Masquerade (27 page)

“Shut up!” she snapped. Then, to Gordon, “How will we find the Carnivore?” She wanted a clue, a hint to take with them.

“There's a place—” He was interrupted by one of his men.

“Damn!” she muttered.

Gordon and the man spoke intently. In the parking lot one of the distant airport employees was hurrying back to an office building, probably to call airport security or the police. One way or another the authorities would converge soon, and they'd believe Gordon and his credentials, not her and Flores.

Gordon stepped closer to the gate. “My colleague's just reminded me we're on a tight schedule. You don't want to shoot me, darling. Come with us. This is your last chance. I've
never failed you, and I won't this time.” He swung his pistol nonchalantly from her to Flores and back again. Gordon wanted them alive, especially her, and he was pushing her, forcing her to make a choice he believed must be in his favor.

His entreaty was so earnest, she actually felt herself weaken. With sudden insight she realized there was a fragile part of her that wanted to trust him, wanted to do whatever he asked, just as before. How comforting to have someone else guarantee her future, her life.

“Nice try, kid,” Flores told her, “but it's no go. You aren't going to find out a damn thing.”

She nodded. “We'll make a break for that first shed. They don't want to kill us, not yet anyway, but they'll wing us if they have to. We better make lousy targets. Ready?”

“Ready, Walker.” Flores grinned.

She yelled through the wire-mesh fence, “Gordon, you're a lying son of a bitch! Someday somebody's going to shut you up with a stake through your mouth!”

She and Flores tore off in an erratic zigzag pattern. Gunshots sprayed the tarmac. Chips of asphalt sliced through the hot, humid air, stung their legs, and blasted high against their hands and faces.

They dove into the cover of the shed, rolled, and returned fire. Gordon and his people took cover behind the fence. Sarah and Flores ran again, to the next building. Suddenly she realized there were only three guns firing at them.

“Flores, where's the fourth?—”

They turned. Behind them the fourth gun—the woman—ran out from between two gasoline trucks. She spread her legs for balance and pointed an ugly Uzi at Flores's heart.

“My orders say I can kill you, Flores.” Her voice was frosty. “Go ahead. Take another step. Try me. Please.”

Around them rows of gas trucks and irregularly placed sheds and warehouses dotted the airport tarmac. The roar of many jets hummed in the distance. A lone driver, close enough to see what was happening, slid from his big gas truck and tore away.

Flores looked as if he was going to try to jump the woman. Already Gordon and the two other men had come through the
fence and were on top of them. Fear churned Sarah's belly. She wasn't going back with Gordon.

“Bitch!” Gordon knocked her Beretta away, grabbed her arm, and, lightning fast, palm-slapped her on one cheek and backhanded her on the other. Her face blazed with pain. She refused to touch it.

“Charming as always, Gordon.”

His actor's mask dissolved in violent and irrational rage. He yanked back her arm. “I understand you, whore. You're fucking Flores. Round-heeled bitch. I made you. You're
mine
. I won't let you screw up the operation. Whores like you are always coming between men!”

Gordon spun on his heel, fury overwhelming his judgment, and shot an elbow at Flores's belly. But Flores was fast. He slid back, grabbed the elbow, and threw Gordon back. The other male agents jumped in to help, and for an instant the woman watched.

It was the opening Sarah wanted. She slammed her fist into the woman's belly and, when she doubled over, karate chopped the back of her neck. The woman dropped motionless.

Flores kicked high into the face of one of the men, who toppled backward.

“Get her out of here!” Gordon ordered the last standing man.

Gordon tackled Flores, and the third man grabbed Sarah's arm to drag her back to the gate. She jammed her foot behind his knee and used his momentum to throw him sideways. Astonished, he hit the ground hard with a loud grunt that emptied his lungs.

Sarah scrambled to retrieve her Beretta. She covered the downed woman and two downed men, while Flores and Gordon rolled on the blacktop. Flores shook free enough to dislodge an arm. He crashed his fist into Gordon's jaw. Gordon lay dazed, and Flores slammed a fist into him again. Gordon lay still.

Sarah continued to cover as Flores gathered weapons.

“Fucking traitors,” one of the men growled.

“The only traitors are Gordon and Bremner,” Sarah said.

“Tell that to Beno and Matt!” the woman snapped. “Gordon and Bremner didn't kill them at that crummy motel.
You
did.”

Flores shook his head at Sarah. “All they know is the party line.” He made the two men carry Gordon into a hot, dim shed and then he had them take off their belts and shirts. As Sarah covered, Flores used the belts to tie the two men's hands behind them. He ripped off one shirt sleeve and tied the woman's hands, too, while Sarah ripped up the rest of the shirts. Then Flores used the strips to tie Gordon's hands and the feet of everyone, and he gagged them.

Sarah emptied their pockets into her day pack. She took everything, unwilling to leave behind even the most remote clue to what was really going on in Washington and Paris.

At last Flores stood and rubbed the muzzle of his pistol under his scraggly jaw. He was studying Gordon. “We should get rid of him, Walker. He's a killer, a loose cannon. That was a revealing temper tantrum back there. He's fixated on you, and he's not going to quit until he catches you . . . or kills you.”

“Could be.”

“If you can't do it, I will.”

Gordon's eyes fluttered. He was waking up. She studied his square face beneath the tousled brown hair. Unconscious, his emotions were free to reshape his features. The slight realignment was like a shift in the earth, and what she saw in the fissure was brutality and guile.

She could let Flores kill him. Gordon had harmed her terribly, perhaps more than she'd ever know, because she recalled nothing of her transformation to Liz Sansborough. And what about the barely controlled anger she'd just discovered boiling inside her? It was for him, for Bremner, and for what they'd done to her. Killing Gordon would be revenge, satisfying—

She became aware Flores was waiting. The shed was stifling. She was dripping sweat. She looked at the two other men and the woman, who lay like trussed mannequins. They glared back, silent behind their gags. They would have killed Flores and maybe her, too, but that was different, because they knew they were right. Certainty made choices simple . . . inevitable.

In the distance a siren began to scream.

“No,” she decided. “I don't have a crystal ball. I can't kill someone just because he might kill me.”

“It's a mistake, Walker.”

“Maybe. But it's a mistake I'm going to make because I can't live with the other choice. Liz Sansborough would probably kill him. Sarah Walker can't. Let's get out of here.”

Gordon's eyes opened at last. He'd heard and understood. His gaze shot hatred at her. It reminded her of an old Chinese proverb: Do someone a favor, and they'll never forgive you.

She and Flores dragged the trussed agents into a corner of the storage shed, checked their knots, and stacked a wall of heavy boxes in front of them to hide them from the door and anyone who wandered into the shed.

Out on the tarmac, Flores padlocked the door. The siren grew into a screech. They paused, located the sound, and sprinted toward the long rows of giant jets.

Chapter 30

Sarah and Asher Flores ducked behind a garage. The siren blared toward them, but if they tried to run, they'd expose themselves. She pressed back into the wall, Beretta tight in her hands. Her face ached from Gordon's vicious slaps.

The ear-deafening wail passed in a sudden downshift of intensity. “It's going to the perimeter gate,” she decided.

“Yeah.” Flores wiped an arm across his sweaty forehead.

They dashed toward a warehouse. High on its front was painted in navy-blue letters, the same color as their trousers, jackets, and caps:
INTERNATIONAL A.M.-P.M., INC.
They paused in the doorway of the cavernous building. Employees dressed in similar uniforms pushed dollies filled with canned goods and baking supplies toward a stainless-steel kitchen, visible through two open doors near the back.

A short, heavy man swore at them. “Jesus, where the hell you been? I thought I heard shootin'—”

He was the local manager who'd been instructed by Abner Belden to ask no questions, help them board the Paris jet, and then keep his mouth shut. National security.

“Never mind,” Flores said quietly. “Get us to the plane.”

“Hell, I already had to send the provisioning truck out. Otherwise the goddamn planes don't get loaded. The next—”

“All right. We'll take another. Do it.”

The man scratched his head and led them to a large truck whose empty van lay on a collapsed scissor lift. He got behind
the wheel, Sarah and Flores climbed in, and they were off. As the thunder of jets grew louder, the manager handed out ear protectors. They passed rows of 747s and DC-10s.

“This is the 747 for Paris,” the manager shouted.

“Second change in plan,” Flores yelled back. “The Copenhagen plane.”

“Flores—” Sarah began.

He shook his head.

The manager studied them, curious. Then he shrugged. “Your rules.” He stopped at another 747. “Copenhagen plane.” The trio rode the scissor lift up to the galley. The manager held out his hand. “This is it. I'll give the attendants the story. Good luck on whatever the hell you're up to.”

Flores said, “Third change. You're coming with us.”

The manager's heavy-lidded eyes widened.

Flores stepped close. “This is for your own protection. That shooting you heard was from assholes who won't give up, and they'll find you. They won't be nice. Tell the attendants there's an emergency in Copenhagen, and you have to deadhead over. You've done that before, right?”

The manager swallowed. His eyes were suddenly scared. He stepped inside and explained he was briefing two new subordinates who were flying to Copenhagen to see how
A.M.
-
P.M.
operated from the other end.

Sarah spoke in Flores's ear. “What the hell's going on?”

“One way or another, Gordon and his pals are going to get free, and then they'll be all over the airport,” he whispered. “Gordon saw our uniforms. He'll figure my trick, follow us through
A.M.
-
P.M.
, and have Bremner's people waiting for us at the Paris airport. Our only chance is to throw 'em off now.”

She smiled. “There are lots more ways to enter Paris by land than by air.”

“Yup.” He grinned. “That's the backup plan.”

As the manager convinced the attendants of his need to go to Copenhagen, she told Flores, “I'll park the truck. There's an employee staircase outside I can use to come back up through the terminal.” She slipped her Beretta into her shirt and rode the scissor lift down. She drove the truck to an empty spot near
a different jet and nonchalantly inspected the tarmac and the windows of the terminal above as she moved up the stairs and through a door into the boarding area.

Across the waiting room, two Denver police officers were studying the crowds, perhaps looking for the two rogue CIA agents who'd killed the two men at the downtown motel. She walked on, efficient, businesslike in her catering-employee disguise. But as she closed in on the door that led to her jet, she had a horrifying vision: She could lure the two police officers back into one of the deserted service hallways or a supply closet, and she could put bullets through their heads.

It would be a simple matter. An ambush. Two police officers dead. She knew how to do it.

Her temples pounded, and a wave of nausea engulfed her. Murder was unthinkable, and yet she'd thought it, found herself automatically planning it. What was happening to her?

Neither officer paid particular attention as she passed by the flight attendant and entered the long passageway to the Copenhagen jet. In the galley, she stepped out of her uniform. Then she found Flores and fell into the empty seat beside him. He was back in his regular clothes, too. The manager was sitting just ahead, where they could watch him.

As the great jet at last roared down the runway and its wings caught the air, he took her hand and squeezed it.

“Why?” He looked closely into her face.

She knew he was asking why she'd refused to kill Gordon Taite.

She gazed out the small windows of the big jet as it gained altitude. “Ever read Abraham Maslow?”

“Don't think so.”

“He was a groundbreaking psychologist and educator,” she said. “I studied him in college. His book
Toward a Psychology of Being
gave me some insights into our nature, we human beings, and it helped me understand what kind of person I wanted to be.”

“So what did Maslow say?”

“That the science of psychology traditionally studies neurotic and psychotic people. In other words, sick people. So he
and some colleagues set out to study happy, productive people. What they found was fascinating and very different from the thinking of a lot of modern-day psychology.”

“And that was?”

“The search for values is a crucial part of our nature. After our basic needs for food, water, and shelter are met, we want excellence, justice, beauty, truth, compassion, fulfilling work, that sort of thing.”

“The crud I deal with, truth and compassion are the last things they think of. Fulfilling work? Forget it. All they want to fill is their pockets.”