“Go home, son,” Bradford said. “Get some rest. It looks like it’s been awhile since you’ve slept.”
Bradford wasn’t as confident as he had pretended to be with Levy. He was in an extremely vulnerable position, and the only way to negate that vulnerability was to do something he hated to do. He stood up and walked away from his desk, looked briefly out the window, then turned and looked at the photos and plaques on the wall behind his desk-the wall that told the story of his life.
There were photos of him at various stages of his career, from cadet at West Point to chief of the army. He was shown receiving medals, posed with other army generals, and shaking hands with four U.S. presidents. But it was the battlefield photos that meant the most to him: photos with combat troops-his troops-in every arena where the army had waged war in the last thirty-five years. In the center of the wall was the photo he loved the most, the photo that had appeared on the cover of Time magazine-the photo that launched his career and defined his life.
It had been taken when he was a second lieutenant in Vietnam, just after the battle for which he’d been awarded the Silver Star. The photographer had captured him in a shot that made it appear as if he was just stepping out of the jungle, pushing his way through an almost impenetrable wall of green foliage. His head was bandaged, the left sleeve of his shirt was missing and his left arm was bandaged from shoulder to elbow. In his right hand he carried an M-16. He was tall and lean and muscular, and his face was smudged with camo paint. And while he looked gaunt and haggard-when the photo had been taken he hadn’t slept in three days-his strength and his determination were evident in the grim set of his mouth and in his eyes. He was, in that photo, the nightmare warrior that no enemy would want to face.
His eyes moved from the Time cover to one of him standing next to Colin Powell when Powell occupied the chairman’s office. He had always liked Powell and had publicly supported him, but he’d always known that Powell wasn’t a Patton or a MacArthur-or a Bradford. The difference between those generals and Powell was that Powell didn’t have the stomach to willingly sacrifice a battalion if it meant winning a major battle, whereas men like Patton and himself had that sort of bloody resolve. It was this same quality that caused Lincoln to ultimately chose Grant over his other generals because Grant accepted that thousands of his own men would have to die to reunite the country. And it was not that men like Grant or Patton had been callous or unfeeling. They cared deeply for their soldiers-just as Charles Bradford cared deeply for every man and woman who wore an American uniform-but they understood that preserving a nation was more important than preserving the life of any one person, no matter how much you might love that person.
Bradford returned to his desk and picked up the phone.
Dillon smiled as he listened to Bradford’s phone call.
He was a lucky man. The button bug DeMarco had dropped on the carpet in Bradford’s office was battery- powered and would stop operating in the next half hour. Fortunately, Bradford had met with Levy before the battery died, and he made the phone call as soon as Levy left his office.
Someone had once said that it was better to be lucky than good-and Dillon was both lucky and good.
The most interesting thing about the discussion he’d just listened to between Levy and Bradford was that Bradford never told Levy that DeMarco knew who Levy was and knew what Levy had done.
Yes, it was good to be lucky. But was he lucky enough?
“Do you understand, Alice?” Dillon said.
“Yes,” Alice said.
Alice was so wooden. Claire could be just as ruthless as Alice, maybe more so, but at least Claire showed some emotion. Not this young lady, though. She was a machine. She was his Terminator.
“You can’t lose sight of either man, not for an instant. Use as many people as you think you need.”
“I won’t lose them,” Alice said.
“And the timing has to be perfect. Absolutely perfect.”
“I understand,” Alice said.
“I wouldn’t normally ask you to do something like this but-well, with what’s at stake…”
“I said I understand, sir.”
Dillon had been reluctant to tell Alice everything that he and Claire knew but finally decided he had to.
“I mean, what Charles Bradford is doing-”
“Dillon, for God’s sake,” Claire said. “She gets it.”
40
It was after midnight when Levy pulled into the parking lot of a small four-story apartment building in Alexandria. He had a two-bedroom unit on the second floor and had lived there for three years. He could have afforded something better but had never seen the need. The apartment was just a place where he slept and occasionally ate. The only reason he had a second bedroom was that he needed space to store his books, all history books, and most of them about the Vietnam War-the war in which he’d lost his father and his brother. He had promised himself that one day he would travel to Vietnam and see the places where they had fought-the places where they’d vanished from the earth.
Alpha, do you have Sentry?
Roger that.
Bravo, do you have Viper?
Roger that. He’s still sitting in his car.
Very well. Stand by.
Levy was exhausted. He didn’t go home after meeting with Bradford, as he’d been ordered, but had continued to hunt for DeMarco. The general had said that finding DeMarco was no longer a priority, yet Levy thought it would be prudent to locate the man. But he failed. Again. He had barely slept in the last two days and if he didn’t get out of his car in the next minute, he’d fall asleep right where he was sitting.
This is Alpha. Sentry is exiting his vehicle.
This is Bravo. Viper is now exiting his vehicle. Viper is approaching Sentry.
Bravo. Alpha. Execute as briefed.
Roger that.
Levy inserted his key into the lock-and at that instant a bullet smashed into the door, next to his head, shattering the glass. He dropped to the ground and rolled away from the door while simultaneously reaching for his Colt. His reflexes were dulled by fatigue and he fumbled clumsily for the automatic as he tried to pull it from its holster. And he was totally exposed. There was absolutely nothing near the doorway to use for cover. Nothing.
Still rolling on the ground and still struggling to clear his weapon, he saw a man standing in the parking lot holding a silenced semiautomatic pistol in his hand. He couldn’t see the man’s face clearly because of the lighting, but he could see that the man, at least momentarily, wasn’t looking at him. For some reason the man who had just missed his head with a bullet was looking over his shoulder, as if he’d heard someone behind him. Levy thought for an instant that he might be able to return fire, but then the man once again aimed his weapon at him.
John Levy knew he was going to die.
And then he heard the spitting sound of a weapon equipped with a silencer, and the man who’d been about to kill him dropped to the ground.
Who fired the last shot? And who the hell had been trying to kill him?
Levy sat there, his back against the wall of his apartment building, holding his gun now, breathing hard, scanning the parking lot and the surrounding buildings. He couldn’t see anyone, but he knew someone was out there.
Finally, he rose to his feet, his gun still in his hand. He was no longer worried about dying, however. The person who fired the last shot obviously didn’t want to kill him or he would have done so by now.
He walked over to the man lying on the ground. He knew the man-and he couldn’t believe who it was. He didn’t understand what was going on.
“Mr. Levy, please holster your weapon.” It was a woman speaking, but he couldn’t see her.
“Mr. Levy, we don’t want to kill you, so please holster your weapon. I’m going to show myself now, but if you raise your weapon you will be shot.”
