“Got it!” the driver shouted back. The white van had pulled into a rest area behind a black Mercedes. He drove around both vehicles and slid to a halt in front of the Merc. The inside lights were on, revealing two men.
Lance yanked open his door. “Fire at will!” he shouted, and he hit the pavement with his .45 semiautomatic pistol up and firing at the Mercedes. His two colleagues opened up with their submachine guns, and the black car’s windscreen evaporated. The two men inside were jumping like puppets on a wire.
“Cease fire!” Lance yelled. It took a moment, but his two men stopped firing. Lance walked forward, his gun held out, ready for any twitch. His two men yanked open both front doors and inspected the two bloody forms.
“No pulse or respiration here,” one man said. “Pupils blown.”
“Same here,” the other man replied.
Lance raised his radio to his lips. “This is number one. Cleanup crew to the first rest stop on the Van Wyck, flatbed to the same location to take away a black Mercedes. Move it!” Then he leaned against the car and took deep breaths.
Finally, he got control of himself and produced his cell phone, pressing a speed dial number.
“Yes?”
“Number one. Status there?”
“Pending, estimate six minutes.”
“Report back.” He ended the connection.
—
In Dubai, a gala was under way at the Burj Al Arab, the huge, sail-shaped hotel on a bridge-accessed island off the city.
A Rolls-Royce glided up to the main doors, and a uniformed doorman opened the rear door.
Dr. Kharl, dressed in a tuxedo and blinking in the camera lights, put a foot onto the red carpet. As he did so, he was momentarily blinded by an intense red flash, and in the following second his head exploded.
—
Lance watched as the bodies were put into a van, and the Mercedes loaded onto a flatbed recovery vehicle.
“I want the bodies and the car minutely examined for any relevant evidence,” he said. “Get it done.” As he spoke, his cell phone rang. “Number one,” he said.
“Status report, Dubai,” a voice said.
“Go ahead.”
“Subject is down and permanently out. Our executive has left the scene, headed for his departure point.”
“Let me know when he’s in the air,” Lance said, then hung up. He pressed another speed dial button.
“Holly Barker.”
“Scramble,” he said.
“Scrambled.”
“The situation is finalized,” Lance said. “Two down and out in New York, bodies being taken to our morgue for postmortems. One down and out in Dubai, our man on his way out of the country.”
“That sounds like a clean sweep,” Holly said.
“It doesn’t get any cleaner than this,” Lance replied.
“Will you call Tom Riley in London and let him know the search for Hamish and Mo is canceled, though I’d still like to have any information about them that he can turn up.”
“Will do.”