SECRET OF THE ICON (Donavan Chronicles Book 3)

by Tom Haase

  “Yes, Jonathan. Do you have anything new?” She remembered the last conversation in which he promised to call with any uncovered information.

  “Your voice sounds strained. Has something happened?”

  She wondered how in the hell he picked up on it so fast. Then again, he’d known her a few years. No use in trying to deceive him.

  “Matt’s been shot, but he’s recovering,” she said.

  “Sorry to hear that. Anything I can do?”

  “Yes. Give me some good news.” She moved away from Matt’s bed and walked out into the hall. There were two FBI agents stationed there.

  “That’s why I called. I need your help,” Jonathan said.

  “That’s a switch. You’re generally ripping me off. Okay, sorry about that. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m just a little stressed with the situation here at the hospital. What can I do to help you?”

  “I don’t know if you can, if Matt is out of action. I thought he might use his contacts to track someone down,” Jonathan said.

  “I believe I have the same ability. What have you learned?” She didn’t want him to not tell her anything just because Matt suffered from temporarily being out of action.

  “I don’t know if it will lead anywhere, but I think I have the name of the man that visited Dmitri Alexandrovitch in Canada….”

  “That’s great,” Bridget interjected.

  “Not only that, I also have a picture of him.”

  “Come on, give,” she demanded as Jonathan stalled. “What do you want?”

  “My only goal is to help you find the icon. I mean that. I know you’re skeptical based on our recent history, but it’s the truth. So please keep me in the loop as you pursue the clue I’m willing to give you.”

  “I have my doubts, but I promise to keep you posted if the lead pays off,” Bridget said and then waited.

  “The man’s name who visited Dimtri is named Mike Alexandro. He took a flight from Vancouver to Savannah, Georgia. It may be nothing, but the name is similar to the one you gave me. I thought you might be able to check it out. Photo coming to your phone when we hang up.”

  “I can do that.” She walked back into Matt’s room where he finally slept peacefully.

  “Remember your promise,” Jonathan said as he ended the call. The photo appeared on her phone a few seconds later. Bridget stared at it to memorize the face. She now needed to make some decisions. Matt remained unable to help in his current condition and she thought better of going to Liz even though Liz apologized for underestimating her.

  The S.O.E. team of Liz and Matt were officially tasked with breaking up the homegrown jihadist group and to stop the procuring of weapons by any such group. The name and photo she received from Jonathan could be a red herring. She could be wasting time while Jonathan followed a different lead to find the icon before she did. On the other hand, it could also be legitimate information. She needed to get it tracked down but didn’t want to leave Matt, her partner now and that fact meant something to her. This new lead might be the thing to get them going again, and it might just lift her out of the slump of earlier in the day, out of her feeling of defeat.

  Bridget left the hospital to get a late dinner and to evaluate the new information she obtained from Jonathan. She firmly believed her duty was to be with Matt at this time. Consequently, she needed help in finding out about Mr. Mike Alexandro.

  Her eyes regained their sparkle when she realized she knew how to get it done.

  CHAPTER 37

  Alexandria, Virginia

  After a late supper at a local diner, Bridget called Scott’s number while she walked to the hospital a few minutes before ten in the evening.

  “Hello, Bridget. How’s Matt?” Gerti said when she answered the phone in Scott’s apartment.

  “He’s fine and recovering. It’ll be a few more days. But listen. I have a job for you two if you’re up for it.”

  “Anything. We’re bored sitting here waiting for something to do. Any new leads? We feel like we’re at rock bottom and I know you’re worried,” Gerti said.

  “You got that right. But I’ve some new information and I’d like you guys to pursue it.” Bridget entered the hospital foyer and headed to the elevators.

  “What do you need us to do? Scott’s in the shower right now.”

  Bridget gave her the information she received from Jonathan. “So I need you to get to Savannah and find out what you can.” The elevator doors opened for her to get in.

  “Great. We’re on it. We’ll keep you posted.”

  “Good luck,” Bridget said and hung up. She sent the photo to Gerti. When she stepped off the elevator on Matt’s hospital floor, she stepped into an empty hallway.

  Something’s wrong.

  She looked to the nurse’s station beside the elevator and saw no one there. Weird, she thought. She moved toward the station and the scene made her freeze. Two nurses lay on the floor behind the counter with bullet holes in their heads. She looked down the hall and immediately noticed the absence of the FBI guards.

  Reaching into her purse, she retrieved the PPK handgun given to her by Liz and ran toward Matt’s room. The door stood open and Matt slept on his left side. After their last lethal engagement, she’d put the numbers Matt used to contact Liz on speed dial. She hit the number on her phone’s display.

  “Liz, why aren’t the guards here?”

  “They should be. Something is wrong. Get out of there,” Liz ordered.

  “Not without Matt.”

  “I’ll have replacement there in a few minutes. Keep this line open.”

  Bridget moved to the room’s entrance. She then took a peek into the hall. There, not a hundred feet away, two men in white coats came out of opposite doors down the hallway. They proceeded toward her. She assumed they were doctors and stepped out into the hallway.

  “Doctor, the nurses have been shot. Get help up here.”

  As she spoke, the two raised weapons with what she guessed were silencers.

  “Liz, they’re here and they have guns. Two Caucasian males dressed as doctors.”

  The men started to run toward her. Both had their weapons raised and started firing at Bridget as they ran. Without hesitation, she fired two rounds at the leading man. Her instincts from her military training kicked in. Any one trying to kill her got killed with no mercy. The man she shot stumbled and fell.

  She couldn’t retreat. There was nowhere to go in this room. Matt lay on the single bed in the room and there existed no other way out. She must defend the entrance to the room. If the second man got in, Matt would certainly be killed. The wall too thin to stop a bullet, but that gave her an idea. She listened as the man stopped his run in the hallway and started to creep toward the room. He moved slowly now and his shoes squeaked on the linoleum floor. She guessed he slid along the wall.

  Bridget held her breath to hear better, eliminating any sound from her own breathing. She visualized the man attempting to cling to the wall while making his way toward the doorway. He wouldn’t want to be in the middle of the hall if Bridget poked her weapon out of the room. He would be too exposed there. She stepped sideways and slid along the interior wall of Matt’s room. She heard a sound from outside and estimated the attacker’s position on the other side of the thin wall. She fired two rounds through the wall, followed by two rounds a few feet further along.

  She rushed to the doorway and took a quick look out. Three feet from the door lay a man in a white coat and he still grasped his weapon. After kicking the gun away, she checked him for identification and any other weapons. She did the same for the other attacker.

  Bridget rushed to the nurse’s station halfway down the main hall. She stepped over the bodies and examined the desktop for an emergency number. She decided to just pick up the phone and dial zero. The hospital operator answered.

  “Shots fired on the third floor. Get police and medical people up here now.”

  She left the nurse’s station and headed to Matt�
��s room. She heard the ping from the elevator’s arrival on the floor and two men in suits exited. On seeing the carnage in the hall they pulled their weapons and shouted. “Freeze, FBI.”

  Bridget dropped her weapon and raised her hands. The cell still in her left hand, she looked up at the phone and said, “Liz, your men finally arrived.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Savannah, Georgia

  8:30 a.m.

  The weather in the southern Georgia city, with its palm trees and Spanish moss hanging from the Live Oaks, felt balmy. The sun shone brightly at eight o’clock in the morning, and the temperature already approached eighty degrees. Gerti wiped the sweat from her brow as she and Scott searched for their prey.

  After they arrived in Savannah the previous evening, they used the Internet to find out more about Mike Alexandro and discovered he ran an import export business delivering Russian dolls. The listing in the phone book gave an address.

  “Not really a smart move for someone who’s engaged in arms trafficking,” Scott said.

  “True, but to maintain legitimacy he has to have a public image and demonstrate a business presence. I admit I would never have thought of importing Russian dolls as a cover,” Gerti said.

  They arrived at the address at eight, which turned out to be an apartment house located in one of the many squares the city contained from the original plan for the city laid out in 1733. The building displayed a keypad for entry.

  “Let’s go over to that church across the street and wait a little. It’s too early for a business to open, even if it’s in his apartment,” Scott suggested.

  They ascended the steps of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist that provided a perfect place to watch the entrance of the apartment house.

  “There he is,” Gerti said a half hour later. She watched as the man moved down Abercorn Street and turned left on Liberty Street.

  “Let’s go. I’ll take one side of the street and you take the other,” Scott said.

  Gerti nodded agreement.

  After a few blocks, they observed Mike enter a coffee shop on another one of the numerous squares in Savannah. He took a position at a small table that had two chairs and sat near a large pane window. The man pulled out his newspaper and read.

  Scott and Gerti joined up in the park area in the square. They sat on a bench that provided a clear line of vision to the coffee shop.

  “This could be a wild goose chase,” Scott said.

  “It’s the only lead we have. Everything else has proved useless or worse.” As nine o’clock approached, Gerti got out her cell to call Bridget.

  “Look,” Scott said. “Another man is joining him.”

  Gerti stood up and pretended to take pictures with her phone. She rotated around in various directions taking pictures and ended up focused on the coffee shop. She zoomed in on the two sitting by the window. In the time it took her to engage in this maneuver, the new man got up and headed for the door. When he exited, Gerti got a good frontal picture of him and then quickly continued to take pictures of other things in the square.

  “Stop taking pictures. Our man is now leaving. Do you see that package? I think it was the man he met with who gave it to him,” Scott said.

  “You’re probably right. Let’s go.”

  Alexandro retraced his steps to his apartment. At the cathedral, they again mounted the steps and conferred.

  “Let’s send the pictures to Bridget and get them caught up on what we just saw,” Gerti said.

  “Do it,” Scott agreed.

  * * * *

  Bridget sat in Matt’s room and answered the call from Scott. Matt slept most of the day with medicine and he seemed to be steadily improving. The moans almost completely disappeared now and some color even returned to his face.

  “You have something already?” She hadn’t expected anything from them for a day or two at the earliest.

  “Yes. We trailed the target and Gerti is sending you pictures of him and the man he met. Something changed hands, but we don’t know what. We can’t keep following this guy all the time. There just isn’t enough cover for us to do that in this city,” Scott said. He went on to explain the local situation and the difficulty of trailing someone with only two people over a long period of time. “Also he doesn’t seem to be taking any counter surveillance measures. He acts like everything is normal. Perhaps this is a wild goose chase and he’s simply a legitimate import exporter.”

  “I think it’s too early to tell. Let’s keep after it for a little while. You know where he lives. Stay on him without being there all the time. Do it periodically and in shifts. Let me get this to Liz and see if she can help. Maybe she can augment you with some watchers. I’ll have to bring her up to date on this and she might not be too happy with me. I’ll get back to you in a little bit.” Bridget ended the conversation and dialed Liz. She wasn’t looking forward to the conversation as she proceeded with her plan to send Scott and Gerti to Savannah without informing Matt’s liaison at the FBI.

  When she finished updating Liz, the only comment she received a hostile, “You did what?”

  CHAPTER 39

  Washington, D.C.

  In the FBI headquarters building, the director sat at his desk. He listened to Liz bring him up to date on events. After she concluded, he took some time to think. In a minute he made up his mind.

  “I want you to get some of our people on the surveillance of Mr. Alexandro. Low key, no reasons given on the real purpose. We don’t have enough to really go after him.”

  Liz’s phone rang. She ignored it and let it go to voicemail. It rang again. She looked at the caller ID and saw it was Bridget. She signaled the director she needed to take the call. He nodded.

  “Liz, you’re not going to believe it. The guy Alexandro met, our friend Karim. I just saw him in the pictures Gerti sent. I’ll forward you the pictures from Savannah.”

  “Thanks, I’m with the director now. This changes a few things. I’ll get back to you later.” Liz disconnected and in a few seconds the pictures arrived. She held her phone in front of the director.

  “The man in the sport coat is Alexandro and the other one is Karim. Now we have a direct connection between Mr. Alexandro and the terrorists,” Liz concluded.

  “This does provide us with a much better platform to operate from. Get a warrant to tap Alexandro’s phones. Send men to take over the surveillance on him. This Scott and Gerti aren’t pros and I don’t want them to get in the way.”

  “Director, may I suggest we keep them in the loop down there? They may not be law enforcement, but they do seem to get things done,” Liz suggested.

  “No way. Get them out of there. They aren’t to be part of any official FBI operation. Keep me posted on Matt’s progress. I want him back in operations as soon as he is able.”

  Liz nodded.

  “Also, I want you to find out why the protection detail got pulled from Matt’s room,” the director ordered.

  * * * *

  Matt sat up and smiled at Bridget, who looked like she’d spent the night in the chair next to his bed. Every time he’d become conscious over his stay, she’d been there. He remembered short conversations with her about what happened in the pursuit of Karim. He quietly got out of bed and walked over to the window. His ass gave him some pain, mostly stiffness from nonmovement. The sun shone brightly and it appeared to be a beautiful day in the making. He bent over to see how that felt and became surprised at the lack of any pain.

  Good to go.

  “That’s it. I’m leaving. Four days in this hospital and I’m going nuts,” Matt said when Bridget opened her eyes.

  “You’re up, and your attitude has definitely improved.”

  “Get me my clothes and let’s get out of here. You can bring me up to date over breakfast. I need to eat somewhere that doesn’t stink of hospital.”

  “Definitely better. While you dress, I’ll tell Liz what’s going on and she may want to join us.”

  A half an hour passed
before they got out of the hospital due to all the papers he needed to sign. Bridget drove down Route One toward Washington. She picked a pancake house and parked.

  “Great, real food,” Matt said.

  Matt ate two helpings of pancakes and downed multiple cups of coffee. As they finished their breakfast, Liz walked in to join them.

  “You look fit,” she said.

  “Feel great. I need to get back in the game. Bridget waited till you got here. She hasn’t brought me up to date. So fire away.”

  Liz took a few minutes to bring them both up to date on what the FBI was doing. She also handed Bridget the weapon she requested. Bridget then told him about the efforts of Scott and Gerti in discovering Karim’s contact with Alexandro.

  “So, what do we do now?” Matt asked.

  “Legally, we don’t have much we can do. There has been no contact between those two again. We are continuing to monitor the phones, but so far there’s been nothing out of the ordinary,” Liz said.

  “We need to find out when and where the next shipment of weapons is going to be delivered.” Matt looked at Bridget and received a definite nod from her. “Let’s go get packed.”

  “Exactly where are you going?” Liz asked.

  “The only place there’s any action, Savannah.”

  CHAPTER 40

  Alexandria, Virginia

  Bridget stood on the sidewalk in front of Scott’s building, waiting for Matt to drive off to get his things at his apartment. He would be back in one hour and then they had a FBI aircraft to fly them to Savannah. Liz arranged for the plane.

  Bridget remained on the sidewalk for a few seconds and watched Matt’s car disappear in the distance. Without warning a bullet whizzed by her head at what she sensed might be less than an inch from her right ear. Almost instantaneously a second round passed on the left side of her neck. Bridget dove for the ground. Her hands went out to break the fall and before she could move, a bullet ricocheted off the concrete next to her right hand. She started to move, but another bullet sliced barely an inch from her left hand.