by Seeley James
“Any advice for me?”
“Don’t try to play the hero. Looks great in the movies, but it never ends well in real life.”
Alan Sabel’s last breath on Earth replayed in my head. I turned to the window.
Dawn spread blue and gold streaks across snow-covered fields and bare trees. It didn’t last long. The sun disappeared behind the low, dark clouds covering the sky. Plenty of daylight made it through, though. I wished Ms. Sabel had listened to my advice to push it back eighteen hours. We own the night. It’s always better to strike at 0300 than 0900.
The director of Latvia’s National Film Centre met us at the station. He was a small man with thin gray-streaked hair combed straight back to a mini-ponytail. He bowed constantly. He spoke only to our director, which was fine with me. I shouldered a tripod and carried a case of Goth Girl’s gear.
We tromped down sidewalks covered in fresh snow while knives of sea salt stabbed at our cheeks. The directors led the way, making grand gestures at every natural and architectural element we passed. Our director slapped their director on the back. They were getting along fine.
I pushed in my earbud and joined the comm link for Ms. Sabel and Tania. They updated me with an ETA. So far, so good.
Deep in a wooded lane, we came to a security gate. A big, serious-looking guy stepped from a guard shack, dressed like an extra for a documentary on the Battle of Stalingrad. He could go the winter living on nail sandwiches and gasoline. His heavy coat draped down to the tops of his thick boots. He wore a Ushanka hat with the earflaps down.
Any darts would have to be face-shots.
Our director, their director, and the guard gesticulated with ever-rising voices. Our director stepped around the shack, pointed at the sky, and started raving in French. The Latvian director did his best to calm him.
I calculated the time it would take to drop the gear and pull my Glock from the holster beneath my heavy jacket. I could do it before he could sound an alarm. But then my aim would have to be perfect. I had only a six-by-eight-inch moving target to hit. My problem was knowing how many more were inside the shack or out on rounds. On top of that, there was the Director of the Film Centre. He would freak in high C. I decided to let things ride.
I handed Sylvia five hundred euros, which she artfully offered Mr. Stalingrad for his troubles. That kind of money can buy a case of fresh morals in Latvia, a country with a quarter of the USA’s average income. The guard palmed it and waved us through.
Sylvia turned to me, her eyes smiling. She wanted my approval. She’d done well, but the time for basking in glory was in the bar after the mission. If you survive. When she saw my blank expression, she looked disappointed.
Mercury stepped up behind me in his winter toga. You done making eyes at your mariticidal future wife, bro? Because Pia-Caesar-Sabel is half a klick away, trudging through the snow in that forest over there. If you and Spielberg Junior aren’t making a distraction, she will not be happy.
“Can we set up now?” I asked our director. “This is getting heavy.”
We set up in front of a nightmare of faux-rococo architecture. Everything that could be gilded on this vacation home had been. One day it would make a dandy whorehouse.
Sylvia peeled off her ten-pound overcoat to reveal a tastefully clingy dress adorned with bright sparrows and swans, topped by jacket covered in roses. She made several approaches and sound checks as they measured the light.
I counted six guards in the larger enclave, though there could have been twice that many. Only our burly friend, Mr. Stalingrad, stayed close. He wandered between us, staying out of the way, yet remained keenly interested in our operation. Or Sylvia. Every three or four minutes, he went back to the main guard shack by the road. Some of the other guards wandered in and out as well.
Ms. Sabel let me know they were in sight of the house. She waited.
I strolled over to our director as Mr. Stalingrad hovered a few yards away.
“The actress is freezing,” I said. “Could we shoot some of the interior scenes now and come back for this stuff?”
The directors glanced at each other. Our director was on the ball. He insisted we get access to the nearest mini-mansion. The Latvian called the guard over. They discussed it. The negotiations weren’t going well. No one was allowed inside.
Ms. Sabel pinged me for an update. Every minute she and Tania stood in the freezing cold was a minute closer to getting caught.
Sylvia picked up on the guard’s reticence and joined the conversation, insisting they get some footage of her with the guards making his rounds inside. Any man who falls for money will also fall for beauty. I found her quick thinking impressive. We packed up and moved inside.
I alerted Ms. Sabel. She set up by a side door, ready with her slap-hammer. I gave her the go-ahead when the guard disabled the alarm system. She gave me a countdown.
We stood in a grand foyer that opened to a parlor on the right, dining room on the left, a hallway and stairs in front of us, kitchen and library beyond. On cue, I dropped the not-latched sound-gear case. Metal things clattered to the polished wood. At the back of the house, the lock took a whack.
Only two people in the room heard the second sound. One was me. The other was Mr. Stalingrad.
He pulled a SIG Sauer P239 from his holster. The film crew choked. He motioned for us to get behind him for protection. He kept his eyes and pistol facing the other direction.
I reached for my dart-filled Glock and kept it behind my back.
“Easy now,” I said to the guard, hoping Ms. Sabel would hear me. “Put the gun away. We’re fine here.”
He looked over his shoulder at me. Then looked at the crew. Then back at me.
That’s when I made a mistake.
I gave him my soldier stare.
He knew what it was and gave the same right back. He took a quick glance at Sylvia. She was a great actress but also an honest human being. Guilt creased her brow. In that instant, he put it all together. The five hundred euros. The desire to have him in the film. The need to get inside. He was big, but not stupid. His free hand reached for a button on his belt. Most likely a panic button. He was calling for help.
A split-second later, we both had our weapons trained on each other. Like two bears squaring off. Twelve feet of polished hardwood separated us. There was a good chance our bullets would hit in mid-air.
Behind him, Ms. Sabel and Tania slipped across the hallway.
In the tense silence, their footsteps were noticeable. His eyes swiveled.
Sylvia took two steps and kicked him. She knocked his pistol loose, lost her balance, and ended up in my line of fire. I kicked the gun down the hall, but the maneuver left my back to my adversary. I scrambled into the dining room to regroup. With my back to the wall, I checked out the windows for Russians. As I suspected, two were coming at full pace, fifty yards out. I ran through to the kitchen and checked the hall. My kick was fair. Mr. Stalingrad’s SIG was within my reach.
I grabbed it and headed back to the foyer with a gun in each hand.
He had his back to me, with one arm around Sylvia’s waist and another to her throat. He faced the film crew, who were ashen and shaking. Their eyes moved to me in unison, giving away my position. But Mr. Stalingrad didn’t move. Which was tactically odd for a man of his experience.
Mercury said, Dude, he’s got his eye on them cause his pals are coming in the back.
I spun in time to see two men enter the kitchen. Not the same two I saw from the dining room.
Even the most battle-hardened vets feel their blood pressure spike when the first bullet pops. Kaliningrad weighed on my mind. With civilians in the mix, I held my fire.
I slid to the side as one of the men barreled down the hallway yelling something in Russian. I held up my hands in surrender, my fingers still inside the trigger guards. He lacked the experience of Mr. Stalingrad. His focus shifted from attack to apprehend mode. A distraction just long enough for me to reacquire his face in my s
ights and pump a dart into his cheek.
I slid back into the kitchen, looking for his partner.
The front door opened, the other two guards ran in. Mr. Stalingrad barked orders. One of them ran up the stairs, the other came down the hall. The remaining back-door man held the dining room. I was trapped.
Across the hall, Ms. Sabel gave me a little wave. Using hand signals, I told her I was going for the dining room, she could cover the hall. She nodded. I pocketed Mr. Stalingrad’s weapon and picked up a plate. I held it up in the open doorway that connected the kitchen and dining room. A bullet shattered it, giving away the shooter’s position. I rolled into the room and fired three times.
None of my darts hit the poor kid, but they scared him enough. He crumpled into a ball behind a chair. Not a good shield. I darted him, then peered around the corner into the foyer. Sylvia and her freaked-beyond-belief crew looked like marble statues, gray and motionless.
Mr. Stalingrad hadn’t yet moved. His confidence was disconcerting. He held a nasty looking stainless-steel knife to Sylvia’s throat. I stepped through the open archway behind him, grabbed his coat collar, and pressed my Glock to the base of his neck.
Tension rose up inside him. Thousands of options went through his head in a second. He had nothing. He would have to surrender and we both knew it.
I said, “Let the lady go, and I’ll—”
“Release Sergeant Tarasov or lady die.” A shaky Slavic accent came from behind me.
Mercury said, That Siberian cracker back there has a SIG Sauer aimed at Pia-Caesar-Sabel’s head. You think you can save them both but you can’t—and your little actress isn’t worth it. You have a serious decision to make, homeboy. Unless you want to get stuffed in a bovem aeneum—a bull-shaped caldron that stews on a bonfire—save the right damsel in distress.
CHAPTER 59
From the top of the InterContinental Kansas City, Chuck Roche watched the cars twisting down the roads of Country Club Plaza. “They look like toys.”
“Yessir.” David Watson cleared the dining table and stacked the dishes on the room service cart.
“You should’ve gotten Arrowhead Stadium.”
“It’s not available, sir.”
“CNN said I couldn’t fill it.” Roche turned around and faced his Chief of Staff. “I could fill Arrowhead.”
“We filled the auditorium, sir.” Watson pushed the cart into the suite’s main room. “That’s three thousand. They love you.”
“They do, don’t they?” Roche turned back to the window. “They really do.”
Watson continued pushing the cart to the foyer, where he turned it over to a Secret Service agent and came back.
“Is Popov going to take care of Sabel once and for all?” Roche asked.
“Sir,” Watson whispered. He looked over his shoulder at the agent’s position by the door. The man was dealing with the cart out of earshot. “It’s important to speak in the code we discussed. We have reason to believe the deep-state spies have infiltrated the Secret Service. Sir.”
“Them too?” Roche scratched his head. “I thought the Secret Service was beyond politics.”
Watson stepped closer to the President-Elect. “When talking about murder and foreign conspirators, assume everyone is deep state.”
“No goddamn loyalty anymore, Watson. That’s what’s wrong with this country. No one understands loyalty.” Roche grabbed his man’s shoulder. “Except you. But then, you have good reason to fear what I might tell your former coworkers at the FBI.”
Roche turned on his cane and crossed to the piano. “I could’ve been the greatest concert piano player in the world. I’m the best at anything I set my mind to. But I didn’t pursue it because I don’t like the piano. I had a teacher who kept telling me, ‘practice makes the master’ and all that crap.”
Watson stood silently at ease.
“All right, we’ll do it your way.” He raised the keyboard cover and looked at the keys. “Is our old friend going to take care of the new problems that keep cropping up? He should. After all, she invaded his country.”
Watson craned over his shoulder to see the agent retaking his position. “Use fewer identifiable—”
“Just answer the goddamn question.”
“I’ve stayed out of the reporting loop, sir.” Watson took one more glance over his shoulder and lowered his voice again. “Sabel has already linked me to our friends in Spain. We don’t need another connection cropping up. Keep everything compartmentalized.”
“This cloak-and-dagger bullshit is ridiculous, Watson.” Roche shook his cane at the man. “Where is my National Security Advisor, General Krasny? Is he the compartment I need for a straight answer?”
“He’s waiting downstairs.”
Watson made a call, and a few minutes later a Secret Service agent ushered Krasny in.
The tall, thin retired general greeted the President-Elect. “Can’t wait to hear your victory tour speech in person, Mr. President-Elect. They’ve been wonderful—”
Roche rolled his hand impatiently. “What happened with Ambassador Sadesky?”
Watson trotted out of the room and took up a casual conversation with the agent in the foyer.
Krasny glanced at Watson for a moment, then turned back. He softened his voice. “Communications were difficult.”
“You did get to their NSA-proof room, right? Did you get hold of Popov?”
“Well.” General Krasny checked Watson and the agent again, assessing their ability to eavesdrop. “They did lend me their secure communications system. I was able to connect. But. Um. Sir. We have a problem with Popov.”
“He got us into this mess. You better not have a problem with him.”
“He’s making demands.” Krasny bowed his head. “He said, and I’m quoting directly here, ‘Tell him I delivered the White House. If that is not enough to ensure his loyalty, tell him to check with Kasey Earl.’ I don’t know what that means, but he demanded the sanctions be dropped—”
“Goddamn it!” Roche’s silver-handled cane landed on the nearest table lamp. The ceramic base exploded into tiny shards. “Watson! Popov has Kasey’s payment records. How the hell did you let Kasey Earl get those? Damn it to hell.”
He swung his cane across the piano, taking out the lid prop that held it open. The lid crashed onto the case with a resounding bang and splintered into pieces. “Can’t anybody do what they’re supposed to?” He struck the window repeatedly until he realized it would not give way. “Son of a goddamn bitch!” Breathing hard, Roche turned to another lamp and used his cane like a baseball bat. The lamp shattered against the wall. “I’m surrounded by fucking losers.” With overhand blows, he pounded the silver handle into a painting on the wall, shattering the glass and leaving the handle embedded in the drywall. Roche tugged and tugged.
When Yuri returned from his last consultation with the reconstructive surgeon, he found the other SHaRCs in the living room watching the big screen.
It took Yuri a moment to register what held his men’s attention. It was the view of the fake-house in Cartagena, Columbia. Six men ransacked it. Cartagena was a tripwire, an alarm to let them know when Popov was getting close.
And they’d just begun to like island life.
“Who are they?” Petr asked.
“Americans.” Yuri scratched his smooth, beardless chin, which felt odd. “Sabel Security?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Roman said. “They’re in the fake-house. For precaution, we leave here tonight. Next hideout is in—” he checked a list on his phone “—Durrës, Albania.”
The group groaned in unison. Someone said, “For the winter?”
A phone alarm rang. Then another. Several men checked their phones.
“We’re in!” Roman shouted. “Quick, pull it up on the big screen.”
Someone clicked away on a laptop’s keyboard. An email screen came up. An inbox with hundreds of emails.
Petr stepped to the front. “This is one of six email acc
ounts used by Viktor Popov. Like dictators who move every night, Popov keeps opening and closing accounts. This is not his official email. But it’s been in use for weeks.”
“Send everyone a copy.” Yuri raised his voice. “We can look through them on our long and painful flights to Albania.”
They grumbled but went to their rooms to pack.
Yuri went to his, but the lure of looking through Popov’s email was too strong a call to resist. He sat on the edge of his bed and started to look at his phone. Before he grabbed it, a nearby movement drew his attention. He reached for his gun and looked up quickly.
A stranger in the mirror stared back at him. He let go of the pistol and stared at himself. He sensed a new opportunity, a clean start with a new face. He resolved to do good deeds this time around. He would kill fewer people. If one of his men created trouble, he would try to work it out. He nodded at his reflection.
He did a quick scan of Popov’s email. There were reports from Strangelove and other agents. They mentioned operations in Cyprus, Bornholm, France, and an interesting one in New York. It mentioned Yuri’s newest acquaintance, Jacob Stearne. The agent reported he’d killed Kasey Earl and tried unsuccessfully to frame Stearne. In his reply, Popov requested information about “the package.”
The field agent had replied, “Shipping via embassy courier. Summary: canceled checks signed by Chuck Roche. Correspondence about the murder of Lloyd Aston. Kompromat on the American President-Elect.”
Yuri dropped his phone.
He couldn’t believe it. Popov had something Sabel would want. He saw that as an opportunity. Changing his face had indeed changed his luck.
Roman appeared at his door. “Our man at the airport called. Eight men rented two cars.”
The two men looked at each other and knew whoever their adversary was, they were in trouble.
“He called the police.” Roman pounded a fist against the door jamb. “The men have been detained, but that only gives us an hour.”
They both scrambled to finish packing. Twenty minutes later, every member of SHaRC was in a car or on a bike heading for an airport or a boat. Each man finding his own circuitous way back to Europe with new ID.
