Gideon's War/Hard Target (27 page)

It wouldn’t take any time at all before Parker reached Kate. When he did, he’d just shoot her. With a silenced Makarov, no one would even hear the shot.

Parker would tell the Delta guys that he’d heard her calling, gone to help her out, and found her dead from her wounds. No one would even think twice. Just an unlucky hostage caught in the crossfire.

Gideon desperately scanned the chopper deck. Major Royce was still down, and the corpsman was still busy working on his wrecked foot.

Which meant that if they could get the huge Nilson out of the way, Gideon might have a chance to make it to the BLP in time to save Kate.

One of the beautiful things about family is that sometimes you barely have to say anything in order to communicate.

After their parents died, Earl Parker had paid for Tillman and Gideon to attend boarding school, where they’d both played football. Gideon had been the up-and-coming freshman quarterback, and Tillman had been the journeyman fullback. Though Tillman got the odd screen pass or off tackle running play, he had primarily been a blocking fullback. Which meant he’d spent most of his senior year getting smashed by boys who outweighed him by fifty pounds as he protected his brother.

It was just like the rest of their childhood: Tillman had protected Gideon without much apparent thought for himself. In retrospect Gideon had always wondered if Tillman had resented the attention heaped on Gideon. If he had, though, he’d never said anything about it to Gideon. He’d just unhesitatingly thrown himself between Gideon and every onrushing danger.

Now it was time to call an audible.

“Angel seven fifteen right,” Gideon said.

Tillman looked at him curiously. Gideon sure as hell hoped Tillman remembered the old playbook like he did. Angel seven fifteen right had been an option play, with the left guard shifting against the right tackle and Gideon flinging himself into the gap and hitting the opposing right guard.

“I’m not telling you again!” the huge soldier Nilson shouted.

Tillman smiled thinly and winked. Then he flung himself forward without hesitation. Gideon heard the thud of his brother’s tackle but he couldn’t stop to watch. He jumped to his feet and leapt over the guardrail, flailing momentarily in midair before landing hard on the deck.

Behind him he heard a loud crack, the sound of a single gunshot, and a soft grunt of pain. It was Tillman’s voice.

No, he thought. Not Tillman. Not now.

But he couldn’t stop, couldn’t look back. He tore down the stairs, reaching the bridge to the BLP in seconds. A fallen mercenary lay in a pool of blood. Gideon tried to grab the man’s AK, but the dead man was tangled in the sling. It would take too long, so he yanked the Makarov from the man’s belt and ran across the bridge. Behind him the Delta men were yelling and coordinating to stop him.

Reaching the BLP, he sprinted to>No±€† the stairs, jumped down to the landing in one bound, then onto D Deck in another bound, and turned the corner.

A flash of white—Parker’s thick white hair—disappeared behind one of the orange plastic escape pods on the far corner of the rig, not fifty feet from the dive station.

Gideon cut across the open D Deck and circled around the far side of the rig so that he could confront Parker from the dive station.

It was as he had feared. Big Al lay motionless on the deck, his chest awash with blood. Kate was crouched over him, her face in her hands, sobbing.

And Parker was approaching from the direction of the escape pods, the Makarov extended in his hands.

“Kate, look out!” Gideon shouted.

Hearing Gideon’s voice, she whirled around, eyes wide.

“Behind you!”

She looked back. But it was too late for her to make a move: Parker had the drop on her.

“Don’t do it, Earl!” Gideon shouted.

Parker’s eyes met Gideon’s. They were about forty yards apart. Gideon’s front sight rested on Parker’s chest. It was a long shot—but not an impossible one. Gideon’s finger tightened against the trigger, but something stopped him. His hesitation was all the time Parker needed. Parker had seen the results of Gideon’s shooting today and knew that he was outgunned. So instead of shooting Kate, he grabbed her hair and yanked her on to her feet. Before she could struggle, he put the gun to her head.

Still numb with grief over Big Al’s death, she didn’t resist. She just stood there limply, tears still running down her face.

Gideon moved slowly toward Parker.

“Not another step,” Parker said. His voice was quiet, calm, conversational. Presumably he didn’t want the Delta men overhearing him.

Gideon kept moving. Parker was keeping his body firmly positioned behind Kate, his left arm under her throat. To look at him, you wouldn’t have thought he was particularly agile or athletic. But Gideon knew that he’d been a marine recon officer in Vietnam, and his sixty-year-old body still contained the soul of a warrior.

“I will shoot her,” Parker said.

But Gideon crept forward—one slow step, then another. He needed to get close enough so that he could be absolutely sure that he would hit Parker and not Kate.

Parker fired. For a moment Gideon thought she was dead. But Parker had moved the barrel just enough so that the tip of the suppressor had been lying on Kate’s face, not aimed at her head. The escaping gases left a long red welt on her cheek.

“Next one goes into her brain,” Parker said softly.

Gideon stopped. “Come on, Uncle Earl. You can’t seriously think you’ll get away with this.” In truth, though, Gideon knew that if Earl Parker killed Kate, there was a pretty good chance he might get away with it. Whatever evidence he’d doctored would probably trump any claims Gideon would make.

Parker smiled an odd smile. “The clock’s running out.” He turned his left wrist around so he could look at his watch. Gideon saw that he was holding something in his hand, some kind of small metal cylinder. But he couldn’t make out exactly what it was.

Parker backed toward the nearest escape pod, pulling Kate with him.

Gideon tracked them with his front sight. Parker was being very careful, though, to keep his body squarely behind Kate. Only a two-inch-wide slice of his head was visible. Not much of a shot from thirty yards.

“I can see you debating,” Parker said. “You’ve got a moving target a couple of inches wide and an unfamiliar gun that may or may not shoot accurately to begin with. The only way to stop me at this range is to shoot me in the head. If you miss wide to the left, then I’ll have plenty of opportunity to shoot her. If you miss wide to the right, then you shoot her. Either way you’re thinking: ‘Do I risk the shot?’”

Gideon said nothing as Parker inched back another foot or two. Unfortunately Parker was right. He had to hit a two-inch-wide moving target at over ten yards with a gun of unknown accuracy. Still, Gideon was giving it some thought. At a certain point, he had to take the risk.

“Before you take the shot, though,” Parker continued, “you might want to consider one more factor.” He stuck out his clenched fist and brandished the small cylinder. Gideon saw more clearly now that it had a plastic handle on the side.

“Dead man’s switch,” Parker said. “We had contingencies. We knew it might come down to a last-ditch situation like this. It works like this: if I let go of the handle, it sends a radio signal to the control equipment down in that little room on the drilling platform, and the bomb detonates. So forget about Kate here. If you shoot me she still dies. And so do all those heroic soldiers. And so does the entire crew of the Obelisk.”

Gideon looked at Kate, but Parker answered his question before he could ask.

“She didn’t disarm the bomb, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Parker said. “I checked. There’s a monitoring system down on the control equipment. If you disconnect a detonator from one of the shaped charges, a little green LED blinks off, and a little red one blinks on. You managed to defuse two of them. But the other ten are fine. I’m sure Kate will tell you that two bolts will not hold the weight of a forty-thousand-ton damper counterweight.”

“Is that true, Kate?” Gideon asked.

Kate nodded.

Parker edged closer to the escape pod—close enough now that his hand was resting on the plastic door of the pod.

Gideon’s eyes met Parker’s. “I truly am sorry that it has to end this way,” Parker said.

“Shoot him,” Kate said calmly. Her eyes had gone hard as stones.

“You really want to commit suicide?” Parker said.

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Do ydeo±€†ou know what the main industrial use for shaped charges is?” Kate said. Before Parker could answer, she said, “Their main industrial application is in the oil and gas industry. We use them to breach drilling pipe.”

“So?” Earl Parker’s voice was brittle as glass.

“So you think I don’t know a shaped charge when I see one? You think I don’t know with a great deal of precision how they work?”

Parker’s face showed no emotion. With his left hand he was slowly opening the door to the escape pod.

“I saw two sets of wires coming out of the charges. I knew the second circuit had to be some kind of failsafe. I figured if I pulled out the detonator, it might trigger the second circuit and cause the whole thing to blow up.”

“So you didn’t touch them,” Parker said.

“I didn’t say that,” she said. “See, a shaped charge is like the surgical knife of explosives. It projects its force in one direction. If the charges aren’t precisely located on those bolts, they won’t do squat.” Parker’s hand froze on the orange door.

“So I just kicked the charges off the bolts,” Kate said. “They’re just dangling there in the water, fifty meters down. Oh, sure, the bomb’s still armed. It’ll make some noise, knock a few chunks of concrete out of one of the piers. But other than that?” She shrugged.

Parker’s self-assured facade faltered. “You’re lying.”

“Try me.”

Parker’s eyes went from Kate to Gideon to Kate. And finally back to Gideon again. “Gideon, you’re wrong. You’ve been wrong from day one. We’ll never beat these people unless we show the same will, the same ruthlessness, the same—”

“Do you trust me, Gideon?” Kate said. Her green eyes bored into his. She gave him a gentle, half-smile.

“Absolutely,” Gideon said.

“Then shoot him,” Kate said. “Shoot the son of a bitch.”

Parker swallowed and released the handle on the bomb.

For a moment nothing happened. Then a heavy thud welled up from deep underneath them. The entire rig shook slightly.

Gideon waited for the aftershocks, for the sound of screaming metal, waited for the rig to fail. But the soft wind continued to blow, the huge waves continued to roll under the rig.

For the first time, panic crept into Parker’s eyes. His hand tightened on the grip of the Makarov. Gideon could see he was going to shoot Kate. The shock of the moment would give him time to dive into the escape pod and slap the big red button he’d been talking about.

He smiled. “You don’t have the stomach, Gideon. You never did.”

“Shoot him,” Kate said for the third time.

Then her body went limp and she dropped. As heer&±€†r body became dead weight, Parker was forced to let her go. His entire torso was completely exposed.

Gideon pulled the trigger, felt the Makarov buck under his hand. The shot caught Parker on the bridge of his nose.

He fell without a sound.

“Drop the weapon!” a voice shouted. “Now!”

Gideon tossed the Makarov over the side and into the massive waves. “I’m done,” he said. “It’s over.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

THE SUBMARINE HAD RISEN from the waves just a few hundred yards to the west of The Obelisk, water sluicing down from its conning towers. Kate touched the body bag that held Big Al Prejean until the last possible moment, when the solders lowered it down the side of the rig and into one of the zodiacs that had been launched from the sub to ferry the wounded and the dead. It surprised her that her grief was somehow tempered by the gratitude she felt for having known the crazy Cajun. She vowed silently not to forsake his last words to her, before turning to find Gideon and his brother, who were still in custody.

She found Major Royce talking on a satellite phone. The color had returned to his face as he lowered the phone and limped toward Gideon on his wrapped ankle. The Delta Force officer looked much recovered, now that he’d been worked on by his medical corpsman. “The president says you’re free to go,” he said, nodding to Sergeant Nilson, who removed the cuffs from Gideon’s wrists.

“What about my brother?” Gideon asked.

“The president wants him transported stateside by the first available means.” Major Royce pointed at the submarine. “The USS Glenard P. Lipscomb is the first available means.”

“Everything that you were told about my brother was a lie,” Gideon said. “He came here as a prisoner of the men who seized the rig. He was framed.”

“I have my orders,” Major Royce repeated.

“It’s okay, Gideon,” Tillman said. “Major Royce is just doing his job. We’re all on the same team. This whole thing will be squared away as soon as you get back to Washington. You’ll see.”

Gideon reluctantly agreed. It wasn’t as if he had much choice.

“Besides, there’s a doctor on the sub,” Major Royce said. “We’ll get Lieutenant Davis some medical attention for his wound.” Tillman was still bleeding from where Sergeant Nilson’s bullet had grazed him when he ran interference for Gideon just minutes earlier.

Gideon couldn’t help noting that Royce referred to Tillman as Lieutenant Davis. That had to be a good sign.

“I’ll be leaving half my team here to secure the rig,” Royce added. “The rest will accompany me and the prisoner back to the U.S.”

“I understand,” Gideon said.

“Given that the typhoon is about to hit again, I wish I could evacuate eviv e toleryone off this rig,” Royce added. “But I can’t. Not enough room on the sub. Captain Oliphant has radioed me to say that I can take back two additional individuals. Mr. Davis, Ms. Murphy—I’m offering to take you immediately to safety.”

“And abandon my crew?” Kate said. “Not a chance.”

Royce nodded. “Very well. Mr. Davis, if you would accompany me up to the chopper deck, I’ll have my men rig you up so we can drop you in the boat. I know it looks a little scary down there but—”

Gideon cut him off. “I’m staying, too.”

Royce looked at him curiously. “You’re what?”

“You heard me. I’m staying. With Ms. Murphy.”

Royce looked from Gideon to Kate and then back to Gideon again. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist,” he said.

“Unless you want to carry me, I’m not getting on that sub,” Gideon said.

Major Royce stared at Gideon.

Tillman spoke up for the first time, “Major, my brother is the most stubborn son of a bitch on the planet. So unless you plan to carry him, you might as well save your breath.”

Royce finally nodded.

Gideon stepped toward his brother. They shook hands. “Don’t you worry for a single minute, Tillman,” Gideon said. “I’m going to get this all straightened out.”

Tillman smiled broadly. “Of course you will. You can do anything. Hell, you’re Tillman Davis’s brother.”

The two men laughed.

Suddenly Tillman reached out and grabbed Gideon, hugged him hard. “I owe you one,” he whispered.

“Like hell you do,” Gideon said. “You’d have done the same thing for me.”

There was so much more Gideon wanted to say to him. He’d traveled halfway across the world, gone through all this craziness—and now they barely had time to speak to each other before being separated again. He wanted to say how foolish their estrangement had been, how things would never be like that again, how he’d never doubt his brother again.

But there would be time later. There would be plenty of time.

“Let’s go,” Major Royce said. “The storm’s about to blow back in.”

By the time the submarine slipped beneath the massive waves, the wind had picked up and the wall of ugly black clouds was looming over the rig again.

The entire crew of the Obelisk had gathered on the chopper deck to watch the submarine depart, so Kate took a quick head count. Her worst fears turned out not to be justified. Several crew members had been wounded by gunfire during the seizure of the rig—but other than Big Al and the diver who had been shot in front of Kate and Gideon, none had died.

With no submarine to watch, the crew began to disperse, locking down for the imminent storm loÁ€†.

“Looks like we’re in for some weather,” Gideon said.

“Could be,” she said.

Gideon rubbed his eyes and sighed. “I can’t remember the last time I slept,” he said.

“You can get some sleep in my cabin,” she said.

A ghost of a smile licked at the corners of Gideon’s mouth. Then a sudden gust of wind hit them so hard that it nearly knocked them over.

“Everybody off the deck!” Kate shouted. “I don’t want anybody getting blown into the sea.”