State Of Siege (1999)

by Tom - Op Center 06 Clancy

  Sharon Hood was sitting quietly by her husband's side. She had left him a week before, taken the children, and gone to stay with her parents in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She'd returned for the same reason that Hood had resigned from Op-Center: to fight for their family. Hood had no idea what he'd do next in his career, and he wouldn't be putting out feelers until they returned to Washington on Wednesday. He'd cashed in some stock he'd bought during his years as a broker, enough to run the household for two years. Income wasn't as important as satisfaction and banker's hours. But Sharon was right. The wholeness of what he felt in the car, imperfections and all, was something very special.

  One of those imperfections--the largest one--was still between Hood and his wife. Though Sharon took his hand and held it as they started the trip, he had the feeling that he was on probation. There was nothing he could pinpoint, nothing that seemed different from any other drive they'd taken. But there was something that stood between them. A resentment? Disappointment? Whatever, it was the reverse of the sexual tension he felt with Ann Farris.

  Paul and Sharon talked a little at first about what they were going to do in the city. Tonight was an official dinner with the families of the other violinists. Maybe a walk through Times Square if they got done early enough. On Saturday morning, they'd drop Harleigh off at the United Nations and then do what Alexander had requested: visit the Statue of Liberty. The boy wanted to see up close how it was "erected," as he put it. At six they'd head for the soiree, leaving the young man in the Sheraton with its built-in video game system.

  Paul and Sharon wouldn't be permitted to attend the United Nations reception, which was being held in the lobby of the General Assembly Hall building. Instead, they'd be watching the concert on closed-circuit televisions in the second-floor press room along with the other parents. On Sunday, they'd take in an afternoon performance of the Metropolitan Opera orchestra doing Vivaldi--Sharon's favorite--at Carnegie Hall, after which, at Ann Farris's recommendation, they'd head up to Serendipity III for frozen hot chocolates. Sharon wasn't happy about that, but Hood pointed out that this was a vacation, and the kids were looking forward to the dessert stop. Hood was sure she was also unhappy about the fact that Ann had suggested it. On Monday, they'd drive out to Old Saybrook to visit Sharon's parents--this time as a family. That had been Hood's idea. He liked Sharon's folks, and they liked him. He wanted to regain that stability for the family.

  Because it was a Friday, traffic thickened going into and out of Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Newark. They finally reached New York at five-thirty and checked into the hotel on Seventh Avenue and Fifty-first Street. The tall, busy hotel was a Sheraton now; Hood remembered when it was the Americana years before. They arrived just in time to join the other families for dinner up the street at the Carnegie Deli. The meal was rich with pastrami, roast beef, and hot dogs. The only couple the Hoods knew was the Mathises, whose daughter Barbara was one of Harleigh's closest friends. Barbara's parents both worked for the Washington police department. There were also a few mothers--two of them attractive, single parents--who recognized Paul from his tenure as mayor of Los Angeles. They treated him with celebrity-worthy smiles and asked what it was like to "run" Hollywood. He said he wouldn't know. They'd have to ask the Screen Actors Guild and the other motion picture unions.

  All of it, the food and the attention, made Sharon uneasy. Or at least it brought out whatever discomfort she had been feeling since they set out. Hood decided to try to talk to her about it when the kids went to bed.

  There was one thing Sharon had been right about, though. Paul had been away from home too much. As he watched Harleigh interact with the other teenagers and their parents, he realized he was observing a young woman and not a girl. He didn't know when the change had happened, but it had. And he was proud of Harleigh in a different way than he was of Alexander. She had her mother's charm along with the acquired poise of a musician.

  Alexander was focused on his plate of well-done potato pancakes. He would press the back of his fork on them, wait for the grease to rise from the top, and then watch to see how long it took for the grease to soak back. His mother told him to stop playing with his food.

  Hood had reserved a suite on an upper floor. After Alexander had a look around the city with his binoculars--marveling at what he could see on the street and in other windows--the kids went to sleep on cots in the living room, giving him and Sharon some privacy.

  Privacy and a hotel room. There was a time when that would automatically have meant lovemaking, not talk or uncomfortable silence. Hood found it disturbing how much time and passion over the last few years went to other things, like guilt or holding their individual ground instead of holding each other. How had things gotten to that point? And how did a couple get them back to where they should be? Hood had an idea, though it would be tough convincing his wife.

  Sharon slid into bed. She curled on her side, facing him.

  "I'm a mess," she said.

  "I know." He touched her cheek and smiled lightly. "But we'll get through this."

  "Not when everything is pissing me off," she said.

  "Apart from the food, what else bothered you?" Hood asked.

  "I was angry at the parents we were with, at the table manners of their kids, at the way the cars raced through red lights or stopped in the crosswalks. Everything got to me. Everything."

  "We've all had days like that," he said.

  "Paul, I can't remember when I wasn't like that," Sharon said. "It's just been building and building, and I don't want to spoil things for Harleigh or Alexander this week."

  "You've been through some rough times," Hood said. "We both have. But the kids aren't stupid. They know what's been happening with us. What I wanted, what I hoped for, was that we not let anything get to us while we're here."

  Sharon shook her head sadly. "How?"

  "We're not in a rush," Hood said. "The only thing we have to do over the next few days is to build some good memories for ourselves and the kids. Start to pull ourselves out of this funk. Can we focus on that?"

  Sharon placed her hand on his. There was a hint of garlic from something she'd cooked the night before. That didn't do a hell of a lot for passion either, Hood had to admit. The routine of life. The smells that became more familiar than that unforgettable first scent of a woman's hair. The chores that turned the tip of your angel's wing back into a hand.

  "I want things to change," Sharon said. "I felt something in the van driving up--"

  "I know," Hood said. "I felt it, too. It was nice."

  Sharon looked at him. Her eyes were moist. "No, Paul," she said. "What I felt was scary."

  "Scary?" Hood said. "What do you mean?"

  "The whole ride up, I kept remembering the drives we used to take when the kids were small. Out to Palm Springs or Big Bear Lake or up the coast. We were so different then."

  "We were younger," Hood said.

  "It was more than that."

  "We were focused," Hood said. "The kids needed us more than they do now. It's like monkey bars. You've got to stand close together when their reach is small. Otherwise they fall."

  "I know," Sharon said. Tears began trickling from her eyes. "But I wanted to feel that togetherness today, and I didn't. I want those good times again, those old feelings."

  "We can have them now," Hood promised.

  "But there's all this crap inside," Sharon said. "All this bitterness, disappointment, resentment. I want to go back and do things over so we can grow together, not apart."

  Hood looked at his wife. Sharon had a habit of looking away whenever she was confused and of looking directly at him when she was not. She was looking straight into his eyes.

  "We can't do that," Hood remarked. "But we can work on fixing things, one at a time."

  He pulled her closer. Sharon moved across the bed, but there was no warmth in their proximity. He didn't understand this at all. He was giving her what she had wanted, what she said she needed, and she was still
withdrawing. Maybe she was just venting. She hadn't really had a chance to do that. He held her silently for several minutes.

  "Hon," Hood went on, "I know you haven't wanted to do this before, but it might be a good idea if the two of us talked to someone. Liz Gordon said she'd give me some names, if you're interested."

  Sharon didn't say anything. Hood held her closer and heard that her breathing had slowed. He craned back slightly. She was staring at nothing and fighting back tears.

  "At least the children turned out all right," she said. "At least we did that right."

  "Sharon, we did more than just that right," he said. "We've made a life together. Not perfect, but a better life than a lot of people. We've done okay. And we'll do better."

  He pulled her close again as she began to sob openly. Her arms went around his shoulders.

  "That isn't what a girl dreams of when she thinks of the future, you know?" she wept.

  "I know." He cradled her tighter. "We'll make it better, I promise."

  He didn't say anything else. He just held on as passion sent Sharon's regret into a power dive. She would bottom out and then, in the morning, they'd start the long climb back.

  It would be difficult to take things slow and easy, as he'd said. But he owed that to Sharon. Not because he'd let his career dictate his hours but because he'd given his passion to Nancy Bosworth and Ann Farris. Not his body, but his thoughts, his attention, even his dreams. That energy, that focus, should have been saved for his wife and his family.

  Sharon fell asleep snuggled in his arms. This wasn't how he wanted to feel closeness, but at least it was something. When he was sure he wouldn't wake her, he released her gently, reached over to the night table, and snapped off the light. Then he lay back, staring at the ceiling and feeling disgusted with himself in the hard, unforgiving way you can only at night. And he tried to figure out if there was a way he could make this weekend a little more special for the three people he'd somehow let down.

  FIVE

  New York, New York Saturday, 4:57 A.M.

  Standing outside the run-down, two story brick building near the Hudson River made Lieutenant Bernardo Barone think of his native Montevideo.

  It wasn't just the dilapidated condition of the body shop that reminded him of the slums where he grew up. For one thing, there were the brisk winds blowing from the south. The smell of the Atlantic Ocean was mixed with the smell of gasoline from cars racing along the nearby West Side Highway. In Montevideo, fuel and the sea wind were ever present. Overhead, a steady flow of air traffic followed the river to the north before turning east to La Guardia Airport. Planes were always criss-crossing the skies over his home.

  Yet it was more than that which reminded him of home. Bernardo Barone had found those in every port city he'd visited the world over. What made it different was being out here by himself. Loneliness was something he felt in Montevideo whenever he returned.

  No, he thought suddenly. Don't get into that. He didn't want to be angry and depressed. Not now. He had to focus.

  He backed up against the door. It felt cool on his sweaty back. The door was wood covered with a sheet of steel on both sides. There were three key locks on the outside and two heavy bolts on the inside. The sun-faded sign above the door read Viks' Body Shop. The owner was a member of the Russian Mafia named Leonid Ustinoviks. The small, bony, chain-smoker was a former Soviet military leader and an acquaintance of Georgiev's through the Khmer Rouge. Barone had been informed by Ustinoviks that there wasn't a body shop in New York that was exclusively a body shop. By night, when it was quiet and no one could approach the building unseen or unheard, either they were chop shops selling stolen cars, drug or weapon dealerships, or slavery operations. The Russians and Thais were big in this arena, sending kidnapped American children out of the country or bringing young women into the United States. In most cases, the captives were put to work as prostitutes. Some of the girls who had worked for Georgiev in Cambodia had ended up here, moving through Ustinoviks's hands. The size of the crates used to ship "spare parts" and the international nature of the trade made these businesses a perfect front.

  Leonid Ustinoviks's business was arms. He had them brought in from former republics of the Soviet Union. The weapons came into Canada or Cuba, usually by freighter. From there, they were slipped into New England and the Middle Atlantic States, or into Florida and the other Gulf Coast states. Typically, they were moved piecemeal from small-town storehouses to places like this body shop. That was to prevent losing everything if the FBI and the NYPD's Intelligence Division caught them in transit. Both groups quietly monitored the communications and activities of persons from nations known to sponsor illicit trade or terrorism: Russia, Libya, North Korea, and many others. The police regularly changed signs along the riverfront and in the warehouse districts, altering parking restrictions and hours when turns could be made on certain well-traveled corners. This gave them an excuse to stop vehicles and clandestinely photograph the drivers.

  Ustinoviks had told him to keep an eye out for anyone who turned off the highway or any of the side streets. If anyone came here, or even slowed down while driving by, he was to rap three times on the body shop's door. Whenever a deal was taking place, operations like this always had someone who would come out and demand that a search warrant be read to him--a right, by New York City law--while anyone inside escaped by the roof onto an adjoining building.

  Not that Ustinoviks was expecting trouble. He said there had been a flurry of raids against Russian gangsters two months ago. The city didn't like to give the appearance of targeting an individual ethnic group.

  "It's the Vietnamese's turn," he quipped when they arrived here from the hotel.

  Barone thought he heard a sound off to the side of the building. Reaching into his windbreaker, he withdrew his automatic. He walked cautiously to the darkened alley to the north. There was a club behind a high chain-link fence. The Dungeon. The doors, windows, and brick walls were all painted black. He couldn't imagine what went on there. It was odd. What they had to do in secret in Cambodia, sell girls for money, was probably done openly in places like this.

  When a nation stands for freedom, he thought, it has to tolerate even the extremes.

  The club was closed for the night. A dog was moving behind the fence. That must have been what he heard. Barone slid the gun back into its shoulder holster and returned to his post.

  Barone pulled a hand-rolled cigarette from his breast pocket and lit it. He thought back over the past few days. Things were going well, and they'd continue to go well. He believed that. He and his four teammates had reached Spain without any problem. They split up in the event that any of them had been identified, and over the next two days, flew to the United States from Madrid. They met at a Times Square hotel. Georgiev had been the first to arrive. He had already made the connections necessary to obtain the weapons they needed. The negotiations were going on inside while Barone stood guard.

  Barone drew on the cigarette. He tried to concentrate on the plan for tomorrow. He wondered about Georgiev's other ally, the one known only to the Bulgarian. All Georgiev would tell them was that it was an American whom he had known for over ten years. That would be about the time they were in Cambodia together. Barone wondered who he could have met there and what role they could possibly be playing in tomorrow's action.

  But it was no use. Barone's mind always went where it wanted to go, and right now, it didn't want to think about Georgiev or the operation. It wanted to go back. It wanted to go home.

  To the loneliness, he thought bitterly. A place familiar to him--strangely comfortable.

  It wasn't always that way. Though his family had no money, there was a time when Montevideo seemed like paradise. Located on the Atlantic Ocean, it's the capital of Uruguay and home to some of the most spacious and beautiful beaches in the world. Growing up there in the early 1960s, Bernardo Barone couldn't have been happier. When he wasn't in school or doing his chores, he used to go to the be
ach with his twelve-years-older brother Eduardo. The two young men would stay there long into the night, swimming endlessly or building forts in the sand. They would light campfires when the sun set and often went to sleep beside their forts.

  "We'll rest in the stables with the magnificent horses," Eduardo would joke. "Can you smell them?"

  Bernardo could not. He could only smell the sea and the fumes from the cars and boats. But he believed that Eduardo could smell them. The young boy wanted to be able to do that when he grew up. He wanted to be like Eduardo. When Bernardo and his mother went to church every weekend, that was what he prayed for. To grow up just like his brother.

  Those were Bernardo's happiest memories. Eduardo was so patient with him, so friendly with everyone who came by to watch them build the tall, crenellated walls and moats. Girls loved the handsome young man. And they loved the handsome young man's cute little brother, who loved them right back.

  Bernardo's beloved mother was a baker's assistant and their father Martin was a prizefighter. Martin's dream was to save enough to open a gym so his wife could quit her job and live like a lady. From the time Eduardo was fifteen, he spent many days and nights traveling with the elder Barone, working as his corner man. Often they'd be gone for weeks at a time, participating in the Rio de la Plata circuit. Groups of fighters traveled together by bus from Mercedes to Paysandu to Salto, boxing one another or ambitious locals. Pay was a share of the gate, less fees for the doctor who traveled with the fighters. Eduardo learned basic medical skills so they could save the price of the doctor.

  It was a difficult life, and it put a terrible strain on the boys' mother. She worked long hours over a hellishly hot brick oven, and one morning, while her husband and eldest son were away, she died in a fire at the bakery. Because the family's credit was bad, the woman's body was brought to the Barone apartment, and Bernardo had to sit with it until his father could be contacted and funeral arrangements could be made and paid for.