Authors: Stephen England
The driver of the Tahoe, a heavy-set, middle-aged woman, was already out of the vehicle, sobbing hysterically into her cellphone.
“…they just came out of nowhere. I didn’t have time to—dear God, they may be dead.”
“Ma’am,” Harry began, coming ‘round the front of the Tahoe, “I need you to shut off the phone.”
Her eyes widened at the sight of the pistol gripped firmly in his hand and she started to speak to the 911 dispatcher on the other end of the line. With one smooth motion, Harry snatched the phone from her and flung it across the road.
“What are you doing?” he heard Carol ask, but he ignored her, focusing in on the terrified woman before him. She was alone, he realized, scanning the seats of the SUV.
“Ma’am, I’m a federal officer,” Harry continued, flipping open his wallet. The CIA identification card wasn’t as flashy as an FBI badge, but most people never noticed. “I need your vehicle.”
“What’s going on?” she asked, her hand over her mouth. She kept backing away from him, fear clearly written in her eyes. “Who were those people?”
“Trust me when I say you don’t want to know. Keys?”
She shot a frightened look from his face to Carol’s and back again. “They’re in the ignition.”
“Good. Now, you can go with emergency services when they arrive. In the mean time, please stand back.” He gestured to Carol. “Go ahead and get in.”
“Where are you going?” he heard Carol’s voice ask. Harry pulled a thin metal cylinder from the pocket of his jacket and screwed it into the threaded muzzle of the Colt. “Unfinished business.”
9:02 A.M. Central Time
Dan Ryan Expressway
Chicago, Illinois
Sometimes the hardest thing to remember about America was that the police actually needed a
reason
to stop you.
Tarik Abdul Muhammad folded his hands, staring intently out the backseat window of the SUV at the flowing mass of traffic. It was in the interests of not giving them such a reason that he had requested a local driver.
Even a black man was better for this task than the men he had brought with him across the U.S.-Mexico border. His own Pakistanis, though they were fierce fighters and willing to die for the cause of God, viewed driving as the ultimate test of their virility. A no-holds barred competition.
It might have served them well in Peshawar, but in the more “civilized” driving environment of the United States, they wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.
America
. He leaned back in his seat, the memories flooding through his mind. The closest he had ever come to this country was Cuba. The imperialist military base overlooking the Bay of Guantanamo. Gazing out from behind the wire.
He reached forward and tapped the negro on the shoulder. “How long before we reach Dearborn?”
He had learned his English there on that desolate rock in Cuba. It was good but not fluent.
“Hey, man, it all depends on the traffic,” the black man responded. “You want to be at the mosque by afternoon, right?”
Tarik nodded. “That would be best.”
“Then I’ll get you there, brother.”
Brother
. Tarik returned his focus to the traffic outside the window. Perhaps…
10:03 A.M.
The highway
Virginia
The shooter was dead, his neck snapped by the force of the impact. He’d probably never seen it coming.
Harry rose from where the assassin lay like a broken doll on the asphalt and turned toward his partner.
The driver had been thrown clear of the Suzuki and lay roughly fifteen feet away. He was moaning, his helmet ripped half off to reveal a distinctly Slavic face. His right leg was twisted below the knee, sticking out at right angles from his body.
“Who sent you?” Harry asked in Russian, dropping to one knee beside the driver.
The man’s cough was the only response, blood flecking the pavement. Defiance glinted in his eyes. Harry sighed, looking around him. Traffic was stopping. The police would arrive within minutes.
And he was a wanted man himself. After a moment’s pause he reached down, applying pressure to the Russian’s injured leg and twisting it sideways.
“I want a name,” Harry whispered, his lips only inches away from the prostrate man’s ear. “Just a name and the pain will stop.”
Sweat streamed down the Russian’s face, drops of perspiration crystallizing in the cold winter’s air. His face was twisted in agony, but his mouth never opened, teeth grinding together.
“A name, that’s all. Who sent you to kill me?”
Still silence, not even a moan escaping the driver’s lips. Another moment passed, then Harry released his pressure on the leg and stood.
“Have it your way,” Harry announced, checking the chamber of his 1911 as if to make sure it was loaded. “I’ll have you deliver a message to Sergei Ivanovich.”
And he saw it, there in the final moment just before he put the suppressor of the Colt between the Russian’s eyes and squeezed the trigger. The recognition. The realization of having died for nothing.
Korsakov was behind the hits.
10:06 A.M.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
“We’re moving strike teams into place—all we need is your signature on the authorization,” Kranemeyer announced, laying a folder on Shapiro’s desk.
The DD(I) put on his glasses and opened the dossier, scrutinizing the files. “This doesn’t just need my signature, Barney. An operation of this nature needs the President to issue cross-border authority.”
“I’m aware of standard protocols, director,” Kranemeyer replied, leaning forward until his palms rested on the smooth glass of Shapiro’s desktop. “The fact remains that the President is in Paris for the G-8 summit. His attention is currently divided between the precarious financial state of the EU and the latest argument made on the behalf of his campaign before the Supreme Court.”
“Your point, Barney?”
Kranemeyer let out a long sigh. “My point is that if the DCIA has been compromised, we have only hours to act. The President isn’t going to make the decision fast enough, not with everything else he’s got on his plate.”
Shapiro seemed to consider the argument for a long moment, then he closed the dossier. “I’ll consider it, Barney. I’ve got a teleconference with Director Haskel and the Bureau in five. Would you care to join me?”
10:07 A.M.
The highway
Virginia
“You killed him.” It was more of a statement than a question, but there was doubt in the voice.
Harry looked over, his eyes meeting with Carol’s. Her face was ashen pale, her eyes regarding him as though she was seeing him for the first time.
“You shouldn’t have watched,” he responded, turning his attention back to the road as the Tahoe continued to speed toward Culpeper. “It’s never pretty.”
“
Pretty
?” she asked in disbelief, her voice trembling. “How did you get to be so cold? For God’s sake, Harry…you blew his brains out.”
“That’s not important right now,” he retorted, his words clipped. He couldn’t allow himself to think about it. Too many variables still in play.
“What’s important is how they found us,” Harry continued without giving her time to think about it. “They were on top of us way too fast. Is there anything you have on you frequently?”
His question seemed to jar Carol from her thoughts. “What?”
“Shoes, a purse, anything—something they could roll the dice on you wearing.”
The light of realization spread across her face. “I don’t know—not really.”
“Think,” Harry urged. “Ten to one you’re wearing a tracker.”
He glanced over, his gaze sweeping her body from the tip of her shoes to her head. “Those earrings look familiar.”
“They were my mother’s,” she responded, her tone defensive.
“And you wear them nearly every day, don’t you?”
10:12 A.M.
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
The teleconference room was not overly warm, Kranemeyer realized as he took his seat to one side of the table. President Hancock may not have yet responded to the economic situation by wearing a sweater in the grand tradition of Jimmy Carter, but it seemed that other governmental employees were expected to.
“Director Haskel,” Michael Shapiro began, initiating the conference, “I’m here with the Director of the Clandestine Service, Bernard Kranemeyer, along with his head analyst, Ron Carter. Go ahead.”
“Thanks,
Mike,” Eric Haskel responded over the video uplink, “I’m sure you gentlemen are very busy, so I’ll keep this brief. In short, we have identified the driver of the sedan that crashed into Director Lay’s SUV this morning, and our findings seem to rule out the Russian Mafia connection which was initially suggested by your people.”
A file photo came flashing up on screen as the FBI director continued to narrate. “Michael Fedorenko, a naturalized US citizen, formerly Mikhail Fedorenko of the USSR. Forty-five years of age, he came to this country following the fall of the Soviet Union. A former demolitions specialist in the Red Army, Fedorenko made considerable money in construction through the late ‘90s, most of it coming from private development in northern Virginia.”
More files came across the screen, mostly financial reports. “Then the economic crisis struck in 2008 and his construction company went down the tubes. Out of work and running low on funds, Fedorenko seems to have become increasingly disenchanted with his lot in this country. In the spring of 2009 he became affiliated with a TEA Party group in the Alexandria area, and launched an unsuccessful bid for county supervisor.”
Shapiro nodded. “And how did this man go from TEA Party candidate to bomber?”
“We’re investigating the connection,” Haskel replied, his voice tight. “We’re also investigating any possible connection between Fedorenko and your rogue agent. This is what is clear.”
More images on the screen, this time showing a SWAT team executing an assault. “Thirty minutes ago, I authorized a SWAT team to search Fedorenko’s farm outside Manassas. The farm was deserted, but in the barn they found blasting caps, dynamite and three hundred pounds of ammonium nitrate.”
Shapiro blinked, adjusting his glasses as he refocused on the screen. “Any electronic records?”
At that moment, Ron Carter’s phone went off with the annoying jangle of an incoming text.
Kranemeyer shot him a dark look of disapproval.
“That’s a negative,” Haskel replied, not seeming to notice the disruption. “Following his connection with the TEA Party, Fedorenko seemed to have become obsessed with the notion of going ‘off-grid’. It appears that he didn’t own so much as a cellphone.”
“Except for the one that was used to detonate the bomb,” Kranemeyer interjected.
“That’s correct, probably one purchased for the purpose. It seems to have been a small operation—I am optimistic that, providing he is still alive, we’ll find both Lay and his daughter very shortly.”
Carter looked up from his phone. “I don’t know if I share your optimism, director. I was just notified by a source that Virginia state troopers responded in the last ten minutes to a double homicide on Route 211 near Warrenton. Both victims appear to be Russian. Perhaps we should reexamine that
mafiya
connection.”
10:31 A.M.
Culpeper, Virginia
Harry had always liked farms. Rural, out of the way places. Minimum people, maximum line of sight. Fewer people to ask questions, less collateral damage if things went south.
The only downside was, what people there were all knew each other.
Which was why the safehouse was located well off the road, a long driveway shielded by eighty-year-old pines.
Harry pushed open his door and stepped out of the idling Tahoe, his eyes scanning the surrounding territory as he moved to the newspaper tube that stood there by the entrance to the drive.
There was nothing in the tube. That was to be expected—they had never subscribed to a paper. He allowed his hand to drag across the side of the tube and then climbed back into the SUV.
“What’s with the chalk?” he heard Carol ask. He allowed himself a grim smile, glancing back at the thin line of yellow chalk across the side of the newspaper tube. She may never have been in the field, but she didn’t miss much.
“It’s for the caretaker,” he explained, putting the Tahoe in drive. “So he knows not to come home.”
The pearl earrings lay on the dashboard, smashed into a thousand pieces by the butt of Harry’s Colt. The GPS tracker that had been embedded in the left earring was still headed south, in the saddlebags of a Harley Davidson where Harry had dumped it when they had stopped at a gas station.
The biker had looked capable of taking care of himself.