by S L Shelton
“I’m pretty sure you’ll be interested.”
He looked over his shoulder then sat back and crossed his arms. “Okay, shoot.”
I leaned forward, putting my elbows on my knees and pressing my palms together. “When I first met you…or shortly thereafter, we had a little rap session with a Russian mobster by the name of Rodka Sobolev.”
He nodded. “I’m glad to see your memory has improved. Only a few days ago, you had to call me for the address of the safe house you’d just left a day earlier.”
I smiled at his overt attempt to challenge my cognitive abilities. “Yes. True…finding memories has been a challenge. Fortunately, eidetic memory has its advantages, even if it takes a while to dig through.”
“Go on,” he said, grinning smugly.
“At the time of our encounter with Rodka, I didn’t know Russian. In fact, except for English and a little German, I didn’t know any language that wasn’t computer based.”
“And you know Russian now? When did you pick that up?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. Probably at the farm.”
He nodded with a suspicious look. “So. You want me to speak Russian and test you?”
“Not necessary. I’ll test you.”
He laughed. “I’ve known Russian since I joined Naval Intelligence. I haven’t used it for a while, but you can give it a try.”
I sat back, carefully studying his expression. “Did Naval Intelligence give you a Urals accent?”
He looked down and shook his head. “What are you getting at?”
“Soldatskaya smekalka, Tyazheliy Bandformirovanie…K boyu.”
A flit of surprise shook his brown and cheek. “Very good…accent and all.”
“That’s what you said to Rodka.”
“Is it? I don’t recall.”
I smiled. “Really? It’s a very precise phrase…oddly so, in its formation.”
A mask of incredulity swept over John’s face. “That was a year ago, in the middle of an Op. How am I supposed to remember a conversation like that?”
“Oh, it wasn’t a conversation. It was a simple sentence. That’s all you said.”
He shook his head again. “Spit it out. What are you accusing me of?”
“Soldier’s tempering, heavy one bandits, start fighting.”
Anger shaped his face. “I know what it means. I was trying to get him to fight on our side before the cargo heavy took off.”
I grinned. “That would make perfect sense if all I understood was the translation and not the slang,” I said, watching his expression shift minutely into the spectrum of worry. “But I actually know that your very precise sentence, spoken with a trace of a Ural accent, meant, ‘Use your soldier’s common sense, GRU Spetsnaz insurgent…contact.’.”
A moment of astonishment washed over John’s face. “You’re reading a whole lot into a sentence spoken in a combat zone, trying to enlist the help of Russian mob.”
“Well, at least you didn’t insult my memory again.”
“There’s that, too.”
I leaned forward on my knees again. “So…we were in Panama, to pick up Goughin, and the oddest thing happened.”
“The other team.”
I nodded. “The other team. Turns out you might recognize one of them.”
“Me? Why would I recognize them?”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and held up the picture of the Spetsnaz bat tattoo. A hooked eyebrow from John told me he was expecting a face. “That’s a Special Forces tattoo.”
I nodded. “More than that, it’s a GRU Spetsnaz tattoo…paratrooper.”
He shrugged. “Why would I know who that is?”
“Because you sent them.”
He laughed so heartily, for a second it actually sounded sincere. “You’re kidding, right?”
I just stared at him, smiling.
“That’s so flimsy, I can see through it. What’s your game here, Scott?”
“It was flimsy until Storc hacked the security video backup for the consulate in Amsterdam.”
His face turned red as if a switch had been flipped and whipped his chair around. “That’s enough. I’m done.”
“It’s funny. I watched close to forty rounds get fired by those attackers outside the consulate. Yet not a single round was recovered for ballistics processing.”
He stopped and rolled back, lowering his voice. “So, they were bad shots.”
“Bullets have to go somewhere, John…unless they were blanks.”
His jaw clenched. “Are you telling me just because the FBI didn’t find forty rounds, shot toward an empty field with a river on the other side, that I’m somehow connected to the second team in Panama?”
“No, John, I’m saying that Russian weapons, aimed at a sedan, passing within twenty feet, leaving no bullet holes or bullets in the walls of the consulate, means that someone helped you get a security lockdown at the consulate. On the same day you depart our safe house, coincidently after I gave you the name of the accountant.”
“So, I’m a Russian spy now?”
I shrugged. “Are you?”
He shook his head. “This is ridiculous.”
“Okay. It’s ridiculous.”
“Good. I’m glad we agree.”
I got up and walked toward the small bathroom in the opposite corner.
“Where are you going?” John asked, rolling toward me.
“If I’m going with the President to Washington, I need to wash up. I look like a dirt farmer.”
I could feel him staring at my back as I walked. I only gained relief from his penetrating glare once I closed the bathroom door. There I took off the sweat soaked and stained shirt and splashed water on my face.
As it dripped off my chin, joining the stream spinning down the drain in the basin, I stared in the mirror. I didn’t recognize the face. For all I knew, I could have been staring at the static image of a random stranger.
“Why do I care?” I muttered to my reflection. “I don’t know any of these people.”
After getting no answer from the pitiless eyes in the mirror, I picked up my shirt and rinsed it under the spigot. I sniffed it once and then held it under the hand dryer on the wall, having to hit the button four times to sufficiently dry it.
Before the last cycle completed, I heard something over the white noise from the blower. I put on my still damp shirt and opened the door. The sound of gunfire sent me into action.
I ran toward Storc who had dropped to the floor with his laptop. “In that corner,” I said, drawing my weapon as I rushed passed him. “Get behind the pallets and don’t come out for anyone but me.”
He did as directed and rushed, crouching low toward the corner. My eyes went to the stack of tarps, but Kathrin wasn’t to be seen. Instead, I turned to the door leading to the runway side of the hangar.
As I pulled the door open, I found myself in the middle of a battlefield. Civilian clothed SEALs and Secret Service Agents clustered behind what little cover there happened to be on the apron, firing at two seemingly bulletproof Yukons, moving slowly toward the hangar from different directions. Behind them walked several sanitized-uniform clad attackers, firing from behind the two vehicles, like mobile infantry.
One of the assailants spotted me and fired. I ducked in the doorway and looked at the spot in the steel door where the round had hit—a clean hole had been left behind.
Armor-piercing.
I looked back at the corner where Storc hid. “Storc, get behind that tool cart. Armor-piercing rounds.”
The pallets tipped as he scurried into place behind the nearby wheeled tool cabinet. He poked his head out briefly, but I waved him back then ran out the door toward Seifert and two Agents.
“They’re using AP ammo,” I yelled as I approached. A flurry of fire stopped me, and I ducked, placing a small, single engine Cessna between myself and the attackers. “Someone needs to tell the protection detail single layer Kevlar won’t stop these rounds.”
One of the Agents brought his sleeve up to his mouth and spoke into his mic. After a brief pause, he looked up and flashed me the thumbs-up before returning fire at the two slowly approaching Yukons.
As I moved toward the corner of the hangar, the makeshift presidential convoy vehicles sped from behind it toward the gate, engines howling. Over my shoulder, the fire from the attackers paused.
One of the shooters turned toward the approaching Yukons and pointed toward the gate. “Mr. Emrick, the targets are escaping.”
Emrick?! An emotion rushed up from my chest and burned my ears as a memory flashed in my mind.
I remembered asking someone, “Who ordered the hit on my father?”
The answer had been, “Head of the program for the government…Albert Emrick.”
The driver’s side window lowered, and a face appeared on the most distant vehicle and a face appeared, red with anger. “Go. Kill them all,” he screamed.
The attackers behind the closest Yukon rushed forward, increasing their rate of fire as they got into the vehicle. Once they piled in, the SUV turned and sped away toward the gate, in pursuit of the President’s and Secretary of State’s escape vehicles.
It barely registered though. Without realizing it, I had broken into a sprint toward the remaining vehicle, fully loaded SIG in one hand, firing at the attackers. My other fist clenched around my spare magazine, ready to slap it in.
Someone in that remaining Yukon needed to die, and I had to be the one to kill him.
Shots buzzed past me as I wove toward the oncoming vehicle. The face in the window locked eyes with me briefly, long enough for something to register. The response was shock—I could see it and fear in his eyes.
That’s right, Emrick…it’s your past catching up to you.
I barely felt the armor-piercing round that zipped through my upper chest. Another ripped through my thigh, missing the bone, but only causing a stutter in my sprint.
Pain was a luxury I wouldn’t indulge in. Adrenaline, hot blood, and vengeance were my world—the culmination of all my misery lay unresolved only feet away. I would have that man’s still warm heart in my hand and no force would stop it.
Then, reality caught up to me. The shot to my gut I felt—like a hot poker piercing my flesh and towing a line of ice behind it. I stumbled to my knee. As I rose, prepared to launch forward again, another round pierced my chest.
Doubt crept into my mind when body resisted rising again. Then, as I finally managed to push myself to my knees, someone blindsided me, tackling me to the ground and covering me with her body.
“Stay here,” she whispered, then jumped up—it was Kathrin.
A sharp breath produced a thick bloody gurgle in my chest. I pushed myself up in an attempt to regain my feet, but the staggering half step I managed faltered and I fell again. A splatter of blood blew from my mouth and nostrils when the air left my lungs.
As my eyesight blurred and began to fade, I watched Kathrin assault the attackers with ferocity, and no hesitation—as well as speed, oh my god what speed. It seemed impossible.
As I blacked out, I heard a new voice as if over a speaker.
“Kat! Stand down,” the voice said.
I recognized the voice from somewhere…but where?
My eyes flashed open as a helicopter moved to land on the apron. A woman in a tactical vest jumped from the doorway before it had touched down, her dark hair pulled back in a tight ponytail.
“You,” I said through a thick and bubbling throat.
As my eyes began to close, I watched Kathrin stop and walk toward the woman—the woman who had killed her on the beach—the woman who had killed me on the beach.
“Kathrin,” I whispered. At least I think I whispered. I can’t be sure.
**
NICK HORIATIS jammed his foot to the accelerator as the small convoy reached the Dulles Greenway. The President sat in the back seat, wincing in pain from his previous injuries. Around him piled four deep were many of the spare bulletproof vests and aprons that had been removed from the Secretary of State’s plane.
Next to Nick, Agent Casey held two vests against the passenger door with one hand as he fumbled with his spare magazine in the other.
Nick grabbed the barrel of the P229 and held it steady for him.
“Thanks,” Casey said, clicking the mag in place.
“When you’re done, reload mine too,” Nick said.
Casey reached over and took Nick’s weapon from his lap then reached into his shoulder holster for a spare. “Last one,” he said.
He shook his head. “I thought we’d have more time to prep.”
“Me, too. How did they find us?”
Nick shrugged as he looked in the rearview mirror at the government sedan carrying Mark Gaines, the Secretary of State and two of her Secret Service Agents. “The Secretary of State landed a passenger jet on a small-town airport runway…or maybe we overlooked a name or two on that list of traitors.”
“No one in either group was on that list except the Attorney General,” Casey said. “I had three sets of eyes check it.”
As if struck, Nick rocked his head back in sudden realization. “Did your guys on the AG’s detail disable the VTS transmitters on their vehicles?”
Casey paused his loading of Nick’s weapon and stared at the floorboard. He shook his head. “I don’t know. We were wound up trying to reach them without command knowing about it.”
Nick nodded. “Doesn’t matter now. They know where we are.”
“Sir, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to crawl over you to get to our weapons stash in the back,” Casey said, hanging over the seat and letting the body armor drop.
The President nodded and Casey climbed over, carefully moving across the back seat so as not to further injure their imperiled passenger. Casey yanked up on the floor of the cargo area, splitting the two halves of the panels to each side.
“We have plenty of .357 SIG back here, but no .40. You want a fresh piece?”
“Yeah,” the President cut in, drawing a grin to Nick’s face.
Nick looked up in the rearview and saw Agent Casey holding a P229 like his own. “Pull a barrel out of one of those .357s and toss it up here, then load me up.”
Casey did as instructed and then nodded at the fresh weapon in the President’s hands. “Best to keep your finger on the trigger guard until you actually want to shoot someone. That’s the best safety you can have on any weapon.”
The President nodded. “How screwed are we if I have to use this?”
“Pretty screwed, sir.”
“Okay. Just getting my information straight…I’ll be back here if you need me.”
Nick chuckled. He hadn’t voted for this president, but he liked him well enough.
Behind them, the Secretary’s sedan began drifting into the middle lane. It only took a second to realize why—one of those Yukons had caught up with them, and judging by their actions on the ground back at the airport, these weren’t Baynebridge rent-a-soldiers; these were those damned Jagger things.
I’ve capped one of you before, Nick thought. I can do it again.
“Tommy, we have a visitor on the tail vehicle. Drop back and give us some space to maneuver,” Casey said into his sleeve.
The lead SUV carrying John Temple, Storc, and three agents, dropped back in the middle lane, and the tail sedan became the middle vehicle with a smooth hand off.
“Don’t let them get past you, whatever it takes,” Casey said into his mic.
Nick suddenly wished he had a radio with which to chat with the other vehicles. It would be helpful if he knew what Mark Gaines was doing back there. “Call back to the Secretary’s vehicle and ask if they’ve started raiding their weapons cache. I know a former CIA operative that would be happy hearing about it if they haven’t already.”
“Hector, if you haven’t opened up the back seat yet, go ahead and do it,” Casey said into his sleeve.
After a short pause, he nodded and smi
led. “Copy.” He looked at Nick. “It’s the first thing your boy did. He’s got the Secretary on the floor piled with body armor and mags lined up for Armageddon.”
“That’s DJ. He knows how to change a tune.”
As Casey reached back to grab one of the MP5s behind the seat, the sedan glided up beside them, weaving dramatically.
Nick looked in the rearview mirror in time to see the Yukon perform a PIT maneuver on the trailing SUV. It wavered in the outside lane but recovered. The second time didn’t go as well for the good guys. Traveling at over a hundred miles per hour, the rear SUV turned sideways, pushed by the attackers’ Yukon, then skidded to the inside shoulder. As the driver attempted to straighten their course, it rolled down into the center median and flipped, sliding dozens of yards on its side. The Yukon sped around it and closed in on the sedan.
“That’s our cover gone,” Nick said, worried for John and Storc. “Check and see if they’re alive.”
Casey spoke into his sleeve. “Tommy…Tommy respond.” He waited a moment then called again. “Tommy, Dwayne…can you—”
Relief flooded his face, and he nodded after a second. “They’re alive,” Casey said, checking the chamber of the MP5 and crawling to the back over the President. “Excuse me, sir.”
“Do what you need to do,” the President said. “And tell me when I need to point this thing at someone. This is your show.”
Behind them, the back passenger window went down on the sedan, and Mark Gaines leaned out at the waist, firing an MP5 into the grill of the Yukon. The Yukon swerved and dropped back then sped forward again on the other side.
The sedan moved to block, and Mark fired, this time into the wheel-well of the attackers’ vehicle. Again, the Yukon jerked to the side and accelerated, driving on the inside shoulder.
With a burst of speed, the Yukon passed the sedan, then bumped the front fender when it zipped by. As the sedan skidded sideways, the Yukon slowed, and one of the attackers opened the back door. The Jagger stepped onto the running board, firing at the back seat. The back window of the sedan exploded inward, and the driver slammed on its brakes, skidding to a halt on the shoulder.
“Hector, SITREP,” Casey said into his sleeve. After a second, he nodded and looked at Nick in the rearview. “They’re still in play.”
