Seven Day Hero

by J. T. Brannan

  Cole’s reactions were quicker. As soon as John moved, he slammed the callused edge of his hand into the agent’s windpipe, crushing the trachea instantly. The man dropped to his knees and Cole dodged sharply to the side as Blue thrust the knife towards his spine.

  Twisting round in a close arc, Cole grabbed Blue with both hands – one secured around the man’s knife-arm, the other gripping his hair – and, using Blue’s own momentum from the forward thrust, he yanked him forwards viciously. Blue’s head smashed into the reinforced porcelain of the urinal with a sickening crunch, and Cole knew the agent was no longer a threat.

  Cole also knew that he couldn’t afford to let either man live and so he leant forwards and jerked Blue’s head violently backwards, breaking the neck cleanly. Cole looked down to the left and saw John on the floor, eyes wide as he struggled in vain to breathe. As Cole reached down, the agent’s eyes were pleading, and yet no words came out of the gargling, shattered throat. A moment later, John joined his partner on the dirty toilet floor, his neck also broken.

  Cole picked up the knife from the floor, a folding Gerber; easy to conceal but deadly nevertheless. Cole was glad he hadn’t had to use it; the blood would have been hard to cover up. As it was, he still had two bodies to hide, and he went to work quickly.

  He pulled Blue’s limp body through into a cubicle, trying as hard as he could to ignore the putrid stench from the stained bowl. He took off the man’s jacket and used it to secure him in a sitting position atop the lavatory, tying the sleeves off around the pipe behind the dead body, which looked grotesque with its unnaturally erect posture. He then pulled off Blue’s belt and pulled the man’s trousers around his ankles, before going back out and pulling John’s heavy body through into the cubicle. Hoisting him up to a higher position, he used Blue’s belt to secure his old partner on top of him, cinching him in tight so that he wouldn’t slip down.

  After checking his handiwork, Cole then locked the cubicle door from the inside and climbed out over the top of the doorframe. Looking underneath the door from the outside, he could see a pair of legs, trousers pulled around the ankles down to the leather shoes, and nothing else. Just another passenger using the facilities. The smell would certainly back that one up, Cole thought grimly.

  Satisfied, Cole moved towards the exit. From the banging on the door, he could tell someone was impatiently trying to get in, their entry blocked by Blue’s door jam. He wondered if it was one of the other agents, but quickly discounted the possibility. They wouldn’t be trying to get in; they’d be observing off to the side, waiting for their colleagues to come out. The banging door would just be a normal passenger, he decided, probably desperate for a piss. Pulling the jam from the bottom of the door, he decided to play it that way.

  He yanked the door open, as if he’d been struggling to do so for some time. Cole acted suitably surprised as the door finally opened and came hurtling towards him at speed, taking a defensive step backwards. The move would also give him a chance to react if he’d been wrong about the person on the other side of the door. Cole had been correct in his initial assumption however, and the passenger stumbled forwards from pushing against the door, surprise written plainly across his own face.

  ‘Sorry mate,’ said Cole breathlessly, pretending to try and regain his composure, ‘bloody door must have got stuck!’

  The other man was trying to regain his own composure, and smiled back at Cole in a mixture of embarrassment and confusion. ‘No worries mate,’ he replied, moving past Cole into the bathroom, ‘I’m just desperate!’ Cole smiled in return, and moved past the man into the corridor.

  Although he hadn’t seen the faces of the men in the parking zone, he recognized them instantly now, standing across the passageway, their backs to the outside window. It was the eyes that did it, as always. Neither of them could conceal the surprise, the confusion, the fear.

  Cole moved off instantly down the walkway to the left. He would, he decided, have to care of these two somewhere else.

  20

  Albright followed Tarr and the Cole family in the impromptu surveillance car he had earlier hired from the Hertz rental desk. Another British agent, who was on liaison duty in the States and had introduced himself as Andy Cragg, drove the vehicle, but there was just the two of them.

  His targets had left the airport suddenly, just minutes before they were due to board the domestic flight to San Francisco, and jumped into a waiting taxi outside the terminal. Albright had expected some sort of trick, not really believing Tarr would do something as obvious as catching a connecting flight from the same airport, and had waited in the foyer with Cragg.

  There had only been two other British agents who’d been able to get to Miami in the time available, and they had boarded the plane ahead of the targets. When Albright had seen Tarr and Sarah race with the kids out of the terminal, it was too late. Out of radio contact, the other half of his surveillance team were now on their way across continental America.

  Hansard had instructed him that he was to keep a low profile with the American authorities; the mission wasn’t something he wanted people to know about. Besides which, with everything else that was going on, the United States might well be considered enemy territory in some circles.

  As the taxi ahead of them took a left turn, Albright cursed his bad luck. Three cars would have been ideal, although even just two would have been better than what he had. But he would just have to cope. The taxi up ahead, its dark windows glinting brightly in the hot sun, was turning left again. As Cragg changed lanes and indicated left, Albright couldn’t help but wonder what their plan was.

  In the back of the taxi, Sarah was playing a game with Ben and Amy. Her nerves were shredded, but she took comfort in Tarr’s laidback attitude. He seemed confident enough in the plan, so why wasn’t she?

  But Sarah knew all too well why she was panicking – this was a different world to her, and going through drills and exercises was inherently very different to the real thing, where there were real lives at stake, including those of her children.

  She was, however, quickly getting used to hiding her feelings of fear, and was now able to play I Spy out of the cab windows without Ben and Amy realising anything was amiss.

  The last half an hour had revealed that they were being followed. The driver, at Tarr’s request, had followed a circuitous route, doubling back twice in a deceptive circle designed to trap a surveillance car into giving away its position.

  The fact that the same silver Chrysler Voyager was still there, four cars behind them, indicated that there was only one car tracking them. If there had been more then they would have been in radio contact, swapping around at regular intervals to disguise their movements, and Tarr would have never spotted them.

  The realization warmed him immensely – it meant that the opposition’s forces were limited, and would make the next step of the plan just that little bit easier.

  Albright was angry with himself. It was only after the third turn that he’d recognized the counter-surveillance technique, and by that time it was too late; he knew Tarr would have already spotted him.

  Damn him! It was only because Albright hadn’t wanted to let the man out of his sight that he’d let himself fall into the trap. If only he hadn’t lost the two men on the aeroplane, they would have had that second car and he wouldn’t have been caught like that.

  No matter, Albright decided finally. The die had been cast now, and he’d just have to do his best with the limited resources he had. Tarr might know he was there, but there was no point calling off the chase; Albright would keep following them to the end.

  21

  Ted Moses turned the car off the single track road and into the small parking lot at the G4 Training Division site, watched by two security operatives in the nearby guardhouse. A civilian training establishment that additionally, but somewhat clandestinely, took on contract work for various government agencies, it was the third such site on the men’s list.

  The fi
rst two searches had yielded nothing. Detailed records were kept, and the staff were happy to divulge information even on the ‘secret’ jobs they’d taken on, responding immediately to the authority of the CIA Internal Affairs Department identity cards. The Directors had hidden nothing, and Moses and Arnold decided quickly that they had nothing to hide – at least not on this particular subject.

  Both men got out of the car tired and weary. They had only managed two hours of sleep since the whole incident had started, and Arnold had still not quite recovered from his hangover. They hadn’t even slept on the plane from Idaho to Denver, using the time instead to check up on the details of G4.

  They felt even worse when they stepped from the relative comfort of their vehicle into the icy, blasting Colorado gale. As if the piercing wind wasn’t bad enough on its own, it was also driving the heavy snow almost horizontally across the rocky terrain; the two men felt as if they were being physically assaulted.

  Their visit was unannounced; they didn’t want to alert anyone, or give anyone enough time to prepare excuses or destroy documents and records. The company website had indicated that the facility – or at least the administrative offices if nothing else – would be open though, and both men prayed that would be the case.

  The site was cordoned off by a high, chain-link fence that looked as if it was electrified for good measure. Moses, looking around, couldn’t make out the size of the area – he could just see the initial fence line. It was big though, he could see that.

  Official details on the company were hazy, even on its own website. Arnold had felt that the existence of such a site was more to help with the clean, corporate image that it was with providing any useful information. But Moses and Arnold weren’t the CIA’s top investigators for nothing, and some further digging had led to more interesting stories about the place.

  Apparently it had been the brainchild of one Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Cassell, a veritable legend within the Army’s Green Berets. After what was by all accounts quite a remarkable career, the last five years of which were spent in overall control of the Army Special Forces at Fort Bragg, he had put in for early retirement in 2003. Many people had been surprised at his decision, believing it to have been based purely on financial grounds; after all, there was much more money to be made in the private sector than there was within the military.

  Other rumours circulated, however, which indicated different motives entirely. It was suggested by some that Cassell had left the army and set up G4 at the direct request of Senator David Charles, then House Representative for US Covert Operations. It was Charles that had been responsible for securing funding for the Intelligence Research Group, a clandestine paramilitary group made infamous during the second Iraq war as a ruthless government hit squad. Indeed, although the IRG was supposedly disbanded after the scandal was made public, Moses and Arnold were aware that it was in fact still in existence, albeit with a new title and better management.

  As for G4 Training Division, it was apparent to both men that the civilian aspect of the organization was a front, although a lucrative one. Its real business was the training of quasi-military personnel for their engagement in deniable operations for the US government.

  Cassell had evidently received help financing the project, and although Moses and Arnold had found no direct evidence during their short computer-based investigation on their journey that morning, their instincts told them that Senator Charles would certainly have had a hand in the matter.

  Cassell himself no longer worked at the G4 base, but remained in charge as the unofficial Chairman. The current day-to-day activities of the site were now managed by the new Director, Peter Drake. Drake had been a Major in the US Army Special Forces, and had served under Cassell before being recruited for special projects work at the National Security Agency. He had, however, left the NSA in 2003 and gone to join his former commander as Assistant Director of G4. When Cassell gave up the Directorship in 2012, Drake had immediately stepped into the post and had been the number one man ever since.

  It was Moses who had spotted an interesting fact about Peter Drake during their information trawl on the plane. Although latterly a Major in the Special Forces, Drake’s initial home had been the 82nd Airborne – the same unit where William Crozier had spent his formative years in the military. Further digging revealed that the men had both been stationed at Fort Worth for a two year stint in the late 1980s, and would have lived in the same officer’s mess on the base. Arnold had agreed that it was an interesting coincidence.

  A security guard, parka open despite the cold in order to give quicker access to his holstered pistol, trudged through the snow towards them. ‘Can I help you gentlemen?’ he shouted over the howling wind.

  Arnold took two more paces towards the man, who stopped short, hand moving reflexively to his side. It was a subtle move, but Arnold caught it; the staff here were evidently well-trained, and quick to react. Arnold held up his open hands to indicate that he was no threat, then moved them slowly to his jacket, carefully reaching in and extracting his ID under the guard’s watchful eye. He flipped it open and offered it to the man.

  From the side, Moses observed that the guard’s eyes didn’t even blink as he examined the CIA identification. It evidently wasn’t the first time he’d seen it. ‘We’re here to see Major Drake,’ he offered in his deep, rumbling voice.

  The security guard considered the two men for some moments, but remained silent. After a time, he pulled out a radio and talked into it, quietly so that the two visitors couldn’t hear what was said.

  ‘Okay gentlemen,’ he shouted when he was done, ‘come with me please.’ At that, he turned on his heel and started to head slowly through the thick snow towards the main block of buildings, set a hundred metres back from the gatehouse.

  Moses turned to Arnold as they followed the guard, turning up his collar against the subzero chill. ‘Almost seems like a Swedish winter up here, doesn’t it?’ he asked his partner. Not a bad place to train, he didn’t say.

  Arnold just grunted; he already knew this was the place they were after.

  22

  Cole had led the two agents on a little tour of the ship, not giving them any time to settle or get into a routine; it was strictly stop-start all the way. The method had the added benefit of disguising the place where Cole was really leading them – back to the parking zone where he’d heard the men initially.

  He’d had a good look at the two agents now and, as he had been trained to all those years before, had assigned names to them. The trouble with choosing names for undercover operatives was, of course, the fact that they were not physically very distinctive. The very nature of their profession demanded that they aroused no suspicions, and so deciding on a feature to lock onto was certainly harder than with most people. Both men wore nondescript clothes and had decidedly nondescript faces.

  The first two had been easier, which indicated to Cole that this pair was the more professional, and therefore the more dangerous. Cole had many years experience of watching and observing people, however, and it was only a matter of seconds before he had latched onto the main differentiating characteristic of the two men. The first agent had a slim build, emphasized by a scrawny neck. To his credit, he tried to hide it by doing his shirt up high, but it was still apparent. The second man evidently liked to work out, although again he tried to hide his physique with his loose clothes. But he couldn’t completely hide the size of his neck, which stood out in stark contrast to his partner. Pencil Neck and the Bull it was then, Cole decided.

  He remembered the layout of the parking sector from his earlier visit precisely, including the location and angles of the various CCTV cameras dotted around the vast cavern. He chose to re-enter the parking zone through the same door he had left through earlier – he knew the type and location of the nearby vehicles, and had already decided on how he was going to solve the problem of his two pursuers.

  Cole crouched in the cold darkness, off to one side of the w
ide metal door, and waited patiently for the two men to appear. On the upper level, he had made a show of checking the area, pretending not to see the two agents before he crept through into the stairwell and headed downstairs. He hoped that Pencil Neck and the Bull would assume that Cole didn’t realize he was being followed, and would therefore confidently follow him downstairs in the hope of surprising him.

  It was taking longer than Cole had anticipated for the men to appear however, and he began to wonder if they had seen through his plan, or had perhaps been ordered to stand down, or –

  The door moved, opening quietly, slowly. Cole’s eyes pierced the dark, straining to make the identification. It was Pencil Neck. Cole exploded upwards, jumping straight into the agent and lashing out viciously. Holding the thumb and second knuckle of his index finger together in a solid point, he thrust the callused weapon straight into the man’s unprotected throat. The strike was as fatal as if he had used the knife he had taken earlier, but a lot less messy.

  Pencil Neck dropped to the floor, convulsing violently as he started to foam at the mouth like a rabid dog, but Cole was already moving past him to confront the Bull, his arm cocked to deliver a second lethal blow. Where is he? Cole wondered in rising panic. He looked around the small corridor, up and down the stairs, but saw nobody.

  Just then, he heard the sound of a door opening on the opposite side of the parking sector. Damn! The agents had split up, hoping to move in on him in a pincer movement. He should have anticipated it, but Cole knew now wasn’t the time for self-recrimination.

  For a split second, across the twenty rows of vehicles that now separated them, Cole’s eyes met with the second agent. The Bull realised in an instant that his partner was down, and immediately raised his right arm. Instinct took over Cole’s actions, and he dived for the floor even as he heard the light phht! of a silenced pistol. The echo of the reverberating ricochet as the subsonic bullet struck the metal door just inches from Cole’s head was much louder, and Cole hoped that the CCTV cameras weren’t wired for sound.