Black Ops (Presidential Agent)

by W. E. B Griffin

He stood up, put the pistol back in the shoulder holster, then went to Sandra and pulled her to her feet.

  "What the hell was that, Jack?" she asked, her voice faint.

  "Let's get you in the house," he said, avoiding the question. "Into the cellar."

  He took her arm and led her up the walk to the door.

  "I dropped the goddamn keys," Sandra said.

  He ran back to the fence, drawing the pistol again as he ran, found the keys, and then ran back to his front door.

  There were half a dozen neat little holes in the door, and one of the small panes of glass in the door had been shattered.

  He got the door unlocked and propelled Sandra through the living room to the door of the cellar, which he had finished out with a big-screen TV, a sectional couch, and a wet bar.

  "Honey," he said, his tone forceful, "stay down there until I tell you. If you want to be useful, make us a drink while I call the cavalry."

  "I don't think this is funny, Jack, goddamn you!"

  "I'll be right outside. And when the cops get here, I'm going to need a drink."

  He closed the cellar door after she started down the stairs. Then he went quickly to the front door, took up a position where he could safely see out onto the street, and looked. He saw nothing alarming.

  He took his cellular telephone from its belt clip and punched 9-1-1.

  He didn't even hear the phone ring a single time before a voice said: "Nine-one-one Emergency. Operator four-seven-one. What's your emergency?"

  "Assist officer! Shots fired! Thirty-six ninety Churchill Lane. Thirty-six ninety Churchill Lane." He'd repeated the address, making sure the police dispatcher got it correct. "Two or more shooters in a pale green Chrysler Town & Country minivan. They went westbound on Wessex from Churchill. They used automatic weapons, possibly Kalashnikov rifles."

  He broke the connection, then looked out the window again, this time seeing something he hadn't noticed before.

  The MX-5 had bullet holes in the passenger door. The metal was torn outward, meaning that the bullets had passed through the driver's door first.

  If we had been in the car, they would've gotten us.

  Goddamn! The car's not two months old.

  When he heard the howl of sirens, he went outside. He looked up and down the street, and then, taking the revolver out of its holster again, walked down to the sidewalk to see what else had happened to the Miata.

  The first unit to respond to the call was DJ 811, a rather rough-looking Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor patrol car assigned to the Eighth District. The howl of its siren died as it turned onto Churchill Lane, and when Britton saw it coming around the curve, he noticed that the overhead lights were not flashing.

  Britton turned his attention back to the Miata. The driver's-side window was shattered and several bullets had penetrated the windshield. The windshield had not shattered, but Britton couldn't help but think how the holes in it looked amazingly like someone had stuck all over it those cheap bullet-hole decals that could be bought at most auto-supply shops.

  He walked around the front of the car and saw that it had taken hits in the right fender, the right front tire, and the hood.

  He smelled gasoline.

  Oh, shit! They got the gas tank!

  Then he heard a voice bark: "Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Put your hands on the top of your head! Put your hands on the top of your head!"

  Britton saw that two cops in a patrol car had arrived.

  They were both out of their car and had their service Glock semiautomatics aimed at him from behind the passenger door and across the hood.

  Both looked as if they had graduated from the academy last week.

  The order reminded Britton that he was still holding the Smith & Wesson. At his side, to be sure, pointing at the ground. But holding it.

  Not smart, Jack. Not smart!

  "Three-six-nine! Three-six-nine!" Britton shouted, using the old Philadelphia police radio code for police officer.

  The two very young cops, their Glocks still leveled on him, suddenly looked much older and in charge.

  The one behind the driver door repeated the order: "Drop the gun! Drop the gun! Put your hands on the top of your head! Put your hands on the top of your head!"

  Britton's problem was that he did not think he could safely do as ordered--"Drop the gun!"

  The Smith & Wesson Model 29 is a double-action model, meaning he could squeeze the trigger to fire a round with the hammer forward or cocked back. The latter required less pressure from the trigger finger.

  It was Britton's belief that one well-aimed shot was more effective than a barrage of shots aimed in the general direction of a miscreant. He also knew that a shot fired in the single-action mode--with the hammer drawn back--was far more likely to strike its intended target than one fired by pulling hard on the trigger with the hammer in the forward--or uncocked--position. The extra effort required to fire from the uncocked position tended to disturb one's aim.

  He had, therefore, formed the habit, whenever drawing his weapon with any chance whatever that he might have to pull the trigger, of cocking the hammer. And he had done so just now when he walked out of his front door.

  If I drop this sonofabitch, the impact's liable to release the hammer, which will fire off a round, whereupon these two kids are going to empty their Glocks at me.

  "Three-six-nine!" Britton said again. "I'm Jack Britton. I'm a detective. This is my house. My wife and I are the ones who were--"

  "I'm not going to tell you again, you sonofabitch! Drop the gun! Drop the gun!"

  "May I lay it on the ground, please? The hammer--"

  "Drop the fucking gun!"

  "Take it easy, fellows," a new voice said with authority.

  Britton saw two more Philly policemen, a captain and a sergeant. He had not seen another car drive up, but now noticed there were four police cars on Churchill Lane. The wail of sirens in the distance announced the imminent arrival of others.

  "Hello, Jack," the captain said.

  Britton now recognized him. He had been his sergeant, years ago, when Officer Britton was walking a beat in the Thirty-fifth District.

  "If I drop this gun, the hammer's back, and--"

  "Holster your weapons," the captain ordered firmly. "I know him. He's one of us."

  When the police officers had complied with the order--and not a second before--the captain walked to Britton and squeezed his shoulder in an affectionate gesture that clearly said, Good to see you, pal.

  "Jesus, Jack, they shot the car up, didn't they?"

  "It's not even two months old," Britton said.

  "What the hell happened here, Jack?"

  "Sandra and I were at the Rosewood Caterer's, on Frankford Avenue, at the Northeast Detectives Christmas party. I thought I was being followed--2002, 2003 Chrysler Town and Country, pale green in color. I didn't get the tag."

  "Tommy," the captain ordered, "put out a flash on the car. . . ."

  "Black males, maybe in Muslim clothing," Britton furnished, "armed with automatic AKs, last seen heading west on Wessex Lane."

  "Yes, sir," the sergeant said. He grabbed the lapel mike attached to his shirt epaulet, squeezed the PUSH TO TALK button, and began to relay the flash information to Police Radio.

  "Kalashnikovs?" the captain asked, shaking his head. "Fully auto ones?"

  Britton nodded. "And they got the gas tank." He pointed.

  The captain muttered an obscenity and then turned to the young policemen.

  "Put in a call to the fire department--gasoline spill," he ordered, and then looked at Britton.

  "Well, although I thought for a minute they weren't following me, they were," Britton said. "They came around the bend"--he pointed--"just as Sandra and I got inside the fence. I tackled her behind the wall and then all hell broke loose. . . ."

  "She all right?"

  "She's in the basement. Shook up, sure, but all right."

  "Why don't you put that horse pistol
away, and we'll go talk to her?"

  "Jesus," Britton said, embarrassed that he hadn't already lowered the hammer and put the Smith & Wesson in its holster.

  The captain issued orders to first check to see if anyone might have been injured in the area, and then to protect the scene, and finally gestured to Britton to precede him into his house.

  Sandra had left the cellar and now was in the living room, sprawled on the couch. There was a squat glass dark with whiskey on the coffee table, and she had one just like it in her hand.

  "You remember Captain Donnelly, honey?"

  "Yeah, sure. Long time. Merry Christmas."

  "You all right, Sandra?" Donnelly said, the genuine concern of an old friend clear in his tone.

  "As well--after being tackled by my husband, then having those AALs shoot up our house and our new car--as can be expected under the circumstances."

  "AAL is politically incorrect, Sandra," Captain Donnelly said, smiling.

  "I can say it," she said, pointing to her skin. "I can say African-American Lunatics. I could even say worse, but I'm a lady and I won't."

  "Take it easy, honey," Britton said.

  "I thought Jack was finished with them," Sandra said. "Naive little ol' me."

  Britton leaned over and picked up the whiskey glass.

  "Can I offer you one of these?" he said to Donnelly.

  "Of course not. I'm a captain, a district commander, and I'm on duty. But on the other hand, it's Christmas Eve, isn't it?"

  "I'll get it," Sandra said, rising gracefully from the couch. "I moved the bottle to the kitchen knowing I would probably have more than one."

  Donnelly looked at Britton.

  "Tough little lady," he said admiringly.

  "Yeah. Those bastards! I understand them wanting to whack me, but . . ."

  "Jack, let's get a few things out of the way."

  "Like what?"

  "I heard you left the department, but that's about all I know. You're still in law enforcement?"

  "I guess you could say that," Britton said, and took a small leather wallet from his suit jacket and handed it to Donnelly, who opened it, examined it, and handed it back.

  "Secret Service, eh?"

  "Now, if anyone asks, you can say, 'The victim identified himself to me by producing the credentials of a Secret Service special agent . . .' "

  " '... and authorized to carry firearms,'" Donnelly finished the quote. "You guys carry Smith & Wesson .357s?"

  "I do."

  "What have they got you doing, Jack?"

  "I'm assigned to Homeland Security."

  "That's what Sandra meant when she said she thought you were through with the AALs?"

  Britton nodded, then suddenly realized: "And speaking of Homeland Security, I'm going to have to tell them about this before they see it on Fox News. Excuse me."

  He took his cellular telephone from its holster and punched an autodial number.

  [FOUR]

  The Consulate of the United States of America

  Parkring 12a

  Vienna, Austria

  2105 24 December 2005

  The counselor for consular affairs of the United States embassy in Vienna, Miss Eleanor Dillworth, was aware that many people--including many, perhaps most, American citizens--were less than thrilled with the services the consular section offered, and with the very consular officials who offered them.

  An American citizen who required consular service--for example, having pages added to a passport; registering the birth of a child; needing what amounted to notary public services--could acquire such services only from eight to eleven-thirty each morning, Monday through Friday--provided, of course, that that day was neither an American nor an Austrian holiday and, of course, with the understanding that the said American citizen could not get the passport pages added and make any inquiry of any consular official regarding visas.

  Consular officials could not be troubled by being asked about the status of a visa application by anyone--including, for example, but not limited to, an American citizen wondering when his foreign wife was going to get the visa that she not only had applied for but was entitled to under the law.

  Miss Dillworth understood that such dissatisfaction spread around the world.

  A colleague--one Alexander B. Darby, who was the commercial attache of the United States embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina--had told her that a well-known American artist living in Buenos Aires was going about loudly saying to anyone who would listen that whenever he went to the embassy there, he was made to feel by the consular officials as welcome as a registered sex offender seeking overnight lodging at a Girl Scout camp.

  Eleanor and Alex had exchanged horror stories for at least a half hour when they had run into each other in Washington. They had even come up with an explanation why the Foreign Service got away with its arrogance and, indeed, incompetence.

  It was, they concluded, a question of congressional oversight . . . or wanton lack thereof.

  A farmer, for example, who felt that he had been mistreated by a farm agent would immediately get on the phone to his congressman or senator and complain, whereupon the congressman or senator would call the secretary of Agriculture, expressing his displeasure and reminding the secretary that the function of his agency was to serve the public, not antagonize it.

  Doctors--and maybe especially lawyers--thought nothing, when they felt they were being improperly serviced, of going directly to the surgeon general, or the attorney general, with their complaints. Similarly, bankers would raise hell with the secretary of the Treasury, businessmen with the secretary of Commerce, und so weiter.

  And they got results.

  The only people who took a close look at the Foreign Service were members of Congress. They performed this duty by visiting embassies around the world--usually in places like Paris, London, and Tokyo--traveling in either USAF VIP jets or in the first-class compartment of a commercial airliner, and accompanied by their wives. On their arrival, they were housed in the best hotels and lavishly entertained, the costs thereof coming from the ambassadors' "representational allowance" provided by the U.S. taxpayer. Then they got back on the airplanes and went home, having become "Experts in International Affairs" and bubbling all over with praise for the charming people of the State Department, those nobly serving their country on foreign shores.

  There were exceptions, of course. Alex Darby couldn't say enough nice things about the ambassador in Buenos Aires, even though he didn't seem able to do much about his consular staff enraging American citizens--not to mention the natives--living in Argentina.

  But Alex and Eleanor were agreed that the Foreign Service could be greatly improved if every other diplomat arriving for work in his chauffeur-driven embassy car--with consular diplomatic tags, which permitted him to ignore speed limits and park wherever he wished--were canned, and those dips remaining were seriously counseled to get their act in gear or be canned themselves.

  At first glance--or even second--it might appear that Counselor for Consular Affairs Eleanor Dillworth and Commercial Attache Alexander B. Darby were disgruntled employees and probably should never have been employed by the Foreign Service in the first place.

  The truth here was that neither was a member of the Foreign Service, despite the good deal of effort expended to make that seem to be the case. In fact, Dillworth and Darby were the Central Intelligence Agency station chiefs in, respectively, Vienna and Buenos Aires, and the salary checks deposited once a month to their personal banking accounts came from the funds of the Clandestine Services Division of the Central Intelligence Agency, Langley, Virginia.

  It was in this latter--which was to say real--role that Eleanor Dillworth sat in her consul general's office on Parkring, waiting to have a word with a bona fide diplomat, Ronald J. Spearson, who was, as no one at the moment served as ambassador to Austria, the Charge d'Affaires, a.i. of the American embassy.

  "In case this somehow slipped by you, Eleanor, it's Christmas Eve,"
Spearson said when he walked into the office. He was a tall, trim man in his early forties.

  "Well, in that case, Merry Christmas, Ronnie."

  Spearson believed that embassy staff should address him as "Mister," and he did not like to be called "Ronnie," not even by his wife.

  He gave her a dirty look.

  "I'm in no mood for your sarcasm," she said. "I know what day this is, and I wouldn't have asked you to come here unless it was important."

  "I meant no offense, Eleanor," he said after a moment. "If an apology is in order, consider that it has been offered."

  She did consider that a moment, then nodded.

  "Kurt Kuhl and his wife have been murdered," she said.

  "Kurt Kuhl of Kuhlhaus? That Kuhl?"

  She nodded.

  "About half past six tonight," she said. "The bodies were found behind the Johann Strauss statue in the Stadtpark."

  She gestured in the direction of a window that overlooked Parkring and the Stadtpark.

  "Well, I'm . . ."

  "They were garroted," she went on evenly, "with a metal garrote of the type the Hungarian secret police--the Allamvedelmi Hatosag--used in the bad old days."

  "Eleanor, what has this to do with me? With the embassy?"

  "As a result of which," she went on, ignoring the questions, "there will be a new star on that wall in Langley. Two, if I have anything to say. Gertrud Kuhl is entitled to one, too."

  Spearson looked at her for a long moment.

  "You're not suggesting, Eleanor, are you, that Kurt Kuhl was one of your--"

  "I'm telling you that Kurt Kuhl has been in the clandestine service of the company longer than you're old."

  "I find that very hard to believe," Spearson said.

  "I thought you might. Nevertheless, you have now been told."

  "My God, he's an old man!"

  "Seventy-five," she said. "About as old as Billy Waugh."

  "Billy Waugh?"

  "The fellow who bagged Carlos the Jackal. The last time I heard, Billy was running around Afghanistan looking for Osama bin Laden."

  Again he looked at her a long moment before replying.

  "If what you say is true . . ."

  "I just made this up to give you a little Christmas Eve excitement," she said sarcastically.