by Sean Parnell
“It will never happen,” she’d said.
“I see the way you look at this chair,” Bentley said, getting to his feet. “You are ambitious, Robin, and I like that. Why don’t you try it out?”
“Excuse me?”
“Take a seat,” he commanded.
Robin had done as she was told, and when she was settled, President Bentley made his pitch. “You help me make this happen, and I will make sure you are sitting behind this desk in two years.”
Styles knew she could have beaten Cole, but just as she was about to announce that she was running, everything fell apart, leaving her holding the bag.
The first sign that there was a problem came from the most unlikely of sources—her counterpart in Iran.
“Robin, one of your CIA officers is poking his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“Who?” she demanded.
“A man named Nathaniel West. My people tell me he has been following one of our scientists, a man named Ali Breul.”
“Will Breul talk?”
“We have his wife, but just to make sure, he is being recalled to Tehran.”
“I’ll handle it. There is nothing to worry about.”
All Styles had to do to find out if West worked for the Agency was pick up the phone. It was immediately clear that he didn’t, which meant she had to find out who in the hell he was. She started looking into the man, and it was during the investigation that followed that she first learned of the Program’s existence.
But the damage was irreversible. Styles knew that with West nosing around the Iran deal, it would be impossible for her to run against Cole. If the slightest whiff of her involvement in the deal got out, it would kill her bid to become the first female President of the United States while it was still in the crib.
So Styles made the only play she could. She hired a team to take West out and hope the trail would die with him. The hit was textbook, but she knew that all it had done was buy her some time.
As long as Ali Breul was alive, and the nuke he’d built was in Iranian hands, Styles would be living in fear. The only way she knew to regain her freedom was by killing Breul and destroying the nuke. But she couldn’t do either until Bentley was out of office.
Once it became clear that Cole was going to take the election, Styles realized that she was going to need to act sooner rather than later.
In light of the day’s events, when Styles finally left Langley at 6:00 p.m. she knew it was time to put her plan into action. She gave her driver an address before pulling out her burner phone and sending a text:
Down the street, can I come over?
By the time her driver pulled to the rear of the D.C. apartment building and tapped the brake before dropping into the underground garage, she had her reply:
Yes.
Styles walked across the garage, her heels clicking on the concrete, and used the access card on the elevator. The car opened and she hit the “P” that marked the penthouse.
The elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open on thick carpet and a tasteful entry room. A single mahogany door was open and music gently drifted from within. Styles walked in, closed the door behind her, and tossed her phone on the table next to the wall.
“Claire, where are you?” she asked, heading to the bar.
“In here,” a voice replied from the bedroom.
Styles ignored the shelves packed with gleaming bottles. She was a Kentucky girl and that meant bourbon. In the cabinet below the sink she kept a bottle of Michter’s Celebration. She poured herself a glass of the $3,600-a-bottle sour mash, turned toward the bedroom, and took a sip.
The woman standing in the door was beautiful, naked, and half her age.
“Come here,” Styles ordered, her voice throaty and hot from the liquor.
The woman padded across the room, her blond hair splayed over her shoulders.
“Take off my clothes,” Styles ordered, setting her drink on the bar. She watched the girl’s eyes for any sign of hesitation, but the only thing she saw was lust. Her lover’s hands trembled on the buttons; her breathing was fast, almost close to panting.
They had met a year ago, and while it seemed like a chance encounter, it was the culmination of eighteen months of intense search.
Styles needed someone who fit a very specific set of parameters. Male or female didn’t matter—Robin swung both ways—but they had to have access to the White House and something to hide. Styles found exactly what she was looking for in Claire, a wholesome farm girl from Iowa who’d come to the nation’s capital for school.
Claire just happened to be a nurse who worked at the White House, and as an added bonus, she also had a cocaine habit.
Styles made her move at spin class. It started innocently enough, some flirting and late-night drinks. Gentle kisses in the moonlight, the kind of romance that made Styles want to gag.
At first Claire refused to talk about what she did at the White House Medical Unit. So Styles took a page from the CIA and began treating her like a reluctant asset. The first step was to carefully build a level of trust between them, and after that, she could set the hook.
It took almost six months, and then out of the blue Claire started dropping little tidbits of conversations she had overheard at work, a direct violation of her security clearance. When the time was right, Styles gave Claire her personal number and told her to call her if she was ever in trouble, and then she waited.
Two months later they met for dinner and drinks in Georgetown. While they ate salmon and drank a $200 bottle of wine inside, Styles had a paid contractor break into Claire’s Volkswagen and plant an eight-ball of powder in the center console.
After dinner the plan was to meet up at the penthouse, and as soon as Claire pulled out of the parking lot, Styles made a call to a D.C. cop she had in her pocket. Fifteen minutes later she got the call.
It was Claire. She was handcuffed and sobbing in the back of the squad car.
“R-Robin . . . it’s me. I need your help.”
“I’m on my way, darlin’,” Styles had responded.
Back in the penthouse, Styles was naked. She might be twice as old as Claire, but her muscles were just as hard. Her adherence to diet and exercise was legendary and gave her the face and body of a thirty-year-old. In fact, when she was sworn in as Director of the CIA, Time magazine put her on the cover with a title that read, “America’s Sexiest Spy.”
When Claire tried to kiss her Robin backed away and headed for the bedroom, grabbing a fistful of hair as she walked by.
She liked the flicker of pain in the woman’s eyes. It made her feel powerful, and was exactly what she needed after the meeting with Rockford.
“Oww, my hair.”
“Do you remember the night you got pulled over?” she asked, running her free hand over Claire’s arm. Claire nodded, biting her lip against the pain. “Why did you call me?”
“I . . . I was scared.”
Styles let her lips brush her neck, and kissed her gently below the ear. She felt the goose bumps rushing over Claire’s skin.
“I remember how scared you sounded, calling from the back of that squad car. He was going to take you to jail, wasn’t he?”
Claire moaned, unable to answer, because Styles’s fingers moved between her legs. But it wasn’t the wetness between her legs that turned Styles on; it was remembering the helplessness in Claire’s voice. “You would have lost everything, your license and your job. What would you have done if I wasn’t able to help, go back to Iowa?”
“Yesss,” Claire whispered.
“I might need your help for work.”
“Anything.”
Styles was thinking she needed to know more about President Cole. He had to have a weakness and Claire was going to help her find it.
“Promise me.”
“I’ll do anything you want me to.”
“I need you to bring me a copy of President Cole’s medical records.”
Chapter 21
Algiers
Eric Steele utilized the Mark XI’s voice command function by saying, “Nav,” and a map appeared in the upper-right quadrant of the visor. The yellow blinking arrow told him that he needed to come left, so he lowered his shoulder and banked gently until he was locked on the correct glide path.
This thing is legit.
Steele had grown up on James Bond and thought being a spy was all about the gadgets. But in the real world batteries failed and an operator lived and died by making a plan and sticking to it. One of the main reasons Steele was still alive while so many of his friends were dead was because he didn’t leave anything to chance.
He carefully brought his left arm up to eye level and double-checked the Mark XI’s readings with the GPS/altimeter combo strapped to his forearm. Once he was sure that he knew exactly where he was, he snapped his arms tight and accelerated to 200 miles per hour.
The wind ripped at his clothes, buffeting the assault pack secured between his legs by a d-ring. Visibility was terrible because of the cloudbank and the rain that popped his face shield like gravel against a barn. He fell out of the clouds and far to the west he saw Algiers.
He could have been looking at L.A. in the midst of the ’92 riots. The white city was wrapped and wavering in artificial smog created by innumerable fires that flickered like burning ships on the horizon. Flaming tires released tendrils of jet-black smoke, sending them skyward like offerings to the god of war. Steele knew the only reason he couldn’t smell it was because he was still breathing oxygen.
“Locate.”
The Mark XI’s camera snapped a picture and ran it through the mapping software. In less time than it took to blink the internal computer had identified what he was looking at and a woman’s voice came over the speaker.
“Houari Boumediene Airport,” she began, “was created in 1924. It was the primary target of Operation Torch—”
“Mute and clear.”
Steele checked the altimeter again.
Not good.
He was getting close and needed to slow down before deploying his chute. He arched his back and spread his arms and legs, creating as much surface area as possible to decrease his rate of descent. It was the worst possible situation for a parachute landing, and the second he popped the chute he knew he would present a tantalizing target.
The Mark XI identified his primary drop zone with a red crosshair, and before Steele could lock on, an orange flash blossomed near a knot of low buildings he was using as a reference point. The explosion sent a shower of yellow sparks skyward; they peaked at fifty feet before falling back to the ground. Steele was close enough to hear the growl of the explosion and immediately began searching for an alternate spot.
“Deploying chute,” the calm female voice announced.
“Hell no you’re—”
It was too late.
The Military Freefall Advanced Ram Air Parachute System, or MFF ARAPS, was the replacement for the older MC-4 and was basically a rectangular wing. When it ripped free of the pack tray the nylon canopy blossomed, filling each of the thirteen airfoil sections with air. The ribs were the only things keeping him from plunging to his death, and Steele checked them and the risers to make sure nothing was tangled or torn.
He grabbed the toggles running from the control lines and took command of the chute. Well, if I’m going down, I want to do it in style.
“Initiate iTunes. Black Sabbath—‘War Pigs.’ Purchase and play.”
“Are you sure you want to purchase ‘War Pigs’ by—”
“Yes, dammit.”
“Your purchase has been processed. Playing ‘War Pigs.’”
The heavy guitar riff blasted through the speakers, building over the bass guitar and the haunting whine of an air raid siren. On the ground tracer fire coiled and whipped from building to building, with explosions erupting in time with the music. Steele felt like he had front-row seats to a Michael Bay movie, but then it got serious.
The woman’s voice sounded calm over the music. “Taking fire. Taking fire.”
“Where?” Steele frantically searched for the shooters, but the only thing he saw was a group of men running toward a truck. Most of the fire seemed to be contained near the buildings where he was supposed to land. It didn’t appear that anyone had noticed him lazily descending from the darkened heavens.
No whammies, please God no whammies.
His luck failed to hold when the first red tracer zipped past his helmet. All he could do was yank hard on the toggle in an attempt to get out of the line of fire. He could handle getting shot at. It was part of the job. But taking fire when you couldn’t shoot back, or even see where it was coming from, was a different ball game. The only thing he could do was extend his middle finger in the direction of the shots and hope the Mark XI really was bulletproof.
“Turn it up.”
“You are taking fire.”
“Yeah, I got that part. How ’bout you tell me where—”
The tug on the canopy rolled down the riser, jarring his left hand. Steele looked up and saw two jagged rips across the ribs. He pulled the toggle hard left and sent the chute into a tight corkscrew. He needed to get on the ground now, and when he was a hundred feet above it he prepared to flare by yanking both toggles as far down as he could.
There was no change in the rate of his descent.
This is not how this is supposed to go.
Steele scrambled for the reserve chute, already knowing it was too late. His hand found the ripcord and he tore it free. The reserve valiantly sought air, but Steele was already searching for someplace soft to land. The only viable option was a dilapidated chicken coop inside a walled compound. With Ozzy screaming in his helmet, “Begging mercies for their sins, Satan laughing spreads his wings,” Steele brought his feet up to his chest, barely clearing the wall that some asshole had lined with jagged shards of glass embedded in the concrete. He tensed his muscles, and pulled the risers down until he thought that his shoulders were going to pop out of their sockets. All he needed to do was slow down enough not to break his back. Finally the reserve thumped open and he decelerated a second before his boots hit the roof. Something hit the side of the helmet and then he punched through the corrugated tin like a lawn dart launched from space. The music cut off, followed by a second blast to the helmet that knocked him out.
Steele came to slowly. He was inside a small shed, legs entangled in the risers and the face shield cracked in front of his eye. “Are we there yet?” he groaned.
The source of the crack was a shard of metal embedded in the shatterproof glass. Steele tugged it free and tried to clear the cobwebs. The metal was hot through his gloves and he recognized the nasty sliver as a piece of an RPG’s nose cone.
Everything was silent except for his heavy breathing. Steele tugged the helmet off and heard frantic voices coming closer. He hit the riser release, stripped the 1911 from his chest, and held the pistol at the ready. Outside the voices were getting closer.
“He is in here!” someone yelled in Arabic.
“Kill him, kill him!”
The door flew open, revealing a man with an AK-47 who stood there scanning the interior. Steele waited for him to step inside, then dropped him with a shot to the skull. He scrambled to his feet. There was no time to grab his rifle from his pack—the only thing he could do was press the attack. Moving to the door, he saw three more men running toward him, their chests heaving and fingers on the triggers. The closest man saw him step out. He wasn’t expecting one man to attack and his eyes widened in surprise.
“Not today, boys.”
Steele fired the first round too fast and it hit his target in the hip. The round spun him like a top, but Steele frowned, knowing he had rushed the shot. He settled automatically into a shooter’s stance and reengaged the first target before shifting fire to the other two.
Thwap, thwap, thwap.
The suppressed 9mm bounced from chest to chest, sending a hollow point mushrooming into each
. All three men were down before the first casing tumbled to the ground. Steele stepped out and finished them off with a single shot to the head. In combat there were no prizes for second place.
He checked his surroundings and shoved a fresh magazine into the pistol before heading inside to collect his gear. Outside, the gunfire slowly grew to a crescendo until it sounded like the entire city had taken up arms. Steele paused by the door, remembering a verse he’d heard a long time ago. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. He racked a fresh round into his rifle: Because I am the baddest mother in the valley.
Chapter 22
Algiers
Nathaniel West stood on the rooftop, picking at the blood beneath his nails with the tip of a white-handled knife.
“What’s that smell?” his radioman asked, moving closer.
“Rubber,” he replied without looking up from the battlefield manicure. “The rebels are burning tires to mark their positions.”
“Coyote, this is Eyeball,” the radio crackled. It was Villars, and West could tell by the tone of his voice that he was finished sulking. “Target vehicle is approaching Phase Line Blue.”
Showtime.
West nodded, blew his fingers clean, and slipped the knife back into its sheath. He sauntered to the edge of the rooftop and surveyed the city with the bored look of a foreman at a job site. To the south, near the consulate, a cloud of dirt and rock erupted next to the wall, followed a few seconds later by a low cruuump. West studied the explosion like a scholar seeking meaning in an ancient text. There was much to see if you knew where to look.
The explosion bloomed outward, scorching the wall and flinging concrete and debris in an ever-widening circle. West knew it was a mortar by the blast pattern. An artillery shell traveled in a straight line from the barrel to the point of impact. You could tell an artillery round by the “splash,” or the impact of the shell. The blast pattern looked just like the divots you’d find on the fairway of a golf course.