• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 808 0

work once again. At the same time, he saw the faces of Marita and her medical students. Saw Raisa in her red hair and pink robe. Next came Bioko and the bodies of the native woman and her children, their throats cut, floating in the branches of the dead tree; Father Willy and the young boys clubbed to death by Tiombe’s soldiers; the grotesque photographs of White and Patrice and Irish Jack lunching with General Mariano in the jungle; the soldiers with the flamethrowers and the naked man as he was burned alive. Then the Rossio Metro station and the GOEs as the balaclava-hooded White and his killers ambushed them outside. Agent Grant as he was gunned down on the platform scant moments earlier. Never in his life had he felt such contempt for a human being as he did now for Conor White.

“Make your move, you son of a bitch!” he spat into the microphone as the rail car neared, its approaching headlamps far too bright and garish for the scene. Suddenly a shadow dashed from the tunnel in front of it, jumped up on the platform, and ran across it. He raised the Glock and fired once, then a second time. Both shots missed, his rounds ricocheting off the concrete walls. The train came closer. Suddenly its lights revealed someone crouched in the tunnel entrance. Patrice. An instant later the same lights fell on him. Patrice swung the M-4. Marten hit the ground between the tracks as a burst from the M-4 chewed up the base of the concrete platform where he’d been. Once again he raised the Glock and squeezed the trigger.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The gunshots were ear shattering. Patrice was caught square in the face and chest and toppled backward into the tunnel. A blue arc of electricity sparked as he fell across the third rail. A split second later a burst of 9 mm slugs from White’s MP5 danced over his head, spraying off the tunnel walls. Then the train was on top of him. He pushed down, hugging the ground between the rails. With a nearly silent whoosh the car went over him, inches above his head. In a second he was up and at the edge of the platform. He pulled himself up, then rolled to one side and into deep shadow. Glock at the ready, he got to one knee and looked around. Where the hell was White? Where had his shots come from?

There was a screech of brakes and the train stopped. One man stood inside it, a machine pistol in his hand. The doors slid open and he stepped out.

Kovalenko.

“Get the hell out of the light,” Marten yelled. “You’re going to get killed!”

“Fuck you! Where’s my memory card?”

“I don’t have it!” Marten’s eyes darted over the area. Where was White? Where had he gone? He shifted the Glock to his left hand and raised his right, pushed the KEY TO TALK button, and spoke into the microphone in his sleeve.

“White,” he said softly. “I’m here, near the tunnel. Come get me.” Quickly he shifted the Glock back, holding it in a two-hand grip and slowly moving it back and forth over the area, his eyes alert, looking for any movement at all. He saw nothing but a faintly lit empty station with the bodies of Irish Jack and Agent Grant sprawled barely twenty feet apart and close at hand.

“Tovarich,” Kovalenko said quietly and nodded toward the newspaper kiosk.

Marten moved forward. If White was there, he couldn’t see him. Kovalenko came in from the side, the machine pistol up, his finger on the trigger. Suddenly Marten stopped.

There he was.

Inside the kiosk, his body in a sharp contrast of black and white, apparently sitting on a stool or something like it, staring blankly into the dark of the station.

Marten raised the Glock, unsure what was happening. Kovalenko eased closer. Slowly White turned his head toward Marten.

“He’s dead,” he said quietly. “He’s dead,” he repeated, then looked off once again.

Marten inched forward. What was going on? Was White playing some kind of trick?

“Careful, tovarich,” Kovalenko warned.

“Throw the gun out!” Marten barked.

White didn’t react.

“Throw the gun out! Now!”

Kovalenko looked to the left and saw Carlos Branco coming toward them in the dim light, a Beretta automatic in his hand.