The Lion's Game (91 page)

“Hey, I’m with you.”

“And the CIA
would
make the rabbit a double agent.” He smiled. “That was funny. Also, very prescient in this case.”

“I hear you. And don’t forget what the cops would do, Ted. They’d beat the shit out of that bear until he confessed to being a rabbit. Right?”

“I’m sure they would. But that doesn’t make the bear a rabbit.”

“It’s only important that the bear
says
he’s a rabbit. And while we’re at it, double agents work only for themselves. Are we through here?”

“Almost. I just want to remind you both that this conversation never took place.” He looked at Kate and said, “It’s very important that Asad Khalil go back to Libya.”

Kate replied, “No, it’s not. It’s important that he stand trial for murder in the U.S.”

Ted said to me, “I think
you
understand.”

“Am I going to argue with a guy who’s holding a high-powered rifle?”

Ted informed me, “I’m not threatening either of you. Don’t be melodramatic.”

“Sorry. It’s this
X-Files
thing. TV is rotting my brain. It used to be
Mission: Impossible
. Okay, that’s
it
. See ya.”

“I really wouldn’t walk back to the ranch house now. Khalil is still out there, and you two are sitting ducks.”

“Ted, if it’s a choice between staying here with you, or dodging sniper bullets, guess what?”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

I didn’t reply, but turned and walked away, as did Kate.

Ted called out, “Oh, congratulations on your engagement. Invite me to the wedding.”

My back was still to him, and I waved. Funny thing, I wouldn’t mind inviting him to the wedding. The man was a monumental prick, but when all was said and done, he was
our
prick—he really wanted to do what was best for the country. Scary. But I understood, which was also scary.

We kept walking down this slope away from the VORTAC station. I didn’t know if I was going to get a bullet in the back from Ted, or a bullet in the front from Khalil in the treeline at the foot of the slope.

We kept walking, and I could tell that Kate was tense. I said, “It’s okay. Just whistle.”

“My mouth is dry.”

“Hum.”

“I feel sick to my stomach.”

Uh-oh. “Like morning—”

“John, stop with the jokes. This is just ... sickening. Do you understand what he’s done?”

“They play a rough and dangerous game, Kate. Judge not lest you be judged.”

“People were
murdered.”

“I don’t want to talk about it now. Okay?”

She shook her head.

We found a riding path, which cut through an expanse of red rocks and thick bush. I was hoping to run into a motorized patrol, or a stationary post, but there’s never a Secret Service agent around when you need one.

The sky was much lighter now, and a soft breeze from the sea started to move the ground fog away. Not good.

We walked in the direction of where we thought the ranch house and Secret Service building were, but the trails seemed to twist and turn a lot, and I wasn’t sure where the hell we were.

Kate said, “I think we’re lost. My feet hurt. I’m tired and thirsty.”

“Let’s sit awhile.”

We sat on a flat rock and rested. There was strange vegetation here, like probably sagebrush, tumbleweed, and all that cowboy stuff. The brush was thick, but not very tall and not tall enough to provide good concealment when we walked. It occurred to me that we might be better off staying put. I said to Kate, “Assuming Khalil is out there, then he’s probably within two hundred yards of the ranch house. So maybe we don’t want to get too close to the house or the Secret Service place.”

“Good thought. We’ll stay here so Khalil can kill us without disturbing anyone else.”

“I’m just trying to outthink this guy.”

“Well, think about this—maybe he’s not going to kill us. Maybe he’s going to put a few rounds through our legs, then walk over to us, and cut your tongue out, then slit your throat.”

“I see you’ve given this some thought. Thank you for sharing that.”

“Sorry.” She yawned. “Anyway, we have our pistols, and I won’t let him take you alive.” She laughed, but it was sort of an emotionally and physically exhausted kind of laugh.

“Get some rest.”

About ten minutes later, I heard this vaguely familiar sound and recognized it as helicopter blades beating the air.

I stood on the rock on which I’d been sitting and hopped onto a nearby four-foot-high boulder and faced the sound. I said, “The cavalry has arrived. Air cavalry. Wow. Look at that.”

“What?” She stood, but I put my hand on her shoulder and pressed her down. “Just sit. I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

“I can see for myself.” She stood on the rock on which she’d been sitting, grabbed my arm, and pulled herself up beside me on the boulder. We both looked toward the helicopters. There were six Hueys circling a few hundred yards away, and I guessed they were circling over the ranch house, so we were close, and we knew what direction to walk.

I now noticed a huge twin-engine Chinook helicopter coming over the horizon, and slung under the Chinook was an automobile—a big, black Lincoln.

Kate said, “That must be an armored vehicle.”

“Stagecoach,” I reminded her. “Six Hollys with Hercules personnel, flying cover over Brimstone while Rawhide and Rainbow get into the Stagecoach. Tracker and Tracer on the ground. Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph on the way.”

She let out a sigh of relief, or maybe exasperation.

We watched for a few minutes as the operation unfolded, and though we couldn’t see what was happening on the ground, it was obvious that Rawhide and Rainbow were now headed down Pennsylvania Avenue in an armored car, with escort vehicles and the choppers overhead. Mission accomplished.

Asad Khalil, if he was anywhere around, could see this, too, of course, and if he was still wearing his phony mustache, he was right now twirling the ends and saying, “Curses, foiled again!”

So, all’s well that ends well. Right?

Not quite. I had the thought that Asad Khalil, having missed the big one, would now settle for the little one.

But before I did anything about that thought, like get off that boulder and into the bushes to wait for help, Asad Khalil switched targets.

What happened next, happened like it was in slow motion, between the beats of a heart.

I told Kate to jump off the boulder. I jumped, but she was a half second behind me.

I never heard the crack of the silenced rifle, but I knew the shot came from the nearby treeline because I could hear the bullet, buzzing like a bee over my head—where I had stood on the boulder a half second before.

Kate seemed to stumble on the boulder and let out a soft cry of pain, as though she’d twisted her ankle. In an instant, I realized I’d gotten the sequence of events wrong—she’d cried out in pain
first
, then stumbled. Again, as if it was slow motion, I saw her fall off the side of the boulder near the trail.

I dove on top of her, wrapped my arms around her, and rolled away from the trail, down a shallow slope and into some thin bushes as another bullet slammed into a rock near our heads, sending splinters of stone and steel into my neck.

I rolled again, Kate still in my arms, but we were stopped by a thicket of brush. I held her tightly and said, “Don’t move.”

We were side by side, my back to the direction of the fire, and I craned my head over my shoulder to try to see what Khalil could see from the treeline, which was less than a hundred yards away.

There were some bushes and low rocks between us and Khalil’s line of fire, but depending on where he was in those trees, he might still have a clear shot.

I was aware that my suit, dark though it was, did not blend well with the surroundings, and neither did Kate’s bright red jacket, but since there was no more firing, I was fairly certain that Khalil had lost us for the time being. Either that, or he was savoring the moment until he fired again.

I turned and looked into Kate’s eyes. They were squinting with pain, and she was starting to writhe in my arms. I said, “Don’t move. Kate—talk to me.”

She was breathing hard now, and I couldn’t tell where or how badly she’d been hit, but I could feel warm blood now, seeping through my shirt and onto my cold skin.
Damn it
. “Kate. Talk to me. Talk to me.”

“Oh ... I’m ... I’m hit ...”

“Okay ... take it easy. Stay still. Let me check it out ...” I moved my right arm between us and felt around under her blouse, my fingers probing for the entry wound, which I couldn’t find, though there was blood all over.
Oh, God
...

I tilted my head back and looked at her face. There was no blood coming from her mouth or nose, which was hopeful, and her eyes looked clear.

“Oh ... John ... damn it ... it hurts ...”

Finally, I found the entry wound, a hole just below the bottom of her left rib cage. I quickly ran my hand around the back and found the exit wound just above her buttocks. It seemed to be no more than a deep flesh wound, and there was no spurting blood, but I worried about internal bleeding. I said to her, as you’re supposed to do with injured people, “Kate, it’s okay. You’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She took a deep breath and moved her own hand to the wound, exploring the entry and exit wounds.

I got a handkerchief out of my pocket and pushed it in her hand. “Hold it there.”

We lay motionless again, side by side, and waited.

That bullet had been meant for me, of course, but fate, ballistics, trajectories, and timing are what make the difference between a wound that you can show off and a wound that the undertaker has to fill with putty. I said again, “You’re okay ... it’s just a little scratch ...”

Kate put her mouth to my ear, and I could feel her breath on my skin. She said, “John ...”

“Yes?”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Huh ... ?”

“But I love you anyway. Now let’s get the hell out of here.”

“No. Just stay still. He can’t see us, and he can’t hit what he can’t see.”

I spoke too soon because all of a sudden dirt and rocks started erupting around us, and branches snapped over our heads. I knew Khalil had a general idea of where we were, and he was firing the rest of the fourteen-round magazine at our suspected location.
Jesus H
. I thought the firing was never going to stop. It’s worse when they use a silencer, and all you can hear are the rounds hitting without hearing the crack of the rifle.

On what must have been his last round, I felt a sharp pain on my hip, and my hand flew back to where I’d been hit. I’d caught a grazing wound across my pelvis, and I could sense that it was deep enough to have chipped the pelvic bone. “Damn it!”

“John, are you all right?”

“Yeah.”

“We have to get out of here.”

“Okay, I’ll count to three, and we’ll run in a crouch through these bushes, but not for more than three seconds, then we dive and roll. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“One, two—”

“Hold on! Why don’t we go back to that boulder we were standing on?”

I turned my head and looked back at the boulder. It was less than four feet high, and not even that wide. The rocks around it where we’d been sitting were no more than large stones. But if we could crouch behind the boulder, we’d be safe from direct fire coming from the treeline. I said, “Okay, but it’s a little tight behind there.”

“Let’s go before he fires again. One, two, three—”

We sprang up into a crouch and ran toward the boulder—which was also toward Khalil.

About halfway there, I heard that familiar buzzing over my head, but Khalil had to fire above the boulder we were running for, and he wasn’t sitting high enough in the tree to get a steep enough angle to pick us off.

Kate and I hit the rock, spun around, and sat side by side very close together, our knees up to our chests. She pressed the bloody handkerchief to her left side.

We sat there a second and caught our breath. I didn’t hear any buzzing overhead, and I wondered if the bastard had the balls to leave the cover of the trees and was coming toward us. I pulled my Glock, took a deep breath, poked my head around the rock, and scanned the open space very quickly before pulling my head back in, just in time to avoid having it blown off by a well-placed shot that chipped the side of the boulder. “This guy knows how to shoot.”

“What the
fuck
are you doing? Just
sit
here.”

“Where did you learn to swear like that?”

“I have
never
sworn so much in my life till I met you.”

“Really?”

“Sit and shut up.”

“Okay.”

So, we sat there, oozing blood, but not enough to attract sharks, or whatever they had around there. Asad Khalil was strangely quiet, and I was getting nervous about what he was up to. I mean, the asshole could be twenty feet away, slithering through the bush.

I said, “I’m going to fire a few shots in the air to attract attention and to keep Khalil away.”

“No. If you attract some Secret Service people here, Khalil will pick them off. I don’t want that on my conscience. We’re not in any danger. Just sit.”

I wasn’t sure that we weren’t in any danger, but the rest of it made sense. So, John Corey, man of action, just sat. After a minute, I said, “Maybe I can attract Ted’s attention, then he and Khalil can have a shooting contest.”

“Sit and be quiet. Listen for any sounds in the bush.”

“Good idea.”

Kate shimmied out of her red jacket, which was nearly the same color as the blood that soaked it. She tied the sleeves around her waist, fashioning a pressure tourniquet over the wounds.