Authors: Stephen England
It was cleaner than she remembered—perhaps men actually learned something as they grew older. The thick venetian blinds were drawn, shutting out the night. “What are we looking at, Ron?”
“The Bureau has been compromised, Marika. At a very high level.” The quality of the laser mic’s audio was impressive, that much Yuri had to admit.
They needed to know how much had been uncovered. There were three targets in the apartment now—each of them glowing bright in the Barrett’s thermal imaging, piercing through the closed blinds. Three targets…and a cat.
“You were right,” the black man went on, his voice strained with tension. “The NRO spy sat
was
commandeered—by a legitimate FBI user account. Username: SunDancer1350. The account was created from scratch two weeks ago and given full access.”
“Full access?” It was the woman this time. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this joker knew the brand of Haskel’s briefs. Everything. There wasn’t a place on the Bureau’s network that he couldn’t go.”
“Who could have set up an account like that?”
He’d heard everything he needed to know. Yuri’s finger curled around the Barrett’s match trigger, applying pressure…
In cold air, sound travels at an average rate of 1,085 feet per second. The 300-grain slug spat from the Barrett’s muzzle at almost three times that speed. It’s a truism: you never hear the shot that kills you.
Marika would never remember Carter’s answer to her question. She would never forget what happened next. Her first inkling of danger was when something warm and wet sprayed against the back of her neck.
She turned to see Caruso fall, a strangled cry escaping his lips, blood spraying from a ragged hole in his chest. Time itself seemed to slow down, the thunderous report of the shot striking their ears as her partner collapsed, his legs flailing against the faded linoleum of the kitchenette.
“Vic!” She screamed, pushing Carter down and out of the way as a second bullet ripped through the apartment. They fell together by the stove, flattening themselves against the floor.
A third shot came crashing through the window, spraying fragments of glass everywhere. She started to move, but the analyst caught her by the arm. “Stay down!”
None of that mattered. Not now. She shook off his hand, crawling on her hands and knees across the bloodstained linoleum to where Vic lay. He was bleeding profusely, fading in and out of consciousness.
“Come on, Vic,” she whispered, cursing underneath her breath as she ripped off her jacket, pressing it against the wound in an attempt to staunch the flow. It was a futile gesture. “Stay with me, you coward.”
Taunting him, swearing, trying to provoke an angry response.
Any
response.
Nothing. His head lolled to one side, unseeing eyes staring across the floor. She bent over his lifeless form, his blood soaking her jeans, a helpless anger flowing through her body. “Vic!”
5:02 P.M. Pacific Time
Los Angeles, California
“You think he’ll come alone?” It seemed an innocent enough question, but Harry shook his head.
“Alexei? No, he’ll have back-up—minimum of two, maybe three—the bistro is only a quarter-mile from the consulate.
He didn’t pick it for the view.”
Sammy absorbed the information quietly, glancing out the windows of the hotel room. Out to where the sun was setting over the city of angels. A crimson-red orb disappearing into the sea, bathing the waters in blood. “And you trust me enough to back your play?”
“Of course,” Harry replied, shooting a look of surprise at his old friend. It was a lie, but it came easily to his lips.
What made it worse was that Han knew it. The SEAL turned away, examining the fruit basket that had been delivered by the hotel.
Silence, and then the sound of water from the bathroom, a showerhead being turned on. Carol. Unfortunately their operations didn’t allow for a great deal of privacy. The room didn’t even have two beds, but a bedroll on the floor would do. “There in Kentucky, I killed a man for you, Harry. Not even a man, really. A
kid
. A kid with a gun. So don’t lie to me. You don’t trust me now any more than you did in Yemen. You’re not capable of it…”
8:06 P.M. Eastern Time
The abandoned apartments
Clarksville, MD
This wasn’t going according to plan. Yuri lifted his eyes from the scope, only too aware that only one of his targets was dead. They were running out of time, he realized, listening to the police chatter coming across the scanner on the table. People were streaming into the street as though the building was on fire and he could see several on their cell phones. He toggled his lip mike. “I can provide covering fire, Kalnins. Finish this.”
“We can’t stay here.” It was an obvious observation as yet another heavy rifle slug ripped through the apartment, but she made it anyway. “Do you own a gun?”
Carter put his head up long enough to look at her. “Blast it, Marika, I’m an analyst, not a freakin’ field officer. What do
you
think?”
It had been worth asking. She brushed a silver strand of hair out of her eyes, forcing herself to think, to concentrate. She was getting too old for this.
Vic! They’d both had their service weapons impounded after West Virginia, but Vic…
She crawled to where he lay on the floor, rolling him over on his stomach. His head struck the linoleum with a sickening thud and Marika cringed at the sound. There it was, a “baby Glock” tucked in a holster in the small of his back, a subcompact 10mm Glock 29.
She jerked it from its holster, laying on her back as she racked the slide to chamber a round.
“Do you have a plan?” This from Carter.
A shake of the head in the negative. “The shots should bring the local LEOs running, maybe even SWAT, if we get lucky.”
The thought hit her suddenly, fear seizing hold. “Ron, when they get here—your computer, it’s gonna be evidence.”
It took a moment for her words to strike home, but then the analyst’s face blanched. All the records, every last electronic vestige of his hack into the Bureau’s servers. Evidence…
Kalnins had been in the
Spetsnaz
for thirteen years before leaving Russia’s special forces for the more lucrative trade of the mercenary. One choice he’d never regretted. The Latvian took the stairs two at a time, the Uzi’s folding stock pressed into his shoulder as he bounded upward.
He half expected someone to come out of one of the apartments to stop him, perhaps one of America’s infamous private gun owners, but it didn’t happen. Everyone was either already in the street or hiding under their beds.
Home of the brave? A smile crossed the mercenary’s face as he reached the fourth floor, pausing outside his target’s door. Time to do this.
“How much longer?” Marika asked from her position behind the overturned kitchen table.
In the semi-darkness of the apartment, she could barely see Carter holding up three fingers as he lay underneath the computer desk. “Data corruption has already begun, but the electromagnet’s gonna need a few more minutes. Then we’ll—”
Whatever the analyst had been about to say was lost as the apartment’s door came flying inward, a burst of machine-gun fire tearing through the night. Bullets puncturing the drywall. Suppressive fire.
In the end, Maxwell saved their lives. As the shooter came through the door, the bobtailed cat leaped from the bookshelf where he had been cowering ever since the shooting started.
Kalnins turned reflexively at the movement, firing a burst into the empty shelf.
It was a fatal distraction.
He saw the muzzle flash, down low, near the floor—heard the slug embed itself in the wall beside his head. Another flash, two blasts coming almost as one, and he recoiled backward, gasping in pain. His Level II tactical vest stopped both rounds, but it was like being hit in the ribs with a sledgehammer. The breath driven from his body.
He swayed, reaching back for the doorframe to support himself as he raised the Uzi in one hand, firing a wild burst. No targets.
The Latvian swore, gritting his teeth against the pain as he moved deeper into the apartment, the submachine gun against his shoulder. Every instinct of his mind screamed caution, but police sirens sounded in the distance.
He was running out of time. “Hold fire,” he ordered, keying his lip mike. The last thing he needed was to be shot by his own team.
Caution to the wind. He stepped into the kitchen, the barrel of the Uzi leading the way.
“Don’t shoot!” A man’s voice and Kalnins turned on heel, seeing the black man on his knees near the computer desk. His hands locked behind his head.
Perfect target…his brain never had time to finish processing the thought. Something cold and hard struck him in the back of the neck and he felt himself falling, the Uzi slipping from his fingers. Then everything went black.
Never leave your partner. It had been her life, the mantra of her training. Second nature.
A life that had now been turned upside down. Old rules now. There was no help for it. Marika pulled her gaze away from Vic’s corpse, looking over to where Carter knelt crouched by the desk.
Pull yourself together
. Let the dead bury their dead.
She hit the Glock’s magazine release and slid the double-stack magazine out into her hand. Seven rounds left.
“On my signal—head for the door. Don’t stop till you reach the landing. Keep your head down.”
A nod. She took a deep breath, visualizing her target. Replaying the mental image of the muzzle flashes, the open window.
Now!
“Go, go,
go!
”
She fell forward on one knee, the subcompact coming up in both hands. There. The window across the street—just as she had envisioned it. The Glock recoiled into her hand, the slide cycling. One, two shots.
Cover fire.
Next moment she was up and on her feet, moving toward the apartment door. She caught up with Carter on the landing.
No time to stop, no time for words. Her hand came down on the analyst’s shoulder, pushing him forward. On into the night…
No shot, no clear angle. Yuri swore, slamming his gloved hand against the sandbagged firing rest. Just like that, his targets were gone.
Sirens jarred him from his trance.
Focus
. Think. He took a final look down the Barrett’s scope, picking out the heat signature of his partner, laying on the apartment’s floor.
He wasn’t dead.
The assassin made his decision in a trice. Forget loyalty. Forget honor—there was no such thing in this business. It was simply the practicality of the matter. You didn’t leave someone behind, someone who could talk. Be identified.
And his mission had changed. Recover Kalnins.
12:03 A.M. Eastern Time, December 18
th
Clarksville, Maryland
A chill breeze tugged at the flap of Kranemeyer’s trench coat as he pushed open the door of the Agency Suburban, stepping into the street.
Flying blind. He didn’t like that. Never had. Never would. Blind left you crippled—as he knew all too well. Approaching the line of police tape, he held up his CIA identification, transfixing the young Bureau agent there with a hard stare.
A moment, and then she waved him through. “Director’s in the building—top floor.”
It was Carter’s building, he knew that much. Didn’t explain getting a call in the middle of the night from the director of the FBI.
As it turned out, the FBI director was coming down as he made his way up. “What’s going on, Haskel?”
They weren’t on a first-name basis, at least as far as Kranemeyer was concerned.
“What isn’t, Barney?” The forty-four-year-old Haskel possessed all the easy familiarity of a skilled lawyer. Which he was. “Do you know a Ronald Jefferson Carter?”
The DCS never blinked. “Name sounds familiar. Is he in the movies?”
“Don’t give me that need-to-know crap, Barney,” Haskel exclaimed impatiently. The oiled façade slipping. “We know he works for the Agency, we know he works for you.”
“Then why waste my time with rhetorical questions?” He didn’t like being played with. “Get to the point.”
“The point is I’ve got an agent DOA upstairs and your man Carter is nowhere to be found.” The FBI head cleared his throat, continuing on down the stairs. Kranemeyer fell in step beside him. “Shell casings all over the apartment, at least two weapons—9mm and 10mm. Sniper in the abandoned complex across the street. Care to know what we found over there?”
No response was necessary, and Haskel didn’t wait for one. “A Barrett M98B—it’s an Agency weapon, Barney.”
Kranemeyer shook his head. “What have you been smoking, Haskel? No way that’s possible.”
Haskel ran three fingers through his sandy hair, the gesture causing his coat to fall open.
A suit and tie
? At midnight?
Even Haskel wasn’t that sartorial. Not on short notice. “I don’t know what to tell you, Barney. Give me another working option. We’ve spent the last two hours running the rifle’s serial through our database—finally lost it in a maze of near untraceable JSOC procurements. You know what that means.”
Agency
. Kranemeyer hit the door with the flat of his hand, leading the way back onto the street. “Mind telling me what your man was doing here in the first place? You want to talk to my people—you come through
me
.”
The FBI director put up both hands, a defensive posture. “He wasn’t on official business, that much I can tell you. Trust me, no one wants to know the answer to that question more than I.”
Trust me
. Never trust a man that asks for it, Kranemeyer mused, staring into the darkness of the December night. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, agents converging on the perimeter.
“Weapon on the ground! Get down—hands behind your head.
Now
!”
A thin black man stumbled into the bright beams of FBI flashlights, a small Glock held loosely in his right hand.
Carter
. Kranemeyer watched as his analyst fell to his knees on the cold pavement, dropping the pistol. The Bureau was all over him in seconds, cuffing his hands behind his back.
The DCS turned to see Haskel standing there, open-mouthed and strangely pale. It was probably the closest the former DOJ lawyer had ever been to the scene of an actual arrest.
“I want him,” Kranemeyer announced suddenly, sizing up his opponent.
The FBI director looked up, startled—as if he hadn’t heard the question. “What?”
“I want Carter transferred to my custody.”
A disbelieving look crossed Haskel’s face. “That flies in the face of every procedure in the book. No way. Not happening.”
“Think about it,” Kranemeyer said, taking a step toward Haskel—moving in close, into the man’s comfort zone. “Just think about it, Haskel. This nation’s been under attack for the last five days. You’ve lost more agents than any prior director. Let me take responsibility for Carter’s protection—we’ll use an Agency safehouse.”
“Two of my agents go with you?” The FBI director’s acquiescence seemed sudden, unnatural. Kranemeyer’s eyes narrowed.
What are you playing at?
There was nothing to do—nothing except play it through, to the end. “Of course.”
5:21 A.M. Pacific Time
Van Nuys Airport
Los Angeles, California
Try as you might, you never really slept on a plane. Not really. Then again, he hadn’t
really
slept in years.
Korsakov roused himself as the Gulfstream’s landing gear touched down, striking the tarmac with a barely discernible
thump
. This pilot was good—a lot better than the underpaid, underfed Federation pilots that had flown he and his comrades into Chechnya.
The fall of communism had brought no freedom to Russia—they had but traded one set of shackles for another. Party had been replaced by capital, the ruble by the petrodollar. But the end was the same. The few controlled everything.
A few—the oligarchs. Like Valentin Stephanovich Andropov. Those who had succeeded where he’d failed.
In the end, it was curious how little resentment he felt, Korsakov mused, drawing back the curtain of the luxury jet’s windows to gaze out at the airport lights—the convoy of vehicles awaiting him, the nose of Andropov’s Sikorsky executive helicopter peeking out of a nearby hangar. Perhaps, in his younger years, he would have. Now? Now he was only concerned with parlaying his talents to the highest bidder—grateful that there still were high bidders like Andropov.
Perhaps he too was a capitalist. Perhaps. As the Gulfstream taxied to a stop, the assassin rose from his seat, touching Viktor on the arm as he moved toward the door. “It is time to be going.”
5:41 A.M.
The hotel
Keep her safe
. Those were his orders. She was his responsibility. That was all.
Or was it? He looked back toward the bed to where Carol lay, her form outlined beneath the sheets. He couldn’t describe how he felt, except that he had started to
care
and it bothered him.
Out in the field, you learned to fear your emotions. Isolate. Compartmentalize. Don’t let anything break down those barriers.
Never
become emotionally attached to your principal. All those cardinal rules—so easy to recite, so hard to keep.
He clipped the holstered Colt into the waistband of his pants, padding softly across the carpeted room. Day was coming, all too soon.
Her hair was splayed out against the pillow, a tousled mess of gold in the dim glow of the nightlight. Beautiful.
Focus
. It had been years since he’d felt this…this reluctant
stirring
within. Years since he’d permitted himself to care—about anyone.
Perhaps, after all this was over…
Don’t go there
. She stirred in her sleep, and he turned away, turning his back on her, and those emotions.
It would do nothing…except get them both killed.
9:03 A.M. Central Time
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
“It is a beautiful weapon,” Tarik announced, sliding a hand across the polished receiver of the Kalashnikov, fingers brushing the folding polymer stock, an aftermarket American addition. “Have any of you ever fired one?”
Jamal looked over to see al-Fileestini and Omar shaking their heads. The shaikh’s eyes drifted across the room to rest on him. “Have you, my brother?”
“No.”
A smile of amusement crossed the face of Tarik Abdul Muhammad. “Now this will never suit our purposes. How many of you have fired a weapon before—any weapon?”
Omar inclined his head. “A few pistols back in my days on the street, nothing more. Guns were for intimidation, for show.”
“I was a young man during the First Intifada,” al-Fileestini said at last, clearing his throat. “I did what I could, but it has been many years.”
The shaikh paused for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. “Your prowess does not concern me, father. Allah has not ordained that you accompany us on this holy mission. As for the others—they will need to become accustomed to the feel of the weapon in their hands. You have ammunition?”
“Indeed.” Al-Fileestini spoke briefly to Omar, and the negro disappeared into a back room. “But any shots here in the city…the Dearborn police are corrupt and inadequate, but not so much so as to ignore automatic weapons fire.”
“Allah will provide,” Tarik replied with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Did you not say that we have a brother several hours north along the peninsula? You spoke of a …cabin, I believe. Secluded?”
The imam nodded, reaching into the pocket of his trousers. “I will make a few calls.”
10:17 A.M. Eastern Time
The apartments
Clarksville, MD
As crime scenes went, this one was messy. Or so he’d been told. Bullets and brass everywhere. He watched a crime scene investigator emerge from behind the apartment building, a small plastic evidence bag in his hand. They’d been digging spent rounds out of the building
behind
the apartments. Apparently, one didn’t mess with a .338 Lapua Magnum. Haskel took another step away from his agents, listening carefully to the voice on the other end of the phone.
“You’re certain she was here last night? You’re
sure
?”
“Of course I am,” the voice replied, no longer calm. That in itself was disturbing.
They’d met back during Haskel’s days as an attorney with the Holder DOJ, exchanging their dreams over lunch on K Street. The world needed a leader, a man of unimaginable vision and tenacity. The ability to remake the world and the ruthless determination to see it through.
Over the years he had never known the man to lose his cool. Until now. With the stakes higher than ever.
“I didn’t want her killed,” the FBI director hissed, taking another look around him. “What are you trying to accomplish?”
“Wrapping up loose ends, Eric. They were close. Very close. The threat we buried with David Lay…we can’t risk its reemergence.”
“How much does she know?” Haskel asked, passing a hand over his forehead. He didn’t really want to know. He’d never dreamed that it would come to this, but one thing led to another.
He listened for another few minutes, then nodded. “Don’t do
anything
else unless you talk to me first. I can sideline her easily enough—have her working something else. As for the CIA angle…that’s covered.”
10:42 A.M.
A CIA safehouse
Georgetown, Maryland
The safehouse was nothing special, just your standard split-level. Nondescript was the order of the day. Reinforced locks, bulletproof windows, and a sophisticated security system were the only real additions. And the alarm alerted Langley, not the local PD.
Kranemeyer pulled back the drapes of the top-floor window, taking a look down the quiet street. The FBI wasn’t happy with security arrangements, which suited him just fine. They’d nearly parked a pair of black Suburbans with government tags out front, announcing their presence to the world.
Subtlety wasn’t Haskel’s strong suit. Never had been, but the Bureau chief wasn’t himself. Could be the recent wave of terrorist attacks. Could be something more.
Kranemeyer dropped his jacket on the back of the chair and pulled it away from the folding table. The Heckler & Koch USP .45 rode prominently on his hip, a reminder that the Delta Force operator was never far from the surface. “Shall we begin with what this Victor Caruso was doing at your apartment. What did he want?”
Silence. The DCS traded glances with the pair of FBI agents assigned to provide ‘oversight’.
“Give me something I can work with, Ron. I’ve gone through your file—you had no prior contact with Agent Caruso. Your only connection to him was during the aftermath of TALON in September. And the two of you never met. What’s with the late-night social call?”
Carter squirmed uncomfortably, eyeing Haskel’s men. He wasn’t trained for field work, and it was showing. His eyes revealed too much. “Can we go for a walk—alone?”
7:05 A.M. Pacific Time
Beverly Hills, California
It was obvious why Americans loved California, even to a foreigner like Korsakov. Loved it in spite of themselves. A monument to hedonism, to the excesses of their beloved capitalism.