Deadline

by L. T. Ryan

  Somehow, though, the two assholes had gone far longer than he expected before involving Sasha. By the time they did, Frank could no longer contain Katrine and Awad. Sasha had found the information, but it was too late. The plan had already progressed to the point where they wanted to take action and Frank could not stop them. If he hesitated, they would be like frenzied Makos with severed limbs floating about in the water. And it would have been him who would feel their fury.

  Halfway through the ride the car pulled over to refuel. Katrine took the opportunity to join Frank in the backseat. She offered a cool smile to him and a deathly glare to their guest seated opposite and facing them.

  For whatever reason Katrine attempted to launch into her own interrogation of Sasha, who seemed amused more than anything by the line of questioning. The woman never answered a single one, although she made several well-placed facial expressions.

  Frank found it amusing as well. Katrine had never spent a day in the field or in an interrogation room or even behind a terminal sorting through chatter to uncover the validity of a lead. Yes, she had killed, and turned out to be quite adept at it. It had been her that pulled off the hit of Birgit’s body double. But aside from being a beautiful murderer, Katrine’s job was money. Raising it. Managing it. Doling it out. She decided who to collect dollars from and who to dole out the funds to. It was the same now as it had been years ago.

  When Katrine had finished unsuccessfully questioning Sasha, she leaned into Frank and placed her mouth next to his ear. Her lips grazed his neck, sending chills through him.

  “Did you have any luck with her?” Her husky whisper was an even stronger turn on.

  Frank shook his head as much at himself as her. Get the damn broad out of your mind. There would be time to rekindle their affair when the situation had resolved itself.

  “It was never my intention,” he said, making no attempt to lower his voice while pulling away from Katrine, “to do so in here. She’s got fifteen years of service in British Intelligence. At least half of that in the field. She’d rather die than offer up any clues as to who, what, why, when and how. Isn’t that right, Sasha?”

  Sasha arched an eyebrow and shrugged as if to say screw you both.

  “Let’s hope the ride loosens your lips, dear,” Katrine said. “We have ways of making you talk, and they are unlike anything you’ve imagined.”

  The words failed to impress Sasha, who rolled her eyes and turned toward the window.

  Those were the last words spoken until the vehicle came to a stop next to Awad’s outside the old wine cellar. Frank had purchased the property twenty years ago after an operation that had him spending considerable time in Tours, France.

  He exited the vehicle and greeted two men from SOG who had ridden in the other vehicle. One stepped aside and opened the door to the cellar. Frank walked in and descended into the lit room below. He stepped over the old rusted Studebaker bumper. He hadn’t the heart to throw it out after the old woman he purchased it from told him it was the vehicle her husband had passed away in three months after the war had ended. He was an American soldier who had been on the shores in Normandy. They met shortly after, fell in love, and had a brief but powerful romance. She never found herself in the arms of another man.

  Frank had removed everything else but the old winemaking equipment for no reason other than he liked the look of it. Over the years he’d visited the place at least once every six months. He and Katrine had spent time here, too, on three separate occasions. But hell, he never expected the cellar to house a prisoner or be the place where he would iron out the details of a job with a known terrorist.

  “Glad to see you made it,” Awad said, rising from the stool. “And Katrine is OK?”

  Frank gestured toward the worn stairs. “She’s up there if you want to see her.”

  Awad shook his head. “That is not necessary right now.”

  “How’d things go with the big guy?”

  “He gave me a little trouble, but I put him in his place. What do they call him? Bear? I showed him that he belongs in a circus, not the field.”

  Frank felt that somehow Awad was embellishing slightly, if not outright lying. Given a fair fight, there was nothing that would stop Bear from ripping the Saudi’s head from his shoulders.

  The door opened and Katrine’s slender silhouette soaked up all of the light in the room. She bounded down the steps. They didn’t creak or groan under her slight frame.

  “Your men have everything under control up there,” she said, looking around the room curiously, as though she had never seen the cellar before.

  “They didn’t put the two of them together, right?” Frank said.

  She shook her head as she pulled a stool up to the wine-barrel pub table where Awad was seated.

  Frank reached into a dark cubby and pulled out a bottle of cognac. He poured himself four fingers and drank it in three gulps with his back to the others. He tucked the bottle away, then turned and joined them.

  Leaning with his arms over the table, he said, “This is how it’s going to go down.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Ahlberg left with the man in the expensive shoes. He wasn’t the guy who had stared me down on the sidewalk, or threatened to shoot from the docks. But he had been there. The way things had played out, it was easy to assume that Birgit had advanced notice of my arrival and the tail started then. She didn’t have all the details ahead of time, though, and that was the reason why Bear and I managed to slip out of England on the boat Frank had arranged. All I could take from that was that her information had not come firsthand from Frank.

  Who the hell was the secondhand then?

  For four hours I tried to sleep on the rickety wooden chair. They’d cuffed and secured me again. The boat rocked and banged against the mooring. Every hour some new man came in, splashed water on my face and took his seat ten feet away where he could watch me and the door. The little sleep I managed was filled with thoughts of what would happen next. To say it was restful was like saying an amateur stepping in the ring with Ali had a chance.

  When Birgit returned with the man in the expensive shoes we piled into the boat along with two armed guards. First we headed about a mile out, then turned north. The air was cool and heavy with mist. It coated my skin and dampened the change of clothes they had provided me. The chinos were loose, the shirt tight, and the shoes the right size. I supposed that mattered most.

  We turned into the rising sun and pink and purple and red clouds, making our way to shore and awaiting an SUV. I was directed to the middle seat and allowed to occupy it on my own. Birgit made no qualms about her willingness to allow the men behind me to shoot me in the back of the head — and the front of it — if I got out of line. Asking how far out of line was so underappreciated that I received a punch to the gut by Mr. Fancy Shoes. As I leaned forward, I let loose with a gob of spit that just missed his toes. He hit me again, at which point Birgit intervened.

  The ride was long and boring and quiet. The SUV dampened road and wind noise. And Birgit had something against the radio. Occasionally she would flip on a bulky scanner and listen in on three channels that were filled with static and not much chatter.

  Three hours in I started recognizing landmarks and exits along the A10. The highway led to Paris by way of Tours.

  It turned out the latter was our destination. We exited the highway with approximately fifteen miles to go to the city. The backroads we took were no faster, but much less traveled. We drove past farmland and fields of lavender, eventually reaching the area where the rural stopped being rural and turned into housing developments.

  We stopped at the edge of town and exited the vehicle. I was led half a block to an alley. From there we entered a building, climbed three flights of stairs. It smelled like a colony of stray cats lived within the confines of the stairwell. At the end of the hall, across from the stairwell, Birgit stuck a key into a lock and turned. We piled into the small apartment with a spectacular view of a b
rick wall. She drew all the blinds, checked the fridge, pulled out a bottle of milk and emptied it into the sink. Solid chunks splattered and were broken into pieces small enough to slide down the drain. The awful smell passed after a few minutes.

  They gathered around the island that separated the kitchen from living area. Birgit pulled some papers from her bag and spread them out. They spoke quietly in English, presumably the only common language between the four. I hadn’t heard a word out of the guards and couldn’t pinpoint their nationality. The man in the expensive shoes, who I’d heard Ahlberg call Thomas, was from Anywhere, U.S.A. I assumed he was ex-military, perhaps even ex-CIA, now engaged in contract work.

  I picked up bits and pieces of their conversation, but much of it was spoken in code, which kept me in the dark as to their plans.

  Several minutes later, Ahlberg and Thomas left the apartment. The guards stayed put. I attempted to engage them in conversation, but got nowhere. I wondered if they came as part of a package with Thomas.

  The sun now shone in through the cracks in the blinds. Dust rose and fell in the fingers of light with the cycle of the oscillating fan. The clock on the stove read eight-thirty. Where would the day go from here? And what would my role be in whatever operation they discussed?

  The front door opened and Birgit entered carrying a brown bag. She reached in the bag and pulled out a hunk of bread, which she tossed in my direction. She hadn’t been gone long. The bakery must’ve been pretty close by. “Eat up. I don’t want you passing out from low blood sugar when we need you.”

  I sniffed the bread to see if she’d coated with some chemical. I couldn’t pick anything up and proceeded to fill my mouth with a large hunk of bread. There was something about the food over here. It was simpler and not made with a bunch of modified crap.

  “What exactly do you need me for?” I said.

  She set the bag on the counter and motioned for the guards to help themselves. Not sure why she thought that was a good idea, as it left her vulnerable to attack. I rose to test the men. One dropped his food and drew his weapon.

  “Easy,” she said, looking back at the man. I spotted the bulge of her pistol at the small of her back. Then she turned to me. “You are going to finish the job you set out to do ten years ago.”

  I glanced at the ceiling as though I were thinking her offer over. “Thanks for bringing me all the way out here, but I’m going to have to decline.”

  Smiling, she moved within a foot of me. Her scent was less soapy and more natural now. Still smelled good. Her hair was pulled back tight. She had the same tank top on, but had covered it with an unbuttoned white blouse, and had switched out her shorts for a pair of tan pants. The soles of her boots echoed off the walls.

  What was this woman capable of? Had she always been dangerous, or had I set her on that path when I pulled the trigger that night, thinking I was carrying out a sanctioned hit on Katrine?

  “I thought you might tell me that, Noble.” She placed her hand over my heart. “But I know you have weaknesses and—”

  I reached up with my right hand, secured her wrist and pulled back hard. Unprepared for the attack, Ahlberg twisted awkwardly at the knee. Her feet remained planted for a second. I brought my left hand up her backside and felt along her waist until I had the pistol secured. At the same time I brought my right arm around her front and gripped her chin in the crook of my arm. She dug her short fingernails into my forearm. Probably drew blood. I only squeezed harder.

  The paper bag fell off the counter as the guards sprung into action. The contents of the bag spilled all over the floor. The man closest to us kicked a pastry toward the door. It hit hard enough that the insides exploded.

  Both men reached for their weapons but halted.

  “Don’t do it.” I held Ahlberg’s pistol to her head. The move was risky. She seemed to be a capable fighter and with the right combination of moves could reverse on me.

  I instructed the guard in the kitchen to come out and tie up the other man to the post holding up the ceiling. He balked at first. I dropped my right arm an inch and squeezed Birgit’s neck. The man threw up his hands and then did as instructed.

  “Now strip down to your drawers and toss them over here.”

  The man complied, cursing at me in his southern drawl and telling me what he was going to do to me when I was at the other end of the barrel.

  “Go put yourself in the bathroom.” We had full view of the room. “I want you to cuff yourself around the toilet.”

  He stood there for a moment. Ahlberg struggled against me to nod at him. The man slinked into the bathroom and dropped to his knees. He wrapped his arms around the toilet and slipped the cuffs over his wrist. His last act was drawing his arms apart to tighten the cuffs.

  “You and I are getting out of here.” I nudged Ahlberg toward the door. I didn’t have a plan beyond leaving the apartment. Thomas would be back at some point, though, and we had to get moving before he arrived.

  “This will be easier,” she said in a strained voice, “if you let go of my neck.”

  I ignored her request, pushing her toward the door. The men in the room posed no threat right now. I assumed they were experienced enough to get out of their situations within five minutes. We had to push on quickly after leaving. I considered dumping Ahlberg at the stairs and fleeing on my own.

  Only problem was the stairwell door opened before we got there. And Thomas stepped into the hall.

  CHAPTER 57

  The CIA’s director of operations was a well-known man in the halls of GWU Hospital. And in many other places. More than he cared for. He thought that an odd thing, as it put him at greater risk than in the eighties when he walked the streets of Beirut followed by living on the fringes of the war against the USSR and the Afghanis.

  His visit today, as with most of his hospital visits, was not a pleasurable one. He entered the CCU amid the sound of a host of life supporting devices. The air felt and smelled different in here. Sadness, perhaps. A lower-than-normal chance of survival. All who worked and visited the unit felt it.

  A familiar-looking nurse forced a slight smile and nodded at him as he approached his destination room. He stopped at the door, grabbed the chart and had a read through it. By no means was he a medical professional, but he’d seen enough over the years to comprehend what was written.

  No one waited at the bedside of the dying man. Crumpled tissues were found on one of the chairs next to the bed. At least someone cared. The window revealed a dark sky and lamppost-lit parking lot filled with a handful of cars.

  The director of operations towered over Brandon Cunningham’s lifeless body. The machines kept him alive at this point. He had been told there was a ten percent chance of survival. The director had responded by saying he wanted that at fifty percent by noon.

  He had recruited Brandon when the guy was an eighteen-year-old caught hacking into systems he had no business in. The police arrested the young man. The judge found him guilty and sentenced him to fifteen years. What in the hell would the guy bound to a wheelchair do to survive fifteen years in the pen? Not to mention the taxpayer burden of keeping him alive, though the director did not mention that to Brandon when he had him brought to the Farm and made him an offer that was too good to refuse. The arrogant young punk agreed to put his talents to use for the Agency. And the director, who never fathered his own children, had another “son” to watch over.

  He reached down, grabbed the dying man’s bony hand and squeezed it.

  “Hang in there, kid. We still need you.”

  CHAPTER 58

  The sun rose over the knee wall, penetrating the shaded pocket of cool air. Bear assembled the M40 sniper rifle that he had found on the roof where Frank Skinner had said it would be. To say Bear was intimately familiar with the Marine Sniper’s weapon of choice was an understatement. Though he had spent relatively little time as a Scout Sniper, Bear had pulled off several assassinations during his military career and contractor years.

/>   Every kill left its mark on his soul. He often wondered if his current condition reflected that fact.

  The small earbud emitted a burst of static and then Frank spoke. “How’s everything going up there?”

  “Fine,” Bear said. “Starting to get a tan, though.”

  “Enjoy it. You’re gonna be waiting for a while. The meeting isn’t until ten a.m. and you won’t do your part until they leave. So ready your weapon, steady your mind, and keep your big head down and out of sight.”

  The line fell silent again, giving way to the steady breeze. Bear leaned back against the wall and laid the rifle across his thighs. The smell of fresh bread filled the air. At the corner of the roof a smokestack rose and faded into the blue sky, merging with the passing clouds. He reached into the bag they had provided him and pulled out a protein bar and bottle of water. The bar tasted like dirt and the water like piss, but he ate and drank and stuffed the trash back in his bag.

  Few details had been provided. Frank told him it would be doled out on a need-to-know basis. The most critical piece of information Frank left him with was that Sasha would be covered with at least two weapons at all times and his failure to act on their instructions would result in her being killed without hesitation. Bear had carried out assassinations for worse reasons before. Rarely under as much stress, though. The endgame had always been defined in previous situations. He worried that Frank and Awad would continue to move the goal posts today.

  Bear disassembled the rifle and then put it back together again. The activity was meditative. It cleared his head of the tangled web of junk cluttering it. Figuratively and literally. “Don’t go there,” he muttered to himself. The test results were inconclusive and all worrying would send him down the dark path of anxiety.

  He pulled the tripod from the duffel bag and attached the weapon to it. Bear rolled onto his stomach and practiced with the sight. The M40 felt comfortable in his large hands. He gave the trigger a few practice squeezes, picturing random targets in his mind’s eye.