Swiftshadow

by D S Kane

  Every warlord “owned” a mullah.

  He mourned the savageness of those living in the village below his hillside. They all lived in one-room huts, housing multiple-generation families.

  And then there was the cloistered compound where the powerful regional warlord lived. Big enough to house fifty people, the luxurious walled residence had a central courtyard. Those living within its walls were soldiers. The conference room was over thirty feet long and almost as wide, bigger than any of the village huts.

  Tariq Houmaz faced into the room and sat at the head of the old olive-wood conference table, a guest of the warlord of the Eastern Shura region, Hazret Ali. Ali’s mullah, Maukvi Muhammed Khalis, stood with his back to the wall, listening carefully to every word uttered at this meeting. Houmaz stroked his beard while his direct reports gave him status updates. He touched the elegant wood top of the conference room table. It was almost two hundred years old, carved by hand long ago by serfs of the warlord’s ancestors.

  The man speaking to him, an oily, swarthy banker whose odor permeated the room, said, “We believe the American President will fund this activity if we limit the death and destruction of property to under one-third of what we originally planned. He is still upset one of our cells destroyed an entire city block, when he had originally been told we would destroy only one building.”

  Houmaz shifted to resettle himself and waved one hand with his fingers pointed toward the chalkboard. “Such are the fortunes of war. It was his idea to become a ‘war president.’ We needed backup in case one device failed. Praise Allah, both exploded. But if the idiot wants us to lie to him, first get his money and then we’ll kill them all anyway. It will be our biggest success to date. Oh, and tell him it will happen three days later than we’re currently planning the event. If we’re lucky, he’ll still be at the White House. Ah, and to make it even better, have the event occur when he plans to have the stooge governing Afghanistan there to visit him.”

  Houmaz smiled at the thought of all the death he and his brother Pesi were planning. His mind drifted to the young woman pouring mint tea for those present at the table. He imagined what she would feel like under him a few hours from now. He smiled again, this time looking at the black locks of hair that fell from under her veil to the tops of his hands as she moved away. He reached his hand toward her when a man came running into the room without knocking, a satellite phone in his hand. Houmaz took the phone and the man left without saying a word. Houmaz held the phone to his ear. “Yes?”

  “Tariq, it’s Pesi. This is urgent. Our mole in Washington sent me a new message. I’ve got a fresh lead on the bitch who hacked us. I have her current location.”

  Tariq Houmaz smiled. His hand fell away from the woman pouring tea. “Where is she?”

  “At the Algonquin Hotel on West 44th Street in Manhattan, near Sixth Avenue. I’ve sent a four-man squad in a van to take her so we can deal with her privately as we had planned. They left from our safe house near Columbus Circle three minutes ago. I’ll report again when we’ve trussed her.”

  Tariq thought for a second about his brother’s suspect reliability in conducting operations. “No. Let me know just before you kill her. I’ll want to say goodbye. Remember, Pesi, before she is allowed to die we must know if she hacked our plans when she stole our money. Then you can play with her.”

  CHAPTER 21

  August 18, 9:11 a.m.

  Algonquin Hotel, Times Square,

  59 West 44th Street,

  Manhattan

  A rising panic guided Cassie’s practiced movements. It ground all thought and feeling from her. The voice in her head spoke calmly to her, reminding her of what she must do. Without thinking she dropped her cell phone on the floor and smashed it with her booted heel. This simple movement plus fear adrenalized her. She took a deep breath to reassert focus and control.

  She put all the documents she needed to plan her operation into the attaché case, closed and locked its lid. Then she donned her homeless outfit. In less than two minutes she looked like a filthy old man complete with a gray curly beard.

  Cassie reached under her pillow, extracted the Beretta and attached its silencer. She placed a fresh clip into the gun and then chambered one of the bullets. She ejected the clip and loaded another bullet into the empty space in it, giving her one extra bullet, for a total of eleven. She replaced the clip, pulled the safety off, and pulled back the hammer. It was now ready to fire.

  Cassie placed the gun, her last burner cell, and her attaché case in a paper shopping bag topped with rags, and bolted from the room.

  She had to get to the locker in the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The one that held all her emergency files and equipment. Her life depended on those files. That is, if she lived through this.

  She’d identified an escape route when she checked into the hotel. Running to the stairwell, she descended three flights of stairs to the building’s service exit at the alleyway just short of 44th Street.

  Opening the door, she saw a rat scurry into a pile of garbage. She wrinkled her nose, nostrils filling with the stench of rotting waste mixed with the scent of urine. She stared toward the street as clouds obscured the sun, casting everything into shades of gray. All dark—the windows, dirt-pocked concrete beneath her feet, and soot-blackened brickwork that towered around her on three sides.

  She stood in shade and moved close to the building exterior wall on the east side, blending in within the dark shadows.

  A black van came hurtling down the street to a screeching stop in front of her hotel. Cassie gasped, hugged the side of the building and inched toward the street.

  Three Middle Eastern men ran from the van into the hotel, wearing raincoats to conceal what looked like the obvious bulges from weapons. One of them carried a broom handle with its end sharpened to a point.

  Cassie had expected to feel fear now, but only disappointment and frustration haunted her as once again she was threatened with death. She sighed. The voice told her it was just another day in her surreal life.

  She thought about her escape route. Was it safe yet or should she wait another minute before shuffling into the street. She assumed there was just the driver in the van, but would he recognize her from her flight from her Washington apartment? What if he had a cell phone to call the others? Of course he does. What if there were more in the vehicle waiting for her to flee? Shit, I’m wasting time.

  She marched toward the street, camouflaged by shade and the dark brickwork. She listened for noise of her pursuers but heard only the din from the nearby street.

  She watched for a thickening of the crowd where she could lose herself. But as she reached the sidewalk she heard the door she’d just gone through scrape open and slam closed. She turned and saw the three men exit the building close behind her.

  Clouds split open and sunlight lit her up, now beige against the charcoal brickwork. Shit. Exposed. One of them pointed at her and said something in Arabic. His words didn’t carry to her over the street-side clamor, but she knew instantly she’d been made. Damn. Costume didn’t fool them.

  As she faced them, everything since the night in Riyadh flashed through her memory. She shook with uncontrollable rage. Always being hunted.

  Her hand fumbled with the gun in the raincoat pocket. As if in a dream, she gripped the gun with both hands in a shooter’s stance and took aim.

  It was as if she watched herself from above.

  She saw them draw AK-74 automatics from their holsters as her disembodied self took aim and shot the men, every one, three smothered pops in rapid succession before they could kill her. Those same street-side noises muffled the gunshots in the alley. She watched tiny holes pop open in the tops of each head, crimson dripping down their foreheads. Three bull’s-eyes in less than two seconds. Their bodies dropped onto the concrete alleyway.

  She was now a serial killer. Damn. How had she managed to hit all three, each with a single shot? She’d only had six weeks of firearms training at The F
arm and that was three years ago.

  The voice in the back of her head commanded: Flee!

  CHAPTER 22

  August 18, 9:18 a.m.

  Algonquin Hotel, Times Square,

  59 West 44th Street,

  Manhattan

  The van was right in front of her, gray against the black street. She sprinted to it and aimed through its window. She could see the driver reaching for a handgun. She yelled, “Fuck you!” and fired the gun once through the window glass.

  As the bullet had passed through the window, it had disfigured and turned into a more damaging gunshot. The pane shattered wide open and the driver’s head exploded, sending a fountain of blood and bits of his brains and skull spraying onto the other window behind his slumping corpse.

  She opened the door, pulled the driver’s body into the street, and dumped it there. Cassie glanced at his head, or the bits of shredded flesh still attached to his neck. She did a double-take at the limp corpse, the damage she’d wreaked. She gasped as she got in.

  She moved herself across the bloody seat and sat behind the wheel. As she gunned the engine she could hear police sirens, distant and growing closer. Cassie drove the van over the driver’s body, continuing at breakneck speed seven blocks to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and she left the van double-parked in the street.

  She hurried to the men’s room, where she removed the beard and the remainder of her bloody disguise. There was splashback from the driver all over the raincoat. Blood, brain, bits of flesh, and flecks of bone dotted her face and right hand.

  Her fingers smelled like the Beretta—the sulfur smell of Hell. She washed the raincoat in the bathroom and then washed her hands and her face. Several homeless men were camped out on the floor of the men’s room. None moved or spoke; they just lay where they were, silently watching her. Cassie turned and faced them and they all looked away. She noticed for the first time she was coated with sweat. Her body stank from the fear she never knew she’d felt.

  She stood at the mirror, breathless for a few minutes as the adrenaline rush subsided.

  Still numb, she changed her blouse while the men watched. Emerging from the men’s room as a punk female wearing a purple spiked wig, she moved as if in a dream. She walked to the locker and removed her rolling suitcase, then as she packed the dripping old raincoat in a plastic bag and dropped it into her case.

  My best move now is to meet with Ainsley as soon as possible.

  On to the ticket counter. “Next bus to Washington DC, please,” she said clicking a wad of chewing gum. She took two Franklins from the inside pocket of her blouse and paid for the ticket.

  It was an hour before the next bus left for Washington. Cassie found an out-of-the-way place to sit. She was breathing hard, but not from panic. Her thoughts kept returning to setting her shooter’s stance. The feel of the gun, squeezing the trigger. The kickback of the tiny explosions as the bullets flew from the barrel.

  A long time passed before she was back in control. When she’d murdered Abdul in Riyadh, it was self-defense. This was self-defense too, but there was a big difference. This time she felt no regrets.

  In fact, she was elated. This time, it felt so fine. Wow, it was great. Better than sex! My first battle to regain my life. She’d enjoyed watching the men who were there to kill her as she took their lives instead. She gulped, thinking how transformed she was. Uncle Misha truly lives inside me!

  Cassie hummed an old blues tune from Blind Blake, “That’ll Never Happen No More.” She felt no sense of conscience and even better, the voice in her head was jubilant. When the door opened in the station to the bus-boarding platforms, she drifted in quiet bliss up the rows of seats and sat at the emergency exit near the back of the bus. As the bus rolled through the tunnel toward New Jersey, she came to terms with what she’d become.

  Better she accepted and embraced version two of herself: amazon warrior. The old version, however, still lurked within her, writhing in chaos.

  * * *

  Sitting in the Georgetown University library, it didn’t take Lee Ainsley long to figure it out. He knew he’d never go to his apartment. Ever again. He didn’t want to die, and if they messed up killing Cassie, he was next on their list. And he really, really hoped they didn’t kill her.

  He paced the library waiting for her to contact him, praying she had escaped. Until recently, he’d rarely been afraid. Working in network security was just a great job. He’d never been subjected to any of the dangers that operatives live through. He knew he was good at his job.

  But he felt unsure of himself in this, his new role. He’d been a lieutenant in the army before his placement into the agency. He’d not held a gun since his tenure years ago as a West Point undergrad.

  The unexpected emotions surging through his body left him uncertain of everything in his life. Although he understood his judgment was compromised, the knowledge didn’t help.

  It was still raining when the library closed, and he was forced outside. Lee wondered where to find safety. He’d no operations or survival skills and less than fifty dollars. After today, his credit cards and ATM card would be marked and tracked. He walked three blocks, found a bank ATM where he drew out $500, the maximum the machine would give him. Then to another bank ATM, where he used his only credit card for a $500 cash advance.

  He was certain they’d recorded his transactions on the security cameras. He knew he must leave now, as fast as possible, and go far away. He trotted off, watching for the street-cams that were almost everywhere in the nation’s capital.

  First he jogged to the bus terminal where, weeks ago on Cassie’s advice, he’d stashed an attaché case in a locker. Lee pulled the case and checked its contents. There was a hoard of electronics equipment including a second burner cell, multiple patch cords to connect it to anything else electronic, and enough clothing to last a week. And a small unregistered Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol, its clip fully loaded.

  Cassie had told him that everyone in covert ops had a “go bag,” a secret stash of survival clothes and tools. He was surprised to have to use his.

  Lee took the case and hurried into the bus terminal men’s room, where he changed into blue jeans and a dark blue polo shirt. He tossed his business suit, white shirt, and tie into the wastebasket.

  He tried making himself appear older through the application of talcum powder in his blond hair. Looking in the mirror he shook his head. “Looks ridiculous,” he mumbled. He left the bus terminal and walked west, just as Cassie arrived and debarked from a bus less than two hundred feet away. They passed within thirty feet of each other, but disguised, neither recognized the other.

  He noticed the rain hadn’t stopped and bought an umbrella. Then he hurried out the exit into the downpour. About four blocks away, he found a café with a wireless connection.

  He bought and gulped down a coffee of the day, burning the back of his throat, and winced. He’d been a good student, but had never done anything spectacular. He wondered if he could learn enough fast enough to survive. Never taught me this at Santa Barbara High School. And in college at West Point I studied troop movements and materiel logistics, not counter-surveillance.

  He ordered a second café americano and carefully sipped it. All he knew about how to handle himself she’d taught him. What if it wasn’t enough? It felt alien to him, using store window reflections to tell if someone was pursuing him. He opened his notebook computer and tried to focus on something else, anything to distract him from his unraveling life.

  Exhausted, drained from fleeing unknown dangers, his mind wandered randomly, seeking a safe time in his past, eventually falling back to his senior prom. He felt the tuxedo collar tight against his neck, seeing the bow tie in the mirror, buckling the cummerbund, and fastening the corsage to Sondra Sandovar’s wrist. He looked into her adoring eyes, but found Cassie’s staring back with concern. Lee jolted awake, steaming coffee spilling down his left hand.

  What had he gotten himself into? Now it was al
l about saving Cassandra as well as himself. The first step was completing a plan and obtaining resources to offer a route to success.

  He connected to the Internet and started the first phase of his research for Cassie. Lee forced himself to ignore his feelings of concern for her, his fingers flying over the keyboard as fast as he could.

  * * *

  Since the cell phone she’d destroyed in New York was compromised, she assumed Ainsley’s cells were also compromised. It would be contact by leaving messages at her website’s email function. To keep the emails from being monitored by the feds’ ECHELON system, she and Lee would only open draft emails and write within the drafts, never sending any. She’d given him instructions on how to do this.

  Cassie went to the bus terminal restroom and changed into business clothes wearing a 34-D bra stuffed with paper towels, heavy mascara, and a red wig, making her look twenty years older. Less than ten minutes before, Lee had been in the men’s restroom only twenty feet away. She lost track of time as she stood there, collecting and calming herself by deep-breathing.

  She passed Lee as she left the restroom, but he didn’t look anything like the man she’d begun to trust and once again, she failed to recognize him. Hurrying to a dark corner of the bus terminal, she watched the others from her bus as they left the terminal. No one following me. The rain had just stopped when Cassie emerged from the bus terminal into the hot, humid Washington night.

  Washington. This was where, so short a time ago, she first realized she was hip-deep in shit. She’d fled then. And now she was in shit up to her chin.

  Cassie took a taxicab to the Mandarin Oriental, a fancy hotel on Maryland Avenue near the Capitol building. She booked a room, identifying herself as Susan Blumenthal, using an identity she had stolen wholesale from a sixtyish woman shopping in Manhattan’s Saks Fifth Avenue for clothing several weeks ago. Cassie had manufactured forged credit cards and copied the woman’s driver’s license from a picture she took using her cell phone’s camera. The real person lived in Darien, Connecticut.