Termination Orders(105)

“How do I know it isn’t?” said Boyle.

“If it is,” said Morgan, “then you’ve already lost.”

Boyle watched him, as if mulling it over, and then said, “Okay. Come up. Slowly.”

“Lose the gun first,” said Morgan.

Boyle tossed it behind him, and it hit the wooden loft with a thud. Morgan walked to the ladder that was propped up against the loft and climbed, slowly, his eyes steadily on Boyle and his daughter, who was no longer sobbing but still shaking.

Finally, he stood on the loft, about fifteen feet away from Alex, facing Boyle. The wooden floor seemed shaky, the wood itself rotted through. Morgan took a step toward him.

“Easy now,” said Boyle. Morgan looked at the phone in his hand and then at Boyle. He had gotten close to Boyle and, more important, to Alex, But this was about as far as his plan went. Now he had to improvise.

“So what are we going to do once we make the exchange, Boyle?” It was an awkward question, but then again, they were far past social niceties.

“I should ask you the same, Cobra. How can I believe that you’ll just back off?”

“Give me my daughter, Boyle, and I disappear. I take the blame, just like you planned. The operative gone rogue. You go back to selling out your country, to being some senator’s bitch, and you never hear from me again.”

Boyle cringed in anger at his words. “And suppose I don’t believe you?”

“What do you think I’m going to do, Boyle? You control the intelligence. I give you the chip, and it’s the last bit of evidence that connects you with any of this. I disappear as a fugitive. Who’s going to believe anything I say?”

As Boyle paused, thinking, Morgan gave Alex a look that he hoped would be comforting. It will be all right, he wanted to say. I’ll die before I let anything happen to you.

“So do we have an understanding?” Morgan said instead. “Give me my daughter, and we all walk out of here unscathed. After that, I disappear.”

Boyle nodded. Morgan approached him, one tiny step at a time. He extended his hand holding the cell phone and the chip. Alex was just beyond his arm’s reach.

Morgan tossed him the phone, then the chip, and Boyle shoved Alex forward into her father’s arms. Morgan’s stare never left Boyle, whose eyes went wide as he examined the phone and realized Morgan’s deception. He looked fiercely at Morgan for a split second, and then his hatred erupted in a determined lunge to recover his gun.

Morgan pushed his daughter to the side into a bale of hay. He rushed at Boyle, hitting him in his midsection. They toppled over together and hit the loft floor hard. It splintered under their weight, and they fell through the stale air.

Morgan hit the ground hard and then felt piercing, disorienting pain. His bad knee had made contact first and absorbed much of the impact. After lying for a few moments dazed and in pain, he tried to get up but stumbled, falling facedown in the dirt.

He raised his head and saw Boyle on his feet, panting, incensed. He limped to the nearest wall, where several rusty farm implements were hanging, and grabbed a large, rusty machete. Morgan tried to get up again, but again the pain was too much, and his knee buckled.

Boyle shuffled back, his fist wrapped tightly around the handle of the machete. With a great roar of triumph, he raised the machete over his head, ready to strike.

Alex’s voice pierced the air. “Stop!”

She yelled it through her tears but still sounded commanding and self-assured. Boyle froze and turned around slowly. She had come down from the hayloft and picked up Morgan’s gun, which was now in her trembling hand. Boyle took a step toward her.

“Stay back!” she screamed, no longer tearing up. She was angry. Enraged. And it seemed to give her power. “Stay back, or I’ll shoot!”

“Do you know,” said Boyle, panting, “how to use one of those?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s just point and shoot,” she said with resolute bitterness.

“There’s a little more to it than that,” Boyle told her. “Put it down, little girl, or you might hurt yourself.”

She sneered at him. “I’m not a little girl.” And she squeezed the trigger.

One shot—BAM!—hit Boyle squarely in the chest, and a red bloom grew on his shirt around the wound. He stammered, as if to say something, and then he fell as if the ground had shifted beneath his feet.

“Dad!” Alex exclaimed, and she ran over to him. He had crawled to the wall of the barn and was leaning against it, next to the hanging tools, trying to get up on his own. She extended her hand and helped him to his feet.

“You know something, kid?” He was half hugging, half leaning on her for support and glowing with pride. “You’re my hero.” She beamed and hugged him.