Larsen took up a post in the front of the house and watched the street. From a spot in the clean, modern kitchen, Thomas kept an eye on the back area of the property. It was completely private, enclosed by thick green bushes and several trees. At twenty minutes past three, Larsen saw a young girl, about thirteen, come up the sidewalk, enter through the gate and approach the house. He buzzed Thomas on the walkie-talkie. “Girl’s home”. In a few seconds, Thomas had joined him, flattening himself against the wall next to the front door.
The girl rang the doorbell and said, “Mom, I’m home.” Larsen whipped open the door and yanked her inside, wrapping her up in a bear hug and clapping a hand over her mouth. Thomas, who had reloaded the gas cartridge in his pen, inserted the tip in one of her nostrils, which were flared wide in terror, and pressed the cap. A moment later she was unconscious. “One to go,” he said.
Larsen carried the girl over to the sofa and trussed her up as he had her mother. A few minutes later, a car pulled up to the curb in front of the house. A young man, about fifteen, climbed out on the passenger’s side and turned to speak to the driver. “Thanks for the ride, Coach. See you tomorrow.”
The car pulled away and the young man, with an air of youthful athleticism and confidence, sauntered up the pathway to the house. When he rang the doorbell, the scene involving his younger sister was repeated. Soon, he was trussed and lying on the floor next to the sofa that held his mother and sister.
The two men took up their positions once again. The phone rang a couple of times but they ignored it. The Christies began slowly to wake up. First the mother opened her eyes and looked groggily around the room. The son was next, followed shortly by his sister. As each of them came to the realization of their situation, their eyes opened wide and they began thrashing about as they struggled against their bonds. Muffled sounds came from their throats.
Thomas held a finger to his lips. “We’re not here to hurt you. There are some men coming here soon who do intend to harm you. Our job is to see that they don’t.”
Mrs. Christie continued to try to speak through the duct tape.
“I think she’s asking about her husband,” Larsen said.
Thomas nodded. “He’s not our problem, ma’am.”
Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes. She tried to turn her head away so her children wouldn’t see them.
At four forty-five in the afternoon, a brown delivery truck pulled to a stop in front of the house. The large, burly driver hopped down and began walking briskly to the front door. He wore brown shorts and cap, and a brown short sleeve shirt with some kind of logo on it. There was a package under one arm. As he walked up the pathway, another man emerged from the back of the truck and moved swiftly toward the rear of the house.
The man at the front door rang the bell and waited. Larsen whipped the door open, grabbed the big man by his shirt and yanked him into the house, head-butting him as he did so. The man’s knees sagged, but he still was conscious enough to reach behind him for the Glock that was stuck in his waistband. Larsen crushed a huge right uppercut into the man’s jaw and he collapsed. Stripping him of the weapon and patting him down for others, Larsen swiftly bound the man and slapped a piece of sturdy packing tape over his mouth.
At the back of the house, the other man, equally large and menacing, had crept up the rear steps to the kitchen door. He stood on the top step and pressed his ear against the door. It suddenly burst open inwardly and Thomas pistol-whipped the surprised man’s head with his HK45. It split open his scalp and blood began to flow freely. Grabbing the barely conscious man with his free hand, Thomas yanked him inside and kicked the door closed. He quickly disarmed the man and bound him with plastic ties. He spread a piece of packing tape over the man’s mouth. Grabbing the back of his shirt collar, Thomas dragged the bleeding man into the living room where Larsen had deposited the first man.
Thomas pulled out his walkie-talkie again and said, “The gang’s all here.” Thirty seconds later the white service van pulled up in front of the house. Larsen had already opened the driveway gate. Stensen backed the van down the driveway to the rear of the house and stopped behind the Chrysler minivan. Thomas and Larsen carried the Christie family out the kitchen door and gently placed them in the van. They went back in and dragged the two beefy hostages out, tossing them roughly in.
Sitting behind the wheel of the van, Stensen surveyed the scene. “Ukrainians?” he said, nodding at the two trussed up men.
“That would be my guess,” Thomas said.
The red dots in the center of Stensen’s eyes flared large and bright. “I hope I get a turn with them.”
52 Fredericksburg, Virginia
Stensen drove the gas company service van out of Maryland and across the Potomac on Route 15. He stopped at a commercial center outside Leesburg, Virginia, pulling around to the rear of the center, which backed up to a heavily wooded area. Waiting for them was a brown Ford Econoline 350 box truck that would have been familiar to Whelan. Its markings indicated that it was a delivery vehicle for a chain of appliance stores. There were two men in the cab. Whelan would have recognized them, also.
Larsen, Thomas, and Stensen took turns climbing into the back of the delivery truck while the other two watched over their human cargo in the service van. In the truck, they quickly changed into brown work uniforms, jackets, and brown ball caps. There were logos on the jackets and ball caps that matched the logo on the delivery truck. They swiftly and gently transferred the Christies to the truck, then tossed in the two thugs. When they were finished, the two men who had been in the delivery truck climbed down from the cab, got into the gas company’s service van, and drove it away.
Larsen and Thomas got into the back of the truck and closed the lift gate. Stensen climbed into the truck’s cab, drove around to the front of the commercial center and back on to Route 15 heading south. An hour later, outside Warrenton, Virginia he turned onto the Highway 17 Bypass. A little more than an hour after that, outside Fredericksburg, Virginia, he turned into a long, driveway that wound through a thick stand of trees. It stopped in front of a large country manor.
He got out of the cab, went around to the back of the truck and banged on the liftgate twice in rapid succession, paused briefly then banged twice again. Almost immediately, the liftgate slid up and Thomas jumped down to join Stensen. Larsen picked up Deborah Christie and gently handed her down to Thomas. He handed her daughter, Samantha, to Stensen, then climbed down with the son, Brett, slung carefully over one shoulder. He closed the liftgate and secured it from the outside.
As they approached the manor house, the double doors in the front opened and a man in butler’s livery came out to greet them. He directed the men to a suite of rooms on the third floor where the Christies would be confined in a luxurious, but escape-proof state.
Thomas and Larsen returned to the truck and hauled the two thugs into the house. The butler led them down a hallway to the rear of the building, through the kitchen area, and into a large pantry. He stopped in front of a rack of shelves that stretched from floor to ceiling. It held various canned goods. From a trouser pocket, he produced a small object that resembled a keyless remote for an automobile. He pressed a button on it three times in rapid succession. The entire wall swung inward soundlessly, revealing a set of stone steps that led down to the basement of the house.
Dragging the Ukrainians behind them, Larsen, Thomas, and Stensen descended the steps. The basement was a large area, about one hundred feet square. It was dry and very cold. The space looked as if it had been carved from a solid rock formation. The floor was made up of large, rough-hewn fieldstones. The space was empty except for three men standing in the middle of the room – Brendan Whelan, Marc Kirkland and Rafe Almeida. From the expressions on their faces, the three newcomers knew there was a problem.
The two thugs were shoved to the floor in a corner of the room. “What are the three of you doing here? I thought we were to drop the Christie family and these two guys, the
n meet up with you back at HQ,” Larsen said.
“What’s up?” Thomas said.
Tight-jawed, Whelan said, “The Christie family never was the primary target; they were a diversion. Levell was the target.”
Larsen, Thomas, and Stensen looked at each other. “Shit!” Larsen said; strong language for him.
“What are you talking about?” Thomas said simultaneously.
Stensen said nothing, but the red dots in the centers of his eyes flared large, and the corners of his mouth curled in a faint but grim smile. The other men knew what that smile meant. Stensen was in a killing mood. He looked at the two Ukrainians in a corner of the basement.
“I don’t have all the details yet,” Whelan said. “What I know was relayed to me by General McCoy.”
“Is the General okay?” Larsen said.
“Yeah, he wasn’t with Levell at the time. As I understand it, Cliff was on his way from the Lodge to his home in Georgetown. Rhee was driving and Paul Fontenot was along for R and R. The ambush happened at sixteen hundred hours on Route 218 about a mile east of the area known as Goby.”
“Hell, that’s not even five minutes from the Lodge,” Stensen said. “How did they pull this off?”
“Do we know who was behind this?” Thomas said.
“What’s the status of Rhee and Paul?” Larsen said.
The muscles in Whelan’s jaw tightened noticeably. “Paul Fontenot was shot dead. Rhee caught a couple of rounds but managed to escape into the surrounding woods and hid in a small creek.”
“What’s his status?” Stensen said.
“He was in surgery when McCoy spoke with me.”
“Do they know if he’ll make it?” Thomas said.
“I don’t know. McCoy said he was in pretty bad shape when they got to him. Lost a lot of blood.”
“Those motherfuckers,” Almeida said. “Rhee was a slope, but I liked the little bastard.”
Whelan and Thomas looked at him and shook their heads in disgust.
“You told us what happened to Rhee and Fontenot,” Larsen said. “What do we know about Cliff?”
“The car was all shot up, but there was no sign of Levell.”
“Bloodstains? Signs of a struggle?”
Whelan shook his head. “The Bureau has a forensics team onsite. McCoy has an operative inside the Bureau and is trying to get the skinny. But, right now, it looks like whoever did it wanted Cliff alive.”
“The big question,” Thomas said, “is what is the purpose of this?”
“Don’t know that either,” Whelan said. “But someone in this room might.” He pointed to the larger of the two would-be abductors, and said, “Cut him free.”
Kirkland swiftly produced a KA-BAR TDI Law Enforcement Last Ditch Knife and severed the plastic ties that had bound the man’s ankles and wrists. The man rubbed the joints vigorously, trying to restore feeling. Eventually, he reached up and gingerly removed the packing tape covering his mouth. He used his right hand to do it. Whelan made a mental note of that. “What you are wanting from us?” the man said in a thick accent.
“A simple contest,” Whelan said. “You beat me, you and your comrade are free to leave.”
The man rose to his feet and looked at Whelan suspiciously. “Is some kind of trick, yes?”
“No tricks. It’s your only chance to get out of here alive.”
The man continued to stare at him, trying to figure out what was going on.
“You’re wasting our time,” Whelan said and nodded at Thomas, who pointed his HK45 at the middle of the man’s chest. From less than ten feet away it would be an absolute kill shot.
“Please, I am not understanding,” the man said, trying to buy time.
“I don’t beat on helpless men. You’re not helpless anymore. But I’m losing what little patience I have. Either show me what you’ve got, and be quick about it, or my friend is going to pop a hollow-point cap in you.”
The man looked back and forth between Whelan and Thomas. Finally, he said, “I beat you, I not have to fight others?”
“That’s right,” Whelan said.
The man seemed to understand at last and began to circle to Whelan’s right while inching steadily forward to close the distance between them. He moved in a grappler’s crouch with his arms in front of him, hands a little farther apart than shoulder width and the elbows bent. Whelan held his ground, turning easily to keep his shoulders squared to his opponent. When the man had closed the gap between them to about four feet, he made a feinting gesture with his left hand and lunged forward to grab Whelan with his right. Whelan was expecting it. He knew the man was right-handed.
Whelan slid smoothly to his left and smashed a palm heel strike with his left hand to the outside of his opponent’s right elbow. It knocked the man’s arm away and spun him slightly. Whelan dug a powerful right-handed blow to the man’s exposed back just above the right kidney, then slipped away.
A cry of pain exploded from the man’s mouth. He arched his back and quickly tried to touch the injured area. He slowly and painfully turned to face Whelan again. He looked at the Irishman, who at six feet two was a good four inches shorter and at least fifty pounds lighter. A look came into his eyes that expressed an emotion unfamiliar to him—fear.
It was a common misconception that if your opponent was faster, you must be stronger; overcome speed with force. Lowering his head, the man growled and launched himself at Whelan. Whelan glided to his left again. Using his right hand, he grabbed the wrist of the man’s grasping right arm and twisted down, around and up. The Ukrainian flipped over in mid-air, landing hard on the base of his spine. He howled with pain as he hit the stone floor.
As he slowly got up, he stared at Whelan with a look of hatred mixed with fear. He lunged again, wildly swinging a huge right haymaker. Whelan neutralized it with a left forearm block and pounded the man’s midsection eight times with left-right combinations. His hands moved with such speed that, to the untrained eye, the entire sequence would be no more than a blur. It took less than a second to accomplish. The big man sagged to the floor and pitched forward onto his hands and knees. Whelan stepped over him and squatted down, locking the man’s chest between his thighs. He wrapped his right hand around the man’s chin and placed his left hand on the side of his head just behind his right ear. Stensen watched, hands on hips, Larsen, Kirkland, and Almeida also looked on. Thomas turned away. With a mighty wrench, Whelan twisted the man’s thick neck sharply to the right and heard the snapping sound of a cervical fracture – a broken neck. The Ukrainian’s body went limp. Whelan let go of the head and it smacked the fieldstone floor with a thud.
He turned and looked at the other Ukrainian, huddled in the corner, then casually walked over and stood in front of him. Whelan reached down and yanked the packing tape away from his mouth. A substantial amount of skin went with it, and the man yelped in pain.
“Do you speak English?” Whelan said.
“Yes.”
“Better than your late friend over there?” Whelan motioned toward the corpse.
“Yes, better than Bohdan.” The man bobbed his head up and down nervously, his eyes wide with fear.
“What’s your name?”
“Fedir. Fedir Shevchenko.”
“Would you like to end up like your friend over there, Fedir?”
“No. No, please, I am doing whatever you are wanting.”
53 J. Edgar Hoover Building
Mitch Christie hung up the phone in his office and reached for his current bottle of antacid. His calls had gone through to voicemail on his home phone on all three calls he had made that afternoon. By now the kids would be home from school. Deborah should be home, preparing dinner for the kids and herself, and hoping he wouldn’t be too late for a change. One of them should have answered. It was possible they had gone to the store or on a similar errand, but he’d been calling since three o’clock and it was now after six. Ordinarily, if the three of them were going to go somewhere at this time of the da
y, Deborah would have called him.
He sat with his hand on the receiver for several moments running scenarios through his mind. Something didn’t feel right. He called each of his family member’s cell phones. He reached voicemail on all of them and left the same message: call me as soon as you get this. He had just finished the last call when Lou Antonelli knocked on the jamb of Christie’s open office door. “Got a minute?” he said. He was chewing an unlit cigar.
“Yeah,” Christie waved him to a chair in front of his desk. “So how’s the new house in Chevy Chase? All moved in yet?”
“It’s comin’ along. It’s great to have all that room.”
“What’d you say it was—five bedrooms, four and a half baths?”
“Yeah about forty-five hundred square feet under air.”
Christie looked at the other man for a moment. “That’s a lot of house for a government employee. What does something like that run – million and a half, two million?”
“It could, but I got a great deal. It’s all in how you negotiate.”
“Yeah?” Christie said. “You must be the Donald Trump of residential deals.”
Antonelli laughed. “Sometimes you just get lucky. Well, anyway, you remember that ex-CIA spook, Levell, the old geezer?”
Christie nodded. “Yeah, he was part of that Sleeping Dogs operation. We had him under surveillance for months until orders from high up in the DOJ made it clear that was off-limits.”
“Surveillance or not, I understand they’ve been spending a lot of time at some kind of hunting lodge in Virginia.”
Christie leaned back in his chair and steepled both hands under his chin. “Yeah, Lou, that’s something that really pisses me off. I have no doubt we could gather high value intel from that place, what with the cast of characters that regularly comes and goes.”
“Major industrialists, politicians, high ranking military and intelligence officers just to name a few,” Antonelli said.
Sleeping Dogs: The Awakening Page 27
