Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set

by Allan Leverone

  Nikolai centered the crosshairs on Reagan’s forehead and prepared to change history.

  48

  June 2, 1987

  9:57 a.m.

  Minuteman Mutual Insurance building

  Tracie raced to the roof access door and checked her watch as she did.

  Nearly ten. She was out of time.

  She reached the door and skidded to a stop, hyper-aware of the need for speed but knowing her only chance for success was in not alerting the assassin to her presence. She knelt and examined the space at doorknob height between the door and the metal jamb. The KGB operative had forced the latch back with duct tape.

  Tracie opened the door slowly and stepped through, then eased the door closed. Turned and started up the concrete steps and then pulled up suddenly, squinting as she bent to look at the steps. A trail of fresh-looking blood meandered up them.

  She hurried up the steps and in seconds arrived on the roof. The front of the building and Columbia Road were to her right, obscured by the rusting metal bulkhead. That was where the assassin would be, since President Reagan was scheduled to begin speaking any second now. For all she knew, the president was at the podium already.

  She glanced left and saw a pair of shoes, black and heavy, attached to legs in uniform pants. They weren’t moving. The murdered security guard.

  She took a deep breath and turned her attention away from the body. She eased around the bulkhead, using the metal structure for cover, and her pulse quickened. At the far end of the roof, sighting through a sniper scope, rifle angled down and toward the platform where the president would soon speak, was the KGB assassin.

  She prayed Reagan had not yet reached the podium.

  The man was dressed in what looked like a janitor’s uniform. A dark ball cap covered his head and he appeared calm and collected, the rifle held steady.

  Tracie drew her weapon and stepped clear of the bulkhead. The assassin’s attention was focused completely on Reagan as he peered through his scope. He would never know what hit him.

  But there was a problem. She didn’t have a clear shot.

  She sighted down the barrel, holding her Beretta in a two-handed shooter’s grip, and swore to herself, frustrated. She was trying to hit a target at least forty feet away with a handgun after running up eight flights of stairs, her hands shaking from exertion and adrenaline.

  There was no way. If she fired now, she would almost certainly miss, and the advantage of surprise would be gone. The assassin would still have time to shoot Reagan before turning to defend his position against Tracie.

  She stepped left and then forward, moving away from the bulkhead, hoping he wouldn’t sense her in his peripheral vision.

  Still too far. She needed to get closer.

  Another step left. Two more forward.

  Better, but not good enough.

  She continued moving, knowing the president had to be on the platform now, maybe even behind the podium, so she likely had just seconds left. But her odds of hitting the Russian were still no better than fifty-fifty.

  She had to get closer.

  Through the warm air Tracie could hear President Reagan as he began to speak. “Good afternoon, Washington,” he said. “Thank you for joining me as we celebrate the continued revitalization of a neighborhood that is quickly becoming a model for what can be achieved when government gets out of the way and allows its citizens to take charge.”

  The crowd cheered and Tracie tuned out the president’s voice.

  She took another step forward, her attention squarely on the assassin. Another step, and then she felt a tug of resistance above her ankle and lost her balance, toppling to the roof, crashing down in a spray of gravel.

  She thrust her hands out reflexively and her weapon skittered away. She hit the surface and rolled, feeling pain in both palms as the gravel bit into her skin. She knew immediately what had happened, knew she had just condemned the president to death by her own stupidity and lack of awareness.

  The assassin had strung fishing line across the roof, maybe a foot above its surface. A tripwire. In the sunshine, with her attention wrapped up in the shooter, Tracie had never seen it. She knew all this in the half-second it took to hit the roof.

  She rolled once and rose to a crouch, scanning desperately for her gun. A slug struck the gravel no more than an inch from her left leg and she dived to the surface again, rolled again. The assassin had missed her once, probably due to surprise, but he would not likely miss a second time.

  One desperate lunge, her feet scrabbling for purchase, and Tracie reached the cover of the air conditioning unit. She was safe, but only for a moment. Her weapon lay eight feet to her right, tantalizingly close, but directly in the shooter’s line of fire.

  She risked a quick look around the corner of the air conditioner and heard the ping of a shot ricocheting off the sheet metal. She drew back instinctively.

  The shooter was walking slowly toward Tracie, firing with a silenced pistol, probably a Makarov PB, a favorite of the KGB. As soon as Tracie fell he’d dropped his sniper rifle and drawn the Makarov. That slight delay in changing weapons had probably saved her life—for a few seconds, at least—allowing her to reach the safety of the air conditioning unit.

  But he was approaching fast, which meant two things:

  One, no one on the ground eight stories below would hear a thing. The silenced weapon would allow the Russian to kill Tracie and then return to his previous position without missing a beat. No one below would even be aware of his presence. He would still be able to complete his mission.

  Two, she was almost out of time. He would round the corner of the air conditioning unit in seconds and put a bullet in her head. He would not miss again.

  Her brain processed all of this information in an instant and she knew she was out of options. Without any further conscious thought she dived for her gun, unable to see the assassin behind her, wondering if she would feel the impact of the bullet that would end her life or if consciousness would simply disappear, like a light bulb being switched off.

  But there was no slug.

  She slid across the gravel-covered rooftop like a baseball player diving into second base and was amazed when she reached her weapon still breathing. She wrapped both hands around the grip and rolled onto her back, looked up and saw the Russian approaching, eyes sharp, gun raised, taking his time.

  She rolled instinctively as he fired and she felt a searing pain in her right shoulder, the impact of the bullet driving the right side of her body into the surface of the roof. She felt the gravel pellets digging into her back with a clarity unlike anything she had ever experienced.

  She returned fire, squeezing off a shot even as the nerves in her arm went dead and she lost all feeling in her hand. The gun slipped out of her grip and clattered once again onto the roof. She knew immediately she had missed, the Russian’s shot causing her shoulder to dip and her body to lurch to the right.

  Should have compensated. Dammit!

  The Russian continued moving forward.

  Tracie stared into the gun barrel, the size of a cannon, and prepared to die.

  49

  June 2, 1987

  10:00 a.m.

  Minuteman Mutual Insurance building

  Ronald Reagan’s forehead was nestled squarely in the crosshairs of Nikolai’s scope. The magnification was perfect, and so were the conditions: clear and calm. No wind. Nothing to disrupt the trajectory of the bullet he was about to fire, killing the U.S. president and accomplishing his mission.

  He breathed in and out slowly, through his half-open mouth, perfectly calm. Focused. He took one last breath. Paused. Began to squeeze the trigger, a steady, constant increase in pressure—

  And recoiled at the sound of gravel spraying as a body crashed to the rooftop. The noise came from behind him, to the left, in the direction of the bulkhead covering the access stairs from the seventh floor.

  Nikolai understood instantly what had happened. Someone was he
re, and that someone had just fallen over the tripwire he’d strung across the rooftop as a last line of defense. A precaution he hadn’t thought he would need.

  Someone was stalking him.

  Nikolai reacted with a skill born of training and years of experience. He placed the Dragunov carefully along the retaining wall while simultaneously pivoting to gauge the threat. Near the air conditioning unit his attacker sprawled face-first on the roof.

  He lifted his silenced Makarov—he had placed it between his feet for easy access—and as the attacker rolled and began to rise, Nikolai turned in a crouch and squeezed off a shot.

  Missed.

  Nikolai hesitated. The attacker was a woman. He couldn’t believe the United States government would send a woman to stop him if they had somehow learned of the assassination plot.

  And where was everyone else? There should be dozens of agents, all armed to the teeth, wearing flak jackets and shouting through bullhorns. There should be attack helicopters and sirens and shouting and chaos.

  But there was none of that, just one lone woman who had scrambled out of sight behind the safety of the big air conditioning unit.

  He glanced around and saw her weapon lying on the roof where it had fallen when she stumbled over the tripwire. Probably she had a backup weapon, but Nikolai wasn’t worried. Before she could shoot him she would have to aim, and to do that would require exposing herself to peer around the edge of the air conditioning unit. The moment she did that he would put a hole in her head.

  He sighted down the barrel of the Makarov and began walking slowly toward the air conditioner. He believed in aggressive action, in taking the fight to his opponent.

  As he approached, his attacker poked her head around the edge of the unit as he had known she would. But it was the wrong edge. He had been covering the right side of the unit, so when he spotted the face peering out at him, he had to pull the gun hard to the left before squeezing the trigger.

  Again he missed. He cursed softly.

  He kept moving, surprised the attacker had not yet returned fire. That lack of response could only mean one thing: she had no backup weapon. That meant she would have to make a move for the gun lying out in the open.

  He adjusted course slightly, turning toward the attacker’s weapon just as she appeared from behind the air conditioning unit. Her dive was perfect and as she landed on the gravel, her hands wrapped around the gun and she turned in one smooth motion and aimed it at him.

  She’s good, Nikolai thought with grudging professional respect.

  And he fired.

  She dodged and he caught her in the right shoulder. She squeezed off a wild shot and then the gun fell from her hand onto the roof. She was helpless.

  He took another step, centering the gun on her chest. He would put one slug center-mass, then finish with a double-tap to the head. Textbook.

  The entire exchange had taken no more than a minute, and down on Columbia Road eight stories below, Ronald Reagan was still droning on about the American Dream. There was still time to accomplish the mission.

  He began to squeeze the trigger and vaguely registered a blur of motion coming fast from his left.

  Then he was hit by what felt like a guided missile and driven to the roof.

  50

  June 2, 1987

  10:01 a.m.

  Minuteman Mutual Insurance building

  Shane reached the seventh-floor entrance just as Tracie was disappearing through the roof access door.

  He staggered down the hallway, pain blasting through his head. His vision ebbed and waned, roiling black clouds forming at the edges of his sight. His mouth tasted dry and sour and he felt like he was going to puke. Maybe the tumor was going to take him right now. The doctors had said he had weeks left, maybe even a couple of months, but what the hell did they really know?

  He reached the roof access door and pulled it open slowly. His hands were shaking and not from nerves. From above, a soft phht sound floated down the stairwell.

  Sounded exactly like the noise he had heard back inside the base building at Bangor International Airport. Sounded like a silenced gunshot.

  Tracie wasn’t carrying a silenced weapon, which meant the Russian had fired the shot. Shane prayed he wasn’t too late.

  He willed the pain to the back of his mind, pushing through the darkness threatening to overtake him. Took the steps two at a time. Noticed bloodstains on the concrete. Didn’t slow down. The blood was dry, meaning it wasn’t Tracie’s, meaning it didn’t matter.

  Shane reached the top and paused. In just the time it had taken to climb the steps, three more shots had been fired, one of the from Tracie’s gun. That gunshot had sounded loud and clear, a sharp crack, but from far below, Shane could still hear the president speaking. The gun battle raging on a rooftop just a couple of buildings away had not been heard, or had been heard but its significance not yet understood.

  He eased his head around the frame of a rusted metal bulkhead, toward the sound of the gunfire, and his blood ran cold. Tracie lay on her back, blood leaking through her blouse from a shoulder wound. Her gun lay on the roof a few feet away and a man was walking slowly in her direction, pistol pointed at her. A long, black sound suppressor protruded from the barrel.

  Tracie was helpless. She had seconds—or less—to live.

  And Shane acted.

  He forgot about the pain, forgot about the tumor eating his brain away from the inside, forgot about Ronald Reagan and about the CIA and Soviet assassination plots. Forgot about everything. Only one thing mattered, and that was saving the woman he had fallen so unexpectedly and completely in love with.

  Shane rounded the corner of the bulkhead, at full speed by his second step. He had been an undersized linebacker on the Bangor High School football team, the guy on the defense who was considered too small and too slow to be successful, but who had been named to the All-Maine defensive team two years running.

  Just as the Russian shooter looked up in surprise, Shane squared his shoulders and lowered his head and hit the assassin in the chest with everything he had. He hadn’t laced on pads since the final game of his senior year a decade ago, but the muscle memory was still there, and he wrapped the shooter up with his arms and churned with his legs and knocked the man down like he was the unluckiest running back ever.

  The shooter hit the deck and Shane’s one hundred eighty pounds fell on top of him and Shane heard the “oof” of air being forced out of lungs, a sound he had heard hundreds of times during his football days, and he felt a surge of savage glee, an elation he’d never before experienced.

  And then the man used Shane’s momentum against him, rolling backward and kicking up with his legs, and Shane felt himself tumbling head first, feet flying into the air, and he landed on his back with a thud, and then the shooter was on top of him.

  The man had dropped his gun when Shane hit him, and now Shane spotted it out of the corner of his eye on the roof right next to them.

  Shane snatched at it and missed, scattering rooftop gravel. He grabbed for it again and watched as the shooter’s hand reached it first, seeing the struggle almost in slow motion.

  Shane gave up on the gun, instead wrapping his hands together and driving them upward. He was unable to get the force he wanted behind the blow, but connected solidly with the shooter’s jaw and felt as much had heard the man’s teeth clatter together.

  The shooter’s head was knocked backward and he slumped sideways, stunned, and Shane bulled his way onto his hands and knees and scrabbled to his feet.

  And found himself staring directly into the barrel of the Russian’s gun.

  51

  June 2, 1987

  10:02 a.m.

  Minuteman Mutual Insurance building

  Tracie watched helplessly as Shane struggled with the assassin for control of his weapon. He had it for a split second and then lost it, and in that moment she knew with dread certainty that the KGB agent was about to put a bullet in Shane’s skull.
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  Tracie turned and scrambled on her knees to her own gun, her right arm numb from shoulder to fingers. She ignored her useless right hand and picked up the weapon in her left and turned, amazed to see that somehow Shane had fought off the Russian and gotten to his feet.

  But so had the assassin. And his weapon was still in his hands.

  She raised the Beretta but was powerless to take a shot. Shane stood directly between her and the Russian. If she fired now, she’d put a slug in Shane’s back. Even if he were to move suddenly, with the gun in her unfamiliar left hand she had no confidence she could hit the assassin.

  The Russian raised his gun, angling it at Shane, but the Shane feinted left and surged straight forward, swatting the weapon upward, gaining himself a split-second reprieve. The assassin countered by kicking Shane in the shin and then pistol-whipping him, slashing the butt of the gun across the side of his face.

  Shane went down in a heap and the moment he did Tracie fired, her weapon trained on the Russian’s chest.

  But her target was no longer there. The instant he hit Shane he leaped back, either in anticipation of Tracie’s move or to get a better angle on the shot he would take to eliminate Shane once and for all.

  Tracie didn’t know which it was and didn’t care. What mattered was that she had missed, and now the Russian fired.

  Shane had hit the deck and rolled, anticipating the shot, but the Russian had expected exactly that and fired not at the spot where Shane fell but at the spot he would move to.

  Shane took a slug in the chest and lay still.

  The Russian wasted no time. He moved again and turned his weapon on Tracie.

  She steeled herself against the pain and raised her gun again, but too late—the Russian fired. A stab of white-hot pain ripped through her left shoulder and she dropped to the roof one last time.

  Her gun fell next to her but it was useless now.

  She had no feeling in either arm.