Siege of Lightning

by R. J. Pineiro

  “You speak without an accent,” he finally said, trying to break the ice and pretend he was not bothered by her nearness.

  “That’s because English is my native tongue. I was born and raised in Florida, Cameron. My maiden name is Roberts.”

  The elevator stopped on the third floor. She opened the door and got out. “This way.” He followed her to the end of the corridor. She pulled out a key, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. “Not bad for twenty-five bucks a day,” she said as she opened the windows overlooking rue de Cujas.

  “You’re going to have to forgive me, but this is not at all what I expected this meeting to be like.”

  She sat on one of two beds and gave him a puzzled look. “Oh, why is that?”

  “Well, for starters this place, and your attitude. It all appears totally out of character for the grieving widow I read about in the papers this morning.”

  “You’re the one who’s going to have to forgive me. It should be obvious to you that the reason I’m meeting you here is because I didn’t want anybody to know I was talking to the CIA. Perhaps the Agency sent the wrong person for the job.”

  Cameron frowned. “Look, lady, the reason I said that was because I was told this assignment was only a simple deposition. If it’s something more than that. I’d like to know right now.”

  “Why? So you can leave?” She got up and walked toward the windows.

  “No. So I can determine if this place is safe enough, and also find out exactly how you got here. Just because you’re dressed like a tourist and you’re staying in this dump doesn’t mean no one followed you.”

  She turned around and faced him. “All right, all right. I apologize. For a moment I thought—”

  “I’m a trained operative, not a psychic. Now tell me, what was so important that it forced you to use the emergency code you gave us. And how did you get it? As far as we can tell you’re not associated with the Agency.”

  “From my late husband.” Cameron frowned again.

  “Well, here I am. Now, what is it that you wanted to tell us?”

  Marie turned around, put both hands on the windowsill, pulled her chin up, and let the breeze swirl her long black hair. A very attractive woman, Cameron noted.

  “It’s about the night before he died,” she said, her back still to him.

  “Hmm… what about it?” Cameron sat on the bed and loosened his tie.

  “He’d just spent a week trying to work out some launch problems in Kourou, and was on his way back here when he called from the plane. He sounded worried, concerned.”

  “Well a man in his position. So much responsibility. It would seem natural to be—”

  “No, it wasn’t like that. Claude and I worked many hours together, both here in Paris and in Kourou. As a matter of fact, developing the guidance system for the Athena V is how we met in the first place, and over the next few years we learned to work effectively under the enormous pressures associated with keeping to a tight launch schedule. Sure he had his bad days with Athena, and so did I, but the other night was different. He wasn’t upset or angry, or worried about anything expected; instead he seemed unusually nervous. For a few moments I even recognized an ounce or two of fear in his voice.”

  “Look, this is very hard for me to say, but I don’t see why the CIA needs to be involved.”

  “Please let me finish.” She turned around and faced him. “After he managed to calm down, he told me that the rumor about the Russian craft was true. Then he gave me the CIA code in case something—”

  “Wait. Back up. What rumor? What about the Russians?”

  Marie ran a hand through her hair, briefly closed her eyes, and sat on the windowsill. “A few months back a Russian spacecraft exploded soon after reaching orbit. The rumor some of us at Athena heard was that it had accidentally collided with one of our own satellites. One of our technicians at Kourou Mission Control had spotted an Orbital Termination message on one of the screens. No one had thought much of it at the time. After all, during the testing stage of the Athena V we’d placed several satellites in orbit which Athena now uses to monitor weather patterns prior to launches. Now and then one of those satellites falls down to such low orbit that it becomes useless. We usually terminate it by firing its rockets and letting it burn during re-entry. After we got news of the Russian craft exploding at roughly the same place and time as one of our satellite terminations, rumors began floating around the agency that we had accidentally blown up the Russian craft. But the board of trustees quickly squashed those rumors without much investigation, officially closing the matter. Claude seemed particularly distressed by this. He wanted to find out if indeed Athena was at fault, but the termination records appeared to have been erased from the memory banks of the tracking computer.”

  “All right. What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I don’t think his death was accidental, the way the papers said.”

  “You’re saying someone killed him?”

  “I think so. Claude told me that he and a few other scientists managed to retrieve part of the data that had been erased from memory. He said that the bits and pieces of data they recovered indicated that the Russian craft didn’t blow up accidentally at all. It was intentional. And he claimed to have proof that incriminated Athena’s upper management.”

  “What did the French police have to say about Claude’s death?”

  “The police were useless. They said the death was accidental. I told them I didn’t agree with their conclusion and gave them my reasons. I told them that they were closing the case too quickly and that they should do more work investigating.”

  “And? What did they say?”

  “An inspector by the name of Philippe Roquette called me a half hour after I finished talking with the initial investigator. I told him what I’d told the investigator, and he assured me that the situation had been professionally and thoroughly handled. He said that he’d approved the official statement, that Monsieur Guilloux had indeed died in a car accident. Then he said he had other business to deal with and hung up.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes. Do you see now why I contacted the American Embassy?”

  “Well, perhaps you should have…” Cameron stopped and walked toward the door.

  “What’s the—”

  “Shh.” He held up his left hand and grabbed the Beretta with his right. Slowly he dropped to a crouch and pressed his back against the wall next to the door. The footsteps had stopped again. He had heard them outside several seconds ago. Whoever it was had gone up and down the hall twice. Maybe a maid, he thought, but quickly discarded it as a possibility. Kind of late in the day for maid service. A lost tourist? Perhaps, but why stop in front of this door twice?

  Cameron felt his heartbeat increase as adrenaline rushed through his system. He signaled Marie to get down and hide behind the dresser next to the windows. She complied. Then he slowly extended his hand and unlocked the door. The latching mechanism snapped.

  Staccato gunfire burst through the wooden door. Cameron jumped back and rolled next to Marie.

  “Don’t move!” he screamed while training the 9-mm pistol on the large hole in the center of the still-closed door.

  Just as suddenly as it had started, the firing stopped. A second of silence, quickly followed by screams coming from nearby rooms. Cameron didn’t flinch. He focused on the door and kept the forward and rear sights of the Beretta perfectly lined up with the center of the hole. Nothing.

  He looked at Marie. She was shuddering, her green eyes wide open, her lips quivering.

  “Calm down and don’t move. As long as—” A pear-shaped object flew through the hole in the door and skittered across the floor

  Grenade!

  Instinctively. Cameron embraced Marie and rolled toward the other side of the room. It went off. Cameron heard the loud blast.
He closed his eyes and waited for the shrapnel, but it never came. He opened his eyes and found himself blinded by thick smoke. Marie coughed. Cameron’s eyes stung. The Beretta! His hands fumbled over the worn carpet. Nothing. He heard footsteps approaching.

  “Quick, follow me!”

  “I can’t see! Oh, God, my eyes, they…”

  Ignoring her cries, Cameron grabbed her right wrist and pulled her behind him. He got up and raced for the window. He reached it, crawled on the windowsill, and inhaled deeply. Through tears he spotted a thick copper pipe running vertically next to the window. Cameron grabbed it firmly with his left hand.

  “Put both arms around my shoulders! Quick!”

  “I can’t see, my eyes…” The footsteps had stopped.

  “Dammit! Do it!” He felt her embrace from behind.

  “On the count of three hold on tight and wrap your legs around my waist got it?”

  “Yes I—”

  “One—two—three!” Cameron brought his right hand around and grabbed the pipe as he jumped off the sill with Marie pressed to his back.

  He heard the door kicked open.

  The strain on his arms became nearly unbearable. He began to slide down to the street as fast as he could, knowing that it would not take their attacker more than a few seconds to realize how they had escaped.

  “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!”

  Cameron looked toward the street and spotted the old lady from the hotel counter screaming at the top of her lungs by the front door.

  “Shit!”

  Several pedestrians came from both sides of the block and gathered around the hotel. Cameron looked up toward the window and spotted a gray-haired man with a gray beard looking straight at them.

  “Hang on.” Cameron said. He instantly felt Marie’s grip tighten.

  Cameron loosened his hold on the pipe and rapidly slid the last ten feet before crashing against the sidewalk. Marie let go on impact, and they both rolled over on the wet pavement. His right shoulder stung as he slammed against the bumper of a parked car, but he forced himself to look back up toward the window. The bearded man had disappeared.

  In a blur, he noticed three youngsters gathering around Marie, who appeared unconscious a few feet away. Cameron got up. There was no time to spare. Any second now the gunman would come running out of the hotel.

  “Allez-vous en!” Cameron shouted to the startled trio, and shoved them aside as he bent down and pressed the middle and index fingers of his left hand against Marie’s left wrist. Cameron felt a pulse. He quickly lifted her slim body, hung it over his left shoulder, and raced up the street. The kids stood aside as Cameron kicked his legs, struggling to put some distance between him and the assailant. The wind swirled his short thin hair. Marie’s weight quickly became more noticeable. His shoulder burned. So did his legs. He ignored it all and kept running.

  “Wait! Wait!”

  Cameron glanced back and spotted the bearded man standing by the entrance to the hotel waving them back. Cameron ignored him and turned the corner. He continued down that street and turned left into a dark alley.

  CHAPTER TWO

  COUNTDOWN

  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA

  After two exhaustive hours going over the proper responses to possible media questions, Kessler left the briefing room and headed for his quarters. With his body and mind totally drained, he could not care less about the press at that moment. The vision of a warm bed filled his mind, and he used what little energy he had left to propel himself down the long and narrow dim-lit hall. He spotted his room at the other end.

  Nearly asleep on his feet, Kessler made his way along the dark, glossy-tiled surface. Retrieving his key, he inserted it in the lock, turned it, and pushed the door open.

  Inside the air felt warm and stagnant, but that didn’t matter to Kessler. He shifted his gaze to the only object that was important to him, the bed next to the windows on the other side of the spacious room. He approached it, untied his shoes, kicked them off, and lay down. Then he frowned, got up, reached for the AC window unit above the bed, and turned it on. The rush of cool air caressed his face, quickly drying the perspiration that dripped from his creased forehead. Now he could sleep.

  He lay on his back and closed his eyes. It didn’t take much time before he began to drift away. He inhaled deeply and relaxed. His heartbeat decreased and his breathing steadied.

  “Hey, Mike. You in there?”

  Kessler started at the sudden intrusion. He shook his head. “It’s not locked. Come in!”

  The door inched forward. Behind it stood his Texan pilot over six feet tall and nearly two hundred pounds, wearing his sunglasses. Ray-Bans. Air Force pilots always wore Ray-Bans.

  “Ready to eat?”

  “Give me a minute to rest,” Kessler responded.

  “What did you think about the briefing?” Jones closed the door behind him, grabbed a chair from beside the metal desk, spun it around, set it next to the bed, and straddled it like a horse. Kessler smiled wearily. “I couldn’t give a damn about that press conference right now. I’m drained. If NASA wants us to fly on schedule they better slow down the pace. Say, did you go see the doctor this morning?”

  “Yep.”

  “And? What did he have to say about your knee?” He noticed the smile disappear from Jones’s face.

  “No problems.”

  “Glad to hear that. For a while I thought NASA was going to assign another pilot for the mission.”

  Jones had been shot down during an F-111B sortie over Iraq years before. An Air Force E-3A Sentry AWACS had detected a pair of Iraqi MiG-23s headed for the two-seater F-111B strategic bombers as they returned to Saudi Arabia. Due to lack of Air Force fighters nearby, Kessler and his wingman were called in for cover, but when his wingman experienced hydraulic failure, only Kessler could comply with the request. Kessler turned to intercept, but his RIO (Radio Intercept Officer) had trouble with his radar and could not get a good vector to the F-111s from the AWACS crew. After a frustrating two minutes, Kessler managed to intercept and destroy the two MiGs, but not before one of the MiGs had opened fire on Jones’s plane. A shell pierced the fuselage of Jones’s strategic bomber and exploded inside the cockpit, instantly killing Jones’s navigator. The blast set Jones’s legs ablaze as shrapnel tore into him. Only Jones’s disciplined reaction—grabbing a fire extinguisher and dousing his blazing flight suit—saved his life. He then managed to eject.

  Although Jones blamed the incident on the fortunes of war, Kessler couldn’t help but feel responsible for the navigator’s death and the subsequent pain that Jones had had to endure from his injuries.

  “You mind?” Jones pulled out a pack of Marlboro Golds and a lighter.

  “Nope. Your lungs.”

  “Well, this is the way I see it. If those damned Iraqis couldn’t kill me after filling my plane with lead, then I doubt this little cigarette has a chance in hell of doing much to me.”

  Kessler smiled broadly. “I guess some things just never change.”

  “Well, for your information, some things do change. This is the first smoke I’ve had since yesterday morning. For a guy that used to smoke a pack a day a year ago, I’d say that I’ve come a long way.”

  Kessler threw his arms up in the air. “All right, all right. I apologize.”

  “Good,” Jones said. “Then let’s eat.”

  PARIS, FRANCE

  With his mind racing, looking for a reasonable explanation, Cameron paced back and forth in the small room on the second floor of St. Vincent de Paul Hospital.

  The incident at the rue de Cujas certainly gave Marie’s story some credibility. Enough for Cameron to share his information with his case officer back at the American Embassy. His case officer had not been pleased. This wasn’t supposed to be anything serious. The French police, on the other hand, had been most polite un
der the circumstances. They had given him back his lost Beretta, after determining that it had not been fired the night before. The police had listened to his entire story while taking massive amounts of notes. Cameron did find out one interesting fact about the case. The police had found a dead man in Marie’s hotel room, who’d turned out to be Inspector Philippe Rouquette. He had been shot in the back. Rouquette was the same inspector that Marie had talked to about her husband’s death. That had Cameron Baffled. Why was he there? To warn her about the gray-haired assassin? Or was Roquette the assassin himself?

  He stared at Marie, sleeping peacefully across the room in a bed next to the window. The doctor had said she had a minor concussion and would be out for several hours.

  “Mmmm.”

  Cameron saw her stir in her sleep. He walked across the tiled floor and sat at the edge of her bed. She moaned softly, slowly moving her head from side to side, clearly upset even though unconscious.

  Cameron walked to the small sink on the opposite side of the room, wetted the small towel hanging next to it, and walked back to Marie’s bedside. He folded the towel in two and gently pressed it against her forehead.

  “Hmmm…mmmph…” She relaxed. Cameron smiled. Marie was indeed a very beautiful woman. Naturally beautiful.

  He pressed the towel gently against her cheeks and neck.

  “You’ll be alright, Marie. Relax. Everything is going to be fine.” Cameron stared at her face and suddenly felt ashamed of himself. Her husband had died less than forty-eight hours ago and here he stood feeling strongly attracted to her. He shook his head and exhaled. It felt strange. He had not been with a woman for years, not emotionally, that is. His first and only love affair had occurred nearly two decades earlier, in Vietnam. Although GIs had been officially prohibited from becoming involved with the locals, Cameron had fallen quickly for a petite nineteen-year-old named Lan-Anh Binh, the daughter of a prosperous Saigon business man. The secret affair had lasted six months, ending abruptly when her father’s store fell victim to a terrorist incendiary bomb while Lan-Anh worked the cash register. Her body had been burned beyond recognition. Cameron, devastated, had turned in a request to be transferred to Special Forces where in those days the survival ratio was very poor. He’d spent three tours with Special Forces, participating in covert operations behind enemy lines. Those three years had toughened him up, both physically and mentally. They’d been his wild years. Booze, women, and war had filled his life. He had lost many good friends back then. The more reason for the booze and the women. He had managed to survive Vietnam, had spent more time with the Army as a basic training instructor, and eventually had been recruited by the CIA. With the CIA in Mexico he had gone out with a few embassy secretaries and some locals, but nothing serious had ever developed. His work never left him enough time to have a proper relationship. He knew that for a forty-two-year-old his sex life had not been all that bad, but his love life had been way below average.