The Eye of Shiva (14 page)

Ronnie pulled out his knife and wiped the blade on Ahmed's shirt.

"Leaves eight, now."

Lamont bent down and picked up the rifle. "SV-98. This is what we heard," he said. "This guy's a sniper."

"Was," Nick said. "Was a sniper. Lamont, you want to take that and give your AK to Selena?"

Lamont handed her his rifle and picked up the SV-98. He opened the bolt partway and saw that a round was loaded. He closed the bolt and flicked off the safety.

Nick looked down at Ahmed's body. "We're running out of time. The rest of them are going to start wondering about their buddies pretty soon."

"Unless they've been moved, all the hostages are in
the ballroom in the back," Selena said. "There's a hall leading to it. The doors to the room are wide open. If we can get there we'd have a good field of fire. The hostages are sitting down. Only the terrorists are standing. It's easy to see who they are."

"Risky," Nick said.

"You have a better idea?"

"What about the charges they set?" Ronnie asked.

Nick said, "Did you see how they were wired, Selena?"

"They have a car battery wired up to
one of those T-handle detonators like you see in the movies. The wires run from there to the main entrance, the foyer and the back room."

"Weapons?"

"All I saw were AKs. The leader has a pistol."

Nick thought a moment. "
We don't have a lot of choices. If the leader is crazy like Selena says, he might do something stupid when he realizes his comrades are getting killed."

"Like blow up the embassy," Lamont said.

"Yeah. Like that. We'll do it Selena's way. We get to the ballroom and take them out. Assume anyone standing up is a hostile. Selena, where's that detonator?"

"Against the right wall
, in the far corner of the room."

"Ronnie, you make that your priority. Make sure no one gets to use it. Lamont, you have the rifle with the scope. If you can get a clean shot, you take out whoever is nearest to the hostages. As soon as you can, get rid of that and grab an AK."

"Okay."

"Selena, you and I will take out as many as we can
once the shooting starts."

She nodded.

"Any questions?"

"How do
we get to the ballroom?" Ronnie said.

Selena
wiped sweat away from her forehead with the back of her hand. "The door at the bottom of the stairs leads to a hall. That leads to a gallery that runs between the front of the building and the ballroom. The ballroom is on the left as you come out of the hall."

They followed
Nick down the stairs to the ground floor. He opened the door a crack, enough to see into the hall. It was empty. Once they left the stairwell they'd be exposed, with no cover. The hallway could turn into a shooting gallery, with themselves as targets.

"I've got a bad feeling about this,"
Ronnie said.

Nick's ear began itching.
It always did, when things were about to get difficult. His own early warning system, a psychic inheritance from his Irish grandmother. He reached up to scratch it.

"
Let's do it," he said.

They moved in single file down the hall. Selena felt the adrenaline charge she loved and hated, a
n electric mix of excitement and fear. It made her feel alive. It gave her a high more exciting than anything else she'd ever experienced. Even jumping out of a plane didn't produce the same rush.

They made it to the end of the hall without being seen. Voices sounded around the corner
from the direction of the ballroom.

"Him," a voice said. "Stand him up and bring him over to the camera. It's time."

"No!" someone said, a man.

Selena whispered. "That's the leader
talking. They're going to shoot another hostage."

Nick signaled with his fingers. Three. Two. One.

They stepped into the open. The ballroom was on the left. Tall double doors opening onto the room were thrown wide. Nick saw the Chancery through the ruined back wall. A gentle, tropical breeze came through the broken windows, smelling of honeysuckle and bougainvillea and the salt water of the bay.

One of the terrorists was
prodding an American man with his rifle toward a video camera set up on a tripod. A terrorist waited in front of a black banner hung on the wall, pistol in hand. Hostages huddled on the floor by the ruins of the back wall. Nick recognized the ambassador.

The
foyer and entrance to the embassy were to the right. Two men stood by the doors. One of them saw Nick and the others. He raised his rifle and shouted.

Ronnie cut loose with his AK and shot him.

Nick fired and killed the other. He heard the distinctive sound of the sniper rifle Lamont carried. The heavy bullet struck one of the terrorists in the ballroom and sent him flying sideways. The man by the camera raised his pistol and let off three quick shots.

Everyone began firing at once.

One of the hostages screamed. The air filled with death, dozens of rounds whining through the air. Selena was yelling, her AK bucking in her hands. Ronnie pivoted toward the ballroom and a burst of automatic fire struck him. He cried out. Blood sprayed into the air. He fell back onto the floor. The rifle flew from his hand.

"
Ronnie!" Nick yelled.

He ran
forward, firing at the man who'd shot Ronnie as he went. The rifle recoiled twice in his hand, then the bolt locked back. Empty. The man with the pistol ran for the detonator next to the wall. Nick saw him reach down.

There was time for Nick to think
I should have shot him first
before the world disappeared in a violent burst of sound and light. The shock wave lifted him up and tossed him through the air. He hit the floor, hard. Light and sound faded.

Selena
's voice sounded from far away, as if she were at the end of a long tunnel.

"Nick. Nick.
Come on, look at me."

He opened his eyes.
Dull pain radiated through his body. The air was filled with clouds of smoke and dust. Selena knelt at his side. A Marine medic leaned over him.

"Take it easy," the medic said. "
You got hit with debris and you've got a concussion. You're going to be banged up and sore but you'll be okay. Lie there and I'll be back."

He got up and walked away.

"Stay awake," Selena said.

He had a terrible headache.
He tried to remember what had happened. Then he had it.

"
Ronnie. He got hit."

"He's still alive but it's bad," she said. "The ambassador and most
of the hostages are dead. Lamont is okay. So am I."

"
What about the terrorists?"

"All dead."

"I screwed up," Nick said. "I should've figured out another way to go after them."

"There wasn't any other way.
There was no way to stop them from killing more people without exposing ourselves. It's not your fault."

Nick could feel himself drifting away. He gripped her hand.

"I screwed up," he said again. Then he slipped into black, churning nothingness.

CHAPTER 2
6

Nick
lay between crisp, white sheets in a hospital bed on Clark Air Force Base. His body was covered with bruises. He had a relentless headache that sent spots dancing before his eyes. His old wounds ached with dull, throbbing pain that clawed deep into his body.

Pointless
. The word echoed in his mind.

The embassy was in ruins. Most of the hostages
were dead. The American ambassador was dead. All of the terrorists were dead. Ronnie was fighting for his life. And for what? What had any of it accomplished? 

He'd gone over what
had happened again and again. Each time he came to the same conclusion, but it didn't help. There was nothing else he could have done. There wasn't any other way to get to that ballroom. There wasn't any way to rescue the hostages without getting in a firefight. It felt as though a relentless, dark force had wrapped itself around him like a cloud.

You
should have shot the man with the pistol first. It's your fault.

He told himself th
e feeling would pass, that in a day or two things would seem almost normal.

It wasn't the first time he
'd told himself that. It was a familiar, inner lie.

Pointless.

He'd spent his adult life telling himself that what he did had a purpose. That it made a difference. He'd taken an oath to defend his country. He'd honored that oath, even when there were times it seemed to him his country was wrong. It was a matter of integrity, of honor. Now it had all brought him here, to a hospital bed far from home.

He'd been lying in a hospital bed w
hen Harker offered him a job with the Project. He'd thought it would be different. A new start. A better way to serve his country. But it was the same old story. It was like the game where you hit a target with a hammer and a new one popped up on another part of the board. There was always another target to hit. No matter what he did, no matter where he went, there was always another enemy ready to take the place of the last one. There would always be another enemy. It was a war he could never win.

Selena came into the room.

"Hey."
She pulled up a chair next to his bed.

"
Hey. How are you doing?"

"I'm the one that's supposed to ask that," she said. "So, how are you
doing?"

"I've
got a hell of a headache. I get dizzy if I stand up too fast." He looked away for a moment then turned back. "I keep thinking about Ronnie."

"I know. I do
, too."

"I don't know if I can keep doing this," Nick said. "I used to think I was fighting for something that had meaning. I don't think like that
now."

"Because of
Ronnie?"

"
It's more than that. What we do seems meaningless. I don't know what I'm fighting for anymore."

Selena heard
a note in his voice she'd never heard before. It made her uneasy. Nick was one of the most confident men she had ever known, but he didn't sound that way now. She chose her words with care.

"
I've thought about this a lot," she said. "What we're fighting for. I think it's what Lincoln called increased devotion."

"What do you mean, increased devotion?"

"It's what Lincoln said at Gettysburg. I don't remember the exact words, but he was talking about the men who'd died on the battlefield and about taking increased devotion to the cause they died for. He said that they didn't die for the North or the South but for the idea of freedom. So the nation wouldn't perish."

Nick was silent. Then he said, "
I'm not so sure what happened in the embassy was about freedom."

"What else would you call it? Abu Sayyaf and the other extremist groups hate the whole idea of freedom.
They're the enemy of freedom. I'd say stopping them and everyone just like them is a job with plenty of meaning."

"Christ, Selena. Next thing you're going to tell me
is that somebody has to do it."

Suddenly she was angry. She stood up. "That's right, somebody has to do it. You're angry about
Ronnie, I get that, but don't you dare tell me that what we do has no meaning."

She stalked from the room.

CHAPTER 2
7

The private terminal at
Geneva International Airport was reserved for the kinds of people who could afford private jets and who demanded discretion and privacy. Switzerland had a high regard for those who required such services. Entry into the country was made as painless as possible for men like Krivi. Formalities like passport control were cursory and courteous. A customs officer met Krivi at the foot of the steps as he descended from his Gulfstream. He saluted and stamped Krivi's passport. The blacktop pavement under the plane glistened from an afternoon shower that had left shallow puddles of water reflecting the pure blue of the Swiss sky.

A liveried chauffeur and a
black Mercedes limousine waited nearby. The chauffeur took Krivi's bag and held the door open. Johannes Gutenberg greeted Krivi from the back seat.

"
My friend, welcome."

"Hello, Johannes."

The limo pulled away. Gutenberg pressed a button and a smoked partition of thick glass slid up behind the driver. The interior of the car smelled of leather and a hint of Gutenberg's expensive cologne. Krivi settled back in the comfortable seat. He was tired after the flight. As much as he hated to admit it, he was beginning to feel his age.