The Hunting Command (Grey Areas Triptych Book 1)

by Macalister Stevens

  41. RECOVERY

  Abruptly the King was gone, cut off mid uh-huh huh. Then someone removed the headphones.

  ‘You’re safe now Mister Vice President.’ A familiar voice: Special Agent Ellis.

  The hood was removed. The stark intensity of the bare light bulb overhead compelled him to screw his eyes into tight slits, his face forming a grimace that belied the relief he felt.

  ‘Take this phone,’ one of the balaclava bastards had said, ‘and wait for a text.’ Gibson Ellis had looked up from the oily tub and told the fucker where to shove his cell, but the suggestion had been ignored. ‘The text will contain one of the verification codewords and an address. You will find your Vice President there. He will be alive and alone.’

  Haggling between Vienna and Washington resulted in the recovery team numbering twelve: Ellis, Kang, three other Secret Service agents (each of whom had been on the Vice President’s detail when Ranger had been taken), the four-man Jagdkommando team Ellis had previously worked with, a Secret Service-approved US Marine medic and two Austrian Federal Police drivers (the team’s transport was two unmarked Volkswagen Eurovans).

  Molly Wells had been waiting with the team by their vehicles when the text had been received. Ellis had shown the address to the two drivers, then tossed the phone to Wells to forward the text’s contents to appropriately senior executives at agencies in Austria and the USA.

  As the recovery team vehicles had negotiated their way across the heart of Vienna, a swarm of EKO Cobra and WEGA units had been mobilised. Some were directed to the address Ellis’s team were en route to. Others were dispatched to different parts of the city.

  ‘Shit.’ The word hissed between Gibson Ellis’s teeth. Three TV film crews had just been stopped at the perimeter set up by the EKO Cobra and WEGA units assigned to his position. The units deployed to the three decoy locations reported no media activity. The balaclava bastards had predicted this.

  ‘Of course, you’ll have to consider that the news channels will have been tipped off by us,’ the balaclava bastard had said, ‘but I promise you that will not be the case. It will be the doing of people with very different motives. They will want the television cameras there to record what we’ve warned you will happen next. The choice to heed or ignore that warning is yours.’

  Ryan Lachkovic had regained consciousness. He’d stared at the ceiling of the Critical-Care unit, half-listening to the doctor: extensive bruising ... multiple lacerations ... rib brushing ... chipped tooth ... suspected thoracic muscle rupture ... as a precaution, tests for traumatic brain injury. Lachkovic had wondered how badly his tooth had been chipped.

  And then the doctor had said, ‘I made it quite clear to the FBI, no questions. You need further recovery time.’

  ‘Send them in.’

  The doctor had refused. Lachkovic had insisted, mentioning both the high-profile law firm he had on retainer and his senior-level connections with the medical insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The doctor had relented.

  The FBI special agents had been told enough to fast-track a preliminary deal, which included Lachkovic being moved from Virginia Hospital Center to a more secure location. He was now at Malcolm Grow Medical Center, the military hospital located on Joint Base Andrews, eleven miles to the south-east of Washington DC.

  And now he was safe. Safer. While staring at his new ceiling, Lachkovic told some of what he knew. His delivery was impassive. Very dish best served cold.

  Oliver Jamieson grinned. ‘So he’s singing like a canary.’

  ‘From what I hear, it’s Lachkovic the Musical,’ said a smiling Grace Breckinridge. With a few hours to kill before her flight to Seattle, she’d parked herself on the end of Jamieson’s bed.

  A male nurse appeared at the door. Breckinridge recognised him from her last visit, and she began to lift herself off the mattress.

  ‘You’ll want to switch on the TV,’ said the nurse.

  ‘Which channel?’ asked Jamieson.

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  CUE SATELLITE FEED:

  ‘We can now return to those dramatic pictures from Vienna. Once again, our man at the scene is Sean Jerome.’

  CUE SEAN:

  ‘Thanks Rob. Still no confirmation or denial from federal agencies, but according to our sources, the Vice President has been located in the building you can see behind me.’

  Ellis glanced at the figure on the gurney, then at the men surrounding it, each waiting for his signal. A short dash and they’d be at the ambulance. Ellis bent over the gurney and checked the respirator mask was properly in place. He straightened, drew his P229 and stepped towards the exit. ‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said.

  Sean Jerome was a household name. Highly valued by his network, he was handsome and articulate. Yes, he had a high opinion of himself, but viewers never saw that; he reserved his ego for his managing editors, who were happy to put up with the occasional hissy-fit because Sean Jerome delivered. A couple of shelves of awards testified to his talent. But this time he’d been caught off-guard. He’d been focused on squeezing what theatre he could out of four men pushing a gurney towards an ambulance. He hadn’t expected real drama.

  ‘Oh my lord!’ Jerome blurted.

  The crew in the gallery gasped.

  The director shook off his shock quickly. ‘Sean, get it together. This is our Kennedy moment.’

  The satellite time-lag stretched the silence excruciatingly …

  Then Jerome recovered. ‘Two men are down. The Vice President appears to have been shot.’

  A bullet fired through glass is subject to deflection, deformation and reduction of energy and momentum. Proximity of the glass to the firing point also influences accuracy. Open windows in Vienna in August weren’t unusual, but open windows always attracted attention from a security detail. Matthias Haas was certain the shooter would opt for a closed-window shot and would be as far from the glass as possible. This would result in a reduction of accuracy, requiring the shooter to take more than one shot. The shooter would use a suppressor, meaning muzzle flash would be minimal. But the multiple shots would give Haas a better chance of spotting the shooter ...

  There.

  ‘Third floor,’ Haas said. ‘Four windows in from the left.’

  Oberleutnant Timo Stoger acknowledged and ordered his WEGA team up the stairwell.

  Two minutes later, Dorfmeister, crouching low, bobbed his head to the side quickly to glance down the hall. He looked again, longer this time, and said, ‘Seven metres away, one man, cross-legged, hands on head, head bowed. Wearing a light-weight ballistic-vest. Sniper rifle propped against the wall behind him. Door open beside him.’

  Stoger pulled a weapon from its holster, stepped from the stairwell into the hall, aimed, fired. The target convulsed as Taser darts bit into thigh muscle.

  Dorfmeister and Bloch slid into kneeling positions either side of Stoger, their Steyr AUG assault rifles sweeping down the hall. Stoger discarded the Taser and drew his Glock. None of them paid any attention to the jerking body on the floor.

  Stoger yelled a warning down the hall. He repeated it in English. ‘There is no way out. You must have known that coming in. The ambush idea was worth a try, but we didn’t bite. Anything except your immediate surrender ends badly.’

  Movement in the open doorway. Sight of a weapon: automatic carbine.

  ‘Suppress,’ commanded Stoger.

  Plaster leapt from the wall, the door frame splintered.

  ‘Cease fire.’

  Silence.

  They waited ...

  ‘Coming out!’ The accent was American.

  The automatic carbine slid across the hallway floor. Followed by a handgun.

  Stoger called out, ‘How many?’

  ‘Just me. Plus two non-combatants secured in the bedroom.’

  ‘Hands on the top of your head. Step out slowly.’

  ‘You going to zap me too?’

  ‘No. Any shit, I’ll just shoot you and make do
with your comrade on the floor.’

  The gurney was on its side. Ellis had heaved it out of his way to reach his fallen agents. One had been hit in the chest, but body armour had limited his injuries to nothing worse that painful bruising. The other agent had been wounded in the leg: likely a ricochet, or a bullet passing through the gurney. Ellis had kept pressure on the wound until a medic had slapped his shoulder.

  As the medic worked, Ellis looked around. Half a dozen assault rifles were trained on the shattered window on the third floor of the building opposite. He turned towards the toppled gurney and the medical mannequin sprawled next to it. The respirator mask clung to what was left of the mannequin’s head.

  James Kang approached. ‘Ranger is secure.’ The diversion had worked.

  The individuals Feiersinger called the splinter group (Ellis’s balaclava bastards) had been right: the primary perpetrators had a second back-up team in play. For their sniper team to have set up across the street fast enough to beat the cordon put in place by EKO Cobra and WEGA they must have mobilised very soon after Ellis received the text giving the VP’s location, which fitted with the splinter group’s claim that someone high in the chain of command was part of the plot.

  Someone at Langley had likely spent an hour or so condensing their report to fit onto one sheet of paper. That effort was scrunched and hurled across Brad Weaver’s office. It bounced off Sean Jerome’s forehead. Weaver muted the TV; Jerome was indulging in one of his insufferable stars-and-stripes soliloquies: great day for all Americans … outstanding victory … superb planning … and so on … and so forth … and so shut the fuck up.

  ‘Exactly the kind of crass crowing makes people walk into embassies with explosives strapped to their chests,’ Weaver muttered. Then silently added: the smug shit wouldn’t even have been there without my tip-off. Of course the information hadn’t come directly from Weaver, but he’d made certain the location given in the text received by Gibson Ellis reached Sean Jerome’s newsroom. And the other two networks. And the sniper team; plans were already being made to spring those two gentlemen.

  Hell in a handbasket, Weaver thought, the next few weeks, probably months were going to be uncomfortable. Lachkovic was talking. It was only a matter of time before Weaver’s name came up. The Chairman would also be implicated. But Lachkovic would also rat on a few genuinely innocent individuals. Names fed to Lachkovic as insurance against this type of situation.

  Lachkovic thought he was part of the upper echelon, when in fact what Lachkovic believed was The Coalition was merely a subcommittee, with Weaver and the Chairman acting as the Board’s representatives. The blameless individuals named by Lachkovic would easily prove their non-involvement, thereby lending credibility to the protestations of innocence Weaver and the Chairman would make via lawyers. Their legal teams would be able to make a very convincing argument that Lachkovic misled investigators in an attempt to leverage a better deal.

  There would need to be sacrifices. The low level members of the subcommittee Lachkovic had interacted with—those that had had no contact with Weaver or the Chairman—were acceptable losses.

  That only left Kreshnik Xhepa. The Albanian could corroborate Lachkovic’s incrimination of Weaver and the Chairman, but even if the FBI could track down Xhepa, his clan code would never allow him to turn informant. And if he did, there were ways to deal with that. Ways Lachkovic would eventually experience first hand. Weaver had to admit it had been a smart move by Lachkovic to have himself moved to a hospital in the middle of a base shared by two branches of the military. But he couldn’t stay there forever.

  42. REGULATION

  ‘What is the purpose of your visit?’

  ‘I am an artist, and I have a meeting with the Artisphere. I am hoping to exhibit my work there. Do you know it?’

  The Customs and Border Protection officer didn’t look up from the passport. ‘No sir, I do not.’

  ‘Oh you should go. It is in Arlington. It is a very interesting concept. Three galleries for visual arts, plus four venues for performance. It is on Wilson Boulevard.’

  ‘Uh-huh. And where will you be staying during your visit, Mister Pfeifenberger?’

  The handwritten cardboard sign read:

  Willkommen nach Amerika Herr Pfeifenberger.

  Kai Degen smirked. ‘That’s very sweet of you,’ he said.

  Larissa Němcová kissed his cheek. ‘Well, I’ve had a few hours to kill.’ While Degen had flown via Frankfurt, Larissa had been on an earlier flight, direct from Vienna to Dulles. She’d been in Washington DC for five hours.

  On their way out of the airport, Degen glanced at a bank of flat-screens, each set to a different TV channel. Events in Vienna had left the news media frothing.

  Larissa handed him a phone. ‘You have a call to make.’

  Degen waited until they were in Larissa’s hire car, then he thumbed the call icon.

  The Americans had secured their Vice President at their embassy, and the Jagdkommando were no longer needed. Diether Adler’s team returned to Ballhausplatz; Elias Feiersinger had wanted to thank them personally. The meeting was brief. Feiersinger still had a lot of dotting and crossing to do.

  Adler’s phone buzzed. Unknown number. He slowed while the rest of the team climbed aboard their transport back to Wiener Neustadt. Buzek glanced back. Adler waved the phone and mouthed five minutes. Phone to his ear, he said, ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hello Diether,’ Degen said. ‘Did you get my message?’

  ‘Yes, I got the message.’ Adler paused. ‘I’ve kept it to myself. For now.’

  ‘I appreciate that.’

  ‘A lot of men have died.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Degen. ‘They deserved to.’

  ‘Want to tell me why?’

  ‘Because a lot of women have died. Or had their lives stolen.’

  ‘Kosovo.’ The one word conveyed a thousand pictures.

  ‘We should have done something about it then,’ said Degen.

  ‘We did what we could.’

  ‘No, Diether. We didn’t.’

  By we Adler had meant KFOR, but it was obvious Degen was talking of a more personal responsibility. Either way ...

  ‘You’re right,’ Adler said. ‘We didn’t.’ For a few moments Adler listened to the road noise rumbling in his ear. Then asked, ‘And the American Vice President?’

  ‘I stumbled on a plot. It didn’t seem right to ignore it. And then I saw benefits in absorbing it into my operation.’

  ‘Benefits?’

  ‘Marketing.’

  ‘I’m not sure I—’

  ‘Something I picked up in Chad. Piggy-backing other news stories to get my message across. A message aimed at a number of hard to reach consumers. An opportunity for publicity I couldn’t buy.’

  ‘The message being …?’

  ‘The price is much higher than those consumers thought. They’ll get the message soon.’

  Adler considered what that meant. ‘And what’s my part?’

  ‘You’re the regulator,’ Degen said. ‘You’ll make sure I don’t go too far.’

  ‘You don’t think you’ve gone too far?’

  ‘Not yet. But that’s subjective. Even if we recognise our own excesses, we find it too easy to justify them.’ More road noise. ‘There’s an envelope on its way to you. Inside there’s a flash drive containing evidence I’ve been gathering. My justification for what’s happened and what happens next. If you decide it’s too much, I know you’ll stop me.’

  ‘I didn’t manage to stop you in Vienna.’

  ‘Because I was sneaky. I Kobayashi Maru’d it. But now you know.’

  Adler shook his head. ‘And how does it end?’

  ‘I doubt there is an end. Every conflict is a coda to some other conflict. An infinite series of tumbling dominoes.’ A pause. ‘But maybe we’ll get lucky, maybe we’ll stop one domino falling onto its neighbour.’

  43. ALIBI

  Shouts. Gunfire. An explosion. Another burst of gunfire.
More shouts. More gunfire.

  Silence.

  Pascal Blondeau realised he was holding his breath. He exhaled. At some point during the mêlée the light bleeding through the hood over his head had disappeared. He was in complete darkness.

  A door creaked. ‘Monsieur Blondeau. Restez calme. Mon nom est Lucas Lacroix. Je suis là pour vous aider.’

  Jakub Sokol stood in the doorway, shining a torch at Blondeau while Lacroix’s blade sliced through the duct tape that had bound Blondeau for the last few days. Now dressed in the same black combat gear as Lacroix, Sokol’s role had switched from kidnapper to rescuer. It was time for his line. In French Sokol said, ‘Degen says we need to move.’

  Lacroix glanced back. ‘Tell Degen we’re on the move.’

  Sokol nodded and spoke into his wrist, feeling a little hammy speaking to imaginary comms gear.

  Lacroix helped Blondeau to his feet, saying, ‘The men keeping you prisoner here have been neutralised, but others are coming. We must go, quickly.’

  They bundled Blondeau out of the farmhouse and over to a black van glinting in flames from a ruined SUV a few metres away. Lacroix had arrived in the SUV a few minutes earlier, just before he’d tossed a grenade into it while Sokol—using three different weapons—had sprayed bullets around to duplicate the scattering of shell casings from an assault on the building.

  Lacroix leapt into the back of the van with Blondeau, pushing him to the floor. ‘Stay low.’

  Sokol slammed the door shut and slid onto the driver’s seat. For the next thirty minutes he drove like a kid in a bumper car. After half an hour of unnecessary screeching and slewing, he stopped with a skidding flourish.