Iris Johansen - Dead Aim

There was a silence. "And what do you hope to accomplish by this?"

"I hope to kill you."

He chuckled. "The hunted turned hunter?"

"Or I hope to remain free long enough to give Morgan a chance to kill you."

"A slightly greater chance."

"I'll call Morgan when we reach the Kettle and tell him where I am. He won't tell anyone else, because he'll be afraid that you'll kill me." She paused. "And he'll come after me. Isn't that what you want?"

"It's very tempting." He thought about it. "On one condition. Give me Morgan's phone number so that I can communicate with him. I'll be the one to call him from the Kettle and tell him where to come. You call Morgan right now and tell him what a tender sacrifice you're making for his sake. Don't think I'm fool enough to trust that you haven't had your car bugged so that you can be traced. There's a very simple device that will detect the signal and I'll use it."

"I've hardly had time to arrange anything that elaborate." "And then I want to see you throw your phone and that gun you mentioned out the window of your car as you drive out of the gas station. I won't risk you calling someone else and giving them your location once you reach Z-3. I'll circle around and see if there's a gun with the phone. If there's no gun, I'll disappear and you can find Z-3 by yourself."

No phone. No gun. If she did that, she would be totally alone and isolated, with no way to call for help. What was she quibbling about? It was only one more haz ard in an almost suicidal situation. "I'll call Morgan now." She hung up and drew a deep breath before she dialed Morgan. No answer.

Then she got his voice mail.

No!

She hung up and leaned her head on the steering wheel in despair. Okay, keep cool. He was meeting with Leary tonight. Naturally he wouldn't want his phone going off. He'd access his voice mail eventually.

When it might be too late.

She tried one more time.

Voice mail.

"Morgan, this is Alex." She steadied her voice. "I need you to listen carefully. I don't have much time…"

11:05 P.M.

Morgan accessed his voice mail when he was on his way to the airport. "Morgan, this is Alex. I need you to listen carefully. I don't have much time." He tensed. His hands tightened on the steering wheel with white-knuckle force as he listened to the first few minutes of the message. "I doubt if I can kill him. I won't have a gun. If he's as good as you say he is, I probably won't be able to do it. Hell, if he weren't good at all, I'd still have problems. So I figure my job is to keep on the move and out of his way until you can get here. It's not going to be easy. He's got to be so much more skilled than I am. But I can do that and I will. And if you don't get here in time, then I'll find a way to cope." She paused. "And don't start cursing me for getting us into this mess. I had to do it. I told you what he said about the kinds of jobs you both specialize in. Well, it finally hit me. God, if I hadn't been so focused on finding Z-3 and preventing another disaster, I'd have concentrated on why those bunkers were being destroyed. He's going to assassinate Andreas. He's the target. They brought Runne here to do the job in exchange for help in finding you. These days Andreas is surrounded by impregnable security, so how do you get to him? You cause an incident that would drive him out of his safe White House to a bunker. But you have to make sure he'll be taken to the right one so that you can set up the ambush. So you destroy the other bunkers. They tried to make it look like an earthquake at Arapahoe, but they had to go public when I stumbled on their attempt at cleanup. They had a good scapegoat in Matanza. And Logan said that he thought it likely the people who manned the bunkers knew only about their own. No one would make the connection except the people who had the overall view." She drew a deep, shaky breath. "But we can blow the bastards out of the water. They can't assassinate Andreas if we stop Runne. We have one day, Morgan." Another silence. "I have to throwaway my phone, so this is the last time I'll be able to contact you. But I'm a survivor. I'm not going to let Runne kill me or use me. Get that thought out of your head. And I'm not going to say anything soppy like I love you." Her voice was uneven. "But I have to tell you that I've thought about it and decided that you have the makings of a genuine, grade-A hero, and I may not be able to let you go."

Morgan closed his eyes as the message came to an end. Jesus, he was scared.

And so was Alex. Yet it hadn't stopped the damn woman from rushing in and trying to save the world. He wanted to shake her. She didn't know what she was biting off when she'd pitted herself against Runne.

Yes, she knew. That was why she was frightened. And the thought of her scared and alone was making him sick. Get a grip. He was at least four hours away from the action, and he had to start thinking and moving instead of sitting here frozen like a kid at his first funeral. He called Galen. "I'm on my way. Salazar arranged for transport. Where the hell is Logan? I tried to call him as soon as I left Leary."

"He's been busy. There have been a few problems here."

"That's nothing compared to what's coming," Morgan said.

"I need Logan to jump on the bandwagon and start cutting red tape. I'm not sure how many hours we have left."

"Left for what? You got Leary to talk?"

"He talked. He only had part of the picture. That seems to be Betworth's modus operandi, but it's a pretty nasty part. It took me longer than I thought to convince him the cavalry wasn't going to ride in and rescue him. Betworth had him convinced that he was going to be a big man in the new regime when he took power."

"You haven't asked me what kind of problems we had here." Galen paused. "Or do you know?" "I know. Alex called me."

"She's safe?"

"For now." God, he hoped he was telling the truth. "Logan called Alex thirty minutes after Sarah gave Alex the message. She didn't answer. The operative I had watching her called me twenty minutes later and told me she'd jumped in the car and taken off. He lost her. She didn't want to be followed. We've been searching for her ever since."

"I'm not blaming either of you. You couldn't have stopped her. I don't think I could have stopped her."

"What's happening, Judd?"

"Nothing you can help with now. Maybe later. There's enough for you to do in Washington. Call Logan and tell him Keller is okay, that Leary said he's sure he's not part of Betworth's group. Tell him to grab Keller and tell him that all hell's going to break loose there the day after tomorrow."

"Andreas and Keller are at Camp David. Andreas is work ing on the Mideast Pact and he's not receiving anyone." "Shit." One more thing gone wrong. It was almost too coincidental that the President was incommunicado. Manipulation behind the scenes by Betworth?

"What's happening the day after tomorrow?"

"Morales sold Betworth a suitcase bomb as part of the package. Dirty. Radioactive." "Christ."

"It's going to go off somewhere in the White House. Leary wasn't sure when or where. He said Danley would know. Pick up the bastard and grill him."

"If we can find him. He's disappeared from the radar scope for the last few days." He paused. "How dirty?" "Small, but with enough radioactivity to cause a hell of a lot of contamination." "How the hell could they get it into the White House?" He paused. "Alex found out where Z-3 is, didn't she? Do you know?"

"No."

"But you're going to find out. Call me, dammit. We have to know. It's not just your game this time, Judd."

"Then find a way to get in touch with Keller, but tell him to stay the hell away from Z-3 until I get back to you. It's the quickest way to get Alex killed. He has a little time. More than twenty-four hours. Nothing's supposed to happen until November twelfth." But they wouldn't care about Alex. To the Secret Service, everyone was expendable if it meant saving the President.