JET - Forsaken

by Russell Blake

  She didn’t know that much about the intricacies of Azerbaijani’s government, but it seemed unlikely. That wasn’t how the Mossad operated, at least that she was aware of. But anything was possible, and she was sure an explanation for the army’s presence on city streets would surface soon, if only to reassure the public that their country hadn’t been taken over by its military.

  Her mind turned to where she could go that might be safe, and she kept coming up with the same answer: the large hotels, where her status as a Russian attending the trade show would serve her well. The problem was that if Leah had been compromised, Jet’s Katya identity might be flagged, and all that would do was lead any pursuers to her. The police at the safe house had unnerved her, and Jet had to assume the worst, which meant that appealing as they might be, hotels were out of the question.

  That left breaking into a car and putting the city behind her, or finding someplace that didn’t ask questions where she could stay until morning. Ordinarily, she was trained to find a nightclub or bar and flirt with one of the men looking for love, using their place to lie low. But nothing would be open on a night like this, and she doubted she looked particularly appealing with scuff marks, grime, and dirt residue covering her clothing.

  The car option was also off the table until the curfew was over, likely at daybreak. She checked the time and shook her head. At least eight more hours until dawn. If she was careful and avoided conflict, she might make it, depending on where she holed up.

  An idea occurred to her and she seriously considered it, even though it was the most unappealing possibility she could think of. The local junkie population might have shooting galleries – abandoned buildings they used to buy and sell drugs, and inject or smoke them. Every developed economy in the world had an area in its larger cities where the police didn’t venture into, and she was sure Baku was no exception, based on what she’d seen of the poorer sections.

  Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she remembered that she hadn’t taken the battery out the last time she’d used it, seeing no point since there was no signal. She retrieved it and eyed the indicator, and saw that there was service. Jet pulled up the map and located her position, searching for any landmarks that might be promising before settling on the marina. There would be private yachts there, and most would be painfully easy to break into. The idea was more appealing than spending the night among heroin or meth addicts, and she quickly did the math on the distance and figured she could make it to the waterfront in an hour or less.

  Jet remembered Itai’s instruction when handing her the shoe repair business card, and she dialed the number from memory and waited as it rang. It was answered by voicemail, and she left her number and a message that Katya needed to speak to Krell about a delivery as soon as possible. When she hung up, she was startled when her phone chirped and vibrated almost immediately, announcing a call from a Baku number she didn’t recognize. She thumbed the phone to vibrate only and answered with a whisper.

  “Yes?”

  “Katya. It’s Leah. Where are you?”

  Jet frowned. “I’m safe. Why didn’t you answer my transmissions?”

  “Technical problem on my side. Where are you?”

  “I tried the house.”

  “I was going to warn you. Don’t go there. We’ve been compromised.”

  “Too late.”

  “Are you there now?”

  “No.”

  Leah paused. “I’m going to give you an address. It’s a residential building that’s being renovated in the Sovetskaya section of town, near the Sultanbey Mosque. Are you mobile?”

  “I can get wherever I need to be.”

  “Not hurt?”

  “Thanks for asking. I’m fine.”

  “Write this down.” Leah gave her a street name and number. “You’ll have to be careful. The police and army are everywhere, but mainly near the city center.”

  “I know. I hear shooting.”

  “You familiar with where Sovetskaya is? How long will it take you to get there?”

  “Yes, I know where it is. Maybe…an hour and a half.”

  “Okay. Call me when you’re on approach.”

  “The car was locked,” Jet said. “The Mercedes.”

  “That’s not important. I have another one.”

  Jet bit back the anger that surged through her at the woman’s dismissive tone. “It was important to me.”

  “Just get to the building and I’ll explain what happened.”

  “Are we still leaving tonight?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Why can’t you pick me up?”

  “Only military and police vehicles are allowed on the streets.”

  Jet frowned. “Then how are we going to leave town?”

  “I’ve got that handled.”

  “How?”

  “I said I’ll explain everything once you’re here. Now get moving.”

  The line went dead, leaving Jet staring at the phone in wonder. The woman’s arrogance knew no bounds. She was treating Jet like a junior cadet, not an experienced operative. Jet choked back the resentment that rose in her throat and quieted her mind. Leah’s personality defects weren’t her concern. She was the handler, and if she was a complete bitch, that was just the way it was. Jet would never see her again after the night was over, so she would have to stomach the insulting tone and short responses in the interests of getting clear of Baku.

  Jet knew from her reading where the Sovetskaya section of town was located, a borderline slum north of the original old town, which dated to the twelfth century. She pulled up the map on her phone and entered the address Leah had given her, and a pulsing dot glowed on the edge of the district, most of the area closed to automobiles per the map legend. That made sense given the age of the neighborhood – the alleys had been created long before cars, and most of them were just wide enough for a horse-drawn cart or a couple of pedestrians standing abreast.

  If Jet pushed, she could make it in under an hour. That would give her the time to nose around the area to ensure she wasn’t walking into a trap. Leah’s non-explanations hadn’t done much to reassure Jet, especially after the raid on the safe house, and it was always possible that she’d made the call to Jet under duress, to lure her into an ambush. Leah hadn’t used any of the standard trigger words that would have indicated that was the case, but given that Jet had assassinated the president only hours before, she could afford to take no chances.

  She slipped the phone back into her pocket and cocked her head, listening for any more engines. When she heard nothing approaching, she moved along a hedge that ran the length of the apartment complex to the next street. At the road, she paused to confirm it was empty and then jogged across to another series of monolithic dwellings. Only a few lights shone in the windows, as though the residents feared making themselves targets. The memory of the Soviet years was probably still strong with the locals, the generations of oppressive rule as fresh as yesterday’s rain.

  The streets were deserted as she trotted south, serenaded by sirens and gunfire, two sounds she knew as intimately as a lover’s touch. She reached the end of a block and glanced in both directions before she vanished into the darkness, the sound of her boots echoing off the buildings, her mind working furiously as she plunged headlong into the dead of night.

  Chapter 35

  The Sovetskaya district was a jumble of squalid homes, many of them decades old, and in some cases, centuries. Jet crossed a construction site to the west of the neighborhood, where heavy equipment was parked in clumps near maintenance sheds. The area was devoid of other structures and appeared deserted; whatever security had been in place must have fled after the first explosions from the convention center.

  Jet reached a chain-link fence at the edge of the site and scaled it, eyes on the homes before her, most of which were dark, with only the glow of televisions flickering behind curtains. When she landed hard on the gravel, a flash of pain shot up her ankle and she grunted. The mis
step was a complication she couldn’t afford. She tested her weight and the pain receded, but she was limping slightly as she worked her way along the winding alleys past charmless buildings with laundry lines and bootleg electricity wiring streaming from utility poles.

  The streets narrowed as she neared the center of the neighborhood, and became the expected medieval walkways, the cobblestones beneath her feet worn smooth from the passage of time. She followed a promising passageway toward the dome of the mosque in the near distance. Moonlight glowed off the glazed tile washed clean by the prior day’s rain. Dogs barked from behind walled yards at each rattle of distant gunfire, but she ignored them and pushed on, her ankle reminding her that she needed to keep her mind focused and be more careful if she was to survive the night.

  Jet paused at a junction and checked the phone map. The address was no more than a hundred yards away now, on a winding street that ended at the mosque grounds. The surroundings improved slightly as Jet crept along the route. Her eyes roved over the windows above her, the buildings older but multistoried and larger than the single-family dwellings she’d passed through. Many were abandoned, the area clearly in transition, and construction fencing barricaded several of the crumbling façades. An occasional whiff of stale urine from one of the doorways told her that there might be some vagrants within the more presentable buildings, but they were the least of her worries at this point, and she was glad to be the only one on the street.

  She veered down an even narrower alley that ran behind the building, keeping to the shadows. Jet stopped twenty yards away and checked her watch – it had taken her longer than she’d thought, but she was still a few minutes early and had time to reconnoiter before going in for the rendezvous.

  There was no evidence of an armed force anywhere nearby; the few vehicles she’d spotted were decades-old economy models with fading paint and dented exteriors and all empty that she could see. Her nose wrinkled at the stench of garbage from an overflowing can and she skirted it, staying close to the walls as she surveyed the alley. She rounded the corner and made her way back up the street that the building fronted upon. As she approached the entrance, she slipped her phone from her pocket and placed a call. Leah answered on the first ring.

  “Where are you?” Leah asked.

  “Almost there. Everything okay?”

  “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “It’s just a question.”

  “Well, hurry up. We don’t have all night.”

  Jet hung up and jumped back as a flash of black and gray fur shot from an empty doorway and tore away, the cat emaciated and feral, disturbed by Jet’s unexpected intrusion. Jet breathed deeply, slowing her heart rate back to normal. When she was composed, she walked the rest of the way to the building entrance, where she could now make out a dim glow deep in its recesses.

  She pulled a plywood door aside and stepped into the foyer of the two-story structure. Every surface was covered with dust, and she had to pick her way through rubble and construction trash underfoot. Jet crept toward the glow, the hall lined with scaffolding, the walls bare, and passed into a large room with a workbench in the center. Several crates of tile stood nearby, and a primitive crane system rested by the doorway.

  “You made it,” Leah said, from where she sat on one of the crates. A freestanding work lamp provided light from a fading bulb.

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Let’s get the debriefing out of the way, and then we can hit the road.”

  “Where are you parked?”

  “A block away.” Leah studied her. “Take me through the scene at the hall. I know you made the hit, obviously. But what took you so long?”

  “I decided to change position after scoping out the original location. So I was further away.” Jet gave a dry report of her reasoning, the assassination, and the subsequent escape. When she was finished, Leah was frowning.

  “You were given a specific set of instructions and you disregarded them,” she said flatly. “Disobeyed, to be exact.”

  “I carried out the sanction successfully and lived to tell about it. I wouldn’t have been able to get clear if I’d done it your way.” Jet paused. “Now I have a few questions. What were the explosions I heard – the diversion you arranged?”

  Leah turned from Jet and removed something from her pocket as she answered. “We had mercenaries waiting if you were unsuccessful, and I put them to use. He was going to get away, and that would have ruined everything.”

  When Leah turned to face Jet, there was a pistol in her hand with a long suppressor attached to it. Jet’s face remained impassive at the sight of the gun.

  “What’s going on here, Leah?” she asked softly.

  “You were supposed to be killed in the hall, you stupid bitch. It was all arranged. But you had to do things your own way.”

  “Killed?”

  “Whether or not you were able to take out the president, they would have had their lone gunman. Now it doesn’t matter. What’s done is done.”

  “What if I’d failed?”

  “Then one of his security detail would have been two million euros richer instead of two hundred thousand for alerting us of the double switching places with the president.”

  Jet nodded. “So I was the patsy? That was my true role?”

  “You’re stupider than you look.” Leah withdrew another pistol, this one a revolver, and tossed it toward Jet. It landed on the dusty cement floor five feet from her. “Pick it up.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not going to argue with you. Pick it up or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”

  Jet stepped forward, closing the distance to the revolver, and crouched down to reach for it. Three shots rang out, deafening in the room, and Jet threw herself to the side as she withdrew the little .32-caliber Russian pistol she’d taken from the mugger and continued firing until the magazine was empty. Leah crumpled to the floor, at least six of the shots having struck her; her own shots at Jet had gone wide. Leah twitched as she tried to raise the gun to fire at Jet again, but her arm failed her, and all she managed was to shift it against the cement. Leah opened her mouth, and blood ran from both corners in crimson rivulets, her breath a wet croak.

  When Jet was sure that Leah was dying, she stood and crossed to her, eyes on the silenced Beretta still in her hand, and then toed the weapon aside. Leah’s fingers were now limp, and Jet stared down at her handler and then at the mugger’s pistol.

  “Piece of cheap junk, but hard to go wrong at this range,” she said, and tossed it aside before scooping up the Beretta and studying it.

  Leah answered with a gurgle, her shirt now stained red from the multiple chest and stomach wounds.

  “The director set me up to be killed?” Jet demanded in a soft voice.

  Leah closed her eyes and winced in agony, her face whitening as shock set in. Jet knelt near her and prodded her with the gun. “Answer me and I’ll end this now. If not, I’ll leave you to drown in your own blood. We both know how that goes.”

  Leah fought for words, but all she managed was another gush of blood and a groan. Jet frowned and stood, shaking her head at the dying woman. She would get no further information from her, and what she’d heard had more confused than clarified anything.

  A rustle from the entry echoed through the building and Jet spun, pistol clutched in both hands in a military grip.

  Itai stepped into view and took in the scene at once, a shocked expression on his face.

  “Hands where I can see them or you’re dead,” Jet hissed.

  He nodded and slowly raised them to shoulder level. “What happened?” he asked.

  “As if you didn’t know. She tried to kill me. She failed.”

  “She what?” he blurted, eyes wide. He eyed the pistol in Jet’s hand and his voice quieted. “I’m unarmed.”

  “Put your hands behind your head and turn around so I can frisk you. So much as breathe and you’re next.”

  Itai did as instructed, and Jet cl
osed the distance between them and did a fast search. He was clean. She stepped back far enough that he couldn’t reach her with a strike or kick, keeping her weapon trained on the station chief.

  “Turn around,” she ordered.

  Itai complied. “You going to shoot me, too?”

  “Give me a reason not to.”

  “Tell me what happened here. Exactly what happened, step by step.”

  Jet regarded him curiously. “You know what happened. Your handler tried to execute me so the trail would end here. I got the jump on her – she didn’t know I had a gun. And then you showed up right on cue.”

  “I showed up because she called me and told me you were coming in. That you’d deviated from the plan, and she believed you were working against the Mossad.”

  “Against it? You sent me in to be killed. She admitted it.”

  “So you say. Doesn’t look like she can contradict you now that she’s dead, does it? Convenient for you.”

  Jet withdrew her phone from her pocket and stopped recording. She thumbed it into playback mode and set it to speaker. The discussion with Leah ended with the shooting, and Jet switched it off. “Let’s stop playing games. Mossad wanted me dead. She was clear about that. Got any glib lies for me now?”

  Itai slowly lowered his hands, visibly shaken. “You don’t understand. That…nothing about this makes any sense.”

  “If you have something to say, spit it out, Itai. Because even with all the gunfire outside, the shooting in here might draw someone, and I’m not sticking around for that.”

  He held her stare with bloodshot eyes and shook his head. “This is a disaster. I need to talk to HQ immediately. If you’re going to shoot me, get it over with; otherwise let’s move someplace safe while I figure out what the hell is going on.”