by C. T. Wente
I’m in the wrong goddamn apartment.
He stuffed the Polaroid into his pocket and raced to the front door of the apartment. He started to open the door and then paused, his heart pounding loudly in his chest. He reached into his jacket and pulled out the “gift” the Director had given him before leaving for Amsterdam – a small, 22-caliber pistol. Until that morning, it had travelled in disassembled pieces, all of them concealed within various areas of his laptop, cellphone and backpack. He stared down at the ugly, dull-gray plastic weapon that looked more like a child’s toy than something that could deliver lethal power. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead as he pulled the slide back and checked to make sure the gun was loaded. Satisfied, he tucked it back into his pocket and readied himself by the entryway. As he grabbed the door to leave, Preston’s voice sounded once again in his head.
For better or worse, the fate of this investigation once again rests in your hands…
Rick shook his head dismissively as he opened the door. The cold, chemical-laced air of the factories filled his lungs as he peered down the deserted corridor. This is it he thought as he stepped cautiously out into the gray morning light. No more searching. No more instructions. He closed the door and focused his eyes on the dark entryway of apartment 1556 several doors down. A sudden surge of energy washed over him as he marched forward. He thought of the phone call he’d make to Director Preston when this was over. With any luck, he’d be calling with the confident voice of a freshly minted hero.
∞
“Agent Coleman, the Director is in a meeting right now, but I’ll be sure to–”
“You don’t understand!” Tom screamed into his cell phone at Preston’s assistant as he sped back towards the ICE offices. “I need to speak to the Director now! Tell him it’s Agent Coleman. Tell him I have information that requires his immediate attention!”
The assistant exhaled haughtily. “One moment, Agent Coleman.”
A few seconds later, the Director’s low voice broke the silence.
“What have you got?” he asked curtly.
“Director, I’ve been digging a little deeper into the letters, and I believe I’ve found something. It’s not good. Jesus–” Tom dropped the phone and gripped the steering wheel with both hands as the car suddenly began sliding on the icy pavement towards an oncoming vehicle. The Director’s voice shouted from the phone on the seat next to him as he nudged the car back into the lane.
“Agent Coleman? Hello? What the hell’s going on?”
Tom held his vice-like grip on the wheel as the oncoming vehicle miraculously slipped past him by just inches. He cursed under his breath and grabbed the phone off the seat. “I’m on my way to the office, sir, and I have the last letter with me – the one that just arrived yesterday. As I said, I think I’ve found something. A message in the letter.”
“What message?” the Director demanded.
Tom paused briefly, weighing the absurdity of his conclusion. He knew if he was wrong, Jack Preston would be merciless on him, but he also knew the stakes were much higher if he was right. He shook the doubts from his head and spoke slowly into the phone.
“I’m afraid he already knows we’re coming for him, sir.”
∞
Rick continued down the walkway, silently reading the apartment number as he went.
1552…1553…1554…1555…
He paused just outside of the next entryway and reached into his pocket. His fingers wrapped reassuringly around the grip of his pistol. Unlike before, the
door to apartment 1556 was closed. Rick glanced quickly over his shoulder to
see if anyone was approaching, but the corridor still stood empty. A cold
gust of wind suddenly swirled around him, carrying with it another
nauseating mix of chemicals.
He stepped cautiously into the entryway and placed his ear against the door.
The low murmur of a male voice could be heard speaking inside the apartment, followed by another, higher pitched response.
He’s still alive Rick thought with relief.
He stepped back and pulled the handgun from his pocket. His heart pounded loudly against his chest as he quickly leveled his leg against the apartment door and kicked hard. The heavy steel door swung inward and slammed against the wall with a loud crack.
“Department of Homeland Security! Don’t move!” Rick screamed as he pointed the gun into the dark interior and took a step closer. Staring into the small apartment, he could barely make out the rough silhouette of a man sitting in an armchair. He pointed his gun at the man and stepped inside.
“Identify yourself!”
The man didn’t respond.
“I said identify yourself!”
“I’m afraid you’re in the wrong homeland,” a low voice responded from the nearest corner of the room.
“Don’t move!” Rick replied, immediately swinging the gun towards the voice. He then froze, staring in confusion. Instead of his target, a wooden table stood in the corner, a tiny black speaker resting on its surface. He glanced nervously around the room. “What did you say?” he demanded.
“I said you’re in the wrong homeland,” the voice replied from the speaker on the table. “I don’t recall the US Department of Homeland Security including China as part of its jurisdiction.”
Rick swung the handgun back towards the man in the chair. “Tell me who you are, or I swear to god I’ll put a bullet in your fucking chest!”
“I’m afraid he can’t help you,” the speaker said calmly.
Rick stepped farther into the dimly lit apartment and peered over the barrel of his handgun at the man sitting in the chair. He appeared to be a slightly built Asian man, with thick features and a wide, oval-shaped face. He was wearing glasses and dressed in beige slacks and a simple button-down shirt. His arms hung loosely off the chair, and Rick thought something appeared odd about his hands.
“Can you speak English?” he asked.
“He can’t speak at all,” the speaker crackled. “By the way, is that a real gun?”
Rick looked more closely at the man’s face. He couldn’t tell if it was the man in the photo. The pale tint of his skin seemed unnaturally gray, and behind the lenses of glasses, his eyes appeared waxy and dull.
“Wait, what’s wrong with–”
The tap on Rick’s back was soft and nearly imperceptible, like the finger of a child asking for attention. The sound that followed was equally soft and gentle – a fleeting breath of wind that seemed to rush past him through the narrow interior of the apartment. He immediately spun around and pointed the handgun at the empty doorway, ignoring the odd, warm wetness that was now soaking into his shirt. Confused, his eyes searched the façade of the dormitory building that stood on the opposite side of the courtyard.
There, hunched low atop the edge of the roof, a dark figure lifted his head and briefly looked at him before settling back into position.
Rick saw a brief flash of light appear from beneath the man’s head at the same instant he felt another tap on his chest. He stood quietly for a moment, staring across the courtyard at the anonymous figure with a mixture of shock and terror before turning and stumbling back into the apartment. A few steps in, he dropped to his knees on the hard concrete floor and leaned heavily against the wall. The only sound he could hear was the sickening gurgle of air and blood rushing from his chest. He looked up at the man sitting placidly in the chair and slowly raised his small plastic handgun towards him.
“This is your last chance to talk.”
The tap against the base of his neck pushed Rick’s body violently forward. He gasped in pain, staring at the vibrant spray of blood along the wall next to him as the last bubbles of breath poured from his chest. A second later, his twisted body slumped lifelessly onto the floor.
∞
Sergeant Andrew Kearney scanned the top floor corridor of building 847 one final time before engaging the safety on his sniper rifle and rolling quickly out of view. The body of
his target lying conspicuously in the entryway of the apartment would have to be dealt with, but that wasn’t what concerned him at the moment. He reached into his tactical vest and pulled out the small satellite phone that had been provided to him for the assignment. After tapping in the phone’s security code, the sergeant immediately opened the COMLINK application that enabled real-time communication between field grunts like himself operating anywhere in the world and the tactical commanders who authorized their missions. It’s like text-messaging god himself Kearney thought morosely as his fingers navigated through another authentication screen and punched in his message.
Identify Kearney 50473095
First target NEUTRALIZED at site
NO VISUAL on second target
> CONFIRM SITE INSPECTION
Less than a minute later, the response flashed onto his screen.
Kearney 50473095 confirmed
AFFIRMATIVE on request for site inspection
Proceed with caution
Assume second target in area
KILL ORDER STILL IN EFFECT
Authenticated 0091245
Kearney stared at the authentication code in the last line of the response and raised his wide brow in surprise. A four-month assignment as a liaison for a Colonel in Army Intelligence two years earlier had required him to be intimately familiar with authentication codes – particularly the first three digits that indicated the military division or government agency providing the order. Kearney knew a directive from authentication code 009 could have only come from one source – but this was the first time he’d seen one from this agency. And a kill order no less.
He shook his head at the strangeness of it.
The sergeant shoved the phone back into his vest and rolled his muscular, five-foot ten-inch frame back onto his stomach. Looking through his binoculars, he briefly noted the unchanged position of his first target, the body lying unceremoniously against the entryway wall. He’d been a far easier target than Kearney was expecting, especially considering the intelligence briefing that warned him of a highly trained terrorist.
In truth, the man had looked more like a rank amateur, wandering the corridor of the target location in plain sight and hardly studying his surroundings before pulling out that tiny pistol – what the hell was that thing? – and kicking in the door of his intended victim. Kearney could still see the look on the man’s face after the first fatal shot, the way he had turned around and stared across the distance at him with that look of utter shock and… innocence? It was almost convincing.
Almost.
But again, that wasn’t what concerned him. As the intel briefing and the last COMLINK message confirmed, the man wasn’t working alone. Somewhere in the area, if not quietly hidden away in the apartment across from him, was the second target – a tall, blonde-haired man who by all accounts should stick out like a sore thumb in this miserable complex full of underpaid Chinese workers. Sergeant Kearney hadn’t seen anyone even remotely matching that description since arriving on scene an hour earlier. As he scanned the building through the magnified field of his binoculars, the obvious question was repeating in his head.
Where the fuck is he?
Certain that his second target wasn’t going to make the same mistake as the first, the sergeant dismantled his sniper rifle, packed it in a small nylon case, and tucked it beneath an air vent on the roof of the building before quietly crouch-walking to the stairwell access door. Once in the stairwell, he paused briefly to make sure the magazine of his .40 caliber handgun was full before quickly moving down the stairs. Time was now a serious factor. He needed to secure the body of the first target before it was noticed by a passing tenant, while also staying fully alert for the second target. This, plus the fact that he didn’t have a teammate to act as a spotter while he was “moving blind” meant he needed to haul his ass up to the fifteenth floor of building 847 as quickly as possible. All while drawing as little attention to himself as possible.
He arrived at the ground floor and stepped purposefully out through the central corridor and across the small courtyard towards building 847. Luckily, with the factories’ morning work shift now well underway, the massive compound of dormitories appeared as deserted as a ghost town. Seeing no one, Kearney double-timed it through the lower corridor of building 847 before moving quickly up the stairs.
∞
“You better start making some goddamn sense, Agent Coleman,” Director Preston said indignantly, dismissing the red-headed assistant that escorted Tom into his office with a petulant wave of his hand.
Tom nodded his head as he walked over to the Director and dropped the letter he’d ripped from the wall of the saloon onto the desk in front of him.
“I think this guy has been playing us all along, sir,” he said as he reached down and pointed to the reference in the letter that had caused him to drive so recklessly back to the ICE offices. As the Director studied the page in front of him, Tom shoved his hands into his pockets and paced silently next to the large desk. His right hand found the small bottle of anti-bacterial lotion in his pocket, and he could barely resist the urge to stop and thoroughly disinfect his hands.
Preston looked up and fixed his green eyes on Tom, his freckled face flush with anger. “So this guy makes a reference to a fucking movie with the words Ice Man Cometh in the title, and you take that to mean he knows we’re after him?”
“Yes sir. It’s the title of a play, sir.”
“Jesus Christ,” Preston replied angrily as he shoved the letter back at Tom. “I don’t care if it’s a verse from the Koran. Your directive was to investigate the bartender, not the letters. Your first day back in the Department and you’re already ignoring my orders?”
“The bartender is nothing but a dead-end!” Tom shouted, snatching the letter from the Preston’s desk. “Look Director, if there’s anything I can say with confidence after studying these letters, it’s that this guy isn’t just writing love letters to a bartender in Flagstaff – he’s sending messages to someone inside his team!” He held the letter in the air and slapped it irritably. “And as of right now, I’m absolutely convinced they know we’re after them!”
Preston spun his chair around and gazed through the window at the landscape of snow-covered cars in the parking lot. “That’s ridiculous,” he replied flatly.
“What makes you so sure?”
Preston ignored Tom’s question as he stared out the window, the corners of his mouth twitching as he thought. Watching him, Tom had the growing sense the Director had information he was keeping from him. He decided to test his hunch.
“With all due respect, I’ve been doing this long enough to know when someone is withholding information from me, Director. Is there something you need to tell me, sir?”
Preston spun around and faced Tom with a cold stare.
“Alright, Tom. You want full disclosure? How about this – we’ve been following a member of this terrorist organization since your brother-in-law’s little operation in Amsterdam.”
“Wait… what?”
“Did you really think I was just going to sit back and watch while one of my own agents helped the Langley boys win another victory? Not a chance, Tom. I placed an agent at the bar where your friend Jeri sent her package in the hopes that someone just might show up to claim it.” He paused and folded his arms. “And guess what? Someone did.”
Tom blinked at the Director in confusion. “But how did you know about that package in the first place?”
Preston’s mouth curled into a tight frown. “I had you under surveillance,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Of course, that was several days ago when I was convinced you’d forsaken this department for the CIA. I’m sure you can understand.”
Tom held the Director’s stare. Of course! he thought angrily. You clever son of a bitch. You had that little teenage fucker following me from the moment I stonewalled you in my office. He had the sudden urge to reach across the desk and punch the Director in the jaw. Then
the full weight of the information struck him.
“Wait… someone picked up the package? Who was it?”
The Director glanced up at Tom with a fleeting look of relief before grabbing a folder on his desk and flipping it open. “A tall, blonde-haired man – presumably American – between twenty-five and thirty years old. We have almost no information on him… not even a photo. Apparently he walked right up to the bar in Amsterdam after the package arrived and told the bartender every item that was inside the box. The bartender handed it over and moments later he was out the door.”
“Then what happened?” Tom asked.
“My agent tailed him to the airport and managed to follow him onto a plane to China. Unfortunately, we lost him in Beijing. I was just about to give up on this whole fucking mess until you walked into my office this morning with that address. And now you want me to believe they know we’re after them?”
Tom walked over and sat down wearily in one of the chairs in front of Preston’s desk. “Four nights ago, I watched a man run into a hotel in Amsterdam that was surrounded by the best trained men in the CIA and blow himself into a million little pieces – only to find out a few days later he’s alive and well in China. Alex Murstead refused to believe me when I called him last night and told him. But of course you already knew this since you were listening to my phone conversations, correct?”
Jack Preston shifted uncomfortably in his chair before nodding.
“Whoever this guy is – whoever these guys are – they’re unlike anything we’ve ever seen or gone up against.” Tom leaned forward and looked at Preston with a thin smile. “I don’t know who you sent to find these guys, but unless he’s one brilliant fucking agent, my guess is that he has no chance.”
Preston flipped the folder closed and leaned back in his chair. “And what do you suggest I do, Tom? Pull him out? Let these guys kill another Petronus employee and then walk off into the sunset? This is probably the only chance we’re going to get for Chrissake! I gave him the address nearly eight hours ago. He checked in from the Dongying train station over an hour ago. He’s already on-site.”