Monster (59 page)

“Fifteen minutes. The boss is coming personally with our medical unit. You recognize the accent, Cold Light?”

Rasheed grinned appreciatively at Donaldson. “Yes, it is an accent I am getting all too familiar with. “Go and see if they damaged anything.”

“Not until backup gets here, CL,” Donaldson replied.

“Do as I say. I am not like you American policemen. I would shoot these three without blinking an eye. They realize the truth of what I say. Is that not so comrades?”

The seated Russian men nodded their heads in agreement glumly.

“Well okay then, CL.” Donaldson began his search of the apartment while Rasheed watched the men.

“How long have you been here, comrades?” Rasheed asked the two men.

“Only ten minutes,” the blond haired man who had dived into the bedroom admitted. “You are making a big mistake. We know…”

“Do not waste your time with pathetic denials of your purpose here,” Rasheed cut him off. “For your sakes I hope you three are citizens because you hit the jackpot of stupid places to get caught in.”

The two men traded uneasy glances at each other.

“Say nothing!” The wounded man hissed out through clenched teeth.

“If you speak again I will massage that knee for you, comrade,” Rasheed promised. “Do you understand?”

The Russian clenched his knee even more tightly with a look of horror.

“Now then, comrades,” Rasheed said amiably as he turned back to the bound men. “From your expressions I would have to guess you two are here illegally. That means a trip to Gitmo, to be entertained with the other terrorist stooges.”

“We have nothing to do with that,” the blonde man’s cohort protested. “We were sent to strip the apartment.”

“How far did you get?” Rasheed asked.

“We had only begun when you came through the door,” the blonde man answered.

“Are you three Chechnyan?”

“We are Russian. The three of us are from Minsk.”

Sirens heralded the arrival of Barrington and medical help. Rasheed went over to stand in the doorway of the apartment. Rasheed saw Barrington leading a team of Special Ops men in full gear hurrying down the hallway moments later, followed by a half dozen medical personnel with a gurney. People who had begun peeking out of their apartments quickly retreated back inside their domiciles at the sight of the armed men.

“All is well, Boss,” Rasheed explained, leading Barrington and the rest of the team into the apartment. “The wounded one is the leader. They’re all Russian from Minsk according to these two.”

Barrington turned to one of the Special Ops men. “Collier, you stay with that guy no matter what. No one gets near him. Are we clear?”

“Yes Sir,” Collier barked in acknowledgement, turning to gesture the medical team into the room and toward the only wounded man.

“The rest of you take these two to holding. Same orders. No one sees them.”

After the Special Ops and medical teams were out of the apartment, Barrington pitched in with Rasheed and Donaldson to secure everything of interest in the apartment.

“It is good of you to help us, Boss, with so many pressing matters awaiting you in your office,” Rasheed needled Barrington.

“Shut up, Kay.” Barrington heard Donaldson stifling laughter from the next room.

“He’s been at me all morning, Boss,” Donaldson called out.

“Since you’re so talkative, Kay, perhaps you could explain why the two of you decided to assault this apartment without backup. I only ask because you see we work for one of those agencies where I have to explain the answer to Diane. She will then have to explain it to the Director.”

“It was my call, Boss,” Rasheed admitted. “I wanted the information we seek intact. I am sorry I acted without consulting you.”

“Kay ordered me to stay out and call backup while he went in,” Donaldson added quickly. “I disobeyed his direct order.”

“Did you identify yourselves before rushing in and kneecapping one of the men?” Barrington asked with a sigh of anxiety, knowing the hell he and Diane would be put through over this incident.

When only silence greeted his question, Barrington sat down heavily on the apartment sofa.

“And I thought the Colonel was our only wild card.” Barrington seemed more angry at himself than at Rasheed and Donaldson.

Rasheed carried out a box of discs from the room he was responsible for searching. Donaldson had already piled everything from the small den he had been working in near the doorway. The two men joined Barrington where he sat in the living room.

“Sorry, Boss,” Rasheed repeated.

“Forget it, Kay. It’s my fault. Even though I mentioned it, I never thought for a moment they would move on the apartment this fast. I should have sent Jen with you. You two are the enforcement wing of our little team.”

“We know better, Sir,” Donaldson replied. “It’s not your fault we went in without bothering to check with you. Looking back, it was just plain stupid.”

“On the good side, the three are illegal aliens, carrying illegal weapons,” Rasheed added hopefully, inwardly agreeing with everything Donaldson had just said. “Our laws of playing patty-cake with deadly criminals only involve US citizens, right?”

Barrington leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “We will certainly work the angle. If we do manage to get through this unscathed, you two will have to reign in your impulsive natures. Perhaps sensitivity training would do both of you a world of good.”

“Just shoot us now, Sir,” Donaldson replied ruefully. “I don’t even need a blindfold.”

“What is this sensitivity thing you speak of?” Rasheed asked in confusion.

“I’ll let Pete explain it to you later. It was just a joke. You guys did a hell of a job here. We’ll have to make sure the details of your raid stay foggy. Let’s load this stuff up and get it back to the office. Post the crime scene. After Jen and I go over what you two confiscated we’ll CSI the interior of the apartment ourselves. I see I overestimated your attention to details such as gloved hands at a crime scene too. In the future, I’ll be sure to send you two out with procedures stenciled onto the sleeves of your shirts.”

Barrington rested his head on the top of the sofa, looking blankly up at the ceiling. “Jen is going to torture you guys for months with this ammunition. She’ll want to dress you and everything before you boys go out again.”

“Shoot me now, Boss,” Rasheed said wearily, sitting down next to Barrington.

* * *

“I’m sorry about this, Diane,” Barrington apologized as he sat down in front of her desk.

“Don’t worry about it, Tom. I needed to give you a few more pointers about taking over. I had you and Jen so long I took a lot for granted. We’ll chalk it up to education.”

“What can we do to make this right?”

“Already in the works - I suggested to the Director we get everything we can from the three, make the wounded one all better, and deport their asses the hell out of the country. We already know some guy named Romanko replaced the guys we busted. How’s the other data panning out from Hadler’s apartment?”

“A Russian named Alexi Neditch was Hadler’s contact. He’s dead. The DC police found him in his apartment tied to a chair with a few 22 cal. shots through his head. This Hadler guy is going away for a long time though. We’re still cataloguing all the stuff he’s been peddling. Luckily he was a low level bureaucrat. They gave him a nice piece of change to access the Colonel’s file.”

“When I tried to look at Cold’s file I could only access the official military part. Was Hadler able to get any more than that?”

“He made it into the Colonel’s personnel file with a lot of detail about his background and security checks. No one can get into the stuff he did on covert operations. Even his other files are flagged as Hadler found out the hard way.”

“The people who raised him on the Apache reservation have since passed away. His parents were already gone long before that. Question is, why did they want to know about him at all? That would mean they suspect him in the disappearance of Kasyanov and Tomashevsky.”

“They only know he’s in Iraq. It could be they wanted to avoid the Colonel by making sure he was out of the country,” Barrington offered.

“Let’s hope so,” Reskova replied thoughtfully. “Keep me up to date, Tom. If you could send me a blast at the end of the day with anything you find out on any of this, I’d appreciate it.”

“No problem. Since Pete’s been back in the office, guess what Jen does since the Hadler raid.”

“Tell me,” Reskova urged.

“Dress inspections for Kay and Pete,” Barrington explained enthusiastically as he pictured the scene from that very morning. “Then she hands them each a lunch and a map of wherever they need to be for the day. She finishes them off by going over a sheet on how to behave at a crime scene, ending the lecture with detailed instructions on serving a warrant. Oh, if only you could have seen Kay’s face these past few mornings. If his eyes were laser blasters, Jen would be atomic dust.”

By the time Barrington finished his description, Reskova was laughing uncontrollably. She just waved as Barrington stood up and walked to the door.

* * *

As the screen cleared from its digital pixel beginnings, Reskova glanced at the locked door of her office before pulling open her dress more. She eyed the small box on the screen with the image she was projecting critically. She altered her position until satisfied with her pose. McDaniels’ hooded and bearded face sharpened into some clarity. Reskova heard his intake of breath.

“Red… you little minx.” McDaniels voice came through seconds after his lips moved.

Reskova glanced at the door again before quickly disrobing completely. She posed again wearing only garter belt, hose, and high heels.

“How’s this?” Reskova leaned back provocatively.

“Oh…my…God…” McDaniels shifted his position uncomfortably. “You made me forget what the hell we’re supposed to be having this meeting about.”

Reskova smiled at him innocently. “Something to do with a certain bogey over the border and how you’re progressing on interception.”

“Slow but sure. It’s much easier to move undetected right now because it’s freezin’ out here. I have the boys in a comfortable position to cover my exit. They’re helping out on the border watch for insurgents. I’m updating once more before I head in for good. I should be on the outskirts of the village where the bogey is in about three days. I’m figuring on at least a few weeks finding a spot to keep a low profile in between getting the lay of the land and plotting my exit with the people concerned.”

“You’ll freeze to death before you get close, goofy.”

“Don’t worry about that. My equipment will be out of commission long before me,” McDaniels said. “After you flashed me on our last update, I have a DVD in to burn your little strip act on. I wasn’t too concerned about being incommunicado. I’m damned concerned about not being able to watch your strip act a few more thousand times.”

“We caught a clown in the Pentagon accessing your records for the Russians. Kay and Pete nailed three Russians at his apartment trying to strip it before we arrived.”

“Any alive for you to question?”

“All three. They didn’t add much to what we already knew. The Russians filled the void we made in their leadership with some guy named Romanko. He had another guy named Alexi something or other killed. We’re not sure what the killing had to do with this Alexi’s contact in the Pentagon.”

“Alexi’s Pentagon guy, Hadler, didn’t get anything other than some of your background.” Reskova continued. “He did send it out somewhere before he was busted. With what we found out about his little intelligence selling operation we had him nailed for a long stretch in the slammer. He gave us the web address he sent the info burst to but it was already a dead end.”

“Any idea what they wanted with my records?”

“I’m not sure yet. We’re trying to piece it together. It probably had to do with all their missing people. The Russians were working with the Arabs. I’m figuring your name popped up between them.”

“I don’t like it, Red. You better be even more careful.”

“Me? You’re running around in enemy territory in arctic conditions and I’m in danger?”

“I know where all my enemies are here. You watch your back, woman.”

“I miss you,” Reskova whispered, reaching between her legs and leaning back again.

“Oh…my…God…” McDaniels mumbled repeatedly, forgetting the Russians, the Arabs, and even his location.

Chapter 42

The Syrian Border

“Everything okay, Colonel?” Lieutenant Dominguez asked McDaniels when he saw the faraway look in the man’s face.

The small squad of recon Marines spaced out on a ledge overlooking the Syrian border had been waiting for McDaniels’ return. The icy wind howled unmercifully as Sergeant Bocelli gave an insulated cup to McDaniels who sipped from it gratefully.

“She did you again, didn’t she, Colonel?” Bocelli chuckled at the uncharacteristic guilty look that flashed across McDaniels’ face momentarily.