America (45 page)

The knot of people the guy was in talked animatedly among themselves, enjoying the break from their desks.

They paid for their meals individually, then commandeered the end of one of the long tables.

Myron Matheny rose, threw away his soft drink as he walked toward the parking garage. Yep, the guy was going to be visible from the second deck.

This was it. It was time to kill.

Walking toward the parking garage, Myron Matheny was still thinking of things that could go wrong. The two cops were still eating nearby. They were wearing bulletproof vests but not their little two-way radios—maybe those had been burned up by the E-warheads. That was a break. At least they wouldn't be calling in before he could even get in the car and start the getaway. Nor were the garage security cameras working. Perhaps the good breaks would cancel out the bad.

After he drilled the guy, maybe he should gun one of these two, slow the other one down. It would take seconds. That might slow the pursuit just enough. Or it might be just the break the survivor needed to get a clear shot at the back of his head as he drove away in his stolen Ford.

He wouldn't think about it, he would just go on instinct.

*   *   *

“So tell me again, Mr. Ilin, about this grand adventure of yours running through the forest the other day to escape assassins.” Jadot asked that question.

“I see from the skeptical expression on your face that you doubt the veracity of my previous remarks on that subject,” Janos Ilin said.

“You do not,” Jadot protested. “The great stone-face, they call me. Recruiters for the World Series of Poker write me passionate letters every year. My face is a mask that shields my innermost thoughts.”

“Jake, as our host I appeal to you,” Ilin said, raising his voice enough to be heard by every member of the group. “Tell our doubting colleagues I wasn't lying, that those foul assassins lusted for our rich, red, non-Communist blood.”

“We decided to play hooky for a day,” Jake told Jadot. “We made up the assassins lie while we were fly-fishing the Shenandoah. Ilin said you folks would eat it with a spoon.”

*   *   *

No one had blocked in the Ford. The way out to Lee Highway looked wide open. Satisfied, Myron Matheny climbed the stairs to the second floor of the parking garage.

No one in sight on the second deck. That is, no one standing. If there was someone sleeping off a hangover in one of the cars … Worried, trying to be supercautious, he scrutinized the cars carefully, then walked to the can that held the rifle. He took a last look around, then pulled out the rifle by the barrel. It was still wrapped in three shapeless green garbage bags, and he left it that way.

He walked to the vantage point, put the rifle on the concrete floor, then looked for the guy.

There he was! And the cops at the next table.

Matheny turned back and looked the parked cars over carefully. He was the only person in sight. He bent down and used his pocket knife to strip the green bags from the rifle. He opened the bolt, took three cartridges from his pocket, and carefully inserted them in the magazine. Then he closed the bolt, making sure a round chambered.

Now he laid down the rifle and stood for one last look around.

Everyone still eating.

Just as he bent for the rifle, someone came out of the stairwell and walked his way. The rifle was partially hidden under the car right beside him, so he left it there.

A woman, walking quickly, the hard material of her heels rapping loudly on the concrete.

She looked at him, nodded, then broke eye contact. Never looked at the rifle or garbage bags.

She dug in her purse, used a clicker to unlock the door of her car.

Myron Matheny turned his back, leaned on the rail, listened as she started the car and backed it out and drove down the ramp toward the exit booth.

The guy was still there, talking to his colleagues.

Oh, man, he was nervous. He just hadn't done enough planning to feel comfortable with the risks involved. Too much was unknown.

The truth was there was no way to pop a guy quick and feel comfortable about it.

He couldn't just stand here all day.…

Now!

Myron Matheny bent down, got a good, solid grip on the rifle, straightened, looked at his target, and lifted the rifle smoothly to his shoulder. The crosshairs came right onto the guy's head. He had the scope on three-power magnification, which was as low as it would go.

Automatically he leaned forward, putting his elbows on the rail.

Matheny exhaled, steadied the crosshairs, and squeezed the trigger.

*   *   *

As Jake explained it to Callie much later, his plastic fork slipped from his fingers and fell into his lap. He had been eating baked beans with it, which he knew would stain his white trousers. He pushed his chair back and bent his head to see if the beans had caused a mess … and felt the whiff of a bullet passing an inch or two over his head at the same time as he heard the shot.

The bullet hit Maurice Jadot in the chest with a loud, meaty smack.

He knew instantly what it was and shouted and dragged Jadot off his chair onto the floor.

As he explained to Callie, he didn't realize then that the shot had probably been aimed at him. He thought the shooter's target was Maurice Jadot, and he had no idea how badly he was hit. Instinctively Jake knew the shooter might try another shot, so with Jadot on the ground, Jake climbed on top of him.

*   *   *

Myron Matheny knew he had missed the instant the gun recoiled. In the millisecond before the gun kicked, the head in the crosshairs jerked back and down. The mild recoil lifted the barrel off target. Matheny had learned years ago to not fight the recoil but to go with it.

As the gun was recoiling he worked the bolt, ejecting the spent shell and chambering another. As the rifle came down he looked again for the guy in the white uniform, his target.

He saw a mass of people, some running, some bending over, someone lifting the table, food flying everywhere …

Jesus Christ! Where is he?

The cops! He swung the rifle, picked out a blue police uniform, squeezed the trigger again.

Worked the bolt, looked one more time for the guy …

Couldn't find him.

Holy fuck!

Myron Matheny lowered the rifle, threw it under a car, and walked quickly toward the staircase that would take him down to the stolen Ford.

He heard the shouts and hubbub from the food area … and the insistent, low moan of a siren.

*   *   *

Jadot said something in French, a phrase or piece of a phrase, and then he was dead. Jake was pumping on Jadot's chest and telling him to hang tough as rich red blood ran from his mouth and nose when Toad finally told him it was useless, the bullet had gone through the Frenchman's lungs and heart.

Jake Grafton sat back on his heels, tried to catch his breath. Blood everywhere, on Jadot, his white uniform, his hands …

“Trying to save him, I probably killed him faster,” Jake said aloud.

It was only then that he realized another person had been shot. A cop, someone said. A knot of people were gathered around her, trying to keep her heart beating.

He too heard the siren.

“Toad!” he roared.

“Yes, sir!”

“That may be an ambulance. Run out toward Lee Highway and—” He stopped because Tarkington was already gone.

*   *   *

Staying calm, concentrating on the job at hand, Myron Matheny carefully inserted the ignition key in the stolen Ford, applied the brake, and started the engine. He had found the key in a small magnetic box under the rear bumper when he cased the cars in the hospital parking lot. He had had to do some crawling, but the key meant that he didn't have to hot-wire it.

Looking at the gearshift indicator, he placed the transmission in reverse, looked behind him, backed out.

That siren, coming closer, growing in volume and pitch. Those bastards couldn't have got the cops coming already, could they?

Clear of the parking place, he concentrated on getting the transmission into drive.

Never panic. Concentrate fiercely on the task at hand. Those rules had kept him alive all these years, and he had no intention of abandoning them now. Yes, he had missed the kill, but tomorrow was another day. If you lived to enjoy it.

Feeding gas slowly, braking as he approached the corner, he tried to ignore the swelling howl of the siren.

Around the building. Straight ahead was the stop sign for this little street, then across the access road, the traffic light on Lee Highway, which was of course inoperative. That meant stop, yield, and go. He slowed for the stop sign, ensured that no one was coming, then moved forward to the edge of the highway intersection. Braked to a complete stop.

Siren loud, very loud.

He looked left … a large truck was almost stopped, barely moving.

The siren!

Matheny twisted the wheel to the right to turn to the inside north-bound lane, took his foot off the brake, and fed gas.

He never saw the ambulance that was passing the large truck in the far right lane, doing at least thirty miles an hour. The right front bumper of the ambulance hit the Ford in the driver's door and snapped Matheny's head back. His body was half out of the seat when the combined inertia of the two vehicles caromed the Ford into a light pole. The impact snapped Matheny forward and threw him toward the windshield on the passenger side of the car. His head smacked into the windshield, breaking his neck. He died instantly.

Myron Matheny had forgotten to fasten his seat belt.

*   *   *

Jake Grafton was watching the ambulance crew load Maurice Jadot's body when a senior police officer came over to tell him about the accident victim two blocks away. “It was the assassin, we think. He had a silenced pistol on him, and this was in the car.” He held out a photo. “This is you, isn't it?”

It was one of Jake's file photos, perhaps a copy of one from his personnel file. “It's me.”

“Your photo, not this other fellow, Mr. Jadot.”

“Umm.”

“One assumes he missed.”

“Apparently.”

“When you're finished here, how about stopping at the morgue and seeing if you can identify him? In this heat, without cold storage, we'll have to start the autopsy in just a few hours.” The officer gave him the address.

“Give me a few minutes, then I'll be along.”

Janos Ilin found himself looking into the cold eyes of Jake Grafton. The admiral had a smear of blood on his forehead, but the eyes looked like they were frozen. Behind him a doctor was working on the wounded police officer, trying to save her while the other officer herded spectators away, trying to give them some room.

Grafton held up his hands in front of Ilin. They had Jadot's blood on them.

“You think this is all a game, do you?” The admiral wiped his hands on the front of Ilin's shirt. “More than six hundred people dead. Jadot is another. This isn't ink on paper in a Moscow file, this is real blood!”

“I did not kill him!” Ilin said angrily, roughly pushing away Grafton's hands.

“Stolen submarines, spies, lies … it's all a game to you, isn't it?” Grafton pressed fiercely. He grabbed a double handful of Ilin's coat and pulled him up short. “Why don't you stop the fucking games and tell me the goddamn truth?”

“I've told you the truth,” Ilin protested, grabbing Grafton's wrists.

“No you haven't! You've lied to me. And now, by God, I want the truth!” Grafton shook him like a dog shaking a snake, then pushed him away.

Ilin almost fell. “What lie?” he asked.

Keeping his hands to himself, Grafton moved closer. “You didn't learn about the Blackbeard team from the SVR. That was a lie.”

Ilin adjusted his tie, straightened his coat. His face was expressionless.

“I've been checking. Those people were all held incommunicado. You didn't go to Connecticut to chat up one of them.”

Ilin straightened his shirt.

“Someone else told you about the Blackbeard team, then perhaps you told DeGarmo. He went to that party, all right. The Federal Protective Service provided a bodyguard. An American betrayed the team to the SVR. Either DeGarmo or someone else. It's entirely possible that you didn't talk to DeGarmo during the party, that he knew you already knew.”

Janos Ilin helped himself to a cigarette. He lit it, blew out smoke, then met Jake Grafton's steady gaze.

“Six hundred people dead, a stolen submarine,” Jake continued, insistent.

“DeGarmo didn't know I knew,” Ilin replied coolly. “I could see it in his eyes.”

“Then who?”

“I can't tell you. The identity of that person is a state secret.”

“Your state.”

“Indeed. My state! That is the only state I'm interested in.”

Jake weighed his words before he spoke again. “The problem is that you keep lying to me. The SVR didn't send you here to keep these three Europeans company. That was not a good lie. You could have done better.”

Ilin's eyes narrowed. “I have underestimated you,” he said.

Jake Grafton was not to be denied. “I think your bosses are worried that EuroSpace is going to get its hands on the SuperAegis satellite. You're here to make sure that doesn't happen.”

Ilin dropped his cigarette and stepped on it. “They sent me here to watch you. They were worried that you Americans weren't smart enough to handle it.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The mood was somber at the office that afternoon after Jadot's death. Jake changed from his bloody uniform into his jogging clothes. Two secretaries and one of the junior officers went into the women's room and cried, several of the men felt like crying but didn't, so finally Jake Grafton sent everyone home except Tarkington and Carmellini, who were working on DeGarmo's hard drives.