Michael Ryan remained silent, as did Bane and Granite, out of respect for Troy Savage, whose death they had just witnessed via Savage’s microweb cam. The last two minutes of footage had been shocking, starting with Savage’s sudden attack and ending with Hartmann’s death at the hand of Troy Savage, before he too expired. Flames engulfed the camera’s field of view, until it went dark altogether.
“The chopper, General. Our guys need the chopper ASAP, and from the looks of it, Karen Frost is wounded, so send paramedics along.”
Granite took off to the front of the plane to use the pilot’s radio to get the stealth helicopter, hidden in the hills ten miles south of Berlin, to head toward Hartmann’s mansion.
“Mr. Bane?” asked Ryan when they were alone.
“Yes, Mike?” replied the Director of Central Intelligence.
“The guy we just saw on the Web cam speaking with Troy Savage before he died. Savage called him Tommy?”
“That’s right.”
“I knew him as Dan Hawkins. I fitted him with nanoequipment back at USN some days ago.”
Bane nodded while putting a hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “I know. His real name is Tom Grant.”
Ryan frowned. “Tom Grant? But the Tom Grant I remember doesn’t look like—”
“New face, Mike. Part of his retirement package a year ago. We didn’t tell you about him because you didn’t need to know.”
Ryan crossed his arms and exhaled. “That explains a lot,” he finally said, before turning to the computer screen, which now displayed a real-time satellite view of the mansion, along with a moving red dot representing the homing unit that Savage had given to Tom Grant.