Schofield said, 'How do you know Gant was with them?'
'I got photos,' Rufus said simply. 'Aloysius told me that if anything unusual happened while he was inside the mine, I was to take photos of it, so I did.'
Schofield assessed Rufus as the big man spoke. For a guy who could manoeuvre a hover-capable Russian fighter with incredible skill—something which required an almost innate knowledge of physics and aerodynamics—his speech seemed oddly formal and direct, as if he took comfort in military formality.
Schofield had seen men like Rufus before: often the most gifted pilots (and soldiers) had great difficulty in social situations. They were so focused on their area of expertise that they often had trouble expressing themselves, or missed conversational nuances like irony and sarcasm. You just had to be patient with them. You also had to make sure their fellow troops were equally patient. Direct but not stupid, there was more to this Rufus than met the eye.
Knight pulled a handheld monitor from the cockpit of the Sukhoi, showed it to Schofield.
On the monitor was a series of digital photos showing three speeding vehicles blasting out of the mine's rear entrance, out onto the turnaround and up the ramp of a waiting Chinook helicopter.
Knight flicked a switch, blowing up several of the photos, zooming in on the lead Light Strike Vehicle.
Knight said, 'See the three white boxes on the passenger seat. Medical transport cases. Three cases: three heads.'
He clicked to another photo, which showed a blurry zoomed-in image of the Driftrunner racing along behind the two LSVs.
'Check out the rear tray on the truck,' Knight said. 'Notice that all of Larkham's guys are dressed in black. One person, however . . . that one . . . the one without the helmet... is wearing sand-coloured Marine fatigues.'
And Schofield saw her.
Although the figure was blurred and out-of-focus, he recognised her shape, the fall of her short blonde hair.
It was Gant.
Slumped unconscious in the rear tray of the Driftrunner.
Schofield's blood ran cold.
The greatest bounty hunter in the world had Gant.
More than anything else, Schofield wanted to go after her—
'No. That's exactly what the Demon wants you to do, Captain,' Knight said, reading his thoughts. 'Don't rush into anything. We know where she is. And Larkham won't kill her. He needs her alive if he's going to use her to flush you out.'
'How can you be sure of that?'
'Because that's how I'd do it,' Knight said evenly.
Schofield paused, holding Knight's gaze. It was almost like looking in a mirror—Schofield with his silver anti-flash glasses masking his scars, Knight with his yellow-lensed wraparounds covering his defective eyes.
A tattoo on Knight's forearm caught Schofield's eye. It showed an angry bald eagle and the words:
SLEEP WITH ONE EYE OPEN.
Schofield had seen that image before: on posters that had come out soon after September 11. On them, the American eagle said, 'Hey terrorists, sleep with one eye open.'
Underneath Knight's eagle tattoo was another one which simply read: brandeis. Schofield didn't know what that one meant.
He locked eyes with Knight.
'I've heard about you, Mr Knight,' he said. 'Your loyalty isn't exactly something to brag about. You sold out your unit in the Sudan. Why should I think you won't sell me out, too?'
'Don't believe everything you read in the, papers,' Knight said, 'or what you read in US Government files.'
'Then vou're not going to kill me?'
'Captain, if I was going to kill you, you'd already have a bullet
in your brain. No. My job is to keep you alive.' 'Keep me alive?'
Knight said, 'Captain, understand. I am not doing this because I like you or because I think that you are in any way special. I am being paid to do this, and paid well. The bounty on your head is 18.6 million dollars. Rest assured, I am being paid considerably more than that to make sure that you don't get killed.'
'Okay, then,' Schofield said. 'So who's paying you to keep me alive?'
'I can't say.' 'Yes, you can.'
'I won't say.' Knight's eyes didn't waver. 'But your employer—'
'—is not a subject for discussion,' Knight said. Schofield chose another tack.
'All right, then, so why is this all happening? What do you know about this bounty hunt?'
Knight shrugged, looked away.
Rufus answered for him. Released from straight reportage, his tone was simple, honest. 'Bounty hunts happen for all kinds of reasons, Captain Schofield. Catch and kill a spy who goes AWOL with a secret in his head. Catch and retrieve a kidnapper who's been paid his ransom—mark my words, hell hath no fury like a rich guy who wants payback. Some of those rich assholes prefer to pay us two million dollars so they can catch some kidnapper who took them for one. It ain't often, though, that you get a list worth ten million dollars in total, let alone almost twenty million dollars per head.'' 'So what do you know about this hunt then?' Schofield asked. 'The ultimate sponsor is unknown,' Rufus said, 'as is the reason for staging it, but the assessor—a banker from AGM-Suisse named Delacroix—is experienced at this sort of thing. We've run into him before. And so long as the assessor is legitimate, most bounty hunters don't care about the reason for a hunt.' Rufus turned to Knight. Knight just cocked his head. 'Big hunt. Fifteen targets. All have
to be dead by 12 noon today, New York time. 18.6 meg per head. That's 280 million dollars in total. Whatever the reason for staging this hunt is, it's worth paying over a quarter of a billion dollars for.'
'You say that we all have to be dead by 12 noon, New York time?' Schofield said. This was the first he'd heard of the time limit placed on the hunt. He looked at his watch.
It was 2:05 p.m. here in Afghanistan. That made it 4:05 a.m. in New York. Eight hours till crunch time.
He fell silent, thinking.
Then abruptly he looked up.
'Mr Knight, now that you've found me, what are your instructions from here?'
Knight nodded slowly, impressed that Schofield had asked this question.
'My instructions are very clear on this point,' he said. 'From now on, I am to keep you alive.'
'But you haven't been told to keep me imprisoned, have you?'
'No . . .' Knight said. 'I have not. My instructions are to allow you complete freedom of action—to go wherever you please—but under my protection.'
And with that a piece of the puzzle fell into place in Schofield's mind.
Whoever was paying Knight to protect him not only wanted Schofield kept alive, that person also wanted Schofield to be active, to do whatever this bounty hunt was designed to stop him doing.
He turned to Knight. 'You said you knew where Gant is. How?'
'The MicroDot aerosol charge that Rufus dropped onto the turnaround area before the Demon's boys got there,' Knight said.
Schofield had heard about MicroDot technology. Apparently, it was the Next Big Thing in nanotechnology.
MicroDots were microscopic silicon chips, each about the size of a pinhead but with enormous computing power. While many believed that MicroDots would be the basis for a new series of liquid-based supercomputers—imagine a liquid ooze filled with supercomputing particles—at the moment they were mainly used
by prestige car manufacturers as tracking devices: you sprayed the bottom of your Ferrari with MircoDot-loaded paint, then the Dots, and your car, could be traced anywhere in the world, and no car thief, however persistent, could wash them all off.