The Last Spymaster (23 page)

“We don’t need it anyway. Get rid of it!” Then she knew. “Wait a minute! Is E911 stamped anywhere on it? Is it turned on? Look fast!”

“Yes, the power’s on.” He flipped it over and saw the white lettering. “Here’s E911. What does it mean?”

“It means we’re screwed. Toss it!” As he lowered his window and flung it out, she described the chip inside that enabled satellite tracking. “I could disable it, but I’d need time to figure it out. And you’re right—there could be a tracker in it, too. Either way, that’s how they found us.”

“Can you get us away again?”

“That’s the plan.”

The Hummer had peeled off and exited. Ahead was a Cadillac. She flicked on her high beams. As if whacked in the butt, the Cadillac shot forward.
She touched her gas pedal, keeping pace. Now that they were running faster, space opened on her right again. She shifted lanes and hit her high beams and moved again. She was nearing ninety miles an hour.

“If we stay clean,” she decided, “I’ll get off at the Little River Turnpike exit. I don’t see any of our tails, do you?”

He craned. “Maybe you lost them.”

“Dammit, the BMW’s back.” She checked the side-view mirror on Tice’s door. Fleet and aerodynamic, the BMW was in the next lane, back about thirty feet. Too close.

“We’re getting near the exit ramp,” he warned.

She urged the Jag onward, weaving from lane to lane again, praying the other drivers knew what they were doing. But no matter what she tried, the BMW stayed with her. Swearing, she hurtled past the exit.

An idea occurred to her. It was risky, but it might work. “The Braddock Road exit is next. I’m going to try something.”

“What?”

“It’s too complicated to explain.” She changed lanes swiftly, easing over to where there were only two lanes between the Jag and the exit. She inhaled, hoping—no, dammit, the BMW was still following. She must wait, be patient. She touched the gas feed and lifted her foot, accelerating and decelerating as she studied the speed of the cars in the slower outer lanes.

“Elaine!”

His warning was too late. She had been watching for Beltway signs, ignoring the BMW. The bullet blasted through the support between the Jag’s side windows. Bits of metal exploded. She ducked.

Don’t think about it.
There was the exit. “Brace yourself,” she snapped.

Tice grabbed the handgrip above his head.

As a second bullet slammed through, she gazed right and turned the steering wheel hard, holding it. Like an arrow, the car shot across the lanes inches between vehicles, leaving a trail of screaming horns and squealing tires. At the last second she slammed the brakes and slid the car neatly sideways onto the Braddock Road ramp, tires screeching.

Tice whipped his head around. “I see him. You’ve outmaneuvered him.”

Her adrenaline pulsed like lava. She glanced over. The BMW was fleeing helplessly onward, trapped in an inner lane.

“We’re not safe yet,” he said. “Jerry will tell his people where we got off.”

She slowed the car as the first intersection appeared. Despite the red light, she checked both ways and turned left. The car swept past large trees and flowering bushes. A mile later she drove into a McDonald’s parking lot and out the rear and into a mixed residential-commercial area, putting distance between them and main thoroughfares.

She checked him. Then stared. “You’re bleeding.” Blood trickled down his right cheek, probably from one of the flying metal shards.

“You’re bleeding, too. It’s beading along strands of your hair.” He stared down a side street. “There’s a car with a California license plate back there. Go around the block and park. Jerry will have his men looking for plates from around here, not from the West Coast. Do you feel okay?”

“Absolutely.” She circled the block, noting the street signs, and neatly parallel parked. A plan was forming in her mind.

“Hold still.” He checked her eyes. “Pupil size is normal. No concussion. Turn your head.” He parted her hair away from her scalp. “The cuts look superficial.”

More enlistment—plus the added element of compassion. His tool bag of psychological tricks was bottomless. “Told you. Let me see you.” The only cut was on his cheek. “It’s a scratch. We both got off lucky.” She hoped he remembered he had crushed her Langley cell phone and so would leave her shoulder bag in the car again when he got out. Since he had to remove plates before attaching them to the Jag, she should have time to make one fast call.

“Turn off the engine and give me the keys.” He picked up his backpack. “I’ll be right back.”

She scowled. She wanted him to think he had caught on to her plan to drive off again—but at the same time she did not want to look as if she were eager to get rid of him. He stared at her. At last, she broke eye contact, killed the engine, and handed him the keys, making a show of doing it reluctantly.

He snatched them and got out.

From inside the dark car, she watched as he ran across the street, carrying his backpack, pocketing the keys. She dove into her shoulder bag. The cell phone he had destroyed was the one issued by Langley. She still had her personal cell zipped inside an interior pocket. By the time he was crouched at the other car’s front license plate, she had retrieved it and taken a North Virginia road map from the glove compartment. She bent over the map, pretending to read it, as she punched in the numbers Laurence Litchfield had given her during their interview.

The phone rang three times before he picked up. Although the Jag was buffered for sound, she cupped her hand around the mouthpiece: “Mr. Litchfield, this is Elaine Cunningham.”

“Cunningham!” His voice escalated from shock to excitement: “I tried to call earlier, but I couldn’t get through. Where are you? Are you all right?”

“I don’t have much time. I’m with Jay Tice. The reason you couldn’t reach me is he smashed my cell. First, I want you to know I didn’t kill the man in my town house.”

“I couldn’t imagine you had. We’ll straighten it out later. I’ll send people for Tice. Where are you?”

She gave him the cross streets of the block. “He’s armed—my Walther, his SIG Sauer, and a Browning. All nine-millimeter. We’re in my car—a red Jaguar. It’s going to have California license plates in about five minutes.” She read the number to him just before Tice pulled off the front plate. “I drive. He rides in the passenger seat beside me. But there’s something else. Whippet—”

“Hold on.”

As the phone muted, she watched Tice jog around the California car and squat at the rear plate. Her hands were sweaty. She rubbed the palm of one then the other on her pants.
Hurry up. Hurry up.
She pressed the phone deeper into her ear.

At last Litchfield was back. “I ordered your location run through the computer. We’ve found a stretch of country road outside Manassas where there’s farmland, no houses. We’ll be able to capture him there without
alerting the world. It’ll be a drive for you, but I need time to get a team into place anyway. Arrive no sooner than an hour.” He gave her directions.

She memorized them. “What will happen?”

“It’s good that you’re driving. If Tice notices our cars closing in, pretend to drive away, escape. But in the end, let our cars trap yours between them. He may have three guns, but he’ll have only one free hand if he uses you as a shield. I’ll send our best sharpshooters.” He hesitated. “Can you handle it?”

Her throat was suddenly dry. She swallowed. “Of course. He has to be sent back to prison. But I’ll warn you—he’s as dangerous as he ever was.”

“I believe you. I received your first message. Have you learned anything more?”

She watched Tice stand erect. He held two license plates in one hand, his backpack in the other. “A few things. Tice claims Whippet tried to scrub him and Palmer Westwood—” Tice broke into a jog, heading toward the Jag. “He’s coming.”

She cut the power and zipped the cell phone back inside her shoulder bag and bent again over the road map. As she listened to the small sounds of his attaching the new plates, she studied the map, following Litchfield’s directions. They were good, and now she had them solidly in her mind. She checked her wristwatch for the exact time. With luck, soon Jay Tice would be in Langley custody.

Geneva, Switzerland

Raina Manhardt’s last words of warning had shaken Raoul Harmont, and the dawn streets of Old Town had done nothing to dispel his unease. But now that he was safe in his study at the top of his narrow four-story house, he exulted. He counted his money again and leaned back with a satisfied smile, his hands folded over his paunch. Selling her the videotapes was the kind of business deal he liked—100 percent profit.

He was so pleased that he laughed aloud. Then frowned. Had he heard the
click
of the latch to the door that opened onto his balcony?

Impossible. Still, he spun around in his desk chair. “Who . . . ? What . . . ?”

A man stepped inside, aiming a pistol with a very long sound suppressor. Harmont stared at the weapon, horrified, mesmerized.

“What was in the box of chocolates?” The man’s French accent was excellent, but there was a slight American inflection.

Harmont licked his dry lips and looked up past the broad chest and the heavy shoulders to the muscular face.

“What . . . what chocolates?” Harmont tried.

But before he could move, the tall man took two swift steps and slashed the gun across his face. Blood spurted. Pain exploded.

“Stop!” Harmont shrieked and lifted his hands.

The man batted them aside and struck again.

A tooth shattered. Blood poured. “Tapes of the lobbies!” Harmont screamed. “Surveillance videos—”

“The entrances to the Milieu Software building?”

Harmont nodded frantically as his fingers smeared the blood across his cheeks. His mouth flamed with pain.

“Originals?”

“C-copies.” His right eye was swelling shut.

“I’ll take the originals. Where are they?”

Harmont felt a surge of hope. He squinted his good eye and opened his desk drawer. “Here. She paid two thousand. The originals will cost you five.”

The American laughed loudly. “Really?” Still laughing, he grabbed Harmont’s collar and dragged him from his chair and out onto the balcony.

Terrified, Harmont struggled. “What are you doing?
No!
Just
one
thousand francs!” He felt his feet leave the balcony’s floor. Felt himself thrust into space. “Take them!” he begged. “You can
have
them! Take them . . .
take them
 . . . !”

Too late. Screeching, Harmont flailed and dropped through the air.

Langley, Virginia

Pleased with himself, Laurence Litchfield hurried down the quiet seventh-floor corridor. All of his carefully laid groundwork had paid off. Elaine Cunningham had finally called again, and now Martin Ghranditti’s killers were on their way to a blood rendezvous with Cunningham and Jay Tice.

He savored the triumph as he turned into a small conference room where three analysts on the graveyard shift were sitting at the table, file folders and cans of diet soda at their elbows as they stared at the TV that hung from a wall. A sense of urgency mixed with camaraderie filled the room.

Tuned to the Qatar-based satellite channel al-Jazeera, the TV showed a woman wearing a
khimar,
a head scarf, sitting behind a desk as she read an editorial, each word radiating righteous anger. A translation streamed across the bottom of the screen: “. . . the Great Satan’s goal is to occupy the Middle East. They started a cruel war to get our oil and expand their military empire, and now Allah’s punishing them. They have created what they said they wanted to stop—outstretched hands among al-Qaeda and jihadists around the globe. Muslims who doubted us now fight with us. . . .”

“Nothing’s changed on al-Jazeera, I see,” Litchfield said cheerfully as he took the empty chair waiting for him at the head of the table. He stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles and smiled to himself.

Reg O’Toole raised a remote control and turned off the set. His black
face was smoothly shaved, his eyes bright and alert. But then, it was daytime in half the world. “You’d think they’d be as bored with using ‘Great Satan’ as we are of hearing it,” he grumbled. “I liked it when bin Laden started calling us a snake.”

“You would,” said Geraldine Genowicz. “No dignity. Hey, ‘Great Satan’ works like any known brand. We’re Tide detergent. We’re Ford cars. Of course they went back to using it. They ring the bell, and Pavlov’s dog drools.” She was in her early thirties, with braces on her teeth and freckles sprinkled across her nose.

“So what have you got for me?” Litchfield said, interrupting the exchange. Langley analysts and operatives were hired because they were among the best brains in the country, but along with that came a certain amount of anarchy.

“Some good intel,” said David Quintano. In his early fifties, he was the senior of the three. He slid his reading glasses down from his forehead to his nose as he consulted his file folder. “As you know, one bomb exploded yesterday in front of the U.S. Embassy in London, killing two Brits and a U.S. Marine. A second bomb didn’t—and that was a real break for us, because it was connected to a cell phone. We tracked the cell’s SIM card to a Muslim bookstore in the East End. The owner had bought a whole box of SIMs. We didn’t have him arrested, so he wouldn’t know we were on to him. NSA has been tracking the SIMs, listening in on conversations.”