The Stronger Chase

by Cap Daniels

  “If I could throw it to West Virginia, those two would find it and fetch it. Come inside, and we’ll see what kind of toys we can find you boys to play with.”

  By the time we made it to the basement door, the dogs were back, slobbering and bouncing, waiting for Brian to throw the ball again. Inside the basement, Brian opened the doors on the front of a giant safe holding an arsenal that would make the Fort Knox armorer envious.

  “Take what you think you’ll need. Bullets are in the footlockers over there. Make yourselves at home. I need to check my messages upstairs.”

  We pulled a pair of AR-15s and an AR-10 chambered in .308 for some knockdown power. Clark grabbed a pair of Glock 9mm pistols with suppressors. The footlockers full of ammo were organized neatly by caliber, making it easy to find what we needed. We weren’t trying to be greedy, but we packed more than we thought we’d need because when guns go click, they become sticks, and we weren’t planning to start a stick fight.

  The Russians were in town, so Clark’s hissy fit at CIA headquarters had worked. Somewhere in that building was a mole leaking information like a burst pipe, and I planned to take full advantage of it.

  Brian stuck his head through the doorway at the top of the stairs. “Hey, guys. I’ve got to take care of some stuff. Did you find everything you need?”

  “Yes, we did. Thanks, Brian. We’ll get your hardware back to you as soon as possible.”

  “No worries, guys. Just be careful. If you need me, you know my number.”

  “We’ve got it from here, Captain. Thanks for everything.”

  We tossed the magnetic Garner Construction signs into Brian’s truck. We were finished trying not to attract attention. It was time to make a little noise.

  We drove our rental truck back to the safe house and never slowed down when we came to the locked gate. Our rented F-150 made quick work of the chain and padlock. We’d discussed the plan down to every last detail on the drive, but we both knew that no battle plan ever survives first contact.

  Another blacked-out Suburban had joined its twin in the driveway of the safe house. No alarms sounded and nobody came out shooting. I was beginning to believe we were all wrong about the place. Maybe it wasn’t a safe house at all. Maybe it was just the compound of some recluse who wanted to be left alone.

  I spun our truck around and backed up to the rear bumpers of the Suburbans. If whoever was driving the SUVs decided to make a run, they’d have to do some maneuvering to get around us, and that might buy us enough time to make some new friends.

  We dismounted and ran for the corners of the house to take what little cover the structure provided. I checked the tree line for movement and crept to the keypad. The code had to be something every CIA agent would have tattooed on his cerebral cortex. I tried the street address for CIA Headquarters in Langley, but the door didn’t budge. My heartrate was increasing. I needed to get inside that garage, and kicking down the front door wasn’t appealing. I had to think like a CIA safe house babysitter. What number would each of them know?

  I typed 091847 for September 18, 1947, the date the Office of Strategic Services officially became the CIA, and I held my breath.

  The garage door began to rise. Clark and I took up positions to defend ourselves in case I’d just unveiled a tactical team, but the garage held no team of any kind. In fact, it was almost barren except for a fuel can and a lawn tractor attached to a low-slung, four-wheeled empty cart, which was just the right size to hold a helicopter.

  We closed the garage door and kicked in the kitchen door. It took less than three minutes to clear the house. It was almost as empty as the garage. A few pieces of 1960s furniture were positioned haphazardly throughout the house, but there was almost no evidence anyone had been living there. The exceptions were a pair of iron dumbbells beside an old green sofa, a wet towel on the bathroom floor, and some scraps of fresh peaches in the kitchen. I grabbed the towel and forced it against my face, breathing in and praying I’d smell Anya’s familiar scent. The towel smelled like chlorine and cheap hotel soap. Whoever had been in the pool had used that towel to dry off. Alongside the peach pits and peels in the kitchen trash were several used tea bags.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “Somebody’s been here and left too fast to take out the trash,” Clark whispered.

  “I’ve never been in a CIA safe house before, so I don’t know what it’s supposed to look like. Is this typical?”

  Clark shrugged. “I don’t know. This is my first time, too.”

  A drop of something fell from above, only inches from my face. I watched the liquid hit the floor in front of my boot, and I slowly raised my eyes to the popcorn ceiling. What I saw made it clear that there was nothing safe about that safe house.

  26

  Unexpected Guests

  The ceiling was saturated with fresh blood. It was too much blood to be coming from anything that was still alive, but that’s not what concerned me. I needed to know who killed the source of the blood, and if he, or she, was still in the attic.

  Clark pulled the access panel to the attic, and the wooden folding stairs cascaded through the hole in the ceiling. A light came on in the attic. We listened for movement for several seconds before tossing a couch cushion up the stairs in an attempt to draw fire in case anyone was waiting to ambush us. The cushion landed unscathed in the attic.

  “Okay. I’ll go.” Clark started backward up the stairs with his Glock held at chest level.

  From the ground, I trained my pistol up the stairs and behind my partner. If anyone opened up on him, the lead was going to fly, and the O.K. Corral was going to look like an amusement park.

  Clark quick-peeked into the attic, and then took another step up the ladder, placing his head and shoulders fully inside the space. “Three bodies. They’re not breathing. I’m pretty sure they’re all peering over St. Peter’s shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of their names in the Great Book. Somebody beat us here.”

  He continued into the attic, and I followed. The space was the opposite of the nearly vacant house. Two sofas, a refrigerator, a television, and a wall of surveillance and communication gear filled the room. Clark’s assessment was spot-on. All three men had apparently died after someone—someone who was very good with a knife—had inflicted several deep, well-placed stab wounds into their chests and backs.

  I whispered, “Anya?”

  He held his palms up in the universal “I don’t know” sign.

  “Can she fly a helicopter?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I never thought to ask her, but she was comfortable in every airplane we were in together.”

  We heard glass breaking at the rear of the house. It’s in most people’s nature to run from the sounds of trouble, but that instinct had been trained out of Clark and me. We quickly descended the ladder from the attic and moved down the hallway, leapfrogging and covering each other’s advance toward the sounds from the distant bedroom.

  I heard what sounded like someone pushing his way through a set of mini blinds. Clark peered around the doorframe then held up four fingers . . . four uninvited, unidentified men.

  Were they friend or foe?

  I couldn’t think of a reason why friendlies would be breaking windows and crawling inside a CIA safe house deep in the woods outside Staunton, Virginia.

  We took cover, Clark inside a hall closet, and me behind the bathroom door. If they found us, we’d be cornered with no other option than shooting our way out. Four to two . . . those aren’t bad odds, depending on the level of training of the intruders. The only way we would know how dangerous they were was to engage them. I was about to find out if Clark Johnson’s hand-to-hand combat course was worth the price of admission.

  My curiosity about our unexpected guests dissolved the instant the first one spoke.

  “Naydi yeye, no ne ubivay Amerikanets.”

  “Find her, but don’t kill the American,” is what he had said. I was hoping I was the American they wer
en’t going to kill. I was starting to think the time had come for me to offer up another assassin’s prayer, but instead of closing my eyes, I trusted that maybe God knew what I wanted without having to ask.

  The four Russians came down the hallway as if they knew where they were headed. Through the crack in the door of the bathroom where I was hiding, I watched them pass by. I stepped silently from the doorway, laced my left arm around the trailing man’s neck, and lifted him up and backward as I placed my pistol on his right shoulder. I accomplished the maneuver without any of the other three hearing me move. I had expected my captive to freeze in terror, but he lashed out, violently kicking, yelling, and throwing wild elbows at my torso.

  His thrashing caused enough chaos to allow Clark to step silently from the shadows of the closet, and instantly put a pair of bullets into the skull of the man furthest away from him in the hallway. The suppressed 9mm made less noise than the Russian’s body hitting the floor. My prisoner’s attitude changed immediately. He stopped thrashing around and held his breath.

  Our odds were improving, but three Russians against two Americans in the hallway of a safe house, with a pile of dead CIA agents in the attic, didn’t add up to an easy win by knockout. We still had a lot of work to do.

  Clark ordered, “On your knees! Now! All of you!”

  No one moved.

  “Tell them to get on their knees, Chase.”

  “I suspect they understood you fine. They’re just being a little defiant. I think I’ll kill this guy, making our odds two on two . . . and I like those odds.”

  My prisoner, still frozen in my left arm, yelled, “Polkovnik Tornovich prosto khochet pogovorit’ s toboy. Tebe ne nuzhno ubivat’ menya.”

  “Excellent,” I said. “You do understand English.”

  “What did he say, Chase?”

  “He says I don’t have to kill him. Tornovich only wants to talk to me.” I looked down at my prisoner. “You’re right, I don’t have to kill you, but getting to kill you is a nice little bonus—sort of a fringe benefit for me. So, if Tornovich wants to talk, that means you know where he is.”

  Clark sidestepped my prisoner and put the remaining two Russians on their knees, stripping them of their pistols and cell phones. I followed suit and planted my man firmly on the ground beside his comrades.

  Clark pressed his pistol against the first man’s forehead, daring him to flinch. “Here’s how this works,” he said. “First, we speak English here in Virginia, so the next person to break that rule gets to die. Second, one of you is going to tell us where Tornovich is, and the others get to die.”

  The first man Clark had planted on his knees suddenly lunged toward the man I’d been holding. I squeezed my trigger twice, and the brave soul fell limp, facedown, reaching for the ankle holster of the man kneeling in front of him.

  I held both men at gunpoint. “I don’t know if they teach statistics in Russia, but you two had a one-in-three shot at being the man who tells me where to find Tornovich. Now, since your buddy decided to be a hero, your chances of survival have gone way up. One of you is going to tell me where to find Tornovich, and the other gets to join your buddy there.” I motioned toward the corpse. “That’s a fifty-fifty shot at staying alive.”

  One of the Russians looked into my eyes with what appeared to be respect laced with just enough contempt to make him choke on the words he was about to speak. “Colonel Tornovich is—”

  The other Russian cut him off. “Outside! In car. With two uh, telokhranitel’. I do not know English word.”

  The first man glared at his remaining partner with hatred . . . and fear.

  Clark landed the grip of his pistol solidly in the man’s face, sending blood and spittle flying, and leaving the man unconscious on the floor. I sent our blabbermouth to the floor with a similar strike to the back of his head. We yanked the laces from their boots and tied the hands of our unconscious intruders.

  “Let me guess,” said Clark. “Telokhranitel’ is bodyguard.”

  “You got it,” I said.

  “In that case, let’s see if we can find this Russian asshole and his two telokhranitel’.”

  We headed back to the attic and powered up the surveillance gear, hoping they had perimeter cameras. We weren’t disappointed. The monitors came to life, revealing a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the house, as well as several views of the only entrance to the property. The previously locked entrance gate was shattered and hanging crookedly from its hinges. Sitting in the driveway, backed snuggly to the front bumper of our rental truck, was a Jeep Grand Cherokee with two goons, pistols drawn, standing on either side. In the back seat of the Jeep sat Victor Tornovich talking on a cell phone and smoking a cigarette.

  I moved to the back of the attic where a pair of dormer windows overlooked the pool where we’d seen the woman swimming during our overflight. I opened one of the windows and tossed a trashcan full of bottles, fast food wrappers, and cans out the window, sending it crashing across the pool deck and into the water. The noise was enough to get the guards’ attention.

  “It worked,” Clark said from his position in front of the monitor. “One of the guards is moving toward the back of the house. The other is still covering Tornovich.”

  I waited behind the cover of the window frame with my pistol resting on the sill, until I saw the man cautiously advance onto the pool deck. He was wearing all black, like the men who’d made entry into the safe house. Unlike the men inside, I knew this guy, and I owed him a little something special. I carefully walked backward from the window.

  “What are you doing? Shoot him!” Clark whispered.

  “I’m going out the back. I’ve got something special for this guy. Can you get to the roof?”

  He scanned the attic space. “Yeah, I can get up there.”

  “Good, give me an overwatch. I’m going out the back to take care of telokhranitel’ number one, and then I’ll move in on the Jeep from the east.”

  I descended the ladder from the attic and made my way to the back door that opened up to the pool deck. I watched the first guard scanning the dormer windows. He’d placed himself in a defenseless position on the wide-open pool deck, walking backward, and looking up. He was definitely no Spetsnaz-trained fighter. No Russian special forces operator would let himself be led into a position like that.

  I waited patiently for him to keep moving toward the door, then at what I hoped was the perfect distance, I leapt through the doorway and landed behind him. He spun and raised his pistol in an effort to cut me down with a point-blank shot before I could continue my attack.

  Clark’s training paid off. I extended both hands toward his pistol, turning my body away from his as I went. I captured his wrists, completed my turn away, and brought both of his arms down and across my left shoulder with enough force to demolish the muscles, tendons, and bones of each of his elbows. His pistol clattered to the deck, and I threw a crushing elbow strike to his mouth and nose, silencing any scream he was about to exhale.

  Speed of reaction, abundance of force, and violence of action were the three pillars of the fighting style Clark had taught me. He was a very good teacher.

  I dragged the man into the house and laid him on his back on the kitchen floor. Blood poured from his face and his misshapen arms fell across his chest. I planted my right knee in the center of his chest and pressed the muzzle of my pistol into his throat. He was gasping and tremoring in pain, but there was no mercy left in me.

  I moved as close to his face as I could stand, and whispered, “This is for shoving me in your van in St. Augustine.” I forced my knee into his left collarbone, crushing it. “And this is for shoving my date into the wall.” I grabbed a handful of his hair, yanked his head upward, then drove the back of his head into the tile with enough force to render him unconscious, leaving a pool of blood forming around his head.

  I surveyed the pool deck from the doorway and couldn’t see the other guard. I ran across the pool deck and into the grassy backy
ard. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Clark lying on the peak of the roof, splitting his attention between me and the driveway.

  He tore a shingle from the roof and sent it sailing across the end of the house and falling to the driveway. The guard reacted and turned toward the shingle. That gave me the instant I needed to get myself in front of the two Suburbans. Tornovich was still in the back seat, and the lone remaining guard was between the Jeep and the house, investigating Clark’s distraction.

  I crept around the passenger side of the second Suburban and stayed as low as possible. When I came to the tailgate of our truck, I tried to catch Clark’s attention. I didn’t need him opening fire on the guard and Tornovich while I was advancing on them, but he’d not yet risked peeking over the roof line again.

  I couldn’t resist stealing a glance toward the Jeep, but I wasn’t in a position to see anything. I moved toward the front tire of the truck and pressed my body to the ground. I peered beneath Tornovich’s Jeep and saw the two booted feet of the only person left on Earth to protect the Russian colonel.

  I squeezed off one round into the guard’s ankle, sending him collapsing to the ground. I heard the suppressed spit and hiss of a round leaving Clark’s pistol, and I powered to my feet. I yanked the rear door of the Jeep open and slid inside, pressing the muzzle of my suppressor into Tornovich’s neck, and driving his head into the window. He didn’t flinch. He raised his cigarette to his lips, drew in a long, slow pull, then exhaled the sour-smelling smoke into the air. His cool composure was unsettling.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Clark slide from the roof to the ground, and roll smoothly back onto his feet with his pistol extended in front of his body. Advancing on the Jeep with his pistol trained on Tornovich, Clark kicked the supine guard, making certain he was no longer a threat. He jerked open the door of the Jeep, grabbed Colonel Tornovich’s collar, and dragged him from the vehicle. The man stumbled to his feet, grabbing at his stomach as he went.