Arctic Gold

Richardson was not in sight.

God! Benford was close to screaming with frustration and growing panic. Where had Richardson gone? A moment later, though, the door opened again and Richardson reentered the garage, carrying another armload of frozen meat from the ice locker outside. Benford almost sagged with relief. “Richardson!…”

Richardson heard him, saw Larson on the floor under a spill of heavy crates, and came at a run.

“Jesus, Harry! What happened?”

As Richardson pulled one of the crates off of Larson’s twitching form, Benford brought the Beretta up in one smooth motion and squeezed the trigger.

The explosion of sound momentarily silenced the dogs, but as Richardson toppled backward, they began barking more wildly than ever, the noise so shrill it almost masked the second shot.

Richardson collapsed in an awkward sprawl.

His eyes wild, Benford looked from one man to the other, checking the scene, looking for loose ends. Okay… this would work. Just one more thing, the final and convincing argument…

He pushed the muzzle of the handgun against his upper arm, trying to position it in such a way that it would miss the bone. He needed a flesh wound as a convincer. He hesitated, though, fearing the pain, fearing even more what would happen if this went wrong.

Squeezing his eyes tight, he tried to make himself pull the trigger… tried… failed… then tried again. Damn it, he had to do this…

The third shot came as a complete surprise. Almost, he’d decided to try to get by with the story alone, without the self-inflicted wound, but then his finger slipped and the gun went off. To his surprise, there was little pain, at least at first, but it felt as though someone had just slammed a hammer against his arm. The shock staggered him, and he dropped to his knees.

Don’t lose it, he told himself. Focus! Focus!

He had a handkerchief in his pocket. For a moment, he was stumped, needing to wipe down the pistol but suddenly aware that his left arm and hand simply weren’t working. He managed to get the cloth free, however, and wiped the oily surface of the weapon. He doubted anyone would be in a position to check for fingerprints up here, but he wasn’t taking any chances. The gun wiped clean, he dropped it on the floor next to Larson, then pocketed the handkerchief.

A final check. Larson and Richardson had been arguing about here. Larson had drawn his weapon and shot Richardson twice, killing him. Benford had seen it all happen and had picked up the pry bar… from that shelf. Larson had shot at him but only wounded him just as Benford had swung, knocking Larson out.

Yeah. It all fitted.

Golytsin hadn’t told him how to carry out the murder, of course, but had stressed that whatever Benford did, he had to make it look as though one of the NOAA officers had killed one of the Greenworlders. Everything, Golytsin had told Benford, depended on his making the scene look convincing.

Larson was still alive. Benford could hear him trying to breathe through the blood still pouring from his savaged nose. Benford considered hitting Larson again, killing him… but decided that would be harder to explain. Then… damn! The gun belt! He’d almost missed that detail, almost forgotten. Stooping, he slid the belt under Larson’s torso, immediately wishing he’d remembered to do this before he’d shot himself in the arm.

Finally, though, the belt was on, and Benford was able to click it shut with one hand. His left arm was starting to hurt now, a dull, throbbing ache, and blood was starting to seep through his parka. It felt like he might have hit the bone after all. He was starting to feel dizzy. Fishing out the handerchief again, he pressed it over the seeping wound.

Benford took a couple of minutes to collect himself, breathing hard… then made his way to the door and banged out into the cold.

It was snowing harder now as he raced back to the main building.

“Help! Everyone, help! Murder! Help!…”

11

City Morgue London 1045 hours GMT

CHARLIE DEAN FOLLOWED EVANS and the morgue attendant deeper into the chill of the morgue. Fluorescent lights hung overhead, and the green-painted concrete block walls added a depressing air to the place. The attendant walked up to one of the stainless-steel doors in one wall, checked his clipboard, then opened the vault and hauled the steel slab into the room.

They already had Karr in a black body bag, the zipper halfway open, the man’s eyes staring up at the lighting fixtures overhead. Some cold inner part of Dean was operating on pure automatic, letting him note the wounds-a number of deeply purpled bruises around half a dozen holes in his friend’s chest and upper abdomen, and a terrible gash that had opened the left side of his throat from jaw to collarbone.

Christ…

“That’s him,” Dean said simply. He looked up at the attendant. “I’d like to see his effects, too, if I may.”

The morgue attendant shrugged and nodded. “Sure thing.” He seemed to be nothing so much as bored and… was he chewing gum?

“Friend of yours?” Evans asked as Karr’s body slid soundlessly back into the recesses of the locker.

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry. He seemed like a good chap.”

“What the hell is that?” Dean demanded. “British understatement?”

“I only met him a few moments before the attack,” Evans said. His mouth twisted unpleasantly. “The two of us were joking about the Boston Tea Party.”

Dean drew a deep breath. Evans had met him at the airport and driven him into London late last night, putting him up in a hotel a short walk from the Tower of London and just across the river from the bizarre black egg of a building where Tommy Karr had been killed. However much Dean wanted to lash out at someone, it wasn’t Evans’ fault that Tommy was lying dead on a morgue slab.

“I’m… sorry,” Dean said. “Didn’t mean to snap.”

“Not a problem. I know what it’s like to lose a mate.”

Yes, I imagine you probably do, Dean thought, but he said nothing. As one of the senior British officers at the Menwith Hill listening station, Evans had been on the front lines of European SIGINT for a good many years. Listening in on other people’s radio and telephone conversations didn’t seem like a dangerous occupation, but over the years there had been all too many incidents.

People had died. Good people, like Tommy.

“ ’Ere’s his kit, sir,” the attendant said around the wad of gum. He gestured toward a table with several plastic-wrapped packages on it. “We bagged it and tagged it, like we was told.”

“Thank you.” Dean sorted through the packages, wondering what he was looking for. Karr’s shoulder holster and Beretta were in one bag, his wallet, a set of house keys, two pens, some loose change in another, wristwatch and sunglasses in a separate bag. Same for his passport, an airline weapons permit, an FBI ID card, a driver’s license, and a number of pocketed receipts. Karr, Dean knew, never wore jewelry, rings, or other accoutrements unless they were needed for a particular legend on an op. One bag held a small collection of technological odds and ends… a cell phone; a fiber-optic lead; what appeared to be a PDA; a couple of button-sized objects that Dean recognized as small, sticky-backed surveillance cameras; the clip-on microphone Karr would have been wearing beneath his shirt collar, a part of his personal communications hookup with the Art Room.

A few of the tools of the trade.

His clothing made up a rather larger bundle. Slacks, coiled-up belt, shoes, socks, underwear. Shirt, tie, and jacket, all of them soaked with dark blood.

Keeping his emotions firmly in check, Dean reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a PDA identical to the