Fire with Fire

Chapter Twenty-Seven

MENTOR

Downing opened his mouth, hoping that a glib, convincing lie would cooperatively spring forth from it-but he remained mute. Tarasenko stared politely out his window toward the throngs of sightseers headed toward the National Mall.

Downing let his lips close, looked down at his folded hands. Bugger all: nothing left but the truth, I suppose. “So you figured that out. About the overlook.”

“Oh yes, I figured it out.” Caine’s voice was as hard and level as a steel ruler. “Too much coincidence. And too happy an outcome. You sent us out there as bait-because the best way to draw the opposition into the open was to give them a target they couldn’t resist.”

“And that’s how you figured it out? Because you retroactively conjectured how their attack might have been to our advantage?”

“No, what tipped me off was what happened to that thug you shot-or rather, the thug you didn’t shoot.” Caine shook his head. “So much went on that day, and then the next, that I didn’t realize it at first: when you saved me by shooting that assassin who had come around the front of the car, there was no sound of a gunshot. And when I thought back, I distinctly remembered seeing your pistol: no silencer. So who shot him?”

Downing tried to swallow, found his mouth too dry.

Caine’s smile was cold. “I guess I’m just about the luckiest man alive, considering that there was a sniper-my own personal guardian angel-someplace higher up the mountain, waiting to put a hole the size of a tailpipe though that assassin’s head. I should have realized it sooner: the angle of the impact and the way his head went over so sharply couldn’t have resulted from any shot that would have come from you. And the projectile was too destructive to have come from your handgun: it had to be a bigger, high-velocity weapon.”

Tarasenko glanced back at Downing once, then out the window again.

“And once I realized that, then everything else started falling into place. It wasn’t my landslide of PVC pipes which sent that second car over the embankment; it was another well-placed shot from another guardian angel. And why did that vehicle burn so handily? Because while Opal and I were fighting for our lives, the sniper put an incendiary round into the engine and transmission-or maybe a few, at least until the oil in both systems caught fire.

“I think what really kept me from suspecting a setup right away was that clever lie you told-so quickly, too-about the road worker at the detour being part of the assassins’ team. But no, she was your agent, because it was her directions which sent us to that deserted overlook, where your snipers were already in overwatch positions. Pity it got a little messy, but you still got what you wanted.”

Tarasenko’s head turned back from his sustained gaze out the window. “Which was?”

“Mr. Tarasenko, you’re no stranger to special operations, so that question is pure theater. Richard needed to get the opposite side to risk their assets so that he could pull their fangs in one fell swoop. Because after assassinating their assassins, IRIS was in control again.

“From the moment you took out their operatives, the opposition was running out of time and options. They wait to hear from their assassins, don’t, try to contact them, can’t. So it takes them hours to learn that their assassination attempt has failed, takes even more time to learn how their first crew of thugs was liquidated, and still more to start moving new forces into the area. By then, it was the next day and I had sung my song at Sounion-and was no longer a crucial target.”

Richard leaned back in his chair. “So, if you understand all that, how can you fail to see that we did it for your own good?”

“Why was anyone looking to kill me in the first place? Who was responsible for putting me on a hit list to begin with-Richard?”

Downing tried to look Caine square in the eyes. “That ambush was the only option we had to secure your safety. Once you stepped off the VTOL in Greece, we knew the clock was ticking and that if we waited for the opposition’s inevitable attack, we couldn’t be sure of the outcome. For all we knew, they might have had the time and resources to conduct multiple attacks: first on the villa, then, the next day, a bomb at the Dialogs. And what would have been left when the dust cleared? International discord, finger pointing, mutual suspicion-”

“Well, congratulations. And feel free to risk my life-and Opal’s-again whenever it’s convenient for you.”

Downing kept his voice calm. “Like it or not, we were right. There were counter-operatives at Sounion, we did eliminate them, and Parthenon did come to a successful conclusion.”

“Sure, you were right, but that just reinforces your assumptions that you can always outthink everyone else-which you can’t-and that your ends justify your means. But your means-your lies-are always part of your ends, too. How you achieve something always leaves its imprint upon what you achieve.”

Tarasenko looked out the window of his office and scratched his ear. “Mr. Riordan, you speak as eloquently as anyone I’ve ever heard. But I wonder: do you really-really-believe that our preferred method of operation is misdirection and deception?”

Caine snorted a laugh. “How could I not suspect that? You covered up my disappearance on Luna. The Pavirus was a hoax. You staked me out as a Judas goat at Sounion. One hundred hours of my most important memories have been erased. Every time I’m told I’m free, I get pulled back into cloak-and-dagger land again. So you tell me: where does the duplicity end?”

Tarasenko continued to smile; they waited.

After five seconds, Downing noticed that Tarasenko hadn’t looked away from the point in space at which he had been staring. Nor had he blinked. As Caine rose from his chair, Downing’s breath caught and jammed in his throat: “Arvid?”

The next thirty seconds were utter, hushed chaos. Once they had Tarasenko on the floor, CPR produced no results, and Downing noted the encroachment of the same rapid pallor that had swept so quickly up and over Nolan’s face two days earlier at Sounion.

After thirty seconds, Caine jumped up, abandoning the chest compressions, grabbed for the phone.

“No,” said Downing.

Receiver in his hand, Caine froze. “What do you mean, ‘no?’ He needs-”

“No,” repeated Downing, leaning back from Tarasenko’s body. “We need to control this.”

“Control this? How?”

“We have to think how this will look, how the media will begin to probe us if we call this in right now, without any prior-”

But Caine had dropped the phone just a sharply as the stunned expression had dropped off his face: he was moving toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To tell Tarasenko’s assistant that his boss needs medical help-now.”

“Caine, I can’t let you do that. Don’t make me order you-”

“Richard, now it’s your memory that’s faulty: I’ve stopped taking your orders. Remember?” He opened the door.

Downing was surprised by a sudden, dizzying panic so intense that his vision blurred. “But you can’t leave-”

“Oh no? Why?”

Downing reached for an answer, had none. “I’m in this alone, now.”

“Richard, you always have been. Nolan, Tarasenko, you-each trapped in your own private bubble of secrets and uncertainties. Maybe that’s the nature of organizations-and relationships-built on lies.” And he was out the door before Downing could find a suitable reply-because, Richard realized, there was no such reply to be found.

CIRCE

The tall man leaned away from the binoculars and breathed again. Robin Astor-Smath wondered what would happen next.

The man removed his two fingers from the small black cube, used his other hand to replace his sunglasses.

“Well?” Robin said in a higher pitch than he had intended.

“Well what?”

“What happens now? When do you-?”

“It is over; it is done.”

Astor-Smath blinked. “Over? How?”

“That does not concern you.” The man backed away from the window, which was half-filled with the bright white facade of the northern side of the Capitol Building; behind him, the dome rose up over his short-cropped hair like the top half of a guillotined egg.

Astor-Smath looked at the box: what was it? A communication device? A remote control for some weapon planted in the Capitol Building? If so, its appearance was quite odd: no external marks of any kind. Not even any seams suggesting manufacture-but now, an odd smell was emanating from it, a troubling smell that was akin to a shudder-inducing mix of musk, carrion, and patchouli-and something else that he could not place.

The man shook the two fingers that he had placed in the box-much as if he had scalded them-and closed the container, none too gently.

“Naturally, we take your word for the successful completion of-”

“You will have independent verification soon enough.” The man picked up the box and put it in his pocket. “I believe I hear sirens.”

If he did, then either his ears were extraordinary, or Astor-Smath’s were in need of retesting. “Excellent, most excellent. However, this is hardly what I-we-expected. Your methods-”

“Are my concern alone. You requested an accommodation; it has been provided.”

Astor-Smath cleared his throat-and heard, faintly, a single approaching siren. “Well, regardless of your methods, you have done us a great service today.” The tall man moved away from the window: if he was listening, he seemed unaffected by Astor-Smath’s words. Robin tried a little harder. “This marks a major step forward in our cooperative agreement, and you have also struck a significant blow against the agents of national sovereignty, who stand in the way of-”

“How gratifying. I would welcome another dish of olives.”

Then the tall man sat down in the shadowed corner. He did not speak again.