Authors: Stephen England
He turned to face her, the Taser leveled in his outstretched hand. She was staring at him in disbelief, her mouth open in shock. “Your father and I…saw a lot of hard times over the years, and I have no intention of failing him now. I owe him that much. Now how hard do you want to make this?”
The implication of his words was clear. Time was running out—no more games.
Without a word, she reached for the handbag on the table and slung it over her shoulder, her decision apparently made. A defiant tear trickled down across her cheek as she reached up, brushing back a strand of hair. “Then…we run.”
That
would work
.
“Follow my lead,” Harry admonished, moving quickly toward the soundproofed door. He could hear her footsteps behind him.
It swung open under his hand and he glimpsed Kauffman in the corridor outside. The older man started to turn, eyes widening as he saw the stun gun in Harry’s hand.
There was no time to react, no time to shout a warning up the corridor, as Harry jammed the Taser into the man’s ribs. Pulled the trigger.
Kauffman went limp and Harry wrapped an arm around his waist, lowering him gently to the floor. They’d gone back a long way.
But all that…was past now. The die had been cast and he was a fugitive. A
traitor.
No time to think about that. He threw the empty Taser back into the interrogation room and motioned for Carol to grasp one of Kauffman’s arms as he lifted the man’s body. “Come on, come on. We’ve got to hurry.”
8:22 A.M.
The scene of the bombing
The smell of burning flesh. It was the kind of smell one never quite got used to, the way it lingered in the air even after the bodies had been removed. A smell you could never forget.
It had been years, Vic Caruso thought, kneeling by the twisted scrap metal that had once been part of the Toyota’s doorframe. Years, and yet it all came pouring back, like flood waters through a broken dam.
The FBI special agent closed his eyes, as though that alone would force the memories away.
The deserts of Iraq. Convoys running north to Mosul. Homemade IEDs, just like this one. Explosions.
He’d been a younger man then, a freshly-minted Army lieutenant. Learning a hard lesson. In the end, all the money in the world didn’t matter. A million-dollar Tomahawk missile or a grenade tucked inside an empty can of Campell’s soup, you were just as dead.
His fingers were trembling when he rose and he thrust both hands into the pockets of his overcoat. A Sicilian by ancestry, Caruso had never been given to public displays of nerves.
Flashbacks. “Any thoughts on the driver?” he asked, turning to the tall female agent at his side.
“A Russian,” Marika Altmann responded without a trace of hesitation in her voice.
“You’re sure?” Due to the placement of the explosives, the driver of the sedan had ended up taking more of the blast than even his intended targets. The condition of his corpse had suffered as a result.
“Of course,” she replied casting an irritated glance in his direction. “I grew up in the
Deutsche Demokratische Republik
, remember? I know a Russian when I see one.”
She fell silent again, brushing a strand of hair away from her eyes. Hair once golden, now tinged with silver.
Caruso pushed at a mound of the dirty snow with the tip of his wing-tipped shoes. She would know.
Altmann had been seventeen when her family had fled East Germany at the height of the Cold War. Nine years later, she had made her way to the States.
And the rest, as they liked to say, was history. Known in the Bureau for keen insight and an explosive temper, she was a legend among the field agents. A legend, and a terror. Caruso still wasn’t sure whether being assigned with her was a compliment…or punishment for botching up his investigation of that CIA field team in September.
It was at that moment that the cellphone in Caruso’s pocket began to ring. He answered, listened for a moment, and then turned to his fellow agent. “They want us back at the Hoover Building.”
For a moment, he thought the older woman hadn’t heard him. She inhaled sharply, as if sniffing the air, and glanced toward the crew of agents sifting through what was left of the interior of the sedan.
“It wasn’t just him.”
“Excuse me?” Vic demanded.
“It wasn’t just the driver. That’s not the way they work. There’s a team of the Russians. Here in this country…”
8:26 A.M.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
There were five minutes remaining by Harry’s watch when they reached the underground parking garage.
Five minutes before the Agency realized something had gone wrong. Five minutes before the lockdown began.
Knowing the caliber of people he worked with, he was surprised it hadn’t begun sooner. The caliber of people he
had
worked with, he reminded himself, pushing open the door to the garage.
He heard Carol behind him, fumbling in her purse for her keys.
“We can take my car,” she announced, following him out into the open. Her voice held a tense edge, but she had pulled herself together surprisingly well.
He cast a glance back over his shoulder. “Your car has built-in GPS?”
“Yeah, it does…” He heard her voice trail off as the hacker within her recognized the implications.
“We’ll take mine,” he responded quietly. Hand tucked inside his jacket, grasping his pistol, Harry led the way across the parking garage, stopping beside a nondescript black 1993 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.
“Your car?” Carol asked, going to the passenger side of the vehicle.
Harry nodded, holding up a hand for her to stop. The parking garage was supposed to be secure,
supposed
being the operative word. He never entered the car without doing a check for explosives, and now was no different, despite the need for haste.
All the hurry in the world wouldn’t help them if there was a bomb in the undercarriage of the Cutlass…
8:35 A.M.
NCS Operations Center
“Right, Ethan, I’ll get right on it.” Daniel Lasker replaced the phone on his desk and shot a glance of exasperation over at Carter.
“Not sure when I became part of the Security Directorate.”
“What’s going on?”
“Surveillance cameras have gone on the fritz down in Interrogation and they want to know if I can straighten it out from here,” Lasker sighed. “Like they can’t send a man down themselves.”
Ron looked up from his workstation, a weary grin crossing his face. “That’s what comes from getting a reputation as a techhead around this place.”
“No,” Lasker replied, typing a command into his terminal. “That’s what comes from dating his sister. Ethan’s been asking favors ever since he introduced me.”
“She worth it?”
A sly grin played at the corners of Lasker’s mouth. “Gentlemen don’t kiss and tell, Ron.”
“Gentlemen…what does that have to do with you?”
The younger man started to laugh, a retort on his lips. Then the screens came flashing across his terminal and the laughter died. “What on earth?”
Hearing the change in the comm chief’s voice, Carter gave himself a push, sending his office chair gliding over the smooth tile of the op-center to Lasker’s side.
It wasn’t so much what the camera was showing, but what it wasn’t. There was no guard in the corridor outside A-13. Deserted.
Switching to the camera inside the interrogation room revealed nothing, just the weave of a jacket that had been hung over the lens.
Carter reached for the phone without hesitation. “I need Security to Interrogation A-13 ASAP. Lock down the building.”
8:36 A.M.
It was standard protocol. He knew that. Still, it seemed as though the guard took an unnaturally long time looking over their identification.
The pistol seemed to tremble under Harry’s jacket. He didn’t want to fire on a fellow agent, but his
wishes
were secondary. The mission came first.
“Everything seems to be in order, sir,” the guard announced finally, reaching for a lever beside him to open the barrier.
Harry shot Carol a tight-lipped smile as he accelerated gently forward
“How long do you give them?” she asked, looking out the window.
“Not long. The alert’s probably going out as we speak. Once we get off-campus, we’re out of their jurisdiction, so they’ll have to mobilize local law enforcement. Another delay. Maybe ten, fifteen minutes.”
Carol turned to look at him, and he saw her father’s determination written there in her eyes. “Are you sure that will stop them?”
“It wouldn’t have stopped your father,” he replied quietly. “But Shapiro’s in charge now. And Shapiro does things by the book. He’ll send out an APB and shift the responsibility.”
Carol went silent for a long moment. “Do you have a plan?”
“The germ of one. Open the glove compartment and take out what you find.”
She hesitated, and he could feel her eyes on him. He tapped the brakes, flicking on the turn signal as they neared the highway. Their greatest safety lay in blending in with the westbound traffic. You never win a car chase except in the movies. And this wasn’t Hollywood.
He heard the glove compartment open and glanced over to see Carol withdraw a holstered semiautomatic.
“It’s a Kahr PM-45,” he announced without preamble. “Subcompact semiautomatic, striker-fired. Chambered in .45 ACP, you’ve got five shots. You know how to use one?”
“Yes,” she replied, a trace of irritation creeping into her voice. “I spent five months at Thunder Ranch when I was twenty.”
That was the good news, he thought, processing the information as he checked the rear-view mirror.
Thunder Ranch had always been among the top firearms training schools in the country, and Clint Smith’s instructors weren’t paper punchers. They were focused on the real-world. Still…
Their tail was still clean, so far as he could see. He spotted an opening and changed lanes, speeding up until they were nestled in the shadow of a tractor-trailer. “Ever killed a man?” he asked bluntly, glancing over to catch her reaction.
There wasn’t one. Carol looked down at the pistol in her hands and shook her head.
“Then pray to God you never have to…”
8:43 A.M.
Annapolis, Maryland
One hundred meters from the marina in Annapolis, the sea breeze suddenly seemed twenty degrees cooler, a chill rippling through Sergei Korsakov’s body. It couldn’t be.
“No,” he responded bluntly, speaking into the encrypted satellite phone pressed against his ear. “That’s impossible.”
“I tell you, that is the report on my desk. You missed him.”
“They’re lying,” Korsakov spat, adding several Russian curses for emphasis. He closed his eyes once again, envisioning the scene the way it had looked through the windshield of the Durango. The fiery explosion, metal flying like shrapnel through the cold winter air. This operation had been planned for weeks, everything laid out to the last detail. And he had watched…
“They wouldn’t, Sergei,” the voice replied, smooth and certain. “Not to me. You know that.”
He was right. The former
Spetsnaz
commando swore under his breath, looking left and right down the street. “Why are you calling me?”
“I think you know.”
And he did. Korsakov cleared his throat. “I’m not sure you’re grasping the scope of the problem. If what you are telling me is true—our friend has gone black. And I’m not going to be able to get another chance at him. Not with the Bureau looking for me. My men and I need to leave the country immediately.”
“They’re not looking for you, Sergei,” the voice replied once more, “and if you’d like it to remain that way, you need to listen very carefully…”
Anger flashed in the Russian’s dark eyes. For a long moment he waited, feeling the breeze play with the hem of his coat. Then he licked dry lips and spoke. “Go ahead.”
8:50 A.M.
NCS Operations Center
Langley, Virginia
“Would someone mind telling me what exactly is going on?” Kranemeyer bellowed, arriving on the op-center floor like a gust of wind. For a man with one leg, he could still make quite an entrance.
“We got the alert out to Metro PD five minutes ago,” Carter responded, looking up from his terminal. “Perimeter security reports that Nichols passed through the outer checkpoint thirteen minutes ago.”
“Carol was with him?” Kranemeyer asked, his face darkening.
“Yes.”
The DCS swore under his breath. “What are we supposed to believe—he took her hostage?”
“We’ve got three security guards in Medical right now. They were tazed and handcuffed. Camera footage in the parking garage shows her getting into the car with him, but God knows. He probably had a gun on her.”
“What about her cellphone?” Kranemeyer asked. “There has got to be a way to trace them.”
“Her phone went off-line just after they left the campus,” Daniel Lasker responded, still focused on his screens. “I have a fix on their last known location. Five hundred meters outside the perimeter. Our only lead is the car. Nichols was driving his Cutlass when he left.”
The DCS responded with an oath and a shake of the head. “No good, he’ll ditch the car the first chance he gets. That’s SOP.”
At that moment, the phone in Kranemeyer’s pocket began to ring. Lasker’s brain registered the ringtone as Jon Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead or Alive” in the moment before a strange flush spread over the face of the DCS.
“It’s him,” Kranemeyer hissed in what passed for a stage whisper, pointing a long, thick finger in Carter’s direction. “Get on it.”
Four rings, and then he answered. “Kranemeyer here.”
“Free fall,” a familiar voice responded, followed immediately by a sharp
click
, leaving the DCS staring at a dead phone.
“Anything?” he asked, shooting a sharp glance over at Carter.
“No,” the analyst responded. “Didn’t have enough time. What does ‘free fall’ mean?”
“It’s an Agency distress code,” Kranemeyer responded, his face strangely pale.
Danny Lasker typed something into his workstation, then looked up at his boss. “Why haven’t I ever heard of it?” he asked, the bewilderment clear in his voice.
“Before your time,” Kranemeyer responded, managing what passed for a grim smile. “It dates back to the old Directorate of Operations. I was in Delta back then, tasked out to the Agency for a black op in the West Bank. David Lay was running the op as Station Chief Tel Aviv and Nichols was the Agency’s version of boots on the ground. He was little more than a kid then, his second year in the field.”
“Then what does he mean by using it now?” This from a baffled Ron Carter.
The DCS shook his head. “No idea.”
8:57 A.M.
The highway
“What did you mean?” Carol asked as Harry handed her the TACSAT.
“Take the back off and remove the SIM card,” he instructed, ignoring her question. “We’ll ditch it and the car.”
“How?”
He gestured ahead toward a Wawa’s service station and put on his turn signal. “Be ready.”
Commuter traffic. The service station was doing a bustling business in the early morning commute, and Harry pulled the Cutlass into one of the few empty parking spaces. “Put that pistol under your jacket,” he instructed, shooting a glance in her direction. “And stay close.”
The icy morning air nearly took Harry’s breath away as he swung his legs out of the car.
Motioning for Carol to follow, he strode across the lot toward the cars parked directly in front of the Wawa’s.
His gaze swept the eaves of the building as he moved in, checking for security cameras. At a glance it appeared as though the service station had none. Probably just one inside to film any possible robberies.
That made life easier. Three cars from the door he spotted a late-model Chevy Impala, exhaust spewing from the tailpipe as it sat there, idling.
A grim smile crossed Harry’s face. He’d never understand people who left their car running while they went in to get coffee.
“We’ll take this one,” he announced, reaching out and pulling the door open.
“You’re going to steal a car?”
He turned to see a look of disbelief on Carol’s face. The look of someone who had never been in the field.
“Yes,” he replied, taking her by the arm and steering her through the open door of the Impala. “Of course.”
8:18 A.M. Central Time
The Gulfstream IV
Over Louisiana
“A phone call for you, Mr. Richards.” The Texan looked up from his sudoku to see the CIA’s version of a flight attendant standing in front of him: 40-ish, overweight, and balding.
Tex took the phone without a word. “Richards here.”
“This is Thomas. Listen, we’ve got a problem.” That much was obvious from the voice, Tex thought. It wasn’t vintage Parker at all, the calm steady equilibrium that had made him one of the Service’s best snipers. This Thomas was distracted, nervous. Agitated.