sockets. She sank to the pavement, praying for oblivion, praying for a death that would stop the pain w racking every part of her flailing, shuddering body. She also prayed desperately for her daughter, hoping against hope that her little girl would be spared this same suffering.
But in the end, before the final darkness claimed her, she knew that even this last prayer had been denied.
“Mama,” she heard Tasa whimper. “Mama, it hurts… it hurts so much….”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Terce leaned back against one dark-paneled wall of Burke's small study. His posture was relaxed, almost casual, but his gaze was alert and focused. He still held the Beretta he had taken from the CIA officer. The 9mm pistol looked small in his large gloved right hand. He smiled coldly, sensing the growing unease of the two Americans sitting motionless under his watchful eye. Neither Hal Burke nor Kit Pierson was used to being wholly subject to the will of another. It amused Terce to keep these two senior intelligence officials so completely under his thumb.
He checked the small antique clock on Burke's desk. The last burst of gunfire outside had died away several minutes ago. By now, the spies his men were hunting should be dead. No matter how good their training was, no pair of FBI agents could possibly be a match for his own force of ex-commandos.
A voice crackled through his radio headset. “This is Uchida. I have a situation report.”
Terce straightened up, hiding his surprise. Uchida, a former Japanese airborne trooper, was one of the five men he had assigned to drive the two intruders into the ambush carefully laid along the north edge of Burke's farm. Any reports should have come from the ambush party itself. “Go ahead,” he replied.
He listened to the other man's tale of utter disaster in silence, keeping a tight rein on his rising anger. Four of his men were dead, including McRae, his best tracker and scout. The ambush he had planned had been rolled up from the flank and wiped out. That was bad enough. Worst of all was the news that the shocked survivors of his security team had completely lost contact with the retreating Americans. Hearing that his forces had found and disabled two automobiles belonging to the intruders was small consolation. By now they were undoubtedly in touch with their headquarters, reporting whatever they had heard and requesting urgent reinforcements.
“Should we pursue?” Uchida ended by asking.
“No,” Terce snapped. “Fall back on your vehicles and await my instructions.” He had been overconfident, and his team had paid a high price as a result. In the dark, the odds of regaining contact with the Americans before they received help were too low. And even in this open, unpopulated country the sound of so much gunfire was bound to draw unwelcome attention. It was time to leave this place before the FBI or other law-enforcement agencies could begin throwing a cordon around it.
“Trouble?” Kit Pierson asked icily. The dark-haired woman had detected the anger and uncertainty in his voice. She sat up straighter in the armchair.
A minor setback,“ Terce lied smoothly, working hard to conceal and control his growing irritation and impatience. All of his training and psychological conditioning had taught him the uselessness of the weaker emotions. He waved her back down using a small, almost imperceptible, gesture with the Beretta. ”Calm yourself, Ms. Pierson. All will be made clear in due time.'
The second of the Horatii checked the desk clock again, mentally adjusting for the six-hour time difference between Virginia and Paris. The call would come soon, he thought. But would it come soon enough? Should he act without receiving specific orders? He pushed the thought away. His instructions were clear.
His secure cell phone buzzed abruptly. He answered it. “Yes?”
A voice on the other end, distorted faintly by encryption software and by multiple satellite relays, spoke calmly, issuing the command he had been waiting to hear. “Field Experiment Three has begun. You may proceed as planned.”
“Understood,” Terce said. “Out.”
Smiling slightly now, he looked across the room at the dark-haired FBI agent. “I hope you will accept my apology in advance, Ms. Pierson.”
She frowned, clearly puzzled. “Your apology? For what?”
Terce shrugged. “For this.” In one smooth motion, he lifted the pistol he had confiscated from Burke and squeezed the trigger twice. The first shot hit her in the middle of the forehead. The second tore straight through her heart. With a soft sigh, she slumped back against the blood-spattered back of the armchair. Her dead slate-gray eyes stared back at him, eternally fixed in an expression of utter astonishment.
“Good God!” Hal Burke gripped the arms of his chair. The blood drained from his face, leaving it a sickly hue. He pulled his horrified gaze away from the murdered woman, turning to the big man towering over him. “What… what the hell are you doing?” he stammered.
“Following my orders,” Terce told him simply.
“I never asked you to kill her!” the CIA officer shouted. He swallowed convulsively, plainly fighting down the urge to be sick.
“No, you did not,” the green-eyed man agreed. He placed the Beretta gently on the floor at his feet and pulled Kit Pierson's Smith & Wesson out of his pocket. He smiled again. 'But then, you do not truly understand the situation, Mr. Burke. Your so-called TOCSIN was only a blind for a much larger operation, never a reality. And you are not the master here — only a servant. An expendable servant, alas.'
Burke's eyes opened wide in sudden horrified understanding. He scrambled backward, trying desperately to stand up, to do something, anything, to fight back. He failed.
Terce fired three 9mm rounds into the CIA officer's stomach at point-blank range. Each bullet tore a huge hole through his back, spraying blood, bone fragments, and bits of internal organs across the swivel chair, desk, and computer screen behind him.
Burke fell back into his seat. His fingers scrabbled vainly at the terrible wounds in his abdomen. His mouth opened and closed like a netted fish gasping frantically for breath.
With contemptuous ease, Terce reached out with his foot and shoved the swivel chair over, spilling the dying CIA officer onto the hardwood floor. Then he strode over and dropped the Smith & Wesson in Kit Pier-son's blood-soaked lap.
When he turned around, he saw Burke lying motionless, curled inward on himself in his final death agony. The tall green-eyed man reached into his coat pocket and brought out a small plastic-wrapped package with a digital timer attached to the top. Moving swiftly, with practiced ease, he set the timer for twenty seconds, triggered it, and set the package on the desk — just below the racks of Burke's computer and communications equipment. The digital readout began counting down.
Terce stepped carefully around the CIA officer's body and out into the narrow hallway. Behind him, the timer hit zero. With a soft whoosh and a sudden white incandescent flash, the incendiary device he had planted detonated. Satisfied, he walked outside and pulled the front door closed behind him.
Then he turned. Flames were already visible through the nearly closed drapes of the study window, dancing and growing as they spread rapidly across the furniture, books, equipment, and bodies inside. He punched in a preset number on his cell phone and waited patiently for the reply.
“Make your report,” ordered the same calm voice he had heard earlier.
“Your instructions have been carried out,” Terce told him. “The Americans will find only smoke and ashes — and evidence of their own complicity. As ordered, my team and I are returning to the Center at once.”
Several thousand miles away, sitting in a cool, darkened room, the man called Lazarus smiled. “Very good,” he said gently. Then he swung back to watch the data streaming in from Paris.
PART FOUR
