Day of Reckoning (51 page)

Two of his best, closing in on their former team leader. A man who had kidnapped and murdered an American teenager.

An innocent, no matter what his father might have done.

Where did you go wrong, Nichols?
Kranemeyer mused, pondering the irony of the question. Where, indeed?

He tucked the phone back inside his pocket and pushed the door of the SUV open, stepping out onto an ice-slick sidewalk. Deniable vehicle or no, it was safest to approach his target on foot.

The alarm would be raised within the hour—people would start looking for Shapiro.

What
thou doest, do thou quickly
.

5:45 P.M. Pacific Time

The oilfield

Tehachapi, California

They had night-vision. At least one of them did. And he didn’t have the ammunition necessary for a prolonged firefight.

Harry spat out sand as bullets chewed up the dirt near him, lifting himself up just far enough to return fire. One, two shots.

“I could use some help over here, Sammy,” he hissed into his mike, rolling over on the ground till he was staring up at the looming pumpjack.

No response. As there hadn’t been before. If they had outflanked him so successfully, perhaps Han was already dead.

Laying in the shadow of the pump, he hit the SCAR’s magazine release, checking his remaining ammunition.

Four .308 cartridges left. A couple magazines for his Colt, but a pistol was near useless against a trained marksman with a rifle.

Rounds continued to strike around him, caroming off the solid steel of the pump.

He closed his eyes, forcing himself to focus, to concentrate. Listening as the fire from the southwest faded away for a moment. There would be no second chances.

He rolled to one knee, acquiring a sight picture as his rifle came up. A man charging toward the pump, out in the open, his weapon weaving from side to side as he ran.

Harry pulled the trigger, the scope’s cross-hairs centering on the man’s chest. Once, twice.

The mercenary fell, throwing out a bloody hand as he hit the gravel. He tried to pull himself up, the expression of agony on his face clear even through the greenish glow of the night-vision scope.

A pair of shots came out of the night without warning, striking Harry in the side, sledgehammer blows to the ribs.
A double-tap
.

The SCAR dropped from his hands as he swayed, catching himself against the side of the pumpjack—his mind struggling to process what had just happened.

He looked up to see Korsakov standing there, barely five feet away, a semiautomatic pistol in his outstretched hands. “Almost good enough, Mr. Nichols.
Almost
.”

The vest
, Harry thought, attempting to get his breath back. His assault vest must have stopped the slugs, leaving his ribs hammered from the blunt impact of the rounds. Not that it mattered, he thought, staring into the muzzle of Korsakov’s Skyph.

“Turn around.”

Harry shook his head, a bitter smile crossing his face. It hurt even to speak, but he found himself chuckling.

“You first.”
Keep him off-balance
.

“They were good men—the men you killed,” Korsakov whispered, a note of sadness in the assassin’s voice. He took a step closer, placing himself between Harry and the pumpjack. “My brothers.”

“Cry me a river.”

Korsakov’s eyes narrowed, his finger tightening around the trigger. “It’s time to say good-bye, Mr. Nichols.”

Footsteps on the gravel, and Harry turned his head to see Han standing there, the UMP-45 leveled in his hands. And he knew that he was in the SEAL’s line of fire.

The assassin gestured with the barrel of his pistol. “Back away or I kill him.”

“Take the shot, Sammy,” Harry ordered. He could feel the presence of Death, as if it stood beside him—could sense his friend’s hesitation. It was a hard shot, perhaps too hard in the darkness.

And death for him might as easily come from Han’s weapon as Korsakov’s. Little matter. “Don’t let him leave here alive—just take the
shot
.”

There was no time, he could see that in Korsakov’s eyes. One of them was going to die.

He pitched sideways, throwing out a hand to catch himself—fire blossoming from the muzzle of the Russian’s pistol. Blinding pain tore through his body from his injured ribs as he went down into the gravel, his right hand clawing for the butt of his Colt.

Faraway, as if in a dream, he heard the staccato of Han’s H&K. Felt drops of something warm spray over his face.

Ignoring the pain shooting through his ribs, Harry rolled onto his back, aiming the Colt skyward.

Korsakov swayed above him, clutching at what remained of his throat. His legs gave out from under him and he crumpled to the gravel.

Breathing heavily, Harry pushed himself up on one knee, struggling to stand. He found his feet after a moment, standing there above the dying Russian, his cocked pistol in his hand.

The man was struggling to breathe, a bloody froth escaping his lips. Yet the defiance was still there in his eyes, visible even through the agony distorting his face. Unbowed, even in death.

Harry raised the pistol, seeing Korsakov’s face through his gunsights. “This one’s for you, David.”

The thunder of the Colt reverberated across the oilfield, and then all was silent. The silence of the grave.

8:51 P.M. Eastern Time

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

“You’re the last person I expected to see tonight, Barney.” Haskel closed the door, ushering Kranemeyer in out of the sleet. The DCS brushed the icy crystals off his trench coat, eyeing the house critically. Stairs led to a second floor and presumably bedrooms.

“We have a situation,” he announced. The best lies were the ones that clung most closely to the truth. “The Agency has been compromised.”

Surprise showed in Haskel’s eyes. “Indeed?”

A nod. “You know I wouldn’t be here if I thought I had anywhere else to turn,” Kranemeyer acknowledged bluntly. “Is your wife home?”

The FBI director shook his head. “She left this morning, took the kids with her. Driving to South Carolina to be with the grandparents for Christmas. Why don’t we go into the den?”

Haskel led the way down the hall, past a Thomas Kinkade landscape flanked by ornamental sconces.

“What’s the nature of this crisis, Barney?” he asked, opening the door to reveal a small library, leather-bound books adorning oaken shelves and several plush armchairs completing the set. A small wet bar stood at one end, a pair of stools in front and several bottles of whisky on the smooth granite of the bartop.

“We have a mole inside our government, inside the Agency,” Kranemeyer replied. “Tied to the hit on David. And I need your help exposing him.”

“Of course. Anything. Who is it?”

There was a false note of concern, almost of eagerness, in Haskel’s voice, Kranemeyer thought, confirming everything that Shapiro had told him. “Long story,” he said, inclining his head toward the bar. “And I could use a stiff drink.”

Haskel waved his hand. “Be my guest.”

5:59 P.M. Pacific Time

The oilfield

Tehachapi, California

Pain. Harry closed his eyes as Carol probed his side with her fingers. “I don’t think the ribs are broken,” she observed, her tone studiously neutral. “But the flesh is already starting to purple. You’re going to have a painful bruise.”

“No kidding,” he whispered, looking over to where his tactical vest hung over the back of the chair. Both bullets were visible, the slugs nearly buried in the plating.

He reached out for her as he stood, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “You’re going to get through this,” he breathed, ignoring the pain with an effort. “This is all going to be over soon. All of the killing, all the deception. All of it past. I want to start anew, leave all of it behind.”

“Can you?” came the quiet, piercing question, sadness in her voice. He stood there as she pulled away, the words on his very lips.

If you come with me, I can
. The one thing he found himself wanting more than anything in the world. A normal life—the American dream. The strength of the desire frightened him.

And the words remained unspoken. He watched her move to the far side of the desk, cursing himself bitterly beneath his breath. He knew what to say—knew exactly what to say, but after all of the lies…

He reached for his shirt, buttoning it over his bare chest. A vague sense of misgiving entered his heart and he shrugged on the tactical vest over his head before reaching for his Colt.
Han should have returned by now
.

Five minutes, Harry thought, glancing at his watch. The SEAL had only gone out to the car, the sedan they had stolen from the freeway the night before. “Everything okay, Sammy?” he asked, keying his mike.

Nothing. Something was wrong, very wrong.

“Stay here,” he ordered, shooting her a look. “And keep your head down. I’ll be back.”

He reached for the door, bringing the Colt up as he exited the office trailer. Stepping into the night.

Nothing. Everything was still, barely a whisper of wind stirring through the bones of long-deserted industry. “Sammy?”

Gooseflesh rose along the skin of his arms as he sprinted across the gravel toward the nearest cover. A fear that perhaps he was too late.

Voices. He could hear someone speaking. Rising from his crouch, he moved among the pallets of abandoned equipment until he could see the pumpjack where Korsakov had died.

Threat
. It was that, and yet something more. Han stared into the muzzle of a Glock, watching tears run down the face of the boy holding it. Tears of anger and grief.

“You don’t want to die,” Han warned, keeping his hands well away from his sides. From his own gun. “Not like this.”

The boy seemed to waver, the Glock’s barrel trembling as he extended it in one hand. Indecision.

It was good, Han thought. He could talk him down, could talk him into lowering the gun. He wouldn’t need to kill him—no one else needed to die.

What was life, without a friend?
Viktor glanced down at Korsakov’s broken body, at the once-kind eyes now lifeless. He scarcely even heard the man’s lies.

Lies, the story of his short life. Everyone had lied to him, everyone except Korsakov. They had lied to him when his parents had died, leaving him an orphan at ten.
Come along, there’s a nice home waiting
.

He could still remember the first time, the drugged stupor—a man’s hands sliding along his young body. A demon’s voice at his ear and again, the lies.
This won’t hurt
.

Countless lies. He choked on a sob, remembering his friend’s last words. “
I’ll be back soon, Vitya. Don’t worry.”

Had even that been a lie? No, no, it couldn’t have been. He stared down the barrel of his Glock at Korsakov’s killer, watching his face, his lips moving. “Just give me the gun—no one needs to get hurt.”

More lies
. A scream of impotent fury escaped his lips, his left hand coming up to support the Glock, his mind consumed with a single purpose.
Kill
.

Dimly, as if through the haze of a dream, he heard an explosion to his left, felt a pair of bullets rip into him.

Falling
. He hit the ground hard, his hand reaching out in an attempt to pull himself up. His side felt suddenly warm, his movements sluggish. Ever weaker.

Then darkness closed over him and he never felt anything…ever again.

“He wasn’t going to give me the gun…was he?” Han asked as Harry emerged from the shadows.

“No—no he wasn’t, Sammy,” came his friend’s reply. Without a word, Harry stooped down, prying the Glock from the boy’s lifeless hand.

He had
known
it, the SEAL thought, forcing his breathing to slow—the knowledge frightening him even more than how close he had come to death. In the face of everything that he knew, all of his old training, he had wanted to believe that he could talk the boy down. Emotion overruling the cold realization of what he had to do.

You’ve been out of the field too long
.

And sooner or later, it was going to kill him, he thought—looking over to where Harry stood, a dark, forboding form in the pale moonlight. Him…or someone else.

9:00 P.M. Eastern Time

Georgetown, Washington, D.C.

“To the confusion of America’s enemies,” Haskel said with a smile, taking the tumbler of whisky from Kranemeyer’s hand.

The irony
. The DCS favored him with a dispassionate smile, raising his own glass in salute. “I’ll drink to that.”