Trap the Devil

by Ben Coes

  Dewey ignored his question. “You keep walking toward the station. I’ll be standing in the doorway. You take a step back toward the train, I’ll kill you, and nobody will know where the bullet came from. You signal somebody, a hand gesture, I’ll kill you. If you wait until the doors close and signal somebody, I’ll pry the door open and put one in your head. Are we clear?”

  “Yes.”

  A few seconds later, the train came to a stop. Dewey put his hand beneath his sweater, concealing the weapon, but made sure Mustafah understood that the end of the silencer was aimed at him. He opened the door to the bathroom and stepped out, followed by Mustafah, who went left toward the exit. He walked slowly onto the platform, limping. Dewey followed him and stopped in the doorway, with his finger on the trigger of the gun. Snow blanketed the air. The cold air stung Dewey’s face. The terrorist blended in with the crowd of passengers waiting to get on. Soon, the doors slid shut and the train started to move as Dewey watched Mustafah, looking for some sort of signal, but he saw none.

  * * *

  Dewey also didn’t see the two individuals waiting on the platform several cars back. One of them, a woman, saw him, however.

  Her long black hair was braided and dangled slightly over one shoulder, jutting out from beneath a fur cap. She was tall, dressed in a white down jacket, and wheeled a black suitcase behind her. Her passport was French, her name, according to the document: Manon des Vosges. Her real name was Reema.

  At a train car behind her was a short, older man. He wore grubby clothing, covered in a layer of silt and dirt, along with beat-up work boots. He carried a tool satchel. His face was stubbly and pale, weathered by years of being outdoors and fighting the elements. This was a working-class man, perhaps a mason, who appeared to be in his fifties. He, too, carried a French passport. According to the passport, his name was Michel Bertrand. His real name was Sangar.

  Reema and Sangar were Iranian, both highly decorated agents in Iran’s secretive and powerful intelligence service, VEVAK.

  It was Sangar who spotted Dewey—or, rather, who spotted an older man standing in the doorway of the train. What Sangar noticed was the size of him, that and the way he stood in the frame of the door, watching as a young jacketless Arab moved cautiously across the platform. Sangar was reasonably sure he’d marked the man they’d been sent to kill. The man called Dewey Andreas.

  66

  FIRST-CLASS CAR

  BESANÇON, FRANCE

  Romy awoke with a start. She was breathing quickly. Her shirt was drenched in perspiration. She looked at the woman in the seat across from her. She was very old, with a scarf that held her white hair in place.

  “Allo,” said Romy.

  “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” the old woman said, smiling.

  What was she dreaming about? There was something there, just outside her ability to reach. She shut her eyes, trying to remember. But it was useless. It always was.

  The train was stopped. Outside, snow was falling in heavy sheets of white. The storm was blinding. She loved snowstorms. She felt warm and safe on the train. How long had she been asleep?

  “Ou sommes-nous, madame?” Romy asked.

  “Besançon.”

  Romy looked out the window as the train began to move. A man in a T-shirt was standing on the platform. He walked slowly toward the station. He didn’t have luggage or even a coat. It made no sense.

  She looked back at the old woman. Her eyes were closed and she was leaning against the corner.

  “Madame,” said Romy, reaching out and lightly touching her arm. “Pourquoi ne vous mentez pas vers le bas? Il n’y a pas d’autre à venir dans notre compartiment.”

  Why don’t you lie down? There is no one else coming into our compartment.

  Romy assisted the woman as she reclined across the leather bench seat. For the first time in days, Romy felt hunger pangs. She would go to the dining area and get something to eat. But her mind was drawn again to the station, escaping now in the distance, and the man—a young man of Middle Eastern descent—walking away in a T-shirt.

  A chill made her shiver for a brief moment.

  Not everything is related to you, she thought, smiling.

  Slowly, she stood up and opened the door. She peeked out, looking in both directions down the corridor. She saw no one. She started walking toward the dining area.

  * * *

  As the train began to crawl out of Besançon, a tall man in a black Moncler down jacket stared out the window.

  He was in the last car, near the very back of the train. He’d gotten on board in Avignon.

  The man’s hair was dirty blond. He was darkly handsome, even rugged-looking, his nose sharp, with a big jaw. He had several days’ worth of stubble. He avoided eye contact assiduously. He watched a young man walk across the platform, as snow fluttered down.

  Kyrie had stolen a car outside of Paris and driven across eastern France, the last hours through blizzard conditions. Kopitar had guessed which train Romy was on based on the time of Felix Jackson’s death. It was the only train departing Marseille within an hour and a half of the attack. But the truth was, he had no idea if she was on board.

  Kyrie had long ago lost any sense of proportion. Any sense of reality. He inhabited a different place altogether now, a world hidden from all but a few. The mundane aspects of Kyrie’s life were all taken care of for him. He was very wealthy; Bruner saw to that. All Kyrie had to worry about was killing. That was what his world was. Killing people.

  It had been Bruner who found him and saved him more than two decades before. Kyrie had been in Riyadh, a day after closing out an operation in Kuwait. Kyrie was a paramilitary officer within Special Operations Group. The operation in Kuwait, like all of Kyrie’s operations, had gone flawlessly. The morning he was scheduled to depart from Riyadh, Kyrie had walked into a mosque with a submachine gun and killed thirty-four people. Everyone in the building. Half an hour later, he was on a plane back to Virginia.

  When he landed, Kyrie confessed to the massacre. He was sent to a CIA facility in West Virginia to await a military tribunal, and likely spend the rest of his life in Leavenworth.

  Bruner had visited him the day after he confessed. Kyrie would always remember it.

  “My name is Charles Bruner.”

  Bruner had reached into his pocket and removed a small black device, placing it on the table. “It’s a signals-jamming device. They’re not recording, but even if they were it wouldn’t matter.”

  “I know what it is,” Kyrie said. “Record it all you want, I really don’t fucking care anymore. I know where I’m going.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Leavenworth.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “Who are you?”

  “I work for the State Department.”

  “I’ll never apologize, if that’s why you’re here. I’m glad I did it. Fuck them. Whoever you are, you just don’t understand. You have no clue.”

  “No clue about what, Kyrie?”

  “About the cancer that’s out there.”

  “Cancer?”

  “Islam. It’s coming, and if we don’t start dealing with them now, they’re going to take over the fucking world. That’s not racism, it’s the truth, coming from someone who’s seen them up close. They better send me to Leavenworth, because if they let me out, I’ll do it all over again.”

  An hour later, Kyrie had climbed into the back of a dark sedan and, together with Bruner, designed a secret war to stop Islam.

  Something snapped that day so long ago when he killed the Muslims. What it was, even he didn’t know, but it changed him. Had Bruner not come along, Kyrie had no doubt he would still be locked away in prison—or dead. Bruner saved him. More important, Bruner also gave him a license to kill. Now Kyrie was a hollow shell, a single-purpose entity. After so many years, he was nothing but a pure, relentless killer.

  So why did Romy love him? What had she seen? The question ate away at him until he felt he would
go insane. She saw something … and now he had to kill her.

  Kyrie was in the second to last row in the last car on the train, in a window seat, alone. He stared out at the man crossing the platform. He was young, Arab, and … wore only a T-shirt. It didn’t make sense.

  As the young Arab walked through the driving snow, away from the train, Kyrie’s mind rapidly analyzed the enigma and solved it almost as quickly.

  The INTERPOL alert. Dewey Andreas had done a great deal of damage over the course of his career. The Red Notice had undoubtedly been read in a lot of places where he’d left his brutal mark. The smart ones understood. He was a flushed bird, out in the open, there for the taking. This might be the only chance they got to go after the man on their terms.

  It was a rare opportunity to even an old score.

  So who is it? Kyrie asked himself.

  Obviously, they’re Arab. Kyrie ran through a list of possible entities.

  Pakistan, where Andreas had led a coup d’état, deposing a radical cleric who’d been elected president.

  ISIS, whose attack on the dormitory at Columbia University Andreas had stopped.

  Iran.

  Of course, it had to be Iran. VEVAK or KUDS or perhaps even Hezbollah. Andreas’s theft of Iran’s first nuclear weapon was a sore spot for the country still.

  And then Kyrie realized how stupid he was being. The name practically screamed out to him:

  Fortuna.

  Kyrie shook his head and smiled, amazed that he’d overlooked the most obvious choice. Fortuna. Of course. Aswan. Alexander. The only one left, Nebuchar.

  Kyrie remembered the man who got on in Chalon-sur-Saône. He’d walked down the aisle to a seat two rows in front of him.

  It was obvious. The man was not going skiing.

  Kyrie sat upright. He saw the back of the man’s head—a block of dark hair.

  For the next half hour, Kyrie studied the man. He moved too often. He was too alert. Even as he tried to nap, he would lurch ever so slightly at passengers getting up from their seats.

  Kyrie stood up and opened the overhead compartment, getting a better look. The man was a spitting image of Alexander Fortuna, though more rugged-looking. A handsome man.

  Kyrie suddenly realized he was seated two rows behind Nebuchar Fortuna, whose team was on the train for one single purpose: find Dewey Andreas and kill him. It was a trip of vengeance.

  It meant Andreas was on board. Which meant Romy was on board.

  He smiled as he tapped the woman seated next to Fortuna on the shoulder. It would be an entertaining train trip. Fortuna added a layer of complication Kyrie could use to his advantage.

  “Pardon, madame,” he said quietly, nodding toward Fortuna. “Peut-on changer de place? Un vieil ami. Vous aurez deux sièges pour vous tout seul.”

  Excuse me, madame, could we switch seats? An old friend. You will have two seats all to yourself.

  The woman got up and Kyrie sat down next to Fortuna.

  Fortuna appraised Kyrie. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Kyrie.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nebuchar, correct?” Kyrie whispered. “If I wanted you dead you’d be dead already. And that’s your problem. You’re here for Dewey Andreas, but you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  Fortuna swung his left hand across the air. A blade thrust out, but Kyrie calmly grabbed Fortuna’s wrist and held it, the tip of the blade a few inches from his throat.

  “Do you realize you’re already down one man?” asked Kyrie as he continued to clutch Fortuna’s wrist in his left hand. Kyrie nodded toward his right hand. Fortuna glanced down. Kyrie was holding a suppressed handgun, aimed at Fortuna’s chest.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Andreas kicked one of your men off at the last station. An Arab.”

  “There are plenty of Arabs.”

  “In a T-shirt? No bags? A gold Rolex on his wrist?”

  Kyrie let go of Fortuna’s wrist. Fortuna paused and then withdrew the switchblade, putting it back in his pocket.

  “I’m willing to help you,” said Kyrie. “If you think you can mosey onto a train and find Dewey Andreas and then kill him, you’re mad. He’s already eliminated one of your men. How many more do you have?”

  “Two,” said Fortuna. “What do you want? Money?”

  Kyrie shook his head.

  “No. I want you to succeed. I’m not after Dewey Andreas. But I am after what he’s after. Our interests are aligned. I thought I would have to kill him myself. I’d much rather have you do it. But you’ll never manage without my help.”

  * * *

  When Dewey arrived back at his seat, he waited several minutes and then hit his earbud.

  “A man got on at one of the stations,” he said. “Arab. Something about him bothered me. I searched his bag when he was in the bathroom. He had weapons, a submachine gun.”

  “What did you do?” said Katie.

  “I kicked him off the train.”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Katie said quietly, but with urgency. “Iran.”

  “He didn’t look Shia.”

  “Everyone who wants you dead knows you’re in France. You’re being hunted. Maybe it wasn’t Paria. You need to get off at the next stop. You don’t even know if she knows anything. You’re a sitting duck. If you really want her, we can stay and extract her.”

  “She does know something,” insisted Dewey. “It’s why she went to Lindsay. They killed Lindsay because she told him something.”

  “That’s conjecture.”

  “Call it whatever you want. I’m going to find out what she told Lindsay.”

  “You’re a stupid, stubborn son of a bitch,” said Katie. “If he wasn’t Shia, it means someone else has men on this train. We have a bigger problem than we realized.”

  67

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Bruner knew precisely why he’d been invited to the White House. He had no reason to be there. It was obvious.

  Order 6.

  They’d scanned Langley manifests and found the ones who worked for Casey. They, including himself, were the ones who might know something, perhaps about the satellite or something else. A camera shot of Kyrie in Paris, somehow matching an NSA facial recognition program? Who knows? But they found something, and now they were on a fishing expedition. If they knew more, he’d already be locked up.

  They were close. So close.

  “One more day,” he whispered to himself.

  As Bruner’s driver turned into the gates of the White House, he picked up his cell. He hit speed dial.

  “Nathaniel?” he said.

  “Yes, Mr. Bruner.”

  “Are you at the restaurant?”

  “Yes.”

  “And has he arrived?”

  “Yes, he has.”

  “I trust everything will be done appropriately.”

  “Of course, Mr. Bruner. I’ll begin immediately.”

  “One more thing,” said Bruner. “Have they assigned manpower for the event on Friday?”

  “Yes,” said Nathaniel. “I was detailed this morning.”

  * * *

  The West Wing of the White House usually surprised first-time visitors. It was an intimate place, as if the offices of the president’s senior staff as well as that of the president had been set inside an elegant old New England mansion. The ceilings were low, the floors carpeted in thick, gorgeous patterned rugs, and the lighting cast a warm, informal light that felt familiar. It was a design that harkened back to an era before computers and nuclear weapons, a simpler time. Everyone who walked its hallways knew that the West Wing was the epicenter of the most powerful government on earth—the most powerful government in the history of earth—and yet its informality and plain beauty reminded all that America’s history was young. It was the history of a people who had come by its power in the most human and colonial of ways.

  Perhaps no office in the West Wing was as intim
ate and stylishly informal as that of the chief of staff, Adrian King. It sat a few feet away from the Oval Office and was separated by a short private hallway. Bookshelves lined two of the walls. A large desk was at the far side of the office and took up most of the space. A big, comfortable George Smith leather chesterfield sofa ran the length of almost an entire wall, beneath bookshelves that were half filled with leather-bound legal books and half filled with cardboard boxes containing various detritus from King’s career. The one wall that didn’t have bookshelves on it was decorated not with the usual Washington, D.C., collection of photos with various world leaders and politicians. Instead, a large framed photograph hung in the middle of the wall. It showed King in camouflage hunting attire, a squalid-looking beard and mustache covering his face, a rifle in his hand, standing over a dead grizzly bear, which he’d shot in Idaho. The photo sent an unmistakable message.

  If I can kill this grizzly, imagine what I can do to you.

  In King’s office, history and present day were perfectly aligned. Here, the down-to-earth lack of pretentiousness of the West Wing’s surroundings was at all times married to the wielding of the government’s utmost power, sometimes in the rawest of ways. King was a fearless, relentless, no-holds-barred administrator who made sure President Dellenbaugh’s wishes were executed. When they weren’t, he was the one who kicked the proverbial teeth in.

  King was dressed in a navy blue Brooks Brothers suit and cordovan wingtips. He was five-eight with brown hair so thick it looked like it needed a chain saw to cut it. His most distinctive feature was a set of wild-eyed eyebrows, which he didn’t trim. White House chiefs of staff were seldom hired for their looks.

  King had an Irish temper, which he controlled, for the most part, with the slash-eyed, ruthless calm he’d inherited from his Sicilian mother. King had risen in large part based on an indefatigable work ethic, a big brain, a fiery temper, and a willingness to speak—and sometimes shout—his opinion.

  King was alone in his office. He was poring through files on the four individuals who were under consideration to replace Tim Lindsay as secretary of state. The cover sheet listed the people Dellenbaugh had selected following the death of Lindsay: