a piercing shriek, and then fell silent.
“Are you all right, Jon?” Peter called softly.
Smith checked himself over. The graze on his shoulder was bleeding and it would hurt like hell soon enough. But miraculously that was the only wound he had taken.
“I'm okay,” he reported, still breathing hard as he recovered from the shock of nearly being gunned down so easily. Moving out into that clearing had been a big mistake, he realized — the kind of screwup raw recruits made in training. He shook his head once, angry with himself for the error.
“Then go make sure that bastard's really down and dead. I'll cover you,” Peter said urgently. “But do it quickly.”
“On my way.” Smith scrambled back to his feet and moved out of the little space of open ground, circling through the undergrowth to come at the tree stump from behind and out of the Englishman's field of fire. He pushed cautiously through a tangle of tall brush and saw a body on the ground, facedown. The M16 lay several feet away.
Was the gunman really dead or badly wounded or only lying doggo? he wondered. For a moment, Jon thought about firing a quick burst into the body to finish the job. His finger tightened on the trigger. Then he eased off, with a frown. In the heat of battle, he could gun down an enemy without hesitating, but he would not shoot someone who might be lying helpless and in terrible pain. Not and stay true to the oaths he had sworn and, perhaps more important, to his own sense of right and wrong.
Smith stepped closer, sighting along the barrel of the MP5. He could see blood on the ground, trickling out from under the man's body. The fallen rifleman was short and wiry, with a dusting of cropped reddish hair on the back of his small round head. Jon drew nearer still, preparing to bend down and feel for a pulse.
More gunshots rang out from somewhere not far ahead. They were answered immediately by a short burst from Peter's weapon.
Distracted, Smith turned his head to try to see where the fire was coming from. He crouched lower, seeking cover.
That was when the “dead” man lunged at him, hurling himself forward with lightning speed. He slammed headlong into Jon's stomach and knocked him down. The submachine gun went flying off into the bushes.
Smith writhed away and saw a knife driving toward him. He rolled to the side and came back up, just in time to block another thrust with the outer edge of his left arm. The blade sliced through his sleeve and slashed the skin beneath. It grated off the bone, sending a wave of pain flaming through his mind. He forced the agony aside and struck back with the edge of his right hand, hacking down hard on the red-haired man's wrist.
The knife fell out of the man's suddenly paralyzed fingers.
Smith kept moving, reversing his strike — slamming his right elbow straight back into the shorter rifleman's nose. He felt a sickening crunch as the impact shattered pieces of cartilage, driving them upward and into his enemy's brain. The red-haired man dropped without a sound and lav motionless, dead for real this time.
Jon sat back, breathing deeply. He could feel blood dripping from the deep gash on his left arm. I had better bind that up now, he thought dully.
No point in leaving a blood trail for the bad guys to follow. He shook out a field dressing from one of the pockets on his vest and quickly wound the gauze and cotton around the injured arm.
There was a soft whistle from the woods. He looked up as Peter loomed out of the darkness.
“Sorry about that,” Peter said. “Another one popped his head up and took a shot at me.”
“Did you nail him?”
“Oh, yes,” Peter said with satisfaction. “Well and truly.” He dropped to one knee and rolled the red-haired man Smith had killed over onto his back. Peter's pale blue eyes widened slightly at the sight of the man's face, and he sucked in his breath.
“You recognize that guy?” Jon asked, watching his reaction.
Peter nodded. He looked up with a grim, worried expression on his weathered face. “Fellow's name was McRae,” he said softly. “When I knew him he was a trooper in the SAS. Had a reputation as a troublemaker — very good in any fight, a very nasty bastard out of one. Several years back he crossed the line once too often and got himself booted out of the regiment. Last I heard, he was working as a mercenary in Africa and Asia — with the occasional bit of freelance work for various intelligence services.”
He got up and went over to retrieve Smith's submachine gun.
“Including MI6?” Jon asked quietly, taking the weapon from him and climbing stiffly to his feet.
Peter nodded reluctantly. “On occasion.”
“Do you think some of your people in London could be involved in this covert war Pierson and Burke are running?” Smith said.
Peter shrugged. “At the moment, I don't really know what to think, Jon.” He looked up as the rippling chatter of automatic weapons fire crashed out again from the other side of the low embankment. 'But for now, our friends over there are getting restless. And they'll be coming in this direction in force very soon. I think we'd best break contact while we can. We need to find a place where we can safelv arrange new transport.'
Smith nodded. That made good sense. By now, their enemies were sure to have found the cars they had brought with them from Andrews Air Force Base. Trying to retrieve the two vehicles would only mean walking back into the trap they had just escaped.
He felt the dressing on his left arm, checking to make sure it had not yet soaked all the way through. It was still dry on the outside. He turned back to the Englishman. “Okay, lead on, Peter. I'll keep an eye on the rear.”
The two men turned and trotted north, fading deeper into the darkened countryside — keeping to the shelter of the trees and tall brush whenever possible. Behind them, the harsh, echoing rattle of gunfire slowly died away.
Chapter Thirty-One
The first burst of automatic weapons fire outside the farmhouse brought Kit Pierson to her feet in a rush. Drawing her service pistol, a 9mm Smith & Wesson, the FBI agent moved rapidly to the window, peering out through the narrow slit between the drapes. She could not see anything, but the sound of gunfire continued, echoing loudly across the low, rolling hills of the Virginia countryside. Heart pounding, she crouched lower. Whatever was going on had all the hallmarks of a pitched battle being fought close by.
“Trouble, Kit?” she heard Hal Burke say with a nasty edge in his voice.
Pierson glanced over her shoulder at him. Her eyes widened. The square-jawed CIA officer had drawn his own weapon, a Beretta. And he held it aimed right at her.
“What kind of game are you playing, Hal?” she demanded, holding perfectly still — all too aware that, drunk or not, he could not miss at this range. Her mouth felt dry. She could see beads of sweat forming on Burke's forehead. The muscles around his right eye twitched slightly.
“This is no game,” he snapped back. “As I'm sure you know.” He motioned with the muzzle of the Beretta. “Now I want you to put your weapon down on the floor — but carefully… very carefully. And then I want you to sit back down in your chair. With your hands where I can see them.”
“Take it easy, Hal,” Pierson said softly, trying hard to conceal her fear and her sudden conviction that Burke had lost his grip on reality. “I don't know what you think I've done, but I promise you that—”
Her words were drowned by another burst of shooting from outside the house.
“Do what I say, damn it!” the CIA officer growled. His finger tightened dangerously on the trigger. “Move!”
Feeling ice-cold, Pierson slowly knelt and put her Smith & Wesson down on the floor, butt first.
“Now, kick it toward me — but do it gently!” Burke ordered.
She complied, sliding the pistol toward him across the stained hardwood floor.
“Sit!”
Angry now, both at the other man and with herself for being so afraid of him, Pierson obeyed, slowly lowering herself into the lumpy, frayed armchair. She held her hands up, palms outward, so that he could see that she was not an immediate threat. “I'd still like to know what I'm supposed to have done, Hal — and what all that
