Years before, Kranemeyer would have attributed it to the American spirit, defiant in the face of intimidation.
Now it struck him more as the ambivalent apathy of those still asleep.
Someone inside the government is working with the terrorists, and they’re trying to make it look like Nichols is behind it.
Haskel. It made sense now, Kranemeyer thought, remembering Carter’s words. He should have seen it, even then.
They were given access.
Was this the secret that had so nearly cost Lay his life? If so, why? What was Haskel’s angle…what did he stand to gain?
Questions without answers. The throwaway phone in Kranemeyer’s breast pocket buzzed with an incoming text and he pulled it out with a gloved hand, reading the message off the screen. Thomas.
Approx forty minutes out from last known location. Will apprise when we have the package.
Two of his best, closing in on their former team leader. A man who had kidnapped and murdered an American teenager.
An innocent, no matter what his father might have done.
Where did you go wrong, Nichols? Kranemeyer mused, pondering the irony of the question. Where, indeed?
He tucked the phone back inside his pocket and pushed the door of the SUV open, stepping out onto an ice-slick sidewalk. Deniable vehicle or no, it was safest to approach his target on foot.
The alarm would be raised within the hour — people would start looking for Shapiro.
What thou doest, do thou quickly.
They had night-vision. At least one of them did. And he didn’t have the ammunition necessary for a prolonged firefight.
Harry spat out sand as bullets chewed up the dirt near him, lifting himself up just far enough to return fire. One, two shots.
“I could use some help over here, Sammy,” he hissed into his mike, rolling over on the ground till he was staring up at the looming pumpjack.
No response. As there hadn’t been before. If they had outflanked him so successfully, perhaps Han was already dead.
Laying in the shadow of the pump, he hit the SCAR’s magazine release, checking his remaining ammunition.
Four .308 cartridges left. A couple magazines for his Colt, but a pistol was near useless against a trained marksman with a rifle.
Rounds continued to strike around him, caroming off the solid steel of the pump.
He closed his eyes, forcing himself to focus, to concentrate. Listening as the fire from the southwest faded away for a moment. There would be no second chances.
He rolled to one knee, acquiring a sight picture as his rifle came up. A man charging toward the pump, out in the open, his weapon weaving from side to side as he ran.
Harry pulled the trigger, the scope’s cross-hairs centering on the man’s chest. Once, twice.
The mercenary fell, throwing out a bloody hand as he hit the gravel. He tried to pull himself up, the expression of agony on his face clear even through the greenish glow of the night-vision scope.
A pair of shots came out of the night without warning, striking Harry in the side, sledgehammer blows to the ribs. A double-tap.
The SCAR dropped from his hands as he swayed, catching himself against the side of the pumpjack — his mind struggling to process what had just happened.
He looked up to see Korsakov standing there, barely five feet away, a semiautomatic pistol in his outstretched hands. “Almost good enough, Mr. Nichols. Almost.”
The vest, Harry thought, attempting to get his breath back. His assault vest must have stopped the slugs, leaving his ribs hammered from the blunt impact of the rounds. Not that it mattered, he thought, staring into the muzzle of Korsakov’s Skyph.
“Turn around.”
Harry shook his head, a bitter smile crossing his face. It hurt even to speak, but he found himself chuckling.
“You first.” Keep him off-balance.
“They were good men — the men you killed,” Korsakov whispered, a note of sadness in the assassin’s voice. He took a step closer, placing himself between Harry and the pumpjack. “My brothers.”
“Cry me a river.”
Korsakov’s eyes narrowed, his finger tightening around the trigger. “It’s time to say good-bye, Mr. Nichols.”
Footsteps on the gravel, and Harry turned his head to see Han standing there, the UMP-45 leveled in his hands. And he knew that he was in the SEAL’s line of fire.
The assassin gestured with the barrel of his pistol. “Back away or I kill him.”
“Take the shot, Sammy,” Harry ordered. He could feel the presence of Death, as if it stood beside him — could sense his friend’s hesitation. It was a hard shot, perhaps too hard in the darkness.
And death for him might as easily come from Han’s weapon as Korsakov’s. Little matter. “Don’t let him leave here alive — just take the shot.”
There was no time, he could see that in Korsakov’s eyes. One of them was going to die.
He pitched sideways, throwing out a hand to catch himself — fire blossoming from the muzzle of the Russian’s pistol. Blinding pain tore through his body from his injured ribs as he went down into the gravel, his right hand clawing for the butt of his Colt.
Faraway, as if in a dream, he heard the staccato of Han’s H&K. Felt drops of something warm spray over his face.
Ignoring the pain shooting through his ribs, Harry rolled onto his back, aiming the Colt skyward.
Korsakov swayed above him, clutching at what remained of his throat. His legs gave out from under him and he crumpled to the gravel.
Breathing heavily, Harry pushed himself up on one knee, struggling to stand. He found his feet after a moment, standing there above the dying Russian, his cocked pistol in his hand.
The man was struggling to breathe, a bloody froth escaping his lips. Yet the defiance was still there in his eyes, visible even through the agony distorting his face. Unbowed, even in death.
Harry raised the pistol, seeing Korsakov’s face through his gunsights. “This one’s for you, David.”
The thunder of the Colt reverberated across the oilfield, and then all was silent. The silence of the grave.
“You’re the last person I expected to see tonight, Barney.” Haskel closed the door, ushering Kranemeyer in out of the sleet. The DCS brushed the icy crystals off his trench coat, eyeing the house critically. Stairs led to a second floor and presumably bedrooms.
“We have a situation,” he announced. The best lies were the ones that clung most closely to the truth. “The Agency has been compromised.”
Surprise showed in Haskel’s eyes. “Indeed?”
A nod. “You know I wouldn’t be here if I thought I had anywhere else to turn,” Kranemeyer acknowledged bluntly. “Is your wife home?”
The FBI director shook his head. “She left this morning, took the kids with her. Driving to South Carolina to be with the grandparents for Christmas. Why don’t we go into the den?”
Haskel led the way down the hall, past a Thomas Kinkade landscape flanked by ornamental sconces.
“What’s the nature of this crisis, Barney?” he asked, opening the door to reveal a small library, leather-bound books adorning oaken shelves and several plush armchairs completing the set. A small wet bar stood at one end, a pair of stools in front and several bottles of whisky on the smooth granite of the bartop.
“We have a mole inside our government, inside the Agency,” Kranemeyer replied. “Tied to the hit on David. And I need your help exposing him.”