Authors: Stephen England
For a moment, the driver took his eyes off the target SUV two cars ahead, glancing nervously once more at the Glock. He’d never killed a man, but
this
—this was justice…
“Two hundred meters,” the voice in his ear intoned. The driver hit his turn signal and accelerated hard into the fast lane…
Defensive driving hadn’t been a part of Hell Week, but the Secret Service had taught Ramirez everything he needed to know on the subject.
A curse escaped his lips as he saw the Toyota in his driver’s side mirror, accelerating fast. A threat.
Alerted by his bodyguard’s outburst, Lay looked up into the mirror. The small sedan filled his field of view, and in that moment he knew. It was them…
There was no time to react, no time for self-recriminations or doubt. It all happened too fast.
Ramirez put the wheel over, hard to the right, flooring the accelerator in an attempt to thread the needle up the shoulder of the road.
Too late.
The sedan impacted hard against the front driver’s side of the SUV, sending it skidding toward the guardrail on the right shoulder.
Impact
.
It struck David Lay with the force of a punch as the airbags inflated, slamming him back against the seat. Dazed, he reached for the clasp of his seatbelt. There was little time. He had no idea how little.
The men inside the “stranded” Durango watched the collision unfold from several hundred meters back along the interstate. The driver lowered his high-powered binoculars from his eyes, glancing down at the phone which lay open on the seat beside him. A simple, pre-paid flipphone, a number already dialed on the small screen.
A grim smile crossing his face, he reached down with a single finger…pressing SEND.
No.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, the man thought, flailing against the airbags that pinned him against the seat of the Toyota.
The Glock
. Where was it—where had it gone?
Outside the passenger’s side window, over the billowing airbag, he could see the guardrail he had slammed into, coming to rest direct in front of the SUV. He swore, knowing that every second he struggled decreased his chances of success. That
they
would win once more.
The next moment, his world erupted in a blinding flash of white. Flames and fire…
The driver of the Durango watched in silence as the explosives layered into the frame of the Toyota detonated, sending both vehicles careening through a wall of traffic toward the median.
People…were so easy to deceive, he thought—perhaps because it was easier for them to believe a lie that confirmed their beliefs than a truth that contradicted them.
Tell them
what they
want
to hear
.
It was the secret of any good recruitment. He looked over at his partner. “Good enough, don’t you think,
tovarisch
?” Comrade.
A nod, and he reached forward, a gloved hand closing around the ignition key. One target down.
One to go.
7:01 A.M.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
The interrogation had been going on for just under an hour and a half when Harry’s tactical satellite phone went off, buzzing loudly against the table inches from his hand.
“Ignore it,” came Ellsworth’s peremptory command, annoyance at the interruption in his voice.
Harry ignored him with a smile, palming the TACSAT and flipping it open. “Nichols here.”
It wasn’t a social call and the smile faded from Harry’s face as he listened. Finally, “All right, boss. I’ll be with you in five.”
Returning the phone to the pocket of his jeans, he rose, roughly tearing off the electrodes taped to his arms, while the inspector general watched, speechless.
“We’re done here.”
At that, Ellsworth seemed to find his voice, springing up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box. “I should say we are
not
! Sit down, Nichols.”
Harry turned, coolly looking the bureaucrat in the eye. “We’re declaring Code MAGI—there’s been an attempt on the life of the DCIA. I’ll have security escort you back to your office,
sir
.”
“Wait—
what’s
going on?” Ellsworth demanded, but Harry didn’t answer. Grabbing his shirt from the rack by the door, he moved to the security panel and tapped in the code he had watched Ellsworth enter earlier in the morning.
And then he was out, in the corridor, buttoning his shirt as he headed for the stairs. Crisis mode…
5:07 A.M. Mountain Time
Apache Reservation
New Mexico
The morning was cool, a chill breeze blowing as he walked out into the desert, stealing glances at the horizon as if he awaited the coming of the sun.
Jack Richards pulled his Stetson down over his forehead, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his overcoat. He’d been colder. The big man could still remember the mountains of Afghanistan, the intense cold. The snow. He’d been in the Corps then, Marine Force Recon. A demolitions specialist.
“Thanks for coming,” the man at his side remarked, and he turned to look down into the face of his half-brother. “I wasn’t sure you were going to.”
Jack, or “Tex” as most of his friends called him, acknowledged the comment with a silent nod. He wasn’t given to talking any more than necessary.
And he nearly hadn’t come, but there were ties that were stronger than blood. “How did Manny die?” he asked, looking down at the fresh-dug grave, the small veterans marker bearing the name
Emmanuel Gutierrez
stabbed into the earth just above the mound marking the grave of a lifelong friend, a man who had once been closer to Richards than most of his own family.
“His patrol went missing in Big Bend three weeks ago. He and one other agent—their bodies were finally found on the 8
th
. Shot dead. They’re investigating…but everyone’s money is on the cartels.”
Summers on the reservation…Richards thought, his coal-black eyes gazing out across the desert. Remembering the long days, the games of football, Manny’s face shining bright as he reached into the air for a pass.
Golden days. Before he had moved to Texas in his mid-teens. Long before they both went off to war.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, kicking at the loose dirt with a booted foot. The funeral had been the day before, a gathering of family and friends, but he had been unavoidably detained.
Business
.
Richards was Mescalero only through his maternal grandfather, his half-brother the son of his mother and the full-blooded Apache she had married after his father’s death. Still, he had spent the best part of his teens on this very reservation. The
best
part…
“How much time do you have off?” came his half-brother’s voice, his eyes searching Tex’s face.
So many unspoken questions there…so much unsaid.
“Two days,” he replied, lifting his eyes from Manny’s grave to look out over the desert. Remembering a similar morning, from so long ago—his coming-of-age, a journey out into the desert to meet the spirit which would guide his life. What exactly he had encountered out there he would never know. What he did know is that he hadn’t found God until years later.
The distracting buzz of his satellite phone erupted from his pocket and he pulled the TACSAT out, glancing idly at the screen.
“I have to take this,” he whispered, placing a hand on his half-brother’s shoulder. The Texan stepped a few feet away and flipped it open. “Richards.”
From the first words, he knew. His vacation was over…
7:13 A.M. Eastern Time
NCS Operations Center
Langley, Virginia
“What do you mean we don’t know?” Bernard Kranemeyer demanded, glaring across the conference table in Ron Carter’s direction.
Now in his early fifties, the Director of the Clandestine Service still had the commanding presence of the Delta Force sergeant major he had once been. Along with the voice. And the acerbic temperament. It was no accident that members of the clandestine community called him the “Dark Lord”.
Carter shook his head. “Highway Patrol was on the scene five minutes after the bomb went off. They found two bodies. The body of an unidentified Caucasian male in the sedan, and the body of Lay’s bodyguard, Peter Ramirez, in the driver’s seat of the SUV. The DCIA was nowhere to be found.”
“Any ID on the driver of the sedan?” Kranemeyer asked, a grimace of pain crossing his face as he reached beneath the table to rub a leg that was no longer there.
An improvised explosive device, or IED, had put an end to his military career one sunny day in Fallujah, Iraq, 2003. He’d been an old man by spec-ops standards even then, fighting off forcible retirement.
The explosion had killed the man beside him, his fellow sergeant, the genial Stan Sniadowski. Left Kranemeyer’s right leg a bloody, mangled mess below the knee. All the reconstructive surgery in the world couldn’t have saved it.
So, now he had a prosthesis and phantom pain. Occupational hazards. And he knew what bombs could do.
“Not yet,” Carter replied. “The Bureau has promised they’ll share everything with us.”
“They’d better,” Kranemeyer replied, a dangerous glint in his eyes. On the surface, he and the DCIA had shared little in common.
Lay was the politician, he the soldier. But over the years, the two men had developed a close friendship. And now he was gone. Or dead…
7:21 A.M.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
A metallic beep sounded and the door of the conference room opened to admit the figure of Harry Nichols.
“You’re late,” was Kranemeyer’s quiet comment. “What’s your status?”
“I’ve diverted a Gulfstream from Monterrey to New Mexico to pick Richards up,” Harry responded, making a reference to the CIA language school in California. He chose to ignore the sharp edge in the voice of the DCS. “Thomas is on his way in. Should be here in fifteen minutes.”
Kranemeyer absorbed the information without comment, turning back to Carter. “Where’s Shapiro?”
“We’ve sent a helo for him. The White House has authorized a pair of Apache gunships as escort.”
The DCS nodded. The AH-64 Apaches typically provided overflight for the presidential motorcade, and their release for the protection of Deputy Director (Intelligence) Michael Shapiro was an indication of just how seriously the administration was taking this. As well they should.
“Where was Shapiro, anyway?”
“Hadn’t left home.”
“That’s the Banker for you,” the DCS acknowledged with a derisive snort. Shapiro was the only one of the deputy directors with no background in the intelligence community, and it showed. Now, he was in charge and they were going to have to live with it. And his penchant for what Carter had once called a “negotiable nine and a punctual five.”
Kranemeyer took a deep breath, turning to look Harry in the eye. “I want your team in readiness. When we find the people that did this, we’re going to strike back. Send a message, loud and clear. Don’t mess with us.”
“My team is two men down,” Harry replied, clearing his throat. “Until we can find replacements for Sarami and Zakiri, I can hardly describe Alpha Team as mission-ready.”
“Are you saying you can’t do it?” the DCS demanded, a challenge in his eyes.
Harry stared the DCS in the face, his gaze unwavering. “That was an objective assessment of our readiness. You want heroics, you’d better find another guy.”
A moment passed, then a grim smile spread across Kranemeyer’s face. “Assessment accepted, Nichols. Thing is, we’re stretched thin at the moment. As you know, Nakamura and Bravo Team deployed to Tajikistan last week. So, you’re the designated hitter. Carter will coordinate with the Joint Terrorism Task Force on your behalf.”
Harry and Ron exchanged glances. They’d worked together many times through the years. But never under these circumstances. There had never been an attempt on the life of the DCIA.
Kranemeyer put both hands down on the table and levered himself to his feet. “Let’s roll, gentlemen.”
7:22 A.M.
“Got any working theories?” Harry asked as the two men left the conference room and headed back toward the op center.
Carter glanced up as though startled from thought. “Yeah. I do.”
A moment of silence followed as they continued down the corridor. Harry cleared his throat. “Mind reading me in, or are we going to start this day off playing ‘Twenty Questions’?”
“Oh. Sorry,” Carter returned absently. “I’ve asked Michelle to pull footage from the VDOT cameras.
I want to know who was in the area.”
The Virginia Department of Transportation had a lot of cameras, particularly in the sprawling suburbia immediately south of the Potomac, but their coverage couldn’t be described as comprehensive. “Looking for a face?”
“Sergei Korsakov.”
Harry stopped short, turning to face the analyst. “The ex-
Spetsnaz
hit man? Why?”
“He’s in the States,” Ron replied. He took a deep breath and continued, “You’ve not been cleared for this, Harry—you didn’t hear it from me—but Korsakov was picked up on surveillance footage in Philly two days ago. We’ve been on a frantic scramble ever since, trying to figure out how he got in and why he was here. This morning, I’m afraid we got the answer to the last half of that.
The hit this morning is almost a mirror image of his assassination of the mayor of Chelyabinsk in 2002. It was one of Korsakov’s first mob hits.”
“Then you believe he’s dead.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“That or taken hostage. In which case we’ll start receiving fingers in the mail,” Carter retorted with characteristic bluntness. “That’s another Korsakov trademark. There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”
“And that would be?”
“What does the Russian mob here in this country have to gain by taking us on? They’ve always been about money, pure and simple.”
“Then somebody made it worth their while,” Harry observed. “Who did you have working on Korsakov? I’ll need to talk with them, see if they can make any connections we’re missing.”
Carter snorted. “Pretty near my whole team, the last couple days. Carol was heading it up, but they have her under lockdown security now, a protective detail down in one of the interrogation rooms. Pretty shook up, the way I heard it. I’ll have Lasker give you the codes to access her files.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
7:31 A.M.
Northbound I-495
Virginia
A car horn sounded somewhere to his rear and Thomas rubbed his forehead, the noise only adding to his headache.
Traffic was snarling in the wake of the assassination attempt, as whole lanes of the interstate were shut down for emergency use.
He looked ahead at the long line of backed-up traffic and popped another Altoids mint into his mouth. With any luck, the smell of liquor would be gone from his breath by the time he got to Langley.
A moment later, he felt the buzz of the satphone in his pocket. For the second time in ten minutes. A glance at the screen of the TACSAT confirmed his suspicion.
“Thomas here,” he announced, flipping it open.
“Where are you?” a voice demanded. Nichols
He shook his head wearily, staring out the window. “I’ve made three miles in the last ten minutes, Harry. I’ll be there when I get there.”
“You got a late start this morning, didn’t you?”
He didn’t respond for a long moment, gazing out the window. His team leader went on without waiting for an answer. “The AA meeting was last night at church, Thomas. Did you go?”