Covert One 5 - The Lazarus Vendetta (43 page)

Jon felt his eyes widen in stunned disbelief. A shiver of superstitious
dread ran down his spine. He had seen that same face and those same startling
green eyes before—just six days ago. They belonged to the terrorist leader who
had nearly killed him in personal combat outside the Teller Institute. This was
impossible, he thought desperately. Absolutely impossible.
How could a man wholly consumed by nanophages rise from the grave?

Nones turned away from the windows toward Willem Linden. Slowly, he brought
his pistol on-target. He flipped the safety off with one huge thumb.

The white-haired Dutchman stared at the weapon aimed straight at his
forehead. He turned pale. “What are you doing?” he stammered.

“This is your severance package. Your services are no longer
required,” Nones told him drily. “But Lazarus thanks you for your
efforts on his behalf. Farewell, Herr Linden.”

The third of the Horatii waited just long enough to watch the
horrified understanding enter the other man's eyes. Then Nones pulled the
trigger twice —firing two rounds into Linden's
head at point-blank range. Blood, shards of bone, and bits of brain flew out
the back of the Dutchman's shattered skull and spattered against the wall. The
dead man fell away and crumpled to the floor in a heap.

In that same moment, a shotgun blast echoed from the darkened cor-

ner of the room —followed immediately by a second
and then a third blast. Nones glanced in that direction. One of his three men
had just finished slaughtering the four surveillance team members who had been
sleeping. Trapped in their cots, they were easy prey. Fired at a range of less
than ten feet, three twelve-gauge rounds filled with buckshot tore them into
pitiful shreds of torn flesh and broken bone.

The big man heard a sudden choked-off cry of fear off to his left. He
swiveled that way fast, seeing the youngest member of Linden's team, the Portuguese signals expert
named Vitor Abrantes, staggering to his feet. Abrantes yanked frantically at
his headset, but he was still tethered to the satellite transmitter by a
twisted length of audio cable.

Nones fired twice more while moving. The first 9mm round hit the young man
high up in the chest. The second tore into his left shoulder and spun him
around in a complete circle. White-faced with shock, Abrantes toppled backward
against the transmitter. Moaning, he slid to the floor and sat clutching his
smashed shoulder.

Frowning at his own sloppiness, Nones took a step closer to the wounded man,
raising his pistol again. This time he would aim with more care and precision.
He sighted along the barrel. His finger tightened on the trigger, starting to
squeeze it. . .

But then the window beside him exploded inward—flying apart in a tinkling
cloud of sharp-edged glass shards.

■

Still hanging in his rappelling harness just outside the room, Jon Smith saw
the wave of cold-blooded butchery begin inside. These bastards were killing
their own people, he realized abruptly—clearing away loose ends, evidence, and
potential witnesses. Witnesses and evidence he urgently needed. Gripped by a
wave of white-hot fury, he reacted instantly, tugging his SIG-Sauer pistol out
of the holster on his hip. He aimed at the glass.

Three rapid shots fired from top to bottom blew open the window, spraying
broken glass and bullets through an arc inside the room. Before the last shards
stopped falling, he shoved the pistol back into its holster and yanked one of
his two flash/bang grenades out of a leg pouch strapped to his left thigh. His
gloved right thumb pulled the ring. The grenade's safety spoon flipped up.

Smith lobbed the black cylinder in through the shattered window and shoved
off hard from the wall with his boots, moving directly away from the opening.
He reached the end of his pendulum arc, pushed away again even harder, and
began swinging back toward the window, flying even faster now.

And then the grenade went off—detonating in a rapid-fire burst of blinding
flashes and earsplitting explosions intended to stun and disorient anyone
caught within its burst radius. A dense cloud of smoke rolled outward, swirling
madly in air roiled by the continuing staccato series of bangs.

Jon came soaring through the window feetfirst. He landed heavily on the
floor, folded up, and then rolled prone. Small pieces of glass crunched beneath
him. He pulled his SIG-Sauer out again, already searching for targets through
the haze and smoke.

Smith looked first for the big green-eyed man. There were smeared streaks of
blood on the hardwood floor where he had been standing when the window exploded
in on him, but nothing else. The auburn-haired giant must have dived for cover
when the flash/bang grenade went off. The blood trail he had left behind
disappeared out through the arched doorway.

Stumbling footsteps sounded nearby, on the other side of a heavy table.

Smith reared up and saw one of the other gunmen come reeling out of the
rapidly thinning smoke cloud. Though dazed by the grenade's nerve-shattering burst
of noise and dazzling light, the gunman still held his pistol in a two-handed
shooting grip. Blinking rapidly to clear his eyes, he

caught sight of Jon's head poking above the table
and swung around, trying to draw a bead on him.

Smith shot him twice, hitting him once in the heart and once in the neck.

The gunman folded over and fell forward, plainly dead before he hit the
floor.

Jon dropped back behind the table and rolled frantically the other way,
rapidly hitting the release on his rappelling harness to detach the climbing
rope still trailing in through the window. While he was still hooked to it, the
rope would hamper his movements. It would also act as a giant arrow pointing
straight at him wherever he went. At last, he managed to tug the length of rope
clear and crawled away across the scarred floor, staying low.

One down. Counting the big man,
that left three to go, he thought grimly. Where exactly had the other
enemy gunmen been when his grenade came sailing
through the window? More important, where were they now?

He wriggled around the corner of a table and saw the white-haired man
sprawled in front of him. Smith grimaced at the sight of the ugly mess seeping
out from under the dead man's shattered skull. That bullet-riddled brain had
held information they needed.

He crawled past the corpse, heading toward the darker corner of the room he
had seen being used as makeshift sleeping quarters.

From somewhere behind him, a pistol barked three times in rapid succession.
One round ripped low over his head. Another tore jagged splinters off the solid
oak table leg next to his face. The third 9mm round slammed into his back and
then tumbled away, deflected by his Kevlar body armor. It was like being kicked
by a mule between the shoulder blades.

Gasping through a searing wave of white-hot pain, trying to suck air into
lungs that felt as though they had been hammered flat, Smith threw himself onto
his side. Two more shots tore into the floor, right where he

had been lying a second before—gouging out huge
chunks of wood before they ricocheted away. He curled around, frantically
seeking a glimpse of the gunman firing at him.

There!

A shape wavered in his pain-filled vision. One of the gunmen knelt behind a
table just about twenty feet away, coolly taking aim. Jon shot back wildly with
the SIG-Sauer, squeezing the trigger as rapidly as he could. The pistol bucked
upward in his hands. Rounds crashed through the table and hammered into the
computer equipment piled on top of it. A hail of wood splinters, sparks, and
broken pieces of plastic and metal went flying away through the air. Startled,
the gunman ducked out of sight.

Smith rolled away across the floor, trying to find better cover. He stopped
about midway down one of the U-shaped bays formed by three joined tables and
risked a cautious glance back the way he had come. Nothing.

Then he looked up at the TV monitor on the table in front of him. He froze
suddenly, seeing his own death reflected in its darkened screen.

The third enemy gunman rose up from the next bay over—already aiming a
combat shotgun right at the back of his head.

■

Poised on the edge of the roof, Peter and Randi heard the sudden burst of
gunfire, saw the blinding flash of a grenade, and then watched Jon abruptly
hurl himself into the building below them. They exchanged appalled glances.

“Dear me. So much for subtlety and
discretion,” Peter murmured. He pulled his Browning Hi-Power clear of his
holster and held it ready.

More gunshots rang out in a rising crescendo, echoing back from the
brickwork and stone of the surrounding buildings.

“Come on!” Randi snarled, already rappelling down the wall in
short, fast bounds. Peter came flying down after her,
moving with equal speed and longer jumps.

Knowing it was far too late, knowing that the gunman's finger was already
starting to squeeze the shotgun's trigger, Smith twisted around desperately,
trying to bring his own weapon on-target. The adrenaline pulsing through his
system seemed to slow time itself—stretching out the nightmare moment before a
hail of twelve-gauge buckshot blasted his head into bloody ruin . . .

And then another window exploded inward—torn apart by multiple 9mm rounds
fired through it at close range. Hit several times in the chest and neck and
head, the enemy gunman staggered to the side and then sagged across one of the
tables. The shotgun fell from his lifeless fingers and clattered to the floor.

First Randi and then Peter swung in through the shattered window and dropped
to the floor. Quickly they detached their ropes and took up positions on either
side of Jon, scanning the long, narrow room around them for signs of movement.

Smith smiled weakly, still shaken by his narrow escape. “Glad you could
make it,” he whispered. “Thought I'd have to handle
this all on my own.”

“Idiot,” Randi murmured back, but her eyes were warm.

“Never miss a party,” Peter said softly. “How many have you
left us?”

“One for sure,” Smith replied. He nodded toward the far side of
the room. “He's in cover somewhere off that way. Another guy, their
leader, I think, already hightailed it out through the
door.”

Peter looked at Randi. “Shall we show our medical friend here how
professionals flush game?” Peter turned to Smith. “You cover the
door, Jon.” Then he took a flash/bang grenade out of the pouch on his
thigh, pulled the ring, and held the safety spoon closed. “On
five. Four. Three. Two
. . .”

Peter popped up briefly and lobbed the grenade over the table. It sailed
through a long, low arc, dropped out of sight, and exploded. A new cloud of
smoke boiled across the room, lit from within by blinding, strobe-like flashes.

Randi was already in motion, running fast and bent low. She caught a glimpse
of a darker shape moving in the smoke and dived for the floor. The surviving
gunman staggered toward her. She fired her Beretta twice and watched him go
down. He shuddered once and then lay still, staring back at her with lifeless
eyes.

For a moment longer Randi stayed prone, waiting for the smoke and haze to
dissipate. “All clear on this end!” she called out when she could see
well enough to be sure.

“Check around to see if you can find anyone else still alive,”
Smith suggested, rising painfull}' to his feet. He glanced at Peter.
“Meanwhile, I think we should go after that other big bastard I saw.”

“The one you say scarpered out the door?”

Smith nodded grimly. “That's right.” He explained the uncanny
resemblance between the tall green-eyed man he had seen here and the terrorist
leader he had watched die in New Mexico.

Peter whistled softly. “Now, there's a nasty coincidence.”

“That's just it,” Smith said slowly. “I don't think it is a
coincidence at all.”

“Probably not,” Peter agreed. He looked troubled. “But we'll
have to be quick, Jon. The French may have most of their police deployed
outside Paris
at the moment, but all this racket is bound to attract
their attention.”

Weapons drawn and ready, the two men moved cautiously toward the narrow
arched doorway. Smith pointed silently at the smeared bloodstains on the floor.
The large red drops led straight toward the open door. Peter nodded his
understanding. They were tracking a wounded man.

Smith stopped just inside the room. He stared out through the doorway,
seeing part of a black-and-white-tiled landing enclosed by a waist-high
wrought-iron railing.

The spatters of blood continued on, heading right for the wide marble
staircase that led down to the building's lower floors. The big man they were
hunting might be getting away! Determined not to lose him, Jon impulsively
darted forward through the arch, ignoring Peter's startled warning.

Too late Jon realized that the blood trail ended abruptly just two steps
down. His eyes opened wide. Unless he had somehow learned to fly, the
green-eyed man must have doubled back. . . .

Smith felt himself hurled violently to the side. Knocked completely off his
feet, he slid across the landing and slammed shoulder-first into the iron
railing. His SIG-Sauer skittered away across the tile floor. For a moment he
stared through the bottom of the railing out into a dizzying void.

Sickened and dazed by the impact, he heard a sudden muffled cry and then saw
Peter thrown past him. The Englishman tumbled head over heels over the wide lip
of the staircase. He disappeared out of sight in a diminishing clatter and
rattle of loose equipment.

Smiling cruelly, the auburn-haired giant swung back toward Smith. His face,
flayed by razor-sharp shards of glass, was a mask of bright red blood. One
ravaged socket was empty, but a single green eye gleamed fiercely out of the
other.