Hunt the Lion

by Chad Zunker

  At the end of the redbrick strip mall, she found her destination: Commonwealth Vault. A private security company that offered twenty-four-hour access to safe-deposit boxes. The parking lot out front was nearly empty. All the other businesses were closed. She took another cautious glance behind her, looking around for other suspicious vehicles in the parking lot; then she opened a glass door at the front of Commonwealth Vault. There was nothing inside the small lobby but a windowless secure door. Following instructions listed on a small sign posted on the wall, Natalie stepped up to the door, placed her finger on a scanner, and looked up into a camera above the door. Through a lobby speaker, a male voice asked for her full name. Natalie Elizabeth Foster. The door clicked open.

  A guy wearing a nice brown sport coat with the Commonwealth logo sewn on the front met Natalie inside, and he ushered her over to a desk with a computer. He quickly confirmed more of her security information and then disappeared around a corner. Seconds later, he was back with a set of keys. She followed him down a clean hallway, where he unlocked a huge vault door and led her inside a room lined with metal safe-deposit boxes of various sizes. He located hers near the middle and asked her to put in her key. Natalie pulled her key out of her purse, stuck it in the lock, turned. The vault guy did the same with his key, and she now had access to the metal box inside. He handed it to her, guided her to a private viewing room, then asked her to hit the buzzer at the door when she was done.

  Alone in the room, Natalie couldn’t believe she was sitting there. Did Sam know this was coming? Is that why he’d set this up in the first place? It was only under the most dire of circumstances that either of them were to use the contents of the metal box. It felt surreal to be the one doing it. Natalie exhaled, opened the box. She found two sealed manila envelopes inside—one marked Sam, the other marked Natalie, both in Sam’s familiar handwriting. Tearing open her envelope, she poured the contents on the white table in front of her. There was a thin rubber-banded stack of hundred-dollar bills totaling $2,000 in cash. Another rubber band was wrapped around a DC driver’s license and a credit card, both with the name Sarah Dearborn—a name she’d dreamed up while sitting at the kitchen table with Sam and sharing laughs, as if this were something fun to do. It wasn’t fun now. Natalie’s profile picture was next to the strange name. There was also a passport for Sarah Dearborn. And, finally, a burner cell phone.

  Unsealing the other manila envelope, Natalie poured out a second set with the exact same items, only for Sam. His name was David Doyle. Driver’s license, credit card, passport, cash, and burner phone. She exhaled, shook her head. They were two people able and prepared to disappear at a moment’s notice. What kind of life was this? However, after last month’s ordeal involving assassins, abductors, and a crazy oilman named Lex Hester, Sam had insisted they have Tommy Kucher create these packages for both of them. In case something unusual happened and the FBI couldn’t find Hester, he’d suggested, and they somehow found themselves in sudden peril.

  Staring at his face on his alias, Natalie felt anger rise up in her again. Sam had known something was going to happen. That’s why he’d had Tommy pull all this together. Sam had been aware that he was walking straight into a perilous situation and had prepared in advance. Stuffing the IDs, cash, and the burner phones into her purse, Natalie shut the metal box and buzzed the sport-coat guy. After returning the box to its secure spot, she signed out and asked the guy to call her a cab. A few minutes later, she was on her way back to DC proper.

  She stared down at the new driver’s license in her fingers.

  Natalie Foster, meet Sarah Dearborn.

  TWENTY

  At about five in the morning, Sam left the safe confines of the church and again hit the cold streets of Moscow. The sun was already rising, and the streets were growing busier with traffic. Hands tucked in pockets, he managed to locate an Aeroexpress station a few blocks south of the Moskva River, where he used some of his rubles to pay for a ticket at a machine and waited with a crowd of commuters. Sam pressed his back against a cool gray wall, making sure he could monitor every single person who passed in front of him. Two Russian police officers strolled in his direction. Sam turned to avoid any direct eye contact. When his train finally arrived, he boarded with a crowd of others, found a seat in the very corner, kept his eyes mostly at his feet. In his peripheral vision, he didn’t feel any suspicious stares back at him. Most of the other travelers looked just as weary as he—although he doubted any of them had had a night quite like his.

  The Aeroexpress train took twenty minutes to drop him at the Sheremetyevo International Airport. Sam felt uneasy walking into a place with so much security—like a gazelle walking into a crowded lion’s den. The men in uniforms were trained to seek out suspicious people, so he did his best to walk with an unsuspecting gait. He had no choice. He had to get the hell out of Moscow as quickly as possible. He found a digital board for exiting flights and located a 6:30 a.m. Aeroflot flight to Munich. He checked the time, needed to hurry. He walked briskly through the terminal until he found a counter for Aeroflot, a Russian airline, waited five minutes in a short line, then asked the attendant if there were any seats open for the early flight to Munich. Fortunately, she spoke good English, smiled in a flirting kind of way, and told Sam she still had five seats available. Sam handed her the alias passport Pelini had given him, along with the fake travel visa in the back, and a stack of rubles to pay for the seat. The attendant typed everything in with no apparent issues, as he received no second glances, and she handed back his passport and a newly printed boarding pass.

  “Enjoy your flight, Mr. Alexander,” she said with a thick Russian accent.

  With the last few rubles he had left, Sam purchased a pair of dark aviator sunglasses and a gray knit cap inside an airport store, put them both on, then moved deeper into the bowels of the airport. He was now flat broke. Five thousand miles from home without a dime in his pocket. The line for security was long and slow. Sam kept looking at the time on the digital board nearby, hoping he wouldn’t miss his flight. When he finally reached the front, he immediately felt eyeballs on him from the older security guard. While waiting, Sam had wondered if it would seem odd to security for him to pass through with no bag—not a briefcase, satchel, or even a backpack—as he noted that every other person in the line around him carried some kind of travel bag. It was too late to do anything about it.

  To Sam, the old man in uniform behind the kiosk looked like the stereotypical old KGB agent from an eighties cold-war movie, his face wrinkled and set with a permanent scowl. Swallowing, Sam handed him the boarding pass and his passport, reflecting stupidly for a moment on his trip to Mexico City last month, where he’d had to bolt out of the airport line at the very last minute to avoid being captured by Mexican security personnel. He never wanted to do that again.

  “Glasses,” the guard demanded in Russian, eyes slits.

  Sam apologized, slipping off the sunglasses.

  Three or four more stern looks back and forth between them. Sam begged his own face to stay relaxed. The KGB agent finally grunted, stamped his passport, and allowed Sam to pass through to the other side. However, it wasn’t until Sam had made his way through a body scanner, got a full-on pat down by a husky security guard, then retrieved the sealed pouch with the computer tablet from the conveyor belt that he finally exhaled.

  Checking the time on one of the flight boards, Sam had only a few minutes to board the plane before the doors closed. If he missed the flight, he had no other way to purchase another ticket. And no intention of openly hassling with a Russian airline agent to try to get on another plane. He threaded the other travelers in the large terminal hallway, hoping his best walk-run wouldn’t draw any extra eyes to him. Approaching, he noticed the seating area at his gate was completely empty, and the airline attendant was just about to shut the doors leading out the walkway to the plane. He held out his boarding pass. She smiled, told him he’d just barely made it, scanned the boarding pass, and
allowed him down the walkway.

  Sam took several deep breaths—he was the last person to board the plane. A flight attendant inside welcomed him and sealed the door behind him. Sunglasses on, Sam made his way down the aisle, found his seat near the very back, next to an older couple. He buckled himself, slouched down, and made sure his posture told the older couple he wasn’t at all interested in any small talk.

  When the plane finally lifted off Russian ground, Sam felt a measure of relief pour through him. Closing his eyes, he eased even deeper into the seat cushions. He had somehow survived Moscow. No small feat considering the catastrophic circumstances of last night. He couldn’t say the same for those who were there with him. As the plane climbed into the sky, he again reflected on the faces of his team members, nearly all of them dead. His heart felt heavy. They had all treated him with dignity and respect—like he was truly one of them.

  Three team members were still unconfirmed.

  Lucinda—who had remained in London.

  Mack—his second backup man on the streets.

  Marcus Pelini—his long-lost father and the man who had lured him into this death trap in the first place.

  TWENTY-ONE

  The cab dropped Natalie two blocks from the warehouse facility she’d discovered in Sam’s file. She didn’t want to be let out right in front, just in case there were other eyes watching the building. She had no idea what to expect. She hoped to be able to piece together a clue or two on Operation Black Heron. The rusted red warehouse sat in an industrial part of east DC, situated among several other run-down warehouse-type buildings of similar size. At nearly midnight, there was not much activity going on in and around the buildings. The warehouse sat in near darkness.

  Natalie paused at a street corner, gave another sweep of the area. She double-checked the address again. This was the right place. She had no clue what she was about to find inside the warehouse, if she could even gain access.

  Crossing the street, she sidled up next to the massive four-story warehouse building, which had several huge garage-type doors in front probably big enough to fit eighteen-wheelers. There were no windows anywhere in the front. The place wasn’t big on aesthetics. Between two oversize garage doors, she found a normal black office door. Locked. She moved farther down and found another similar door. Also locked. Where was Sam when she needed him to pick a damn lock? She tried the metal handles on the massive garage doors, seeing if she could somehow manually lift them, but they were secure to the concrete. The place was locked down.

  Circling around to the side of the warehouse, she spotted a square window about fifteen feet up. There was no easy way to reach it. No emergency stairs, ladder, or anything of the sort. She’d have to be creative if she was going to get inside. Next to the building were several metal dumpsters, all stuffed full of trash bags, boxes, and dozens of empty wooden storage crates. Natalie dug through the trash and found five crates that were still in decent shape. One by one, she tugged them out of the dumpster and stacked them directly beneath the window. When she had a shaky crate tower built, she began to climb carefully. The tower shifted a bit back and forth against the metal warehouse but held steady enough for her to reach the window.

  Peering inside, she couldn’t make out much. The warehouse was pitch-dark. Natalie grabbed the edge of the window, tugged, found it locked. Looking away from the window, she balled her fist and thrust her sleeve-covered right elbow into the glass as hard as she could, hoping she didn’t break a bone in the effort. She didn’t climb up these crates for nothing. The glass easily shattered. Leaning in, she listened but heard nothing. She took a moment to knock all the jagged glass away so she didn’t cut herself. Then she pulled herself up over the window ledge. There was nothing for her to scale down on the inside. She’d have to jump for it. She dropped to the concrete floor and immediately rolled to absorb the direct impact on her legs, banging her shoulder hard in the process.

  Getting up, she rubbed the ache in her shoulder. She pulled out her burner phone, turned on the flashlight, began to investigate the huge facility. In the middle, she discovered what looked like movie-production sets, each with makeshift rooms—bedrooms, hallways, offices, living spaces, and even bathrooms—every kind of room she could think of inside a house. Most of them were fully furnished. Beds, chairs, tables, sofas. On the exterior walls of the sets, she found pieces of white paper taped up, marking the different sections: Floor One, Floor Two, Floor Three, all the way up through Floor Six. Were they filming something? She snapped dozens of pictures with her phone.

  Moving farther into the warehouse, she discovered another massive construction project. She allowed her flashlight to shine over the full height of it. Built floor to ceiling, it looked like the side of a tall building. There were several ropes hanging from the top all the way to the bottom. She found climbing harnesses sitting in a pile on the dusty concrete floor. Her eyes went back up to the wall. Climbing was listed on Sam’s schedule, but she’d never even heard him talk about such a thing. Although she’d noticed his hands were more calloused than normal the past few weeks. When she’d mentioned it to him, Sam had claimed he’d started lifting weights at the gym inside his law firm building.

  Was that a lie, too?

  If so, why would he need to practice climbing the side of a tall building?

  Behind the climbing apparatus, she found several tables surrounded by metal folding chairs. The tables were covered with fast-food paper bags, foam cups, and other assorted trash. Clearly, people had sat around them, eating, and discussing whatever was going on inside the warehouse. She found a binder sitting at the end of one of the tables. RUSSIAN LANGUAGE 101. Inside, she flipped through full sections of completed grammar worksheets in what she recognized as Sam’s handwriting. Sam had received a crash course in Russian. She paused at the back pocket of the binder, where she found a news clipping from a Russian publication.

  Pulling it out, she stared at the face of a midforties man with a neatly trimmed brown beard, wearing a sleek gray suit. She recognized the name.

  Vladimir Zolotov.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Aeroflot plane touched down in Munich around eight thirty in the morning. Exiting with the crowd, Sam thankfully passed through the appropriate immigration and customs checkpoints without incident. No second looks, no suspicious stares. His alias passport seemed to be working out just fine; he was grateful to have it right now. What he didn’t have were any resources to catch a cab or rent a car. No cash, no credit card, nothing but the stolen clothes on his back. He doubted he could hitchhike his way out of the airport, nor did he intend to try. To get to Salzburg, he’d have to resort back to the street skills that had landed him in juvie as a teenager. For someone who’d long wanted to put his life of crime behind him, life had sure forced him to steal a lot of cars over the past year.

  Following the airport signs, Sam made his way outside to the busy pickup lane, where dozens of family members and friends had pulled up in their cars to welcome tired travelers and load luggage into car trunks. Sam had no luggage. At least that kept him agile. Standing on the curb, he peered in both directions, spotted several airport security guards situated up and down the sidewalk. He would need to be careful and quick. Fortunately, it was chaotic and loud. Dozens of cars were constantly pulling in and out of open spots, all up and down the long pickup lane, horns honking everywhere. At different places, the vehicles were even stacked two deep.

  Sam patiently waited. He couldn’t foul this one up. Not when surrounded by an army of security personnel. After five minutes, he spotted a potential target—a young man, midtwenties, left a black Nissan Rogue idling. The man didn’t even wait for an open spot. He just parked in the second lane and temporarily boxed in two other cars. He obviously couldn’t wait a second longer to see his young girlfriend. She stood by a bench holding a small dog in her arms, and there were several large designer bags of luggage at her feet. Smiling with glee, the man went in for a hug and a kiss. The woman set
the dog down and wrapped her arms fully around him.

  During their extended embrace, Sam made his move. This was not the first time he’d stolen an idling car with the driver nearby. He’d done this kind of job more than a dozen times as a teen, casually dropping inside a Mercedes or a Lexus at various gas stations where wealthy drivers were ignorant or arrogant enough to keep their cars running outside, pumping that cold AC while they rushed inside to grab their Snickers bars and Diet Cokes. Sam would slip in, pull out, and calmly drive away. He barely needed more than thirty seconds.

  Trying to move with the same brash confidence of his youth, Sam stepped off the curb and circled the front of a waiting BMW sedan, where it looked like a grandfather was loading luggage for three teenage grandkids. The group created a nice sight barrier between Sam and the Nissan Rogue driver. Sam briskly moved to the driver’s door of the idling Nissan, climbed inside, put the car in drive, then eased into exiting traffic. He closely watched his rearview mirror. As expected, the young man and woman were still in a full-on embrace on the sidewalk, in no real hurry to take their hands off each other. The dog was now running around at their feet, which was perfect. Every extra second of distraction mattered. Sam figured he probably had a full three minutes before the couple realized something was going on. That was damn near an eternity with car theft.

  Pressing the gas pedal down even farther, Sam accelerated up the exit lane. When he noticed a cell phone sitting in the cup holder, he lowered the window and dropped it out onto the pavement. He didn’t need police using GPS to track him. He kept his speed under control, left the airport, and drove into the city.