Tom Clancy's op-centre_ mirror image - Tom Clancy [24]
He passed a transit officer, who was sitting in a police car by the booths. The young man asked if he needed help.
"Thank you, no," said Ekdol in thickly accented English. "I've phoned for help."
"Is it just the tire?" asked the officer.
"No," Ekdol told him. "The axle."
"Well, it's dark in there," the officer said. "Someone's gonna hit you. You got flares?"
"No, sir."
He popped the trunk. "We'd better go put some out."
Thank you," said Ekdol. "I'll join you in a moment. I must phone the bereaved."
"Yeah," the officer grinned. "Helluva thing to have funeral with no body."
"Exactly, sir," Ekdol said.
The officer got out of the car and went to the trunk. Removing a box of flares, he headed toward the tunnel, whistling.
Still pretending to talk into the phone, Ekdol walked around the tollbooth. Moments later, a Cutlass came through one of the token gates and pulled up beside him. Before getting in, Ekdol pressed the pound sign on the numeric keypad.
As the Cutlass sped off, a yellow fireball erupted from the mouth of the tunnel, sending smoke, chunks of stone, and shards of metal in every direction. Cars just emerging from the tunnel were blown end over end. One cartwheeled over the transit officer and smashed into a van at the tollbooth. Both vehicles blew apart, engulfing the toll booth in flame. Other cars were pounded flat at the entranceway by falling debris, while inside the tunnel there were the muffled sounds of secondary blasts as burning cars exploded. Within moments, the toll plaza was covered with rolling white smoke and a thick, horrific silence.
After several seconds, the silence was broken by the bass-fiddle groan of bending girders and the crack of concrete. A moment later, a quarter mile of expressway and the buildings along it shook as the roof of the tunnel collapsed. The roar of the water was like an ocean gone mad as it poured into the breach. The walls of the tunnel were battered down under the pressure, and shattered pieces were washed through the mouth of the tunnel as the river pushed the cars and fallen stone out of the way. The hiss of extinguished fires was drowned by the surging water as the river flowed outward, along the highway, taking down the few cars and streetlamps that still stood. Steam poured from the broken mouth of the tunnel, rising skyward to mingle with the darker smoke.
As the waters settled and the debris came to a rest, sirens sounded in the distance. Within minutes, police helicopters were racing low along the expressway, videotaping traffic leaving the scene.
But Ekdol wasn't worried. In less than a half hour, he'd have reached the safe house. The car would be dismantled in the garage and he would have burned the false beard, mustache, sunglasses, and baseball cap he was wearing.
For now, his job was finished. Arnold Belnick and his mercenary "bagel brigade" would be paid handsomely for their role in this and then it would be up to other soldiers in the Grozny cell to continue what he had begun.
Though his own life was about to be forfeited, he was honored to surrender it in the name of the new Soviet Union.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sunday, 9:05 P.M.,
Washington, D.C.
Mike Rodgers loved Khartoum.
It wasn't soft and warm like Elizabeth or Linda or Kate or Ruthie, but he didn't have to go out in the middle of the night to take it home. The movie was right there in his laser disc library, along with other favorites like El Cid, Lawrence of Arabia, The Man Who Would Be King, and virtually everything John Wayne ever made. What's more, he didn't have to be sociable. The movie didn't require him to do anything except put it in the player, sit back, and enjoy himself.
Rodgers had been looking forward to watching Khartoum all day, which is why he should have known that something would come between him and his film.
He'd begun his Sunday by jogging his daily five miles. Then he made coffee-- black, no sugar-- sat at the dining room table with his laptap, and brought himself up