Stephen England - Pandora's grave

“I don’t know,” Thomas replied with a shrug. “Didn’t seem much point in it, after all was said and done. What about you?”

The woman looked at him strangely, and in that moment he realized that she was quite young-maybe nineteen or twenty. “About me? What do you mean?”

He knelt beside the sniper rifle and looked back to where she sat, her hands tied in front of her. “How come you tried to kill me?”

It seemed like a long time before she responded, and when she did there were tears in her eyes. “I was caught in my boyfriend’s bed.”

“So?” Thomas asked with a shrug.

“The penalty for fornication is death, but the imam said my sin would be forgiven if I gave my life in jihad. I was to carry out a bombing in the Christian Quarter this evening.”

Thomas considered her reply. “That’s a deuce of an atonement. Somehow I don’t see how having sex fits in the balance sheet of blowing yourself up.”

The next moment, his headset crackled. “EAGLE SIX to LONGBOW, be advised this network is compromised.”

Harry’s voice sounded distant, strained. “I am issuing an SOS on Hamid Zakiri.”

Shoot on Sight. “I didn’t get that, EAGLE SIX,” Thomas replied, sure he had heard wrong. It couldn’t be. “Repeat.”

“If you see Hamid, don’t hesitate. Shoot to kill.”

“What’s going on?”

11:28 A.M.

The Masjid al-Aqsa

Chaos. Confusion. Judging by the voices on the radio network, he had caused all of that and more. Hamid pushed it away from his mind and focused, kneeling by the third canister.

He had found it exactly where he had expected, based on the map Farouk had sent. As the other two canisters had been, but that cursed Davood had located them both. This one was well placed, but it wouldn’t do near the damage that the others had been meant to do. Somehow, he had to get it back up to the assembly hall of the masjid, where the worshipers were now gathering.

With a small tug, he separated the wires connecting the canister with the Semtex charge designed to interfere with tampering. The bacteria had been placed in a five-foot-square area of dead space, but it wasn’t safe to move into view of the security cameras. Not yet.

He pulled the TACSAT from his pocket and consulted the screen. Thirty-five seconds…

Hamid had been lying. It had been a set-up. If anything, this canister was simpler to disarm than the first. Almost there. Just one more wire. Tex looked up from his work with the bomb as every screen in the surveillance center went black, then lit up with a blinking error message in Arabic, “SYSTEMS OFF-LINE”.

He went to the control console, urgently typing in a command. At first nothing happened, then the system seemed to freeze. Tex shook his head.

A worm was working its way through the system-and the codes that should have shut down its progress only seemed to open new gateways into the network.

He opened his TACSAT and punched speed-dial as he continued to work on the console. “I think we have a problem, boss.”

Hamid smiled in satisfaction and sprung from his hiding place, covering the canister in his jacket as he moved back toward the stairs…

11:33 A.M.

They found Davood where he had fallen in the library, lying in a pool of blood by a bookcase. His face was horribly disfigured, blood oozing from a bullet hole in his jaw.

As Hossein and Ali stood watch, Harry knelt by the side of his fallen agent, his fingers moving up Davood’s neck, searching for the pulse of life. Remorse filled him as he thought back of their suspicions, of their misdirected anger. He had planned to do this himself-but all that was gone now.

There it was-a faint but still present spark and Davood’s eyes flickered briefly open in response to his touch. “Hold on tight, man,” Harry whispered, clasping the young man’s hand in both of his own. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

Davood groaned, murmuring something out past his broken jaw. “There’s no time…”

“That’s not your concern,” Harry responded with a forced smile. “I’m in command here, remember. And you’re gonna make it out of here, soldier.”

The young agent’s right hand fell away from his torso, disclosing a ragged bullet hole in his abdomen. He’d been gut shot, was losing blood rapidly. Harry could only imagine what the hollowpoint bullet had done internally. “No use. I’m sorry…”

The worst part of it was that he was right. Harry felt a white-hot flash of anger course through his body as he bent over the dying man. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” he whispered fiercely. “Forgive me for ever doubting your loyalty.”

There was no response. When Harry looked up, the young man’s eyes were staring unforgivingly at the ceiling.

Harry folded Davood’s hands together across his chest and gently closed those sightless eyes, his movements slow and reverential. When he rose, a cold, hard mask had formed over his face. There was a time for everything under the sun and there would be a time for grief. It wasn’t now.

Now was the time for vengeance…

Leaving the library, they moved down a long corridor, weapons drawn. Harry took point, the folding stock of the H amp;K pressed tight against his shoulder. With the cameras off-line, they had no way of knowing where Hamid was. It was back to low-tech, old-fashioned methods, and they were running short on time…

The cameras showed the three men moving down the corridor toward him, blocking his exit. There were other ways to his destination, moving through the subterranean levels of the masjid, but the detour would take too much time. Hamid bared his teeth in a grin and scrolled through the frames on his TACSAT’s screen. There was only one way out- through the enemy.

He laid the canister down and covered it with his jacket, leaving his arms free for movement. Shouldering the MP-5SD, he moved to the corner, waiting.

The men on-screen drew yet closer and he noted their position with a careful, practiced eye. Now!

The figure appeared in an alcove near the end of the corridor without warning and Harry had just enough time to recognize Hamid’s face before bullets began coming his way, erupting from the barrel of the double agent’s silenced MP-5.

He threw himself sideways, his palms scraping against the flagstones as he hit the floor, rolling onto his stomach. Another moment and he was behind cover, his submachine gun aimed at the corner, but the hail of fire had stopped as abruptly as it had begun. “Anyone hurt?” Harry demanded, glancing over at his companions.

Ali shook his head in the negative. Hossein was laying a foot away from Harry, examining a gouge in his shoulder. “Ricochet,” he explained, wincing.

The absurdity of it all. To be trading fire with his best friend-it was surreal.

Those bullet gouges in the wall proved otherwise. So had Davood’s dead body. Harry closed his eyes, hatred mixing with sorrow. He knew what had to be done.

“Hamid!” he called out, his voice echoing off the stone. “Lay down your weapons and come out. We need to talk.”

The only response was the echo, bouncing and diminishing with every repetition. “It’s your only hope of leaving here. We can cut a deal, just give us the bacteria.”

“I’ve heard that before, Harry,” came the reply. “Remember, we took the class together-how to deal with a barricaded subject?”

They had, Harry realized with chagrin. He remembered the two of them joking about the class instructor, a rather pretty brunette. She could talk anybody into putting their gun down …

Hamid had taken her to dinner, if memory served. In better days.

He shook his head to drive away the remorse at what he was being forced to do. He couldn’t think about that now. Later. Not now.