by D S Kane
“Are you sure?”
“Yes sir.”
There was a heavy sigh at the other end of the line. “Okay, good work, Bob. But we’re not done yet. Follow the body. There’s a bounty on her severed head. Let me know when she’s in the morgue. Let me know when her head’s gone and let me know the identity of the person who took it.”
“Yes sir.” The connection terminated and Gault’s mouth fell open in sorrow. She was just a bright woman whose only mistake was to work for the agency. He deposited the cell phone in his pocket and walked to his car. As the bus pulled away, filled with mercenaries and Cassandra Sashakovich’s body, Gault drove three hundred feet behind it, using standard surveillance techniques.
* * *
The bus headed onto Beacon Street, where the MTA emerged from the tunnels beneath ground. Cassie lay unconscious on a stretcher covering the four seats in the back. Shimmel and Dr. Phillip Gorman spoke in whispers. Gorman said, “She’ll need emergency surgery if she’s to live. The damage is too extensive for a battlefield surgeon like me to fix. We have to get her into a real operating room. She’s missing a chunk of flesh from the right side of her face. When the bullet exited, it took out upper and lower molars and shattered her left cheekbone to powder. Two inches more one way and it would have blown off a chunk of her skull, and her brain with it. Two inches the other way and it would have ripped her throat out, including her carotid artery. One side of her face looks swollen because of all the damage, and the other side is simply missing.” He pointed to where the inside of her mouth was clearly visible through a hole, no flesh for a two-square inch patch of face.
Gorman didn’t wait for Shimmel to reply. “As the swelling subsides, her real problems will become more evident. I can’t help her any more than I’ve just done. And that just isn’t enough to save her. Soon, complications will set in. She’ll die. Very soon. The clock is running”
Shimmel thought for a second. He shouted to the driver, “Take us to the nearest hospital emergency room.” He thought about what he’d need to do before they arrived. He faced Gorman again. “We’ll say she was cleaning the gutters in her home’s roof when she fell into a tree. A wooden branch did this.” He dug into his pocket and pulled some identification papers from it, including a driver’s license. “Use this identification for her.” He read the name on the license. “Linda Baker.”
* * *
The ancient emergency room of the New England Deaconess Hospital was crowded with unplanned everything. Addicts and gangbangers waited for treatment, along with accident, stroke, burn, and heart attack victims. But, when one of the rent-a-cop security force examined what was left of Cassie’s face, she received immediate and special attention: “Hey! Is she the ho that was on the news with those hit men in Maui?” And in seconds Cassie was surrounded by medical experts.
A team of surgeons wheeled her damaged body into a surgical amphitheater and laid her out on a metal platform. Nurses hooked her into machines to monitor her vital signs and they began to slice into her head.
She remained in surgery for over six hours, and then moved to the ICU for recovery, where she lay awash in intravenous antibiotics, monitored by machines, and guarded by a dozen mercs and her own bodyguards.
Lee and Ann walked through the hospital’s glass doors, holding hands, their faces masks of terrible emotions. They’d been flown to Boston on a private jet Wing had rented.
One of the surgeons removed his mask and walked toward Lee. The surgeon and Lee turned away so no one, especially Ann, could hear what they said. Ann rose and started toward them but Lee raised his hand. “Please, Ann. Let me do this.”
She remained standing, her feet moving back and forth, her nerves ready to pop. She’d never been in a hospital, even when her mother died from an overdose of crack. Memories of her birth mother’s death were alive inside her once again.
When the surgeon nodded his head and disappeared back into the depths of the hospital, she grabbed Lee’s arm. “Please, daddy, tell me she’s going to be okay.”
He took a deep, audible breath. “Ann, I won’t lie to you. We just don’t know what will happen. She’s past the worst of the danger, but the surgeon told me she’ll be in intensive care for a few days at least. She might still die from a blood clot or something else they don’t expect. But it’ll be months before she’s anything like she was. And there’s still a chance something may go wrong. Stay close to me. I need you here, and we need to stay near Cassie’s room. Just in case.”
Ann’s face crumbled. Tears formed and fell. “No. Not again. No!” She felt her legs grow wobbly, and she reached her hand, trying to grasp Lee’s. He caught her as she fell.
* * *
Twenty feet away, a pear-shaped middle-aged man watched the drama. He’d followed the bus from the wharf, and remained covert until they brought her through the hospital doors. Gault gulped. He’d made a mistake. Not dead yet.
He tried to decide whether to call Greenfield again. First, though, he needed to figure what all this was about. He walked to the hospital cafeteria, a quiet place where he could think. He bought a Krispy Cream custard-filled jelly doughnut, a cup of black coffee, and a salad to assuage his worries about his health. He ate everything except the salad.
So, Greenfield used Bug-Lok on Ainsley, then used Lee to try to locate her. That much is obvious. And Bob already knew that the President was massively upset about being blackmailed by her. And combine that with the Ben-Levy leaks. Her leverage over the agency and the President has vanished.
This must all be about some crazy promise Greenfield had made to his friend and former college roommate, the President. She had to die. Gault shook his head. He couldn’t bring himself to be party to this, even if it meant the end of career. He wasn’t just killing an innocent. He was killing a co-worker and her family. Their emotional pain penetrated his soul like a knife cutting deep into his flesh. He thought, there but for the grace of God go I. Son of a bitch, there but for the grace of God goes God! He decided that the remainder of his report would contain some bits of fiction. If she died, then it was the Lord’s will, not Greenfield’s. If she lived, he’d do what he could to keep her alive. And help keep her family safe.
The agency taught its senior managers to continue analysis of a problem until the pieces fit. It was the single most important skill for any analyst. Often the difference between mission success and failure. And for a covert operative, always the difference between life and death. He’d served twenty-seven years at the agency and never made director-level because he’d never mastered this essential skill.
Until now. As he crafted a plan to thwart all future attempts to find and murder Sashakovich, it occurred to him that he’d finally earned the promotion he’d never receive. Gault laughed out loud.
* * *
April May O’Toole’s jaw fell as she watched the news. Someone at the wharf in Boston had a cell phone with a movie camera feature. She watched the pier explode and burn, and three hundred people die, and then saw a stretcher carrying a woman’s body hustled onto a bus. The accompanying story mentioned the name of the woman. Wrong name, but still, she was sure. Her source-to-be, the next person she could talk to about the President’s treasonous act. Now, her source was dead.
Her story had evaporated. “Rats!” The cat on her lap, Gato, fled in fear. She ran to the fridge. Wine. Lots of it.
* * *
Stepponi stretched his arm out from the shower to grab a towel and realized that he hadn’t thought to check the Internet yet. He used the plush towel to dry himself. Rested from a night in Boston’s Ritz-Carlton, he picked up the newspaper left at his door and read the headlines. But he didn’t bother opening it up to read any of the stories except the one on the first page.
Billionairess Shot Dead on Wharf
Story by April May O’Toole,
exclusive to The Boston Herald
This afternoon a woman was shot to death on Boston’s wharf. Cassandra Sashakovich, a former covert ag
ent who resigned from her agency earlier this year, was hunted by thousands of hit men. The contract on her life made her death almost inevitable. Age 29, Sashakovich earned a PhD in economics at Stanford University. She was the founder of Swiftshadow Consulting Group, a mercenary organization. Sashakovich is survived by her adopted daughter, Ann. Neither the daughter nor her boyfriend, Lee Ainsley, could be reached for comment.
He smiled. Such a short story, more an obituary. He waved his hand in respect. Such a hard woman to kill.
But as he toweled dry, he saw another story on cable news in his hotel room. The talking head told how a team of four surgeons at the New England Deaconess Hospital couldn’t save her despite almost six hours of intensive surgery. While her corpse lay in the Boston City Morgue, bounty hunters raided it. They decapitated her body and sent her severed head in a box to Achmed Houmaz in Saudi Arabia. And the story also mentioned that Houmaz’s body was now also in the Boston City Morgue, being autopsied by the city coroner.
As he dressed and packed his satchel, he turned to another news station and found rumors of Sashakovich alive in another hospital’s emergency room, but these were heavily discounted.
Stepponi called a female friend and sometimes sex partner—Sharon Marconi, also a professional hitter—to tell her that he was still alive and hadn’t died with the other bounty hunters, but that he thought Sashakovich was finally dead.
Sharon jabbered back at him. “Not true, honey. According to local news here and a mélange of small pieces I saw reported on CNN, Sashakovich is alive, now guarded in a private room at the New England Deaconess, comatose, wounded, and possibly dying.” Then, she conceded, “I’ve heard so many conflicting stories.”
After he terminated the conversation, Stepponi started to draft a plan of his own. He hated the woman who’d wasted weeks of his life. He needed to find out for himself. Didn’t care as much about the money as he did about finding satisfaction.
No one fucked with him and lived to tell about it.
* * *
The smell of newly dug earth filled the air around them. The chilly gray morning was filled with odors of death, decomposing bodies and lingering perfume from inside the now-empty hearse. The casket was surprisingly light. Lee, Ann, and Avram Shimmel lifted one side of it, and William Wing, Kiril, and Natasha Sashakovich lifted its other side. They marched in silence, for there was no noise that any of them could hear in the huge cemetery so far from city streets. They paced across the gravel passageway to the pit of the gravesite.
Further back Cassie’s bodyguards, Lester Dushov, Ari Westheim, Michael Drapoff, Jacob David Weinstein, and Shimon Tennenbaum stood stiffly surrounding Lee and Ann. Adam Mahee stood behind them all, his face a mask of shock. All the mercenaries stood at attention: Jacques LeFleur, Alister McTavish, Ralph Giondella, and the men and women they led.
Natasha began to bawl, and Ann did too. Tears fell from Lee’s eyes. They carefully placed the casket onto the rollers that grinded slowly, lowering it into the deep hole that would be Cassie’s final resting place.
She watched all this from above, saw into the souls of each of her friends and cohorts, felt their grief. But as they began to shovel dirt onto the coffin, she felt herself sucked in a growing panic through the falling soil and back into the coffin. She tried to shriek but no sound came from her.
* * *
The morning after her surgery, Cassie’s body lay limp on the hospital bed, as it had all night. Even unconscious, the hospital’s acerbic odors had the nose on her unconscious head twitching, and inevitably translated into more material for the nightmares she experienced. One of the doctors told Lee, “She’s still unresponsive. We don’t know when or even if she’ll ever become conscious.”
She could hear the room noises and voices faintly, at a tiny fraction of their true volume. Her head jerked as the drugs wore off. She desperately wanted to be alive and awake. She forced her eyes to drift open into slits. She tried to think, tried to open her eyes wider, tried to open her mouth, but nothing worked and she wondered, am I truly dead now?
At first, she couldn’t feel anything through the drug-induced haze of her mind except for a mouthful of cloth of some kind. As the haze began to lift, she felt growing panic mixed with throbbing pain. Her mouth was full of surgical padding. Both breathing and swallowing were difficult. Her eyes popped fully open. She tried to get up but hadn’t the strength to move her limbs.
Ann saw. She jabbed Lee’s arm. “It’s mom! She’s waking. Lee, look. Look!” Ann pointed at Cassie and Lee turned.
“Rahhgh?” Cassie tried again, eyes wide in terror. More slowly, deliberately, a muffled voice that didn’t sound anything like hers, she asked, “Where?”
“You’re in a hospital, sweetie.” Lee took her hand. Ann moved closer and took her other hand. With a deep sense of relief, Cassie’s eyes fell shut as unconsciousness claimed her once again.
* * *
Greenfield called the President. He was put on hold for several minutes until the voice of the squirrel-faced old man said, “Gil? Whatcha want?”
“Mr. President, please call me back using your Encryption-Lok. I’ll wait for your call.”
And wait he did. Two hours later, Greenfield’s secretary buzzed him. “Who is it, Margaret?”
“Sir, it’s Deep Thought,” she said, using Secret Service’s code name for the President.
Greenfield switched to the encrypted line. “Mr. President, Sashakovich is alive, I know where she is right now. But we may not have to take her out.”
“Why not?”
“According to the news, she’s dead. Not sure yet, but I believe she’s been treated for a head shot at the New England Deaconess Hospital. That Arab, Achmed Houmaz, shot her just before he died in the gunfight where she was killed.”
“You sure about this?”
“Uh, not sure as yet. The story is still developing. If she is dead, well, Merry Christmas, Mr. President.”
The President chuckled. “That’s good. Well, keep me up to date on this one, Gil.”
“I will. Good afternoon, sir.” And Greenfield hung up.
* * *
Ann paced the room where Cassie lay connected to machines. She thought, I lost my real mom, and now I almost lost my best mom. I’m not taking any chances. I gotta be here with her, every second until she can come home. Have to watch over her until she’s okay again.
Ann pulled one of the two visitor’s chairs near the bed and settled into it. And, there she remained, while visitors came and went. She got up to shake their hands—William Wing, Avram Shimmel, Adam Mahee—but hours passed before she left the chair, and that was only to use the bathroom in their hospital suite.
Lee rose from the other chair. “Come on, sweetie, let’s go get a bite to eat.”
“No, daddy. I’m not moving. You can go. Bring me food. I’m staying right here.”
Lee cocked his head. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Here until she’s able to leave. What are you bringing me to eat?”
He scratched his head. “Uh, well, I can bring you Chinese or a submarine sandwich. Which would you prefer?”
“A sub. Pastrami, Swiss, mustard. But if they can’t do that, anything will work. And a diet drink. And thanks.” She walked behind the chair and popped open Lee’s satchel as he exited the room. She faced away and rummaged through it. She found what she was looking for: the 9mm Beretta that Cassie had with her when she came to get Ann in the tunnels. She dropped it in the patch pocket of her pants. Just in case. She turned back and climbed into one of the large visitor’s chairs.
When Lee returned, he had two huge wrapped sub sandwiches and handed them both to Ann. Each was almost a foot long. “Choose one. I get the one you don’t want. One is cappicola and spiced salami, the other is pastrami and corned beef.”
She sniffed both and then pulled a bit of the meat from between each sandwich to sample. “Daddy, there’s way too much of these for just a dinner. I’ll take the spicy one.” She
took a large bite and chewed for what seemed eternity to her. “As mom would say, yum. Where’d you get these, daddy?”
“There’s a sub shop on Commonwealth Avenue across the street from Boston University. One of the nurses told me these are the best subs on the planet.”
She smiled at him. Put down her sandwich and moved closer. Hugged him and more tears formed in her eyes. “Daddy, what will we do if she doesn’t make it?”
“Cassie’s a tough cookie. Think good thoughts and talk to her while she’s out. She can hear you, you know.”
Ann nodded and ate more of her sandwich.
At eight o’clock the nurses announced the end of evening visiting hours and Lee left the hospital. But he agreed to let Ann stay overnight with Cassie in the hospital room and signed a piece of paper noting his permission for the head nurse.
Mother and daughter were alone now. Ann said, “I know you can hear me, mom. I don’t know when it happened. But sometime a while ago I realized I love you. And Lee, too. He’s not such a jerk. I was wrong. Please, get well. I need you, mom.” She cried, and watched as Cassie thrashed slightly in the bed.
As the hours passed, Ann helped the nurses remove and replace Cassie’s catheter, bathed her, and spoke to her as if she was conscious. “Lee brought me this sandwich. It’s okay, but when you’re better, I want to go with you to one of your favorite restaurants. To celebrate. So, you have to get better. Please, mom. Please.”
Cassie woke near midnight. Ann could tell she was weak but hungry, and obviously aware of her surroundings and what had happened to her.
Ann called the nurse. “Please bring my mom some food.”
The nurse nodded, returning with chicken broth and cherry Jell-o. Ann fed Cassie soup through a straw, but there was no way for her to open her mouth and eat the Jell-o.
