behind him, but he knew that to move the dying man would hasten his demise. “How bad?” the man asked, his voice cracking.
“It’s bad,” said Joker. There was no point in lying. If their positions were reversed, Joker would want the truth. Joker took one of the man’s hands and squeezed. There was more he wanted to know. “Who told you to follow me?” he asked.
The man shuddered. “London,” he said.
“You followed me from New York?”
“Yeah,” said the man, the word coming out in a long-drawn-out gasp.
“Why?” Joker asked. Blood was pouring from his shoulder wound but he ignored it.
There was a pause. Back in the house, something exploded. “Bait,” the man said.
“Yeah,” said Joker, “that’s what I thought. Thanks.”
The man squeezed Joker’s hand, then he sighed once and the fingers went limp. Joker staggered to his feet and walked away from the burning house. He was still carrying the gun in his right hand, even though the weapon was now useless. He managed only two dozen steps before his legs collapsed underneath him and he fell to the grass, unconscious.
Carlos drove quickly, wanting to put as much distance between himself and the house before the neighbours saw the flames. The motel was midway between Baltimore and Washington, a good forty-five minute drive from the house. There was little traffic on the road and Carlos was soon on the main three-lane highway which led to the Capitol. He kept his speed up in the high eighties and made good use of his rear mirror — the last thing he wanted was a State Trooper on his tail. He caught up with Schoelen after ten minutes of hard driving, and he braked and tucked in three cars behind him. Schoelen appeared to be alone in the car and Carlos nodded to himself, pleased that Hennessy and Bailey had followed his advice and were keeping out of sight. He assumed they were in the back, lying down.
Schoelen was driving in the centre lane, sticking religiously to the speed limit. Under the circumstances, with his two passengers just recently featured on a television programme with millions of viewers, he was being prudent. As they drove along at 55 mph, Carlos continued to check his rear-view mirror.
He didn’t see the tail at first because the guy was hanging back and switching lanes every few minutes. Once he actually overtook them and at first Carlos thought that perhaps he’d made a mistake, but then he realised it was when they were between intersections with nowhere for them to turn off. The driver was alone, and as the interior of his car was illuminated by passing headlights, Carlos could see he was in his late thirties to early forties, clean- shaven and wearing spectacles. That was all Carlos could see without making it obvious he was looking. Carlos was certain that the tail wasn’t after him but, to be sure, he slowed down, allowing Schoelen to get almost a mile ahead. He was right, the tail stuck with the sniper, usually keeping half a dozen cars back. Carlos couldn’t see any other cars, which surprised him because he knew that successful tailing depended on using several vehicles and rotating them frequently. Using one man and one car was asking for trouble. It couldn’t be the FBI or the Secret Service because they’d call in back-up immediately. He thought of the SAS man locked in the basement of the burning house. It couldn’t possibly be him, but what if he had a partner? That didn’t make sense either, Carlos realised. If Cramer had a partner, he’d have told Hennessy about him under torture. And what sort of man would allow his partner to be captured and held by a woman with Mary Hennessy’s reputation? Surely he’d have called in the police? None of the possibilities made sense, but there was no denying that the man was following Schoelen.
Carlos had the advantage in that he knew where Schoelen was going, so he waited until just before the exit ramp before getting any closer. He caught up with Schoelen and his tail on an unlit road which wound between leafy woodland dotted with impressive houses with private driveways and three-car garages. Most had flagpoles and basketball hoops, Carlos noticed. And probably a couple of.44 Magnums under the mattress and a shotgun in the den, he thought wryly. White, upper-middle-class America. Clean, wholesome and armed to the teeth.
Ahead he could see the tail, who was having a harder time staying inconspicuous. There was no sign of Lovell. Carlos wondered whether Schoelen would spot that he was being followed. He doubted it, Schoelen was a military sniper, not an intelligence operative. He was sure Mary Hennessy would not have been so careless. There was little traffic on the road so Carlos hung back and whenever possible drove with his headlights off. Carlos ran through the possibilities. He could wait until Schoelen arrived at the motel before confronting the tail, but if there were other motorists around he might not be able to act. He could drive ahead and find some way of warning Schoelen, but what then? As soon as he communicated with Schoelen he’d be spotted. No, that wouldn’t do. He could force the tail off the road, but he might sustain damage himself. There was only one solution. Keeping a firm hand on the steering wheel, Carlos leant over and opened the glove compartment. He took out the gun which Lovell had found in Cramer’s car, a SIG P228 with a bulbous silencer. A nice weapon, well balanced and compact. He placed it on the empty seat next to him and opened the passenger window. He accelerated smoothly, the wind noise roaring by the open window. Schoelen was still sticking to the speed limit and Carlos quickly gained on the tail. He reached over to pick up the gun and flicked the safety off with his thumb. The grip settled easily in Carlos’s hand and he rested the barrel on the passenger seat as he drove up behind the tail.
He waited until the road was clear in front and behind, then indicated that he wanted to overtake. Carlos pulled out to the left, the power steering making one-handed control effortless. He drew level with the tail, his indicator lights still blinking, and looked across at the driver. The driver appeared relaxed, he looked over at Carlos, who smiled and nodded. The driver smiled automatically; his eyes flicked back to the road, and then across at Carlos again. This time he frowned, but before he could react Carlos raised the gun. There was just a slight coughing noise from the P228 as the tail’s window exploded with the first shot and the bullet buried itself in the man’s shoulder. Carlos fired twice more, both shots hitting the man in the side of the head. A fountain of blood sprayed from the man’s skull and the car lurched to the right as his nerveless fingers lost control. Carlos accelerated and in the mirror he watched the tail veer off the road and smash into a tree. A few seconds later the car burst into flames. Carlos smiled and put the gun back into the glove compartment before closing the window. Ahead, Schoelen drove on, oblivious to what had happened.
Don Clutesi saw it first and he tapped Cole Howard on the shoulder. They were wearing headsets which cut out the thudding roar of the rotors and allowed them to speak to each other and to the pilot and co-pilot. He pointed to the burning house some six miles away by the side of the Chesapeake Bay. There were no streetlights or other houses close to it and the inferno seemed to be suspended in the darkness. “See that?” Clutesi asked.
“You think that’s it?” said Howard, squinting into the distance.
The pilot’s voice came over the headsets. “That’s where we’re headed,” he said. The co-pilot began calling up Baltimore air-traffic control to request that they inform the Fire Department. His call was acknowledged.
Howard slapped his knee. There was no sign of a SWAT team in the vicinity of the house, no lights on the road. He was hardly surprised, they’d probably be driving out from the city, whereas the FBI JetRanger helicopter was zipping through the air at more than one hundred knots.
The pilot took the helicopter down to about five hundred feet above the ground and banked around the house. “Jesus, look at that,” said Clutesi.
For a moment Howard imagined that he could feel the heat from the blaze but he knew that they were too high. The pilot switched on a searchlight below the helicopter and an oval patch of light appeared on the grass below. Over the headset, Howard heard the co-pilot tell air-traffic control that he was landing.
Clutesi pounded Howard on the shoulder again and pointed. “Here comes the cavalry,” he said. In the distance, about a mile from the house, they saw a convoy of vehicles speeding along the main road in the direction of the house. “That’ll be the Ninjas. Better late than never.”
“There’s no rush — I don’t imagine there’ll be anyone hanging around,” said Howard. A blue car at the rear of the house exploded in a sheet of flame as its fuel tank detonated. The pilot yanked the helicopter up and away and chose a landing spot further away from the house. The oval light grew smaller and brighter as they descended and then the skids gently bumped the ground. The co-pilot turned around in his seat and handed flashlights to Howard and Clutesi and indicated that they could disembark. The two FBI agents climbed out, the still-turning rotors making their jackets flap around their waists. Both agents were armed and they took their handguns from their holsters as they jogged across the lawn to the house. The convoy of cars and vans turned down the drive to the house and Clutesi headed in their direction, holding his badge and gun aloft.
Howard saw a figure lying on the grass about fifty yards from the house, stretched out and unmoving. He went over and knelt down beside the body. It was a middle-aged man, bare-chested with wicked cuts across his
