by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann
“Oh, hell,” Bret said. “It’s not you.”
Sam made her way to a lamppost in the middle of the crowd. A couple teens were hanging onto the post, shouting the words to the song blasting through the outdoor speakers. Cameras flashed around them, snapping pictures. A street vendor sold beer by the cup nearby.
“Riley, I’ve got a prostitute at the limo’s window,” Horn said.
“Get rid of her.”
Quickly Sam stepped up onto the base of the lamppost and stared out over the crowd. She spotted the limousine, then saw the young blonde in the short skirt, jacket and combat boots leaning heavily on the vehicle’s rear window.
Horn’s window rolled down to half-mast. Lamplight fell across his face, bringing his features out of the shadows.
The young woman refused to take no for an answer. She was a hustler working the tourist crowd. Her English was broken, but her intent—her terms and her price—were clear. She was also embarrassingly forward about what she was willing to do and what others had said about her abilities.
“Bret,” Riley said.
Before Horn could respond, three men stepped out of the crowd. They were all dressed in street clothes, jeans, T-shirts and loose jackets so they fit in with the industrial metal fans. Walking deliberately, one arm tucked in close at their sides, they approached the woman and the limousine.
Hypnotized, Sam stood on the lamppost base. “Bret, three guys are bearing down on your position. Riley—”
“I see them,” Riley said. “Bret, get the hell out of there. This is a busted play. These people are on to us.”
Sam strained to hear the conversation in the limousine through the sat-phone as Bret informed the driver of what was taking place. Unfortunately the crowd that had spilled into the street kept the limousine driver from speeding away. Before he could get clear, the three men converged on the car.
One of the men grabbed the prostitute by the hair and yanked her down to her knees. Her sharp scream of pain pealed through the sat-phone, then reached Sam’s ears again across the distance. He turned her face so her features were revealed in the light.
Another man made the mistake of thrusting his weapon into the back of the limousine. Horn caught the gunman’s arm, broke it and took the pistol. As the man gave an agonized shout and sagged against the car, Horn pointed the weapon back at the men.
“Put the gun down, mate,” someone said in English. “You just go on an’ put that gun down easy like, or I’m gonna splatter this little lady’s brains all over the street.”
The man holding the woman shoved his pistol against the side of her head.
“That ain’t her,” someone else said. The English accent wasn’t quite as pronounced. “Did you hear me? This bloody well ain’t the one we’re looking for.”
“That’s okay. This one here’ll do for starters.” The man raised his voice. “I’m gonna give you the count of three, Yank, then I’m gonna kill this bitch. The blood can be on your hands. One.”
The woman screamed again.
The limousine driver kept trying to edge out of the crowd and into the center of the street. Incredibly, no one seemed to notice the men with drawn pistols threatening the screaming hooker. The men trailed the luxury vehicle, and the one manhandling the woman dragged her along with him with the pistol against her temple.
“You better think quick, Yank. And do the right thing. Two.”
“Riley,” Hart called.
Before Riley had a chance to reply, Sam shouted, “They’ve got guns! Help! They’ve got guns!” Atop the lamppost base, she pointed at the limousine mired in the crowd. “Robbery! Help!”
The partyers around her took up the warning at once. Immediately people started fighting to get away from the limousine, breaking out in an ever-widening circle like a ripple spreading across a pond. Hoarse screams and shouts drew the attention of nearby policemen. The policemen fought against the pull of the crowd, working their way toward the luxury car.
The prostitute chose that moment to rake her fingernails across her captor’s face. The man cursed loudly as he stepped back and brought his arm to his head. His pistol roared, further inciting the crowd. The bullet missed the woman and knocked sparks from the street.
Sam watched helplessly.
In disbelief Riley watched the plan he’d put into motion fall completely to pieces. The image on the center screen showed the action in thermographic detail. Dialogue tags covered the identified players in the confrontation. “Agent St. John” stood in the middle of a maelstrom of activity.
Inside the limousine, Horn fired his captured pistol. The muzzle flash became a temporary mushroom burst of sudden yellow light that quickly faded. The man who had mishandled the woman dropped backward as if poleaxed.
“Agent McLane,” Melendez called. “There are Munich police on the scene handling crowd control at the concert. They’ve already called for backup.”
“Thank you, Melendez.” Riley scanned the screen, watching as the remaining men took cover. “Bret, did you copy?”
“Affirmative,” Horn said. “I don’t see Sam.”
“She called out the warning,” Riley said. He glanced at the lamppost where he’d followed the red-and-yellow figure Jackson had tagged as Sam St. John.
“Agent St. John” still stood there.
Riley cursed. Sam had shown great initiative in calling the crowd’s attention down on the kidnapping attempt, but now she was standing around like a rookie.
“Sam,” he called, “go to Bret. Let the police take you both into custody. We’ll work with them to get you both out.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I may be safer on my own.”
Figures with drawn weapons converged on the limousine. Bret dropped his captured weapon outside the window and held his hands up. The two men who had closed on the limousine were also taken into custody. The man Hart had shot lay sprawled on the street.
“You’d be safer with the police,” Riley said.
“I thought I was safe with you, too,” Sam shot back.
“What the hell do you mean by that?”
“You know exactly what I mean. This meeting was a setup. By you. Or by someone who has penetrated your communications. Either way, I’m out of it. When we talk again, it’s going to be on equal footing.”
The connection popped in Riley’s headset as he watched “Agent St. John” jog back into the concert crowd watching the Munich police take control of the situation. “Sam. Sam.”
There was no answer. Even the rolling thunder of the concert music in the background of the connection had faded.
Riley glanced at Melendez.
The tech shook her head. “She’s gone.”
Damn it, Sam. You can’t just walk away like this. Where the hell do you think you’re going? Riley made himself breathe.
Sam moved through the crowd, going quickly. None of the figures tagged “Munich Police” pursued her.
Then Riley noticed one figure that was moving in tandem with Sam. The heat signature was unmarked, an unknown. But the intention to intercept Sam was plain.
“Melendez,” Riley said. “Get Sam back on the sat-phone. Now.”
Melendez tapped her keyboard.
Riley listened to the phone ring and ring in his headset. He watched the figure closing in on Sam. She wasn’t answering. And in the next instant it was too late.
Whoever the new arrival was, he was on top of Sam.
Sam spotted the man coming out of the crowd at the last moment. He was an inch or two over six feet tall, in his late twenties or early thirties. His dark hair stuck out and a day-old growth of beard stained his jaw.
He reached for her without a word, grabbing the loose material of her jacket’s right arm. “Agent St. John,” he said softly, just loud enough to be heard over the confusion of the crowd. He held a pistol in his right hand and casually brought it up.
Sam resisted the instinctive urge to run away. The man outweighed her by at least sevent
y or eighty pounds and was nearly a foot taller. Instead, she whirled inside his left arm, stepping inside his personal space, and grabbed his gun arm. She knew at once that she couldn’t overpower him, and the man knew it, too.
A smile spread across the man’s face. “No way, small-fry. But it could be fun.”
Sam didn’t need to control his gun arm, though, she just needed to know where it was. Gripping his jacket with her right hand, she brought her knee up into his groin three times in quick succession. Sliding her left hand down to his gun hand, she stripped the pistol from his grip. Unfortunately he fought her, and the weapon slipped away in the darkness and skittered across the alley floor.
The man cursed, his words venomous. Shooting out a doubled fist, he almost caught Sam flatfooted. She saw the blow coming and moved at the last second, avoiding most of the impact along the side of her face. Her senses reeled. She knew she’d be bruised for days. Her right eye watered.
Despite the blow, Sam moved automatically. For years, every chance she’d made for herself, she’d studied martial arts. She had a natural affinity for several styles. No matter what foster home she’d ended up in, or what shelter, she’d found a way to take classes. Sometimes she’d traded janitorial services for training. At the Athena Academy she’d studied every form that had been offered, gradually working up to a teaching position before she’d left.
The man punched at her head again, still growling curses. He swayed a little unsteadily on his feet.
Moving her arms swiftly, Sam avoided the avalanche of powerful blows. She slapped some of them away, catching the man’s wrists in passing and using his own strength against him. Other blows she interrupted by smashing a forearm against his as he barely started his swing.
He tried to stamp her feet with his heavy boots. On the second attempt she turned, set herself and drove the outside of her right foot down his support leg. Her boot caught him at the knee and traveled all the way to his ankle. She knew from experience that she’d torn hide and deeply bruised him.
Spinning swiftly to her right, she came around with a backhand blow that caught the side of the man’s face and snapped his head around. When he turned to face her again, blood leaked out over his lips.
The man lunged for her. Sam ducked beneath his arms, grabbed his jacket in both hands and fell backward, catching his midsection on her feet and rolling backward. Deliberately, she brought the man over and down, banging his head against the cobblestones of the alley.
She rolled over on top of him, coming up astraddle him. Pain and a little confusion filled his eyes as he glared up at her. Then she grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head against the cobblestones. His eyes rolled back up into his head.
Glancing up, short of breath because of her exertions and the panic ripping at her, Sam saw that a small group had turned their attentions toward her. She pushed herself up from the unconscious man, ran her hands through his jacket and pants and took his wallet and money. She had some cash on her, but most of what she’d been doing for the CIA involved credit cards the Agency managed.
For the moment she was on her own.
Even as cries went out for the police, she turned and bolted down the alley. With MI-6 and the Munich police hot on her trail, there was only one place she could go for help.
And she wouldn’t be turning to Riley McLane for assistance until she got a handle on things. One thing Sam knew, the whole meeting had been a setup. She couldn’t believe she’d trusted the man.
Barely containing the anger that stirred within him, Riley stepped through the opening elevator doors and strode down the long corridor toward CIA Director Stone Mitchell’s office. In Munich it was almost 10:00 p.m., but in Langley, Virginia, it wasn’t quite yet five.
Several assistants and agents working in the offices along the way looked up at Riley as he passed them. He ignored them.
Before he reached the door to Mitchell’s office, the director’s stern voice rang out. “Come in, Agent McLane.”
Riley glowered at the button-cam hidden over the door. He opened the door and stepped inside.
Mitchell sat at his desk. He was a compact man of medium height in his early fifties. A dedicated regimen kept him lean and fit. He wore glasses, which made him look bookish to an extent, but a person who knew what to look for discovered the cold stare of a killer in the flat brown eyes. His dark hair was cropped short, matching the thin mustache that flavored his narrow-lipped mouth in a permanent frown. His blue suit was carefully pressed, his tie carefully knotted. He skin was dark enough that he could pass for Mexican, Italian or Indio.
The office fit the director. It was also spare and lean, an efficient place to work, not warm or inviting. The only concession to any kind of personal life outside the sterile walls were the pictures of his wife and two college-age daughters and a handful of Mitchell coaching his girls in softball.
“You want to tell me what the hell is going on, Stone?” Riley demanded.
Calm and self-assured, Mitchell pointed to one of the two chairs in front of his desk. “Take a seat.”
“Sam—Agent St. John—almost got captured by those cold-blooded bastards MI-6 sicced onto her. Someone penetrated our communications security.”
“I know. Have a seat.”
Riley paced the floor. “I don’t feel like sitting.”
“Are you in communication with Agent St. John at present?” Mitchell asked.
“Agent St. John has cut off communication to me through her sat-phone.”
“That is unfortunate.”
“Not that I blame her. If I was in her shoes, I’d have done the same damn thing.”
“She has to trust you. She’s trapped in a foreign country. No way out. Wanted by the police. Hunted by mercenaries working for MI-6. You’re all she has.”
“C’mon, Stone,” Riley said. “A play gets busted this badly, this quickly, over what is supposed to be an encrypted communications network, you know what she’s gotta be thinking.”
The CIA director made no reply.
“It’s the same thing that you or I would think. It’s the same thing that brought me to your damn door in such a hurry after St. John pulled her fade.”
Mitchell nodded slowly. “That someone here at the Agency sold her out.”
“Yeah,” Riley growled. “But I know it wasn’t me.” He leaned forward in his chair, piercing the director with his gaze. “So I’m here, Stone, and I want to know why you sold out Samantha St. John to the Brits.”
More than an hour after her escape from the trap at Karlsplatz, Sam walked through the door of a cybercafé near the Franz Josef Strauss Airport. Neon tubing advertised the existence of the business tucked in between office buildings. Video cameras, carefully situated in the room so they couldn’t view the computer monitors covering the high tables around the room, panned the door.
The knowledge that someone somewhere was getting her image made Sam nervous. Brief pieces of news footage she’d seen in an apartment she’d broken into for a change of clothes let her know that Munich police had taken several people into custody. No mention was made of who they were, and no mention was made of her by name, although the news anchor reported that some of the rioters had escaped.
After negotiating the computer and Internet rate, keeping the conversation in German and mimicking the local accent, Sam put herself behind one of the machines in the corner. Despite her anxiety and the urgency she felt, she ordered a tomato sandwich and a latte. Although there’d been food at Steiner’s castle, she hadn’t eaten much. Now she found she was famished.
One of the things she had learned about being in a succession of foster homes while growing up, of never knowing what kind of reception she was going to receive there or what the accommodations would be, was to eat whenever she was hungry. Served on a toasted bagel, the tomato sandwich was filled with a thick tomato slice, cream cheese, chopped onions and watercress.
She ate quickly, managing the keyboard with one hand. She used one of
the e-mail addresses she’d set up for use while out in the field when she didn’t want the Agency to track her every move. A blind e-mail was easy enough to set up, but couldn’t be used more than once without possibly blowing the integrity of the security.
The trick was to contact someone who knew who she was despite the unfamiliar e-mail address. The second trick was to contact someone who would be in a position to help her.
With the chaotic background she’d lived through, and the succession of foster homes, Sam’s resources outside the CIA were limited. The single happy time in her childhood that had fostered feelings of permanent relationships was her time at the Athena Academy.
Located in Arizona, outside the Glendale/Phoenix area, the Athena Academy for the Advancement of Women had come into being about two decades ago. Situated in the foothills of the White Tank Mountains, the five-hundred-acre educational facility offered an array of subjects for elite female students between the ages of ten through eighteen.
One of Arizona’s senators at the time, Marion Gracelyn, became the Athena Academy’s prime promoter. Calling on favors and using her knowledge of government operations, Senator Gracelyn laid out the plans for the school, then found the people and the money to make it come to fruition. Christine Evans, a retired army captain, was chosen as the school’s principal.
The goals of the school were multifold. Creating opportunities for women in all branches of the military, espionage agencies, national law enforcement bodies such as the FBI and the United States Marshals Office, as well as political office was the first goal.
Students who attended the Athena Academy were special: scholastically and physically superior, the kind of women who could succeed at anything they gave their hearts to. When the school first opened, only one hundred students attended. At present, the student body was limited to two hundred.
Sam St. John had gotten into the school at age nine, a full year earlier than the youngest students were usually admitted. At home, Sam had hacked into a secure computer site that handled sensitive espionage matters for the United States Government. After her astounding feat had been discovered, and her foster parents at the time had admitted that they wouldn’t be willing to take any further responsibility for her, a full scholarship had been awarded to Sam. She’d gone to live at the academy, thinking that it was just another way station on her way to adulthood and a time when she could take care of herself.
