Local time was 11:14 p.m. Few pedestrians were out on the street. Munich was a city that had a lot to offer even after regular business hours were over.
Neon stained the dark streets, advertising the bars and clubs that were scattered along the thoroughfare. Pedestrians strolled the sidewalks and crossed the streets as they pursued the nightlife. Passing cars whickered across the pavement, and fragments of songs, American top forty as well as Euro pop, reached Sam’s ears.
She wore boy’s jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater under the duster. A black crocheted beanie disguised her platinum-blond locks. Black, fingerless skater’s gloves covered her hands. At first glance, she knew most people would think she was a male teen, due to the clothing and her petite size. She’d smudged her face with grime to darken the highlights.
Raucous industrial metal rock and roll blared from the door of the basement club located in the Karlsplatz, which was the beginning of Old Munich. Only a short walk away, the Deutsches Theater towered among the buildings, possessing a grandeur all its own.
The location for the exfiltration was good, Sam thought as she looked over the young crowd enjoying the nightlife. She and Riley had arranged the meet over the sat-phone.
Tourists, convention-goers and young people gathered in Munich’s downtown area, all of them looking for an evening’s entertainment. Uniformed Munich policemen mixed with the crowd, generally at ease and having fun with the partyers.
Taxis mingled with the street traffic. Limousines plowed through the hustle and bustle, as well, which meant that Bret Horn’s arrival would go largely unnoticed.
Sam stood in the shadows and surveyed the street. She kept reminding herself that the satellite phone was encrypted and couldn’t easily be broken into.
The sat-phone vibrated inside her hand inside her coat pocket.
Shifting, Sam kept the device in the shadows because she knew possession of the sat-phone would mark her as a target for the pickpockets working the convention crowds. She held it to the side of her face and said, “Here.”
“The limo has just turned onto Galeriestrasse,” Riley said. “You should have a visual in a moment.”
Sam peered out at the street. She breathed in and out, slow and regular. Before she took her next breath, she spotted the limousine. The big vehicle approached on her side of the street.
“I see it,” she told Riley.
“Bret,” Riley said.
“Go,” Horn replied.
“Stop the car,” Riley ordered. “Sam has confirmed a visual.”
“You got it.”
Sam envied Bret and Riley the calm and easy way they handled the situation. Fear scrambled around inside her, but she held on to the emotion tightly. Even when she’d been bounced from foster home to foster home, she’d never let anyone know how afraid she was.
“Are you okay, Sam?” Riley asked.
“I’m fine,” she replied coldly. She also knew she’d answered too abruptly. Riley would know that she was anything but fine.
“We’ve got visual,” Riley said.
Sam guessed that he deliberately didn’t mention the anxiety he must have noticed in her voice. She was glad for that.
“The crowd there is a good cover,” Riley said. “But it works against us, too. I didn’t know the event was going to be this busy.”
“It’s a new industrial metal band kicking off a European tour,” Sam said, trying to sound casual. “MTV is here.”
“Where are you?”
“In the alley between the office buildings.” Sam peered around, trying desperately to see if any of the faces she’d picked up at the safehouse had mysteriously appeared there. When she’d checked it out a little earlier, she’d seen people she didn’t recognize posted inconspicuously nearby. Taking no chances, she’d assumed that whoever was after her knew where it was and had it staked out, waiting for her to show.
“We’re losing the spy-sat capabilities,” Riley said. “I can’t make you out. I’m not going to be much help from this end.”
“It’s okay,” Horn said. “Just come on, Sam. I’ve got you.” His voice was calm and confident.
Easing away from the building, Sam stepped out into the crowd. She lost sight of the limousine intermittently as she made her way through the revelers dancing out in the street. From the snatches of conversations she heard, Sam learned that the basement concert area was filled to capacity and the Munich police were enforcing the safety laws. Roadies manned the speaker equipment that brought the sound of the concert out into the street.
“I see you,” Horn said. “Keep coming.”
The agent’s declaration caught Sam by surprise. There was no way she could be seen through the crowd. “Bret, you can’t see me. I don’t see you.” She peered through the massed bodies, feeling her heart pump a little faster.
“Yeah,” Horn said. “I see you. Blond hair. Combat boots. Man, you really fit in with this crowd.”
Panic clawed at Sam. “Bret, that’s not me. You can’t see me. I’ve got my head covered. You won’t see me until I’m right up on you.”
“Oh, hell,” Bret said. “It’s not you.”
Sam made her way to a lamppost in the middle of the crowd. A couple teens were hanging onto the post, shouting the words to the song blasting through the outdoor speakers. Cameras flashed around them, snapping pictures. A street vendor sold beer by the cup nearby.
“Riley, I’ve got a prostitute at the limo’s window,” Horn said.
“Get rid of her.”
Quickly Sam stepped up onto the base of the lamppost and stared out over the crowd. She spotted the limousine, then saw the young blonde in the short skirt, jacket and combat boots leaning heavily on the vehicle’s rear window.
Horn’s window rolled down to half-mast. Lamplight fell across his face, bringing his features out of the shadows.
The young woman refused to take no for an answer. She was a hustler working the tourist crowd. Her English was broken, but her intent—her terms and her price—were clear. She was also embarrassingly forward about what she was willing to do and what others had said about her abilities.
“Bret,” Riley said.
Before Horn could respond, three men stepped out of the crowd. They were all dressed in street clothes, jeans, T-shirts and loose jackets so they fit in with the industrial metal fans. Walking deliberately, one arm tucked in close at their sides, they approached the woman and the limousine.
Hypnotized, Sam stood on the lamppost base. “Bret, three guys are bearing down on your position. Riley—”
“I see them,” Riley said. “Bret, get the hell out of there. This is a busted play. These people are on to us.”
Sam strained to hear the conversation in the limousine through the sat-phone as Bret informed the driver of what was taking place. Unfortunately the crowd that had spilled into the street kept the limousine driver from speeding away. Before he could get clear, the three men converged on the car.
One of the men grabbed the prostitute by the hair and yanked her down to her knees. Her sharp scream of pain pealed through the sat-phone, then reached Sam’s ears again across the distance. He turned her face so her features were revealed in the light.
Another man made the mistake of thrusting his weapon into the back of the limousine. Horn caught the gunman’s arm, broke it and took the pistol. As the man gave an agonized shout and sagged against the car, Horn pointed the weapon back at the men.
“Put the gun down, mate,” someone said in English. “You just go on an’ put that gun down easy like, or I’m gonna splatter this little lady’s brains all over the street.”
The man holding the woman shoved his pistol against the side of her head.
“That ain’t her,” someone else said. The English accent wasn’t quite as pronounced. “Did you hear me? This bloody well ain’t the one we’re looking for.”
“That’s okay. This one here’ll do for starters.” The man raised his voice. “I’m gonna give you the count of three
, Yank, then I’m gonna kill this bitch. The blood can be on your hands. One.”
The woman screamed again.
The limousine driver kept trying to edge out of the crowd and into the center of the street. Incredibly, no one seemed to notice the men with drawn pistols threatening the screaming hooker. The men trailed the luxury vehicle, and the one manhandling the woman dragged her along with him with the pistol against her temple.
“You better think quick, Yank. And do the right thing. Two.”
“Riley,” Hart called.
Before Riley had a chance to reply, Sam shouted, “They’ve got guns! Help! They’ve got guns!” Atop the lamppost base, she pointed at the limousine mired in the crowd. “Robbery! Help!”
The partyers around her took up the warning at once. Immediately people started fighting to get away from the limousine, breaking out in an ever-widening circle like a ripple spreading across a pond. Hoarse screams and shouts drew the attention of nearby policemen. The policemen fought against the pull of the crowd, working their way toward the luxury car.
The prostitute chose that moment to rake her fingernails across her captor’s face. The man cursed loudly as he stepped back and brought his arm to his head. His pistol roared, further inciting the crowd. The bullet missed the woman and knocked sparks from the street.
Sam watched helplessly.
In disbelief Riley watched the plan he’d put into motion fall completely to pieces. The image on the center screen showed the action in thermographic detail. Dialogue tags covered the identified players in the confrontation. “Agent St. John” stood in the middle of a maelstrom of activity.
Inside the limousine, Horn fired his captured pistol. The muzzle flash became a temporary mushroom burst of sudden yellow light that quickly faded. The man who had mishandled the woman dropped backward as if poleaxed.
“Agent McLane,” Melendez called. “There are Munich police on the scene handling crowd control at the concert. They’ve already called for backup.”
“Thank you, Melendez.” Riley scanned the screen, watching as the remaining men took cover. “Bret, did you copy?”
“Affirmative,” Horn said. “I don’t see Sam.”
“She called out the warning,” Riley said. He glanced at the lamppost where he’d followed the red-and-yellow figure Jackson had tagged as Sam St. John.
“Agent St. John” still stood there.
Riley cursed. Sam had shown great initiative in calling the crowd’s attention down on the kidnapping attempt, but now she was standing around like a rookie.
“Sam,” he called, “go to Bret. Let the police take you both into custody. We’ll work with them to get you both out.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I may be safer on my own.”
Figures with drawn weapons converged on the limousine. Bret dropped his captured weapon outside the window and held his hands up. The two men who had closed on the limousine were also taken into custody. The man Hart had shot lay sprawled on the street.
“You’d be safer with the police,” Riley said.
“I thought I was safe with you, too,” Sam shot back.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“You know exactly what I mean. This meeting was a setup. By you. Or by someone who has penetrated your communications. Either way, I’m out of it. When we talk again, it’s going to be on equal footing.”
The connection popped in Riley’s headset as he watched “Agent St. John” jog back into the concert crowd watching the Munich police take control of the situation. “Sam. Sam.”
There was no answer. Even the rolling thunder of the concert music in the background of the connection had faded.
Riley glanced at Melendez.
The tech shook her head. “She’s gone.”
Damn it, Sam. You can’t just walk away like this. Where the hell do you think you’re going? Riley made himself breathe.
Sam moved through the crowd, going quickly. None of the figures tagged “Munich Police” pursued her.
Then Riley noticed one figure that was moving in tandem with Sam. The heat signature was unmarked, an unknown. But the intention to intercept Sam was plain.
“Melendez,” Riley said. “Get Sam back on the sat-phone. Now.”
Melendez tapped her keyboard.
Riley listened to the phone ring and ring in his headset. He watched the figure closing in on Sam. She wasn’t answering. And in the next instant it was too late.
Whoever the new arrival was, he was on top of Sam.
Sam spotted the man coming out of the crowd at the last moment. He was an inch or two over six feet tall, in his late twenties or early thirties. His dark hair stuck out and a day-old growth of beard stained his jaw.
He reached for her without a word, grabbing the loose material of her jacket’s right arm. “Agent St. John,” he said softly, just loud enough to be heard over the confusion of the crowd. He held a pistol in his right hand and casually brought it up.
Sam resisted the instinctive urge to run away. The man outweighed her by at least seventy or eighty pounds and was nearly a foot taller. Instead, she whirled inside his left arm, stepping inside his personal space, and grabbed his gun arm. She knew at once that she couldn’t overpower him, and the man knew it, too.
A smile spread across the man’s face. “No way, small-fry. But it could be fun.”
Sam didn’t need to control his gun arm, though, she just needed to know where it was. Gripping his jacket with her right hand, she brought her knee up into his groin three times in quick succession. Sliding her left hand down to his gun hand, she stripped the pistol from his grip. Unfortunately he fought her, and the weapon slipped away in the darkness and skittered across the alley floor.
The man cursed, his words venomous. Shooting out a doubled fist, he almost caught Sam flatfooted. She saw the blow coming and moved at the last second, avoiding most of the impact along the side of her face. Her senses reeled. She knew she’d be bruised for days. Her right eye watered.
Despite the blow, Sam moved automatically. For years, every chance she’d made for herself, she’d studied martial arts. She had a natural affinity for several styles. No matter what foster home she’d ended up in, or what shelter, she’d found a way to take classes. Sometimes she’d traded janitorial services for training. At the Athena Academy she’d studied every form that had been offered, gradually working up to a teaching position before she’d left.
The man punched at her head again, still growling curses. He swayed a little unsteadily on his feet.
Moving her arms swiftly, Sam avoided the avalanche of powerful blows. She slapped some of them away, catching the man’s wrists in passing and using his own strength against him. Other blows she interrupted by smashing a forearm against his as he barely started his swing.
He tried to stamp her feet with his heavy boots. On the second attempt she turned, set herself and drove the outside of her right foot down his support leg. Her boot caught him at the knee and traveled all the way to his ankle. She knew from experience that she’d torn hide and deeply bruised him.
Spinning swiftly to her right, she came around with a backhand blow that caught the side of the man’s face and snapped his head around. When he turned to face her again, blood leaked out over his lips.
The man lunged for her. Sam ducked beneath his arms, grabbed his jacket in both hands and fell backward, catching his midsection on her feet and rolling backward. Deliberately, she brought the man over and down, banging his head against the cobblestones of the alley.
She rolled over on top of him, coming up astraddle him. Pain and a little confusion filled his eyes as he glared up at her. Then she grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head against the cobblestones. His eyes rolled back up into his head.
Glancing up, short of breath because of her exertions and the panic ripping at her, Sam saw that a small group had turned their attentions toward her. She pushed herself up from the unconscious man, ran her hands throug
h his jacket and pants and took his wallet and money. She had some cash on her, but most of what she’d been doing for the CIA involved credit cards the Agency managed.
For the moment she was on her own.
Even as cries went out for the police, she turned and bolted down the alley. With MI-6 and the Munich police hot on her trail, there was only one place she could go for help.
And she wouldn’t be turning to Riley McLane for assistance until she got a handle on things. One thing Sam knew, the whole meeting had been a setup. She couldn’t believe she’d trusted the man.
Barely containing the anger that stirred within him, Riley stepped through the opening elevator doors and strode down the long corridor toward CIA Director Stone Mitchell’s office. In Munich it was almost 10:00 p.m., but in Langley, Virginia, it wasn’t quite yet five.
Several assistants and agents working in the offices along the way looked up at Riley as he passed them. He ignored them.
Before he reached the door to Mitchell’s office, the director’s stern voice rang out. “Come in, Agent McLane.”
Riley glowered at the button-cam hidden over the door. He opened the door and stepped inside.
Mitchell sat at his desk. He was a compact man of medium height in his early fifties. A dedicated regimen kept him lean and fit. He wore glasses, which made him look bookish to an extent, but a person who knew what to look for discovered the cold stare of a killer in the flat brown eyes. His dark hair was cropped short, matching the thin mustache that flavored his narrow-lipped mouth in a permanent frown. His blue suit was carefully pressed, his tie carefully knotted. He skin was dark enough that he could pass for Mexican, Italian or Indio.
The office fit the director. It was also spare and lean, an efficient place to work, not warm or inviting. The only concession to any kind of personal life outside the sterile walls were the pictures of his wife and two college-age daughters and a handful of Mitchell coaching his girls in softball.
Double-Cross Page 4
