by Sean Parnell
He parked the Woody, took his cane, made sure his Glock 42 was properly concealed under his windbreaker, and stalked into the library. He made straight for classical fiction, where under Alexandre Dumas there was only one hardcover book, The Three Musketeers. He opened the front flap and found a typewritten note inside.
Fridays. Fredericksburg. 1930 hours. Marwan. Last booth by the kitchen.
He replaced the book on the shelf and stalked back out, chewing on the note like a wad of gum.
It was dark and chilly when he parked the Woody again down in Fredericksburg, after another long hour and a half in traffic on I-95. He pulled the Glock from his waist holster, press-checked it to make sure it was ready to rock, tucked it back in, and got out of the wagon. He sensed this would be the end of the line. It wasn’t a treasure hunt with a secondary drop. He didn’t know Marwan, but he expected to find him.
He walked in the glass front entrance, past the college-age hostess in her Fridays red-and-white tunic, and headed straight to the rear through the tunnel of dark wooden decor, because he could see the gleam of aluminum sinks and the steam from the kitchen back there. Up to the right on a raised platform was the bar, then below that and closer, a row of dark booths, and to the left were tables. It was dinnertime and noisy. He didn’t much care for Fridays anymore. He thought they were using too many prepackaged frozen entrées.
In the last booth on the right, a dark, curly-headed young man was sitting there facing Pitts and the door. He looked like that terrorist kid, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who’d blown up so many innocent people at the Boston Marathon back in 2013. But, of course, it wasn’t him, because that little shit was still on death row. Pitts stopped, looked down, and said, “Marwan.”
The kid looked up and nodded. He was nursing a Stella, which told Pitts that he either wasn’t a devout Muslim, or that he was, but operating on what the Program called “infidel license,” which meant that you could drink alcohol and bang whores just like the infidels did as long as you were going to kill them. Pitts slipped into the booth. He didn’t like having his back to the door, but there wasn’t another option here.
“Can I see your ID, please, Mr. Pitts?” Marwan had an accent—Egyptian or Palestinian.
Pitts pulled out his wallet and showed Marwan his U.S. government ID. It didn’t say “Program” on it, but it had his photo, full name, a meaningless Washington, D.C., address, and a bar code strip.
Marwan leaned forward and peered at the card. Then he slid out of the booth, turned, walked ten feet into the kitchen entrance, then right out the back through a cloud of steam. For a moment Pitts thought that something had spooked the kid and this whole thing was over. But then, someone came from behind his left shoulder and slid into the booth, taking Marwan’s place.
It was a woman.
A very beautiful woman.
It was Lila Kalidi.
Chapter 37
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Pitts froze like a man who’d been dipped in liquid hydrogen. He stared at the young woman, his breathing labored and coming in shallow drafts, as if the ghost of one of his combat-fallen brothers had just joined him for dinner. He’d never met her before, nor had he expected to meet her here and now, or anywhere else in his life. Yet he was as sure about this as he was about his blown-off leg and the phantom pain below his left knee. She didn’t need to introduce herself.
She had long blond hair and dark blue eyes, the first most likely from a bottle, the latter probably from contact lenses. She had very full lips, glossed in pale pink, and a Marilyn Monroe mole, probably phony, near the right corner of her closed smiling mouth. A pair of bespoke sunglasses were perched in her coif, and she was wearing a belted, black leather waist-length coat over a short black skirt. Her skin tones didn’t quite match her blond hair or eyebrows, because she was olive-complexioned, but her features perfectly matched the images sent over from Vienna by Cobra.
She put her elbows on the table, steepled her long manicured fingers, and perched her chin on them like a severed head on a pike.
“I know what you’re thinking, Mr. Pitts,” she said in a near-perfect American accent. “I watched you come in, and that Glock of yours prints through your nylon jacket. You’d do better wearing leather, like mine. But, if you use your pistol, you know exactly what will happen next.” She cocked her head slightly to the left. “Don’t you?”
Oh, he knew all right. The voice of some Russian motherfucker had been reminding him about it for a year. He had no idea how they’d found him, nailed him, tracked him, discovered where he worked and for whom. But they knew all about his personal life, his family, and that his wife and his girls were his Achilles heel.
They’d played him, used him, churned his guts inside out. At one point he’d almost turned himself in, hoping the FBI would put him and the girls into some sort of program like witness protection, make them all disappear. Then he’d realized that no one could ever make him completely anonymous. He had only one leg. Sure, there were thousands of war amputees, but that was easy to narrow down. A guy his particular size, with a prosthesis, a wife and soon-to-be three daughters of certain ages, two of them twins?
Checkmate. Dead. All of them.
He cleared his throat and said, “Maybe I’ll just take that chance,” and his right hand slid from the table.
Lila nodded, leaned back, and slipped a cell phone from her jacket pocket. She turned it toward Pitts and propped it up on the table with her fingernails at the top.
On the screen was an image of Mike Pitts’s kitchen, a live color video feed from his own household security camera.
Leaning on the kitchen’s cooking island, in the foreground, was a dark-haired man wearing a Dominion Virginia Power overall, the uniform of Lincolnia’s electricity supplier. His dark eyes were turned toward the camera and his fingers were tapping on a large handgun lying on its side on the island.
Beyond that, Pitts could see Katherine seated at the kitchen table, along with Bridget and Caroline, who seemed oblivious to any mortal danger and were spooning mac and cheese into their chattering mouths, while Katherine tried to keep them occupied. Beyond them was another overall-clad man leaning against the doorjamb that led to the living room. He had a large cardboard tube tucked under one arm with the butt of a sawed-off shotgun protruding from its open end. He smiled and waved at the camera.
“Go right ahead,” Lila said to Pitts.
His trembling hand returned to the tabletop, and Lila pocketed the phone as a waitress appeared to drop off menus and take their drink order.
“I’ll have a Spanish Negroni on the rocks,” Lila said.
“Water,” Pitts barely whispered.
“Okie,” the waitress said and left.
Lila examined Pitts’s ashen face with all the pity of an ISIS throat-cutter. She tapped her glossy pink fingernails on the table.
“I have some good news for you, Mr. Pitts,” she said. “Your work is almost done.”
“How the hell did you get into the States?” he said. He desperately wanted to kill her.
“That would be telling. And I might have to do it again,” she said. “But I must say your country is as easy to penetrate as a Bangkok whore.” She cocked her head to the right this time. “Have you ever had a Bangkok whore, Mr. Pitts? I have. They squeal, which seems to be common among Asian girls.”
The waitress returned with their drink glasses. “You folks ready to order?”
“We haven’t looked at our menus yet,” Lila said, and the beatific smile she offered the waitress so utterly transformed her face that Pitts felt a grim reaper chill running up his one good leg and into his spine. “We’re having a little spat.” Lila shrugged.
The waitress examined both of them as if calculating why this gorgeous hot thing would be with this middle-aged buzz cut type. “Okay, maybe later.” She looked at Pitts. “Sure you don’t want a drink, sir?”
“Mike’s driving tonight,” Lila said, and she reached across the table and dra
gged her fingernails across the back of his hand. “And he can’t hold his liquor.”
The waitress grinned, cracked her chewing gum, and walked away.
“What do you mean, done?” Pitts said as he downed half his water.
“I mean, almost finished, Mr. Pitts. Just one more task.”
“Well what the fuck is it?” His face flushed an angry pink. He despised being used like this—helpless, impotent, enraged.
“It’s a termination. But it’s more of a timing issue than an actual kill.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind.”
Lila sat back, sipped her Negroni, and smiled like a lizard. “My psychiatrist suggested the same thing. In the end, I think he regretted it.”
“Well, he was right,” Pitts snarled. “You’re one crazy bitch, and so are your Russian boy toys.”
Lila’s eyes went blank. Even behind her blue contacts, they suddenly looked as dull as a shark’s. She put her drink down on the table and opened her legs. She slipped her right hand between them, unsheathed her stiletto from her right-thigh scabbard, and boldly showed the gleaming black blade to Pitts.
Beads of sweat popped on his brow just below his hairline. Lila stabbed the fat green olive that was floating in her Negroni, popped it into her mouth, wiped the blade with her napkin, and returned the stiletto to its sheath.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she chewed demurely. “My hearing is a little bit off these days, despite my collection of extra ears. What did you say?”
He leaned forward, desperate. “How did you find me?”
“Meaning?”
“Why me? Why was I chosen? How was I selected?”
“Oh, that.” She flicked a hand in the air. “It was a fluke, actually.”
“A fluke?”
“You are a Catholic, aren’t you, Mr. Pitts?”
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, you are, aren’t you?”
“Okay so I’m Catholic, so what?”
“And you go to confession. Saint Michael’s in Annandale, I believe.”
Pitts said nothing. His heart was palpitating and his pulse was pounding in his ears.
“The FSB has planted so many bugs in confessional booths around the capital area that they can’t even keep track anymore of all the spilled secrets,” Lila said. “Much of what’s recorded is salacious garbage, of course. Wives fucking pool boys, husbands fucking their daughters’ cheerleader friends. But there’s a fair share of federal employees who still trust their priests with dark tales that they wouldn’t dare share with anyone else. Drone strikes on innocent Afghani villages. Drug smuggling operations to fund black budgets . . . Assassinations, Mr. Pitts?”
He thought he was going to pass out.
“I don’t think they bother with synagogues or mosques. The Jews confess only to their mistresses, and we Muslims answer only to Allah. At any rate, it was only a matter of tailing you after that, discovering your residence and your place of employment. And you know the rest, don’t you? I believe they sent you a picture of your daughters on a playground swing set, yes?”
He nodded, remembering how the next message had said: “Play ball, Major, or bury your precious dead.”
“So, the Russians contacted me, as a contractor,” Lila went on. “At first I declined, until I realized that your so-called Program was responsible for my father’s death. Then it became a labor of love, with substantial financial benefits.”
“Why the hell are you telling me this?”
“You asked.” She snorted as if he were a fool. “And it’s not as if you’re going to share it. The consequences are obvious. Plus, I’ve almost got what I want.”
“Which is?”
“Revenge. Destroying the legacies of all those who destroyed mine, including your Mr. Steele.” She looked at her watch. “But I digress, and I really should be going.” She raised a manicured finger. “Oh, I almost forgot. . . . Your one more thing.”
He waited, grinding his teeth while she leaned forward, pressing her breasts on the table and lowering her voice.
“Your former commander in chief, Denton Cole. He’s on his last legs, isn’t he?”
Pitts just stared at her. He could smell her breath—cigarettes, liquor, and mint.
“I believe he is over at Green Bank,” she continued. “Just a comfortable drive from here. He has descended into a coma. Organ failure, so I hear, and we’re all just waiting for his final breath. Take a drive over there, Mr. Pitts. I know you have full access with your exceptional level of clearance. Visit him, please. Flick the switch on his life support. You’ll be doing all of us such a favor. Pull the plug.”
A bead of sweat slithered down from his left temple and dripped off his jaw.
“And what if I don’t?”
“Then we shall be pulling the plug on you. Or more specifically, Katherine, your unborn child, and the girls.”
She pulled a ten-dollar bill from her purse, tucked it under her empty drink glass, slid out from the booth, and leaned over and kissed him fully on the mouth. Then she walked out.
Pitts stayed in his seat for a minute, then staggered with his cane to the men’s room, locked himself in a stall, and threw up.
Chapter 38
Green Bank Medical Facility, West Virginia
He arrived at the hospital just before midnight. The night was clear and cool and there hadn’t been a rainstorm, nor the tornado he’d prayed for to blow him off the road. It was all smooth sailing toward hell.
At the Entry Control Point, there were two federal security officers, one older, one younger. They were wearing body armor, black woolen caps, and black uniforms, with M4 rifles slung from their necks and M9 pistols in thigh holsters. The younger one stepped out of the bulletproof booth. Pitts rolled down his window.
“Evening, sir,” the officer said. “We’re way past visiting hours.”
Pitts handed over his Program ID card. There were pale rivulet streaks on his face. He’d been weeping.
“I’m not visiting.” His smile trembled at the corners. “I’m briefing.”
The officer flipped his card over and scanned the bar code with an infrared reader. The acronym “SAP” popped up in his window. It meant Special Access Program, which indicated a clearance considerably higher than top secret. With such an ID you could walk into any secure federal facility in the country, except for the underground nuclear missile launchers scattered across the western plains.
The officer returned the card as his older partner stepped from the booth.
“Nice car,” said the elder. “My dad had one.”
“Thanks,” Pitts said. He was in no mood for automotive chitchat.
“May I ask who you’re briefing, Mr. Pitts?” the younger one asked.
“The former president.”
The two officers glanced at each other and back at Pitts.
“You know he’s on life support, right, sir?” the older one said.
“I’m just doing what I was told. White House chief of staff’s orders. Maybe he thinks President Cole can still hear.” Pitts smiled wanly. “Call Lansky if you like, but you’re going to wake him up.”
They looked at each other again, thinking that one over.
“You carrying, sir?” the young one said.
“It’s locked in my glove box.”
It was true. The Glock 42 was secured in Pitts’s glove compartment, but it almost hadn’t made it there. Halfway to Green Bank, he’d pulled off the highway into a grassy copse and had sat there for a long time, with the loaded pistol in his white-knuckled fist, thinking it over.
He’d endured nearly a year of torment. At first it had been basic intel about the Program’s structure and personnel, handed over at anonymous dead drops where he’d never met the recipient. But after the “Italian Job” in Syria they’d cranked up the heat, demanding Alpha IDs and their missions. And then they’d put that woman in play. She was sucking his blood like a vampire. He w
as helping her kill his own people. And now, this. He desperately wanted it over.
The only thing that had kept him from blowing his brains out at the side of the road was the absolute conviction that Lila Kalidi would then slaughter his wife and daughters, even if it was the last thing she accomplished on earth. She was that kind of horror.
He knew it.
She knew that he knew it.
She had a collection of ears to prove it.
“Okay, sir. Secret Service over there might want to pat you down.”
“Wouldn’t be my first time,” Pitts said.
“You can park over by their Suburban,” the older one said.
“Thanks, gents.”
He parked the Woody and an agent got out of the black armored vehicle. He didn’t have the usual sharp look about him, probably because his detail was protecting a principal who was already on his deathbed. Pitts exited the wagon.
“Evening, sir. Are you armed?”
“Negative. My piece is locked in the car.”
“Okay, they’re gonna put you through the magnetometer over there.” The agent pointed at the hospital entrance.
Pitts nodded and walked toward it, muttering, “Can it beam me to another fucking planet?”
“Excuse me, sir?” the agent called after him.
Pitts waved over his shoulder. There were another two officers monitoring the magnetometer. He dropped his car keys in a tray, handed his cane to one of them, and went through. His prosthetic leg rang all the bells and whistles, but the men had his cane, had looked it over, and were respectful of his loss and handed it back to him like a cherished sword.
He checked in at the desk, surrendered his two cell phones, took a ticket, asked the whereabouts of the presidential suite, and stalked toward the elevator.
His one shoe with the living foot inside it felt like a twenty-pound dumbbell.
His other shoe was a ghost.
Two stories down, at the end of a long silent hallway, he saw another Service agent sitting outside a pair of mahogany double doors in a chair with a desktop that looked like something from his elementary school days. The agent was primly suited and reading a book. Pitts stalked toward him, the agent stood up, and he handed him his Program ID card.