by Kari Nichols
He wasn’t looking for Emily. Blackburn knew that Tate and Gibson were on Emily’s trail and he wanted them off it. They had an altogether different plan for Emily. His position afforded him an unobstructed view of the front entrance to Finnegan’s building. He could also see into the living room on the third floor. The curtains had been drawn back and the angle of the setting sun was good.
One of Pleski’s men was already inside the apartment. Pleski had done his business with Finnegan’s stand-in and already left. Emily would be incapacitated and rerouted to Godin’s current position where she could then take over for the real Finnegan. Morrison didn’t doubt that Finnegan would then be given over to Pleski. It would put a bit of a hitch into his plans, but Morrison would deal with that when the time came.
A movement caught his attention and he flicked his eyes to the east. Emily entered the small square and searched for Finnegan’s building. Morrison watched as she buzzed the apartment and pulled the front door open. She was out of his sight once she entered the lobby but would soon return to it when she walked into the apartment. He returned his attention to the piazza and waited for Tate to arrive.
Tate had already arrived. Emily’s delay in meeting Finnegan had been an unexpected bonus. It had given her plenty of time to scout the area and determine the likeliest shooting angles. Seated at a café across the piazza, Tate had sipped her espresso and searched the rooftops. She’d spotted the hitter as soon as he had arrived. His gaze had passed right over her.
Tate had purchased an outfit at a men’s clothier a few blocks over. She had on black trousers with matching vest and jacket and a white dress shirt. A fedora perched on her head hid the bulk of her hair, which was mashed into a hairnet underneath a salt and pepper wig. Sideburns and a goatee rounded out the disguise. It had allowed her to sit in the same spot for three hours and not be noticed. A few of the local ladies had tried to chat her up, but Tate had fended them off with noncommittal responses.
The minute Emily entered the square, Tate called for her bill. She stood and stretched, watching as Emily approached the building. Her gun was tucked into the front waistband of her pants. Tate was risking Emily’s life by not intervening before she got to the building. The shooter could be for her. She paid her bill and held her breath, half expecting a shot to ring out across the noisy square.
Emily entered the building and Tate released the breath. Tate waved goodbye to the restaurant owner and made her way across the piazza, toward Finnegan’s building. She could feel the eyes of the shooter on her. Forcing her pace to remain slow and easy, she reached into her pants pocket and removed a key ring. She slipped a key into the lock and pulled the door open. Stepping into the foyer, Tate pulled the door closed behind her. Before it closed, she slipped the tape off the lock mechanism, allowing it to latch. Earlier, Tate had arrived via water taxi and been dropped off at the back of the house. She had jimmied the back lock and taped up the front before heading off to purchase her disguise.
Tate tossed the fedora aside and pulled her gun from her waistband. Switching the safety off, Tate climbed the stairs three at a time. Her dress shoes had slippery soles. She’d worn them because to do otherwise would have lessened the authenticity of her disguise. Now she cursed her attention to detail as she slipped on the second floor landing. Righting herself, she headed for the stairwell to the third floor.
Emily stared up at the taser and waited for the man to fire. The room was too compact. She was boxed in by the windows. Her attacker raised the taser and his finger moved toward the trigger. Emily flinched. She hated herself for cowering on the floor. Finnegan’s apartment door slammed against the wall. A man Emily didn’t recognize stood in the doorway, weapon drawn. He fired twice. Emily ducked, but the shots weren’t aimed at her. The man with the taser reflexively fired, but his aim was off. The electrodes struck the carpet. Emily’s savior crossed the room and dragged Emily away from the windows. The glass shattered inward, but they had already moved out of range.
“Get up,” Tate barked, already heading for the door.
When he’d gotten closer, Emily had recognized Tate’s eyes peering out from behind the bangs of the wig. Her mouth had dropped in surprise, but Tate’s order got her moving. Scrambling up off the floor, she followed Tate out into the hallway.
“The sniper is out front, so we’ll use the back. Can you swim?” Tate asked.
“Yes, I can swim,” Emily said as she clattered down the stairs. She followed Tate toward the back of the building.
As she neared the door she paused and motioned for Emily to stay back. Flipping the barest edge of the curtain back, Tate checked the rooftops for any sign of a backup hitter. Her last pass of the canal area had been hours earlier. All of the buildings butted up against the edge of the canal, including theirs. With no one visible at the top of any of the buildings, Tate opened the door and stuck her head out. No shot rang out and she still wore her head on her shoulders.
It was only a matter of time before the hitter made his way into the building to determine what had happened to his quarry. If any of the locals had called in the shots, the police would be on scene very soon, so he’d have to move quicker. Tate and Emily would have to be quicker still.
Looking up and down the canal, she saw no boat traffic. There was no boat tied to the back of the house they were in, nor was there a boat anywhere in the immediate area. Tate pulled Emily outside and closed the door behind her.
“Gibson, where are you?” Tate whispered.
Morrison watched the front of Finnegan’s building for any movement, but after a full five minutes, he didn’t see anyone exiting. He broke down his rifle and shoved it into his bag along with the bipod and the extra shells he’d removed earlier. He pulled a Glock 9mm from the bag and tucked it into his waistband. Slinging the bag over his shoulder, he ran for the roof access and descended to the ground floor. Exiting the building, he crossed the piazza and entered Finnegan’s building.
Jogging up the first two flights, he paused as he neared the top of the third. He didn’t hear anything. Glock aimed in front of him, Morrison stepped up the remaining stairs and into the hallway. Finnegan’s door was open. Morrison stepped up to the side of the doorway and peered inside. Stepping into the doorway, he searched the apartment for any sign that Tate or Emily had been hit. The guy with the taser hadn’t bled much and Finnegan was a mess, but there were no other signs of trouble.
Walking down the hallway to the back of the building, he ripped the curtains from the window and opened it wide. Below him was a small dock. It was empty of people and had no boats tied to it. Craning his head further out the window, he started searching the water.
Gibson and Tate had split up. Tate wanted to get to the apartment straight away. Gibson wanted to see to their exit strategy. They’d had no time to organize any assistance in the area and they had very basic weapons culled from a somewhat dubious source. Tate had a Sig with a single clip and Gibson had a Browning Hi-Power with a full clip and a spare.
They had flown into Marco Polo airport and driven a timid little Mercedes coupe across the Ponte della Libertà which connected the island of Venice with mainland Italy. The bridge ran parallel to the Venice Railroad Bridge, across the expanse of the Laguna Veneta. The railroad continued straight to the Santa Lucia train station. The vehicle bridge branched off to the right. Storing the car in the Tronchetto parking garage, Gibson had set off in search of something a little more powerful.
Water taxis were a common sight along the canals. Legitimate taxis had a yellow stripe with a license number visible along a side window. Unlicensed taxis were just as common, their operators preying on unsuspecting tourists and charging rates well above the average.
Gibson was in the market for just such a taxi. Upon leaving the parking garage and parting company with Tate, he headed for the water and allowed a gentleman to lead him to his taxi. The man’s English was most likely perfect, but he mixed in liberal amounts of Italian hoping to sound more authentic
to his guest.
Gibson was fluent in Italian, but didn’t care what the man was saying. He agreed to pay for a tour, but asked to skip the main drag and head around the back side of Venice. Ten minutes later he’d traded spots with his driver. The man was resting comfortably, albeit unexpectedly, in the rear of the boat. Gibson had killed a couple of hours by sailing up the various canals. He’d familiarized himself with their twists and turns. He’d marked any dead ends on his map. He’d gotten lost at one point. Unable to ask for directions in case anyone noticed the owner of the taxi tied up in the back, Gibson had been forced to improvise. He’d pinged Tommy and asked him to activate Tate’s locator. Tommy bounced the signal to Gibson’s cell phone and he followed the GPS as best he could, though it kept telling him to drive his boat onto land for a quicker route.
He was five minutes out when Tate’s voice whispered in his ear.
Unable to wait for a pickup, Tate opted to swim away from the building. She didn’t know how long it would be until the Polizia showed up and scared off their hitter. Emily stood nearly catatonic, her laptop bag slung over her shoulder, her lips quivering. She was partially covered in vomit.
Tate settled Emily into a sitting position on the edge of the dock, with her feet dangling over the edge. Joining her, she slipped into the water and waited for Emily to do the same. Emily didn’t appear capable of making a decision, so Tate pulled her down into the water. The chill in the water woke her up and she started kicking her feet to keep afloat.
“Follow me,” Tate ordered. When Emily didn’t appear to have heard her, Tate gripped her chin. “They’ll be coming for us, so follow me and I’ll keep you safe. Understand?”
Emily nodded and blinked her eyes.
Tate took the lead and headed up the canal. Four buildings away, the canal branched off into another side canal. If they could get there before anyone came looking out the back of Finnegan’s building, they could tread water while they waited for Gibson to arrive.
Morrison spotted their wake in the water. They were two buildings away and making decent time. He stuck his Glock out the window and took aim. He didn’t have the right angle and they were reaching the extent of the Glock’s range, but he could get lucky.
Emily could barely feel her fingertips. The water was sucking the heat from her body, making it difficult to focus on her stroke. Her mind kept returning to the body in the room. Who had killed Finnegan and why had they butchered him like that? Tate had gotten her away from the man with the taser, but what was her ultimate plan? She’d promised to keep Emily safe, but for how long?
Her laptop case was starting to drag her down. It was water tight, but she couldn’t remember if she’d zipped it up the last time. Her mind obsessed about that detail until she got annoyed enough to check. The zipper was fine. Frustrated, Emily focused on her swimming. Tate had pulled a little further ahead. Emily didn’t want to lose her in the murky water.
The only lights on the water came from the buildings on either side of the canal. Morrison waited until they reached a lighted spot and then he started firing. He watched as the trailing swimmer jerked to the left and struck the building. Without a sound, the swimmer stopped mid-stroke and lay face down in the water.
“Fuck,” he said, when he realized that he’d hit Emily.
Tate was there in seconds, turning the body over so that her face was out of the water. Morrison fired at Tate, but she hugged the building and he couldn’t get the proper angle on the shot. He couldn’t risk Emily getting in the way, if she wasn’t dead already.
A numbing shot glanced off his shoulder. The pain reverberated down his arm and he dropped the Glock into the water below. Turning in the window he saw a water taxi running silent, the driver aiming up at him. Pulling into the window, Morrison dove out of the way as a barrage of bullets pierced through the glass.
He heard the taxi’s engine fire up as it sped off down the canal. The sound of a police boat coming up from the far end of the canal forced Morrison to leave the premises. Zero targets down out of a possible two. Not good. Blackburn was going to chew him a new asshole over this.
Gibson read the GPS and saw that Tate was within three hundred feet of him. Maneuvering the boat along the canal, he lowered his goggles and spotted two warmish blobs just ahead to his left. The dunk in the water had fried Tate’s headset, so he settled for calling her name softly.
When she waved, he powered the boat over and pulled up alongside her. She heaved Emily out of the water and hauled herself up. Taking the wheel while Gibson saw to Emily, she steered them into the smaller canal, scraping the sides of the too-wide boat as she went.
“She hit her head on something,” Gibson diagnosed.
“The side of the building while she was swimming. She may have drunk a little canal water, too.”
“She’s breathing fine, but she’ll be out for a while.”
Tate continued to scrape her way up the canal. She reviewed the map Gibson had created. Cutting back around to the right, she aimed for the larger Grand Canal. Boat traffic on the Grand Canal was constant. Water buses ferried people back and forth along the canal and across to Lido. Gondoliers in their black and white striped shirts poled their boats through the light chop. Even at night, traffic was heavy.
Tate headed toward the Rialto Bridge and then around Santa Lucia railway and out into the lagoon. Ten minutes later she parked the taxi a little further down the dock from the other taxis at Marco Polo Airport. Tying off and leaving the keys with the now-untied taxi driver still snoozing in the back, Tate helped Gibson disembark the boat with Emily in his arms. Walking up the dock, they bypassed the main airport buildings and made their way over to their waiting helicopter.
***
The Sector, HQ
Blackburn threw his coffee mug across the room, watching as it shattered into a thousand tiny pieces. He wished he could watch Tate’s head do the same. The bitch was getting in the way of a perfectly-planned operation. She had gotten to Emily first. How much information did Emily possess? Whatever she knew, Tate would know. Blackburn knew that Tate and Gibson would be running dark. They would only be checking in when absolutely necessary, to keep from getting splintered and they wouldn’t even be checking in with him!
Blackburn had approached Evan and demanded to know what Op Tate was running, but Evan had only stared at him. Then, in that unruffled voice Blackburn loathed, Evan had informed him that Tate was on a SpecOp that had come down from the top. He’d suggested that Blackburn take his questions to Ogilvie if he wanted to know what Tate was doing.
The little fucker knew Blackburn would do no such thing. Evan could be yanking his chain about the order coming from Ogilvie, but there was no way for him to prove it without asking outright. And that would serve no purpose, except to stick his neck out far too early. He had to bide his time, just a little longer.
Word from Sergei Godin was they were mere days away from a breakthrough. Word from Vlad Godin wasn’t quite as optimistic. Finn still hadn’t cracked the code on the locators. Vlad was suggesting that Blackburn start talking to McMaster’s people. Someone had to take over the company. Perhaps that someone could be persuaded to give them the information they needed.
Chapter 10
Little Diomede Island, off the coast of Alaska
The village of Diomede was perched on the western side of Little Diomede, or what some referred to as Yesterday Isle. The island sat almost dead-center of the Bering Strait, between Russia and Alaska. To its left was Big Diomede Island, Russian territory. In between was the International Date Line. Time on Yesterday Isle was twenty hours behind that of Big Diomede, though they were separated by less than four kilometers.
Tank bypassed the tiny village and headed for a small shack a little further northwest, closer to the coast. He was exhausted after flying from Tokyo to Anchorage, with a brief pit stop in Seattle, Washington. He’d slept on the plane, but crossing the International Date Line messed up his internal clock. After fifteen hours o
n an airplane, plus a few hours either side, he was looking forward to a warm fire and a cold beer.
Jimmy Tsosie grew up just outside Anchorage, Alaska. He’d learned to hunt and fish at his father’s knee, and as a teenager had realized that if he didn’t leave Anchorage soon, he never would. He’d signed on with the Navy the day he’d turned eighteen and he’d earned the right to join the SEALs when he was twenty-two. He and Tank had served on the same team for ten years before Jimmy retired. After ten years of fighting and killing, Jimmy returned home.
Already boasting close to half the population of the entire state, Jimmy decided to avoid Anchorage. Cruise ships arrived regularly and the town’s population swelled further. The people were friendly enough, but he wanted no part of it. He liked his solitude.
He chose to move to Little Diomede Island: about as far removed from the tourist towns as one could get and still be on American soil. Little Diomede was a shithole and he knew it, but it was a quiet one. The town was far enough away that if the residents had a party and got drunk – which was a regular occurrence since there was nothing else to do most of the time – the noise wouldn’t keep him awake at night. The view was the best in the world, in his estimation, and he’d seen a lot of the world to know it. Every once in a while something new cropped up to entertain him.
A fist to his front door wasn’t the first indication that he had company. A SEAL first and always, Jimmy had sensors set up all over the island. His visitor had found all but one of them and Jimmy knew the one he’d triggered, he’d done on purpose. It was never wise to sneak up on an ex-SEAL, even when you called him friend.
“It’s open!” he called out, not bothering to move from his chair.
The door swung in and the man stepped through it. Tank was big enough to block all light coming in from outside. He shut the door against the bitter wind that trailed in after him. Snow had been falling for a good week now, building up, blowing off and building up again. Tank brushed what had collected off his shoulders as he surveyed his friend’s abode.