What really scared him was the plan itself. The CIA, using a group of Chechen rebels as a proxy, was about to start a nuclear war, a combined first-and-last strike at the heart of the Russian Federation. The data was incomplete, but this much was clear: It was real, and it was in motion.
The one thing he had not been able to confirm was the date. However, if the financial transactions were any guide, it was soon, very soon.
Frustrated and exhausted, he pushed back from his desk and rolled down the hall toward the kitchen. On his way, he passed a series of black-and-white, high-definition security monitors displaying the streets surrounding his building. Below the monitors was an alarm console.
It was green across the board.
Twenty-Two
Mason checked his watch and smiled. He had been in the same cramped position for the past hour, reviewing floor plans and security documents, trying to find a way in. He preferred to use stealth when possible, but that was looking less likely the more he looked.
With his mouse cursor, Mason traced along the perimeter. Wherever he found a security camera, he clicked the mouse and placed a marker. The software then projected a camera coverage pattern over the virtual streetscape. He completed his circuit of the building and blew air out sharply. “Damn it!”
The combined camera coverage from the building and the ubiquitous City of London surveillance system created an impenetrable blanket. There was no way he could get in without disabling at least some of the cameras, and that would create its own problems. Alarms. Police. No. That won’t work. He kept looking.
Realizing he was out of options, he switched from the architectural drawing to a spreadsheet containing a list of the building materials used in the refit of the top floor.
With a few clicks, Mason found what he was seeking. The windows. A smile grew on his face. “Sloppy. Very sloppy,” he murmured as he congratulated himself.
The windows that covered the ninth floor were standard heavy-duty office glass. They were shatterproof and UV resistant. However, they weren’t bulletproof. It’ll have to do, he decided.
Mason closed the computer, tucked it into his bag, and turned to a long black case beside him. Inside, a Heckler & Koch PSG1 lay cradled in black rubber foam. In his line of work, Mason had exposure to a variety of exotic killing devices, but he kept coming back to this particular rifle when he had to do it from a distance. The rifle came from the same CIA safe house on the West End where he had stashed the taxi driver’s body.
He assembled the rifle with practiced efficiency. Once he confirmed everything was in order, he set it aside and pulled two full magazines from the case. The first contained standard NATO 7.62x51 cartridges. The second contained a custom high-explosive round designed for penetrating armor.
With a steady hand, he unloaded both magazines and reloaded them in a new pattern. He pushed in one standard round, followed by two high-explosive rounds, repeating this pattern until the magazine was full. The first standard round was for Hawthorne. The explosive rounds would go into his computer equipment.
Satisfied with his plan and preparations, Mason inserted a magazine into the sniper rifle, chambered a round, and settled in to wait.
Twenty-Three
Nigel returned to his computer as the last batch of files exited the decryption process. Like a kid on Christmas morning, he checked the results, hoping to find an answer to the riddle of when.
Bloody hell! July sixteenth? He checked his watch. That’s tomorrow!
“Oh, Amanda. What have you gotten yourself mixed up in this time?” he whispered.
“I have to call someone,” he said aloud. “But, who?” The Americans were out. So were the British. He considered the Russians for a moment, but discarded the idea. He had some contacts on the inside of the FSB, the successor to the notorious KGB, but it would take too long to cut through the bureaucracy.
Nigel drummed his fingers on the arms of his wheelchair, trying to force his tired brain to come up with a workable answer. There was only one option, he concluded. First, he had to call Amanda. She deserved to know, even though this was way over her head. Then, he had to call all of his contacts in western intelligence, as many as he could, and alert them all, scream it at the top of his lungs. The American leadership wasn’t crazy enough to sanction something this monstrous. The only plausible explanation was that it was a rogue operation, something initiated by an overzealous underling. That was the only scenario that made sense.
He rolled the idea around in his head for a moment, testing the possibilities, before realizing the fatal flaw. What if this is sanctioned at the highest level? It was not out of the realm of possibility, he knew, for someone to have sanctioned the operation while building in enough of a buffer to escape blame if things went wrong. It had happened before.
“Shit!” He banged his fist down on the arm of chair in frustration.
First things first—he would call Amanda. He picked up the phone and punched in her number, hesitating slightly before he hit the last digit.
One ring. “Hello?”
“It’s Nigel.”
The phone made a bumping noise as she shifted ears. “Hold on, I need to go somewhere where I can talk.” Nigel took a deep breath, trying to steady his nerves.
“I’m back. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t worry.” He steeled himself. “We need to meet as soon as possible. The thing we discussed—”
She cut him off. “Half an hour. Your place.”
“Okay. I’ll shoot you a summary. It’ll be there in a minute.”
He dashed out a short email describing the high points of his analysis. After encrypting it with Amanda’s public key, he pressed send.
“I’ve got it,” she announced.
“Good. I’ll see you soon.”
Nigel hung up the phone and sat up straight, rolling his shoulders, trying to get the kinks out. For the first time in his life, he was scared.
Twenty-Four
Straining to hear what Nigel was saying, Mason increased the gain on his laser microphone. It was no use. He had turned away, and his voice was no longer detectable.
Nevertheless, Mason had learned something. It appeared Nigel had discovered something in the data. He had called Amanda, and she was on her way. Mason considered reporting to Helen, but decided to wait.
He had a choice to make. He could take Nigel this very moment and deal with Amanda and Vetter later, or he could be patient and get them at the same time. The complicating factor was Kurt Vetter. He hadn’t shown up with the woman the last time, and there was no way to guarantee he would be here this time either. He was the wild card. Mason chewed his lip, mulling the possibilities. Keep it simple, he told himself. That made the decision easy. I’ll take Hawthorne now and deal with the others later.
He shifted his eye away from the scope and blinked several times. The window in front of him was open, and the tip of his sound suppressor was flush with the edge of the glass, undetectable from the street below. Of course, once he started firing, anyone on the street who happened to look up would know exactly where it originated. This was an acceptable risk. He had taken far worse over the years.
There was movement across the street, and Mason tensed as his target rolled back into position behind his computer. He forced himself to relax. He put his eye against the scope and gave the rifle a slight nudge to the left to better center it on the man’s head. His chosen trajectory had the bullet entering high on the back of Nigel’s skull and exiting somewhere around his nose.
It was now or never, he decided. Mason slipped his finger into the trigger guard. He relaxed, emptying his lungs in a long, smooth exhalation. He watched Nigel for a moment longer and then, with a controlled pull, he applied an even three pounds of pressure to the trigger.
The gun coughed once, the recoil absorbed by the thick foam shoulder pad he had placed between himself and the butt. He grimaced. It all happened so fast he couldn’t see the exact sequence of events.
> There was a small hole in the glass across the street. Beyond the glass was a scene of absolute destruction. Nigel Hawthorne was no more. Where his head had been was nothing but a shattered pulp, like a watermelon dropped on a concrete sidewalk. Right on target.
Next up was an explosive round. Mason hadn’t fired one of these before, and he was curious about the effect on the other end, not that he doubted it would be devastating. He shifted his aim, centering on a cluster of computer hardware stacked under the desk. He pulled the trigger, shifted, pulled, shifted, pulled. He wiped his brow and allowed himself a slight smile. Nigel Hawthorne was dead, and his apartment was in flames.
Rocking back on his haunches, Mason quickly broke down the rifle, placing each piece into its designated foam slot. He was in no hurry. The fire would serve as adequate distraction for his escape. He snapped the case shut and pulled his phone from his pocket, opened his text messaging application.
He punched in ‘Phase one complete,’ and sent the message.
Twenty-Five
Amanda first realized something was wrong when she was four blocks from Nigel’s flat. A bright red fire truck blew past her, the nee-nor, nee-nor of the siren shredding the gentle summer evening. Right behind was a pair of ambulances, both lit up and wailing like their counterpart.
“What the—”
She looked both ways, jammed on the gas, and took off in hot pursuit, almost colliding with a third, slower ambulance as it came roaring up beside her.
She had only been back at her flat for a few minutes when Nigel’s call had come in. Despite Kurt’s protests, she had instructed him to stay put. She would have answers soon, she promised. Now she wondered. Will I?
On the bumper of the third ambulance, she rounded the corner to Nigel’s block. The top floor was a raging inferno. The flames cast a jittery orange and red glow on the surrounding buildings and reflected onto the faces of the people watching from the street. Smoke billowed from broken windows, twisting and curling up into the night.
Amanda pulled over and, leaving the door ajar and the engine running, leaped from her car. A few steps ahead, the police had constructed a makeshift roadblock. She scanned the police working the roadblock, picked a young man, probably no more than twenty-five, and strode over to him.
“What’s going on?” she asked, struggling to resist the urge to race into the building, to take matters into her own hands.
“Dunno, miss,” he replied in a deep south-London accent. He looked over his shoulder at the fire. “I got here a few minutes ago myself.” He held out his hand, palm out. “You’ll have to stand back. This space is reserved for emergency vehicles.”
Amanda could feel the heat from the inferno from her current position, about 300 feet away. It was like staring into an open kiln. “Do you know if anyone got out?”
“No. I don’t. I’m sorry.”
Amanda turned from the police officer and pulled out her mobile phone. She punched in Nigel’s number. “Come on, Nigel. Pick it up,” she pleaded. The heat was making her sweat. She took a few steps away.
The phone rang and rang, before finally rolling over to voice mail. She hung up and redialed. It was no use. Nigel wasn’t answering.
Head down, Amanda wandered back to her car and sat on the hood. She watched the burning building and considered her options. Either Nigel was still inside, or he was somewhere in the crowd, looking for her. She had to know.
She left her car and walked along the police cordon, putting some distance between herself and the young officer. He seemed to be the only one on this end of the street. With a furtive glance, she lifted the tape and ducked under.
Head held high and shoulders back as if she belonged there, she went to the nearest fire truck. Ducking around the side of the truck, she opened a panel and found what she was looking for—a fire jacket. She shrugged it on, then added a helmet for good measure. It would have to do. She set out to get some answers.
Ten minutes later, she had them. Nigel was not in the crowd. A police officer at the other end of the street, another young one, informed her that no one had come out of the building yet. “It’s still too hot to enter,” he had said, shaking his head. “A total loss. A tragedy.”
Amanda returned to her car. She shed the jacket and helmet, leaving them in a neat pile at the edge of the cordon.
Why? Why Nigel? A dark thought crossed her mind. Was it intentional? She ruminated on it, considering the angles. Nigel was too valuable to kill. If someone had put a contract on him, then whatever he had discovered must have been huge.
As she sped toward home, her mind struggled with what to do next. If she was right and someone had killed Nigel, then she and Kurt were no doubt next on the killer’s hit list. Amanda’s stomach churned as she realized Nigel’s killer had probably been in the crowd watching the blaze. He would have stayed, waiting to see who turned up, and she, like a good little soldier, had shown her face.
Paranoia coursed through her body. She checked her mirror. Someone was out there, hunting her, hunting Kurt. It had started with Mike, and they wouldn’t stop until they had the data back.
“Damn it!” She slammed the steering wheel with her palm. “How could I have been so stupid?” She cursed herself for letting her guard down, for not trusting her instincts. When Mike Vetter was involved, things always got complicated. His brother, it seemed, carried the same curse.
Amanda checked her mirrors again. The evening traffic was thick, and anyone could be behind her, lurking in the mélange of vehicles coursing through the arteries of the city. However, she realized, she could use the traffic to her advantage. Seeing a gap ahead, she twisted the wheel hard to the left and skidded around a corner. Stomping on the gas, she wove through traffic, trying to put as much distance between herself and her imagined tail as possible.
Her breathing came a little easier after making a few random turns, a few stops and starts. Maybe there was no tail after all? Kurt. She had to get back. They would be coming for him, for her. They may already be there. She had to warn him.
She grabbed her phone and thumbed through to her home number. “Come on, Kurt, pick up!” It rang four times and then went silent. She tried again with the same result.
“Damn it!”
She dropped the phone into the center console and returned her focus to the road. Images of Kurt, dead on her couch, flashed through her mind, making her press harder and harder on the accelerator. If she went any faster, she was liable to cause an accident, or worse, attract the attention of the police, something she could ill afford.
Ten minutes later, she pulled onto her street a little over a block from her house. She slowed the car and scanned for anything out of the ordinary. A pair of young women jogged by, smiling at her as they passed. They continued past her house and disappeared around the next corner. Satisfied there was nothing out of order, Amanda goosed the throttle and zoomed into her spot.
With a final check, she climbed from the car and, keys in hand, dashed up the stairs. The front door was secure, as she had left it, and when she crashed through, Kurt looked up, startled. She locked the door behind her.
“Hey,” he said, startled. Then he noticed her expression, stood and came over to her. “What is it?”
Amanda choked back a sob. Nigel. She would grieve later. She gave Kurt the condensed version, finishing with her theory of the next target.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“As much as I can be.” She turned and headed up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
“Wait! Where are you going?” Kurt called from the landing.
“Wait there. I’ll be right back.”
She turned into the first room at the top of the stairs and crossed to a stack of still-packed moving boxes lining the far wall. Scooting one aside, she dropped to her knees and pressed her palm against the wainscoting nearest the window.
The panel gave a soft click and popped open, revealing a hidden wall safe. Amanda entered her combination, and
the lock disengaged. She extracted a black backpack from within. Kurt appeared behind her.
Amanda frowned at him “I thought I told you to wait downstairs.”
“What’s that?” Kurt said, motioning at the pack.
“Money and guns,” she said, getting to her feet. “Is your stuff packed?” Kurt rolled his eyes. “I never unpacked.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
“Hold on.” Kurt went to the window and peered out. “I don’t see anything.”
Amanda turned and, leaving him alone by the window, she dashed down the stairs. She waited for him in the foyer, turning to face him as he caught up with her. “Listen very closely. I believe the same people that killed your brother killed my friend. The only thing in common is that memory card. They’re coming for us next.”
A flash of fear crossed his face. “Okay. What next?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Amanda snapped. “I’ll figure that out on the road.”
“Okay.” Kurt reached out and started to unlock the door.
Amanda grabbed his hand before he got the deadbolt open. “Careful!” She took his place, opened the door a few inches, and peered out. “We’re clear.”
In a blur, she yanked the door the rest of the way open and stepped onto the porch.
They dashed out to the car together and jumped in.
“Do me a favor,” she asked, as they pulled out of the parking place. “Check my email. Nigel said he was going to send me a summary.”
Kurt took her phone. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him pushing and swiping at it with his fingers, so she barked out instructions on how to open the email client. He sat hunched over the email, scrolling with his thumb, apparently reading the summary.
“What is it? What did he say,” she asked, dying to know.
The Patriot Paradox Page 9