Tom Cain: No survivors

While the first paramilitary aimed a couple of halfhearted kicks at the Albanian, the other peered into the car. He gestured at the passengers to get out. A woman emerged from one side, a second, much older female from the other. Carver assumed they were family: the man's wife and mother, maybe. The missus was hugging an absurdly big pink teddy bear that looked like a prize from a tatty fairground stall. Ma was wrapped in a fringed, woven shawl. The man guarding them lined them up by the side of the road, then half turned to watch his partner kicking the man curled up in the dirt. Neither of the paramilitaries saw what happened next. As Carver looked on, the younger woman flung her teddy bear to the ground as the older one threw back her shawl. Both were carrying guns. Neither hesitated for a second before firing at the paramilitaries.

One went down immediately, clutching his belly and screaming out in pain. The other tried to flee the blast of gunfire, but managed only a few strides before a bullet hit the side of his head, splitting his skull like a teaspoon cracking a boiled egg, and throwing him dead to the ground. Several of the shots had missed, the bullets flying straight past the paramilitaries toward Carver's car, smashing his rear window and punching into the bodywork.

A voice over the phone cried, "What the hell was that?" but Carver wasn't around to hear it. He'd already kicked open the car door and rolled out onto the pavement, drawing the Beretta as he went and scrambling into a ditch by the opposite side of the road. A knife had appeared from nowhere in the Albanian's hand and he was standing over the wounded Serb, grinning at his screams with a look that suggested he was going to enjoy the job of giving him a long, slow, agonizing death. But that could wait. He'd spotted Carver's dash across the road. As the screams of the wounded man filled the night air, he picked up one of the paramilitaries' submachine guns and walked toward Carver, peering into the darkness.

The women followed him, the wife crouching low, her pistol held in both hands in front of her, the old woman stomping forward in absolute defiance of any danger.

With a shock of disgust, Carver realized that he was going to have to kill all three of them, the women as well as the man.

He didn't hesitate. Kneel, in the firing position. Two shots into the man's head. Roll left. Kneel again. Two each for the women. Three kills.

The whole thing was over in less than five seconds. Afterward, the only sound came from the wounded Serb, whose howls of fear and pain were gradually subsiding to whimpers. Unconsciousness and death would not be far away.

Carver walked back to his car, sickened by the pointlessness of it all. He wondered how many other scenes like this there had been across this benighted country over the past few years and how many more would follow in the years to come.

Ninety minutes ago the people in that car had most likely been standing around in the line by the border crossing, talking and joking like everyone else. They were alive. They had prospects. Now look at them.

He picked up the phone again. The first voice he heard was Jaworski.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"Shut it," snapped Carver. "Five people just died."

"Okay, let's start again, nice and polite," said Jaworski, in a patronizing tone of exaggerated conciliation. "Here's the situation. Waylon McCabe flew into Pristina a couple of hours back. His plane has been adapted to drop a bomb. He's also made some kind of alliance with a Serbian warlord, Dusan Darko. We think Darko's going to seize the weapon Vermulen has located-may have done so already-then hand it over to McCabe. And then we believe McCabe wants to use it to trigger Armageddon."

Carver gave a snort of disbelief.

"He thinks he's fulfilling the prophecies of the Book of Revelation," said Jaworski, with absolute seriousness.

"Jesus wept."

"That's kind of an unfortunate choice of words," said Jaworski.

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Get to the airport, obviously, then locate the plane. We tracked it all the way to Slatina and we know it landed. We're certain it hasn't taken off-it's not on any radar. But the last satellite pass we did, there was no sign of it."

"Okay-I find the plane. Then what?"

"Just observe. Keep us informed. Believe me, you will be playing a major role in resolving this situation by providing the intelligence we need. But I want you to understand, so far as my government is concerned, this is a domestic matter involving U.S. citizens. It will be settled by U.S. agencies, and no one else. Frankly, Mr. Carver, it is none of your business. Your place is in the audience, not on the stage. So do not interfere, and do not, on any account, do anything more than observe and inform."

"You got that, Carver?" Grantham cut in. "Observe and inform. None of your fireworks displays this time."

"Oh, I got that, all right," said Carver before he hung up.

He took his gear out of the shot-up Mercedes and dumped it in the dead Serbs' truck. Then he went back to the man who'd been killed by the shot to the head. He was still illuminated by the headlights of the Albanians' car. Carver looked at the back of the man's uniform, then rolled the body over with his foot and checked the front. Both sides were clear of bloodstains. It was too good a chance to waste. He stripped the body and pulled the Serbian uniform over his own trousers and shirt. The fit wasn't too bad, though the boots were a size too small: He'd have to put up with aching feet for a night. The dead man didn't look too much like Carver, and his I.D. card revealed he was more than a decade younger. Carver went to the other body. This one was older and the likeness was better, so Carver took his wallet and papers instead. So now he was Nico Krasnic, age thirty-two.

He picked up Krasnic's submachine gun and went back to the truck. As he got in, shoving his discarded vest and fisherman's bag out of sight in the footwell in front of the passenger seat, he saw a portable CD player perched above the dashboard. Out of curiosity, Carver pressed play and picked up the earphones. A percussive, machine-gun blast of hardcore rap hammered around his brain. Carver turned it off. If that was the last thing the Serb had been listening to, then death must have come as a blessed relief.

As he started up the truck and set off again on the road to the airport, Carver was already formulating his plan. And it had very little indeed to do with observing and informing.

In the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, midnight had arrived and with it the start of the magnificent Easter celebrations of the Greek Orthodox faith. The building was thronged with worshippers of all Christian denominations as the Patriarch of Jerusalem celebrated Christ's resurrection, on the very spot of the tomb He so triumphantly vacated. Amid shouts of "Christ is risen… He is risen indeed," the glory of the resurrection and the conquest of death were celebrated in a service of matins that echoed around the 950-year-old building in an act of worship that embodied both the awesome power of faith and the glorious joy of life.

Kurt Vermulen bore no physical wounds. To his shame, he had been taken without firing a shot. So now he sat in the back of what had been his Land Cruiser, appropriated by the man who had so expertly defeated him, a man who introduced himself as Dusan Darko.

"We have a meeting," Darko said, looking up from the front passenger seat and watching Vermulen in the rearview mirror as he spoke. "A friend of yours, Mr. McCabe. He is paying me twenty million, U.S., to deliver the suitcase to him. Perhaps you can pay me more. I am always interested in making a better deal. It is not too late."