Parallax View (26 page)

And she would be
alone. Utterly and completely alone.

Tracie slipped
under the covers. Next to her, Shane snored softly, the rhythm of his breathing
steady, almost hypnotic. She supposed it stood to reason she would find herself
going solo on the most important mission she would ever undertake. She had
always been alone. Career-wise, personal-wise, every kind of wise. She had
steadfastly refused to allow herself to get close to anyone, preferring to rely
on her own devices, always.

Until the last
couple of days.

Until falling like
a lovesick teenage girl for the handsome Maine air traffic controller who had
appeared out of nowhere, like the hero in some ridiculous romance novel, a hero
who had saved her life at the last possible moment, literally sweeping her off
her feet. He was good-looking and self-deprecating and generous and kind. His
smile took her breath away. When they were together, it was all she could do
not to throw him to the ground and rip his clothes off and ravage him.

And she knew he
felt exactly the same about her.

And he was dying.

And when he was
gone she would once again be alone.

She ran her hand
gently over his chest, twirling the wiry hairs in her finger. She wondered how
long it would take before he ceased to have any semblance of a normal life,
before the cancer took him and he had no life at all. She thought about what he’d
said, how no one really knows how long they have, how we’re all dying, some
quicker than others, and realized it was truer for her than for most. Covert
CIA work was dangerous and the careers of operatives tended to be short. So did
their life spans.

Hell, there was
the very real possibility that
she
wouldn’t survive beyond a few more
hours. She was trying to put up a brave face—for herself as much as for
Shane—but the fact of the matter was, trying to take down a KBG pro and his
team, who had undoubtedly been planning this assassination for months, with no
backup and no real plan of action, was likely a suicide mission.

And wouldn’t
that
be ironic? Fall in love, find out the man who had stolen your heart had
mere weeks to live, and then die before he did. It was almost humorous in a
cynical, black-hearted way. It was a play Shakespeare might have written had he
been born four hundred years later than he was. Romeo and Juliet for the
twentieth century.

Tracie smiled at
the thought and was surprised to feel her eyelids getting heavy. She glanced at
the clock with the ghostly green numerals. 12:15 a.m. She closed her eyes and
slipped away.

42

June 2, 1987

12:20 a.m.

Minuteman Mutual Insurance
Building, Washington, D.C.

The seventh floor of the Minuteman
Mutual Insurance building was used for storage—cleaning and maintenance
supplies, reams of paper, cast-off typewriters, word processors, office
furniture, boxes and boxes of pens. All of the tools and equipment necessary
for the operation of an American insurance company in the late twentieth century.

Nikolai assumed
the janitors had already armed themselves with whatever materials they needed
to begin their shift, so his only real concern was of the guard becoming
suspicious and checking on the progress of the “floor refinishing” project. He
pulled his cart quickly down the hallway, stopping in front of a door with a
red-lettered sign that warned, ROOF — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

He had disabled
the alarm on a previous visit, so there was no way anyone would realize the
door had been breached. Picking the lock was easy. Within thirty seconds of
removing his lock-picking tools from the cart, he was pulling open the metal
door. He pulled a heavy electric belt sander out of the cart and set it on the
floor, using it to prop the door open.

Roof access was
via a cement stairway slicing like an artery between reinforced cinderblock
construction walls. The building had been erected close to a century ago, but
the Victorian-era elegance of its interior did not extend to the portions the
public would never see, and Nikolai knew it would take no small effort to muscle
the cart up those narrow stairs.

He stepped through
the doorway, then turned and grabbed the cart by its reinforced-steel frame. He
lifted the front and pulled. The angle was all wrong, it was hard to get any
leverage, he was straining, but after a moment he was rewarded by the sound of
the cart’s metal front wheels clattering onto the first step.

He lifted and
pulled again and gained the second step.

Lifted and pulled.
Third step. The rear wheels squeaked and complained and then slid onto the
first step.

Nikolai breathed
deeply while maintaining a grip on the cart. As he began pulling again, a
disembodied voice from somewhere down the seventh-floor hallway said, “Hey!
What the hell do you think you’re doing up there?”

Nikolai froze. Cursed
softly in Russian
.

He released his
grip on the cart, hoping it wouldn’t lurch back down the stairs and nullify his
hard-earned gains. It didn’t.

He wiped a sheen
of sweat from his forehead and reached down to his ankle, pulling his combat
knife smoothly out of its sheath under his pant leg. He positioned it in his
right hand, blade resting against his inner forearm, handle nestled in his
palm. He turned his arm so the knife would be invisible to whoever was in the hallway,
then placed a look of innocent confusion on his face.

He squeezed past
the cart and descended the stairs, then walked through the doorway. Moving
briskly down the hallway was the guard who had examined his forged work order.
Nikolai had known the man was suspicious of him but hadn’t really thought he
would pursue him. He had been wrong. The guard’s face was dark, his eyes
hooded, and this hand rested on the butt of his weapon as he challenged Nikolai
again. “What are you doing, boy? What business does a floor refinisher have on
the roof?”

Nikolai walked
forward slowly, non-threateningly, smiling and nodding to placate the guard
even as the man moved along the hallway to intercept him. He was still at least
eight meters away. Too far for Nikolai’s purposes.

“I am sorry,”
Nikolai said meekly.

Six meters.

He continued. “I
do not know where…”

Four meters. Still
too far.

The guard slowed,
confused. “Do not know where…what?” He spread his hands in a show of
frustration.

Two meters, almost
close enough.

“I do not know
where…” The man was now directly in front of Nikolai, and although his hand
still rested on the butt of his gun, it was as useless to him as if Nikolai had
taken it away and thrown it off the roof. He was a dead man. He just didn’t
realize it yet.

With a practiced
flick of his wrist, Nikolai dropped the knife into his hand, spinning it effortlessly
so the blade faced outward. The guard recognized the danger much too late and
took one stumbling step backward just as Nikolai attacked, his arm a blur. He
plunged the knife into the guard’s ample belly and slashed upward between the
bones of the rib cage.

The guard gasped.
Drew in a shuddering breath as if to scream. Didn’t. Half-coughed and
half-gasped. Started to scream again. Nikolai covered the man’s mouth with his
left hand as he used his right to shove the guard’s hand away from his gun. He
clubbed the guard behind the ear with the butt of his combat knife, and the man
dropped straight to the floor.

Nikolai swore again,
angry and annoyed. The man would be dead within minutes, if he wasn’t already,
but he was bleeding all over the place. There was suddenly a lot to do. If he
didn’t get this mess cleaned up, it would be the first thing the employees
noticed when they showed up for work in the morning.

Nikolai reached
under the guard’s armpits and dragged him down the hallway to the roof-access
door. A trail of blood marked the journey. He dropped the guard onto the floor
and grabbed the cart with both hands. The stairway was too narrow to haul the
guard up it without first moving the cart, so Nikolai was forced to forfeit his
progress. He yanked it angrily back down to the seventh floor hallway where it
wobbled dangerously and nearly tipped over.

Shit.
Things
were not going according to plan.
Okay, take it easy. Relax.
There was
plenty of time to get everything back under control. Nikolai composed himself,
slowing his breathing, clearing his mind. Finally, still muttering but now refocused,
he hooked his arms once more under the guard’s armpits and dragged the man up
the stairs to the roof.

He emerged,
breathing heavily, through a rusting steel bulkhead that had once been painted
grey but was now pocked with rust and faded almost down to the bare metal. The
roof was flat as a flood plain and covered with gravel. Various
protuberances—vents and air-conditioning units and pipes whose purposes were
unknown to Nikolai—jutted up out of the structure, combining with the gauzy
moonlight to make the surface appear stark and menacing.

Nikolai ignored it
all. He had seen the roof in surveillance photos and even picked the lock and
climbed up here himself during two of the three trips he had made into the
building to familiarize himself with its layout in preparation for this
mission. He pulled the guard through the entrance and turned toward the rear of
the building. Once clear of the bulkhead, he placed the body alongside it as
close as possible to the base, concealing the cooling corpse as best he could.

He retraced his
steps to the seventh floor, moving quickly. In the hallway he examined closed
doors until finding one with a sign on the front that said, JANITORIAL
SUPPLIES. He opened the door and found a wheeled plastic cart in one corner. It
was shaped like an oversized bucket with a wringer built into the side. A mop
had been placed in the wringer, its handle reaching almost all the way to the
ceiling. The bucket was half filled with dirty water. Nikolai thanked his lucky
stars for the innate laziness of American workers.

He stuck his head
out the door and glanced down the hallway. No one there. How likely was it the
janitorial workers would notice the guard was missing?

He rolled the cart
down the hallway, then stopped at the spot where he had gutted the guard. The
man was big, the spillage substantial. There was plenty of evidence to clean.
Nikolai dipped the mop into the dirty water and got to work, swishing the mop
through the blood, smearing some around the floor but removing the heaviest of
the stain, which had only just begun to dry at the edges.

Nikolai examined
the floor and decided the stain was still too obvious. He rolled the cart back
to the janitor’s closet. Dumped the dirty water and watched it disappear down
the sink. Refilled the bucket with fresh water and some detergent, then rolled
back to the murder scene.

Tried again.

Better.

One more pass and
the evidence of the slaughter was now no more than a faded light brown stain that
could have been anything. Nikolai wrung out the mop and moved quickly down the
hallway toward the roof access door, erasing from the tiles most of the blood
trail he had created when he dragged the guard up to the roof. He stopped when
he reached the door. There was no reason to mop the stairway. The door would be
closed soon—barring any further interruptions—and no one would see the evidence
until it was much too late.

He examined the
hallway with a critical eye. Not perfect, but it would have to do. He hurriedly
returned the mop and bucket to the janitor’s closet. Stepped out and closed the
door. Still no unwanted visitors. He turned and sprinted to the roof access and
once more began the laborious process of pulling the tools of his murderous
trade up onto the roof.

43

June 2, 1987

8:00 a.m.

Washington, D.C.

Shane’s head hurt. That was the
first thing he noticed. His eyes were closed and he lay on his side and it felt
as though someone was shining a flashlight squarely into his face. He opened his
eyes slightly, two tiny slits. No flashlight. Nobody shining anything into his
face. The motel room curtain was half-drawn, holding the morning sun partially
at bay. From behind he could hear furtive sounds of movement.

He rolled over and
sat up, moving slowly until he could gauge the extent of the pain inside his
skull
.
From in front of the bathroom door Tracie flashed a tight-lipped
smile in his direction, and just like that he didn’t give a damn about his
headache. She looked even more beautiful than he remembered, and he wouldn’t
have thought that possible.

“You’re a heavy
sleeper,” she said. She was dressed in an outfit he didn’t recognize, a
business suit, something a young female executive might wear.

He rubbed his eyes
and ran a hand across his face. He wondered what the hell time it was. “What
the hell time is it?” he asked.

“Eight o’clock,”
she said. “I knew you were exhausted so I tried to be quiet. We’re not far from
the Minuteman Mutual Insurance building, so I wanted to let you get as much
rest as possible.”

“Quiet? You were quiet
as a mouse,” he said. “Last thing I remember is that noise you make when…well,
you know.”

“I know,” she
agreed with a smile.

“Where’d you get
the outfit?” he asked. “You look terrific.”

“Went shopping last
night after you zonked out. Hit the store just before closing. I went out this
morning and got breakfast. There’s coffee and a croissant for you,” she nodded
at a brown paper bag on top of the small bedside table.

“Thanks for the
grub,” he said gratefully, reaching for the coffee.

“No problem.” She looked
at him closely. “I brought you something for the pain, too. How are you
feeling?”