140914383X

by Raymond Khoury

  At least I’d bought some time.

  Now I needed to make use of it.

  52

  I churned through a few desperate ideas before quickly settling on the one I thought had the least chance of turning into a disaster. I quickly put it through the wringer a few times, made sure I hadn’t missed anything, and decided I had to go for it.

  I pulled out the burner phone and called Deutsch’s personal phone. She answered immediately.

  “It’s me.”

  Her voice jumped, even as it went lower. “Where are you?”

  “I’m close. Listen, Annie. I’ve got a hostile holding two friends hostage here in the city. Not far from Twenty-Six Fed. It’s the same motherfucker who killed Kirby and I think he killed Nick too—”

  “What?” she interrupted, in shock.

  “I’m convinced they killed him, Annie. And a bunch of other people too. And this guy wants me, and you can imagine how badly I want him, but I can’t take him alone. Not with him holding them. The guy’s a pro. A black ops pro. And he’s sanctioned. I need your help, but we have to do it my way. My friends’ lives are at stake.”

  “Jesus, Sean—”

  I didn’t have time for any kind of debate. “Annie, are you in or out? I need to know right now.”

  Even as I said it, I knew she would help. She’s already gone out on a major limb for me by getting me the drawings instead of handing in the Bureau. For reasons only Deutsch could explain, I guess—and in spite of my inflicting the worst kind of humiliation on her when I escaped from her custody—it was clear she believed my version of events.

  I heard her take a steadying breath. “I’m in.”

  “OK. I need to get a SWAT team to West Twenty-third, between Seventh and Eighth.’

  “A SWAT team?”

  “Yes. And I need them there in the next fifteen minutes. The guy’s good, I can’t take him alone, not when he’s got my people in there with him.”

  “How am I going to get them to push the button, Sean? It can’t be a tip-off from you.”

  “I know. Here’s how we’ll play it. A call will come in from one of the informants me and Nick had with the Joint Terrorism Task Force. A Lebanese guy, Ramsey Salman. He’s in the database, works at a deli in Brooklyn. He was keeping tabs on a couple of preachers for us. He’s been dark for a while, but he’ll say there are a couple of guys in that apartment about to launch a hit on the city. It’ll justify a red alert about a credible incoming threat.”

  “Hang on, hang on.” She thought about it fast. “OK, but I can’t just say I got the call. I need an actual call to come into the Bureau switchboard, a call for you or Nick. And it can’t come from you, obviously.”

  Obviously—since it would be taped, and Deutsch needed it to stand up to scrutiny after the fact. I’d thought about this. If I made the call, there was the very real possibility that my voice print would be recognized, which would put her in a serious jam. My eyes wandered aimlessly across the joint as I looked at my solution. He was wiping down a table in the far corner.

  I waved Theo over to my table. “I know. I’ve got it covered.”

  “You’ve got someone who can make the call?”

  I watched as Theo walked over, hoping he’d be up for it—and that he’d be as good as he’d been in that audition. “Yes.”

  “OK, let’s get going. But better he ask for Nick. They’re routing all his calls to my BlackBerry.”

  Gigi’s head felt like it had after her one and only time at Coachella. She’d fulfilled a bucket list ambition by seeing Portishead live—their first two albums had been the soundtrack to her teens—but it had taken her a full week to recover from the experience. By the time Roger Waters had finished his trip back to The Dark Side Of The Moon, she’d felt like someone had drilled a hole in her cranium, filled it with silly putty and razor wire and left her on the cold lump of rock. The putty felt comfortably numb, but the second she moved—even a micron—the blades would score the inside of her skull and she’d want to die.

  As she blinked her eyes open and tried to pull focus, the situation that had put her on the floor of her own apartment came cascading back.

  Fuck.

  That pretty much summed it up.

  “Gigi,” she heard Kurt whisper. “You OK?”

  She pushed herself up on her elbows, ignoring the screaming anguish that was quickly filling the left side of her head. Kurt was turning toward her from a slump against the bedroom wall, eyes locked on hers. They were full of a chaotic storm of relief, terror, confusion and—she’d seen it only once before but knew she’d recognize it again—genuine care.

  “What’s happening?” she asked with a groan.

  “It’s going to be OK,” Kurt told her.

  “OK how?”

  “Reilly’s on his way.”

  This didn’t sit well. “What do you mean? How?”

  “I called him.” Kurt paused, seemingly embarrassed, then said, “He made me call him. Tell him we had a hit.”

  Gigi thought it through quickly and groaned. “You fucking pinhead!” she hissed. “Jesus Christ, Jaegers. Don’t you realize the bastard is going to kill us anyway?”

  She heard the intruder say, “Shut up. Both of you.”

  She turned and spotted him sitting in the living room, defiling her sleek Italian sofa, the one that had taken four months from order to delivery, and watching over them. Her expression soured with disdain. “Whatever, dickhead.” She twisted her face back at Kurt, shaking her head slowly, trying to block out the despair.

  She looked at Kurt. He just looked like he wanted to weep. Right then, she thought of how she loved the pinhead and how it would be nice to hear and say the words—she never had, not once—but first they needed to survive the night.

  The bastard checked his watch. “You two should kiss and make up. You don’t want to go out like this, do you?”

  “Up yours,” she spat back as she slithered backward toward the wall, closer to Kurt. She reached out and squeezed his forearm in what she hoped was a gesture of support, finishing up slumped right next to him.

  She inclined her head toward him and whispered, “Reilly’ll get him.”

  The movement was so painful she felt like she was going to puke. And she wasn’t sure she even believed what she’d just said.

  53

  From my vantage point in a sheltered doorway on Twenty-third street up the block from Gigi’s building I watched as the some NYPD uniforms quietly cordoned off the street and set up their perimeter.

  I could barely make out a couple of cops going in to the eatery, where they would herd everyone to the back of the place and tell them to stay clear of the windows until further notice. Another team would be doing the same on the opposite sidewalk.

  I’d spoken to Theo before I slipped out, needing to make sure he understood how important it was for him to keep our little secret. He was a bit nervous, rightfully worried about the call I’d asked him to make, which he’d pulled off with a very convincing foreign accent—not necessarily Lebanese, but it did the trick. I’d already assured him as strongly as I could that it was all under control and that he had nothing to worry about. I genuinely didn’t think he did. We’d made the call from my burner phone, which was untraceable. They didn’t have his voice on record, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them who’d made that call if it ever came down to it.

  Through the light snowfall that was drifting down from the darkness, I watched and waited, knowing I needed to move quickly once my window of opportunity opened up. I wouldn’t have much time if I was going to capitalize on the confusion and make my move undetected while the situation was still fluid.

  I was also wondering if my target would spot the forces moving in on him, and—mostly—I was hoping I hadn’t miscalculated and sealed Kurt and Gigi’s fate.

  Sandman walked over to one of the large windows and carefully peered outside. The snow was still falling—light, but steady. There was nothing going on o
ut there. Except . . . the street was quiet. Too quiet. No cars driving down. No pedestrians on the sidewalks. Nothing.

  He noticed the slightest of movements on the roof opposite. He pulled back and retrieved his night-vision scope, then he moved tight against one of the thick vertical columns of exposed brick that provided the loft’s skeleton and looked out through the scope. A sniper and a spotter were taking up position. He recognized the gear and the edges of the big letters on their ballistic vests.

  He swung the scope down toward the street, though the angle obscured the sidewalk immediately outside. He adjusted his position and looked down along the front of the building in time to catch two cops disappear from view inside the restaurant across from him.

  They’d tricked him. The sloth and his slut girlfriend had found a way to alert Reilly and he’d called in the troops.

  Sandman pulled out his gun, took quick strides over to his hostages and pushed the suppressor hard into the side of Kurt’s head.

  “What did you tell him?” he barked.

  “What? Why? Nothing. You heard me. I didn’t—”

  “What did you tell him?” he repeated, seething with controlled anger.

  Sandman leant his foot against Kurt and shoved him to one side before swinging the suppressor around to Gigi’s forehead. He kept his eyes locked on Kurt.

  “I want you to watch her die,” he hissed at Kurt. “I want you to watch it, knowing it’s your fault. In fact, I want you so close to her you’ll actually feel her die.”

  Sandman could see both defiance and fear in the girl’s eyes and knew that both were genuine. She wasn’t trying to hide her feelings, or mask one emotion with another. There were no prayers, pleading or promises. Like Sandman himself, she was completely in the moment and, at some level, he admired her for that. He’d need to kill them both eventually, once they’d outlived their usefulness. Based on what he had seen and heard, he’d already decided that a staged sex game with tragic unintended consequences would be an appropriate way to dispatch them both. It would simply be two more “deaths-by-misadventure” to add to all the others, but he had to deal with the nuisance of Reilly’s little counterpunch first.

  For now, he still needed them alive, so he pulled the gun away from the girl’s head. He stepped back a few paces, took out his encrypted cellphone and dialed.

  Roos answered quickly, evidently waiting for the update.

  “I’ve got a SWAT team getting ready to move in on me,” he told Roos. “It’s got to be Reilly.”

  “Can you get out clean?”

  “I could, but it would probably mean inflicting multiple casualties on friendlies, and our agreed mission protocol is for minimal collateral harm. Unless you want to sanction an override.”

  There was moment of silence as Roos considered this. “No. Current parameters remain in force.”

  Sandman had assumed that would be the case. You don’t expend seemingly bottomless resources to keep your work off the radar, only to blow it all when things get more difficult than you’d ideally like. “Then get them off my back. It’ll force Reilly’s hand.”

  “We’re already plugged in. They’re saying an informant called in a suspected terrorist cell with plans for an imminent attack.”

  “The guy’s no slouch.”

  “We’re telling them the Agency has someone on the inside and that we need to let it play out.”

  “Will that fly? The FBI won’t want to be left with major egg on its face if there’s any chance of it happening.”

  “Let us worry about that. You take care of your end.”

  “Copy that.”

  As Sandman ended the call, he realized he’d never taken quite that tone with his current employer. Of course they’d let it slide, but it told Sandman the extent to which Reilly had got under his skin. It certainly wasn’t personal—even the most relentlessly intractable and obdurate target would always fail to push a top operative toward emotion of any kind—but it had certainly become a matter of professional pride. On top of the sheer necessity of his current task, it would be immensely satisfying to take the guy down.

  No meticulous plan. No elaborate “accident.”

  Just a bullet in the brain and the body incinerated.

  It would be as if Agent Reilly had simply disappeared from the world, never to return.

  54

  I watched as the sedan reversed into the parking spot on Twenty-third and even before its sole occupant got out and walked to the back of the car I’d already decided he’d be the one.

  Ops like the one that I’d instigated around Gigi’s apartment would be JTTF efforts—Joint Terrorist Task Force, a combined effort of both the Bureau and the NYPD. The SWAT team that was converging on us wasn’t being dispatched from some bat cave. It consisted of all kinds of highly trained cops and agents with day jobs at CT or CI or any other division who, when they got the call, would make their own way to the staging location, somewhere safe outside the perimeter that was set up around Gigi’s building. Deutsch had called to tell me where that was, and I knew that if I waited within close reach of it, I’d get my chance.

  The big boys—the command post and the special weapons truck—hadn’t yet arrived, but they’d soon be here. I had to move quickly.

  With light snow dropping around me, I approached him as he popped the trunk, glancing inside it to make sure he had what I needed and somewhat relieved that he wasn’t anyone I knew. I mean, I’d been on many ops with these guys, guys I’d entrusted my life to while they’d done the same with me, and the fact that I didn’t know him made what I needed to do somewhat easier—not by much, though.

  “Hey,” I said in as friendly and harmless a tone as I could manage, “what’s going on down there?”

  He glanced around, but before he could answer, I swooped in and hit him with a big punch to the chest. He staggered back, winded, and I moved in quick with him and pulled his gun out of his holster and pressed it against him while my other hand grabbed his cuffs and handed them to him.

  “Turn around. Quickly.”

  He grudgingly did as I asked. I cuffed his hands behind his back.

  “Flat on the ground. Right now.”

  He went down.

  I tucked the gun away and turned to pillage his trunk. I slipped on his navy blue field jacket, cap, and level three ballistic vest. He was FBI, not NYPD ESU—Emergency Services Unit—and the letters on the vest reflected it. I took out the Remington pump-action shotgun, checked that it was loaded and chambered, then I saw something else. A battering ram. This, I hadn’t expected—but it opened up a safer option, so I slung the shotgun over my shoulder and grabbed the ram.

  “In the trunk,” I told him. “Let’s go.”

  He was climbing in when my phone rang.

  I slammed the trunk shut and started trotting back towards Gigi’s building as I answered the call. It was Deutsch.

  The radio broke into several pieces as Deutsch hurled it against the inside of the Bureau SUV.

  Gallo hadn’t even had a chance to sign off after telling her that he’d been ordered to shut down the operation due to express orders from Homeland Security. Up until that moment her head had been lagging behind her heart—the former already totally sold on Reilly’s innocence, the latter still harboring reservations. Now the two were in perfect synchrony. The bastards clearly had some staggering reach.

  She pulled out her personal cell phone and dialed Reilly’s burner phone, already anticipating that what the SWAT team was supposed to take care would come down to her and Reilly on their own.

  “I’m really sorry, Sean, I can’t do anything about this.”

  It was clear that Deutsch was pissed off. I asked, “About what? What’s going on?”

  “We just got the order to pull back.”

  I had guessed right. “Langley?”

  “Yep. They’re saying they’ve got someone on the inside and that it’s under control, that there’s no imminent attack and we’re jeopardizing an op they
’ve been working on for months.”

  I had to chortle at their brazenness, given that there was no “inside” for them to have anyone in.

  “It’s out of my hands. Out of Gallo’s, out of the Director’s and everyone else who matters, bar the president himself by the looks of it.”

  I told her, “Don’t worry about it.” Which she clearly wasn’t expecting.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got your orders, Annie. Stand down and pull out.”

  “Sean—”

  “Annie. It’s not your fight. Just get out of here and make sure you still have a job tomorrow. I might need you again.”

  And with that, I ended the call, not giving Deutsch a chance to object further.

  I had work to do.

  55

  I hugged the shadows as I quick-walked down the sidewalk towards the entrance to Gigi’s building, trying to look like I was moving with clear purpose on a set task.

  I made it to the entrance without encountering anyone, and I guessed I could thank my shooter and his handlers for that. The chaos they’d triggered by getting the op called off was giving me an opening.

  I looked around, made sure no one was watching, then I gave the frame of the building’s front door a little jab with the battering ram and the glass door popped open.

  I slipped inside, found the stairs, and climbed up.

  Sandman watched the spotter team on the roof across from him fall back and disappear into the night.

  Somewhat relieved that he wasn’t going to have to shoot his way through a SWAT deployment, he stepped back into the apartment, away from the windows, and hovered over his captives, thinking things through.

  “You two are lucky that at least someone can do what the fuck they’re told,” he said to Kurt and Gigi.

  Neither of them moved or responded.

  Something had changed about the pair, though he couldn’t quite identify it. It was like they were now offering him a single reaction instead of two—as though they were somehow inside each other’s thoughts.