has arrived from Montreal, I don’t think these guys will be changing plans.”
“Well, they must
“They may know we’re tailing them, but they’ve got a destination. This is the way to Kurmastan,” Emmerick replied, shaking out a stick of gum and unwrapping it. “And if this Hummer isn’t going there, it may take us to someplace new, which means it’s someplace we should know about.”
“Yeah,” Leight grunted. “Like the Slurpee counter at the 7-Eleven.”
“Okay, so they stopped at a convenience store,” Emmerick snapped the stale stick of gum and popped it into his mouth. “Get over it. Everybody’s got to take a piss sooner or later. Even terrorists.”
Leight gripped the steering wheel. “I just wish I’d had the chance to grab a hot dog. I haven’t eaten since last night.
Good food, too — Val’s a great cook. You should take me up on my invite, come on over for dinner some night.”
“You two are getting married next month, aren’t you?”
“Right, but it’s the honeymoon I’m looking forward too.” Leight grinned. “You’re invited. Remember?”
“To the honeymoon?”
Leight smirked. “You wish. You got the invitation, didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I’ll check with Bettina. She’s got her hands full lately. Our au pair went back to Ireland, and now she’s trying to take care of the twins and her keep her freelance business going. And, by the way, for future reference, the
‘terrible twos’ aren’t a myth. Want some gum?” Emmerick held out the pack.
Leight took a stick. “So this guy we’re tailing. You said his name’s Amadani. But you didn’t know it was him we were waiting for, right?”
“Right.”
“Yet you recognized him?”
Emmerick nodded. The second he saw Amadani at bag-gage claim — five-eleven male, late forties, gray hair, scar on his left cheek — he’d ID’d him.
“You mentioned an alias, too,” said Leight.
“Yeah,” said Emmerick. “Amadani’s an Afghani who fought the Soviets as a boy. That’s where he got his nick-name—‘the Hawk.’ A few years back, he was convicted for selling a million dollars’ worth of black market ciga- rettes with phony tax stamps out of a warehouse in Wayne, New Jersey. He hooked up with our boys in Kurmastan during his prison term. After he was paroled, he skipped the country. Since then, he’s turned up in Madrid, Hamburg, London. And every time he appears, a terror attack follows inside of a week.”
Leight’s eyebrows rose. “And you know all that how?”
“Because I busted him, just like half the other punks in Kurmastan. You’ve only been my partner for what, eight months? I had a whole life before I took on your sorry rookie ass.”
Leight cracked the window, spit out his gum. “Forgot,”
he said. “I don’t like Juicy Fruit.” He glanced at Emmerick. “Those guys in Kurmastan, they really bother you, don’t they?”
“Sure,” said Emmerick. “You’re talking about a whole town full of felons, guys I spent the past twenty years trying to lock up. Now they’re free again and up to no damned good.” He shook his head. “It’s pushing the same rock up the same hill all over again.”
Leight snorted. “Don’t get your underwear bunched, Sisyphus. We’ll lock them up again, maybe forever this time.”
Emmerick peered through the dust-flecked window.
“Watch. He’s turning again.”
“Great. This road looks worse than the last one.”
“Lay back, but don’t lose him.”
“I’ll try, but it’s too bad the packages separated into two Hummers. It would have been better if Foy could have come with us. We could have traded off. It would have been harder for them to make us.”
Emmerick didn’t reply. Back at the airport, he hadn’t been able to ID the man who’d been traveling with the Hawk, and that bothered him. Fortunately CTU Agent Judith Foy was there to tail the unknown man, while he and Leight had stayed with the Hawk.
Up ahead, the black Hummer made its turn and suddenly sped up, trailing a cloud of dust. Doug Leight hit the gas, swerved the Saturn onto a narrow road.
Emmerick held on. The road was so pitted, it rattled the fillings in his mouth. He looked ahead; the Hummer crested a low hill between two rows of trees, and vanished from sight.
“Hurry. Don’t lose him.”
The Saturn crested the hill a moment later — and Emmerick saw the Hummer. The huge vehicle had come to a dead stop. It sat in the middle of the road, just over the rise.
“Holy shit!” Doug Leight cried, slamming on the brakes.
The Saturn skidded to a halt, not six inches from the Hummer’s rear bumper. The billowing cloud of dust that trailed the Saturn rolled over it. When it settled, Emmerick saw a large, brown van had pulled up behind them. He glanced at the trees bordering the road on both sides — no escape there.
“We’re boxed in,” he said, reaching for his weapon.
Before he could pull it free, the Saturn’s windows blew inward.
A hail of automatic weapons fire ripped through the vehicle’s thin aluminum skin. Gaping holes appeared in the doors, the roof. Headlights shattered in a shower of sparks. The hood flew open, and bullets pinged off the engine block.
In the front seat, the two FBI agents were struck dozens of times by the flying bullets, their bodies convulsing as they died. The invisible attackers continued to fire, bursting tires and blowing off a hubcap.
Finally, the volley ceased. In the sudden silence, three men in camouflage fatigues carrying AK–47s emerged from the trees and approached the shattered car.
An engine gunned, and the Hummer that carried the Hawk sped away. The brown van slammed into the Saturn’s rear bumper and pushed the smoking car down the hill, through a wooden fence, and into a muddy pond.
Wild ducks scattered. The car hissed when it hit the water, steam billowing up from under the hood. It gurgled and bubbled in the muck, then finally slipped beneath the pond’s brackish green surface.
The man with the gold teeth and two others burst through the office door. One man wore a waiter’s uniform and clutched an Uzi. The other wore kitchen whites and gripped a meat cleaver. They stopped dead when they saw Fredo Mangella slumped in the leather chair.
The Albino released the woman. Sobbing, she stumbled to the desk and dropped to her knees beside the corpse.
“This bastard killed your boss,” the Albino rasped.
Jack didn’t say a word. Instead, he focused his attention on the Glock, and the laptop beside it.
“Son of a bitch,” Gold Teeth snarled, cuffing Jack across the face with the butt of the police special. Jack stumbled, but didn’t go down. The urge to strike back was strong, but Jack resisted it, biding his time.
“Petey, go downstairs and lock the front door,” Gold Teeth said, eyeing Bauer. “Me and Dom will take care of this bastard.”
The man with the meat cleaver left, and Jack eyeballed Gold Teeth. “I saw you in the cab. You tried to kill me today. Why? Who paid you?” Jack demanded.
“Time for me to go,” said the Albino, scooping up Jack’s Glock. “I have an appointment elsewhere.”
“Hey, wait a minute, Whitey,” Gold Teeth said. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
“My business was with your boss,” the Albino said. “I don’t deal with underlings.”
The waiter with the Uzi frowned, eyes on the Albino as he headed for the door. Gold Teeth grabbed the man’s arm—
And Jack lashed out. With his left, Jack backhanded the Uzi out of the waiter’s grip. Then he stepped in with
