by Cliff Ryder
He heard a slight click. "This is Primary. Report everything that occurred after the hospital."
He kept it short, turning his back to the store clerk and keeping his voice low. "After leaving the hospital in an acquired car, subject and I proceeded north-northeast. My wounds, which the subject field-dressed, caused me to pass out for a short time, during which she discarded my cell phone. We reached the town of Valenciennes, where she eluded me and has now left the city. I'm requesting backup to continue to her target city and apprehend her."
"You're injured, and therefore not fully capable of continuing the mission. Procedure mandates that you be deactivated and called in," the voice told him.
David gritted his teeth at the standard plan, but kept his voice calm as he replied. "Primary, I'm the only one on our side who knows what she looks like, or her name, for that matter. Also, I'm the only one who knows where she's going at the moment — well, except for the hostiles."
"Her name is Margaret Britaine, but no doubt you already knew that. Are you attempting to blackmail me into letting you continue this mission?" Rather than sounding angry, David thought he detected a faint note of humor in the woman's voice, and tried to play to it.
"With respect, Primary, I prefer to think of it as laying out the reasons why I should continue the mission, even if it is in an advisory capacity."
"And?"
David frowned. "I'm sorry?"
"You have another reason for wanting to continue."
Revenge? David shook his head. "It's not what you think. This target is so important to this other team that they are willing to kill anyone who gets in their way — including the rest of my team. I want to know she's out of their hands myself, not be stuck back at HQ watching while she lives or dies."
"I can understand that. You're not personally involved with this subject, are you, M-Two?"
"Primary, the only thing I'm involved with at the moment is completing my mission, not just for myself, but for my team, as well. I don't want them to go out with a failure on the books."
"An admirable sentiment — that has absolutely no place in clandestine operations. However, your other mission-oriented points are valid. A team should be arriving to pick you up in the next three minutes. You will follow the leader's directions to the letter. Is that understood?"
"Affirmative, Primary."
"Get her back, M-Two. Good luck." With that sign-off, the connection was broken.
David hung up the phone, thanked the clerk and walked outside to wait for his pickup. He settled on a bench and idly watched people go by, coming in and out of the store, laughing chattering, living their lives, with no idea what he did to keep them safe, to let them live their lives without worry, without fear.
And now my team is gone, he thought. David knew he couldn't allow himself the luxury of wallowing in guilt at the moment. He couldn't even blame himself for Kanelo's or Cody's death. Both of them had been beyond his control. But Tara's, that had been another matter entirely.
Looking back, he knew he hadn't had a choice. If he had shot the man holding her, David would have been shot himself, and Tara would have died right after him anyway. His only chance had been to take out his own attacker, then shoot hers, except that he hadn't been fast enough. And now he never would be.
Feeling his anger growing, David took a few calming breaths just as a dark gray Range Rover pulled up in front of him. Its windshield and windows were tinted to obscure whomever was inside. The driver's door opened, and a man got out and walked up to sit next to him. He looked to be in his early fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair cropped close to his scalp, and pale blue hooded eyes that regarded him from under a heavy brow. He was dressed casually, in khakis, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and casual leather slip-on shoes. David was also sure he was ex-military, and even with a quarter century on him, David was pretty sure he wouldn't want to tangle with the guy — he looked as if he knew all the tricks, and wouldn't hesitate to use anything in his bag when necessary.
"Excuse me. My brothers and I are traveling to Paris, and we're wondering if there was a quicker way to get there besides the highway?" His voice was quiet and precise, with a slight, guttural German accent stressing the vowels.
David made sure he was in control of himself before he replied. "Besides the high-speed train, a car is the best mode of transportation to get to the City of Lights."
The man extended his hand. "For now, you can call me Jay. How are you, Mr. Vert?"
David smiled at the play on words — his cover name was the French word for "green." "I've been better, Jay. I'm missing something very important to me. Are you here to help me get it back?"
"That's exactly what we're here for. Come on, we can fill each other in on the way."
David rose and walked slowly to the SUV, feeling his injuries flare with each step. He was grateful for the sweatshirt he had forced himself into. It would hide his wounds quite well, as long as neither of them reopened in the next couple of hours. As he approached the vehicle, the front passenger's door opened, and a man with coal-black hair, swarthy skin and a gleaming white smile slipped out, gesturing to the front seat with a flourish. "My name is Julio. Please, Mr. Vert, you and Jay will want to talk more, I'm sure."
"Thanks." David got into the seat and closed the door, trying not to sigh with relief as he sank into the butter-soft leather. Julio got in the back, sitting next to another man, this one a nondescript Caucasian with a buzz cut and deep brown eyes who looked far too young to be in this line of work. Julio introduced him as Fritz.
Jay slid behind the wheel, started the Range Rover up, and pulled out of the parking lot. "Where's she headed?" he asked immediately.
"I'm sure she's going to Brussels. It's the nearest large city with a transportation hub. There's a bug in her car, from the other team, that I left inside the vehicle for our use."
"Good. Julio, see what you can find on the standard frequencies. Of course, since we know the make and model of her car, we can also use the GPS tracking unit on it, as well."
David turned away so his flush wouldn't be as noticeable; he should have thought of that. "I thought they'd send someone from Paris to handle this."
"You haven't heard, then?" Jay continued as David frowned. "All activity at the Paris bureau has been halted pending an investigation of the incident earlier today. It seems that the backup operatives for your team were incapacitated at the station before the firefight broke out. That, and how the situation escalated, is going to cause some harsh questions up and down the line before this is all over."
"Are the operatives all right?" David asked.
"They're fine, but there were several civilians injured or killed in the standoff between the police and one of the hostile team members. Apparently he killed himself rather than be taken alive."
David nodded. "We didn't have any choice…"
Jay held up his hand. "At this point, I don't really care what happened back there. My goal — and yours, too — is to get the subject back in our control before they find her again. Put all the second-guessing and evaluation away. There will be plenty of time for it later. Now, tell me everything you know about our target, followed by everything you know about the hostiles."
David took a moment, mentally gathering what scattered bits of information he had observed over the past twelve hours, and started talking. "The woman's name is Maggie — Margaret Britaine. She's a data thief…"
As he spoke, he felt the man known as Jay absorbing every word he said, measuring it, sifting his comments for the useful data and discarding the rest. I only hope this helps us when the time comes, he thought as he told them everything he knew about her and the men they were almost sure to be going up against.
37
The directions Aragorn had given Maggie were perfect, taking her up the A7 to the outskirts of Brussels. On her left, Maggie saw a large hospital complex, but she was driving past it, out into the countryside. The road turned t
o a narrower two-lane street known only as Postweg, and Maggie slowed when she saw the first sign, scanning the right side of the road intently. She drove past what looked like a huge manufacturing plant, then saw green fields next to it, and a short row of tile-roofed, plain one-and two-story houses on her left.
On the other side of the road, just beyond where that row ended, was the building she was searching for. It sat alone, a larger dark gray house with what looked like a low stone fence marking its perimeter. As she approached, she saw a large hedgerow stretch off to the north, obviously the demarcation of an ample yard. There was a broad parking lot stretching the full length of the building's front side, and Maggie wondered if this was some kind of bed-and-breakfast for the area, even though there were no signs advertising it as such.
Maybe I can get something to eat before we go, she thought. Although she had eaten on the train, it seemed as if that hurried meal had been ages ago, and now that she would be safe as soon as she walked through that front door, her stomach growled in anticipation.
Parking the car, she engaged the emergency brake, then realized she had no way of turning off the Peugeot. There was no key, or key card, as many European cars used, and David's phone was probably in a junkyard by now. With a shrug, she left it running and got out, carrying her laptop. If anyone comes along, they can have it, she thought wearily. She climbed the wide concrete steps, and tried the heavy, dark brown, wooden door, pleased when it swung open toward her.
Inside, Maggie was greeted by the odors of must and rot. She stood in a small foyer that opened into a common area, with a small desk built into the wall to her right. What had once been a cozy, furnished living room years ago was now taken over by neglect and decay. The matching wingback chairs were faded, with large water spots on the arms and seat from the leaking ceiling. The small table in the middle of the room was also dilapidated, its once smooth finish now bumpy and cracked. A narrow hallway led to the back half of the house, but Maggie stayed where she was, unwilling to explore the unfamiliar surroundings any further. The air was as cold as it was outside, and Maggie wrapped her arms around herself as she walked farther into the room.
She felt a sudden chill at being there. Her overtaxed mind raced, thinking up horrible things that might have happened to the occupants of the house before it was deserted. Then she got a firm mental grip on herself. Stop jumping at shadows. It's the perfect place to meet without anyone else taking an interest in what's going on.
"Aragorn? It's me, Mags. You can come out anytime now." Her voice sounded loud in the silence, and Maggie kept looking around, wondering where he was. If this is his idea of a joke, it's in pretty fuckin' poor taste…
"Hey, you." She recognized Aragorn's voice before he stepped out of the shadows in the hallway, his tall, lean body clad in a long, dark brown, leather trench coat. On most other people it would have seemed like an affectation, but he wore it well, and the garment suited his shock of unruly dark blond hair and hazel eyes. Once, Maggie had been attracted to him, but she had soon realized that Aragorn was nothing like his fictional namesake — he was a vain hedonist, a hacker who loved to be the center of attention, and often would go to outlandish lengths to put the spotlight on himself. He also had a powerful attraction to money, which, of course, was why he was here for her. Still, at that moment, he looked like a divine vision, and Maggie ran to him and hugged him hard.
"Damn, it's good to see you. You have no idea what I've gone through just to get here…"
Maggie trailed off, aware that something was wrong. Aragorn wasn't returning her hug, in fact, he had stiffened at her touch. "Hey, Gorn, what's wrong?"
"I'm afraid you're not out of the woods yet, Maggie." He disentangled himself from her embrace and stepped around her into the foyer, revealing another man who'd been standing behind him, now coming forward into the gray afternoon light.
"Hello again, Ms. Britaine. You certainly have a knack for getting yourself out of unpleasant situations. But that all ends now." The grim, unsmiling face of the man who had tried to kidnap her at the train station — a face she had hoped never to see again except in her nightmares — was right in front of her again.
"Aragorn, why?" She looked to him, hoping that there was a reasonable answer for all of this, hoping he would say they had forced him to do this. The expression on his face, however, said such things.
"Sorry, Mags, but you should have been more honest with me in the first place. You got me curious about just who you had crossed, so I did some poking around. A friend of a friend told me there was a PMC spending a lot of time looking for someone who had done a huge hack job in London, where you had just been. Well, I put two and two together, and made them an offer they couldn't refuse."
"You son of a bitch!" Aragorn hadn't moved that far off, and Maggie's roundhouse slap caught him completely by surprise, the sharp crack resounding in the squalid room. Aragorn reeled away, his hand going to his reddening cheek in shock. The other man said nothing, didn't even shake his head or crack a smile.
"You fucking bitch!" Aragorn had regained his composure, and now glared at her, his eyes blazing. "Always lording over the rest of us, thinking you were better than everyone else. How's it feel now? How high-and-mighty do you feel now, you arrogant ass?"
"There were times I didn't like you very much, but I never would have sold you out, you fucking, betraying bastard…" Maggie's legs wobbled, and she stumbled to the nearest chair. "Oh God, I'm going to be sick." She hunched over, clutching her stomach with both arms while trying to figure a way out of this mess. The car! If she could just reach the still running car, she had a chance.
Aragorn gloated over her distress. "You're going to feel a whole lot worse when they're done with you, my dear." He turned to the silent man. "Well, there she is. Once your people have transferred the agreed amount to my Swiss account, she's all yours."
"Yes, you've done exactly what was asked of you, and you shall receive the price that is due." The man pulled out a small cell phone, and Aragorn, visions of his payoff dancing behind his eyes, turned back to Maggie, a fatuous smirk on his face. He didn't see the silenced pistol the man drew with his other hand. Before Maggie could say anything, he placed the muzzle an inch from the back of Aragorn's head and pulled the trigger.
A gout of blood and brains spurted from the hacker's eye socket as his short-circuiting body crashed to the floor, arms and legs twitching in shocked response to the assassination. Maggie stared in shock, but realized that if she had any chance of escaping, it had to be right now, as the man was still checking the dead body.
She forced her leaden limbs to move, rising from the chair and grabbing the table. With all her remaining strength, she threw the sagging piece of furniture at him, the veneered top spinning through the air toward the hired killer. Maggie didn't wait to see if it hit him, but ran for the front exit. Rebounding off the desk, she scrambled toward the door, fingers questing for the handle, knowing she only had one chance to get it open and get out before he caught her. She grabbed, pushed and almost fell out onto the concrete steps.
Outside, everything was as she had left it — the idling car, the quiet cluster of houses down the road, the leaden sky overhead. Sobbing with fear, Maggie flew down the steps to the car, wrenched the driver's door open and threw herself behind the wheel. She fumbled for the gearshift with fingers numbed by fright, and had just jammed the car into Reverse when the hood of the Peugeot seemed to flex and groan as something thudded into it. Maggie watched in dumbfounded fascination as a neat row of holes appeared in the front of the car, causing the engine to sputter and hiss. With the realization she was being shot at, she pressed the gas pedal to the floor, but the once pristine car only shook and jerked, rolling a few yards, then wheezing to a halt as its engine died.
Maggie knew that her attempt to escape was not going to go unpunished. All she could do was watch in helpless, frozen terror as the man strode down the steps of the house toward the car. Without pausing, he raised his ar
m and hammered the butt of his pistol on the window glass, shattering it into hundreds of pieces that sprayed across her. Reaching in, he grabbed her neck and dragged her out of the car.
Maggie's hands pried at the fingers clamped around her neck like bands of steel, trying to dislodge them, but to no avail. He hauled her out of the dead vehicle, then raised his pistol again and slammed the butt across her mouth, sending her sprawling to the ground. Through the shocking pain, as Maggie spit out thick, red blood and a broken tooth, she was dimly aware that her captor was speaking. Suddenly her head was wrenched back, and she stared into the dark, black hole of the man's pistol, still smoking from when he had shot Aragorn. Is this the last thing my brother saw before he died? she wondered.
"I'm through being nice. The next time you try to escape, I will shoot you in the wrist. If you try again, I will shoot you in the elbow and keep moving up your arm. Do you understand?"
Holding her mouth, Maggie nodded, a dim part of her brain aware that she had no fight left in her.
"All right. Get up." He waved to another man, who had been positioned in the second-story window, a submachine gun in his grasp. "Do exactly as I say, and I won't have to do that again…"
His attention was drawn to the road, where a speeding gray SUV was heading right for them. He grabbed Maggie's arm and yanked her to her feet. "Into the house, now!"
38
"There she is!" David could only watch as the brown-haired man pulled Maggie toward the building. His arm extended, pistol aimed at them, rounds spitting from it to strike the SUV's bulletproof windshield.
"Hang on." Jay cranked the wheel over, sending the SUV skidding into the parking lot. "Julio, Fritz, there's a shooter on the second story."
"I see him." The two men in the backseat had produced two compact HK MP-7 A-l submachine guns, inserting magazines and pulling back the cocking levers with practiced efficiency.
"I'll pull up to block the front. Once we're inside, take the upstairs man out or force him to cover, then head round back to cut them off. Mr. Vert and I will take the front." He nodded at David. "Open the glove compartment."