Carver wasn’t one for celebrating once a job was done. He liked to get as far away as possible, find some peace, try to come to terms with what he did: earned his living by making other people die.
Nothing more happened for a minute or so, then the door of the office opened, maybe eighty feet away. A cadaverous, twisted figure emerged and made his way with a pained, shuffling gait right across the hangar toward the airplane. It took Carver a couple of seconds to realize this was Waylon McCabe. The last time he’d set eyes on him, at another airport, on the far side of the world, McCabe had exuded the tough, bullying, loudmouthed power of a malevolent alpha male. Now he looked like a dead man walking. Whether Carver killed him or not, he wouldn’t last till the end of the month. For a moment, Carver felt a twinge of disappointment, almost as if he’d been cheated. He had to tell himself that McCabe wasn’t the issue: What mattered was the bomb hidden inside that suitcase. That was what had to be stopped.
The jets started up, filling the hangar with their high-pitched roar. Carver thought of the air pipes heating up, the temperature slowly starting to rise. The aircraft had become a ticking bomb, counting down to disaster.
And then his world fell apart.
Immediately behind McCabe came Loverboy, held in the grasp of one of the bodyguards. The next pair consisted of Vermulen and his guard. But Carver gave none of them more than a fleeting glance. His entire attention was focused at the end of the line, on Alix.
He whispered to himself, “You’re not supposed to be here.” And then he repeated himself, banging both hands against the steering wheel. “You’re not… supposed… to be here!”
So now what was he going to do?
He could rescue her. If he moved quickly and quietly enough, he could close on the man who was holding her, double-tap to the head. Use a silencer, so the other guards took a fraction longer to react. Hit them, too. Maybe he’d hit the other two prisoners-that couldn’t be helped. With any luck he’d have time to take out McCabe as well.
If no one spotted him running across the hangar with a gun in his hand…
If none of the three armed guards were alert enough to react to his attack…
If McCabe didn’t make it onto the plane and simply fly away alone…
If Darko didn’t object to him blowing away a valued client… And if Darko didn’t take this as the ideal opportunity to take McCabe’s money and his bomb…
Well, then, his plan might just work.
But if any of those possibilities occurred, then he would certainly die, Alix would probably die alongside him, and, far more important than that, the bomb would still be loose in the world.
The American, Jaworski, had told him what was at stake. McCabe was planning to start a war that would lead to Armageddon. Carver did not believe, for a fraction of a second, that the heavens were going to open and Christ would descend to earth just because a religious maniac like Waylon McCabe asked Him to. But he was absolutely certain that thousands, maybe millions of people might die in the chaos McCabe could cause.
Without making any conscious choice, he found himself getting out of the truck, walking around it to where there was a clear line of sight between him and the group following McCabe. They had almost reached the steps to the aircraft. For a second, Carver thought he might have a clear shot as McCabe walked up them. But then one of the air crew emerged from the door of the plane and came down to meet McCabe, taking him by the arm, blocking the line of fire.
Carver could still make the run, though. There was time, just, to reach Alix before the plane doors closed behind her. It tore him up to see her face contorted with pain, the guard leering at her, enjoying the thrill of domination over a beautiful, helpless woman. Screw the odds, screw the bomb, screw everything: Carver wanted to go over and beat the crap out of the ape. He wanted his girl back. He longed for the feel and scent of her body in his arms, her hair slipping between his fingers, her wonderful eyes looking into his, the kiss of her lips. He needed to tell her how much he loved her, how deeply he appreciated the months she’d spent by his bedside, how bad he felt about all the things she’d been through on his account.
He wanted to say how sorry he was that he was killing her.
She was walking up into the plane now. He was staring at her, his eyes boring into her back. She must have felt it because she turned her head and looked in his direction. Just for a second their eyes met. He saw the look of amazement on her face, and then something deeper, a yearning desperation that cut straight to his heart as she cried out, “Carver!”
His reaction was unthinking. He couldn’t help it-he took a step toward her and gave himself away.
It was a pathetic, amateur move. But Carver’s incompetence saved him. He hadn’t even bothered to reach for his gun. So neither McCabe’s bodyguards, nor Darko’s fighters, milling around behind him, started firing. Not that it would make much difference in the long run, the amount of weaponry now pointing in his direction.
Darko nodded at one of his men, who came up to Carver and patted him down. He found the Beretta, removed it, and threw it clattering onto the floor of the hangar.
McCabe had stopped on the aircraft steps. He looked at Carver.
“Bring him here,” he barked, stepping back down to the ground.
Darko snapped out a series of instructions. Carver’s arms were grabbed, a man on either side, and he was hauled across the open space toward the aircraft. Darko was strolling alongside, cradling a gun. His face bore an expression of amusement, rather than hostility, as if he were motivated as much by curiosity as by needing to secure his captive.
McCabe glanced at Alix as the four men got closer.
“So you know this man?”
She said nothing. McCabe grunted dismissively then turned his attention back to Carver, peering at him as he came closer. The look became a stare, then the death’s head face creased into a savage grin.
“Forget it… I know you, don’t I, boy? You’re the reason I’m here.”
Carver stared back at him impassively.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re Lundin… the mechanic.”
“You heard the woman. She called me Carver.”
McCabe coughed violently, then spat a stream of bloodstained phlegm onto the ground between them.
“You fixed this plane, too, boy?” he rasped.
“Like I said, you’ve lost me.”
McCabe ignored Carver’s words. He took another shuffling step, leaning forward so that his face was right up by Carver’s, as close as a lover, whispering in his ear.
“You care to show me what you done?”
“I haven’t done anything,” said Carver.
There was only one way now to save Alix, and he went for it.
“If you don’t believe me, put me on the aircraft.”
Before McCabe could reply there was a shout from the hangar entrance and the guard from the main gate ran in, yelling in Serbian, a desperate edge to his voice.
Darko listened to the frantic jumble of words, then spoke to McCabe.
“He says helicopters are coming, just a few kilometers away. They will be here in two minutes, maybe less.”
McCabe considered this new information. He switched his attention back to Carver.
“We don’t have time to debate this. Guess you’d better just step onboard.”
“No problem,” Carver said.
Then he led the way up the steps, into the booby-trapped plane.
98
The Black Hawks came in from the northeast, through a gap in the hills, reaching the airport at the terminal end, a mile and a half from the hangar. McCabe’s plane was already on the runway, moving toward them, picking up speed for takeoff.