The driver fumbled free of his seatbelt and tried to jump out, but Gil caught him by his curly black hair and yanked him back inside, punching him in the face repeatedly until he quit struggling.
“Who sent you?” Gil screamed. He found a compact Colt .45 in the man’s waistband and jammed the muzzle into his groin, thumbing back the hammer. “One more time, cocksucker! Who sent you?”
The driver’s lips were split and bleeding. “CIA,” he sputtered in a British accent. “Malta station.”
“Fuck you!” Gil slugged him with the pistol in the side of the head.
Dragunov stood in the street, aiming the sergeant’s gun at a blue Nissan rounding the bend, a startled young Italian woman at the wheel. She stopped the car, and Dragunov opened the door, shoving her over. “Come on, Vassili! Let’s go!”
Gil grabbed the G28 from the floor of the van and jumped in on the passenger side of the car. Dragunov gunned the motor to spin the car around, and they sped off in the same direction as Kovalenko’s men.
“They’re CIA!”
“You are surprised?” Dragunov had one eye on the road, the other on the rearview mirror as he ran through the gears, taking the winding road as fast as he dared.
“I’m not surprised — I’m pissed!”
The girl begged in panicked Italian to be let out of the car.
“Sorry, baby, I don’t habla, so shut up.” He stole a look at Dragunov. “Any idea where they’ll go?”
“Palermo.”
“Why Palermo?”
“Because they’re going to need resources, and Kovalenko will want to finish me here before running back to Georgia.”
“Please!” the girl begged in English. They were getting blood all over her and her car, and she was completely petrified.
Dragunov downshifted and gunned it through another curve. “What about her?”
“She stays with us.” Gil took a moment to check his ammo. The G28 had a dual-magazine clamp, and both ten-round mags were full.
“Please!” the girl bawled into his face. “Liberatemi!”
“Listen!” he said, grabbing her arm. “I don’t understand what the fuck you’re saying — so shut up!”
She pulled her arm free, apparently understanding the “shut up” part, and sat sobbing between them.
Dragunov glanced up at the mirror, the hint of a grin on his face. “We could kill her.”
“Sure,” Gil said, checking the .45 and tucking it into his belly. “Even you’re not that cold-blooded.”
“We’ll have to find a place to treat our wounds soon.”
Gil chuckled sardonically. “It was no big deal when it was just me, but you lost a finger, so we suddenly need a corpsman? I don’t think so, partner. No stopping before we get to Palermo. I’m gonna kill those Russian bastards.”
“Chechen,” Dragunov said. “They’re Chechen bastards.”
“I’m gonna kill those Spetsnaz pricks. How’s that?”
The Russian smiled without taking his eyes off the road, pressing the accelerator and gripping the wheel with his bloody left hand as he grabbed another a gear. “If they already found the Palinouros, the island will soon be crawling with carabinieri. We might find Kovalenko in time to kill him, but we’ll never make it back to the mainland alive.”
“I’ll get us off this rock when the time comes,” Gil assured him. “You just find Kovalenko.” He gripped the G28 resting butt-down between his knees. “I’m gonna reach out and touch that son of a bitch.”
17
Ryder woke up slightly hung over in his DC hotel room and took a shower. Then he sat naked on the bed, eating cold pizza from the night before. Pope’s meeting at the White House was scheduled for three thirty that afternoon, and it was his job to make sure the meeting never took place. He chased the pizza with a cold beer from the minifridge and got dressed, and then unzipped his bag and took out the USP .45 ACP he had picked up from a CIA contact the night before.
He broke down the brand-new pistol to make sure that it was properly lubricated from the factory. Then Ryder put it back together, loading the twelve-round magazine with 230-grain ammunition. Racking a round into battery, he dumped the mag again to load a thirteenth round and then tossed the readied pistol aside on the bed. Next, he took an SWR HEMS 2 suppressor from the bag and disassembled it, lubricating the internal parts with wire pulling gel. He did this because a “wet” suppressor was slightly more silent than a “dry” one (the lubricant absorbing the heat of the expanding gas), and Ryder wanted there to be as little sound as possible during the hit on Pope.
He put the pistol into the small of his back, slipped the suppressor into his jacket pocket, and then went to the window for a peek through the curtain. What he saw caused every nerve in his body to sing with alarm. The sexy Latina from the airport the day before was walking across the mostly empty parking lot carrying a McDonald’s bag. The sky was heavily overcast and threatened rain. He watched her cross to a room on the far side of the lot, knock twice at the door, and then enter. A second later, someone peeked out briefly through the curtains.
He stepped back and took his cellular from his pocket, calling Peterson. “I’ve been made!” he said.
“I doubt that very seriously,” Peterson replied calmly. “I’m the only one in the agency who knows anything about you. What’s got you worried?”
Ryder told him about the girl and the military-looking guy who had been on the plane the day before, and that they were now staying at the same cheap hotel. “Which is hell and gone from the airport!”
“Let me see if I understand you,” Peterson said. “A pair of travelers are staying at the same hotel as you — and that’s got you worked up.”
Viewed from that angle, Ryder felt a little silly. “It’s not as simple as that. They sat right across from me in the airport.”
“And they were on the same flight, were they?”
“Yeah, like I just told you.”
“So two people who were on the same flight as you are staying in the same hotel. Look,” Peterson said, “I don’t want to get in your business, but it might be time for you to lay off the marijuana. You don’t need the paranoia working your nerves, and I don’t need you calling me with these kinds of episodes. There’s no way you’ve been made. But ya know what? Let’s suppose for a second you had been. What the hell would you expect me to do about it over the goddamn phone?”
Ryder was embarrassed, but his discomfiture quickly morphed into a simmering anger. “Seeing as how you’re in command, I thought you’d want to know.”
“You’re not in the army anymore,” Peterson said, “and you’re not working for Obsidian Optio. You’re a freelance operator, which means you think for yourself. Got it? Now shitcan the dope and call me when the job is done.”
“I haven’t smoked in three—” Ryder realized that Peterson had already hung up. He threw the phone at the pillow. “Fuckin’ asshole!”
Crosswhite opened the McDonald’s bag and took out a sandwich. “Any movement across the lot?”
Sarahi shook her head and sat down at the table to paint her nails. “Car’s still there.”
“Yeah, I saw it.” He took a bite and continued talking with his mouth full. “So far everything fits the profile. We have to keep a close eye on him now so he doesn’t give us the slip.”