The state cop began cruising slowly around the western edge of the lot in a counterclockwise direction, training his hand-held spotlight on the trees and scrub brush on the periphery of the pavement. He was still a good distance away, but would arrive at Andrei’s Lincoln and Limington’s Toyota in far less time than Andrei would have liked.
He cursed softly. He certainly couldn’t ventilate his victim’s skull one more time like he’d planned, not now. The sound of the gunshot would draw the cop’s immediate attention, and while Andrei knew he could take out the officer with no problem, he also knew that doing so would bring much more attention to the area than his KGB handlers would want.
He rose from his crouch and moved quickly into the Town Car. Placed his gun on the seat, anchoring it under his right thigh where it would be accessible almost instantly should its use become necessary. Then he eased his door closed and started his engine.
He pulled out of the parking spot and angled right, to the east side of the lot, in an effort to place as much distance between himself and the police cruiser as possible. Once there, Andrei pulled the knob on the dashboard to illuminate his headlights and drove toward the exit at a sedate fifteen miles per hour, the speed at which he guessed he would be least likely to attract the attention of a patrolling officer.
Once the cop arrived at the scene of the shooting, all hell was going to break loose, but it would take the officer time to render assistance to the (hopefully) dead man and call for backup, and as long as Andrei’s luck held for another thirty seconds, he would be long gone by then.
The Chevy Caprice police vehicle passed off Andrei’s left, moving roughly the same speed south through the lot as he was moving north. After what felt like forever, Andrei arrived at the entrance. He checked both directions for traffic and then pulled into the road, still moving slowly.
The minute he’d made the turn and disappeared from sight of the cop, he punched the accelerator and the Town Car rocketed away from the newly minted crime scene.
Andrei realized he’d been holding his breath and he chuckled nervously. He’d had close calls before—it was impossible to be in Andrei Lukashenko’s line of work for any length of time without the occasional close call—but this was one of the closest ever.
He slowed to a more sensible speed and entered the I-264 on-ramp, thankful the night was almost over. It hadn’t gone exactly the way he’d planned, but close enough. One had to be prepared to improvise on the fly, and after years of experience working in the field, Andrei Lukashenko was more than comfortable doing exactly that.
5
June 13, 1988
11:55 p.m.
Commuter Park and Ride lot
Southeast of Norfolk, Virginia
Virginia State Trooper Sean Sweeney took note of the Lincoln Town Car the moment the vehicle started moving, despite the fact it had been parked at least one hundred feet away, tucked into the southernmost section of the parking lot.
This particular commuter area had been a haven for drug dealing and prostitution for years. Its remoteness and accessibility to the interstate made it an excellent location for illicit activity, particularly after dark, and every so often Sean’s commanding officer would instruct troopers to focus intensely on clearing the lot of undesirables. Eventually, the goal would be accomplished—more or less—and then it would become more prudent to utilize patrol officers in other locations.
And the cycle would begin again inside the park and ride.
They were currently in the middle of a purge cycle, so every overnight shift for the past few days, Sean had been cruising the lot a minimum of twice per night, more if the volume of calls on the graveyard shift was low. Every trip was the same, a counter-clockwise slow-speed roll through the lot, where he would shine his high-intensity spotlight into the trees, just in case any of the local criminal masterminds decided simply to slip into the woods and wait out the cops’ patrol.
A few vehicles dotted the lot, empty and dark and unmoving. In Sean’s opinion, leaving any car here after about nine p.m. was asking for trouble, but that didn’t stop people from doing it.
In any event, he hadn’t paid any more attention to the Lincoln when he’d entered the lot than he’d paid to any of the other cars currently occupying the park and ride. That all changed when he observed the vehicle begin to drive slowly out of its spot and angle toward the far side of the lot. If that weren’t enough to set off alarm bells in Sean’s head, the driver didn’t immediately turn on his headlights.
Illegal activity, he thought, although whether the activity involved drugs or hookers was at this point a tossup. Given the make and model of the car, it could just as easily belong to a successful drug dealer as to a successful pimp. Or a successful customer of either, for that matter.
In any event, the Town Car’s driver hadn’t provided any probable cause for Sean to chase him down and pull him over. Moving a good twenty or more feet out of the parking space before flicking on his headlights gave a potential opening, particularly given the poor lighting inside the lot, but at this point Sean decided not to bother pursuing a questionable traffic stop.
The car had been parked next to a much lower-end vehicle—a Toyota, it looked like, although from this distance and in the semi-darkness Sean couldn’t be sure—and he felt certain the two drivers had been participating together in whatever criminal activity had taken place. The Toyota’s driver either hadn’t noticed Sean enter the lot or was playing possum, hoping to be mistaken for just another parked vehicle.
Sean decided he would continue his slow roll through the lot and hit the Toyota with his spotlight when he reached it. That should shed a little light on the situation pretty quickly, he thought with a grin.
He picked up his pace, hoping that when he spoke to the occupant of the Toyota, he could intimidate that person into giving up the identity of the Lincoln driver. Whether the bust ended up being for drugs or prostitution, he suspected the driver of the Town Car would make a much sweeter prize than the driver of the Toyota, although he wasn’t particularly fussy. He would be happy to take either one.
He rounded the corner and moved along the rear of the lot, rolling to a stop in front of the Toyota, which hadn’t moved or shown any sign of life. Sean bathed the car in high-intensity light, certain the sudden brightness would result in a flurry of activity inside it. A head would pop up from the back seat, or a person would attempt to flee, or something along those lines.
Instead, the tableau was horrifying. So awful, in fact, that for just a second he froze, unable to quite process the information his eyes were sending to his brain.
The interior of the Toyota still looked empty. But crumpled on the ground next to its driver’s side was what appeared to be a single white male, age unknown, his head surrounded by blood and gore.
He was unmoving.
He might well be dead.
And Sean had just watched the man’s likely assailant drive unimpeded out of the lot.
Goddammit.
For half a second, Sean contemplated spinning the wheel hard, punching the accelerator, and trying to overtake the Lincoln on I-264, which was almost certainly where it had gone. Assume the victim was dead and attempt to apprehend the perp after he’d been less than fifty feet away, practically within arm’s reach.
Goddammit.
No. Much as it galled him to let a likely murderer escape, Sean would never forgive himself if it turned out the man on the ground had been alive, but died because he hadn’t been provided medical attention.
Sean flicked on his emergency lights, jammed his cruiser into Park and leapt out. He drew his service weapon just in case his assumption about the attacker being the Lincoln driver was wrong, and approached the downed man cautiously. Both of the victim’s hands were visible, so it didn’t seem likely he was trying to draw Sean closer in order to pull a gun and blow him away, but he’d heard plenty of stories about similar attacks on cops and had no desire to add his own to that disturbing genre.
He arrived at the man’s side and said, “Sir? Can you hear me? Hello, Sir?” he spoke loudly, feeling stupid, and when the man didn’t answer—or move, for that matter—Sean decided the fallen man was exactly what he appeared to be: a shooting victim.
He crouched next to the man, careful to avoid stepping in the blood or doing anything else to disturb what was becoming increasingly clear was a crime scene. Checking for a pulse, Sean was surprised to discover he was alive. Maybe he wouldn’t be for much longer, but he was alive right now, and that was better than nothing.
“Hang in there, brother,” Sean murmured as he sprang to his feet and hurried back to the cruiser. He radioed for backup and an ambulance, wondering whether what was about to unfold would be a murder investigation or attempted murder.
Either way, Sean knew he was going to take some serious shit when it came out that he’d let the shooter drive right past him on the way to freedom. He didn’t have a crystal ball, he couldn’t have been expected to know he was about to stumble onto a gunshot victim, but none of that would necessarily matter, either, when the inevitable second-guessing began by the guys who got paid to bust the chops of the cops doing the real work.
He replaced the mic into its stand and returned to the victim, determined to keep him alive until the ambulance’s arrival.
Judging from the man’s apparent condition, it had better get here quickly.
6
June 20, 1988
1:15 p.m.
Washington, D.C.
Tracie Tanner paced her tiny apartment, plodding in an endless loop, her sense of isolation and depression increasing with each step.
The pattern of her movement was precise and unvarying. She began each lap at her apartment’s front door, moving along the north living room wall and then turning right at the entrance to her hallway. Marching its length took just a few steps and then she turned into her bedroom, circling it like a caged animal. Once complete, she exited into her bathroom, where she reversed course and moved back along the hallway to the kitchen. She passed the refrigerator, stove, and tiny kitchen table in seconds before returning to the living room, walking past the picture window with the breathtaking view of the paved parking lot before finding herself back at her starting point.
Then she repeated the process, over and over, restless and unhappy, craving release from her thoughts and regrets but unable to achieve anything close to what she needed.
Typically, that release came from her work. Employed secretly by the Central Intelligence Agency after her official firing last year, Tracie reported solely to her handler, legendary CIA Director Aaron Stallings. For the last year-plus she had been entrusted with the most critical—and most dangerous—of intelligence assignments, almost always working alone.
But in the course of completing her most recent mission, the car Tracie had been driving was rammed at full speed by a Russian delivery truck. In addition to receiving assorted bumps and bruises, her right ankle had been badly sprained and she’d suffered a serious concussion.
As painful as those injuries were, none would have been sufficient in and of themselves to interrupt her work, or even to slow her down in any significant way. She’d suffered more serious injuries in the past and never missed a beat. The day after arriving back at her Moscow safe house and completing mission debriefing, Tracie had been ready and willing, anxious even, to accept another assignment.
Anything to banish those ever-present regrets for a little while.
But in the course of the automobile accident that resulted in all her other injuries, Tracie had also suffered a deep, meandering gash up the right side of her skull. While she lay unconscious in a Russian emergency room, doctors had cut half of Tracie’s lustrous, flame-red hair and shaved it to the scalp in order to suture the wound.
The result was an ugly trail that resembled the map of a railroad track designed by an engineer suffering a schizophrenic breakdown. The wound was fresh and raw and red.
Tracie had been afraid she knew what Stallings’ reaction would be when he learned of her injuries, and her plan had been to “forget” to fill him in on the full extent of them.
But of course concealing information from the man who’d headed up America’s premier intelligence service for decades formed the very definition of the term “easier said than done,” and before their debrief was half over, Tracie had been forced to acknowledge exactly how badly she’d been injured.
And Stallings had recalled her stateside.
“Boss, I’m fine,” she’d protested, bitterly disappointed by his decision even as she was unsurprised by it.
“Fine is a relative term,” he replied.
“I’ve been hurt much worse than this in the course of completing assignments,” she’d argued, “and I’ve always managed to get the job done.”
“True enough. But I doubt you’ve ever suffered an injury that made you as easily recognizable as having half your hair cut off, with dozens of stitches running up the side of your head. You literally could not be more memorable.”
“But I could easily—”
“Listen to me, Tanner,” he’d said, cutting her off in mid-sentence as he so often did. “You did a fantastic job locating and disarming the tactical nuke the Soviets so carelessly misplaced. But in the course of doing so, you assaulted and thereby pissed off one of the half-dozen or so most influential Russian generals in the entire Red Army command structure. Your likeness is going to be plastered over every KGB field office in the USSR. We need to get you back to D.C. for a few weeks.”
“I really don’t think that’s necess—”
“Once your hair has grown out enough to cover the scars that are going to remain from your head injury, things will have calmed down in Moscow. The Soviets would never expect you to return after the heartburn you’ve caused them on several different occasions now, but once things cool off, you’ll be free to return to work in and around the Soviet states if you choose to.”
“I choose to. In fact, I don’t choose to come home. I want to stay here and—”
“You get your ass back here ASAP. Contact me with a timeline by tomorrow and I’ll send the agency Gulfstream to pick you up in Helsiki.”
“Sir, please, I really don’t think—”
“My decision is final, Tanner.”
“But if you…” Tracie’s voice had trailed off as she realized Stallings had already cut the secure satellite connection. Protesting any further would be as pointless as talking to herself, which was exactly what she would have been doing.
Three days after their conversation, Tracie had found herself in a face-to-face meeting with her handler, where she’d again attempted to convince him to return her to Moscow—or wherever she was needed—immediately. She’d known what his response would be but had been determined to try.
He shut her down just as completely as he’d done by sat phone.
Now she paced, wearing a pathway into her apartment’s cheap carpeting, glancing side-eyed into the mirror on every trip through her bathroom. She hated being sidelined when there was intelligence work to be done but had to admit Stallings was right about one thing. With the long, flowing red locks tumbling over her left shoulder and the barest hints of stubble just starting to poke out of her scalp on the right side of her skull, she was more than strikingly noticeable. She was damned near unforgettable, not to mention probably terrifying to young children.
“Definitely not ideal for a covert operative,” she mumbled as she glanced into the mirror on probably her thirty-fifth trek past.
On the thirty-sixth trip she came to the conclusion that something had to change.
At the end of the circuit she strode to her phone, leaving the familiar pathway behind and cutting straight across her living room. Three hours later she found herself seated in a hairstylist’s chair.
***
June 20, 1988
6:30 p.m.
Washington, D.C.
She’d hoped a new hairstyle wo
uld make her at least marginally less freakish-looking, and to that end, as she examined her new look in her bathroom mirror, she supposed her strategy had been successful.
Her red hair was shorter than it had been for as long as she could remember, barely reaching her neck and curled in a stylish bob.
On the left side.
The right side of her skull remained shaven and uncovered, still inviting the stares of adults and the screams of toddlers.
She shook her head and sighed. Rather than easing her frustration and depression, the visit to the stylist had had the opposite effect. The woman who’d cut her hair was older, mid-fifties probably, and her reaction upon seeing Tracie’s injury would have been humorous had Tracie not been so down.
Her eyes widened and she frowned. “What happened to you, honey?” she asked, her voice hushed and her tone funereal.
“Car accident,” Tracie replied. Given the classified nature of virtually all her work, it felt oddly unsettling to be able to answer the woman’s question truthfully.
“Well, we’re going to fix you up so pretty no one will notice those stitches,” she said, rallying at least somewhat after her initial shock upon seeing Tracie’s injury.
To Tracie, the whole thing had felt forced and insincere. She’d never been one to worry about feeling or looking “pretty,” except as necessary for an assignment, and receiving what felt like obvious pity from the stylist went against the grain. Badly.
So although she had to admit the woman had done a nice job with her new hairstyle—given what she had to work with—Tracie felt worse now than she had when she’d made the appointment. The prospect of pacing her apartment endlessly for weeks, ruminating on her many failings, left her feeling rudderless and adrift.
She wandered out of the bathroom, unconsciously following the pathway she’d established over the course of several hours earlier in the day. She was thinking about nothing in particular other than feeling hungry but not wanting to eat.
Objekt 825 (Tracie Tanner Thrillers Book 9) Page 3