JET - Forsaken

by Russell Blake

  “I see you are Russian,” he said, his tone friendly.

  Jet nodded, ignoring the liberal dosing of cheap cologne that barely masked the smell of partially metabolized alcohol from a liquid lunch.

  “That’s right. There are quite a few here.”

  “Which part?” He paused. “Moscow, from the accent, am I right?”

  She fingered her watch pointedly. “Yes. Now I live there.”

  “That’s where I’m based as well,” he said, his eyes darting to her hands to check for a ring. Seeing none, his smile broadened. “What part of the city do you live in?”

  Motion from near the street drew her gaze, and she spied a group of obvious security personnel getting into position earlier than she’d expected. She looked back at the salesman and gave him her best blank stare. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “Oh, I was just asking where you live.”

  She mentioned one of the most expensive neighborhoods, her tone suddenly frosty, hoping that he would get the message – he was trying to fight far above his weight. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the brightest and persisted in his clumsy overture.

  “How long are you in town for?”

  “I’m leaving early tomorrow.” Jet began edging away, but he matched her steps.

  “So you have time for dinner?”

  Jet offered him a wide smile. “Of course. With my boyfriend. I’m looking forward to it.”

  Cold water poured on his pass, he stood flatfooted as she walked away to the next booth, where the fascinating topic of water filtration was receiving a thorough exploration by a speaker with a headset to a less than rapt audience of six. She debated taking a break from her rounds, but afraid of encouraging the Russian in the next booth to slip over and try again, she instead made for the bathroom to freshen up. As she was opening the door, Leah’s voice sounded in her ear.

  “Apparently you’re making an impression. You have half an hour before the president arrives for his speech. That is all.”

  She frowned and entered the restroom, where she joined a line waiting for the stalls, the women mostly younger and attractive, with the hard expressions of predators that corporate salespeople often developed over years of high-pressure pitches and incessant lying. The woman in front of her tried to strike up a conversation when she saw Jet’s badge, but Jet refused to engage, limiting her responses to monosyllables. The woman quickly took the hint and returned to inspecting herself in the mirror while Jet stared off into space.

  Jet shuffled forward, her mind elsewhere, counting the minutes until she would retrieve the rifle and get down to business, wondering whether this would be the one time something went wrong, and if she’d ever see her daughter or Matt again.

  Chapter 29

  Jet made it to the electrical fixture booth with ten minutes to spare and caught the eye of the manager, who was watching for her, she knew. He walked over and glanced at her name tag, his expression tense, and nodded.

  “Welcome. Can I show you some of our products? We’ve got everything you can think of for your electrical needs, at the most competitive prices in the region.”

  “That sounds great,” Jet said. “Do you have any samples? I’m specifically looking for lighting fixtures and fluorescent bulbs.”

  “This way,” he said, and after looking around, led her to a curtained area near the rear of the booth, full of briefcases and boxes of literature. He reached inside and extracted a box the size a cell phone might come in and an unmarked cardboard tube, sealed on each end. Jet held out her bag and he placed the box inside and then handed her the tube like he was releasing a live snake.

  “Thanks. This looks like exactly what I was hoping for,” she said, annoyed by the man’s visible nervousness. If this was the quality of the field operatives the Mossad had devoted to the effort, they were in trouble. “Might want to take a few deep breaths,” she whispered, and he stiffened before forcing his stance into a more relaxed posture.

  “Right. Got it.”

  “I’ll be back shortly. You going to be all right?”

  “Sure. Absolutely.”

  Jet walked away, unwilling to remain in the booth any longer than necessary. The knot in her gut twisted as she carried the tube and bag toward the front of the hall – not to the position she’d been instructed to fire from. Everything about the setup struck her as wrong. She knew from experience how easy it was to make critical mistakes working from drawings and pictures, which was why she always walked the location of a hit before, if possible.

  She exited the hall and looked around and was greeted by a wall of suited business people heading toward the cavernous space for the keynote speech. Jet walked with measured steps against the tide and paused at a steel door that fed onto the corridor leading to the stairwell. She pushed it wide enough to slip through and eased it closed behind her, waiting to confirm that there was nobody nearby in the hallway.

  When she was confident she hadn’t been observed, she sped to the stairwell and took the steps two at a time, breathing evenly as she climbed five stories. Outside the hatch to the rafter passageway, she paused and flipped the top off the cardboard tube. Inside was a length of barrel with a suppressor screwed onto the end, which she quickly removed and set by her feet. She shook the tube and felt the weight of a small scope and some sort of stock. Jet pulled them from the container and inspected the heavy wire that would serve as the stock – obviously homemade, as was the barrel and suppressor.

  Jet inspected the threaded end of the barrel and then ferreted in her bag for the box her contact had given her. She found it, slid her thumbnail along the seal, and opened the top. Inside was a trigger mechanism and breech, the magazine already in place. She inspected it and confirmed there was a round chambered, and then screwed the barrel into position. Jet finished by clipping the wire stock into two holes drilled in the back of the breech.

  She eyed the weapon and fit the scope onto the rail and tightened it down. Only ten power, she noted, but that would be more than sufficient at the range, assuming it had been zeroed accurately. One of her concerns was that she hadn’t been allowed to sight it in herself. Under any other circumstances, she would have never allowed that, but because it had already been smuggled into the trade show, she hadn’t had a choice.

  Jet set the bag down, removed the lanyard from around her neck, and unsnapped the badge and slipped the plastic rectangle into her pocket before opening her purse and removing a pair of nail clippers. She snipped the clip off the end and tied one end of the lanyard to the barrel, and secured the other end near the breech. Satisfied it would hold the rifle, she held it overhead and smashed the lightbulb that illuminated the landing. The area instantly went dark, and she shouldered the rifle, listening for a few moments before cracking the hatch and peering into the hall.

  Applause rose from the floor as the president took the stage and shook hands with several men. After some backslapping and good-natured grins, he moved to the podium. Jet waited until she was sure that all eyes were on him before pushing the hatch open, secure that she wouldn’t arouse attention from any light emanating from the hatch behind her. The president began speaking and Jet inched forward, each step placed with the caution of a tightrope walker, careful to avoid banging the gun against the railing that kept her from plummeting to her death.

  Her progress was interrupted by another outburst of applause, and she realized that the president’s speech had been little more than a short welcome to the attendees and a self-serving recitation of all the progress the country had made since he took office. He waved to everyone, obviously finished, and strode from the podium to shake more hands and slap backs.

  No matter, she figured. He would soon be seated with the rest of the dignitaries, where she would have a clear shot without complications. She continued edging forward, wary of moving too fast lest she draw the eyes of the security men who were standing by the stage, arms crossed, the bulges in their suit jackets as obvious as neon signs.

 
; Jet’s breath caught in her throat when Hovel reached the line of seats, shook hands with yet another suit, and then ducked out of sight. She froze in place, waiting, and then resumed breathing when he returned twenty seconds later, holding a plastic water bottle, and took the end chair in the long row. The game back in play, she crept toward the spot she’d determined was ideal for the shot as another man began speaking at the podium, his voice booming through the hall, causing a screech of feedback before the sound technician dialed the volume back to compensate for his bellow.

  Her eyes narrowed as she peered toward the stage, and then she unslung the rifle and brought it to bear. She peeked through the scope and swept the faces of the dignitaries until the president’s head filled the Zeiss optics, the crosshairs centered on the bridge of his nose. She eased back the bolt of the firing mechanism and it snapped into place, ready to be released by a pull of the trigger, the spring driving the firing pin into the cartridge at high speed – a simple device at heart that she could have built out of parts from a hardware store and a few hours of time with some basic tools.

  She would jettison the rifle when she was done, leaving it to be found, its homemade nature eliminating any chance the assassination would be linked to a state actor. She had no idea who the Mossad intended to frame for the killing, nor did she care. It wasn’t her job, and she didn’t involve herself in geopolitics. All she cared about was getting away clean and not leaving any prints with which she could be traced, the latter taken care of by a thin coating of a polymer she’d sprayed on her hands before leaving for the convention center, its microscopic coating sufficient to eliminate DNA or fingerprints.

  She returned to eyeing the soon-to-be-ex-president through the scope, and her finger was moving to the trigger when Leah’s voice rang in her ear. “Abort. Repeat. Abort. There’s been a switch. The man on the stage is a double.”

  Jet held her finger over the trigger guard and whispered, “What? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. The president is at the back of the building near the loading dock. They’re bringing his motorcade around.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We have a mole.”

  Jet was already in motion, moving back along the walkway as quickly as she dared. “What do you want me to do?”

  “Get to the loading dock area as fast as you can. You should be close from your position. We’ll create a diversion.”

  “Diversion?”

  “Just move.”

  “How am I supposed to do that with a rifle?”

  “We situated you where you could easily move along a maintenance hall to the loading area without being seen. It’s right behind you. Now get going.”

  Jet did a quick calculation in her head and realized there was little chance she could traverse the hall using the basement as she had the other night and make it in time. Leah was assuming she was in the original firing position, from which she might have been able to make it to the dock within a minute – but it wasn’t possible from her current location. With the basement hallway out of the question, that left only one option – one that exponentially increased her odds of getting caught.

  She took a deep breath, uncocked the rifle, slipped the lanyard over her shoulder, and set off along the walkway, reconciled to having to cross the entire hall above the heads of the heavily armed security force, only an errant upward glance away from being stopped in a hail of bullets.

  Chapter 30

  Jet was halfway across the hall when the first explosion boomed from outside the rear of the building, followed closely by two more detonations – grenades by the size, she guessed. The crowd on the floor milled in panicked confusion as the dignitaries onstage were instantly surrounded by bodyguards, guns drawn but nothing to shoot at. Screams pierced the air as she continued along the beam, undeterred by the commotion, and when she passed the halfway point, she tapped her lapel and spoke in a quiet voice.

  “Was that you?”

  “Yes. Grenade launcher. We took out the lead vehicles in the motorcade. That will slow them down. Where are you?”

  “Almost to the dock. Where’s the target?”

  “Still inside, per our source. What’s taking you so long?”

  Jet ignored the question. “What’s the new plan?”

  “Neutralize him however you can,” Leah snapped.

  “Not if it’s suicide.”

  “Just do it.”

  Jet increased her pace, grateful for the exhibitors below adding to the chaos of the attack outside. The armed guards were trying to restore order, but their efforts had the opposite effect, their weapons serving only to further frighten an already spooked crowd. Her hope that nobody would see her seemed to be paying off, and she realized that the glare from the lights below her, pointing downward into the hall, created an effective shield for anyone not specifically looking for her.

  She reached the area over the back loading area and swore – there was a drop ceiling preventing her from seeing the dock. Jet studied the cabling that held the ceiling in place and then swung herself over the balcony and threw herself into space.

  Her hands locked onto a girder, and she pulled herself along until she was close enough to one of the cables to reach out and grab it. Once she had it tightly gripped, she levered her legs forward and wrapped them around it. She released the girder and began sliding down the steel cable, but slowed her descent enough so that when she landed on the ceiling frame below, she was stable enough to remain on the steel frame and not put a foot through the soft acoustic tile between the metal supports.

  Jet inched along until she reached one of the big ventilation ducts. She squinted along its length in the dim light and spotted an access hatch. She moved to it and slid it aside, and then unshouldered the rifle, placed it inside the vent, and followed it in. Once inside she crawled along the vent, thankful that the metal was thick enough to support her weight, until she reached an exhaust grid, cold air rushing past her with enough force to blow her hair into her eyes. She brushed her bangs aside and looked down into the loading area, but couldn’t see much. The grid wasn’t sufficiently large to give her a decent view of the surroundings, so she’d have to find something else.

  She crawled back to the hatch and Leah’s voice rang in her ear again.

  “Well? Where are you?”

  “I’m above the loading dock, but I don’t see him.”

  “Soldiers are running toward it, so he’s there. No vehicles have left.”

  Jet decided not to dilute her attention by giving Leah a blow-by-blow and instead pulled herself from the duct, rifle in hand. She stood and tested the frame beneath her feet; then, hands out to either side for balance, she hurried along the thin rail to the far wall to where she’d seen another duct. She knelt where it terminated into the ceiling, set the rifle aside, and pulled the duct with as much force as she could muster. The ducting shifted, and she redoubled her effort until she’d created a gap six inches high through which she could see a swarm of men below. She scanned the loading dock and spied the president surrounded by his entourage of guards, their handguns pointed at anyone and anything as they warned the laborers to keep their distance.

  Jet felt for the rifle and brought it to bear. At that angle it would be a tough shot if the target moved, but easy if he remained still just a little longer. She cocked the bolt and peered through the scope at the president, no more than fifty yards away, confident that if she was successful, all hell would break loose, the sound of shouting more than sufficient to mask most of the sound of the shot.

  Hovel turned as though sensing imminent danger, but Jet adjusted her aim and her finger felt for the trigger. She exhaled evenly and squeezed it with steady pressure, and then the wire stock bucked so slightly it was almost unnoticeable, and the upper half of the president’s skull blew against the wall in an explosion of blood and brains.

  Jet didn’t linger to watch the security detail lose its collective mind, but instead returned along the rail, her pulse stea
dy, the rifle discarded where she’d lain as she raced the guards’ confusion, praying silently that the origin of the shot wouldn’t be identified until she’d had time to get away.

  She pulled herself up the cable, the climb slower than the descent, and then she was at the girder and swinging her legs to gain momentum for a vault that would take her close enough to the walkway to make a grab.

  Jet almost missed the railing and her fingers slipped before locking tight; and then her legs were below it, the toes of her boots feeling for support on the beam below. She pushed up and heaved her torso over the railing, and paused for a second to take a deep breath before leaping to her feet and moving unhurriedly back to the far side of the hall, the hubbub back at the loading dock no longer her concern.

  “Well?” Leah demanded in a strangled voice.

  “Mission accomplished,” Jet said as she reached the halfway point. She was just beginning to believe she would make it when a cry sounded from beneath her, followed closely by gunshots. Sparks flew from ricochets off the steel beams beside her, and she abandoned her measured progress in favor of a wide-open sprint for the safety of the maintenance door. Rounds whined and pinged off the metal, and one of the lights to her left exploded in a shower of glass. She kept running, the elevation and the fact that the shooters were using handguns her only advantage, and had just made it to the maintenance hatch when a submachine gun opened fire and the concrete around her exploded in a shower of chips.

  Jet hauled herself through the hatch and swung it shut, breathing heavily in the darkness as the gunfire continued, and then scooped up the purse she’d left by her exhibition bag and ran to the ducting assembly she’d discovered the other night. She paused to catch her breath and then pulled the hatch wide and climbed in.