The Assassin (35 page)

“No, of course not.” She was indignant but complied readily, leaning against the fender and opening her stance. He took a long moment to admire the view. “Are you even allowed to do this?” she asked. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

Lowe ignored the question. He patted her down slowly, using the backs of his hands as regulations required, but not without a tinge of regret. Technically speaking, he was feeling for anything solid, anything lumping beneath the dark, loose-fitting clothes. That was another thing, the way she was dressed… not suspicious in itself, but something to file away.

She didn’t appear to be armed. Satisfied, he stepped back. “Ma’am, I’d like to search your vehicle. Do you mind?”

“Do I…? Yes, I do mind.” She raised her level of indignation, knowing he would only expect it if she truly had nothing to hide. “That’s completely uncalled for.”

He nodded slowly, wondering how far he wanted to take this. In truth, the woman’s story made perfect sense: she had engine trouble; she was waiting for help. She knew the name of a local tow company, and her tags had checked out. Still, he couldn’t ignore his instincts, and they were telling him that something was wrong with this whole situation. His radio stuttered to life. He listened for anything interesting, but it was just another unit clearing a call.

Lowe gripped her right arm just above the elbow and steered her toward his cruiser. She stiffened under his grasp, but didn’t try to resist. “I’m going to have you sit in my car for a few minutes while we sort this out.”

“But why?” she asked, her voice beginning to climb. “This is ridiculous. I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Then you won’t mind answering a few questions.” He moved to open the rear door, but before he could, she caught his eye and spoke again in a more reasonable tone.

“Officer, do I really need to sit in the back?” She gave him a pleading look. “I mean, it’s not like I’m under arrest, right?”

He looked at her, then back at the car. It was true; she hadn’t really done anything wrong, and he didn’t want to invite a harassment charge at a later date. Besides, he’d rather have her up front, anyway. At the very least, it would give him something to look at for the next thirty minutes or so.

“Fine,” he said, guiding her round to the passenger side. He opened the front door, and she reluctantly got in. “Just wait here,” he ordered. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

Once the door was closed, Naomi quickly composed herself and watched intently as the officer walked to the front of his car, unhooking his shoulder mic. As he turned away and faced the embassy grounds, she sat up and checked out the cruiser. She didn’t bother trying the door, as there was nowhere to go. Looking down to her left, she examined the radio mounted between the seats. The chatter was audible, and the green LED light showed a “1,” which she assumed was the primary channel. She listened for the officer’s voice, which was nasally, unpleasant, and easy to catch, but heard nothing she recognized. She quickly decided he must be transmitting on a secondary channel.

She nearly pressed her ear to the window in an attempt to hear what was happening, but stopped herself in time, realizing how futile the gesture would be. He could be double-checking the tags on the Taurus, or he could be calling his patrol supervisor. Her panic was starting to get the best of her. She had done her best to seem disadvantaged but not incapable. After all, she needed him to leave; it wouldn’t do to have him sitting around, waiting for a tow truck that would never arrive. Unfortunately, he hadn’t bought her act, and now, the only thing working in her favor was that she had talked herself out of the backseat, where she would have been completely vulnerable, stripped of all her options.

She swore under her breath, second-guessing her actions, wondering how else she could have handled it. It might have been better to just hand over her real ID, but the officer might have detained her anyway, and she couldn’t risk being listed on a police report. It would be too easy to link her to the embassy break-in at a later date, as she was parked so close to the building. Ideally, she would have had a false ID to satisfy a casual inspection, but even if Harper had been willing to go that far out on a limb, there just hadn’t been time to get one forged. Besides, forging an ID for a mid-level analyst would have raised a lot of questions. It also would have meant bringing too many people into the loop, and in this case, that simply wasn’t an option.

Things were not looking good right now, but they had the potential to get much worse. If a detective was called down to take over the questioning, she would never get rid of them in time. Ryan would be making his way through the grounds; from his last transmission, she knew he had found what they needed. All he had to do now was get out of the building and back to the car.

Maybe he’ll spot the cruiser and walk away
, she thought. Naomi didn’t think he would leave her, but given the situation, it might be the best thing. She couldn’t be arrested; she hadn’t done anything wrong. They might hold her for questioning, but if she stuck to her story, they would have no choice but to let her go. On the other hand, if they managed to dig up probable cause — or at least enough to convince a magistrate — they could get a warrant to search the Taurus. And if that happened, one of the first things they would find was the file on the front seat.

With this thought, she felt suddenly sick. The ORACLE file contained enough damaging information to drag the Agency through the mud for the next five years. Needless to say, its public disclosure would also completely destroy her career. Letting them search the car was not an option.

She looked through the windshield. From where she was sitting, the chancery was barely visible, a black smudge over the treetops. She peered into the darkness, searching in vain for the smallest sign of movement.

Come on, Ryan. Where are you?

CHAPTER 32

WASHINGTON, D.C.

On the third floor of the chancery, Kealey sprung into action. He reached out for the gun in the hand of the closest guard, shouting at the top of his lungs to distract them. He had been in this kind of situation before and knew almost nothing would work in his favor. One man was easy to handle — even easier to outwit — but two was a different proposition altogether. Even with the bare minimum of training, the guards would be hard-pressed to miss him at this range. At the same time, he guessed they would be reluctant to fire. As German nationals, they would have endured the compulsory nine months of military or civil service, but embassy duty did not typically draw the best and the brightest. They might be covering each other properly, but they would be slow to pull the trigger, fearing the inevitable fallout. His only chance was to play on that hesitation, using the one point in his favor for all it was worth.

As it turned out, he was wrong; the gun went off as Kealey closed his left hand around the guard’s wrist, his right coming down in a hammer blow on the radial nerve. The 9mm slipped from the guard’s limp hand and fell to the floor. The man near the door was screaming something in German, but Kealey ignored him, turning the incapacitated guard around and drawing his Beretta at the same time.

He wrapped his left arm around the throat of his hostage and jammed the muzzle into his lower back, then crouched behind the German, trying to make himself as small a target as possible. He could feel something burning in his left side and knew he was hit; the guard’s single round had found its target. It was a sickening realization; until he looked, he had no way of knowing how bad the wound actually was. It could be a scratch, or it could be life-threatening. The pain had not yet realized its full potential, but that would change in a matter of seconds.

The guard near the door was still shouting commands in his native language. He was clearly out of control; his eyes were like blue saucers, wide and irrational. The gun was moving all over the place; obviously, he did not have a shot from that angle, but was desperately trying to find one. Kealey had time here, but only a little. Naomi needed his help; that much was clear, but until he got past these two guards, he could not do a thing for her. He only hoped that she had the good sense to stall.

Raising his head by a tiny fraction, he spoke quietly into the ear of his hostage. “What’s your name?”

“My…?”

“
Your name
,” Kealey hissed, adding a menacing edge to his tone.

“Klein. My name is Gunter Klein. Please, I have a daughter in Bonn….”

“Relax, Gunter.” He winced; the pain was getting worse. If it was only a flesh wound, it was a bad one. “I want you to tell your friend to drop his weapon. Do it now.”

He knew the man near the door spoke English; it was an unwritten rule for embassy postings in Washington. But Kealey also knew the instruction would carry more weight if it came from his own countryman. Klein, clearly terrified, stumbled over the few necessary words. The man at the door replied with a short verbal barrage, but didn’t release the gun.

“He won’t do it. He says you’ll kill us both.”

“I won’t….” Kealey swore under his breath and made a decision. There was no convincing them, and this was taking too long. The bite in his side was nearly intolerable, and he could feel something warm running over his hip; it wouldn’t be long before the wound started to slow him down.
Fuck it
.

He straightened and pushed Klein aside, exposing his body for the briefest of moments. Then he leveled his weapon and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet tore into the guard’s right arm, just above the elbow, shattering bone. He screamed and the gun jumped out of his hand, clattering across the ceramic tile. A split second later, Kealey stepped to the left and slammed a fist into Klein’s face, sending him staggering into a nearby desk. A chair flipped over, and papers scattered across the floor. The other guard was reaching down for his gun with his good arm, his left hand wrapping around the grip. Crossing the few feet between them, Kealey kicked it out of his hand at the last possible second. Then he administered two judicious blows to the face. The man fell back to the floor and stopped moving.

Kealey looked back at Gunter Klein. He was clearly unconscious, his body immobile. Kealey quickly retrieved their weapons, as well as their radios. They would have already made the call, but should they wake before he was clear of the building, there was no point in giving them the opportunity to provide more information. Nor did he want to catch a bullet in the back on his way out.

He ejected the magazines on both of the weapons and shucked the rounds out of the chambers. Then he pulled the batteries out of one of the radios. The second radio he put in his pocket, along with the batteries, rounds, and the spare magazines, both of which could be used with his own Beretta. He left the guns and the spare radio, now useless, on one of the desks, then moved toward the door, shooting a quick glance at the guards. Neither had moved. Only when he was out in the hall did he remember the backpack; he could have simply dumped all of the gear inside and saved himself some time, but that couldn’t be helped now.

He kept moving forward, jogging toward the stairwell. Soon he was out of the building, making his way through the darkened grounds, heading north. Again he heard a wail in the distance, but this time the sirens were drawing closer, and there were many more of them. It was just as he feared: the chancery guards had made the call before confronting him. He couldn’t help but wonder how they had learned he was in the building, but he knew it was no longer important. All that mattered now was getting back to Naomi.

Behind him, an alarm started to sound, lights coming up in the chancery. At the same time, hidden security lamps flickered up from the grass; it was as if the earth itself was conspiring against him.

He was gasping for air, the pain like a hacksaw blade digging into his side. He ignored it and ran harder.

“You know, I don’t think this is legal. You can’t hold me unless you have a reason.”

“Actually, I can,” Lowe replied in a bored tone. He had tried to ingratiate himself, but the woman had yet to respond to his mild flirtations, and he was beginning to lose interest. “Listen, ma’am, you should have just answered my questions. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble.”

“I
did
answer your questions, and I answered them truthfully. I don’t understand the need for this.”

“And I don’t understand why you’re still waiting for a tow truck at this hour of the morning. What time did you place the call again?”

Naomi took a deep, stalling breath and looked down at her hands. It was becoming more and more difficult to evade the officer’s inquiries. He had climbed back into the car a few minutes earlier, and he’d been peppering her with questions ever since.

“Officer Lowe, I already explained this to you. My engine started to make this strange noise on I-95, so I got off to look for a hotel. I thought I’d just find a mechanic in the morning. But then I got turned around and ended up here, which is when the engine died completely. So I called for a tow truck, and that’s when you showed up. You knocked on my window a second later… literally.” She allowed a note of indignation to creep into her voice. “If anything in there constitutes a crime, I’d like to know what it is.”

“No,” he replied patiently, “nothing you’ve done is a crime. But I do find it interesting that you decided to take an eight-hour trip starting so late in the day. More to the point, you left Richmond without ID or the registration to your car. Most people remember those kinds of things.”

“It was stupid, I know. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s not like I can go anywhere. Once the tow truck shows up, I’ll catch a taxi to a hotel. Believe me, Officer, the first thing I’ll do is call my boyfriend and get him to send me my license. Or maybe I’ll have him drive up and give it to me. Either way, this problem is easily solved.”