Collateral Damage - Marc Cerasini [17]
"You mentioned an alias, too," said Leight.
"Yeah," said Emmerick. "Amadani's an Afghani who fought the Soviets as a boy. That's where he got his nickname — 'the Hawk.' A few years back, he was convicted for selling a million dollars' worth of black market cigarettes with phony tax stamps out of a warehouse in Wayne, New Jersey. He hooked up with our boys in Kurmastan during his prison term. After he was paroled, he skipped the country. Since then, he's turned up in Madrid, Hamburg, London. And every time he appears, a terror attack follows inside of a week."
Leight's eyebrows rose. "And you know all that how?"
"Because I busted him, just like half the other punks in Kurmastan. You've only been my partner for what, eight months? I had a whole life before I took on your sorry rookie ass."
Leight cracked the window, spit out his gum. "Forgot," he said. "I don't like Juicy Fruit." He glanced at Emmerick. "Those guys in Kurmastan, they really bother you, don't they?"
"Sure," said Emmerick. "You're talking about a whole town full of felons, guys I spent the past twenty years trying to lock up. Now they're free again and up to no damned good." He shook his head. "It's pushing the same rock up the same hill all over again."
Leight snorted. "Don't get your underwear bunched, Sisyphus. We'll lock them up again, maybe forever this time."
Emmerick peered through the dust-flecked window. "Watch. He's turning again."
"Great. This road looks worse than the last one."
"Lay back, but don't lose him."
"I'll try, but it's too bad the packages separated into two Hummers. It would have been better if Foy could have come with us. We could have traded off. It would have been harder for them to make us."
Emmerick didn't reply. Back at the airport, he hadn't been able to ID the man who'd been traveling with the Hawk, and that bothered him. Fortunately CTU Agent Judith Foy was there to tail the unknown man, while he and Leight had stayed with the Hawk.
Up ahead, the black Hummer made its turn and suddenly sped up, trailing a cloud of dust. Doug Leight hit the gas, swerved the Saturn onto a narrow road.
Emmerick held on. The road was so pitted, it rattled the fillings in his mouth. He looked ahead; the Hummer crested a low hill between two rows of trees, and vanished from sight.
"Hurry. Don't lose him."
The Saturn crested the hill a moment later — and Emmerick saw the Hummer. The huge vehicle had come to a dead stop. It sat in the middle of the road, just over the rise.
"Holy shit!" Doug Leight cried, slamming on the brakes.
The Saturn skidded to a halt, not six inches from the Hummer's rear bumper. The billowing cloud of dust that trailed the Saturn rolled over it. When it settled, Emmerick saw a large, brown van had pulled up behind them. He glanced at the frees bordering the road on both sides — no escape there.
"We're boxed in," he said, reaching for his weapon. Before he could pull it free, the Saturn's windows blew inward.
A hail of automatic weapons fire ripped through the vehicle's thin aluminum skin. Gaping holes appeared in the doors, the roof. Headlights shattered in a shower of sparks. The hood flew open, and bullets pinged off the engine block.
In the front seat, the two FBI agents were struck dozens of times by the flying bullets, their bodies convulsing as they died. The invisible attackers continued to fire, bursting tires and blowing off a hubcap.
Finally, the volley ceased. In the sudden silence, three men in camouflage fatigues carrying AK-47s emerged from the frees and approached the shattered car.
An engine gunned, and the Hummer that carried the Hawk sped away. The brown van slammed into the Saturn's rear bumper and pushed the smoking car down the hill, through a wooden fence, and into a muddy pond.
Wild ducks scattered. The car hissed when it hit the water, steam billowing up from under the hood. It gurgled and bubbled in the muck, then finally slipped beneath the pond's brackish green surface.
* * *
10:03:37 A.M. EDT
Volare, Little Italy
The man with the