She lives with her husband, Bob, and their psycho cat in Sparks, Nevada.
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POE
(AN ALEXANDRA POE NOVEL)
BRETT BATTLES & ROBERT GREGORY BROWNE
Copyright © 2013 by Brett Battles and Robert Gregory Browne
Cover art copyright © 2013 by Browne House Creations
Cover Photo: © Saša Prudkov | Dreamstime.com
All rights reserved.
POE is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information about the authors, please visit
www.brettbattles.com/
and
www.robertgregorybrowne.com.
Chapter One
May 4th
Paris, France
He thought there might be a problem when they didn’t hear from Six.
It was a routine status check, each of the spotters responding as requested:
“Zeta One, clear.”
“Zeta Two, clear.”
“Zeta Three, clear.”
“Zeta Four, clear.”
“Zeta Five, clear.”
Then radio silence.
A full seven seconds of it.
McElroy’s gut clenched as he keyed his mic. “Zeta Six, report.”
More silence.
“Zeta Six?”
Three more seconds of nothing, then a sharp pop, followed by, “This is Six. Sorry. Was repositioning. I think I have him.”
McElroy exhaled, telling himself that these things happened, that Six was a good man and should be given a bit of slack. But that feeling of possible difficulties had not abated, and he wondered for a moment if they should abort the entire operation.
No.
He was simply letting paranoia get to him and he couldn’t give in to it. Not when they were this close.
He tapped Duncan’s shoulder. “Put Six on center screen.”
With just a few keystrokes, Duncan switched the image in the main surveillance monitor to the feed coming from Zeta Six’s camera—a shot from the top of a building on the west side of Rue Danton, showing the small plaza in front of the Saint-Michel metro station near the entrance of the Latin Quarter. It was six p.m. on a Friday evening, and the area was packed with the usual swarm—tourists out enjoying the city and locals trying to find their way home.
Not the optimum situation, but then McElroy hadn’t set the schedule.
“Zeta Six, identify subject,” he said.
“Comin’ atcha.”
A translucent gray grid appeared over the feed, then a red dot zipped across the screen and planted itself on the back of a man walking across Boulevard Saint-Michel, away from the camera.
“You sure that’s him?” McElroy asked.
“I think so. Got a quick shot of him coming out of the metro station. Sending you that now.”
A moment passed, then Duncan’s computer terminal dinged softly.
“Play it,” McElroy told him.
A smaller, unused monitor flickered to life with Six’s shot of the metro entrance. The man he had tagged was in the middle of a pack of exiting commuters.
Duncan paused the image and pushed in. Stonewell’s surveillance gear was cutting edge, compact, and ultra high-def, so little quality was lost as the image was enlarged.
The man on the screen was solidly built and had a rugged, timeworn face that McElroy had committed to memory years ago.
His pulse kicked up a notch.
“That’s him,” he said, then keyed his mic. “Raven spotted. All teams, Raven spotted. Entering on Rue de la Huchette. Six has him tagged. Zeta Five, stay alert.”
Using the digital tag, the spotters synced their systems to pick the target out of the crowd.
“Got him,” Five said. “On Huchette now.”
Duncan switched Zeta Five’s feed onto the main screen.
“Grab team, stand by,” McElroy said.
His orders from Stonewell were to snatch Raven and the man he was meeting. Both were wanted by the US government, and their captures would reflect well on the organization, not to mention earn it a generous bonus on top of its usual service fee.
There was only one small problem. The Latin Quarter was a warren of narrow pedestrian streets that weaved around centuries-old, multistory buildings like crooked trails through a dense forest. All were already filling up with hungry tourists. Because of the twists and turns, sight lines were a bitch, with dozens of nooks and recesses where their targets could hide from view if they even remotely suspected they were being followed.
Raven had chosen his meeting place wisely.
There was also the not insignificant fact that Stonewell’s entire operation was off the grid. The French government was kept in the dark, a decision made by Stonewell’s executive committee and passed on to McElroy.
It was one that he fully supported, however. No way the French would’ve allowed them to move forward, especially given the short time frame involved.
The radio crackled. “Zeta One to base. Hawk sighted. Exiting taxi on Rue Saint-Jacques.”
McElroy shifted his focus to Zeta One’s monitor in time to see a blond, powerfully built man walking away from a taxi at the curb. He had bleached his hair, but it was Hawk all right. Stonewell had obtained only one halfway decent picture of him, but McElroy recognized the intense eyes and that jagged pink scar on the right side of his neck.
In some circles within the US intelligence community, Hawk was considered the bigger catch. He would undoubtedly possess information about terrorist organizations throughout Europe and the Middle East that would be paying off for years.
But the real prize was Raven. It wasn’t so much because of what the man might know, but because of what he represented. His capture would be satisfying to Stonewell’s clients.
Deeply satisfying.
And to McElroy himself.
“Both targets on site,” he told everyone. “Grab team in position.”
One of the small monitor feeds was focused on the front of the restaurant where the two men were reportedly scheduled to meet. It was down a side street, deeper into the Quarter, and flanked by two other restaurants.
Within moments, the members of the grab team joined the steady stream of tourists on the cobbled walkway. Two of them, a man and a woman, approached the restaurant and paused outside the door as if they were trying to decide whether this was where they wanted to eat. They were the backup, just in case either Raven or Hawk got that far.
McElroy glanced at the monitor tracking Raven. The man’s progress had slowed because of the crowd, and he was still at least a couple minutes away from the restaurant.
Hawk’s path, on the other hand, was clearer, and it looked as if he would reach the meeting location first—if he were allowed.
“Hawk approaching from the south,” McElroy reported. “Turning your way…now.”
Hawk disappeared from Zeta Two’s monitor and reappeared on Zeta Three’s. The road went straight for about twenty-five feet, bent to the left, then sharply back to the right before passing by the restaurant.
Hawk entered the bend, and slowed as he reached the tight turn.
“Now!” McElroy commanded.
Just as Hawk made the turn, four members of the grab team closed in around him, and before he even realized what was going on, one of them stuck a needle in his arm, pumping enough Beta-Somnol into him to knock him out for hours.
The others caught him before he could fall, propped him up between two of them, and dragged him back out of the Quart
er, five happy friends who had started drinking a little early.
McElroy allowed himself a smile at how seamlessly it had all gone.
But the celebration didn’t last long.
“I don’t see Raven,” one of the spotters said. McElroy wasn’t sure which.
He whipped his gaze back to the main monitor, and noted that the red dot that had been marking Raven’s position was gone.
Fuck.
“Who had him last?” he asked Zeta team. They were the spotters, while Omega team was on the ground for the grab.
“I did. Zeta Five.”
“What happened?”
“Don’t know. I had him on Huchette. He turned off and Zeta Four should have picked him up.”
“Never saw him,” Zeta Four reported.
That didn’t make sense. Once Raven had been tagged, Zeta Four’s camera should have automatically been able to pick him up.
“Everyone, eyes open! Find Raven.” McElroy grabbed Duncan’s shoulder, gripping it harder than he realized. “Replay the feeds for Zetas Five and Four. He’s got to be there somewhere.”
Duncan started with Five’s view first, picking it up fifteen seconds before Raven would make his turn. The target was walking at the same pace as before, moving around those who had stopped in the road, and getting out of the way of those moving faster than him. Then, just before he reached the intersection—
“Play that back,” McElroy said.
Duncan did as ordered and McElroy studied the screen.
“Look there,” Duncan said. “He hesitated.”
Indeed, Raven had. It had been only for a second, but it was a definite hesitation. Why would he…
McElroy’s breath caught in his throat as a possibility occurred to him.
It can’t be, he thought. To Duncan, he said, “What time did he pause?”
Duncan checked his computer screen. “6:06:17.”
“And when did Hawk get taken down?”
Another check. “6:06:15.”
Shit.
“What happens when he gets to the corner?”
Duncan started the video again. Right before Raven arrived at the corner, he reached up, grabbed the top of his jacket, and started to pull.
“What’s he doing?” McElroy asked, more to himself than anyone.
Duncan replied by switching over to the recorded footage from Zeta Four. The area that Four had been tasked to cover ranged from the corner to where the road angled slightly right about fifty feet before the restaurant. This, unfortunately, meant there was a section of dead space, about three or four feet in length, right at the corner—if one kept tucked to the wall.
Apparently Raven had.
He should have appeared immediately on screen, but there was no one there.
“Where the hell is he?” McElroy said.
Duncan seemed flustered. “I don’t know…he should be—”
Before Duncan could complete his sentence, someone appeared down near the end of the street for a fraction of a second before heading back onto the other road. Duncan stopped the video, rewound several frames, and zoomed in.
Raven.
“He must’ve taken his jacket off when we grabbed Hawk,” Duncan said, surprised. “But how could he know?”
The digital tag had keyed in on Raven’s jacket—its material, color, size—and that’s what each of the other surveillance rigs would pick up on. Without it, the spotters would have to make their own visual identification until a new tag was created.
Feeling his gut clench again, McElroy keyed his mic. “Raven is on the loose, heading east on Rue de la Huchette. All teams move in to intercept!”
The feeds from the spotters’ cameras began bouncing up and down, as the men hustled to reposition themselves so they could try to get eyes once more on Raven and assist the grab team.
McElroy barely maintained composure as he waited for someone to spot the target.
Finally, Zeta Three called in. “I’m on Huchette, east to Rue Saint-Jacques. I don’t see him anywhere.”
“He must have made it out already,” McElroy said. “Everyone fan out. Check taxis, buses, pedestrians. He’s got to be out there. We can’t let him slip through.”
But after five minutes of no further sightings, McElroy feared his instincts had been correct.
After ten, he knew it.
Raven was gone.
Chapter Two
August 26th
Calverton, Maryland
Even the tensest situations, the sound of Deuce’s voice was reassuring. At that very moment, he was shouting breathlessly in Alexandra Poe’s wireless earpiece.
“Look alive,” he said. “He’s coming your way!”
“Good,” Alex whispered.
Barely a second later, she heard Charlie Wright’s footsteps pounding toward her down the alleyway. He was repeating something under his breath like a mantra, his tone panicked, but she couldn’t make out the words.
Then a second set of footsteps entered the far end of the alley—Deuce, his ragged breaths still in her ear as he followed Wright, cutting off any potential retreat. Wright must have heard him, too, because the mutterings became louder and more frantic. “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”
It wasn’t the most original plea Alex had ever heard, but people like Wright weren’t exactly known for their creativity.
She waited until he’d closed the distance between them to a couple dozen feet, then she stepped out from behind the Dumpster and pointed her Taser at him.
“Hold it right there, Charlie.”
“Holy shit!” Wright cried.
He was big man who wouldn’t have looked out of place on the front line of a football team, so stopping wasn’t exactly a simple thing. He tried to skid to a halt, but stumbled over his own feet and fell onto the cracked asphalt.
Alex shoved her Taser into its holster as she rushed over, and then jumped onto his back, straddling him before he even had the chance to roll over. Grabbing his arms, she pulled them toward her so she could cuff his wrists with a plastic zip tie, but he suddenly shoved upward and tried to stand.
Out of sheer instinct, Alex threw an arm around his neck so she wouldn’t fall off. He clawed at it, gasping for air, and twisted around in a circle until he was able to knock her to the ground.
With a thick splash, she landed half in, half out of a muddy, water-filled pothole, groaning in pain as her left butt cheek hit the jagged edge of the pavement.
“Jesus!”
As Wright started to run again, she pushed herself back to her feet, and grabbed for her Taser, only to find that her holster was empty. The weapon must have fallen out during the rodeo ride on Wright’s back.
She scanned the ground, looking for the familiar shape.
“Dude,” Deuce yelled, “for chrissakes, stop! You are not doing yourself any favors!” He slowed as he came abreast of Alex. “You all right?”
“Fine,” she said, waving him on. “Just go get him!”
Deuce nodded and took off after Wright.
As Alex whipped around, still looking for her Taser, her gaze settled on the pothole she’d fallen into.
“No,” she said, hoping her instinct was wrong.
Crouching next to it, she plopped her already muddied hand into the water. A moment later, she closed her eyes and scrunched her face. “Son of a…”
She pulled the waterlogged Taser out of the puddle, and angrily shoved the now useless weapon into its holster, this time snapping the restraining strap into place. Then she lit out after Deuce and Wright.
Both men were out of sight, but she could hear Deuce still breathing heavily in her earpiece.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Turn left…at the end of the alley.”
“You still on him?”
“Ten-four.”
Maps. Directions. Layout. These were things Alex had a particular talent for. Study a map for a few moments and it would be committed to memory. So she knew
it would only be a couple more minutes before Wright reached Norris Boulevard, the main drag in this little Maryland burg.
Not exactly the most discreet place for a takedown, but what choice did they have?
When she reached the end of the alley and turned left, she could see both Wright and Deuce ahead. A part of her had hoped Wright would be kneeling on the ground, out of breath, but the big man was still running, albeit at a much slower pace. Deuce, leaner and in better shape, had closed to within fifty feet of him and had his Taser out.
“Stop!” Deuce called out. “Right now!”
Ignoring the pain in her gluteus maximus, Alex sprinted down the road in a burst of speed faster than even her partner could achieve, but she was still a half block back when Wright suddenly turned and lunged toward Deuce.
Caught off guard, Deuce fired his Taser, but Alex could see that only one of the needles hit its mark. A spasm shot through the left side of Wright’s massive rib cage, but it didn’t stop him. He yanked out the needle, and made a grab for Deuce’s hand. Deuce jerked away just in time, and landed a blow to Wright’s gut with his other fist.
Wright staggered back a few feet, and then leaned forward breathing deeply, his hands on his thighs.
“On the ground!” Deuce shouted.
Wright didn’t move.
Deuce took a step closer. “I said, on the ground!”
Wright reached out and swatted at the air, in what was probably meant as a warning. Unfortunately for Deuce, Wright’s arm was as long as he was large, and the back of the big man’s palm glanced off Deuce’s chin.
Deuce stumbled back a few steps, the blow momentarily stunning him.
Wright took a tentative step forward, as if he were going to take advantage of the situation and run again.
But Alex shouted, “Not another move!”
Wright jerked in surprise and looked back. She was ten feet behind him, her inoperable Taser once more in her hand.
“On the ground,” she said.
He hesitated for a moment, then, with a sigh, lowered himself onto his knees.
As Alex moved behind him and secured his wrists, she glanced at Deuce. “You all right?”
He turned his chin toward her. “You think it’s gonna bruise?”
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