ahead, whether you like it or not. There are no other options. Either we destroy the Lazarus Movement — or it destroys us!”
Chapter Thirty
The man called Lazarus sat calmly behind a solid, age-darkened teak desk in his private office. The room was quiet, cool, and dimly lit. A ventilation system hummed softly in the background, bringing in air rigorously scrubbed clean of any trace of the outside world.
Much of the desk was taken up with a large computer-driven display. With the gentle flick of a finger on his keyboard, Lazarus switched rapidly between views relayed from cameras around the globe. One, apparently mounted aboard an aircraft, showed the winding trace of a river unrolling two or three thousand feet below. Villages, roads, bridges, and tracts of forest came into view and then slid off-camera. Another camera showed a dingy street crowded with stripped and vandalized automobiles. The street was lined with drab concrete-block buildings. Their windows and doors were heavily barricaded with steel bars.
Below the images on his display, three digital readouts showed the lo-
cal time, the time in Paris, and the time along the eastern seaboard of the United States. A secure satellite phone system sat next to the computer. Two blinking green lights indicated pending connections to two of his special action teams.
Lazarus smiled, reveling in the exquisite sensation of watching a complex, intricately crafted plan unfolding with absolutely perfect timing. With one command, he had set in motion the last of his needed field experiments — the tests so necessary to refine his chosen instruments of the planet's salvation. With another, he would begin the series of actions intended to throw the CIA, the FBI, and the British Secret Intelligence Service into self-destructive chaos.
Soon, he thought coldly, very soon. As the sun rose higher today, a horrified world would start to see its worst fears about the United States confirmed. Alliances would shatter. Old wounds would reopen. Long-held rivalries would burst again into open conflict. And by the time the full magnitude of what was really happening became clear, it would be impossible for anyone to stop him.
His internal phone chimed once. Lazarus tapped the speaker button. “Yes?”
“Our drones are within fifty kilometers of the target,” reported the voice of his senior technician. “Both are operating within the expected norms.”
“Very good. Continue as planned,” Lazarus ordered. He tapped the button, cutting the circuit. Another gentle flick of his finger completed the satellite connection to one of his action teams.
“The Paris operation is under way,” he told the man waiting patiently on the other end. “Be ready to carry out your instructions on my next signal.”
Three big 4x4 trucks were parked just inside a patch of scrub pines growing along the crest of a ridge several hundred yards west of Burke's ram-
shackle farm. Twelve men wearing black jackets and sweaters and dark-colored jeans waited in the shelter of this clump of stunted trees. Four of them were posted as sentries at different points around the outside edge, keeping watch through British-made Simrad night-vision binoculars. Seven squatted patiently on the sandy soil farther inside the grove. They were busy making last-minute weapons checks on their assortment of assault rifles, submachine guns, and pistols.
The twelfth, the tall green-eyed man named Terce, sat in the cab of one of the 4x4s. “Understood,” he said into his secure cell phone. “We are standing by.” He hung up and went back to monitoring a heated conversation relayed through his radio set. An angry voice sounded in his headset. “Either we destroy the Lazarus Movement — or it destroys us!”
“Melodrama doesn't suit you, Hal,” a woman's voice answered icily. “I'm not suggesting that we surrender to the Movement. But TOCSIN itself is no longer worth the price we're paying — or the risks we're running. And I meant what I said over the phone earlier: If this lousy operation blows up in my face, I don't plan to be the only one taking a fall.”
Listening to the transmission from a bug he had planted earlier that night, the second member of the Horatii nodded to himself. The CIA officer was quite right. FBI Deputy Assistant Director Katherine Pierson was no longer reliable. Not that it mattered very much anymore, he thought with a trace of grim amusement.
Automatically Terce checked the magazine on his Walther, screwed on the silencer, and then slid the pistol back into his coat pocket. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. There were only minutes at most remaining before he would need to act.
A soft, insistent beep signaled a priority call from one of his sentries. He switched channels. “Go ahead.”
“This is McRae. There's something moving up near the house,” the lookout warned in a soft lowland Scots burr.
“I'm on my way,” Terce said. The big man slid out of the 4x4, ducking his head to clear the frame, and hurried to the edge of the pine woods. He found McRae crouched behind a fallen tree trunk overgrown with vines and moved low into position beside him.
“Take a look for yourself. In those bushes and tall grass close to the front door,” the short, wiry Scot said, pointing. “I can't make out anything now, mind you, but I saw movement there just a minute ago.”
The green-eyed man raised his own binoculars, slowly scanning the south side of Burke's house. Two man- shaped blotches leaped immediately into focus, bright white thermal blooms against the cooler gray of the dense vegetation in which they lay hidden.
“You have very good eyes, McRae,” Terce said calmly. The night-vision gear used by his sentries worked by amplifying all available ambient light. They turned night into eerie, green-tinted day, but they could not see “heat” in the way his special equipment could. Weighing over five pounds and with a price tag of nearly sixty thousand dollars, his French-made “Sophie” thermal-imaging binoculars were top-of-the-line in every way and far more effective. At night, under these overcast skies, the best passive light intensifier systems had a maximum range of three or four hundred yards, and often much less. In contrast, using thermal imaging he could detect the heat signature made by a human being up to two miles away — even through thick cover.
Terce wondered whether it was mere coincidence that these two spies appeared so soon after Kit Pierson arrived. Or had she brought them with her — either knowingly or unknowingly? The big man shrugged away the thought. He did not believe in coincidences. Nor, for that matter, did his ultimate employer.
Terce considered his options. For a moment he regretted the Center's decision to transfer his specialist sniper to the Paris-based security force. It would have been simpler and far less dangerous to eliminate these two enemies with a pair of well-aimed long-range rifle shots. Then he quickly realized wishing would not alter the circumstances. His team was trained and equipped for close-quarters action — so those were the tactics he would have to employ.
Terce handed the binoculars to McRae. “Keep an eye on those two,” he ordered coolly. “Let me know if they make any sudden moves.” Then he pulled out his cell phone and hit a preset number.
The phone on the other end rang once. “Burke here.”
“This is Terce,” he said quietly. “Do not react openly in any way to what I am about to say. Do you understand me?”
There was a short pause. “Yes, I understand you,” Burke said at last.
“Good. Now then, listen carefully. My security team has detected hostile activity near your house. You are under close observation. Very close observation. Within meters, in fact.”
“That's very… interesting,” the CIA officer said tightly. He hesitated briefly. “Can your people handle this situation on their own?”
“Most definitely,” Terce assured him.
“And do you have a time frame for that?” Burke asked.
The big man's bright green eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Minutes, Mr. Burke. Only minutes.”
