Читать книгу Orange Alert - Don Pendleton - Страница 8

A cloud passed in front of the moon, and the moors became so dark Steven Oxford couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face, much less the outlines of the three men who stood in the ankle-high grass with him. The wind picked up from the east, gusting across Lake Erne, carrying with it the earthy scent of peat and a chill that penetrated Oxford’s heavy black wool sweater and the long-sleeved cotton T-shirt he wore underneath. Even in July, the moors between Donegal Bay and the lakes became uncomfortably cold at night.

In a belt holster tucked into the small of his back, Oxford carried a Glock 17, the standard handgun issued to CIA operatives.

A few months earlier, during his annual requalification, Oxford had placed ten of the seventeen 9 mm rounds into a two-and-a-half-inch circle at twenty-five yards—exactly twice the quantity required. Oxford was a man who liked to keep track of those details even more than the CIA did. His office walls at Langley were covered with citations and certifications, all arranged in precise chronological order.

The cloud passed, exposing the moon’s thin crescent, enabling the outlines of the waiting men to become discernable as blobs of deeper darkness against the sepia blanket that cloaked the moors. Oxford’s three companions were also dressed in black, their features highlighted by the silvery illumination, giving the impression that their faces floated like decapitated heads in ghostly search of their lost bodies.

A freight train rumbled in the distance, one of many that traveled the railroad tracks crisscrossing the moors. Barely audible above the clack and clatter of the passing train was the howl of a dog—a mournful sound that echoed over the wasteland to be answered a few seconds later by another of its species. Had Oxford been superstitious, the wail would have sent a shiver down his spine. But neither superstition nor fear were words in the agent’s vocabulary. Despite standing on a moor in the middle of the night in an Irish county where half the population over sixty years of age swore to personal knowledge of banshees, he was confident that he and the Glock could handle whatever came their way.

He took a swift, visual inventory of his companions. Bobbie Reegan was clearly the most dangerous, driven by a hate so fiery his eyes sometimes glowed as if lit from behind. The other two were no more than common thugs, losers drawn to the Orange Order in much the same way that Oxford thought skin-heads were attracted to organizations spewing white supremacy. Political motives, if considered at all, were secondary. Blacks, Catholics, Jews, it didn’t matter whose blood they were spilling—it was the actual hate and killing that pulled them in.

The night’s meeting with Cypher would be an important one. He’d said they’d be assigned their targets and given half the money, which meant that Oxford’s undercover assignment was coming to an end. Once Cypher doled out the actual missions, it was Oxford’s time to fish or cut bait, to convey all the intel to his superiors and move on.

Oxford felt, rather than saw or heard, Cypher’s arrival. There was a slight compression of air, and he and his sidekick were suddenly in their midst.

As they had for the previous three meets, Cypher and his companion wore ski masks that covered everything but their eyes and mouths, making them look not ghostly, but more like the Cheshire cat.

Oxford turned his full attention to the new arrivals. Even the extreme darkness could not hide the physical bulk of the man who accompanied Cypher. His widely spaced eyes and mouth floated a good six inches above everyone else’s, and the patch of deeper darkness representing his body’s volume was twice that of Reegan’s. Oxford recalled that at the group’s very first meeting, the man had moved his muscular frame in a threatening manner that told everyone he was no stranger to the martial arts. This guy, Oxford thought again while tapping his molars together as if the chilly air was making him shiver, was obviously a bodyguard.

Cypher came immediately to the point, speaking in a rustling voice reminiscent of leaves being blown across a brick courtyard in winter.

“The committee has chosen targets. Randolph’s cell is first,” he said, as if everyone in Ireland was privy to the classified knowledge that Peter Randolph was head of a special group of CIA operatives whose mission was to coordinate the defection of former Soviet scientists.

Randolph’s cell? The words took Oxford by surprise.

Although the splinter group had been formed a short three months earlier with the four members supposedly being handpicked by Cypher himself, Oxford had infiltrated the Orange Order more than a year before, and there had never been any talk of directing violence against anyone except the Catholics. What was driving this shift in tactics? he wondered.

“Reegan,” Cypher stated, “you’ll be the one to hit Randolph. He’s on holiday now, but he’ll be back at his home base in Stuttgart starting next week, and we’re thinking that will be the best place to do it. We’ll give you everything you need.”

Reegan grunted his understanding.

Accompanied by the crinkling sound of paper, Cypher said, “Here’s an envelope with half your money. You’ll get the rest when you do the job.”

Oxford heard Reegan stuff the payment into his pants pocket. He was amazed at what Cypher was saying. Not only were these guys planning to hit the CIA, they apparently had access to company information. Randolph’s supervisor should have been the only person to know when one of his active operatives was taking vacation. Was there a leak in security? And if there was, how far up the chain did it go?

Oxford tapped his molars together while contemplating the impact of Cypher’s words. If the plan was to kill everyone in the cell, he had to warn Randolph about the three operatives he knew were carried on his roster.

“Taylor, Buckley and Johnston will also be hit this week.”

Oxford heard Cypher say their names as a strong arm suddenly clasped him from behind, and in one swift move snatched the Glock from his belt holster. Too late, he realized, he had failed to notice Cypher’s bodyguard slipping behind him. He pushed with all his might, attempting to expand his shoulders to open enough space for an elbow jab, but the arm around him was like an iron vise.

The huge man squeezed, and Oxford’s breath was driven from his lungs. He saw stars and thought for a moment he was blacking out, but the moment passed, and he drew a shallow breath that kept him conscious.

“There’s a traitor in our group,” Cypher said in a dry voice.

There were two poisonous darts in Oxford’s wristwatch, each loaded with a derivative of venom produced by central eastern Australia’s inland taipan, the most lethal viper in the world. Scientists at the CIA had refined the toxin, creating a poison hundreds of times more deadly. The result was a substance powerful enough to bestow upon a tiny dart the capability to deliver almost immediate death.

Held as he was, Oxford was unable to reach the watch’s trigger button with his right hand. His mind racing, he realized that, if he could knock his shoes together, the blade inside his right heel would snap into place, and he’d be able to stab his captor’s shin.

Like a movie viewed in fast forward, the scenario flashed through the agent’s mind. Reacting to the unexpected stab to his leg, the bodyguard would release him and, in less than two seconds, both he and Cypher would feel the prick of death stored inside the wristwatch. Oxford could quickly dispatch the other three, barehanded if necessary.

As if the huge man could read his thoughts, Oxford was suddenly thrown forward into the darkness. He landed on his knees, spinning immediately upon hitting the ground while reaching for his left wrist.

Excruciating pain, the likes of which he had never exprienced, shot through Oxford’s arm and into his brain as a 9 mm round from his own weapon smashed into the watch and continued through his wrist, leaving his hand dangling by a few bloody tendons. Ever the professional, the first impression to register in his mind above the searing agony was that the bodyguard must have slipped on night goggles to make such a shot.

His second thought, coming nanoseconds after the first, was to get the hell out of there.

Oxford lunged and took two quick steps before a round caught him in the back of the knee, blowing his patella onto the ground before him in a shower of bone chips and blood. He pitched forward, writhing in pain so intense that he lost awareness of all other sensations. The cold ground rushed up as he slammed onto his face, breathing raggedly, inhaling small bits of dirt laced with a peaty residue that tasted of decay.

A heavy boot smashed into his side, taking his breath away and flipping him onto his back. Oxford fought hard to keep from passing out. He knew he was about to die, and he wanted to be fully aware when it happened, facing death head-on, the way a warrior would.

Cypher’s bodyguard loomed over him. High above the Irish countryside, the sliver of the moon shimmered, illuminating the short barrel of Oxford’s Glock as the cold steel was pressed against his forehead.

In the distance, an animal wailed. Cypher said, “We’ll see who comes for him,” and there was a brilliant flash of white light that ended the CIA agent’s life.