and crowbar.
Little by little, they exposed the core of the pedestal. Finally, there was an opening big enough to reach through. Ryan had the longest arm and he stuck his hand down and grabbed hold of a bag, but he couldn't get it through the hole they had made.
'There's something in here,' he said. 'Get some more bricks out.'
They worked until finally the hole was large enough and Ryan could pull out a large canvas sack. They rewarded the find with tight smiles.
'Let'sget inside,' Kaz said, his eyes searching the perimeter as they moved back into the house and closed the door.
Even with binoculars, the Ghost could see only the front door through a growth of ficus trees on the west side of the property. He had decided the best way to eliminate all four was to get them into the taxi and take them all out at once. He looked at Yossi Rot and Akmad Jarrar.
'I'm gonna move up and see if we can snipe at them through the windows,' the Ghost said. 'That oughta get 'em moving. Yossi, once the cab starts to move, blow it. When it goes, we gotta be out of here in seconds.'
The Ghost moved to the Mitsubishi, opened the trunk, and took out a blue steel Charter Arms Explorer-II.22- caliber pistol. He thought it was almost as ugly as the old broom-handle Mausers, but the Explorer-II was surprisingly easy to handle. The Ghost liked it because it could be silenced without distorting the shot. He secured the eight-inch silencer onto the threaded barrel, grabbed the twenty-five-shot ramline clip full of dumdums, and slammed it in. Then he attached the scope. He turned his ball cap backward, then jumped the wall, and moved toward the house.
In the living room, they examined the contents of the bag while Kaz kept an eye on the yard through the plate-glass window. The audiotapes, big and unwieldy, were on six-inch plastic reels. Cole remembered the old reel-to-reel odd-size tape recorders from the seventies. There was also some 16-millimeter film on four 800-foot reels. None of it was labeled. Cole held one of the reels up so he could try to see who made them, hoping it was government issue. 'I'm really gonna feel like an asshole if these are movies of some kid's birthday party.' The light wasn't very good on the far side of the living room, so he moved to the plate-glass window.
Just then, Kaz caught a flash of movement out beyond the pool. Then he saw the Ghost step out from behind a low wall on the far side of the pool with a deadly-looking scoped pistol. Flame shot from the muzzle.
'No!' Kaz yelled, throwing himself in front of Cole, pushing him as the window shattered and they both went down in a shower of glass.
Ryan leaped over the sofa and landed on his bad leg. It crumbled and he rolled on his shoulder. Regaining his feet, he grabbed the draperies and yanked them across the gaping opening, cutting off the Ghost's field of vision.
Cole was sitting up, a puzzled look on his face. He had blood all over him. He looked down at it, dazed, then slowly realized it wasn't his.
Kaz was lying on the floor, his legs splayed out in front of him. Blood was coursing out of a huge hole in his chest. He had taken the.22-caliber dumdum in the back. It had broken up on impact. The fragments traveled through his upper lung at the manufacturer's guaranteed velocity and exited in a five-inch pattern right below his collar bone. The wound was pulsating with thick arterial blood, draining Kaz's life down his shirt and onto the floor. Ryan pulled the Desert Eagle, scrambled to the window, and cracked open drapes. He saw nobody out there.
'Get a towel,' Cole screamed, and Lucinda ran to the bathroom and grabbed some bath towels. On her way back., from the hall window she saw the man who had called himself Jerry Paradise running down the driveway, a baseball cap on backward. She ran into the darkened living room and thrust the towels at Cole.
'I saw him running down the driveway! It was him, Ryan. . It was Jerry Paradise!'
'Leaking like a Mexican fishing boat, ain't I?' Kaz's speech was coming slowly.
'Why'd you do that? Why'd you do that!' Cole kept saying over and over.
'I ain't gonna make it. Goin' to the big Howard Johnson's. .'
'Bullshit,' Cole said, desperately.
'Get the car into the garage. Get me in. . I'll smash into 'em. Give you a chance.' He was talking through clenched teeth.
'No, no, you're going with us,' Lucinda said. 'Dyin',' Kaz said, slowly. 'Got one thing left to do. . '
Cole had been in the Marines and there was a moral commandment that you didn't leave a soldier in the field to be scavenged by the enemy.
Kaz knew what Cole was thinking, so he pulled his backup piece and pointed the nine-millimeter Beretta weakly at them. 'You get the car.' Kaz knew they had one chance to win the game, but he was running out of time. He could feel the strength draining from him. 'Do it,' he said, thumbing back the hammer.
Ryan looked at the dying ex-fed. Something caught in his throat. He couldn't let Kaz die, but he knew he was powerless to save him. All he could do was grant his last wish.
'I'll get the cab,' Ryan said.
'You got a bad leg,' Cole said.
'Even with a bum wheel, I'm faster.' Ryan knew the keys were still in the taxi, so he threw open the front door and ran the short distance across the drive, keeping the car between him and the bottom of the driveway. His leg was throbbing, but as long as he ran straight, it felt pretty solid. He dove into the cab, got the engine going, then backed it into the open garage, and hit the automatic door closer. The garage door came down, cutting the open drive from view.
The Ghost saw the garage door coming down through his binoculars. He summoned Yossi and Akmad. 'They're gonna be coming out. Get ready.'
Yossi held the detonator and they waited.
Ryan and Cole got Kaz into the front seat of the car. He was propped behind the wheel and looked frighteningly pale. When he coughed, blood oozed through the towel they had pressed over the wound.
'Move over, I'm going with you,' Ryan said
'Listen, damn it. We got what we came for. Mickey's plan is history.' His voice was now a faint whisper. They had to lean in to hear him. 'This is for our country,' he said proudly.
They could take his badge and his life's work, but they would never change what he was inside. He just wanted good to triumph over evil.
'Let's get it done.' He faced forward, leaning against the door as Cole turned the ignition. Then, with the taxi idling, Kaz looked at Lucinda. 'Gimme your cell,' he croaked. There was a death rattle now. His lungs were filling with blood.
She handed him the phone and he punched in the area code and the number for his beeper which was jammed into the C4 directly under him. 'That's my sister's number. Tell her I love her,' he said and hit the send button on the phone. He handed it back to Lucinda and then, with his eyes half-closed, floored the gas pedal and drove right through the wooden garage door, turning it into splinters.
Lucinda could hear the cell phone dialing. She was holding it stupidly in front of her as she watched the taxi speed down the driveway. She heard some clicks and then a cable hiss.
The signal shot through the transatlantic cable at the speed of light.
Kaz drove sloppily, his head spinning, his eyes blurring, his hands numb and lighter than air.
The phone call was relayed in Denver and streaked off toward Las Vegas where it went to the FBI Western Regional Exchange, then was routed up to the Telstar geosynchronous satellite that transmitted to all federal agents working in the Northern Hemisphere.
Kaz saw the Mitsubishi parked with three men standing near it at the end of the driveway. Yossi pointed his detonator at the car and Kaz saw him push the button. Nothing happened.
The Telstar satellite shot its ten-volt message down from space toward Kaz's beeper under the stolen taxi just as it jumped the low curb on the driveway and bounced through the trees heading for the Mitsubishi. The three men were scrambling to get into the car when Kaz accelerated. He T-boned the door, rocking the Mitsubishi up on two wheels. The Ghost raised his Explorer-II and fired a strea m o f.22-caliber yellow jackets into Kaz's face, turning his head to red mist.
'You flicker,' the Ghost said, his heart racing. He was wondering what to do next.
The decision had already been made for him.
Kaz's beeper rang.
