Cutler stared at the old man for a long moment.
‘And how would you know that?’
‘Because I make it my business to know,’ Oppenheimer snapped. ‘And right now, what I know could help us both achieve our aims.’
‘Which are?’ Cutler asked, remaining impassive.
‘The acquiring of certain…’ Oppenheimer delicately selected a word, ‘tissues that are required for SkinGen to produce a new drug. Tyler Willis, before his unfortunate death, was working on just such a drug.’
‘Anything that we find will be delivered directly to Colonel Wolfe at Fort Detrick,’ Cutler replied.
Oppenheimer grinned.
‘But if some were to be inadvertently lost,’ he suggested, ‘or left behind?’
Cutler eyed the old man for a long beat of his heart before replying.
‘Such things have happened before, occasionally.’
‘Of course they have,’ Oppenheimer agreed. ‘Human error, environmental issues, sheer bad luck. Of course, you will enjoy a considerable amount of financial good fortune should such an occurrence take place.’
Cutler set his glass down, his pistol still in his hand.
‘And where might these tissues you refer to be found?’ he asked.
Oppenheimer gestured vaguely about in the air.
‘They might well be located by Warner and Lopez in the near future,’ he suggested. ‘Perhaps if you were there you could ensure that viable specimens are passed on to SkinGen instead of USAMRIID.’
‘Viable how?’ Cutler asked.
Oppenheimer’s grin turned cold as he leaned forward on his cane.
‘Alive, Mister Cutler. Just one of them, alive.’
Cutler stood immobile for what felt like several minutes, the beating of his heart thumping in his ears.
‘Who?’
‘Let Warner and Lopez guide you,’ Oppenheimer suggested, ‘you’ll know well enough when you find them. I’ll compensate you fully once you’ve returned them to—’
‘Five hundred thousand dollars,’ Cutler interrupted, ‘all in advance, wired to my account by tomorrow morning, or this conversation is over.’
Oppenheimer ground his teeth in his jaw, his gaze turning icy, but he nodded once.
‘As you wish.’
Oppenheimer produced a card and handed it to Cutler. The card bore the details of a SkinGen subsidiary bank account, as though Oppenheimer were used to bribing people and had made cards specifically for that purpose.
‘Call your bank,’ Oppenheimer said, ‘and clear the transfer with them. One call, Mister Cutler, along with a single live human being, and your work will be done.’
Oppenheimer turned without another word, one of his guards opened the door for him and he left the hotel room. Cutler watched the door close behind them, and stood alone in silence for several moments, looking down at the card in his hand.
The he turned, and picked up his cell phone.
45
Ethan hurled himself to one side as a bullet cracked the air beside him, bursting through the fabric of his Bergen. Lopez leapt for cover behind a dense thicket of bushes to her left as the bullet ricocheted off the stony ground and zipped past her.
‘I thought you said not to worry!’ Lopez shouted.
Ethan rolled sideways into cover, squinting up at the hillside as bits of dust and grit stung his eyes. The sky was darkening swiftly, the glow of the sunset giving way to the deep blue of evening. He remained silent and still. Against the sky he could see occasional movement, furtive and sporadic. For a moment he couldn’t believe that their attackers could have launched such a perfect ambush and yet expose themselves so easily at the same time, and then he suddenly understood.
Another shot cracked out, and Ethan spotted a tiny burst of muzzle flame just before it smacked into the earth a few feet behind where he lay. The shot was at least a hundred yards closer than the figures milling about on the hillside.
‘They circled back on themselves,’ Ethan whispered to Lopez, cursing his complacency for thinking that professional soldiers, no matter how old, would have failed to cover their retreat. ‘They’re clearing their tail.’
Lopez’s voice whispered back to him.
‘That’ll teach you to respect your elders.’ Ethan shot her a disapproving glance, which she ignored. ‘There’s too many of them.’
‘I don’t think they’re all on the same team,’ Ethan whispered back, looking across to where his Bergen had fallen when the bullet had struck it. ‘We’d better move before they fall back.’
Ethan belly-crawled across to his Bergen, fumbling inside for a moment until his hand rested on something cold and hard. He pulled the weapon out, checking its mechanism in the darkness before looking up at the hillside.
‘Is that a pistol?’ Lopez asked in amazement.
The Beretta M9 9mm had been the standard issue sidearm of the Marine Corps in Ethan’s day, and he had liked the weapon despite concerns about its stopping power. Compact, light and easy to use, Ethan kept one for what he liked to call ‘special occasions’.
‘These aren’t boy scouts we’re following,’ Ethan whispered. ‘I thought it best to come prepared.’
Lopez didn’t argue, although he could sense a certain tension in the air between them as he started up the hillside, dodging from cover to cover. He knew that she was pissed at him both for not telling her that he’d been carrying and because she would be wanting a piece too.
Another shot burst out, a flash of muzzle flame perhaps sixty yards ahead and twenty higher, illuminating a dense patch of bushes. The shot zipped over Ethan’s head with no more than six inches to spare, the supersonic shockwave thudding through his eardrums.
‘Jesus,’ Lopez whispered, ‘another one like that and we’re going back down.’
Which is what they wanted, Ethan knew. It was the practice of all troops in the Marine Corps, especially special-forces units like recon, that when faced with an attack by a numerically superior force you did the last thing they expected you to do. You advanced, and turned a firepower disadvantage into psychological warfare.
Ethan dropped onto one knee to aim at the spot where the last muzzle flash had appeared and fired two quick shots into the darkness. Two. Instantly he sprang up, running full tilt for twenty paces straight up the hillside before dropping down and firing another two shots into the same area. Four.
Behind him, he heard Lopez laboring up the hillside in pursuit.
Another rifle shot, from further away this time. The shot went over Ethan’s head, higher than the last. He immediately aimed and fired two more shots directly at where the muzzle flash had briefly lit the edge of the hillside. Six. Nine rounds remaining. He leapt up and dashed ten yards forward and a few yards down the hill, dropping down onto one knee again and aiming at the edge of the hillside. Lopez reached his position and sank down onto her knees, breathing heavily.
‘The hell you doing?’
Ethan didn’t look at her, keeping his eyes fixed on the gloomy hills ahead.
‘Trying to make them think there’s more than two of us.’
Lopez was about to speak when suddenly three rifle shots rattled out across the valley, one after the other. Bullets zipped past them, rustling through the bushes or snapping over their heads. Ethan flinched, throwing himself forward and flat onto the earth as Lopez did the same alongside him.
‘Great,’ she whispered as the reports echoed away down the valley behind them. ‘Now they’re all shooting at us.’
Ethan got up and fired two more shots, one each at two of the enemy positions, and then began advancing toward them in a low crouched run. Eight. He dropped down and let fly two more shots, hoping against hope that the enemy would have fallen back in retreat. Ten.