He took it in. He was still trying to get his mind around the black hole, but he took this new information in. She carefully explained wave technology and what would result if you tried to manipulate the wave. Fragments of old learning came back to him, enough for him to grasp what she was saying. He even seemed to recall that this, this, was what he had wanted from her all that long while ago. She was revealing secrets, but she didn’t seem disturbed by the fact. She described everything deliberately.
“Don’t you see?” she said, her green eyes alight. “The technology I was working on—the technology you were looking for—it has to be buried, Lieutenant. Because if it isn’t, there is a very real possibility that someone in the government will use it, benignly, ignorantly, or otherwise. We can’t risk it.”
She seemed to want some kind of response from him. She squeezed his arm.
“We don’t have to be on opposite sides. We’ve both seen things that have made us realize how precious this world is and how…” she sighed, “how responsible we are for our choices. It’s not too late, Lieutenant Farris.”
It finally dawned on him then what she was doing, why she had come with him, why she had been so concerned about him, so helpful! She was trying to turn him, turn him, like some green recruit!
An ugly laugh passed his lips. She had no idea how little he cared about any of it. He felt only numb about what she had told him; he felt nothing at all. He didn’t believe her, number one. Number two, he was a soldier, even here, and he would never betray his oaths of loyalty. And, number three, it wasn’t even his responsibility to make the kinds of decisions she was talking about. Didn’t she understand that? She was trying to manipulate the wrong link in the chain of command.
In fact, he was amazed how little he cared about what she had just told him. He wasn’t even angry at the idea that she might be lying or trying to manipulate him. And even as he was thinking so he felt sweat trickle down his face and a hot, burning pain in his abdomen.
“Excuse me,” he said, rising quickly.
He barely made it to the bathroom. There was a roaring in his ears and a thickening veil descending across his vision. He locked the door and sank down the wall, his knees jammed up against the sink, and the blackness in his mind swept over him like a blanket.
Ed Hinkle stared out at the dark. It wasn’t snowing, but the bare soil outside was crisp as ice and the air hurt when you drew it into your lungs. He was sick to death of Poland.
Still no word today. He’d sent in his report this morning, as usual, and heard nothing back, as usual. He couldn’t resist taking a walk in the woods this morning, just to see with his own two eyes that nothing had changed. Nothing had changed.
He wished he knew the test results on the samples from the woods, if the DoD had found any trace of a weapon or not. But he already knew by the way they were treating him that he was eyes and ears and muscle on this case and nothing more. Most of the time he was happy enough to just do his job and be done with it. But in this case he was damned curious. He had been in the woods that night, and he had seen that flash.
He didn’t know how much longer he could stay here with that filthy old man without killing him. He was their only witness and he was too mental to tell them jack.
The bottle of Russian vodka on the counter kept drawing Hinkle’s eye.
He’d told the broad he didn’t want it. He was on assignment, which meant he was on duty twenty-four seven. He wouldn’t drink. But the Russian bimbo had insisted on leaving it here, as a gift. He told her he’d just pour it down the drain. She’d laughed and left it anyway.
She hadn’t been bad-looking. If it had been any other time…
He picked up the bottle. It had the original factory seal—looked just like other bottles of the same or a similar brand he’d seen in the windows in town. Too bad. He had a brief fantasy—wouldn’t it be fun if the bimbo had actually been a Russian spy and had put poison in the bottle? Or better yet, Spanish fly, so she could slip in later and ride him raw while her partner stole the goods. He put down the bottle with a laugh.
No such luck. The Russians weren’t even on the map these days. Besides, who’d want a bed-wetting old man?
He felt Davis’s presence before he saw him. Well, hell, where else would he be? It was a small house.
“Want to play some cards?”
Ed sighed. “Hell, yeah.”
They were deep into five card stud, using a huge jar of the old man’s pennies for stake, when the distinct noise of slamming car doors caught their attention.
Hinkle and Davis looked at each other and got up to investigate. Hinkle wasn’t alarmed at first, but he was on alert. Maybe someone had finally stopped by to see the old fart, maybe someone with an actual dreg or two of information. But he hadn’t heard the sound of a motor.
Before they reached the front door he did hear a motor—a car starting up. It sounded familiar. He and Davis rushed out the front door to see the faces of two startled youths in their rental car. The car backed up, lurching into reverse, and began gunning madly down the driveway.
For a moment, Hinkle was completely dumbfounded. Some dumb-ass local shits were actually stealing their car. Stealing the car of the DoD—how unlucky could you get?
Then he and Davis began running after the car—on foot.
From the cover of the woods north of Anatoli’s place Nate, Denton, Aharon, and Hannah watched the car lurch down the road and the two men running behind it, guns drawn. The car died and restarted and lurched again just enough to keep Hinkle and his pal from giving up.
“Well, I’d say that’s the distraction,” Denton commented. He rubbed his hands together as if against the cold, but the truth was, he was far too tense to feel anything as insignificant as weather. His three companions looked a little anxious themselves.
Aharon and Hannah hadn’t been able to learn everything about the Mossad’s plan, but they had heard bits and pieces and, between the four of them, they’d worked out a basic scenario that made sense. Whether it was the scenario the Mossad had in mind was another matter.
“There they go,” Hannah whispered.
From the dark of the woods directly behind Anatoli’s house two figures in black emerged and ran for the back door. Hannah and Aharon gave Denton and Nate one last look of support and took off along the edge of the woods. Denton and Nate slipped away for a rendezvous of their own.
The man who sometimes called himself Mr. Smith and his partner, Hadar, quietly let themselves into the house. The back door was locked, but Mr. Smith had a hook that opened it in five seconds. He didn’t even have to put the corpse down. Door open, he slipped inside, Hadar behind him.
It was not ideal. The men who had arrived this morning from Czechoslovakia, the ones who were right now out playing cat and mouse with the U.S. agents, could have been in here helping him. And they could have had all the time in the world instead of being rushed—if the Americans had consumed the sleeping drug–enhanced vodka. But they hadn’t; they were too well trained.
The corpse on his shoulders had not felt heavy when he’d picked it up back at the car, but it was heavy after carrying it a quarter mile through the woods. He let Hadar brush past him and open the door to the old man’s room. The lights were out and they left the hall door open in lieu of turning on their torches.
The old man was awake and he sat up, his face, even in the shadows, a grimacing mask of fear. Hadar was fast. She stuffed the gag in his mouth before he could scream and had him up and out of bed in an instant. He didn’t even fight the restraints that pinned his arms to his side and his calves together. From the look of the old man, it would be a miracle he’d survive the ordeal.