Authors: Stephen England
He’d spent every last year of his adult life hunting men. Hunting them down and killing them. As cold as it sounded, those were his skillsets.
As he buttered a piece of toast he glanced into the safehouse’s living room to where Han sat, poring over the laptop. Perhaps it was time to hang it up, while he still had a life, a future. Before he was broken.
A future. It was something he had never really considered before. Before what…
Carol
?
As if on cue, she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. “Toast will be ready in a few minutes,” he announced as she came up behind him. “Alexei will be here by nine to go over his plan.”
“He has a plan?”
“Yeah.” Harry nodded, turning to face her. “And I doubt you’re going to like it.”
8:57 A.M. Central Time
Dearborn Police Station
Dearborn, Michigan
“The call came in four hours ago—and you have yet to send anyone to the scene?” Marika Altmann leaned back against the door, folding her arms across her chest.
The police chief got up from his chair and came around the front of his desk. He was just tall enough to look her in the eye, white hair swept back from a receding hairline. His face spoke of a man who had seen it all.
In five years as Dearborn’s chief of police, he probably had.
He shook his head, gesturing out the window toward Michigan Avenue. “We can’t do what we once did, Special Agent Altmann. I’ve got three bureaus: Detective, Traffic, and Juvenile. Less than thirty officers in each one. Just over eighty police in a city of ninety-nine thousand.”
Taking in her look of surprise, he continued. “Budget cuts. We’ve all seen our salaries slashed—can’t even keep the streetlights on at night. This city’s in bad shape. I’ve had seven homicides in the last twenty-four hours. The fire department didn’t find any bodies in the ruins of the apartment building, so it’s been low on the priorities list. If we’d known that an FBI confidential informant was living in the building…”
No way that would have happened, Marika thought, her mind already moving on to the next question. Too much risk of a leak when you brought in the local LEOs. “So, when did the fire department receive the call about abu Rashid’s apartment being ablaze?”
The chief let out a weary sigh. “Five-thirty this morning. Well over an hour after they believe it started. A cleaning crew working at Parklane Towers spotted the blaze on the horizon and called it in. By the time the fire department was able to mobilize, the building had burned to the ground.”
Nothing he said was making sense. She shot a look over at Russell, who was nodding—as if he understood. “So you’re telling me that, what…fifty or more people evacuated a burning building and no one thought to dial 911?”
He shook his head. “Oh, they thought it, ma’am.
They thought it. But no one acted on the thought.”
“Why?”
“The estimates vary, but I’d say 45-50% of them are illegals. Many of them don’t even speak English. You go into their communities, and it’s like visiting a foreign country. It is, really. They only come out for work, if that, and we don’t go in.”
“What you’re saying is that you don’t patrol?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. These people have no loyalty except to themselves. If a crime happens, they mention it to their imam and it’s handled in-house. Should we happen to find out about it, everyone develops a sudden case of ‘see no evil’.”
“Then—our CI…what are you telling me?”
His eyes narrowed as he stared across the room at her. “The only way you’re ever going to find him is if he wants to make contact. If he
can
make contact. As for any investigation of your own, he might as well be on the far side of the moon.”
9:14 A.M.
The mosque
Dearborn, Michigan
The silence was unnerving. Nasir blew gently across the surface of his tea, feeling the black man’s eyes on his back. His brother had been gone for the better part of two hours.
He willed his fingers not to tremble as the negro paced back and forth, like a huge African cat.
The last time he’d been this frightened…he’d been hiding under a fire-gutted Hyundai in Beirut, Jewish bombs raining down. Each one closer than the one before it. The bombs that had killed his father.
His mortality had been inescapable in that moment. The helplessness. It was the same feeling now.
Though we know death is certain, we have not prepared ourselves for it
.
Words of truth. He was in the hands of Allah now.
The door to the small basement room opened, admitting Jamal and another man, so tall that he had to duck to enter the room.
“
Salaam alaikum
, Nasir,” the tall man began, a holy light shining from his blue eyes. He went on without waiting for the greeting to be returned. “Your brother informs me that you took up arms alongside our brethren in Lebanon against the Zionist aggressor. And yet, since you have come to America…you have ceased to pursue the holy jihad. Why?”
“
Astagfirullah
,” Nasir whispered, his eyes downcast in reverence.
I ask forgiveness of Allah
. “I have lacked opportunity.”
The tall man smiled, apparently satisfied by the answer. “Then may you have no more lack, my brother.
Insh’allah.
”
8:32 A.M. Pacific Time
Andropov’s residence
Beverly Hills, California
“There has been a…complication,” Viktor announced, taking his seat across from Korsakov at the kitchen table. His face was distorted with the anguish of being a bearer of bad news.
“What is it?” the assassin asked gently, reaching across to touch the boy’s fingertips. His breakfast was forgotten for the moment.
“This—from Yuri.” Viktor pushed the phone across the table, stroking his beard nervously. A text message was displayed on the touchscreen. FLIGHT GROUNDED IN CHICAGO. SNOWSTORM. ETA UNKNOWN.
Korsakov stifled an angry curse. Andropov was
waiting
on them. A snowstorm…it was what an insurance company might have called an “act of God,” but he didn’t believe in such superstition.
Neither did Andropov.
He looked up to see that Viktor was no longer paying attention to him. His face drained of color, he was looking off to the right, over Korsakov’s shoulder into the kitchen.
Danger
.
The assassin’s head whipped around, but the only thing he saw was the slender form of Andropov’s young mistress maybe fifteen feet away, standing near the kitchen’s massive island. She was peeling an apple.
“I heard them,” Viktor murmured insistently, speaking Russian. “Heard him strike her, heard his voice raised—angry. Just like before.”
And then he saw it. Her left eye was swollen shut, a puffy, purplish bruise adorning her cheekbone.
Brutality had been part of Korsakov’s work for so long that he had ceased to even take note of it. When the girl had made her appearance moments before, his eyes had never made it as far north as her face.
Violence was quite simply a fact of life. As natural an act as the breaking of the eggs that formed his breakfast. But not for his young companion.
Just like before
. “What did you say?” he demanded, turning back to face Viktor.
But the boy was gone.
Gone
…
9:07 A.M.
The safehouse
San Francisco, California
Orange marmalade. On a generous slab of lightly toasted white bread.
Harry watched as Vasiliev shoved one end of the bread in his mouth, chewing with infuriating slowness. It was a tactic for the Russian, just one of his bag of tricks to keep his opponent off-balance. Opponent? Alexei viewed everyone as an opponent.
He shot a glance over at Han before addressing his question to Vasiliev. “I believe you said you had a plan?”
“Indeed.” Clenching the toast between his teeth, Vasiliev reached into his leather messenger bag and extracted a thin folder, tossing it across the table to Harry.
From the letterhead, the Cyrillic script across the top—it looked like an official FSB dossier. But all it contained was a single 8x10 surveillance photo, blown up and digitally enhanced. The face of an arrogantly handsome young man stared back from the print, no more than twenty, twenty-one at the most, his features undeniably Slavic.
“Nineteen,” the Russian announced, supplying the answer to Harry’s unasked question.
“His name is Pyotr, but he reportedly prefers the anglicized
Peter
.” Vasiliev sniffed audibly. “This generation, they have no appreciation for their heritage.”
“The point, Alexei?”
The older man reached for a napkin, wiping a smudge of marmalade from his lip. “You’re right—his first name is unimportant. His last name…is Andropov. Valentin’s son.”
And in that moment, Vasiliev’s “plan” became painfully clear, in all of its brutal simplicity. Characteristic of the Russian.
“No,” Carol interjected, her head coming up sharply. “No way.”
Vasiliev threw up his hands. “Americans—they always want results, but they rarely wish to dirty their hands in obtaining them. You want an omelet? You have to break some eggs. You want to find the man behind your father’s murder? This is the most linear path.”
Anger flashed from her blue eyes. “He’s also
nineteen
! He’s guilty of nothing.”
“Guilty?” He gave her an indulgent smile. “What do I look like—a judge? There are none innocent in this world. All due respect, Miss Chambers, but this is not your operation. Harry knows the truth of what I say.”
No
. She looked over at Harry, silently begging him to deny it, to bring a stop to this.
One glimpse of his face and that hope died within her. He was nodding, the life—the
love
—she had seen earlier gone from his eyes. Replaced by…nothing.
“Alexei’s right.”
9:12 A.M.
Beverly Hills, California
Darkness. Heat. Flesh against flesh, sweaty hands against his body. The whip coming down against his naked back.
Pain
.
He was too exposed—had to find a place to hide. Couldn’t keep running. Had to keep running. The breeze fanned Viktor’s hair as he ran, his feet pounding against the the concrete of the sidewalk.
Darkness
.
He reached into the pocket of his windbreaker, pulling out his cellphone. He ripped off the back panel and tore out both the battery and the SIM card, shoving them into the pocket of his jeans.
They would never find him now. They
could
never find him. His breath was coming fast, panic consuming him.
That voice
. The harsh laugh.
He choked back a sob, all the memories flooding back. The dank smell of the basement, the harsh glare of the lights. Her
screams
. The crack of a bullwhip, blood spraying into the air.
He could still remember the wounded, pleading look in her eyes, laying there bleeding to death against the cold concrete.
Never again
. A car was coming up on his right and he cast a panicked look over his shoulder.
No. It wasn’t his pursuers. Just a young man his own age, driving slowly down the street, the stereo of his sports car turned all the way up. Enjoying his day in the sun.
Viktor’s hand slid inside his unzipped jacket, fingers closing on the smooth polymer of his Glock, the gun that Korsakov had given him.
Korsakov
. The only man he had ever trusted.
Fresh tears streamed down his cheeks, tears of grief and anger. He turned, running out into the road in front of the sports car, the gun coming free in his hand—a scream on his lips. “Out of the car! Out!
Out!
”
10:31 A.M. Pacific Time
The safehouse
San Francisco, California
“Are you sure this is a bridge you want to cross?” Han closed the dossier, placing it on the table between them. The Russian had left thirty minutes before, to attend to his consulate duties. Apparently, being a law unto oneself was not limitless. His dark eyes lifted to meet Harry’s. “Kidnapping is serious business.”
“We’ve done it before,” Harry responded evenly. “It never bothered you then.”
“Different times and a different place—it was our
mission
.”
Harry shot a glance toward the closed bedroom door, lowering his voice so that she wouldn’t overhear. “The director was assassinated, Sammy. We both know that. It’s still our mission.”