Day of Reckoning (7 page)

“I’m listening.”

“EAGLE SIX has gone rogue.”

“What can you tell me?” Tex asked, glancing forward at the closed cockpit door. “Bear in mind, this isn’t a secure line.”

“I know, I know. He kidnapped Carol Chambers from Interrogation and made it off-campus before the alarm was sounded.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” the Texan replied, his mind turning over the possibilities. “Where is he now?”

“We don’t know. Metro PD found his car abandoned at a service station about ten miles west of Langley—along with a rather distraught single mother who was trying to report a car theft.”

“Standard operating procedure, Thomas,” Tex observed. The only question was
why
? “You said ten miles west?”

“Yes,” Thomas replied. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Probably. Don’t do anything until I get back. See if Kranemeyer will let you pick me up at Dulles. That way we can keep things off the official manifest.”

“Right. Goodbye.”

Seemingly exhausted by the flow of words, Tex simply clicked the “kill” button on the phone and laid it beside his seat. Outside the window, clouds drifted past the swift business jet, dulcet and white. Peaceful.
What are you doing, Harry?

9:22 A.M. Eastern Time

A Wal-Mart

Manassas, Virginia

For a man who had grown up in ‘80s Russia, Wal-Mart was still a vision of almost unimaginable wealth.

And yet no one seemed to appreciate it. That was America for you. Pavel Nevaschkin sighed heavily as he reached down, picking up the motorcycle helmet that hung on the handlebars of the Honda cycle. The December breeze was cold, even through the thick wool lining of his leather jacket. Not as cold as Chechnya, though. Nothing could be that cold.

He’d been in Alfa Group back then, as the new millennium came around, bringing with it nothing but the promise of more violent death. Bad days. Even the
Spetsnaz
weren’t paid enough to take those risks.

Pavel checked his saddlebags one last time, making sure the Glock 21 would be ready. Round in the chamber, another pair of full magazines in the pouch clipped beside it.

Everything was in readiness. He cast a glance over at his partner, the shooter, a Muscovite he knew only as Grigori. “Remember the plan?”

The man smiled, displaying teeth that bore testament to the finest of East European dental work—cracked and chipped. “Of course—kill the man, snatch the girl. Should be simple,
da?
”

Pavel shrugged. “
Da.
Just stick to the plan. Sergei said they’re about sixteen kilometers ahead, so we should be able to catch up with them readily enough.”

The next moment, the engine of his motorcycle sputtered into a full-throated roar, drowning out any further conversation. Pavel threw a leg over the throbbing saddle of the cycle and waved at Grigori to climb on behind him. The job would be done within the hour…

8:31 A.M. Central Time

Dearborn, Michigan

The house was the thirteenth on Nasir Khalidi’s route. Certainly his unlucky number. As the garbage truck slowed to a stop, he jumped off, hurrying across packed snow toward the trash cans.

It was the third can. Always the third can. He blew on cold hands as he watched a mechanical arm dump the can into the compactor in the back of the truck. As bad as the cold was, heat in the summer made the job even worse. Then the garbage reeked.

As the can came back down, Nasir unzipped his jacket, shivering as a cold blast of wind came swirling down the street, the multi-story projects on either side forming what amounted to a wind tunnel.

So different from his native Lebanon. Looking both ways down the street to ensure he was not being watched, Nasir reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out an eight-inch manila envelope. With another furtive glance at the surrounding buildings, he dropped it into the can, wheeling it back toward the sidewalk.

Yes, there were worse jobs than garbage disposal. He should know. He had one of them.

Inside one room of the decrepit tenement, a man looked up from the bank of screens mounted into one side of the wall, watching Nasir Khalidi on the discreetly-placed cameras. He played back the footage in slow-motion, watching as the yellow envelope tumbled into the gray plastic depths of the trash bin. A slow smile crossed his face and he reached for the phone that lay on the console before him, right beside a Beretta. “Status confirmed,” he announced when the call was answered. “He’s made the drop.”

9:47 A.M. Eastern Time

The Impala

Virginia

Silence. Harry stole a glance in Carol’s direction as the car sped south. She hadn’t spoken a word since they’d “switched” cars at the service station. Just sat there, staring away from him, out the window. A cold blonde statue.

He sighed, watching the needle on the gas gauge waver with every dip in the road. They had a quarter-tank, enough to get them where they were going.

“You don’t approve of my methods, do you?” he asked finally, breaking the silence between them.

A long pause, and then she looked across at him. The emotion of loss was still there in her eyes, but so was an unexpected resilience. “Theft? No.”

“What do you think I do for a living?” Harry asked. “I break the law. It’s what I’m trained to do.”

“Not
our
country’s law,” she replied, an edge creeping into her voice. “We all know that’s where that line is drawn—it’s the first thing they teach at the Farm.”

“And like a lot of things they teach in a classroom, it becomes irrelevant once you leave those walls.” Harry’s eyes narrowed as he glanced in the rear-view mirror. The CIA’s training facility at Camp Peary—the Farm, as it was called—was good, but there were so many things you just couldn’t teach.

There was a motorcycle in back of them, two vehicles back as they moved through the small township. “The first time you go out on protective detail, you realize life’s a lot simpler. And there’s only one law that really matters: protect your principal. Do whatever it takes to keep them alive.”

Carol looked over at him. “It didn’t even do us any good. Just exchanged one hot car for another.”

“Not quite,” Harry observed, taking another look into his rear-view. “It bought us some time and a car we could be sure wasn’t bugged. Couldn’t say that about mine. Not in the time I had.”

“How long has that motorcycle been following us?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

Well done. She hadn’t forgotten
all
her fieldcraft from the Farm, Harry thought, accelerating to pass a slow-moving truck. Desk types often did. “Too long,” was his only reply.

There were two men on the cycle. Unbidden, his mind flickered back to an operation in Italy, just a few years before. Different climate, different time. The same sight. Following years of political assassinations, the Italian government had banned motorcycles from carrying a passenger.

Not that the law had mattered to the Tunisian assassins that had attacked the motorcade of the American ambassador--with the CIA’s chief of station, James Holbrook, caught in the cross-fire. Not that it mattered now. This wasn’t Italy.

The distance had closed now. “The police?” Carol asked, her voice striking his ears as though from afar.

He shook his head, focusing on the threat at hand. “No, it’s not the cops. And they’re way too aggressive for a tail.”

“Then why are they following us?” The tone of her voice told him she already knew.

“Ever been shot at?” he asked, cutting in front of a tractor-trailer. The urge to floor the accelerator nagged at him, but he fought the impulse.
Not yet.

“No.” Harry looked over to see her reach inside her purse for the Kahr. Her face was pale, but he glimpsed a flash of determination in her eyes as her hand closed around the semiautomatic. Her father’s daughter.

The cold air flowed fast around Pavel Nevaschkin’s body as he bent low over the motorcycle, accelerating rapidly down the highway. Their target was in full evasion mode now. They had been spotted.
All that remained now was to go in for the kill.

He heard the squeal of airbrakes as they swung in front of a tractor-trailer, chasing down their prey. In so many ways, their task was made easier by the fact that their target was driving a stolen car. With his own vehicle, they would have had
to factor in the possibility of armor. That was no longer in the equation.

Taking one hand off the handlebar, Pavel reached back and tapped his partner on the knee.
Be ready
.

Harry stole another glance in the mirror. The motorcycle was closing fast now. No question about it. They weren’t the cops. And they hadn’t been sent to tail Carol. They were a kill squad. “Put it away,” he instructed, motioning toward the Kahr in her hand.

No matter how the movies portrayed it, shooting at a combat-trained biker was more a matter of luck than skill.

And they had no time for luck. Not now.

The motorcycle appeared in his driver’s side mirror now, angling for a side shot. At him.

He was the target? He pondered the question for a moment, then dismissed it out of hand. It didn’t matter. Not now.

The assassins hadn’t opened fire yet. That alone bothered him more. These guys were pros.

He swung the car toward the median, crossing two lanes of traffic in the space of a heartbeat. Harry winced as a car slammed on its brakes behind him, only to immediately be rear-ended by an SUV.

Nothing matters. Nothing except the life of the principal
.

The motorcycle was still coming, faster now as it wound its way through the chaos behind them, but now he was tight against the median and his left flank was secure. The Suzuki was designed for speed, not off-road traction.

“Get down,” he ordered, never taking his eyes off the road, “and get ready.”

With the Impala speeding tight up the side of the median, the only side the kill team could approach from was Carol’s. Hollowpoint slugs could punch straight through the plastic body of the car, but if they were going to fire blindly, he reasoned, they would have already started.

At times you could even use people’s very professionalism against them.

“They’re going to come up on your side,” he declared, speaking slowly, calmly. Nothing was so serious that it couldn’t be made worse by miscommunication. “And they’re going to come up shooting.”

From her position on the floorboards, Carol nodded, her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. “At my signal, I need you to push your door open, as hard and fast as you can. Can you do it?”

Another nod. To her credit, she didn’t ask for an explanation. They were running out of time…

A curse exploded from Pavel’s lips as the car slid back tight to the median, forcing him to throttle back or risk a collision. He didn’t dare lose time taking the Suzuki onto the turf.

There was only one option left to them. Go up the passenger side. He tapped Grigori’s knee twice.
Going in
.

He couldn’t hear the Glock slide out of the saddlebags behind him, but he knew it was there, in his partner’s hand.

There: the man they had been sent to kill was behind the wheel, still relatively upright in his seat. The girl was nowhere to be seen, but undoubtedly she had taken cover. No matter.

Pavel gunned the cycle, coming directly alongside the Impala. Time to end this.

The roar of the Glock struck Harry’s ears almost simultaneously with the sound of shattering glass. He heard the bullet whine past his ear, exiting through the driver’s side window by his head.

Time itself seemed to slow down as he glanced right, assuring himself one more time. All he saw was the cold black muzzle of the Glock staring back at him.

“
Now!
”

Pavel was steadying the bike, moving in closer so that his partner could get a better shot, when suddenly the door of the sedan flew outward, slamming against his left knee.

The handlebars of the cycle twisted in his grip as the bike flew off course and off balance. Nearly blinded by pain, the ex-
Spetsnaz
paramilitary fought to regain control of the bike as it slid across two lanes of traffic. He saw the SUV in just enough time to scream…

“You all right?” Harry asked, looking down to where Carol sat on the floorboards, the doorhandle still in her hand. He’d brought the Impala to a stop, pulled off to the side of the median.

She nodded, seeming dazed by what had just occurred. He unbuckled his seatbelt and reached out a hand. “Come on, come on. We have to go.”

The Chevy Tahoe that had struck the assassins’ motorcycle had stopped by the side of the road. Traffic was starting to back up. With a backward glance to make sure Carol was following, Harry strode purposefully across the highway, alert for further danger. The Colt was in his right hand, ready for use.