Jeff Abbott - Collision

“Who are they?”

Pritchard seemed not to hear him. “I came to New Orleans to check it out. That’s why I was here. It’s not a problem.”

“Who is Hector targeting?” Ben asked. “Because whatever’s here, it’s why he’s taken over the Cellar.”

“He couldn’t be after them,” Pritchard said in a whisper. “No reason to go after them.”

Ben grabbed her shoulders. “Tell us.”

“Reynolds’s search queries… they found a group of Arabic men traveling under a pattern that suggested assumed names, coming into the country a few weeks ago, all ending up in New Orleans. But these men aren’t terrorists. They’re training at a CIA safe house.” Pritchard swallowed.

“Oh, my God,” Ben said.

“They’re Arabs preparing to infiltrate and spy on terrorist groups overseas. To be the native eyes and ears we haven’t been able to have in places like Beirut and Baghdad and Damascus. We’ve never had true, trained spies working deep cover inside Hezbollah or al-Qaeda or any of the other networks. Our best hope of destroying terrorist networks from inside.”

Ben let her go. “Where is this safe house?”

“I don’t have the location… that’s classified…”

“But Adam gave Hector the same information he gave you,” Vochek said. “Hector’s going to use the Cellar to kill a CIA team. Why would he-”

“Because Hector needs the war on terror to keep going for a good long time,” Ben said. “It’s fueling his bottom line.” He thought of Pilgrim’s Indonesian story; framing Pilgrim in turn for a security contract for his new company, profiting from fear and chaos.

Hector was repeating his own history, but now on a much wider and more dangerous scale.

The knock on the door came, a man announcing room service.

The waiter, a gentle, hardworking man who had been with the hotel for twenty years and had been one of the first employees to return in the wake of Katrina, knocked on the door, announced, “Room service.” He was tired, his feet ached, and he was ready to go off duty. He nodded at the young man ambling down the hallway, turned back toward the door, and felt the cool metal touch his temple. He froze.

“You’re going to walk in and leave the door propped open. Do it and you won’t get hurt. Argue and you’re dead. I don’t want to hurt you. Nod if you understand.” The voice was a lightly accented whisper.

The waiter, stiff with fear, nodded. The young man stepped back against the wall, where he wouldn’t be seen.

The door opened.

Pilgrim watched the cars leave-two of them. One was a van holding the Cellar agents, the other a sedan with just Hector. Jackie had taken off five minutes earlier in a third car, and Pilgrim let him go. He had to stay with Hector.

The two vehicles pulled onto Veterans Boulevard, headed east, then headed north toward Lake Pontchartrain. Traffic was heavier than normal- Saturday night in New Orleans-and he hung back, keeping an eye on Hector’s car. They weren’t wasting any time; whatever this job was, they were moving now.

He did not want to kill anyone in the Cellar. They had made the same choice he had, to take a broken life and rebuild it into meaningful work. Perhaps they hadn’t chosen entirely for virtuous reasons; he himself had no desire to rot in an Indonesian prison. They had all done work that would offer no acclaim and few rewards, other than Teach’s assurance they had done a Good Thing.

What could be in New Orleans that interested Hector so that he needed the Cellar? Hector Global could command a thousand trained men for action anywhere in the world. But those men wouldn’t kill at will, especially outside a war zone.

This had to be a job that his normal security forces would refuse to do. Because there would be questions. Repercussions. Hector needed deniability.

If he could take Hector out with a shot-then the rest of the group would come after him, perhaps abandon the target if they lost the element of surprise.

He stayed close as they began to head into the patchwork of rebuilt and devastated neighborhoods close to the massive lake.

And if he missed Hector, and the Cellar caught him… well. His beginning in this life had been messy, at Hector’s hands, and his exit would cost Hector dearly. He would make sure the price was high.

The waiter, mouth a thin line, pushed the room service cart into the room. Ben saw the coffee and carafe and the covered dishes. His stomach rumbled. But the waiter said nothing, no hello, how are you, kept his head bowed as if expecting a blow.

Pritchard stepped forward to sign the ticket. Two sharp bleats, the waiter falling over the tray, Pritchard reeling, collapsing onto her back. Jackie Lynch stood in the doorway, silencer-capped gun raised, his eyes seeking his next target, closing the suite’s door behind him.

Vochek stumbled backward toward the coffee table. Jackie raised the gun.

“No!” Ben yelled. “No!”

Jackie saw Ben. A twisted smile touched his battered lips and he shifted the gun’s aim from Vochek toward Ben.

But in the second it took for the gun to point toward Ben, Vochek rushed Jackie and kicked him in the solar plexus. He staggered back and she threw herself against him so that the gun, for barely a moment, pointed only at the floor.

Ben ran and slammed Jackie against the wall, leveraging all his weight into the younger man’s shoulder, pinning the gun between them, closing his hands around the weapon. Fury fueled his muscles. He got hold of Jackie’s pinky and snapped hard.

Jackie screeched and fired, the bullet popping into the carpet.

Vochek tangled fingers in Jackie’s long hair, knocked his head against the wall. Once, twice, and he roared in anger. Ben twisted the gun around, toward Jackie; he tried to fire but Jackie’s broken, bent finger jammed the trigger.

Jackie head-butted Ben’s face, hammering into his cheek, but even with the bolt of pain, Ben did not let go. Jackie wrenched free of Vochek’s grip. With Ben pinning his hands, he landed a kick hard in Vochek’s chest, and she fell to the floor.

“It ends now!” Jackie screamed. He knocked Ben loose; Ben fell against the cart. The heat of the coffee decanter touched his arm. He grabbed the carafe and swung it hard-no time to unscrew the top, Jackie was lifting the gun to put a bullet between Ben’s eyes. Ben caught the gun hard but couldn’t knock it free of Jackie’s grip. Ben swung the carafe back, trying to connect with Jackie’s head, but missed. Jackie leveled the gun to fire again and Ben caught his hand, raised the gun toward the ceiling.

“I’m going to kill you-” Ben shouted.

Vochek got up and ran toward the bedroom.

Jackie grunted in fury, started to wrench his hand from Ben’s grip.

With the other hand, frantic, Ben thumbed the pour control on the hot carafe and dumped coffee on Jackie’s groin. Jackie shrieked and tried to jump back through the wall. Ben slammed the carafe into Jackie’s face. Hot coffee splashed Ben’s hand. He didn’t feel pain.

Jackie’s face contorted in rage. He bent and Ben grabbed the gun, but Jackie kept his grip. Screaming with fury, he slapped the gun into Ben’s face, once, twice, as Ben fought to keep a grip on the pistol.

Don’t let go don’t let go, he thought.

Ben fell to his knees, his forehead bleeding, his cheek cut. Jackie wrenched the pistol from Ben’s hold and swung it toward him.

The sound of the shot boomed and a hole appeared in Jackie’s hand, a nickel-sized coin of gore, and then Vochek shot him again, in the stomach, and Jackie folded, dropping the gun.

Vochek stood over Pritchard, the gun Ben had surrendered to her in her hands. “Get his gun,” she yelled.