“Look for a key,” he said.
“Where?”
“How the hell do I know? But there has to be one. You don’t risk getting locked out of a fortress like this.” He noted the slightest change in Peterson’s eyes. “There’s a key! Find it.” He grinned at the CIA man. “Make a move, fucker. I dare you!”
Peterson just stared back at him.
Mariana searched the patio high and low, running her fingers along window ledges, turning over the patio chairs, and poking around in the flower garden with a fork from the table. She even looked for a loose tile, but there didn’t seem to be a key.
“Is there a lot of shit in the shed?” Crosswhite asked.
“Yeah.” She went back to the shed and stepped inside, pulling the chain to turn on the light. The little building was crammed with pool chemicals and old bags of flower fertilizer left over from the previous owner. There was broken patio furniture, stacks of spare tile left from when the pool was put in years earlier, and various jars containing odds and ends. On one of the shelves was an old metal tobacco can. She took it down and pried off the lid. It was full of nuts and bolts, but she pushed her finger around in it and couldn’t believe her eyes when she found a shiny new key at the bottom.
“I’ll be damned.”
She went back to Crosswhite, whispering into his ear that she’d found the key.
Crosswhite noted the increasing concern on Peterson’s face. “I’m going to give you the gun,” he told her, speaking deeply to cover the sound of him engaging the slide lock to safe the weapon. “If he makes a move, you shoot his ass. Is that clear?”
Mariana hesitated.
“I said, Is that clear?”
“Yes!”
“Put the key in my back pocket.” She did as he said. “Now stand next to me and take the weapon without moving it off target.”
They switched hands carefully, and Crosswhite stood behind her for a moment, helping her to steady the weapon. “I’m going in.”
He went to the door, and as he was putting the key into the lock, Peterson made his move.
Mariana pulled the trigger, but the weapon didn’t fire. Crosswhite swung the door open and ran inside, tackling Peterson on the tile as he was diving for the table where the .38 revolver sat in the open. He slugged the CIA man in the stomach and then hit him in the throat.
Mariana came running in with the pistol. “I tried to shoot him — I swear to God!”
He stood up and put the .38 in his back pocket. Then he took the .45 and tucked it away beneath his shirt. “Don’t worry,” he said, touching her shoulder. “You did perfect. I knew he’d make a move as soon as one of us started to open the door, so I put the safety on.”
Peterson started to choke and rolled to his side, holding his throat.
“I’d like to say you’ll be fine,” Crosswhite said, hauling him up by the hair, “but that isn’t true.” He slugged him in the stomach again and shoved him across the room. “Now I’m gonna tell you a story about a Mexican girl, you piece of shit.” He slammed Peterson down into a chair and took the folding knife from his pocket. “Her name was Sarahi, and she was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen…”
Five minutes later, Crosswhite and Mariana stepped out through the gate to the finca and walked across the street to where the cops still sat in the car. Crosswhite looked around and handed the cop the rest of their money wrapped in a dish towel.
“We arrived too late,” he said, “but I’m a man of my word, so I’m paying you anyhow.”
The cops looked at each other. “What are you talking about?”
“He committed suicide,” Crosswhite said. “Cut his own carotid artery. It’s an ugly scene in there.”
“I told you, no blood!” the driver hissed.
“And I just gave you another ten thousand dollars apiece!” Crosswhite hissed back, startling the cop. “The crime scene is perfect — so you make it work!”
They walked off down the street and got into Ernesto’s car, driving straight to the airport.
Mariana bought a ticket, and Crosswhite walked her to the security checkpoint. “How soon will you follow after me?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Not before Pope is up and around again. I’ve got the sat phone, so I’ll keep in touch. When you get to Mexico City, don’t leave the airport. Get on the first available flight to the US — any city!”
She smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“You gonna be okay?”
“I think so,” she said, feeling suddenly lonely. “I wish you were coming with me.”
He shook his head. “I’m not your type, Mariana.”
She put her arms around his neck. “Thank you for — for everything.”
“There’s nothing to thank me for.”
He watched her go through the security checkpoint, waved to her a last time, and went back to the car.
An hour later, Paolina opened the door to him, and the smile that spread across her face was like no smile anyone had ever smiled at him before.
“You know that I’m not a saint,” he said.
She reached up to touch his face, looking deeply into his eyes. “Every saint has a past, Daniel… and every sinner has a future.”
82
Gil stalked boldly into the camp, his face concealed by the hood of the ghillie suit, gripping the suppressed AK-105. One of the women pointed and said, “Kovalenko!”
He stopped and knelt at the body of Dokka Umarov, using the knife to cut off one of the thumbs. He stuck the digit into a pocket and kept moving, leaving the women gaping after him.
He reached the far side of the encampment and was approached by six men who had been left behind to look after things. One of them asked where he’d been in a language that Gil did not understand. He gunned them all down at point-blank range, dumping the magazine and reloading the weapon as he slipped back into the forest like a wraith.
He picked up the pace, moving into the Spetsnaz kill zone where the claymores had wreaked their devastation. There were Chechens everywhere tending the wounded. Cries of agony filled the forest. He spotted Mukhammad conferring with his officers and kept going.
One of the officers spotted him. “Kovalenko!”
Mukhammad turned his head. “Sasha! Come here!”
Gil kept going, his fist closed around the ready-grenade.
“Sasha!”
One of the men started after him, but Mukhammad called him back, telling him to let Kovalenko join the chase if he wanted to.
Gil fell in on the trail of the Chechens who were in pursuit of Yablonsky and his men. The terrain grew increasingly rugged, covered with rocks and strewn with impenetrable thickets of rhododendron that forced everyone to skirt around them. He could tell from the way the ground was torn up that at least fifty men were in on the chase and moving fast.
A thousand meters into the track, he ran into four Chechens who had given up the chase and turned back. One of them had broken his leg in the rocks, and the others were helping him return to camp. They smiled at him in his leshy suit, and he sprayed them with suppressed fire. Then Gil stripped their bodies of grenades and whatever ammo would fit his AK-105 before moving on.
He heard firing in the distance and increased his pace. His bad foot was killing him, but the lead element had made contact with Yablonsky, and time was running out.
Colonel Yablonsky fired a 40 mm grenade to drive the Zapad men undercover and fell back, helping the man with the shattered shoulder blade who had since been shot through both legs. He could tell from the overly aggressive manner in which the lead element was maneuvering against them that they were Spetsnaz trained, and he cursed them for the traitors they were.