Dead Wrong by Allen Wyler Read Free Book Online Page A

anything to help locate his position. So far he had heard only the two thumps. From the sound, he suspected they had come from the large ventilation duct straight ahead. The problem, he knew, was that sound travels along pipes, making accurate localization difficult. Also, all the sharp corners and bare surfaces can bounce sound around, making the true source difficult to locate. Still, his best guess was that McCarthy had crawled into the narrow passage dead ahead.
    He flicked off the light to allow his eyes to adapt to the dark again. Times like this, in the moments before a firefight, his adrenaline zoned him into a strangely comforting high. With his highly honed combat skills, going up against a rank amateur like McCarthy would be a piece of cake.
    “Hey, Doc, you over there? Give me a sign; let me come help you down.”
    Water gurgled through a pipe to his left. A cooling duct hummed softly off to his right. Not a sound from McCarthy. The warm air was stale from no circulation, the dust thick, causing his eyes to sting. Sweat beaded across his forehead, saturating both eyebrows before sliding into his eyes. He wanted to rub them but didn’t want to risk shifting all his weight to one side, so he blinked away the sting. Fucking hot up here too. Had to be over ninety degrees, the combination of dust and heat reminding him of Iraq.
    Get this shit over fast so’s you can get the fuck out .
    As he crawled into a passage between a ventilation duct and pipes, his left hand brushed something he instinctively knew didn’t belong here. Smooth, rectangular. He thought cell phone? He held it up to the weak light from the opened ceiling tiles. Jesus, will you look at this . A beeper. Had to be McCarthy’s. One more bit of evidence that this was McCarthy’s route. He was probably just up ahead.
    Smiling, he flicked on the Maglite for a glimpse at the narrow passageway. A horizontal pipe, maybe a foot above the false ceiling, cut across the path. Fuck, he’d have to crawl over it. A few feet beyond that the ducting and pipes forced a rightangle turn. Fool was probably just around the bend. He lowered the light for a look under the ducting, searching for McCarthy’s legs. Didn’t see him. Still, the traitor couldn’t be too far away.

    S IKES WATCHED WASHINGTON’S legs disappear into the crawl space, then followed the sounds of his slow, cautious movements overhead. Noisy bastard. How the hell could McCarthy be up there without making a damn sound? Head cocked, he listened harder, but heard only Washington. Meaning what? McCarthy was stationary? If so, Washington must be closing on him. McCarthy would either have to start moving again or fight Washington. And far as he knew, the doc wasn’t armed. Unless, of course, he had a gun in his office and had taken it up there. But he suspected that he didn’t.
    Sikes moved from McCarthy’s office to the hall in case McCarthy tried to drop down from the ceiling and run for the exit. He heard Washington call to McCarthy but couldn’t make out the words.
    He wanted to tell Washington to shut the fuck up, stop making noise, but he didn’t, figuring that any communication between them would give McCarthy cover to move as well as disclose their locations. Besides, Washington, a seasoned combat veteran, knew what to do. McCarthy, on the other hand, didn’t know shit, making it a no-contest matchup. One in which patience would win.
    Suddenly, a series of chirps came from directly overhead, a distinctive sound Sikes recognized instantly: a beeper. Had to be McCarthy’s. He smiled at the rookie mistake. Should’ve turned the fucker off. It was a screw-up a trained operative would never make.
    Before McCarthy could silence it, Sikes stepped left to a spot directly below the sound. Cunningham’s orders had been clear: Interrogate McCarthy, determine exactly how much classified information had been taken, and then do the right thing. And that’s where he and the colonel saw eye to eye.