It was painted in shades of white and grey, smooth to the touch from the clear lacquer.
Marine One landed, the massive rotors of the Sea King creating a new wave of CS smoke that remained in the vicinity. The president's men hit the crest of the LZ, hundreds of camera flashes going off and illuminating the smoke. The press corps were shouting questions but the protective bubble didn't stop moving.
The doll's face was blank.
"It's whoever you want it to be," Chernayev said, standing taller, thumb on the switch. "It's your worst fears painted on there."
Middleton had heard of this exact type of doll, had even seen pictures in the ICC's files from the Russian-Afghan war investigators. They'd turned up at several sites of war crimes. A KGB OSNAZ kill team had been giving them out to high-value targets as a marker for death. The locals and even the regular Russian army started spreading rumors that it was a group of mythical female snipers, the White Tights. Unstoppable. Unscrupulous. They'd garrotte you in your sleep, they'd shoot you from two kilometers away, they'd take out your whole family with IEDs that would make modern-day Iraq's look like they belonged in the stone age. ICC files had a different name for this assassin--and they were convinced it was just one lone man assigned to OSNAZ's Alpha Group. They called him "The Doll Maker."
The name was given to me against my will, but that is another story. There are so many other stories, and there will be time for all of them later . . .
"I know who you are," Middleton said.
"Pity. We could have talked about that some more. Out of time."
Out of the corner of Middleton's eye he saw a figure running through the crowd, coming at them. Whatever, whoever, it was too late. Chernayev's hand was lifting the remote detonator.
"Arkady, why do it this way?" Middleton said to him, his voice deflated at the inevitable. Whatever name this man was known by--the Doll Maker, the Scorpion--one thing was constant: his art was death and he was about to paint his masterpiece.
"Sorry Harold. It's complicated."
17
JEFFERY DEAVER
The president was thirty yards away from the LZ, dust, leaves, branches fleeing from the turbulent wake of the helicopter. The rotors were dispersing the tear gas too.
The commander-in-chief was sprinting like a running back surrounded by a phalanx of teammates toward the goal line: the safety of the chopper.
The fake reporters, their weapons up, moved closer.
Chernayev was poised with the detonator. In thirty seconds he'd fire it.
"Get ready," gasped Archer, his face gone white. He had struggled onto a hill and had a good view of the landing zone. He was dying, but he'd see this through to the end.
Middleton strayed toward the Russian, but two BlueWatch guards painted him with their complicated black machine guns. He stopped.
"Twenty seconds."
The scene out there--the chopper, the president, the crowds, the reporters, legit and phony--was utter chaos. But this area, by the viewing stand, was nearly deserted. There were no witnesses to the horrible drama playing out.
Middleton shouted to Chernayev. "Don't, Arkady. There are a thousand reasons why you can't do this."
The Russian ignored him and glanced at Archer.
"Ten seconds," the wounded man gasped.
It was then that another voice intruded. "Actually, not a thousand, but there are several very good ones." A sweaty, dusty but well-dressed man broke from the brush. The accent was British. It was the man swimming through the crowd not long before. "Reasons for not pushing that button, I mean."
Chernayev stepped back, the BlueWatch shooters swinging their guns onto the Brit.
"Ah, ah, don't be too hasty there," the man said. He looked toward Chernayev. "Ian Barrett-Bone," he said, as if introducing himself at a cocktail party.
"Who the hell are you?" the Russian asked.
The man ignored the question. "First of all, my team has been recording everything for the past half hour. Pictures of you are on hard drives in several very secure locations. You push that detonator, some of the best law enforcement agencies in the world will come after you. And they will find you. That's if you get away, of course. Which you probably won't. Since three of my snipers are sighting on you at this moment."
The Russian looked around uneasily.
"You won't spot them. They're much better than . . . " His voice trailed off as he contemptuously regarded a swarthy BlueWatch security man nearby. The Brit continued, "Oh, the second reason you don't want to push the button and kill the president? It would be a bit of a waste of time. Owing as how he's not really the president."
"Chto?" The man gasped.
"Oh, please, Arkady. Think about it. American foreign policy can be counted on for some monumental blunders, but the administration is hardly foolish enough to send their chief executive into a known threat zone like this. The real president's in Washington. Monitoring everything that's going on here, by the way."
"A look-alike?" Connie Carson whispered.
"Quite so. We weren't exactly sure what would happen here but I knew it involved the Scorpion and some associate from the People's Republic. We put this charade together to flush the main ops into the open."
Archer was staring at the LZ. Dismayed, he raged, "Something's wrong. The marines and the Secret Service . . . They're not leaving. They're targeting Sanam's men."
Middleton asked the logical question. "And who's 'we'?"
Barrett-Bone said, "MI5, Foreign Operations Division. We're working with the CIA and U.S. and British military." He spoke into his collar and immediately two dozen men in serious combat gear stepped out of bushes, guns trained on Chernayev and the nearby BlueWatch security people.
Middleton recognized the uniform and the winged dagger insignia of the famed British Special Air Service, an infantry unit like the U.S.'s Delta Force or Navy Seals. The gravity of their mission was heralded by the fact that two were armed with FN Minimi machine guns and the rest had their SA80 assault rifles mounted with "Uglies"--underslung grenade launchers.
Prepared--no, eager--to light up hostiles big time, if it came to that.
"There are two hundred others here, surrounding the grounds and, to be quite honest, I doubt your BlueWatch chaps feel their paycheck is worth going up against our SAS, now don't you agree?" Barrett-Bone frowned. "Oh, and for the record, I'm obligated to inform you that we're here with the full knowledge and sanction of the lieutenant general of the Indian Army's Northern Command in Udhumpar and of Indian Special Branch . . . Which is the diplomatic way of saying, your men discharge a single bullet from a single weapon, you will all vanish and quite unpleasantly."
Chernayev hesitated. His face red with anger, he looked around. Then he bent forward, set the detonator on the ground and backed up.
In two seconds, SAS soldiers had him in cuffs and relieved of his weapon, phone and personal effects. In only a bit longer than that, Wiki Chang had deactivated the remote detonator.
The British soldiers then disarmed and cuffed the BlueWatch security men.
None too gently, Middleton was pleased to note.
Barrett-Bone spoke again into his collar. "Captain, the detonator's in our control. Move in and arrest the Mujahedeen. The thermobarics can't be detonated by them, but some may have other weapons and they're undoubtedly all fired up." He sighed. "Fundamentalists are soooo completely tedious."
A medic from Barrett-Bone's team arrived and Middleton immediately pointed out Archer. "I want him alive," he said. "Do what you can to save him."
"Yes, sir."
But before the medic got to him, Archer sat up suddenly, stared with unseeing eyes toward Middleton and then collapsed onto his back. He shivered once, then lay still.
The medic ran forward and bent down over the man. He touched his neck then looked up, grimacing. "Lost too much blood, sir. I'm afraid he's gone."
The Volunteers were sitting in a large workman's trailer, near the site of the dam. Charley was i
n a separate one; her father wanted to minimize the trauma she'd been through. Everyone was dabbing their eyes from the remnants of the CS tear gas.
Middleton had been on the phone with Washington, The Hague, New Delhi and London. Everything Barrett-Bone had told them checked out. The standin for the president, the monitoring that MI5, MI6, Langley and the Indian Special Branch had been doing.
Chernayev was being housed in an impromptu prison--another trailer, guarded by Indian Northern Command troops. And Barrett-Bone had just reported that a covert ops team had completed an extraordinary rendition of General Zang. Beijing may or may not have been allied with him and Chernayev, but they distanced themselves from him instantly and ordered two-thirds of its soldiers on the Kashmiri border as soon as feasible.
Despite the rescue, Tesla was irritated at Barrett-Bone, "You hid a tracker on us, didn't you? In Paris."
"Of course, I did. On you, actually. I wasn't sure if Ms. Middleton would go along for the ride--whatever the ride was going to be."
"But you tried to kill us!"
"Think back, luv."
"I warned you about 'luv.'"
"Sorry. But obviously I wasn't going to kill you. I was looking out for you. It would have been awkward if you'd been captured or killed."
"Awkward," she muttered.
"And I did need to get in touch with Harold here. We tried everything but he'd gone missing."
"You could have said something about who you were."
"How could I do that? If you were captured, I didn't know how much you'd tell. I know the Volunteers don't go in for intense interrogation, but a lot of people do, you know."
At this, for some reason, Nora Tesla fell silent, avoiding Middleton's eyes.
Middleton then said wryly to the British agent, "And you also needed to use us for information."
A knowing smile. "Obviously, Colonel. That is the way the game's played, right? There's a lot at stake here. I've been after the Scorpion for several years now, undercover. Posing as someone with an interest in Sikari, a businessman, a mover and shaker. But the leads dried up . . . Funny that, considering all this ado about water. We heard some chatter about that bizarre reporter, Crane, that he had some leads. We put him in play and got him to the suburbs of Paris. We tried to make him think one of us was the Scorpion--the fellow driving was our station chief in Paris. He even wore a copper bracelet I bought at Selfridge's. Crane didn't fall for it, I think. But he did follow up on our suggestion to go to your flat, Middleton."
"You used him as bait," Tesla snapped.
The British agent looked at her as if she'd exclaimed, Why, the earth is round! "It worked, didn't it? We got onto Jana that way. But she slipped us--thanks to Crane himself. He flew off someplace with her. To Dubai, it seems. A night in paradise, he must've been thinking. It turned out to be literally true, of course, since she killed him."
Tesla snapped, "That's how Jana got on to us in Paris. That wouldn't have happened, if you hadn't meddled."
"I do recall apologizing," the smarmy man said with irritation. "I was there looking after you, remember."
"But not very goddamn well, since I got shot and Charley was nearly killed."
"What's going to happen now?" Wiki Chang asked.
"We'll spirit both of them back to London--Chernayev and Zang. See what we can arrange for a trial. Zang'll ultimately go back home--and end up shot, most likely. As for your Russian friend, if the Criminal Court wants him, 'fraid you'll have to stand in line."
"They're both yours for the time being," Middleton said. "The only warrant we had was for Devras Sikari." Then he had a thought and laughed.
"What?" Connie asked.
"The Scorpion--Sikari's benefactor." Middleton shook his head. "All we knew about him was that he was 'holy, but of this world.' But I'm wondering if that was a mistake. Maybe the phrase started in English before it got translated into Hindi. The original phrase might have been 'wholly of this world.'"
The British agent said, "Can't disagree with that: It certainly describes Chernayev . . . Talk about greed. Selling out a whole country."
Middleton cocked his head. "That raises a question. Chernayev's motive was money and Zang's was annexing territory with a good source of water for China. But Sikari's motive was an independent Kashmir. So what was his real involvement in all this?" He waved his hand, indicating the dam. "It seems like he was a pawn, used by Chernayev. But he clearly had something planned for the Village--that was in his email to Kavi Balan."
There were plenty of unanswered questions, he reflected.
"I better make some arrangements for transport now," Barrett-Bone checked an extremely expensive watch. He saw Middleton regarding it. He laughed. "I didn't steal it. I come from money, my friend. Believe it or not, I'm a civil servant because I like the work. One can't be a benefactor to the world of arts and music full time and not get bored. Besides, I'm also a bit of a patriot, as out of vogue as that seems. Cheers now." He walked into the dusty heat.
Middleton pulled out his new phone and got a status update. The fifty Mujahedeen and their leaders had been taken into custody, as had the BlueWatch people. The grounds and the explosives were secure.
He now rose. "I'm going to check on Charley." His soul was heavy with the knowledge that she'd been drawn into the midst of this terrible affair--at a time when what she needed most was a chance to heal.
"I'll go with you," Tesla said.
He was nearly to the door when his phone buzzed. "Yes?"
"Colonel Middleton?" the British voice asked.
"That's right."
"Commander Ethans here. SAS."
"Go ahead."
"Stumbled on a bit of an odd situation. Thought it best to apprise you. We've got the body of that Archer Sikari. But, well, the queerest thing. Seems he didn't die from loss of blood. He probably would have, but that's not what finished him off. He was shot. In the back of the head."
"What?"
"No question."
Middleton recalled seeing the man sit up suddenly and then collapse. But he hadn't heard any shots. He told this to the SAS officer, and asked, "What about your men?"
"No, sir. None of ours or yours were issued silencers."
"Can you clear it for me to have a chat with Chernayev?"
"I'll check with Mr. Barrett-Bone, sir, but from SAS's perspective, it's fine."
He thanked the officer and hung up. He told the other Volunteers what had happened.
"But none of the BlueWatch people would have shot him--they were working together."
Middleton said, "This one has too many questions left for me. I need some answers."
He headed out the door into the blaring sun, Nora Tesla beside him.
They approached the trailer where the prisoner was being held. Middleton identified himself to the six Indian guards, who checked IDs and then nodded them through the temporary barbed wire perimeter, after verifying that Barrett-Bone and the SAS had okayed their interview.
The trailer was big--a doublewide American model, with air-conditioning. In the front office, two guards sat in metal chairs, gripping H&K machine guns. One checked their IDs and placed another call to their superior officers and, it seemed, to Barrett-Bone. Middleton didn't mind; there couldn't be too much security with these particular prisoners.
Then he hung up and said, "You can go in, in a moment. As soon as the nurse is finished."
"Nurse?"
"British army nurse."
Middleton frowned. "Is Chernayev injured?"
"No, no. She said it was a routine check to allow him into London." He smiled. "Maybe he needs inoculation against mad cow disease."
"Allow him into London? There's no quarantine coming from India. Anyway he's not going on a commercial flight. Who approved it?"
"An officer in our command."
"Inside, now! Keep your weapons ready."
"She was just a nurse."
"I'll call Northern Command if I have to."
The guards regarded each other. They rose, readied their machine guns.
One covered the door while the other unlocked and flung it open. He peered inside, his face a mask of shock. "There is problem. No, no!"
The other Indian soldier raced into the room, Middleton and Tesla right behind.
They stopped fast, seeing Chernayev's body. It was in the middle of the small office, whose windows were covered with thick steel mesh. He'd been shot in the back of the head as he tried desperately to claw his way out.
"The nurse," a guard whispered, gesturing at the only other door in the room, leading to a third office.
"There's a back door?"
"No, just the one, the front."
The nurse was trapped. They'd keep her pinned and call in a marine tac team. "I'll get--"
"No, we will stop her."
"Wait!" Middleton whispered. "She can't--"
They flung the door open and blinked as a brilliant light, the sort used for construction site work at night, clicked on. Blinded, they staggered back as four well-placed silenced rounds found their targets--the men's foreheads.
In a blur the woman rushed out. She was dressed in a British army soldier's uniform, but the poor fit and a small red stain on the chest told Middleton how she'd come by the outfit. He didn't recognize her.
She hesitated in shock, not expecting the other two to be in the room. But before she could lift the .22 again, Middleton drew the Beretta that Chernayev had given him. When he touched the muzzle to her head she debated only a moment and dropped her own weapon.
Tesla then stepped forward, grabbed the woman and, wincing from the wound in her own shoulder, flung the attacker to the floor hard. Then she struck her furiously in the head and face.
"Nora, stop!" Middleton said, pulling her off and securing the shooter with one of the dead guard's handcuffs. "You didn't have to do that."
"Oh, yes, I did."
Middleton frowned.
Tesla said, "You don't know who she is, do you?"
"No."
"It's Jana Grover."
"In Paris, did you check on my body?" Jana snapped contemptuously at Tesla. "Did you call les gendarmes, did you call Le Deuxieme Bureau. No, of course not. What you saw floating in the Seine was my jacket. And you took that at face value. I'm sorry I escaped and deprived you of another chance to torture me."