The target left work early, at three p.m. Annie knew that, because she had left, too, right after dropping off the bait, and was waiting in the parking lot. She had attached a magnetic GPS tracker under the target’s Acura. When the cursor began to move on the tablet screen attached to her dashboard, she wondered if she’d finally hit pay dirt.
Keeping a healthy distance, she tailed the Acura out of the lot from Langley, past the gates, and out onto Route 123. Then east and south—in the opposite direction of the target’s home in Fairfax. Then the target crossed the Chain Bridge, heading into the District.
At that point, the cursor movement became erratic. The target vehicle began to make what looked like random turns down side streets, circling blocks, doubling back, proceeding ahead for a while, slowing to a crawl—then speeding up.
Heart racing, Annie hung back a quarter of a mile, not needing or daring to get closer. The target was doing a surveillance detection run. The only time you needed to do that was during an op, when you were trying to spot or elude someone following you. There was no innocent reason for this target to be doing that.
She hit the speed-dial number on her phone.
“Yes, Annie,” came the familiar growl.
“Grant, I think I found our mole.”
3
At three fifty-five p.m., Leonid Sokolov left his Mercedes in the Georgetown cemetery’s lower parking area. Being near the end of the daily visiting hours, only two other cars occupied the lot.
One of them was the Acura belonging to one of the Center’s most critical assets: its last mole in the CIA.
He got out, stretched, and looked around. He loved this somber, primitive place. Perhaps it appealed to the moodiness in his Russian blood. An historic tribute to 19th Century Romanticism, Oak Hill Cemetery was rugged, hilly, chaotic—the stylistic antithesis of Arlington National Cemetery, and its endless tidy rows of uniform white headstones.
But it wasn’t merely esthetics and a sense of history that made this his favorite spot for personal meetings with assets and the illegals he handled. It offered the security of isolation.
From an abundance of caution, Sokolov always chose to be armed when meeting his operatives. That is why, despite the warm May afternoon, he wore a jacket to hide the Glock 19 tucked into a belt holster at his back. You never knew whom you could trust, whether someone had been turned. And given his preeminent position among SVR officers in the United States, it would be catastrophic for him ever to be taken alive. Before that, he would shoot his way out of any confrontation with the FBI, or die by his own hand.
He set off up a rising pathway from the lot, listening to the birds chattering in the tangled limbs of surrounding trees, looking at the worn inscriptions on the gray headstones tilting in the soft green earth. He reached and entered the Willow Columbarium, a small, circular stone structure whose interior housed rows of niches for burial urns. An elderly couple sat on the central stone planter in quiet contemplation.
He nodded politely and continued on through. A short distance ahead, a rustic old stone bridge arched over the flagstone pathway. Within the arch, wooden benches faced each other from the opposing walls.
On the right-hand bench sat his prize asset.
Leonid Sokolov smiled and approached.
4
Annie followed the Acura into Oak Hill Cemetery. Fearing her car would be spotted, she slowed and kept an even greater distance. On her tablet screen, she watched the Acura circle the periphery of the cemetery. Then it slowed and stopped.
She pulled over and hit the speed dial number again.
“Where are you now?” he said.
“Grant, it looks like the meeting is going down in Oak Hill Cemetery. The car just stopped in the northeast section. It’s out of my view. I’m worried I’ll be spotted if I continue driving around the road that seems to circle this place. But the car stopped not far from me at all, as the crow flies—maybe a little more than a hundred yards northeast. I’m leaving my car on the side of that perimeter road, about two hundred yards southeast of the East Gate entrance. I’m going in the rest of the way on foot.”
“No, wait till I arrive.”
She was already leaving the car.
“Not an option, Grant. This could be a brief encounter, even a brush pass. I have to get there in time to see who the handler is, maybe get photos of the exchange with my phone.”
“Annie, you can’t go in without backup! You—”
She clicked off the call and shut off the ringtone.
“Like hell I can’t,” she muttered to herself.
She was tired of being told what she could and couldn’t do. She had worked this case for a year and a half, starting well before she took down Muller in March of last year. Groat and the FBI took credit for that one. But she had found this one by herself, too. And this time she would damned well finish it by herself.
Her nerves were tingling wires as she shoved the phone in her left jacket pocket. Then checked her Glock 27, racked a round, and jammed it back in the right pocket. The gun’s grip beneath her fingers suddenly reminded her of the day at the firing range with Dylan. His intrusive image made her even angrier.
She kept her hand on the grip as she left the little road and began to walk slowly, cautiously northeast over the spongy soil between the gravestones. She peered ahead in the direction where the GPS had positioned the Acura. The ground fell away before her into a bowl-like depression of short gray monuments and crosses. Near its bottom a roadway, perhaps the same perimeter one, crossed before her, rising in an arching stone bridge.
Under that arch, she saw a flash of movement.
She froze in place. Then, ever-so-slowly, maneuvered to the side, behind one of the monuments.
The asset rose from the wooden bench with a smile.
“I’m so relieved you could meet me, Leon,” he said, his voice low but excited.
Sokolov took Kurt Spitzer’s extended hand.
“Lucky for you I was free when you got clear of Langley and could call.” He wagged a finger playfully under Spitzer’s nose. “Now, this had better be good.”
“I wouldn’t have insisted, otherwise. Have I ever let you down?”
“No, you have not, my friend.” He glanced around the cemetery. “You were careful not to be followed, of course?”
Spitzer laughed. “I probably added twenty miles to my odometer, running back and forth on every street in Georgetown.”
Sokolov didn’t much like the guy. Tall and cocky, he wore his blond hair too long for a middle-aged man. When he first recruited him, he’d pegged Spitzer as the type that got involved in this business mainly for the adrenaline rush. The type that wasn’t satisfied doing important work for his country in a spy agency, but needed ever-intensifying excitement from ever-increasing risks—including the ultimate risk of deceiving everyone around him. The type that, if not careful, could get himself arrested or even killed.
But precisely because he loved taking chances, Spitzer had been a tremendous asset. As chief of the CIA’s Office of Russian and European Analysis, he was able to lay hands on mountains of invaluable information for the Center over the past six years, and also exposed six of Langley’s NOCs in Europe and the Middle East. In that respect, he had proven to be even more valuable than Muller.
A flash of movement in the corner of Sokolov’s eye jarred him. He snapped his head around.
The elderly couple were leaving the nearby columbarium and shuffling their way down the path toward the parking lot. He smiled and relaxed.
“All right, we’re alone now. But we have to get out of here before they close the gates in about twenty more minutes. So, show me what you have and tell me all about it.”
From her position behind the stone monument Annie was snapping photos with her phone. The late afternoon light under the bridge wasn’t good, though, and the angle was bad. She couldn’t get both men framed together in the shots. She tried to zoom in, but the images were coming out grainy.
<
br /> She would have to get closer.
Sinking to her knees, she pocketed the phone and began a slow crawl to her right. After about ten feet, the sharper side angle blocked them from being able to see her. She rose to a crouch and hustled down the hill to the roadway, just to the right of the bridge. She climbed breathlessly to the road surface, wary of dislodging any stones that might attract their attention.
From here she could see the parking lot a bit further to her right—and that she now stood between it and the men. She realized she might block their escape.
Still, she needed a good shot of the two of them together. The best angle would be from inside the columbarium itself—which would also provide her cover, like a small fortress.
But to get down there, she’d have to cross open ground. She’d be in plain sight, if they looked that way in the several seconds it would take to get there.
Her pulse was hammering and her mouth had gone dry. She pulled out the Glock, then began a wary descent down the grassy slope toward the circular structure. Her eyes kept darting from the uneven ground at her feet to the yawning archway just to her left. She glanced down to take a step, then was distracted by a noise coming from their direction. Her eyes shifted that way . . .
. . . and her shoe caught on a root.
She found herself suddenly stumbling, then careening down the slope. She could not keep her feet, and to protect the gun she pulled it across her body and twisted as she fell.
She landed on her right side with a grunt, then continued to skid on the slick grass and dirt. Her gun hand struck a small stone marker and the Glock jolted loose. She came to a stop not thirty feet from where the men stood.
The gun slid ten feet farther down the slope.
Sokolov had just taken Spitzer’s package when he heard a thrashing noise outside. Both whipped around to the sight of a body sliding to a halt just ten meters below them.
For a few seconds they stood frozen, too astonished to react.
Then the person’s dark head lifted from the ground and met their eyes.
A woman . . .
Sensing a threat, Sokolov dropped the package and shoved Spitzer aside. He saw the woman looking around wildly, then scrambling on her hands and knees. He pawed behind himself, reaching under his jacket for the holstered Glock.
His hand found its grip and he drew the weapon. He stepped forward, out onto the flagstone pathway, as the woman in the grass rolled from her stomach onto her back.
“Don’t!” he heard her shout—and he was startled to see she too had a gun, and from down there on the ground she was pointing it up at him, and he raised his and sighted down the barrel and was just starting to squeeze when he felt something bang into the front of his collarbone . . .
They had seen her . . .
She looked around frantically for the gun and saw where it had fallen. She half-clawed, half-dived for it, scooping it up in both hands. Then she flipped over from her belly to her back as her hands slipped instinctively into the grip he had taught her, and she brought the weapon up just as a man with dark hair stepped forward. And then she saw he was raising a weapon and she shouted Don’t! and from somewhere she heard pressure nice and steady squeeze and felt the jolt in her hands and one in her left arm at the same time . . .
. . . and then her left hand didn’t work anymore and the gun wobbled in her right hand, and the man with the gun fell and then Spitzer ran forward and reached down near the fallen man, and she yelled NO NO NO NO but he came up with the gun and she didn’t wait, nice and steady squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze squeeze and he jerked like a puppet and fell . . .
. . . and then she was on her back looking up at clouds and trees spinning and spinning, and then a noise a motor a car up on that stone bridge, and people jumping out and everything getting bright and dark and bright, and a woman and a man faces she didn’t know floating above her saying No don’t try to move you’ll be all right just take it easy and then another face she did know floating there too saying You little fool I told you wait you little fool . . .
FORTY-SIX
Ed Cronin wasn’t a dress-up-and-go-out-to-dinner type. But Ellen had been after him. She said the whole family needed to spend some time together, and she and the kids wanted to try Darcy’s Steakhouse in Alexandria, and she had no house-showing appointments on the calendar for Thursday night. So why didn’t they go early, say six o’clock?
After all the time he’d been pulling, including weekends, Cronin knew he owed them some attention. And he did like steak.
“Okay,” he said, giving her a peck on the cheek. “I’ll call them and make a reservation.”
She grinned. “I already have.”
Ellen demanded that everyone look decent, and she managed to get Cronin to wear his best sports jacket and slacks. He was surprised that the kids really got into it. Sarah, even at age nine, was so cute in her little green dress that Cronin realized he was just a few years from facing boy trouble, while Jack tried gamely to look mature beyond his years in his suit.
“Wow. Aren’t you two looking spiffy!” he said. They grinned and dimpled up.
Then Ellen came out in a short cocktail dress, jewelry, and her hair up. He shook his head in awe.
“Damn, you are a vision.”
“Daaa-ad! You’re not supposed to use cuss words!”
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” he answered her, while grinning at his wife. “But sometimes, you just don’t have the right words.”
At five-forty, they all piled into Ellen’s SUV and headed off to the restaurant. It was an upscale, standalone place located in the vast parking lot of an area shopping center. The kids were giggling and whispering in the back seat, and he was thankful for the unusual armistice from the usual bickering. They arrived just after six, and he saw that there was no close parking. The place seemed exceptionally busy for an early Thursday evening.
“Why don’t you just drop us off in front and go find a spot,” Ellen said.
He got out and went around to get her door.
Her eyes were dancing, and she planted a kiss on him.
“This is going to be so much fun.”
He watched them go inside, then drove into the lot to claim a place.
Whistling, he walked back through the warm evening air. This was nice. He hadn’t realized how much he needed a nice evening. They’d have to do this more often. He pushed through the double-doored entrance and went to the hostess station.
“They’ve just been seated, sir,” she said, smiling. “Just follow me, please.”
She led him through the place, which was only half-filled, toward the back.
He frowned. “Excuse me, why are we seated way back here?”
“It’s your wife’s request, sir.”
She stopped at a door at the back, pushed it open and stood aside, smiling even more broadly.
Puzzled, he stepped inside.
“SUR-PRIIIIIIISE!
He stopped dead in his tracks. Scores of people, maybe a hundred, maybe more, were on their feet around circular banquet tables, laughing, cheering, and applauding, all at deafening volume.
Ellen and the kids stood at the front, glowing. Next to them, Paul and his wife. On their other side, the chief and his wife, along with Father John O’Connor from St. Matthew’s. A photographer was hopping around like a chicken, flashing a camera at him.
The room was large and decorated with hanging balloons and twisted crepe paper streamers. Candles glowed on the linen-covered tables, casting flickering sparks of light on wine glasses and silverware.
He was stunned. He didn’t understand. It wasn’t his birthday . . . or anniversary . . .
Then he saw the banner draped across the far wall.
DETECTIVE SERGEANT ED CRONIN
“The Cop’s Cop”
20 YEARS OF SERVICE AND INTEGRITY
Then it finally sank in that he had graduated from the academy exactly two decades ago. He stood there, paralyzed, until Ellen and the kid
s stepped forward to surround, hug, and kiss him. Paul came over and winked and yelled, “Congratulations, buddy!” above the noise. Then the chief moved in, shook his hand, grabbed his shoulder, and said, “It’s your night, Ed! Follow me.”
He led them snaking through the tables. Fellow cops and friends he hadn’t seen in years reached out to shake his hand and slap him on the back. They had set up a banquet table at the far end of the room under the hanging banner, and they seated him and Ellen, with the kids on either side, right in the middle. Hanging from the front of the table where he sat was a blown-up photo of his gold shield.
The chief got behind a wooden stand with a microphone and put down his notes. He went through the ritual of greetings, then turned to Cronin.
“You know, twenty years on the job is a milestone any cop can be proud of. But Ed, you have a lot more than your length of service to be proud of.” He pointed to the banner behind him. “See that? It says, ‘The Cop’s Cop.’ And that says it all. A lot of people are gonna say a lot of things about you tonight, Ed. But let me be the first.
“I’ve run this department twelve years, and I’ve been with it a lot longer—longer even than you. I’ve met and served with some of the best cops out there. And after all those years, I can say, without hesitation, that you are the finest officer I have ever worked with. Your bravery, your devotion, your honesty, and your integrity are legendary—not just in the department, but in our community. If anybody ever asks me to name the model cop, I’d tell ’em: ‘Detective Sergeant Ed Cronin.’”
Everyone leaped to their feet again, to cheer again, to applaud him again.
Cronin sat still, hands clasped tightly in his lap, eyes staring at his empty plate. He couldn’t bear to meet the hundreds of eyes looking at him. He was afraid they would look into his, see into his soul.
He realized that they were trying to honor him, and that this was supposed to be one of the greatest nights of his life.
WINNER TAKES ALL: A Dylan Hunter Justice Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers Book 3) Page 45
