by Brian Drake
“Then you’d better kill me, too.”
“You may get your wish.”
The front door had a small arch over the top. Royce pushed the door open, the bottom edge scraping against a concrete floor and leading into a wide-open room. A layer of dust covered the floor and the walls. The armed men standing around, six by Nina’s quick count, were not dusty at all. Then a woman entered from a side room. Nina frowned. She hadn’t expected that.
“This is Helden Steuben,” Royce said. “She and I are what’s left of Lassen’s organization.”
The woman wore white and was short and stocky, her body thick with muscle—the kind of gal who liked crushing beer cans against her forehead. Nina was a head taller. The woman came forward and grabbed Nina’s left arm, almost dragging her across the floor. Nina shuffled to keep up. Royce started issuing orders as Steuben led Nina up a flight of stairs to a narrow hallway, where at the end a ladder stood. The top of the ladder extended through an opening in the ceiling.
“Up,” the big woman said.
“In the attic?”
“Up.”
“I don’t get a—”
The big woman slammed a fist into Nina’s belly. A sharp pain filled her body, and Nina gasped for breath, doubling over. The big woman grabbed her shoulder and forced her upright.
“Up!”
Nina gritted her teeth. “My hands are tied, you silly bitch.”
The big woman spun Nina around and with one wrench broke the twine locking her wrists together. She twisted Nina’s right wrist, bringing her around once again, and pointed at the ladder.
Nina took back her wrist, locking eyes with the woman. Helden Steuben’s eyes did not waver. The big woman did not blink.
“I’ll kill you later,” Nina said.
The big woman let out a grunt.
Nina started climbing, disappearing into the dark attic. Her feet left the last rung and Steuben snatched the ladder away, the trapdoor closing with an abrupt slam, plunging the attic further into darkness.
Nina felt around. At least there was carpet. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed air vents in the wall. Octagonal with the louvers closed. She crossed to one and turned the louvers to the open position, letting in some light and fresh air. Nothing but green hills as far as she could see, and no sign at all of civilization.
She put her back to the wall and sat. No stray noises indicated creepy critters, but maybe they’d appear at night. She started crawling in a circle, feeling around, tightening the circle with each pass of the open vent. There was nothing in the attic to use as a weapon, no stray items; the place was empty except for her.
She went back to the open vent and sat against the wall once again. The only thing to do was wait for an opportunity to strike. She’d made them free her hands and legs. That was a start. She felt along the edge of the vent flaps, but they were secured tightly to the frame of the vent and made of wood. And not thick wood, either. She might break one free of the frame, but she might as well go after a bull with a fly swatter.
She stretched out and tried to make herself comfortable.
“SO WHAT’S the plan?”
Royce sat and placed his cane across his lap. Helden Steuben stood before him with her arms folded. She was a tank of a woman who was all business. He’d never seen her when she wasn’t, and now, especially, she was playing the commander role to the limit.
She’d been in charge of Lassen’s European interests, involved mostly with smuggling, and now that Lassen—and their other partners—were dead, they were the only ones left to run the show.
“The plan is to lure Dane out here to rescue his girlfriend. Then we’ll deal with them both.”
“Where is Dane right now that we can’t take care of him?”
“He’s in a hospital bed, under guard at CIA headquarters. We don’t have a chance at him there.”
“How badly is he injured?”
“Not terribly, but it will be a few days before he’s on his feet. Plenty of time to get ourselves situated. Where’s the helicopter?”
“Camouflaged at our landing site about five minutes away. Pilot on standby.”
“This is the climax of a battle I should have finished years ago, Helden.”
“I’m not interested in your history. I have calls to make.”
She started to leave the room.
“Stop.”
She pivoted sharply.
“Once I call Dane, we need to split the men. I want some inside, and some outside ready to counter-attack whatever raiding party Mr. Dane brings with him.”
“You talk like he’s some sort of superman.”
“He’ll bring friends, trust me.”
She left the room, her shoes thunking on the wooden floor.
Royce took a breath and looked around. Every room in the place was bare, though this one had been set up as a sitting room with a bookcase. He didn’t intend to be here long. Just long enough.
He looked in the direction Helden had gone. Calls to make, indeed. They had to make sure the other lieutenants in the organization didn’t get ideas about bumping either of them off and taking over. He figured Helden was planning to shoot him at some point. She hadn’t already done so because they had to deal with Dane. Once he was gone, all bets were off—meaning Royce had to get her first. Running a criminal enterprise was no different than running a spy ring. One had to be ruthless. Always.
DANE STOOD by the window looking out on the courtyard below, with its greenery and benches and concrete, and thought it might be nice to open the window and let in some of the fresh air. But the pane was sealed tight.
He was on his feet for the first time in several days without feeling woozy or needing to grab on to the wall or bed rail. His biggest complaint was the draft from the air conditioner running up his backside, thanks to the opening in the hospital gown. Why hadn’t there been some sort of patient revolution demanding something (a) better and (b) a little more dignified? If his condition forced an extended stay, he might try to organize the patients for just such an effort.
Lukavina had brought his cell phone, and it rested on the nightstand beside the bed, scuffed and cracked but still working. It had remained silent since Lukavina placed it there. What was Royce waiting for? Surely he had the number. If not, he could get it. Where was Nina? What was he doing to her?
Footsteps scraped the tiled floor behind him. Dane turned. Lukavina stood in the doorway with a surprised expression.
“You haven’t fallen over?” the CIA man said.
“Still a little wonky but I think I can manage. Can we open this window at all?”
“That would take an order from Congress and require new windows,” Lukavina said, coming up beside Dane to take in the view. “This is a government building, remember?”
Dane let out a laugh.
“Any noise from the cell?”
“Nothing,” Dane said. “I’m beginning to think we’ll have to do this the hard way.”
“Shake cages?”
“Somebody always knows something. Lassen didn’t exist in a vacuum.”
And then the phone rang.
Dane moved quickly to pick it up from the nightstand and pressed the Talk button.
“Go.”
“So you’ve been expecting me,” Royce said.
“Terms. Now.”
“No terms. A location. I want to see you in the Alps.” Royce provided the location of his hideout, and Dane repeated it to Lukavina, who wrote it down in a pocket notebook.
“Three days or your woman dies.”
Dane laughed. “You need to do better than that. There’s a blonde in Barbados I’ve had my eye on for a while.”
“Two days.”
“You know I’m bringing the entire CIA with me, right?”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
Royce ended the call. Dane put the phone down.
Lukavina said, “The entire CIA?”
“We need Royce alive if we’re going to tr
uly clear my father’s name. I need whatever you can spare.”
“Your father is already clear, Steve. Between the Gallagher file and everything we’ve collected from your little scorched-earth run, we know the story. Richard Dane is considered a victim of Royce’s scheme. We don’t need to take him alive if you don’t want to.”
“It’s important that I bring him back. I can’t explain why right now.”
“I understand. You know we’ll just throw him in a hole for the rest of his life, right? There’s not going to be any public hearing on this.”
“That’s fine. Where are my clothes?”
“Are you sure you’re ready?”
Dane started removing the hospital robe. “Get my clothes and throw in some painkillers just in case.”
21
A Reason Not to Kill
DANE SWALLOWED two tablets and stifled a groan as he tightened the top of his canteen.
“You need to be careful,” Lukavina said.
They sat side by side against the fuselage of an agency jet, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean heading for Switzerland. The strike team filled the rest of the cabin, their low voices and equipment checks background noise for Dane’s throbbing head and sore body.
“Yeah,” Dane said.
It felt good to see Lukavina kitted out for combat once again. Just like the old days. They were all dressed in black with equipment bags at their feet. Dane had asked for a pair of Micro Uzi machine pistols because of their compact size and firepower; in his condition, he thought they’d be easier to handle than the full-size M-4 carbine the rest of the team carried.
And at least the plane wasn’t as uncomfortable and noisy as the C-130 Hercules transports of Dane’s Marine past. This time there was padding on the bench seating, an insulated cabin to keep out the noise, and Wi-Fi. What they had done during long flights before Wi-Fi, Dane couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to remember. Wi-Fi was wonderful. When he died, he wanted to be buried near a hotspot just in case he could read The Conservative Treehouse every day in heaven.
Lukavina’s left hand kept a tablet computer resting on his knee from hitting the floor. When the device beeped, he opened the front flap and tapped the screen. A note followed by a satellite photo appeared on the screen.
“We got the recon pics,” Lukavina said.
The pictures showed Dane an overhead view of the Royce building and the surrounding countryside.
“What’s that just due south?” Dane said.
Lukavina moved his fingers across the street to zoom in on the spot. “Looks like a badly camouflaged chopper.”
Lukavina tapped the screen again, and the picture changed. The photographed area darkened but outlines of bodies filled the spaces.
“Infrared. It won’t give us an exact count, but we’ll at least have an idea of how many bodies we face.”
“Some in the building and some in the hills there.”
“He’s trying to set up a crossfire. He knows we’ll have this. What is he trying to do?”
“Final showdown. It’s all or nothing.”
“Even if you don’t survive, we’ll never stop looking for him. He has to know that.”
“He does. He might have a plan for that. He doesn’t have a plan for me,” Dane said. He frowned and pointed at the building. “Zoom in on the hideout.”
Lukavina made the picture larger. The outline of a body, stretched out and lying flat, occupied the upper area of the building.
“Nina? In the attic?” Lukavina said.
“It’s her.”
“How do you know for sure?”
“The outline of her ass is huge.”
Lukavina turned off the tablet. “Once we get on the ground and switch to the choppers, I have an idea for you,” Lukavina said.
NINA DECIDED her right arm made a better pillow than her left.
She figured she’d been stuck in the attic for two days, based on the cycle of the sun and the two-meals-per schedule they had her on. They never supplied proper utensils with her food, and she had to eat with her hands. Royce’s crew weren’t dummies.
She lay near the vent, the louvers opened as far as she could get them, on her side, resting her head on the fleshy upper part of her right arm. Staring out into the distance was becoming her only distraction; it wasn’t much of one, because her thoughts kept intruding. It wasn’t often she found herself caged without any means of escape. If there was a way out of here, she hadn’t discovered it yet. But she kept scanning the horizon as if she was waiting for something. And she was. Steve had to be close.
The sky slowly turned dark after a bright pink sunset, and presently Nina dozed off, awakening with a start, still in the same place. She heard voices through the floor, muffled conversations she couldn’t keep track of, but what sounded like the usual barracks bull roar. The scent of hot beef drifted through. Her stomach grumbled. What she needed more than anything was a rare steak and a beer.
A flash of light winked in the distance, followed by a low rumble and a puff of smoke over the hills. Nina pushed up and put her face close to the louvers. Then the ground came alive with a swarm of black-clad figures with automatic weapons, and the first blasts of gunfire split the night. The strike force spread out in a line, dropping as she heard louder gunfire emanate from the rooms below. The floor of the attic shook from the concussions, and men screamed. Nina pulled back a little. No sense in her getting her face blown off by a stray round.
A helicopter roared overhead, a string of fire from a door-mounted machine gun chopping through the lower level of the building. The chopper flew over the top of the building, and then the roof shook from the shock wave of the rotor blades. Nina moved back to the center of the floor, staying flat. Were other troops going to rappel down?
Then she heard a voice over a loudspeaker: “Nina, honey, move to the west side of the roof!”
Dane’s voice!
Her feet snagged on the carpet as she sprang for the far wall, facing the corner on her knees, bent over, hands clasped behind her neck.
Two loud blasts shook the roof some more. Air rushed in, bits of roof and shingle flying around, smacking into the walls. Nina turned. A big hole had been blasted in the roof and a rope dropped through, Steve Dane shimmying down, head to toe in black with a 12-gauge shotgun strapped across his back. He landed on the floor and tugged on the rope. It reversed through the hole and the rotor noise faded, the chopper pulling away. The machine gun fired again.
Nina rushed into Dane’s arms, his heavy gear digging into her skin. “They said you were hurt!”
“I had a rough couple of days but I’ll live.”
He pushed her away and handed her one of his Micro Uzi machine pistols.
“How do we get out of here?” he said.
“That trapdoor,” she said, pointing at the floor, “but it’s bolted shut on the other side.”
Dane whipped out the shotgun from the sheath on his back and shoved two rounds into the magazine tube. Nina covered her ears as he fired once, twice into the frame of the trapdoor, the panel dropping in several pieces to the hallway below.
Gunfire continued to hammer through the building and outside.
“You first,” Dane said.
Nina sat down at the edge of the hole and dropped, landing in a crouch, staying low as she brought up the Micro Uzi and calling to Dane.
He dropped through next, dangling a second. And as his feet hit the carpet, Perry Royce came around the corner with a pistol flashing fire.
BULLETS CUT the air between Nina and the dangling Dane. He dropped, landed and fell forward as more fire came from the barrel of Royce’s gun. Nina fired back, tearing a chunk of plaster out of the wall where Royce hid, the debris pelting him in the face. He screamed, staggered into the open, his bum leg failing. He fell hard onto the carpet. Nina fired again as he fell, tearing up more wall behind him. Royce raised his gun as Dane lifted both his head and the Micro Uzi. Dane fired first, the flash of flame from the machine pi
stol creating a strobe effect in the hall. The salvo ripped into Royce’s hip and lower leg, the man wailing. Dane gained his feet and ran to him, Nina watching with an open mouth. Dane didn’t appear wounded or hurt at all. Dane reached the fallen man, first kicking the pistol out of Royce’s hand and then kicking him again, this time in the head to knock him unconscious. Royce’s wounds continued spilling blood into the carpet.
Nina remained on the floor, watching Dane. He pulled what looked like handcuffs from a pouch on his belt. She ran over to him. “Are you hit?”
“No,” he said, rolling Royce onto his stomach to snap the cuffs on both wrists. “Afraid my legs are a little shaky. They done gave out on me.”
“When we get home—” she started to say.
“Yeah,” Dane said, rising. “When indeed.” He pulled a radio from another pouch. “Royce is secured.”
“We’re moving in,” said another voice, one Nina recognized as Lukavina’s.
Dane and Nina moved Royce away from the staircase and back toward the hole leading to the attic. The firefight below intensified for a moment, several explosions shaking the walls, Dane and Nina standing ready with their weapons before them. But when the first two fighters ascended the steps and identified themselves, they lowered the guns and relaxed. The good guys had won. Now all that was left was the cleanup.
“WAS THERE a fat girl downstairs?”
Dane and Lukavina raised eyebrows at Nina.
“She would have been wearing white. And before Labor Day, too.”
Lukavina, his face sweaty and smeared with dirt, said, “I didn’t notice, but I wasn’t looking. Why?”
“She was Royce’s number two, and I promised to kill her myself.”
“We didn’t take any prisoners, so I’m afraid you might be disappointed,” Lukavina said.
Dane and the CIA man carried Royce’s body down the stairs and through the mass of strike force personnel and dead bodies. Nina looked around for Helden Steuben, and left the pair a moment to check a side room. She smiled as she discovered the big woman lying face down in the sitting room, her white outfit stained red from the leaking bullet holes in her body.