Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [164]
The boy turned into a doorway covered in a red awning and reemerged a few seconds later with another boy, this one in his early teens, with curly black hair and a leather jacket. As the first boy talked and gesticulated, the teenager walked to a nearby streetlamp and began working a cable lock around a lemon-yellow moped.
“Well played, Nigel,” Clark said.
“We’ll see. Moped kids here think they’re bloody off-road bikers.”
This one, they quickly realized, was no exception. Though his top speed never exceeded twenty-five miles per hour, the teenager weaved through traffic with a seeming irregularity that reminded Clark of a kite on a gusty day. For his part, Nigel did not follow the moped’s every lane change but rather continued straight, always keeping the yellow moped within sight and changing lanes only when necessary.
The teenager headed southeast away from the cantonment, first on Bara Road, then northwest onto the Ring Road Bypass. The street signs, written in Urdu, were indecipherable to Clark and Chavez, but Embling kept a color commentary of their route.
“Crossing Kabul Canal,” he announced.
Chavez asked, “Closing in on the Hayatabad, aren’t we?”
“Good eye. Yes, we are. Another two miles. Coming up on Gul Mohar.”
At the last second the moped swerved right across two lanes and took the exit. Embling, already in the far right lane, simply put on his blinker and followed.
For the next twenty minutes the teenager took them on what could only be a dry-cleaning run—and did a fairly decent job of it, Clark had to admit. They passed the University of Peshawar, the Department of Tourism offices, and the British Cemetery, until finally their subject headed north on Pajjagi Road, passed the Peshawar Golf Club, and again crossed the Kabul Canal. Soon they were on the outskirts of the city. Squares of green irrigated fields appeared on their left and right. Embling dropped back until the moped was a speck of bright yellow.
After six miles, the moped turned west and followed a winding, tree-lined road before pulling into a narrow driveway. Embling stopped a few hundred yards down the road, did a U-turn, then shut off the engine. They waited. This far from Peshawar proper, there were no honking horns and no revving of engines. The minutes ticked by until a half-hour had passed.
Down the road came the sound of a puttering engine. Embling started the car and accelerated for a quarter-mile to the next driveway and pulled in, coasting down the sloping dirt tract until the main road was barely visible through the back window. Ahead was an old barn, its roof partially caved in. Chavez turned around in his seat. A moment later, the top of the boy’s head drove past.
“Your call, John.”
“Let him go. I think we’ve found what we’re looking for. If the boy’s going to check the pickup spot, he’ll be back soon enough.”
And he was, forty minutes later, flashing by their driveway. Moments later the moped’s engine went silent.
“I’d say you’ve found your quarry,” Embling said.
Clark nodded. “Let’s drive past and see what we can see.”
An hour later, back at Embling’s house, Clark and Chavez sat and sipped tea while their host made three phone calls in rapid-fire Urdu. He hung up and said, “It’s a private security firm.”
“Wonder who he’s afraid of?”
What they’d seen as they’d passed the driveway was a white van bearing a white-and-red placard sitting in the dirt turnaround, and next to it a two-story white farmhouse.
“That I don’t know, nor was I able to find out the client’s name. The firm is a fairly recent hire, however. Last week, in fact. Two men per shift, round-the-clock coverage.”
Clark checked his watch. Nightfall was in five hours. He looked at Chavez, who’d already read his partner’s mind. “Let’s go get him.”
“Nigel, I don’t suppose you have any hardware—”
“I do. An alarming array, in fact.”
47
TWO HOURS AFTER SUNSET, Clark turned Embling’s Honda into the abandoned barn’s driveway. He shifted into neutral, shut off the engine, and allowed momentum to carry them down the slope and into