DeVane pressed the “flash” button on his telephone’s keypad and listened to a programmed sequence of bleeps go out into electronic space. The codes, too, were out there. Or soon would be. He pictured them as mathematical formulas on little sheets of paper, dispersing in a loose circle that stretched around the globe. Countless hands grasping for them, snatching them from the air. A cure for this one, this one, and this one. It was a vivid image, and DeVane supposed it would grow even
Tom Clancy’s Power Plays
sharper as he came to terms with what had happened in Canada.
Yes, DeVane thought, Zeus had flung a thunderbolt, and now his chariot was tumbling to the ground. But not everything was wreckage. Not yet. He could still leave a trail of flame across the sky.
A ringing tone in his ear now, cut short as a male voice answered.
“Yes?”
DeVane held the receiver in his grip.
“Proceed with the backup option,” he said.
Steadily.
From the roofs beyond Roger Gordian’s window at San Jose Mercy, only a small corner of his bed was visible, and then at a strained and awkward angle. This placement was intentional and appropriate for the stepped-up security around Gordian. As soon as suspicions arose that he was the victim of a deliberate biological attack, the bed had been moved out of line with the window to minimize the threat of outside observation and sniper fire.
The rooftop shooter had his orders, however. Standing at the foot of the bed, speaking to her unconscious husband in soft tones, Ashley Gordian was a clearly exposed target as he made a minor adjustment to his aim.
“You talk to Gord all the time, don’t you?” Megan Breen asked her now. She was seated with her back against the wall to the left of the window, a warm dash of sunlight on her cheek. When the first bullet entered the room, it would pass within an inch or two of her ear..
Ashley looked at Megan. They were alone with Gor-
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dian except for the plainclothes Sword op-a thin, dark- haired man sitting quietly to one side of the door with his arms crossed over his concealed firearm-assigned to guard the room. All three wore their ordinary street clothes-no protective aprons, no masks, goggles, gloves, or shoe covers. With the discovery that Gordian’s symptoms had resulted from his ingestion of a gene-directed trigger, infectiousness had ceased to be a concern.
“I’ve got a hunch he hears more than you might think,” Ashley replied. “We joke about our running commentary on the state of anything and everything. Roger says we should mike ourselves and start our own radio call-in show.”
Megan smiled a little. “I can remember a time, not too long ago, when it was torture pulling a single word out of Gord.”
Ashley nodded. “He’s really opened up over the past couple of years, Meg. Ever since we got past our difficulties. Some days it’s nonstop gab, you’d be amazed.”
“It must be nice for you. Being so comfortable with each other.”
“Yes, it is,” Ashley said. “For both of us.”
They regarded Gordian, who lay there under his blankets with his eyes closed, his ventilator making its pumping sounds into the silence. A young man in a white intern’s coat entered the room, checked Gordian’s nutrient IV bag, noted aloud that it required changing, and left. Behind a concrete rampart three hundred yards away, the sniper cradled his rifle in his hands and waited for the signal.
Megan glanced at her watch.
“We’ve got about an hour before Eric Oh and the
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team from Sobel arrive with the antivirals,” she said, her voice filled with ongoing wonder and admiration over their ability to synthesize them literally overnight. “How about you let me treat you to breakfast while we’re on standby?”
A sudden look came into Ashley’s eyes. Sober, knowing. At first Megan wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.
Kneeling on his rooftop perch, the shooter watched her turn from the foot of the bed and step in front of the window, dead-center between his crosshairs. His finger was curled over the trigger. One squeeze and her heart would burst in her chest.
“Breakfast sounds like a good idea,” Ashley said, her eyes still solemn, her voice dropping to a very quiet volume. “We need to talk in private, and I think it might be the right opportunity.”
Megan gave her a questioning glance.
“Sword business is Sword business,” Ashley said. “I don’t have to know everything about how you do your work. In many ways I prefer not knowing. It’s a part of Cord’s life that scares me. And because I think of you and Pete as family, it makes me scared for you, too.”
“But you want me to tell you something now,” Megan said slowly.
Ashley nodded.
“If men died in Canada so my husband can live, I would like their names and as much information as you’re able to provide about the circumstances under which they were lost,” she said. Her voice had lowered another notch, and Megan realized she did not want to chance it carrying across the room to Gordian. ‘ “Thanksgiving’s just a few days from now. I need to call their
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families … express my gratitude and indebtedness. And my sorrow. They should know how important they are to me. That I’ll always be available to help them as best I can.”
Megan looked at her.
“It’s going to be difficult,” she said.
“Yes,” Ashley said. “I expect it will.”
Megan studied her face a moment, then took her handbag from where she’d hung it over the back of her chair.
“We’d better head down to the cafeteria,” she said.
Ashley nodded again, and went to the bed table to pick up her own purse, stepping away from the window.
The sniper breathed, gripping the stock of his weapon. There was a point when it took a tremendous act of will to refrain from firing. When everything was aligned, and you knew you had a sure kill, the target was almost inviting you to take the shot. But this wasn’t about either of the women. His orders were to wait for the signal.
Ashley had almost moved out of his sight picture when he finally got it.
Three shots, that was how many Megan would remember.
Three, fired in swift succession. She didn’t see any muzzle flashes. Didn’t hear any audible reports. The room simply appeared to begin exploding around her. But she was fairly certain of the number of shots.
The first obliterated most of the window just as she was about to rise from her chair. Glass pelted over her in a shower of hooks and needles, a large shard cutting deep into her left temple. She dove to the floor, saw Ashley standing frozen in place, looking from the knocked out window to Gordian, plaster spouting from
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the wall across the room now, bits and pieces of it flecking her blouse, shot number two. “Ashley, get down!” she shouted, blood streaming over her face in rivulets.
Ashley gave no indication that she’d heard her. Eyes wide with shock, she started toward the bed, toward her husband.
“Listen to me, Ash! The bullets can’t hit him over there, he’ll be okay, please, please get dow-”
“No!” Ashley screamed, still on her feet, moving over to the bed, not caring about herself, not thinking rationally about lines of fire, knowing only that bullets were flying here in the room where her husband lay helpless and vulnerable, wanting only to protect him.
Even before the third shot came, Megan was scrambling toward her on all fours. But the guard had already launched off his seat, propelling himself at Ashley, clutching her around the waist, taking her down to the floor, protecting her with his own body.
There was another crash as more jagged fragments of glass blew from the window frame, round number three, singing through the air, impacting the wall inches from the previous shot, punching a wide hole into it.
Then Megan saw the door fly open, and people rush into the room. Sword guards, hospital personnel, maybe eight or ten of them seeming to flood through the door all at once. She didn’t know whether it was the gunshots or the closed-circuit television cameras below the ceiling that alerted them, didn’t particularly care. She was just glad they had arrived.
Somebody was yelling to move Gordian out, move him out of here! Then the shift doctors and nurses crowded around him, hastily detaching his ventilator hoses from their outlets, rolling his bed toward the door,
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pushing the wheeled IV stands along as they steered him through it. A couple of the guards accompanied Gordian and the staffers to the secondary room that had been readied down the corridor, weapons drawn. A few stayed behind momentarily, one member of the Sword team scrambling toward Megan, a second moving over to Ashley and the guard who’d shielded her from harm, yet another going to the shattered window and taking a position beside it, carefully craning his head to peer out at the rooftops for any sign of the triggerman, staying flat against the wall, using the wall for cover.