out. A short time later, he picked up what he hoped was Kovalenko’s trail, and it didn’t take long to determine that he was tracking two men. He stopped to study the separate boot prints, seeing that one of the men had cut a notch into the heel of his left boot, and this was all Gil needed to confirm that the Wolf was still alive. Many soldiers who spent a lot of time operating alone—such as snipers—chose to notch the soles of their boots to help guard against walking in circles or tracking themselves. Gil had never employed the technique himself, thinking he could always notch his boot if and when the circumstances called for it. Otherwise the notch might end up being used to track him, the way he was using it to track Kovalenko now.
With the sun nearing its apex, he moved out.
The bolt-action TAC-338 was slung across his back. Chambered in .338 Lapua Magnum, it was a far superior weapon to the semiauto Dragunov SVD, and the scope was far superior as well: a Nightforce 8-32 x 56 mm. For the first time since mission start, he felt like he was adequately equipped, which was ironic, considering his physical condition. His belly wounds were festering but not particularly painful. The shrapnel wounds from the grenade, however, were hurting like hell and suppurated constantly, making it so that his left sleeve and trouser legs clung annoyingly to his skin.
He estimated that, if need be, he could function in this condition for perhaps another thirty-six hours with the help of
the dextroamphetamines. By that time, he would be robbing Peter to pay Paul for each additional hour in the field, growing steadily less effective. Once infection set in and fever took hold, he would have to change his priorities.
Sucking down the last of Dragunov’s water on the move, he discarded the water bladder and dug into Mason’s rucksack for a pair of high-energy bars, wanting to get some food in his belly before reestablishing contact with the enemy. He wondered idly who had arranged for the Obsidian helos, but the answer was obvious. Pope was watching from above. Always Pope—like the omniscient eye of God.
He imagined everyone back in DC throwing a fit the second they realized he was jumping off the helo to go “rogue” again. How he’d come to hate that word. The simple truth was that he loved to fight, and he no longer made any apology for it. His love for combat had already cost him his marriage, so what was left to lose—other than his life? And that was why he’d gotten off the helo—that and because fuck Sasha Kovalenko. Kovalenko liked to fight, too, and he was damn good at it. Gil realized that he liked being well met, and in the last forty-eight hours, he’d come to understand that combat was a lot like the game of chess: the only real way to improve was to compete against someone better than you.
He set a brisk pace down the mountain, wanting to catch Kovalenko before dark. There was a forest camp to the south near the Georgian border. The camp was controlled by an Umarov ally named Ali Abu Mukhammad. Gil had seen it on a map in the mission dossier, and he remembered it was only a few clicks west of the bridge where he and Dragunov had originally planned on hitting Kovalenko. If the man Kovalenko was traveling with was Dokka Umarov, it was almost a sure bet they were headed to Mukhammad’s camp.
The titanium implant in his foot began to give him trouble after the few hundred yards of the downhill grind, so Gil slowed his pace. If the foot gave out on him, he was finished.
He was down on one knee beside a brook, cupping the ice-cold water to his mouth, when an enemy patrol of perhaps a half dozen happened by on the far side, partially obscured by the dense undergrowth that grew at the lower elevation—two different species of rhododendron that kept their leaves year-round. He waited for the patrol to pass, but then a Chechen emerged from a gap in the thicket to his right, no more than fifteen feet away on the opposite bank. Gil dropped flat to the ground and froze like a lizard.
