Kilo Option, page 27
A second night fighter, his hood off, his face smeared with blood, stood in the doorway of the sitting room. His weapon up.
For an instant, the commando was stunned into immobility.
Lane shot him twice in the neck and face. And he went down without a sound.
The screams downstairs were stifled, and the house was deathly still for the moment. Lane started down the hall just as Tom Hughes came out of the sitting room and stepped over the body of the night fighter. When Hughes saw what he took to be another commando, his expression darkened.
Lane said nothing, although his heart immediately lightened seeing his old friend alive and apparently unhurt.
Yernin stepped out of the sitting room, looked at the apparition standing in the corridor, and immediately raised his pistol to Hughes’s head.
“Since you’re not one of us, you must be Bill Lane,” he said.
Keeping the .22 stealth weapon aimed in Yernin’s general direction, Lane pulled off the ruined goggles, tossed them aside, and pulled off his hood.
“About time you showed up,” Hughes said, grinning with relief. “I was beginning to think that I was going to have all the fun myself.”
“Where’s Frances?”
“She’s safely out of reach of these scum. I heard shooting in the back. Did you bring the navy?”
“CIA. But the navy’s on the way.”
“They’ll be here in twelve minutes to be precise,” Yernin said. “And the helicopter you arrived in holds only four people plus the pilot. So I don’t think we have to worry about being overrun.”
“I personally took out six of your people, and I don’t hear much shooting going on at the moment.”
“It doesn’t matter, we have time.”
“For what?” Lane asked coldly.
“A trade. My life for your friend’s life.”
“Tom signed on the same dotted line as every soldier does.”
Yernin laughed. “I don’t believe you would throw away your friend’s life simply to kill me.”
Lane cracked a smile. “Don’t count on it.”
Yernin looked at Lane, the flat expression in his eyes again. “What will my death gain you? It’s nothing more than politics.”
“It’s murder,” Lane retorted. “Did you know that the young woman at Norfolk whose body you booby-trapped was pregnant?”
“She was a soldier. The same as all of us. She signed on that dotted line.”
“What about the people on the train? What army were they with?”
“If you hadn’t pushed me, they would not have died,” Yernin said indifferently. “But we’re not here to discuss the past. We’re here to discuss our future.”
Lane shrugged. “Go to hell.”
Yernin was irked. “Then it becomes a queen’s gambit after all.”
“You’re forgetting one of your choices.”
“What’s that?”
“Give up and I promise you safe passage back to the States where you’ll stand trial. It’s the only deal I’m making.”
A sudden, urgent look came into Hughes’s eyes. He looked at something over Lane’s left shoulder.
“It is you who has run out of choices,” Yernin said in triumph. “Kill him,” he instructed someone down the corridor.
Lane dove to the left, pointing the stealth weapon over his right shoulder and spraying the corridor behind him while keeping his eyes on Yernin.
The Ukrainian brought his pistol around to bear on Lane, but before he could take proper aim and fire, Hughes shoved him against the wall, then sprinted back into the sitting room.
Lane had just enough time to feel slightly disappointed that his friend had run for safety, but glad that he had done so, when two bullets slammed into his right hip and leg from behind, knocking him to the floor.
He rolled over on his back and sprayed a long burst at the two commandos firing from a low crouch. Both of them went down at the same moment his .22 ran out of ammunition.
Dropping the weapon, he rolled back onto his stomach as he snatched the Beretta from the belt at the small of his back.
Yernin had recovered and he fired three shots at Lane’s still-moving figure at the same moment Lane pumped four shots down the corridor, one bullet smacking into Yernin’s shoulder, the others going wild.
Something hit the back of Lane’s head and he went down, still conscious but momentarily unable to move.
Something brushed past him, and with a supreme force of will he managed to lever himself over to his side in time to see Yernin reach the stairs.
“Yernin,” he croaked.
The Ukrainian turned in surprise, hesitated, then fired two shots over Lane’s head.
Answering fire came from the sitting room door, one of the shots hitting Yernin in the left leg.
Yernin staggered back, fired a third shot down the corridor, and Hughes cried out in pain and crashed to the floor.
Lane managed to bring his gun up even though he was seeing double and he couldn’t keep his balance. The house was spinning as if it were caught up in a funnel cloud.
Yernin shifted aim directly at his head.
Lane squeezed off a shot which hit Yernin’s already wounded left shoulder, shoving him against the railing at the head of the stairs. The next two shots went wild. The fourth hit the Ukrainian in his left side, and the fifth hit him in the side of the face at the base of his nose, sending him crashing down the stairs.
Lane pulled the trigger one last time at the retreating figure, but the hammer slapped on an empty chamber.
He slumped down on the floor, conscious of movements downstairs, and then the sounds of at least two heavy choppers coming from the southeast. The navy, finally, he thought.
“Tommy?” he said, painfully turning over.
Hughes, a 10mm Colt automatic held loosely in his right hand, sat on the floor, his back against the doorjamb, a silly grin on his face. He held his side where he’d been shot.
“Gee, that was fun. Think we can do it again soon?”
Lane smiled. “Only if you promise not to tell Moira that I almost let him kill you.”
“It’s a deal,” Hughes said, but Lane only heard part of it before he passed out.
38
RAMSTEIN AIR FORCE BASE GERMANY
It seemed to Lane that he had lived in a fog for days, possibly weeks. At first there’d been bright lights, and loud noises, jarring sensations, deep-throated vibrations. Those gave way to distant dreams, faces swimming overhead, poking and prodding. Someone speaking his name. He wasn’t glad when it ended until he opened his eyes and saw a pretty face.
“You’re beautiful,” he mumbled.
The nurse, whose name tag read KRAUS, flashed him a bright smile. “Welcome back.”
“Will you marry me?”
“They said you were tough, but nobody warned me that you were a flirt.” She laughed. “How do you feel?”
“Hungry,” Lane said. “Tom Hughes, the man I was brought in with, how is he?”
“Just fine, waiting for you to come around. And so is Commander Shipley.”
“Was she hurt?”
“She’s fine too,” nurse Kraus reassured him. “The only reason she’s still here—by the way you’re at the air force hospital in Ramstein—is because of you.”
Lane allowed himself to relax a little. “How long have I been here?” “You’ve been sedated for two days. The doctor didn’t want you moving around. One concussion on top of another is bad for the health.”
“I couldn’t agree more, Ashley my dear,” Hughes said from the doorway. “But the boy has the unfortunate habit of sticking his nose in bad places.”
Lane turned his head so that he could see for himself if his old friend was truly okay. Hughes, dressed in a hospital gown and bathrobe, sauntered into the room. He carried himself a little stiffly, but he looked good. Lane allowed himself to relax even more.
“Raise me up a little, please,” he told the nurse.
“I will not,” she said.
“Better do it, Ashley, otherwise the lad will crawl out of bed and do it himself.”
“Oh, all right.” The nurse raised the head of his bed six inches. “That’s it for now or else the doctor will have my hide.”
“And a fine hide it is.”
“God protect me,” she moaned. “I’ll tell the doctor you’re awake and then get you something to eat.”
“Thank you.”
She flashed him another big smile, and left.
Hughes closed the door and pulled a chair over to the bed and sat down. “How are you feeling, William?”
“I’d have a tough time finishing nine holes of golf.”
“The doctor says you’ll recover fully.” Hughes cocked an eye. “I didn’t know you played golf.”
“I don’t,” Lane said. “Frances is okay?”
“I sent her out a back window and over the courtyard fence when the situation started to heat up. She bumped into Chad Thomas and his partner, and helped out with the diversionary attack.” Hughes shook his head in admiration. “That’s one tough lady.”
“Is she still here?”
“She was recalled to London this morning to talk to her superiors. But she promised she’d be back as soon as possible.”
“We got beat up pretty badly, Tommy.”
“Yes, we did,” Hughes said solemnly. “But we stopped them. The body count of the bad guys was up to thirteen as of this morning when they pulled another one out of the bay.”
“How about Yernin?”
Hughes’s expression darkened. “His body hasn’t turned up yet, but it will. He was hit too badly to have gotten very far. I saw that much with my own eyes.”
“He might have had help. There might have been some of them still alive downstairs.”
“The SEALs met no resistance. I think they were a little disappointed,” Hughes said. “It’s my guess that Yernin and whatever was left of his force somehow made it to the water’s edge, where they had hidden rubber rafts, and headed out to sea. They were supposed to rendezvous with a private cruiser, but they never linked up because we found the cruiser at a covered dock in Al-Khiran. That’s about fifty miles south of the island. So whatever happened, they were stuck out there. And later that night they got some pretty heavy weather.”
Lane was skeptical.
“He’ll show up,” Hughes said.
“I believe he will,” Lane replied softly. “But not in the way you think.”
The door opened and Frances, dressed in a skirt and blouse, her coat on her arm, breezed in. She tossed the coat aside, came over to the bed, and gave Lane a kiss.
“God, I’m glad to see you,” she said, a catch in her throaty voice.
“I was worried about you,” Lane said, relieved.
“I can see when I’m no longer needed,” Hughes said, getting up. He put the chair back, and looked down at Lane. “The boss sends his thanks for a job well done, and says you can take as much sick leave as you need. The world’s problems will have to wait.”
“Funny thing,” Frances said. “My boss told me the same thing. And it just happens that a friend of mine has lent me her house outside of Saint-Tropez.”
“The things a man has to do for his country,” Lane sighed.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Frances said, looking into his eyes. “Close the door on the way out, would you, Tom,” she said and she came gently into Lane’s arms.
FAILAKA ISLAND AIR FORCE BASE
It was night again when Yernin hobbled painfully out of his room onto the gallery overlooking the hangar floor twenty meters below. His entire left side was numb, and almost useless. But from where the bullet had gone through his face, shattering his upper teeth and breaking his left and right cheekbones, a living hell of intense pain radiated into his neck, down his spine, and around to his chest.
Once again he’d been defeated at the hands of Bill Lane. But once again he had survived, and hate burned even more strongly in his body than did the pain from his wounds.
It was a feeling that would sustain him through everything that was to come, including the humiliation of defeat when he would be denounced by Saddam Hussein, as well as his own control officer.
His right hand gripped the railing tightly, making his knuckles white. A dim light flashed briefly behind one of the mothballed helicopters that the US Air Force stored here, and Lieutenant Hadr stepped out. He spotted Yernin on the gallery above, and gave him the thumbs-up sign. It meant the helicopter was ready to fly.
But not yet, Yernin told himself. They would wait for several days until everything on the island quieted down. Search parties still roamed the island’s beaches and cliffs looking for more bodies. Their communications, which had been nonstop for the first forty-eight hours, had begun to slow down.
They’d searched this base the first thing this morning, but Yernin and Hadr had remained in hiding in the honeycomb of limestone caves that connected the house with the base.
The existence of the subterranean passages and the hidden opening in the bowels of the ancient house were known to the archaeologists, and of course to Kuwaiti security. But in the aftermath of the action, nobody thought of it.
For the moment they were safe, Yernin thought, shuffling back into their quarters. When the search died down, he and Hadr would fly the helicopter across the border using up-to-date naval transponder codes, which were another bit of intelligence he’d gleaned from Honolulu’s computer.
Time now to recover, he told himself, lying down on the cot. He touched the bandages wrapped around his face.
There would be time later to kill Bill Lane.
Time, he thought as he drifted off to sleep, to put his own plans into action.
PART THREE
39
THE FRENCH RIVIERA
Lane pulled himself out of the long, narrow lap pool, grabbed a towel, and stood at the low stone balustrade at the end of the patio as he dried himself. From here he could see across the bay to the pretty town of Beauvallon, and beyond it Sainte-Maxime. The morning was a little cool, but the rising sun felt good on his body.
The place that Frances’s mysterious unnamed friend had lent them for as long as they wished was more like a small villa than an ordinary house. Perched atop a high promontory above the Mediterranean, only one narrow road led down to Saint-Tropez. The hills and cliffs were so steep that any off-road approach would be extremely difficult at best, so he and Frances had felt reasonably secure for the past five weeks.
He’d taken his recovery slowly at first, content just to walk around the expansive house. But after the first week he started doing laps in the pool in the mornings and afternoons. Before lunch he ran down the road then back up. Just a hundred yards the first few times, until yesterday when he’d run nearly five miles round trip carrying a thirty-pound sack of stones on his back.
“His penance,” he called it, for nearly getting himself killed twice.
Once a week a British doctor, another of Frances’s friends, came down from Nice to see him. Two weeks ago he smiled and shook his head.
“I suppose telling a man like you to take it easy would be an exercise in futility,” the doctor said.
“Rather,” Frances agreed.
Rising to go, the doctor shook Lane’s hand. “I shan’t be back unless you break a leg or something. You’re healing quite remarkably well without me.” He glanced at Frances and grinned. “Must be the water … or something.”
She returned his warm smile.
Later that afternoon when they were making love in the big four-poster bed, Lane looked down at her beautiful body.
“Is this the ‘or something’ the good doctor was referring to?”
“Hmm,” she purred. “Rather.”
He touched the still-tender patch at the back of his head. In twenty or thirty years the two concussions he’d suffered would probably cause him problems. Double vision, nausea, and perhaps difficulty in maintaining his balance. If he lived that long.
They hadn’t found Yernin’s body and had given up the search. But according to Hughes, five days after the attack someone stole a Cobra helicopter from the mothballed air base on the island. The machine had shown up on the black market in Basra, so the official line was Kuwaiti entrepreneurship. It happened all the time. After all, if you couldn’t steal from friends for profit, then who could you steal from?
“The thing was that they knew the current transponder codes. Something Yernin could have gotten out of Honolulu’s computer,” Hughes said.
“Means he’s still on the run,” Lane replied thoughtfully.
“Watch yourself, William,” Hughes warned, his voice low. “It’s getting strange around here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hard to say, but Ben Lewis is almost always gone, no one has seen Roswell in days, and no one is talking. It’s un-American keeping secrets in a place like this,” Hughes quipped. “When are you coming back?”
“Would they accept my resignation?”
“Not likely.”
“I’ll be back in a few days, Tom. In the meantime, run a search program in Kiev in case our friend shows up there.”
“Already up and running.”
“Nothing yet?”
“Nada.”
“How about Baghdad and Basra?” Lane asked. “Are we coming up with any hard intelligence on Hussein’s whereabouts?”
Hughes hesitated uncharacteristically. “Officially no. But I caught a glimpse of a National Reconnaissance Office printout addressed to us—Roswell specifically—from one of their KH-series birds. Looked to me like a section of real estate southwest of Baghdad, complete with bedouin tents.”
“Not unusual.”
“Except that bedouins as a rule don’t use satellite communications dishes.”
“I see what you mean,” Lane said. “Keep your eyes open. I’ll see you next week.”
“Take care, William.”
“Will do.”
That was three days ago. Ever since then he’d expected someone to show up here, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard a car starting up the switchbacks on the road below. It wasn’t the Peugeot Frances drove. He recognized that engine sound.
