“You know me so well,” Sam said. “So let’s talk about my feelings. I feel largely indifferent but more than a little inconvenienced that John Abrams got smoked a few hours ago, and I feel confused about why a Metro guy just jumped out of the bushes and tried to Taser me. And despite my tough-girl exterior, I do feel apprehensive that my name and address were on Abrams’ nightstand.”
“Wow, boss. That is a situation.” Dan thought for a second. “How about Williams? He’s just back from admin leave but I could probably send him out.”
“Yes please. To Abrams’ house. Say nothing about my name and address on the notepad, and keep everyone away from my home.”
“Why don’t you ever trust the good guys?” Dan no longer sounded sleepy.
“Just because they’re on the payroll doesn’t mean they’re good guys.” Sam knew Dan was probably rolling his eyes at her. She’d foisted her dim view of her fellow Feds on him more than once.
She changed the subject. “I’ve got some multi-specs for you to analyze.”
“Can it wait? Or do you want to be responsible for my divorce?”
“Sorry, but I’m on Sara’s side. You work way too much. But it definitely can’t wait.”
Something caught Sam’s attention. Police lights in her rear view mirror. “Gotta go. There’s a police cruiser behind me.”
She hung up on Dan and immediately dialed 911. She told the operator that she was a single female alone in her car and she didn’t feel comfortable stopping for a traffic ticket in the middle of the night. The operator ran Sam’s location and queried the units in the vicinity.
None of the patrolmen in the area was trying to pull over a motorist at the moment, the operator said.
Sam felt her insides clench up. That’s no cop. She matted the accelerator and dove across three lanes to make a hard right turn. The cop car followed, lights flashing insistently. A voice blared at her from the bullhorn atop the police cruiser, warning her to pull over immediately. “He’s chasing me. Any ideas?” She asked the 911 dispatcher.
“Don’t stop.”
“Genius.”
“I’ve already got two units on the way. Stay calm, ma’am.”
“Great thinking. How will I know the good cops from the bad cops?”
The operator didn’t have an answer, but suggested she drive to the police station to sort it out. She suggested the operator commit an unnatural act with himself.
Then she realized she hadn’t told him about the Taser thing. Tasers were controlled items, available only to cops, security firms, and the military. So she told the operator, and then apologized for suggesting self-buggery.
“I understand your concern a bit better now ma’am. Please try not to get in an accident, don’t violate any traffic laws, but don’t stop your car. You should see another police cruiser soon.”
Sam did. It pulled up even with her left rear quarter panel.
Then it swerved into her car, ramming her into a spin.
It’s on. Her driving training kicked in.
She steered into the spin, whipping the nose of her car around until it was almost pointing in the right direction down the road. Then she quickly reversed the wheel to stop the rotation. She downshifted into third gear, stood on the accelerator, and felt the twin turbo boosters kick in, pushing her back into the driver’s seat. Not your average douchebag penis-extender sports car, is it boys?
She accelerated away from the two cop cars. Or non-cop cars. She still didn’t know which. She passed 120 miles an hour, then 130, then saw the light turn red two blocks away. Crossing traffic began to crawl through the intersection.
Not stopping.
She didn’t. She barely missed a beat-up minivan, and swerved to avoid what would certainly have been a deadly collision with a sedan that had just turned onto the street in front of her. Police lights still flashed behind her, but the distance was growing.
The road curved gently, and Sam accelerated to build more space. 140, then 150. Do I hear 160? The police lights disappeared around the bend behind her.
Sam stood on the brakes. The anti-lock system sounded like four jackhammers, and she was thrown into her restraints by the deceleration. She wasn’t quite slow enough to make the corner onto the quiet residential street, but she tried anyway, and ended up spending a little time on someone’s lawn before chirping her tires back onto the pavement.
She drove half a block, then twirled to a stop behind a gratuitously large pickup truck parked by the curb. She killed the lights just before the two cop cars blazed past on the main road, engines roaring and sirens wailing.
To serve and protect. My tax dollars at work.
Hands shaking, she caught her breath, then realized that she heard a voice coming from the vicinity of her crotch. The 911 operator was still on the line. She hung up with a loud flourish of profanity, and began to disassemble her phone. It would be less than awesome to lose those two cop cars, only to have them locate her using a cell phone signal.
She reached a fingernail to remove the phone’s battery when the phone began vibrating. Brock. “Expecting company, baby? There’s a cop car in front of our house.”
2
If Quinn believed in heaven, he would have sworn that it took the form of the two naked nymphs whose undivided attention he had just enjoyed. They lay together, the smell of bodies heavy around them, a satisfied smile on his face. It had been a banner day for Quinn. A bloody, messy job had gone very well, and he now had a pound of pure gold to show for it. He only rarely accepted cash for his work, preferring “real money” instead. The evening’s entertainment had cost him an ounce of his bounty, but it was well worth it.
And, he flattered himself, it had obviously been more than just work for the girls, too.
He had just about dozed off to sleep in between the two gorgeous women when his cell phone rang. It was a cheap prepaid phone that wouldn’t see more than four more hours’ use, if all went well, but the ring wasn’t a welcome development.
“Quinn,” he lied. It wasn’t his name, but that’s how his case officer referred to him for this particular job. He listened intently for several seconds, then said, “Got it.” He cursed softly to himself after hanging up, and set about quietly gathering his things.
Back to work.
He stopped in the bathroom to relieve himself and put his clothes on, pausing for a look in the mirror. Brilliant eyes blazed back at him; one grey-blue, the other greenish brown, like a wolf or wild dog. He had a long scar beneath his green eye.
He was also very tall, and extremely muscular. It was unusual for a man in his profession to have such distinguishing features, as wet men were traditionally nondescript, but it was testament to his exceptional talent that the Agency had selected him for this particular line of work. He had a gift for it.
And, he occasionally admitted to himself, he enjoyed both the chase and its reward, the feral rush of power and bloodlust that invariably accompanied killing another human.
One of the girls was snoring softly on the bed as he left. He made no sound on the way out of the newly remodeled hotel room in Shirlington, Virginia. He pulled a dark ball cap low on his brow to obscure his facial features from the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. “Good evening, Mr. Quinn,” the desk clerk chirped as the assassin strode by on his way to the parking garage. Quinn smiled and returned the greeting.
Minutes later he was on I-395 northbound in his rented Land Rover, en route to a provisioning stop. Unlike the evening’s earlier job, which had been what industry professionals refer to as a “scene” – complete with a suicide note, though Quinn didn’t believe anyone really took those seriously any more – he was apparently on his way to provide what Agency people euphemistically called “interrogation enhancement.”
Torture.
Officially, it didn’t happen on American soil. Then again, neither did assassination.
Quinn hated interrogation enhancement jobs. He was a professional murderer, but he lacked the fre
akish sadism the really good torturers had, and the jobs tended to haunt him. Howls, screams, begging, sobbing, tearing flesh and snapping bones; they all left their mark on his psyche, which was why he charged so much money for them.
Sure, most of his victims were bad people, but who wasn’t a bad person, when it came right down to it? He no longer had a patriot’s ideological zeal to soothe his conscience, and knew that he was more mercenary than anything else, which had him contemplating a career change. But for the gold…
He exited the highway in a bad part of town, pulled into a warehouse parking lot, lifted up the lid on the third recycling bin from the north end of the wall, grabbed the pre-packed duffel bag his handlers had left for him, and was back on the highway a few minutes later. Clockwork.
He drove quickly toward his destination, an Arlington mansion he’d never seen before. Hope the guy squeals early. Quinn had been awake for over 20 hours already, and he didn’t have the energy for a prolonged session.
He stopped for coffee, chuckling at the absurdity of needing a caffeine hit to gear up for a torture job.
Just another day in the life, he thought, wondering vaguely who tonight’s victim might be. Smart money would bet on a dark-skinned Arabic speaker, but he had removed a few Russian fingernails recently as well. Uncle Sugar had plenty of enemies, and was busy making more all the time. That couldn’t possibly be related to all the murder and torture, the assassin mused darkly.
He was, quite literally, the pointy end of State policy. As such, he had long since been aware of the cavernous gap between the reality of statecraft and the bright-eyed bullshit the politicos hoped the public would swallow. Mostly the public did swallow it, which kept Quinn well supplied with gold bullion and expensive hookers.
He found the address, entered the gate code, parked in the drive, and rapped on the door, holding an elevated middle finger in view of the peephole. The door opened seconds later, and a familiar face appeared in the doorway. Quinn stepped into the waiting darkness.
3
“Baby, whatever you do, stay downstairs in the vault!” Sam knew she was yelling into the phone, but she couldn’t stop herself. She felt she had done a good enough job just keeping the hysteria out of her voice.
Brock calmly explained that the police officer had already rung their doorbell several times, and didn’t appear to be on the verge of leaving.
She filled him in on the last few minutes of her life, high-speed chase included, hoping Brock would be less inclined to give in to the insistent doorbell. “It might be a real cop, or it might not, and even if it is a cop, he may or may not be planning to screw us over. Please, just sit tight in the panic room.”
Brock reluctantly agreed. She knew it went against his Type-A, mess-with-the-bull-and-you’ll-get-the-horns personality. He was a career fighter pilot, after all, a subspecies convinced of its own invincibility, high mortality rate notwithstanding. She avoided telling Brock that she would take care of the situation; she knew that would only encourage him to defend his masculinity by doing something stupid.
That settled for the moment, Sam then dialed her boss. “Special Agent In Charge Ekman,” he answered after only a couple of rings.
“Lighten up, Francis,” she said. His name really was Francis. “It’s midnight on a Saturday. Do we really need all the pomp and circumstance?”
“Hello Sam. Would a little respect for authority kill you?”
“You’d be surprised.” She filled him in on how a little respect for police authority almost killed her a few minutes earlier.
“Shit.”
“That’s your professional assessment?”
“Cool it, Sam. Give me a minute to think this through.”
“OK, but while you do, it is my duty to inform you that I am on my way to defend my home from a potential invasion,” Sam said, putting the Porsche in gear.
“I can have the response team out the door in two minutes,” Ekman offered.
“I was afraid you were going to say something like that.”
“You really should have a bit more trust in your coworkers,” Ekman chastised.
“You really should hire better coworkers.”
Ekman ignored the barb. “I don’t have many options here, Sam. Procedures are pretty clear in situations like this. Your wildly arrogant objection is duly noted, but I’m sending the team, and I’ll make a few phone calls. In the meantime, stay away from your house.”
“Thanks, Francis. Remind me why I bothered calling you?”
“It’s your job.”
“Says you.”
“Sam, seriously, take a drive, and let the team handle the guy at your house. We’ve got you covered.”
“Sure, Francis.” She hung up before her boss could challenge her lie, and headed toward the home she and Brock had shared for the past couple of years. She subconsciously patted her Kimber .45 auto in the pancake holster under her jacket, eager for a little reassurance.
Shit. Police lights in her rear view mirror. Though she had every intention of breaking the speed limit, she had just turned the corner and hadn’t yet accelerated to speed when the cop appeared.
The damn telephone gave me away. She rolled down the window and threw it out of the car, then stomped on the gas. Her car leapt forward, and the police car gave chase.
Wait a minute. A thought struck. She pulled the portable police light out of her glove compartment, rolled down her window, and slapped the light onto the roof. She fumbled for the electrical cord, which she plugged into the lighter receptacle.
She could tell the light was working, because the cop car behind her immediately slowed down. Interesting. The cop thought he was running down a perp, she realized, and the sudden appearance of her police light had caused what the bureaucrats referred to as a paradigm shift.
So the cops in her corner of the world at the moment were behaving as the good guys normally do, which was an important piece of information. They probably weren’t rogue police officers moonlighting for someone else, and they probably weren’t impostors, either.
She didn’t slow down. She was driving at breakneck pace through the surprisingly heavy midnight DC traffic, her analytical mind working as hard as her driving instincts. If the cruiser behind her, which had retreated to a far less aggressive distance behind her car, was indeed driven by a straight-laced cop on the job, it meant one of two things. Either there was a misunderstanding somewhere at the cop shop, or someone higher up at Metro was crooked, and looking to do her harm.
That seemed to contrast sharply with her experience during her last high-speed chase, in which the guy in the Metro cruiser apparently wasn’t talking to the dispatcher. She didn’t quite know what to make of things, but she thought another 911 call might be useful. If not, it would at least be informative.
She suddenly wished she hadn’t thrown her work phone out the window. She reluctantly pulled her personal cell phone from her jacket pocket and dialed 911.
Different operator this time, which wasn’t unexpected, but it was inconvenient. She spent a couple of minutes telling the dispatcher about her evening. After a few entirely predictable but time-consuming questions, the operator was finally up to speed enough to put the call out to the units in Sam’s vicinity.
Déjà vu all over again, Sam thought as she waited impatiently for the answer. She was getting close to home, which was now a real problem. She didn’t want to drag the cop behind her into the mess at her house without knowing what the hell was going on.
“Ma’am, I’m in contact with an Officer Davis, who says he’s following your car. He’s going to move in closer for a look at your license plate to confirm.”
Sure enough, the cruiser was closing the gap, and was soon nearly on her bumper.
“What’s your license plate number, ma’am?” The dispatcher’s question wasn’t unreasonable, but Sam hadn’t stayed alive this long in the counterespionage world without avoiding hundreds of stupid-person traps.
“Let’s do
it this way,” Sam said. “I’d like you to read the number to me, and I’ll let you know if you’re close.”
Silence. Sam began to get the sinking feeling she always got when situations turned sour, and she was about to stand on the accelerator to try to lose the cop behind her when the dispatcher’s voice crackled over her Bluetooth. “Niner seven x-ray bravo six tango niner,” the operator said.
“I’m very glad to hear you say that,” Sam said. “I thought I was going to have to add you to the list of people whose ass I plan to kick. Please have your guy follow me. I’m on the way home to head off an intruder.”
Hmm. About that intruder. Sam had another thought: “Did anyone dispatch a black and white to 935 Fox Hill Lane about ten minutes ago?”
It took a couple of minutes for the dispatcher to access the digital logs, which apparently required a supervisor’s password, and Sam was rounding the corner onto her street when the operator finally came back on the line: “No ma’am. We have no record of a dispatch to that address.”
“Thought that might be the case. Stay on the line with me? Who knows what I’ll find when I get home. And tell the officer behind me that we’ll use a standard pincer to box in the intruder’s vehicle, my car in front.”
“No problem ma’am.”
Sam opted for a full frontal assault, hoping to seize initiative from whoever was lurking outside her front door. She stood on the horn and left her police light flashing as she rounded the lazy curve leading to her larger-than-average brownstone. She pulled her gun from its holster, and was prepared to box the police cruiser in to prevent his escape.
But the street in front of her house was completely empty. No cop car, and no cop, except for the one she brought with her.
She noticed that her call waiting was beeping at her. Brock. He must have been worried when he couldn’t get ahold of her on her work phone. “Hi, baby,” she answered. “I see that you scared our guest off.”
“He left a minute ago,” Brock said. “I watched him on the video feed.” He was referring to the state-of-the-art Israeli-built video surveillance system that Sam had installed throughout their home, which featured hidden cameras covering almost every square foot of the house and yard. The cameras fed a surveillance control system in the panic room, and every second of footage was compressed and stored on a ridiculously large hard drive.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 2