by Jack Mars
He begrudgingly rose from the bed and pulled some clothes on. He collected the Sig Sauer from the nightstand and handed her the Beretta, and made sure everything else they had brought along was stuffed into the shopping bags before they headed out into the twilight hour. Karina led the way, using a GPS app on the burner to guide them as they headed toward the location that Veronika had texted to her.
Though his feet were dragging, with wishes of coffee swimming in his head, Karina seemed to have a slight bounce in her step. Clearly she was pleased at the prospect of finally connecting with her sister, with FIS, and returning to her home country.
As they walked, she slipped her hand into his. “Before we arrive,” she said, “there are two things I must tell you. Now that I know I can trust you.”
“I’m listening.”
“The first is that the future of Ukraine is at stake. My country, my people, have been threatened again and again since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Russia will not stop until they own what we have. The nature of the meeting between the presidents was the means by which Russia will do so.”
Zero almost stopped in his tracks. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise to him that the new Russian leader would be another Ivanov, but it had been so long since the conspiracy was unearthed—a year and a half—that he could hardly believe that it was anything but over.
“We’re going to stop them,” Zero told her candidly. “And the second thing?”
Karina paused, still holding his hand, and she looked him square in the eye. She did not blink, did not falter, so that he would know she was not lying as she said, “There is a recording.”
What?
“No. There couldn’t be.” Zero shook his head adamantly. “You have no device. Besides, how could you have possibly gotten something into the meeting without the Secret Service knowing it?”
Karina’s free hand absently touched her left earlobe—and the pearl stud that clung there.
“The earrings,” he murmured. Karina’s pearl earrings had been a permanent fixture since he met her. The only time she’d taken them off was to shower…
Because they’re a recording device. She couldn’t get them wet.
“Yes,” she admitted. “These earrings were developed by an FIS engineer, at my sister’s request. Very discreet, and very high-tech. They cannot be picked up by metal detector or scan. But they can only work together; one of them picked up Kozlovsky’s side of the conversation, while the other picked up Harris. As the interpreter, my voice is the only thread that ties them together.”
Zero shook his head. “I don’t believe this. We could have used it, could have gotten it to someone who could do something about it…”
“No,” she said. “We couldn’t. There is no backup. These cannot simply be plugged into a USB port. There is no way I am about to hand them over to anyone but the person who created them, back in Kiev. The audio on these earrings is all that matters right now.” She lowered her voice as she added, “Even more so than my life.”
He wanted to be angry; it felt like he should. But at the same time, he understood. He had kept secrets from those he was close to. Those he loved. Those he trusted. In fact, Karina had not lied to him. She had omitted the truth, but that was a tactic that he himself had used many times.
Besides, he realized, if you had known about them earlier, you would have tried to do something about it. He would have at least attempted to persuade her to turn them in to authorities other than FIS—or might have even tried to take them from her and take matters into his own hands.
“Are you angry with me for it?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
She leaned forward and kissed him gently. “Thank you for understanding.” Then she consulted the burner and said, “We’re not far. They are in a parking lot about a quarter mile away.”
They walked hand in hand the rest of the way as the sun struggled to rise in the east, rousing just as stubbornly as he had, the sky turning a shade of deep purple as they neared the apothecary where Veronika’s text claimed them to be.
At that early hour, there were hardly more than a few souls out on the roads, and it was easy to determine which car belonged to them. There was a black SUV sitting in the small gravel lot adjacent to the shop, the lone vehicle parked there.
It’s always a black SUV, Zero mused to himself. Hardly incognito. He reminded himself that no one was looking for them there, and that they were nearly out of the woods now, and he almost told Karina that since she had gotten the idiom wrong earlier that day—but then a tingle went up the nape of his neck and he stopped suddenly, tugging her hand back as she tried to continue.
“What?” She frowned deeply. “What is it?”
He wasn’t sure. His instincts had simply given him a warning jolt, like some sort of spy’s sixth sense, a sensation that he had not felt in a long time. It was too quiet here. Too empty. The SUV sat there inert; no lights, no movement.
“Feels wrong,” he murmured as he snaked a hand into his jacket for the Sig Sauer. “Stay here.” He took a breath and headed toward the SUV, gun drawn. Anyone who was inside would clearly see him coming, yet no doors opened. No windows came down. No one called out to him or even pointed a gun in his direction.
Something isn’t right here.
His gaze tracked left and right, checking the surrounding buildings. Windows. Balconies and ledges. He saw no signs of movement.
To his chagrin, Karina did not stay put as he’d asked. She crept along behind him just a few paces, tiptoeing, her body tense. “Do you think…?” she started to ask.
“Shh.”
The windows of the SUV were tinted too dark to see inside. Zero reached for the door handle, hoping against hope that it wasn’t a trick or a trap.
He yanked the door open. It took him only about a half a second to register what he found there, and as soon as he did he spun around, arms reaching for Karina to pull her away before she too witnessed it.
But it was too late. She was right behind him, and in that instant she too saw it.
The woman whom Zero had known as Emilia Sanders sat in the driver’s seat. The woman whom Karina knew as Veronika, as sister, was suspended upright by a seatbelt, even though her head lolled to one side, facing the window. Facing them.
Her face was ashen, drained of blood. The back of her head was missing, and its contents were sprayed on the car’s ceiling and seats.
Zero tried to reach Karina in time, but she had already seen it. He reached her as she crumpled, catching her with one arm as her legs gave out.
A shrill shriek of horror rang out in his ear. Karina’s screams. He tried to pull her away from it but she pushed against him, as if she needed to get to Veronika. As if there might be something that she could do for her.
“Stop,” he said hoarsely. “There’s nothing you can do.” But his voice was drowned out by her screams. And so were the footfalls of the man who came for them.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
Zero saw him almost too late. The man came rushing around the side of the SUV; all Zero saw was a blur of movement in his periphery. He released Karina and she slumped to the gravel, unaware of anything but her sister’s body in the SUV.
Zero spun, the Sig Sauer in hand, but before he could fully get it around a beefy hand closed around his and forced the gun upward and away from him. At the same time the assailant twisted his body, and Zero’s arm was suddenly locked painfully behind him at an odd angle. He groaned, knowing that the man had the drop on him, that any moment now could be his last—
“Don’t shoot me,” Alan grunted.
He released his grip and Zero staggered back two steps, utterly astonished. “Alan… what? How?” His gaze went past his friend to the body in the SUV. “What are you doing here?”
Alan put his hands up defensively. “I just got here, I swear it…”
“You!” Karina’s voice was a tremulous growl rife with anguish. When Zero turned he saw that
she had the Beretta in both hands, aimed at Alan’s thick midsection. “You sold us out to Interpol!” she accused.
“I didn’t!” Alan insisted. “The forger was careless and got busted on his way to meet you—”
“Did you kill my sister?!” Karina demanded, her voice high and tight.
“No.” He put both hands up level with his head. “No, I swear I didn’t. But we really shouldn’t be hanging around here.”
“Karina,” Zero said gently. He reached for her and put his hand on her arm, and then her hand, and then the gun as he slowly pushed it down and out of firing range. “Alan didn’t do this. Trust me. You said you do, right? Trust me now.”
Tears rolled down both her cheeks as her gaze floated toward the SUV once more. “Someone betrayed her. I will kill whoever it was.”
“We will, I promise. But this was done as a message—specifically to us. And we cannot stick around here, do you understand?”
Karina looked at him as if he’d slapped her face. “I can’t just leave her like that!”
“We have to.” He shook his head ruefully. “I’m sorry. But we have to.” He turned to his old friend. “Alan, do you have a car?”
“Of course.”
“Then let’s go.”
“Wait!” Karina hissed. “We’re not honestly going to go with him, are we?”
“Yes,” Zero said simply.
“Give me…” Karina wiped her eyes. “Give me one moment. Please?”
Zero nodded, though he knew it wasn’t a good idea. There were people out, more by the minute, and the sun was rising. It would not be long before pedestrians and passersby noticed the body in the SUV.
Karina approached the driver’s side slowly, her hands shaking as she did. “Sestra,” he heard her murmur, and then something brief and under her breath; a prayer, he imagined. She reached for Veronika’s eyelids and gently pushed them closed.
Zero glanced over her shoulder surreptitiously. There were two other bodies in the SUV—both in the backseat, but no one in the passenger side. If he had to guess, whoever had originally been in that seat had betrayed the other three.
“Zero,” Alan said softly behind him. “We should go…”
Zero was still bewildered by Alan’s sudden presence, which wasn’t made any easier by occurring only moments after finding Sanders/Veronika dead, but he didn’t have time to ask.
Sirens whooped in the distance.
“This wasn’t just a message,” he said quickly. “This is a trap…” No sooner did he say it than there was a screech of tires, and two black sedans whipped around the corner not more than fifty yards from them. “Karina, we have to go, now!”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Karina looked up at him sharply, her eyes wide in surprise. Despite everything that had happened in the last two minutes, she seemed to understand. Her feet scrambled forward as Alan pointed toward the parallel street.
“This way!” he called to them, leading the charge. Two pedestrian gawkers stopped suddenly as they walked by, staring at the trio as they sprinted away from the small parking lot where the SUV sat, the body in the driver’s seat clearly visible, and two cars giving chase.
Alan took a set of keys out of his pocket and rounded to the driver’s side of a tiny black compact car.
“Are you kidding?” Zero muttered.
“It’s Italian,” Reidigger replied as he wedged himself behind the steering wheel.
“Come on, get in the car,” Zero urged Karina. He yanked open the passenger side door for her; she was still shell-shocked from seeing her sister’s body. He guided her in and then slid into the backseat, his knees practically around his ears in the tiny space.
“Hang on.” Alan shifted gears and the car took off like a shot. Karina sucked in a breath as he weaved out onto the street, skirting between two cars expertly. “Relax,” he told her. “I’m an excellent driver.”
Zero glanced behind them. The source of the sirens—presumably the Belgian cops—hadn’t arrived yet. But the two black cars had careened out the other side of the apothecary’s parking lot and were gaining quickly.
“Yeah, I’m on it.” He up-shifted and slammed the accelerator down. The little Italian car surged forward, gaining some distance between them and their pursuers.
“I know you’re good at multitasking,” Zero said, “so how about you drive and explain?”
“Where to start?” Reidigger grunted. He zipped around a truck and made a sharp right. The car responded perfectly, the tires barely losing traction. “Your pal Strickland came to pick me up. Said Maria sent him. He called me Alan. I had to get out.”
“Did she sell you out?” Zero asked incredulously.
“Turns out… no. I was just being a tad bit paranoid,” Alan admitted.
“How do you know? And how did you find us?”
“Uh…” Reidigger didn’t want to admit that part. He yanked the wheel to the left, the car fishtailing slightly as it barely made the light.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Karina screeched, holding onto the door handle tightly.
Reidigger ignored her. “Okay, so about two months ago or so, I put a chip in Maria’s cell phone.”
Zero blinked. “Why?”
He shrugged. “To steal CIA secrets?”
“Jesus, Alan…” Zero pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Anyway, the chip copies all of her data to an online server. All her calls, her texts, her browser history, all of it. After I fled, I checked the server. I saw that she hadn’t actually sold me out. But I also saw that she was tracking Russian phones—specifically Kozlovsky’s attaché.” He paused for a moment before adding, “They’re here, Zero. They’re here in Belgium. I followed the trace to that SUV.”
“They did this,” Karina said venomously. “They will die for it.”
Alan turned sharply left, and then a block further made a quick right. Zero glanced behind them; it looked like they lost the two black sedans.
“They’ll pay for what they did,” Alan told Karina, squeezing her shoulder gently as Alan slowed the car to traffic pace, trying to blend in. “And we’ll do that by getting the recording into the right hands.”
“There’s a recording?” Reidigger asked.
“Yes,” said Zero.
“No,” lied Karina at the same time.
“That’s great news,” Alan said. “If you have it on audio, we can get it out there and clear your names.”
“Not exactly,” Zero muttered. “The recording is in a pair of earrings.”
“And they are going back to Kiev,” Karina added forcefully.
But Zero was no longer sure about that. The Ukrainian government would want to hear what was on that recording; but they would certainly not be happy to harbor international fugitives who had three dead FIS agents on their hands. He rubbed his forehead, feeling as if he was struggling to think straight.
“Karina,” he said gently, “I think it’s time to reconsider our options—”
Suddenly a phone rang out, interrupting him. Karina frowned and dug in her pocket. It was the burner, the one she had used to contact her sister.
She stared at it in disbelief. “It is Veronika,” she murmured.
“Don’t,” Zero commanded. “It’s Veronika’s phone. If the Russians have it, they can track us with a call…”
But Karina did not heed his warning. She pressed the button to answer the call. “You killed my sister,” she hissed into the phone. “And for that you will…” She trailed off, her furious expression going lax. “What? Artem?”
“Who the hell is Artem?” Alan asked.
Karina put the call on speaker, and Zero heard a man panting breathlessly through the receiver. “Artem, where are you?”
“Karina,” the man wheezed. “Karina, I am so sorry, I ran, I didn’t know what else to do…”
“Slow down. Tell me where you are.”
“They knew where we were. They ambushed us. The Russians. Veronika cove
red, and I… I ran for it…” The man on the other end of the call, this Artem, held back a choking sob. “They are all dead. I’m so sorry.”
“We… we saw,” Karina told him. “We are in Liège. We can come for you. It is not too late.”
“Get out of there,” Artem warned. “The Russians are there. They tracked us somehow.” He paused for a moment before asking, “Do you still have it? The recording?”
“Of course I do,” Karina told him. “Where can we meet?”
“There is a French commune a few miles southeast called Chaudfontaine. Meet me at the Chateau des Berges. It is safe there. And Karina—be careful.”
“I will. See you soon, Artem.” She ended the call and murmured, “I don’t believe it.”
“Who is Artem?” Zero asked.
“My sister’s partner in FIS,” Karina explained. “I never met him in person, but she talked about him often to me. She trusted him. He saved her life on several occasions.”
But ultimately she paid for it with hers, Zero thought. He remembered the empty passenger seat of the SUV, coated in Veronika’s blood where she had been shot.
Alan glanced at him in the rearview mirror, only briefly, but just long enough for Zero to know what he was thinking. They had been partners, years earlier in the CIA, and had saved each other’s lives several times over. Either one of them would have done the same for the other.
“We must go to Chaudfontaine,” Karina declared. “We will retrieve Artem, and he will contact our people in Kiev.”
Alan spun the wheel and the car slid into the next right turn. “Southeast it is.”
Karina sat up straighter and wiped her eyes. There would be time to mourn, but for now she seemed determined. There was still hope of getting the recording into the right hands.
She twisted slightly in her seat to look at him, and he smiled at her in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “We’re almost out of the woods.”
No sooner did he say it than a siren whooped twice behind them. He twisted in his seat and saw two Belgian police cruisers, each a white Ford Mondeo with three blue stripes down the side and blue flashers on the roof, tailing them from less than three car lengths and closing in.