He moved down the darkened hallway to the Secretary’s door. He knew his next few moves were critical, life or death moves.
His own life or death.
He lit the rag with a lighter, then kicked open the Secretary’s office door and threw the acetone fire bomb inside. The can ricocheted off the wall sending a plume of flame against the wall and across the floor. The sheers on the windows went up in a blaze.
He had only a few seconds left now. The smoke would soon activate the fire alarms and the Parliament Building would be swarming with responders, cutting off any chance he had for escape.
He caught his first break. He could hear the Secretary shouting for someone to extinguish the fire. The first movement he saw through the doorway was that of the man in black. The man moved toward the flaming sheers as O’Rourke came through the doorway.
Before the man could turn around, O’Rourke fired three shots into his chest. The man fell backwards, his arms extended up in the air from the impacts to his chest. His silenced pistol flew out of his hand and slid across the floor, landing only a foot from O’Rourke’s feet. The man fell to the floor only three feet from the flames.
O’Rourke quickly moved into the room, pointing his weapon toward the only place the Commander and Secretary could be. His swiftness caught them off guard and they watched in fear as the man in black died.
Flames spread quickly casting an amber glow in the office. When the two men looked up, O’Rourke stood with his gun aimed in their direction. The Secretary threw up his hands to surrender. The Commander didn’t.
The Commander and O’Rourke stared each other in the eyes.
O’Rourke leaned down to pick up the hit man’s gun without breaking his eye lock with the Commander. The Secretary lowered his arms and reached toward his desk drawer. O’Rourke raised the hit man’s gun and fired a bullet dead center into the Secretary’s forehead. A faint shadow flew from the back of the Secretary’s head as his body fell to the floor.
The room filled with smoke and O’Rourke knew his time was running out. The Commander shouted, “Laurence, that’s enough. Put the weapon down. That is an order.”
O’Rourke laughed. “I don’t take orders from you anymore, old man.”
“Look, I can still salvage this. I’ll tell them the asset shot the Secretary. You can just leave. Leave now while you have a chance.”
“What?” O’Rourke chided, “Are you afraid of dying?”
“It doesn’t have to end this way,” the Commander said. “We can come to an arrangement.”
“Sorry, there will be no arrangements. I will discredit Sinn Fein. I will discredit your dead Secretary. I owe you nothing. You did nothing but use me to do your dirty work, then left me hanging when your ill-conceived plans backfired. Because of you, I have no safe place to go.
“Fortunately though,” O’Rourke continued, “I planned ahead. I have enough documentation to bring down the entire New Northern Ireland Assembly. I have proof of all the lies. All your lies.
O’Rourke motioned to the lifeless Secretary of State with his pistol. “All his lies.”
O’Rourke smiled for the first time. “I’m going to expose everything, then I’m going to disappear forever. I have the money to live the life I deserve. I’m going someplace out of the reach of the SIS, the CIA, and everyone.”
The fire alarm sounded, interrupting his diatribe. O’Rourke raised the hit man’s pistol and fired twice. The first bullet struck the Commander in the chest. The second shot hit him in the right temple. He was dead before he hit the floor.
CHAPTER 66
Jake dreamt of Beth. The last few days rolled over and over in his unconscious mind. She lay in his blood-soaked arms. The yellow shirt stained with her blood. She was dying. Then the faces appeared. O’Rourke. Collins. McGill — eyes open but dead. Then he heard Sullivan talking to them from the darkness of their room at the Savannah Westin. He had no head.
He felt himself shaking. A woman was calling his name, a soft unfamiliar voice.
“Jake, wake up. Jake, Jake, wake up.”
He opened his eyes. Isabella Hunt’s large hazel eyes met his. They looked like Beth’s eyes. She gave him a warm smile.
“You were having a bad dream,” she whispered.
“I wish it was a bad dream. Unfortunately it was real,” he replied. He looked at Kaplan’s empty seat and asked, “Where’s Gregg?”
“He’s in the back. He couldn’t sleep so he went back and laid out the maps and files on the table. He’s been going over them for hours.”
He turned around and saw Kaplan studying the information he gave him at CIA Headquarters.
“We just received word from SIS in London,” said Isabella. “They spotted O’Rourke in Belfast. An operative followed him to Stormont. He lost him but found where O’Rourke hid his car. He’ll wait for O’Rourke to return, then follow him.
“They read your dossier. Bentley faxed it to SIS on a scrambled fax line. They believe your assessment is correct and will have an SIS operative meet us in Sligo. Langley said the SIS is, and I quote, ‘at our disposal.’”
“How long before we get there?” he asked.
“The pilot said we’re less than two hours out. We caught a nice tailwind in the jet stream and are making good time.”
Hunt had been with the CIA Clandestine Service for seven years. She started as an analyst and moved up quickly when she got a break on a case she had researched. A female operative on the mission was injured. Due to time constraints, Hunt was allowed to go undercover as her replacement. She won a commendation from her superiors and was recruited as a full-time operative.
The thirty-five-year-old daughter of an interracial marriage, she was fluent in several languages. She had an athletic build, with firm, muscular arms and legs, a result of her years on a swimming scholarship at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Her physical appearance, along with her language skills, made her versatile in mission assignments. Her dark complexion and black hair had allowed her to blend in with the locals on missions in Central and South America, as well as Egypt and the Middle East. Her hazel eyes were easily concealed with brown contacts. She had been credited with seven kills, all flawlessly executed and four “extractions.” Extraction being a politically correct way of referring to abduction, kidnapping, whatever term one wanted to use.
He unbuckled his seat belt and said, “I’m going to talk to Gregg.”
Hunt smiled at him and said, “Okay, I’ll be there in a minute. I need to make a call to Langley first.”
“You know, behind that gruff exterior is a likable Isabella — just waiting to get out.”
“Yeah? Well, don’t get used to it.”
He walked toward the back of the jet. He noticed Kaplan staring at something in his hands. As he got closer he noticed it was the gold cross Annie had been wearing around her neck the day she died.
“Gregg, are you okay?”
“Oh yeah, I’m fine.” Kaplan quickly put the cross in his shirt pocket.
“I know it must be hard losing Annie. I don’t know what I’d do if Beth died.”
“Jake, you can’t lose something you never had. Obviously, I didn’t know her at all.”
“Gregg, you once told me you were a good listener. Well, I think I’m a damn good listener too, if you want to talk about it.”
Kaplan surprised himself as he began to tell Jake about his past. There was something about the young investigator that he liked. Maybe it was because, despite his privileged upbringing, he remained humble. Maybe it was because Jake didn’t want to ride on his father’s coattails and worked hard to prove himself. Or maybe it was because Jake was one of the few honest people he’d ever met — honest to a fault.