Hunt the Lion

by Chad Zunker

  “Liz Fields speaking.”

  Natalie was shocked. She didn’t expect an answer from the woman. Had David not simply tried to reach her at her office?

  “Ms. Fields, this is Molly from the Amba Hotel. There’s been some confusion here, so I just wanted to confirm that you’ll be staying with us for another night?”

  “Excuse me? I’m not staying at the Amba Hotel.”

  Natalie tilted her head. “You mean, staying again tonight? Because we still have your personal items inside your hotel room.”

  “I don’t understand. I haven’t been staying at your hotel. There must be a mistake. Those items aren’t mine.”

  Natalie couldn’t tell yet if she was being played. So she kept on pushing. “Your associates, Mr. Callahan and Mr. Benoltz, have been trying to reach you.”

  The woman started to sound agitated. “Who? Look, Molly, I don’t know who you’re talking about. Those names mean nothing to me. And I’m not staying at your hotel. I think you’ve got some wires crossed, dear.”

  “My apologies, Ms. Fields. Good day to you.”

  Natalie hung up, stared at her phone. What the hell?

  Needing to call back David ASAP to get some more clarity on the situation, she decided to grab an elevator down to the lobby. She took a careful peek around, found no one suspicious awaiting her arrival, and located a courtesy phone in the corner. She sat in the chair beside it, called David’s cell phone. He promptly answered.

  “It’s Natalie,” she said in hushed tones.

  “Why’re you whispering?”

  “I’m in a public place. What does Liz Fields look like, David?”

  “What?”

  “Your client from Caldwell & Meyer. She a heavyset redhead in her fifties?”

  “No, not even close. She’s a thin black-haired woman in her thirties. Why’re you asking? Have you heard anything from Sam yet?”

  “Not yet.” She continued to redirect. She had no desire to give David any details about what she’d discovered. She didn’t want to pull him into this any deeper than necessary. It was clearly in his best interest. “How did you find this client?”

  “Sam found her. He set up the meetings. I guess you got my message that she’s also missing. What’s with all the questions about her?”

  “Sorry to be abrupt, David, but I’ve got to run,” Natalie insisted. “Leave a voice mail at my office if you hear anything from Sam.”

  She hung up before David could utter another word.

  The client, Liz Fields, was clearly a setup to get Sam to London.

  And Sam was leading the setup.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  They hid out in a corner of the busy Salzburg train station. Sam stood with his back to the wall, arms crossed, eyes on high alert. Tommy sat cross-legged on the floor with a laptop, pecking away. He kept a backup laptop hidden inside a safe-deposit box ten blocks from his new apartment in case of a moment of crisis, he’d said. Unfortunately, that moment had already come—thanks to Sam, who felt horrible about it. He’d led Russian assassins straight to Tommy’s doorstep. Sam thought Tommy’s hands might never stop shaking. Tommy kept muttering how he really needed a damn cigarette, and Sam was shocked to find out that Tommy had quit smoking recently. His friend really had reinvented himself. No spiky hair with purple streaks, no earrings, no new tattoos, and now he was no longer even a smoker.

  “I’m really sorry, Mav,” Sam said for the fifth time, shaking his head. Maverick had been the nickname Tommy had used online with Sam for years.

  “Let it go already,” Tommy urged him. “I’m fine, I swear.”

  Sam stiffened suddenly when he spotted two figures down the walkway. As they approached, he exhaled. The two men were much older than the Russians. Still, those two killers were nearby somewhere—Sam was ready to bolt town. He just wasn’t sure where he was going next. And he needed help to get there. Tommy had been working on that.

  “You really think they tracked my CIA alias?” he asked Tommy.

  Tommy shrugged. “Can you think of another way?”

  Sam shook his head. “But that brings up more questions.”

  “Like who has inside access to the details of your covert CIA operation and would then use them to wipe you out?”

  Sam thought of Pelini, kept wondering.

  “Yes!” Tommy blurted out. “Let’s go ask Rod Luger.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s in Milan,” Tommy declared, turning his laptop to show Sam.

  Sam knelt, examined the information. The name Rod Luger, Mack’s CIA alias, had checked into Hotel Berna in Milan just two hours ago.

  “That’s our guy,” Sam confirmed.

  A surge of energy rushed through Sam, as he was already calculating his next move. He had to find Mack ASAP. He could only hope the man he’d first met inside a Mexico City hotel suite last month had some answers for him. Either way, it was so good to confirm that at least one other person from his crew was still alive.

  Sam’s eyes narrowed in on Tommy. “Listen, you really should go somewhere and hide out for a bit. Let the dust settle.”

  Tommy shook his head. “No way, man. I’m staying with you.”

  Sam was more adamant. “Staying with me puts you right in the crosshairs.”

  “It might also keep you alive, so drop it.” Tommy shoved his laptop inside a gray backpack, slung it over his skinny shoulder. “Come on, the train will be here in twenty minutes, and we need to get two tickets to Milan.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Her hair tucked beneath a newly purchased Washington Redskins ball cap, Natalie took a cab ride ten blocks over to Metrorail headquarters. She wore dark sunglasses even though the early-morning sky was heavily overcast. Sitting low in the back seat, she asked the driver to watch his mirrors for any followers. The old driver didn’t even give her a second look. Natalie guessed her request was not altogether unusual for this ridiculous town. Arriving at a nondescript building, she handed cash to the driver and darted inside the building.

  Squeezing into a full elevator, she tucked into the corner and rode up to the third floor. She still wore the sunglasses. No one paid much attention. Everyone looked dog-tired and seemed to be dragging their way into a new workday, waiting for their coffee to kick in. Exiting, she followed a drab hallway, turned a corner, and found the door for her contact at Metro. She knocked twice, waited. The door clicked open a second later, and a balding man of fifty, with thick glasses and an unusually short tie, allowed her inside. He shut the door behind them.

  “I really appreciate this, Max,” Natalie said.

  “Of course,” Max replied.

  Max Graham worked in a small office by himself in front of a wall of TV monitors as part of Metro’s security division. The ten monitors on the wall in front of his desk all showed live security-camera footage from various points across DC’s Metrorail system. Natalie had enjoyed several dealings with Max over the years while working different stories. He was always pleasant and helpful, if a bit awkward. There were four small framed pictures of Max sitting with his five beloved cats on the cluttered desk in front of her. A bachelor his whole life, Max said the cats were his kids.

  “Crazy scene last night,” Max suggested, sitting in his squeaky chair, pulling up security footage from the tube as Natalie stood behind him.

  Natalie had called Max first thing, told him she was working a story, and asked if she could possibly see what Metro’s cameras had caught of the man who’d run through the terminal last night with a gun. She did not mention that she was the one chased through the terminal, and Max had not seemed to put it together yet. Natalie had no desire to give more details than necessary. She just wanted to see if she could find out any more info on her hunter.

  “Here it is,” Max said, pressing Play.

  Natalie watched the monitor in the middle. She shivered at the sight of the goateed man aggressively pushing his way out of a train car. The same car she’d just bolted from herself, although, thankf
ully, she was not in the camera shot. Gun in hand, the man raced into the terminal as people panicked all around him. Max switched cameras to keep tabs on the man as he moved all the way through the terminal, up the stairs, and out of Metro’s final camera shot. Natalie knew the rest of the story and still felt grateful for the group of muscle-bound men who’d stepped in to save her.

  “Any ID on the guy yet?” Natalie asked.

  Max shook his head. “Nothing yet. Not sure we’re searching too hard, since no one got hurt. We don’t really have a clue what the guy was doing. We think he may have been chasing after someone, but it’s too hard to tell because everyone in sight is running away from him. Although there’s a report of an encounter with a girl outside the Capital One Arena. Eyewitnesses place this same guy at the scene, where he apparently got into a brawl with several other men before fleeing.”

  “Can you go back to the second camera, in the stairwell?”

  “Sure thing.”

  Max typed onto his keyboard, pulled up the footage of the man racing up the stairwell. It was the closest camera shot Natalie had of the guy. Max let the footage roll, and Natalie asked him to pause it right in the middle. She leaned in close. She spotted a marking on top of the man’s right hand—the one holding the gun.

  “Can you enhance that?” Natalie asked, pointing at the man’s hand.

  Max kept pecking away until they had a close-up of the hand. The marking was a small black-and-white tattoo of a creepy skull with dog tags that said Hell Dogs.

  THIRTY

  Lloyd slept overnight in a stiff chair next to his father’s ICU hospital bed. He wouldn’t really call it sleep, as not much of that actually happened. Not while sitting in a chair that felt more like a medieval torture device, with the machines in the room beeping annoyingly every thirty seconds and a carousel of nurses coming in and out all night long. Still, Pop had survived the night. Although still in a coma with no real signs of coming out of it anytime soon, his father was at least still with him. That mattered much more to him than his sleep right now. Keep on fighting, Pop!

  Rubbing his face, Lloyd looked over at his father. It was hard as hell to see him lying in that hospital bed, white as a ghost, his body looking so damn fragile. His old man used to lift weights in their garage when Lloyd was a kid, and he’d always marveled at the superior strength of his father. Pop could throw up 250 pounds on the bench press as if he were lifting pillows. Lloyd used to brag about him relentlessly to his group of neighborhood buddies. My dad can beat up your dad, and all that jazz—except it was true. His pop was by far the toughest and strongest SOB any of them knew.

  All of that onetime strength had now completely vanished.

  Agent Epps arrived, handed Lloyd a huge cup of coffee.

  “Thanks,” Lloyd said, rolling his head around his tight neck.

  “Any change?” Epps asked him.

  Lloyd shook his head. “Not yet.”

  “He’ll push through,” Epps offered. “He’s not done bossing you around just yet, Chief.”

  “I hope you’re right.” Lloyd took a sip of hot coffee. “What do you got?”

  “Hard to find this guy. Took me working several different channels with the few friends I have over at the Agency, but I finally got someone to give me a name. Mike Madrone. Ex–Special Forces. I was told he now works with a unit doing covert activity. I was also told in no uncertain terms that it would be in my best interest to stop asking about him.”

  “You get an address?”

  “Yeah, already went by there. No one was home. A neighbor recognized him from the surveillance video but said she hadn’t seen him in probably six months.”

  “We need to find out who pulled Madrone off the grid.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  The train ride to Milan would take them seven long hours. They tried to get comfortable in their seats. Sam sat by the window, Tommy in the seat right next to him, pecking furiously away on his laptop. He told Sam a guy from one of the rogue hacker groups he regularly associated with had shipped him one of the most secure and high-powered mobile internet devices on the planet, one used only by Chinese intelligence. The computer was like an extension of Tommy’s hands. He rarely let go of it, as if his body might not function without it.

  Their passenger car was half-full. Sam had taken extra time to study every other face in the car. None stood out as potential killers. No second glances. No suspicious stares. Still, he watched them all carefully for the first hour, seeing if someone would make a move. When the hour finally passed and no one sprang up and pulled a gun on them, Sam started to relax. At least as much as he could under the current conditions.

  Staring out the glass, Sam marveled at the beauty of the passing Austrian landscape. The mountains, the rivers, the trees. Under different circumstances, this would’ve been an enjoyable train ride through a majestic setting. He would rather be sitting there with Natalie curled up next to him. She would’ve loved this train ride. But it was difficult to enjoy much of anything right now with Russian assassins still hot on his tail.

  With the addition of a new burner phone Tommy had secured for him in Salzburg, Sam had considered calling Natalie, pretending he was still sick in bed inside his London hotel room, and telling her he would probably be there sleeping all day. Just to keep things normal. He knew with each passing hour that she didn’t hear from him today, she would grow more concerned. He also considered calling his boss, David, who was probably already wondering if Sam was dead in his hotel room right now.

  But he decided against making either call. It was just too dangerous. Even with a burner phone, he didn’t want to risk unwittingly pulling either Natalie or David into this dangerous situation. He also couldn’t stand the thought of lying to Natalie anymore. Every time he’d been with her the past month after returning from training at the warehouse, the lies had rippled right off his tongue. The class is good. Learning a lot. Glad I signed up for it. A full month of these lies had burned a big hole in his gut and had given him a perpetual stomachache.

  He was so damn tired of the lies.

  And so damn angry with himself for agreeing to do it.

  Assuming he could survive this, he could only hope Natalie would find the strength to forgive him—again. He certainly didn’t deserve it.

  His mind again drifted to Marcus Pelini, his father, the man who’d asked him to lie to Natalie in the first place. Pelini was a man of lies. They came fast and furious from the gray-bearded man. Which is why Sam kept wondering why Pelini had left the confines of the safe house and entered Zolotov’s sprawling property last night. What the hell was his father doing? Could Pelini have possibly been behind the disappearance of the CIA list from Zolotov’s server? Could the man have sold out his own team? Could Pelini have willingly sacrificed his own son?

  Tommy interrupted Sam’s dark thoughts.

  “They used to call your father the Lion.”

  Sam looked over. “Who did?”

  “The CIA. Back when Pelini was doing more aboveground operations. The nickname is mentioned throughout all the classified files I’m finding on him. Pelini has been all over the world running top-secret missions the past thirty years, although most everything about him went officially dark around fifteen years ago.”

  “You can’t find anything on the past fifteen years?”

  “Oh, I can find it, but I doubt too many others can. It’s clear that the CIA has reserved intel on Pelini’s operations for only those eyes with the highest level of clearance. The blackest of black ops. We’re talking assassinations of prominent foreign dignitaries, kidnappings, creating civil wars. It’s crazy stuff, Sam.”

  “Great. My father, the master spook.” Sam shook his head. “What about Black Heron? Was it even a legit CIA operation?”

  Tommy nodded. “Yeah, it’s legit. Everything you’ve told me rings true. Only the top brass knew details, and few at that. But it’s clear that the list was the real target.”

  “That’s oddly comfo
rting to know. Can you find out anything from Zolotov’s side? Something that might tell us what really happened last night?”

  Tommy sighed. “I’m trying. But you’re talking a needle in a big-ass haystack.”

  As Tommy went back to typing away, Sam stared out the window again, his thoughts once more on Natalie. Desperate to get back to her, he prayed they would somehow find Mack in Milan and finally get some real answers.

  Then figure out how he could get his life back.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Still wearing her Redskins cap pulled low on her forehead, Natalie sidled up to a crowded bar. When the bartender came over, she ordered a pint of Bold Rock and the Rachel—a roasted turkey sandwich with spicy kraut on rye bread. She’d barely eaten a thing since before the car wreck last night. Even though hungry, she wasn’t sure her stomach could handle much of anything. It had been tied up in so many knots. She casually glanced around the Ugly Mug, a popular sports bar near the Marine Barracks at Eighth and I, thus a local favorite for the military crowd. There were dozens of strapping buzz-cut young men sitting at the bar and crowding the tables, where they dined on burgers, wings, and other typical bar food. Even at the early lunch hour, the place was busy.

  Natalie had been to the bar often the past few years, as it was a convenient meet-up location for many of her military sources. She had to admit she felt a bit safer with so many chivalrous young marines sitting all around her. Even if found, she doubted her mystery man with the goatee would make any serious moves in such a place. Still, there were a lot of second looks from several men. She didn’t like being this exposed or staying in one place for too long right now. With dangerous people out there clearly looking for her, she needed to stay unpredictable and constantly on the move.

  She kept her eyes straight ahead, where she could spot anyone approaching in a mirror behind the bar. She was specifically looking for one man. She took a gulp of the Bold Rock, the hard cider tasting good as it went down her throat. Staring in the mirror, her eyes looked puffy and tired. It had been a difficult night. She knew there would be little to no sleep until she got to the bottom of this and somehow had Sam home with her. If he didn’t come home, she might never sleep soundly again.