The Patriot Paradox

by William Esmont

  “Go!” Kurt replied without looking up. “Just go.”

  Twenty-Six

  Kurt’s hands were trembling by the time he finished reading the email.

  “Well?” Amanda asked with an annoyed glance. Before he could answer, Amanda jerked the car to the right to dodge a wandering minivan. She leaned on the horn and shot the errant driver a vicious glare.

  “What did it say?” She was breathing hard, probably from the adrenaline of the narrow escape amplifying her impatience.

  Kurt took a deep breath. “In about 24 hours,” he said, checking his watch, “a group of Chechens is going to detonate a nuke in downtown Moscow.”

  “Say again? A nuke?”

  “Uh huh. It says they’re using a hundred-fifty-kiloton warhead, left over from the Soviet days. But that’s not all…”

  Her left eyebrow arched. “What do you mean?”

  “The bomb is set to go off tomorrow night. Everyone, the entire government, the military, will be in town.”

  “A decapitation strike,” Amanda breathed. “That’s insane!”

  Kurt shrugged. “This whole thing is insane. It says the bomb is located in a warehouse, downtown.”

  “Do we have a street address?” Amanda asked.

  “We do. We even have a map.”

  Amanda whistled. “This is crazy, Kurt.”

  He shrugged and dropped the phone in the center console. Amanda plucked it out, extracted the memory card containing Mike’s data, rolled down her window, and tossed the phone into the night. “Get rid of your phone, Kurt. It’s not safe anymore.”

  They drove on for a minute, digesting the news. Amanda broke the silence first. “We need to go to Paris.” She flicked the turn signal and changed lanes to catch the next exit.

  Kurt was surprised. “Paris? What’s in Paris?”

  “A friend. Someone we can trust. If this is real, and your government—”

  “It’s your government, too,” Kurt shot back. “And anyway, I get the impression—”

  “Hold on a second,” Amanda interrupted, locking eyes with him and ignoring the road. “It’s a long story, and I’ll spare you the details, but I am not a US citizen. I may work for them occasionally, but only when our goals align.”

  Kurt was confused. “But, I assumed…”

  “You assumed wrong. That’s the first rule in this business. Don’t ever forget it.”

  Kurt chewed on that for a second. “Do you think this is real?”

  “Maybe. Probably. Enough people have died to make me believe there’s something behind it.” Amanda left the motorway and followed the signs for the M20 South.

  “So, back to your contact in Paris,” Kurt said. “Why don’t we go to the US Embassy in London, or take it straight to British intelligence?”

  Amanda glared at him. “I thought you said you were on the inside before? You know how they work.”

  “Yeah. Good point... They’re pretty close aren’t they?” He fiddled with the window control, something to keep his hand occupied while he thought.

  “So this friend in Paris, is he French intelligence?”

  “She. No. American.”

  “Who does she work for?” he asked.

  Amanda didn’t answer, just kept her eyes on the road.

  “So you want to take this back to the CIA? I thought you didn’t trust them.”

  “I didn’t say she’s CIA. All I can tell you is that I trust her, and she has enough contacts to ferret out whether this is real.”

  “Are you sure she’s the only one we can trust?”

  “Uh huh. She’s our only choice.” They passed a sign indicating forty miles to the channel tunnel.

  “The tunnel?” Kurt asked, incredulous.

  “Yep. We should be there in less than an hour. They won’t expect it.”

  Kurt knotted his fingers and cracked his knuckles, burning off nervous energy as he digested the news.

  “Look in the top of my bag,” Amanda said. “Please.”

  Reaching between his legs, he unzipped the top of the bag and peered inside—cash, passports, and three smart phones of the same model Amanda had tossed out the window. There were also two guns, a pair of semi-automatic SIG Sauer P220s.

  He looked up at Amanda in surprise. When she didn’t turn, he pulled one of the guns from the bag, making sure to keep the muzzle pointed at the floor. He pulled the slide back and looked in the chamber of each pistol. They were both loaded. He placed the guns on the floor and dug around in the bag again, straining against his seat belt.

  “I know I’ve said this before, but you really remind me of your brother,” she said quietly.

  Kurt replaced the guns and met her eyes. “Really?”

  “Yes. You have the same mannerisms when you work the weapon. It’s eerie.”

  Kurt looked out the window, watching the countryside pass by on their left. “I can’t believe he was involved in this.”

  “Me either,” Amanda added, shaking her head.

  “When was the last time you saw him?” he asked.

  “It was in Khartoum, three years ago. I was working with MI-6…”

  “So you are British intelligence?”

  “Will you let me finish?” she said with a hint of exasperation.

  “Sorry.” He motioned for her to continue.

  “Anyway, your brother came into the operation—this big, strapping American. He knew all the players, knew how things worked. We were running our operation under the cover of an international non-governmental organization, and things were a mess. Mike pulled it all together and got the intelligence we needed. At the same time, he drove all of the women on site crazy. He was such a charmer, you know?”

  Kurt smiled, recalling the way Mike used to fill up a room with his presence.

  “So, your brother and I spent a lot of time together on this mission. One night, we had a meet set up with the head of a local terror cell; a man who I can thankfully say is now dead. Things went wrong—more wrong than I’ve ever seen. Nevertheless, your brother, he kept his shit together. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be sitting here telling you this.”

  “What did he do?”

  She sniffled, wiping a tear from her eye. “He took a bullet for me. We hadn’t done our homework on the cell. Well, not we, but the people putting the mission together. A member of the cell worked in our offices, passing information back. We never stood a chance.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “Exactly. One day I was out for my morning run with your brother, when a car pulled up and a group of men snatched us. Through the mole, they had identified him as our leader. I was an added bonus. They were going to kill us both, but not before they toyed with MI-Six.

  “Shit.”

  She bit her lip. “It wasn’t pretty. Word of our abduction got back quickly, and they put together a team to rescue us. Seven men died in the raid. By the time they got through the perimeter defenses, Mike had broken through his restraints and was working on freeing me. To make a long story short, one of the bad guys came back to check on us. When he saw we were loose, he went ape-shit and decided to finish us off right there. For some reason I still can’t figure out, he went for me first. Maybe he thought shooting a woman was more sporting. I’ll never know.”

  “Go on,” Kurt said with a soft smile.

  “I thought I was dead, but the bullet never came. There was a bright flash, and then your brother was on the floor bleeding like crazy from his shoulder. I think the shooter was as shocked as I was.” She chuckled. “I took advantage of his confusion and jumped on him and snapped his neck like a twig.” She made a twisting motion with her hands to illustrate.

  “Wow.” Kurt didn’t know what to say.

  “Your brother was fine, but taking a bullet for me was never part of the deal. I owed him my life after that. It was that simple. We got together several times over the years, for dinner, when we were in the same city, but it had been a few months since we last spoke.” />
  “Thanks,” Kurt said. “I mean it. I really appreciate hearing about that side of him.”

  “I know it sounds corny,” she said, “but he was one of the good guys.”

  “This sucks.”

  Amanda shrugged. “It happens. Sometimes, in our line of work, the lines get a little blurry.” She took Kurt’s hand and squeezed it. He squeezed back. They drove in silence for a few minutes, reflecting on their loss, next steps put on hold for the moment.

  Eventually, Kurt motioned toward the guns and said, “How are you going to get those across the border?”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It’s not a problem. I have my ways. And a woman’s got to have her secrets, doesn’t she?” She grinned.

  Kurt laughed, feeling a bit more relaxed with the discussion shifted away from Mike. “Okay.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Amanda’s house was empty when Mason arrived. However, he detected recent activity—a dirty plate in the sink, an open box of cereal on the counter. Little things.

  He did a quick sweep of the ground floor and finding nothing, moved upstairs. He couldn’t help but notice how empty the house felt, like a hotel. Standing in the middle of the master bedroom, he let his eyes wander, trying to put himself inside Amanda’s head.

  The black lacquered dresser against the far wall looked promising. So did the closet. He chose the closet first. Pockets. Shoes. Boots. Jackets. He checked them all, but came up empty. Then he turned to the shelves, climbing up on a small stool so he could get a clear view. No dice. Undeterred, Mason moved on to the next room, and then the next. He was running out of time. He had to find something, and he had to find it fast.

  Finally, in the last room, he hit pay dirt. A compact wall safe was disguised behind a pop-out panel left slightly ajar. The safe was roughly eight-by-eight inches and made of brushed stainless steel. It had a kinetic dial-combination as well as a numeric key pad.

  Time to call Helen.

  “I need your help,” he said when she answered.

  “Shoot,” she replied.

  “I found a wall safe in the woman’s flat. I need some help opening it.”

  Keys clicked on the other end. “Is there a model number on the door?” Helen asked.

  Mason got on his knees and bent in close to read the black label affixed to the top edge. “Dyna-Safe, model tee, one, five, five, bee.”

  More key clattering. “It’s your lucky day. Does it have a keypad?”

  “It does.” He resisted the urge to punch in keys at random.

  “Try two, sixteen, thirty, and then enter eight, four, two, three, four.”

  “Wait.” Mason spun the dial in the order she had dictated. “What was that number again?”

  “Eight, four, two, three, four.”

  He punched in the numbers, and the light on the front of the safe blinked green twice, a soft ‘clunk’ emanated from within. God bless the NSA, Mason thought. Without them, he would have had to open the safe the old-fashioned way.

  He pulled the door open and cursed. Empty. “Nothing here,” he reported. He shut the safe, and the light changed from green to red as it rearmed.

  “It was worth a try,” Helen commiserated.

  Mason wasn’t listening. There has to be something here. He cast his eyes around, looking for something else, anything, that would give him a clue as to who this woman was and how she was involved.

  “This is odd...” Helen said, her words trailing off.

  “What is it?”

  Furious typing echoed through the phone. “Their phones have stopped tracking.”

  “That’s not so odd.” He took a seat on the floor with his back against a box.

  “It is when they go from seventy miles per hour to zero in less than a second.” Now she had his full attention. Only two events could cause that type of behavior. Either Vetter and the woman had gotten into a horrendous crash, or they had ditched their mobile phones. Probably the latter.

  “Uh, I think we have a problem here.” He got to his feet and gazed out the window, thinking hard. “They’re going to ground. Where were they headed when the beacon went dark?” he asked.

  “I thought you were tracking them, too?” She sounded angry.

  “I’ve been screwing around with this damn safe, Helen. Just answer the question!”

  “Southeast.”

  “What’s in that direction?” He had a vague mental map of the United Kingdom, but once he got a few dozen miles outside of London, things got fuzzy.

  Helen didn’t answer right away; instead he heard her banging away on her keyboard. “A bunch of small cities and towns, ports, an airport or two. You name it.”

  Mason rubbed his chin, thinking what would I do in their situation? He would bolt, he decided, put some distance between himself and whoever was hunting him.

  “They’re leaving the country.” He was sure of it.

  “Well, they’re not flying. I sent their description out to the French police—wanted for questioning in a terrorism investigation.”

  “Good. Good thinking.”

  “That leaves two routes: The channel tunnel and the ferry system.”

  Mason shook his head. “The tunnel would be stupid. My money’s on a ferry. Less security. Less chance of a choke-point.”

  She coughed. “I agree. But—what if that’s what they want us to think?”

  “Shit.” Mason kicked one of the boxes. “It looks like I’m going to France.”

  “Yes, it does.” She chuckled. “Weren’t you complaining only a few weeks ago that you missed the field?”

  He had been, and he regretted every word. “That’s the last time I do that.”

  “Get your ass to France, Mason. I’ll let you know when they pop back up. They can’t stay off the grid for long.”

  “Okay. Later.”

  “Later.”

  Before leaving, Mason had one more thing he wanted to do. He strolled back into Amanda’s bedroom, going straight for the dresser. He pulled open the bottom drawer, gazed down at the collection of lingerie neatly arrayed in front of him, and smiled. With care, he selected a pair of black lace panties, brought them to his nose, and inhaled deeply. They were clean, yet musky like a woman. He rubbed them across his cheek, relishing the sensation as the silk caught on his stubble, imagining the woman in the photo Helen had sent him peeling this same pair of lingerie from her body and offering herself to him.

  That wouldn’t happen, not in a million years. Still, the idea was intoxicating. He stuffed the panties in his pocket. For later.

  Closing the drawer, Mason turned and performed one more quick survey of the room. He saw nothing else he could use in his pursuit, so he turned and headed for his car.

  He grabbed the map he had purchased three hours earlier from the front seat. With his right index finger, he traced a path from his current location in downtown London back to Heathrow Airport and committed the route to memory. With luck, he would be in Paris in a couple of hours.

  With a resigned sigh, he started the car and pointed it west.

  Twenty-Eight

  “Water?” Amanda offered, reaching past Kurt into the back seat.

  He was parched. “Sure.” She handed him a half-liter bottle of Evian and kept one for herself. He cracked the top and took a long pull, draining it half-empty.

  “Thanks. I needed that,” he said, wiping his mouth. He screwed the cap back on and stuffed the bottle between his thighs. He yawned. On any other day, the soft click-clack sound of the train would have lulled him to sleep, but not today. Sleep was the last thing on his mind. “So what next?” he asked.

  Boarding the train had proven to be no problem. Amanda had slipped the boarding agent an extra hundred Euro note, and he had waved them to the front of the line. It was a little disconcerting that the official was so easily bribed, but given their circumstances, he was grateful, both for Amanda’s resourcefulness and for the agent’s greed.r />
  “The CIA has been one step ahead of us the whole time. Getting rid of our phones was a good first step, but we need to do more, go deeper underground.”

  “Okay.” He wasn’t sure where she was going with this.

  “I’m sure our phones were monitored.

  “But I had a UK SIM card…”

  “It doesn’t matter. You said your name when you called me. The computers probably picked it up and made the link.”

  He took a drink. “Can they really do that?”

  Mid-sip, Amanda snorted, spraying water onto the steering wheel. “Are you kidding? Everything you say on the phone is recorded and analyzed. It’s only a matter of how fast they can process the data.”

  “I didn’t think…” When she frowned, he said, “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “Just trust me on this one.”

  Deciding silence was best, he simply nodded.

  “The bottom line is, I think we need to ditch this car and find another way to Paris. I have no doubt these guys have hooks into the international transport network, including the one we registered with when we got on the auto transport.” She motioned forward, toward France. “There’s a good chance there will be someone waiting on the other end.”

  “Damn! I didn’t even consider that.” Kurt had a mental image of an anonymous man putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. He shivered at the thought.

  “I want to switch cars. Worst case, there’s someone waiting for us, and it’s all over. Best case, we slip through and get some distance between us before they realize we’re gone. Still, once they find my car on the French side of the channel, they’re going to have a pretty good idea where we’re headed.

  Kurt unlatched his seat belt and stretched. “That’s a good idea.” He hesitated. “There’s one problem, though; I have no idea how to steal a car.”

  Amanda smiled. “It’s funny…”

  “What?”

  “In some ways you remind me so much of your brother, but at other times, you’re the complete opposite.”

  Kurt was annoyed at the comparison. He had been compared to Mike his whole life. For most of his teens, he had tried, without success, to be better that his brother at something, anything, but it had all been in vain. “Yeah. I get that sometimes,” he said, unable to keep the trace of bitterness from lacing his voice.