by Brian Drake
“I loved the way you hit that guy!”
Dane grinned. Cold-cocking the punk had indeed felt very good.
And hopefully his prolonged absence would buy them some time.
There were four other women, just like Wanda, to rescue.
DANE SHUT the door. Nina was already in bed, on her side, with her back to Dane.
A portable cot sat at the head of the bed.
“I got you a cot,” Nina said, without turning to look at him or their guest.
Dane let out a sigh. Now he knew why her Russian intelligence colleagues had called her “Nina the Bitch.”
“Get up,” he said.
“What did you just say?”
She finally rolled over, and sat up and stared at the new arrival. She pulled the neck of her nightgown closed.
“Who is this?”
“Wanda.”
“You’re picking up strays now?”
“Get up and get dressed, Nina. I’m not telling you again.”
“Don’t talk to me that way.”
He set the bottle down hard on the dresser and quickly explained the situation, glancing at Wanda as he spoke, poor Wanda standing by the door with her arms folded, her eyes darting around, as if she’d escaped the frying pan and ended up in the proverbial fire.
Nina’s expression changed. She threw the covers off and crossed to the girl, hugging her close. Wanda actually responded, almost melting into Nina, as if a weight had been lifted off her.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said. “We’ll get this straightened out.”
Nina looked Wanda up and down, decided she had a clean outfit that would fit, and quickly tended to the girl, getting her into the bathroom and shower. When Nina emerged, she folded her arms and gave Dane a hard look.
“What’s the plan?”
“We call the cops.”
“No.”
“You have another idea?”
“We find the house and kill some rats. Then we call the cops.”
“We only have pistols.”
“When has that ever stopped us?”
She pushed past him to take the vodka from the dresser, wiping the blood off on her nightgown. She pulled off the cap and took a long drink.
Dane watched her. Her eyes were alert, but far away.
He said, “What happened in Moscow, Nina?”
She looked at him.
“I’m no stranger to women being smuggled around the world,” she said, “and something I did once made the problem worse.”
“Really?”
“I didn’t know it at the time. I thought what I’d done helped.”
Dane waited.
“That’s all I’m saying for now,” Nina said. “Shouldn’t we get the guns out?”
They did.
Using Google Maps, Wanda helped Dane and Nina pinpoint the house she’d escaped from. It was only a few miles away in a suburban neighborhood, where the bigger homes sat in front of a forest area sectioned off from the homes to provide the illusion that the owners lived in the quiet countryside.
Presently Dane switched off the lights and guided the car to the curb a few doors down from the target house. The traffickers used a single-level at the end of the street as their safe house, the open space and trees behind the home. In other words, the perfect escape route. It was also the perfect infiltration point.
Dane and Nina walked along the sidewalk. They’d eschewed their usual black combat garb to better blend in, but they were still ready for a fight, Dane with his Detonics ScoreMaster .45 stuffed with a ten-round extension magazine, spares behind his back, and a leftover flash-bang stun grenade. Nina packed her compact Smith & Wesson 9-millimeter M&P Shield, having replaced her nightgown with tight jeans and tennis shoes for ease of movement.
Streetlamps lit the way. The houses on either side showed no signs of life at this hour—until Dane passed one fence and woke a dog. Dane and Nina ignored the barking and strode on. When they came abreast of the target house, both dropped behind a car parked on the street. The dog kept barking. The house showed as little life as the rest of the neighborhood. Until the front curtain moved.
A subtle movement, sure, but the kind of quick check a sentry would make in case the barking signaled the arrival of somebody the crew in the house was waiting for, or a police strike team. Which meant something in the house might be worth rescuing.
Two vehicles sat in the driveway, one a small passenger car and the other a large SUV. Crew wagons. Dane and Nina advanced, slid into the shadows on the side of the house and climbed over a gate, the old wood wobbling a little. Landing hard on a concrete path with yard tools to their left, Dane moved forward, staying low, with Nina behind him.
Darkened windows lined the side of the house. When Dane reached the corner, he stopped and scanned the yard. Swimming pool, garden, some trees. A pool of light spilled across a portion of the patio. Shadows moved across the light.
A shovel, rake and smaller pieces of garden equipment lay against the fence to Dane’s right. He signaled to Nina, handing her the flash-bang grenade, and grabbed the shovel. He rounded the corner to see the sliding glass doors that provided a partial view of the family room and adjacent kitchen. A man holding a stubby submachine gun was focusing his attention on the family room.
Dane launched the shovel like a spear. He threw high to compensate for the heavy front end. As the shovel arced and began to descend toward the glass, Dane hauled out the Detonics .45. The metal blade struck the glass low but achieved the desired result. The glass shattered, first in the middle, then spider cracks weakened the rest of the pane. The glass cascaded across the pool of light. Nina pitched the flash-bang, and it exploded within the house, the bright flash and loud bang creating a blinding distraction as the armed man turned with his weapon up. Dane detached the gunman’s jaw from his face with a .45 slug.
A woman screamed. Dane and Nina charged through the opening, more glass crunching under them. Dane swung left, right. In the corner of the living room, tied and gagged on the carpet, were four women not unlike Wanda, their wide eyes zeroed in on Dane and Nina.
Nina ran to one, pulled the gag from her mouth.
“Where are the others?”
“It’s just us!”
“I mean the bad guys.”
Rubber soles squeaked on the kitchen tile. Dane spun and fired at the gunman, who ducked back. The slug tore a hole in the wall.
“Stay down!” Dane snatched the dead gunner’s automatic weapon and jammed the stock into his shoulder. He watched the kitchen and the hallway to the left that led to the front door and living room.
The second gunman rounded the corner ahead, attempting to come down the dark hall, but stopped short. Dane stitched him stomach to chest. The gunman decorated the wall with crimson flecks as he flopped forward onto the carpet.
Dane ran to Nina. Neither she nor the other four women were hurt.
THE NEXT part was the hard part, because they had to leave the women at the house. With no fake identification to show they were Justice Department agents or affiliated with any other U.S. federal law enforcement, all they could do was find a cell phone on one of the dead men and have one of the women call the police.
Dane and Nina did manage to watch from the car, albeit parked far enough away that arriving emergency crews didn’t notice them. Presently an ambulance joined the police cruisers, and the women were led out of the house. Paramedics began checking their condition.
That’s when Dane turned to Nina.
“What happened in Moscow?”
“You’re like a broken record,” she said.
“You aren’t responsible for whatever happened.”
“You weren’t there.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“It’s not that.” She looked at him. “It’s hard to talk about.”
Dane waited.
Nina sighed.
“Some gangsters killed my boyfriend, okay? I was eighteen. When I was old enough,
I joined FSB. I wanted to find out who did it and put them away. Well, I found out he was part of an investigation into human trafficking and was on the trail of some big shots who didn’t want to be exposed. Remember Alec Savelev? He helped me track down the killers, and I ambushed them one night. Killed all three before they knew what hit them. Problem? They were part of the smuggling ring, and their removal let a third party fill the gaps. So my little bit of revenge let the Moscow end of the network connect with a link in the Balkans to form one of the biggest human trafficking circuits in the world.”
Dane let out a breath. “I can see why that would bother you.”
“Can you … really? I’m so glad to hear that.”
Dane didn’t swallow her sarcastic bait. He said, “And after that?”
“You don’t want to know about after that,” she said.
“Uh-huh.”
“So now what?”
Dane tapped a finger on the steering wheel and watched the flashing cherry lights at the house up the street. The cops would be there until way past sunrise. Once the gunmen were identified, the police would summon the FBI. Hopefully then, Dane thought, they could unravel some of the unanswered questions, find the ship Wanda had referred to, maybe save some others already on the ship or arrest the men aboard. But if this incident was part of a bigger network, a global problem, all he and Nina had done was free a couple of victims without really changing the situation.
The thought burned a hole in his belly.
“We continue on to Virginia,” Dane said, “and deal with my problem. After that, we need to take up Number One’s offer and address your situation.”
“I’m not going back to Moscow.”
“And I never thought I’d come back to the United States,” Dane said, “but it happened. We can’t run forever.”
“Usually it’s me giving lines like that.”
“Perhaps you’ve been a good influence on me.”
“Hopefully more than that.”
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
“I understand.”
Dane started the car.
When they returned to the motel, Wanda was gone.
Dane figured it was for the best, and silently wished her luck as he crawled into bed beside Nina. The rollaway cot remained unused.
1
Dying Men Always Get Ideas
THE DEEPEST of the muffled voices on the other side of the wall belonged to Dr. Edward Floyd. What news was he delivering? Or perhaps those patients were not there to hear a death sentence?
Daniel Gallagher sat in a padded chair that wasn’t very comfortable, but that wasn’t the fault of the person who had done the interior designing. Nothing was comfortable to him anymore. His failing body saw to that.
He waited in the small examining room with its white walls and white-tiled floor and felt a chill through the buttoned-to-the-neck overcoat he wore, which made him look like a tube with skinny legs. He wore the coat so nobody could see how frail he looked, but his condition was all over his face, the sunken cheeks, the hollow look in his eyes. Gallagher let his gaze wander around with no real interest. The examining table, with its long paper sheet drawn across the vinyl surface, sat in a corner across from him. When he was a child, those tables had made him nervous, the crinkle of the protective paper he had sat on the stuff of nightmares. The sound was usually followed by an older woman poking him with needles, at least twice. He never knew what the “shots” were for, and he’d been too shy to ask. He was well beyond the need for a shot now, unless they had something in reserve to do what the chemo couldn’t.
When the voices on the other side of the wall stopped, Gallagher made a fist with his left hand. Any moment now…
For the longest time the only thing Gallagher heard was the racing of his own heartbeat. When the door finally opened, he jumped. Dr. Floyd, his white coat open, the front pocket loaded with pens, a clipboard in his hand, shut the door.
“’Lo, Dan,” he said, pulling over a stool. He sat. He looked at Gallagher and sighed. His eyes never dropped to the clipboard.
“We’ve done all we can,” the doctor said. “I’m truly sorry.”
“How long?”
“Six months, max. You might hang on a little longer. I’ve set up a referral for hospice care. They’re expecting your call.” Dr. Floyd took a sheet from the clipboard and handed it to Gallagher, who folded it into a pocket. His blank eyes stared past the doctor’s right shoulder. He could see Floyd’s lips move but didn’t really register the other man’s face. This conversation was a formality.
“I’ll check in on you once a week, just because. We’ve been through too much for me to leave you alone.”
Gallagher finally made eye contact. Dr. Floyd’s green eyes blinked. He had a patch of gray at the temples, but the rest of his hair was dark, his face showing the appropriate wrinkles for a man of high education who’d spent his life trying to heal the sick. Gallagher wondered if he should bother with a reply. He knew Dr. Floyd would not be “checking on him” as a service to his oath. The doctor had his orders. Make sure Gallagher doesn’t talk, and silence him if he decides not to die quietly.
“Do you have any questions, Dan?”
Gallagher’s eyes flashed with defiance. “You tell me I’m dying as if we were talking about buying beer at the grocery store.”
“I know. You should have seen the first person I had to tell. A mother of two; she was barely fifty. I didn’t feel right for a month after that conversation.”
“Was she gone in that time?”
Dr. Floyd nodded.
Gallagher managed a wry smile. “Can you make sure the nurse they send is hot?”
Dr. Floyd managed a laugh.
GALLAGHER STEPPED off the bus a few blocks from his apartment and entered a bar.
If he was going to go, he’d go with a drink in his hand. Squeeze a little enjoyment out of his final months.
He let the olive sit for a while in the cold martini. Now with the chemo over, he could at least eat and drink a tiny bit. During the treatments, eating had been something his body didn’t want him to do. He shuddered remembering all the time he had spent in the bathroom. He sat in a corner booth and stared at the drink in between sips.
The bar’s lighting was dim, and when the front door opened, the glare from outside flooded the place. Gallagher winced at the bright flash of light. A man with a cane entered. Gallagher shook his head. Of course Floyd would have called the boss. Of course the boss would know to find him here.
Gallagher watched the man approach. Early sixties. Dark hair. A cane in his right hand. He walked with a limp. The rubber tip of the cane ground into the hardwood floor with each step, announcing its owner with a muffled thud each time. Presently Perry Royce slid into the booth and waved away a waitress.
“What gave me away?” Gallagher said.
“We never escape old habits, and this is the nearest bar to your home.”
“What do you want, Perry? Floyd already said he’d check on me. I don’t need a warning from you, too.”
“There’s no need for that.”
Gallagher leaned forward. “So why are you here?”
“I wanted to talk to my friend.”
Gallagher showed an unfriendly smile.
“George and I discussed this,” Royce said, “and we decided the nurse would be enough security. There’s no need for any dramatics here.”
“And our friend Cyrus?”
“I haven’t told him. It’s none of his business, really.”
“He’ll find out and he’ll be pissed you held back.”
“There was a time when it was just the three of us. In this instance, it’s still the three of us.”
“Uh-huh.” Gallagher swallowed some of his drink and winced.
“You okay?”
“Everything hurts.”
Royce’s eyes softened and Gallagher looked away.
“We did some good thi
ngs, Dan.”
“I know we did.”
“That’s how you’ll be remembered.”
“You’re right behind me, gimpy.”
Royce laughed. “There’s the Dan I remember. Are you sure you won’t make a full recovery?”
“I’m toast.” Gallagher took a long drink. “And in a minute I’m going to be drunk.”
Royce stood and extended his hand. Gallagher took it and they shook lightly. Royce’s grip was weak, as if he was afraid of crushing Gallagher’s hand. “Take it easy.” Royce limped out of the bar with the cane tapping on the wood floor. Gallagher stared at his drink. It wasn’t much of a good-bye, but they were two old wolves who didn’t know any better.
Gallagher didn’t blame Perry and George for being worried and discussing his fate. How many lives had they had snuffed out after similar conversations? Perry and George were all Gallagher had left, and he knew they knew that. His family, long estranged because of his work, didn’t even know he was sick. They could read about it in the paper, or wherever obits were printed these days.
Gallagher finished his drink and walked a little unsteadily out to the bus stop for the short ride home.
They’d done good things, yeah. But there was that one thing … one bad thing that had kept him awake some nights. Just the one.
PERRY ROYCE set his cane on the passenger seat and cursed his leg as a stab of pain shot through his calf. Years and years ago Perry Royce had been riding ATVs with friends. He fell off of his. One of his riding buddies, unable to stop in time, ran over his right ankle. Broke it clean and while it healed, as he got older, the injury began causing problems to the point where now he needed a cane and walked with a limp. And it hurt more often than it didn’t.
He drove his silver BMW 7 Series into traffic. He activated his dash phone, the touch screen responding immediately to his finger taps, and three rings later a male voice filled the cabin over the stereo speakers.
“Yes?”
“He’s going to keep his mouth shut, just like I said.”
Perry Royce, as one of the top spymasters at the CIA, had always been able to lie easily. He’d told Gallagher a whopper to spare the man unnecessary worry. Their friend Cyrus actually knew everything.