Don Pendleton - Treason Play

“Right now, it is. Were you collaborating on anything with Lang?” Bolan pressed.

She shook her head no.

“Working on any crime stories?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she replied. “Since I’m in a bureau, it has to be a big deal for me to cover a crime. If some guy gets mad and kills his brother-in-law, readers in London or Washington, D.C., don’t want to know about it. Occasionally, some money guy or someone with a charity may get busted for shipping money to al Qaeda. When that happens, my editors want it. Over here, though, most of what I write about is commercial real estate and growth. The financial stuff, that’s what people in London and Washington want to know about.”

“Sure. How about Terry? What was he working on?”

Again, she shook her head. “Not sure,” she replied. “We never talked about work.”

“Bullshit.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said. You can’t tell me that you two never talked shop, ever. You can’t put two reporters in a room together for thirty seconds without them talking about work.”

She’d been hugging herself, fingers encircling biceps. Bolan noticed her hands tighten and she leaned farther back in her chair.

“We didn’t do that.”

The soldier exhaled loudly. With his forefinger and thumb, he pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Pulling his hand away, he opened his eyes and looked at the reporter.

“You must think you’re extremely clever or I’m extremely stupid,” he said. “Whatever. Either way, you’re lying to me.”

She licked her lips and stared at Bolan, her eyes not bulging, but wide enough to tell Bolan something was wrong. “I’m telling the truth.”

The soldier nodded. Standing, he walked over to the coffee machine and poured himself a cup of coffee. He brought the cup to his lips, blew on it and stared ahead, studying the swirls in the wood grain of the cabinet doors.

“They peeled his skin off,” Bolan said.

“What?”

“The people who took Terry, they peeled his skin off, while he was alive. They stabbed him more times than I can count. Not fatal wounds, mind you. Just enough and in the right spots to put him through agony. I’d guess he was miserable his last hours on Earth.”

She turned in her seat and gave Bolan a look of shock and horror. “Why are you telling me this? What’s wrong with you?”

Bolan set the coffee on the counter and turned slowly to face the woman.

“I’m not sure what your game is,” he said. “But I know you’re not being straight with me. Why, is anybody’s guess. You haven’t told me anything useful. Apparently you don’t care that Lang’s dead. So I figured why not share a few more details? You don’t give a shit anyway.”

“You’re a bastard!”

“Sure I am,” the soldier said. “Here’s the thing, though. I’m trying to figure out what happened to Terry, find out who killed him and why. It bothers me that he died the way he did. You, on the other hand, seem at peace with the whole thing. So I thought I’d unburden myself. It worked. I feel better already.”

With his hands, Bolan pushed off the counter and started across the room.

“Wait!” she called after him. “You can’t keep me here. Am I under arrest? If not, then you can’t keep me here.”

His hand on the doorknob, Bolan paused, then shrugged. “So leave.”

He opened the door, stepped out into the hallway and kept on walking. Grimaldi followed behind him a couple of heartbeats later.

“Wow,” the pilot said, “which nugget of information should we follow up on first?”

“I’d send her packing,” Bolan said. “But I think that’d be like putting a bullet in her head. Whoever tried to find her earlier, is going to come for her again. I’m sure of it.”

“So what next?”

“You stay here,” Bolan said. He handed Grimaldi the key that the woman reporter had provided him. “If you can get her to spill her guts, great. In the meantime, I need to keep looking for Khan.”

Yuri Sokolov sat in the cabin of his Gulfstream executive jet. He listened to the engine’s whine as the craft cut through the air over Asia. Thoughts of what lay ahead rolled through his mind. It comforted him to think of such things, distracting him from the horrible thing sealed in a special smuggling compartment built into the aircraft, one normally reserved for weapons or drugs.

Absently he grabbed at the cloth napkin folded over his left thigh, dabbed imaginary beads of sweat from his upper lip and returned the napkin to his lap. He’d meet Haqqani in Karachi in a matter of hours, at the airport, where he could pass along the horrible substance the plane carried.

Then he’d get back on the plane and get his ass back out of Karachi. Fast.

He noticed his left foot tapping out a rapid-fire beat and willed himself to stop. What the hell is the matter with you? he wondered. Quit acting like a damn child and do this.

A tumbler of vodka was clutched in his right hand. Bringing it to his lips, he drained it, thankful he was alone. If the others—the ones who signed his paychecks—saw him acting this way, jumping at shadows that existed only in his mind, they’d kill him.

A rueful smile crossed his lips. Rising to his feet, he crossed the cabin to a wet bar and poured more vodka. After ten years with the KGB and then with the FSB, you’d think you’d be used to danger, he told himself. And used to bad bosses. He’d had more than his share of both through the years.

But these people, the ones with the Seven, were the worst. It’d all seemed so good up front. They’d showered him with money. And with women, lots and lots of women, he thought, allowing himself another smile. And it’d all seemed pretty easy. Carry a couple of suitcases filled with the money to Sunnis insurgents in Iraq. Ferry precision-machined centrifuge parts to Iran. He essentially was a well-paid delivery man. Very well paid.

But this…

This could start a war. Start many wars.

Enough, he told himself. His job was to deliver, not to worry about consequences. He was a foot soldier and foot soldiers, in his view, did what they were told. They let smarter people worry about the consequences.

He sank back into one of the jet’s plush seats. Besides, they’d assured him all this was temporary, essentially a ruse. He’d pass along the materials. They’d take them back later—by force if necessary. Sokolov ran his fingers through his thinning, reddish-brown hair. He didn’t trust Daniel Masters as far as he could throw the little British fuck. Didn’t trust any Englishman, for that matter, especially not one willing to undercut his homeland. But even that oily bastard wouldn’t lie about something so important.

No, he told himself, Masters wouldn’t lie about this.

And, if he did, frankly, it wouldn’t matter. Masters had the Council of Seven convinced he knew what he was talking about. Therefore, he held all the cards. In Sokolov’s little world that meant shutting up and doing as he was told.

And he’d do that.

Even if it brought Armageddon down on the whole world.

SOKOLOV WATCHED NAWAZ Khan push his way through the door of the aircraft, followed by an entourage of maybe a half dozen men.

The Russian made no effort to hide his disgust at the Pakistani. Sokolov’s brother, a Spetsnaz soldier, had been killed in Afghanistan, the personnel carrier he was traveling in pulverized by a Stinger missile, one presumably supplied by the United States. In light of that, he had little use for the Pakistanis, or the United States, for that matter.

Nawaz Khan marched up to within a foot of the Russian and stood, his fists cocked on his hips, and stared at Sokolov.