Ice Cold Kill

by Dana Haynes

  “Of course. Discretion is my business. I don’t speak to—”

  Daria swiveled, weight on one leg.

  Belhadj reacted like lightning, putting distance between them, his gun rising.

  Daria’s boot connected with the spot directly beneath the left ear of the hapless Algerian. His body seemed to shudder, then collapse in on itself. He fell straight back off the stool, arms outspread as if in supplication to his god, his lower legs propped up on the stool.

  Belhadj aimed the Springfield at Daria’s sternum. Daria finished the apple, just staring emotionlessly at the Syrian.

  The Algerian made a choking noise. His muscles quivered and became still.

  Daria studied Belhadj’s slate eyes. His right eye was lined up perfectly with the barrel sites of the Springfield. She said, “If my goal had been to kick you…”

  Belhadj released a few ounces of pressure off the trigger. “The idiot knew about the president, about the circulars.”

  “There was no need to kill him.”

  “He’ll remember we were here.”

  “That kick? He won’t remember his mother.” She turned slowly and tossed the apple core in a rubbish bin under the counter. She held her back provocatively unprotected against the unwavering barrel of the auto. Now it was a waiting game.

  But not a long one. Daria heard the shush of the gun gliding into its holster. She let loose the breath she’d been holding, but slowly so he wouldn’t notice.

  Belhadj knelt over the Algerian, rooted through his pockets, and withdrew a cell phone. He stood.

  “That was insanely stupid,” he told her. He hit ten buttons, waited, then spoke into the phone. “Hallo? It’s me.… Yes.… No names, thank you. I need you to track down a cell tower for me. No, I mean right now. This second.”

  He listened a moment, then read out the telephone number LeClerc had given them.

  “You have it? I will place a call to that number in sixty seconds. Tell me where it goes. Call me back.”

  He rang off, still glaring at Daria.

  She donned the headphones that LeClerc had been fiddling with. She recognized the music as French rap. She knew little of the genre and turned off the music, tossed aside the headphones. She flipped through the mildewed record albums. “That wasn’t Syrian intelligence, on the phone. Your communications protocols aren’t that loose.”

  Belhadj leaned his butt against the counter, his long brown hair falling forward toward his razor-straight eyebrows. He tossed a gesture toward the bear rug of a man now decorating the dirty cement floor. “You believe the world is better off because that fool isn’t dead?”

  Daria flipped through the albums and pretended to read a couple of the liner notes. She knew that saving LeClerc’s life would make her look weak. Good.

  “There are tactical reasons to kill,” she said. “There are strategic reasons to kill. There are emotional reasons to kill. I admit to you, occasionally, there are fashion reasons to kill. Culottes come to mind.”

  “What in God’s name are you—”

  “Not important. My point is: killing a Rene LeClerc? Please. His death would only cause further problems down the road.”

  He studied her, clearly disappointed. A minute lapsed. He dialed the number the Algerian had given them. He put the phone on speaker.

  A phone, somewhere, rang three times.

  They both heard a hoarse whisper.

  “Hallo?”

  Daria felt the air rush from her body. She felt a flood of emotions and no emotions whatsoever. She felt serene and psychotic, assured and adrift. She felt it all simultaneously

  That whisper. That voice.

  Belhadj disconnected the line. He studied the phone in his calloused hand a moment, then turned blue-gray eyes on Daria. He watched her face.

  “I assume I don’t have to ask…?”

  The phone in his hand rang again. Belhadj checked the incoming number, then answered. He listened. He found LeClerc’s pen and the old notepad again.

  “Yes … yes. Somewhere within that block?”

  He placed a palm over the phone and turned to Daria. “They’re in Paris already.” He returned to the phone. “And you’re sure … I understand. Get back to work. We have not spoken.”

  He disconnected, tossed the mobile phone on to the stomach of the prostrate Algerian on the floor. “Well. We—”

  And that’s when Belhadj noticed it.

  When the Algerian had fallen backward, his baggy trousers had risen up, revealing a fat, plastic holster strapped to his left leg.

  A holster. But not a weapon.

  Belhadj spun toward Daria just as she pointed an electroshock weapon at his chest. She had stolen it from LeClerc at the beginning—when she had tossed her empty gun to Belhadj, a little high, forcing him to step back and take his eyes off them.

  Daria pulled the plastic trigger but Belhadj managed to twist his torso. The tines of the electroshock weapon caught his shoulder and his jacket, not the thin shirt over his chest.

  He grunted, stutter-stepped back, right arm constricting in pain, right knee giving out a little.

  The Algerian’s weapon wasn’t a Taser but a cheap, generic knockoff. Not only had the shock been insufficient to knock Belhadj out, but that single shock was all the shabby weapon could muster.

  Belhadj, wobbly but still standing, braced himself for her follow-up attack.

  Daria tensed, then turned and bolted, her clunky boots a blur. She brushed up lightly against the counter, rounded it, hit the door of the electronics store and pivoted, digging deep and running all-out, arms churning.

  Belhadj drew his auto but his hand balked, the muscles clenching, and the draw was slow and shaky. He started running, his muscle coordination a little off, his hip pinging off a display of guitar amplifiers that clattered resonantly to the floor.

  Two seconds later, Belhadj burst out of the store, gun down and hidden by his jacket.

  Daria was nowhere to be seen.

  “Damn it!” he muttered to himself. He checked the streets, both directions. No passersby seemed to notice anything amiss.

  Livid, he returned to the shop. He stopped to study the haphazard pyramid of cheap plywood amplifiers he’d toppled. He almost kicked them, but then didn’t, because he was a professional and professionals don’t—

  Belhadj kicked the amps. They broke apart and skidded on the cement.

  He waited for that to feel good. When it didn’t, he checked the floor behind the counter. LeClerc lay like the crucified, arms straight out, the phone resting on his concave chest.

  Belhadj looked at the cash register.

  The notepad was gone.

  Airspace, Atlantic Ocean

  Will Halliday, formerly of the Secret Service, and the two mercenaries he had dubbed “Sex” and “Violence” rode in a Beechcraft King, equipped with an extra fuel tank for the cross-Atlantic route. The plane had been provided by some Swede or Finn or whatever, whom Halliday had never heard of. He had to admit that the dude knew his business: the engine purred, the fake flight plan would pass the white-glove test, and the false registry numbers painted on the tail would have fooled anyone.

  They were three hours away from arriving at a private airfield in France and almost five and a half hours behind Asher Sahar and his primary teams.

  Before taking off, Will had insisted the Israelis store their handguns in a lockbox. He said it was standard aviation security.

  Now, Will sat alone in the cockpit, whistling pop tunes off-key.

  Sacchs lay in back on a foldout bench turned into a bed. Curled up in the fetal position, his skin glistened with sweat, he was holding his gut, while his elbows and knees and wrists and ankles all cramping horrendously. A thin white towel rested by his head, most of it saturated in the blood that ran in a steady stream from his nose and ears and mouth and even from his tear ducts. He twitched uncontrollably, partly from the pain and partly from the breakdown of his nervous system.

  His fellow merce
nary, Veigel, could do nothing to help. He sat at a padded bench across from his friend, holding another white towel over his own mouth, as his own nosebleed began.

  Sacchs hacked a wet, bloody cough, droplets spraying Veigel’s pant legs and boots.

  Veigel rose, unsteadily, hands shaking, and limped to the cabin door.

  Will Halliday doffed his Mickey Mouse ears as the mercenary stepped onto the flight deck.

  “How’s our guy?”

  “Dying,” Veigel said, and spat blood into the towel he held. “The fuck is happening? I’ve got it, too.”

  Halliday shrugged. “Damned if I know. Don’t worry, amigo. We’re heading to Asher. He’ll get us help.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “Me? Picture of health.”

  “What did we steal from the Secret Service?”

  “Printing plates and special paint, used for American currency.”

  Veigel studied the big blond man for a while. Halliday kept his attention on the yoke and avionics displays.

  After a moment, Veigel returned to his friend.

  As soon as he was gone, Will Halliday adjusted the radio to a preestablished frequency. “Alpha Sierra, this is Whiskey Hotel. Over.”

  A pause, and Asher Sahar’s cultured voice came back, very strong. “Whiskey Hotel: go.”

  Halliday said simply, “Veigel is sick.”

  Halliday waited as that news was absorbed.

  “And he was never exposed to the canister?”

  “Confirmed. He was exposed to Sacchs.”

  “So it is airborne. You remain asymptomatic?”

  Halliday grinned to himself. “I feel like a million bucks.”

  Outside the cockpit window, he saw the first smudge of Ireland on the horizon.

  “So it works.”

  “Oh, hell yeah!” the American crowed. “You got yourself a flu you can aim like a gun.”

  Fourteen

  Paris

  It took Daria no time to blend into the crowds coming and going in the eastward-facing railway station, Gare de l’Est. She ditched the long raincoat and the spent electroshock weapon. The crowds were hectic, the first hint of holiday throngs. She wended between clusters of tourists and businesspeople until she spotted a pickpocket and began following him from a discreet but close distance. The boy was good; deft, dexterous, and decent-looking. She liked the spit-shine cowlick; a nice, nerdy, endearing touch. Daria herself had been a better-than-average pickpocket when she had been much younger than this lad. She knew talent when she spotted it.

  Daria needed, in the following order, a change of clothes, transportation, a decent meal, and a weapon. The young pickpocket would get her started. She bided her time, checking her sight lines for Belhadj.

  The youth edged near a cluster of Dutch tourists in their mid-twenties, wearing the Clockwork Orange scarves and caps of the Netherlands Football Club. They were poring over maps of France, the girls giggling, the guys ribbing one another. Daria waited until her pickpocket was sliding past the Dutch, his hand drawing forth a wallet.

  “Thief!” Daria shouted in French and shoved the pickpocket from behind.

  The boy stumbled and fell, the wallet bouncing off the filthy tile floor. The kid made eye contact with the wallet, as did one of the Dutch, and a melee broke out. One of the Dutchmen let loose with a volley of kicks. The kid scrambled for safety. People shrieked and backed away. Others surged in to watch.

  A gendarme heard the commotion and headed into the fray. He bumped into Daria, who dragged one of the wheeled suitcases she’d just stolen from one of the Dutch women.

  “The train stations aren’t safe!” Daria wailed in French, free hand flailing. “It’s these immigrants!”

  “Yes, madam,” the officer agreed, dodging around her and wading into the fray.

  Moments later, Daria rolled her new bag out into the dusk. It took her two blocks to find a cab driver leaning against a dilapidated Toyota Auris, holding up the sports section of a newspaper but watching Daria’s legs beneath the brief skirt. He looked to be from Eastern Europe or the former Soviet Union, she guessed.

  She rolled the luggage to a stop, standing a little too close to the driver, looking up into his eyes. Daria took a gamble on English heavily tainted with a German accent. “I need a lift but I don’t have any money.”

  Badly accented English means you’re a tourist, an outsider. It makes you vulnerable.

  The driver grinned, revealing gray teeth. His English was carried aloft with a Ukrainian accent. “You want a ride, I want a blow job. Deal?”

  She let her lips tremble. “All right. Find us a quiet spot.”

  She tossed the bag in the backseat and sat up front with the driver. He wedged his belly beneath the steering wheel and drove. He’d done this before obviously. He quickly found a secluded space in an alley behind a bank. He leered at her and pushed back his seat just as Daria’s elbow connected with his temple. The driver was unconscious before his forehead hit the steering wheel.

  She dug through his pockets and found a mobile phone; she set it on the dashboard.

  She climbed over the seat back of the hatchback and used the driver’s keys to pry open the stolen luggage. It was freezing in the alley. Kneeling on the ripped vinyl seat, she quickly stripped. The first thing she found were panties. She checked the label. Extraordinarily cheap. God, she thought. The things a girl does for world peace.

  She found a sleeveless T-shirt known to Americans as a wifebeater. Daria had trouble dealing with American colloquialisms. Wifebeater? Is there a part of that term that is funny? She tugged on the T-shirt and freed her hair. Once, in Jerusalem, she had had a master sergeant who was, in fact, a wife beater. Daria had taken his wife to a public hospital and sat up with her through the night, listening to her excuses, why it had been her fault, why she had failed as a good spouse. In the morning, Daria walked into the motor pool, picked up a crescent wrench, and told the master sergeant, “I have a message from your wife.” She then proceeded to break every bone in both of his wrists.

  He never pressed charges.

  In the alleyway, she dug through the luggage, found a short denim skirt that would fit. Also black tights. She found a white, ribbed, long-sleeved undershirt. The Dutch woman’s feet were enormous, so Daria stuck with her chain-laden punk boots from New York.

  She climbed out, opened the driver’s side door, and rolled the unconscious man out onto the grimy pavement. She took his wallet and climbed into the car, slid the seat forward, and cranked the key.

  As the hatchback’s engine turned over and heater began pumping air through the vents, Daria snagged the driver’s mobile off the dashboard. She dialed the international code for the United States, then the number for Ray Calabrese’s mobile.

  * * *

  In the subbasement Shark Tank at Langley, one tech analyst had been assigned to monitor Ray Calabrese’s home, work, and cell phones, as well as his work and personal e-mail accounts. Ray was not on Facebook or any other social media site, making the tech’s job a little easier. The tech glanced up at his monitors as Ray’s cell phone line went hot.

  “Hi, it’s Ray. I’m on another line. Please leave me a message.” Beep.

  “It’s Daria. I’m in trouble. And I’m in Paris…”

  The surveillance tech jumped out of his seat, snapping his fingers at a fellow analyst. “Are you getting this?”

  “Don’t use my phone, it’s in enemy hands. I cannot hold on to this one either, because the CIA is monitoring your phone. Sorry. I’m in trouble with them. I’m in trouble with the Syrians. It’s possible I’m in trouble with the Israelis. It’s been one of those weeks. Look up this name: Asher Sahar. I will contact you again soon. Ciao, love.”

  The other tech leaned forward, blowing kinky hair away from her eyebrows, fingers moving so fast over her keyboard they were a blur. One of the eight flat-screen monitors switched to a map of the world. Then a map of Europe. Then France. Then the Tenth arrondissement. Then the Gare d
e l’Est train station.

  “Got her! Near the train station, northeast Paris!”

  * * *

  The cheese and apple Daria had eaten at the Algerian’s electronics shop had been sufficient to hold her temporarily. Now she was famished. She spent some of the taxi driver’s money on a cheese-and-butter baguette sandwich and a large coffee from a street kiosk, a block from where she’d given the taxi driver his “blow” job. Perhaps you should make your request more specific next time, she thought, smiling to herself. She reached under the kiosk counter and wedged the stolen mobile into a hollow triangle made by the counter and its wooden brace.

  * * *

  Khalid Belhadj parked the stolen car away from onlookers, only two blocks from the electronics shop. He cursed himself. He checked for observation points, then stripped to the waist and studied the two nasty red welts on the concave spot between his shoulder and his chest, courtesy of Daria Gibron.

  The madwoman must have palmed the damned Taser when she attacked the Algerian, but Belhadj hadn’t seen a thing. He was impressed despite himself.

  Belhadj didn’t underestimate people very often. In some perverse way, he always admired enemies who proved better than anticipated. Being better than one’s reputation was one of the things that had kept Belhadj alive all these years.

  He allowed himself a shallow smile. She was not the easiest of assets. But his decision to bring her along still had merit. Belhadj was a soldier, not a general. Against Asher Sahar? He needed more than brute strength.

  He sat in the car and flexed his right arm. The muscles twitched, his hand shaking. He could go after Gibron, but to what end? He had hoped her hatred of Sahar would be enough to encourage her assistance. He had misjudged her hatred. Pity.

  He would have to deal with Sahar himself, until such time as his superiors in Damascus could be … reasoned with.

  * * *

  In the Shark Tank, a communication techie doffed her headset and stood. “Nanette?”

  The lanky show runner—a term Nanette Sylvestri’s most admiring staffers had borrowed from Hollywood to describe her—had been hovering over another monitor. She turned.