The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [185]
Dominic answered. "I got him coming out of church. He went down on the sidewalk. Ambulance arrived. The paramedics worked him over and carted him off to the hospital. All I know."
"He's dead. We caught that on an intercept," Ryan told them. "He was accompanied by a guy named 'Honeybear' on the 'Net. Saw his buddy go down and reported it in to a guy with the handle Fifty-six MoHa somewhere in Italy, we think. The Munich guy-his name was Atef-was a recruiter and courier. We know he recruited a shooter in the mess last week. So, you can be sure he earned his way onto the hit list."
"We know. They told us that," Brian said.
"How are you doing these people, exactly?"
"With this." Dominic pulled his gold pen from the suit jacket pocket. "You swap the point out by twisting the nib and stick them, preferably in the ass. It injects a drug called succinylcholine, and that ruins the subject's whole day. The drug metabolizes in the bloodstream even after death, and can't be detected easily unless the pathologist's a genius, and a lucky one at that."
"Paralyzes them?"
"Yep. They collapse, and then they can't breathe. Takes about thirty seconds for the drug to take hold, and then they drop down, and, after that, it's just a matter of mechanics. It looks like a heart attack afterward, and it tests out like that, too. Perfect for what we do."
"Damn," Jack said. "So, you guys were in Charlottesville, too, eh?"
"Yeah." This was Brian. "Not much fun. I had a little boy die in my arms, Jack. That was pretty tough."
"Well, nice shooting."
"They weren't very smart," Dominic evaluated them. "No smarter than street hoods. No training. They didn't check their backs. I guess they figured they didn't have to, with automatic weapons. But they learned different. Still, we were lucky-Son of a bitch!" he observed, as they got to the Ferraris.
"Damn. They are pretty," Jack agreed at once. Even Brian was impressed.
"That's the old one," Dominic told them. "575M, V-twelve, five hundred-plus horses, six-speed transmission, two hundred twenty big ones to drive it away. The really cool one's the Ferrari Enzo. That baby's the fucking bomb, guys. Six hundred sixty horses. They even named it after me. See, back in the far corner."
"How much?" Junior asked.
"The far side of six hundred thousand bucks. But if you want to get something hotter, you gotta call Lockheed Burbank." And sure enough, the car had twin openings on the front that looked like jet intakes. The entire machine looked like personal transportation for Luke Skywalker's rich uncle.
"Still knows his cars, eh?" Jack observed. A private jet probably got better mileage, too, but the car was sleekly pretty.
"He'd rather sleep with a Ferrari than with Grace Kelly," Brian snorted. His own priorities were rather more conventional, of course.
"You can ride a car longer than a girl, people." Which was one version of efficiency. "Damn, I bet that honey moves pretty fast."
"You could get a private pilot's license," Jack suggested.
Dominic shook his head. "Nah. Too dangerous."
"Son of a bitch." Jack almost laughed out loud. "As compared with what you've been doing?"
"Junior, I'm used to that, y'know?"
"You say so, man." Jack just shook his head. Damn, those were pretty cars. He liked his Hummer at home. In the snow he could drive anywhere, and he'd win any collision on the highway, and, if it wasn't exactly sporty, what the hell? But the little boy in him could understand the look on his cousin's face. If Maureen O'Hara had been born a car, maybe she'd be one of these. The red body color would have gone nicely with her hair. After ten minutes, Dominic figured he'd drooled enough, and they walked on.
"So, we know everything about the subject except for what he looks like?" Brian asked half a block