by Ben Coes
Leave it behind, Dewey. Walk away. Get it through your head and walk away. Leave her behind. Yesterday’s gone. She’s gone.
Fight. It’s all you can do. It’s all you could ever do.
Against his better judgment, he dialed again. He listened until he felt someone’s eyes on him. He looked up. An old woman was staring at him, politely waiting for the phone. He hung up the phone and walked away from the phone booth.
Dewey walked quickly through the terminal, keeping his head down. He rode an escalator to the baggage-claim area. Near the glass doors to the outside, he saw a sign for the taxi stand.
The area outside the terminal was crowded with cars, buses, rental-car shuttles, taxis, and people. There were three separate lanes. The first was reserved for taxis. A center lane was reserved for public transportation and shuttles; a procession of buses, hotel and rental-car shuttles lined the concrete sidewalk. The far traffic lane was for everyday cars and was crowded with double-parked cars, as passengers hustled to climb in.
Dewey saw the taxi line to the left. He fell in line behind a young black couple. They were holding hands and laughing. From their accents, they sounded French. The man was tall; Dewey moved into line as close to the couple as possible, using them to provide a visual shield as he scanned the sidewalk for anyone even remotely Asian.
The airport was chaotic and crowded. This, Dewey knew, was exactly what he wanted.
Seek crowds. Blend in. Know where your weapon is.
Dewey began to relax slightly as the French couple came to the front of the taxi line. Still, he felt perspiration beneath his armpits.
“Are you here on holiday?” asked the woman behind Dewey. He turned. She looked Middle Eastern; her accent was British. She smiled at him.
“No,” said Dewey.
The line moved again. A small green taxi pulled in front of the French couple. As they climbed in back, the woman giggled watching the man attempt to squeeze into the tiny vehicle. The driver climbed out and opened the trunk of the taxi, then grabbed the couple’s bags and tossed them into the trunk. A few seconds later, the taxi sped away.
Dewey was at the front of the line now. He was exposed to anyone driving in any of the three pickup lanes. He stooped a bit, pulling the hat as low as he could without looking suspicious. He registered a long succession of buses and rental-car shuttles in the next lane. In the far lane, cars were backed up, double parked, horns honking intermittently.
Dewey glanced left, toward the airport entrance. There wasn’t a taxi in sight.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
Dewey turned.
“How about you?” he asked politely, looking at the woman. He surveyed over her shoulders, to both sides, scanning the terminal entrance for spotters.
“Yes, I’m on holiday. I’m meeting my sister.”
Dewey turned from the woman, looking again for a taxi. There wasn’t one in sight.
“Would you like to share a taxi into town?” asked the woman. “It’s so frightfully expensive.”
Dewey looked into the woman’s eyes for a brief moment, saying nothing. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a bright red sedan with black checkers on its doors and a flashing yellow sign on its roof. The taxi barreled into the airport and, moments later, sped down the taxi lane.
“Thank God,” he muttered.
The red taxi moved quickly down the lane and stopped in front of Dewey.
“I’m afraid I can’t,” said Dewey to the woman.
Dewey reached for the taxi door and noticed, for the first time, a white van parked two lanes over, its windows tinted jet-black.
A chill spiked in the back of Dewey’s neck as the van’s lights suddenly flickered. Someone inside the van had turned the key.
“Where to?” asked the cab driver.
Dewey leaned down, into the passenger window, making eye contact with the driver.
“I have luggage,” said Dewey.
“I’m sorry,” said the driver, putting it in neutral and climbing out. “Let me help you.”
“Thanks,” said Dewey, remaining with his head down, next to the passenger window as the driver moved to the rear of the taxi.
Through the canopy of the taxi, he scanned the van. It was shiny and new. It sat still, its running lights now on. The black of the windshield and passenger window prevented Dewey from seeing anyone.
Am I being paranoid, Dewey asked himself?
Fight. It’s all you can do. It’s all you could ever do.
The taxi driver stepped to the back of the taxi and opened the trunk.
“Where is your bag, sir?” he called in a thick accent from behind the taxi.
Dewey glanced at the driver. He was now shielded by the trunk.
Dewey ripped open the front passenger-side door. He climbed in the taxi, then moved across the passenger seat to the driver’s seat, keeping his eyes glued to the van.
Suddenly, the black passenger-side window of the van cracked, then lowered.
Dewey thrust the taxi into reverse just as the muzzle of a rifle emerged from the window. Dewey ducked and slammed the accelerator to the floor, tearing backward, just as the first slugs pelted the window, shattering it.
Unmuted automatic-weapon fire exploded out above the general din of the airport. It was followed by screams, then all-out pandemonium as anyone within earshot dived to the ground or ran for their lives.
The taxi driver screamed as Dewey burst backward, leaping out of the way as the taxi accelerated up the lane, in reverse, the back bumper barely missing him.
Dewey kept the gas pedal slammed against the floor. Tires screeched and thick black smoke clouded the air as Dewey let the tires rip across the hot tar. The taxi hurled backward, trunk open, back up the taxi lane, wrong direction, smoke from burning rubber darkening the air around the cab.
Slugs pelted the side of the taxi as the gunman in the van fired at Dewey.
Screams blended with the sound of gunfire and screeching tires.
Dewey ripped the vehicle backward, speeding in reverse for a hundred feet, then slammed the brakes. He was now behind the van.
Dewey jammed the car into gear and slammed the gas pedal to the floor as hard as he could. The tires screeched even louder this time, creating more black smoke. The rear of the taxi fishtailed slightly. Dewey jacked the steering wheel left as the taxi fired dead ahead, toward the van, accelerating. With his right hand, Dewey pulled the G19 from under his armpit. People scrambled, screaming, dropping bags, trying to get out of the way of the speeding taxi, which Dewey targeted toward the white van, two lanes away.
Dewey hit the low concrete curb at fifty miles an hour, then barreled over it.
A line of people waiting for a bus was directly in front of him. He slammed the horn but didn’t slow down a bit, keeping the gas floored as he flipped the safety off the 9mm. People scattered, screaming, as Dewey accelerated through the line, leaving hysterical people on both sides of the taxi, now blazing at seventy-five miles an hour and climbing.
Ahead, now only one lane away, Dewey could see the unmistakable face of a Chinese gunman on the passenger side of the van, as he triggered an assault rifle at the taxi.
Several people were struck by errant bullets. They tumbled to the concrete sidewalk, blood spraying the ground. Hysterical bystanders dived to the ground, fortunate enough to be spared from the fusillade.
Dewey kept low, tucked against the door, his foot hard on the gas pedal, his right hand clutching the G19.
Suddenly, the rear double doors of the van flew open. The Chinese agent appeared. He went into a crouch, military style, on one knee. He clutched a short, stubby black assault rifle, which Dewey recognized: FN F2000, a bullpup assault rifle that was easy to handle and blisteringly lethal. A moment later, the muzzle erupted as the gunman triggered the 5.56x.45mm assault rifle at Dewey, who was now moving at almost ninety miles an hour straight at him.
The first slugs pelted the steel hood of the taxi. The line of
big holes moved in a jagged line up the hood, toward Dewey, hitting what was left of the shattered window.
Dewey reached left and opened his door. He ducked lower, away from the spray of lead. He tucked against the front of the door, near the hinges, next to the steering wheel, shielded by the dashboard, as slugs tore the seat next to him.
The engine revved furiously as he charged ever closer to the van. Dewey braced himself as yards turned to feet turned to inches. The sound of the F2000, firing full auto, combined with a hurricane of slugs. The air between the two vehicles was drowned in chaos.
Dewey heard the gunman shout, a panicked scream in Mandarin. Then, a moment later, the taxi slammed into the back of the van. Metal crushed against metal as the gunman was launched into the air. He tumbled out the back of the van, thrown to the taxi hood, where he landed just in front of Dewey. Dewey moved the Glock, then fired a slug into the man’s skull, just as—ahead of Dewey—the van peeled out, the driver now desperate to get away.
Dewey hit the gas again and burst right, accelerating to the side of the now-screeching van, which was running for the airport exit. Both vehicles were accelerating down the lane, Dewey trying to catch up in the badly hobbled taxi. Smoke billowed from the taxi’s engine, rising up through the pockmarked hood.
Dewey had the accelerator hard against the floor. He looked down and saw the speedometer hit sixty. Screams mixed with the sound of screeching tires and revving engines. For the first time, Dewey heard a siren in the distance.
Dewey pushed the taxi until it finally reached the back bumper of the van. He was gaining on the slower vehicle as, up ahead, cars swerved out of the way. Inch by inch, the taxi came abreast of the van. When he was finally parallel to the front tire of the van, Dewey jacked the wheel left, aiming at the van. A second later, the taxi slammed into the passenger door. The van jerked abruptly to its left, careering toward a thick steel pole. The van slammed dead center into the pole, crushing into the engine, in the same moment the taxi smashed into the door. Both vehicles came to a grinding halt, the dead gunman tumbling off the hood.
Dewey punched up at the shattered windshield, then climbed up onto the hood, clutching the Glock. He raised the gun as he leapt toward the van. He started firing. Unmuted gunfire sounded above more screams and an approaching chorus of sirens. He fired into the black glass of the passenger-door window, shattering it. Another agent sat in the driver’s seat. The man’s head was forward, against the steering wheel, though he was still alive. He turned his head to look at Dewey. Blood covered his forehead.
Dewey fired. A bullet tore into the man’s forehead, spraying the far glass with blood and skull.
Dewey leapt from the hood of the cab and sprinted toward the parking garage, as, behind him, sirens wailed in the distance and screams continued to echo through the warm air.
Inside the parking garage, he sprinted down an aisle of cars, Glock clutched in his right hand, searching for an escape vehicle. Dewey came upon a large man climbing into a white Mercedes E63 AMG.
“Keys,” said Dewey.
The man turned, shocked, saw Dewey’s sidearm, then tossed Dewey the keys.
He climbed inside the sedan, jammed the key in the ignition, started the car, then peeled out of the parking space. He turned the wheel and headed toward the garage entrance, quickly removing his sunglasses and hat. Dewey fell into the airport exit line, driving cautiously, scanning for more agents.
At least half a dozen police cars descended upon the terminal, their blue and red lights flashing, their sirens blasting the air, as they barreled past buses, taxis, and cars, all of whom pulled over to let them pass by, including Dewey.
He drove through the airport exit. He kept a calm eye on the rearview mirror, looking for trailers. He saw nothing. Dewey moved onto the freeway, heading for downtown. He glanced up at a large green sign:
BEM-VINDO A PORTUGAL.
65
NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY
FORT MEADE, MARYLAND
Jesus June sat in front of two large computer screens, angled in front of him, watching, waiting. Thirty-one separate applications were running on the SID mainframe, all of them visible and accessible on his two screens, icons layered like tiles on a checkerboard.
ThinThread had still not produced anything on Dewey. June had strategized with one of the other analysts inside SID about other programs that might possibly be able to trace Dewey’s whereabouts. June’s main hope, at the moment, rested on a facial-recognition program that allowed Dewey’s photo to be analyzed by ThinThread and compared to the database’s massive electronic warehouse. If a security camera anywhere in the world was tied into any sort of network that NSA had access to—legally or not—and Dewey stepped in front of the camera, ThinThread would call it out, and they would have their location.
So far, however, only four sightings had occurred, and none were Dewey. Two of them had been photos of the same man, someone in Kiev, videotaped twice at a train station in Kiev.
Like all successful NSA hackers, June was patient. Patience was perhaps the most important quality in an NSA employee. That, curiosity, and persistence. June, like Pacheco and Bruckheimer himself, had all three qualities, along with a big brain.
On the right-hand plasma screen, a small red-and-gold triangle abruptly lit up on the screen, signifying activity of some sort, then made a short burst of chiming noises. The program wasn’t related to ThinThread. In fact, it was an old program called FireBite, developed in the 1970s, which allowed NSA programmers to wiretap within the United States but not listen to the calls. In other words, if NSA was monitoring a phone number, and that number received a call, the number of the caller was immediately cataloged. Beyond that, the program was “dumb”; FireBite couldn’t eavesdrop.
He double-clicked the triangle, and the FireBite user interface appeared on the screen. June had set the program up to monitor a handful of phone numbers he thought Dewey might call. The home, cell, and work numbers of Calibrisi, Katie, Tacoma; his parents’ home in Castine; his brother’s home in Blue Hill.
On the screen, one of the numbers was boldened and had two messages. The calls had just occurred. June clicked the number. Then he did a double take. It was a number he’d stuck into FireBite as an after-thought; after all, Jessica Tanzer was dead.
His eyes bulged as he looked at the numbers, then hit the trace feature. A few moments later, the location of the calls appeared.
“I found him!” screamed June. “I got Dewey!”
* * *
At MI6, June’s yelling boomed over the speakerphone.
“Where is he?” asked Calibrisi.
“Lisbon. Hard location four minutes ago. He made two calls from a public pay phone at Lisbon Portela Airport.”
Smythson snapped her fingers, ordering one of her staffers to run down the hall and retrieve Chalmers.
“How do we know it was Dewey?” asked Calibrisi.
“We don’t,” said June. “But who else would call Jessica Tanzer twice in a row from halfway around the world?”
“Nice work,” said Calibrisi. “Langley, patch in Polk.”
Chalmers entered the glass conference room.
“What do we got?”
“Lisbon,” said Smythson.
Polk, the head of Special Operations Group, came on speaker.
“Hi, guys,” he said. “Whaddya got?”
“Lisbon,” said Calibrisi.
“Let me see what I have in theater. Hold on.”
Smythson pointed at one of her staffers, seated at the table in front of his laptop.
“Hurry, James,” she said. “Tell me what sort of manpower we have down there.”
“I’m already on it, Ronny,” he said, staring into his screen.
He banged the enter button, then pointed at the large plasma in the corner of the room, which lit up with what looked like a lineup from the roster of a football team. There were four photographs in a grid and names, ranks, current operations beneath each photo.
Chalmers and Smythson stepped to the screen.
Polk returned on speaker.
“I got one paramilitary in Lisbon,” said Polk. “I have a full black squad in Madrid, but I assume we don’t have the time to haul them down there.”
“No. What about Delta or SEAL?”
“Hold on.”
Polk went off the line again.
“Gatewood, O’Toole, Farber, Mueller,” said Smythson, turning, barking over her shoulder. “Get them over to the airport right now. Brief them en route, get them Andreas’s photo, and tell them to watch the hell out for counterfire. They’ll be swarming.”
Polk came back on speaker.
“I got a couple Deltas,” said Polk. “Where do you want ’em?”
“Airport,” said Calibrisi. “CIA, patch those Deltas into the MI6 feed; same with Special Ops; we’ll brief all of them at the same time. Billy, get them moving, safeties off. We’re goin’ in hot.”
“On it, chief.”
“I have a ton of police activity coming out of the airport,” said Serena Pacheco from Fort Meade, on speaker. “Gunfire.”
Calibrisi took his blazer from the back of a chair. He looked at Katie and Tacoma.
“I’m getting on a plane,” said Calibrisi.
“Let’s go,” said Tacoma.
“Hector,” came Pacheco again, “ThinThread is hitting hard. There were at least two killings, both Asian males, just happened. It’s a mess. They’re shutting down the airport.”
Calibrisi looked at Smythson, then Chalmers.
“He won’t be at the airport,” said Smythson.
“You guys and Billy figure out where to send the Deltas. We’re heading for the plane. You got a chopper we can borrow, Derek?”
“Absolutely. I’ll walk you there.”
Chalmers opened the door and exited, followed by Katie, Tacoma, then Calibrisi, who stopped just before leaving and turned back to the room.
“Thank you, MI6, for your work,” Calibrisi said, smiling at Smythson and her staffers, before turning and hustling to catch up with the others, who were running toward the elevator.