The Hades Factor (30 page)

__________

Victor Tremont laughed long and loud. Yes! He had done it. They were all going to be rich, and it was only the beginning. At his desk, he smoked his Cuban cigar, drank his single-malt scotch, and rocked with laughter in private celebration. Until his cell phone rang in the bottom drawer.

He yanked open the drawer and snatched up the phone. “Nadal?”

There was a brief delay of wireless phoning from a long distance. Then there was the self-satisfied voice: “We have located Jon Smith.”

This was proving to be his day. “Where?”

“Iraq.”

Momentary doubt assaulted Tremont. “How did he ever get inside Iraq?”

“Perhaps the Englishman from the Sierras. I have found it impossible to learn anything about him. There is no certainty Howell is his correct name any more than Romanov. That leads me to believe he has much he wishes to be unknown.”

Tremont nodded angrily. “Probably MI6. How did you locate Smith?”

“One of my contacts--- a Dr. Kamil. I assumed Smith would be trying to find our test cases, so I alerted all the doctors I knew. Not that many are practicing now in Baghdad. Kamil reported Smith wants to know about the survivors as well.”

“Damn! He can't be allowed to find that.”

“If he does, it will not matter. He will never leave Iraq.”

“He got in.”

“He did not then have Saddam's police and the Republican Guards looking for him. Once they know the American intruder is there, they will seal their borders and hunt him down. If they do not kill him, we shall.”

“Dammit, Nadal, make sure you do this time!” Tremont snarled, and remembered their other problem. “What about Bill Griffin? Where is he?”

Already humbled by Tremont's anger, al-Hassan's face grew stonier. “We are watching everywhere Jon Smith has been, but Griffin appears to have vanished from the earth.”

“That's just perfect!” In a rage he punched the cell phone's off button and glared unseeing across the office.

Then the day's triumphs returned to make him smile. No matter what Jon Smith found in Iraq, and despite Griffin, the Hades Project was going forward according to plan. He sipped his whiskey and his smile broadened. Even the president was on board now.

__________

10:02 A.M., Fort Irwin,

Barstow, California

The man had followed Bill Griffin's rented Toyota pickup from Fort Irwin. He stayed at a safe distance, never too close or too far back, on the two-lane road and then on Interstate 15. He was waiting for him to land somewhere relatively permanent. A place where Griffin would return and where he would sleep. Griffin knew the man would have followed him all the way to Los Angeles if necessary until he was certain Griffin would remain in one place long enough for backup to arrive.

Now from behind the curtains of the Barstow motel room, Griffin saw the man get out of his Land Rover and head toward the motel office. An ordinary man in a nondescript brown suit and open-necked shirt. Griffin had never seen him before. He would have been surprised if he had. Still, he recognized the almost imperceptible bulge of a pistol under the man's suit coat. The man would check whether Griffin--- or whatever name the customer in unit 107 was using--- was registered for the night. Then he would make his phone call.

Griffin grabbed one of the motel's bath towels. He raised the rear window, climbed out, and circled behind the units to where he could see into the office. His stalker was showing a fake badge or official ID to the motel clerk. The clerk studied the register, nodded, and turned the register so his questioner could view it.

Griffin trotted to the man's Land Rover and slipped into the backseat of the high vehicle, crouched down, and waited. Quick footsteps hurried to the Rover, and the front door jerked open.

As it slammed shut, Griffin raised up, a silenced Walther PPK 6.35mm in his right hand, the bath towel in the other.

The man was dialing his car phone.

In a single motion, Griffin dropped the towel around the man's head and fired once. The man's head snapped back. With the towel Griffin caught most of the blood and brain matter. He quietly lowered the slumped body. Sweating, he got out, pushed the body into the passenger seat, and climbed behind the wheel.

Far out in the desert, he buried his stalker. Then he drove back into Barstow and left the car locked on a side street. Tired and angry, he walked to his motel, checked out, and drove toward Interstate 15. At Fort Irwin he had learned that Jon Smith had been interested in Tremont's “government scientists” and Major Anderson's service in Iraq during Desert Storm. When he reached Interstate 15, he turned the pickup toward Los Angeles and its international airport. He had decisions to make, and the best place to do that was on the East Coast.

___________________

CHAPTER

Covert One 1 - The Hades Factor

THIRTY ONE

___________________

8:02 P.M.

Baghdad

The bent woman in the black abaya was a block away from the used-tire shop when she heard the first fusillade. She paused next to an old man who sat cross-legged on the street, his palm outstretched as he begged. She gazed down at him with empty eyes, while her brain assured her she was not required to return to the shop to find out what the shooting meant.

But then she heard the explosive blasts of gunfire again.

When she had left the shop, her mission was over. She had made certain the undercover American doctor had made contact. At that point, she left, as she was supposed to. An armed attack had not been part of the plan. Nor had the man who had turned out to be the undercover doctor. She tensed. She might be many things, but one thing she was not was cavalier with her orders. She took tremendous pride in her work. She was thorough, responsible, and utterly reliable.

She looked down at the Iraqi beggar once more. She dropped dinars onto his palm. Her long abaya flapping around her legs, she moved as swiftly as her bent shape allowed back toward the tire shop.

__________

In the Baghdad alley, the dark shadows were the only protection for Smith, the woman, and the baby. He pulled them close against the shack, which prevented them from being seen easily. The gunfire inside drowned out normal city sounds, but still Jon listened and watched. Through the gloom, he studied both ends of the alley. He could just make out what appeared to be a dozen Republican Guards. They were approaching carefully, their weapons first. They moved with certainty and stealth, Saddam Hussein's prized killers.

Still, he gave the woman a reassuring smile as she gazed anxiously up at him in the moonlight. “Be right back,” he whispered. He knew she would not understand, but perhaps the sound of a human voice would help her to maintain her equilibrium as she cradled the baby protectively to her chest.

His pulse throbbing at his temples, Jon rolled to the left and pulled on the first door latch. Locked. Then the second. Locked again.

The Republican Guards drew closer.

He reversed course and slid past the woman. He tried a third door. Also locked.

Frustrated and worried, he drew her away from the tire shop to the building next door and tugged on her arm until she crouched beside him, low against the wall where it met the old stones of the alley. He wanted them to be small targets. He could see nothing else he could do--- he was going to have to fight their way out.

His chest tight, he gripped his Beretta and continued to watch the stealthy shadows draw closer. Sweat gathered under his clothes despite the cool night air. The gunfire inside the tire shop had stopped. For a moment he thought about Ghassan and hoped he had survived; then he wiped away all thoughts of anything but the danger in the alley.

He concentrated. The only sound was the rhythmic pad of the soldiers' feet as they approached. He breathed deeply, keeping himself calm. He remembered Jerzy Domalewski's warning that it was better to shoot and risk death than be caught alive with the gun. He had to make every shot count, because it was not only his life at risk but the woman and child's, too. He would open fire as soon as the killers were close enough to make it impossible to miss. He needed to hit as many as possible, as quickly as possible.

He wished fervently he had more than his pistol as they closed in. He raised the Beretta. At just that moment, the baby let out a wail, instantly followed by a series of piercing cries. The sounds reverberated along the alley as the woman tried vainly to quiet the child.

Now the Guardsmen knew where they were. Smith's chest tightened into a knot. Instantly bullets bit into the wall. Wood splinters shot out, sharp as needles. The woman lifted her head, her eyes white with fear. As the baby screamed, Smith slid in front of them, firing left and right at the soldiers in the shadowy night alley.

Suddenly a voice snarled, “Get ready. Don't move until I tell you!” It was a woman's voice speaking in American English, and it came from the tire shop's rear entrance, where the bullet-riddled door hung half open on one hinge.

Before Jon could react, a long black abaya flowed out the doorway and into the gloom, immediately followed by two pale hands with short, blunt fingernails expertly clutching an Uzi submachine gun. The featureless woman balanced the weapon back against her bent body with impressive ease. She squeezed the trigger and sprayed the Republican Guardsmen in both directions.

As the woman turned left to concentrate fire, Jon stayed low on his heels so he was beneath her bullets and still protecting the Iraqi woman and baby. While she was left, he wheeled right and picked off two of the thugs with his Beretta as they raced across the alley. When she turned right, he aimed left. By rotating their fire from one end of the alley to the other, in five minutes all the attackers had gone to ground--- dead, wounded, or just saving their hides. Shocked grunts and cries echoed along the dark passage. But there was no more sound of feet and no significant movement.

The abaya-clad woman barked, “Inside! Both of you.”

Jon felt a jolt. There was something oddly familiar about the woman s voice.

But that would have to wait. He pulled the woman with the baby back inside the tire storage room, and they ran after the bent woman as she limped past the tattered curtain and into the front, where blood had splattered the walls and pooled on the floor. There Ghassan and four Guardsmen lay dead against opposite walls. The metallic scents of blood and death stank the air. Jon's throat tightened. Ghassan must have killed the four soldiers before dying of a mortal wound to the chest.

“Ghassan!” The Iraqi woman gasped.

The woman in the abaya spoke rapid Arabic to the woman with the baby as she swiftly pulled off the pushi and abaya. Asking questions, she removed the harness that had kept her bent over. With relief, she straightened to her full five feet nine inches. Jon watched, fighting shock, as she adjusted the U.N. armband on her tweed jacket, smoothed her gray skirt, and stuffed the pushi and abaya into a compartment hidden under the false bottom of her gym bag. She had accomplished her transformation in less than a minute, at the same time carrying on a conversation with the woman.

But that was not what had frozen Jon. It was the disguised woman's appearance.

She had the same striking gold hair as Sophia's, although it was short and curled around her ears. She had the identical curved, sexy lips, the straight nose, the firm chin, the glowing porcelain skin, and the dusky come-hither look to her black eyes, although right now her gaze was hard and bright as she seemed to be asking the Iraqi woman a final question. It was Sophia's sister, Randi.

Smith inhaled sharply. “Christ, what are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass!” Randi Russell snapped without even looking at him.

Jon barely heard her. His heart felt as if it were breaking all over again. He had not remembered how much the two sisters had looked alike. Studying Randi now made his skin crawl, but at the same time he could not tear his gaze away. He held on to the shop counter and felt his heart rage. He blinked. He had to get over this quickly.

Her final question answered by the woman with the child, Randi Russell turned on Smith. Her face was cool marble. Not at all the face of Sophia. “The Guards' backups will be here any minute. We're going out the front. That's the most dangerous part, but it's safer than the alley. She knows the back streets better than I, so she'll lead. Keep your Beretta hidden but handy. I'll bring up the rear. They'll be looking for one European man and two Iraqi women, one wearing an abaya.”

Jon forced himself back to the present. He understood. “The survivors in the alley will report us.”

“Exactly. They'll describe what they saw. Let's hope my change of appearance will confuse the new team enough to hesitate. They hate Europeans, but they don't want an international incident, either.”

Jon nodded. He felt his cool reserve return.

They slipped out of the store into the dark night. This was just a mission, he told himself, and Randi was just another professional. With a practiced sweep, his gaze took in the street. Instantly he saw two of them: A military vehicle parked at the far end. It looked like a Russian BRDM-2, an armored car with a 25mm gun, coaxial machine guns, and antitank missiles. A second armored car was lumbering along the street toward them, a lethal behemoth frightening pedestrians out of its way.

“They're looking for us,” Jon growled.

“Let's go!” Randi said.

The woman carrying the infant hurried off, and within twenty feet slipped into a space between buildings so constricted one person could barely fit. Spiderwebs caught at his face as Jon ran along the narrow passage behind her. Alert and on edge, Beretta ready, he glanced back frequently at Randi to make certain she was all right.

At last they reached the end and stepped out onto another thoroughfare. Randi hid her Uzi back inside her gym bag, and Smith slid his Beretta beneath his jacket and into his waistband. The woman and child stayed ahead, while Jon and Randi strode along together, following at a discrete distance. It was natural--- two European U.N. workers out for the evening. But it left Jon with a queasy feeling, as if the past had just slammed into the present and left him aching and forlorn. He kept pushing back the pain of Sophia's death.

Randi growled, “What in hell are you doing in Baghdad, Jon?”

He grimaced. The same old Randi, as subtle and understanding as a cobra. “Same as you, obviously. Working.”

“Working?” Her blond eyebrows raised. “On what? I haven't heard of any sick American soldiers here for you to kill.”

He said, “There seem to be CIA agents here, though. Now I know why you're never at home or at your `international think tank.' ”

Randi glared. “You still haven't said why you're in Baghdad. Does the army know, or are you off on another of your personal crusades?”

He spoke a half-lie: “There's a new virus we're working on at USAMRIID. It's a killer. I've had reports of cases like it in Iraq.”

“And the army sent you to find out?”

“Can't think of anyone better,” he said lightly. Obviously she hadn't heard he had been declared AWOL and was wanted for questioning about General Kielburger's death. Inwardly, he sighed. She must not have heard about Sophia's murder, either.

Now was not the time to tell her.

The streets grew narrow again, with windowed overhangs that shone with yellow candlelight. The shops in these dark streets were little more than cubes set inside thick, ancient walls--- not high enough in which to stand erect, and just wide enough for most adults to spread their arms. A single vendor squatted in each entrance, hawking meager goods.

The woman with the baby finally turned into the rear entrance of a run-down but modern building--- a small hospital. Children lay sleeping and moaning on cots that rimmed the walls in the entryway and in the wards on either side. The woman carrying the feverish baby led Jon and Randi past crowded treatment rooms, all with child patients. This was a pediatric hospital, and from what Smith could assess, it had once been up-to-date and thoroughly outfitted. But now it was dilapidated, with its equipment in various stages of disrepair.

Perhaps this was where he was to meet the famous pediatrician. Because they were in such different fields of medicine, he had no personal knowledge of him. He turned back to Randi. “Where's Dr. Mahuk? Ghassan was supposed to take me to him. He's a pediatric specialist.”

“I know,” Randi told him quietly. “That's why I was in the tire shop--- to make sure Ghassan made safe contact with an undercover agent--- obviously, with you. Dr. Mahuk is a vital member of the Iraqi underground. We'd expected you to have your meeting there in Ghassan's store. We thought it'd be safer.”

The middle-aged woman with the baby stepped into an office with a desk and examining table. Gently she laid the baby on the table. As the infant whimpered, she picked up a stethoscope that was curled on the desk. Jon followed the woman, while Randi paused to look carefully up and down the dingy corridor. Then she stepped inside the office and closed the door. There was a second door, and she moved swiftly across worn linoleum to it. Warily she opened it onto a ward. Children's voices and cries rose and fell. Her face sad, she shut this door, too.

She took out her Uzi. Resting it in her arms, she leaned back against the door.

As Jon stared, her expression hardened and grew watchful, the utter professional. She was guarding not only the Iraqi woman and baby but him, too. It was a side of Randi he had never seen. As long as he had known her, she had been fiercely independent, with a compelling sense of self-confidence. When he had first met her seven years ago, he had found her beautiful and intriguing. He had tried to talk to her about her fiancé's death, about his sense of guilt, but it had been no use.

Later, when Smith had gone to her condo in Washington to try to apologize again about Mike's death, he had discovered Sophia. He had never been able to penetrate Randi's rage and grief, but his love for Sophia had made it less necessary. Now he would have to tell Randi about Sophia's murder, and he did not look forward to it.