Back inside the yurt, Gillespie was complaining about her sleeping bag: “It looks like it’s from the Cold War!” She went on to moan about the bag’s moldy stench.
Hansen said she’d have to live with the smell, but at least he’d bought them for a dollar a piece — a bargain!
Ames, of course, couldn’t allow anyone to have any fun and immediately dampened the mood by asking Fisher why they couldn’t just blow up the 738 Arsenal.
“Two reasons,” Fisher replied. “One, I doubt whoever arranged this auction is stupid enough to keep it all in a big pile; we’re talking about tons of equipment. We don’t have enough Semtex for that. Two, they’re going to be our Trojan horses. Once they leave here, we’ll track them wherever they go. In the space of a week, we’ll learn more about this group’s logistics and transport routes than we’ve learned in the last five years. When they arrive at their destination, we mop them up, along with anyone else we find.”
Ames tried to poke holes in the plan.
Fisher said he’d make a deaclass="underline" “If this all goes to hell and we’re both still around when it’s over, you can say you told me so.”
Hansen glimpsed at the time on his OPSAT: 11:00 P.M. The others were fast asleep. He sat up and glanced over at Fisher’s bunk. He was already awake and nodded to Hansen. They rose and slipped into their cold-weather gear, then moved to Ames’s bunk. Fisher pricked Ames just below the ear with an anesthetic dart, while Hansen held his mouth. Ames nearly bit Hansen before he went limp.
Holding his breath, Hansen lifted the rat bastard in a fireman’s carry and went outside, taking Ames to another yurt. Inside, he lay Ames spread-eagled on a bunk and used some old paracord to bind his wrists and ankles to the rickety wooden platform. They’d removed the mattress; that would come into play later.
After a moment to catch his breath, Hansen found and lit another kerosene lantern, though he kept it dim to conserve fuel. Fisher went off to fetch the others.
A few moments later, they all filed into the tent, shocked about what they were seeing. Fisher warned them about what was happening, while Hansen slipped outside to fetch the bottle of gasoline they had earlier prepared.
Within five minutes, Ames woke up, and after voicing his questions and demands, and being summarily dismissed, Fisher cut to the chase: “You’re a traitor.”
Ames whined like a little boy, denying everything, and even tried to emphasize that he was a Splinter Cell.
Hansen wanted to tell Ames what a rat he was, and then pummel the runt to within an inch of his life, but he held back. Fisher was asking the questions and went on to tell Ames that they knew he’d contacted Kovac’s office when he’d gone off to use the outhouse. Fisher said he could prove it because he had a transcript, which he’d sent to all their OPSATs. He instructed the team to review the script, and there it was, in black and white, Ames’s full text report. He’d given up everything: their location, make and model of their vehicles, weapons, and the details he had regarding the auction and planned attack on the Laboratory 738 Arsenal. It was all there. Hansen guessed the little bastard had been desperate enough to send the text because he no longer had access to a cutout.
“Ames has been working for Kovac for a while,” said Fisher. “We’re not sure how long, but we’re about to find out.” Fisher went on to explain how Ames used Karlheinz van der Putten as a scapegoat, since he couldn’t reveal that he’d learned where Fisher would be through Kovac’s office. Fisher said that van der Putten had not received any money for the information. Fisher had personally gained access to van der Putten’s financials, and they reflected no payoff from Ames.
Fisher also explained that he’d been in Vianden to visit an Austrian named Yannick Ernsdorff, whom he’d already told Hansen about and who was, he now shared with the rest, the banker for the auction they were hoping to infiltrate. Kovac was nervous because he and Ernsdorff were working for the same man.
“And who is that?” Noboru asked.
Fisher sighed deeply. “We don’t know.”
“Does he?” asked Valentina, gesturing to Ames.
The little man began his whining again. Fisher cut him off, saying the best case was that Ames was working for Kovac simply to push Grim out. Worst case was that Kovac was, indeed, a traitor and was helping whoever was behind the auction. Either way, though, Ames had been a mole from the start.
And Hansen found it even more ironic that Ames had done nothing from the beginning to hide his disdain for the others. In fact, he’d actually made himself the most obvious person to be suspected as a mole. Maybe that was his plan? Be too obvious? No, Hansen figured that Ames just didn’t care, that he hated them so much he figured he’d play it that way and just enjoy the ride. There was no deep-seated rationale behind his thinking. He was just a little runt bastard who needed to be taught a lesson.
“Ames thought he was talking to Kovac on the OPSAT. He probably knew Kovac was going to pass on the information. When we reached the auction site, we would’ve been walking into an ambush.”
Gillespie made a face and said, “There are a lot of ifs in there, Sam.”
“True. We can settle this pretty easily. We know Ames is working for Kovac. We have the proof. What we need to know is whether Kovac’s just an ass, or a traitor, and whether Ames is in on it.”
Hansen got his signal from Fisher. He shoved the straw mattress under Ames’s bunk; then Fisher took up the bottle of gasoline and poured a little around the edge. The odor spread strong and fast, and Ames’s expression tightened in horror.
Katy stood at the window, coughing, staring at Ames, reaching out to him as the flames danced at her shoulders. Ames’s mother screamed something, her words turning into a shriek as his father cried out her name — suddenly an explosion rocked through the house.
And Ames stood there on the front lawn, immobile, knowing he should have run back inside but too scared to do anything, a coward in the face of the flames. A coward. A boy who didn’t save his family. A boy who’d watched them die. A boy who should be punished. A man who took every risk he could in his life because he knew he deserved to be punished.
Fisher was looking at Ames now, saying something, but Ames was just shaking his head, not against Fisher’s words but against the inevitable, the image of those three bodies being carried from the house, draped in white sheets.
Now Fisher was pouring gasoline all over Ames’s body: the cold, foul liquid seeping through his clothes.
They were going to kill him, and it’d be too easy, out in Siberia, in the middle of nowhere.
But he deserved it. He should take his punishment like a man. He needed to burn like them. Burn…
But an unconscious need for self-preservation kicked in, and Ames began bucking against the cord, the bunk rising and falling from the floor.
Fisher told the others that Ames would know the name of the man they were tracking. If he did, then it was clear Kovac gave it to him and that Kovac was in up to his eyebrows.
“Ames!” Fisher screamed.
And with a gasp, Ames fell still.
Fisher spoke slowly, the foreboding in his tone making Ames swallow in fear. “Tell me the name of the man we’re tracking, or I’m going to set you on fire.”
The name, Aariz Qaderi, came out with no hesitation. Ames wasn’t telling Fisher a name; he was telling his father that he was sorry for not saving him, for not saving the family.
“Ben’s going to ask you more questions. Answer him,” said Fisher; then he gestured to the door for the others to leave.