He knew he had only one choice. Stay here, Cameron, and you’ll be shot. At least running he had a “sporting chance” of getting away. Oh, if I could only have my Beretta!
He glanced toward the CIA man checking under a car fifty feet away. Fifty feet. He estimated the silencers reduced the accuracy of their weapons by over sixty percent.
Cameron made his decision and, in a blur, rolled from under the sedan and rocketed across the aisle toward the adjacent row of cars. To his surprise, gunfire did not start right away, but it did come. The shattering windshield of a compact car next to him definitely confirmed his fears. The CIA men had fired without warning, without asking him to give himself up. Cameron knew then that he had been labeled for termination.
Cameron heard a shriek… a woman! Then a yell from a man. Security forces would come. A round ricocheted off the concrete floor and crashed through the plastic grill of another compact car.
The screams seemed amplified inside the concrete structure. Cameron came to the next aisle, crossed it, and reached the next row of cars. He dropped to a crouch and cut left, moving up the aisle behind the cars. Cameron heard other voices and screams in the distance as he counted fifteen cars. He abruptly stopped and hid in the space between two vehicles, moved near the front tires, and searched for the operatives.
He spotted one running down the aisle away from him. The second moved in his direction but with the weapon trained on a row of cars across the aisle from Cameron. The man had not seen him yet.
Cameron dropped to the ground and listened intensely for the footsteps. He waited. The man continued at the same pace. Cameron shrank back. The footsteps got louder. The figure loomed in his field of view.
Cameron plunged forward with both arms in front. The rookie operative spotted him and began to turn the weapon in Cameron’s direction. Too late. Cameron intercepted the man’s arm with his right hand, and gripped and twisted the man’s wrist, keeping the weapon pointed away from him. In the same motion, he rammed his left hand against the operative’s face, two fingers extended like a snake’s tongue. The operative instantly released the weapon and brought both hands to his face with an agonized scream. Cameron drove his right knee into the man’s groin and watched him fall over and curl into a fetal position on the concrete floor.
Cameron snagged the suppressed pistol — a Colt .45—and spotted the second agent bringing his weapon around. Cameron leveled the Colt on the operative and fired twice. The CIA agent fell with a scream, dropping his weapon while reaching down to his wounded thighs.
Sirens blared in the distance.
Cameron reached down and grabbed the first agent by the lapels.
“Why? Why are you trying to kill me?”
Cameron saw blood coming out of the man’s eyes. “Fuck you, Stone. Go… ahead. Kill me… you bastard. Kill me just… like you killed Potter.”
Potter? What in the hell is going on?
“Tell me who gave the order! Tell me!”
“You’re as good as… dead, Stone.”
“Tell me, you fucker! Who gave the order?”
“You don’t… get it, do you? You’re… beyond salvage, asshole.”
Cameron released his grip. The agent fell on his back. Beyond salvage?
The sirens got closer. Cameron dropped the Colt and ran for the double doors. The airport lobby seemed undisturbed. Cameron mixed with the crowd and headed for his gate. He briefly checked his watch. The entire incident had taken under two minutes. He still had time to make his flight.
CHAPTER TEN
REVELATIONS
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
After spending a revealing thirty minutes in the Records department of the Office of Computer Services, Pruett stormed into Higgins’s office but found his subordinate wasn’t there. He checked his watch. Five-thirty in the afternoon. Higgins always stayed past six. Where could he possibly be? He walked back outside and spotted Higgins’s secretary coming out of the ladies room. He approached her.
“Where is he?”
The secretary, a middle-age woman known to the entire department as a closet smoker, tried to remain far away from Pruett. One sniff and Pruett realized she had been smoking in the bathroom again. Under a different set of circumstances he would have reprimanded her, but there were more pressing things on his mind.
“He went out, sir.”
“Beep him for me, would you?”
“Right away, sir.”
“Thanks. There’s something very important I need to discuss with him.” Pruett walked back into Higgins’s office, his own old office from years back before he’d gotten the promotion. Higgins had definitely remodeled it quite a bit. Most of Pruett’s old furniture was gone and replaced with more modern stuff. In the CIA department heads were given a certain budget to furnish their offices. The higher up one went, the larger the budget got. In his case, Pruett had declined the opportunity to purchase new furniture after his last promotion. His old boss, who’d been assassinated, had been a good friend of his. Pruett had kept the office almost intact for sentimental reasons, and also out of respect. To this day he still used the same leather swivel chair and oak desk as his predecessor.
Pruett smelled something burning and immediately thought Higgins’s secretary had been smoking in there. After a few seconds he decided the smell was not that of cigarette smoke, but left over from something that had been burned inside the office. Pruett recognized the odor because he had sometimes burned highly classified material and confidential information until he’d gotten his own personal paper shredder. Before that he had been too lazy to walk halfway down the hall to the closest paper shredder to dispose of security trash. Some of his peers used the security trash cans located just about everywhere in the building. He never did. He didn’t trust them. Instead, he’d opted for burning letters and small documents in a metallic trash can he’d left to Higgins when he’d gotten the paper shredder.
Pruett briefly scanned the room and spotted the trash can next to Higgins’s desk. He walked toward it and spotted a few burnt sheets of paper inside. He had been right. Higgins had picked up one of Pruett’s old bad habits.
Pruett knelt down next to the trash can, tilted it and took a closer look. Whatever it was had burned thoroughly. He spotted two sheets of paper, totally blackened and curled up but not yet collapsed. He noticed a staple on one corner holding them together. A third sheet had already crumbled. Pruett couldn’t help himself. It made sense. While investigating George’s murder and the sabotage of the Sun workstation, he’d had a short discussion with the filing clerk of the Records department of the Office of Computer Services, where Pruett had found the computer printout and cover letter that George had filed a day earlier. A small note attached to the cover letter indicated that one copy was made from it and passed to the European desk. From there it must have found its way to Higgins. The computer printout contained three events in a possible NASA pattern — the deaths of Claude Guilloux, the Rocketdyne worker, and the Athena scientists. Now Pruett wanted to find out why Higgins hadn’t discussed that with him prior to the issuing of Stone’s termination order.
Pruett felt the heartburn returning. He had just finished chewing two antacid tablets, and realized it was going to take more than that to placate his upset stomach. He reached into his pocket, grabbed the pack, and popped another tablet in his mouth.