by D S Kane
The squirrel-faced man shook his head. “I’m not so sure, Gil. When you originally proposed this, it was designed to keep my party in power. But if they mess up again, it could cost the next election. Look, promise me you’ll keep them under control. Okay?”
Greenfield thought, you’re a lame duck, you idiot. Who cares who runs the country when we’re outta here? We’ll both be rich! He nodded. “Yes sir. Don’t worry. I’ll control the Houmaz group.”
Wearing sweatpants to hide the five pounds she’d gained, Cassie paced her apartment like a caged animal. She called McDougal but his secretary stopped her with, “He’s away from the office.” Obsessed, she tried three times the next day, without success.
She sat reading an ebook novel by Barry Eisler. The ringing of her cell jarred her. She tapped Accept Call and his voice boomed from the answering machine. “Cassandra? It’s Mark McDougal.”
She took a deep breath before responding. “I’m here.”
His words came in a slow, quiet monotone, as if he read from written notes: “We completed the investigation, and the agency has a problem we can’t resolve. The license plate you gave us in Riyadh simply doesn’t exist. We haven’t found who the phone number belongs to. And those initials you gave us could be almost anyone. If we actively tried tracing those calls, our contacts in Saudi Arabia would assume we were culpable for something. We don’t know how your cover was blown, but because it was, we don’t dare use you for any covert assignment abroad.”
So this was it. She’d be relegated to a desk job. Shit.
“You were a good operative, with an admirable track record of success. But that’s over. I’m sorry, Cassandra, but given what you did in Riyadh—murdering a local resident—the agency feels we have no choice but to terminate your employment.”
Cassie felt her face go red with rage and shock. Her hands shook as she tried to root the cell phone to her ear. “What? Fire me? And over the telephone?”
“We don’t want you entering the building. There may still be a contract to take you out. A hit outside the lobby of a federal office building wouldn’t sit well with Congress.”
She almost dropped the phone and sat down, speechless. This was a “burn notice.” She’d be cut off not only from her cover but also from the agency’s protection. Abandoned, to fend for herself. Rarely done, and never open to appeal.
But then an unwelcome thought occurred to her. She thought, he called me Cassandra! He only called me by my given name once, when he was angry at our last meeting. It was always “Cassie.” Why? That’s what Abdul called me!
Unbidden, a thought flew through her mind, sending a chill down her spine. Was Mark involved with my cover being blown? But there wasn’t enough data for her to come to that conclusion. She turned her attention back to the conversation with her suddenly former boss.
McDougal continued speaking as if she just agreed with his logic. “We’ll send a messenger to your apartment to pick up your badge and any agency-related material you possess, and to deliver your severance paycheck. We’re giving you one week for every year.”
“No! This just isn’t fair! In fact, it’s wrong. You can’t treat me like garbage and then spit me out.” But there was silence on the other end of the line. She could hear McDougal breathing.
Cassie was powerless to alter her fate. McDougal had made up his mind, and he’d gotten Greenfield’s concurrence, or this conversation wouldn’t be happening.
She thought about her next move—her next statements—trying to get more from him. She’d need the money from her final paycheck. But she was afraid to leave the apartment and take a walk to a bank branch. Not safe. To McDougal, this threat was so serious, he didn’t want her in the agency’s lobby. “All right, then, at least direct-deposit the severance into my checking account as you do my paychecks.”
“Sorry, your employee records were sealed shut this morning. It’s a paper check or nothing.”
Even a walk outside to deposit a check into an ATM machine might be dangerous.
Then, with a growing sense of alarm it dawned on Cassie she’d have to flee right away. I must start by changing my appearance and assemble a set of false identities.
She didn’t even want an agency messenger visiting her apartment. “Mail the check. I’ll mail the badge and anything else I have in less than ten minutes from the mail chute in my apartment building as soon as I hang up.”
“You can’t mail classified intelligence to this address!”
Cassie realized she’d been shoved out of the agency forever. It no longer mattered how she behaved. She’d never get a reference from the agency for another job in any case.
Worse, she realized she wasn’t safe anymore. She shivered in the warm apartment and drew herself together, remembering McDougal was still on the phone. She said, “It’s that or nothing. The stuff’s in an envelope and I’m sealing it now. Bye, Mr. McDougal.”
When Cassie hung up, rage heated her face. She focused on controlling her breathing to recover from the shock. She shouldn’t have been surprised. Her anger turned to fear and her mind raced in every direction at once. She breathed deep and long and said, “Focus, Cassie, focus, Cassie” aloud over and over.
What had they taught her to do when she fled? Damn, she’d just done this when she was in Riyadh! Then she looked around her apartment and created a mental to-do list.
Rule One didn’t apply—there was no body to hide. At least not yet.
Before she went on to Rule Two, she made copies of everything she would mail back to the agency. Months ago she’d acquired all the tools she needed—a laminator and magnetic ink—from agency contacts she’d met during her covert career. The ink came from Norman Cisco in New York, a friendly vendor who worked for the Federal Reserve Bank downtown and did side contract work for the agency. She wondered if she could convince him to help her out. She reached into her desk and pulled out an opened package of thumb-drives.
She used her computer’s all-in-one printer to scan everything she had from the agency, including her ID badge. She copied them onto a thumb-drive and labeled them “Photos from Mom’s last visit in April,” numbered 1 through 3. And, for good measure, she made a second copy of the thumb-drive and placed it into a pocket of the jeans she intended to wear when she left her apartment later that day, for the last time.
Then she placed the agency’s papers and her badge in a large envelope and, after ensuring no one was outside her apartment door, she carried her chef’s knife with her as she stuffed the envelope into the mail chute just outside the door to her apartment. It was 2:08 p.m.
Rule Two: Assemble a false identity and escape looking for all the world like a local. Off to the computer. She used the Internet and Google Maps and found a new home town, Woodbine, Iowa, suitably tiny and remote. Cassie used her cell phone’s camera to take photos of her face and crafted a new identity. She toyed with the idea of passing herself off as a man. She knew she could, with her flat chest. But she’d be more comfortable disguised as a female.
She formatted and printed a new driver’s license, and used an agency portable laminator she’d “borrowed” to finish the process. She picked a first name and a last name from two adjacent lines in Woodbine Iowa’s on-line phone directory. In less than thirty minutes she was Denise Hardcastle, a fiction writer from Woodbine. It seemed most appropriate to cover herself as a writer because she’d be living a life full of stories and lies no one could ever believe. If she survived.
Burned, she had no way to use the agency to find out which Islamic extremist group had killed her career. She made a mental note to figure this out later. Her top priority now was to clear out as fast as she could.
Cassie hacked into Wells Fargo and opened a bank account at their Des Moines branch, where Hardcastle might easily have had a banking relationship before moving east. Then, reaching deep into her memory, she recalled the bank account number of the Houmaz organization she’d hacked for the agency just twenty-two days ago in Riyadh.<
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She sent just over five thousand dollars from the Houmaz family—through several other bank accounts the agency used—to Hardcastle’s new bank account. Cassie printed a few checks using the MICR printer she’d acquired long ago from Norman Cisco. Its magnetic ink allowed a bank’s check-processing equipment to authenticate the checks.
She copied all the documents she might need onto another thumb-drive and turned off the computer. In five more minutes the computer’s hard disk was in her attaché case.
One question troubled her: if she lived long enough to reach someplace where she could find lodging, where would her assumed identity of “fiction writer” look to stay? She found the answer on her bookshelf in the living room. It was a book she’d bought on a whim when she’d wanted to find solitude after her fight with Evan: Writers’ and Artists’ Hideouts: Great Getaways for Seducing the Muse, by Andrea Brown. Cassie dropped the book in her case.
She entered the kitchen, her sanctuary, pride, and joy. All the ingredients she needed were there to make her final meal before she crossed forever from its comfort. Lamb curry with saffron pilaf. She opened and inhaled the scents from jars of saffron threads, curry paste, and sour garlic pickles.
Before she realized it, she was crying.
But she’d learned at The Farm to eat when you could. Your next meal might not be for a long while. She swiftly cooked and ate a Thai curried lamb dish. While she cooked, she munched on a pickle. Then she ate a quart of ice cream.
Escape looking like a local. No, that wouldn’t work. She’d need to change her appearance so she could escape without being identified. Best if she looked homeless, someone people shifted their eyes away from. A nameless nonperson they wouldn’t want to see. An outcast.
Cassie stripped off her clothes, entered the bathroom, gave herself a haircut. It was short and uneven. She found a bottle of black shoe polish in her closet and streaked her long, chestnut hair. She colored her eyebrows, letting the colors set while she filled the bathtub halfway. Cassie opened another bottle of shoe polish, this one brown, and poured both liquids into the bath, along with some red shoe polish she had.
It would be ugly, but it was the best she could hope for. Cassie sat in the tub. She poured the tub’s liquid over her face, under her arms, onto her chest. She took a deep breath and immersed herself deep into the diluted polish. She got out and looked into the mirror. Skin that used to be a pale cream was dusky now. Her hair had gone from longish and light brown to wild, short, and multicolored light and dark. If no one got too close, it might be believable.
After she used a hair drier to blow-dry her body, she placed her oldest and closest-to-threadbare raincoat in the bathtub part way, coloring parts of it, staining it. Cassie dried the raincoat with her drier. In her closet was a ski cap, perfect for completing the disguise. She applied the contents of a jar of K-Y jelly from her nightstand all over her hair, then placed the ski cap on her head, leaving gobs of greasy-looking hair hanging from the cap. Slimy. Cassie found an old outfit she’d planned on donating to the Salvation Army, and put it on. Then she put on the newly stained old raincoat.
In her attaché case she placed her cell phone and three sets of underwear, two dress blouses, and one pair of slacks. She squeezed it shut and placed the attaché case into an old paper shopping bag, which she covered with small boxes of dry food and water bottles.
She picked up the shopping bag. As she stood in front of the mirror, Cassie momentarily felt disconnected from her body. The person reflected there was a complete stranger, one who looked as homeless as Cassie felt.
She took a last look around.
She’d be leaving her Martin D-18 guitar behind. There was nothing she could do to change this. Her heart ached. But, she didn’t have time for sentimentality. She wiped her cheeks and kept moving.
One last check to make sure she had everything. With the chef’s knife in her hand, she approached the apartment door.
She was as prepared as she could ever be to run for her life.
Chapter Five
June 12, 6:51 p.m.
F Street NW, Washington, DC
Dressed like a homeless person, Cassie was ready for flight. With the shopping bag and the chef’s knife in one hand, she opened the apartment door and peeked out into the hallway. Empty. She maintained her grip on the knife as she silently, slowly walked the hall.
Someone in the building’s lobby might be watching the elevator indicator lights to see if it visited her floor.
A line of perspiration formed on her lip. She decided to take the stairs down six stories to the third floor, two steps at a time, fast, silent. There, she buzzed the elevator and waited. She rode it to the basement, alert to its grinding passage and fearing it might stop at the lobby.
When the doors opened in the basement, she took a deep breath and exited. In a space she’d hollowed out between two bricks two years ago when she’d first moved in, behind the building’s water heater, she deposited one of her two thumb-drives. Hidden in plain sight. Insurance. Just in case.
The elevator was still there. Without getting in, Cassie sent it up to the ninth floor, to her apartment. If there were hostiles in the building she hoped they were paying attention to the elevator light. Then she took the fire stairs leading to the service entrance in the basement where the trash service entered to collect the building’s garbage.
Rule Three: If possible, identify the people assisting your adversary. She took each step with deliberate care, the knife tight in her sweaty grip. Silently, she left the building and entered the alleyway that exited onto the street in front of the apartment.
Cassie moved along the shady side of the alleyway toward the exit from the alleyway. She found cover against the dark red brick and edged her head to let one eye see the street.
And, as she’d feared, there it was. Cassie couldn’t be sure, of course, so maybe it was just an old, unmarked van. But, driven by terror, she waited until she could calm herself. Threatened by every person walking down the street past the alleyway where she hid, she forced herself to peek and took another, more thorough look.
The sun reflected off a tiny point in one of the van’s panel joints. It was round and regular, shaped like a bullet hole. A lens for a videocam. Not a good time to leave her hiding space—her disguise wasn’t foolproof in the bright afternoon light. She entered the van’s license plate number into her cell phone’s notes app and watched patiently.
A man dressed in a utility outfit emerged from the front of her building, beckoning toward the van. The van’s door opened and two men emerged. Dressed in shades of gray and blue, almost camouflage against the concrete buildings, they crossed the street and entered her building. Their faces were dark, possibly Middle Eastern. Their gray raincoats were not quite big enough to hide the bulges of automatic weapons in shoulder holsters. One held what appeared to be a broom handle, but its end was sharpened to a point. Cassie gulped, remembering she’d seen one like that in the linen closet in her hotel in Riyadh.
Rule Four didn’t apply. No one would help her escape.
And there were no other rules; she’d be on her own until she either escaped or was murdered.
She assumed her hunters carried cell phones and so did the van’s driver. If she tried to escape now and the driver noticed, he’d send her description to the men now on their way to her apartment.
Back into the alleyway she went, to its darkest recesses, behind piles of garbage. She waited until dusk. The odor of rotting food left her feeling queasy. She focused on keeping her rebellious stomach calm. The last thing she needed was to toss her lunch.
Cassie remembered her desperate thoughts in Riyadh just a few weeks ago. Could she kill them if she had to, just as she’d murdered Abdul?
From her hiding place, she could see people dressed for business, walking down the street to visit the lobbyist offices in the buildings a few blocks away on K Street. Normal people with normal lives.
One unwelcome thought burst into he
r mind. Uncle Misha would know how to get away. Why hadn’t she asked her mother more about him when she’d told her stories about the man? Too late.
Cassie formed a rudimentary escape plan. She knew at this time of day the sun would set soon, and the streets were already crowded with people heading from their jobs to the Metro on their way home. Good. After sunset but before the streetlights came on, there was a ten-minute gap when the city streets had no street lighting. Even better.
She could leave her cover in the alley then. She looked at her watch. Another five minutes or so. But what of the thugs now in her building? When would they trace her to the alleyway?
A scraping noise in front of her. The alleyway door she’d exited hours ago sprung open again.
The door clanked closed as the two men from the van pushed their way toward where she hid.
She gasped, her whole body flinched involuntarily with surprise and fear, drawing their attention toward her spot.
The thugs looked in her direction and saw her. Oh shit! She was so fucked.
She began a noisy search through the garbage, picking up junk, looking at it and tossing it away. From a distance, she hoped she’d look homeless and desperate. She shook her head, muttering to herself. Dusk set in. She deliberately tottered toward the street. Toward the van where her murderers had come from.
