by D S Kane
He tried to relax. He was, after all, alive.
He sipped a diet cola and tried to focus. He needed to quell the rage and fear he felt. His life had been stolen from him. He felt alarm at the irony that the same thing had happened to Sashakovich, and that’s why this was happening to him.
The plane zipped over the Mediterranean, edging toward the Atlantic Ocean at 325 miles per hour. He looked out the window at the turquoise blue waters below as he pondered what had happened to him. Houmaz felt like the near-death experience had caused something major to change deep inside him. He wanted vengeance for himself, not just for his brothers, not just for his father. It was personal now. She had taken everything from him but his life. And his own life was now forfeit.
He had started to craft a plan for revenge. He needed to play out the plan and probe it for weaknesses. He found it flexible enough to give him confidence that even though he might die, he would still avenge his father and his brothers,
He doubted he could find—let alone kill—Cassandra Sashakovich, but with this plan he could hurt her almost as much, even in the worst outcome. He smiled wickedly and closed his eyes. He’d need to be well rested for his project to succeed.
He visualized packing Sashakovich’s bloody head into a box, her severed neck surrounded by dry ice for the trip to his family’s burying ground. After several hours he fell asleep, exhausted. In his dream he fondled the locks of Sashakovich’s hair on her detached head.
Cassie paced the sub’s ready room, impatient and frustrated. She looked at the gray bulkheads as she held her cell phone to her ear. “Yes, I know that it leaves Lee and Ann more exposed. But this way I may be able to end the problem for them once and for all.”
Shimmel had arrived in Washington less than an hour before. She spoke with him while he drove the rental from Reagan to Sashakovich’s house in Chevy Chase. He said, “What you propose is dangerous. We still don’t have McTavish’s entire report, just a two-minute conversation. Rebalancing our tactics while blind is a bad idea. Your plan is sound, but if Houmaz has figured out that he’s in danger, well, he might flee and try to get to your family. Don’t do this, Sashakovich.”
“Avram, I’m tired of being the fox in the hunt. Every step of the way I’ve been the intended victim. I want to do the hunting now. If it works, Lee and Ann will be safe forever. If I’m to die, I want to take out the people who want me dead. So maybe I’ll die together with all of them. I know that it’s not rational. But what we’re doing now isn’t working. I have to try and save my family.”
She could tell from Shimmel’s voice he was near exhaustion, and yet he seemed to understand how empty she felt.
“Cassandra, you’re speaking in circles. What you plan on doing will expose them more. And it offers us a minute window for success. Are you sure you want to accept the risks?”
She took a deep breath, trying but failing to center herself. “Yes. After tomorrow night, send the mercs at my house to Boston Harbor, to await the arrival of the small sub. Keep one merc at the house, to guard Ann and Lee. I’ll call Lee and tell him what I want him and what I want Ann to do. Wait with the mercs for me at Baltimore Harbor. I’ll be there soon. And, have William call me as soon as he can. Keep the large sub within ten feet of the surface and drag the antenna. Cassie out.”
Ann Silbee Sashakovich stood facing the paper target at the Washington Gun Club and squeezed the trigger of Cassie’s old .25 caliber Beretta. She worried about her mother. Two days had passed with no word. She’d awakened every night shaking from nasty nightmares. As she woke and bolted upright last night, she’d felt her heart pounding. Visions from the dream lingered: her homeless, forced to return to the tunnels.
She lowered the gun and scanned Lee’s face. He seemed to have aged years in weeks. He seemed consumed with fear for Cassie. But there was nothing to be done.
She aimed and exhaled, squeezing the trigger again.
This time she missed the target completely, ending her practice session. Her hand was shaking. She cursed silently and emptied the spent shells into the recycle bin. As Lee watched, the target rolled back to them.
She’d hit the bull’s-eye once and grazed the target with three perimeter shots. She’d taken fourteen shots to do that little damage. She shook her head. Ten shots were total misses.
He smiled. “It’s a minor disappointment. Next time you’ll do better. Next time.”
She doubted that she’d do better the next time she picked up a gun. As he’d taught her, she removed the clip, then chambered a bullet in the gun. Then she filled the empty clip with bullets and put the full clip into the gun. Finally, she clicked the safety on. Now there was one additional bullet in the gun’s chamber. Last, she filled the spare clip.
She handed him both the spare clip and the loaded gun. She wondered if he worried about her inability to focus. She hated pistol practice, and still wasn’t sure whether she liked Lee, but the smile she granted him was necessary, she knew, if this pseudo father-daughter relationship was to have any chance of working. She turned away.
She’d left the school grounds for lunch break about a half-hour ago and she’d been here at the club for twenty minutes. He touched her shoulder. “C’mon, Ann, let’s get going.”
She walked behind him from the basement shooting range to the lobby and then out into the parking lot. They got into his government issue Ford Hybrid Escape and he backed the car from its parking space when his cell phone rang through the Bluetooth connection to the car. “Lee here.”
“It’s Wing. Cassie called. She’s moving the guard dogs. After tonight, you’ll only have one merc at the house. It’ll be Sylvia. And no bodyguards, either. Should I send Sylvia to school for Ann at the end of the day?”
“Uh, yeah, William, I’m taking her back to school right now. Have Sylvia be there when the school day ends. Have her surveil the area, waiting in the car until Ann arrives.”
“Okay, Lee, I’ll set it up. Wing out.”
Lee told Ann about the change.
When they reached the school, Ann hugged Lee. “Bye. See you tonight.” As she slipped from the SUV and walked up the stairs, she saw—reflected in the glass panel of the door—a rotund, swarthy, older man watching her. She turned and took a good look at him but kept moving. Ann had never seen him before, and suddenly remembered Cassie’s stories about the Middle Eastern terrorists who had tried many times to kill her. She gulped in fear and looked for Lee in the SUV but he’d turned the corner and was speeding on his way back to work. Oh, well, she thought, I’m just jittery. It’s nothing. I’m profiling. Very bad. She headed to her history class on the second floor of the school building.
Achmed Houmaz had landed at Reagan Airport an hour before dawn, rented a car, and checked himself into a cheap hotel in downtown Washington where he’d done some research at its embedded Internet café. It had only taken him a few hours to find out not just where they lived but so much more.
When Lee drove Ann to school, he’d followed them. He’d watched from the fence at the schoolyard for the entire day, except when he’d followed them to the gun club. Houmaz looked at his wristwatch. Just after 3:30 p.m. He’d called the school and knew that classes ended at 3:45. Any minute now.
Houmaz stood behind the fence that contained the schoolyard and waited. He thought of the innocent schoolgirl, dressed in the uniform worn by all students at this expensive private school. Soon I’ll have her, he thought. And once I do, I can get Sashakovich to come to me. He’d barter to trade the teen for her mother, but kill both. And, he’d wait outside the schoolyard fence until she left. Then, he could have her. Maybe he’d have some fun while he waited for the girl’s mother to surrender to him.
As she exited the building, Ann saw the stranger again. Oh, shit! On impulse, Ann moved into the group of classmates who were her friends. Safety in numbers; he won’t dare try doing something to me when I’m surrounded by my friends. Or will he? “Let’s go to the mall.”
Susan faced her.
“Why?”
Ann needed to invent an excuse, “I think there’s a neat clothing sale. Wanna go?”
Mary smiled. “Sure. We don’t have that much homework tonight.”
Julie shrugged. “What the hell. Anything to avoid being with my mom.”
Off they went, the four of them walking the three blocks to the Georgetown Park Shopping Mall. Every minute or so Ann scanned the streetside store windows looking for the man’s reflection. He’s following me! She could tell that he wasn’t familiar with surveillance, something Lee had demonstrated and practiced with her. The man stayed just fifty feet back, stuck to her like glue. Rats! Well, now at least I know for sure.
Sitting in the Hybrid Toyota Highlander, Sylvia Orley looked for Ann as the students emerged from the school.
But Sylvia wasn’t familiar with surveillance techniques. She was a mercenary, not a spy. Bored and listening to the radio, she never saw Ann moving away.
After ten minutes of waiting, Sylvia became anxious as the crowd of students thinned and left the grounds. When no more left the building, she whispered, “Damn!” and headed into the building to search for Ann. As she walked, she dialed Ann’s cell phone, but, her cell’s battery failed. Double damn.
Blocks away, Ann suspected the worst. Once within the crowded halls of the Georgetown Park Shopping Mall, she looked behind her and saw him staring at her, standing outside one of the stores. Ann said to her friends, “I need to use the restroom. Would you all wait a few minutes for me?”
Julie said, “Uh huh. But be quick. We have to get home before our ‘handlers’ start worrying.”
Ann entered the women’s room. She knew her friends lived too far away from her house to walk her home, and even if they did, the man might try to do something to her anyway when they neared her house. She scanned the restroom, looking for another way out. There weren’t any windows. She pulled out her cell phone and called Lee’s cell phone. “It’s Ann. There’s someone following me since I left school. Could this have something to do with Cassie’s trouble? I know you’ll say I’m profiling, but he’s got olive-colored skin.”
“Shit. Maybe it does. Can’t be too sure. What happened to Sylvia Orley? Didn’t you meet her as you left the school?”
She was almost crying. “I panicked. Sorry. I never saw her.”
“Where are you?”
She tried to focus. “I had some of my friends come with me to the mall near the school but he’s still out there. I’m in the women’s restroom. What should I do?”
“Lemme think for a second. Are your friends still out there?”
“Uh huh.”
“Okay then. I’ll be there soon. Give me your exact location.”
“Restroom is on the right side at the east entrance, across from J. Crew’s.”
“Okay. Will your friends wait for ten minutes while I get there?”
“Probably not.”
“Hmm. Okay. In that case, go to the doorway and ask one of them for a favor. Ask her to buy you some stuff as fast as she can. Ask the others to wait until she returns because you have a surprise for them. Send your friend to buy these items…”
Cassie felt her heart beat accelerating. She watched the Maryland shoreline from the periscope. She could hear Rogov at the communications link and waited for him to tell her their status. She sighed. So close now.
Rogov said, “We’re less than an hour out of Baltimore Harbor, Sashakovich. I have Shimmel on the line.”
She felt relief. At last, she felt near her home and family. And yet, she was frustrated they weren’t with her. “Thanks, Ivan.” She held out her hand for the phone. “Avram, did you get McTavish’s report?”
“Yes. It’s worse that we thought. It didn’t go well in Riyadh. My team rendered Maru and left sufficient clues for the Yakuza. They’re pissed off to the nines. But McTavish’s team failed. They were lucky to leave Saudi Arabia intact, but they left Houmaz alive. Worse yet, Ainsley just called me and said Ann saw a man that might fit his description following her from school. Lee is on his way to meet her, and we can only pray that he reaches her before Houmaz does.”
Cassie almost dropped the receiver. “Oh, shit. He put it all together. And now he’s here.”
“I warned you things might spin out of control. How far from the harbor are you?”
“Ten minutes away. What do you think we should do?”
“I’m working on a plan. A simple one. But it has risks that you, Ann, and Lee will have to face. Listen carefully now. First, have the sub you are on dock in Baltimore harbor at pier number 4. I have very quietly arranged permission for that from the Harbor Master. We’ll have the other sub request permission to dock right away, as planned in Boston Harbor. We’ll make their request very public. It should take them about an hour. Then…”
William Wing sat in the kitchen of Cassie’s house eating a Dagwood sandwich when his cell phone chimed with an incoming email. He took a brief look at the note from Shimmel and bolted from the kitchen table, carrying his phone and leaving his half-eaten lunch behind. His instructions were concise and specific. It took him mere seconds to run up the stairs to the guest room where he’d left the notebook. A morose Sylvia Orley sat at the desk in fatigues, having returned from the school. She was keying email into the computer. “Sorry, Syl, I need this machine right now. More powerful than the phone.” He almost pulled her away. She left her seat, cursing him in French.
Wing keyed the name of the website into the address bar on an Internet screen and pressed the Enter key. “Come on, you slow bastard. Come on up.” Over his shoulder, Sylvia watched, wondering what was so damned important.
Ann stood with her back against the door to the women’s room. She took a deep breath and cracked open the door. Lee had told her the man’s name. Achmed Houmaz waited patiently across the hallway, appearing to look into a store window. But he continued to turn his head toward the women’s restroom every few seconds. She wiped her palms on her jacket. Shit.
She motioned mischievously to Julie and her friend entered the bathroom. “Thanks, Julie,” said Ann. “I need you to help me. Please. Buy me these. Please?” She handed Julie a note and some cash. When you have the stuff, get the others to all come in here with you. I want to do something outrageous. I would have done this for Halloween, but I didn’t have the guts then,”
Julie nodded and then disappeared. About fifteen minutes later, all her friends gathered around her in the restroom.
Ann pulled items from the bag. “I want to totally change what I look like and if this isn’t okay with my parents, it’ll be too late for them to change it back. This will be way past extreme. They’ll probably just have me re-dye my hair back to its normal mousey color.”
Julie, Susan, and Mary watched Ann remove the scissors from the bag Julie had brought her, then cut her hair into an extremely short and ragged crew cut. She opened the bag of items again and pulled out the bottle of bright green hair dye. After coloring her hair in the bathroom sink and tossing the leftover hair dye, Ann removed several pieces of clothing from the bag. She removed the tags and then stripped off her clothes. She donned a set of blue jeans and a black zippered hoodie sweatshirt that proclaimed “MY LIFE SUCKS—Doesn’t Yours?’” Ann applied heavy black mascara to her left eye and red mascara to her right one. Then she put on purple lipstick. Faced them, smiled and stuck her tongue out. “How’s this?”
Susan said, “Uh, Ann, it’s like, way over the top. Your daddy’s gonna kill you. Solid pain from him, guaranteed.”
“Zackly so,” Julie chimed in.
Ann shook her head. “No, guys, Lee’s too cool for that. Julie, could you take my school uniform home and return it to me tomorrow? My pretend-dad is on his way here and I want to surprise him.”
Julie shook her head. “Here? You’re gonna die, Ann.” Julie took the uniform and mumbled something about suicide.
Ann nodded and stiffened. Fear gripped her. This is it. She really might die.
Mary sai
d, “Oh God, Ann, it’ll take months for your hair to grow back.”
Ann thought, if I live that long. “Do me one more favor, guys. Let me leave first. I don’t want him to blame you guys. So, give me a minute and then come out. Okay?” She pointed to her wristwatch.
The girls all nodded, and Ann turned away, quickly using her cell phone to make a call. She whispered, “I’m ready right now, green hair, crew cut, jeans, and a black hoodie stating that my life sucks. By the way, it really does. You ready?”
Lee stood at the back of the SUV, its gate opened, in the mall’s parking lot. He’d donned a woman’s overcoat and wig, placed a woman’s hat on his head atop it. He wrapped a red scarf halfway up his face to cover his hair, and slammed the gate shut. As he ran through the parking lot to the mall entrance, he began buttoning up the coat with one hand, holding the cell phone in the other. “Green hair. Crew cut. Got it. Cassie will kill both of us! I’m at the entrance, now walking in. I’m dressed as a woman, beige overcoat, blue hat, and red scarf. I can see Houmaz and I can see the bathroom entrance. I’m going to sit at the bench next to the restrooms. Find me and grab my arm as if I need help standing. Okay, now we’re set. Go, go, go.”
The 840-ton S-56 submarine surfaced within Baltimore harbor and slowly made its way toward the wharf. Avram Shimmel waved from the pier to Ivan Rogov standing on the bridge. As it closed the distance to him, he said, “You and your men can’t leave the sub until tomorrow night. But as soon as we can get US Immigration to process all of you, you can go and enjoy the best that capitalism has to offer.” He boarded and held out his hand. “I’ve used baksheesh to get you visas. Congratulations on your arrival in America.” Baksheesh, sometimes called pishkesh, meant bribes.
Six hundred miles away in Boston, the 600-ton S-13 surfaced near the harbor and glided slowly toward its entrance. At the wharf, teams of reporters and television crews stood waiting.