Look-Alike

by Meredith Fletcher

  “I want Lenin’s Lullaby,” Elle said. But I want you just as badly.

  “How do you know about that?” Quinn demanded.

  “Does it matter?”

  “What are you willing to give me for it?”

  A bullet between the eyes, Elle thought. But she said, “You can have your money back.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Then die broke,” Elle snapped. “Keep looking over your shoulder, because one day I’ll be there.”

  “I don’t think so.” Quinn sounded more confident. “I, too, have something to trade. I have Joachim.”

  Fear punched Elle in the stomach. Her hand trembled on the phone. Breathing out, she pushed all the confusion and the emotions away. She was a spy. The SVR had prepared her for stress and pressure.

  They just didn’t prepare you for this, she thought bitterly. It wasn’t just losing Joachim that preyed on her mind. If he died, there was no reason for Günter Stahlmann to keep Joachim’s family alive.

  “How do I know you have him?” she asked.

  There was a pause, then Joachim yelled in pain. The sound cut through Elle, making her shudder.

  “Proof enough?” Quinn asked. “Or do I have to send you a body part?”

  “You’ve got my attention,” Elle conceded.

  “If you want him back,” Quinn said, “in one piece, we’re going to have to negotiate.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  Quinn laughed then. “See? We’re already negotiating. I don’t trust you, either.”

  “Then what do we do?”

  “We swap. You get Joachim and I get my money.”

  “What about Lenin’s Lullaby?”

  “Oh, I keep that. I’ve already got interested buyers that I really don’t want to disappoint. All those years ago I could sell it right away. I’ve kept it as a nest egg—waiting for a rainy day. It’s pouring now.”

  Elle took a deep breath. “Where and when?”

  Quinn gave her a longitude and latitude, then told her to be there at 6:45 a.m. “I expect everything to be put back in place before we make the exchange,” he said. “Otherwise I’m going to tie an anchor around Joachim’s neck and send him to the bottom. Hopefully you’ll be there to watch.”

  “I’ll be there,” Elle said. Then she broke the connection before he could. She turned on her heel and started walking, thinking furiously.

  Only a short distance farther on, her father stepped out of an alley where he’d been keeping watch and fell into step with her. “Something has happened.”

  Without preamble, Elle gave it to him.

  Her father was silent for a short time. “You can still deal for Lenin’s Lullaby. You can force Quinn’s hand.”

  “Not without him killing Joachim first,” Elle said.

  “When you weigh the lives in the balance—”

  Elle turned on him. “The lives are already in the balance. Whether the world knows about Lenin’s Lullaby or not, the military departments of several countries have more than enough biological agents to wipe out the population of this planet several times over. If they don’t, they will have. It doesn’t matter if everyone knows that Russia made this one. Everyone’s hands are dirty when it comes to this kind of warfare.”

  Her father looked at her silently. “I can’t get a team in place in time for the meeting tomorrow. By the time I explain to the generals what we need, it will be too late.”

  “I know.” Elle thought furiously. “But maybe I can.” She took out her cell phone again and dialed Sam’s home number, trusting that her sister would have her calls forwarded in case Elle called.

  Sam answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

  “It’s me,” Elle said.

  “I didn’t expect to hear from you.”

  Elle tried to figure out how much anger was in her sister’s words and was surprised to find that relief seemed to outweigh everything else.

  “There’s a situation,” Elle said. She took a deep breath and let it out, realizing that honesty was the best policy. “Sam, I need help.”

  “Tell me where to meet you,” Sam said. “Riley and I are on Mykonos.”

  Shock ran through Elle. “How did you get here?”

  “Someone thought you were me,” Sam explained. “This isn’t the first time. I’ll tell you later. Where can we find you?”

  THEY MET AT THE ROOMS Sam and Riley had taken at Cavo Tagoo. After brief introductions, and some tense moments, they settled down to business, spreading maps of the area over a table in the center of the room.

  Despite the different political affiliations and some emotion on Fyodor Petrenko’s part at seeing his adopted daughter’s twin in the flesh, all of them were versed enough in their craft to concentrate on the task at hand.

  “The open water is a bad place for a confrontation,” her father said.

  “Agreed,” Riley replied, surveying the open expanse of blue on the map that spread out from the X he’d marked. “However, it’s going to work against Quinn as much as it does us. Plus, I’ve got a few surprises I can pull as far as men and munitions. The CIA has a military staging team off the coast of Turkey that we can borrow. Mitchell Stone, our director, has already made the arrangements. The team is already en route. They’ll be in place before morning.”

  “If Quinn thinks he’s being tricked, he’ll kill Joachim,” Elle said. The fear inside her had died down to a constant pulse, like ashes that had been banked to make it through the night.

  Although Riley wasn’t completely convinced of Joachim’s story about the BND agent, he’d seemed willing to listen and put aside his own judgment in the matter.

  “We’re not going to let that happen,” Riley said. He looked at Elle. “Sam says you’re good with a sniper rifle.”

  “I am,” Elle said.

  “She is one of the best I’ve ever seen,” her father said. There was no pride in his voice, only a statement of fact.

  “The men I’ve got coming are going to be in the water,” Riley said. “But we need a sniper to make this work. I can spare one of the men, but then we lose one of them in the water.”

  “I can do it,” Elle said.

  Riley fixed her with his gaze. “I hope so, because Sam’s life is going to be in your hands.”

  TWO HOURS BEFORE DAWN, Elle stood in front of the hotel and waited for the others. Her eyes were drawn up to the six-unit boarding house across the street, to the room where she had made love to Joachim Reiter the first time.

  The first time? She shook her head, wondering where that thought had come from. The only time. If we live through today, we won’t see each other again. But part of her wanted to see him again. To see him and to make love to him.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” Sam said.

  Turning, Elle was surprised to find her sister there. She shook her head and tried a smile that didn’t fit properly. “You wouldn’t like them. They’re too dark, too Russian.”

  Sam searched her with her knowing gaze. “He got to you, didn’t he?” Sam asked.

  Elle didn’t say anything.

  “I could tell by the way you were attracted to him back in Amsterdam,” Sam said. “From the very first time you met him at the train station.”

  “That was hormones.”

  “Is it now?”

  Riley and her father came from the hotel lobby, but they gave them space, standing to one side and conferring quietly.

  “Now,” Elle said, breathing out, “I don’t know what it is. He’s a criminal, Sam. Not someone pretending to be a criminal.”

  “If that’s all he was,” Sam said quietly, “if that’s all he could be, you wouldn’t feel the same way.”

  “I don’t know how I feel,” Elle admitted. “I think I’m more confused than anything.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “Except for scared. I’m scared.” It wasn’t like her to admit that, or to feel that emotion this intensely. She’d always let it hang loose in the field, always felt like she
could handle anything that was thrown her way.

  Sam threw her arm around her sister, and it was like none of the tension that had happened in Amsterdam or at the Athena Academy had ever come between them. This is how we’re supposed to be, Elle thought. This is the way it would have been if Klaus Stryker hadn’t come between us.

  “Come on,” Sam said. “This will be cake.”

  “When the shooting starts,” Elle said, “stay low. I’m going to be shooting from a fishing boat.”

  Chapter 24

  The Aegean Sea

  Near the Cyclades Islands, Greece

  At 5:37 a.m., Elle slung the thirty-pound, second-generation Barrett sniper rifle over her shoulder and climbed up into the rigging of the fishing boat Riley McLane had hired. She lay along the top yardarm, dressed in canvas-colored clothing that helped her blend in with the furled sail.

  Taking her position in the narrow safety net she and Riley had manufactured as a sniper’s nest, Elle ran her hands over the big rifle and tried not to think about missing her shot.

  The Barrett was a .50-caliber weapon with confirmed kills out past a mile. She hoped she was shooting at half that distance.

  The rifle was semiautomatic, kicking out each spent shell and seating the next on blowback. The magazine held eleven rounds. An ammo pouch held a dozen more magazines. If she needed them.

  As second-generation, the Barrett had been redesigned to move the magazine receiver from the center of the rifle to the stock in a bullpup configuration, providing less recoil for a faster second shot. The .50-caliber round could punch through foot-thick walls and take out targets. Even a hit in a leg or an arm often guaranteed a kill from shock alone. Elle was extremely proficient with the weapon and had used them on other assignments with considerable success.

  At 6:02 a.m., when the first creeping light of dawn showed pink in the east behind Elle, the boat Sam and her father had rented sailed into the meet site. Sam walked out onto the deck and held up a paper bull’s-eye mounted on cardboard. She held it steady in the gentle wind.

  Moment of truth, Elle told herself as she laid her cheek against the Barrett’s stock. She kept both eyes open as she peered through the telescopic sight. Trying not to think that if she didn’t hit the target the heavy bullet would take off her sister’s hand or arm, she put the crosshairs over the target.

  “Ready?” Elle asked over the radio headset she wore.

  “Yes,” Sam said.

  “Steady.”

  “Do it.” Sam never flinched.

  Always restless, the blue-green swells of the Aegean rose and fell beneath both vessels. Elle timed them. At least as high up in the rigging as she was, she didn’t lose sight of Sam’s boat.

  She took up trigger slack, squeezed and felt the Barrett slam against her shoulder.

  Sam examined the target. “Two inches low and to the left. Do it again.”

  Elle made the adjustments to the scope. Riley had promised that the weapon was already sighted in, but Elle knew that each shooter read a scope just a little differently. At a half mile, even a fraction of a difference measured in inches. She floated, timed the swells and entered the zero at the center of a sniper’s radar, when time no longer tilted the world.

  She fired again.

  Upon inspection, Sam declared, “Perfect ten.”

  “Good,” Elle said.

  “All right,” Riley said. “From this moment on, we maintain radio silence.”

  Trying to relax, trying not to think of everything that could go wrong, Elle lay quietly in the sniper’s nest and waited.

  “THEY’RE THERE.”

  Standing in the pilot’s area of his yacht, Quinn looked south southeast and spotted two boats. “There are two vessels.”

  “One of them is a fishing trawler,” Beck replied over the radio headset. “It’s a half-mile distant from the rendezvous point. You don’t have anything to worry about from a fishing boat.”

  Quinn knew that was true. But so many things had gone wrong this past week. “Keep watch.”

  “I will.”

  The sleek executive Bell helicopter carrying Beck shot by overhead. He saluted Quinn through the thick Plexiglas.

  Lifting the handset for the radio, Quinn called for Samantha St. John over the prearranged channel. “St. John, this is Quinn.”

  “I read you.” Her voice was calm, steady.

  Is she that confident? Quinn wondered. Or does she truly believe I’m going to let her out of here? He didn’t know. Either possibility amused him.

  “Get out on deck. Let me see you,” Quinn ordered. He pulled binoculars to his eyes and watched the other ship as the pretty young blonde stepped into full view.

  She wore a halter and walking shorts, leaving little to the imagination and even less to hide a weapon.

  Are you truly that confident? Quinn wondered. He shifted his gaze to the boat’s pilot. Quinn didn’t know the man, but there was something vaguely familiar about him.

  Beck and the helicopter circled overhead, close enough to raise additional chop on the sea. Belted into the craft, Beck and two of his men opened the doors and readied assault rifles equipped with M-203 grenade launchers.

  “You didn’t mention bringing a helicopter,” the woman told him.

  Quinn grinned. “Sue me. I like surprises.”

  “Surprises won’t get your money back.”

  Cursing, Quinn waved to the two men holding Joachim Reiter between them. The German was handcuffed. Tape gagged him and he was still under the effects of a narcotic.

  The two men guided Joachim to the prow and flanked him. They held him down on his knees while one of them put a pistol against their captive’s head.

  “No,” Quinn agreed. “But he will.”

  “All right,” the woman said. “How do you want to do this?”

  “Stay there,” Quinn directed. “We’ll come alongside.” He signaled his steersman to take them in. “Leave your boat powered down.”

  As they drew near, Quinn remained in the pilot area, not out in the open at all. “Move out,” he said over his headset.

  Immediately, the dozen armed men he had hidden aboard the yacht poured out from belowdecks and took up positions along the railing. They pointed their weapons at the woman and the man.

  “Now,” Quinn said, stepping out into view, “I believe you have something of mine.”

  BASTARD! Riley McLane thought furiously. Clad in scuba gear and a black dive suit, he sat quietly in the upside-down Zodiac fast-attack boat that had been air-dropped into the sea ten miles away then steered into position.

  Capable of traveling above or below the surface, the Zodiac was designed to deliver Navy SEALs and equipment to target sites. Upside-down in the water now, the rigid hull construction was at present buoyantly balanced to hang three feet below the surface, just deep enough that it couldn’t be seen underwater in the early morning light. Riley felt the tide alternately lift and drop him the way it had for the past hour. The boat also carried on-board oxygen for the SEALs.

  Riley peered through the miniature periscope setup SEAL team Captain James Tarlton had outfitted him with. Through it, he could see the armed men suddenly facing Sam.

  Cursing himself, Riley knew they should have expected something like this. And they had, which was why Elle was set up as sniper in the fishing boat, but they hadn’t thought about a helicopter.

  Tarlton and his men occupied two Omega boats on either side of Sam’s boat. All of the men were specialists at small-arms fire and close-quarters fighting.

  Riley knew the SEAL team captain was seeing the same thing he was seeing. The SEALs also used shorthand code, tapped out on wrists, to keep each other informed.

  Trying to keep his breathing regular through the regulator, Riley waited. The next move was up to Sam and Elle.

  WATCHING THE ACTION taking shape on the two boats through the sniper scope, Elle forced herself to remain calm. She kept both eyes open but couldn’t see any of the individuals on the
other vessels with her left eye. Through the scope she could count hairs if she wanted to. She waited, sweeping the scope across Quinn, then settling on the man with the pistol pointed at Joachim’s head.

  A moment later, Sam handed over the notebook computer that she claimed had the software on it Quinn would need to reclaim his fortune. He had a satellite link on board the yacht, so he could examine the hookup immediately.

  Elle kept the rifle centered over the chest of the man holding the pistol on Joachim. She saw the puff of red smoke swirl up from the notebook computer in the yacht’s stern. Mixed with tear gas, the smoke grenade concealed within the computer guaranteed a moment of confusion.

  Elle squeezed the Barrett’s trigger, riding out the recoil and switching over to the other man next to Joachim as the empty brass cartridge spun in the gentle wind. With the difference between the bullet’s velocity and the speed of sound, she knew she could have three shots in the air before the sound of the first one reached the men aboard the ship.

  On the yacht, the man holding the pistol on Joachim suddenly flew backward as if he’d been hit in the chest by a sledgehammer. The second man’s head came apart and Elle knew she’d almost missed the target

  “Go!” she yelled over the headset as she moved on to her next target, shifting the rifle in an attempt to pick up Quinn.

  “MOVE OUT!”

  Gripping the Zodiac’s side, Riley heard the SEAL team commander give his order over the underwater radio and felt the special forces craft shiver to life as the electric engines kicked over and powered it up. The men shifted around Riley as the Zodiac hurtled toward the yacht.

  “Get us up!” Tarlton shouted.

  Incredibly, the Zodiac flipped and surfaced, losing a large amount of the water through the vented sides as it skimmed along on top of the sea.

  Spitting out the regulator and stripping off the face mask, Riley unlimbered the H&K MP3 submachine gun he’d been assigned for the assault. Several of the SEALs were already raking Quinn’s yacht with controlled fire. Pieces of the boat’s coaming blew away into the air. Armed men aboard the yacht went down at once.