The Last Option

by Alex Lukeman

  "Has it occurred to you that the next mission you go out on might be the one where you get killed?"

  "What?"

  "You heard me. Things are changing, Nick. This isn't a couple of years ago. You're going to be a father. Let somebody else go after the bad guys. I need to know you're going to be here to raise our children with me."

  "Selena..."

  "I don't want to talk about it anymore. You think about it."

  Selena climbed out of the pool, grabbed a towel she'd left on a chair and walked off toward the changing room.

  Oh, shit, Nick thought.

  CHAPTER 11

  The assassin entered the tenth floor apartment he'd been told to use, already secured by the Secret Service. As far as they were concerned it was empty. The owner was a senior citizen, currently on vacation in the Bahamas.

  The apartment window provided an unobstructed view of the front and side entrances to the theater. Whichever one the president used, Corrigan would have to step out of his armored vehicle to enter the theater. In those few seconds, he was vulnerable.

  It was still an hour until the motorcade was due to arrive, plenty of time to get ready. The window was unlocked and open. Everything had been prepared for him. Sheer curtains covered the window, thin enough to see out but effective in limiting the view from outside. The curtains hung unmoving in the humid evening air. That was good. There was no breeze to affect the shot. The distance was too short to worry about the humidity.

  He moved a small table over to the window and placed a chair behind it. Then he unpacked the rifle. It was of British manufacture, an Accuracy International AS50. It took him just under three minutes to assemble the various pieces.

  The AS50 fired a .50 caliber BMG round, ammunition developed for the Browning machine gun at the beginning of the twentieth century. The bullet was large, a little over a half inch in diameter. It weighed 800 grains and would leave the barrel of the weapon at almost 2900 feet per second.

  Anything struck with that kind of force and weight would simply disintegrate. The round could blow right through a concrete wall. What it did to flesh and blood was indescribable.

  He set the rifle up on the table. It had a bipod and a flash suppressor. He mounted the telescopic sight, a top-of-the-line NightForce NSX, then looked through the scope at the entrance to the theater. He focused on a woman cop standing near the curb. Her face filled the lens, sharp and clear.

  The press milled about under the watchful eye of the Secret Service, setting up outside the theater.

  They'll have plenty to write about tomorrow.

  The rifle took a five round magazine, but he'd only need one shot. Afterward, he'd pack up and be out of the apartment before more than a few minutes had passed. From there his escape route had been laid out for him. He'd exit from the ground floor in the rear of the building, where a car would be waiting. An hour later he'd be out of the country, two million dollars richer.

  Presidents don't come cheap.

  He smiled at the thought, sat down on a couch and began humming to himself as he waited for the president's armored limo to arrive. He touched the earpiece concealed in his left ear. Someone would let him know when the cars were approaching.

  This wasn't the first time he'd been hired to remove someone considered annoying to someone else, but it was the first time he'd had this kind of extensive support. Of course, it was the first time he'd been hired to take out a head of state, much less the President of the United States. They'd never know who he was, but today he'd leave a permanent mark in history.

  He wasn't concerned about who his employer was. Perhaps a government agency, like the CIA, or perhaps a private group concerned with Corrigan's policies. There were a lot of people around the world who didn't like Corrigan's policies. The assassin didn't care one way or the other. Presidents came and went. The world kept rolling on and not much changed. As long as he was paid, life was good.

  It didn't occur to him that he wouldn't be paid. He'd already received half of the two million in his Cayman Islands account. He had a reputation for professionalism. He also had a reputation for making sure that anyone who attempted to cheat him paid with more than money. Sooner or later, even the most anonymous employer could be found.

  A voice in his ear said, "Five minutes."

  The assassin got up from the couch and went to the rifle. He sat down and charged the weapon. He settled the stock against his shoulder, rested his trigger finger along the receiver and looked through the scope.

  "Two minutes," the voice said. "Front entrance."

  Good. No need to swivel to the side of the building.

  Word that the president's motorcade was approaching reached the people outside the theater. A ripple of movement ran through the assembled press corps. Cameras lifted, microphones were held ready. The vehicles appeared. Two black Suburbans, followed by an armored Cadillac limousine and a third Suburban.

  There they are.

  The assassin focused on where the president's car would stop. Everything else faded from his mind. His heartbeat and breathing slowed. He felt the sweet anticipation of the kill. He was ready for it, controlled it.

  The Secret Service cleared a space in front of the entrance, keeping the press off to the sides, allowing Corrigan a straight path into the theater. The cars pulled to a stop. Secret Service agents piled out of the Suburbans. One of them opened the rear door of the limousine.

  The president stepped out into the Atlanta evening and waved his hand at the cameras.

  The sound of the shot was a sudden thunderclap in the hot, summer night, sending echoes bouncing from the buildings lining the street.

  Corrigan's head disintegrated in an explosion of blood and bone and brains, spattering everything within ten yards.

  The assassin had begun disassembling the rifle before the president's body toppled to the ground. Four minutes after the shot, he was in the hall outside the apartment. Three minutes after that, he stepped outside the rear of the building and into the back of a waiting delivery van.

  The van drove away into the night.

  CHAPTER 12

  Elizabeth and Stephanie watched a news video of the assassination. The broadcaster blurred out the gruesome moment of impact when the round blew apart the president's skull, but allowed viewers to see the spatter of blood that had landed on the cameraman's lens.

  Secret Service agents swarmed the building from where the shot had been fired. On the sixth floor two agents caught a man leaving an apartment, carrying a long case. According to one of the agents, he'd pointed a pistol at them. Wired and angry, the agents emptied their Glocks, killing him. The case turned out to contain a Barrett .50 caliber rifle. The apartment faced the entrance to the theater where Corrigan had been shot. The window was open, and it was clear that someone had waited there.

  Since the shooter was dead, there was no way to question him. Then his identity was discovered. He was a Russian immigrant named Yevgeny Mikhailov. He'd been in the country for almost a year.

  Speculation was instant and intense.

  There were a lot of unanswered questions. How could the man have obtained such an expensive rifle? Why did he kill the president? Was he working alone? Was he part of a larger plot? Were the Russians behind it? What was going to be done about it?

  Comparisons were made to the murders of John Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Historical assassinations were trotted out. Lincoln and Emperor Franz Joseph were especially popular. On television, an endless round of talking heads babbled on about the implications. Speculation on Russian involvement was on everybody's lips.

  Elizabeth turned off the broadcast.

  "They never quit, do they," Stephanie said. "The press is like a vulture at a feast. What would they say if the shooter had been Canadian? Would they be talking about a Canadian plot to attack America?"

  "The Russian bear is always good for headlines," Elizabeth said. "It remains to be seen if Moscow was actually involved."

  "Why
do I get the feeling this is déjà vu all over again? No one can talk to the assassin and find out what happened. The whole thing is wrapped up in a nice neat package. Everything explained, except why."

  "It is neat, isn't it? Convenient, too. Nothing to see here, folks. Move on."

  "You say that like you don't believe the story," Stephanie said.

  "Let's just say I'm not convinced. The shooter was organized, professional, and accurate. It wasn't easy to pull that shot off. It strikes me that someone capable of such perfect coordination and ability wouldn't be likely to wait around for the Secret Service to find him coming out of his apartment, gun in hand. Mikhailov worked as a forklift driver. People that knew him say he wasn't particularly smart. He wasn't religious. On the face of it, he had no reason to do something like this. And there's not one iota of evidence that the Russians had anything at all to do with it."

  "Not if you listen to the press."

  "The press stopped telling the truth sometime back in the 60s. They're not in the business of news, they're in the business of entertainment. What counts for the networks is revenues, and revenues come from having lots of advertisers. Advertisers are attracted by large numbers of viewers, and viewers are attracted by blood and scandal. They like to be angry or sad or happy. They don't want to be bothered with truth or boring facts."

  "I didn't know you felt like that, Elizabeth."

  "Sorry, I didn't mean to start venting. I usually don't say what I think about the media."

  "You think something's off with this story?"

  "I'm reserving judgment, but it seems too pat, like Oswald and Kennedy. It's not easy to hit a target the size of a melon, shooting at an angle and down from an apartment window some distance away, unless you're a skilled shot. How does a forklift operator learn how to do that? And where did he get ten thousand dollars for that rifle?"

  The secured phone on Elizabeth's desk indicated a call from Langley.

  "Harker."

  "Good morning, Elizabeth."

  It was DCI Hood.

  "Good morning, Clarence. Stephanie and I were just talking about the assassination."

  "Yes. I didn't like Corrigan very much, but he was the president. I didn't want him dead. Now we've got Reynolds. He was sworn in half an hour after the president was shot. I'm not sure how that's going to work out."

  "He doesn't strike me as a very forceful man," Elizabeth said. "More of a follower than a leader."

  "Well, he's in the big chair now."

  "What have you learned about the man identified as the shooter?"

  "The way you said that tells me you have doubts," Hood said. "So do I."

  "Ah."

  "Mikhailov wasn't exactly the brightest bulb on the marquee. He was able to function well enough as a forklift driver, but if he had an IQ much over 90, I'd be surprised. How does he acquire a premiere, expensive sniper rifle and ammunition, sneak into an apartment in a building secured by the Secret Service, and take a shot that requires serious expertise?"

  "The same thought had occurred to me. Have they found the bullet?"

  "What was left of it. Fragments only. There's no way to run a ballistics check to see if it came from Mikhailov's weapon."

  "My intuition says something smells about this."

  "If there's a conspiracy, it has to involve someone high up. There's no doubt the shot came from the apartment building where Mikhailov was gunned down. That building was supposed to be thoroughly covered. If it was Mikhailov, how come he wasn't found and stopped before he fired? If it wasn't him, how did the assassin manage to find the perfect vantage point to kill the president without being discovered? I don't believe the Secret Service is that incompetent."

  "If it wasn't Mikhailov, we're going to have to find out who set it up."

  "Yes. I think the best thing is to wait and see what happens next. Corrigan's death changes things. If this is a conspiracy, he was killed for a reason. After Kennedy we got Vietnam. Who knows what we'll get this time."

  "I think you and I had better step softly and keep a low profile, Clarence."

  "Yes."

  "I wanted to talk with you about something else," Elizabeth said. "It may be as important as the assassination."

  "You're kidding."

  "I wish I was. It's got to do with Yuri Kolkov."

  "Go on."

  She told Hood about sending Nick and Selena to France and about the musical code they'd found hidden on a CD of classical music in his suitcase. Then she told him what the message said.

  Hood was silent for a moment.

  "If it's true, we have to take this to the president."

  "How reliable was Kolkov as a source?"

  "Very reliable. He was our top asset in the Federation. His death sets us back years. It will be difficult to find someone to take his place."

  "Is there any way to confirm Status 6 is operational? The last brief I saw indicated it was still in the planning stages."

  "They'd have to move the device to the submarine that will transport it. I'll get our analysts on it. They can search the satellite shots and see if we can pick something up, but I'm not hopeful. It would be easy to camouflage the move and load it in one of the pens where the satellites can't follow."

  "What you're saying is there's no easy way to confirm the report."

  "I'm afraid not."

  "HUMINT? Assets on the ground in the Federation?"

  "Maybe. I'll get Lucas on it."

  Lucas Monroe was Director of National Clandestine Services, in charge of Langley's covert agents and operations. He was also Stephanie's husband.

  "I don't think we should go to Reynolds before we have something else to confirm Kolkov's report," Elizabeth said. "He's not going to do much based on the report of one asset."

  "One dead asset."

  "That might be the best argument for Kolkov's credibility. He went to a lot of trouble to encode that message. Why assassinate him if it wasn't true? If they found out he was defecting, I suppose that could be it, but it's a stretch. He was only a mid-level official. "

  "I'm inclined to believe the message is accurate. I agree, I don't think we can go to the president without something to back it up."

  Elizabeth tapped her fingers on her desktop. "What if we don't find that something? This is too important. If Status 6 has gone operational, it's a direct threat."

  "Then we'll have to go to Reynolds with what we've got. Give me a few days to see if I can get some confirmation."

  "Something doesn't feel right about this," Elizabeth said. "Let's assume the message is true. Think about it. Orlov isn't a fool. He's not ready for a war with us, in spite of the patriotic speeches for home consumption. I can see him developing the weapon, but I can't see him deploying it at this stage of the game. He's got other fish to fry. With an election coming up he can't afford to start something he can't finish."

  "You think someone may be going behind Orlov's back?"

  "It wouldn't be the first time."

  "You have a devious mind, Elizabeth."

  "That's why they pay me the big bucks."

  Hood laughed. "Sure, we're both getting rich."

  "Maybe when we're done working and our books come out," Elizabeth said.

  Hood laughed again. "So, we'll leave it like that? I'll try and confirm over the next couple of days. If I can't find something then we go to the White House with what we've got."

  "I'll work on it from my end as well."

  After she'd hung up, Elizabeth thought about what would happen if they went to Reynolds with an unconfirmed report that Russia was deploying a strategic weapon against America. She knew how Rice would've handled it. Rice had trusted her and trusted Hood. He would have accepted their opinion that the intelligence was genuine and come up with an appropriate response. But Reynolds was new in office, and was a man she didn't respect. She didn't have much hope he would act.

  She opened a desk drawer and took out a bottle of antacid tablets.

  CHAPTE
R 13

  July heat bore down on Valentina and three Spetsnaz soldiers in civilian clothes sitting in an ancient gray Lada, the kind of car no one would notice. The car was cramped and dirty, and smelled of sweat, cigarettes and stale food.

  They were parked a half block from the entrance to a run down, six-story tenement in the Kapotnya district of Southeast Moscow. Valentina had reasoned that the Tajik terrorist picked up by the FSB would have to be part of a local cell. FSB had assumed the same, but had drawn a blank in tracking down the other members of Abdulov's group.

  Down here, they could smell a cop a block away. People weren't going to tell the FSB anything useful, but Valentina was a different matter. She didn't look or feel like a cop. She'd spent the last few days dressed in the latest euro trash fashion of black and torn clothing. She'd layered her face with makeup, put on a black wig, and hit the nightclubs in the area where Abdulov had been arrested. Cops didn't get drunk and act like they were looking for a good time. She'd had to finesse more than one ardent suitor who'd had too much vodka, but Valentina was good at what she did. The men who'd tried to get her into the alley for a quick one went away thinking their chance would come another day.

  Today Valentina had ditched the outfit and was wearing blue pants and shirt, black boots, chest armor and a dark blue jacket. Her SPS pistol fired a 9x21 armor piercing round that could blow through thirty layers of Kevlar. It weighed a little over two pounds unloaded and came with an eighteen round box magazine. It wasn't easy to conceal, but today concealment wasn't an issue.

  Her three companions were armed as well. If things went smoothly, there would be no need for the weapons or the armor. Still, it was best to be prepared.

  Sitting in the hot, tiny car with three large men who smelled of sweat and testosterone, Valentina wished she'd avoided that last glass of vodka the night before. She had the mother of all headaches, but if what she'd learned turned out to be accurate, it was worth it.

  Three Tajik immigrants lived on the fifth floor of the building Valentina had staked out, three men who kept to themselves and avoided the spots favored by their compatriots. Three men now, but until recently there had been four.