Читать книгу Treason Play - Don Pendleton - Страница 13

I can’t stay here! The thought boomed in Tamara Gillen’s head and jolted her into action. She stepped away from her window and grabbed a handful of the curtain, ready to pull it closed. She stopped herself.

React and they’ll know you’re on to them, she thought. If they know that, they’ll move and be on you in a heartbeat. Then what?

She glided away from the window, and made her way down the hall to her bedroom. Inhaling deeply, she held the breath for a couple of seconds, exhaled heavily, hoping it would calm her racing mind and equally rapid heartbeat. It did neither.

Concentrate on what you know, she told herself. When she’d arrived home earlier, she’d spotted two men positioned on the sidewalk across the street from her building. She’d recognized the bigger of the two immediately. She’d seen him skulking around Lang’s building on at least one occasion. The man looked like he’d come straight from central casting for a thug—wide shoulders and chest, thick hair gleaming from hair gel, and a white scar that bisected his forehead.

“He shouldn’t be here,” Lang had told her at the time.

“Who is he?”

“Never mind,” Lang had replied through clenched teeth. “Just take my word for it, he shouldn’t be here.”

But her instincts had told her to press him. “What do you mean, Terry? Who is he?”

“Just trust me and stop with the Q&A.” His voice had sounded strange to Gillen, a quiet menace tinged with fear. Uncharacteristically, he’d avoided looking into her eyes. The memory caused a shiver to travel down her spine. She’d heard Lang angry before. In fact, he often seemed to swing between a boisterous charm that attracted people to him and a righteous anger that made him an unwavering opponent in an argument, even when he was dead wrong.

But the fear, that was seared into her memory. Lang never, ever, showed fear. Sure, a shrink may have argued that his in-your-face confidence masked a hurt, vulnerable little boy, provided a bandage for his wounded psyche. And Gillen would have told that shrink he was full of it, right up until she’d heard the fear and the distress in Lang’s voice.

So, yeah, she’d dropped the discussion at the time. Now she regretted it.

Lang was long gone and this creep had found her. She had no idea who he was, what he was capable of or why he wanted anything to do with her.

“Thanks, Terry,” she muttered.

Inside her bedroom, she made her way to the dresser, yanked open the top drawer and rummaged through bras, panties and socks stuffed inside. Where the hell was it? Finally her fingertips grazed smooth, cold steel. She hesitated for a moment, but then used her fingers to rake back the clothing until she could see the gray metal box at the bottom of the drawer. Taking the box from the drawer, she carried it over to her unmade bed, swept aside the wadded sheets to clear herself a spot and sat on the edge of the mattress. Perching the box on her knees, she used her thumb and index finger to work the dial on the combination lock until the final tumbler fell.

The lid came up and she studied the contents of the box. A small stack of bills—mostly U.S. dollars—secured with a rubber band lay at a forty-five-degree angle on top of her passport. She removed both items and set them next to her thigh on the mattress. A .25-caliber automatic pistol was the next item she took out, along with two clips for the weapon. She balanced the gun in her palm and scowled. It wasn’t much, but it fit her hand well and was easily hidden. Finally she removed a silver key and slipped it into the hip pocket of her snug jeans. Sealing the box, she set it on the bed and stood.

The cash, gun and passport all were items she’d started keeping years ago, a ritual that began when she’d been a foreign correspondent in Sierra Leone and again while covering clashes between the Israelis and Hezbollah. When she’d been a green reporter, an editor had told her to carry enough cash to bribe public officials or to buy an airline ticket. And if that didn’t work, well, that was why she’d carried the gun, though she’d never used it on anything except tin cans, paper targets and an occasional watermelon.

She scanned the room. Should she pack her clothes? No time. It was best for her to simply get the hell out of the apartment, get out into the open where people would see if something happened to her. She could take a cab to the Messenger’s office and surround herself with colleagues and friends. It may not make her safer, but it at least would make her feel safer, which was no small thing. And she might be able to dig up some more information. Maybe someone had heard from Terry or they might know something about the key.

Her cell phone beeped and the sudden, sharp noise in the midst of silence caused her heart to skip a beat. By the third ring, she’d regained her breath and shook her head disgustedly at her edginess.

“Tammy, it’s Kellogg.”

It was Mike Kellogg, the Messenger’s bureau chief. The sound of a familiar voice should have relaxed her. But she heard the tension in his voice and it only stoked more fear in her.

“Mike, what’s going on?”

“Terry’s gone.”

She hesitated for a moment and said, “I know.”

“You knew? What the hell. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What’s the big deal? You know Terry. He’s like a cat. He disappears, and you don’t see him for a few days and then he resurfaces.”

“This is different,” Kellogg said.

“Different how?”

“Couple of guys came around looking for him. They asked a lot of questions.”

“Questions? Like?”

“Like, had we heard from him? Did we know who he’d been talking to? Where had he gone? They took Bonham into his office for a while and grilled him. He came out of there red-faced and sweating, like he’d run a damn marathon with these bastards.”

“They didn’t identify themselves?”

“Not to me they didn’t. I’m sure they told Bonham who they were, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk after they left. He shut his door and turned on the Do Not Disturb light on his phone. But he looked pretty shook up when it was all said and done.”

“Damn,” she said.

“What?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Last I saw Terry, it was two days ago. He was acting nervous, almost scared.”

“Terry? Bullshit. That guy always was on an even keel.”

“Not this time. Seriously, he was worried. Scared. I never saw anything like it. And now these guys show up looking for him. That worries me.”

“What had him so scared?” Kellogg asked.

“I don’t know for sure.”

“For sure?”

“I mean, I don’t know,” she lied.

“Maybe he just overreacted. The guy was working his ass off. Maybe he just got edgy, a little paranoid. Could happen to anyone.”

“Sure,” Gillen replied, not at all convinced.

“Look, you sound pretty shook up. You at the apartment? How about I come over? It’s no trouble.”

She thought about the two men waiting outside the building for her. On the one hand, it seemed an attractive proposition. Maybe if they saw her leave the building with someone instead of by herself, they’d keep their distance from her. Maybe. Or perhaps they’d just come after Kellogg, too. And that assumed that they’d be content to wait outside until Kellogg arrived, which wasn’t a certainty in and of itself. No, she needed to take care of herself and do it right now.

“I’m fine.”

“Really, it’s no trouble,” Kellogg stated.

“I’m fine,” she repeated, this time in a no-nonsense tone.

“Hey, I can take a hint,” Kellogg said. The good-natured tone of his voice sounded forced. Was he angry or just trying to cover for his wounded ego? At this point, she had no time to worry about such a thing. She needed to act.

“Look,” she said, “I’ll call later. Is that okay?”

“So you’re staying put?”

The question struck her as odd. “Sure,” she said.

They said their goodbyes and hung up.

BOLAN ROLLED UP THE SIDEWALK toward Gillen’s apartment building, a glass-and-steel monstrosity that jutted toward Dubai’s clear, blue skies. He’d been watching the place, getting a feel for the property and its surroundings for an hour. Almost from the moment he’d arrived, he’d been struck by the neighborhood’s Western feel. Gleaming apartment and office buildings lined either side of the street. Restaurants and shops, many of them the same fast-food restaurants and department stores found in the United States, lined the streets. If it wasn’t for traffic and other signs written in Arabic or an occasional group of women, their features obscured behind veils, Bolan could just have easily been in any major U.S. city.

Beneath his black nylon windbreaker, which he wore unzipped, as a small concession to the heat, the soldier carried the Beretta 93-R in a shoulder rig. The Desert Eagle rode on his hip, obscured by the tails of his windbreaker.

It was his second trip around the block now. The two men who’d initially caught his attention still stood in the recessed doorway of a nearby men’s clothing store, both trying to look like they hadn’t noticed Bolan. The bigger of the two men used a handkerchief to dab at the sweat beading on his forehead, then tugged at the collar of his shirt with his index finger to allow some heat to escape from inside his clothing. The man looked miserable.

Though Bolan couldn’t say for sure whether he posed a danger, the man definitely seemed out of place. A second man stood on the corner decked out in blue jeans, a baseball cap and a Hawaiian-style shirt, having an animated conversation on his cell phone. He shot a glance in Bolan’s direction, turned and stared into a glass window behind him, allowing him to monitor the soldier’s approach without looking directly at him.

Two more men, both wearing tan coveralls, with heavy leather tool belts wrapped around their waists, stood next to a panel van parked on the street. A casual glance would peg them as telephone or cable television repairman. But Bolan’s trained eye could see the telltale bulges of a handgun holstered in their armpits beneath their coveralls. One of the fake repairmen, a slender man with bushy muttonchop sideburns, carried an empty canvas satchel over one shoulder.

The soldier took a couple of steps and angled himself so he could get a better look at the van. Behind the wheel, he saw a silhouette with only a part profile visible from his vantage point. Bolan took out a pack of smokes, tapped one into his palm and pocketed the rest. With his other hand, he pulled out his lighter, clicked it open and torched the end of the cigarette. He didn’t smoke much these days, but a cigarette was a convenient prop. Tucking the lighter away, he pulled his baseball cap farther over his eyes and started for Gillen’s building.

One of the men looked up as Bolan approached. The soldier felt his muscles tense, but he didn’t break stride. Instead he continued walking right toward them. The man carrying the satchel looked at his partner and nodded politely as the other man spoke at a rapid tempo, occasionally punctuating the phrase with excited gestures from his hands. Bolan took a drag from the cigarette as he passed. He caught Mr. Sideburns’ eye, gave him a nod and kept moving until he reached the nearest intersection.

The Executioner turned right and rolled down the street, passing the panel van, which now stood to his left, ignoring the driver. Then he walked past the front of Gillen’s apartment building and kept going until he reached a nearby intersection, turned right and headed along the side of the building.

The building had a two-level parking garage beneath it that was accessible from the street. Bolan slipped into the parking garage. As he approached a glass door that led from the ground level of the garage, a woman was exiting the building. Smiling, she held the door open for Bolan. He thanked her and passed through it, stepping into the building’s air-conditioned interior.

He keyed the throat mike.

“Jack?”

“Go, Sarge.”

“There was a phone company van parked outside when I entered the building. How about now?”

“Gone, baby, gone.”

“You see it move?” Bolan asked.

“Yeah. It turned the corner a couple of minutes ago, just after the repair guys disappeared into the building.”

Bolan scowled. “You got it in sight?”

“Affirmative. It’s pulling into the parking garage.”

The soldier stopped and drew the Beretta from beneath his jacket. “Okay, my guess is it’s heading for the sixth floor to pick up the two guys and Gillen.”

“I’ll head that way,” the Stony Man pilot stated.

“Don’t engage unless you have to. They may already know they’ve been identified. Until then, let’s play it cool.”

“Clear. By the way—”

“What?” By now he was on the move again, hugging the walls in the hallway, pressing the Beretta against his thigh to keep it out of sight.

“Couple more guys came in after the chumps in the repair outfits. Maybe two minutes later. Both had been standing on the opposite side of the street, but they converged on the building in unison.”

“Sloppy.”

“Probably,” Grimaldi said. “But they’re probably headed your way.”

Bolan reached the end of the corridor. It branched off in two opposing directions, like the top of a T. Flattening against the wall, he peered around the corner and saw the two repairmen exit the elevator and turn in the direction of Gillen’s apartment. Bolan kept the Beretta low at his side and rounded the corner. He started for the men as they came to a stop in front of Gillen’s apartment.

THE SHARP KNOCK ON THE door startled Tamara Gillen. Who the hell could that be? she wondered. Kellogg? No way. There hadn’t been enough time for him to have traveled from the bureau to her apartment. Uncoiling from the chair, she moved to the door. The .22-caliber pistol was tucked into the waistband of her pants and covered by her shirttails.

“Who is it?” she called before reaching the door.

“Phone company,” a male voice replied.

Reaching the door, she peered through the peephole and saw two men in telephone company uniforms standing outside her door.

“I didn’t call you.”

“Of course you didn’t,” the man said with a laugh, “the phones are down.”

Gillen scowled and walked over to the cordless telephone that stood on a small table in her kitchen that doubled as a desk when she worked from home or paid bills. She returned the phone to its charging base and stared at it for a moment. Her pulse quickened. None of this made sense, she thought. If all the phones were down, why check each apartment? She reached underneath her shirt and drew the small pistol. She began backing away from the door, figuring she should find her bag and leave via the fire escape if these guys became too insistent.

“Hang on,” she said. “I need to put on a robe.”

Something thudded against the door, striking it just above the knob. She took in a sharp breath of air and backed away from the door, then brought the pistol up in a two-handed grip.

A second thud registered with her and the wood around the latch exploded into splinters before the door swung inward. One of the men surged into the apartment. In his hand, he gripped he a pistol and he was moving it around, looking for a target. The second man barreled through the door just a couple of steps behind the first.

So little space separated them that Gillen didn’t bother to yell for the men to stop. Her pistol popped twice and one of the intruders grunted as bullets drilled into him. However, his body continued to hurtle forward, powered by sheer momentum. She sidestepped him as a matador might move from the path of an angry bull, and he stumbled past her.

A dark blur flashed into her vision and something hard struck her wrist. She yelped, and the gun slipped from her fingers and hit the floor. Her attacker moved in close, grabbing a fistful of the fabric of her shirt, then hitting her in the ribs, hard, to knock her off balance. She stumbled back toward the wall. Her attacker grinned and stepped forward.

Then his head exploded in a fine red mist. His suddenly decapitated body lurched forward one more step before collapsing.

A big man stood behind the dead man’s former position, a pistol in his outstretched hand. Smoke curled up from the handgun’s barrel. The weapon coughed once more, sending a bullet into the man she’d shot a moment ago.

She saw the newcomer’s lips move, thought she heard noise, but the words didn’t register with her.

“Ms. Gillen. Tamara, we need to go,” he said.

The sound of her own name jarred her from the shock that had startled to settle over her. His words sank in as he pulled her to her feet. She jerked her arm from his grip. He didn’t resist.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “No time.”

She stayed rooted to the spot. “Who are you?” she repeated.

“I’m a U.S. federal agent. I’m here because of Terry Lang.”

“Terry?”

He nodded. “Let’s go.”

When they stepped into the hallway, the man stopped.

She noticed that even while standing still, he radiated an energy as though he were coiled, ready to strike. He wheeled ninety degrees, his gun coming up at the same time. Gillen stared after him and saw the cause of his consternation. A man was stepping into view from an adjoining hallway, an assault rifle clutched in his arms, the barrel tracking in on her and her companion.

BOLAN SENSED THE FIRST attacker before he came into view. He wheeled around, the Beretta’s snout zeroing in on his target, a man toting an AK-47. The Executioner squeezed the trigger and the Beretta spit a triburst of 9 mm manglers. The slugs hammered into the man’s chest and caused him to freeze in midstride before he collapsed to the floor.

A second shooter moved in on Bolan and Gillen. The hardman’s machine pistol spewed fire and lead. Bullets sliced through the air inches above the soldier’s head. A double tap of the Beretta’s trigger and the gun coughed out a flurry of six rounds that didn’t strike flesh, but drilled into the wall just behind his attacker, forcing him to take cover.

Bolan whipped his head toward Gillen.

“Move,” he shouted, gesturing at the mouth of a nearby hallway.

Nodding, she turned and sprinted for the corridor.

The Executioner squeezed off two more bursts from the Beretta. The cover fire put his enemies on the defensive. He ejected the handgun’s magazine and slammed another into the weapon’s grip. In the same instant, another gunner mistook the lull in firing as a chance to catch his opponent by surprise. He came around the corner. The move exposed the shooter’s face and his gun hand. Bolan’s Beretta chugged out a volley of 9 mm rounds. Simultaneously the other man’s own weapon cracked, spitting jagged tongues of flame from its muzzle. A couple of bullets from the AK ripped through the fabric of Bolan’s windbreaker while other rounds slammed into plasterboard or ripped through carpet and wood.

The 9 mm slugs from the Beretta drilled into the gunner’s face. The impact spun him violently. Even as the guy slammed to the floor, Bolan heard metal clicking on metal behind him. He wheeled and saw that Gillen had disappeared from view. Moving through the mouth of the corridor into which she’d just disappeared, he spotted a metal door with an exit sign fixed above it at the end of the hallway. The soldier marched toward the door, hoping he could catch up with the woman before Nawaz Khan and his people found her.