His tail rose and exited onto the platform, doing an admirable job, Frankel thought, of avoiding eye contact. The man was clearly competent. But he was too aware of his surroundings, which didn’t fit with the rest of the DC crowd, an arrogant, self-important, self-absorbed populace as a rule, which was what had tipped Frankel off in the first place.
Didn’t matter. They could bring an army of watchers. It wouldn’t change the outcome, Frankel thought.
The old assassin tottered slowly to the escalator, exited at the top, made his way deliberately and unhurriedly to the opposite escalator, which he rode back down to the train platform he had just left, except now on the other side of the tracks. Trains on this side of the rails headed back into town, opposite the direction Frankel had just traveled.
Retracing his steps.
A train arrived. Frankel didn’t take it. Wasn’t the right train.
So he waited, a bemused, satisfied look on his face.
It was great to be working again.
“He reversed direction,” Dan said quietly into his phone. “He’s waiting on the inbound platform at Union now.”
“Balls,” Sam said, driving on the highway shoulder with her emergency lights on, passing a sea of stationary cars, five lanes of misery, thousands of people lined up like cattle, sealed inside their metal boxes, rolling forward slower than they could walk. “I’m stuck in rush hour going the wrong way.”
“I can still follow him,” Dan said. “But he’ll make me for sure.”
Sam pondered. She weighed pros and cons. An old assassin, probably not all that light on his feet, probably not as slippery or dangerous as he used to be, probably not all that inclined to kill in front of an audience. They’d probably ruin their chances to discover who had hired him and why, but on the other hand, they’d probably prevent him from killing whoever he was sent to kill.
Not a hard choice, all things considered. “Do it,” Sam said. “Keep me posted.”
“Will do,” Dan said. “Looks like he’s getting on this train, heading back into town.”
“Go with him. I’ll get the rest of the team turned around.”
David Swaringen felt alive. It had been way too long since he’d been with a woman, but Eva was giving off all of the signs, laughing at his jokes, touching her hair, touching his arm, even indulging in a bit of innuendo, inviting him to join her for a pre-dinner drink at her favorite spot.
The stressful situation at the NSA was a distant memory. Drones over American cities, armed assaults on American citizens, countless hours spent watching countless video feeds; those things all seemed far away, part of a different reality. Or surreality, maybe. Too crazy to be true, yet too true to ignore.
But it was all a universe away from Union Station, from the pretty girl of Eastern European descent named Eva on his arm, waiting for a train with him, heading for a sleek and chic Georgetown watering hole, nothing but possibility ahead, all signals in the green.
She was intelligent, pretty, worldly, the opposite of an ingénue. She had an enticing lilt to her speech, a sexy feminine strength in her voice, and a thin, fit body that would feel incredible underneath his own.
And she seemed interested in him. Which made her twice as attractive.
She laughed at an offhanded joke of his, a strong, sexy laugh, and it made him wonder what she might sound like in bed. Would she moan? Wail? Howl? All exhilarating possibilities.
The train stopped, the doors opened, people spilled out, and Swaringen started toward the nearest car.
Eva tugged his arm. “This one,” she said, leading him further down the platform.
He shrugged. He’d have followed her anywhere. He didn’t care which subway car they boarded, as long as they boarded together.
Carl Ivan Edgar Frankel, ancient assassin, gave no sign of recognition as his backup team entered his subway car.
Not really a backup team as much as a backup woman. Tall, slender, Russian, eminently desirable, which was the whole point.
Her arm was looped through the mark’s elbow. Mr. MBA. Or a lawyer, maybe. Everybody hated lawyers.
They walked toward the empty seats next to him.
But they were in the wrong places. The girl was nearest to Frankel. The mark was on the opposite side of her.
It wouldn’t work. The assassin was momentarily alarmed.
But the girl was sharp. She leaned in and kissed the mark’s cheek. Frankel saw a surprised smile grow on the man’s face. Something else was probably growing, too, Frankel thought with a smirk. The girl used the cascade of emotions and hormones coursing through the man’s veins to mask a subtle manipulation. She turned him slightly, to put him in the right position, just enough to make it seem like he had chosen his own seat, the one next to the old man, when in fact he hadn’t really chosen it at all.
The mark sat down. His leg brushed against the back of Frankel’s hand. He murmured an apology.
Frankel smiled and nodded in return. No apology necessary.
The needle was too small for the mark to feel. Like a mosquito. It penetrated his thigh.
And that was that.
Child’s play.
In full view of the stocky, dark-haired watcher. Could have been a hundred men tailing him, Frankel thought again, and it wouldn’t have mattered.
The old assassin returned to his Russian novel, a satisfied smile on his face.
The gray-haired assassin sat next to his already-dying mark on the subway car for several more stops.
Another watcher joined them, he noted, a tall man with graying temples and a serious look on his face. It gave Frankel satisfaction. He felt happy to still be noteworthy. Or maybe to be noteworthy again. To be a person of interest. Which for a man of Frankel’s ego was much better than being a person of no interest, a person sequestered in a New York apartment for years on end without so much as a phone call from anyone important.
The train screeched to a halt at Metro Center Station. Frankel rose. He nodded to the amorous couple to his right, comprised of the mark and the honey trap. She was gazing deeply into his eyes, sending all the right signals, keeping him interested, keeping his thoughts on anything but what he should have been thinking about.
Frankel hobbled to the escalator and rode it up to street level, pausing in a restroom, where he flushed a particular item down the toilet.
He walked south on Twelfth, just one block to F Street Northwest. He turned right, toward the setting sun, marveling at the high, wispy, crimson clouds arrayed before him like exotic jewels on a deep blue blanket. He inhaled the early fall air. It had just a hint of crispness, just a note of the coming chill, but was still full of the scent of life, verdant and earthy. It felt good to be alive.
He spotted the third and fourth watchers on the short two-block stretch to his destination. There was one on either side of the street. There was nothing in particular about them that was obvious. It was just a feeling that Frankel got, progeny of decades on the job. He could just tell. They weren’t Bureau guys, and they definitely weren’t Agency thugs. Didn’t look the type. He didn’t think they had any association with the Russians, either, but it was hard to be sure.
And it didn’t matter. His job was done. The evidence was already in the sewer system. They had nothing.
It didn’t take him too long to reach his destination, the Intercontinental Hotel. He walked up the stately steps, opened the ancient doors, took in the self-important decor. He was impressed in spite of himself by the long list of luminaries who had dined and rested, plotted and fornicated, conspired and stolen and usurped and even murdered while staying at the Intercontinental. Presidents, ambassadors, congressmen, senators, foreign dignitaries, prostitutes, gangsters, titans, captains of industry. An august crowd. Frankel smiled to himself. His kind of place, he fancied.
He had no luggage to speak of. The check-in process consisted of a cash transaction, prearranged, no questions asked, no paperwork, no home address or driver’s license, in exchange for a ke
y. His name would never appear on the hotel registry. And in spite of the modern Big Brother video camera obsession, the Intercontinental was above all a discreet place. Cameras were positioned only to monitor the hotel staff, to keep them from stealing from the register. Guests were not photographed. Frankel’s face was on a hundred video cameras throughout the city, maybe more, but the Intercontinental Hotel’s camera was not among their number.
He ambled slowly back outside from the registration desk, down the marble steps, rounded from decades of use, and turned right at the bottom. Several steps further took him to the reception podium of the sidewalk café attached to the Intercontinental. The Café du Parc.
A significant location, to the savvy observer.
Frankel smiled, smug and superior. It was a fitting spot for a celebratory dinner, particularly in light of the crowd of watchers he had attracted. A small crowd, now swelled to five with the addition of a tall, pretty redhead.
He smiled. He ordered a salad. Arugula. Overpriced. Not his normal fare. But symbolic.
He enjoyed a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, doctors be damned. Took in the sunset, ate at a leisurely pace, soaked in the atmosphere, a little bit of the old days.
He loved the game.
His salad complete, the night air turning chilly, Carl Ivan Edgar Frankel, former and current assassin, decided it was time to retire for the evening. He rose and leaned on his cane as he walked out of the sidewalk café, pausing to wink at the tall, pretty redhead stationed at the table nearest the maître d'.
36
Sam and Dan regrouped back in Sam’s office at Homeland. They shared a pizza. Neither had felt inclined to indulge in a thirty-dollar meal while on the job. So they’d settled for a cup of coffee at the Café du Parc, eyeing the retired CIA asset with wary nonchalance.
Sam was still a little bit livid over the brazen wink the old assassin had given her on his way out of the café. Clearly, he knew he was being followed.
Clearly, he knew something else they didn’t.
Sam checked her phone. Nothing. She had stationed three members of Frankel’s surveillance detail to monitor him through the night, to stay with him until he returned home to his apartment in New York, whenever that might be. He hadn’t moved since dinner. He was in his room, probably fast asleep.
She pondered. “Maybe he’s just here on vacation,” she said.
Dan shook his head. “Frankel doesn’t take vacations.”
“Surely he wasn’t just here for the subway experience.”
“Right,” Dan said. “But he didn’t do anything else. He sat his ass on the subway train, rode halfway out of town, then turned around and caught a train heading back in the opposite direction. Then he went to dinner.”
“I don’t know what to make of it,” Sam said. “Maybe Frankel was a diversion. Maybe the main show was someplace else.”
“Maybe,” Dan said with a nod and an arch of his brow. “I wonder if there has been any activity at local hospitals.”
“It’s DC,” Sam said. “Probably a thousand drug overdoses and armed robberies.”
“But we wouldn’t care about those,” Dan said, “unless they had a national security angle.”
Sam nodded. “But how would we define ‘national security angle’?”
Dan shook his head. “Maybe anything involving employees at any of the security agencies, or known persons of interest in Homeland investigations.”
“Feels like a long shot,” Sam said. “Besides, Janice Everman wasn’t working at one of the security agencies. She was a lawyer at Justice.”
Dan nodded. “But I suppose we don’t have a choice but to put feelers out there,” he said. “Maybe just a list of people reasonably high up in the government agencies for starters.”
“It’d be a long list.”
Dan shook his head. “It would take five minutes to assemble.”
“I suppose it’s better than nothing.”
Mark Severn entered the room. He looked tired and bleary-eyed. He had a stack of papers in his hand. It looked like a list of names, telephone numbers, and email addresses. A dozen names had been highlighted in yellow. One name had pink highlighting. “Arts and crafts?” Sam asked, nodding toward the sheaf of papers in his hand.
“Exactly,” Severn said. “Your network analysis from the Boston gang.” He handed the papers to Sam.
“What did you highlight?”
“Connections that I thought might be of interest,” Severn said. “How did it go with our semi-retired assassin?”
Sam shook her head. “We chased him around the city for a couple of hours. He did nothing but ride the subway, and then go to dinner at a sidewalk café.”
A funny look crossed Mark Severn’s face. “What sidewalk café?”
“Café du something,” Sam said. “Long on pretense, short on portion sizes.”
“Café du what?” Severn pressed.
“I don’t remember,” Sam said. “Next to a hotel.”
“The Intercontinental?” Mark Severn asked, a dark look on his face.
Sam’s eyes registered surprise. “How did you know?”
“The Café du Parc?”
“Sounds right. Why?”
Severn shook his head. “He’s rubbing our noses in it. That brazen son of a bitch.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did he order a salad?”
“How did you know?” Sam asked again.
Severn grimaced. “A salad at Café du Parc.”
Sam shook her head. “If you’re trying to confuse and annoy me, you’re succeeding.”
Severn looked at her, wearing a grave expression. “Arugula salad at Café du Parc. That was Janice Everman’s last meal.”
37
Nero still hadn’t thought of a way to contact Penny and the kids. It was taking a terrible toll on him. Retrieving the cash from his uncle’s backyard had been a significant morale booster, and had allowed him to buy a few essentials. But with food, clothes and shelter taken care of, the next item on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs came into play. The meaningful relationships in his life were deteriorating moment by moment in his absence.
He had no idea what his family thought. Maybe they thought he’d died in an accident, or maybe they feared that he had skipped out on them. Perhaps they thought he had saved some money in secret, that he had run off, maybe with some floozy, someone whose body hadn’t been battered by childbirth and middle age.
Those were unbearable thoughts for Nero. He wanted desperately to get in contact with Penny and the kids, to hold them, to tell them everything was okay, to commiserate, to tell them all of the crazy things that had happened to him.
He was also going stir crazy. He’d been hiding out inside his rented storage unit for hours on end, staring at the same cramped, closed-in walls. He had considered buying a small television for entertainment, to while away the hours as he worked to clear his name while staying under the DHS radar. But he had ultimately decided against it. The noise would certainly have attracted unwanted attention. The rental agreement was quite clear about residing in the storage facility. Strictly verboten.
So he had picked up a book from a secondhand store. Ray Bradbury. Fahrenheit 451. As if Nero needed anything else to be paranoid about. He was living his own private dystopian nightmare. He identified with the protagonist in a visceral way. The light reading was meant as a diversion, but it was too close to his own reality, and he found his stomach in knots as he read.
He opened the door to the storage shed for a glimpse at the sun, to figure out what time it was. Almost late enough. But not quite.
Nero thought the plan through one more time. It was a plan born of paranoia. He needed to make inroads into Money’s life, to figure out what kind of business Money was mixed up in. But Nero wasn’t computer-savvy. He couldn’t hack into Money’s cell phone or bank accounts. He couldn’t invade Money’s email accounts, either. Plus, he was pretty sure the feds would be able to find anyone who
tried.
He would have loved to see Money’s correspondence. Nero was betting there was something incriminating, something he could use to figure out why his association with Money had produced such a virulent reaction from the feds.
Then there were the physical facilities Money used. Nero was aware of a small rented warehouse, a low, squat building in the industrial section of town, not far from the train station, not far from a defunct rubber factory, recently razed to make room for a shiny new condominium complex. There was likely to be evidence laying around the warehouse, Nero figured, something that could point him in the right direction. Something he could bring to the feds to convince them that he was innocent, and that while he might have worked for Money, he had no idea what Money was really up to.
But that was also an impossibility, for the same reasons that he couldn’t visit Penny and the kids. The feds would have it completely staked out. Likewise, he couldn’t call any of the telephone numbers he had used to get ahold of Money. Homeland would undoubtedly have those under surveillance as well. Nero didn’t know much about electronic surveillance, but he knew enough to be scared shitless of it. He knew they would be able to triangulate the location of any phone used to call any of the numbers in Money’s rotation. It would take them a matter of seconds to figure out where he was. If they had agents in the area, Nero would be nabbed again. Even if there weren’t agents nearby, Homeland would have confirmation of his general whereabouts. Still in Denver. Lacking the good sense to run away to a foreign country, change his name, change his face, disappear.
Which was an option, but not one that Nero entertained. He loved his family. A life without them was no life for him.
Which brought him back to square one, back to the problem. How to move toward the center of Money’s business without the feds getting wise.
The dead drops, of course.
Nero had serviced a number of them over the course of his employment. They were an old trick taken from espionage annals. To reduce the risk of capture and exploitation, spies left information, weapons, instructions, and other valuables in hiding places. They used signals to tell each other when an item was ready for pickup. The signals were usually hidden in plain sight, innocuous and nondescript, like a chalk mark on a park bench, or maybe a small, nearly imperceptible mark on a graffiti-covered wall. It didn’t have to be much, as long as both sides knew what to look for.
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