Jeffery Deaver - Watchlist

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.”

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 in 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 stand-in 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.