Hunt the Lion

by Chad Zunker

  Pulling off his hood, he yelled, “Get on right now! They know you’re here!”

  Wide-eyed, Lucinda glanced toward the street, where she spotted the assassin rushing forward, his gun now fully exposed. She quickly climbed on the back of the motorcycle, grabbed Sam tightly around the waist. He jumped the bike forward, navigated it back into the street. Peeking behind him, Sam watched as the Russian stood there in the middle of the street. The assassin seemed stuck between a rock and hard place, unsure if he wanted to start shooting at them in front of a gawking crowd.

  The Russian’s hesitancy was all Sam needed.

  He took his first right, gunned the bike.

  FIFTY-ONE

  Creating plenty of safe distance between them and the Russian, Sam finally parked the stolen motorcycle by a remote lighthouse tucked way up on a cliff overlooking the water. No one else could be spotted for a mile. Climbing off the bike, Lucinda walked over to a short stone wall. She took off her sunglasses, rubbed her eyes, and looked like she was trying to gather herself after their dangerous encounter back in town. Sam told her he needed to make a quick phone call. He stepped down a gravel walking path, rang up Tommy on his burner phone, and informed him about the Russian assassin’s unexpected appearance and his dramatic escape with Lucinda. Tommy agreed to get to a safe place until he heard back from Sam.

  Hanging up, Sam returned to Lucinda, the same woman who had run point on his dramatic flight out of Mexico City last month. “You okay?” he asked.

  She turned to look at him. “Who was the man with the gun?”

  “A Russian assassin.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “The same guy tried to kill me in Moscow and again in Salzburg yesterday.”

  “Did he follow you here?”

  “No, he was clearly here for you.”

  “How? I’ve been careful. I’ve covered all my tracks.”

  Sam shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Okay, then how the hell did you find me here, Sam?”

  “You don’t seem happy to see me.”

  She exhaled. “Sorry. Believe me, I am. I’m just freaked out right now.”

  “I talked to Mack in Milan last night. He said you were here.”

  She nodded. “Is he okay? He hasn’t returned my last message.”

  Sam pressed his lips firmly together. “He was killed last night. I got away.”

  A measure of sadness fell on Lucinda. “By the same Russian?”

  Sam shook his head. “Alger Gerlach.”

  “What?” Lucinda tilted her head, aghast. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “That makes two of us. Someone brought the Gray Wolf back into play.”

  “Who? Who did all of this?”

  “I was hoping you might know.”

  She stared at the ground, thinking hard. “Unfortunately, I don’t.”

  “Let’s start at the beginning,” he suggested.

  Sam took a few minutes to share everything that had happened from the moment he’d left his dinner with Lucinda and his boss, David, in London two nights ago to the point of him standing there with her this morning. Midway, Lucinda sat on the edge of the stone wall, as if she was on shaky legs. She’d clearly been in the dark about so much of what had tragically taken place the past two days.

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” she offered. “I’m so sorry you were dragged into this.”

  “I signed up on my own. No one dragged me.”

  “Still, it wasn’t supposed to go down like this.”

  “What can you tell me about what happened in Moscow?”

  “Nothing. I wasn’t even there.”

  “Then why are you here hiding out in Le Tréport? That wasn’t in our exit plan.”

  She looked away, didn’t respond. But she clearly knew something more.

  “You have to talk to me,” Sam insisted. “I’ve had two assassins relentlessly hunting me for the past thirty hours. Nearly everyone who was a part of this operation has been killed, including two of your friends, who were standing right in front of me when it happened. You’d probably be dead yourself right now had I not been there to grab you off the street. I think I’ve earned the right to hear the damn truth. They’re after all of us—whoever they are!”

  She turned back. “I don’t know what the truth is anymore.”

  “Have you had contact with Marcus?”

  He watched her closely. Her hesitancy gave him the answer.

  Sam cursed. “Where the hell is he? Tell me!”

  “London,” she finally relented.

  “Why do you know that when no one else does?”

  She looked up at him with wet eyes, catching him off guard. “Because he’s supposed to be here with me right now, okay? We were going to leave all of this behind us—the covert operations, the lies, this silly game of death we play every day as part of our jobs. We were done with it. We were going to start a brand-new life together. That’s what was supposed to happen!”

  When she finished, a couple of tears rolled down her cheeks. Mack had been right. Pelini was indeed planning to disappear. But Sam was stunned to hear that it was with Lucinda. He’d never caught any hint of their relationship back in DC while training with them.

  “Who else knew about you guys?” he asked.

  “No one. We made sure of it. When this was all done, we were going to meet here, in Le Tréport, then slip away together. Find ourselves a private beach on the other side of the world and never be heard from again. But then everything fell apart. Marcus instructed me to wait here until he could tie off loose ends.”

  “Loose ends?” Sam asked, flushing red. “Like eliminating everyone on our team?”

  Her eyes turned to slits. “Marcus would never do that!”

  “Then tell me who’s behind this.”

  “I don’t know!” she yelled. “But he would never sacrifice his own team members.”

  “What about the list, Lucinda? He stole it right out from under us.”

  “He didn’t steal the list.”

  “Come on! I have the video—he’s on the property. Perhaps he has even you fooled.”

  “He didn’t steal the list,” she repeated, looking even more adamant.

  “Then why the hell are the Russians still coming after us?”

  “They don’t want the list, Sam. They want the boy.”

  Sam’s brow bunched. “What . . . boy?”

  “Charlie.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, his mind reeling. “Wait . . . What are you talking about? You mean the little boy I encountered while inside Zolotov’s town house?”

  “Yes, that boy.”

  “Why would the Russians think we have Charlie?”

  “We do. Marcus took him.”

  Sam’s mouth fell open, shocked. “You’re telling me Marcus came onto the property behind me to abduct a child? Why the hell would he do that?”

  “Because Charlie is his son.”

  This time Sam was speechless. His son?

  “I promise I don’t know anything more than that,” Lucinda insisted. “Marcus kept me in the dark for my own protection, he always said. He told me he would explain everything about Charlie when he got back here to Le Tréport—after the operation was a success. Except now I don’t know if he’ll ever make it here to me.”

  More tears ran down Lucinda’s cheeks, but Sam was unable to console her. Not with the way his head was swirling around this new revelation. He suddenly felt light-headed, and took his turn to sit on the short wall beside her. Charlie was Pelini’s son? If true, that meant Sam had—a brother! He suddenly flashed back to his brief encounter with the boy the other night, remembering the scraggly brown hair, the similar blue eyes, and the feeling that the boy reminded him a lot of himself as a child. Could it really be? Could he really have a brother? Or was this all just another one of the gray-bearded man’s sick mind games? Had he played Lucinda in the same sinister way he’d played everyone else in his life? Sam couldn�
��t be sure of anything until he had the chance to look Pelini square in the eyes.

  “He has the boy with him?” Sam asked, looking over at Lucinda.

  She shrugged, wiped away the tears. “I don’t know. We’ve had only one brief message exchange, where he let me know he was okay, in London, and he insisted we not make contact again. Not until he’d finished what he called necessary business.”

  “What do you think he meant?”

  “I think he’s also trying to find out who’s behind what happened.”

  “How do I find him?” Sam asked, feeling more determined than ever.

  “No one can find Marcus, unless he wants you to find him.”

  “I have to try, Lucinda,” Sam pleaded. “Don’t forget, I’m also his son.”

  She nodded, slowly exhaled. “We once stayed at the Milestone, a small private hotel tucked away in the center of London.”

  FIFTY-TWO

  Sam dropped Lucinda on a sidewalk in Dieppe, another small town thirty miles down the coast. She couldn’t return to Le Tréport. Not with the Russian, and whoever else, closely on her tail. Whether she wanted to or not, Lucinda had to immediately begin a new journey toward getting herself lost again. A journey that unfortunately did not include Marcus Pelini, as she’d previously planned. Sam could tell this absolutely crushed her. Lucinda clearly loved the man deeply. In her fragile state, Sam worried she might make a mistake that would eventually get her killed. Other than Pelini, Lucinda was the only person still left standing from his group—a sobering thought. He desperately wanted to keep it that way.

  Because Lucinda had nothing on her other than the clothes on her back, Sam gave her his entire roll of euro bills. Standing on the sidewalk together, they shared a brief hug. It was time for them to separate.

  “You sure I can’t ask Tommy to help you?” he said. “The guy is known for pulling rabbits out of his hat.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve done this many times. Don’t worry about me—just take care of yourself, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  She turned, took a few steps down the sidewalk, but then pivoted back to him. “I do hope you finally find what you’re looking for, Sam. You deserve it.”

  He nodded, swallowed. He knew Lucinda was talking about more than surviving all of this. She was talking about deserving something more from his relationship with his father. Sam had resisted the urge to ask her if she had any deeper insight into how Pelini might actually feel about him. He was afraid her answer might crush his spirit right now. Moments later, Lucinda turned a street corner and disappeared behind a block of buildings. Sam wondered if he would ever see her again.

  Starting the motorcycle, he drove back toward Le Tréport. Midway, he ditched the bike in a parking lot behind a business complex. The motorcycle had probably been reported stolen, so he couldn’t chance driving it back through town right now. Besides, he needed a car. He had to get to London as fast as possible. He was unwilling to wait for a train ride, and he wasn’t going to travel more than four hours on a motorcycle with Tommy’s skinny arms wrapped around his waist.

  He quickly searched the parking lot for prospects. About thirty cars were parked up and down four rows. At the edge of the lot, he spotted an older black Honda Civic with the driver’s window slightly cracked, which piqued his interest. First, he doubted the old Civic had a fancy alarm system. Second, the driver had given him an easy entry point. Making sure no one was watching, he stuck his hands in the crack of the window. The driver had left just enough room for him to slip his fingers over the edge of the glass. He grabbed the glass window in both hands and began slowly but firmly rocking it back and forth. Within ten seconds, the car window came loose from its tracks, allowing Sam just enough space to reach his right arm all the way inside and unlock the door.

  Another peek around the parking lot. Still no eyes on him. He dropped into the driver’s seat, did a quick search for a hidden spare key. Back in his days as a teenage car thief whiz kid, Sam had found some people would lock their doors and feel secure enough to keep an extra key hidden in the glove box or inside the console. As a car thief, there was no better feeling in the world than stumbling upon a hidden spare key. It saved him a lot of effort and trouble. Digging through the clutter of the glove box, Sam felt that same familiar rush move through him. He found a single car key.

  He stuck the key in the ignition, and the Civic’s engine fired right up. Sam put the car into drive, peeled out of the parking lot, and pressed his foot down to the floor.

  First stop, snag Tommy back in Le Tréport.

  Second stop, go after his father in London.

  FIFTY-THREE

  Nathan Barnes owned a gray two-story Victorian town house near Lincoln Park on Capitol Hill. Around four in the morning, Natalie parked her borrowed truck across the street from his place and began walking the sidewalks. Although it was no longer raining, a sticky-wet humidity still hung in the air. If Barnes was an early riser, she wanted to be ready to follow him. Maybe he’d head straight to his law firm office—or maybe he wouldn’t. She couldn’t sleep right now, anyway. She just tossed and turned in her hotel bed. She had the feeling she might finally be getting closer to the truth. And she was tired of seeing Sam standing in a room full of dead bodies, a look of fear on his face, every time she closed her eyes.

  Circling the block, she spotted the narrow alley drive to the back of the town houses. She walked down it until she found the black Lexus sedan sitting in a one-car paver driveway, letting her know that Barnes was indeed home. Returning to the truck, she started it and moved it over for a clearer view of the alley drive, where she’d be certain to notice if Barnes was leaving in his Lexus.

  Sitting there inside the truck, she again pondered whether Barnes’s connection to Senator Harris had something to do with all of this. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Harris had critical inside access to top-secret information involving US–Russian intelligence matters. He might even know what the hell Sam was doing in Moscow. Could it really be a coincidence that his nephew was meeting with the same guy who put Michelle in the hospital and tried to take her out on the Metro? She doubted it. And her gut was usually spot-on. There was a connection there, and she was determined to find it.

  She eased down into the truck seat, waited.

  At five, Barnes was on the move, making Natalie glad she came early. She followed him closely. There was other traffic, so it was easy for her to trail him without standing out. Barnes navigated through downtown until he finally pulled the Lexus to a stop at the curb in front of the historic Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church. Up the block, Natalie also pulled to the curb. She checked the time on her phone. Five fifteen. A little early for morning Mass, she thought. So what was he doing there?

  Getting out of his vehicle, Barnes walked the sidewalk toward the ornate church building. He was again wearing a sharp dark suit. Natalie also got out, trailed him quickly up the sidewalk. Instead of trotting up the steps toward the main entrance of Saint Patrick’s, Barnes followed a sidewalk around the side of the massive old building, opened a wrought-iron gate, then walked down a path into a big interior courtyard. Natalie paused by the wrought-iron gate, wondering if she should follow Barnes inside. She felt exposed and vulnerable. Taking a deep breath, she decided she had no choice and carefully followed the dark path after him.

  The courtyard had a big water fountain in the middle, with several benches situated among an expansive garden. Barnes was standing by himself in the middle of the courtyard, as if he was waiting on someone else to arrive. Natalie hung back in the shadows near the edge of the courtyard, where she hugged one side the church building and stayed out of sight. Who was Barnes meeting? This didn’t feel like a place where he would meet a lowlife like Lenny Gregor. It was someone more important.

  Five minutes later, another man also wearing a suit entered from the same courtyard path and joined Barnes. She didn’t immediately recognize the man, although there was a vague famil
iarity about him. He looked to be in his midfifties, with short brown hair and a slender build. The two men quickly shook hands but didn’t immediately dive into a discussion. They just loitered there for a moment. That told Natalie someone else was still joining them. She resisted the urge to snap a few photos with her phone—she didn’t want to do anything right now that might alert them to her presence inside the courtyard.

  A few minutes later, a third man joined the party. This time, Natalie did recognize him and perked way up. Senator Harris. Natalie felt a charge of adrenaline race through her. She’d been right. Harris didn’t bother shaking hands with either man. He also didn’t look too happy to be standing there. Animated discussion quickly ensued, mostly led by Harris. Natalie was unfortunately too far away to make out any of it. She had to get closer, and quickly. Easing off the building, she slipped along the edge of the courtyard. She still couldn’t make out anything they were saying, although Harris was definitely raising his voice and seemed to be arguing with the third unidentified man. Who was he?

  Frustrated, Natalie looked for a way to somehow get even closer to them, see if she could make out anything they were talking about. It felt like a critical moment. She carved out a path with her eyes, one that would take her around the courtyard and behind a set of benches, where she thought she might have a clearer hearing space.

  Moving again, her foot hit a small potted-plant feature, knocking it over, making a clanking noise. Natalie cursed. All eyes from the three-man group turned, glanced over in her general direction. She remained perfectly still, unsure if the men could see her. When they started talking again, she exhaled.

  But before she could even take another step, Natalie felt a big hand suddenly reach around and grab her mouth while a second arm wrapped fully around her waist, lifting her up, and quickly yanking her backward into the darkness of the outer courtyard. She instantly had panicked visions of Lenny Gregor snapping her neck and finishing the job he’d started two days ago. But no neck snapping followed.