roughly in his direction.
He shook his head. “I haven’t gone loco, Sam. Not yet anyway.”
“Convince me.” Farrell’s voice was strained.
“I’ll let Deputy Assistant Director Mcdowell here do my convincing for me.” Thorn caught a glimpse of Helen out of the corner of his eye.
Still ashen-faced, she was working her way around to Farrell’s blind side. Christ, they were all teetering on a knife edge. He cleared his throat. “Stay where you are, Helen.”
She stopped moving.
Thorn turned his full attention back to Mcdowell. “Now then, let’s have a little talk, okay? The rules are simple: I ask you questions and you answer them. If you don’t answer, I blow your head off. If you lie to me, I blow your head off. If you tell me the truth, I let you live — at least for a little while longer.”
He prodded the FBI agent’s temple with the pistol. “Do you understand these rules, Mr. Mcdowell?”
Eyes still wide, the other man hurriedly bobbed his head up and down.
“Very good.” Thorn smiled grimly, hiding the fact that he felt sick to his stomach. Torture was against every code of justice and moral law he’d ever been taught. And this came right to the very edge of torture — and maybe even slipped over the edge. Only the memory of seeing Helen apparently helpless and down on one knee on that blood-soaked street in Wilhelmshaven stiffened his resolve.
“First question,” he said. “You’re not taking us to meet with an FBI surveillance team, are you?”
Mcdowell licked his lips, wincing as his tongue ran across the gash Thorn’s fist had torn. “Of course I am —”
“Wrong answer.” Thorn tightened his finger on the trigger.
Mcdowell flinched. “Wait!”
Thorn eased up. “You want to try again?” Seeing the other man nod frantically, he asked, “Where were you taking us?”
The FBI agent hesitated, felt the pistol prod his temple again, and reluctantly admitted, “To a field outside Chantilly.”
“And who’s waiting for us there?”
Mcdowell’s voice dropped off to a whisper. “A man named Wolf.”
“Heinrich Wolf?” Farrell asked, clearly taken aback.
Mcdowell nodded abjectly.
Thorn looked down at the other man in disgust. “And what did Herr Wolf plan to do … in that field outside Chantilly?”
“Kill you,” the FBI agent mumbled. He hung his head, utterly defeated now.
“Christ!” Farrell exploded. He slid the Beretta back into his holster. “Looks like I owe you a big apology, Pete.”
Thorn shook his head. “None needed, Sam.”
Helen stalked forward, drawing closer to the kneeling Mcdowell. Her lip curled in disdain. “Who’s in that other car parked down the block?
More of Wolf’s men?”
“What other car?” Mcdowell said, plainly bewildered. “Farrell and I came alone. I swear it!”
She stared down at him. “You really are an idiot, aren’t you? Didn’t it ever occur to you that Wolf wants you dead, too? That once he’d finished us off, you’d have outlived your usefulness?”
Thorn watched the realization sink in on Mcdowell’s sweating face. He caught the raw smell of alcohol under the sweat now. The FBI agent paled even further. He leaned forward again.
“Now that we’re all on the same page, Larry, let’s take this from the top, shall we?”
Then, step by step, question by question, he dragged the whole sordid story out of the other man. How Mcdowell had sold his soul to the Stasi for a little hard cash years before. How Wolf had blackmailed him in Moscow — forcing him to feed the German information on the ongoing crash investigation. How he’d followed Wolf’s instructions to blacken Helen’s and Thorn’s names with the FBI and other government agencies every chance he got. The one thing he didn’t know was whether or not the German was the top dog in this criminal organization. He’d never had any contact with Prince Ibrahim al Saud.
When Thorn was through, he pulled the pistol back from the FBI agent’s temple and decocked it. Mcdowell swayed and slumped forward onto his hands and knees, head down, panting as though he’d just stumbled over the finish line in a marathon.
Helen stared down at her former boss in cold contempt. “You fucking little weasel! I’m going to look forward to seeing you in prison for the rest of your life.” She looked up at Thorn and Farrell.
“What do we do now?”
“Take him to the FBI?” Farrell wondered.
Helen considered Farrell’s suggestion, then shook her head no.
“Somehow I doubt that Larry here will be quite as cooperative without a gun pressed to his head. Then it comes down to his word against ours... and he’s stacked the deck there.”
Farrell nodded slowly.
“There’s only one thing we can do,” Thorn said quietly. “Herr Wolf has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange a reception for us near Chantilly. Let’s at least meet him halfway.”
Max Harzer watched the four Americans emerge from the town house and climb into the FBI agent Mcdowell’s dark blue Ford Taurus. With one hand, he lifted his cellular phone from the seat beside him and punched in Reichardt’s number. The other hand turned the key in the ignition.
“Yes.” It was Reichardt. There was no disguising that clipped, authoritative voice.
“This is Harzer, sir. They’re on the way.”
“All of them?” Reichardt asked.
“Yes, sir.” Harzer watched the Americans drive past him, then put his own vehicle in gear. “The woman is driving.”
He pulled out onto the street and turned after them.
“Very good, Harzer,” Reichardt said. “But stay well back. There’s no point in spooking the prey so close to the snare. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” The German reduced his speed slightly, careful to keep three or four other cars between his and the Americans’ vehicle.
“Keep me informed.”
The phone cut off. Harzer put it down on the seat again and concentrated on his driving. Ideally, he would have had a partner in the car to help keep the Americans in sight, but with the Operation so close to completion all of Reichardt’s available manpower was fully committed.
He followed the Americans onto Connecticut Avenue heading south, trailed them around Dupont Circle, out onto New Hampshire Avenue, into Washington Circle, and then down 23rd Street. Harzer was four car lengths behind when Mcdowell’s vehicle shot ahead through a yellow light that turned red before he could cross the intersection.
He dialed the phone again.
“Report.”
“I’ve lost them, sir,” Harzer said, quickly explaining what had happened.
“Was their action deliberate?” Reichardt asked.
The German thought back. Since arriving in America he’d noticed that most drivers seemed to view a yellow light the way a Spanish bull saw a red cape. He doubted that the woman Gray was any different. “No, sir. I don’t believe so.”
The light turned green again.
“And they were still headed for the Roosevelt Bridge?”
Harzer nodded into the phone. “Yes, sir. With no sign of any deviation. They should be almost on the bridge now.”
“Then carry on, Harzer. You ought to pick them up again on Route 50. Reichardt out.”
