by Gayle Lynds
Shocked, she tried to detect any sound, any motion, any sign of life. Were the killers still here? But after a full minute, the hush seemed only to grow heavier. She whipped out her cell and speed-dialed Langley’s emergency number.
As soon as a voice answered, she said quietly, “This is Elaine Cunningham. I’m at one of our secret units. It’s been attacked.” She filled in details and described what she saw.
In cool, rote tones, the CIA officer asked: “Can you leave safely?”
“I believe so.”
“Then get out of there. We’ll have a team at the scene in under ten minutes.”
“Make it faster.”
She hit the OFF button and focused again on the carnage in the corridor. She took three quick steps and hunched beside the closest man and checked for a pulse. There was none. No surprise. He lay on his side, an exit wound in his chest. He had been shot from behind, probably while trying to escape. A bullet had shattered his temple, fired at close range—an execution after the first bullet knocked him down.
She knelt beside the next man, hoping for a pulse. Again, none. She recognized him from an assignment in Paris four years ago. His name was Harry Brillie, and he was regular DO then, or at least presented himself that way. His lean face held an expression of fury and surprise. Wounds bloodied his legs and throat. Blood splatters along the walls showed he had managed to stagger five feet before falling. Where the blood began was where his pistol lay.
Elaine lifted her head, analyzing the stillness. The house felt like a sarcophagus. Despite the orders to leave, she could not make herself. Someone might still have a thread of life, and she wanted to know who in hell had done this. She sped from one person to the next, checking, looking for Hannah’s walnut-colored hair, for Mark’s wire-rimmed glasses. Her fingers grew bloody searching for pulses. Don’t think, she told herself. Don’t.
Lungs tight, she ran down the hall to two crumpled men and a woman. Blood stained the wainscoting above them. She crouched. They had died where they had fallen. She backtracked and opened an office door. There were two bodies on the floor. They appeared to have been shot while rising from their chairs and turning toward the door. Both still had weapons in their hands.
She checked other offices. All were empty, except Mark Silliphant’s. He was killed while sitting in his chair, a bullet neatly through the back of his skull. His head had crashed forward onto his keyboard. His glasses were crushed into his boyish face.
She returned to the corridor and ran again, still listening while opening more doors, finding more corpses. The attack had been intimate and savage and swift. So far, it was a slaughter.
At the other end of the hall was Hannah’s office. The door was wide-open. Elaine rushed inside, but the room was empty. Hannah was not lying behind the desk. She turned to go, then noticed that the newspaper on the desktop was folded back to display the story and photos chronicling Kristoph Maas’s death. Hannah must have been too eager to wait; she had sent someone for the Herald Tribune, too, and she had settled on the same article that Elaine had as the one that would have interested Jay Tice.
Elaine hurried out and across the corridor. She opened the last door—and froze, stunned. Lying on the desk was the woman in the caftan from the park. The woman who had tried to scrub her.
Elaine sprinted, not believing. But there was no doubt—the same straight nose, same round cheeks and chin, same brown hair—and same bloody wound to the belly. What was the corpse doing here? She dropped to her heels before a clutter of items. Someone had swept everything off the desk to make room for the corpse. Her hand went instantly to a framed photo of a man and a girl. She recognized neither. Then to a photo of a woman with the same man and girl. This time she stared. And knew.
She jumped up and felt the corpse’s hair, then ripped it off—a wig. The female janitor was the man in the photos. A Whippet operative. The realization that he was Whippet struck her like a body blow. She swallowed rage. Fought back terror. For some reason, Whippet had tried to wipe her. Now she remembered Hannah’s supposedly innocent question: “Will you drive straight here from Andrews?” This had to be why she had been unable to reach Hannah. What the hell was going on!
And where was Hannah? She raced across the room and again into the hallway, moving swiftly but with an even more concentrated effort at silence. Suddenly, as if from a great distance, she heard the tiny clicks of the front door’s closing, the same as when Hannah shut it after her arrival this morning.
Forcing herself to breathe, Elaine gripped her Walther in both hands and continued cautiously on. If someone had just arrived, they had two options—stay in the foyer or move into the house. She stared down the corridor, waiting for the person to appear. Beneath her, the old Victorian’s floorboards creaked. She bit back a curse.
At the corner, she raised her Walther. She exhaled then peered around past the fake antiques, past the hidden security—to a body that lay sprawled just inside the front door. She had found Hannah Barculo at last.
And the answer to at least one question—whoever had closed the door had been leaving. Elaine padded to the Whippet chief, who lay on her back, mouth open in surprise, hand gripping her gun. The barrel was still warm. On the opposite wall was a bullet hole. There were three shots to her chest, the black fabric burned from close range. Hannah was dead, but she had fought back and not gone down easily.
Elaine inspected the door. There was no sign it was forced. She looked around quickly. Someone had sent a Whippet team to wipe her in the park. And now more Langley troops were headed here. Their orders could be to liquidate her, too. Sweat drenched her forehead. Her only choice was to get as far away as possible. She had to find out what in hell was going on.
The front door was her closest escape route. Pulse throbbing, she turned out the light and inched open the door. The outside carriage lamp was shattered, glass lying in a spray on the porch. She slid into the darkness, alert for any watchers, and closed her black jacket over her T-shirt, which suddenly seemed glaringly white. Night spread before her, dense and threatening, while traffic cruised the street as if nothing had happened. People strolled the sidewalk, past the lit houses.
She crossed the porch and descended, studying pedestrians. Across the street a small family attracted her attention. Leading was a young couple, the man pushing a baby stroller. Forced by the narrowness of the sidewalk to follow was an older man, smiling fondly at them. An uncle? A grandfather? He wore a slouched cap and thick eyeglasses, and his expression was doting. Most people would never give him a second thought. But her gaze kept returning.
She dropped behind bushes, looking for surveillance. When she saw none, she joined the flow on the sidewalk on the Victorian’s side of the street, paralleling the anomalous man. There was something about him—not the couple, but him—that held her notice. Then she knew. He was playing a role.
His hands curled at his sides, giving the impression of being relaxed, but the wrists were stationary. His eyes, which appeared kindly, periodically surveyed like a predatory hawk’s. His gait was slow but far from elderly—he rolled off the pads of his feet like a professional runner. As he passed under a streetlamp, she saw clipped gray hair beneath his cap. Noted the furrows that curved down from his nose to his mouth. Stared at the cleft that marked the center of his chin.
Shock jolted her. She could have missed him easily. Should have missed him. He was that good. A grim smile spread across her face. She had found her target at last. The man was Jay Tice.
12
Georgetown
The ivory table linen shone, and the sterling gleamed. The drinks were generous, and the wine Longoria’s finest. Embassy officials, politicians, and media stars surrounded the long dinner table at the home of a former Secretary of State. The party was one of those swank affairs Laurence Litchfield made a point to attend. As the Deputy Director of Operations, he did quiet public relations whenever possible, and the VIPs sitting in the candlelight were very important members of “
the public.”
Known for his incisive intellect, the French ambassador was an athletic man with a receding hairline. “Our Muslim population comes mostly from Morocco and Algeria,” he explained. “A violent sect called Takfir walHijra has been operating religious schools in both countries for years. They steep the kids in doctrine and call in hardened al-Qaeda veterans to train them to kill. This is brilliant planning, of course, because a lot of poor parents send their children to these schools just for the free meals. Then when the budding terrorists grow up, the Takfirs export them to my country.”
“It’s tragic,” added the wife of the British ambassador. “If those young people ever knew what common human values are, they’ve forgotten. You can’t reason with them. They spout memorized rhetoric. They don’t want to talk to you anyway.” One of four Muslims at the table, she was an economics professor at Georgetown and also owned a popular Middle Eastern restaurant. “Nowadays, jihad and immigration to the West go together. The thinking is that jihad can’t be achieved without it.”
For a moment, no one spoke. Immigration laws around the globe had long been used as a vehicle for invasion, but in today’s circumstances it was chilling to remember that. The subject of terrorism had been holding the party in thrall, and Litchfield had listened quietly to the usual complaints that the CIA did little but bumble. He despaired that people were too often and too easily comforted by their shared, if uninformed, misery. In fact, before leaving Langley tonight, he had gone down to the Global Response Center on the sixth floor. Another two hundred threats had arrived in the past twelve hours. Probably all would prove empty—but each would be checked in detail.
Now the topic changed again. “What the CIA does that nobody else does is talk their way into, or break into, or suborn an employee in some foreign office so they can steal secrets.” Speaking was a young reporter with a photogenic face recently hired by a major network for nearly a million dollars annually. To this group, his pronouncement was hardly news, but he was too ignorant to know that. “Or in a president’s office, if they’re really good.”
The hostess was kind; she played along. “Or eavesdrop on some diplomat’s calls to find out whether he’s lying to the White House. Isn’t that right, Laurence?” Famed for her power salons, she was unrivaled at putting guests at ease, then teasing out revelations. Years ago Litchfield had decided she would have made a damn fine spy.
“All of it’s useful.” Litchfield gave a wry smile, glad for a lighter topic. “George Washington himself submitted a bill for nearly twenty thousand dollars to pay for his army’s spies. Both Alexander the Great and Hannibal relied on espionage, too. The history of espionage is long, if not always illustrious. For instance, President Nixon took national security so seriously he even classified some White House menus.”
As laughter rippled around the table, Litchfield felt his disposable cell phone vibrate. With relief, he excused himself and strode out of the elegant dining room. Once outdoors, he stuck his pipe between his teeth and moved lightly away from the house. In his mid-forties, he had a runner’s wiry body. His tuxedo fit impeccably, but then he’d had it made for him on Savile Row. He stopped beside a box hedge and studied the garden. He had an aquiline nose, a square chin, and eyebrows that cut across his forehead in a black line. Satisfied no one was nearby, he listened to the message on his cell. His deep-set eyes clouded. It was from the DCI.
He dialed. “Bobbye? It sounds bad. What’s happened?”
The DCI’s usual honeyed tones rasped with outrage. “It’s Whippet. Someone’s taken them out.”
“What! The whole unit? Are you certain?”
“Most of the ones here in D.C., yes. Four are still breathing, but only because they were out on assignment. One is Elaine Cunningham. She called in the report. Who in hell has the goddamned balls and is stupid enough to do such a thing?”
Litchfield froze, thinking. “Tice might’ve learned Whippet was assigned to find him.” He swore loudly. “The unit’s address is the same as when Tice headed ops. It was scheduled for a name and location change later this year.”
Bobbye Johnson was not pleased. “Obviously it’s time you shortened the resettlement schedules of our special units.”
But Litchfield’s mind was elsewhere, making plans. Edgy and field-smart, he had been the Associate Deputy Director under Tice—Tice’s number two. When Tice was arrested, he was promoted to the throne of all clandestine activities. Following a legend like Tice, even a tainted legend, was hardly easy. Still, his tenure had been highly successful. Bobbye Johnson’s had, too, but she got little credit for it. As DCI, she was a lightning rod for all that was wrong or perceived wrong with Langley. Washington thrived on gossip, and the latest was that she would be asked to resign. Litchfield was pleased that his name topped the rumor list of those likely to replace her, but this situation with Whippet and Tice could hurt him.
“Don’t concern yourself, Bobbye.” His tone was properly supportive. “You’ve got more than enough responsibilities. I’ll personally find Tice and whoever scrubbed our people—if it wasn’t Tice.”
“You have damn little time before we have to turn the hunt over to the FBI. As for Whippet, since you aren’t here, I’ve been handling things personally.” There was just enough admonition in her tone to remind him she was still very much in charge. “I’ve activated all protocols to protect the unit’s identity. Our dead will be named under their cover identities. Whip-pet house will be cleaned out in less than an hour. I’ve talked to the police, and they’ll cooperate. I’ve got Justice to agree to tell the media that the institute is a think tank populated by independent researchers flown in to analyze stateless violence.”
“We need to send our own people to look for witnesses.”
“I’ve made the assignment. Also, the house’s security cameras should’ve recorded the attack. I’ve ordered video copies for your desk and mine. Shall I tell my assistant to alert your staff you’re coming in?”
“I’m leaving now.”
“Keep me posted,” she ordered.
Litchfield severed the connection and clasped his hands behind his back. Much was at stake, and he must make the right decisions. The assault on Whippet showed not only daring but information and power—the defining elements of a Jay Tice operation. Worried, he stood motionless in the moonlight, inscrutable, an urbane statue in black and white.
Washington, D.C.
Jay Tice did not vary from his casual stroll as Elaine followed him around corners and down blocks. One of the notations in his file echoed in her mind: “He had a reputation for going after anyone who attacked him.” Somehow the bastard had learned about Whippet and butchered them.
As she slowed, letting a trio of middle-aged men feed into the pedestrian traffic between Tice and her, she considered the phantom group that had tried to purge Tice and Palmer Westwood. Then that Whippet had tried to scrub her, and now Tice had decimated Whippet. Jay Tice was not only her target, he was central to everything that had happened.
Vehicle noises increased, and voices filled the air. They had arrived at Dupont Circle. It was a typical April night in an atypical area, even for D.C. Dupont was a crowded hotbed of not only urban culture but counterculture.
Tice wove among the crowds, and she elbowed and pushed after. Skin colors ranged from pale ivory to dark eggplant. Nose rings sparkled. Tattoos flashed. Naked arms gleamed. She was losing Tice.
She ducked and slid sideways and shoved through the moving talking laughing sweating masses, always keeping him in sight. The aromas of Starbucks coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts and beer mixed in the humid air. Tice strode past the wedge-shaped Washington Club and paused at the intersection. She hurried to catch up. For cover, she fell into step with two young men.
“Well, hi,” said the one closest to her.
“Hi back.” She shot him a smile and peeled away.
Tice crossed the street and headed toward Jurys Washington Hotel—a good place to meet someone. She lope
d after, joining some tourists, and followed Tice’s slouched cap and catlike walk into the spacious stone-framed lobby and through the milling crowd and along a hall, where he slipped in among a cluster of guests. He vanished around the corner with some of them.
She raced to catch up, rounded the corner, too, and stopped. A row of elevators, and a dead end. A half-dozen people were piling into the only open elevator. She sprinted and peered inside. They frowned and stared back. He was not with them.
As her heart palpitated, the door closed, and she spun around, checking the other elevators. All were on higher floors, coming down. How could she have missed him? She dashed back into the corridor, but Tice was nowhere in sight. She rushed into the lobby and dodged through the bar, with its slurred talk and clinking glasses. No Tice. She hurried into the lobby again and through all of the halls and the restaurant and the café, searching everywhere.
Puzzled, furious with herself, she paused, recalling advice from one of his speeches: “Always have a good backup strategy and an even better way out.” If he had purposefully led her to this hotel, he must have spotted her.
She swore a long stream of silent oaths and returned to the elevators. A different one opened, and a couple strolled out. The man was not Tice. She paced, studying the walls. Moldings and panels decorated them. There were no hinges, no doorknobs. Then she saw it—so much a part of the overall design that it was almost invisible—a small molding-framed rectangle. She pressed it. There was a creak, and a low door swung back. The fusty odor of a basement flowed up, accompanied by the whine of elevator gears and pulleys.
Disgusted that she had allowed herself to be fooled, she bent and stepped onto a webbed steel landing. Closing the door, she trotted down a long flight of steps to the hotel’s engineering room, a large echoing space with a concrete floor and boxy metal housings for utilities. Pipes and cables formed a gaudy overhead net. Fluorescent lights glared. She looked behind every housing, every post, listening so hard her ears ached. Seldom did she lose anyone, but tonight of all nights she had lost this very crucial target.