"I saw him running down the driveway! It was him, Ryan… It was Jerry Paradise!"
"Leaking like a Mexican fishing boat, ain't I?" Kaz's speech was coming slowly.
"Why'd you do that? Why'd you do that!" Cole kept saying over and over.
"I ain't gonna make it. Goin' to the big Howard Johnson's…"
"Bullshit," Cole said, desperately.
"Get the car into the garage. Get me in… I'll smash into 'em. Give you a chance." He was talking through clenched teeth.
"No, no, you're going with us," Lucinda said. "Dyin'," Kaz said, slowly. "Got one thing left to do… "
Cole had been in the Marines and there was a moral commandment that you didn't leave a soldier in the field to be scavenged by the enemy.
Kaz knew what Cole was thinking, so he pulled his backup piece and pointed the nine-millimeter Beretta weakly at them. "You get the car." Kaz knew they had one chance to win the game, but he was running out of time. He could feel the strength draining from him. "Do it," he said, thumbing back the hammer.
Ryan looked at the dying ex-fed. Something caught in his throat. He couldn't let Kaz die, but he knew he was powerless to save him. All he could do was grant his last wish.
"I'll get the cab," Ryan said.
"You got a bad leg," Cole said.
"Even with a bum wheel, I'm faster." Ryan knew the keys were still in the taxi, so he threw open the front door and ran the short distance across the drive, keeping the car between him and the bottom of the driveway. His leg was throbbing, but as long as he ran straight, it felt pretty solid. He dove into the cab, got the engine going, then backed it into the open garage, and hit the automatic door closer. The garage door came down, cutting the open drive from view.
The Ghost saw the garage door coming down through his binoculars. He summoned Yossi and Akmad. 'They're gonna be coming out. Get ready."
Yossi held the detonator and they waited.
Ryan and Cole got Kaz into the front seat of the car. He was propped behind the wheel and looked frighteningly pale. When he coughed, blood oozed through the towel they had pressed over the wound.
"Move over, I'm going with you," Ryan said
"Listen, damn it. We got what we came for. Mickey's plan is history." His voice was now a faint whisper. They had to lean in to hear him. "This is for our country," he said proudly.
They could take his badge and his life's work, but they would never change what he was inside. He just wanted good to triumph over evil.
"Let's get it done." He faced forward, leaning against the door as Cole turned the ignition. Then, with the taxi idling, Kaz looked at Lucinda. "Gimme your cell," he croaked. There was a death rattle now. His lungs were filling with blood.
She handed him the phone and he punched in the area code and the number for his beeper which was jammed into the C4 directly under him. "That's my sister's number. Tell her I love her," he said and hit the send button on the phone. He handed it back to Lucinda and then, with his eyes half-closed, floored the gas pedal and drove right through the wooden garage door, turning it into splinters.
Lucinda could hear the cell phone dialing. She was holding it stupidly in front of her as she watched the taxi speed down the driveway. She heard some clicks and then a cable hiss.
The signal shot through the transatlantic cable at the speed of light.
Kaz drove sloppily, his head spinning, his eyes blurring, his hands numb and lighter than air.
The phone call was relayed in Denver and streaked off toward Las Vegas where it went to the FBI Western Regional Exchange, then was routed up to the Telstar geosynchronous satellite that transmitted to all federal agents working in the Northern Hemisphere.
Kaz saw the Mitsubishi parked with three men standing near it at the end of the driveway. Yossi pointed his detonator at the car and Kaz saw him push the button. Nothing happened.
The Telstar satellite shot its ten-volt message down from space toward Kaz's beeper under the stolen taxi just as it jumped the low curb on the driveway and bounced through the trees heading for the Mitsubishi. The three men were scrambling to get into the car when Kaz accelerated. He T-boned the door, rocking the Mitsubishi up on two wheels. The Ghost raised his Explorer-II and fired a strea m o f.22-caliber yellow jackets into Kaz's face, turning his head to red mist.
"You flicker," the Ghost said, his heart racing. He was wondering what to do next.
The decision had already been made for him.
Kaz's beeper rang.
They felt the concussion all the way across Jaffa Harbor. When the C-4 detonated, it shot fiery parts of both automobiles a thousand feet into the air. Debris was later found a quarter mile from the explosion… But nobody ever found the remains of the Ghost or his associates. And nobody ever found Solomon Leeland Kazorowski. He was gone-off the planet. He was in the crowded bar at the big Howard Johnson's, waiting for his check-in, a smile on his face, having his first Jack Daniel's in ten years.
Chapter 62.
THE BLAST KNOCKED OUT SOME OF THE WINDOWS IN THE Bach house. Cole and Ryan had watched from the garage door. One graphic detail would haunt both of them for th e r est of their lives. High above the colony of houses, th e b lack and green hood of the taxi shimmered in the sun, twisting and turning, caught in a terminal updraft. It kite d o ut over the harbor.
"Son of a bitch," Cole said in awe as debris started to rain down in the yard.
Ryan and Cole turned and saw Lucinda standing behind them, her hand to her mouth.
"Let's get moving. We gotta get out of here," Ryan said, coming to his senses first.
They moved back inside the house on rubbery legs, gathered up their things, and stuffed the tapes and film back into the bag. Within a few minutes, they were walking down the long driveway. A small fire had started in the trees and people were beginning to come out of their houses and stare in disbelief at the site of the explosion.
The three of them walked out of the development and finally hitched a ride in the back of a citrus truck.
They rode in silence back to Tel Aviv. All of them were thinking about Kaz.
The corner room at the Carlton seemed littered with Kaz's meager possessions. Lucinda started collecting everything while Cole tried to get Naomi Zur on the phone. It was hard to believe the big, rumpled ex-fed in the Hawaiian shirt was gone. He had saved Ryan's life and Cole's. He had provided them with field savvy none of the rest of them possessed. They felt sad and vulnerable.
Cole finally got one of the Reuters staffers to give him Naomi's home number. She had just stepped out of the shower when she took the call and was dripping water on her floor.
"You need what?" she said to Cole.
"I need to listen to some tapes, transfer some film, and have you get me out of Israel, all as fast as possible."
"Here's how you accomplish that, Cole… First you go to a TV station and pay somebody to transfer the stuff, then you. go to Ben Gurion Airport and you buy a ticket."
"Naomi, my partner was just killed. I may have the biggest story of my career. I'll cut you in, but you have to help me and then smuggle three of us outta here on a private bird."
"Why can't you go commercial?"
"Because, every time we. travel commercial, some goombah hitter is standing outside the gate with an Uzi." "Where are you?"
"We'll come to you. Pick a place."
"There's an entrance for Reuters in the underground garage. Park in one of the yellow spaces, go to the elevator farthest away from the parking stalls. There's a keypad there, punch in the numbers three-six, then PYD. That'll get you in. I'll meet you on the fourteenth floor in twenty-five minutes."