Tom Clancy Under Fire by Grant Blackwood Read Free Book Online Page B

door. He drew the revolver from his belt.
    A few moments passed. From the corridor came the crunch of glass.
    Silence. A few more moments passed.
    The door swung open, then a voice called, “Stop right there.” New York accent. “Hands up.”
    Ysabel raised her hands.
    Jack kicked the door shut. It crashed into the man, who bounced off the door frame, then stumbled into view. Jack took two steps forward and toe-kicked the man in the side of the knee. His leg buckled and he dropped to his hands and knees, stunned. His gun bounced across the gravel and came to rest a few feet away.
    While Jack would’ve liked to have his own Q&A session with the man, it wasn’t feasible.
    He cocked his leg to his chest and heel-kicked the man in the right ear. With a grunt he dropped face-first into the gravel.
    Jack felt a flash of guilt, then quashed it. While the childhood “Play fair” rule was still a part of his psyche, there was no such thing as a fair fight, not out here, and not with guys like this.
    Jack leaned over the man; at the back of his head the hair was matted with dried blood, and his left cheek was swollen and the bone around his eye socket was squashed, all souvenirs from their earlier fight in the apartment. One mystery solved.
    He turned to the door and eased it shut. Ysabel walked up, knelt down, and checked the man’s pulse. “He’s alive.”
    And having a really shitty night,
Jack thought. “Search him.”
    She did so, then said, “Nothing. Jack, you used me as bait.”
    “They wanted me alive, they’d want you alive, too. Find the fire escape, will you?”
    “Don’t do that again without warning me,” Ysabel said, and walked away.
    Jack picked up the man’s gun, a nine-millimeter, stuffed it into his jacket pocket, then grabbed the man by the collar, dragged him to the door, and positioned him across it.
    “Over here, Jack,” Ysabel called. She stood at the far corner of the roof.
    He trotted over to her. She whispered, “I don’t see anyone.”
    “After you,” Jack said.

T WENTY MINUTES LATER they reached Ysabel’s building, an eighteen-floor high-rise in a fashionable garden neighborhood off Vali Asr Street. Inside the apartment Jack found the decor a mix of minimalist modern and traditional Persian, with a sunken seating area and a gourmet kitchen with stainless-steel appliances. The carpet was a cream berber. The wall nearest Jack was dominated by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase; at first glance, all the books looked like either classical literature or history, some of them rare.
    Ysabel walked through the space, turning on floor and table lamps while Jack stood at the balcony’s French doors, gazing out the windows at Tehran’s lighted skyline. Below was a tree-lined lake rimmed by what appeared to be gas lamps. Jack kept Ysabel in the corner of his eye until she walked up and stopped beside him.
    “That’s Mellat Park,” she said. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
    “Very.”
    In each hand she held a square glass a quarter full of amber liquid. She handed him one; the ice cubes tinkled softly.
    He said, “Ysabel, just for curiosity’s sake: This apartment . . . your Mercedes . . . Are you rich?”
    “My father is.”
    This gave Jack pause. Was all this a lark for Ysabel, an adventure to break up the monotony of wealthy leisure? He hoped not. Then again, during his dad’s first administration he’d faced the same kind of bullshit, so he had no business making any assumptions about Ysabel.
    “Iranian fathers like to dote,” she said.
    “I see.”
    “Don’t judge, Jack.”
    “I didn’t say a thing.”
    “It’s in your voice.”
    Jack took a sip from the glass. It was ice-cold Scotch; it burned his throat, then settled warmly in his belly. He asked, “Aren’t you Muslim?”
    “Partially lapsed.”
    “Daring girl.”
    “Only in private. Tehran is changing, but it’s going to take a while until one can walk down the street with a bottle in a brown paper