by Sean Parnell
Then she took her backpack and hiked due south for five miles. It was early autumn in America’s north country and freezing cold, but she didn’t mind and was dressed for “hunting,” in tight flattering jeans, SOREL hiking boots, a fur-collared purple North Face jacket, and a matching embroidered woolen ski hat with fluffy pompoms. Still on the Canadian side of the border just west of Route 89, she lay down in the tall wet grass, pulled a pair of binoculars from her pack, and trained them north on the highway, until she spotted some truck traffic heading her way. Then she dashed across the border, which was nothing but a small silver obelisk with us and ca stamped on opposite sides, kept walking south for another mile until she estimated that the trucks had gone through the customs check, jogged to the highway’s shoulder, and stuck out her thumb.
The first truck driver probably thought that this beautiful redheaded woman in the middle of nowhere was an apparition brought on by his beer consumption at the previous truck stop. The second driver screeched to a stop. She spent four hours on the road with him, and left him alive. He had no idea how lucky he was.
Lila bought a fireplug, red 2008 Toyota Camry hybrid, for cash, from a private seller on Craigslist, in Thief River Falls. Then she drove to Nashville, stopping only in Minneapolis to meet a Somali American contact who fulfilled her prepaid order for weapons. She slept in no hotels en route, only in the car, and got excellent mileage.
She found Stalker Two, Martin Farro, after reconning Nashville’s music strip on Broadway for three nights, while staying during daylight hours in a cash-friendly Motel 6 out on Route 24, and only leaving once to do some targeted clothes shopping. She had enough intel on Farro to know where he lived, but she wasn’t going to stake out his condo. Just like herself, Alphas were never really “on leave,” and Farro would sense a tail in an instant. It wasn’t necessary. She’d studied his photographs and nocturnal habits. He was a big, handsome man with thick, dark hair, blue eyes, and horn-rimmed glasses who looked like a Latino film star and cruised the blues venues. Even among the throngs of good-looking cowboys in Nashville, he’d be hard to miss.
Lower Broadway was teeming with honky-tonks, bars, clubs, restaurants, and live music joints of all scales, the avenue’s sidewalks stained with spilled beers and vibrating with the echoes of boot heels and battling bands. Tin Roof was one of the most popular, and largest, with two floors of performance stages, wood plank dance floors, long chestnut bars, twirling disco balls, swinging pin spotlights, and effervescent inebriated line dancers. The prettiest rockabilly aficionados of both sexes packed into Tin Roof every night, and rarely went home lonely.
On the third night, just after 1:00 a.m., Lila spotted Farro perched at the bar near the back of the main floor, on the left as you walked in from Broadway. She cruised by him once, then again to make sure, and slid up onto a stool around the bar’s back bend to make sure he could see her.
He was dressed in a dark blue rough plaid shirt, black chest curls showing through the open collar, jeans, and Justin cowboy boots. The glasses gave him away. She was dressed in a black halter top, her long red tresses turned into waves by a curling iron, a very small green sequined skirt, and Tony Lama snakeskin boots. Her wrists jangled with Native American bracelets. Farro wasn’t going to miss her either.
She ordered a Scotch on the rocks from an admiring bartender (Tin Roof had a reputation for the friendliest barkeeps in town), and she didn’t look at Farro but only at the dance floor. It was packed with bodies twirling and swirling to the live band onstage, Danny Schimmel and the Wicked Greens. Schimmel had a full row of stacked, glistening, green electric guitars behind him, like rifles in an armory rack, and was shredding a Joe Bonamassa tune called “This Train.”
There were two couples seated at the bar between Farro and Lila, but with the way Danny Schimmel was driving that tune to an ever-climbing wild crescendo, they weren’t going to be there long.
“This train, don’t stop for no one. . . . This train, got a mind of its own. . . .”
The couples got up and hit the dance floor, leaving nothing but empty space between Farro and Lila.
He’d already assessed her, from the moment she’d walked in the door. She looked like a classic honey trap, but he’d just gotten an encrypted flash text on his cell from Cutlass telling him that that murderous Alpha-hunting bitch was dead, which was why he’d finally left the house.
Cutlass Main II to all Alphas: Be advised, current priority female hunt subject—terminated—Black Forest, German Bundeskriminalamt, positive ID—Confidence Level III. End.
The thought did flash through Martin Farro’s mind, briefly, that this still might not be a good idea. Yet Main wouldn’t have flashed him a message like that if the coast wasn’t clear, plus the German BKA was brutally efficient, plus he was going to make the approach, not the other way around. Added to that logic were four beers and a high degree of lust.
He waved at her, smiled a Clark Gable smile when she looked his way, cocked his head at the floor, and crooked a thumb as invitation. She looked him over, slowly, as if she were sizing up a slab of ribs at a deli meat counter, and crooked a finger back at him, an invitation to slide over, which he did.
Lila leaned into Farro’s ear and said—in a perfect Texas accent she’d learned from studying hours of Dallas reruns—“You ain’t my type, cowboy.”
He pulled his head back, feigning hurt. “Not even for a dance?”
“Nope. Look at your hands.” She almost had to shout above the music.
Farro lifted both large hands and looked at the backs of them.
“What’s wrong with ’em?”
“No ring.” Lila grinned. “I like it simple.”
Farro laughed, nodded, and took a long swig of his Coors. “I can pretend I’m married for just one dance.”
Lila pretended to think about that for a moment. She speared him with her cold green eyes and unabashedly looked down at his muscular thighs, then she downed half her Scotch, slipped her small black purse string over her neck, and climbed off her stool.
“One,” she said as she took his elbow. “And it better be good.”
“I’m Marty,” he said.
“I’m Sheila,” she said, “and I don’t care.”
They danced for ten minutes straight without stopping. Farro had never seen a gorgeous woman like her with such amazing moves. She twirled and spun and fell into his arms, then pulled away instantly and kicked a two-step as if he weren’t there. Her body was like some kind of slithering electrified serpent, entwining him as she raked her breasts across his chest and was then dragging her fingernails down his back. She gripped his waist and seemed like she was leaning in for a kiss, but instead bucked back and ground her flat belly against his belt buckle, then laughed and spun away again.
With the crowd going crazy and not yet willing to retreat, as if it were the last dance at a wedding, Danny Schimmel circled back for an encore, and Lila wrapped her bare arms around Farro’s muscled girth, arched on her boot tips, and practically slipped her tongue tip into his ear.
“I hear they got single bathrooms in this joint . . . and I ain’t gotta pee.”
He practically dragged her to the back of Tin Roof and down a slim stairway that led to a long hallway, painted in flat black and adorned with framed pictures of Dolly Parton, Willy Nelson, and the like, and with six separate non-gender-specific bathrooms.
Lila pulled him into the third bathroom, kicked the door closed, locked it, glanced at the window that led to the street and quickly assessed its size (workable), turned to Farro, and kissed him deeply and hard. She backed up against the porcelain sink counter, pulling him with her, her tongue deep in his mouth, and she slithered up onto the counter and opened her legs. Her short skirt rode up her thighs, and Farro, genuinely breathing hard, as opposed to her mock panting, saw a thong that was so tiny it looked like green dental floss.
As he backed up and started madly unbuckling his belt, Lila pulled her stiletto from her small purse, gripp
ed the hilt with the razor-sharp point angled down, cranked her arm back, and, with the speed of a Nationals pitcher, stabbed him in the heart. The blade got partially jammed against a rib halfway through his chest wall, which wasn’t unexpected, given his size, so she instantly made a fist with her left hand and hammered the pommel twice, and the point burst through his aorta.
The only sound Farro made was a hissing grunt, in time with his rolling-back eyeballs. He slumped straight down and toppled backward over his folded knees, as if he were doing the limbo, with a thin spray of blood pumping out from the blade wound in rhythmic bursts as Lila twisted it out.
She slid off the counter, straddled his face, flicked his glasses off with the bloody stiletto, gripped the top of his thick black hair, and sliced off his left ear. For a moment she thought about removing the right one as well, because something about the lack of symmetry bothered her, but she thought Dr. Goldwasser would have regarded that as “psychotic.” Instead, she turned to the sink, rinsed off the ear, dried it with a paper towel, and added it to the collection in her purse.
She took Farro’s cell phone, which she’d shortly be dumping in the Cumberland River, then she stepped over his corpse and unlocked the window, preparing her exit. But before she left, she took out the burner phone she’d purchased at Montreal’s airport and called the night duty officer at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C.
“White House. How may I help you?” said a sleepy female.
This time Lila didn’t bother with a voice-altering device. She knew that in just a few days, everyone would know her name.
“You may help me by passing something to Mr. Theodore Lansky,” she said.
“Um, the chief of staff isn’t on the premises at this hour. May I ask who’s calling, please?”
“You may not. Get yourself a pencil and tell me when you’re ready.”
She heard brief rustling, and then, “Go ahead, ma’am.”
“Give Mr. Lansky this message,” Lila said. “Your Program’s stock value appears to be plummeting. Now you are only six.”
Act III
Chapter 34
The White House, Washington, D.C.
White House Chief of Staff Ted Lansky stormed into his West Wing office, picked up a two-pound crystal ashtray, slammed it onto his desk, and bellowed so loud that his windows rattled.
“Where in the hell is Eric Steele?”
It was actually a rhetorical question, because everyone there in the chief of staff’s workspace knew that Steele had gone rogue on some private mission deep inside Russia and was still out of pocket. They also knew that Lansky’s ashtray—which just like his pipe had been dead for years—was no more than a prop he used to scare the crap out of subordinates.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t duly pissed. He pulled the old briar from his teeth, flipped it around, and jabbed it like a rapier across the room at Mike Pitts.
“Well, Pitts? It’s one hell of a time for Batman to come late to the party, don’t you think? You’ve got another Alpha down. That’s the third one in ninety days, which is un-freaking-believable given the Defcon level on these operators, and your top dog’s still out there on some goddamn personal quest?”
“He’s had a few issues, sir,” Pitts said. He was planted in the middle of Lansky’s office, one hand gripping his camouflage-patterned cane and the other twirling one of his famous whiteboard markers. He was wearing chinos and a Notre Dame windbreaker.
“Issues?” Lansky bellowed, and he picked up the ashtray and slammed it again. “He hijacked a fucking Program airplane!”
Pitts didn’t respond. It was Lansky who’d gone to the president and urged him to approve tasking Delta Force to Dalton Goodhill so they could go rescue Steele, an extremely dicey gambit that risked destroying thirty years of Cold War peace. In addition, that op came with a $2 million price tag right out of JSOC’s black budget, and the president had probably told the chief of staff that until Steele was brought back safe and sound, it was Lansky’s ass on the line.
Mike Pitts had a lot of respect for Ted Lansky, and watching the COS pace behind his desk and tear at his tie knot made him feel somewhat nauseated. But he’d learned from experience that the former CIA director of Clandestine Ops just needed to vent and would probably stomp around for a while before he cooled off. It was wiser to just stand still and shut up—Lansky had a reputation for making inanimate objects fly. Pitts had the fleeting thought that maybe a few broken artifacts might improve the decor.
The chief of staff’s office was just plain ugly, and had probably been that way since Nixon and Haldeman. It was a large square space about twenty by twenty done up in muted hues of beige and brown, with sloppy brocade window curtains and a mishmash of furniture, including an elliptical mid-century coffee table, a long conference table right out of Mad Men, and fifteen 1960s-style dining room chairs. The couch and twin stuffed armchairs were a weird orange-and-cream chintz, the walls were adorned with crooked framed photos of heads-of-state handshakes, and the only impressive feature was Lansky’s two-hundred-pound mahogany desk, which looked like a reject from Franklin Roosevelt.
And yet, this was the “war room,” a hallowed spot where much of the real business of the executive branch of the United States was conducted. The president’s Oval Office was plush, beautiful, decorative, and ceremonial. The chief of staff’s office was where the sausages were made.
“And who’s this motley crew?” Lansky demanded as he raked his chewed-up pipe stem across the room like a machine-gun barrel. Maybe he’d forgotten that he’d ordered the Program’s staff and cell leaders over to his office for what he called a “slam conference,” which meant there wouldn’t be much conferring and they were all going to get slammed. There were five more people standing behind Pitts in a ragged semicircle, and each of them seemed to have selected a piece of furniture to place between themselves and Lansky, as if they might suddenly have to take cover.
“Betsy Roth, sir.” The brave young blond woman spoke up first. It was drizzling outside and she was wearing a belted trench coat, and with her blue eyes blinking behind her chic round glasses she looked like a Women’s Wear Daily spy. “I’m Mr. Pitts’s adjutant.”
“Ralph Persko, sir.” Ralphy was tucked as far back in one corner as he could get. He was wearing a Nikola Tesla sweatshirt, one of his Alienware laptop cases was slung from his shoulder, and he was almost trembling. “Geek squad,” he said, figuring that was the most accurate and succinct description for his team.
“Persko.” Lansky dipped his bushy eyebrows and pointed at Ralphy. “You the one who shut down that Russian hacker cell? The bastards who burned out our systems over on Q Street?”
“Um, well, with some help, sir. . . . And I’m not sure they’re out of—”
“How’d they do that, Persko?”
“I . . . We’re not really sure yet, sir,” Ralphy lied.
“Well, at least somebody’s actually thinking around here. Happy Cold War two-point-oh, Persko.” Lansky swiveled his head at Meg Harden. “And you, young lady. Harden, right?”
“Meg Harden, sir. Surveillance and collections.” Meg, who’d come straight from a run when Pitts pinged her and was wearing black spandex leggings and a tae kwon do sweatshirt, was silently praying that Lansky had no idea about her personal relationship with Eric Steele, and that no one would bring it up in this forum. If it came out here, she was toast.
“You?” Lansky thrust his chin toward a rumpled slim man standing near the other far corner.
“Shane Wylie, sir.”
“Wylie was Collins Austin’s keeper,” Pitts said to Lansky. “He’s chief of that section.”
“Oh.” Lansky looked at Wylie and offered a small nod of condolence, then he resumed his gunfire and jabbed his pipe over at Miles Turner, the Program’s chief of security. “You’re Turner, aren’t you? Security cell?”
“Yes, sir.”
Miles Turner knew what was coming and hated his life at the moment. It didn’
t matter how often he briefed Alphas on risks or reminded them of security protocols. They were headstrong and wild, like surfers or skydivers, but for Marty Farro’s death on American soil he knew he was going to take the hit. He was an African American the size of a linebacker and a former Special Forces officer with five tours downrange, yet at the moment he looked as sheepish as a kindergartener.
Lansky came out from behind his desk and advanced on Turner. His move made everyone flinch and take a step back, as if a rabid dog had just breached its own cage.
“What the hell, man? Don’t you brief these Alphas when they’re back at home? One minute they’re overseas and got all their neck hairs and radars up, and then they come back here and start dancing around like they’re at Chuck E. Cheese?”
Neither Lansky nor Turner knew about the flash message to Farro that had lured him from his condo, because it hadn’t really come from Cutlass Main. And his cell phone had been taken, along with his life.
“We’ve never had a hit, sir, or even an attempted one on U.S. soil.” Turner had stiffened to his full height of six three and was standing at brace, as if getting his ass chewed by the commander of USASOC.
“You’ve had one now,” Lansky boomed. “And maybe if you’d banged on these operators’ thick skulls some more we wouldn’t be putting them on ice every two fucking weeks.” He turned back on Pitts. “And who’ve we got chasing down that crazy killer bitch?” Lansky glanced at Meg Harden and considered apologizing for his language, then skipped it.
Another man, who wasn’t part of the Program’s team, raised a hand from behind Lansky’s ugly couch. He was tall and lanky, his red hair buzz-cut, and he was dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and a club tie.