Termination Orders

by Leo J. Maloney

  I hate this part, he thought.

  He pushed off, and his feet flailed in the air. As he swung himself back in toward the side of the roof, he was thrown off balance, and he hit his shoulder hard. He released more rope but too fast. His feet hit the ground on the lower level, and the impact made him fall onto his right knee with a scream of pain.

  “Cobra,” came Lowry’s voice. “They’re coming! Get out of there!”

  He got up and tossed the rope over the side, down to the ground below. There would be no do-over this time. He stood with his back to the edge.

  Only one way to go, he thought, and he dropped backward into the air. He had better control this time, and he stabilized himself on the slats with his feet. He zipped down quickly, and soon his feet hit the soft ground no harder than if he had jumped off a curb.

  “Conley, what’s going on?”

  “Natasha’s got wheels,” said Conley through his earpiece. “I’m going after her. Where are you?”

  “I’m right by the main gate. Where are you?”

  He didn’t need a response when he heard the rumble of his GTO approaching, maneuvering through the crowd. The car stopped right in front of him. Conley got out.

  “You drive.”

  Morgan ran around the car to the driver’s door. As he got in, he looked up and saw three security guards looking down at him from the roof. Hell with them, he thought, and he sat down, feeling the powerful rumble of the engine through the wheel. Conley was already in the passenger seat.

  “Get ready to see some real driving,” he said, and they peeled off, roaring down toward Independence Avenue, toward T, leaving a dozen guards scrambling behind them.

  CHAPTER 43

  Morgan stepped on the gas, and the GTO roared down the avenue. Tires squealed as he swerved around cars, which he passed so fast, it looked as though they were hardly moving at all, honking at him as he cut them off. Far ahead, Natasha was threading an agile little Japanese sports car through traffic, driving west toward the National Mall. Her car was newer, lighter, and easier to maneuver through tight spots, but it couldn’t match the raw power of the GTO.

  “Don’t let her get out of our line of sight!” shouted Conley over the roar of the engine.

  “What the hell do you think I’m doing?” Morgan exclaimed.

  And then, through the rearview mirror, he saw flashing red and blue lights and heard the siren of the police car.

  That didn’t take long, Morgan muttered to himself, stepping harder on the gas. But the police car came with one great benefit: the other cars, hearing the siren, were now parting, opening a way for Morgan and Conley to pass. But still, Natasha was getting farther and farther away.

  “Lowry, do you copy?” Morgan said.

  “Copy, Cobra,“ came Lowry’s voice, barely audible in his earpiece.

  “Is there any way you can track her?” said Morgan.

  There was a pause, and then Lowry said, “I can, but it’s going to take a few minutes.”

  “We don’t have a few minutes!” said Morgan.

  “I’m going to have to tap into a military satellite,” said Lowry. “This isn’t exactly a walk in the park.” There was a pause, and then he said, “Listen, Cobra. Once I’m in, I’m going to need to get a bead on her visually. I need to find her by tracing your signal. That means you need to stay on her tail until I can access the feed.”

  “Can you say that to me in plain English?”

  “If you lose her, I won’t be able to find her again.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Cobra!” yelled Conley. They were approaching an intersection, and the lights had just turned red. The cars in their lane came to a stop, blocking their way. With no time to stop, he veered into the opposite lane, narrowly missing a car that had turned into it. The cars at the intersection stopped as they saw him careering toward them, leaving a sliver of an opening for the GTO. Morgan scraped another vehicle as he negotiated the narrow gap between cars. The pursuing police car came to a screeching halt behind them, not daring to make the same dangerous maneuver. But the victory was short-lived. The tail they lost was soon replaced by two others.

  They steadily gained on Natasha as they drove past Lincoln Park and merged onto Massachusetts Avenue, until Morgan was close enough to drive in her wake. The call had definitely gone out on the police frequency, because cop cars were now attempting to cut them off. There would only be more of them the closer they got to the National Mall.

  “Lowry, do you have the trace on her yet?” barked Morgan.

  “Almost! Keep her in your sight!”

  They zoomed down Constitution Avenue, passing the illuminated Capitol on their left. Two more cop cars turned on their flashing lights, straight ahead and hurtling toward them. Natasha took a sharp left, tires squealing. Narrowly missing the oncoming police cars, Morgan turned in pursuit of her, so that the Capitol remained on their left. Up ahead, there were another two squad cars closing in fast.

  “Only one way out!” said Morgan. And, sure enough, Natasha veered right, climbing onto the sidewalk at the access ramp and onto the lawn of the National Mall, barely avoiding the scrambling pedestrians.

  “Oh, shit!” exclaimed Conley as Morgan turned hard, the GTO pitching violently when they hit the ramp. They followed Natasha’s car, which was whipping up dust in its wake. The police cars scrambled to pursue them by the road alongside the lawn. Morgan and Conley were trailing Natasha closely now, and their car handled better on the grass than hers.

  Even though they had caught up with Natasha, they were faced with another problem. The police cars were converging around them, attempting to cut them off from any escape routes.

  “Lowry, now would be a really good time for you to get a lock on her car!” Morgan snapped.

  “Tracing now! Just keep with her for a few more seconds!”

  They were fast running out of lawn, and the police cars were attempting to block their way forward.

  “Cobra!” shouted Conley. “Forget Natasha! We need to get out of here!”

  “Not until Lowry gets the trace!”

  “We’re not going to be able to escape the cops unless we split off from her!” Conley insisted. “Now!”

  He was right. The Mall was a wide-open space, but the cops were closing in. There was a far better chance of escape if they gave up the chase.

  “Lowry! We can’t hold on much longer!”

  Through the rearview mirror, Morgan saw that two police cars had climbed onto the lawn after them, far behind but gaining. If they didn’t separate, this was going to be over pretty quickly.

  “Lowry?”

  “Got it!” exclaimed Lowry triumphantly. “Now you two get the hell out of there!”

  Morgan pulled the hand brake, making a 180 that pinned him against the door and sent dust up all around them. The car stopped mere feet from the curb, and he instantly hit the gas hard, back in the direction they had come from. Natasha raced on, just making it between two police cars that were attempting to block her way. Now turned to face the two police cars that had been coming up behind them, Morgan feigned a turn to the left, then made a sharp right. One of the police cars, trying clumsily to respond to Morgan’s maneuver, spun out and hit the other. Morgan could still see them, motionless, in his rearview mirror as he drove back onto the street and turned right at the National Gallery. He sped down Constitution Avenue, turning at the Canadian embassy. As they drove farther from the Mall, the sirens faded behind them, and Morgan pulled the car into a darkened alley.

  Conley, sitting beside him, breathed a sigh of relief. “Jesus, Cobra. I’d almost forgotten how crazy you are behind the wheel.”

  Morgan smirked. “A little fast for you, Grandpa?”

  Conley grinned back at him. “How about you get on an F-22 with me someday, and we’ll see who the grandpa is.”

  Morgan chuckled. “All right, Lowry,” he said. “Tell us where to go.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Natasha parked her c
ar at the sharp elbow of a residential road that bordered the arboretum. Beyond a couple of old concrete barriers to the east was a dark, abandoned lane. She got out of the car, surveyed the street once more for any trailing police cars, hopped over the barrier, and ran down the road, into the darkness and away from civilization. She spotted the chopper about three hundred feet away, and even with it on the ground she could see its beams, brilliant in the twilight. She could hear the rotor from where she was, too, powered up and ready for takeoff. She looked back, half expecting to see Morgan’s headlights behind her. But no; everything was dark.

  As she approached the chopper, she saw a man standing in front of it, facing her. In the half light, she could just make out his facial features. It was a beefy man with greasy black hair and bulging eyes. Roland Vinson.

  “What is going on here?” she demanded, shouting over the roar of the motor and blades of the helicopter.

  “Change of plans, sweetheart,” he shouted back.

  She reached for her weapon, but he was faster. He aimed the sleek black silencer at her chest and fired twice. She collapsed, her legs splayed at awkward angles. She gasped, and then her breathing settled into a labored wheeze. Her lungs, she realized, were filling with blood. She tried to get up, but it was as though there were a heavy rock on her chest. Her mind was already far away. It felt as though to move a finger would take all her strength. Vinson walked toward her until his feet, huge in ugly crocodile shoes, were planted next to her head. He aimed right between her eyes.

  “It’s too bad I gotta mess up such a pretty face.”

  She kept her eyes firmly on him, defiantly. If he was killing her, she would make her death her own and stare down the barrel of the gun that did it. She fought through the haze. She wanted to be fully conscious for it.

  But it didn’t come. There were gunshots, and before she knew it, Vinson looked up and retreated toward the chopper, shooting back at an unknown target. She lay there languishing as the firefight raged around her. She was enveloped in a whirlwind as the chopper took off. Her blond hair whipped across her face. The miasma of death was setting in now, and everything seemed distant. The shooting continued as the rotors slowly faded into the distance. Then there was silence.

  Her eyes flicked upward, and through the haze she saw Cobra standing over her in the twilight. The world was far away now, as if she was underwater and sinking deeper. Not yet, she thought. One more thing. It took all her willpower to move her trembling hand into the secret pocket in her pants and to drag out with her weak fingers the small object. She closed her palm around it. Then she forced her laboring lungs to say one last word, in a weak wheeze.

  “Andr . . .”

  The name of her brother died on her lips, and the world went dark.

  Morgan knelt over T’s lifeless body as Conley approached and asked, “Is there any chance you saw who was on that helicopter?”

  Morgan shook his head distractedly. He was looking at her face, contorted with pain. Her beautiful sky-blue eyes still retained their wild intensity, even in death. He shut them gently and looked at her in the quickly fading light. As much as he could never forgive her for what she had done, their enmity seemed not to matter as much now that she was dead. Instead, he felt a strange camaraderie with her, as if she hadn’t been hunting him, but rather, as if it was still that first night at the ball; as if she hadn’t been told a lie and had lived her life without bitterness and had had no score to settle with him; as if they had remained friends to the end, and resentment had not turned her into a cynical, amoral, rogue agent. In silence he honored her as the friend she once was and the great warrior that she had been to the end. He took her hand in his one last time and was surprised to find that there was something nested in it.

  He gently pried apart her fingers and found a small, featureless black metallic chip. He held it up to Conley. “You know what this is?” Conley shook his head. Whatever it was, it might be important. Morgan slipped it into his pocket.

  “Lowry,” Morgan said. “Lowry, come in.” He got no response.

  “I guess we’re out of range,” said Conley. “Come on. Let’s get back.”

  They walked briskly back up the dark road and got into the GTO.

  “What now?” asked Conley.

  “We regroup,” said Morgan, starting the engine and rolling out. “T may be dead, but Nickerson isn’t. There’s still a mole in the CIA. They’re still arming Afghan insurgents.”

  “Cobra,” Conley cut in softly.

  Morgan continued. “. . . and for all we know, they’re going to try to kill Senator McKay again, and I’m betting they’re going to go for the quick and dirty kill this time.”

  “Cobra,” Conley repeated, “Morgan. Maybe it’s time for us to cut our losses and leave. Take Jenny and Alex and get out of the country. Find a nice, quiet place to retire.”

  “And what? Let them get away with it?”

  “They already have, Morgan. The Agency wants to kill us. Nobody else is going to believe our word. There’s just two of us against all of them.”

  “Then we keep fighting, Conley. We keep coming at them until we win.”

  “Or until we die, Morgan? Is that it?”

  Morgan didn’t answer because their discussion was cut short. Three squad cars turned onto the street they were on, tires squealing and lights flashing.

  “Shit!” Morgan downshifted to second gear, and with a twist of the wheel the car turned a complete 180, rubber burning on asphalt. They tore off in the opposite direction, away from the approaching squad cars. Almost immediately, four more turned onto the street ahead of them. Morgan tromped the gas pedal.

  “Cobra, what are you doing?” Conley exclaimed.

  “We’re going to get past them!”

  The cars ahead massed rapidly, blocking the road ahead. Morgan accelerated.

  “Cobra!”

  “We’ll plow through if we have to. We can make it!”

  “No, Cobra, we can’t!”

  “We can make it through!”

  “Cobra! We can’t! Let it go!”

  Gritting his teeth, Morgan pulled the hand brake and stopped the car with a controlled spin. The cars that had been chasing them closed in a circle around them. At least a dozen policemen scrambled out and took cover behind their cars, guns aimed at Morgan and Conley.

  “Get out of the vehicle with your hands up!”

  They were completely surrounded. There was nothing to do but surrender.

  CHAPTER 45

  For nearly an hour Morgan and Conley sat handcuffed in a stationary squad car, guarded by two shotgun-wielding cops, while other officers talked among themselves and made phone calls. There seemed to be some confusion about what to do with them. With nothing really to be done, the two sat tight and waited.

  Eventually, a conclusion was reached, and about half of the police cars dispersed, while the rest of the force remained to guard them. Finally, a small caravan of black town cars pulled up alongside them, and from the lead car emerged the weasel, Harold Kline, looking smug.

  “These boys are ours, Sergeant,” he said, presenting a piece of paper to the officer in charge. “That little document means they’re under our purview. Your discretion in this matter is both appreciated and absolutely mandatory.”

  The police sergeant looked at him with an expression that said, “What a jack-off!” But he talked to some of his fellow officers, pointing at the two captives. Morgan and Conley were yanked out of the car and recuffed behind their backs with the CIA’s high-security restraints.

  “You fellas going to behave?” said Kline.

  “Where are you taking us?” demanded Morgan.

  “You’ll find out,” said Kline. Then he addressed the agents. “Load them up. I want them in separate cars, in full shackles. Keep your guns out of their reach, and watch their hands! The last thing you want to do is underestimate them.”

  They led Morgan to one of the cars, and once inside they cuffed his ankles. There wa
s an agent on either side of him, and he was instructed not to move. The cuffs dug into his back uncomfortably.

  As the car began moving, he wondered where he would end up. They wouldn’t bring formal charges against him, not with everything he knew from his past missions. There was a lot of dirty laundry that nobody wanted aired.

  Plus, there was plenty the CIA could do if they wanted to make him disappear, and the fact that he lived mostly off the grid would only make that easier for them. Would they ship him off to a secret prison in the Middle East? Or would he be the victim of an unfortunate “accident“? And, most of all, what would happen to Jenny and Alex now? But as they drove, it became abundantly clear where they were going.

  The car came to a stop sometime later at CIA Headquarters. They yanked him out the door. Conley was brought out of his car just a few feet away from him, being escorted, like him, by two men.

  The procession walked into the building, and even though it was a Saturday night, the place was still fully manned, with suits walking in and out. Whatever time it was, it was always noon somewhere in the world.

  Morgan saw a small group of people standing and facing them and realized that among them was Jeffrey Boyle, looking stiff and official, flanked by several security officers.

  “Gentlemen, kindly detain him,” Boyle said calmly. Morgan braced himself for rough treatment. But to his surprise, they surrounded Kline, two of them with weapons drawn.

  “What the hell is going on here, Jeffrey?” Kline demanded.

  One of the officers handcuffed him and patted him down.