Jean-Claude, rethinking his position on recent events, would shake his head.
“You’re right,” Chang said. “It was not a wise thing to do.”
And then Chang would take out a long knife from under his suit jacket, a very sharp one normally used for trimming meat. He would let Jean-Claude stare at it with wide eyes while Ming and Wong approvingly watched their new master.
Then Chang would reach slowly-because he wished to draw it out-to Jean-Claude’s left ear. And with a quick powerful slashing motion he would thrust the knife into his victim’s neck and slash hard from left to right, cutting the man’s throat.
Then he would step back quickly and watch Jean-Claude begin to die in agony, even though no one had been gracious enough to be with Yuan in his final minutes. And then Peter would wash the knife off and take it with him. It would take a man about fifteen minutes to bleed to death after such an incident. And Peter needed to wrap things up and get out of the country quickly.
So there was no time to waste.
Except, this was only how Peter had planned it from the start.
In the final execution, it didn’t go that way.
When Peter, Ming, and Wong broke into Jean-Claude’s home, their victim wasn’t there.
That changed everything.
SIXTY-NINE
MADRID, SEPTEMBER 18, 11:59 P.M.
Jean-Claude was elsewhere, putting the final touches on the charge of explosives.
Working alone in the narrow, cramped chamber under the American Embassy, he braced his flashlight between an old brick and a stone. Working with the low beam from the flashlight, he spread before him the ten different detonators from the pack he had purchased.
He was taking no chances. He would use all of them. He only needed one to trigger the ten kilos of explosives he had spread in separate packets around the chamber. If just one ignited, chances are much of the block would implode.
On the first Number Ten Delay switch, Jean-Claude used a pair of pliers to crush the end of a thin copper tube containing acid. There was no need to crush the end of the tube completely flat. All he needed to do was crush it sufficiently to break the glass vial, thereby releasing the liquid within. Then he removed and discarded the safety pin holding back the striker. Finally, he inserted the other end of the pencil detonator into a brick of explosives. His charges were good for twenty-four hours, meaning they would blow the next night around midnight, give or take.
He repeated the procedure four more times. He then drew back and fought for his breath. The air was disappearing in this cramped hole. And he was sweating profusely. It occurred to him that if there were some sort of freak accident with the acid leaking too quickly into the explosives, he would be blown into oblivion. So, twenty-four-hour timer or not, it was wise to move as quickly as possible.
There! Everything was set!
Then something clattered in the small adjoining chamber. Jean-Claude froze.
“What the-?”
It wasn’t that unusual for rocks or pieces of concrete to crumble and fall, or for a rat to disturb something. But this sounded different. It sounded like a tool, a flashlight or something, dropping.
His eyes went to the portal that led to the next chamber. He saw a flicker of a light waving. Good God, he was not alone!
What the-!
Then he heard something human. A cough! The cough of a woman!
He left the detonators where they were, set to blast away within twenty-four hours. Angrily, suspiciously, he drew his gun from his belt.
Whoever was in the next chamber sounded as if she was getting to her feet after somehow burrowing in.
Well, he’d killed that busybody woman who had worked for the Metro, and he would kill again.
Jean-Claude checked his pistol and readied it for a quick discharge. It was completely loaded. Whoever was there, he would cut them in half, no questions asked.
He held his pistol aloft and went to the passageway where he could ambush his intruder.
SEVENTY
MADRID, SEPTEMBER 19, MIDNIGHT
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Peter’s words floated like a ghost.
A philosopher with a gun…
Well, at least I’m a philosopher…
On her feet in these strange chambers under the embassy, she thought her heart was going to burst from her chest. She drew her own weapon.
…if you could have murdered Hitler and Stalin and avoided World War II, would that have-?
The shadows shifted in the portal to the adjoining chamber, and she pointed her weapon in that direction. Out of instinct, she identified herself. “Hello? Hello? Police?!” she said.
But the frame of a man quickly bolted into view in the doorway. The gunman gave her less than a second. She could see arms and legs and a head, a trim body and a half-crouch. One of the arms was extended and swung a gun in her direction, and everything she had ever learned at the target ranges in California and Washington kicked sharply into gear, and it was surely a beneficent God that had trained her to be such a good shot.
As his arm swung into its final position to aim, Alex unloaded four staccato shots from her own pistol. The sound was deafening in the tiny dark chamber, followed quickly by the scream of the man she had hit four times, squarely in the midchest and then upward as he was propelled back until the final shot blew away his nose and the front part of his face.
He managed to get one shot off, possibly two. There was a clatter of ricocheting bullets around the chamber, and something smacked her flashlight and took it from her hand.
Then it was all very still, and the man was lying dead. Her lamp flickered.
She examined the body where it lay in an impossibly twisted heap. She stared into the dead eyes, or what remained of them, since one was loose from its socket. She fought back the urge to throw up over what she had done, and her insides were set to explode. By force of old habit, her free hand found the stone pendant at her neck, and she whispered a few words to herself.
She moved to where the man had been working, and with horror she looked at the mounds of explosives, detonators already set. She said another prayer.
Out of instinct, she tried her cell phone. No reception. All she could do now, she hoped, was to get out and get the bomb people in here as soon as possible. She had no idea how much time she had…or didn’t have.
She took the dead man’s torch. Its bulb was dimmer than hers and was wearing down. Suppressing a surge of horror, she returned to the fetid tunnel that had led her there.
She pulled herself into the hole and prepared herself for the final crawl toward open space. As she crawled, edging along in the tight tunnel with mortar and sand coming down on her again, she was almost overtaken anew by the claustrophobic panic that had pursued her like a demon for this whole episode.
But she kept telling herself, she had done this before, she could do it one final time. It was only twenty meters or so. As she proceeded, she took care to drag her feet and push carefully against the clutter and stones.
Then, just as it had previously, more of the sandstone started to trickle down. One inch worth. Then two. OMG! This time it was closing up her passage.
She moved forward with a jerk, trying to get some momentum. She got some.
She slid forward another foot or two.
Bad idea, bad idea! Bad idea.
The worse idea you’ve ever had.
Get out! Get out!
This time, by moving forward too quickly, she had dislodged some heavier pieces. And they fell in her path, pinning her left arm.
You’ve dug your own grave! No one will ever find you!
You’re dead! You’re dead! You’re dead.