by Chad Zunker
There were several file folders inside the BH folder. The first one that grabbed her attention was labeled MOSCOW. She felt a chill rush through her. Opening it, she scanned the different documents, most of which seemed like basic tourist information. She jumped out of that folder and quickly reviewed the others, labeled LANGUAGE TRAINING, CLIMBING, SELF-DEFENSE, LOGISTICAL PREP. What the hell? She searched through each folder, finding extensive course work on LEARNING RUSSIAN 101, as well as all kinds of training material on rock climbing and self-defense. Inside the folder for LOGISTICAL PREP, she discovered a document that listed a physical address and showed a weekly schedule for the past month. Each afternoon was segmented hourly with the same tags that were on the file folders: LANGUAGE TRAINING, CLIMBING, SELF-DEFENSE, LOGISTICAL PREP. The schedule covered the same time that Sam was supposedly involved in a legal intensive at the American Law Institute. It was all a lie? He was constantly carrying around that thick notebook with the American Law Institute logo on the cover.
Natalie’s eyes returned to the top of the document, settled on three words.
Operation Black Heron.
SIXTEEN
Natalie left Sam’s office in a rush, with plans to head straight back to her cubicle at PowerPlay. She now had a solid lead and was eager to run with it. Sam was clearly involved in something much more complex than she’d even imagined. Operation Black Heron? She was convinced it had somehow rolled right out of the finale of his trip to Mexico City. Language training? Climbing? Self-defense? Logistical prep? She shook her head. What the hell was Sam doing, and why?
She briskly made her way back to the underground Metro terminal. She swiped her Metro card at the gate, descended the escalator in a small crowd of other travelers, and waited in the tube for her designated train. While she waited, she tried to call her editor at home, the man she trusted the most in this town, to see if he could start tackling different sides of this story with her. Unfortunately, he didn’t answer. She left an urgent message to call her back ASAP.
When her train arrived, she climbed into a half-full car and made her way to an empty seat near the back. The doors shut; the train began moving at its usual swift pace. Pulling her phone out again, Natalie typed the physical address she’d found on Sam’s document into her maps app. The digital pin dropped onto a location over in Fort Lincoln, northeast DC. She clicked on the map and pulled up a street view of the exact location. Squinting at the screen, there was really not much to it. It looked like an old block-wide, redbrick warehouse. There were no business names or any other identifiable markers on the building. And yet it seemed clear that Sam had spent part of the past month doing something inside that warehouse. She’d have to go see for herself.
As the train made a few stops and the back of the car grew more crowded, Natalie continued her investigation. She did a quick Google search on Operation Black Heron. As expected, nothing popped up other than a few bars and restaurants that had the words Black Heron in their names. Out of curiosity, Natalie did a quick search on the animal itself and found a picture of a medium-size black bird found mostly in Africa. She kept reading, wondering why someone had chosen that specific animal as the name of an operation. She discovered the black heron was one of the most clever hunting animals in the world and used a method called canopy feeding—it spread its wings like an umbrella over the water, creating the illusion of night—that helped to draw out unsuspecting fish.
Sitting back in her seat, Natalie pondered the title. Sam was part of a secret hunt? Using an illusion? A hunt for what? Who pulled him into this hunt? And why would Sam agree to it if it was dangerous enough where he might not return to her? So many questions, but the last one continued to baffle her the most. How could anything have been more important than their future together? She could feel her anger with him steadily growing. And for the first time since they’d gotten engaged, Natalie let some doubt creep back into her thoughts.
Could Sam ever truly commit to her?
Is that why he’d been delaying setting a wedding date?
Sighing, Natalie tried to distract herself from that line of thought by haphazardly scanning the other travelers. As usual, there was a mixed bag of old and young, couples and singles, clean and dirty. She stiffened when she found one specific traveler staring right back at her from across the pack, standing maybe twenty feet away. His eyes never moved—they locked on her. The man was probably in his thirties. Serious scowl. Black jacket and blue jeans. The gray ball cap was now missing, but he still had the glasses and the black goatee. Natalie cursed. The driver of the Suburban. The same man who’d tried to take her out completely on a DC street just two hours ago and who’d put Michelle in the hospital in critical condition. Her heart started pounding furiously again. The man looked like a younger version of Walter White, the character played by Bryan Cranston in the TV series Breaking Bad. Natalie now had an answer to her question from earlier.
Michelle was not the target—at least not the only target.
Natalie was also the target.
She tried to glance away casually, pretending she didn’t see him. But it was too late for that. The man had clearly recognized she’d become alert to him, as he began shifting his way through the crowded train carriage toward her. Natalie frantically pondered her next move. Should she call 911? Should she start screaming like a crazy woman that a psychopath was on the train?
The train slowed. They were nearing the next stop. At that moment, the man placed himself midway between two door openings. If she was quick, she had a chance. She was only five feet from the nearest door, although still blocked by a half dozen travelers. When the train completely stopped and the doors swooshed open, Natalie made a dash. Elbowing her way past two men, she jumped up over the top of a row of seats and all but dived out the train doors into the terminal. She took a glance back and could see the goateed man also making an aggressive move to get off the train. Another muscular guy took exception, made some threats, and that’s when all hell broke loose—the goateed man pulled out a handgun. Screams and panic suddenly filled the entire platform.
Clutching her small brown purse in her fist, Natalie bolted through the terminal. She cut through other travelers, caught the stairs up, did her best to maneuver her way in and around those who were content with a more casual climb. Behind her, she could hear a growing wave of screams catching up to her. The goateed man was probably running after her with his gun on full display. Who the hell was this guy? Who wanted her dead?
There was no time to think about it.
Right now, she simply had to get away.
Natalie exited onto the sidewalk near Chinatown and Capital One Arena. Spotting a big crowd on the street in front of the center, she sprinted in that direction, hoping somehow to get lost in the mass of people. Another quick glance over her shoulder. The goateed man had already cleared the terminal and was still in pursuit. He was much faster than he looked for such a stocky guy, just thirty feet behind and seeming to gain ground. She needed another plan of escape.
Glancing up at the sign on the arena, she noted that a WWE event was going on tonight, which gave her an idea. She threaded the thickening crowd on the sidewalk right outside the venue, searching for the right help. She found a group of three hulking men, all looking like they could’ve been wrestlers themselves, raced straight up to them.
“Please help me!” she screamed into their faces. “A man is chasing me!”
All three men turned, stared behind her, just in time to see the goateed man burst free from the crowd. The wrestling fans quickly formed a testosterone-driven protective barrier. Natalie moved in behind them, continued to navigate away from her pursuer, while monitoring what was happening to the goateed man. He flashed the handgun, but it didn’t deter the wrestlers, who quickly jumped at him and displaced the gun. Natalie watched enough to see that the goateed man could defend himself well, as he swung fists and kicked at knees, immediately knocking down two wrestlers. Fortunately for her, more testosterone-
driven men decided to jump into the fray, probably still juiced up from some cage match going on inside.
Natalie did not stay to watch.
She tucked her head and kept running.
SEVENTEEN
Lloyd stood inside a media room at the FBI office, a wall of digital screens up in front of him, several of his agents at computer stations pecking away on keyboards. He’d driven straight over from Sibley Memorial, where his father had been stabilized in ICU. Pop had not woken up yet. Lloyd had held the old man’s hand and ridden to the hospital in the back of the racing ambulance. It was not proper protocol, but the medics weren’t going to argue with his FBI credentials. The damage to his father’s head was indeed blunt-force trauma. Someone had used a hard object—Lloyd thought probably the butt of a handgun. His father had lost a lot of blood. With a man his father’s age, the ER doctors were very concerned. Pop needed to somehow survive the night if he was to ever recover from such a serious head injury.
The whole situation was touch and go. His father had always been a stubborn fighter, once getting into a fistfight with Lloyd’s high school baseball coach when they’d had a disagreement. Lloyd and Pop had even come to blows a couple of times themselves when Lloyd was in college and had done something the old man had disapproved of. Back then, his father had usually gotten the better of him. Pop had constantly fought with Lloyd’s mother about church, politics, and how to raise their children. He’d lost most of those battles—Lloyd’s mother was even more stubborn than his father. Lloyd just hoped Pop had one last good fight in him. Although the old man drove him crazy these days, he wasn’t ready to let his father go just yet.
Realizing there was nothing he could do by standing around the hospital and twiddling his damn thumbs, Lloyd said a prayer, left, and distracted himself by flipping back into full-on investigative mode. He was determined to catch the bastard who’d done this to his father and find out why. Nothing had been stolen from inside Lloyd’s condo. There was still a wad of cash on the kitchen counter, probably a hundred dollars, left completely untouched. He was clearly searching for something else. What? Although Lloyd had a hunch, he needed confirmation to run with his theory.
Epps had been busy rounding up security-video feeds from local businesses that surrounded the front of Lloyd’s condo building. Unfortunately, Lloyd’s dumpy building had no such video-monitoring system. The building was not high on luxury or security, which made it more affordable than others—something Lloyd needed more than bells and whistles, since he’d lost nearly all his life savings in a bad real estate investment several years ago.
“This was taken from right outside Barney’s,” Epps said, nodding toward the middle screen on the wall.
Lloyd squinted. Barney’s was a men’s shoe store right next to his building. The security camera was at an angle above the front door and showed people walking back and forth in front of the store. A man and a woman casually strolled past, then a man with a dog on a leash, and finally the back of a man who looked to be in a real hurry. Krieger, their tech expert, paused it with the back of this man in video view. Lloyd studied the image. Black leather jacket. Medium build. Short black hair.
“I think it’s him,” Lloyd said, nodding.
“Pull up the next one,” Epps told Krieger, who began typing.
A second video appeared on the digital wall.
“Two doors down,” Epps mentioned. “Corner bakery.”
The video was similar to the first one, with a view at an angle above the front door. Several people walked past in both directions, then Krieger paused it when the man in the black leather jacket was right under camera, his face in full view. Lloyd recognized the scowl on the face of the midthirties man. He felt his blood boil.
“Yeah, it’s definitely him,” Lloyd confirmed.
Epps cursed.
Lloyd turned to him. “What?”
Epps shook his head. “I thought this might be the guy, so I had Krieger run it through our facial-recognition software. It’s not good, chief. He doesn’t exist.”
Lloyd shared an uneasy glance with Epps, knowing what that likely meant. If the guy was truly a ghost, he could only work for one organization: the CIA.
“Take this all down,” Epps ordered Krieger. “Pull it off-line. Don’t leave any threads back to it, you understand me, Krieger?”
“Yes, sir,” said Krieger, immediately pulling everything off the big screens.
Epps huddled closely with Lloyd, talking in whispers.
“You think this is connected to our investigation of Callahan and the Lion guy?” Epps asked Lloyd.
Lloyd nodded. Which put his stomach into a tight ball.
“We’ve got to find this guy, Michael. And we’ve got to go even deeper underground.”
EIGHTEEN
Sam finally found much-needed asylum five blocks from where he’d stolen his new wardrobe. He needed a safe place to hide out for the next hour or so—to think, and to plan, and to somehow figure out how the hell he was going to survive this catastrophe. He didn’t want to aimlessly roam the city the rest of the night. But finding a warm hideout had been no small task at this hour. He couldn’t just walk into a hotel—especially with only a wad of Russian cash on him—and draw suspicion to himself. He thought of the Russian assassins. Cold-blooded killers were out there on the hunt for him. He still had no idea if the Russian police were also involved. Either way, he needed complete anonymity.
The Church of Saint Nicholas looked promising, with its small gold domes and unassuming property. For one, as he knew from his past, old church buildings weren’t usually placed under heightened security. After all, they had been built to let people in and not keep them out. So they didn’t often have high-tech alarm systems or hire security guards to patrol the property. Second, Sam had always been drawn to old churches, especially during times of crisis—which had been most of his life, actually. He had always found something comforting about them.
Sam pushed a creaky gate open along a wrought-iron fence that surrounded the church property. There were different monuments and statues on the grounds. Although the church building was smaller than the other colossal cathedrals he’d seen around Moscow, it was still designed with the same vibrant colors and ornate construction. He found a heavy wooden door at the side of the building, one that looked like it had been installed more than five hundred years ago. Although the lock system on the door was massive and imposing, Sam knew it would be simple to access. They didn’t have complex lock-and-key machinery in the 1500s.
Kneeling, he took out one of the screwdrivers he’d stolen from inside the clothing store, inserted it into the heavy lock. He wiggled it a bit, scraped a mechanism he knew was inside, heard the familiar click of a heavy lock opening. He stood, slowly opened the door. The hallway was dark. Sam quickly shut the wooden door behind him, once again felt embraced by the warmth of a heated building. Listening, he didn’t hear a peep inside. Only the rumble of the old heating unit.
He made his way forward, passed by what looked like two church offices and a small conference room. He then poked his head inside a kitchen. Flipping on a light switch, he began searching for something to eat to keep his energy level up. He found a loaf of bread on the counter, pulled it out of its plastic wrap, ripped off a huge chunk, and shoved it into his mouth. He opened a small white refrigerator. Grabbing a half-full carton of milk, he finished it off in two aggressive gulps.
He moved deeper into the old building until he found the main sanctuary with its massive gold altar up front and huge stained-glass windows on both sides. The pews were wooden and ornate and looked rather new compared to the rest of the building. He sat in the first pew, tried to make himself comfortable. He stared up at the massive gold crucifix of Jesus, built in the center of everything, with a huge wall of artistic paintings of all the saints behind it. He studied the paintings. Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and many of Jesus’s disciples. Men he knew from study had endured much suffering for their faith. He’d alwa
ys been most drawn to Thomas, one of the original twelve who had walked with Jesus. Doubting Thomas, as he was often called, because the man had refused to believe that Christ had risen from the tomb after suffering death on the cross unless he saw the wounds with his own eyes. Only later, when Thomas had physically touched the wounds, did he truly believe, saying, “My Lord and My God.”
Sam had often pondered if that’s what it would take for him to believe fully. It had always come much easier to Natalie. She’d often told Sam he had to get out of his own way, that faith was not about the head but the heart. Pastor Isaiah, his mentor, had always said the same thing. Unfortunately, Sam had a history of getting in his own way—clearly, a hard habit for him to break, considering tonight.
He again thought of Natalie, probably curled up with her Kindle in the warmth of her sofa right now. Damn, he missed her so much. He so desperately wanted to be with her instead of sitting here five thousand miles away, alone in an old church building in the heart of Moscow, hiding out from assassins.
Why couldn’t he have just walked away from Pelini?
NINETEEN
Natalie paid cash for a twenty-minute cab ride into Virginia, where she was dropped in front of a brand-new strip mall. After barely escaping a ruthless killer with a gun—the same man who’d tried to crush the life out of her with a speeding armored Suburban—she was paranoid as hell. Did the man follow the police car that took her home from the scene of the crash? Was he waiting in the wings to take another shot? Or was he able to track her down in other ways? Who the hell was this guy?
Natalie felt one thing for sure. She couldn’t go back to her place right now. Someone could be waiting for her there. Nor could she keep using her credit cards or cell phone. She couldn’t chance being tracked. She had no idea how far all this reached or the level of the players involved. She had to play it safe. And she wasn’t going to pull any of her friends or colleagues into the danger zone with her. Not when she had another option—an option that Sam had set up for them a month ago that she never thought she’d use.