State of Siege - Tom Clancy [89]
Harleigh did, defiantly, and he pushed the barrel down her throat until she gagged.
"Go on, one more time, angel," he said. "Scream again and it will scream back."
Metallic-tasting saliva quickly pooled in the bottom of Harleigh's throat. Blood mixed with the saliva, and she stopped screaming; she had to as she tried to swallow around the gun. But she couldn't swallow, cough, or breathe. She was going to drown in her own saliva before he could shoot her. She reached up and tried to push his hand back, but he used his free hand to grab her wrists. He easily forced Harleigh's slender arms to the side. "It's time," Barone said.
Downer glared down as Harleigh made a guttural sound around the gun barrel.
Just then the radio beeped.
"Hold it," Barone said quickly. He answered the radio. "Yes?" "This is Secretary-General Chatterjee," said the caller. "We have your money, and a helicopter is on the way."
Downer and Barone exchanged looks. Barone hit the mute button. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"She's lying," Downer said. "She couldn't have gotten it this fast."
Barone disengaged the mute. "How did you get it?" he asked. "The United States government has guaranteed a loan from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York," she said. "They're putting together the currency and bringing it over."
"Wait until you hear from me," the Uruguayan said. He turned and started running down the stairs.
"You won't execute the hostage?" Chatterjee said. "I'll execute two hostages if you're lying," he replied. He punched the radio off and hurried to the TACSAT phone at the front of the Security Council chamber.
New York, New York Sunday, 12:01 A.M.
While they waited for the TACSAT to ring, Rodgers called Bob Herbert and briefed him. Herbert said he would get in touch with New York Police Commissioner Kane.
The men had worked together when Russian spies in Brighton Beach were helping to orchestrate a coup in Moscow. Herbert had a good rapport with the commissioner and felt that Gordon would welcome the chance to save the hostages-and the UN.
When Rodgers was finished, he made another call to check messages, he said. That wasn't true, but he didn't want the young woman to know it. He asked to borrow Hood's cell phone to make the call. While Hood looked on, Rodgers stood between the woman and the desk so she couldn't see what he was doing. It was a trick he had learned from Barb Herbert, who used his wheelchair phone to spy on people after he left a meeting. Rodgers turned off the ringer on the office phone and then called the number, using Hood's cell phone. He answered the office phone, switched it to speaker, and left both lines open. Then he put the cell phone in his pants pocket, making sure he didn't disconnect. Rodgers went back and sat on the desk, across from Annabelle Hampton. Hood paced between them. As the minutes inched by, Rodgers became more convinced that this wasn't going to go the way he wanted.
The young woman was staring ahead fixedly the entire time. Rodgers did not doubt what she was looking at. The future. Ani Hampton didn't strike Rodgers as the PGA type-a postgame analyst. Many intelligence and military people worked like chess masters or ballroom dancers. They followed carefully tested patterns and deviated as little as possible from often-complex moves and strategies. When deviations did occur, they were later studied and either incorporated into the playbook or discarded. But there were also many CIA field personnel who took a more ephemeral approach to tactics. These were the so-called "sharks." Typically, sharks were loners whose modus operandi was to continually move and look ahead. It didn't matter if the bridge burned behind them; they probably weren't going back, anyway. These were the kinds of people who managed to infiltrate foreign villages, terrorist cells, and enemy bases. Rodgers was betting that Ani Hampton was a shark. She wasn't sitting here regretting anything. She was figuring out what to do next. Rodgers had a damn good idea exactly what that was, which was why he'd asked Colonel