Subtle Target: Six Assassins Book 2

by Heskett, Jim

  Also, he wished he hadn’t said he wanted 'adventure' back when they’d been in the car. It sounded so childish and dumb now. But it was too late to correct his answer. All he could do was wait and watch and try to support his mentor as best he could.

  So he hooked a Bluetooth headset over his ear and called Ember on his phone.

  “Here,” she whispered, when the call had connected.

  “I’m waiting on the program to connect. No heat signatures yet. Please proceed with caution.”

  "Understood. There's a door on the north end that doesn't open out into the main building lobby. I think I'll go around that way since it's least likely to be monitored. Going quiet for now."

  He watched her scramble through the hedges at the outer perimeter of the parking lot. In the evening darkness, he could barely make her out in her black pants and black jacket. Her pale skin caught some of the fading light, but she was mostly a shadow. And she moved like a cloud through the bushes.

  Damn, she’s good. He hoped he could be that good someday.

  Gabe listened to her breathe over the phone call as she skirted across the edge of the parking lot and disappeared around the north side of the building. When she left, the parking lot turned still. The sounds of cars on nearby roads buzzed at the edge of his hearing, but that was all.

  For thirty seconds, she was dead quiet. He heard a door open and close, then the faintest sound of her shoes moving down a hall or through a room. Gabe tried to keep as quiet as possible, in case someone was nearby, he didn’t want his voice to carry over the Bluetooth.

  A warning message flashed on his laptop, and he didn’t think he could keep quiet any longer. “Hey, there’s a problem. The program says it’s having trouble connecting.”

  “What does that mean?” she whispered.

  "I don't know yet. I'll restart it. But you might have to move around in there blind if I can't access the drone to get the heat signatures. I'll need at least thirty seconds to power-cycle it."

  “What’s wrong with the drone?”

  “No idea. It might be a battery problem, or it could be the app. Either way, I won’t know anything until I can start it again and try to connect. Hopefully, it won’t come crashing down on my head, in the meantime.”

  “Can you switch drones? Or, like, hack a government satellite or something like you did with the Branch message board?”

  He stammered for a second. “It’s... not exactly the same thing. What we have is what we got.”

  “Shit.”

  "Yeah. Maybe it's just buggy. It's kind of a resource hog, so let me restart the program, and I'll see how it goes."

  He closed the program and then counted to ten before restarting it. Then, something moved in the shadows at the edge of the parking lot. He stared, not sure if that had been the wind kicking up leaves, or an actual something.

  Then, several somethings moved. Gabe leaned forward and lowered the lid of his laptop to get his night vision back.

  Coming in from the east and north were a dozen men in black clothing, with helmets and automatic weapons. Heads down, they scurried toward the building. Gabe squinted until he could make out the yellow lettering on the back of one of the men's bulletproof vests.

  The DEA was here.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  ISABEL

  FBI Agent Isabel Yang knocked on the door of the little house in La Jolla, not far from campus. She could hear the ocean from here, along with revving motorcycles from a nearby biker bar. Two sounds that didn’t fit together, but they seemed at home in Southern California.

  And, while not Isabel’s first time in the state, this was her first time in San Diego, and she’d been stunned to discover a lack of humidity for a beach town. Not nearly as bad as DC, a city that frizzed her hair on a daily basis. Her hair refused to adjust, for some reason.

  The door opened, and there stood a white woman with a tight gray bun, little round glasses. About sixty, but it was hard to judge by the number of wrinkles. Isabel could see the resemblance to Ember immediately.

  “Heidi Campbell? I’m Isabel. We spoke on the phone.”

  "Of course, dear. Come on in; I just made some tea."

  Isabel followed her inside the house, which was a charming ranch-style home filled with lots of knick-knacks and art on the walls. One painting, in particular, had a kind of childish quality to it. A watercolor of a cat sitting in a windowsill, with a sun shining above it.

  Isabel lifted a finger at the painting. “Did… Allison paint that one?” She’d almost said Ember, but had to remind herself that her mother wouldn’t know her by an undercover name.

  Heidi clasped her hands, smiling. “She sure did. Grade school, I think. She always had such a talent for art, but she mostly stopped after grade school. I don’t know why. Boys, I suppose. You know how teenagers can be.”

  They continued on through into the kitchen, where a man of a similar age sat at a table in the middle of the room, reading a newspaper. His legs were crossed, with the top leg bouncing up and down. A house slipper dangled on the end of his toes, poised to fall twelve inches to the floor.

  He dropped the paper and stood to extend a hand. “Paul Campbell.”

  “Isabel Yang,” she said as she reached over to shake.

  “My, you’re tall. Do you play basketball?”

  Isabel cleared her throat and forced herself to smile. “Not so much anymore. Knee injury back in college.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad. Are you hungry? I’m sure Heidi can whip you up something. We usually eat late, but we’d be happy to…”

  “Actually,” Isabel said, “I can only stay for a few minutes. I have a flight back to DC soon. I was hoping I could just ask you a few questions, if you can spare the time? I don’t want to intrude, but it’s important.”

  Heidi and Paul shared a look, then they both nodded at each other. They were two entirely ordinary white people, their skin a little browned from the California sun, thin and healthy, and seemingly still in love after more than thirty years of marriage. Isabel assumed the last bit of information based on the fact they'd touched each other three times since she'd come into the room.

  She allowed Paul to escort her out into the living room, where they pointed her a chair, and they had a seat on the couch opposite.

  “What can we do for you?” Paul asked as he settled and crossed his legs, once again bouncing an extended foot. If Isabel were suspicious of them, she might have noted the leg bounce as a nervous tic.

  She considered taking out the little notepad she had in her slacks pocket but decided against it. She didn't want this conversation to feel formal. "I wondered when was the last time you talked to your daughter?"

  Both of them took a few seconds to process the information, with Heidi scrunching her brow and Paul blowing his cheeks out with air. Eventually, the husband turned to his wife and raised his eyebrows, inviting her to speak first.

  “Quite a long time,” Heidi said. “Years.”

  “You know about what she does for a living?”

  “FBI, I assume, still. The fact that you’re here seems to confirm it, too, doesn’t it?”

  “And you know she went on a long-term undercover operation?”

  Paul nodded. “She talked to us a few times after she started. I don’t think she was supposed to, actually, but she called us from time to time. She won’t get in trouble for that, will she?”

  “No,” Isabel said. “But could you tell me how she seemed back then?”

  “Fine,” Paul said. “In the beginning, at least.” He turned to his wife. “Wouldn’t you agree, hon?”

  “Oh, yes,” Heidi said, smiling and showing off a set of porcelain-white teeth.

  Isabel couldn’t help but notice they didn’t seem concerned. If an FBI Agent shows up at your door to ask about the state of mind of your undercover daughter, you would think the parents would be worried, asking questions, trying to find out if their daughter was okay. But, no, they were hanging back, lett
ing Isabel guide the conversation as if they were talking about something banal like the upcoming NBA season.

  “What do you mean by 'in the beginning,' Paul?”

  “She changed. Calls were less frequent. She became combative. It was a little bit like she was a teenager all over again. We thought we were done with all that power struggle stuff, but it made our relationship very difficult. We had to make a conscious decision to step back from her.”

  Isabel thought about the redacted document she’d found in Marcus’ file, the disciplinary report with both of their names on it. “Did she ever mention someone named Marcus Lonsdale?”

  “Not that I recall,” Heidi said. “She didn’t talk much about her work, even before this last undercover stint.”

  “In the last three years, has she ever told you where she was or what she was doing?”

  “No,” Heidi said, “but she did make us call her 'Ember.' I thought that was quite strange.”

  Isabel pursed her lips. “Are you worried about your daughter’s well-being?”

  Heidi and Paul turned to each other, their eyes searching. Isabel took it to mean they were each looking to the other to answer the question. After a few seconds of this standoff, Paul spread a flat smile, and Heidi, in response, looked relieved she wouldn't have to speak.

  "We lost our son about ten years ago," Paul said. "Allison took it quite hard, and she joined the FBI not long after that. We've always felt distant from her, but over the last three years… she's changed. We're not the only ones who chose to pull back. She did, as well. She's gone."

  “Gone?”

  "Yes. I assume you're here because Allison is in some sort of trouble, and you're looking for answers. I'm afraid we don't have any. We'll always love her, but as far as we're concerned, Allison left our family when she became this Ember person."

  Isabel sat back and tented her fingertips, breathing, thinking over that last statement.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  EMBER

  Ember planted a foot and jumped into a nearby classroom when she heard a door open at the end of the hall. She pressed herself to the wall next to the door and gripped her pistols. Breaths in and out, slow and controlled.

  In front of her were the abandoned desks of a classroom not occupied by children since last year. The whiteboard at the front of the room still contained a note about school lunch being not offered on the last day before summer vacation. All of it was so dark and lonely as if the desks and the board missed the children.

  Everything in this room made Ember sad, but she didn't know why. And she wanted to stop thinking about it before she lost her focus.

  Ember waited until the footsteps grew louder, peaked, and then began to fade. They clacked like the heels of dress shoes, not sneakers. Ember had previously noted a curved mirror above the door at the end of the hall. She took her compact mirror from her back pocket and held it at an angle toward the mirror to catch a reflected view.

  A large man in a crisp suit walked down the hall, bow-legged and meandering. He had black hair slicked back, clutching a Sig Sauer 9mm he kept pointed at the floor. His shoulders swayed from side to side as he moved, like someone who made sure his swagger was on display at all times.

  More footsteps came, so she pulled the mirror back. But, these didn’t match the clacky tone of the dress shoes. They were softer. Like a woman’s foot.

  Lydia.

  Ember crept to the edge of the doorframe and pointed the mirror at her target, walking down the hall, followed by two more armed men in suits. The gym must be at the other end of this hallway.

  Ember realized she was in the perfect spot. They would most likely come back this way after the meeting. She could wait to follow them, and if Lydia was alone, she would earn a bullet to the back of the head. If not alone, she could take out the mafia thugs too. They weren’t Club members, and they weren’t exactly civilians, so she didn’t have any qualms about killing them. As long as she could get in behind them, Ember felt confident going up against three or four at a time.

  “We have a serious problem,” Gabe said over her earpiece.

  Ember pulled back from the door. Gabe's first words in a couple of minutes had startled her, so she made sure her breathing didn't grow any louder. She holstered her guns and cupped a hand over her mouth and ear. "What are you talking about?"

  “The DEA is here. I just saw almost a dozen feds rush the front entrance of the building.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Wish I was. They’re moving fast, and it looks like they know exactly where they’re going. Someone tipped them off about this meeting.”

  She shut her eyes and focused on her breathing for a few beats so she could think. “One second.”

  She took out her phone and composed a text message to Isabel Yang: What the hell? Did you send the DEA to Parker?

  Ten seconds passed with no response. Her fingers tapped against the spine of her phone, trying to will a response from Isabel. Seconds passed in interminable silence. Then, the little bubble indicated a text coming back.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t heard anything about DEA movements in the Denver area.

  Ember gritted her teeth and dropped her phone back into her pocket. Panic gripped her from the feet up when she realized the possibility that she might actually know some of the people assaulting the building. She had dated a DEA agent briefly a few years ago. She knew the bars they liked to frequent and had been to a backyard barbecue at two different DEA agents' houses.

  “Ember,” Gabe said. “You have to abort. Make your way up to the second floor, and I think you can get out a window on the south side. There’s no one outside to the south. I can’t promise you how long that will last, though, so get on it.”

  Ember tapped the nose of her Enforcer against her thigh. Chewing on her lower lip, breath whistling in and out of her nose. So many thoughts ran through her head; she didn't know how to stop and categorize them all.

  “Ember?” Gabe said, his tone becoming strained.

  “Is the drone working?”

  “No, it’s not. I don’t know what the problem is, so I’m going to shut it down. Especially with the DEA here. Who knows what kind of surveillance they have? I can’t risk them seeing it.”

  “Are you safe?”

  Gabe stammered. “As far as I can tell. I haven’t seen any of them near the dog park or this hill.”

  Ember breathed, pinching her lips together and pulling them apart, over and over again. Her skin tingled, like little bugs crawling all over it.

  “Are you coming out?” Gabe asked.

  “No, I don’t think so. I can still do it. Get back to the car now, or be ready to leave as soon as you see me. I’m staying and ending this.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  EMBER

  Ember readied her pistols as she braced herself to turn and pass through the door, but then a stream of half a dozen men in black body armor raced through the hall. She pressed up against the room’s interior wall again, thinking through her options.

  An idea came to her. It wasn’t perfect, and her subconscious seemed to already be poking holes in it, trying to prove to her how terrible an idea it was, but it was the only idea she had.

  She wasn’t picky; she needed to do something.

  Ember crossed the room, holstering her weapons and unlocking a window to open it. Gabe had said there was no one to the south, and these windows faced that direction. Whatever she did, Ember needed to hurry. With the DEA prowling around, this place could be flooded with people in minutes.

  The window resisted her first attempt to lift it. She had to throw her weight into it because the window had been partially painted shut. But, after a few seconds of trying, it cracked the paint and slid up. Cold air rushed into the room.

  Ember climbed outside and latched onto the brick exterior. Using every ounce of her finger grip strength, she climbed to a concrete ledge on the second floor. She hung there for a mom
ent, peering through a window above it. This was another classroom, the same as below. She could see out into the hallway through a small window in the door.

  No one here. Safe to enter, maybe.

  For several seconds, nothing happened. Still no action in the hall. Her arms began to ache from supporting her body weight.

  Ember hoisted herself up and found there was no way to open the window from the outside. Many of the exterior building windows had been broken by vandals or whoever, but not this one. This one was like new.

  She took one of her Enforcers and jabbed it against the window. The blow made a solid crack but didn’t break the glass. After three more tries, it broke. She used the gun to clear the rest of the glass out, then climbed inside.

  As soon as she entered, she heard the shouts coming from the gym. The DEA ordering the mafia goons to drop their weapons. A few gunshots followed. Ember hadn’t intended it, but she had found her way to a room in the hall leading up from the quasi-secret door she’d found in the gym. There was a good chance someone would be in that hallway out there soon. But whether it was a good idea or not to put herself closer to the line of fire remained to be seen.

  Her tired legs carried her across the room. Pistols out, focused on even breaths and not tripping over her own stupid feet. Fortunately, Gabe was quiet in her ear. She could barely hear herself think with all the commotion from down the stairs in the hall.

  Then, streaming down the hall came Lydia.

  Ember grinned. Exactly as she had hoped. Maybe there was a way to accomplish her goal after all, despite the chaos.

  Ember pulled the door open and leaned out into the hall. Lydia was running to the right, past her position. More gunshots. DEA versus the Belcaminos. Ember didn’t know how many mafia soldiers they had brought with them, but the DEA would likely win that battle. They always came with an army.