by Tom Clancy
“I’m fine. It was a little exciting there for a while—and we have some people down, but everything’s under control now.”
“One of them—somebody killed him, and—”
“I know. He was pointing a weapon at you, and that’s why he got himself killed.” Chavez reminded himself that he owed Sergeant Tomlinson a beer for that bit of shooting—in fact, he owed him a lot more than that, but in the community of warriors, this was how such debts were paid. But for now, just holding Patsy in his arms was as far as his thinking went. Tears welled up in his eyes. Ding blinked them away. That wasn’t part of his machismo self-image. He wondered what damage this day’s events might have had on his wife. She was a healer, not a killer, and yet she’d seen traumatic death so close at hand. Those IRA bastards! he thought. They’d invaded his life, and attacked noncombatants, and killed some of his team members. Somebody had fed them information on how to do it. Somewhere there was an information leak, a bad one, and finding it would be their first priority.
“How’s the little guy?” Chavez asked his wife.
“Feels okay, Ding. Really. I’m okay,” Patsy assured him.
“Okay, baby, I have to go do some things now. You’re going home.” He pointed to an SAS trooper and waved him over. “Take her back to the base, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied. Together they walked her to the parking lot. Sandy Clark was there with John, also hugging and holding hands, and the smart move seemed to be to take them both to John’s quarters. An officer from the SAS volunteered, as did a sergeant to ride shotgun, which in this case was not a rhetorical phrase. As usual, once the horse had escaped from the barn, the door would be locked and guarded. But that was a universal human tendency, and in another minute both women were being driven off, a police escort with them as well.
“Where to, Mr. C?” Chavez asked.
“Our friends were taken to the base hospital. Paul is there already. He wants to interview Grady—the leader—when he comes out of surgery. I think we want to be there for that.”
“Roger that, John. Let’s get moving.”
Popov was most of the way back to London, listening to his car radio. Whoever was briefing the media knew and talked too much. Then he heard that the leader of the IRA raiders had been captured, and Dmitriy’s blood turned to ice. If they had Grady, then they had the man who knew who he was, knew his cover name, knew about the money transfer, knew too damned much. It wasn’t time for panic, but it was damned sure time for action.
Popov checked his watch. The banks were still open. He lifted his cell phone and called Bern. In a minute, he had the correct bank officer on the line and gave him the account number, which the officer called up on his computer. Then Popov gave him the transaction code, and ordered the funds transferred into another account. The officer didn’t even express his disappointment that so much money was being removed. Well, the bank had plenty of deposits, didn’t it? The Russian was now richer by over five million dollars, but poorer in that the enemy might soon have his cover name and physical description. Popov had to get out of the country. He took the exit to Heathrow and ended up at Terminal Four. Ten minutes later, having returned his rental car, he went in and got the last first-class ticket on a British Airways flight to Chicago. He had to hurry to catch the flight, but made it aboard, where a pretty stewardess conveyed him to his seat, and soon thereafter the 747 left the gate.
“That was quite a mess,” John Brightling observed, muting the TV in his office. Hereford would lead every TV newscast in the world.
“They were unlucky,” Henriksen replied. “But those commandos are pretty good, and if you give them a break, they’ll use it. What the hell, four or five of them went down. Nobody’s ever pulled that off against a force like this one.”
Brightling knew that Bill’s heart was divided on the mission. He had to have at least some sympathy with the people he’d helped to attack. “Fallout?”
“Well, if they got the leader alive, they’re going to sweat him, but these IRA guys don’t sing. I mean, they never sing. The only pipeline they could possibly have to us is Dmitriy, and he’s a pro. He’s moving right now, probably on an airplane to somewhere if I know him. He’s got all sorts of false travel documents, credit cards, IDs. So, he’s probably safe. John, the KGB knew how to train its people, trust me.”
“If they should get him, would he talk?” Brightling asked.
“That’s a risk. Yes, he might well spill his guts,” Henriksen had to admit. “If he gets back, I’ll debrief him on the hazards involved. . . .”
“Would it be a good idea to . . . well . . . eliminate him?”
The question embarrassed his boss, Henriksen saw, as he prepared a careful and honest answer: “Strictly speaking, yes, but there are dangers in that, John. He’s a pro. He probably has a mailbox somewhere.” Seeing Brightling’s confusion, he explained, “You guard against the possibility of being killed by writing everything down and putting it in a safe place. If you don’t access the box every month or so, the information inside gets distributed according to a prearranged plan. You have a lawyer do that for you. That is a big risk to us, okay? Dead or alive, he can burn us, and in this case, it’s more dangerous if he’s dead.” Henriksen paused. “No, we want him alive—and under our control, John.”
“Okay, you handle it, Bill.” Brightling leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. They were too close now to run unnecessary risks. Okay, the Russian would be handled, put under wraps. It might even save Popov’s life—hell, he thought, it would save his life, wouldn’t it? He hoped that the Russian would be properly appreciative. Brightling had to be properly appreciative, too. This Rainbow bunch was crippled now, or at least badly hurt. It had to be. Popov had fulfilled two missions, he’d helped raise the world’s consciousness about terrorism, and thus gotten Global Security its contract with the Sydney Olympics, and then he’d helped sting this new counterterror bunch, hopefully enough to take them out of play. The operation was now fully in place and awaited only the right time for activation.
So close, Brightling thought. It was probably normal to have the jitters at moments like this. Confidence was a thing of distance. The farther away you were, the easier it was to think yourself invincible, but then you got close and the dangers grew with their proximity. But that didn’t change anything, did it? No, not really. The plan was perfect. They just had to execute it.
Sean Grady came out of surgery at just after eight in the evening, following three and a half hours on the table. The orthopod who’d worked on him was first-rate, Bellow saw. The humerus was fixed in place with a cobalt-steel pin that would be permanent and large enough that in the unlikely event that Grady ever entered an international airport in the future, he’d probably set off the metal detector while stark naked. Luckily for him the brachial plexus had not been damaged by the two bullets that had entered his body, and so he’d suffer no permanent loss of use of his arm. The secondary damage to his chest was minor. He’d recover fully, the British Army surgeon concluded, and so could enjoy full physical health during the lifelong prison term that surely awaited him.
The surgery had been performed under full general anesthesia, of course, using nitrous oxide, just as in American hospitals, coupled with the lingering effects of the barbiturates that had been used to begin his sedation. Bellow sat by the bed in the hospital’s recovery room, watching the bio-monitors and waiting for him to awaken. It would not be an event so much as a process, probably a lengthy one.
There were police around now, both in uniform and out, watching with him. Clark and Chavez were there, too, standing and staring at the man who’d so brazenly attacked their men—and their women, Bellow reminded himself. Chavez especially had eyes like flint—hard, dark, and cold, though his face appeared placid enough. He thought he knew the senior Rainbow people pretty well. They were clearly professionals, and in the case of Clark and Chavez, people who’d lived in the black world and done some very black things
, most of which he didn’t and would never know about. But Bellow knew that both men were people of order, like police officers in many ways, keepers of the rules. Maybe they broke them sometimes, but it was only to sustain them. They were romantics, just as the terrorists were, but the difference was in their choice of cause. Their purpose was to protect. Grady’s was to upset, and in the difference of mission was the difference between the men. It was that simple to them. Now, however angry they might feel at this sleeping man, they would not cause him physical harm. They’d leave his punishment to the society that Grady had so viciously attacked and whose rules they were sworn to protect, if not always uphold.
“Any time now,” Bellow said. Grady’s vital signs were all coming up. The body moved a little as his brain started to come back to wakefulness, just minor flexes here and there. It would find that some parts were not responding as they should, then focus on them to see what the limitations were, looking for pain but not finding it yet. Now the head started turning, slowly, left and right, and soon . . .
The eyelids fluttered, also slowly. Bellow consulted the list of IDs that others had drawn up and hoped that the British police and the guys from “Five” had provided him with good data.
“Sean?” he said. “Sean, are you awake?”
“Who? . . .”
“It’s me, it’s Jimmy Carr, Sean. You back with us now, Sean?”
“Where . . . am . . . I?” the voice croaked.
“University Hospital, Dublin, Sean. Dr. McCaskey just finished fixing your shoulder up. You’re in the recovery room. You’re going to be okay, Sean. But, my God, getting you here was the devil’s own work. Does it hurt, your shoulder, Sean?”
“No, no hurt now, Jimmy. How many? . . .”
“How many of us? Ten, ten of us got away. They’re off in the safe houses now, lad.”
“Good.” The eyes opened, and saw someone wearing a surgical mask and cap, but he couldn’t focus well, and the image was a blur. The room . . . yes, it was a hospital . . . the ceiling, rectangular tiles held in a metal rack . . . the lighting, fluorescent. His throat was dry and a little sore from the intubation, but it didn’t matter. He was living inside a dream, and none of this was actually happening. He was floating on a white, awkward cloud, but at least Jimmy Carr was here.
“Roddy, where’s Roddy?”
“Roddy’s dead, Sean,” Bellow answered. “Sorry, but he didn’t make it.”
“Oh, damn . . .” Grady breathed. “Not Roddy . . .”
“Sean, we need some information, we need it quickly.”
“What . . . information?”
“The chap who got us the information, we need to contact him, but we don’t know how to find him.”
“Iosef, you mean?”
Bingo, Paul Bellow thought. “Yes, Sean, Iosef, we need to get in touch with him . . .”
“The money? I have that in my wallet, lad.”
Oh, Clark thought, turning. Bill Tawney had all of Grady’s personal possessions sitting on a portable table. In the wallet, he saw, were two hundred and ten British pounds, one hundred seventy Irish pounds, and several slips of paper. On one yellow Post-it note were two numbers, six digits each, with no explanation. A Swiss or other numbered account? the spook wondered.
“How do we access it, Sean? We need to do that at once, you see, my friend.”
“Swiss Commercial Bank in Bern . . . call . . . account number and control number in . . . in my wallet.”
“Good, thank you, Sean . . . and Iosef, what’s the rest of his name . . . how do we get in touch with him, Sean? Please, we need to do that right away, Sean.” Bellow’s false Irish accent wasn’t good enough to pass muster with a drunk, but Grady’s current condition was far beyond anything alcohol could do to the human mind.
“Don’t . . . know. He contacts us, remember. Iosef Andreyevich contacts me through Robert . . . through the network . . . never gave me a way to contact him.”
“His last name, Sean, what is it, you never told me.”
“Serov, Iosef Andreyevich Serov . . . Russian . . . KGB chap . . . Bekaa Valley . . . years ago.”
“Well, he gave us good information on this Rainbow mob, didn’t he, Sean?”
“How many did we . . . how many . . . ?”
“Ten, Sean, we killed ten of them, and we got away, but you were shot on the escape in your Jaguar, remember? But we hurt them, Sean, we hurt them badly,” Bellow assured him.
“Good . . . good . . . hurt them . . . kill them . . . kill them all,” Grady whispered from his gurney.
“Not quite, asshole,” Chavez observed quietly, from a few feet away.
“Did we get the two women? . . . Jimmy, did we get them?”
“Oh, yes, Sean, I shot them myself. Now, Sean, this Russian chap. I need to know more about him.”
“Iosef ? Good man, KGB, got the money and the drugs for us. Lots of money . . . six million . . . six . . . and the cocaine,” Grady added for the TV Minicam that sat on a tripod next to the bed. “Got it for us, at Shannon, remember? Flew in on the little jet, the money and the drugs from America . . . well, think it was America . . . must have been . . . the way he talks now, American accent like the television, funny thing for a Russian, Jimmy . . .”
“Iosef Andreyevich Serov?”
The figure on the bed tried to nod. “That’s how they do names, Jimmy. Joseph, son of Andrew.”
“What does he look like, Sean?”
“Tall as me . . . brown hair, eyes . . . round face, speaks many languages . . . Bekaa Valley . . . nineteen eighty-six . . . good man, helped us a lot . . .”
“How we doing, Bill?” Clark whispered to Tawney.
“Well, none of this can be used in court, but—”
“Fuck the courts, Bill! How good is this? Does it match with anything?”
“The name Serov doesn’t ring a bell, but I can check with our files. We can run these numbers down, and there will be a paper trail of some sort, but”—he checked his watch—“it will have to wait until tomorrow.”
Clark nodded. “Hell of an interrogation method.”
“Never seen this before. Yes, it is.”
Just then Grady’s eyes opened more. He saw the others around the bed, and his face twisted into a question. “Who are you?” he asked groggily, finding a strange face in this dream.
“My name is Clark, John Clark, Sean.”
The eyes went wide for a second. “But you’re . . .”
“That’s right, pal. That’s who I am. And thanks for spilling your guts. We got all of you, Sean. All fifteen dead or captured. I hope you like it here in England, boy. You’re going to be here a long, long time. Why don’t you go back to sleep now, lad?” he asked with grossly overdone courtesy. I’ve killed better men than you, punk, he thought, behind a supposedly impassive mien that in fact proclaimed his feelings.
Dr. Bellow pocketed his tape recorder and his notes. It rarely failed. The twilight state following general anesthesia made any mind vulnerable to suggestion. That was why people with high security clearances never went to the hospital without someone from their parent agencies nearby. In this case he’d had ten minutes or so to dive deep inside and come back out with information. It could never be used in a court of law, but then, Rainbow wasn’t composed of cops.
“Malloy got him, eh?” Clark asked on his way to the door.
“Actually it was Sergeant Nance,” Chavez answered.
“We have to get him something nice for this job,” Rainbox Six observed. “We owe him for this. We got a name now, Domingo. A Russian name.”
“Not a good one, it’s gotta be a cover name.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, John, don’t you recognize it? Serov, former chairman of KGB, back in the ’60s, I think, fired a long time ago because he screwed something up.”
Clark nodded. It wouldn’t be the name on the guy’s real passport, and that was too bad, but it was a name, and names could be tracked. They walked out of the hospital
into the cool British evening. John’s car was waiting, with Corporal Mole looking rather pleased with himself. He’d get a nice ribbon for the day’s work and probably a very nice letter from this American pseudo-general. John and Ding got in, and the car drove to the base stockade, where the others were being kept for the time being, because the local jail wasn’t secure enough. Inside, they were guided to an interrogation room. Timothy O’Neil was waiting there, handcuffed to a chair.
“Hello,” John said. “My name is Clark. This is Domingo Chavez.”
The prisoner just stared at them.
“You were sent here to murder our wives,” John went on. That didn’t make him so much as blink either. “But you fucked it all up. There were fifteen of you. There are six now. The rest won’t be doing much of anything. You know, people like you make me ashamed to be Irish. Jesus, kid, you’re not even an effective criminal. By the way, Clark is just my working name. Before that, it was John Kelly, and my wife’s maiden name was O’Toole. So, now you IRA pukes are killing Irish-Catholic Americans, eh? It’s not going to look good in the papers, punk.”
“Not to mention selling coke, all that coke the Russian brought in,” Chavez added.
“Drugs? We don’t—”
“Sure you do. Sean Grady just told us everything, sang like a fucking canary. We have the number of the Swiss bank account, and this Russian guy—”
“Serov,” Chavez added helpfully, “Iosef Andreyevich Serov, Sean’s old pal from the Bekaa Valley.”
“I have nothing to say.” Which was more than O’Neil had planned to say. Sean Grady talked. Sean? That was not possible—but where else could they have gotten that information? Was the world totally mad?
“ ’Mano,” Ding continued, “that was my wife you wanted to kill, and she’s got my baby in her belly. You think you’re going to be around much longer? John, this guy ever going to get out of prison?”
“Not anytime soon, Domingo.”
“Well, Timmy, let me tell you something. Where I come from, you mess with a man’s lady, there’s a price that has to be paid. And it ain’t no little price. And where I come from, you never, ever mess with a man’s kids. The price for that’s even worse, you little fuck. Little fuck?” Chavez wondered. “No, I think we can fix that, John. I can fix him so he ain’t never gonna fuck anything.” From the scabbard on his belt, Ding extracted a Marine-type K-Bar fighting knife. The blade was black except for the gleaming quarter-inch edge.
