Carver couldn’t see any good reason he should come running, just because Grantham had called. He spent fifteen minutes getting washed and dressed before heading down to the hotel lobby. It was worth the wait, simply to see the irritation on Grantham’s face. There was something else there, too, Carver realized as he got closer: The MI6 man’s normal self-assurance, arrogance, even, had given way to a nervy edginess that he’d never seen before.
“Where’s my document?” snapped Grantham.
“The same place as my girlfriend, cuddling up to Kurt Vermulen,” Carver said, as if it didn’t bother him one bit. “She married him-did you know that?”
That news had been meant to knock Grantham off his stride, but it had the opposite effect. A smug smile crossed Grantham’s face, a look of sheer pleasure that Carver had been dumped in even deeper shit than he had.
“That must have come as a shock.”
“Just a bit,” said Carver.
“Still, you don’t look very heartbroken.”
“What would you prefer, drunk and tearstained?”
“Something like that.”
Carver shrugged. “I thought about it. But I found a better alternative. Nice girl.”
“And you accuse me of not giving a toss?”
“Listen, I loved Alix. That was real; probably still is. But it won’t do me any good now, moping around. I’m just going to forget her, move on, put as much distance between us as I can.”
Carver wondered if he sounded any more convincing than he felt. Evidently not-Grantham looked at him with an expression of profound skepticism before his face cleared, a new thought striking him.
“You got time to grab a late breakfast before you go? There’s someone I want you to meet.”
Carver groaned. What now?
“Come on,” Grantham insisted. “They do a splendid buffet down by the sea. Great food, fantastic view… I’m paying. And I think you’ll be interested when you find out who’s flown in to see you.”
Carver followed Grantham across the lobby and out through the doors that opened onto the hotel’s magnificent wooded gardens. As he walked down the path that stretched down to the sea, one tiny hope flickered at the back of his mind and kept him moving toward an appointment he otherwise would have refused. And then he realized it was ridiculous even to consider such a notion. It was another Russian woman sitting at the table, with a bob of black hair framing eyes that were assessing him with cold, impersonal objectivity as Grantham gestured in her direction.
“May I introduce Deputy Director Zhukovskaya, of the Federal Security Service?”
She held out her hand with a smile that was even chillier than her eyes.
“Hello, Mr. Carver. You killed my husband.”
“I was provoked,” he replied, before letting go of her hand.
Grantham ordered coffee, orange juice, and a selection of pastries.
“I think I’ll have a proper cooked breakfast, actually,” said Carver, gesturing toward the buffet. “Feeling quite peckish this morning.”
He took his time getting scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, crisp white rolls and dewy chunks of unsalted Normandy butter. He made a point of tucking in, knowing the other two wanted to talk. But in the end, it was he who cracked first. He couldn’t help himself.
“Did you tell her I was dead?” he asked Zhukovskaya.
“Yes, I gave the order for her to receive that information,” she said, without any hint of embarrassment or apology.
“Why?”
Carver was uncomfortably aware that there was more emotion, even desperation, in that single syllable than he’d intended.
“It was a practical necessity,” Zhukovskaya replied, still quite unruffled. “You killed the man I sent to eliminate you, and then you left the hospital. You were no longer a patient; therefore the payments to cover your bills would have to stop. It was possible Petrova might find out about that, if she checked her financial records. She would naturally want to know what had happened. I simply anticipated that moment.”
“But she only did the job to keep me alive. Why would she stay with Vermulen if I was gone?”
“Self-preservation,” said Zhukovskaya, as if the answer were obvious. “Alexandra Petrova is an agent of the Federal Security Service, under my command. She knows that any agent who leaves an assignment without orders from a superior officer is guilty of desertion, and she also knows the penalty for that offense. In any case, I preferred to look on the positive side. Without you to think about, Petrova was free to concentrate on General Vermulen.”
“Well, you got that wrong. She concentrated on him so much, she married him. She’s not yours anymore, or mine. She’s his.”
Zhukovskaya sipped at her coffee.
“You think?” she asked. “Of course, I have considered that proposition, but I myself am not so certain. Many agents regard marriage as a useful adjunct to their cover; Petrova may well be one of them. That, however, is not my main concern at the moment, and it should not be yours.”
She put the coffee cup down on the table, and when she looked at him again there was finally a sign of real emotion. Zhukovskya was angry.
“You have caused a great deal of trouble, Mr. Carver. The document you stole was the property of the Russian state. It was removed from a state facility approximately ten weeks ago. It would have been recovered yesterday by elements acting on behalf of the state, had you not interfered. They had orders to destroy it, rather than let it fall into the wrong hands.”
“For heaven’s sake, what is this thing?” asked Grantham.
“A list of small-scale nuclear weapons, also property of the Russian state, currently positioned in Europe and North America, a few in South America, Asia, and Australia, their locations and arming codes,” recited Zhukovskaya in a flat voice.
The color drained from Grantham’s face.
“How many weapons?”
“Around one hundred.”
“My God… and what about the U.K.?”
She looked at him blankly.
“But they’re all on this list…” said Grantham.
“Yes, and thanks to Mr. Carver, it is now in Vermulen’s hands.”
Carver grimaced, uncomfortably aware that his priorities needed a radical reordering.
“Where’s Vermulen gone now?” he asked.
Grantham seemed relieved to be able to answer this question, at least.
“Back to his yacht. It spent the night moored off the Italian coast, right down south, near Reggio di Calabria, slipped anchor shortly before dawn, heading east. We lost it soon afterward, between satellite sweeps.”
“At least you have satellites,” remarked Zhukovskaya wryly.
“So find the boat again,” said Carver. “Send in a few of my old mates from the SBS, or some of your Spetsnaz boys, to board the boat. Seize the document, and Bob’s your uncle.”
Grantham was not impressed.
“No, Carver-in that scenario Bob would actually be a major diplomatic incident in which the Americans went ballistic about the unauthorized hostile seizure of a boat owned by one respected, powerful U.S. citizen and used by another, while the Italian government tried to decide whether this constituted an act of war within their territorial waters.”
Carver tried again.
“All right, then, who’s the other citizen?”
“Sorry?”
“Who’s the other U.S. citizen, the one who owns the boat? See, there’s something odd about all this money Vermulen’s got to splash around. Unless he’s made a shitload since he left the armed forces, someone’s bankrolling him. And if it isn’t the U.S. government, maybe it’s the bloke who owns the boat. So who’s that?”
“Some good ol’ boy from Texas called McCabe,” replied Grantham impatiently, not seeing the value of the question. “Made a fortune in oil and mining. The boat belongs to one of his many corporations. But I don’t see him being interested in bombs. The man’s a born-again Christian, had a dramatic conversion a few years back, devotes his time to philanthropy and good deeds.”
Carver gave a clipped, disbelieving laugh.
“McCabe… Waylon McCabe?”
“Yes. Why-do you know him?”
“Our paths crossed.”
“And he lived to tell the tale? That’s unusual.”
“Unique, as it happens. And I’ll tell you one thing about Waylon McCabe-I don’t care how much of a conversion he had; he’s a bastard, pure and simple. Whatever he’s doing with Vermulen, I guarantee it’s not a good deed.”
Carver frowned: The pieces were starting to come together in his mind.
“Hang on-you said that boat was going east… which would take it into the Ionian Sea, and then the Adriatic, towards Yugoslavia. When we talked, Vermulen mentioned Yugoslavia. He said that was one of the places the Islamic radicals he was going on about were fighting, trying to open up a back route into the West.”
He turned to look at Zhukovskaya.
“Did you put bombs in Yugoslavia?”
“I cannot possibly answer that question,” she said, needled by the impertinence of such a direct inquiry.
Carver smiled, feeling the balance of power around the table start to tilt in his direction.
“I think you can, Deputy Director. You’re in the crapper, too. Not just your organization, or your country, but you, personally. You sent those idiots in the chopper to get the document, and now they’re crispy bacon at the bottom of a gorge. You’ve got to put that right-that’s why you’re here. And you…” He turned his gaze on Grantham. “Well, it wouldn’t go down too well in Whitehall if anyone found out who you’d been using to do your dirty work, or how we first happened to meet. As for me, I got Vermulen this list. Plus, something tells me you’ll be able to date McCabe’s religious conversion to the day he miraculously escaped an air crash in the wilds of the Yukon. That was down to me, too. We’re all in this together, like it or not, so answer the question: Yugoslavia?”
He was pushing his luck, but she seemed disinclined to object. He’d been right: The mighty deputy director was in no position to complain.
“Two,” said Zhukovskaya. “One in central Belgrade, the other near the Trepca mining complex. It is the single most valuable natural resource in Yugoslavia, producing lead, zinc, copper, gold, and silver-a natural target for economic sabotage.”
Grantham nodded to himself, as if agreeing that the locations made sense. He did not bother to ask her how the KGB knew the location of weapons that were lost to the rest of the Russian military and government establishment. He, of all people, needed no lessons in the keeping of secrets from a security service’s political masters.
“Where is this place?” asked Carver.
“Kosovo,” said Grantham, before Zhukovskaya could reply.
“Where Vermulen’s supposed Islamist terrorists are busy starting a civil war. Christ, is that mad bugger going to nuke them? That would get a war going, all right.”
“Personally, I would not do anything so obvious…” said Zhukovskaya.
Grantham looked at her inquisitively.
“A false-flag operation?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I like that better, I think. Much more effective to make the world think that the terrorists had the bomb. We think alike… but would Vermulen? He has intelligence experience… it is possible. But how to stop him? That is the problem.”
“Get me to Trepca,” said Carver. “That’s the one lead we have. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Just you?” asked Zhukovskaya.
“You got anyone else you can call?”
Her cover had worked too well. Alix Petrova was a trained field agent who had seduced, deceived, and even killed dangerous men. But Natalia Vermulen was an innocent personal assistant who’d just married the boss, and as far as her new husband was concerned, his duty was to keep her safe, not lead her into harm’s way. So she had no argument when, as they lay in bed-her head on his chest, her hand on his shoulder, the early-morning light, reflected from the ocean, playing on the walls of the yacht’s master bedroom-he told her, “You can’t come with us tonight.”
“I understand,” she said. “It’s just… I want to be with you. I can’t help it.”
There were tears welling in her eyes. As she blinked them away, she realized that they, at least, were genuine. She truly felt like crying, even if she was lying about why.
He felt the flutter of her eyelashes against his skin.
“It’s okay,” he said, wrapping his arm around her and holding her tight against his body. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what I have to do. I had some crazy notions, but what I’m planning is going to be a lot simpler, and a lot safer now.”
She could sense him gathering his thoughts, almost working up the courage to speak again, the way men did when they were about to say something personal, a revelation that would leave them exposed and vulnerable.
His voice was thick with emotion as he said, “Now that I’ve found you, I have something to live for again. I think I lost that for a while. It affected the way I thought, even made me a little crazy. Not now. There’s still something I have to do, something that matters. But I love you too much to take dumb risks…”
He smiled, lightening the mood, catching her eye as she looked up at his face.
“Just really smart risks, ones worth taking.”
“It makes me scared, not knowing what’s happening to you,” she said.
“That’s what you get for marrying a soldier, even an ex-soldier. It’s really tough, having to stay at home, not knowing whether the person you love is dead or alive.”
“How did Amy manage it?”
“I don’t know. When I went to ’ Nam, we were just kids. She’d only recently turned twenty-one, had the party just before I shipped out. All those years, left on her own so many times. You know, she never once complained… Oh, God, I didn’t mean… I wasn’t comparing you…”
She squeezed his shoulder in reassurance.
“Don’t worry-I was the one who mentioned Amy. I like it that you remember her with love. It proves that you are a good man.”
Vermulen shifted his weight. The arm that had been wrapped so protectively around her pulled on her shoulder, so that she was rolled off his chest and onto her back. Now he was on top of her, his mouth pressing on hers and his legs forcing her thighs apart with a strength that she could not have resisted, even had she wanted to. So she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled their bodies together.
As they began to make love, she was smiling. Her happiness was as real as her tears had been, but once again, the reason was not the one that Kurt Vermulen might imagine.
He was leaving her alone on the yacht for the night. Then, perhaps, she might have the chance to escape.
Carver had been wrong. There were people Grantham could call. Had to call, in fact. He could not hope to keep this operation completely private anymore; there was far too much at stake. But if he was going to spread the word, he had to do it discreetly. Like all senior MI6 officers, he had close contacts with his counterparts in the CIA. While Carver was upstairs, clearing out of his room, Grantham stepped outside and considered his options. He needed someone he could trust enough to call on a personal, off-the-record basis.
Ted Jaworski was dragged from sleep by the ringing of his bedside phone. His hand reached out from beneath the blankets and scrabbled for his handset. He screwed up his eyes, trying to make out the caller ID, then mumbled, “Jack, hi… do you know what the friggin’ time is here?”
“A little after four. But this can’t wait. Is your line secure?”
“Sure-what the hell is this about?”
“We’ve obtained information-stumbled across it, really-about one of your people, an ex-army general, Kurt Vermulen.”
Jaworski was getting out of bed now, figuring he’d better take the call somewhere more private. He put a hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, “It’s okay-go back to sleep,” to his wife as she looked up at him blearily.
“Uh-huh-what kind of information?” he asked Grantham.
“It’s complicated. But the bottom line is, last night Vermulen obtained a document which contains the precise locations and arming codes of more than one hundred Soviet nuclear weapons.”
“What did you say?”
“You know those legendary missing suitcase nukes? Turns out it wasn’t a legend. They really are out there. Vermulen knows where to find them, and we think that’s what he’s going to do, probably within the next twenty-four hours.”
Jaworski stopped dead in the corridor and gave a low whistle.
“My God, she was right…”
“Sorry?”
“Something someone over here said…” Jaworski replied, moving again. “Put it this way-this doesn’t come as a total surprise.”
Grantham sounded mildly irritated. “So you know about McCabe as well?”
“Okay-now there you got me.”
“Waylon McCabe. He’s some bigshot from Texas, fundamentalist Christian.”
“Oh, sure, know the name… what about him?”
Jaworski had made it to his home office. He slumped into the chair behind his desk as Grantham replied.
“I don’t know, exactly. But whatever Vermulen is up to, McCabe is backing him. Right now, Vermulen is somewhere in the Adriatic Sea, on McCabe’s yacht, and we think he’s headed for Kosovo. One of the bombs is planted there.”
“How do you know?”
“Friends in Moscow. Turns out this was a KGB operation. Some of their people knew where the damn things were all along. I’ll bet they’ve got their own copy of this list, just haven’t seen fit to pass on the information, even to their own government. You’d better have a word with the White House about that. Someone should call the Kremlin, tell them to force the top brass in the FSB to hand over the list. Suggest it’s their last chance to do this hush-hush, or else you’re going public. You need to see it. So do we, come to that. I get the distinct impression both our countries are littered with bloody bombs.”
“Yeah…” said Jaworski distractedly, squeezing a rubber ball in his spare hand.
“You sound remarkably unconcerned by what I’ve just told you.”
“Oh, no, I’m concerned, all right, Jack. You can trust me on that. But what you just said, that wasn’t exactly a surprise, either.”
“What? You knew about these things all along?”
“Kind of…”
“And when, exactly, were you planning to inform your closest ally of the dangers we both face?”
“When we knew exactly what that danger was.”
“Well you know now.”
“Sure do, and we’re going to do something about it, too.”
“Do keep me posted on that,” said Grantham sarcastically.
“Don’t worry, Jack. The day is young. But you and I are going to be talking a lot, a helluva lot, before it’s through.”
Jaworski ended the call. Then he started dialing. And suddenly his attitude wasn’t half so casual.
Dawn was still more than an hour away when Kady Jones arrived at Andrews Air Force Base. She’d been woken by a series of firm, insistent taps on the door of her Washington hotel room. She stumbled out of bed and made her way to the door. Through the peephole she could see a man in military uniform. Without undoing the chain, she opened the door a fraction.
“What is this?” she mumbled.
“Dr. Kathleen Dianne Jones?”
“Uh-huh… who are you?”
The man held up an I.D. card, which named him as a captain in the Marine Corps.
“May I come in, please, ma’am?”
Kady hesitated, her hand hovering over the chain, uncertain whether to trust a stranger, even one in uniform. Yet the I.D. looked genuine enough. She opened up and stepped back into the room, her suspicions now giving way to the embarrassment of being seen with no proper clothes, her hair unbrushed, her face un-made-up, and her room a mess.
“Thank you, ma’am,” said the captain. “You need to get ready to leave here at once. There is a car outside, waiting to take you to Andrews. You will be boarding a flight there. I cannot tell you the precise destination of that flight, but I have been authorized to inform you that it is somewhere in Europe, and you are advised to pack for a trip of two to three days’ duration, some of which may involve work in the field.”
“But…” Kady just stopped herself from saying, “I haven’t got a thing to wear.” Instead she managed, “My field equipment is all back in New Mexico.”
“I’m sure whatever you need will be provided, ma’am. But you’ve really got to hurry. I’ll leave you now. I’ll be waiting outside the front entrance. Five minutes, okay?”
The captain did not wait for her reply before he left the room. He simply assumed she could wash, dress, fix her appearance, and pack, all within the space of five minutes.
Only a man could be that dumb.
Jaworski told Tom Mulvagh to cancel his plans for the weekend.
“Does Horabin know about this?” asked Mulvagh, once he’d been told the news about Vermulen and the link to Waylon McCabe.
“He will. But you know Horabin, Tom. He doesn’t wipe his ass without figuring out how it’ll impact the President’s poll ratings. We can’t wait for him to make up his mind how to respond to this. We have to find out what McCabe’s been doing. Now.”
“I’m on it.”
The FBI is no different from any other organization: At half past four on a Saturday morning it’s not at its most dynamic. So agents weren’t leaping from their beds and making for their cars within minutes of Mulvagh getting the call. People had to be found, woken, and briefed-both FBI staff and the people they needed to interview. A couple of hours went by before the first information started getting back to Mulvagh.
In Europe and the Middle East, however, the day was already well under way. Even if the Pentagon brass were groggy when they got the call from Jaworski, their men and women in the field were wide awake and ready to go.
It was midday in the Adriatic. For the past three hours, Vermulen had been locked in consultation with Marcus Reddin, his second-in-command, transforming the information from the bomb list into a workable mission. The yacht’s communications systems had been used to download maps and plans. Calls had been made to the contacts supplied by Pavel Novak and the Dutchman Jonny Koolhaas.
Now there were nine of them in the main saloon: Vermulen, Alix, the Italian scientist Frankie Riva, Marcus Reddin, and the five men under his command. The room had been swept for bugs and a screen had been set up at one end, where Vermulen was standing, with a remote control in his hand. He was about to start when there was a respectful knock and a steward poked his head around the door.
“Sorry to disturb you, General, but the captain thought you might like some refreshments. I have coffee, juices, some pastries, if you’d like them.”
Vermulen was about to refuse the offer, but then he saw the faces of Reddin’s men light up with the soldier’s instinctive willingness to accept any offer of food and drink, whenever it may come.
“Sure-come on in,” he said, and the steward pushed in a cart laden with enticing snacks, from which the aroma of fresh coffee wafted. The next few minutes vanished in the filling of cups and loading of plates.
“Everybody ready?” Vermulen finally asked. “Okay, then, gentlemen, let me brief you on your mission.
“What we are going to do tonight has the potential to change the course of history. We have the chance to strike a mighty blow against not one, but two of the greatest threats currently facing the world: rogue nuclear weapons and international terrorism. And this is how we’re going to do it.”
He pressed the remote and the screen filled with a map of a land-locked territory shaped like a roughly drawn, irregular diamond, one hundred miles across at its widest point.
“This is the province of Kosovo, which is currently part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. It lies inland, roughly eighty miles from the coast of the Adriatic Sea to the west. Kosovo is currently entering the early stages of a civil war between the majority of the population, who are ethnic Albanians-that’s Albania, down there on the southwest border of Kosovo-and the minority, who are Serbs-that’s Serbia, to the north and east. Long story short, the Serbs have been ruling the Albanians, and the Albanians don’t like it. They want Kosovo to be an independent state. The Serbs don’t want to let them go.
“So what’s it got to do with us? Simple. The Albanian cause is being hijacked by Islamic terrorists, just like the cause of freedom was hijacked in Afghanistan. These terrorists, operating all over the world, pose a clear and present danger to the United States, and our government is choosing to ignore it. And that danger is all the greater because there is a small-scale nuclear bomb, right here in Kosovo, planted by the Russians ten years ago or more. It is unguarded, sitting in a suitcase, just waiting for someone to come along and find it. We cannot allow that bomb to fall into terrorist hands. So that someone is going to have to be us.”
“Holy shit,” muttered Maroni. “Now I know why the pay’s so good.”
Vermulen outlined the mission. Late that afternoon they would rendezvous at sea with a fishing boat carrying the weapons they would need. The yacht would then sail into Croatian waters and moor in a secluded bay near the village of Molunat in southern Croatia, right by the border with the Yugoslav province of Montenegro. At dusk, around seven-thirty, they would go ashore and be met by a guide. He would have the vehicles needed to take them the 125 miles overland to their destination, the main administration building of the Zvečan lead smelter, part of the sprawling Trepca mining complex in northern Kosovo, where the bomb was located. Reddin and his team would stand guard while Riva used his spectrometer to uncover the bomb’s hiding place.
Once it was found, Vermulen would record a brief statement on video, describing what he had found, and where. He’d stress the dangers posed to global security by the lethal combination of international terrorism and unsecured, small-scale nuclear weapons. That done, the bomb would be moved, under Riva’s close supervision, to their vehicles. They would then drive southeast a farther sixty miles to the border with the neighboring republic of Macedonia, where NATO forces were stationed. The last few miles might have to be undertaken on foot, to avoid detection by border guards. Once the video statement had been released to the media, preventing a coverup, the bomb would be handed over, as would additional information, which would be retained aboard the yacht for safekeeping until that point.
Vermulen swept his gaze around the room, looking each man in the eye.
“I believe that once we have released our statement to the world media, and provided proof to the U.S. government, two things are bound to follow. First, a major effort will be made to retrieve all the missing weapons. And second, the reaction from the media, and the American people-hell, people all over the world-will force our politicians to wake up and take action to protect us from the threat of global terror. If we can stop Islamic extremism now, we can make the world a safer place for our families, our neighbors, for people everywhere. If we do not, then I truly fear what the future may hold.
“Gentlemen,” he concluded, “this mission is fundamentally very simple. It involves covering a distance shorter than the drive from Boston to New York City. We’ve got to be on the lookout for Serbian or KLA units, and avoid police or military roadblocks. But if we take due care, there is no reason to anticipate the need for violent action. The bomb itself is perfectly safe. Absent its detonation code, it will not explode. Nor will it give off dangerous levels of radiation.
“So rest up, get some sleep if you can. It’s going to be a long night.”
Up on the bridge, the captain was in radio contact with a private plane, currently flying northwest, two hours out of San Antonio.
“Did you get that, sir?” he asked.
“Certainly did, Captain, every word. So how did you fix it? I figured Vermulen would be smart enough to check for bugs.”
“He was, sir. Swept the room before the meeting. So we offered him some refreshments, and stuck a listening device inside the lid of a carafe of coffee. Worked out fine.”
“That it did, Captain. I’ll be calling you with more instructions later, regarding one other little job I need you to do for me.”
“Yes sir-I’ll look forward to that.”
Waylon McCabe sat back with a feeling of satisfaction so deep it almost dulled the pain of the tumors eating away at his body from within. In a few minutes he would call Dusan Darko in Belgrade and pass on the information he would need to intercept Vermulen and seize the bomb. The assault would have to be expertly handled. McCabe wanted the weapon intact and Vermulen alive. He also needed Dr. Francesco Riva in one piece. From the moment Vermulen had told him about the meeting in Rome, McCabe had realized that the Italian’s expertise would be vital to his plans.
So now it was Easter Saturday: Just one day to go before Armageddon would be unleashed, the warrior Christ would descend from heaven, and he would be led to eternal life. True, there would be suffering. But McCabe didn’t care. He had killed a lot of people for a lot worse causes than that.
When agents from the FBI’s San Antonio field office called at McCabe’s Kerr County ranch, they were told that he wasn’t home: He’d left for Europe, on business. It didn’t take too long after that to establish that his private jet had taken off from Stinson Municipal Airport, six miles south of San Antonio, shortly after 3 A.M., local time.
“Can you describe the aircraft?” asked the special agent who’d made the call.
“I don’t know the exact model, just a regular executive jet, eight-seater…” replied the airport official.
The agent was barely paying attention and about to hang up when the official interrupted himself and said, “No, wait-that’s wrong…”
“What is?” The agent didn’t even bother to disguise her lack of interest.
“Well, Mr. McCabe just had that plane adapted, only got it back no more’n ten days ago. So now it’s got kind of a bulge in its belly and, you know, a door that opens up, I guess like a bomber, or something…”
Now she was a lot more interested.
Nine in the morning, Eastern Standard Time, and the pace was picking up. A bunch of aeronautical engineers and corporate executives were trying to explain how they had been pleased to work on Waylon McCabe’s aircraft for free, believing the modifications were going to be used to drop supplies to starving Africans.
By now the plane had left U.S. airspace. McCabe’s pilot had filed a flight plan to Shannon, Ireland, right at the limit of the plane’s range. The tracking data, however, suggested he was actually heading farther north, toward Reykjavik, Iceland.
“Can’t we get someone at State to call the Icelandic authorities, get them to impound the plane, arrest McCabe?” asked Mulvagh when Jaworski passed on the information.
“On what grounds?” came the reply. “Waylon McCabe is not a fugitive from justice, has committed no crime, and we have no reason to believe he’s carrying any contraband, drugs, or weapons.”
“Yeah, but he’s just about to…”
“About to what, exactly?” Jaworski interrupted. “We don’t know what he’s going to do-that’s the problem.”
By now, McCabe’s telephone, travel, and financial records were undergoing extensive investigation and analysis. McCabe’s doctors refused to discuss their patient’s health in any detail, citing their absolute duty of confidentiality. But trips to cancer-treatment centers in Houston and New York told their own story. It didn’t take long, either, to spot the million-dollar donation to the Reverend Ezekiel Ray, and the calls between the two men.
Mulvagh handled that interview personally.
“Can I ask you what you discussed, Reverend?”
Ray hesitated.
“I’m afraid I can’t talk about that. It’s a personal matter between me and one of my congregation.”
“I understand, but it’s not like the confession booth, right? I mean, you aren’t obliged to keep your conversation secret.”
“That’s correct, but even so…”
“Reverend, I appreciate your position. But I have to tell you, this is a matter of national security. We need to know what’s been on McCabe’s mind. Could you at least tell me what kinds of things you talked about, in general, even if you don’t go into specifics?”
Several seconds’ silence were followed by a thoughtful sigh.
“Yes, I suppose I could do that.”
“And…”
“Well, as you probably know, my ministry is centered on the concept of the rapture, the ascension into heaven of the chosen, at the end of time, as prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Mr. McCabe was deeply moved by the prospect of rapture, as are many, many of the decent Christian men and women who attend my services.”
The preacher was hiding something. Even down a telephone line, unable to see the other man’s face, Mulvagh could sense it: Something to do with the rapture had put Ray on his guard.
“I’m sure they are, Reverend,” Mulvagh persisted. “And when McCabe talked about the rapture, what was it, exactly, that moved him? What made him want to talk to you in person? He must have wanted to know something-something he couldn’t find out just by listening to your sermons, or watching you on TV.”
“He wanted to know…”
Again Ray paused.
“Yes?” asked Mulvagh.
“He wanted to know about the final battle against the Antichrist. That’s the conflict that Saint John prophesies that will bring about the coming of Christ.”
“What about that battle?”
“Oh, my… I just don’t know if I should tell you this. But what Mr. McCabe wanted to know was, What would God think if he-that’s McCabe-started the battle himself?”
Hour by hour, the investigation picked up pace. By lunchtime agents had made the connection to Clinton Tulane and established a further link between McCabe and Dusan Darko. It was clear now how McCabe planned to get hold of the bomb, and in what country. All that remained was its ultimate destination.
A brainstorming meeting was convened at the White House; all the agencies involved in the case were invited.
“We’ve got to consider every possibility, no matter how crazy it sounds,” said Leo Horabin, the national security adviser. “So whatever you’ve got on your mind, don’t be afraid to say it.”
Tom Mulvagh waited his turn, letting others air their ideas before he said his piece.
“I think you have to consider the religious aspect,” he said. “We’ve been thinking about this subject for a while at the Bureau-you know, religious crazies trying to bring about Armageddon. In fact, we’re planning a research paper on the subject. We’re thinking of calling it Project Megiddo, because that’s the hill, in Israel, where the Book of Revelation says the final battle will occur. So if I were looking for flashpoints, places where a crazy with a bomb might be heading, that would be where I’d start.”
“I hear you, Tom,” said Jaworski, “but it could be just about anywhere. A lot of these guys really hate the Arabs. Maybe he wants to take out Mecca, or Jerusalem…”
“How about St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome?” said an officer from the DIA. “Hundreds of thousands of people gathered to hear the Pope-helluva target.”
Horabin looked around the room, then came to his conclusion.
“I think you’re right, Tom. The target will have some kind of religious significance. And it would make sense if it was within easy reach of Kosovo, within Europe or the Middle East. I want a complete list of all possible targets that fall within those parameters. And I want contingency plans for all of them.”
Night had fallen in Macedonia, and Carver had just taken possession of the quintessential Balkan car, one of the countless battered old Mercedes sedans that are shipped south from Germany to poorer, less discerning markets. This was an eight-year-old C-class diesel, with a creamy-beige paint job that made it look like a motorized crème caramel, and a broken exhaust that spewed thick, gray-blue smoke into the atmosphere. An MI6 agent in Macedonia ’s capital, Skopje, name of Ronan Biddle, had given it to Carver when he flew in that evening, along with the passport, visas, and accreditation papers that identified him as a BBC radio news reporter. The pockets of a scuffed leather fisherman’s bag held the tape recorder, laptop, phone, map, and notebooks that backed up his cover. He’d also been provided with the standard equipment he required as an assassin and saboteur: a selection of tools, plastic explosives, knife, gun, and ammunition. Underneath his clothes, he wore, as ever, the money belt containing the cash, bonds, and passports that were his constant companions. His hair had been clipped short, a basic barbershop crew cut, just before he left France. He was fed up with seeing Kenny Wynter every time he looked in a mirror.
“It isn’t a SIG, I’m afraid,” said Biddle, sounding more pleased than apologetic about this inability to deliver the weapon Carver wanted. “Grantham said you liked them, but you’ll have to make do with a Beretta Ninety-two-best we could drum up at short notice. It’s good enough for the U.S. Army, so it can’t be too bad. We got you a silencer, too.”
Biddle looked at Carver resentfully.
“Don’t know why London had to send someone,” he continued. “We’ve got plenty of first-rate people here, and there are special forces chaps hanging around the place who know Kosovo like the back of their hand. But they never trust the men on the ground, do they?”
Carver just shrugged and opened up the trunk of the car, looking for the best place to hide the plastique. He had no interest in starting a conversation. Minutes later he was on the road out of the airport, on the way to the Kacanik Defile, the gorge that provides one of the few passes between Macedonia and southern Kosovo.
The line at the border was ninety minutes long, a motley gaggle of trucks, vans, and family cars, their roof racks piled high with goods from Macedonia that had become unavailable as violence and anarchy descended on Kosovo-everything and anything, from fresh fruit to video recorders. The people in the line were standing around by their vehicles, smoking, drinking, and talking to the other drivers. Carver couldn’t tell which ones were ethnic Albanians and which were Serbs. There was no sign of any tension or polarization. Everyone was getting on just fine, grumbling about the delay, sharing their bottles and cigarette packets, good-naturedly joshing the kids who ran about between the cars. But as soon as they crossed the line into Kosovo, they’d be divided into warring tribes, each out to obliterate the other.
Carver had seen plenty of communal violence in his time. He’d served in Northern Ireland and Iraq. And no matter where or when it happened, it never made any more sense.
The border guards were shaven-headed thugs in blue paramilitary uniforms. One of them took Carver’s passport and papers and disappeared into a low-slung building decorated with the crest of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which stood beside the checkpoint. A few minutes later, he reemerged and signaled to Carver to move his car out of the way and park it to one side so that other travelers could come through the checkpoint: This was going to take some time.
It was getting late, but there was still a duty-free store and café open in the no-man’s-land between the Macedonian and Kosovan sides of the border post. Carver went in to take a leak and get a double espresso. Four more guards were sitting at a table, their submachine guns propped against their chairs. They were sharing a bottle of plum brandy. It was standing on the table next to a couple of empties. The guards simmered with the brooding tension of drunks who were a long way down the road that leads from cheerful inebriation to unrestrained violence. As Carver passed by on the way to the men’s room, they looked at him with a malevolence that sought out any excuse-a single, inadvertent glance or gesture would do-that would allow them to attack.
When his coffee arrived, he took it outside. He wanted to be able to think in peace. The truth was, he was so angry himself, that if the border guards even looked like they would give him a fight, he might take them up on the offer. And that would just be one more entry on his long list of stupid mistakes.
It went against all his principles, but he couldn’t help thinking of the past, wishing he’d done things differently. If he’d done a better job back at the Inuvik airport… if he’d just told the Consortium to screw their assignment when they’d ordered him onto the plane to Paris… if he’d never let himself become involved with Alix… if he’d put his business before his balls and just handed that bloody list over to Grantham… so many ifs, and nothing he could do about any of them.
Alix wasn’t coming back to him, not now. She’d made her decision and she wasn’t going to change it. He didn’t blame her for what she’d done. When she’d left him at the clinic, he’d been a vegetable. Then she’d been told he was dead. It was hardly surprising she’d fallen for the healthy, successful, powerful guy standing right next to her. He hoped he’d have the chance to tell her that, let her know he understood and bore her no ill will, no matter how much he was hurting. But when were they going to meet again? He couldn’t believe Vermulen would involve her in whatever he was planning to do with the bomb, so she wouldn’t be anywhere near Trepca. And by the end of the night, the chances were that either he or Vermulen would be dead, maybe both. Even if he survived, what then?
Presumably she’d been kept on the boat. He imagined coming aboard: “Hello, darling-sorry I topped your old man. No hard feelings.”
That wasn’t going to go down too well, however he tried to play it.
He could just turn back, of course. If he didn’t get Vermulen, someone else would, and sooner rather than later. Too many people had reasons to want the man dead. If Alix was back on the market again, he could try to win her over.
But that wasn’t exactly a classy idea, hitting on the grieving widow. And it wasn’t going to happen, anyway. The only way to atone for all his mistakes was to clear up the mess he’d made. That meant tracking Vermulen down and taking him, and his bomb, out of commission, whatever the cost. But what about the list? Did Vermulen have it with him? The answer came to Carver in a moment of absolute certainty. No, he’d have kept it safe on the yacht, with Alix.
A sardonic, humorless smile twisted the corners of his mouth. Maybe they would meet again, like it or not.
Across the floodlit no-man’s-land, he could see an official waving at him. His papers had been accepted. He was into Kosovo.
Earlier that afternoon, when everyone onboard was fully occupied preparing for Vermulen’s expedition, Alix had slipped into the ship’s galley and found a large plastic garbage bag, a number of smaller food bags, and a couple of yards of twine. Now the men were all gone and she was alone in the master bedroom, preparing her getaway.
She was wearing a bathrobe, and beneath that a swimsuit. The yacht was moored less than two hundred yards from the shore. Alix was a strong swimmer-she felt sure she could cover the distance without any trouble, even allowing for the bag she’d have tied around her waist. She was taking the absolute minimum she would need: her wallet, passport, and phone; a sweatshirt; a pair of jeans; and her lightest pair of flat, slip-on shoes. Aside from the jeans and sweatshirt, each item was individually wrapped in a food bag, and then everything went inside the garbage bag, which she’d sealed with packing tape. She planned to leave around one in the morning, when there’d be only one man keeping watch from the bridge. If she could make it to shore, she’d be long gone by the time the sun came up.
There was a knock on the door and the steward’s voice. “Mrs. Vermulen?”
She shoved the bag under her pillows and called back, “Yes?”
“Message from your husband, ma’am. Captain asked me to hand it to you in person.”
“Just coming…”
She walked to the door and opened it. The steward was standing there. But he held no message in his hand. Instead, he was pointing a gun at her, and there was not a trace of his former servility in his voice as he said, “Put some clothes on. You’re going on a trip.”
She stepped back into the room, opening the door wider to let him in. As far as the steward was concerned, she was just the little blond wifey. He was taken completely by surprise when she slammed the door back in his face, flung it open again and kicked him hard in the crotch. As he bent double in agony, Alix stepped forward and drove her knee into his face. She had no idea why the crew had suddenly turned on her, but there was no time to worry about that now. She ran back to her bed, grabbed the garbage bag, and hurried out into the passageway.
The master bedroom was on the main deck. Alix raced through the saloon where Vermulen had held his briefing and out into the open air. She had got as far as the stern rail, and was just about to leap over the side when a burst of gunfire exploded just a few feet above her, and a line of bullets tore through the planking at her feet.
She looked up and saw the captain standing by the rail of the upper deck, looking down at her over the top of an automatic rifle.
“You better stop right there, Mrs. Vermulen,” he said. “Or the next burst goes through you.”
Fifteen years earlier, the Zvečan lead smelter had been part of a thriving enterprise that had employed twenty thousand workers and provided wealth for a nation. Now it was just another ramshackle old Communist enterprise, brought even lower by the combined effects of corrupt mismanagement and social anarchy. The whole place, nestled at the floor of a valley between thickly wooded, mineral-laden hills, purveyed an air of irreversible decline: rusting pipes, stationary conveyor belts, office windows broken and unrepaired. A few desultory puffs of bitter smoke emerged from the giant red-and-white-striped chimney that towered over the plant, in feeble acknowledgment that this was, in theory, a round-the-clock operation. Occasional lights overhead shone a weak orange glow over their surroundings. But there was no one to check Vermulen’s team as their Land Cruisers rolled through the main gates, no sign of workers on the roadways between the giant processing sheds.
The bomb was behind another false wall, this one in the basement office of the maintenance worker in charge of the central-heating boilers. Vermulen was struck by the contrast between the drab banality of the leather case and the astonishing power of its contents. He was accustomed to systems whose capacity was evident in their appearance, be they mighty battle tanks or thunderous artillery pieces. But this was the ultimate stealth weapon. It gave no clue as to its powers of destruction.
The feeble bulbs in the office lights and the gray-green paint on the walls combined to create a grim, ghostly atmosphere, but Vermulen could see that Frankie Riva’s eyes were glittering with the fever of a treasure-hunting archaeologist who had stumbled into a pharaoh’s tomb.
“Ammazza!” he muttered, opening the case and seeing the metal gun barrel. “After all these years… incredible!”
“So it is a nuclear weapon?” Vermulen asked.
“Oh yes, General, most certainly it is that.”
“In working order?”
Riva raised his hands in a classic Italian shrug.
“Who can say? There is only one way to know for sure, and that is to set a detonator and see what happens. But, just looking at it, I can see no reason why it should not work. Fundamentally, this is a very simple device. One piece of uranium is smashed into another…”
He spread his arms wide. “Boom!”
Don Maroni had been a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Rangers, a member of one of the finest light-infantry forces in the world, trained to the highest levels of fitness and competence. But the operative word was “had.” He’d been out of the service five years, working for a civilian security corporation, wearing a suit instead of a uniform. He still went to the boxing gym three times a week and kept his shooting up to standard. By any normal measure, he was not a man you’d want to mess with. But he wasn’t as sharp as he’d once been. He certainly wasn’t as battle-fit as the men who were slipping through the great, rusting hulks of the smelting works all around him, men who had spent a decade fighting hand to hand in conflicts of vile, unfettered ferocity.
Dusan Darko’s most trusted killers had confronted conventional armies, desperate civilians, and fanatical mujahideen flown in from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, whose total absence of scruple equaled their own. They had battled knowing that death was a mercy, far preferable to the torture and mutilation that inevitably followed capture, and they had dealt out as much agony as they had received. More than that, they came from mountain villages where the culture of knife and gun had ruled for centuries. Murder was in their blood.
So as good as he was, Donny Maroni was taken by surprise as he patrolled the perimeter of the office block in which the bomb had been hidden. He caught a brief scent of tobacco and garlic from the hand that clamped across his mouth to stifle his screams, and then the knife was drawn across his throat and blood spurted from the gaping mortal wound.
Reddin’s men were scattered around the immediate vicinity of the office building. They were all well armed, all equipped with radios with which they could summon immediate support. And they all died without a word being spoken.
The video camera had been set up in the basement office, with a light that shone on Kurt Vermulen and the opened bomb case that he and Frankie Riva had lifted onto the maintenance man’s desk.
“You ready?” he asked Riva, who was standing behind the camera.
“Sure,” the Italian replied. “We’re running now. Just speak whenever you want.”
Vermulen cleared his throat, gave a sharp sniff, then looked directly at the camera.
“My name is Lieutenant General Kurt Vermulen. I retired from the U.S. Army after twenty-eight years’ service as a commissioned officer, during which I was proud, and honored, to serve the country I love. I am now in the province of Kosovo, Yugoslavia, in the Zvečan industrial plant. Within a few miles of here, units of the Kosovo Liberation Army are operating, assisted by fighters, weapons, and money provided by the forces of international Islamist terrorism. And this”-he pointed to the case on the desk-“is their ultimate weapon. It is a-”
From the corridor outside there came the crackle of small-arms fire, immediately answered by a blast of firing from the far side of the office door, through which could be heard an animal howl of pain. The door burst open and Marcus Reddin backed into the room. He was unsteady on his feet and his left arm was hanging uselessly beside him, blood pouring from the through-and-through bullet wound that had ripped open his shoulder.
“Red!” shouted Vermulen. Drawing the pistol that was holstered around his waist, he ran to his friend’s aid.
“Sorry, man… screwed up,” Reddin gasped.
Vermulen could hear footsteps scurrying down the basement corridor. Without looking back at Riva, he shouted, “Take cover!” Then he grasped his pistol in both hands, held it up to his face, and stood in the shelter of the door frame, steeling himself for the moment when he would have to step into the corridor and start firing.
But Vermulen never took that step. Not when there was a gun in his back and an Italian voice in his ear saying, “Drop your weapon, General.”
One hundred and twenty miles to the west, a helicopter landed on a patch of open ground near the Croatian village of Molunat. A small group of people was waiting for it. While the engines still ran, they hurried toward the chopper, instinctively bending over, even though the rotor blades were well above their heads. In the midst of the men there was a smaller, slighter figure, a woman whose blond hair was whipped around her face by the wind from the rotors. She was in the grip of two men, who had grabbed her upper arms. Her hands had been tied behind her back, and she stumbled as they dragged her up to the helicopter and bundled her through the open side door. After she was in, one of the men reached up toward the open door, holding a thin cardboard file. An unseen figure from within the cabin took the file and slid the door closed, and the helicopter rose again into the cloudy night sky.
“Welcome to Rock City, ma’am.” Kady Jones had been flown directly from Washington to Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany. She’d been briefed on the way. There was reason to believe that another one of the Russian bombs had been uncovered in Kosovo. She would be making a determination as to whether it was genuine or not. The tone of the briefings had been urgent, but routine: nothing to worry about. After they were over, she’d received another message, requesting details on her height, body measurements, and shoe size. The moment the cabin door had opened, she’d been led straight to a military transport, already laden with a full army explosive-ordnance-disposal team and its equipment. Another dozen men sat silently and impassively in futuristic black uniforms. Before she’d even strapped on her belt, the wheels were already rolling. Once they were in the air, one of the men in black came over.
“Major Dave Gretsch,” he said. “Just wanted to introduce myself, let you know my men and I will be securing the area for you tonight. There’s a chance we may be seeing some action, but just do what we ask, and we’ll make sure you’re fine. Meantime, anything you need to know, just ask.”
“Who are you guys?” Kady asked.
Gretsch gave an apologetic smile.
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. But we’re the best, is all you need to know.”
“Oh… Well, where are we going, exactly?”
“Can’t say that, either. They haven’t told me yet. Fact, I was kinda hoping you might know.”
“So I can ask, but you can’t answer…”
“Sure looks that way, but that’s the army for you.”
Now it was ten at night and she’d just arrived at the Tuzla Air Base in Bosnia. As the soldiers got to work unloading their weapons and equipment, she’d been greeted by an air-force corporal, a woman, who was leading her toward a waiting Humvee.
“We call it Rock City ’cause of all the crushed rock everywhere-place was like a sea of mud till they laid that down,” she explained. “Any-ways, they got a room set aside for you in the officers’ quarters, though I don’t guess you’ll be getting much sleep.”
Kady was led to her room, little more than a cubicle with a camp bed, inside a basic, prefabricated structure. The corporal politely instructed her to get changed and wait for further instructions. On the bed were arranged a set of combat fatigues, a T-shirt, a flak jacket, a pair of boots, and a helmet. Now she knew why they’d wanted to check her size.
But what kind of battlefield was she heading into?
In the rest of Yugoslavia, the civil wars had been fought on a large scale: a conflict of armies, air forces, and artillery barrages, with towns besieged, territories conquered, populations deported, raped, and slaughtered. So far, Kosovo had been different. Resistance to the Serbs had been peaceful for so long that most people, on both sides, were taken by surprise when hostilities began. The attacks were random and sporadic: guerrilla assaults on one-off targets, rather than organized military campaigns. As he drove northward, deeper into Kosovo, Carver saw occasional signs of fighting-a burning building in the distance, a truck filled with soldiers almost knocking him off the narrow two-lane road as it thundered by.
He was miles from anywhere, in open countryside, when the phone rang. It was Grantham.
“Change of plan,” he said. “Forget Trepca. You’re being rerouted to Pristina airport, which is actually located at a place called Slatina, about twenty kilometers east of Pristina city. We have new information. I’m just going to hand you over to Ted Jaworski. He’s an American colleague, heading up a task force looking at this issue from the Washington end.”
“Good evening, Mr. Carver…”
Carver did not reply. His headlights had just picked out a roadblock a few hundred yards down the road. A couple of armed Serbian paramilitaries, in the same blue uniforms as the men at the border post, were standing by a crude barrier made of planks and oil drums, lit by spotlights shining down into the road. Their truck was parked behind the barrier, across the road, just to underline the idea that no one was getting by.
“Mr. Carver…?”
“Yeah, I can hear you.”
“Okay, you need to know the way this situation is developing. We believe that Vermulen’s backer, a man named Waylon McCabe-”
“I know who he is.”
The men by the roadblock were waving at Carver, indicating that he should stop.
“Well, McCabe may be planning a double cross.”
“Sounds about right.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m saying I agree-that’s what I’d expect him to do. Hold on, I’ve got company…”
Carver put the phone down on the passenger seat as one of the paramilitaries appeared at his window, rotating his finger in the air to indicate that he should wind it down. As Jaworski’s disembodied voice crackled from the phone, “Carver? Are you there?” and Grantham barked, “Stop pissing around,” the paramilitary started jabbering in Serbian.
“Sorry,” said Carver, playing the dumb foreigner. “Don’t understand.”
He was wearing a hunting vest, with external pockets at chest and hip level. Slowly, he reached into one of the chest pockets and pulled out his BBC press card.
“Journalist,” he said, pointing at himself. “BBC… British, yes?”
The man turned back toward his mate and waved at him to come over. That gave Carver the opportunity to pick up the phone.
“Sorry about that. I’m at a roadblock. Be right with you.”
He put the phone down again as the second paramilitary came up and in heavily accented English said, “Road close. You no go. Close. Yes?”
“I understand, yes,” Carver said. “But I must go. BBC.”
Before the argument could go any further, the Serbs were distracted by the arrival of another car, a decrepit Škoda, which pulled up behind Carver. It had a big bundle on its roof wrapped in plastic, which made him think it must have crossed the border just behind him.
One of the Serbs pointed at the pennant fluttering from the radio aerial. It bore a black double-headed eagle against a red background, the national symbol of Albania. He walked up to the car, ripped off the pennant, threw it to the ground, and spat on it before grinding it into the dirt with his boot heel. Then, while his partner pointed his gun at the car, the paramilitary ripped open the driver’s door and dragged out an unshaven black-haired man in his thirties, wearing an Adidas track-suit over a red-and-black-striped AC Milan soccer shirt. The man was pleading, pointing back to the car as he staggered forward a few paces before being thrown to the ground.
While the first paramilitary aimed a couple of halfhearted kicks at the Albanian, the other peered into the car. He gestured at the passengers to get out. A woman emerged from one side, a second, much older female from the other. Carver assumed they were family: the man’s wife and mother, maybe. The missus was hugging an absurdly big pink teddy bear that looked like a prize from a tatty fairground stall. Ma was wrapped in a fringed, woven shawl. The man guarding them lined them up by the side of the road, then half turned to watch his partner kicking the man curled up in the dirt. Neither of the paramilitaries saw what happened next. As Carver looked on, the younger woman flung her teddy bear to the ground as the older one threw back her shawl. Both were carrying guns. Neither hesitated for a second before firing at the paramilitaries.
One went down immediately, clutching his belly and screaming out in pain. The other tried to flee the blast of gunfire, but managed only a few strides before a bullet hit the side of his head, splitting his skull like a teaspoon cracking a boiled egg, and throwing him dead to the ground. Several of the shots had missed, the bullets flying straight past the paramilitaries toward Carver’s car, smashing his rear window and punching into the bodywork.
A voice over the phone cried, “What the hell was that?” but Carver wasn’t around to hear it. He’d already kicked open the car door and rolled out onto the pavement, drawing the Beretta as he went and scrambling into a ditch by the opposite side of the road. A knife had appeared from nowhere in the Albanian’s hand and he was standing over the wounded Serb, grinning at his screams with a look that suggested he was going to enjoy the job of giving him a long, slow, agonizing death. But that could wait. He’d spotted Carver’s dash across the road. As the screams of the wounded man filled the night air, he picked up one of the paramilitaries’ submachine guns and walked toward Carver, peering into the darkness.
The women followed him, the wife crouching low, her pistol held in both hands in front of her, the old woman stomping forward in absolute defiance of any danger.
With a shock of disgust, Carver realized that he was going to have to kill all three of them, the women as well as the man.
He didn’t hesitate.
Kneel, in the firing position. Two shots into the man’s head. Roll left. Kneel again. Two each for the women. Three kills.
The whole thing was over in less than five seconds. Afterward, the only sound came from the wounded Serb, whose howls of fear and pain were gradually subsiding to whimpers. Unconsciousness and death would not be far away.
Carver walked back to his car, sickened by the pointlessness of it all. He wondered how many other scenes like this there had been across this benighted country over the past few years and how many more would follow in the years to come.
Ninety minutes ago the people in that car had most likely been standing around in the line by the border crossing, talking and joking like everyone else. They were alive. They had prospects. Now look at them.
He picked up the phone again. The first voice he heard was Jaworski.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Shut it,” snapped Carver. “Five people just died.”
“Okay, let’s start again, nice and polite,” said Jaworski, in a patronizing tone of exaggerated conciliation. “Here’s the situation. Waylon McCabe flew into Pristina a couple of hours back. His plane has been adapted to drop a bomb. He’s also made some kind of alliance with a Serbian warlord, Dusan Darko. We think Darko’s going to seize the weapon Vermulen has located-may have done so already-then hand it over to McCabe. And then we believe McCabe wants to use it to trigger Armageddon.”
Carver gave a snort of disbelief.
“He thinks he’s fulfilling the prophecies of the Book of Revelation,” said Jaworski, with absolute seriousness.
“Jesus wept.”
“That’s kind of an unfortunate choice of words,” said Jaworski.
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Get to the airport, obviously, then locate the plane. We tracked it all the way to Slatina and we know it landed. We’re certain it hasn’t taken off-it’s not on any radar. But the last satellite pass we did, there was no sign of it.”
“Okay-I find the plane. Then what?”
“Just observe. Keep us informed. Believe me, you will be playing a major role in resolving this situation by providing the intelligence we need. But I want you to understand, so far as my government is concerned, this is a domestic matter involving U.S. citizens. It will be settled by U.S. agencies, and no one else. Frankly, Mr. Carver, it is none of your business. Your place is in the audience, not on the stage. So do not interfere, and do not, on any account, do anything more than observe and inform.”
“You got that, Carver?” Grantham cut in. “Observe and inform. None of your fireworks displays this time.”
“Oh, I got that, all right,” said Carver before he hung up.
He took his gear out of the shot-up Mercedes and dumped it in the dead Serbs’ truck. Then he went back to the man who’d been killed by the shot to the head. He was still illuminated by the headlights of the Albanians’ car. Carver looked at the back of the man’s uniform, then rolled the body over with his foot and checked the front. Both sides were clear of bloodstains. It was too good a chance to waste. He stripped the body and pulled the Serbian uniform over his own trousers and shirt. The fit wasn’t too bad, though the boots were a size too small: He’d have to put up with aching feet for a night. The dead man didn’t look too much like Carver, and his I.D. card revealed he was more than a decade younger. Carver went to the other body. This one was older and the likeness was better, so Carver took his wallet and papers instead. So now he was Nico Krasnic, age thirty-two.
He picked up Krasnic’s submachine gun and went back to the truck. As he got in, shoving his discarded vest and fisherman’s bag out of sight in the footwell in front of the passenger seat, he saw a portable CD player perched above the dashboard. Out of curiosity, Carver pressed play and picked up the earphones. A percussive, machine-gun blast of hardcore rap hammered around his brain. Carver turned it off. If that was the last thing the Serb had been listening to, then death must have come as a blessed relief.
As he started up the truck and set off again on the road to the airport, Carver was already formulating his plan. And it had very little indeed to do with observing and informing.