Day of Wrath

“You may even cost me some money. But I think you would find that a poor exchange for years of hard labor in one of your federal maximum-security prisons. I do not believe that your fellow FBI agents view traitors kindly. And, as you know, prison can be a dangerous place.”

This time it was Mcdowell’s turn to stay quiet. He chewed his lower lip in frustration. Wolf wasn’t rolling over the way he’d expected.

“But I will offer you a compromise, PEREGRINE — as a token of my goodwill.”

“What kind of a compromise?”

“If you successfully complete this one last assignment for me, I will cancel your remaining debt to my organization. We will be even, and you will be rid of me.”

That sounded promising. Still holding the phone in one hand, Mcdowell fished the bottle back out of his desk with the other.

“What do you want done?”

“Special Agent Gray and Colonel Thorn are in Washington, D.C” Wolf said flatly.

“What?” The bourbon glass fell onto his carpeted floor and rolled under the desk. “Impossible!”

“Evidently not. Thorn and Gray are clearly quite. resourceful,” the German said. “Too resourceful to be left at large.”

“Well, what more do you expect me to do about them?” Mcdowell demanded. “Because of me, they’re already subject to arrest on sight.

I can pass the word they’re hiding out somewhere around here to the local Bureau field office, but that’s about it.”

“No,” Wolf said. “I insist on a permanent solution to the problem.”’ Mcdowell shivered involuntarily. He cleared his throat. “I see.”

“Good,” Wolf said. “Now, listen carefully. Your part is simple — but you must make no mistakes …”

Mcdowell heard him out in silence, desperately wishing he could take one more drink. The warm glow he’d been nursing all day had suddenly withered into a dull, pounding ache between his ears.

The Madison Inn, Near the Woodley Park Zoo It was after sunset.

Peter Thorn lay flat on the bed with his hands folded behind his head.

By turning his head, he could see Helen Gray sitting silently by the window. She was on watch — scanning the street below for any signs that the FBI or their mysterious enemies had finally tumbled to their presence back in the United States.

Their room was in darkness — lit only by a soft yellow glow from the street lamps outside. Neither of them wanted to risk their night vision to brighter light.

Thorn frowned. Something had been nagging at him for days.

Something about the trap they’d triggered near the Wilhelmshaven docks.

He’d run the scenario backward and forward in his mind a hundred times, but he still couldn’t see how the men who’d tried to ambush them had tagged them so quickly.

The man who’d called himself Steinhof had come straight up to them — in the very first bar they’d visited.

That couldn’t have been an accident.

And unless Thorn was willing to believe the impossible — that the people they were after had enough operatives to cover every waterfront dive in Wilhelmshaven — then Steinhof and his murder squad had spotted them earlier. But where? At the Port Authority?

He summoned up his memories of the office there. No, nobody had been within earshot when they’d asked their questions, about Baltic Venturer. Could the bad guys have been alerted by the German clerk who’d helped them, Fraulein Geist or Geiss or someone like that? He shook his head, remembering the drab, rigid woman behind that counter.

She hadn’t struck him as somebody who would willingly involve herself in irregular intrigue.

No. Steinhof could have tracked them after they left the Port Authority or the customs office, but to do that he would have had to have known what they looked like — and roughly when they were likely to arrive in Wilhelmshaven.

Which left one disturbing possibility … “We got company, Peter,” Helen said suddenly. Thorn was off the bed and by her side in less than a second.

“Where?”

“Under the He saw the just pulled up ened. “Shit.” second street lamp — this side.” car she’d spotted, a dark, four-door sedan that had and parked— right beside a fire hydrant. He stiffened. The front passenger side door opened and Sam Farrell got out onto the sidewalk.

Thorn let out a low whistle. “That’s a relief.

For a second there, I thought—”

“Not so fast, Peter. Look who brought him,” Helen said tightly.

The sedan’s driver came into full view under the street lamp.

It was Larry Mcdowell.

Jesus, Thorn thought grimly. He turned to Helen. “Do we bug out?”

She sighed. “No point. There’s another car further out — hanging a block or so back. And Mcdowell may be a moron — but he’s not a complete moron. By now, he’ll have units in position around the whole immediate area.”

Thorn nodded. He watched Sam Farrell head for the front door to the inn, with Mcdowell right behind him. They were out of places to run.

The knock on their door came just a minute or so later. “Special Agent Gray. Colonel Thorn. This is Deputy Assistant Director Mcdowell.”

Holding his temper in check, Thorn flipped the lights on, then opened the door and stepped back.