Imminent Threat

by Jeff Gunhus

  As Scott strained to make out what was in the room beyond the gap, his worst fear materialized in front of him. A ghostly image, like something from one of the nightmares he had every night.

  Scarvan stepped forward. Holding Mara in front of him as a hostage.

  CHAPTER 39

  Scott’s mind went blank. Not from lack of thought, or from emotional reaction. It was complete hyper-awareness. Observe. React. Pure instinct. He was in the zone.

  But there was one thought that penetrated through. An unhelpful thought that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard he resisted.

  Unless I’m perfect in the next thirty seconds, Mara’s going to die.

  “I came for Kolonov,” Scarvan said. “Where is he?”

  Scott raised his gun, taking aim at the small part of Scarvan’s head just to the right of Mara. She was conscious but appeared groggy. Blood trickled down the right side of her face. She had her hands bound behind her back and a thick rope around her neck tied into a noose. The sight tore into Scott, exactly as Scarvan would have predicted it would.

  “Let her go and we’ll go find him.”

  Scarvan pressed his gun harder under Mara’s chin. He lifted up on her wrists behind her back, forcing her up on the balls of her feet to keep her arms from being torn from their sockets. The noose around her neck tightened, turning her face red.

  “I thought your daughter would be harder to kill,” Scarvan said. “Disappointing.”

  “She has nothing to do with this. It’s me you want. Let her go and I’m all yours.”

  Scarvan laughed, a thick, phlegmy sound. “You’re all mine anyway,” he said. “But not yet. I have plans for you.”

  “You mean New York?” Scott said, desperate to buy time. The gambit seemed to work. Even from a distance he saw a flash of anger on Scarvan’s face. No one liked to be predictable.

  “We know all about it. Courtesy of your friends on Mount Athos. Seems they don’t like you much, either.”

  “Kolonov,” Scarvan growled. “Tell me in the next ten seconds where he is.”

  “New York will never happen. You’re too damn old to pull something like that off.”

  “You may think you’re clever,” Scarvan said, “but the end will come. About what day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

  “I’d heard you’d found religion,” Scott said, stalling for time. Anna was the unknown variable. He had to give her time to see this standoff and decide how to intervene. “Never had much use for it myself. You really think God will forgive you for all the things you’ve done?”

  “ ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.’ ” Scarvan yanked hard on the rope around Mara’s neck.

  “What about all those ideas about love and mercy? Doesn’t seem like you’re living up to that side of the deal very well.” Scott said.

  “Death can also be mercy,” Scarvan said, forcing Mara to her knees at the edge of the gap. The fall was at least fifteen feet. The area beneath was a tangle of wood support beams, plaster, and red tile from the roof. She would survive the fall, but not if he hung her by the noose from her neck before she reached the bottom. “Let me show you.”

  “No, wait!” Scott yelled, lowering his gun. He sank to his knees, the mirror image of Mara on the opposite side of the gap. “Please, I’m begging you.”

  Mara’s head rose a few inches, her eyes more aware now. They darted back and forth, as if sizing up the situation for the first time. When she finally made contact with his, he recognized the look. He knew Mara’s rage when he saw it.

  He shook his head, a sudden premonition sweeping him that he was looking at his daughter alive for the last few seconds.

  But before Mara did anything, another voice filled the air.

  “Scarvan, is this the piece of shit you’re looking for?” Anna called out.

  They all turned to the courtyard. Anna stood with Kolonov in front of her, her gun trained on his back.

  For a second, everything froze. The sirens outside seemed to drift away. The smoke hung in the air. Each killer did the mental calculation of every permutation of how the three-way standoff might end.

  Scarvan moved first.

  He shoved Mara forward, holding on to the rope to keep her from falling off the ledge. The rope was tied off behind him, so if Mara went over, Scott would be watching his daughter’s hanging like in an old Western.

  He snatched up his gun and took aim. Scarvan was exposed, but if he was shot, he’d let go of the rope. If that happened, Mara died.

  In the second it took him to realize this, he tried to calculate whether Anna would reach the same conclusion. Or if she did, whether that would be enough to stop her from killing Scarvan.

  Feeling like the world moved in slow motion, he turned to Anna just as she raised her gun from pointing at Kolonov to taking aim at Scarvan.

  Scott swiveled on his right knee. Reflexes from a lifetime of fieldwork kicking everything into a heightened sense of reality. He saw everything. Doubted nothing.

  Before Anna could fire at Scarvan, Scott pulled the trigger, sending a single bullet down range.

  It hit its mark perfect, slamming into Anna’s right shoulder. Spinning her around and to the ground, sending her own shot toward Scarvan off in a wild direction.

  Kolonov broke into a run, seeking cover in the villa. He didn’t get far.

  Scarvan shot him in the leg first, sending Kolonov to the ground. The next shot was the other leg. Purposeful. The intent to injure. To draw it out.

  Another shot, this one in the arm. Then the other arm.

  Kolonov writhed on the ground, pitifully trying to pull himself toward one of the cars in the courtyard for cover. He left a trail of blood behind him.

  Scott watched helplessly. If he shot Scarvan, Mara would go over. Then he realized Anna was reaching for her gun from the ground. “No!” he called out. He shot at the gun on the ground, hoping to hammer it hard enough to blast it out of her reach.

  The rock on either side of the gun splintered with the first two shots. A micro-adjustment and the third shot hit the gun and skittered it across the ground.

  By time he swung back around, he saw Kolonov drag himself up onto his knees. He faced Scarvan directly, lips pulled back in a bloody grimace.

  “Fuck you,” he said. A split second later, his face caved in and the back of his skull exploded, leaving a fine red mist in the air.

  Then came the uncertainty. With that piece of work done, what would Scarvan do?

  Scott jerked back toward Scarvan, bringing his gun to bear on him.

  By the time he did, he was looking down the barrel of the gun pointed at him.

  Both men froze.

  Scarvan had the advantage and they both knew it.

  Scott couldn’t fire first. It would mean Scarvan letting go of the rope and Mara hanging.

  But if Scarvan fired, would Scott be quick enough to get a shot off?

  The two old pros held the stalemate for only seconds, but it felt like time itself had stopped.

  A wicked grin spread across Scarvan’s face. He mouthed two words and Scott read the man’s lips.

  Not yet.

  With a twist of the rope around a piece of debris from the caved-in roof, Scarvan shoved Mara forward.

  She didn’t go over the edge. Her feet balanced on the edge of the drop-off as she leaned out at more than a forty-five-degree angle over the space below. Too far forward to pull back. The tension on the rope around her neck the only thing keeping her from falling.

  “No!” Scott shouted.

  When he looked back past Mara, Scarvan had already disappeared into the smoke-filled room behind him.

  Scott surveyed the drop below, picked the best landing spot and jumped.

  The pile of tiles collapsed when he landed, burying him up to his thighs in the debris.

  “Hold on!” he shouted, cli
mbing out and across the wreckage of the collapsed building.

  Mara’s face was a dark red, almost purple. Her eyes bulged from their sockets. It was only a matter of time before she passed out.

  If she fell, the drop would snap her neck.

  Worse, she was shifting her feet as the edge of the floor bent and crumpled beneath her.

  He fell and scrambled back to his feet, almost under her now.

  Then gunfire erupted from the courtyard. Shot after shot.

  A quick glance told him it was Anna.

  Shooting at Mara.

  What the hell?

  As he turned back, the floor gave way beneath Mara.

  Scott reached up, hoping to somehow be high enough to break her fall. But it wasn’t going to be enough. He wasn’t going to be able to reach her. Her neck would snap when the rope snapped tight. He was going to lose his daughter. His little girl.

  “NO!”

  Mara fell. As she did, the rope broke. Anna had been shooting at the rope and had at least nicked it.

  Mara’s body twisted in midair. Scott caught her lengthways, absorbing the impact of the fall. They tumbled together down the pile of debris.

  The second they came to rest, Scott pulled Mara to him, fighting the hangman’s knot still choking her.

  He finally got it loose and Mara sucked in a full breath, coughing and sputtering.

  But alive.

  He held her to his chest, rocking her the same as he’d done when she was a little girl. And she let him, clutching on as she fought to get her breath back.

  Scott looked over at Anna. She held her gun to her side, a red blotch of blood covering her shoulder where he’d shot her.

  He was surprised by what he saw in her face. He’d expected anger, rage even. They both knew Scarvan would be long gone now. They’d missed their chance. Scott had chosen to save his daughter over eradicating an international threat.

  Not only that, but he’d shot Anna. On purpose.

  But there was no anger in Anna’s expression as she stared at him holding his daughter. Only acceptance. Even a small nod that could be interpreted as approval.

  Scott hugged Mara tight, realizing the cost for his decision could be immense. If Scarvan had his way, hundreds were going to die. And if Scarvan’s plan worked, those deaths would lead to chaos that would destroy the lives of countless others.

  Because of the choice he made, those deaths would be on Scott’s head.

  “Scarvan . . .” Mara croaked. “Did you . . . was he . . . ?”

  “He got away,” Scott said. “But we’ll get him. I swear we will.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Chaos reigned outside the villa. Smoke billowed from inside. Debris from the caved-in roof spilled out into the street from what had been the archway entrance into the courtyard. The entire area in front crawled with police hastily setting up a containment area, pushing the civilian bystanders away.

  Asset watched carefully from the first-floor window across the street. He was angry at himself for not choosing a higher floor or even the rooftop. That would have given him an angle to see into the courtyard once the explosion had collapsed the upper stories into the entrance.

  But who would have guessed Scarvan would blow the place up?

  He marveled at the man’s audacity. A solo assault against an unknown number of gunmen. Most of which had been hired goons, but others, like Mara Roberts, Anna Beliniski, and even Kolonov himself, were highly trained operatives. Without the element of surprise, any one of them posed significant risk as an adversary. And then the addition of Scott Roberts. The timing of when Scarvan blew the charges in the archway seemed to indicate Scarvan had planned on Scott joining the melee the entire time.

  Either brilliant and audacious, or stupid and arrogant.

  Fine lines.

  Asset had called his employer during the battle for instructions. His orders had been to observe only, unless his help was needed in the most extreme circumstances to keep Scarvan alive. Once the crazy old assassin had purposefully locked himself up in the villa with high odds stacked against him, Asset didn’t see a clear path for the man to extricate himself.

  On the phone, his employer had shared his exasperation, but his orders didn’t change. Observe and report.

  Then the last series of rapid-fire shots happened. With that, Asset imagined the old man had miscalculated and was laying somewhere instead in a pool of his own blood.

  Until he caught the barest glimpse of a figure jumping from the roof of the villa to the next building. Even though it was fast, the man’s figure was unmistakable. Scarvan. Escaping to fight another day.

  To execute his plan in New York City. A plan that matched perfectly with his employer’s goals. Scarvan owed him now. It was his employer who’d arranged the meeting between Nochek and Manisky in Paris. Who’d insisted on Kolonov meeting in Prague. Without that assist, Scarvan would still be hunting.

  He picked up the encrypted satellite phone and pressed a stored number. As it rang, Asset wondered whether Scott and Mara both survived the ordeal.

  One thing was certain: If Scarvan was leaving the scene, Kolonov was dead. That was a guarantee.

  Marcus Ryker answered the phone. “Report.”

  “Our friend has finished his task.”

  “And our favorite family?”

  Asset smiled at the perfect timing. Down below, enough debris had been hauled aside to allow passage out of the villa. Scott Roberts, helping Anna Beliniski, came out first. Mara was right behind them.

  “They both survived,” Asset said. “Are you placing them on the target list?” He hoped the answer was yes. Asset owed them both. The last time he’d met Mara, she’d bested him in one-on-one combat. As for Scott, his reputation as one of the best in the business made Asset want to add him as a notch in his belt. And they had unfinished business with each other.

  “No, they have a role to play,” Ryker said. “Let them lead the charge trying to rally the bureaucracy against Scarvan. Head to New York and await further instructions.”

  Before Asset could reply, the line went dead.

  He slid the phone back into his pocket and watched the scene in the street below. As he did, he raised his hand, holding his thumb and fingers out like a kid pretending to hold a gun. He took aim at first Scott and then Mara, pulling the trigger as he made soft, whispered sounds of gunfire.

  With a last, longing look at the two of them, he left the room and followed his egress route to the back of the building and out into the street. Within a few hours he was on a flight under a different identity on his way to New York City, ready for the next phase of the operation.

  Ready to play his part to set fire to the world.

  CHAPTER 41

  The flight back to the United States was quiet and tense. Mara’s throat ached, both from friction burns on her skin from the rope, and internally from the savage pressure the noose had exerted on her. Her voice came out sounding like a frog’s, so she avoided speaking to give it a chance to heal.

  That worked out since she also had nothing to say to her father. She couldn’t deny that she was thankful he’d sacrificed the mission to save her hide. Just as equally she fumed that she’d cost them the chance to stop Scarvan. It’d been her carelessness in the basement that allowed her to become a hostage. Without that, Scarvan couldn’t have leveraged her dad’s emotional attachment to get what he wanted.

  Typically, it was a net positive when she and her dad worked together. Hell, they were nearly unstoppable. But Prague had showed the weak spot the Alpha Team performance psychologist had warned them about. In their world, sometimes casualties were unavoidable to achieve an objective. Would either of them be willing to sacrifice the other, even to save dozens or even hundreds? They’d argued they would, that they wouldn’t give each other any more or any less consideration than another teammate. The psychologist’s report had disagreed, citing a conflict of interest that could put the group’s objectives at risk.

 
Scott had chosen to save Mara and had shot one of their teammates in the shoulder to make it happen. Looked like the psychologist was going to be a happy man to be proven right.

  In stark contrast, the teammate who’d been shot wasn’t happy at all.

  Anna sat in the last seat of the Citation X, her arm in a sling. The doctor had forbidden her from making the journey until she’d undergone twenty-four hours of rest and observation, but she’d only laughed at the suggestion. With a phone call to Hawthorn from her boss, the head of counterintelligence for the BIS, she was quickly discharged and given clearance to accompany them on the flight back to the U.S. to assist in the continued operation, temporarily on loan to the Alpha Team.

  Mara had to admit it: the woman was tough.

  What she loved the most was that she appeared to scare the hell out of her dad.

  Her dad had been on the phone with Hawthorn three times during the first half of the flight. Overhearing his side of the conversation, she didn’t need to be debriefed as to what was going on back home. The Secret Service was taking the threat seriously, as they did any truly credible plot against the president’s life. But they refused to cancel any upcoming event.

  The last phone call had been a three-way conversation with Hawthorn and Mitch Dreslan, the head of the Secret Service. It didn’t take long before her dad was shouting into the phone, calling Dreslan a goddamn idiot. For some reason, that didn’t go over well, and the call ended early.

  They had their work to do once they landed. It was why Hawthorn had redirected their flight from New York back to Washington, DC. He wanted them to make their case directly to President Patterson and his national security team. The fact that Hawthorn hadn’t been able to convince them on his own showed the size of the obstacle in front of them.

  Like Hawthorn, she knew Patterson liked intel from the source closest to the information. He distrusted the bureaucracy and the chain of command, knowing both turned even sensitive matters of national security into a high-level game of telephone. Only in this version of the child’s game, when the message morphed, whether due to interpretation or hidden agenda, wars could start, and people died. All presidents since Bush were haunted by the specter of the intelligence community’s report on Saddam Hussein’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program used in the decision-making process that launched two decades of war in Iraq.