Endgame. Part 32

"Mistakes are mistakes. They happen. How you handle them is what counts."

"I'll keep that in mind." Hansen then asked what they were doing, what was going on.

Fisher ignored the questions and ordered him to take his pistol and set it down on the floor. Hansen did, then decided to kick it toward Fisher, hoping the noise might attract one of the others outside. His subdermal was off and he couldn't activate it without reaching his OPSAT first. Fisher told him not to kick the weapon, just to leave it there. Then he added, "Interlace your fingers and place them on your head. Take ten steps forward."

Maybe it was Hansen's ego, but he just didn't want to feel so helpless and trapped. He remained where he stood.

"I won't ask again. I'll just dart you, and this will turn ugly before it's started."

With a deep sigh, Hansen did as he was told. Fisher instructed him to face the office, then drop to his knees with his ankles crossed.

Fisher next climbed down the rack ladder and maneuvered up behind Hansen, holding back about ten feet, Hansen estimated. Hansen stole a look back and said, "You've been a pain in my a.s.s, you know."

"Sorry about that. It was necessary."

"Is that what you want to talk about? That there are extenuating circ.u.mstances? That you didn't really kill Lambert?"

"No, I killed Lambert. He asked me to."

"Bull. You've been jerking us around for weeks--you, Grimsdottir, and Moreau--but as far as I'm concerned, you're a run-of-the-mill murderer."

"You sound angry, Ben."

"d.a.m.n right, I'm angry. You've run us ragged. Five of us, and we never even came close."

"You came close. More times than you know. You almost had me in Hammerstein."

"No, I didn't. You pushed me into a split-second, no-win scenario, and you knew I'd hesitate." Hansen laughed under his breath. "You know what gets me? I don't even know how you . . ."

All right, the plan had worked. He'd lured Fisher into the conversation to distract him, and he sensed the man had moved a couple of steps closer.

Fisher might have the experience, but Hansen had the agility and reflexes of a man half as old, and, in one smooth motion lifted a leg, brought down the boot, spun on his heel, and lurched forward, cutting the distance between them in half.

Although Fisher's pistol was raised, Hansen's lead arm was coming toward him in a backhanded arc.

Even Fisher's expression said he knew what would happen. His shot would go wide.

Now his glance flicked down to the dagger Hansen had simultaneously drawn from the sheath concealed by his coat. Hansen held the blade in a reverse grip, keeping it tucked against his inner forearm, and within the better part of a second, he would have that blade pressed firmly against Mr. Sam Fisher's throat.

36.

LUKOIL WAREHOUSE ANNEX ODESSA, UKRAINE.

"I'M going back inside," said Ames. going back inside," said Ames.

"No, you're not," Valentina said, crossing in front of him. She was a couple of breaths away from punching him squarely in the jaw. In her mind's eye, she watched him drop to the oily pavement, hand going to the blood trickling down from his mouth.

Ames cursed loudly and added, "Games, games, and more games! I'm over this! Aren't you all?"

"Look, whatever the message is, I'm sure Ben will share it with us," said Gillespie.

"But why was the message only for him?" asked n.o.boru.

"Yeah, you see what I'm talking about?" Ames cried. "Now Hansen is one of them, and the four of us are being used. You can't trust anyone here. I'm telling you. You can't trust anyone."

"Give him another minute and we'll find out," said Valentina. "But I'm sure Ben is not, quote, 'one of them. . . .' "

HANSEN expected Fisher to duck, but instead he took a sliding step forward, lifting his right hand to block Hansen's knife arm. Then, with his free hand balled into a fis t, Fisher struck a solid jab into the nerves and soft tissue of Hansen's armpit. It was a strange and unpredictable counterattack, which sent pain shooting up and down Hansen's arm. He sensed his momentum faltering as Fisher clamped down on the wrist of his knife hand, then spun around his back, forcing him to s.h.i.+ft likewise and lose his balance. expected Fisher to duck, but instead he took a sliding step forward, lifting his right hand to block Hansen's knife arm. Then, with his free hand balled into a fis t, Fisher struck a solid jab into the nerves and soft tissue of Hansen's armpit. It was a strange and unpredictable counterattack, which sent pain shooting up and down Hansen's arm. He sensed his momentum faltering as Fisher clamped down on the wrist of his knife hand, then spun around his back, forcing him to s.h.i.+ft likewise and lose his balance.

Fisher tightened his grip, and Hansen felt the twisting, stretching, and tearing in his hand a second before he could do no more than release the knife, which clattered to the concrete. He tried to repress a gasp but couldn't with the fire blazing in his hand.

Before Hansen knew what was happening, his feet were kicked out from under him and he was on his back, with Fisher's knee jammed into his chest and the air escaping from his lungs. Hansen's cheeks began to warm, and when he tried to breathe, no air would come.

The dagger swept down across Hansen's throat, and in one ego-shattering moment, Hansen knew he was defeated.

"This is my knife, Ben. Why do you have my knife?"

Hansen tried to answer, but he couldn't. Fisher released some of the pressure from his knee. Hansen stole a breath and eventually got out one word: "Grimsdottir."

"Grim gave you this?"

"Thought it . . . thought it would bring . . . luck."

At that, Fisher's lips curled into a broad grin. "How's it working for you so far?"

Hansen sucked down air. "Keep it."

Fisher said he would and warned Hansen that he was climbing off and not to move. Hansen had no problem with that and asked Fisher what the h.e.l.l he'd just done to him.

"I'll take that as a rhetorical question," Fisher answered, his grin turning crooked.

He then told Hansen to call Grim and ask about Karlheinz van der Putten.

"The guy that gave us the Vianden tip? Ames's contact?"

"That's him. Make the call."

Hansen did, and what Grim told him left his jaw hanging open. Hansen finally looked up at Fisher and said, "She says you'll answer all my questions."

"As best I can."

Hansen added that Grim was sorry about the knife. Fisher laughed, then told him to contact the team and tell them he'd be finished shortly. That done, Fisher went on to confirm that he and Grim now believed that Ames was a mole.

"The Vianden ambush tip came from Ames, who claims he got it from van der Putten. You know that's bogus, correct?"

"I'm taking it on faith for the time being."

"Fair enough. I found van der Putten dead, his ears cut off. That was Ames covering his tracks."

"If not van der Putten, where'd he get the tip?"

"Kovac, we believe."

"Kovac? That's nuts. Ames is working for Kovac? No way. I mean the guy's a weasel, but--"

"Best-case scenario is that Kovac simply hates Grim, and he wants her out. What better way to undermine her than to catch me without her? Here's how it'd be played for the powers that be: Kovac, suspicious of Grim, puts his own man on the team dispatched to hunt me down. Grim's inept handling of the situation allows me to escape multiple times until finally Kovac's agent saves the day. Same scenario at Hammerstein. Kovac called in a favor from the BND."

Hansen was having trouble fitting all the pieces together, not because they didn't fit but because he didn't want them to fit. "What's the worst-case scenario?"

"Kovac's a traitor and he's working for whoever hired Yannick Ernsdorff."

Hansen didn't know that name, but he figured Fisher would explain further. The man went on: "Up until I went off the bridge into the Rhine, Kovac had been getting regular updates from Grim. The moment it became clear to him that I was heading to Vianden--to Yannick Ernsdorff--he got nervous and Ames's tip miraculously appeared. Think about it: After I lost you at the foundry in Esch-sur-Alzette, did you have any leads? Any trail to follow?"

"No."

"That's because I didn't leave one."

"Okay, some of what you're saying makes sense, but Kovac a traitor? Grim suggested that a while ago, but that's a big leap."

"Not too big a leap for Lambert. It's why he asked me to kill him. It's why I went underground. He was convinced the U.S. intelligence community, including the NSA, was infected to the highest levels. Have you ever heard of doppelganger factories?"

"No."

Fisher explained that these secret Chinese manufacturing facilities were dedicated to cloning and improving on Western military technology, not unlike the way other Chinese manufacturers stole and produced knockoffs of other American and European patented products, but on a much grander and more sophisticated scale. Fisher said the Guoanbu, or China's Ministry of State Security, stole schematics, diagrams, material samples, basically anything it could acquire to feed to the doppelganger factories' production.

"Sounds like an urban legend," said Hansen.

"Lambert didn't think so. He thought they were real, and the Guoanbu was getting help from the inside: politicians, the Pentagon, CIA, NSA. . . . No one's willing to admit it, but when it comes to industrial espionage, the Guoanbu has no peer. You don't get that lucky without help."

"So, Kovac--"

"That, we don't know yet."

Fisher said that Yannick Ernsdorff was playing banker for a black- market weapons auction starring the world's worst terrorist groups. He and Grim called the collection the Laboratory 738 a.r.s.enal after the doppelganger factory it was stolen from. Fisher said he'd found the crew that completed the job: They were former SAS boys led by Charles "Chucky Zee" Zahm, who had, in fact, become a famous novelist.

"You can add professional thief to his resume," Fisher said, then explained about Zahm and his Little Red Robbers. Zahm had proof of the job, including a complete inventory of the a.r.s.enal, Fisher added.

"What kind of stuff?"

Fisher said he'd show Hansen an inventory list later, but, more important, they couldn't let the 738 a.r.s.enal get away from them. "Ben, you might have seen a piece from the a.r.s.enal."

"Come again?"

"The doppelganger factory that Zahm hit was in eastern China, near the Russian border. The Jilin-Heilongjiang region, about a hundred miles northwest of Vladivostok, and about sixty miles from a Russian town called Korfovka."

Hansen frowned at the mention of that town, and suddenly his thoughts swept back to that mission, that very first mission as a Splinter Cell, and Rugar drawing back his fist. . . .

"I was there," Hansen finally said. "A while ago."

Fisher said Korfovka was the town where Zahm delivered the a.r.s.enal about five months before. Hansen explained that he was there much earlier than that.

"I got out because somebody helped me. Stepped in at just the right moment."

Fisher did not flinch. "Lucky break."

"Yeah . . . lucky." Hansen narrowed his gaze even more. Was Fisher just being coy? If he hadn't saved Hansen, how would he know about Hansen catching a glimpse of a piece of the a.r.s.enal? Had Grim told him? "This is a tall tale, Sam. Doppelganger factories, Chinese replica weapons, this auction, Kovac . . ."

"Truth is stranger than fiction."

Hansen took a long breath and decided to confirm with Fisher what he already knew: "This cat-and-mouse game we've been playing has been for Kovac's benefit ."

Fisher noted that this was a statement, not a question. Hansen agreed that he and the others had already realized their strings were being pulled.

But now Hansen had confirmation of why Grim had been forced to put a team in the field to hunt down Fisher. If she refused, she'd be out, and all the work they'd done since Lambert's death would be lost. Fisher's mission was, indeed, more important than Hansen could have imagined, and while he still loathed being used, he understood, and that provided a small measure of rea.s.surance.

Fisher explained that he'd hacked into Ernsdorff 's server and learned more information about the planned auction, which was now only days away and at the point of no return. Hansen and the team would no longer be straight men in Fisher's comedy road show, which was, of course, fantastic news.

"Exactly. Yesterday I tagged one of the auction attendees. A Chechen named Aariz Qaderi."

"CMR, right?" Hansen asked, the name familiar to him. "Chechen Martyrs Regiment?"

"That's the guy. I tagged him. He's headed east into Russia--on his way to the auction, we hope."

"Hold on. All the attendees will be scrubbed before they reach the auction site. Any kind of beacon or tracker will be found."

"Not the kind we used."

Fisher said they didn't have time to go into an in-depth discussion of the nan.o.bot trackers he'd used but that they needed to start moving east until the trackers phoned home.

"What about Ames?" Hansen asked.

"We'll deal with him later. For now, he's part of the team. We include him in everything."

"What about his cell phone? And his OPSAT? He'll try to contact Kovac."

"Let him. Grimsdottir's made modifications to his phone and OPSAT. Every communication he makes beyond our tactical channels will go straight to her. She'll be playing Kovac and anyone else Ames has been talking to. He'll get voice mail, but Grim will respond to texts. Your phones aren't Internet capable, right?"

Hansen was already grinning. "Right. I like it. I like the plan."