Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (9 page)

He laid the submachine gun down and drew the 9mm Beretta. The pistol seemed
unharmed, but the pain he felt made Smith sure he was going to have a
Beretta-shaped bruise on the small of his back the next morning.

If you live to see the next morning, he reminded himself coldly.

Holding the pistol ready, he set off to make his way out through the
burning, bomb-damaged building. It was easv enough to follow the path taken by
the retreating intruders. They had left a trail of corpses behind them.

Smith passed a number of bodies huddled in the smoke-filled corridor. Most
were people he knew, at least by sight, and some were men or women he knew
well, among them Takashi Ukita, the chief scientist for Nomura PharmaTech's
lab. He had been shot twice in the head. Jon shook his head in regret.

Dick Pfaff and Bill Corimond lay dead not far away in that same hallway.
Both of them had been shot multiple times at point-blank range. They had been
the senior researchers in the Institute's own nanotech group. Their work had
been aimed at developing small self-replicating devices that would consume oil
spills without further damage to the environment.

The farther he walked, the more coldly furious Smith became. Parikh,
Brinker, Pfaff, Corimond, Ukita, and the others had all been dedicated
scientists and truth seekers. Their research would have yielded enormous
benefits for the whole world. So now some terrorist sons of bitches had killed
them and destroyed years of hard work? Well, then, he decided icily, he would
do his damnedest to make sure those same terrorists paid dearly for their
crimes.

He picked up the pace—trotting now. His eyes were narrow slits. Somewhere
ahead there were men he needed to kill or capture.

He passed more corpses. The smoke was thicker now. The acrid stench stung
his eyes and left his throat raw. He could feel the glowing

heat from the uncontrolled fires raging in offices
on both sides of the corridor. Some of the wood doors were starting to smolder.
Smith ran faster.

At last he came to a side door that had been left propped half-open. He
knelt quickly, checking for any tripwires that could trigger a booby trap.
Seeing none, he eased through the doorway and stepped out into the open air.

Before him lay a scene that might have been one of the
grotesque paintings of hell and devils and damnation so favored by medieval
Christians. Thousands of terrified Lazarus Movement activists were
streaming away from the Institute, scrambling wildly through its rock gardens
of cactus, sagebrush, and wildflowers. Some staggered, reeled, and then dropped
to their knees with loud, despairing wails. One by one they folded in on
themselves. Smith stared at them in utter horror, appalled by what he saw
happening before his very eyes. Hundreds of people were literally falling
apart, dissolving into a reddish liquid sludge. Hundreds more had already been
reduced to sad heaps of stained clothing and scraps of whitened bone.

For a moment he fought against an almost overpowering urge to turn and flee
himself. There was something so awful, so inhuman, in what he saw happening to
those people that it stirred every primitive fear he had thought long buried by
training, discipline, and willpower. No one should die like that, he thought
desperately. No man should have to watch himself rotting away while still
alive.

With an effort, Smith tore his eyes away from the rotting flesh and mangled
corpses strewn outside the Teller Institute. Pistol in hand, he scanned the
panicked mob fleeing toward the perimeter fence, trying to pick out those who
showed no fear—those whose movements were disciplined and sure. He spotted a
group of six men walking steadily toward the fence. They were more than a
hundred meters ahead of him. Four were clad in blue coveralls and lugged heavy
equipment cases. Smith nodded to himself. Those had to be the specialists who
had planted the bombs in-

side the Institute. The two remaining men, striding
a few yards behind the others, wore identical charcoal gray suits. Each was
armed with a short-nosed Uzi submachine gun. The shorter of the two was about
Jon's own height, with short-cropped black hair. But the one who really caught
his attention, the powerfully built auburn-haired man who seemed to be giving
the orders, was at least a head taller than his comrades.

Smith started running again. He loped across the open ground, dodging the
pathetic remains scattered here and there, closing
rapidly on the retreating terrorists. He was within fifty meters or so when
their chief, turning his head for a last satisfied look at the bomb-gutted and
burning Teller Institute, saw him coming.

“Action! Rear!” the giant shouted,
warning his men. He was already swinging to face Smith with his submachine gun
gripped in both hands. He opened fire instantly, walking short bursts across
the sand and scrub toward the running American.

Jon threw himself to the right, rolling on his shoulder. He came back up on
one knee with the Beretta aimed in the right general direction. Without waiting
for the sights to settle on his target, he squeezed off two shots. Neither came
that close, but at least they forced the big man to drop behind a clump of
sagebrush.

Another Uzi burst pulverized the ground right behind Smith, kicking up huge
dirt clods. He swiveled. The black-haired gunman was coming up on his flank,
firing as he ran.

Jon swung the Beretta through a wide arc, leading the other man by just a
hair. He breathed out calmly and fired three times. His first shot missed. The
second and third shattered the terrorist's leg and smashed his right shoulder.

Screaming in pain, the black-haired man stumbled and went down. Two of the
men in coveralls dropped their equipment cases and ran to help him. Immediately
the tall auburn-haired man popped up from behind the sagebrush and began
shooting again.

Smith felt an Uzi round punch through the lining of his leather

bomber jacket. The superheated air trailing the
near miss tore a searing line of fire across his ribs.

He rolled again, trying frantically to throw off the big man's aim. More
bullets clipped the sand and dry vegetation all around him. Expecting to get
hit any second, he fired back with the Beretta while rolling, snapping off
several unaimed shots in a desperate bid to force the other man back into
cover.

Still rolling, Smith landed behind a large rock half-buried in a patch of
tall wheatgrass. He went prone. Submachine-gun fire hammered the small boulder.

The noise of a powerful engine roared above the sound of gunfire. Warily Jon
raised his head for a quick look. He saw a mammoth dark green Ford Excursion
accelerating through one of the gaps in the fence. The SUV veered left, heading
straight for the skirmish. Hundreds of panicked protesters ducked out of its
path as it bounced over the broken ground at high speed.

Brakes squealing, the vehicle slewed round and skidded to a stop next to the
small band of terrorists. The cloud of dust thrown by its tires hung low in the
air, drifting slowly downwind. Protected by the SUV's bulk, the four explosives
experts tossed their equipment cases into the back, shoved the wounded gunman
into one of the rear seats, and scrambled inside themselves. Still firing short
aimed bursts in Smith's direction, the auburn-haired giant backed away slowly
toward the getaway vehicle. He was smiling now, his eyes alight with pleasure.

That murderous son of a bitch! Jon's cold fury suddenly flared into
white-hot rage, erasing any instinct for self-preservation. Without stopping to
think more clearly, he stood straight up, bracing the Beretta in a target
shooter's grip.

Surprised by his boldness, the tall man stopped shooting controlled bursts
and went to full auto. The Uzi chattered wildly, climbing higher with every
round it fired.

omith felt bullets ripping the air close to his
head. He ignored them,

choosing instead to focus entirely on his target.
Fifty meters was near the outside edge of his effective pistol range, so
concentration was vital. The Beretta's sights slid down on the big man's
massive chest and stayed there.

He squeezed the trigger rapidly, firing as many shots as quickly as he could
without spoiling his aim. His first bullet punched a hole in the front
passenger side door, just inches from the auburn-haired giant's hip. The second
smashed the window next to his elbow.

Jon frowned. The Beretta was pulling to the left. He shifted his aim
slightly and fired again. This 9mm round smashed the Uzi out of the terrorist
leader's hands, sending it flying into the scrub far out of his reach. The
bullet ricocheted off the SUV's hood in a shower of sparks.

Unnerved by the gunfire hammering his vehicle, the getaway driver stomped
down hard on the accelerator. The Excursion's tires spun futilely for a second
and then found some traction. The dark green SUV peeled out, skidded through
another tight turn, and roared away toward the fence, leaving the tall
auburn-haired man behind in a drifting spray of sand and dust.

For a moment the giant stood motionless, with his head cocked to watch his
comrades abandon him. Then, to Smith's astonishment, he simply shrugged his
massive shoulders and turned back to face the American. His face was now
utterly devoid of any expression.

Jon moved closer, still aiming the Beretta at him. “Get your hands
up!”

The other man just stood there, waiting.

“I said get your hands up!” Smith snapped. He kept walking,
closing the range. He stopped about fifteen meters away, well inside the zone
where he knew he could put even 9mm round exactly where he wanted it.

The auburn-haired giant said nothing. His bright green eyes narrowed. The
look in them reminded Jon of one he had seen in a caged
tiger padding back and forth past human prey it could not reach.

“And what will you do if I refuse? Kill me?” the tall man said at
last.

His voice was softer than Smith expected and his English was perfect,
utterly without trace of an accent.

Smith nodded coldly. “If I have to.”

“Then do it,” the other man told him. Without waiting any longer,
he took a long stride forward, moving with a predator's lithe grace. His right
hand darted inside his coat and came out gripping a razor-edged fighting knife.

Smith squeezed the Beretta's trigger. It bucked upward, and recoil slammed
the slide back, ejecting the spent shell casing. But this time the slide locked
to the rear. He swore under his breath. He had just fired the last of the
fifteen rounds in the pistol's magazine.

The 9mm bullet hit the auburn-haired giant high up on his left side. For a
brief instant the impact rocked him back. He looked down at the small
red-rimmed hole in his coat. Blood pulsed in the wound, spilling slowly out
across the dark fabric. Then he flexed the fingers of his left hand and waggled
the fighting knife in his right. His lips twisted into a cruel grin. He shook
his head in mock pity. “Not good enough. As you see, I still live.”

Still grinning, the green-eyed man slowly moved in for the kill, sweeping
his knife back and forth in a sinuous, almost hypnotic, arc. The deadly-looking
blade glinted in the sun.

Desperately Smith hurled the now-useless Beretta at him.

The big man ducked under it and attacked. He struck with unbelievable speed,
aiming for the American's throat.

Smith jerked aside. The knife blade flashed past less than an inch from

his face. He backed away fast, breathing hard.

The green-eyed man came after him. He lunged again, this time lower.

Jon spun to one side and chopped down hard, trying to break the other man's
right wrist. It was like hitting a piece of high-quality steel. His hand went
numb. He fell back again, shaking his fingers, trying frantically to work some
life back into them. What the hell was he fighting?

The big man came prowling after him a third time, grinning even wider now,
plainly enjoying himself. This time he feinted with the knife

in his right hand and then punched Smith in the
ribs with his left-striking with pile-driving force.

The massive jolt knocked the air out of Jon's lungs. He stumbled backward,
gasping, panting—fighting now just to stay on his feet and conscious.

“Perhaps you should have saved that last bullet for yourself,” the
green-eyed man suggested politely. He held up the fighting knife. “It
would have been quicker and less painful than this will be.”

Smith kept backing away, looking for something, anything, he could use as a
weapon. There was nothing, just sand and hard-packed soil. He felt himself
starting to panic. Hold it together, Jon, he told himself. If you freeze in
front of this bastard, you are as good as dead. Hell, you may be dead anyway,
but at least you can make a fight of it.

Somewhere off in the distance, he thought he could hear the sound of police
sirens—sirens drawing nearer. But still the green-eyed man stalked after him,
eager to make his kill.

Two hundred meters away, on the edge of a small thicket of piflon pines and
juniper trees, three men lay concealed in the tall, dry grass. One of them,
much bigger than his companions, focused a pair of high-powered binoculars on
the corpse-littered grounds of the Institute, watching the hand-to-hand combat
between the lean dark-haired American and his taller, far more powerful
opponent. He frowned, weighing his options. Beside him, a sniper kept one eye
glued to the telescopic sight of an odd-looking rifle, slowly and steadily
adjusting his aim.

The third man, a signals expert, lay in a tangle of sophisticated
communications gear. He listened intently to the urgent, static-riddled voices
in his headphones. 'The authorities are starting to respond more effectively,
Terce,“ he said flatly. ”Additional police, ambulance, and fire units
are all converging rapidly on this location."