Текст книги "Treasure"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 32 страниц)

Pitt parked near the entrance of the Hotel Breckenridge. He signed the register and took two phone messages from the desk clerk. He read both slips of paper and slipped them into a pocket.

"from Dr. Rothberg?" asked Lily.

"Yes, he's invited us for dinner at his condo. It's just across the street from the hotel."

"What time?" Giordino queried.

"Seven-thirty."

Lily glanced at her watch. "Only forty minutes to shower and do my hair. I'd better get with it."

Pitt gave her the room key. "You're in two twenty-one. Al and I have rooms adjoining yours on each side."

As soon as Lily disappeared with the porter into an elevator, Pitt motioned Giordino into the cocktail lounge. He waited until the barmaid took their drink order before passing the second message across the table.

Giordino read it aloud softly. " 'Your library project takes top priority. Most urgent you find a permanent address for Alex in the next four days. Luck, Dad."

" He looked up, utterly confused. "Do I read this right? We have only four days to identify the location?"

Pitt nodded positively. "I read panic between the lines and smell something rumbling in Washington power circles."

"They might as well ask us to invent a common cure for herpes, AIDS and acne," Giordino grumbled. "We can kiss off our skiing trip."

"We'll stay," said Pitt resolutely. "Nothing we can do until Yaeger gets lucky." Pitt rose from his chair. "And speaking of Yaeger, I'd better give him a call."

He found a public telephone in the hotel lobby and made a call on his credit card. After four rings a voice answered in what sounded like the middle of a yawn.

"Yaeger here."

"Hiram, this is Dirk. How's your search going?"

"It's going."

"Run onto anything?"

"My babies sifted through every piece of geological data in their little banks from Casablanca around the horn to Zanzibar. They failed to find a hot spot along the coast of Africa that matched your drawing. There were three vague possibilities.

But when I programmed profiles on land-mass transformations that might have occurred over the past sixteen hundred years, none proved encouraging. Sorry."

"What's your next step?"

"I'm. already in the process of heading north. This will take more time because of the extensive shoreline encompassing the British Isles, the Baltic Sea and the Scandinavian countries as far as Siberia."

"Can you cover it in four days?"

"Only if you insist I put the hired help on a twenty-four-hour schedule."

"I insist," said Pitt sternly. "Word has just come down that the project has become an urgent priority."

"We'll hit it hard," Yaeger said, his voice more jovial than serious.

"I'M in Breckenridge, Colorado. if you strike on something, call me at the Breckenridge Hotel." Pitt gave Yaeger the hotel phone and his room number.

Yaeger dutifully repeated the digits. "Okay, got it."

"You sound like you're in a good mood," said Pitt.

"Why not? We accomplished quite a lot."

"Like what? You still don't know where our river lies."

"True," replied Yaeger cheerfully. "But we sure as hell know where it ain't."

Snowflakes the size of cornflakes were falling as the three trudged across the street from the hotel to a two-story cedarsided condominium.

A floodlighted sign read SKIQUEEN. They climbed a stairway and knocked on the door to unit 22B.

Bertram Rothberg greeted them with a jolly smile beneath a splendid gray beard and sparkling blue eyes. His ears rose in full sail through a swirling sea of gray hair. A red plaid shirt and corduroy trousers clad his beefy body. Put an ax in one hand -and a crosscut saw in the other, and he could have reported for duty as a lumberjack.

He shook hands warmly and without introductions as if he'd known everyone for years. He led them up a narrow stairwell to a combination living-dining room beneath a high-peaked ceiling with skylights.

"How does a gallon bottle of cheap burgundy sound before dinner," he asked with a sly grin.

Lily laughed. "I'm game."

Giordino shrugged. "Makes no difference as long as it's wet."

"And you, Dirk?"

"Sounds good."

Pitt didn't bother asking Rothberg how he recognized each of them. His father would have provided descriptions. The performance was nearly flawless. Pitt suspected the historian had worked for one of the government's many intelligence agencies at some time in the past.

Rothberg retired to the kitchen to pour the wine. Lily followed.

"Can I help you with anything-?" She suddenly stopped and peered at the empty counters and the cold stove.

Rothberg caught her curious look. "I'm a lousy cook so our dinner will be catered. It should show up around eight." He pointed at the sectional couch in the living room. "Please get comfortable around the fire."

He passed the glasses and then lowered his rotund figure into a leather easy chair. He raised his glass.

"Here's to a successful search."

"Hear, hear," said Lily.

Pitt got off the mark. "Dad tells me you've made the Alexandria Library a life study."

"Thirty-two years. Probably been better off to have taken a wife all that time instead of rummaging around dusty bookshelves and straining my eyes over old manuscripts. The subject has been like a mistress to me.

Never asking, only giving. I've never fallen out of love with her."

Lily said, "I can understand your attraction."

Rothberg smiled at her. "As an archaeologist, you would."

He rose and jabbed in the fireplace with a poker. Satisfied that the logs were burning evenly, he sat down again and continued.

"Yes, the Library was not only a glorious edifice of learning, but it was the chief wonder of the ancient world, containing vast accumulations of entire civilizations." Rothberg spoke almost as if he was in a trance, his mind seeing shadows from the past. "The great art and literature of the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Romans, the sacred writings of the Jews, the wisdom and knowledge of the most gifted men the world has ever known, the divine works of philosophy, music of incredible beauty, the ancient best-sellers, the masterworks of medicine and science, it was the finest storehouse of materials and knowledge ever assembled in antiquity."

"Was it open to the public?" asked Giordino.

"Certainly not to every beggar off the street," answered Rothberg. "But researchers and scholars pretty much had the run of the place to examine, catalog, translate and edit, and to publish their findings. You see, the Library and its adjoining museum went far beyond being mere depositories. Their halls launched the true science of creative scholarship. The Library became the first true reference library, as we think of today, where books were systematically catalogued. In fact the complex was known as the Place of the Muses."

Rothberg paused and checked his guests' glasses. "You look like you can use another shot of wine, Al."

Giordino smiled. "I never Turn down a free drink."

"Lily, Dirk?"

"I've hardly touched mine," said Lily.

Pitt shook his head. "I'm fine."

Rothberg refilled Giordino's glass and poured his own before continuing.

"Later empires and nations owe a staggering debt to the Alexandria Library. Few institutions of knowledge have produced so much. Pliny, a celebrated Roman of the first century A.D., invented and wrote the world's first encyclopedia. Aristophanes, head of the Library two hundred years before Christ, was the father of the dictionary.

Callimachus, a famous writer and authority on Greek tragedy, compiled the earliest Who's Who. The great mathematician Euclid devised the first known textbook on geometry. Dionysius organized grammar into a coherent system and published his 'Art of Grammar,' which became the model text for all languages, written and spoken. These men, and thousands of others, labored tutu piuduced their epoch achievements while working at the Library.

"You're describing a university," said Pitt.

"Quite right. Together the library and museum were considered the university of the Hellenistic world. The immense structures of white marble contained picwm galleries, statuary halls, theaters for poetry reading and lectures on everything from astronomy to geology. There were also dormitories, a dining hall, cloisters along colonnades for contemplation, and an animal park and botanical garden. Ten great halls housed different categories of manuscripts and books. Hundreds of thousands of them were handwritten on either papyrus or parchment, and then rolled into scrolls and stored in bronze tubes. "

"What's the difference between the two?" asked Giordino.

"Papyrus is a tropical plant. The Egyptians made a paperlike writing material out of its stems. Parchment, also called vellum, was produced from the skins of animals, especially young calves, kids or lambs."

"Is it possible they could have survived the centuries?" Pitt asked.

"Parchment should last longer than papyrus," answered Rothberg. Then he looked at Pitt. "Their condition after sixteen hundred years would depend on where they've been stored. Papyrus scrolls from Egyptian tombs are still readable after three thousand years."

"A hot and dry atmosphere."

"Yes. "

"Suppose the scrolls were buried somewhere along the northern coast of Sweden or Russia?"

Rothberg bent his head thoughtfully. "I suppose the freeze would preserve them, but during the summer thaw they would rot from the dampness."

Pitt could smell defeat looming down the road. This was one more nail in the coffin. Hope of finding the Library manuscripts intact seemed farther than ever.

Lily did not share Pitts pessimism. She had the glow of excitement on her face. "If you had been Junius Venator, Dr. Rothberg, what books would you have saved?"

"Hard question," Rothberg said, winking at her. "I can only guess he might have attempted to save the complete works of Sophocles, Euripides, Aristotle and Plato for a start. And of course, Homer. He wrote twenty-four books, but only a very few have come down to us. I think Venator would have saved as many of the fifty thousand volumes on Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Egyptian history as his fleet of ships could carry.

The latter would be extremely interesting, since the Library's monumental store of Egyptian literature and religious and scientific material has all been lost. We know practically nothing about the Etruscans, yet Claudius wrote an extensive history on them that must have sat on the Library's shelves. I'd certainly have taken religious works on Hebrew and Christian laws and traditions. The revelations of these scrolls would probably knock the socks off modern biblical scholars."

"Books of the sciences?" added Giordino.

"That goes without saying."

"Don't forget cookbooks," said Lily.

Rothberg laughed. "Venator was a shrewd operator. He'd have saved a general spread of knowledge and material, including books on cooking and household hints. Something for everyone, you might say."

"Especially the ancient geological data," said Pitt.

"Especially that," Rothberg agreed.

"Has anything come down on what kind of a man he was?" inquired Lily.

"Venator?"

"Yes. "

"He was the leading intellectual of his time. A renowned scholar and teacher who was hired away from one of the great learning centers of Athens to become the last of the Alexandria Library's prominent curators. He was the great chronicler of his age-We know he wrote over a hundred books of political and social commentary that covered the known world going back four thousand years. None of which has survived."

"Archaeological researchers would have a field day with data compiled by someone who was two thousand years closer to our past," said Lily.

"What else do we know about him?" Pitt asked.

"Not much. Venator attracted a large number of pupils who went on to become recognized men of letters and science. One student, Diocles of Antioch, mentioned him briefly in one of his essays. He described Venator as a daring innovator who struck out into areas other scholars feared to tread. Though a Christian, he saw religion more as a social science. This was the main cause behind the friction that existed between Venator and the Christian zealot Theophilos, Bishop of Alexandria. Theophilos went after Venator with a vengeance, claiming the museum and Library were hotbeds of paganism. He finally persuaded the Emperor Theodosius, a devout Christian, to burn the place. In the uproar and riots that occurred between Christians and non-Christians during the destruction, it was supposed Junius Venator was murdered by fanaticw followers of Theophilos."

"But now we know he escaped with the pick of the collection," said Lily.

"When Senator Pitt called with the news of your discovery in Greenland,"

said Rothberg, "I felt as excited as a street sweeper who'd won a million-dollar lottery."

"Can you give us any thoughts on where you think Venator hid the artifacts?" asked Pitt.

Rothberg considered for a long moment. Finally he said quietly, "Junius Venator was not an ordinary man. He followed his own path. He had access to a mountain of knowledge. His route would have been scientifically planned, only the unknowns were left to chance. He certainly did an efficient job when you consider the relics have remained hidden for sixteen hundred years." Rothberg threw up his hands in defeat. "I can't offer a clue. Venator is too tough a customer to second-guess."

"You must have some idea," Pitt persisted.

Rothberg looked long and deeply into the flames wavering in the fireplace. "All I can say is, Venator's burial place must be where no man would think to look."

0758, read Ismail's watch. He flattened himself behind a small blue spruce and peered at the lodge. Wood smoke was curling from one of two chimneys while steam issued from the heater vents. Kamil, he knew, was an early riser and a good cook. He rightly reasoned that she was up and making breakfast for her guards.

He was a man of the desert and not used to the icy cold that gripped him. He wished he could stand, flail his arms and stamp his feet. His toes ached and his fingers were becoming numb inside the gloves. The agony of the cold was filling his mind and slowing his reaction time. A creeping fear fell over him, a fear that he might botch the job and die for no purpose.

Ismail's inexperience was showing through. At the initial stage of the mission he was coming unstrung. He suddenly wondered if the hated Americans somehow knew or suspected his presence. Nervous and afraid, his mind began to lose its ability to make hard-and-fast decisions.

0759. One quick glance at the van just above the entrance to the road.

Shifts were alternated every four hours between the guards in the warm lodge and those huddled inside the van. Two relief men were due to make the hundredmeter walk from the lodge at any time.

He turned his attention to the guard walking a well-beaten path through the snow around the grounds. He was slowly approaching Ismail's tree, his breath coming in clouds of vapor, his gaze alert for any sign out of the ordinary.

The monotony and the bitter cold had not slackened the Secret Service agent's vigilance. His eyes swept back and forth over the area like radar. Less than a minute remained before he would see Ismail's trail in the snow.

Ismail swore softly under his breath and pressed more deeply into the snow. He was, he knew, exposed. The pine needles shielding him from view would not stop bullets.

0800. Almost on the dot, the front door of the lodge opened and two men stepped out. They wore stocking caps and down-filled ski coats. They automatically scanned the snowy landscape as they moved down the road in quiet conversation.

Ismail's plan was to wait until the relief party reached the van and then take Out all four guards at the same time. But he had misjudged and moved into position too early. The two men had only walked fifty meters down the road when the guard circling the lodge spotted Ismail's footprints.

He stopped and raised the transmitter to his lips. His words were cut off by a loud series of cracks from ismail's Heckler & Koch MP5

submachine gun.

Ismail's amateurish plan had gotten off to a bad start. A pro would have snuffed the guard with a single shot between the eyes from a silenced semiautomatic. Ismail stitched the guard'S COat in the chest area with ten rounds; a good twenty others sprayed the woods beyond.

One of the Arabs frantically began lobbing grenades at the van while another pumped bullets through the sides. Sophisticated assault was beyond the scope of most terrorists. Finesse was as foreign to them as liquid soap. Their only salvation was luck. One of the grenades found its way through the windshield, bursting with a loud thud. The explosion bore no similarity to motion-picture special effects. The gas tank did not go up in a fiery ball. The body of the van bulged and split as if a cherry bomb had gone off inside a tin can.

Both occupants were killed instantly.

Excited with blood lust, the two assassins, neither older than twenty, kept up their attack on the mangled van until the magazines of their rifles were empty, instead of concentrating on the Secret Service agents on the road, who took cover

behind trees and unleashed an accurate fire from their Uzis that quickly cut them down.

Correctly figuring their fellow agents inside the van were beyond help, they began retreating toward the lodge, running in a sideways motion back to back, one of them exchanging fire with Ismail, who had found cover behind a large mossy rock.

Ismafl's strategy was blown away by the confusion.

The other ten men of the terrorist team were supposed to rush the rear door at the sound of Ismad's gunfire, but they lost valuable time wading through knee-deep snow. Their assault came late and they were effectively pinned down by the agents inside.

One Arab managed to gain temporary safety under the north wall of the lodge. He pulled the pin on a grenade and flipped it at a large sliding window. He misjudged the thickness of the double panes, and the grenade bounced back. His face had only time for an expression of horror before the blast blew him apart.

The two agents scrambled up the steps and leapt through the front door.

The Arabs laid down a barrage of fire that caught one of the men in the back, dropping him with only his feet showing across the threshold. He was quickly dragged inside and the door slammed shut at the exact instant a dozen shots and a grenade blasted it into splinters.

The windows disintegrated in showers of glass but the heavy log walls easily withstood the onslaught. The agents dropped two more of Ismad's men, but the rest dodged in closer, using the pines and rocks for cover.

When they had moved within twenty meters of the lodge, they began hurling grenades through the windows.

Inside the lodge, an agent roughly shoved Hala into a cold fireplace. He was in the act of pushing a writing desk over the hearth to shield her when a hail of fire through a window ricocheted off the stone mantel, of the bullets smashing into his neck and shoulder. Hala could not see, but she heard his body thump as it made contact with the wood floor.

Ibc grenades were taking deadly effect now. At close range the shrapnel was far more damaging to human tissue than a rifle bullet. The agents'

only defense was a sharp and precise fire, but they had not counted on a heavy assault and theirsmall stockpile of ammunition was down to the last few clips.

A call for assistance had been transmitted immediately after Ismail's opening shots, but the emergency plea went to the Secret Service office in Denver and precious time was lost before the local sheriff's department was notified and their units organized.

A grenade exploded in a storeroom, igniting a can of paint thinner. A gas can used for filling the tank of a snowblower went next, and one entire side of the lodge soon crawled with flames.

The gunfire died as the fire spread. The Arabs cautiously tightened the net. They formed a loose circle around the lodge; every automatic rifle was trained on the doors and windows. They waited patiently for the survivors to be flushed out by the blaze.

Only two Secret Service agents were still on their feet. The rest were sprawled in bloody heaps among the mutilated pieces of furniture-The full fury of the fire raced into the kitchen and up a rear staircase, spreading to the upstairs bedrooms. Already it was far beyond any hope of extinction. The heat swiftly became unbearable to the defenders on the lower floor.

The sound of sirens echoed up the valley from the direction of town and drew closer.

One agent pushed away the desk protecting Hala in the fireplace and led her on hands and knees to a low window.

"The local sheriff's deputies are arriving," he said quickly. "As soon as they draw off the terrorist fire, we'll make a run for it before we're barbecued to death."

Hala could only nod. She could hardly hear him. Her eardrums hurt from the roar of the grenades. Her eyes were filled with tears, and she pressed a handkerchief tightly against her nose and mouth to filter out the thickening blanket of smoke.

Outside, Ismail lay prone, clutching his H & K automatic, torn by indecision. The lodge had swiftly become a blazing inferno, smoke and flame were rolling through the windows. Anyone still living had to escape in the next few seconds or die.

But Ismail could not wait it out. Already he could see red and blue lights flashing through the trees as a sheriff's car sped up the highway.

Of his original team of twelve men, seven were left, including himself.

any wounded were to be killed rather than left behind to be interrogated by American intelligence officials. He shouted a comnand to his men and they pulled away from the lodge and hurried off toward the entrance road.

The first deputies to arrive slid to a stop and blocked the road to the lodge. While one reported on the radio, his partner cautiously eased open his door and studied the van and burning lodge, holding his drawn revolver. They were only to observe, report and wait for backup.

It was a sound tactic when facing armed and dangerous criminals.

Unfortunately, it didn't work with a small army of unseen terrorists who suddenly opened fire with a storm of bullets that shredded the patrol car and killed the two deputies before they had a chance to react.

At a signal from one of the agents peering around the window, Hala was lifted and brusquely flung out onto the ground. The Secret Service men followed and quickly took her by the arms and began running, stumbling through the snow on an angle toward the highway.

They had covered only paces when one of Ismail's men spotted them and shouted the alarm. Shots struck the trees and branches fell around the fleeing survivors. One of the agents suddenly threw up his hands, clawing at the sky, stumbled forward a few steps and then fell face downward in the snow.

"They're trying to cut us off from the highway!" the other agent snapped. "You try to make it. I'll make a stand and delay them."

Hala started to say something, but the agent spun her around and gave her a not-too-gentle shove that sent her on her way.

"Run, dammit, run!" he yelled.

But he could see it was already too late. any hope of escape was dealt a death blow. They had taken the wrong angle away from the burning lodge and were headed on a direct line toward two Mercedes-Benz sedans parked in woods beside the road. In dazed defeat he realized the cars belonged to the terrorists. He had no alternative. If he couldn't stop them, he would at least slow them down long enough for Hala to hail a passing car. In a suicide gamble, the agent ran at the Arabs, finger locked on the trigger of his Uzi, shouting every obscenity he'd ever learned.

Ismail and his men were momentarily stunned into immobility by what they saw as a charging demon. for two incredulous seconds they hesitated, then recovered and let loose a long burst at the courageous Secret Service agent, cutting him down in mid-stride.

But not before he took out four of them.

Hala saw the cars too. She also saw the terrorists rushing for them.

Behind her she heard the thunderous fusillade of shots. Choking and gasping for breath, her clothes and hair singed, she staggered into a small ditch and up the other side before sprawling on a hard surface.

She raised her head slightly and found herself staring at black asphalt.

She pushed herself to her feet and began running, knowing she was only delaying the inevitable, knowing with dread certainty she would be lying dead in the next few minutes.

The Cord rolled majestically along the highway from Breckenridge, the morning sun gleaming on the bright chrome and new paint. Skiers wailing to the lifts waved as the elegant sixty-year-old classic swept past.

Giordino dozed in the enclosed rear seat while Lily sat up front in the open with Pitt.

Pitt had awakened in a stubborn mood that morning. He saw no reason to ski on rental skis when his own American made Olin 921s were in a closet only three miles up the road from the hotel. Besides, he reasoned, he could drive to the family lodge, pick up his gear and be sitting on a chair lift in half the time it took waiting his Turn to be fitted in a rental shop.

Pitt shrugged off his father's unexplained warning to stay clear of the lodge. He simply wrote it off as bureaucratic overplay. The Senator would have made the same impression on Hulk Hogan by telling the wrestler to Turn the other cheek after an opponent had kicked him in the groin.

"Who's shooting off fireworks so early in the morning?" Lily wondered aloud.

"Not fireworks," Pitt said, tuning in the sharp crack of gunfire and the explosive thump from grenades echoing off the mountainsides of the valley. "Sounds like an infantry firefight."

"It's coming from the woods up ahead!" Lily pointed"to the right of the road."

The smile wrinkles around Pitts eyes tightened. He increased the Cord's speed and rapped on the divider window. Giordino came awake and cranked the glass down.

"You woke me just as the orgy was getting started," he said between yawns.

"Listen up," ordered Pitt.

Giordino winched as the cold air flew into the passengers' compartment.

He cupped his ears. Slowly an expression of bewilderment crossed his face.

"Have the Russians landed?"

"Look!" said Lily excitedly. "A forest fire."

Giordino made a quick study of the black smoke that abruptly billowed above the treetops, chased by columns of flame. "Fuel concentrated," he stated briefly. "I'd say it was a burning structure, probably a house or condominium."

Pitt knew Giordino was on target. He swore and pounded the steering wheel, knowing with sickening certainty it was his family's lodge that was feeding the growing mushroom of fire and smoke.

He said, "No sense asking for trouble by stopping. We'll drive past and check out the action. Al, you come up front.

Lily, climb in the rear and keep your head down. I don't want you hurt."

"What about me?" Giordino asked in resigned indignation. "Don't I rate a little concern? Give me one good reason why I should sit up there exposed with you?"

"To protect your trusty chauffeur from harm, evil and unsavor-y felons."

"Definitely not a good reason."

Pitt tried another tack. "Of course, there's that fifty bucks I borrowed from you in Panama and never paid back."

"Plus interest."

"Plus interest," Pitt repeated.

"What I won't go through to protect my meager assets."

Giordino's weary despair sounded almost genuine as he scrambled through the open divider window and changed places with Lily.

Farther down the highway, a half-mile before the entrance to the lodge, people were stopping and crouching behind their parked cars, gawking at the swirling smoke and listening to the rattle of automatic rifles. Pitt thought it odd that the sheriff's department hadn't put in an appearance, and then he saw the bullet-riddled patrol car barricading the road to the lodge.

His attention was focused to his right and the inferno beyond when suddenly, at the very edge of his peripheral vision, he caught a vague form running down the road on a collision course with the Cord.

He stomped on the brakes, hard, and cramped the steering wheel to the right, whipping the Cord into a ninety-degrre angle and sending it on a broadside skid. The high, narrow tires shrieked from their treads'

friction against the pavement. The Cord ended up sideways, blocking both lanes of the highway, the driver's side not more than a meter from a woman standing stock-still.

Pitts heart had doubled its beat. He let out a deep breath and looked at the woman he'd come within a hair of mashing like a bug. He saw the fear and shock in her eyes slowly transform into an expression of incredulity.

"You!" she gasped. "Is it really you?"

Pitt stared at her blankly. "Ms. Kamil?"

"I believe in d'eji vu," Giordino mumbled. "I do, I do, I do."

"Oh, thank God," she whispered. "Please help me. Everyone is dead.

They're coming to kill me."

Pitt climbed from behind the wheel at the same time Lily stepped from the passengers' compartment. They helped Hala inside and lowered her on the rear seat.

"Who's they?" Pitt asked.

"Yazid's paid assassins. They murdered the Secret Service men guarding me. We must get away quickly. They'll be here any second."

"Rest easy," Lily said soothingly, noticing Hala's smokeblackened skin and singed hair for the first time. "We'll take you to a hospital."

"No time," Hala gasped, making a trembling gesture through the window.

"Please hurry or they'll kill all of you too."

Pitt turned just in time to see two black Mercedes sedans burst from the woods and veer onto the highway. He studied them for no more than a second before jumping into the driver's seat. He shifted into first gear and jammed the accelerator to the floor. He twisted the wheel and turned the Cord in the only direction open to him-back toward downtown Breckenridge.

He looked briefly into the mirror strapped to the side mount spare tire.

He estimated the distance between the Cord and the terrorists' cars at no more than three hundred meters. That brief glimpse was all he had time for. His rear view was suddenly cut off as a bullet drilled through the mirror and shattered the reflection.