Authors: Stephen England
“Exactly why do you think this would have escaped my scanner?” Harry asked, his eyes locked on Vasiliev’s face. Looking for the faintest trace of duplicity. Of guile.
Nothing.
“Because that’s what it is designed to do,” came the quiet reply. “I am an old dog, Harry, and the technical details escape me, but this tracker is programmed to detect the activation of a scanner and go into passive mode for the duration of the scan.”
Harry’s skepticism must have showed on his face, for Vasiliev added, “It’s complicated. Or so the children in our tech department blithely assure me.”
Another time Harry might have smiled at the disdainful comment, but not now. If what the Russian said was true…then all their attempts to evade Korsakov had been fruitless. And it explained everything.
“If this tracker as sophisticated as you claim, then how can it ever be detected?”
“Hospital-grade medical equipment,” Vasiliev replied. “An X-ray can detect it—they’re often installed in a tooth of the person being tracked.”
Harry glanced over at Carol, seeing his own fear reflected in her eyes. The noise of the restaurant had faded into the background, the silence falling over them like a heavy cloud. Oppression.
He reached out and took her hand in his, an empty reassurance. “The last few months…had any dental work done?”
A nod, as though she could scarcely trust her voice. “November 21
st
, I believe, if I remember correctly. One of the molars—needed a crown.”
Vasiliev spread his hands in a gesture of
What did I tell you?
“May I make a suggestion?”
Harry shot him a dark look. “You may.”
The Russian tilted his flask forward, watching the clear liquor spill into the small glass. When he spoke again, it was as if the thought had just occurred to him. “The clinic at the consulate…we have the necessary equipment.”
“No.”
3:27 P.M. Central Time
Northeastern Michigan
It wasn’t hard to see why al-Fileestini had thought it was a safe place to train with the Kalashnikov. The area surrounding the cabin was one of the most desolate places Jamal had ever seen, the pine forest covered in a fresh blanket of snow.
The college student rubbed his hands together vigorously, glancing back toward the warmth of the vehicles. With the Pakistanis along, they’d needed to bring two, with he and Omar being the “designated drivers”.
Fortunately, the cold air dissipated their smell. It had been somewhat disillusioning to realize that the
mujahideen
he had so admired as a child knew nothing of the basics of personal hygiene. Driving up the peninsula with the windows rolled up had been a challenge.
But the
mujahideen
knew their weapons, he had to admit. He bent down on one knee in the snow, examining the open can of ammunition that the owner of the cabin had brought out to them. The markings on the can read “US Army M-2 .50 cal” but it was filled with little black boxes labeled
Tulammo
. Jamal slid one of the boxes open, extracting a long, gray, missile-shaped round. Seven-point-six-two-millimeter.
May Allah guide its flight
, he breathed, rolling the cartridge between his fingers.
He heard his name being called and looked up to see Tarik’s lieutenant, a man named Walid, waving him over.
“It is time,” Walid announced without preamble, handing him the rifle. The cold gunmetal felt like fire against the bare flesh of his hands as he lifted the heavy assault rifle to his shoulder, struggling to focus on the
mujahid
’s instructions.
Fire selector all the way down. Full automatic. He pressed his cheek against the stock, his finger curling around the trigger.
Now
! Fire rippled from the barrel as he squeezed the trigger, a thrill flooding through his body.
Power
.
He lowered the weapon, gazing out to forty yards where the Pakistanis had placed a bucket of ice.
Shattered now, water pouring onto the snow. Jamal threw a fist into the air, his excitement overwhelming him.
Yes, yes! Death to the unbelievers
.
4:35 P.M. Eastern Time
The J. Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, D.C.
There were days when normalcy was unsettling. Days when nothing added up. Marika Altmann leaned back in her desk chair, staring at the report that had just come across her screen.
She nearly hadn’t come into work, nearly convinced herself that she should run. But she knew the power of what she was attempting to evade.
She had, after all, spent most of her adult life using the resources of the Bureau to track down people on the run. Her safety, if there was any to be found, was in keeping things routine. Staying under the radar, as unlikely as it was that she would be able to do so. Yet there had been nothing.
Two unfamiliar faces stared back at her from the screen. Both identified as CIA personnel. Both implicated in the previous night’s shooting.
Her own name was nowhere to be seen. Marika reached for the cup of coffee sitting on the desk of her cubicle and, finding it empty, threw it in the trash. Something was wrong, she could feel it.
She closed her eyes and suddenly all she could see was Caruso’s body, lying there in a congealing pool of his own blood.
Very wrong…
5:01 P.M. Eastern Time
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
When the phone rang, Kranemeyer knew who it was, and exactly why they were calling.
“Do you know what the penalty is for obstructing a federal investigation, Kranemeyer?” Shapiro’s voice, injected with a little more testosterone than usual.
“Am I to assume that you have the statute in front of you?” the DCS asked. Baiting the deputy director was a dangerous game, but this was one game
he
hadn’t started.
“A copy of the information we provided to the FBI just crossed my desk.
Incomplete
information,” Shapiro added, his voice trembling as he continued. “And you went over my head to demand that Haskel restrict access to this information to a select task force from his counterterrorism division. Why? Why would you do something like this?”
“Are you quite done?” Kranemeyer asked, an icy calm pervading his tones. “We withheld from the Bureau nothing that would impede their investigation.”
“What are you trying to say? I saw the report, all of the redactions from the dossier for Richards and Parker—page after page completely blacked out. I
saw
it!”
It was hard to resist the urge to laugh, the irony of using the bureaucrats’ system against them was so rich.
Hoist by their own petard
. “I took what steps were necessary to protect on-going Agency operations, steps that you should have had the forethought to take. We gave the Bureau everything they need to pursue their investigation, and you may have just outed two of my best officers. If you’re wrong about this—any of this, there will be hell to pay.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?” Bluster now, classic Shapiro—but it was no longer amusing.
Kranemeyer waited perhaps thirty seconds before responding. “I don’t deal in threats, Shapiro, you should know that by now. I was just telling your fortune. Take it however you wish.”
He ended the call without warning, replacing the phone in its cradle on his desk. The DCS sat there for a moment, staring at the opposite wall.
Loyalty meant nothing in the Beltway…to the point that the politicos didn’t even understand how to cope when they encountered it.
He reached into his shirt pocket and extracted a small, old-style pager. A single line of red text scrolling across the screen at the top. THE PACKAGE IS READY FOR PICKUP.
Without further hesitation, Kranemeyer rose, balancing himself against the desk as he found his feet. There was always that one moment of uncertainty with the prosthesis.
No, the power players of Washington didn’t begin to understand that loyalty, the bond forged between men who had faced battle together. Didn’t know what to make of it. It would be their undoing.
He would see to that.
2:34 P.M. Pacific Time
The Russian Consulate
San Francisco, California
The “clinic,” if one wanted to dignify it by that name, was a small, windowless set of rooms on the third floor of the consulate, a building distinguished from the rest of the neighborhood by its brick façade on three sides.
“This was our effort at self-sufficiency during the Cold War,” Vasiliev explained, following Harry into the room. “We couldn’t risk our people visiting an American doctor, so we stretched the budget for whatever equipment and personnel we could accommodate. Even so, most of our personnel went into the city for the superior medical care of a hospital. Still do, actually. Our staff doesn’t see many patients.”
“You’re not exactly filling me with confidence here, Alexei.” Harry’s eyes swept the clinic, taking everything in. Just the one exit, an essentially bare room except for the dentist’s chair and his supplies on a table near the far wall. A pane of one-way glass filled one half of the western wall, presumably another room and begging the question of what else the room might be used for.
It was as close to a controllable environment as he was going to get.
The Russian spread his hands. “What did you expect
, tovarisch
, Johns Hopkins? We make the best of what we have…what is that expression—any port in a storm?”
Harry turned to Carol as Vasiliev left the room, putting his hand lightly on her shoulder. “Are you sure you can go through with this?”
She managed a half-smile, determination creeping into her features. “I don’t really have any other choice, do I? If they are able to keep tracking us…”
Her voice trailed off, but it didn’t matter. She was right.
Vasiliev reappeared with a younger Russian in tow. “Dr. Petrov, our dentist-in-residence. He’s the son of our naval attache and went to dental school here in the States, if that’s any comfort to you.”
The dentist flushed, responding with a somewhat shame-faced greeting. His English was very good, with just a trace of accent. “We will need to use a sedative, ma’am. Our goal is to remove the tracker without rendering it inoperative. It will require a delicate touch.”
“Do what you have to do,” Carol replied, looking him in the eye.
“Then let’s leave him alone, shall we?” Vasiliev suggested. “We can observe from the other side of that window.”
Harry turned to the former KGB officer. “And if there’s a problem?”
“We can be in here within twenty-five seconds.”
2:49 P.M.
The mansion
Beverly Hills, California
“They’re at the consulate?” Andropov demanded, sweeping into the room with his bodyguards flanking him. He’d been gone for most of the afternoon, out of contact. But he had obviously received Korsakov’s voicemail.
Viktor looked up from the computer perched precariously in his lap. “
Da
. They arrived…thirty minutes ago, yes?” He looked to Korsakov for confirmation.
A nod.
The oligarch removed his gloves, moving behind Viktor’s chair so that he could see the screen for himself. A curse escaped his lips. “What are they doing there?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Korsakov interjected. “Give me twenty minutes to assemble my team and I can be on the road. Chambers will be dead before nightfall, along with this Nichols.”
Andropov seemed to consider the suggestion for a long moment. Then he shook his head.
“You and your men have made two attempts already. You’ve failed both times and each time your
targets
come closer to me. I fear this CIA officer is more dangerous than you give him credit for.”
Korsakov started to speak, but the oligarch held up a hand. “You have served me well in years past, Sergei, and I have not forgotten it. But our third chance will also be our last, and we must make it count. What is the update on your absent team members?”
The assassin took a deep breath, trying to master his emotions. His old comrade had lost none of his teeth.
He gestured toward Viktor’s screen. “They are en route to Philadelphia International. It’s the nearest large airport that isn’t under complete lockdown. Their flight has a scheduled layover in Chicago—they should land in LAX tomorrow evening.”
“Then we wait,” Andropov admonished. “And move with our full strength when
we
are ready. You are old enough of a warrior to know this, Sergei. Never allow your opponent to dictate your moves.”
“Well done,” he continued, patting Viktor on the shoulder as he moved away. One of his bodyguards handed him a cellphone. “I have contacts in the consulate. One of them should know why they are there.”
3:02 P.M.
The Russian Consulate
San Francisco, California
It was something they taught at the Agency.
Maintain control of your circumstances.
The manual was somewhat fuzzier on what to do when you couldn’t. Harry glanced at his watch, then back through the glass to where Carol lay sedated in the dentist’s chair.
He had always resorted to prayer in those moments, as awkward as it felt to enter the presence of God with blood on his hands.
And so he prayed, standing there with his eyes open, watching for any signs of danger. Prayed for her safety, most of all.
“The security footage of our entrance into the consulate—”
“Has been erased,” Alexei interrupted. A smile crept across his aging face. “As I said, I am very much a law unto myself. The reward of decades of loyal service.”
Harry acknowledged the information with a nod. He had to protect her, that was all that mattered.
And it had nothing to do with his orders, he realized with shocking clarity. He actually
cared
for her, in a way he hadn’t cared about anyone in a very long time. It was an alien feeling.
Out there on the edge, he had learned
not
to care. You couldn’t manipulate someone you cared for. You couldn’t care for someone you had manipulated—they were only to be despised. And in a world where manipulation kept you alive, you quickly made the decision of what you could live without.
May God forgive me
.
The lights of the office dimmed once, then twice, casting an eerie shadow over the double-headed eagle on the far wall, the old symbol of Russia.
Danger. The hairs on the back of Harry’s neck prickled, his hand flickering toward his hip, toward the now-empty holster. It was a movement born of instinct—he had left his Colt with Vasiliev’s security personnel at the rear entrance.
Overload the power grid, shut down the building’s security systems—then move in for the kill. It’s what he would have done. It’s what he
had
done, he thought, his mind flashing back across the years to a long-ago night on an airport tarmac in Paraguay.
“Give me your sidearm,” he hissed, staring across at the Russian.
A peculiar smile on his face, Vasiliev opened his jacket. He wasn’t wearing a weapon.
The lights surged back to full power and the smile grew wider. “This
is
California, Harry. Out here, we’ve gotten used to ‘rolling blackouts’, as your media likes to call them.”
False alarm. Harry closed his eyes, willing his body to relax. “You don’t carry a weapon?”
“Rarely. I entered the service of my country at the height of the Cold War, and firearms training was not the priority of the First Directorate.” Vasiliev’s eyes grew reflective. “Those were the days, Harry, back before everyone strapped it on like James Bond. There were rules to this game—back before these religious fanatics came bursting upon the scene with their
fatwas
and wild-eyed clerics, Visigoths come to ravage Rome. Yes, those were the days.”
“When you tortured men and women in the basement of the Lubyanka,” Harry replied flatly. There were no rose-colored pictures of the past.
Vasiliev spread his hands. “I said there were rules, not that we agreed on all of them.”
His cellphone rang and he stepped away from Harry to answer it, a grim expression coming over his face as he listened.
The call didn’t last more than ninety seconds—Harry timed it, keeping an eye on his watch as Alexei carried on a conversation in rapid-fire Russian.
“We have a problem,” Vasiliev announced, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “Someone is making inquiries about the identities of our American visitors. Someone powerful.”
5:23 P.M. Central Time
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
This is the Hell of which ye were repeatedly warned. Embrace ye the Fire this day, for that ye persistently rejected Truth
. Tarik Abdul Muhammad closed his Qur’an and laid it aside, a strange feeling of disquiet settling over his body. Something was wrong.
It was a gift from Allah, the ability to sense danger. He knew enough not to ignore it. It had saved his life twice in the years since the American government had released him from Guantanamo. Since they had come to realize their mistake in so doing.
But what was it now, as he moved so close to fulfilling the will of God? Brushing a speck of lint off his slacks, Tarik rose and moved toward the window of the imam’s living quarters. Nothing out of the ordinary in the street outside.
A loud vibrating buzz rose from his cellphone and he palmed it off the desk.
Jamal
.
“Yes?”
The torrent of words that poured forth from the young man was more than even Tarik could process. “Stop,” he said finally, his eyes growing dark. “Start again, slowly this time. And remember, this is an open line.”
5:31 P.M.
Northern Michigan
Slowly. Of course. Jamal took another look out the window of the parked Sebring, forcing himself to calm down. He felt as if he was hyperventilating. Flashing lights filled the highway scarce a hundred meters away from where he sat, illuminating the gathering dusk. Red, white, blue.
“
Ya Allah
, it happened so fast. There was just no time.” He heard more sirens, an ambulance closing in fast from the south.
“No time? What are you talking about?”
The college student closed his eyes, reliving the horror. It had all started an hour before, as they’d field-stripped the Kalashnikov, placing it back in the Honda’s trunk, underneath a basket of dirty laundry.
That was when the trouble began. Emboldened by an afternoon with his familiar weaponry, Walid had insisted on driving, on proving his manhood on the open road.
“You weren’t here,” Jamal stammered, wavering between anger and a holy awe. Surely if the Shaikh had only been present…
He and Omar had stood together, but their combined powers of persuasion had not been enough. The Pakistanis had piled into the Honda and torn away from the cabin, setting such a breakneck pace that even the negro had been hard-pressed to keep up.
“
Ya Allah
,” he breathed again, still almost incapable of coherent thought. Thirty miles—that’s how long they’d lasted.
The driver’s door was still wedged shut from the impact, Lieutenant Nick Dubroznik observed, playing his flashlight over the wreckage. The EMTs had been forced to extract the dead body of the driver out through the passenger side door. His neck had been snapped on impact. Five years in the Michigan State Police, and he’d never seen the like. Another corpse in the back seat, driver’s side.
According to eyewitnesses, the driver of the Honda had tried to pass the car ahead of him, a risky high-speed pass that hadn’t paid off.
Fishtailing on a patch of black ice, the Honda had spun into the path of an oncoming semi.
A fully-loaded semi truck needs roughly a hundred yards to slow from highway speeds to a complete stop. It’d had only thirty. In the end, it was the mathematics that had killed them.
Witnesses had reported two, possibly three more passengers fleeing from the vehicle. A miracle that anyone had walked away, but it wasn’t surprising that they had fled. Neither of the victims had been carrying ID, probably illegals from the looks of them. Drugs, maybe?
He’d seen it a hundred times before. Marijuana, heroin, crack. Over the last few years the use of
khat
, an amphetamine native to the Arabian peninsula, had become steadily prevalent in the Islamic community. It wasn’t considered highly addictive, but enough so to get the DEA’s shorts in a bind.
The two men
might
have been Arabs, Dubroznik reflected. He took one look at the buckled trunk lid of the Honda and walked back to his patrol car, retrieving a short-handled crowbar.
Time to apply a little leverage. He slid one end of the bar under the lid and applied pressure, his breath billowing away from his lips in great clouds of steam.