by Tom Clancy
In one fluid motion, he slid himself over he edge, did a slow-motion somersault through his arms, hung for a split second, then dropped noiselessly to the balcony. He turned to face the windows, pistol drawn. He waited, stock still, for thirty seconds until certain he was alone.
The penthouse was accessed through three sets of French doors set at regular intervals down the balcony. He chose the one to his left. It was unlocked. He slipped inside. After spending the last hour sweating, the sudden chill of the air-conditioning on his face took his breath away.
The suite was done in earth tones, with gilded-frame mahogany walls, lush carpeting, and enough tapestries and artwork to stock a small museum. The fish tank, filled with a rainbow assortment of tropical fish, gurgled softly and cast wavering shadows on the ceiling.
He punched up the penthouse schematic on his OPSAT to get his bearings, then moved on.
* * *
He found Greenhorn snoring in the master bedroom. Splayed a few feet away on the double king-sized bed was a nude woman that Fisher assumed was the girlfriend to whom Greenhorn had sent the invitation. Greenhorn was dressed in white jockey shorts, a T-shirt that said EAT MY ONES AND ZEROS, and a white terry-cloth robe bearing the Burj al Arab’s crest. Despite being not yet thirty years old, Greenhorn looked ten years older, with his potbelly, pasty complexion, and mostly receded hairline.
Fisher walked to the woman’s side of the bed, and was about to dart her when he noticed a medic alert bracelet on her wrist. Ah, hell, he thought. If he were to dart or Cottonball her, there was no telling how the drugs would interact with whatever condition she suffered, and he wasn’t inclined to kill her simply because she was stupid enough to get mixed up with an idiot like Greenhorn. Besides, he consoled himself, she was all of five feet tall and ninety pounds. If she woke up, he’d deal with her.
He walked back to Greenhorn’s side. He removed a dart from the pistol, then bent over and scratched Greenhorn on the forearm. He stirred, then mumbled something, rubbed his arm, and started snoring again. The dose wasn’t enough to render Greenhorn unconscious, but rather dazed and docile for a few minutes.
Fisher gave the drug ten seconds to work, then removed his goggles and knelt beside the bed, one hand resting on the hilt of the Sykes Fairbairn sheathed on his calf. He lightly shook Greenhorn by the shoulder. “Mr. Greenhorn,” he whispered. “Mr. Greenhorn, you need to wake up.”
Greehorn groaned, and his eyes fluttered open. He turned and stared at Fisher through half-lidded eyes. “Huh?”
Greenhorn’s breath was a fowl mixture of peanut butter, gin, and halitosis.
“We have a phone call for you, Mr. Greenhorn. Come with me, please.”
Fisher helped him sit up, then stand up, then walked him out of the master bedroom, expertly frisking him as they walked.
“Who… who’re you again?” Greenhorn muttered.
“Abdul, Mr. Greenhorn, from security, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, okay.”
Fisher walked him to the opposite end of the penthouse to a seating alcove near the aquarium, then sat Greenhorn facing the aquarium, himself on the chair opposite. The backlight would cast him in shadow. Greenhorn slumped back into the couch and started snoring again.
Sam waited five minutes for the drug to dissipate, then pulled his chair forward until he was knee-to-knee with Greenhorn. He reached out and pressed his knuckle into the base of Greenhorn’s septum. The pain snapped Greenhorn awake.
“Hey… hey, what the, what the—”
Fisher gripped him by the chin, thumb pressed into the hollow of his throat. “Don’t make a sound.” He jammed this thumb a little deeper; Greenhorn gagged. “Do you understand?”
Greenhorn nodded.
“I’m going to take my hand away and we’re going to have a chat. If you give me the answers I want, you’ll live to see another day. If you raise your voice or move a muscle, I shoot you dead where you sit. Understand?”
“Yeah, yeah. Can I ask you a question?”
Fisher nodded.
“Did Big Joey send you? ’Cuz if he did, I’ve got the money, I just haven’t had a chance to—”
“Big Joey did not send me.”
“Then who?”
“Santa Claus. You’ve been a bad boy, Marcus. You’ve been playing in cyberspace again.”
Now Greenhorn understood; his eyes bulged. “Oh, Jesus…”
“Another good guess, but wrong again. Question one: Who’s paying for your vacation here?”
“I don’t know, I just got an e-mail.”
“From?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s your second ‘I don’t know.’ Three strikes and you’re dead. I’m going to start a story, Marcus, and you’re going to finish it. Here goes: Once upon a time you were hired to code a virus for someone. Now your turn.”
“Uh… uh… I was hired by e-mail, I swear. They’d already set up a Swiss account for me. I got a hundred thousand to start and another hundred when I delivered. You’ve got to believe me, I never dealt with anyone face-to-face.”
Fisher did believe him. “When was this?”
“Two months ago.”
“When were you instructed to come here?”
“A week, maybe ten days ago.”
About the time the Trego would have been heading to the U.S. But why, Fisher wondered, if Greenhorn’s employers were so worried about him being a loose end, didn’t they just kill him?
“No one’s contacted you since?”
“No. When I was told to come here, they said to just wait until I hear from them.”
“You’re sure the same person that hired you arranged this?”
“Yes.”
“Clever guy like you would keep details, wouldn’t he? E-mails, bank information… A little insurance.”
“Uh… come on, man, they’ll kill me.”
Sam drew his pistol and pointed it at Greenhorn’s forehead. “They’ll be late.”
“Jesus, okay, okay. Yeah, I kept some stuff.” Greenhorn reached into the pocket of his robe and handed over a thumb-sized USB flash drive. “It’s all there.”
Fisher plugged the drive into the OPSAT’s USB port, waited for the OPSAT to download the contents, then stuffed it into his arm pouch.
From the corner of his eye, Fisher saw something move. Gun still trained on Greenhorn, he slowly turned his head. Greenhorn’s girlfriend, now clad in panties and nothing else, padded across the room, rubbing her eyes. She saw Greenhorn and stopped. Fisher, still in shadow, lowered the pistol, leaned deeper into the couch.
“Hey, Marcus,” she said, voice raspy. “Whatchya doing just sitting here in the dark?”
“Uh… you know, just looking at the fish. Couldn’t sleep.”
She took a step toward him. “Want some company?”
“No, babe, that’s fine. Go on back to bed.”
“Okay…”
She turned back toward the master bedroom, then stopped. She turned back. She looked at Fisher, then blinked a few times and cocked her head.
Ah, damnit, he thought. He had no desire to kill some woman Greenhorn had dragged into his mess of a life. He thumbed the pistol’s selector to DART.
Greenhorn said, “Sweetie, just go back to bed, I’ll be there in a minute.”
She continued to stare at Fisher, blinking, trying to decipher what her still-fuzzy brain was registering. Fisher was about to dart her when she opened her mouth and started screaming.
22
What came out of her mouth wasn’t as much a scream as it was a shriek so piercing that Fisher was momentarily taken aback. In that split second, the woman turned and ran, nimble as a jackrabbit, around the fish tank and toward the door. “Help, help!”
Fisher stood up, grabbed Greenhorn, spun him, and got his neck in an elbow lock. He pressed the pistol’s barrel to the soft spot just below Greenhorn’s ear and then began stepping to his left, toward the windows and the nearest balcony door.
The d
oor to the suite burst open and four figures in black coveralls rushed inside. Their entrance left Fisher with no doubt he was dealing with professionals. They moved as one in a crescent formation, each man scanning his own sector of the room. One of them shouted something and they all turned toward Fisher, their weapons raised and steady as they stalked forward.
Fisher’s idea of taking Greenhorn with him had just evaporated, as had his original exfiltration plan. “Don’t make a move unless I do,” he whispered to Greenhorn.
“Okay, whatever you—”
Fisher heard a single, muted pop. Greenhorn’s head snapped back. He went limp in Fisher’s arms. That was no mistake, he realized instantly. These men were too disciplined to risk such a shot, and too good to miss what they were aiming at. They were following orders. If captured, Greenhorn was not to leave the hotel alive.
Fisher switched his grip on Greenhorn’s body, grabbing him by the collar, then took aim on the nearest Al-Mughaaweer and fired. Even as the man fell, Fisher adjusted aim, fired again, and dropped a second man. The other two scattered toward the nearest cover and opened fire.
Greenhorn’s body began jerking as it took the bullet strikes. Fisher felt something pluck at his left arm, then his right side. He felt no pain, and assumed/hoped the RhinoPlate was doing its job. Behind him he heard the glass cracking. With Greenhorn as a shield, he kept firing, backing toward the door until he felt his heel bump against it.
He holstered the pistol, plucked a flash-bang grenade off his harness, pulled the pin, and tossed it. Per Fisher’s preference, the grenade ran on a quick two-second fuse. He closed his eyes. Through his lids he sensed a flash of white light and felt the concussion ripple through Greenhorn’s body.
Fisher drew the pistol again and started firing, hoping to keep the gunmen’s heads down. He reached back, turned the doorknob, opened the door. He dropped Greenhorn’s body, turned, sprinted across the balcony, and dove over the railing.
* * *
His decision against penetrating the hotel via parachute was proven right the instant he cleared the rail. He was grabbed by the cyclonic winds whipping around the building and sent tumbling. A thousand feet tall and sitting offshore, the hotel faced both inland and seaward weather systems, which included wind shears that would terrify any pilot, let alone a lone man with a parafoil strapped to his back.
He’d added the compact parafoil to his pack at the last minute in response to that little voice in the back of his head. Getting into the hotel would be a challenge; getting out could be an even bigger one. Better to have a backup and not need it rather than vice versa.
Whether the Al-Mughaaweer were firing on him from the balcony worried Fisher not at all. Though only seconds had passed since his leap, he was by now lost in the darkness, hurtling away from the hotel and toward the ocean’s surface at sixty miles per hour He had thirty seconds, no more.
He arched his body, arms and legs spread wide to catch as much air as possible. He felt himself lift ever so slightly. He glanced to his right and saw the lights of the seafront shops and restaurants. He twisted that way.
He lifted the OPSAT to his face and punched a button, bringing up his altimeter: 710 FEET. He’d lost a third of the hotel’s height in roughly ten seconds. Given the volatility of the winds, he needed to wait until the last possible moment to open his chute.
He checked his OPSAT:
490 FEET/90 MPH.
A few more seconds…
He reached across his chest and ripped free a Velcro patch, revealing the chute’s D-ring release.
390 FEET.
Wait…
340 FEET.
He jerked the toggle, heard the swoosh and flutter of the parafoil deploying. He was jerked upward, felt his stomach rising into his throat, shoulders wrenched backward. He reached up, found the riser toggles, and gently pulled to counter the parafoil’s initial lift. At this height, in the crosscurrent winds, the parafoil would naturally nose up, trading airspeed for lift, a combination sure to create a stall.
He checked the OPSAT: 255 FEET/40MPH. He switched views to radar mode. To his left up the coast, a red triangle blinked. This too had been the result of Fisher’s last-minute equipment change. Earlier, as he waited for nightfall, he’d meandered up the coast a few miles and secreted a pathfinder transponder on a rock outcropping.
By now every available cop in Dubai would be responding to the reports of gunfire at the city’s most luxurious hotel. Of course, no one had his description, but the sooner he left the area, the better. He confirmed the transponder’s bearing on the OPSAT, then pulled on the left toggle and banked north.
SHANGHAI
Eyes closed, hands behind his back, Kuan-Yin Zhao paced the perimeter of the room, his shoes echoing off the marble floor and the vaulted ceiling. He’d walked this room hundreds of times over the last two years, seeing the game in his mind, imagining his opponent’s moves and countermoves until nothing had been left to chance. And now… now it was all coming to fruition.
He stopped and turned to face the center of the room. Under the glare of halogen spotlights, the marble was inlaid with black mosaic tiles in the shape of a massive Xiangqi board, measuring twenty feet per side. There were no pieces, only the squares, and each opponent’s home areas — called the Red Palace and the Black Palace — and a strip of dark blue representing the center division, or River.
Zhao imagined the pieces moving, dancing around one another, his opponent unaware until—
“Sir…” a voice intruded. “Sir, I’m sorry to bother you… ”
Zhao snapped out of his reverie and slowly turned around to face Xun. “Yes, what is it?”
“They’ve been apprehended — in Texas.”
Zhao gave a half smile. “Good.”
“Why is that good?” Xun asked. “The authorities have them. If they talk—”
“They will.”
Xun frowned. “But if—”
Zhao waved his hands to encompass the room. “Xun, what do you see here?”
“A Xiangqi board.”
“Let me ask you: Suppose a pair of enemy paos are advancing on your king. What do you do?”
“Move my king.”
“Or?”
“Attack the attacking pieces.”
“Or.”
“Move other pieces in defense.”
“How do you know that’s not what your enemy wanted?”
“I don’t.”
“What if your every move is not your own, but only a response to arranged circumstances?”
“Then I lose the game.”
“Correct. Now: Send a message to Sarani. Tell him they should start preparing. Events will begin to speed up now.”
Xun nodded and hurried out.
Zhao turned back to the board and moved another piece in his mind.
23
DUBAI
When he touched down, Fisher’s plans to quickly exit the area were foiled, not by the authorities, but rather by Lambert in a curtly worded OPSAT message—PROCEED GRID REF 102.398, AWAIT PICKUP FOR TRANSPORT TO CHARLIE-ALPHA ONE (1)—followed by the details his contact would use to identify himself or herself.
Fisher was concerned. The grid reference Lambert had given was virtually on top of his pathfinder beacon, overlooking Jumeirah Road north of the Burj al Arab. Rendevous Point Charlie-Alpha One was a CIA safe house on Al Garhoud Road near the Dubai Creek Golf & Yacht Club.
Lambert’s order was unprecedented, not only because it required Fisher to remain in an OPAR (Operational Area) that had gone hot, but also because it went against everything Third Echelon stood for: invisibility. Presenting himself to what would likely turn out to be a CIA case officer at a CIA safe house left a big footprint indeed. Though his contact was unlikely to know anything about him and would be ordered to forget his face, that did little to comfort him.
Twenty minutes after he touched down on the beach and stuffed his parafoil in a crevice in the rocks, a red two-door Peugeot pulled off the
road and coasted to a stop on the dirt shoulder. The driver got out and knelt beside his front tire. Fisher saw a flashlight wink against the hub-cap: one short, two long, three short.
He rose from the underbrush and walked over. Though he’d stripped off his exterior gear and stuffed it into his pack, he was still wearing his tac-suit. Even so, the man gave him the barest of glances, then said, “Are you Willard?”
Fisher shook his head. “My name is Bartle,” he replied, completing the recognition code.
The man opened the back door and said, “Best if you lay down on the floor.”
Fisher got in and did as instructed.
* * *
Twenty minutes later the Peugeot coasted to a stop. Fisher heard the sound of a garage door opening. The car moved ahead and the garage door closed.
“It’s okay to get up,” the driver said. “We’re clear.”
Fisher sat up and climbed out of the car to find himself, predictably, in a nondescript two-car garage. He followed the man into the house, which was lit by several floor lamps and decorated in Spanish-villa style. They were standing in the kitchen.
“I’m going to make some coffee,” the man said. “Conference room’s down the hall, first door on the right. Your call’s cued up; just press the green button. The room’s a tank.”
All U.S. embassies and consulates and some CIA safe houses were equipped with a “tank”—a windowless, sound-tight room impervious to listening devices.
Fisher followed the man’s directions to the room. It was small, ten feet by ten feet, and empty save for a desk table arrayed before a thirty-two-inch flat-screen television monitor. Recessed ceiling lights cast pools on the carpet. He sat down and pressed the green button. The monitor went first to static, then black again as a series of word scrolled across the screen:
