SLEEPER (Crossfire Series)

by Gennita Low

  “I’ll still radio in,” Jazz said as he adjusted his scope. “Maybe they have other teams not far from here who can keep an eye on them or something. For the moment, we’ll make sure they’re safe till they’re off.”

  That was how Jazz was. He would go the extra mile to protect women and automatically expected that every other man, especially in uniform, should be like that too. Reed respected both his commanders very much; as leaders they’d taught him different things. Because he was a loner by nature, his decisions tended to be about himself. Now that he’d been working in the STAR Force team for a few years, he’d lately found himself asking what Jazz or Hawk would do in certain situations.

  He zoomed in on the blonde woman again as she headed out behind the bushes alone. Unlike the others, who had sprinted like scared rabbits, she didn’t seem afraid. He couldn’t see her expression at this angle, but it was there in the way she held her weapon, the sure gait of her walk, the quick glances back toward the vehicle, as if she knew the girls in there depended on her strength.

  In a few minutes they would be on their way, another image in his collection of unexplained interesting scenes during an operation. Maybe it was good it would be one of the unexplained ones. That way he could write a happy ending for these women. The real stories never gave him any satisfaction.

  The woman emerged from the shadows and walked quickly back to the vehicle. She waited till the others got in on the driver’s side then slammed the door shut. The van started up. She moved to the passenger side and opened the door.

  Reed watched her duck inside and was expecting the door to close and the van to take off. Suddenly, her head reappeared over the top of the van and the bright glare of a spotlight hit his binoculars.

  “Damn!” Jazz said as he and Reed quickly pulled the scopes off their faces. The light wasn’t from a regular flashlight but from professional search and track teams. It could pick off reflections from glass and metal, just like sunlight.

  The unmistakable sound of gunfire. A spray of bullets hit near the lookout point, some close enough to shake the leaves off the branches above onto them.

  “I fucking hate Peeping Toms!” a female voice called out in Croatian just before the squealing of tires. More gunfire. Then darkness again.

  Reed crawled forward and looked through the binoculars. The van was zipping down the road at a dangerous speed. Behind him he could hear the rest of his team climbing to their aid.

  “What the hell was that all about?” Cucumber asked when they found that no one was injured.

  Jazz gave them a brief account.

  “Let’s see. We’re going to report to Hawk that tonight we saw a bunch of women traveling down the road and they all stopped for nature’s call. Then one of them turned her Uzi and nearly killed you,” Dirk said dryly. “He’s going to laugh his ass off.”

  “At least it was just one person who was onto them,” Mink said. Reed could hear the laughter in his voice. “Imagine a whole bunch of very mad women shooting at the two of them and we’ve to come to their rescue.”

  “I wonder how she knew,” Jazz said, rubbing his jaw. “There wasn’t any way she could have known.”

  “What did she look like, Joker?”

  Beautiful, smart, and very brave. Reed didn’t say anything.

  * * *

  She wasn’t going mad. She was just being herself, that’s all.

  “That was crazy, Lily!” Marisa glanced at Lily.

  Lily looked straight ahead into the darkness. “Drive on,” she ordered quietly. They had been on the road for days now, so she knew they were tired. “We’ll be with the others soon.”

  “There was no one there!” Marisa obstinately persisted. “And even if there were, they could have followed us and killed us all.”

  Marisa was right, of course, about the possibility of being shot at. But that was nothing new, everyone had been right for a long time now. Lily smiled bitterly. It seemed, even with her eyes wide open, she was determined to live life on the edge. But she’d been sure someone was watching. Those reflections hadn’t been her imagination.

  “They were there.” She knew she sounded brusque, but she didn’t feel like arguing. “I got our first group through safely to Albania without a hitch. Don’t you trust my skills?”

  “Of course we do, but why didn’t we just drive off? What if they had shot back?”

  Lily looked behind her. She’d ordered the girls to duck down before she’d started her gunfire, telling them not to panic. Most of them didn’t seem particularly traumatized by her actions. But then, most of them had seen more than their share of violence during their captivity. Only the few who had been rescued before their imprisonment in the brothels were sobbing quietly.

  Once upon a time, she would have shrugged and told anyone questioning her authority to shut up and just do as they were told. She would have replied that being shot at was half the fun. Besides that, she would have hired a few more bodyguards, giving the impression to any mercenaries or gang members roaming the countryside roads this was just another batch of kidnapped girls being transported to various kafenas around these parts.

  But everything was different now. She had to do this alone because she couldn’t trust anyone. But could she even trust herself? “I don’t care about ‘what ifs,’” she finally replied. “It didn’t happen and we gave them warning in case they’d gotten any ideas of coming closer. Look, either you all have to trust me in this or we can’t do this at all. I gave you a choice and you chose to follow me instead of going with the peacekeepers. So are you all in or not?”

  Lily had left out many parts of the truth when she’d told them what had recently happened. When she’d gathered them from the safe houses in which she’d found them hiding, she’d informed them the authorities had finally taken Dragan Dilaver’s illegal kafenas apart. The girls had cheered because many of them had been captives in those hellholes, but Lily cautioned there would be many gangs roaming around now, each one trying to be dominant, and they would, sooner or later, reopen similar places, and their clients would still be the same people.

  This she knew without a doubt. The way these scumbags ran their illegal trades was the only thing she was very sure of.

  They had to leave earlier than planned, she’d told them. She would transport them in two groups to a safe place, where they’d hide until she could get “legal” papers done for everyone.

  “You know we’ll follow you, Lily,” one of the girls said from the back of the van. “You saved us.”

  There were other murmurs of agreement from behind her. She knew the girls would understand what she was saying. Many of the brothel clients were, in fact, the peacekeepers themselves, because they were the ones with the cash flow to spend in the kafenas. There was no guarantee that if the girls went to the local authorities for help they would be safe from corrupt officials who were looking to make some money on the side. That was how they had been transported from country to country in the first place—through illegal channels and corrupted officials.

  “Good. Go take a nap now,” she advised. “We’ll be joining the others sooner than you know, and then we’ll be okay for a while.”

  Lily thought about the choice she had offered them: either place their lives in the hands of the local authorities or peacekeepers, whichever they liked, or come with her and she would do her best to get them to wherever they wanted after they were healed. There were two dozen girls in her care right now, most of whom weren’t able to travel without being noticed. They all needed time to lay low and recuperate.

  Not much of a choice, she bleakly acknowledged, staring out at the road as the van sped into the darkness. They didn’t know it, but by giving her their trust, they had saved her life. She didn’t know what she would have done if she’d been left alone, without anything ahead of her. She had nearly—No, she wouldn’t think about that right now.

  For her sake, she must focus on what was ahead and not let her past overtake her life like
it had before. She would deal with her problem after she took care of the girls. That would be her atonement for all the wrongs she’d caused. She almost laughed out loud. When she had left Velesta behind, she had promised to be a different person from then on. She must be doing it right—atonement was scarcely a word the old Llallana Noretski would have used.

  But then the old Lily hadn’t had the problems she had now. She was afraid again. Being on the run. Living life like there was no tomorrow. She’d never thought this would happen again to her after so many years. She didn’t like the insecurity and fear that engulfed her whenever she thought of the future. It was as if she was back to square one, when she’d been in those girls’ shoes.

  Lily deliberately pushed those thoughts away again. Later. Not now. Instead, she focused on the girls and the rest of her plans. This was the final trip, with no problems in both runs. At least the first group, the ones who needed the most care, was already waiting for them in Tirana, Albania.

  With everyone in one place, they would lay low while she tried to find out what was happening out there. She had already checked on Amber and Hawk. They were alive, thank God. Hawk hadn’t failed her. In her madness, she’d still found a way to save her friend.

  Stop it. You have more important things to think about. Like figuring out the different routes to ensure the girls get to where they wanted to go. And the downtime would help her recuperate too. She’d to get better with time, right? She wanted to thump on the dashboard in frustration. Again her thoughts had circled back to herself.

  Lily heard the girls behind her whispering among themselves as their nervousness dissipated. It was good they had each other to talk to. They could help each other chase away the bad memories for a while.

  She wished she had Amber to talk to again. Amber would know what to do with her problem. No one would better understand what they’d done to Lily, but Amber was now seriously ill in the hospital because of her. After what she’d done, her ex-friend probably hated her guts.

  Lily glanced at the side-view mirror to check whether they were being followed. There had been no telltale signs back there, but she had been on these runs before. Mercenaries. KLA gangs. And this time it was just her and a bunch of women. Without the presence of any men, they would look very suspicious to anyone who might stop them.

  If nothing else, at least she knew how to do this right. Knowing she had this one mission to do was like a rope thrown over the side of the cliff on which she was hanging desperately. She didn’t dare look down below her. Long way down. Maybe she would fall into hell, where she belonged.

  That was just her being silly. She wasn’t going crazy.

  *.*.*

  “Das macht nichts. I’ll find it. She can’t be too far if she isn’t dead. No matter what, I’ll get this operation done so I can get back home.” There were nieces and nephews who had never met her whom she wanted to see. There was a nice country dacha waiting for her, with all the things she had missed so much. She tried not to sound too impatient as she interrupted her caller. “That makes two of us. Isn’t it your job to find out who activated her and tried to double-cross me? I thought she was the decoy, and it turns out she was the real thing. There I was at the summit waiting like an idiot when news got back to me that my nephew had been killed. What does the CIA have to say about that?”

  It wasn’t easy conversing in German for long periods anymore, and the man on the other side was irritating her. After all, it had been more than ten years. Of course he knew her background and must think that since she was German by descent, that was the language that came naturally to her. But she’d been recruited by the Soviets for almost a quarter of a century, so her language of choice would be Russian or Croatian. Nobody, however, knew that. They all still thought the Germans were behind this.

  “What, is it so surprising there is a double agent in the Agency?” She wanted to laugh. What did that make her? A double double agent? “I want everything you have on her ASAP. She’s responsible for Dragan’s death, so I’d like to handle her myself, if you know what I mean.”

  She studied her hand as she listened. She liked looking at her longer nails. It’d been such a long time since she had painted them her favorite pink. “Are you suggesting that I’m too old for the game?” she asked, injecting a note of politeness in her voice. She supposed they had a right to be concerned. After all, she was no longer in her prime as an assassin, but a woman didn’t like being told she was too old, even to kill. “My ten years away from the job hasn’t diminished any of my skills. After all, I’ve had to personally take care of a few of your little spill-ups in the States, remember? You owe me this, Gunth. Fax me all you have on her tonight.”

  She switched the cell phone to her other ear so she could inspect her other set of nails. Damn it, two were chipped. Her voice sharpened as she changed into English. “Tell you what. I’ll fly over to where you are and extract what I want from you. Then I’m going to send your favorite body part back to the top.” She smiled at the image. “Are you daring me? I may be old, but I still love a challenge. And Gunth, I’ll remember that you’ve insulted me. Verstehen?”

  Greta snapped her cell phone shut. She tapped it against her chin, as she stared thoughtfully out the train window, half-listening to the growl and rumble of wheels speeding over steel tracks. Usually she would be enjoying a good cup of espresso while she sat in her private compartment, doing a little bit of knitting, or playing solitaire. It was a good way to relax.

  She smiled again. Perhaps she was getting old. After all, she had played being old for so damn long. Her gaze fell on the knitting bag on the seat across from her. The knitting habit came from her other life, when she had projected the image of a harmless, grandmotherly older woman with ever-whitening hair, knitting peacefully in the corner of the bus or train, with her black pearl-handled knit bag. The CIA loved her. Nobody had given her more than a second glance.

  Ten years. Maybe she had really begun to believe that she was a sweet old grandma. Even now her hands itched for the soothing motion of one knitting needle looping a woolen thread from another. Loop, slide out, tighten.

  Greta looked at her hands. They always said one could tell how old a person was by looking at her hands. She didn’t think so. She had nice hands, but with short, unpainted nails and a simple gold ring, they had looked very normal. Now that she was out of DC, her hands were hers again—nicely manicured with long nails that would have looked ludicrous on the old lady in the bus. She frowned. She really didn’t want to give up knitting yet, but it wasn’t good on her nails.

  She put down her cell phone and smoothed her hands across the tabletop. It was that stupid bitch’s fault, of course, that her plans were delayed. If everything had worked out right, she would have been on her way home, happily retired—or semi, she hadn’t quite decided that yet—and she would have been on her way to meet the nieces and nephews she hadn’t seen in over a decade.

  Family. She’d thought about them often while she had been away. Impossible to have stayed in touch, of course. She’d spoken briefly on the phone several times in ten years, but most of the conversations had been too short and not satisfying. If everything had gone according to plan, that last operation would have been a nice wrap-up of her career.

  She shook her head. All right, at least for a while. She wasn’t quite ready to fade into nothing yet. Let’s face it. If she’d succeeded in assassinating the current newly elected premier of Slavinistan, then the international summit would have been a failure and the powers-that-be would have been very happy with her homecoming. Now they were just pleased. After all, she’d given them ten years of her life. It would have been nice, though, if she’d returned with that little present she’d promised them, the tiny explosive device trigger, so they could copy its technology. It would have been very nice if she’d been able to demonstrate its effectiveness with Liashenko’s assassination.

  But that was the fun of being out in the field, something for which she’d year
ned when she’d walked into the CIA building and headed to the same office every day. Being a handler to several American traitors was boring, boring work. Not at all challenging. If not for her, these stupid men would have been caught and killed off a dozen times already. As it was, the whole charade at that office had lasted ten years.

  She knew she’d done well even without this final victory. She was already achieving legendary status among the covert world, and especially with the operatives back home, for all that she had accomplished. The whole big scandal in DC right now, with all their internal investigations and Intelligence committee hearings, was because of her doing.

  Greta couldn’t help but smile at the thought. Ah, that little old white-haired grandma had wreaked havoc for the CIA all right. And it was all her, Greta Van Duren’s, doing.

  She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, savoring the feeling of accomplishment. It would be easy to trace a stupid thing like Llallana Noretski. She was just another greedy loser being used by the agencies.

  There were still people in the CIA she could contact besides Gunther. She sniffed at the memory of how supercilious the other agent had been to her on the phone. As if she were a washed-out old operative, running away from DC. She frowned. That was not the perception she wanted to end her career with.

  She would get the files on Llallana Noretski. Someone had thought of using her as a human bomb to kill off an entire summit filled with world leaders. There must be more to this. They must have something over the Noretski girl. What?

  The ambitiousness of that plan had astounded Greta when she’d figured out what was happening. One hit, she could understand, but an entire board of world leaders? That would have certainly been someone’s career icing. But who? And why?