Extreme Measures Read Free Page A

him.
    Marilyn’s breathing grew less labored. Inwardly, she smiled.
    Outwardly, the sun had set. A chill evening windrose from the west, sweeping a film of fine desert sand over the Jeep and the two inert figures locked in embrace on the ground beside it.
II
EIGHT MONTHS LATER
    FEBRUARY 25
    I t was just after two o’clock in the morning. Outside of Warehouse 18 the East Boston docks groaned eerily beneath a crust of frozen snow. Inside, wedged in the steel rafters thirty feet above the floor, Sandy North made a delicate adjustment in the focus of his video transmitter and strained to catch the conversation below. But even if he missed part of the exchange, it was no big deal. At this distance, the souped-up Granville pickup he had brought with him to Boston could record a hiccup.
    For nearly three months, under the deepest cover, North had been working the docks for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. He was, in essence, on loan to them through an agency that specialized in providing such personnel. And although his agency had no official name, it was known to those in its employ, and those who from time to time required its services, as Plan B.
    North had been sent in to pinpoint the source of a steady trickle of weapons from Boston to Belfast, in Northern Ireland. What he had stumbled on instead was drugs—a shipment and sale of heroin that looked to be as big as any he had encountered on his several assignments with the Drug Enforcement Agency. And to boot, from what he could pull from the conversationbelow, one of the two men doing the selling was almost certainly a cop.
    Frustrated by his lack of progress on the weapons shipments, and with no time to set up trustworthy backup, North had opted to video the drug sale himself. Of all the filth, all the shit his work for Plan B required him to wade through, drug dealers were the most repugnant to him, and the most rewarding to bring down. At least, he reasoned, if he was pulled off his weapons assignment, the months in Boston wouldn’t have been a total loss. On the down side, if something went wrong, if by working on his own like this he blew the weapons operation, his boss at Plan B would have his nuts.
    But nothing would go wrong. He had checked the rafters from every angle and had picked a spot that was absolutely hidden from view. He had taken the sort of comprehensive and imaginative precautions that had made him—even among the highly skilled operatives at his agency—something of a legend. Now, all he had to do was keep filming, and wait.
    Far below him the deal was essentially complete. The cop and his partner had taken two suitcases of money and left. The buyer, who had arrived in a van with a chemist and three bodyguards, was supervising the transfer of his purchase from shipping containers to the van. He was small and wiry and nattily dressed, and he issued orders to his men with the crispness of one who was used to power.
    One of the Gambone brothers, North ventured, trying to recall what he had once memorized about the powerful New England family. Possibly Ricky, the youngest. North shifted his weight a fraction to get a better look at the man, and felt something move beneath his thigh. Instinctively he reached down, but it was too late. A bolt, probably wedged on the beam since the construction of the roof, rolled off the edge and clattered to the cement floor below.
    In seconds North was at the intersection of twopowerful flashlight beams. Following the shouted orders of one of the men below, he dangled his revolver in two fingers and flipped it down. Then, cursing himself, he inched across the rafter and down the narrow access ladder.
    It was going to be one hell of a long night.
    Over God-only-knew how many dicey assignments, North had been taken just twice before tonight. One of those times, in Buenos Aires, he had intentionally allowed his own capture in order to free two political prisoners. The other time, in Uganda, he had endured two