Page 7 of The 9th Man

He turned and faced his man. “Don’t be obtuse.”

“I wasn’t trying to be. I meant it. There are seven that I’d stake my life on—and have many times in Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan. We’ve been up to our knees in problems more times than I can count. They are the best.”

“Families? Children?”

“Two of the men have those. The others are unattached.”

Perfect. “Leave the two behind. Attachments are a weakness. Take your five and shadow Persik. He’s headed for Belgium.”

“I have a family.”

“Yes, you do. But you’re in charge and that makes you different.”

A nod signaled understanding.

Talley had always been a man of few words.

“I’ll advise you as things progress,” he said. “But concentrate on Persik. Watch him. Until I say otherwise, if he blows his nose I want to know where he tossed the tissues. Be prepared to act, on my command.”

“You have a particular concern with him?”

He realized that his request might raise some radar. After all, he’d never shown this level of distrust before. “I have a concern that he’s not doing his job. That, I cannot tolerate.”

Though he could not speak it, with this particular situation, if it wasn’t handled properly, there could be dire consequences.

He pointed. “Can you handle that?”

Talley nodded, then turned and headed for the door.

“Jack,” he said.

Talley stopped, turned, and faced him.

“Do this and there will be a larger-than-usual bonus this month that can help with those attachments of yours.”

“I appreciate that. Consider it done.”

3

Charleroi, Belgium

7:20A.M.

LUKE WHEELED THE PEUGEOT INTO A PARKING SPOT BEHIND THEHotel De La Basse Sambre, allowed the tires to bump the curb, then shut off the ignition. He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, then sat back. What had he managed to get himself into this time? One minute he was asleep in a London hotel room, the next he’d taken fire and eliminated the shooters.

Back in Genappe, as soon as he’d realized Jillian had disappeared into the night, he’d done the smart thing and wiped down the three guns, dropped them on the bathroom floor, then left the house as fast as his feet could carry him. Outside, he found the guy he’d coldcocked into the bushes with a hole in his head. That made two killed by their own. To the police any explanation he might have offered would have been pointless. He was a foreigner who, within minutes of arriving in their sleepy town, was found standing in a house full of dead people.

Oh, and by the way, I’m also an American intelligence operative.

Yeah, right.

That dog definitely wouldn’t hunt.

Even if he managed to talk his way out of murder charges, whatever trouble was chasing Jillian might have caught up to her by then. Better to, as Malone would say, make like the wind and disappear. He wasn’t even half a mile down Rue Emile Hecq when he heard the police cars screeching to a stop. By the time he reached Highway N5 the sirens were so loud it sounded like the mother of all carnivals had dropped from the sky and landed squarely in Genappe. In his rearview mirror blue lights pulsed in rhythm over the treetops.

Twenty minutes later he’d made it to the outskirts of Charleroi, an industrial city of two hundred thousand south of Genappe. Hard to know if any witnesses had jotted down his license plate. It was possible. But not likely. The houses back on Rue Emile Hecq were widely spread and screened by hedges so unless the shooting had prompted a neighbor to come outside and walk down the street, he was in the clear. True, taking the chance that he’d been seen was a big roll of the dice. But hell, wasn’t everything? The army, combat, the Magellan Billet, the dozens of impossible scrapes he’d survived? So far the dice had been good to him. Of course, the older he got the more careful he’d become with his bets. Not circumspect, mind you, but clearly leaning that way.

Next step?