Tom Clancy - Without Remorse

But someone had tossed a match into this highly volatile mixture. The information he had led only in one direction, but not far enough. So he had to get more, didn't he? Charon thought for a moment and lifted his phone. He needed three calls to get the right number.

'State Police.'

'Trying to get Captain Joy. This is Lieutenant Charon, Baltimore City Police.'

'You're in luck, sir. He just got back in. Please hold.' The next voice that came on was a tired one.

'Captain Joy.'

'Hello, this is Lieutenant Charon, Mark Charon, City Police. I work narcotics. I hear you just took down something big.'

'You might say that.' Charon could hear the man settling into his chair with a combination of satisfaction and fatigue.

'Could you give me a quick sketch? I may have some information on this one myself.'

'Who told you about this anyway?'

'That Coast Guard sailor who drove you around - Oreza. I've worked with him on a couple cases. Remember the big marijuana bust, the Talbot County farm?'

'Was that you? I thought the Coasties took credit for that.'

'I had to let them, to protect my informant. Look, you can call them if you want to confirm that. I'll give you the phone number, the boss of the station is Paul English.'

'Okay, Charon, you sold me.'

'Back in May I spent a day and a night out with them looking for a guy who just disappeared on us. We never found him, never found his boat. Oreza says -'

'The crab-man,' Joy breathed. 'Somebody got dumped in the water, looks like he's been there a while. Anything you can tell me about him?'

'His name is probably Angelo Vorano. Lived here in town, small-time dealer who was looking to make it into the bigs.' Charon gave a description.

'Height's about right. We'll have to check dental records for a positive ID, though. Okay, that ought to help, Lieutenant. What do you need from me?'

'What can you tell me?' Charon took several minutes of notes. 'What are you doing with Xantha?'

'Holding her as a material witness, with her lawyer's approval by the way. We want to take care of this girl. Looks like we're dealing with some pretty nasty folks here.'

'I believe it,' Charon replied. 'Okay, let me see what I can shake loose for you at this end.'

'Thanks for the assist.'

'Jesus,' Charon said after hanging up. White boy... big white boat. Burt and the two people Tony had evidently seconded to the operation, back of the head,.45s. Execution-style killings were not yet the vogue in the drug business, and the sheer coldness of it gave Charon a chill. But it wasn't so much coldness as efficiency, was it? Like the pushers. Like the case Tom and Em were working, and they wanted to see about this Kelly guy, and he was a white guy with a big white boat who lived not far from the lab. That was too much of a coincidence.

About the only good news was that he could call Henry in safety. He knew every drug-related wiretap in the area, and not one was targeted on Tucker's operation.

'Yeah?'

'Burt and his friends are dead,' Charon announced.

'What's that?' said a voice that was fully waking up.

'You heard me. The State Police in Somerset have them bagged. Angelo, too, what's left of him. The lab is gone, Henry. The drugs are gone, and they have Xantha in custody.' There was actually some satisfaction in this. Charon was still enough of a cop that the demise of a criminal operation was not yet a matter of grief for him.

'What the fuck is going on?' a shrill voice inquired.

'I think I can tell you that, too. We need to meet.'

Kelly took another look at his perch, just driving by in his rented Beetle, before beading hack to his apartment. He was tired, though sated from the fine dinner. His afternoon nap had been enough to keep him going after a long day, but mainly the reason was to work off the anger, which driving often did for him. He'd seen the man now. The one who had finished the process of killing Pamela, with a shoestring. It would have been so easy to take care of him there. Kelly had never killed anyone barehanded, but he knew how. A lot of skilled people had spent a lot of time at Coronado, California, teaching him the finer points until whenever he looked at any person his mind applied something like a sheet of graph paper, this place for this move, that place for that one - and seeing he'd known that, yes, it was all worth it. It was worth the danger, and it was worth the consequences... but that didn't mean that he had to embrace them, as risk of life didn't mean throwing it away. That was the other side of it.

But he could see the end now, and he had to start planning beyond the end. He had to be even more careful. Okay, so the cops knew who he was, but he was certain that they had nothing. Even if the girl, Xantha, someday decided to talk to the cops, she'd never seen his face - the camouflage paint took care of that. About the only danger was that she'd seen the registration number on his boat as he'd backed away from that dock, but that didn't seem to be much of a worry. Without physical evidence they had nothing they could use in front of a court of law. So thiey knew he disliked some people - fine. So they might even know what his training was - fine. The game he played was in accordance with one set of rules. The game they played had another. On balance, the rules worked in his favor, not theirs.

He looked out the car window, measuring angle and distance, making a preliminary plan and working in several variations. They'd picked a spot where there were few police patrols and lots of open ground. No one could approach them easily without being seen... probably so that they could destroy whatever they had in there if it became necessary. It was a logical approach to their tactical problem, except for one thing. They hadn't considered a different set of tactical rules.

Notmy problem, Kelly thought, beading back to his apartment.

'God almighty...' Roger MacKenzie was pale and suddenly nauseous. They were standing on the breakfast porch of his house in northwest Washington. His wife and daughter were shopping in New York for the fall season. Ritter had arrived unannounced at six-fifteen, fully dressed and grim, a discordant note for the cool, pleasant morning breezes. 'I've known his father for thirty years.'

Ritter sipped his orange juice, though the acid in it didn't exactly do his stomach any good either. This was treason of the worst sort. Hicks had known what he did would hurt fellow citizens, one of whom he knew by name. Ritter had already made his mind up on the matter, but Roger had to have his time to rattle on.

'We went through Randolph together, we were in the same Bomb Group,' MacKenzie was saying. Ritter decided to let him get it all out, even though it would take a little time. 'We've done deals together...' the man finished, looking down at his untouched breakfast.

'I can't fault you for taking him into your office, Roger, but the boy's guilty of espionage.'

'What do you want to do?'

'It's a criminal offense, Roger,' Ritter pointed out.

'I'm going to be leaving soon. They want me on the reelection team, running the whole Northeast.'

'This early?'

'Jeff Hicks will be running the campaign in Massachusetts, Bob. I'll be working directly with him.' MacKenzie looked across the table, speaking in barely connected bursts. 'Bob, an espionage investigation in our office - it could ruin things. If what we did - if your operation became public -I mean, the way it happened and what went wrong -'

'I'm sorry about that, Roger, but this little bastard betrayed his country.'

'I could pull his security clearance, kick him out -'

'Not good enough,' Ritter said coldly. 'People may die because of him. He is not going to walk away from it.'

'We could order you to -'

'To obstruct justice, Roger?' Ritter observed. 'Because that's what it is. That's a felony.'