Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors)

by Stephen England

“Then what does he mean by using it now?” This from a baffled Ron Carter.

  The DCS shook his head. “No idea.”

  8:57 A.M.

  The highway

  “What did you mean?” Carol asked as Harry handed her the TACSAT.

  “Take the back off and remove the SIM card,” he instructed, ignoring her question. “We’ll ditch it and the car.”

  “How?”

  He gestured ahead toward a Wawa’s service station and put on his turn signal. “Be ready.”

  Commuter traffic. The service station was doing a bustling business in the early morning commute, and Harry pulled the Cutlass into one of the few empty parking spaces. “Put that pistol under your jacket,” he instructed, shooting a glance in her direction. “And stay close.”

  The icy morning air nearly took Harry’s breath away as he swung his legs out of the car. Motioning for Carol to follow, he strode across the lot toward the cars parked directly in front of the Wawa’s.

  His gaze swept the eaves of the building as he moved in, checking for security cameras. At a glance it appeared as though the service station had none. Probably just one inside to film any possible robberies.

  That made life easier. Three cars from the door he spotted a late-model Chevy Impala, exhaust spewing from the tailpipe as it sat there, idling.

  A grim smile crossed Harry’s face. He’d never understand people who left their car running while they went in to get coffee. “We’ll take this one,” he announced, reaching out and pulling the door open.

  “You’re going to steal a car?”

  He turned to see a look of disbelief on Carol’s face. The look of someone who had never been in the field.

  “Yes,” he replied, taking her by the arm and steering her through the open door of the Impala. “Of course.”

  8:18 A.M. Central Time

  The Gulfstream IV

  Over Louisiana

  “A phone call for you, Mr. Richards.” The Texan looked up from his sudoku to see the CIA’s version of a flight attendant standing in front of him: 40-ish, overweight, and balding.

  Tex took the phone without a word. “Richards here.”

  “This is Thomas. Listen, we’ve got a problem.” That much was obvious from the voice, Tex thought. It wasn’t vintage Parker at all, the calm steady equilibrium that had made him one of the Service’s best snipers. This Thomas was distracted, nervous. Agitated.

  “I’m listening.”

  “EAGLE SIX has gone rogue.”

  “What can you tell me?” Tex asked, glancing forward at the closed cockpit door. “Bear in mind, this isn’t a secure line.”

  “I know, I know. He kidnapped Carol Chambers from Interrogation and made it off-campus before the alarm was sounded.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” the Texan replied, his mind turning over the possibilities. “Where is he now?”

  “We don’t know. Metro PD found his car abandoned at a service station about ten miles west of Langley—along with a rather distraught single mother who was trying to report a car theft.”

  “Standard operating procedure, Thomas,” Tex observed. The only question was why? “You said ten miles west?”

  “Yes,” Thomas replied. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Probably. Don’t do anything until I get back. See if Kranemeyer will let you pick me up at Dulles. That way we can keep things off the official manifest.”

  “Right. Goodbye.”

  Seemingly exhausted by the flow of words, Tex simply clicked the “kill” button on the phone and laid it beside his seat. Outside the window, clouds drifted past the swift business jet, dulcet and white. Peaceful. What are you doing, Harry?

  9:22 A.M. Eastern Time

  A Wal-Mart

  Manassas, Virginia

  For a man who had grown up in ‘80s Russia, Wal-Mart was still a vision of almost unimaginable wealth.

  And yet no one seemed to appreciate it. That was America for you. Pavel Nevaschkin sighed heavily as he reached down, picking up the motorcycle helmet that hung on the handlebars of the Honda cycle. The December breeze was cold, even through the thick wool lining of his leather jacket. Not as cold as Chechnya, though. Nothing could be that cold.

  He’d been in Alfa Group back then, as the new millennium came around, bringing with it nothing but the promise of more violent death. Bad days. Even the Spetsnaz weren’t paid enough to take those risks.

  Pavel checked his saddlebags one last time, making sure the Glock 21 would be ready. Round in the chamber, another pair of full magazines in the pouch clipped beside it.

  Everything was in readiness. He cast a glance over at his partner, the shooter, a Muscovite he knew only as Grigori. “Remember the plan?”

  The man smiled, displaying teeth that bore testament to the finest of East European dental work—cracked and chipped. “Of course—kill the man, snatch the girl. Should be simple, da?”

  Pavel shrugged. “Da. Just stick to the plan. Sergei said they’re about sixteen kilometers ahead, so we should be able to catch up with them readily enough.”

  The next moment, the engine of his motorcycle sputtered into a full-throated roar, drowning out any further conversation. Pavel threw a leg over the throbbing saddle of the cycle and waved at Grigori to climb on behind him. The job would be done within the hour…

  8:31 A.M. Central Time

  Dearborn, Michigan

  The house was the thirteenth on Nasir Khalidi’s route. Certainly his unlucky number. As the garbage truck slowed to a stop, he jumped off, hurrying across packed snow toward the trash cans.

  It was the third can. Always the third can. He blew on cold hands as he watched a mechanical arm dump the can into the compactor in the back of the truck. As bad as the cold was, heat in the summer made the job even worse. Then the garbage reeked.

  As the can came back down, Nasir unzipped his jacket, shivering as a cold blast of wind came swirling down the street, the multi-story projects on either side forming what amounted to a wind tunnel.

  So different from his native Lebanon. Looking both ways down the street to ensure he was not being watched, Nasir reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out an eight-inch manila envelope. With another furtive glance at the surrounding buildings, he dropped it into the can, wheeling it back toward the sidewalk.

  Yes, there were worse jobs than garbage disposal. He should know. He had one of them.

  Inside one room of the decrepit tenement, a man looked up from the bank of screens mounted into one side of the wall, watching Nasir Khalidi on the discreetly-placed cameras. He played back the footage in slow-motion, watching as the yellow envelope tumbled into the gray plastic depths of the trash bin. A slow smile crossed his face and he reached for the phone that lay on the console before him, right beside a Beretta. “Status confirmed,” he announced when the call was answered. “He’s made the drop.”

  9:47 A.M. Eastern Time

  The Impala

  Virginia

  Silence. Harry stole a glance in Carol’s direction as the car sped south. She hadn’t spoken a word since they’d “switched” cars at the service station. Just sat there, staring away from him, out the window. A cold blonde statue.

  He sighed, watching the needle on the gas gauge waver with every dip in the road. They had a quarter-tank, enough to get them where they were going.

  “You don’t approve of my methods, do you?” he asked finally, breaking the silence between them.

  A long pause, and then she looked across at him. The emotion of loss was still there in her eyes, but so was an unexpected resilience. “Theft? No.”

  “What do you think I do for a living?” Harry asked. “I break the law. It’s what I’m trained to do.”

  “Not our country’s law,” she replied, an edge creeping into her voice. “We all know that’s where that line is drawn—it’s the first thing they teach at the Farm.”

  “And like a lot of things they teach in a classroom, i
t becomes irrelevant once you leave those walls.” Harry’s eyes narrowed as he glanced in the rearview mirror. The CIA’s training facility at Camp Peary—the Farm, as it was called—was good, but there were so many things you just couldn’t teach.

  There was a motorcycle in back of them, two vehicles back as they moved through the small township. “The first time you go out on protective detail, you realize life’s a lot simpler. And there’s only one law that really matters: protect your principal. Do whatever it takes to keep them alive.”

  Carol looked over at him. “It didn’t even do us any good. Just exchanged one hot car for another.”

  “Not quite,” Harry observed, taking another look into his rearview. “It bought us some time and a car we could be sure wasn’t bugged. Couldn’t say that about mine. Not in the time I had.”

  “How long has that motorcycle been following us?” she asked, abruptly changing the subject.

  Well done. She hadn’t forgotten all her fieldcraft from the Farm, Harry thought, accelerating to pass a slow-moving truck. Desk types often did. “Too long,” was his only reply.

  There were two men on the cycle. Unbidden, his mind flickered back to an operation in Italy, just a few years before. Different climate, different time. The same sight. Following years of political assassinations, the Italian government had banned motorcycles from carrying a passenger.

  Not that the law had mattered to the Tunisian assassins that had attacked the motorcade of the American ambassador—with the CIA’s chief of station, James Holbrook, caught in the crossfire. Not that it mattered now. This wasn’t Italy.

  The distance had closed now. “The police?” Carol asked, her voice striking his ears as though from afar.

  He shook his head, focusing on the threat at hand. “No, it’s not the cops. And they’re way too aggressive for a tail.”

  “Then why are they following us?” The tone of her voice told him she already knew.

  “Ever been shot at?” he asked, cutting in front of a tractor-trailer. The urge to floor the accelerator nagged at him, but he fought the impulse. Not yet.

  “No.” Harry looked over to see her reach inside her purse for the Kahr. Her face was pale, but he glimpsed a flash of determination in her eyes as her hand closed around the semiautomatic. Her father’s daughter.

  The cold air flowed fast around Pavel Nevaschkin’s body as he bent low over the motorcycle, accelerating rapidly down the highway. Their target was in full evasion mode now. They had been spotted. All that remained now was to go in for the kill.

  He heard the squeal of airbrakes as they swung in front of a tractor-trailer, chasing down their prey. In so many ways, their task was made easier by the fact that their target was driving a stolen car. With his own vehicle, they would have had to factor in the possibility of armor. That was no longer in the equation.

  Taking one hand off the handlebar, Pavel reached back and tapped his partner on the knee. Be ready.

  Harry stole another glance in the mirror. The motorcycle was closing fast now. No question about it. They weren’t the cops. And they hadn’t been sent to tail Carol. They were a kill squad. “Put it away,” he instructed, motioning toward the Kahr in her hand.

  No matter how the movies portrayed it, shooting at a combat-trained biker was more a matter of luck than skill.

  And they had no time for luck. Not now.

  The motorcycle appeared in his driver’s side mirror now, angling for a side shot. At him.

  He was the target? He pondered the question for a moment, then dismissed it out of hand. It didn’t matter. Not now.

  The assassins hadn’t opened fire yet. That alone bothered him more. These guys were pros.

  He swung the car toward the median, crossing two lanes of traffic in the space of a heartbeat. Harry winced as a car slammed on its brakes behind him, only to immediately be rear-ended by an SUV.

  Nothing matters. Nothing except the life of the principal.

  The motorcycle was still coming, faster now as it wound its way through the chaos behind them, but now he was tight against the median and his left flank was secure. The Suzuki was designed for speed, not off-road traction.

  “Get down,” he ordered, never taking his eyes off the road, “and get ready.”

  With the Impala speeding tight up the side of the median, the only side the kill team could approach from was Carol’s. Hollowpoint slugs could punch straight through the plastic body of the car, but if they were going to fire blindly, he reasoned, they would have already started.

  At times you could even use people’s very professionalism against them.

  “They’re going to come up on your side,” he declared, speaking slowly, calmly. Nothing was so serious that it couldn’t be made worse by miscommunication. “And they’re going to come up shooting.”

  From her position on the floorboards, Carol nodded, her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. “At my signal, I need you to push your door open, as hard and fast as you can. Can you do it?”

  Another nod. To her credit, she didn’t ask for an explanation. They were running out of time…

  A curse exploded from Pavel’s lips as the car slid back tight to the median, forcing him to throttle back or risk a collision. He didn’t dare lose time taking the Suzuki onto the turf.

  There was only one option left to them. Go up the passenger side. He tapped Grigori’s knee twice. Going in.

  He couldn’t hear the Glock slide out of the saddlebags behind him, but he knew it was there, in his partner’s hand.

  There: the man they had been sent to kill was behind the wheel, still relatively upright in his seat. The girl was nowhere to be seen, but undoubtedly she had taken cover. No matter.

  Pavel gunned the cycle, coming directly alongside the Impala. Time to end this.

  The roar of the Glock struck Harry’s ears almost simultaneously with the sound of shattering glass. He heard the bullet whine past his ear, exiting through the driver’s side window by his head.

  Time itself seemed to slow down as he glanced right, assuring himself one more time. All he saw was the cold black muzzle of the Glock staring back at him.

  “Now!”

  Pavel was steadying the bike, moving in closer so that his partner could get a better shot, when suddenly the door of the sedan flew outward, slamming against his left knee.

  The handlebars of the cycle twisted in his grip as the bike flew off course and off balance. Nearly blinded by pain, the ex-Spetsnaz paramilitary fought to regain control of the bike as it slid across two lanes of traffic. He saw the SUV in just enough time to scream…

  “You all right?” Harry asked, looking down to where Carol sat on the floorboards, the doorhandle still in her hand. He’d brought the Impala to a stop, pulled off to the side of the median.

  She nodded, seeming dazed by what had just occurred. He unbuckled his seatbelt and reached out a hand. “Come on, come on. We have to go.”

  The Chevy Tahoe that had struck the assassins’ motorcycle had stopped by the side of the road. Traffic was starting to back up. With a backward glance to make sure Carol was following, Harry strode purposefully across the highway, alert for further danger. The Colt was in his right hand, ready for use.

  The driver of the Tahoe, a heavyset, middle-aged woman, was already out of the vehicle, sobbing hysterically into her cellphone.

  “…they just came out of nowhere. I didn’t have time to—dear God, they may be dead.”

  “Ma’am,” Harry began, coming ‘round the front of the Tahoe, “I need you to shut off the phone.”

  Her eyes widened at the sight of the pistol gripped firmly in his hand and she started to speak to the 911 dispatcher on the other end of the line. With one smooth motion, Harry snatched the phone from her and flung it across the road.

  “What are you doing?” he heard Carol ask, but he ignored her, focusing in on the terrified woman before him. She was alone, he realized, scanning the seats of the SUV.

  “Ma’am,
I’m a federal officer,” Harry continued, flipping open his wallet. The CIA identification card wasn’t as flashy as an FBI badge, but most people never noticed. “I need your vehicle.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her hand over her mouth. She kept backing away from him, fear clearly written in her eyes. “Who were those people?”

  “Trust me when I say you don’t want to know. Keys?”

  She shot a frightened look from his face to Carol’s and back again. “They’re in the ignition.”

  “Good. Now, you can go with emergency services when they arrive. In the mean time, please stand back.” He gestured to Carol. “Go ahead and get in.”

  “Where are you going?” he heard Carol’s voice ask. Harry pulled a thin metal cylinder from the pocket of his jacket and screwed it into the threaded muzzle of the Colt. “Unfinished business.”

  9:02 A.M. Central Time

  Dan Ryan Expressway

  Chicago, Illinois

  Sometimes the hardest thing to remember about America was that the police actually needed a reason to stop you.

  Tarik Abdul Muhammad folded his hands, staring intently out the backseat window of the SUV at the flowing mass of traffic. It was in the interests of not giving them such a reason that he had requested a local driver.

  Even a black man was better for this task than the men he had brought with him across the U.S.-Mexico border. His own Pakistanis, though they were fierce fighters and willing to die for the cause of God, viewed driving as the ultimate test of their virility. A no-holds barred competition.

  It might have served them well in Peshawar, but in the more “civilized” driving environment of the United States, they wouldn’t have lasted five minutes.

  America. He leaned back in his seat, the memories flooding through his mind. The closest he had ever come to this country was Cuba. The imperialist military base overlooking the Bay of Guantanamo. Gazing out from behind the wire.

  He reached forward and tapped the negro on the shoulder. “How long before we reach Dearborn?”

  He had learned his English there on that desolate rock in Cuba. It was good but not fluent.

  “Hey, man, it all depends on the traffic,” the black man responded. “You want to be at the mosque by afternoon, right?”