The Spy I Loved (20 page)

He pulled
out the Beretta.

The radio
control speedboat was two hundred metres back. There was no point
in firing, and he looked ahead. He had to be doing twelve or
fifteen knots. It was easily a good kilometre from the shallows and
the hazards that went with it. If he turned, trying to kick up some
waves, the thing would follow, but he would also lose speed. It was
already gaining on him. He concentrated on hitting his mark, the
only problem being that the background was, by its very nature, all
camouflage. It was all shades of green above the rocks and the
waterline. All he had to go by was a notch in the line of hills
looming taller up ahead with every passing moment.

The
ragged green hilltops crept higher into the sky…

He looked
back. The machine was getting close to the hundred-metre mark. It
had the most irritating sound. Taking quick looks forward, he took
off the safety, letting go briefly of the steering to cock it. He
had always liked the Beretta, mostly for esthetic
reasons.

This was
going to be very awkward.

The water under his keel lightened and the first of the
really big underwater rocks loomed. It was all he could do to try
and avoid them, one hand on the steering. There wasn’t much point
in looking back. The tops of boulders broke the surface to left and
right. Liam’s heart stopped on the thought that he was way off and
the river was somewhere else. Flinging yourself headfirst into the
boulders was
no way to make a living,
boy…

No. The
valley opened out to his left. He recognized a slash of red and
beige rock, naked and exposed, the granite ribs of the country.
Everything leapt into focus. It sliced up the hillside to his
right. He cranked the boat left and throttled back. She sagged down
into the water again, presenting her side as a perfect sitting
duck.

He found
his target.

He lined
up the sights and squeezed off the first shot, its impact lost in
the rooster-tail of spray coming off the back end. Liam flinched in
shock as the roar of a dark green helicopter smashed into his
eardrums and made everything more confusing. It came in from
behind, low overhead. Electric motor screaming, the radio control
boat was eighty metres out and closing quickly. His aluminum hull
smashed into a rock, heaving up, and over and down again, throwing
off his aim. There was still a moment of time…

There was
a bulge above the white hull, with a bump on top of its black mass.
There was a pair of round amber reflections, showing it was
equipped with high-end optics and dual lenses.

Liam
Kimball had the thing dead to rights, leading down low in front of
it, when he squeezed off the next shot, and then there was no
longer time to aim so he just kept busting caps at it.

The
helicopter was just pulling its nose up and around in an abrupt
bump-turn when the infernal thing blew up in a concussive bubble
that sent visible shock waves through the humid air.

The man
and the boat disappeared in the greasy pall of orange and black
smoke that hovered over the scene.

***

Flight
Lieutenant Baxter steadied the machine, a CH-146 Griffon from 8
Wing’s 423 Squadron, Trenton. He hovered ten metres above the
water. A light breeze coming from the southwest was easily
compensated for, as it slowly cleared the scene below. Search and
Rescue Technician Madhukar Randak was clipped on to the cable and
stood in the doorway. Master Sergeant Danielle Reddy peered out and
down, waiting for visibility before letting Madman go.

They had
their little ritual.

“
Be good or be dead.”

“
Yes, ma’am. Lower away.”

She
nodded and hit the switch for the motor as Mad Randy leaned out,
braced and then limply let his feet fall from the sill of the door.
Hand on the cable, she kept him well out from the lip, protecting
his helmeted head and face from the side of the machine.

Speaking
into her microphone, Danielle informed the pilot that they had a
visual and were lowering. He could always tell anyways, by the
slight swaying motion imparted by the weight and the line, and
hence to the helicopter fuselage through its attachment on a short
boom hanging over the door.

“
Roger.” He was always telling them to
talk it up, talk it up.
“What are
you seeing back there?”

There was
a pause. Hitting the button, Danielle held up for a considerable
wisp of smoke to pass.

It was
vital to keep contact with your tech and your target while
lowering.

“
We have one adult male on the ground. He appears to be
mobile.”

Baxter,
his neck rotating left and right, eyeballing the instruments as
much as he could, listened and waited.

Mobile.
That’s always a good sign. Below, the water was stained a dirty
brown. The concussion of a small but powerful explosive had
loosened the silt. The shock wave had flung it up, out and back
down again for a radius of a good fifty or a hundred metres. The
iridescent colours of a small gasoline spill did nothing to detract
from the overall impression. Their mystery camper was damned lucky
to be alive.

Chapter Fourteen

In
Hollywood films, the hero is often seen diving away, at about ten
miles an hour from an explosive wave-front travelling at ten
thousand feet per second. Generally speaking, the hero would be a
few feet away from the explosion. This usually happened at the last
nanosecond as red numerals flashed in countdown mode, triggered by
a hand-built device, a little red button on a little black box with
a cheap extendable antenna and one ominous red light. It was all
very exciting. It was also pure nonsense.

The
reality was somewhat different.

Liam was
lucky.

Whether he’d hit the thing with a lucky shot, or whether it
had hit a rock and self-destructed, or whether some remote pilot
had decided
this is it
was an interesting question. He watched a slowly spinning
rescuer grab a nearby pine bough to stabilize their
descent.

The boat
had hit a smooth, round rock (or the second, or the third) just
under the surface, riding up on it. Liam had been in the midst of
falling over backwards, when the first wave of exploding gases took
the high-side gunwale and rolled the boat all the way over. The
water was a relatively deep metre or so in there, and his head was
above the surface, protected by thin sheets of angled aluminum from
the shrapnel. That had saved him. His head had missed the rocks,
and the bomb had missed the boat. That’s not to say he was
unscathed…or un-scourged.

Liam
stepped over and grabbed the nearest foot as it went past just
above his head.

“
Whoopsie daisy. There we are.”

Liam
Kimball’s guts felt like a pair of enthusiastic orangutans had
worked him over with cricket bats. His groin in particular must be
black and blue down there. He’d be lucky not to get a blood clot,
he thought in a kind of lucidity. When he got a minute, a good puke
might be in order.

“
Did you guys see that?”

“
Ah, not me, no.” Randy did a quick assessment.

The
explosion had rocked the helicopter, cruising along almost directly
overhead, or they might have missed it entirely. Their presence was
pure coincidence, they were just doing random passes and circuits
around the area.

The
gentleman was whole, entire, and all in one piece, soaking wet.
Randy observed narrow trickles of blood issuing from tiny holes all
over him, mostly the neck, arms, left shoulder and upper chest. It
was like he’d been sandblasted. The shirt was pretty much shredded.
It might have been nice once. What was left of it looked expensive.
The man was lucky to have been wearing eye protection.

Those
injuries would sting like hell, but the gentleman appeared to take
no notice of it. This was shock at its most obvious.

“
Sir. Can I get you to put your arms through the ring here.
We’re just going to take a little helicopter ride/” There was
something about the rim of white around this person’s
eyes.

Randy
lowered his gaze and listened intently through the helicopter’s
downwash.

“
Sorry. Not just yet. I need to get one or two things.” Liam
slapped him on the shoulder, the rough fabric feeling warm and dry,
tactile reminder of a better world.

Liam
turned and carefully lowered himself down the bank and into the
murk that subsisted after the explosion. It was no longer water but
a mixture of mud, shredded vegetation, dead fish, the shiny shells
of freshwater clams, and whatever else had been in the immediate
kill zone. He oozed his way over to the overturned boat hull, only
the keel, the tip of the motor and some scuffed and perforated
sheet metal visible. Taking a breath, he stuck an arm down in and
mucked about under the boat.

Randy
rubbed whiskers and spoke to those above.

“
Looks like we’re going to be a minute.”

Randy
wondered who this was and what was up that was so
important.

What is all this about.

He keyed
the mic.

“
The gentleman is pulling his personal effects out of the
water.”

“
Roger.”

They’d
only come on the play at the last moment, the pilots at first not
realizing that the white speck following the much larger boat was
some kind of drone. It caught the eye, the multiple wakes and foamy
rooster-tails. At first, they thought he’d hooked a big one.
Baxter’s first impression was that the man in the boat was going
awfully fast for such shallow water.

“
Roger. Holding.” In the back of Baxter’s mind was the
important question of what other sorts of unconventional weapons
might be employed now that the cat was out of the bag.

They were
sitting ducks like this and somebody must want their package pretty
badly. When they got to base he might ask one or two questions he
hadn’t thought of, first time around.

***

After the attack on Liam, there was some discussion as to
what to do next. He was clearly compromised. Ottawa was all for
pulling him, but London, perhaps better knowing his capabilities,
pooh-poohed the notion. Instead, they were calling for greater
resources. This might be counterproductive, scaring the enemy
away
entirely,
but at least they were getting some action and in the final
analysis field operatives were expendable.

No one
liked it, and one rarely expressed it in those terms. Marinaro was
uncomfortable with the notion that good people were sometimes
sacrificed, knowingly, the decision or the possibility taken ahead
of time. It was always a judgement call.

Never,
ever, would they have perfect information. It was dangerous work,
and you either accepted some personal responsibility for that, or
you quickly got out of the trade. His people were at risk at all
times.

It was a
fact of life.

With all
of the action going on in the locale, rumours were spreading. It
was being touted as an accident of military hardware. Something
fell off a helicopter and exploded when it hit the ground. There
were no injuries and no damage. This was the most prevalent
version, all spontaneous speculation so far. Canadian authorities
were cautiously exploiting the story despite questions being asked
by the opposition parties on Parliament Hill.

Authorities were investigating. That could take a very long
time, as everyone knew and most accepted uncritically.

They were
in teleconference.

Liam was
covered in what looked like dozens of adhesive bandages, the result
of small metal, glass and plastic splinters. Not all of it was from
the device itself. A good proportion was simple paint, pebbles and
bits of fishing tackle. All of the equipment in the boat was swept
into fury by the force of the explosion. The actual blast was
within lethal range according to their best analysis. There was no
accounting for luck. This according to the analysts. In order to
come up with better numbers they would have to build their own
copies for testing. The boat was a complete write-off. It had been
taken away before too many civilians could get a real good look. He
felt sick to his stomach, the result of concussive tissue damage to
the innards. The pills worked to a certain extent.

Ian and
Jenkins were with Liam. Marinaro was in Ottawa and Little F was on
the line from London. They were trying to figure out what came
next. Priority one was to find the remaining major components of
the satellite. Only when that was secure, would the opposition give
up trying, for as such things went, EMERALD was small potatoes.
Worth grabbing for the smaller players as it was, the Russians, the
Chinese, the Israelis had little or no interest. They had their own
comparable systems, ones that didn’t explode on launch and
embarrass their builders. Those powers were also known
quantities.

The other
thing was the persistent attacks. That spoke of a different ethos
from what they were used to seeing. Espionage, yes. Terrorism, yes.
Espionage with violence, not necessarily such a rare thing, was one
thing. Espionage with terrorism, sometimes for pay, yes. It
happened often enough, nowhere near as glamourous as the thrillers
made it seem. This reckless disregard for giving themselves away
was different. This looked like terrorism aspiring to bigger and
better things, going by group psychological profiling (based upon
minimal inputs). They had some resources and some connections. It
would be nice to nail some of those connections.