Kent was closer. “Colonel?” Thorn said.
Kent waved him to silence. “Yes, yes, got it.”
Across the room, Colonel John Howard looked up from his Com and over at Kent. “Two minutes ETA, General.”
“Copy,” Howard said. He went back to his Com.
Kent discommed and turned to Thorn. “Sir. Jay Gridley’s distress beacon was activated two minutes ago. That spot, there, on the computer holoproj, that’s his location.”
Thorn looked at the map. “That’s only a couple of miles from here. On the road.”
“Yes, sir. We have a copter with a tactical team on the way.”
“A car wreck?”
“Unknown, sir. But it’s nearly impossible to trigger the virgil’s beacon by accident, and protocol says you don’t do it unless it is life or death. General Howard is on the horn with the state patrol.”
Thorn nodded. “All right.” Not much else he could do. This was the military arm’s area of expertise. Best he not get in their way.
Howard discommed and came over to where Thorn and Kent stood.
“Commander. VSP is en route. No reports from the scene yet. We don’t have a sat in position to footprint it. Our team will be there in a minute. All we can do is wait.”
“This happen very often?” Thorn asked.
“No, sir,” Howard said. “It’s not something Gridley would have done for a minor accident.”
“Lord. I hope he’s all right.”
“Yes, sir,” Howard said. “Me, too.”
In his car, leaving the scene, Natadze cursed long and loud in his native Georgian. The smell of gunpowder clung to his clothes, sharp and acrid. His ears still rang — he hadn’t worn plugs, there wasn’t supposed to be any shooting.
Damnation! It had gone so unbelievably wrong. He hadn’t expected the man to try to run — it was not in his character, he was a photon pusher, a desk jockey. As soon as he saw the gun, he should have turned into a stalked rabbit and been unable to think. He didn’t have anywhere to go, anyhow, the box had been almost perfect—
He had aimed at the front tire, to try and stop the car, but in an incredible bit of bad luck, at that exact instant, he had stepped on something on the shoulder of the road, a rock, a crushed can, something — and his ankle had buckled just as he fired. The gun went off on the upswing as he tried to regain his balance, and he saw the windshield take the round, saw it crack as if in slow motion, saw the subject’s head snap to the side as the bullet or some fragment of it hit him. Saw blood welling. Stood there stunned long enough for Jay’s car, his foot still spasming on the accelerator, to lurch around and into traffic and get T-boned by a pick-up truck, which was then rear-ended by an SUV. Tires squealed, traffic snarled to a stop, and Natadze’s chance to grab his target was over.
He shook his head, disgusted with himself.
Hauling a dead or dying man away made no sense. The subject wouldn’t be doing any code work, but neither was he going to be telling anybody what he had learned. Natadze had failed.
He was screwed. He had to get out of here before the authorities showed up. He quickly tucked the gun away — most people wouldn’t know what they had seen, but he couldn’t hang around long enough for anybody to regain their wits.
Quickly, quietly, he got in his car and drove off.
Kent took the call from the tac team, and he put it on the speaker:
“Sir, Operative Gridley has been wounded, looks like a single gunshot to the head. A lot of blood, he is unconscious, but still alive. Our medic says vital signs are stable. We are in the air en route to the nearest medical facility, ETA three minutes.”
“Copy, Sergeant. Continue.”
“No sign of the shooter. The state police arrived as we lifted, and Corporal Scates remained on-site as liaison. I can patch him in—”
“Not necessary, Sergeant. Tender sitreps as necessary.”
“Sir.”
Kent looked at Howard and Thorn.
Howard looked grim. “I’d better call Saji,” Howard said. To Thorn’s blank look, he said, “Gridley’s wife.”
“Ah.”
Well, wasn’t this a great way to end the day? One of his people shot by some loon in a fit of road rage. Thorn shook his head and moved over to a corner. It was going to be a long wait.
10
In the back of the limo, the hour long past dark and late, Cox stared at Eduard, stunned by his news. The limo was secure, swept for bugs daily, and it was just the two of them, parked in Cox’s ten-car garage.
“You shot him?”
“A mistake,” Natadze said. “It should not have happened.”
“You are damned straight about that! My God, Eduard!”
Natadze nodded. “I am sorry.”
Cox sighed. “Is he dead?”
“Unknown. He was hit in the head. If he lives, he will not be doing any work in the near future.”
Cox glared at him. “Oh, yeah, that’ll work out great! Every time Net Force brings in another replacement, you just shoot him in the head! That won’t make them suspicious at all!”
“I am sorry,” Natadze said again. “The error was entirely mine. I will find a way to rectify it.”
Cox shook his head. No point in beating a dead horse, done was done. And at the least, Eduard was right — a man shot in the head wasn’t likely to be doing much in the way of code-breaking anytime soon. Bullets in the brain tended to interfere with things like that.
And Cox doubted that anybody would make the connection to what Jay was working on — as far as anybody knew, it was a case of some driver being pissed off at another and unloading on him. That’s what it had said on the news. It happened all the time. The U.S. of A. was a violent society, and armed out the wazoo. You never knew if some crazy was going to step out of his vehicle and start shooting because you didn’t use your turn signal when you changed lanes.
“All right,” Cox said. “Find out about his condition, follow up and see what’s what. See if you can figure out who will take over for him. Get what you can, then we’ll decide what to do from there.”
“Yes, sir.”
Natadze looked so miserable Cox felt a need to cheer him up. “Don’t take it so hard, Eduard. Mistakes happen. That’s why they put erasers on the ends of pencils. It’s not the end of the world. Let’s learn from our errors and move on.”
“You are too kind, Mr. Cox.”
Nobody had ever accused him of that before. He had to smile at the thought. Well. At least his secret was safe for a little while longer. Like the folks from AA said, you had to take it one day at a time. In the end — well, in the end, everybody was dead. Getting as far as you could before that happened was kind of the point, wasn’t it?
After Eduard was gone, Cox went to have a drink. Once again, he had the house to himself, save for the servants, and given the recent events, that was probably just as well. He doubted that he would be particularly good company tonight.
Midnight had come and gone, and Natadze stood in the rented machine shop in Brooklyn, alone. The place was small, but it had more than sufficient tools for his needs. He had arranged to use it after hours, and it was costing him a thousand dollars, more money down the drain, but it was necessary.
First, he used a screwdriver to disassemble the Korth. He shook his head as he did so, marveling at the fitting. You could hardly see the joins in the revolver, so carefully fitted and polished they were. He disassembled the weapon to the frame and component parts. Then he clamped the barrel into a vise and used a hacksaw to render it into two shorter sections. It was hard work — he wore out a blade, had to replace it halfway through, and pretty much ruined the second one, too. The Rockwell on the weapon had to be around sixty. He developed a healthy sweat sawing on the thing.