Clear and present danger - Tom Clancy [205]
"And?"
"And tonight, four senior Cartel members are going to have a sit-down, right here." Ritter handed over a satellite photograph, along with the text of the intercept. "All people on the production end: Fernández, d'Alejandro, Wagner, and Untiveros. Their ass is ours."
"Fine. Do it," Cutter said.
Clark was examining the same photo at that moment, along with a few obliques that he'd shot himself and a set of blueprints for the house.
"You figure this room, right here?"
"I've never been in this one, but that sure looks like a conference room to me," Larson said. "How close you have to be?"
"I'd prefer under four thousand meters, but the GLD is good to six."
"How about this hilltop right here? We've got a clear line of sight into the compound."
"How long to get there?"
"Three hours. Two to drive, one to walk. You know, you could almost do this from an airplane…"
"Yours?" Clark asked with a sly grin.
"Not on a bet!" They'd use a four-wheel-drive Subaru for the drive. Larson had several different sets of plates, and the car didn't belong to him anyway. "I got the phone number and I got a cellular phone."
Clark nodded. He was really looking forward to this. He'd done jobs against people like this before, but never with official sanction, and never this high up the line. "Okay, I gotta get final approval. Pick me up at three."
Murray hustled over from his office as soon as he got the news. Hospitals never made people look glamorous, but Moira appeared to have aged ten years in the past sixty hours. Hospitals weren't especially big on dignity, either. Her hands were in restraints. She was on suicide watch. Murray knew that it was necessary - could scarcely be more so - but her personality had taken enough battering already, and this didn't make things any better.
The room was already bedecked with flowers. Only a handful of FBI agents knew what had transpired, and the natural assumption at the office was that she'd taken Emil's death too hard. Which wasn't far off, after all.
"You gave us quite a scare, kiddo," he observed.
"It's all my fault." She couldn't bring her eyes to look at him for more than a few seconds at a time.
"You're a victim, Moira. You got taken in by one of the best in the business. It happens, even to the smarties. Trust me, I know."
"I let him use me. I acted like a whore -"
"I don't want to hear that. You made a mistake. That happens. You didn't mean to hurt anybody, and you didn't break any laws. It's not worth dying for. It's damned sure not worth dying over when you got kids to worry about."
"What'll they think? What'll they think when they find out…"
"You've already given them all the scare they need. They love you, Moira. Can anything erase that?" Murray shook his head. "I don't think so."
"They're ashamed of me."
"They're scared. They're ashamed of themselves. They think it's partly their fault." That struck a nerve.
"But it's not! It's all my fault -"
"I just told you it isn't. Moira, you got in the way of a truck named Félix Cortez."
"Is that his real name?"
"He used to be a colonel in the DGI. Trained at the KGB Academy, and he's very, very good at what he does. He picked you because you're a widow, a young, pretty one. He scouted you, figured out that you're lonely, like most widows, and he turned on the charm. He probably has a lot of inborn talent, and he was educated by experts. You never had a chance. You got hit by a truck you never saw coming. We're going to have a shrink come down, Dr. Lodge from Temple University. And he's going to tell you the same thing I am, but he's going to charge a lot more. Don't worry, though. It comes under Workers Comp."
"I can't stay with the Bureau."
"That's true. You're going to have to give up your security clearance," Dan told her. "That's no great loss, is it? You're going to get a job at the Department of Agriculture, right down the street, same pay grade and everything," Murray said gently. "Bill set it all up for you."
"Mr. Shaw?