by JC Ryan
Next came the powder, and he topped it off with the bullet he’d pried out. The whole operation, he knew, should take about five minutes per cartridge if he did them separately. Instead, he created a mini assembly line, so that he had five cartridges ready in just under twenty minutes.
***
THE NEXT PART of his mission wouldn’t take place until night fell, so he amused himself for most of the day by taking in a few tours, being certain to speak in French-accented English when he spoke. He had no intention of being linked to tonight’s murder, but it was a good idea to camouflage his identity anyway.
Late in the afternoon, he visited an internet café and chose a machine with only a wall behind it. He searched for any news of last night’s theft, without finding any mention of it. Vasiliev must not have discovered it yet. He then went back to his hotel, had an early dinner, and turned in. He was up again by ten p.m., and repeated the previous night’s surveillance, this time near Gordievsky’s residence.
This time, he was wearing a backpack. Not that it would have helped, had police stopped and searched him. It contained the Mauser, the cartridges for it, and another item he’d picked up on his shopping trip yesterday. A Fram oil filter, fitted with a piece of equipment that had masqueraded as a piece of camera equipment when he’d brought it through airport security. A small plastic device that, fitted between the pistol’s barrel and the oil filter, would connect them to serve as a suppressor for the “particularly vicious” bang of the antique cartridges.
It would still make plenty of noise, but with the suppressor, Rex hoped to disguise the nature of the noise, giving him time to get away before any neighbors pondered it long enough to overcome their reticence and call the police. In this hope, he was counting on the universal reluctance to be thought a fool. Anyone who heard the noise should think about it carefully before they reported it. Rex didn’t have a precise idea about what it would sound like. With a regular nine-millimeter round, the makeshift suppressor made it sound like a door slamming, with a bit of an echo, as opposed to the crack and reverberations of an unsuppressed round. This, he thought, might sound like gunfire, but normal Britons didn’t hear that often except on TV. Maybe they’d hesitate.
He wouldn’t be found with the gun on him, at least, if he were stopped. He’d leave it at the scene. The expensive leather gloves and his other equipment would go down the nearest drain or waste bin, and not together. The disposable gloves that were protecting the inside of the leather ones would go in his pocket, to be disposed of in France.
The photo was even now on its way to MI5, with a note to check the fingerprints. With luck, the pistol would also have Vasiliev’s fingerprints, but if he didn’t go down for murder, he’d go down for the child pornography that MI5 would find in abundance in his home. Either way, Gordievsky would be dead, just the way the client had ordered.
Rex again waited for the witching hour. Even insomniacs slept sometimes – they just didn’t remember. It would be sometime between three a.m. and four, but by four, some people would be beginning to stir. Bakers. People who had to be to work by seven, like nurses and others who had the day shift in twenty-four-hour operations. Rex preferred three for his insertion.
***
AT THE APPOINTED time, he stepped carefully through the alley, avoiding garbage cans and any other item that might trip him and make noise. Ambient light from streetlights and a half-moon helped. When he arrived at the back door of Gordievsky’s home, he first tried the door. It never ceased to amaze him how many people left their doors unlocked. However, his target was not one of them. Silently, he slipped his backpack off and rummaged inside for his lockpick tools.
Eight seconds later, he slipped into the house with all the noise a ghost would make. Once inside, he closed the door and disarmed the security system. Before taking another step, he pulled a pair of disposable polypropylene booties over his soft shoes. Once again, he cleared all the rooms before making his final visit to Gordievsky. Surprisingly, there were no inside guards. The fool must have relied on the good graces of the metropolitan police and their nightly patrols. Or maybe he just didn’t believe anyone would have a problem with him.
Rex stepped into a polypropylene coverall that matched the booties and pulled the hoodie tight, leaving only his nose and eyes exposed.
In Gordievsky’s bedroom, he found the misbegotten piece of crap snoring, clearly undisturbed by the havoc he’d caused or the loss of innocent life. Had he supplied the explosives that took out that train station five years ago? It didn’t matter. He’d certainly supplied arms that ended American lives in the Middle East. He was guilty as charged, and Rex was there to carry out his sentence.
Rex contemplated waking the son-of-a-bitch up to tell him why he was killing him but decided it was a futile idea, this man’s learning days were over.
Rex placed the homemade suppressor carefully between Gordievsky’s eyes and saw his eyes open just when he pulled the trigger.
“For my family,” Rex whispered.
There was no need for a second shot. Gordievsky’s brains would have been scrambled by the first. But the directions were clear. Two shots in the head, execution-style. He backed off and placed the other shot two inches higher than the first. Quickly, he stripped out of the coveralls, turning them inside out as he shed them. He stuffed them into his backpack, left the gun lying slightly under the bed, as if someone had dropped it carelessly.
At the back door, he shed the booties, stuffed them inside the backpack, and shrugged into it. He locked the door as he left.
Rex slipped through the night shadows like a whisper of wind, dropping the disposables in a bin here, a drain there. Last to go were his gloves, which went into separate wastebins behind restaurants. They’d never be found, but even if they were, there was nothing to tie them to him. After disposing of the gloves, he peeled the last layer – the disposable gloves – from his hands and threw them in another bin as he passed.
Aside from the waiting, the entire assassination had taken less than five minutes. He had three hours to kill before returning to France.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The assessment, Arizona, 2012
REX MADE IT back to CRC headquarters well inside his self-imposed deadline. Before he could leave on his compulsory three-week Bahamas vacation, though, there were post-mission details to take care of. Due to the nature of the work these field agents did, CRC kept a close watch on them on all fronts, especially psychologically and physically.
After each mission they went through prescribed debriefing, as well as medical and psychological evaluations. This was partly to make sure that they didn’t fall in love with killing and really become uncontrollable psychopaths. Though it had never happened, the other reason was to be sure they didn’t become corrupt and get involved with the bad guys and all their money.
Rex submitted to it all with his usual devil-may-care attitude. His report, in his mind, was the model of succinct efficiency. It consisted of just a few bullet points:
Alexander Gordievsky was a scumbag.
He supplied weapons to terrorists in exchange for ancient art and archaeological artifacts.
I did some surveillance, learned his routine, and visited him at home after bypassing his guards and security systems. By the way, they were all a joke, easily defeated.
I didn’t read the bastard any Miranda rights or put any charges to him. In fact, I didn’t have anything to say to the asshole.
I put two bullets in him, checked his pulse to make sure he was dead, and left.
I am back.
What’s my next mission?
In point four, he was not entirely truthful, for he had indeed had something to say to the scumbag, but HQ didn’t need to know that. It was said post mortem in any event.
At the end of the report, operators were expected to put in any lessons learned from the mission. Rex, as usual, had only one sentence this time. It read, “Don’t supply weapons to terrorists. It’s been prov
en to dramatically curtail life expectancy.”
His handler, on previous occasions, had tried to explain to Rex that the requirement actually meant he should help his fellow operators by sharing his experiences so they can all learn from each other, and that the lessons learned were not intended for the bad guys.
Rex’s answer was, “That’s all I learned, and it’s applicable to good people thinking about becoming bad and those who are already bad.” And that was the end of it. So, his lessons learned were always of that nature: “Don’t finance terrorists. Don’t deal drugs and give the proceeds to terrorists,” and the like. It always ended with the warning about the health risks involved by ignoring his advice.
If he’d been a fly on the wall, Rex would have seen the Old Man read the report, smile, and then shift it to the side and open the post-mission assessments. The medical report was good. Rex was healthy and fit. The doctors were happy.
The psychological assessment looked good throughout. Rex hadn’t gone around the bend, and he was still a patriot, committed to the goals and objectives of the unit. However, in the final paragraph of the report, CRC’s lead psychologist, who’d conducted the psychological debriefing, suggested that he wanted to have a little chat with Brandt.
None of that, except for the request for a chat between his CO and the psychologist, would have surprised Rex. He knew he was just fine, physically, mentally, and operationally. He didn’t need this vacation, but he dutifully took it.
Rex was somewhere in the air over the Gulf of Mexico when Brandt called the psychologist, Rick Longland, to his office. The conversation they had might have surprised him.
Rex’s record to date was superb, and apparently that’s exactly what worried the shrink, or that’s what he said by way of introduction. “John, no one is flawless. Sooner or later, no matter how gifted, Rex’s luck will run out.”
Brandt said, “Okay, nothing wrong with what you’re saying except that you don’t seem to understand, with Dalton, it isn’t luck. But what is it you’re not saying?”
“Fair enough. He’s well-prepared. I just have a few concerns.”
“About what, Rick? The fact is we are not in the risk-free, you-can-have-your-money-back-if-you-don’t-like-it business. This is a risky business, and the operators know that. No illusions. Kill the bad guys or get killed. And you know it too, so what’s your gripe? Rex Dalton is the best we ever had.”
The shrink kept on skirting around the real issues without revealing what he was on about, and Brandt knew Longland well enough to let it go for a while longer. He would get to the point eventually.
Finally, Rick said, “The man is an enigma. We all agree we’ve never seen anyone like him. He’s been in the field for three years now, he’s killed scores of bad men and women, and he hasn’t got one single bullet wound on him. The lacerations on his skin and broken bones in his body he got from the CRC and Delta Force training programs, not from the bad guys. His super memory, capacity to learn and adapt at speeds we have never seen… in every field of discipline…”
“Well not all of them,” Brand interjected. “His scores in geopolitics and diplomatic affairs were abysmal.”
Rick answered, “Sure, that’s to be expected. He wasn’t selected for his ambassadorial inclinations. I’m sure that’s the one thing he will never stand accused of – killing the enemy with kindness. To him, geopolitics and diplomatic affairs are a waste of his time. He just humored us by attending the lectures. I don’t even know why he sat for the exams at the end of them. Mentally, he’s stable, and that’s what matters most to me, although I won’t be recommending him as the front man to negotiate a peace treaty.”
Brandt spread both hands in the universal ‘what?!’ gesture. “Okay, so you found a kink in his psyche. He doesn’t have the aptitude to run for office, is that it? Spit it out, man!”
Rick laughed. “No, that’s not it. The thing is, I’ve been in this mental business for much longer than I can remember. But Dalton is the one person I can say with full confidence I’ve been unable to read. At times, he’s so honest and open it surprises me. The next moment, he gives me that neutral grin and clamps up like an oyster. And that’s it. Try as I might, I can’t get past that grin and get him to open up again.”
Brandt had had enough of the dancing. “Okay Rick, get to the point now. The man’s got a perfect record. He’s by far the best operator we’ve ever had, in terms of adaptability, mission readiness, and success rate. Granted, he’s not politician material, but as you said, ‘No one is flawless’. So why are we having this conversation?”
Rick took a deep breath. “John, the man is a tornado of death and destruction. He is frighteningly and borderline supernaturally good at hunting down and killing people. All people experience some form of stress, but I doubt that any of us can ever begin to understand the type of stress Dalton and our other operators are going through. Dalton more so than the others, because he operates on his own so often. The crux of the matter is, I’m worried that one day it’s just going to become too much, and he’s going to snap.”
Brandt frowned. That could be a big problem. “Do you have any reason to believe stress is getting to him?” he asked.
“No, and that’s part of the problem. If I didn’t know better, I would have said here is the first and only human who ever walked this earth that didn’t have any stress, ever. He sleeps like a baby, or so he told me. So, I ordered a sleep study, and it’s true. His head hits the pillow, you can count to ninety, and he’s asleep, like a baby. He sleeps through the night, and he wakes up fresh as a daisy.”
“So, how does he deal with the killing?”
“Well, there is another one of those I-have-no-idea answers. He tells me it doesn’t bother him. He kills bad people to protect good people. That’s it. ‘What more is there to ponder about?’ His words.”
Brandt still didn’t see an issue. “Okay, last chance. Seems to me you’re seeing problems where none exist. But if this so-called “snap” you’re imagining happens, what can we expect?
Longland leaned forward and spoke with intensity. “Rex Dalton is a lone-wolf. He operates on his own. In the theater of operations, he plans and executes on his own. He makes the decisions on his own. Now keep that in mind while I get to the rest of my point. He has no use for the politicians and the bureaucrats. In fact, he’s frankly told me he loathes them for their cowardice and inability to do what’s right and good for this country and its people.
“My worry, John, is with an operator as skilled and as intelligent and as independent and as rebellious as Dalton, what do we do if one day he realizes that not all of the bad guys are actually overseas but that some of them are right here in the US of A? That there is no distinction between corrupt businessmen, arms dealers, corrupt politicians, and drug lords financing terrorism. That geography does not render those types less blameworthy because they reside in America and not in Russia, the Middle East, Asia, or anywhere else for that matter. We’ve trained him as a one-man army, and a one-stop law shop, where he is the prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.
“You know the soldier’s oath, I, Rex Dalton, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed ...
“What if he one day decides that he has missed the domestic type of enemy in the “against all enemies, foreign and domestic”? Up till now, and hopefully forever, he would keep his focus on the foreign enemies. But what if…?”
Brandt sat back and stared at Rick. “Ugly scenario you’re describing there. But what makes you worry about that? Do you think he’s about to walk off the reservation?”
“No, not yet. But the stress factor, which he says he doesn’t have, but you and I know he must, might one day get to him.”
“What’s your suggestion?”
Brandt asked. “Surely you don’t mean…”
“No, of course not. Nothing for right now, other than that it is mandatory to monitor him. If it ever becomes necessary to eliminate him, make sure it’s done properly, because if you screw that up and he survives… we’re dead… all of us. He will hunt us down and kill us all first. And then he will go after the politicians, officials, and other scoundrels—the domestic enemies. There won’t be any stopping him.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The Afghan Mission Kabul, June 2013
ON HIS RETURN from vacation, Rex was taking his turn instructing the trainees in Krav Maga and other fieldcraft techniques while waiting for his next mission. Always the waiting. The recruits loathed getting in the ring with him. They were sure to end up in an uncomfortable position, both literally and figuratively.
He’d begun the study of Russian while on vacation, in the company of a lovely young Russian woman he’d been careful not to get too involved with. She was nice, and she was beautiful, and he felt the pride of any alpha male, having the looker in his company and not having to be the drooler. But he knew there was no point in romance. He had filed Jessie in the deep recesses of his mind, though he still loved her. However, he knew he would probably never see her again. And if he did, nothing could come of it.
He was not prepared to involve another woman in his life. His take on the word liberty in the phrase ‘Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness’ in the Declaration of Independence meant among others, the liberty of deciding about relationship commitments. He took the liberty to learn from a native Russian speaker, and the liberty to deftly sidestep her overtures.