Jon held up his hand. “Why would the exec of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs want me killed?”
“Because he’s working for the same people I am.”
“Tremont and Blanchard Pharmaceuticals?”
Bill nodded. “It’s what I was warning you about back in Rock Creek park.”
Jon stared at him. “But you didn’t warn anyone else.” His highplaned face radiated rage. “So they killed Sophia.”
“That’s the world we live in,” Griffin said bitterly. “There are no good guys. No one believes in right and wrong anymore. It’s get what you can for yourself. So now I’m going to get mine. I’m owed that much.”
Jon looked away, forcing himself to remain composed. Sophia was dead. He couldn’t bring her back. He would always carry the pain, but maybe he could learn to live with it better. He made his voice quiet. “No one’s owed anything, Bill. And you’re wrong about Randi. She couldn’t have been sent to kill me. Impossible, considering the circumstances of how we met. In fact, she saved my life.” He shot her a smile and was surprised to see her Ice Queen face soften. “She wants to stop what Tremont is doing as much as I. Who told you Caspar sent her to kill me?”
As Bill Griffin listened to Jon, he had a strange feeling. Almost as if he had missed some important piece in the puzzle of life. He was not sure exactly what it was, only that for a few lucid moments he recognized the loss and that he had never been able to find the directions that would lead him back to what was gone. So now as he studied Jon, saw him shudder for control as he was reminded again of Sophia’s death, he felt loneliness and regret. Perhaps he had been too hasty in taking care of himself. Maybe he should have warned Sophia. He could have warned others, too—
And then he stopped himself. How far could he go? Certainly he was not prepared to save the world. But maybe this one last time he could do something for Jon to make up for what had happened to his fiancée.
So he told him, “Victor Tremont is behind everything. His numberone gun is Nadal al-Hassan. They—” But as he said the names, a warning bell rang loudly inside his head. He thought about Tremont’s lodge and how empty— and safe— it had been when he had broken in to find Marty. How conveniently they had escaped.
How easily he had passed the sentries.
His gaze moved quickly to Marty. “Did Tremont or any of the others give you something to carry?” he growled. “Think! Any buttons, coins, pens, maybe a comb?”
Jon turned on Griffin. “You’re thinking—?”
Bill ordered Marty, “Search your pockets. Maybe they slipped you something without your even knowing it. It could’ve been any of them. Maybe Maddux?”
At first Marty had not realized what they were asking, and then it became clear. “You’re worried they bugged me!” Instantly he turned his pockets inside-out onto the coffee table in the living room. “I don’t remember anything, but I was unconscious after the pockmarked man hit me.”
His plump hands, which were so naturally agile on a keyboard and clumsy almost everywhere else, worked with speed. The former FBI agent watched with an itching urgency that made him want to rip every piece of clothing off Marty so he could make certain he was clean.
Instead, he ordered, “Take off your belt, Marty. Quick.”
Jon added, “Your shoes, too.”
As Marty stripped off his belt and threw it at Jon to examine, fury rose in a red tide from Bill Griffin’s throat to his neutral face. “They told me a lie they knew I’d have to try to warn you about, Jon. Then they let me break Marty out, so he’d take me to you because they didn’t learn anything from him. Two birds with one stone. They must’ve suspected me since Rock Creek park. I should’ve—”
The sharp bark of a dog carried from outside the RV. A single bark and no more.
Bill froze. His face went slack. “They’re outside. Al-Hassan and his men.
“How do you know?” Randi slid along the wall to the, corner of a front window with its glass still intact. She peered carefully around.
“The dog,” Jon realized. “The Doberman you had in the park.”
Bill nodded. “Samson. He’s trained for attack, scouting, sentry duty, you name it.”
“I see them,” Randi whispered. “Looks like four. They’re hiding among the row of RVs in front of us. One’s a tall Arab.”
“Al-Hassan,” Bill said. His voice was deathly quiet.
Peter made a clucking sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He murmured, “Here’s how they got to us.” He held up a tiny tracking transmitter he had taken from the hollowed-out heel of Marty’s shoe. “Darling little bug, isn’t it?” He shook his head with disgust, flung the device out the back window, and snapped up his submachine gun.
Randi was still on watch at the window. “I don’t see any police or military.”
“What does it matter?” Bill said harshly. “I led them here, and they’ve got you. Stupid. I was stupid!”
“Hardly,” the Englishman said calmly. “It’s going to take a lot more bloody work than they’ve put out to get us.” He reached for the light fixture on the wall over the kitchen table, pressed a button on its side, and there was a popping sound as four vinyl squares, indistinguishable from the others covering the floor, lifted up in the middle of the living room. His wiry frame moved lightning-fast across the floor to the exit. “Never leave a single way out, friends. Jon, would you do the honors?”
Jon raised the trapdoor and dropped through.
“You next, my boy,” the Englishman told Marty.
Marty nodded glumly, peered down at the asphalt, and let his feet fall through. The big Doberman was lying quietly under the RV, his large dark eyes scanning the open area and the woods behind where the RV was parked. In the deep shadow beneath the vehicle, Marty crawled quickly out of the way as Randi Russell, Bill Griffin, and Peter Howell landed, one after the other. The watchful Doberman raised his nose at Marty, and Marty slid closer. As Samson resumed his sentry duty, Marty crouched next to him and ran his hand over the handsome animal’s sleek back. Strangely, he felt no fear. Then he raised his gaze to look around at the wheels of other RVs and the thick tree trunks of the forest. He saw no feet, and for a wild moment he had the hope that maybe al-Hassan and his killers had given up and gone home.
Bill Griffin called the dog and spoke softly. “Friends, Samson. Friends.”
He had the dog smell each of them.
Then, with Jon in the lead, they crawled to the end of the RV that was closest to the woods. There were only about fifteen feet between them and safety.
“That’s it.” Peter nodded toward the trees. “We can hide there and figure out what to do next. When I say `go,’ jump up and run as if the hounds of hell are on your tails. I’ll cover you.” He patted his H&K.
But then shapes moved out from the forest line.
“Flatten!” Smith growled and dropped onto his face.
As the four others fell, a fusillade swept across the open area, whining and ricocheting off the side of the RV. They scrambled back, searching for cover behind the tires.
Bill Griffin raised his voice. “How many?”
“Two.” The Englishman’s eyes were narrow slits as he searched the woods. “Or three,” Jon countered, breathing hard.
“Two or three,” Randi echoed, “which means one or two are still in front.”
“Yeah.” Bill Griffin looked around at their tension and fear and at the brave lights in their eyes. It was true even of Marty with his odd condition and even odder mind. Marty was not the same prissy, whiny nuisance he remembered. Marty had grown up. As he thought that, he felt a terrible tear rip through something old and painful inside. At the same time, he felt a shift. Maybe it was the sourness from all the years of working for men with pinched minds. Or perhaps it was simply that he had never fit into this world which made so much sense to others. But probably the truth was he did not care a damn about anything or anyone anymore, not even himself.
He desperately wanted to care again. Now he saw it— why he had risked so much to save Jon. By doing that, he had had a hope of saving something good within himself. Thinking that, his blood seemed to course more vigorously. His mind grew incredibly clear. A sense of purpose swept through him as strong as he remembered from the old days when he and Jon were young and the future lay ahead.