by Gregg Loomis
An anomaly. Like a jungle suddenly gone silent, a junk car in an upscale residential section of town, an open door late at night.
Careful to seem to be doing nothing more than looking for a cab, Jason searched the shadows, potential hiding places for whoever had arrived in the Lincoln. Of course, it was quite possible the occupants of the car had not included a hired driver but only patrons of the restaurant who would appear at any moment, loud with alcohol and cheerful after a good meal, and drive away.
But Jason wasn’t prepared to bet his life on it.
There! Was that movement he had seen between two parked cars about fifty feet away? Could have been some nocturnal animal, a cat, a stray dog. Something had definitely moved.
He turned and went back inside.
Judith smiled. “No cab?”
“No cab.” He took her hand, leading her away from the door. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
“But the door’s back there,” she protested.
“Not the door we’re using tonight.”
Years ago, he and Laurin had noticed a senator across Kinkead’s dining room, one currently in the news for his purported involvement with a young intern. Jason had noted the senator’s departure was in the opposite direction from the entrance, no doubt to avoid the cadre of reporters who dogged his every move. Ergo, there was an exit somewhere other than the one used by the establishment’s customers.
Jason and Judith walked quickly past the open square of the bar and into the kitchen, where, in their frenzied activities, none of the white-clad staff seemed to notice. Straight back was a doorway. Beyond that, an alley.
Jason guessed the narrow space had originally been for deliveries and garbage removal from the row of town houses. Now it served the same purpose for the restaurant and adjacent establishments. The faint odor of rotting vegetables confirmed the hypothesis
Judith slipped her hand from his. “Hold on! What exactly … ?”
Jason could only see her outline in the dusky alley. “We can talk later. Right now I want to get out of the dark.”
The alley ended at H Street. Jason took a right, finding himself on the open, well-lit, tree-studded quad of George Washington University.
Judith stopped. “OK, we’re out of the dark. Now, what the hell … ?”
Was that movement at the base of a massive oak?
Jason put a finger to his lips. “Not out of the woods yet.”
She was looking over his shoulder. “Do you know those men?”
Jason whirled around. Two figures, their faces in the shadow of baseball caps, were advancing slowly from the direction he and Judith had come. A quick look over his shoulder revealed two more coming from the opposite direction.
“Are they students, you think?” Judith asked.
Jason was cursing himself for not checking on the cab ride to Kinkead’s. Not that a tail could have been spotted in city traffic. “I doubt it.”
“Muggers?”
“Not likely.”
“But what—”
He took her hand again, this time backing up slowly until he was in front of the door of the law school. Fortunately, Judith had spotted them before Jason had no chance of finding a position to protect his back.
He reached under the back of his jacket, producing the Glock. “You know how to use this?”
She looked as though he were handing her a serpent. “I’ve only fired a pistol in basic training, but I think I remember.”
“Try. Don’t shoot unless you have to, though.”
If the approaching quartet had intended to use firearms, they would have done so before Jason has seen them, certainly before he had managed to back into a defensive position. No reason to announce what was happening to the local and campus police. They were armed, though, Jason was certain. If he showed any move toward gunplay, they would respond in kind, worrying about cops later.
Now he could see something in the hands of two of the men, something that reflected the light. Something like long-bladed Spetsnaz knives. The other two had hands inside their jackets, ready in case guns were needed.
Four against one wasn’t good odds in a shoot-out. Even worse in a knife fight.
36
Calle Luna 23
San Juan
At the Same Time
The man called Pedro smiled as he looked at the screen of his cell phone. The other hand held a glass of chilled vodka. It was far from his first of the evening.
“Prekrasniy! Chudesniy! Peters has left the sanctuary of the military base. Anatoly’s team has Peters cornered in the American capital.”
His younger companion was not quite so sanguine. But then, he had consumed far less vodka. “In English, remember?”
“OK: awesome, fantastic. In any language we will soon be shed of this Peters person.”
“Let us not celebrate too early. What do the Americans say, something about numbering eggs? Or is it hatching eggs? Besides, we do not know for whom Peters works. Who says they will not send another on the same mission.”
“Another American saying tells us not to jump off a bridge until we reach it.” A puzzled expression crossed Pedro’s face. “Why would one jump from a bridge in the first place? Anyway, we know the Englishman, the professor …”
“Cravas.”
“Cravas. He contacted the man who went to Iceland …”
“Karloff.”
“Yes, Karloff. He must have been the one who hired Peters or his employer.”
“Too bad he’s dead. Otherwise we might have some idea who that employer might be.”
Pedro reached out and gently slapped the other man’s cheek before tossing back the contents of his glass. “Do not be critical of your superiors. The decision to have Karloff die was made in Switzerland, not here. If the man had already spread the professor’s poison, how could we be sure it went no further?”
He refilled his glass and continued, “An obscure professor in northern England, that is one thing. Besides, these scientists are always bickering like married people: The world is getting warmer; the world is not getting warmer. Who takes them seriously anyway? Now that Karloff is gone and Peters soon will be, who will interfere with our mission? No one, that’s who! I’m ordering half of the teams to converge on the American capital immediately. Peters won’t escape us now!”
Carlos wasn’t quite so sure.
37
Law School Building
George Washington University
Washington, DC
Jason pushed Judith against the doors of the building. “Watch my back.”
Then he stepped toward the two men with knives. He could see clearly now that his guess had been correct. A basic Spetsnaz tactic was for one or more men to try to finish the intended victim off with the silence of knives under cover of comrades with guns. Should the blade-wielding soldiers fail, the target could be handled with more effective, if less secretive, gunfire.
Bending slightly forward, arms extended from his body, Jason circled the two assailants. The quad was well lit enough for him to see the grins on their faces. Two experienced knife fighters against an unarmed man backed up by a frightened woman with a single pistol …
Well, they seemed to be saying, this isn’t even sporting.
Jason waited patiently, knowing what to expect. The Bowie knife–like shape of the Russian blades dictated the method of attack, an attack that was not long in coming.
The man on Jason’s left feigned a move to his own left, then swiped at arm’s length, slashing a blur of steel from his right.
Jason thought he heard a cry from Judith as he easily danced away. The thrust had not been intended to be successful but to distract Jason from what would come next, a similar but more deadly move by his partner.
It came exactly as expected. Instead of stepping out of the arc of the slicing blade, Jason stepped into it, into it far enough that the knife was behind him. At the same instant, Jason’s right arm went forward with a motion similar to a baseball
pitcher releasing a fastball. The momentum flung the customized killing blade that had been strapped to his arm from its scabbard and into his hand.
Had he the time, Jason would have to thank whatever deity had reminded him to return to his room before going out and to strap the weapon on.
Before his immediate assailant could recover from his own strike, Jason was below his arm, thrusting upward. The finely honed steel entered just at the armpit, journeying upward until deflected by a shoulder bone. The man shrieked in pain as he reflexively spun away, dropping his own weapon. The move allowed Jason’s narrow blade to slide free. Not a fatal wound but one that would keep the man out of any further activity tonight.
Jason’s other opponent, anticipating the second or two Jason would need to work the knife free, charged. The look of surprise on his face when he realized his mistake would have been comic had its consequences not been fatal. Dropping to one knee, Jason simply held up his knife, letting his enemy’s inertia impale him upon it. The blade entered under the rib cage and upward to the heart.
The man went down without a sound, dead before he hit the ground.
But Jason didn’t see him fall. Instead, his attention was snatched away by the sound of a single shot.
Judith, Glock in both hands and in a shooter’s stance, was watching one of the two who presumably were carrying firearms as he slowly collapsed on the steps of the law school not twenty feet from where Jason stood.
“He was going to shoot you,” she said unsteadily. “Shoot you in the back.”
Jason had not noticed the weapon on the ground at the man’s feet.
That left one… . There he was, slipping silently toward Judith among the shrubbery that concealed him. Since he hadn’t shot her, Jason had to guess he had it in mind to take a hostage. But he might change his mind in a hurry if Jason warned her.
Jason stooped, reaching inside the loose jacket of the dead man. His fingers closed around what he was searching for.
By the time Jason was on his feet, the man was within a few feet of Judith. Time for a single try.
Something made Judith’s would-be assailant turn toward Jason at the last instant. He raised his weapon. Too late. The metal was arcing through the air, a comet in the quad’s light. He grunted as the Spetsnaz fling knife ended its flight, piercing his throat, severing his left carotid artery, and effectively nailing him to the door. His gun clattered to the cement of the porch as a fountain of blood painted the stone a dark black in the artificial light.
Judith saw him for the first time and gave a mousy squeak of horror. “He’s pinned to the door!”
“The eight a.m. tort class is in for a surprise. C’mon, time to go.”
She reached out, feeling the throat. “He’s still alive. I might be able to help.”
“Why would you?”
“Hippocratic Oath.”
“Nobody tried to kill Hippocrates.”
He took the Glock still in her hand, returning it to the holster in the small of his back. “We need to leave before we wind up explaining this mess to the cops.”
“We haven’t done anything wrong. We were just defending ourselves.”
For the first time, Jason noted the sole survivor, the man he had wounded, had disappeared. “Not only ‘defended,’ but defended well. You’re a better shot than I could have hoped.”
He had her hand now, leading her away.
“I killed a man,” she murmured. “I’ve never done that before.”
Jason started to say she would never completely recover from it, that the act was a chasm between civilization and barbarity that could not be re-crossed. But that would provoke a lot of questions he would prefer not to answer.
Hours later, he rolled over in Judith’s bed. Lovemaking had been furious, urgent. It almost always was after a violent death. Perhaps he and Judith, or anyone who had witnessed bloodshed, felt a need to go through the motions of procreation to replace the life snuffed out. All Jason knew was that with Judith, as with Maria, he enjoyed the clamant need and the magnified release.
Maria.
He was staring at the ceiling, where shadows cast by the streetlights outside created abstract patterns.
What the hell would he tell Maria?
Are you nuts? The inner voice asked. You’ll tell Maria nothing. By the time she comes back from whatever she’s doing in Iceland with whatshisname …
Sevensen.
Yeah, him. By the time she gets back to wherever you choose to live next, this Major Ferris, J., MD won’t even remember your name.
Whaddaya mean, won’t remember my name? After—
After what? After you nearly got her killed? Well, she may remember you for that. But a one-night stand? Get real!
In one way, Jason suspected the voice might be right. He certainly didn’t have room for two women in his life. But not remember his name?
38
142 Hemphill Avenue
Atlanta, Georgia
The Next Day
The area abutting the western edge of Georgia Tech’s campus consisted of student-friendly eating establishments, low-end retail, and a few of the original bungalows and Craftsman cottages of the blue-collar neighborhood now largely swallowed up by the school. Many of the latter housed student organizations or displayed ROOM TO RENT signs as did the gray shingle cottage into whose driveway Jason pulled the rented Ford. The dirt yard behind the house served as a parking lot for a pair of motorcycles, a scooter, and a pickup truck whose tires showed more cord than rubber.
Jason locked the car and walked along the edge of the building past a laboring air-conditioning compressor. Three steps led him up to a porch across the front, facing the street. A gray cat jumped from an old-fashioned glider, giving Jason a disapproving look. The animal seemed to be trying to decide whether to flee or stick around as it watched Jason ring the doorbell. He was not surprised the chimes played the first couple of bars of “(I’m a) Ramblin’ Wreck.” Neither was the cat. It sat statue still except for its tail, which waved as if to a rhythm only it heard.
The door behind the screen door opened, revealing a stocky woman with closely cropped hair. She wore a Georgia Tech T-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops. A black-and-white cat circled her left ankle, a tabby her right.
She stooped to shoo them away at the same time she unlatched the screen door. “Well, hello, Mr. Peters! Long time no see. I was surprised when I got your call.”
Mind appearing to be made up, the gray cat dashed inside the open door.
“Good to see you, too, Sybil. Still keeping your feline menagerie, I see.”
She opened the door wider. “About sixteen at last count. But that was a week ago. Could be more by now. Critters multiply faster than I can have them neutered or spayed. C’mon in.”
Jason followed her down a corridor dark in spite of sunlight pouring through a window at the end. He imagined dozens of pairs of cat eyes peering out of the gloom. There was a smell of one or more litter boxes somewhere near.
Sybil stood aside, ushering Jason into the room at the end of the hall. A large and very comfortable-looking chair sat behind a dining-room table from which the faux mahogany veneer was peeling. On the floor underneath it were what looked to Jason like multiple computers. And cats—three of four of them. There were several more on the couch, the only other piece of furniture visible. The wall to his right was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, most of the titles relating to computers, as far as Jason could tell. The other wall displayed diplomas, certificates, and photographs of Sybil shaking hands or draping arms around people Jason did not recognize. There were also a number of pictures of Sybil in her Tech softball uniform, several trophies, and, not surprisingly, a cat that was staring down curiously from its perch on the top shelf.
Sybil had come to Tech on a softball scholarship, majored in computer science, and excelled at both. If Jason remembered correctly, the Lady Jackets had won a national championship behind her pitching, and her grades had been good enough to warran
t a graduate scholarship to Stanford. She returned to her alma mater to teach advanced computer science, a curriculum Jason gathered was designed for students who simply outpaced existing courses and that Sybil made up as she went along. In his few visits and conversations with her, there had been no hint of a boyfriend, partner, or companion of any description. As far as he knew, she rented out rooms, sought only the company of her cats, and designed computer programs for several governments and organizations including the United States and Narcom. Momma swore she was the best hacker that had ever been.
Sybil indicated the couch as she slid into the chair. “Have a seat.”
Jason eyed the streaks of cat fur that would attach to his summer-weight wool Italian slacks and the light jacket he had worn against the chill of the airplane’s air-conditioning. “I’ll stand if it’s all the same.”
That served as the niceties that precede most business conversations in the South.
A cat vaulted effortlessly into Sybil’s lap. “What can I do for you today, Mr. Peters?”
Jason handed her the matchbook cover. “I want to see their guest list for the last, say, three months.”
She was scratching the cat’s ears to accompanying purrs. “Looking for anyone in particular?”
“I’m not certain. I’d be interested in anyone named Uri, Urinov, or something like that.”
Not much chance the man he’d left in the trunk would sign into a hotel under his real name, but worth a shot.
“You’re aware that hacking into private records is illegal.”
Jason cocked an eyebrow, “No doubt the first time you’ve crossed that threshold.”
The ghost of a smile flirted with her face before disappearing. “Well said. I’ll see what I can do. You could have just sent this matchbook to me. I’m flattered you came in person.”
“Getting out of DC at the time seemed like a good idea.”
