Trap the Devil

by Ben Coes

  All he could do was stare out the window as they passed through the quiet mansion-filled town of McLean.

  The Suburban pulled through the gates at Calibrisi’s six-acre estate, the driver waving to the pair of gunman positioned just inside the gates.

  Calibrisi was inside, sitting at the kitchen table, cell phone clutched to his ear. He eyed Polk as he entered. Polk glanced at the clock on the wall above the AGA stove. It was eleven.

  “Keep trying,” said Calibrisi, and slammed the phone down.

  Polk sat down across from him.

  “What is it?”

  “What the fuck do you think?” said Calibrisi. “Dewey.”

  Polk smiled and nodded. “He’s mad he had to break out of the jail.”

  “Clearly,” said Calibrisi. “You have the files?”

  Polk placed a manila folder on the table and opened it. A small stack of paper was inside. He put the top sheet in front of Calibrisi.

  “These are the individuals who worked at Langley in 1981 and who had direct access to William Casey,” said Polk, “and who, as of an hour ago, were still alive. As you can see, it’s a small list.”

  There were seven names on the list:

  GRANGER, NICHOLAS

  611-N9

  Arizona State Univ.

  ROTC

  Marines/Force Recon

  CIA

  DE VRIES, WILLIAM

  390-H1

  Univ. of Utah

  U.S. Navy SEALs

  White House—NSA

  CIA

  FLAHERTY, ANDREW

  864-IG

  Stanford

  Harvard Law

  U.S. Navy—Intelligence

  CIA

  PANDOLFO, JAY

  622-K8

  Boston Univ.

  U.S. Army—Delta Force

  CIA

  Exxon Mobil Corp.

  ABERNATHY, WARREN

  72V-70

  Harvard

  Marines

  Dept. of Defense—DIA

  CIA

  IBM Corp.

  BRUNER, CHARLES

  462-A8

  Yale

  ROTC

  Harvard Law School

  U.S. Army Rangers

  CIA

  Dept. of State—Cons Op.

  WHITE, MICHAEL

  09-G45

  Univ. of Michigan

  Wharton

  Goldman Sachs

  CIA

  Appaloosa LLC

  “These are the men who would know about Order Six,” said Polk.

  “Do you know any of them?” said Calibrisi.

  “No,” said Polk. “I mean, I’m sure I’ve met some of them at some alumni function, but they were here almost forty years ago.”

  “Bruner went from here to State,” said Calibrisi. “Let’s bring him in. Do it carefully.”

  “If you don’t want him to suspect anything, we should run it through the White House.”

  “Adrian,” said Calibrisi.

  “I’ll handle it,” said Polk, closing the folder.

  He started to get up, but then stopped.

  “There’s something else,” he said. “Abu Paria was seen entering Beit-e Rahbari at four in the morning. He visited with Suleiman.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Calibrisi.

  “I have Mack briefing up every asset we have in-theater.”

  “So they read the INTERPOL and now want revenge. Those fucking French. I’m going to make those bastards pay for this.”

  “Right now, we need to keep cool,” said Polk. “Look, this could end up being relatively simple. We find him, bring him home, end of story.”

  Calibrisi smiled. “Wishful thinking.”

  The phone on the wall, with Calibrisi’s unlisted home number, rang. Calibrisi looked at his watch—then reached for the phone.

  “Hello?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Hello? Who’s there?”

  “It’s Dewey.”

  Calibrisi took a deep breath. “Hi, Dewey.”

  Calibrisi waited for Dewey to speak, but the silence went on and on.

  “Where are you?”

  “At the moment, not in a French jail. In case you didn’t hear, they accused me of killing Lindsay. By the way, thanks for the junket.”

  “Borchardt?”

  “It’s nice to have friends who are willing to go out on a limb for you.”

  “Must be nice,” said Calibrisi.

  “Fuck you,” snapped Dewey.

  “What did you expect me to do?”

  “Get me the hell out of that prison is what!”

  “I’m not the goddam tooth fairy, Dewey! You think I didn’t try? They believe you did it. That trumps any kind of pull the U.S. government might have.”

  “Whatever,” said Dewey. “It doesn’t matter. I called because there was a woman hiding in Lindsay’s suite right before he was killed. I saw her later on the Métro but she got away. She’s the one who killed Lindsay. Now I need some intelligence work. I assume I’m calling the right place.”

  “Drop the attitude,” said Calibrisi. “I’m putting you on speaker. Bill is here.”

  “Hi, Dewey.”

  Dewey said nothing.

  Calibrisi cut to the chase. “It’s time to extract you.”

  “I need to find the woman.”

  “She’s gone. Whoever she is, she’s gone. Obviously, she was an agent. Probably Russia. But you’re not going to find her now. She has hours on you. They extracted her.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Then why the Métro?” Dewey said.

  “Public transportation is the optimal escape protocol,” said Polk. “You know that. Anonymity.”

  “How are you going to find her?” said Calibrisi.

  “How the hell should I know? That’s why I called you.”

  “Do you have any photos?”

  “No,” said Dewey. “They sort of have this policy at the DGSI terror intake unit about the amount of Wi-Fi a prisoner is allowed, so they deleted my photos.”

  Polk issued a rare grin.

  “No, I don’t have any fucking photos. I just escaped from jail, for chrissakes.”

  “What did she look like?” said Calibrisi.

  “She was beautiful.”

  “That narrows it down,” said Polk.

  “Paris,” said Calibrisi. “There aren’t many beautiful women. We’ll have a name and an address in a few minutes.”

  Dewey’s soft laughter could be heard over the phone.

  “I don’t know,” said Dewey. “She looked like that girl on Game of Thrones, with the blond hair, except it’s brown.”

  Calibrisi shrugged.

  “And how do we get in touch with you?” said Polk.

  “I don’t know,” said Dewey. “I’ll call you every few hours.”

  “We need a number.”

  “No. Not until I know you’re not going to try and extract me.”

  Polk glanced at Calibrisi.

  “We’re not going to try and extract you,” said Calibrisi.

  “I want it in writing,” said Dewey.

  Calibrisi shook his head with annoyance. “Are you questioning my integrity?”

  “Yes.”

  “Goddammit, Dewey!” he barked. “When I say I’m going to do something, I’m going to goddam well do it!”

  “Really? Like that time you stuffed the dead Israeli into a box and sent him to the Chinese premier, even though I asked you not to?” said Dewey.

  Calibrisi put his hand against the wall, steadying himself. His anger washed away and a look of deep sadness came to his face.

  It had been Calibrisi’s action—unbeknownst to Dewey—that triggered a violent series of events that culminated in the accidental death of Dewey’s fiancée, Jessica. While Dewey got his own form of revenge, Jessica was still gone.

  Jessica had been like a daughter to Calibrisi. A trusted colleague. His best friend, despite their age diff
erence. A meteor of Irish beauty and brains.

  Hers was a loss both men felt deeply.

  “I’ll put it in writing,” said Calibrisi.

  “Here’s the number,” Dewey said calmly, a hint of apology in his voice. He read off the number. “I’m in Saint-Tropez.”

  Over the next half hour, Calibrisi and Polk told Dewey everything they knew—Toronto, the satellite, and Order 6.

  “So she does know something,” said Dewey. “She must. She told Lindsay, they killed him.”

  “That’s a big leap,” said Polk.

  “Maybe. It’s my decision.”

  “There’s something else,” said Polk.

  “What?”

  “We believe Iran is coming for you. The Red Notice alerted them. Your old friend Abu Paria.”

  Dewey was quiet.

  “I have every paramilitary asset in-theater briefed up and waiting for me to tell them to come and get you,” said Polk. “It’s time to come back here before someone finds you and puts a bullet in you.”

  “Bill, I appreciate it. So don’t take this the wrong way. If I want to escape from Europe, I know how to do it. I don’t want to escape. I want to find the woman. She knows something. Either she killed Lindsay or she told him something. Either way, we need to find her. That doesn’t involve me going back to the United States. Not yet.”

  The phone went dead.

  Calibrisi and Polk stared at each other for a few moments.

  “He’s right,” said Calibrisi.

  “Let’s at least move some men toward southern France.”

  “I have a better idea,” said Calibrisi, reaching for his phone.

  57

  CORAL BEACH CLUB

  BERMUDA

  Tacoma’s cell rang. Katie was sitting beside him on a bench next to the tennis court. She looked over, holding a finger to her lips, telling him to shut off the ringer.

  Rob Tacoma and Katie Foxx were watching a slightly overweight couple play tennis under the bright lights of the Coral Beach Club. It was almost midnight, but they were on a job.

  RISCON, the security firm they owned together, was the preeminent company to hire if money was no object and you needed something done in the dark world of international business. They dealt with situations like hostage takings, protecting corporate chieftains while they visited subsidiaries in trouble spots. Their fees were exorbitant. A five-year retainer was required for all clients, its annual cost tailored to the specific client, though no retainer was less than $1 million a month, plus expenses. A very wealthy few hired them for personal security, a job both hated and for which they charged double.

  The man in tennis whites was worth, according to Forbes, more than $25 billion.

  For a long weekend in Bermuda making sure the man and his wife weren’t kidnapped, Rob and Katie would earn a cool $2.5 million.

  “Yeah?” Tacoma whispered into his cell.

  “Where are you?” It was Calibrisi.

  “Bermuda.”

  “I’ll have a plane there in an hour. Are you with Katie?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need you two in Europe.”

  “What for?”

  There was a long pause. “Dewey.”

  Tacoma was quiet. “Where is he?”

  “France. I’ll brief you guys in the air.”

  Tacoma looked at Katie.

  “We’re kind of on a job,” he told Calibrisi.

  “Tell your client we’re sending over a team. They’ll be on the plane. The CIA will watch them until you two get back.”

  58

  FEDEX FIELD

  LANDOVER, MARYLAND

  FedEx Field, home to the Washington Redskins, sat quiet on a chilly, cloudless night. Exterior lights were on, enough to illuminate the side of the massive facility and the enormous parking area surrounding it.

  At 2:44 A.M., a white-and-blue police sedan patrolled slowly around the circumference of the stadium. The vehicle looked exactly like a Landover police cruiser, making its normal rounds, but it was not.

  A man dressed in a police uniform was driving. Two men dressed in all-black tactical gear sat in back. The men had on ski masks and carried black weapons rucks strapped tightly to their backs.

  On the car’s second circuit of the large stadium, the driver held up five fingers, lowering one finger at a time with each passing second, signaling that they would soon be at the drop-off point, a place the driver felt was the darkest point along the route. When the driver’s thumb went down, indicating the count was up, the back doors opened and the two men ducked out, hitting the ground in a half roll, then leaping up and sprinting toward a steel gate—a delivery entrance to the stadium—as the cruiser kept on going.

  The snipers quickly scanned the side of the stadium, one of them pointing to a section of steel fence thirty feet up the wall above the large portico of the delivery entrance. They began a rapid, silent ascent, gripping small edges of the steel and concrete, tearing up next to one another like tarantulas. They came to the small section of fence that offered a way in. One of the snipers, Ellsbury, used wire cutters to cut through one of the spans of steel. The two men climbed inside, one after the other. Law, the other sniper, jumped, landing almost silently on the concrete below, while Ellsbury remained at the cut in the fence. He removed a piece of steel rod that looked exactly like the fence, then took pliers from his vest and squeezed both ends of the wire to the two ends of the steel that he’d just cut, effectively hiding the incision. He put the pliers back in his vest and leapt into the pitch-black of the stadium, landing on his feet with barely a grunt.

  Ellsbury and Law pulled night optics down over their heads.

  Law led a fast jog toward the low part of the roof, where the seats closest to the field sat just above. He went counterclockwise for several hundred feet until he came to a green door. Inside was a windowless stairwell. Law and Ellsbury charged up the stairs. The night optics—because there was no ambient light—were useless, but they moved quickly to the first floor. Ellsbury opened the stair door and went out, followed by Law.

  They jogged around the wide-open concessions area. Ellsbury came to Section 211. To the right, across the empty concourse, he eyed a men’s room.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  Ellsbury entered the restroom and moved to the line of sinks, going to the last one. He unzipped a pocket of his weapons pack and removed a black nylon pouch. He crawled beneath the sinks and flipped over onto his back. He held up the pouch in front of the night optic. On the side of the pouch was a strip of tape, covered in nonstick plastic. He peeled off the tape and pressed the pouch against the underside of the counter, holding it in place until he was sure it was tight. He crawled out, throwing the plastic in a trash can, then went to join Law.

  They charged back to the stairs and climbed until they arrived at the floor where the stadium’s luxury suites were located.

  Ellsbury handed Law a key.

  “Twenty-six,” said Ellsbury, referring to the suite number.

  Law nodded and moved along the concourse toward Suite 26, on the other side of the stadium, as Ellsbury went in the opposite direction. Several hundred yards along the dark concourse, Ellsbury came to Suite 2. He removed a key from his pocket and went quietly inside.

  The suite had a dining area, a wet bar, a restroom, and, behind a wall of glass, three rows of seats on an elevated deck that overlooked the stadium. He stepped to the glass and carefully slid the door open. A strong wind blew in. Ellsbury pushed his night optics back up onto the top of his head and stared down, studying the empty stadium. The half-moon was bright, as were the stars. The light bounced atop the eighty-two thousand empty seats, making the interior of the stadium seem to glow.

  He went back inside and shut the glass door. He took off his backpack and removed the pieces of a firearm. It was a Remington 700 Long Action rifle with a Lilja Precision 26.5" 1:10 barrel, a McMillan A-2 tactical stock with a saddle-type adjustable cheek piece, a McCann Industries
Integrated Rail System (MIRS) rifle mount, a Nightforce 20 MOA Picatinny rail as well as Nightforce High Rings and an NXS 8-32×56 Riflescope. Screwed into the muzzle was a Knights Armament Mk11 suppressor. The rifle also had a Harris 6–9" swivel bipod. He inserted a magazine and went into the bathroom.

  He climbed onto the sink, then pushed up on a ceiling tile and moved it aside. He put the rifle in the space and moved the tile back into place.

  He went back to the suite, to the seating area. He took a powerful night monocular from his jacket. Putting it to his right eye, he stared down at the football field, finding the Redskins logo at midfield, the optic so powerful that he could see individual blades of grass.

  Ellsbury ran to the stairs. Soon he was climbing through the hole he’d cut below in the fence, patching it up, then dropping. Law was already there waiting.

  “You good?” said Ellsbury.

  “Yes,” said Law. “All set.”

  59

  11 RUE SUBAIN

  PARIS

  Beauxchamps entered his apartment. In the small galley kitchen, he uncorked a half-empty bottle of wine, poured a glass, and took a sip.

  Beauxchamps hadn’t slept in a day and a half, yet he wasn’t tired. He went to his desk and opened the top drawer, removing a cell phone. It was an old phone, a small flip model, but it worked, and he had it for just such occasions, when he wanted to make a call unbeknownst to DGSI. He looked at his wrist, where he’d written the number with a ballpoint pen, and dialed.

  A series of clicks ensued, followed by a low ring. He took a few more sips as he waited for someone to answer.

  “Hello?” came the voice, slightly Germanic, groggy, annoyed at being woken up. “Who is this? How did you get this number?”

  “My name is Beauxchamps. I’m a detective for the General Directorate for Internal Security. I apologize for interrupting you, sir.”

  “How did you get this number?” seethed Borchardt.

  “It was the number Dewey Andreas called from Branch Four, Monsieur Borchardt.”

  “If you’re simply trying to buy time so you can initiate some sort of geographic trace, you’re wasting your time, Beauxchamps.”

  “No, I assure you. I’m using my personal cell phone. I want DGSI to know about this conversation about as much as you do.”