Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [253]
“Sorry.”
“I’m not looking for an apology. I want you to talk to me.”
“Brian’s dead, Jack. I know that, okay? I watched the spark go out of him.” Dominic snapped his fingers. “Just like that. You know the first thing I thought after that?”
“What?”
“That if not for that Bari asshole, Brian would probably still be alive.”
“You believe that?”
“Not really, but it took everything I had to not climb out of that car and put a bullet in the guy’s head. I actually had my hand on the door handle. I wanted to kill him, then go back to Almasi’s house and see if any of those motherfuckers were still alive so I could kill them, too.”
“You were in shock. You still feel that way?”
“I don’t feel much, Jack. That’s what scares me.”
“It’s called shock. You might feel that way for a while. Everybody’s different. You’ll deal with it how you deal with it.”
“Yeah, what makes you an expert on this shit?”
“You heard about Sinaga?”
“The forger guy? What about him?”
“I was watching the back when John and Ding crashed his door. He jumped out the window, then all the sudden he’s coming at me with a knife. We wrestled; I had a hold of his neck and tripped or something. When I looked up he was lying there twitching. Staring at me. I don’t know how exactly, but I broke his neck.”
Dominic took this, but his face remained impassive. “I guess it’s my turn to ask you how you’re doing.”
“Okay, I guess. I don’t think I’ll ever get his face out of my head, but it was him or me. I feel bad about it, but I sure as hell don’t feel bad about still being alive.”
“Then you’re one up on me, cuz. If I could trade places with Brian, I would.”
“Are you trying to tell me something?”
“Like what?”
“Like I need to hide all the steak knives next time you come over to watch football.”
“No, Jack. But I will tell you this: Before this is all over, I’m getting some payback for Brian, and I’m going to start in São Paulo.”
Jack opened his mouth to respond but was halted by Dominic’s raised hand. “Mission first, Jack. I’m just saying, if I get a gomer in my sights, I’m putting him down and notching it up for Bri.”
Aside from odd looks from his fellow travelers who stared at the GA-4 cask as they passed him on the highway, Frank Weaver’s first day on the road passed without incident. As this was a trial run, this particular cask was merely a shell containing none of the neutron and gamma shields the real thing would carry. Nor did the cask bear any decals or stencils. Nothing to give away its purpose. Just a giant brushed stainless-steel dumbbell riding on a flatbed truck. The little kids had been particularly funny, pressing their wide-eyed faces to the windows as they passed.
Four hundred eighteen miles and seven hours from the Calloway plant, Weaver took exit 159 off Highway 70 and turned south onto Vine Street. The Super 8 Motel was a quarter-mile down the road. He followed a sign, TRUCKS ENTER HERE, into the parking lot and braked to a halt between the yellow lines of a truck slot. Three other trucks had taken nearby spots.
Weaver hopped out of the cab and stretched.
Day one down, Weaver thought. Three to go.
He locked the truck, then did a walk-around, checking each of the padlocked ratchets, then testing each chain’s tension. All were solid. He headed across the parking lot toward the lobby.
Fifty yards away, a dark blue Chrysler 300 pulled into its own spot. In the front seat, a man raised a pair of binoculars and watched Weaver step through the lobby doors.
As he had been doing four times a day for the past two weeks, Kersen Kaseke powered up his laptop, opened his Web browser, and went to the online file-storage website. He was surprised to see a file sitting in his inbox. It was a JPEG image of some kind of bird—a blue jay, perhaps. He downloaded the file to his hard drive’s documents folder, then erased the picture from the site and closed his Web browser.
He found the file, right-clicked on it, and selected “Open with … Image Magnifier.” Five seconds later a window popped