Gideon's Sword by Douglas Preston Read Free Book Online

memo—it’s real. You’ll discover that, too, eventually. Because if you take my life you’ll also have to take on the responsibility of finding the truth.”
    He found Dajkovic peering at him with a strange intensity. He wasn’t pulling the trigger—yet.
    “Does it sound likely to you? Not that a guy with a top-secret security clearance at Los Alamos would be passing secrets to al-Qaeda—that’s possible. No—that General Tucker would know about it? And ask you to take care of it? Does that really make sense?”
    “You have powerful friends.”
    “Powerful friends? Like who?”
    Slowly, Dajkovic lowered the shotgun. His face was slick with sweat, and he was pale. He looked almost sick. Then—kneeling abruptly—he reached for the knife in Gideon’s shoulder.
    Gideon turned away. He’d failed. Dajkovic would cut his throat and leave his body in the dirt.
    Grasping the knife, Dajkovic pulled it from the wound.
    Gideon cried out. It felt as if his flesh had just been seared by a hot iron.
    But Dajkovic didn’t raise the knife to strike again. Instead, he removed his own shirt and used the knife to cut it into strips. Gideon, head swimming in mingled pain and surprise, watched as the man used the strips to bind his shoulder.
    “Hold that down,” Dajkovic said.
    Gideon pressed the strips against the wound.
    “We’d better get you to a hospital.”
    Gideon nodded, breathing hard, gripping the bandaged shoulder. He could feel the blood soaking through already. He tried to overcome the searing pain, worse now that the knife was gone.
    Dajkovic helped Gideon to his feet. “Can you walk?”
    “It’s all downhill from here,” Gideon gasped.
    Dajkovic half carried, half dragged him down the steep slope. In fifteen minutes, they were back at Dajkovic’s car. He helped Gideon into the passenger seat, blood smearing over the leather.
    “Is this a rental?” Gideon asked, looking at the car. “You’re going to lose your deposit.”
    The old soldier shut the door, came around and got in the driver’s seat, started the car. His face was pale, set, grim.
    “So you believe me?” Gideon asked.
    “You might say that.”
    “What changed your mind?”
    “Easy,” Dajkovic said, backing out of the parking spot. He threw the car into gear. “When a man realizes he’s going to die, everything is stripped down to essentials. Purified. No more bullshit. I’ve seen it in battle. And I saw it in your eyes, when you believed I was going to kill you. I saw your hatred, your desperation—and your sincerity. I knew then you were telling the truth. Which means…” He hesitated, gunned the engine, the rubber squealing on the macadam, the car shooting forward.
    “Which means,” he resumed, “Tucker lied to me. And that makes me angry.”

11
    W hat the hell’s this?”
    Tucker rose quickly as Dajkovic pushed Gideon into the study, hands cuffed. The general stepped around from behind his desk, pulling a .45 and training it on Gideon.
    For the first time, Gideon came face-to-face with his nemesis. In person, Chamblee Tucker looked even more well fed and well watered than in the dozens of pictures he had studied over the years. His neck bulged slightly over a starched collar; his cheeks were so closely shaved that they shone; his hair was trimmed to crew-cut perfection. His skin bore a spiderweb of veins marking the face of a drinking man. His outfit was pure Washington: power tie, blue suit, four-hundred-dollar shoes. The soulless study was of a piece with the man—wood paneling, interior-decorator antiques, Persian rugs, power wall plastered with photos and citations.
    “Are you crazy?” Tucker said. “I didn’t tell you to bring him here. My God, Dajkovic, I thought you could handle this on your own!”
    “I brought him here,” Dajkovic replied, “because he told me something completely different from what you said. And damned if it didn’t sound plausible.”
    Tucker stared hard at Dajkovic. “You’d believe