by A P Bateman
“What are we going to do?” She looked anxiously at him. “Can't you shoot back?”
“Too far,” he commented flatly. “I can't see him. I can’t hear him either, his gun has a suppressor. A silencer. But there’s no cover for two hundred yards. He is well out of range for an accurate pistol shot. I might get him with a volley of shots, but I've got to be able to see the bastard first. Besides, it would just be a waste of precious ammo.”
“How much have you got?”
“Twelve in this clip, four in the one left from the shootout at the hotel. Damn it! I’ve got a carton of fifty in the trunk of the Mustang. I can't afford to waste any by shooting wildly.”
As he craned his neck to see if he could spot the sniper he thought back to his first patrol in Afghanistan. An old hand left his heavy M9 pistol and spare magazines in camp in favor of another half dozen clips for his M16 rifle. He saw Stone watching curiously and had said, “The day you need to use a pistol is the day you wish you had a rifle…” Stone finally knew what he had meant.
Another shower of dirt hit them, this time from further to their right. “The bastard's moving! He's creeping around on us, trying to out flank us...” He looked down at her, his face determined. “We've got to move, and move fast. Are you all right to run?”
“I'll have to be,” she replied flatly. “Just don't leave me...”
“Never.”
He caught hold of her and heaved her to her feet. There was approximately twenty yards of quagmire, and then a little brook. After that it appeared to be just forest and dry, uneven ground.
They moved as quickly as they could through the marsh, sinking to their knees and becoming fleetingly stuck with every tread. Stone pushed Isobel ahead of him and attempted to cover the rear ground with the pistol. In reality, he knew it was in vain - the sniper was simply too skillful. However, he had moved once and maybe he was moving at the same time they were and unable to take a shot, or even see them heading away.
There were no more shots, because no more mud imploded from the ground. Maybe there were shots, maybe the bullets passed right past them and into the dense woods but Stone didn't know and nor did he care. There were enough trees behind them now, enough obstacles in the line of fire to deflect the bullets. They just had to keep moving, had to keep those obstacles between them and the man with the rifle.
***
He had watched the Secret Service man through the clear reticule of the sniper scope. He had held the cross hairs on his forehead for a split second and had then indulged himself with lining the sight up on the woman. He mouthed a bang through pursed lips as he did so, on both of them and had then got down to the business of lining up on his kill.
The old tramp had been prancing around and dancing like a fool. It had not been the easiest of shots and he had had to move across to his left a few feet to avoid the bullet passing straight through the old tramp and into Isobel Bartlett. When the man had finally slowed his prancing and concentrated on the fish in the water, he had squeezed the trigger and hit his aim-point to the mark. He had wanted the man to die on the ground and watch the two bystander's indecision through the clarity of the lens, but there was no hard and fast rules for how a person reacts to being shot and the follow-up shot had come a split second later purely by instinct.
What he hadn't bargained on was the sheer speed and velocity in which Stone had moved, and the speed in which they had disappeared completely from view.
He had been forced to move fast, gain higher ground to clear the reeds and head out further along the lake to try for another angle. He had seen the Secret Service man pop his head above the proverbial parapet but he didn't want to kill him just yet. He needed to flush them out, keep up the pace and panic them into making a futile mistake. Only then, only when he had the location of the drives, would he hunt them down and take his shot for real.
***
Stone kept Isobel ahead of him, pushing her onwards when she fell back and lost pace. At the same time he guided her ordering her left or right to avoid obstructions like giant boulders or fallen trees. Better to go around and keep up the pace than to negotiate timely, possibly costly obstructions.
After a few minutes, the reached a short incline and Stone caught hold of her shoulder and held her back. “Wait up,” he said quietly. “Get down behind this tree and take a breather.”
He guided her towards a large fallen tree that had been propped up slightly from the ground at the canopy end by to smaller trees that had cushioned its fall. The fall leaves had dropped and drifted into large piles wherever there was something for them to build up against. He guided her behind the tree and pushed some of the pile of leaves towards her, hiding her from view.
“Wait here,” he said. “Don't move a muscle. Whatever you hear, just stay still.”
He was gone before she could protest, moving fast across the forest floor and in a large semi-circle back in the direction they had ran. He ran for a few minutes covering around two hundred yards of dense ground before dropping to his stomach and nestling in tightly to the trunks of a clump of young trees.
His heart was beating wildly, hammering against the wall of his chest. He breathed long, deep breaths, desperately conscious of the need to be quiet. He listened intently, used his peripheral vision and kept his eyes moving, but his head perfectly still. It was one of the first rules of camouflage and concealment. No movement, and no unnatural shape. The .357 semi-auto pistol was in his hand and his palms were moist. He swapped the pistol over to his left hand and dabbed his right hand on his trousers in a bid to dry the perspiration.
The forest was silent. Somewhere a bird sang and something screeched, but it was a long way off and in the wrong direction. He remained still and listened for another twenty minutes, but there was nothing. Not a sound. And certainly nothing untoward to concern him. Which was what concerned him even more.
***
He squatted down on his haunches, the rifle resting steadily on both knees. The body of the old tramp lay face down and inert, crumpled and twisted in the most undignified fashion. The neck was bloody and the exit wound was clearly visible. Neat and tiny, and almost re-sealed. Nothing substantial had stood in the bullet's path, except for skin, arteries and sinew.
The bullet had travelled cleanly, spinning perfectly, at a fraction under the speed of sound. The charge was subsonic, to compliment the silencer, and the bullet had slowed the moment it had left the muzzle and had continued to slow as gravity had teased and pulled at it, forcing it to drop an inch in height for every two hundred feet travelled. With little resistance, it had sliced cleanly through the man's neck and dropped to the ground shortly after exiting. The second bullet had travelled just as cleanly, possibly a little straighter because the barrel was now hot and the metal would have expanded. It had hit just above the base of the neck, but with the soft brain matter inside and the hard shell of bone outside it had been like switching on a blender without the lid attached. Nothing was left intact above the cadaver's eye line. And upon closer inspection, nothing was visible on the ground around it. It was like he had made part of the body in front of him disappear upon command.
He touched the back of the cadaver's neck, felt the heat on the tips of his cold fingers. It was still warm, still soft to the touch. It was relaxing, comforting as he touched what had once been a living, breathing person, but was not yet what people perceived to be a corpse. On a base level, the warmth said otherwise - like it was a metamorphosis, a transient state. Warm as in life, yet completely devoid of everything but death. He enjoyed being around the newly dead or dying. It brought him the peace he so desperately craved, and he never felt so alive than at times like these.
He stood upright and looked down into the quagmire below. There were footprints leading off into the forest beyond. The footprints were filling with water. Soon they would disappear, simply turn into tiny puddles and lose all shape. He could see the line they had taken, as they had run blindly, desperately into the unkno
wn.
He checked the action of the rifle; saw the cartridge nestled into the well-oiled breech. He had fired nine shots in all. Two into the old tramp, four into the reeds and one near the Secret Service man's head to teach him a lesson and scare him into running. The next two had landed near them both and he had watched them take off wildly and with reckless abandon as a result.
He smiled to himself as he thought of them running for their lives into the dense forest. He had moved the game up a level. He was the marionette to their strings, was controlling the time and pace. He was invisible to them, and they were running scared once more. But he had teased them enough. He needed the woman alive. But the man was ready to be hunted.
FORTY TWO
It was necessary for him to do it, had become a habit over the years. Possibly more of a tradition than a habit but either way he looked forward toit most when he visited New York. Ess-A-Bagel’s New York bagels were quite simply, the best in town. He’d tried most of the renowned bagel stores and restaurants but this one in Manhattan was the best. He always ordered two.An onion bagel with a mixture of cream cheese and sour cream with fresh chives, topped with crispy-diced Canadian bacon, and a plain bagel with scrambled eggs and lox. He never usually ate salmon, let alone smoked, but on top of the creamy scrambled eggs that Ess-A-Bagel did so well, he could never resist.
Tom Hardy hadn't visited New York in a couple of years, but was determined that tradition didn't die out because of it. He ate his bagels and drank his coffee and delighted in every moment of it.
The gaunt-looking man with the ponytail and earring slipped into the booth silently and cocked his head to one side. “Hungry?”
“What the fuck's it to you?” Hardy wiped his mouth with a paper napkin and reached for his cup. He drank down the mouthful of food and stared at the man in front of him. “Because I have a lot of food in front of me, you feel you have to comment? What do you want me to say? Gee... I hadn't noticed how much was on my plate, I couldn't possibly have really wanted all that!” He looked at him mockingly. “Well hey pal, guess what? You're going bald. And you're trying to take everyone's attention away from the fact by wearing that stupid ponytail and you think it makes you look ten years younger,” Hardy smirked. “You know, lift a pony’s tail up and you’ll always find an asshole underneath. Hell, you could do with giving it a damn wash once in a while too. And what the fuck is with that gay earring? Didn’t you hear? The nineties called, it wants its look back.” Hardy put the cup down and took another bite from the bagel, the one with the eggs and lox. “Now, was that polite of me? Do you think I would have entered this damn meeting with that, if you hadn't commented on my food?”
The gaunt-looking man shrugged. “Hey man, I'm sorry,” he paused, looked offended. “Gee, there was no need to bring my hair into it.” He picked up the stainless steel sugar shaker and used it as a makeshift mirror. “I'm not really going bald, am I? It's just my high forehead. You see?”
“Yeah, and if your aunt had a dick she'd be your fucking uncle," Hardy scoffed. “There ain’t no forehead that high. Anyway, you're fucking late.”
“Traffic, man.”
“'No excuse,” Hardy stared at him. “I'm not going to regret this, am I? I'm not going to regret going to a disavowed CIA agent and hiring his services for more money than he could otherwise make in a fucking lifetime, am I? Tell me I'm not going to regret that, tell me I haven't made a mistake. I really want to hear I haven't made a fucking mistake.”
“'No, man ... It's cool,” he stammered. “Everything will be cool. Just take a damn chill-pill, will you…”
“Fine. Tell me what you've got then.”
“She set up a safety deposit box. Made the transaction at zero-nine-fifty. Deposited items unknown at ten-twenty-two. And was logged leaving at ten-thirty- six.”
“Where?”
“It’s all in the report. Show me the money first.”
“I'll show you my foot up your fucking ass...”
“Wow, too much! You really need to chill. ..” The gaunt looking man took out a large folded envelope and pushed it across the table. “It's all there. Everything she's done in the past year and the last information transaction, which was her safety deposit box. There’s everything I could get on this guy Stone too. But it isn’t much. He’s a bit of an anomaly. Doesn’t have credit cards, none of his own at least. He has a small savings account, not much in it though. Spends a Hell of a lot on his car judging by his checking account. Doesn’t have any credit, loans or even a mortgage. You’ll see everything I could get in the file.” He kept his hand on top of the envelope. “Now, show me the money.”
Hardy snatched the envelope up and slipped it into his inside pocket. At the same time, he felt a dig in his ribs from behind, and caught a faint whiff of perfume.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you.” The voice was calm and smooth and belonged to a woman. There was a hint of the orient about it. A sing-song tone, Thai or Vietnamese. “And that was most unfair about his hair, very uncalled for. Don’t worry baby, I love your hair… Now, like he said, show him the money.”
Hardy smiled. “Very clever,” he paused. “This had better be right up to the minute.”
The gaunt-looking man smiled. “Of course. Bang on the button,” he paused, flashing a smile of crooked teeth. “That's Mindy by the way, my partner. And she's just dying for an excuse to slip that blade into your lung, so no tricks now.”
Hardy picked up a thick package off the seat beside him. It was wrapped in brown packing paper fastened with string and was around the size of three house bricks. It was a mix of fifties and twenties. Used dollars. He passed it across the table, then looked back at his plate and took another bite of his bagel. When he looked back up, the man had gone. He turned around slowly, but there was nobody there and the only people behind him were an old couple struggling into the tight booth.
FORTY THREE
The Central Intelligence Agency's New York field office had grown considerably in size as a direct result of the changes brought about since 9-11. In fact, all of the intelligence agencies and law enforcement organizations had been forced to evolve a great deal since that tragic day. And although the Central Intelligence Agency is strictly forbidden in operating and mounting missions taking part on US mainland soil as part of its mandate, the CIA's New York office in particular had grown substantially in both size and personnel levels in the time since Al-Qaeda had delivered their message to the entire civilized world. Ever since 9-11 the CIA has ignored its mandate and operated freely within the United States. To date its operational mandate has not been reviewed.
It was Tom Hardy's first visit to the new premises and although the old field office was still operational, he knew that the newly acquired building was the beating heart of the CIA's presence in New York. He had studied the brief, talked with those involved in the fight against terrorism and had loosely agreed in principle that the battle towards eradicating terror should come from the very city in which it had so publicly and so unexpectedly raised its head.
He had arrived around an hour after his meeting with the disavowed agent. He had read and re-read the digitally compiled dossier on Isobel Bartlett on his way over in the taxi and had been quickly ushered through security and sign-in after his identity and position had been verified at the check-in desk. He was now seated in the duty liaison officer's private office and sipping sweet cappuccino from an oversized mug, which outrageously, had the Central Intelligence Agency's emblem emblazoned across it on both drinking sides. Just in case anyone forgot either who they worked for or who the cup belonged to. He looked up and smiled as the liaison officer returned with a sheaf of loosely gathered papers. “Not too much trouble, I trust?” Hardy asked.
'”No big thing, just don't get the requisition that often,” he paused. “It's never happened to me at all, actually ... Are you sure you don't need a team with you on this?”
“Need to know,” Hardy tapped his nose with his forefinger a couple
of times and winked wryly. “You know how it is, after...”
“After what ...?”
Tom Hardy looked up at a poster sized photograph of the Twin Towers on the wall to his right. The picture showed them in all their glory, a golden sunrise behind them. “After that day,” he paused somberly. “Terrorism has changed the way we operate, changed the way we look at ourselves, as an intelligence agency, completely. Today it's validating the requisition to enter and search a safety deposit box. Tomorrow it's stopping another major terrorist incident. Tragedy, even.”
“I understand. But believe me, Agent Hardy, this is so irregular. I really should contact Langley and get some kind of authorization on this matter.”
“Sure, I understand,” he paused. “Only, I thought after what I had heard back in Langley, that you would be OK with this.”
He looked at Hardy for a moment, unsure. “What did you hear?” he asked, albeit somewhat tentatively.
“Oh, nothing. Look, I understand,” Hardy nodded. “Go and call the farm, get approval. I just thought…”
“What?” The liaison officer looked intently at him, concerned. “What did you think?”
Hardy shrugged. “Well, it's just that in certain circles, your name…” he paused, shaking his head resolutely. “Oh forget I said anything. Please, call Langley and get permission. I know it will take time. Hell, it may even be too late already, so there's no use worrying about another hour or two. Or day or two, knowing them. Virginia go slow time, eh? No, you’d best go to someone more senior, more qualified. Get permission. It's better to go by the book, even if it does continually seem to hamper us.”