Singularity

by Bill DeSmedt

  He ran straight for the nearest exit, slammed a shoulder into the heavy bronze revolving door and shoved.

  Then suddenly he was out, into blinding sunlight and sweltering midsummer heat. He scanned for a free taxi, but the drop-off drive was empty, save for a late-model black Lincoln sedan. And the two dark-suited men looming, arms folded, in front of it.

  As he came out the door, they dropped their arms and started for him.

  “An abduction is the mirror-image of an extraction.” The half-forgotten Ops 101 lecture replayed in Marianna’s head as she pelted down the stairs, bringing up the rear behind Jon and the sweepers.

  “In an extraction, the target is a willing accomplice; it is the environment that is hostile, comprising an active security cordon. In an abduction, the target is a victim, uncooperative, but the environment is neutral at worst, and all the abductors need do is keep it that way. This essential difference colors every aspect of operations, beginning with team size . . .”

  That’s what her subconscious had been trying to tell her. This wasn’t going to be a one-on-one. What with sweepers, handlers, blockers, perimeter security, FSB could have fielded ten-fifteen guys for this op.

  Marianna suddenly felt very alone.

  Why hadn’t Jon just stood his ground? The sweepers can’t sweep you into the clutches of the handlers if you refuse to be swept. And she was standing right there. Together they could have toughed it out.

  Unless . . . She skidded to a halt in the middle of the Smithsonian entrance foyer.

  Oh, God! He thought she was part of it! Of all the dumb—

  Through the glass of the revolving doors, she could see Jon paying the price for that little error in judgment. He was struggling to break free of two massive handlers, and having about as much luck as a two-year-old squirming in the grip of a grownup. Try as he might, he was being dragged inexorably toward the dark interior of a curbside limo.

  Should she maybe flash her ID and break this up? CROM did have a working arrangement with FSB to presume upon. But, no, Grishin probably had half the FSB’s embassy staff on his payroll. If she spilled the beans now, he’d know of Jon’s involvement with CROM by nightfall.

  But she couldn’t just stand here and watch her whole case go down the tubes. Not while there was the slimmest chance of salvaging it. Think!

  The outlines of a plan took shape, as despairing as anything she’d ever come up with. Well, okay, taking on a dozen armed FSB goons probably beat it out on the desperation scale. Marginally. Still, any chance was better than none.

  She turned and sprinted out the side exit.

  The heat hit her like a wall. She stood blinking in the glare, waiting for her eyes to adjust, and counting.

  One, two, a possible three, four. A by-the-book abduction called for a perimeter security detail of anywhere from four to six operatives. Given how quickly FSB must’ve thrown this op together, Marianna was betting they’d opted for the lower limit. And there they were, trying to look as inconspicuous as their dark Sunday-go-to-party-meeting suits would allow.

  Two were staked out on either side of the semicircular drive, guarding the limo into which Jon was just now disappearing. Way too close to approach, much less take down.

  But one was positioned on the sidewalk a ways up Constitution, all by his lonesome. Perfect.

  She cut across a strip of sunbaked lawn and onto the sidewalk. Felt in her shoulder bag for the Talon’s hard black shape. Another non-leth. But that was a good thing: for all FSB’s faults, they were rivals, not enemies.

  Casually as she could, she glanced back over her shoulder. Shit! They were packed up and ready to leave. Trying not to rush it, she continued walking toward her target.

  The beefy stake-out guy looked her up and down—once with suspicion, once more with appreciation. Then he dismissed her and went back to scanning his sector. Just a woman.

  Nearly there now. Behind her she could hear a car door slam, the big Lincoln engine turn over. She’d just run out of time.

  The perimeter guard looked surprised when she stepped in close and twisted the handheld out of his grasp. Not as nearly surprised as he looked when she rucked up his shirtfront, pushed her Talon StunGun deep into his bare belly, and depressed the trigger for a full five seconds. Three hundred thousand volts will surprise you.

  Oof! Marianna barely caught him as he slumped. His involuntary muscle spasms made it even harder to support him, but she needed his bulk to screen her from his compatriots half a block away. He made little mewling noises as she shoved a shoulder under his ribcage and, gasping, took the dead weight on her back.

  Now came the tricky part. CROM’s uneasy alliance with FSB extended far enough to have worked out a common set of codes governing operations like these. Let’s just hope they used the same codes for FSB-only ops.

  Still propping up the big guy as best she could, she lifted the handheld she’d swiped from him, and punched in what she hoped was the code for Mission Abort.

  To Knox, it was as if someone had waved a magic wand.

  One instant he was in the back seat of a black Lincoln, straining for breath against the hand clamped over his nose and mouth, struggling to free his arm, now bared to the elbow, from the viselike grip of a man wielding a sinister-looking needle. And the next—

  All around him, everybody’s handheld began warbling at once. And the next—

  He was sprawling flat out and face down on the cobbled surface of the drop-off drive. A screech of tires behind him, a blast of gravel-laced backdraft, and he was all alone.

  Or not quite. He could hear the rhythmic click of heels on pavement now. He raised his head, enough to watch two shapely legs walk up and come to a halt in front of him.

  “Jon,” Marianna said, “looks like you could use a hand. And a lift.”

  She knelt and helped him up. He stood there a moment, leaning on her, catching his breath.

  “You okay walking?” she said. “My car’s about a half a block away. I could go get it while you rest here.”

  The thought of being left alone again sent a chill down his back. “No, no, I’ll be okay.”

  As they walked along, gradually picking up the pace as Knox grew steadier on his feet, Marianna filled him in on the identity of his would-be abductors, and how she’d won his release.

  “It all depended on them being pros,” she said, “drilled and disciplined enough to scuttle the op first, and ask questions at the post-mortem. Else you’d be in the chair right now, spilling your guts.”

  She stopped talking, then, looked at him. Gradually it dawned on Knox that she was waiting for him to say something.

  “Uh, thanks, I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “Well, face it, Marianna, you’re the one that got me into this.”

  “Not me. That fancy handheld of yours. I’m willing to bet FSB had their signal-intelligence guys trawling for your cellphone signature ever since you hit D.C.”

  “I thought only the cops could do that.”

  She shrugged. “The cops, and anybody else who’s got the price of a GSM scanner.”

  They were in the car and heading for Virginia before he tried again. “Okay, I can see how FSB found me, once they were looking for me. But why were they looking for me? What was it got me into this mess in the first place?”

  “Oh, that. They must’ve picked up on your email traffic with Sasha, and connected the dots to Galina from there. They’re all over GEI these days, you know, like ravens on roadkill.”

  Knox bristled. “My email traffic with Sasha? I seem to recall it was you that hijacked my account and contacted him.”

  “Whatever.”

  “It doesn’t make sense, though,” Knox said half to himself. “I mean if CROM and FSB are in bed together, and FSB knows I’ve been working with you—”

  “Not only do they not know that, if you claim it, we’ll deny it.”

  “When would I claim it?”

  “After they’ve picked you up
again.”

  “Again? But I thought—“

  “Thought what? That I’ve got nothing better to do than babysit you, when you’re not even working with us? No, I’ll ferry you out to Dulles, but that’s it. After that you’re on your own.”

  He was silent for a time. Then: “And I’m going to have this hanging over my head forever, you’re saying.”

  “Well, yeah. Unless . . . “

  “Unless what?”

  “Unless, say, CROM were to leak it that we’ve already got Galina in custody. That’d dial down the heat some.”

  “And CROM would do that? Out of the goodness of your hearts?”

  “I think you already know the answer to that one, Jon.”

  He sighed. “The gala.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But just the gala.”

  “Just the gala,” she said. “I swear.”

  “I’m back, Pete,” Marianna burst through the office door. “I’ve got him stashed in the hotel. We’re back on track for—”

  She stopped in mid-stride: Pete was not alone. Across from the Reacquisition Director a blond, square-jawed matinee idol occupied her usual chair, a devilishly handsome grin gracing a face so photogenic as to approach caricature. With his carefully cultivated tan, athletic build, and long, straight, sun-bleached hair, the guy looked like a refugee from Venice Beach.

  “Marianna,” Pete looked up, “Say hello to Chris Renshaw, CIA.”

  “Hi, Chris. We met last year. I don’t know if you remember, but I was in your six-week Covert Ops refresher.” I don’t know if you remember, but you tried hitting on me.

  “Marianna. Of course.” Chris rose and took her hand all in one fluid movement. “Pete and I were just talking about you—about the great job you’ve been doing on the Grishin thing up to now.”

  Up to where you can take it over?

  “Chris,” Pete said, “I need a moment alone with Marianna here.”

  “Sure thing, Pete. I’ll wait to hear from you on this. Only let’s not wait too long, okay? Clock’s ticking.” Chris strode to the door, turned and winked, then closed it quietly behind him.

  Marianna whirled on her boss. “Pete, you—”

  “Stop. I know what you’re going to say.”

  “I’m saying it anyway. You are not handing my case over to that big slab of beefcake!”

  “It’s not your call. The sort of play we’re looking at here, it’s . . . well, it’s just too risky. Even a seasoned field agent like Renshaw could wind up neck deep in shit.”

  “I’ve been on field assignments too, Pete.”

  “Only the one.” His eyes bored into her. “And look how that turned out!”

  “The review board is going to rule that a no-fault, and you know it. I can’t believe you’re going to throw that in my face now, and blow the best shot we’ve got at Grishin.”

  “Marianna,” Pete’s voice became a shade less gruff. He took a sudden interest in rearranging the documents littering the desktop in front of him. “Marianna, try to understand. You could have been killed. There are other ways.”

  “What ways? We’ve been all through that. Short of launching Tsunami itself, Interdiction won’t work worth a damn. A search-and-seizure is going to turn up nothing, nothing!”

  “It’s one of the options on the table, is all.”

  She took a deep breath and released it. “Do you have any idea how big that ship is? Forget about hiding a couple of proles; they could have an entire Tokamak stashed away in there, and you’d never find it. Grishin’ll just sit back laughing up his sleeve at you. And then turn around and call his friends on Capitol Hill.”

  Pete nodded glumly. That had to’ve hit home: next month’s closed-door budget hearing was fixing to be an uphill battle as it was, no sense making it a bloodbath.

  Marianna leveraged the opening. “Pete, you know it and I know it: this has got to be done undercover. And I’ve been working the GEI case since day one. Who else have you got that can come up to speed in the next seven hours? And please don’t tell me it’s Chris Renshaw.”

  “He’s a good undercover man, Marianna.”

  “He’s a bad joke, is what he is. The guy sticks out like a sore thumb.

  He couldn’t be more conspicuous if he had double-oh-seven tattooed across his ass!”

  “You’re not all that low-profile yourself.”

  “But my legend’s already in place, Pete. And Phase II’s just about a done deal. Sasha’s already emailed Jon about the voyage. And that’s another thing: Jon. Who else have you got that can run the Archon resource?” She broke off then.

  Not soon enough. “Stop right there and let’s think about that,” Pete said. “Say this all works out per plan; you could wind up having to shack up with this Knox guy to maintain cover. This is Chantilly, not Langley. I don’t assign my people to . . .” His face flushed dark; he waved a hand clumsily rather than finish the thought.

  “To what? Work as whores?” Might as well get this out on the table too, take the bull by the horns, so to speak. No misplaced overprotectiveness was going to keep her off this mission. “That’s not how it’s going to go, and you know it.”

  She looked him square in the eye again and smiled sweetly. “Don’t worry, Pete. I’ll break his pecker off and feed it to him before I’ll let him stick it where it hasn’t been invited.”

  That had the desired effect. Pete coughed and involuntarily glanced down at his own crotch, making sure it was still safely barricaded behind the polyplast desk, no doubt. Nothing like a little symbolic castration to quell those bothersome pseudo-paternal impulses.

  Pete cleared his throat. “You don’t even know how he’s going to take it. The guy’s a civilian, for Christ’s sake. You watch: he’ll turn tail and run like a rabbit the minute he finds out what you’ve got planned.”

  Marianna had watched. It was not a pretty sight.

  “He’s not going to find out. Not till tonight. First he hears of it, he’ll be standing right in front of Sasha.”

  Pete stared at her as if she’d grown horns. “Now, that’s got to be the dumbest stunt you’ve ever pulled. He’s going to fu-—screw the whole thing up if you do that.”

  “Then he fucks it up while we’re still on dry land. Think of it as a pre-flight stress test. If he bails, we fold. But he won’t. He’s got no choice but to go along, and he knows it.”

  “You’re saying Mission Rusalka’s good to go.”

  She nodded. “I’d stake my life on it.”

  “You got that part right,” Pete said under his breath. He shook his head, made the sort of face that goes with a bad taste in the mouth, then spoke the words she’d been waiting to hear.

  “Okay, give it a shot. Only . . .” He ran fingers through his almost nonexistent hair.

  “Only what?”

  “Only . . . Jesus, Marianna, you’re a hard case! What is driving you?”

  Marianna made no reply. She looked down at her lap, to where her hands were clenched into tight, white-knuckled fists, as if crushing a windpipe or . . .

  . . . Or clasping the sweat-slick pommels of a leather horse.

  All unbidden, the sights and sounds of that spring afternoon flooded in on her. Once again she heard Coach Gheorghiu calling for the dismount in his nasal Bucharest accent. Felt again the rush of acceleration as her arms propelled her high off the pommel horse, the flexing of her legs as she braced for impact with the pad-covered hardwood floor. Watched as her guidance counselor Ms. Pettigrew forced open the gymnasium’s heavy double firedoors, dabbing at reddened eyes with a Kleenex.

  The moment her life had changed forever. A freeze-frame etched indelibly in her mind’s eye. Could it really have been eleven years ago?

  She should have been on that plane with them. Mom and Dad had even planned their twentieth anniversary trip to Thira to coincide with Carver High’s spring break. But State was coming up at the end of April—the first rung on the ladder that maybe, just maybe, led to a slot on the U
S Olympic team. In the end, Marianna had accepted Marcy’s offer to stay at the home of her best friend and gymnastics squad cocaptain for the three weeks her parents would be gone.

  Except now they were gone forever.

  Somehow she’d pulled herself back together in time to enter college that fall. What was there to do, after all, but work? But she’d switched her major from literature to psych, with a concentration in Criminal Psychology. And she’d dropped gymnastics for martial arts: six hours a week private instruction that earned her a second-degree black belt in the same three years it took her to get her accelerated degree. Scuba diving, flying lessons, computer programming—anything she could think she’d need.

  There was a family trust fund. Not huge, but enough that, on graduation, she was free to follow her heart in choosing her life’s work.

  But is it really freedom when you have no choice?

  For there was never any doubt where her road would lead. She would combat the evil of terrorism. The evil she had come to hate with every fiber of her being. The ruthless, pitiless evil that had taken her parents, her Mom and Dad, from her. From her, and from each other.

  Love dies.

  Hate never does.

  13 | Puttin’ on the Ritz

  “YOU’LL CLEAN UP nice, Jon.”

  The familiar female voice had come from the interior of the I stretch limo. Ducking his head to get in, Knox saw Marianna Bonaventure reclining against Moroccan leather, a strapless taupe confection in brushed silk complementing her now-upswept dark hair.

  “Uh, you too,” he said, too nonplussed for gallantry. “I didn’t think you were serious about coming along.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “But why? It’s not like I’ll need a minder the way your techies’ve got me wired.” His House of CROM summer tux had enough electronics sewn into the linings to set off an airport metal detector. “Anyway, won’t having a bona-fide CROM agent, however decorous, on my arm tend to blow my so-called bulletproof cover?”