Pandemic (65 page)

‘Late for something?’ Nicholson demanded, his pistol still holding Westwood captive.

‘No,’ Westwood replied. ‘I was just wondering when you’d get around to telling me how clever you’ve been, and what you’re planning to do next with
whatever’s contained in those sealed vacuum flasks. What have you done – sold them to al-Qaeda or some other bunch of deranged lunatics?’

For the second time since Westwood had been pushed inside the secure briefing-room, Nicholson just stared at him. ‘You have,’ he said eventually, anger flaring in his eyes,
‘absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. You think I would sell out the Company? Fuck you, Westwood, I’m a patriot, and I’m doing everything I can to protect the
Agency, and our country. Once I get my hands on that stuff it’s going straight into an incinerator.’

Westwood affected incomprehension, although he had guessed that Nicholson’s intentions had been something like that. ‘I don’t understand. Why go to all this trouble to recover
the flasks if all you’re going to do is destroy them?’

‘You don’t understand, Westwood, because you’re stupid and ill-informed.’

‘I’m only ill-informed because you destroyed all the files,’ Westwood snapped.

Nicholson nodded impatiently. ‘Yes, but if you’d done your job you’d have seen that those files were destroyed with the highest possible authority.’

Westwood nodded. ‘And why would the President of the United States himself have gotten involved in sealing a bunch of CIA files?’

‘That remark just shows the pitiful depth of your ignorance.’

Nine minutes to go.

The main door of the house was unlocked. Richter pressed his ear against the wood, listening for any sound of movement inside. He wasn’t entirely sure that he would be
able to hear anything through its thickness, but he had only lived as long as he had by taking care to check everything twice.

He double-checked the SIG again – full magazine, a round in the chamber and the decocking lever up – then reached out his left hand to turn the handle and open the door. As he had
hoped, certainly half-expected, the hallway was empty. Their fly was already caught in the web: now closeted with Nicholson, Westwood had been the only visitor they were expecting, so the guards
had clearly relaxed. The building alarms were switched off because of their frequent comings and goings: the most they would be likely to have left switched on was the driveway sensor, and Richter
hadn’t approached down the drive.

He headed down to the inner hall, stopped close beside the wall and listened. A faint murmur of voices was audible from a short corridor leading to his right, so he followed the sound, treading
slowly and carefully. At the end was a half-open door, and Richter could see from the corner of a wall cupboard inside that it was the kitchen.

He brought the SIG up into combat stance position, kicked the door fully open and stepped inside the room. Like a snapshot, the action there had been suddenly frozen. Two men sat facing each
other across a wooden table, coffee pot on the stove behind them. One man’s hand had arrested its movement halfway to his mouth, a piece of buttered toast clutched in his fingers: the other
guard had his right forefinger thrust through the handle of a coffee mug. Both their mouths hung open in shock, their eyes now fixed on the SIG P226 with its long silencer.

‘Afternoon tea, is it?’ Richter observed contemptuously. ‘Now’ – the silenced muzzle of the SIG moved gently from one man to the other – ‘in this kind
of situation there’s always a hard way to do things, and an easy way. The hard way is you both stop filling your faces and reach for your weapons, then I shoot you. That’s easy for me
but hard for you, and it also makes a lot of extra work for the caretaker here who’ll have to clean your blood and intestines and stuff off the wall behind you.

‘That’s not a good option for you, OK, so let’s work on the second alternative. I’ll talk you through it, but to make things easier, let’s have some names. You
first.’ He gestured to the man sitting on the right.

‘Blake,’ the guard replied shortly.

‘OK, Mr Blake, just keep that piece of toast in your hand in case you get hungry later. Now, with your left hand take your pistol out of its holster, finger and thumb only on the
butt.’

The guard nodded agreement, his eyes still fixed on the SIG. Moving carefully, he pulled back the left side of his jacket and reached awkwardly for his pistol. He tugged it out of the holster
and put it on the table in front of him.

‘Very good,’ Richter said. ‘Now finish your toast, then lace your fingers together and put your hands on your head.’

He watched carefully as the guard complied. ‘And you are?’ he asked, moving the SIG slightly to point directly at the other man.

‘Henderson.’

‘Same routine, Mr Henderson. Move slowly and carefully.’ He didn’t need to add any kind of a threat: the SIG did that for him.

‘Now,’ Richter said, ‘perhaps one of you is carrying a back-up piece – a small revolver in an ankle holster or something. If you are, now’s the time to tell me,
because if I find out later, it’s back to the hard option. I’ll only ask you once: is either of you carrying a second weapon?’

He was rewarded with two shaking heads. ‘OK, now, on your feet, both of you. There are two things I want you to do, both of them easy. First, where are the television monitors and control
panel for the security system located?’

‘In the den, just off the inner hall,’ Blake replied.

‘That’s good,’ Richter said. ‘Now we’ll just walk down the hall and open the main door.’

‘What then?’ Henderson asked, a quaver in his voice. ‘You’re going to shoot us somewhere once we’re outside?’

‘No,’ Richter said. ‘I’ve got no quarrel with either of you. At present you’re just in my way. The second thing I want you to do is climb into the car you arrived
in, drive away and forget you ever came here. Oh, and collect the remains of your buddy before you go. He’s around the left-hand side of the house, trussed up like a turkey for
Thanksgiving.’ Richter realized he was getting the hang of the language. ‘I’ll be watching you on the CCTV system, so just make sure you do what I’ve told you. OK? If I see
either of you here again,’ he added, ‘I’ll kill you immediately.’

The small procession reached the front door. Henderson opened it cautiously and stepped outside, glancing behind him and still unsure of what would happen. Blake took a step forward, then span
round in the doorway. He dropped his arms and lunged for Richter’s gun hand.

It wasn’t the brightest of moves, given that Richter was at least two paces behind him and carrying a pistol. Richter stepped back, easily avoiding the outstretched hand, then stepped
forward and rammed the end of the SIG’s silencer into Blake’s solar plexus. The man fell gasping to the floor and for good measure Richter kicked him none too gently in the groin.

‘Henderson, pick him up and just get the hell out of here,’ Richter snarled. ‘I’m losing patience with you two idiots.’

He watched the two men stumble through the front door, then pushed it closed and slammed the bolts home. Richter hurried back to the inner hall, located the den and stepped inside. The car
parked on the drive outside was clearly visible, as Blake, bent almost double, climbed slowly into the rear seat. As Richter watched, Henderson came into view, half-dragging the other guard Richter
had subdued earlier around the side of the house. He seemed to be protesting furiously, but Henderson ignored him and shoved him into the back of the car. He glanced over at the house for a moment
before getting into the driver’s seat, then started the engine and drove away.

Richter looked at his watch. Four zero four. On the button.

‘So where are the flasks now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Westwood shrugged.

‘What the fucking hell do you mean? Of course you know where they are. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t even be here, so don’t try and play games with me. Remember, I can have
your wife and kids brought here within an hour, and I can have you talking within three minutes of my starting work on them.’

Westwood nodded. ‘You probably could,’ he said, ‘but it still wouldn’t help. I can’t tell you what I don’t know, and I don’t know where the flasks are
because I haven’t got them.’

‘Bullshit,’ Nicholson snorted. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘You will,’ Westwood said. ‘Just think it through. I’ve been here in Virginia every day for the past week. The flasks were discovered in a steel case on Crete. How the
hell could I have got hold of them?’

‘You sent someone over,’ Nicholson suggested.

Westwood shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t – someone else recovered them from Stein. Your hired killer Murphy blundered onto the scene, yes, but he was far too late. He collected a
lead lunch, courtesy of the guy who’s now got them.’

Nicholson felt for the first time as if the situation was slipping out of his control. ‘So who is this man?’ he demanded.

Westwood shook his head. ‘All in good time – and there’s something else. I didn’t come alone.’

‘This house is secure. My men are in control here,’ Nicholson snapped.

‘Are you so sure about that?’ Westwood glanced again at his watch. Four zero five. He mentally crossed his fingers. ‘So if somebody pressed the buzzer of that door now, that
would be one of your men, right?’

‘Yes, but nobody’s going to press the buzzer, Westwood. My men have orders not to disturb us.’

As his voice trailed away into silence, the shrill sound of the buzzer cut through the briefing-room.

Richter had found his way down to the cellar and stopped outside the closed door to the secure room. He had then checked his watch yet again, taken something from his pocket
and placed it in the middle of the floor just in front of the door, then stepped to one side and pressed the buzzer, twice.

For several long seconds John Nicholson did nothing. Then he motioned Westwood across to the side of the room where he could keep an eye on him while opening the door. He
checked that his pistol’s safety catch was off, walked across to the door and slipped the lock.

He eased it open a couple of inches and called out, but there was no reply. Then he glanced through the gap and saw what Richter had intended him to see. A small flask stood innocently on the
floor a couple of feet away, the letters ‘CAIP’ clearly visible on its side.

And then the heavy door swung violently inwards, catching Nicholson sharply on the side of his head. He dropped the pistol and fell back, crashing to the floor. In his last seconds of
consciousness, he heard a brief exchange begin between Westwood and the new arrival.

‘Is that the way we planned it, or not?’ an unmistakably English voice inquired.

‘It’s probably taken ten years off my life,’ Westwood replied, ‘but yes, Paul, that’s the way we planned it.’

Monday
Browntown, Virginia

The third guard’s name was Ridout, and to say he was annoyed considerably understated the case. Henderson had ripped the duct tape from his mouth before hauling him
to the car, and as it turned out of the drive and onto the road, Ridout expressed his sentiments loudly and volubly.

‘That scruffy blond bastard’s not going to get away with this,’ he grimaced. ‘Nobody kicks me around like that.’

‘You won’t be doing anything about him until we fix your shoulder,’ Henderson said, pulling the car off the road less than a quarter of a mile on.

‘We’re going back?’ Blake asked hopefully from the back seat, the pain from his bruised testicles already easing.

‘We’re going back,’ Henderson confirmed, switching off the engine and climbing out. ‘Now this is going to hurt,’ he warned, motioning Blake to grab Ridout around
the chest.

‘Just do it,’ Ridout snapped, his face white and sweating.

Henderson seized his upper arm and with one swift movement pushed upwards and out. There was an audible click as the end of the humerus snapped back into its socket, the sound immediately
eclipsed by Ridout’s howl of pain.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Ridout gasped, his voice weak and strained. Cautiously, he rotated his right arm. ‘It still hurts like hell,’ he said, ‘but I can move
it.’

‘Right.’ Henderson continued to the rear of the vehicle. ‘We’ve got Kevlar jackets and three Uzis here. We can take that guy easily, and Murphy as well.’ He opened
the boot and passed out the bullet-proof jackets, then used his security key to unlock a steel box bolted to the floor. Inside were four Glock 17 semi-automatic pistols, three Uzi sub-machine-guns
and six boxes of ammunition.

With hardly a word spoken, they donned the jackets, picked up a pistol and sub-machine-gun each and swiftly began pushing 9mm shells into the magazines. Six minutes after Henderson had halted
the car they were ready to go.

‘How do we get back inside?’ Blake demanded.

‘The back door,’ Henderson said. ‘It’s got an electric lock and an external keypad, and I know the code.’

Nicholson came to slowly, a searing pain on one side of his head where the door had struck it. For several seconds he had no recollection of where he was, but then recognized
the briefing-room. He tried to stand up but his arms and legs refused to respond. He looked down and saw that his wrists were lashed firmly to the arms of the chair. He also realized that his
jacket had been removed.

When he examined the small table in front of him, he noticed a strange collection of objects – a SIG automatic pistol, a kitchen knife, a container of salt, a tin of lighter fluid and a
box of matches. Beside them stood the object that he’d seen earlier outside the briefing-room: a small metal vacuum flask bearing the letters ‘CAIP’. Near by, Westwood and another
man – fair-haired and slightly untidy – were standing staring at him.

‘This is Paul Richter,’ Westwood began, ‘who sorted out your thug Murphy on Crete—’

‘Let’s just get some answers to a few simple questions,’ Richter interrupted. ‘First of all, what was CAIP?’

Nicholson shook his head firmly and then wished he hadn’t as a bolt of pain shot across his skull.

‘OK,’ Richter continued, ‘it’s facts-of-life time. You’ve now got two choices. Tell us about CAIP and you might walk out of here alive. Clam up, and we’re
going to do some unpleasant things to you until you do tell us. It’s up to you.’