Tom Clancy's Power Plays 5 - 8

by Tom Clancy

  Noriko watched the door shut behind him, turned to Glenn.

  “He always like this?” she said.

  “Mostly, yeah,” Glenn said. “Except when he’s worse.”

  She pursed her lips and exhaled with a low whistling sound.

  “It must’ve been a long, long flight for you.”

  Glenn looked at her.

  “The food was super-duper,” he said. “Drinks, too.”

  Noriko studied him quietly, tipped her head toward the coatrack, and pushed her chair back from behind her desk.

  “You feel up to another round or two?” she said.

  Glenn grinned, winked at her.

  “I can only promise to try my best,” he said.

  Yousaf stood out behind the Bakarwal hut in the tarpaulin-covered ditch that passed for a latrine here, thinking the cold was so intense his prick was liable to freeze and break off in his hand before he finished his piss. But the need to relieve himself was only one of the reasons he’d excused himself from Ahmad. There had been a notion of sending out a radio call to those who awaited him on the mule trail, both to warn them about Ahmad’s advance scouts and signal his departure from the nomadic camp . . . an idea over which Yousaf was grateful his good sense had prevailed. Though he had deceived Khalid and the rest of his men about a great many things as they’d rolled toward the Chikar roadblock, the concerns he’d expressed about intercepts had been truthful—and they had not yet left his mind. Not at all, in fact. Even in these remote regions, it was best to be on guard against eavesdroppers.

  Zipping his trousers now, Yousaf started back toward the hut and his soon-to-be guides over the mountains. He had come too far now to let fear exert any pull over his decisions. Dragonfly would soon make him a wealthy man, and that prospect alone ought to steer him away from a recurrence of foolish impulses.

  His customers knew the dangers of this highland frontier better than he and would not need any warning to be on the alert.

  Tom Ricci peered through the viewfinder of his digital camera, crouching amid the pines and leafless oaks of a forested ridge above the Kiran Group’s company grounds. The req slip Grand Prix GTX he’d pulled out of Sword-Manhattan’s downtown garage had been left some thirty or forty yards behind him in the night, at the side of an unmarked country road that ran parallel to the western edge of the grounds for several hundred yards before turning north toward an eventual dead end. Designated Rainer Lane on his map, its dark, wooded sameness was interrupted only by a long-forsaken drive climbing steeply uphill from the road’s right shoulder.

  Ricci had thought it an opportune spot to leave the car. The isolated drive would be easy to find when he returned, and the two separate passes he’d already made around Kiran suggested there would be a good overlook directly across the lane through the trees.

  As he’d eased to a halt off the road, Ricci had noticed that a ten- to fifteen-foot-high barrier of fencing and razor coil had been erected at the foot of the drive. His headlights offered glimpses of chewed, rotted out blacktop where its sheeting of snow and ice gapped open, revealing a reflective no-admittance sign on the gate. And just beyond it, another, much older, sign. A large, weathered wooden rectangle on sagging double posts, its hand-painted lettering was chipped, peeled, and faded—but still legible. The top line said: HOTEL IMPERIAL, A FUTURISTIC RESORT. Beneath it in smaller characters were the words: DAY CARE, FILTERED POOL, AIR-CONDITIONED ROOMS, CELEBRITY NIGHTCLUB. Hanging separately from its bottom on a pair of rusted eyehole hooks, a much more slender wood banner announced: BUDDY GROOM, MASTER OF CEREMONIES, BACK AGAIN FOR THE 1969 VACATION SEASON!

  Ricci had stared at the sign and wondered. Nineteen sixty-nine, Summer of Love. If that had been Hotel Imperial’s last hurrah, maybe one factor in its demise had been Buddy Groom and his Celebrity Nightclub acts getting the show stolen out from under them by the Woodstock festival a handful of miles away.

  Cutting the ignition, Ricci reached over to the passenger seat for the gear bag containing his flashlight, camera, and binoculars, got out, and crossed the road. He’d gone less than twenty yards into the trees before finding an advantageous hump of mountainside from which to look down on the Kiran Group’s corporate development.

  That was a little over an hour ago.

  He had been on the look ever since.

  It was now a quarter past eleven according to the virtual dial on his WristLink wearable. Everything cold, quiet, and pitch black around him under the barren treetops. Considerably brighter below him, where Kiran’s groomed and level grounds were circled by high-output stadium lights on steel frame towers that dispersed an almost glareless white radiance over the entire site.

  Ricci kept his eye to the camera, a fourth-generation night-vision with microelectromechanical sensors that brought its intensifier tube and ocular lens into rapid focus wherever he pointed and zoomed. He’d prepared to be out a while, dressing in a black leather cruiser jacket, thermal fabric vest, and full-finger shooter’s gloves, pulling a night camo heat-exchanger balaclava over his head as he left the car. Its mouth port would help retain the heat and vapor normally lost through his exhalations, recycling them into the frigid air he breathed in to keep his internal body temperature raised.

  He clicked the shutter-release button, added a fresh telescopic image of the U-Haul van parked outside Kiran’s service gate to the snapshots he’d already taken. There were pictures of the van itself. Pictures of the three business-suited men he’d seen repeatedly appear from the gate and roll dollies of mid-sized packing cartons out to the van’s cargo section. And pictures of the tall man in the car coat—it was black leather, like Ricci’s own—who had stayed close to the van throughout their comings and goings. Blond, fair-skinned, wiry, all arms and legs, he had alternated between sitting in the driver’s seat and pacing around the van in the cold, chain-smoking as he watched them climb aboard with their boxes and then emerge at different intervals to wheel what were presumably the same boxes, collapsed and emptied, back through the gate.

  The operation had triggered Ricci’s curiosity. He wasn’t clear on what he’d expected to see here tonight. What he was seeing. But instinct told him none of it was meant to be seen . . . and his repeated gut checks had just strengthened that feeling. The rental van accounted for many of his questions. The activity to and from the van. And the tall man. Maybe especially him.

  Ricci had read the intelligence workups on Hasul Benazir, learned all about his genetic condition and habitual night hours. He’d also gotten a related short from an outside source. Information Noriko Cousins either didn’t know or was intent on holding back from him. He had no idea which it was. No idea if she might be the only one at UpLink, and by extension Sword, who was keeping secrets. Whatever the score, he found it hard to be that concerned about it. Not with a secret or two of his own tucked away in his pocket.

  He steadied the camera on the tall man, clicked again. Couldn’t get too many photos of him. It was a safe guess that the others were Kiran personnel. Coatless, wearing uniform dark suits, they carried swipe cards that gave access to the service gate, a motor operated rolldown that would automatically close behind them after each of their trips in and out of the building. Their distinctive South Asian features had made Ricci remember something in the Kiran files about a core group of veteran employees—executives, advisors, and techs, or so it described them—that Benazir had brought over from Pakistan on H1Bs: specialized work visas.

  Tall Man was another story. The obvious outside man. And an impatient one waiting near the conspicuous U-Haul parked in a secondary parking area around the corner from the building’s main entrance. The only other vehicles, a small fleet of Mercedes sedans Ricci figured for company cars used by the dark-suits, were in the regular employee parking lot in front of the entrance.

  No, Ricci thought, the van didn’t fit any more than Tall Man. Even granting Benazir’s late schedule, its presence was very suspect. A business like Kiran would ship in freight trucks, not cheap
daily or weekly rental vans. But why else would it be here? Somebody in the building choosing this time of night to clean out his desk, maybe cart his old files or office equipment off to a warehouse? A ridiculous thought. Crazier to imagine corporate professionals wheeling those things out in handcarts when they could hire other people to do the lugging for them. No explanation came close to making sense—unless it involved a transport of goods that was meant to be covered up. But what would be the point in unpacking those boxes while they were still aboard the van? Before they had gone anywhere?

  Now Ricci watched the three dark-suits jump from the rear of the van again, and raised an eyebrow. This time instead of returning directly to the service entrance, they locked the cargo section from the outside with a key, and then went over to where Tall Man stood by its driver’s door.

  It seemed their loading was finished.

  Ricci pulled back on the zoom for a wide angle shot of the bunch and took his picture, a vision of himself with the Boston police department briefly and inexplicably coming into his head. Five years ago, Detective First-Grade Tom Ricci would have found a way to stomach the whole checklist of authorizations needed for a surveillance warrant. Persuaded his bosses to give him their go-aheads. Met the legal threshold that would support reasonable cause. Filled out endless forms and case reports in duplicate and triplicate, while wishing he could have stood before the court and explained that he’d learned to trust his eye and follow its lead when it started paying close attention to somebody . . . the way it was paying attention to Tall Man and friends tonight.

  Five years since the BPD, Ricci thought. Five years since one of the same judges he might have asked for legal approvals had been bought by a millionaire whose son he’d nailed for murder. Five years since the kid had walked out of jail on a courtroom fix, and Ricci had walked away from a badge tarnished by bogus charges that he’d mishandled evidence.

  There were scars that healed with time and experience, and scars that only got thicker.

  Ricci had ceased to want or need anyone’s nod of approval. For anything.

  He lowered his camera, switched to the binocs strapped around his neck—these also Gen-4 NVs—and watched the four men outside the U-Haul. The dark-suits appeared to be giving Tall Man instructions, one in particular doing most of the talking as Tall Man listened, nodded his stalky neck, and every so often said something in response. After a little while their huddle broke up—Tall Man hopping into the driver’s side of the van, two of the dark-suits turning to reenter the service gate, the third going back around to the rear of the van and tugging at the handles of the cargo doors, apparently checking that they were securely locked before he joined the others.

  Ricci considered his next move. The approach to Kiran’s parking area extended up the mountain from the same local route he’d taken coming here off Interstate 87. It was the only nearby juncture with the highway, with nothing branching from it for many miles but Rainer Lane and a couple of other dead-end stretches. Which meant the U-Haul driver would have to return to that route no matter where he might be headed afterward.

  If he scrambled, Ricci thought there was a better than fair chance of catching the van’s tail.

  A few minutes later he was doubling back along Rainer Lane in the Grand Prix. Glancing down the slope to his right, he spotted the U-Haul through frequent gaps in the trees, already out of the parking area and coasting toward the opposite end of the approach.

  He tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and put on some speed.

  It was a looping quarter-mile descent to the lane’s intersection with the county road. Ricci angled onto it, pushing the accelerator as he bore northeast, the direction he’d seen the van take after his last glimpse of its progress.

  And then he saw its taillights ahead of him in the darkness. He estimated the van’s lead at ten car lengths and eased off his gas pedal, wanting to stay close, but not so close he risked being picked up by its driver. With only a smattering of other vehicles on the road—he counted three besides his car and the van, all in his rearview—Ricci could afford to give the van some space and still keep it in sight.

  Ricci followed it past the entry ramp to the southbound interstate that would have taken him back to New York City, heading farther upstate into the mountains. There were patches of woods, agricultural farms on modest plots of winter-bare earth, darkened and locked-up convenience stores that must have closed for the night hours earlier. Then a commercial railyard and crossing, and what appeared to be town lights beyond.

  The U-Haul bounced over the tracks, Ricci trailing it by a steady distance. He crossed the tracks, discovered the lights were actually from a small service area—a Texaco gas station on his side of the road, a McDonald’s just past it, another filling station on the other side of the road farther ahead. Opposite the fast-food restaurant was a Super 8 Motel posting special discount rates for truckers and rail workers.

  Ricci saw the van hook left into the Super 8’s parking lot; he reached the service area and turned right to enter the Mc-Donald’s lot, positioning the car so its driver’s side faced the motel.

  Ricci doused his headlamps, then looked sideways out his window. The motel was two stories of rooms in an elongated L-shaped structure set back from a turnaround spacious enough to accommodate large vehicles. He saw a tractor trailer in front making ample use of that space, a couple of six-wheel flatbeds, a single automobile. Tall Man had pulled the van straight up to the deck of the farthest ground-floor unit from the check-in office and gotten out. He took a step toward the office, paused, reached into his coat pocket for something.

  Then a passing car momentarily blocked Ricci’s line of sight on its way toward the second filling station, where it swung up to a self-service pump and stopped. He studied it only long enough to confirm that it was one of the three vehicles he’d observed behind him on the country route . . . and to watch its driver, a man in a mackinaw and baseball cap, get out and unhook the gas nozzle. After that, Ricci returned his full attention to the Super 8’s turnaround.

  In Tall Man’s hands now were his cigarettes and disposable lighter—answering the minor question of what he’d reached for in his pocket. He shook a cigarette out of the pack, put it in his mouth, put away the pack, and flicked the lighter. Ricci saw a spark, but no flame. Tall Man hunched against the wind by the van, cupped a palm over the head of the lighter, tried again to get his smoke going. It still didn’t fire up. After a minute he ditched the exhausted lighter with an obviously annoyed shake of his head.

  Ricci watched him stride across the motel’s guest lot into the office, the unlit cigarette poking from his mouth, his frustration explained by a prominent no-smoking sign on the office window.

  Less than ten minutes later, he walked back along the deck to his corner room and let himself through its door with a key-card.

  Ricci sat for a long while, on the look again. It was about the time of night when his thoughts would start getting away from him lately, turn all sorts of wrong corners, but it helped to be concentrating on the action, to be mentally outside himself, and he was hoping he’d be okay without needing anything else to keep his head straight. He saw the driver who’d been gassing up at the pump return to his car—it was a late-model Buick, similar to his requisition—make a K-turn out of the station, drive across into the McDonald’s parking lot, exit the car, and head into the restaurant. He saw the lights go on behind Tall Man’s drawn curtains, and after fifteen minutes or so saw them go off—bedtime. Chances were the U-Haul didn’t have a theft alarm, and Ricci visualized himself breaking into it in the darkness of the lot, getting into the cargo section with his digital camera . . . a notion he might have seriously entertained if the van hadn’t been parked right outside Tall Man’s window, where the chances were too great he’d see or hear something.

  Ricci leaned forward, meshed his hands over the steering column. Even as he’d dismissed the one idea as wishful thinking, another had taken shape for him. There wa
s something to what Noriko Cousins had said about not trying to do too much, though in a different sense than she’d meant it. If he couldn’t find out what the dark-suits had loaded into the van, maybe he could still learn something about any personal freight Tall Man might be carrying with him.

  He let another few minutes pass, keeping an eye out for anybody in the motel lot, or on its ground floor decks, or on its upper-level terraces. Watching for anybody who might be looking out the office window, or any sign of movement anywhere around or in front of the place. When none came up, he got a small brown-paper evidence bag out of his glove box and crossed the road.

  The faint neon gleam of the motel sign at the lot’s entrance was enough to reveal the shape of Tall Man’s ditched lighter—a plastic Bic—on the ground near the left front tire of the U-Haul.

  Ricci waited a second, alert. No doors opened. No lights came on. Nothing happened to surprise him.

  He crouched, picked up the lighter, and dropped it into the bag. He folded the top of the bag over once, a second time, peeled off the adhesive label, and stuck it on over the double fold to seal it. Then he put the envelope in his coat pocket and quickly backtracked to the fast-food joint’s parking lot.

  Ricci noticed that the guy in the baseball cap and mackinaw had returned to his Buick and seemed to be dozing, leaning against the headrest with his eyes shut, his seat semi-reclined. Instead of going over to his own car, he strode over to where the guy was parked across the lot and rapped his knuckles on the Buick’s roof to get his attention.

  The guy opened his eyes, sat up straight, looked out his window. Ricci put on a smile, gestured toward his own car, made a winding gesture in the air, and he lowered it.

  “Something I can do for you?” the guy said, shifting around behind the wheel to face him.

  Ricci nodded, and as he did, moved slightly closer to the driver’s door and shot a right jab through the open window, getting most of his arm and shoulder into it, connecting hard with the side of his chin. The driver grunted with pain and surprise as his head snapped back, his hand going up to his face.