by Gary Hancock
Where is Natasha 2017.
The last time I suspected Natasha of espionage was her unproven involvement with Aldrich Ames. He was a CIA case officer, who spoke Russian and specialized in the Russian intelligence services. He had mostly worked in New York and Mexico. His initial overseas assignment was in Ankara, Turkey, the same place I saw her at the pool. There were just too many connections between the two and I had given a report on this in January of 1994. Once they knew what to look for, he was arrested in April of that year. Yeah, me and that female fatale had butted heads several times but had only met that once in 1980.
I thought the fastest and maybe the only way to find the bitch was to catch her daughter. With "Little Natasha" all over the news, I was going to have to pull out all my tricks to get a one-on-one. She was back in Moscow, but that would be better. The press there should not be on her twenty four hours a day. I left for the U.S.S.R.
After September 11.
They gave me free rein with three other agents and turned me a loose on the whole middle east. I still had the phone number for that Seal Team and would not hesitate to use it if necessary. They loved their Squirrel. I got to see the execution of Sadam by hanging, I had on a traditional black outfit and wasn't even noticed by the locals. The demise of each of these helped some, but there seemed to be someone new that would appeared and killed the innocent. It was a losing battle, this revenge.
Moscow 2017.
Getting into a country has never been much of a problem for me. I seem to be so ordinary looking that no one looks twice. If I have a good set of papers and a believable story, in I go. One of the resident agents had been following the woman, who I thought was Natasha daughter ever since she got back into the country. She was at her family home outside of Moscow. I might get lucky and find her mother right away.
The daughter was home alone and I looked the outside of the house over with a fine eye for any traps or alarms. Surprising I could not find any. I picked the lock on the kitchen door and eased into the house. She was upstairs in the bedroom taking a nap. I sat in a chair and waited for her to wake. I was hoping that her mother would call or come home, but no such luck. Finally she woke and saw me, you can tell a professional by the way they always look around the room before moving. She saw me and only a slight intake of breath gave her away. I asked her if she knew who I was. A little smile crossed her face as she said, "Secret Squirrel I presume."
That took me by a little surprise as someone like Natasha should have plenty of enemies and for her to pick me out first was telling. She would have had to know about the shooting in New Orleans and was waiting for me to show up. I shot her between the eyes. If she was that well briefed, I wasn't going to get any true information from her.
30 December 2009.
It had been over ten years since I had been in Pakistan and they had requested me to travel to their country for a briefing that could not be done over communication lines. I had a team that included three FBI, ten CIA agents and me. We were gathered in a gym on a base in Khost province along with several military officers. We were waiting for a local with information on Osama bin Laden location. It was the most promising lead we had gotten. I was at the rear of the building answering the call of nature when the world fell on top of me. As I lay there my mind was jumping all over the place trying to figure out what had happened. One of the CIA guys told me to play dead. That was easy for me as I felt like I was fading away slowly.
Later in the hospital in Germany, I found out the story. We had been the victims of a suicide bomber. He had just walked in and set off his vest. The actual death count was not released. I only knew the people that were in my group and seven were dead. Make that eight as I was later put on that list. The Squirrel was officially deceased. I didn't argue with them as they had me splinted and bandaged from nose to toe. I would not look anything like myself when they got the surgery completed. My face, which had never turned the captain of the football team's head, was going to be even more plain when they got finished. I spent most of my time sleeping and it seems that it was only a day or two when I awoke in Washington.
All the doctors in the world could not put me back together well enough to pass a physical for active duty and I was retired. I moved back to Mississippi, but the country side did not appeal to me anymore, so after living in a couple of towns, I settled in the little brick house in New Orleans. I liked the food and music.
On the road to New Orleans 2017.
I told the director what had happened and he said. "I'm not reprimanding you for shooting the woman, but why. You do not have a reputation for killing without some kind of reason, even if it is for revenge". I sighed and replied, "I wasn't going to chase her mother all over the world. Now I know she will come for me and I wanted the advantage, so I am going home." But first I made a side trip to Little Creek, Virginia. I walked into the Executive office of a Navy Captain and presented my orders. I need to talk to Seal Team member Gunny Clark. He picked up his phone and made a call. Within five minutes a six foot two hundred pound black man in tiny short and t-shirt knocked on the door and entered. He stepped to the desk and not saluting he did a perfect back braced attention. The Captain said, "This lady needs to talk to you." He had not even looked at me when he entered the room. He turned and one eyebrow raised as he saw that tiny little pin on my collar. I would not have believed it, but his attention got even straighter and ram-rod stiff. I smiled and said, "I need to find Red Dog. Tell him Squirrel needs him."
He whipped out his cell phone and scrolled down the contacts and pressed a button. He spoke into the phone and said, "Squirrel needs to talk to you." He handed me the phone and stepped back. I spoke an address into the instrument and handed it back to the Seal. He asked into the phone, "Anything else you need from me." He smiled and closed the cell and stepped to me, picked me up and hugged me till I squealed. The Captain had no idea what was going on, but he just looked and didn't ask. What he didn't know he couldn't be held accountable.
Close to the French Market 2017.
I had all the approaches to my Decatur St apartment covered. There was a sniper on each of the building facing the front. The Old US Mint, Hotel De La Monnaie, and the Frenchmen Hotel were spaced perfectly to give them a one hundred eighty view of the door. I didn't think it would deter my main rival, but her henchmen could be neutralized. It would just be the two of us.
When I had found all the information had been erased on my favorite Russian spy, I knew that there was another mole inside the CIA. We used their database to store all our files and this is the only way it could have been deleted. I realized that what ever I sent back to the company would be forwarded to her. The best way to catch a spy is to give her all the information and know that she has it. I had not told anyone in New York that I was going to New Orleans until I had the guys in place. I waited till they called me and let me know she had penetrated my apartment and then I told them to take out her team.
If there is one thing an old Seal Team can do, it is pest elimination. My two way ear wig beeped three times and I knew she was alone in a foreign country. It was time for me to give her a proper welcome to the U.S.A., so I got out of my car and walked to the front door. She could always blow us both up, but I don't think she is the suicide type. She is like me and thinks she can get out of any situation alive. Now was the time to find out which of us is kill proof.
I eased the door open left handed and with the automatic in my hand dove and rolled to the right. I came up against the end table and with the lower part of my body blocked by old solid oak, I peeked around the end. She was sitting in my favorite chair and like her daughter was caught by pure surprise. I said, "Drop the gun and put your hands up." She held the gun in her lap and didn't point it at me. These people that watch TV with the cops not shooting people that don't shoot first, are not living in the real world. The only reason she was still alive was that I might get the mole's name out of her before I blew her away. I waited and kept my finger on the trig
ger and wasn't worried about the gun. Before she could swing it around to point at me, she would be shot at least two times and dying.
When she realized I was not going to kill her, she started talking, but did not put the gun down. "I have a team of ten agents surrounding this building and it is you that is going to die even if you kill me." I looked her straight in the eye and said, "Seal Team ten is outside. There are no agents alive." The look that crossed her face was one of total surprise. There is one thing that all the operatives in the other countries know is the phrase "Seal Team". "It is I that have the snipers in place to guarantee you are not able to cause any more deaths. Do you wish to bargain for your life with information I seek." I have to give it to her she was fast for an old lady. The gun in her lap seemed to jump up into firing position and she even managed to get off one bullet. I felt it hit my exposed shoulder as I double tapped her face. If she had been a better shot and hit me in the face, it would have been me lying and bleeding on my beautiful Oriental rug I had brought back from deep inside Iraq.
The gunshots brought the guys inside the house. They rolled her up in the rug and carried her to a pair of SUVs outside my door. Then we went across the river to an old naval runway that hadn't been used in years. One again a Chinook landed and we all climbed in with the rug tossed on the floor. Half way across the Gulf going to Florida, it accidentally fell out. It had a couple hundred pounds of weapons and ammo inside the roll and it was securely tied. Russia would never know if she was dead or alive.
Epilogue
Her body is somewhere off the coast in about a hundred feet of ocean water. I read the New Orleans Tribune about the big gang shootout in the French Quarters and knew who the members of that gang must be. I on the other hand was once again in bandages with another hole in my body. I had lost count of the pieces of metal that have ripped into my flesh. Red Dog came up to me and said, "I don't think it is safe for you anywhere away from us. Three of the team live within a mile of me. We have never been able to adjust to the house and wife thing and don't think we ever will. But a friendly little Squirrel might just fit into our community." I built a house next to them on the Sugar Loaf Key.
Other books by this author:
Story list....
I don't write novels. I as a child enjoyed the stories of Mark Twain when he was writing for the newspapers." The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was his first great successful story. This is the length of story for which I strive. I am not claiming to be Samuel Langhorne Clemens, I just loved that format. Think of them as an hour long TV movie.
Agent Crawford stories in order:
Jigsaw Jill stories in order.
Squirrel stories in order.
Coming soon.
Red Dog and Squirrel- A most unusual love story