Bücher online kostenlos Kostenlos Online Lesen
The Mark of the Assassin

The Mark of the Assassin

Titel: The Mark of the Assassin Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Daniel Silva
Vom Netzwerk:
in
    Cyprus."
    "But never an attack on an airliner," Tyler said, when the last image
    vanished from the screen. "None that we know of. In fact, we believe
    they've never struck an American target before."
    Michael switched on the lights. Monica Tyler said, "The Director is
    scheduled to brief the President at eight A.M. tomorrow. During that
    meeting, the President will decide whether to order air strikes against
    those training facilities. The President wants answers. Gentlemen, in
    your opinion, did the Sword of Gaza shoot down that airliner?"
    Michael looked first at Carter, then at McManus. Carter took it upon
    himself to answer the question, since he was the senior man there. He
    cleared his throat gently before speaking. "Monica, for all we know as
    of this moment, it might have been the Sword of Gaza, or it might have
    been the Washington Redskins."
    "THAT LAST REMARK was a thing of beauty," Michael said, as they walked
    out the front doors and into the night. He turned up his collar against
    the cold and lit a cigarette. Carter walked next to him, one hand
    clutching a briefcase, the other rammed into his pocket. Carter always
    managed to look slightly lost and vaguely irritated. Those who did not
    know him tended to underestimate him, a quality that served him well
    both in the field and in the bureaucratic trenches of Langley. He spoke
    six languages and could melt into the backstreets of Warsaw or Athens or
    Beirut with equal ease. Someone must have told him to spruce up his
    wardrobe for headquarters, because he was always immaculately turned out
    in costly English and Italian suits. Fine clothing did not hang
    naturally on Carter's short, slouching frame; a thousand-dollar Armani
    ended up looking like a cheap knockoff from one of the suspect boutiques
    along Wisconsin Avenue in Georgetown. Michael always thought he looked
    slightly ridiculous, like a clerk in an exclusive men's shop who wore
    suits he could not afford. But Carter was an obsessive who never did
    anything halfway--his tradecraft, his wife and family, his jazz. His
    newest passion was golf, and he restlessly practiced his stroke with
    plastic golf balls in his small glass-enclosed office. Once Michael
    slipped a real ball among the replicas. Carter promptly launched it
    through his office window during a conference call with Monica Tyler and
    the Director. The following day Carter received a bill for the repairs
    and a reprimand from Personnel. "She drives me nuts sometimes," Carter
    muttered softly. He had served as Michael's control officer when Michael
    was working without official cover and couldn't come to embassies. Even
    now, walking toward the west parking lot of headquarters, they moved as
    though they were conducting a debriefing under hostile surveillance.
    "She thinks gathering intelligence is as easy as putting together a
    quarterly earnings report."
    "She has the Director's complete trust and therefore should be handled
    carefully."
    "Listen to you--the headquarters man all of a sudden."
    Michael tossed his cigarette into the dark. "There's something about
    this attack that stinks."
    "More than the fact that two hundred and fifty people are lying on the
    bottom of the Atlantic?"
    "That body in the boat makes no sense."
    "None of it makes sense."
    "And there's something else."
    "Oh, Christ. I've been waiting for this."
    "The way Mahmoud was shot in the face like that."
    They stopped walking. Carter turned and looked up at Osbourne.
    "Michael, let me give you a piece of advice. Now is not the time to go
    chasing after your Jackal again."
    They walked in silence until they reached Michael's car. "Why is it that
    you drive a silver Jaguar and live in Georgetown and I drive an Accord
    and live in Reston?"
    "Because I have better cover than you do, and I'm married to a rich
    lawyer."
    "You're the luckiest man I know, Osbourne. If I were you I wouldn't fuck
    it up."
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    "It means what's done is done. Go home and get some sleep."
    MICHAEL'S FATHER ended up hating the Agency, but somewhere along the
    line, whether it was his intention or not, he created in his son the
    makings of a perfect intelligence officer. Michael came to the attention
    of the Agency during his junior year at Dartmouth. The talent spotter
    was a professor of American literature who had worked for the Agency in
    Berlin after the Second World War. He saw in the ragged, bearded college
    student the makings of a perfect field

Weitere Kostenlose Bücher