Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set

by Allan Leverone

  A hand placed lightly on the back of his neck told him Lisa had arrived. Her touch was cool and brief, but it never failed to light in David a fire he hadn’t felt since the very early days of his relationship with Dana.

  He smiled and lowered his drink to the little round lounge table. He thought he was being careful, moving smoothly, but the glass thunked loudly and precious whiskey slopped over the top, running down the side and forming a small pool on the scarred wood.

  Normally David would have been pissed at wasting even a drop, but not now. Not with Lisa here. Suddenly he didn’t care much about his drink.

  He rose to his feet, wobbling like one of his legs had grown longer than the other while he was sitting.

  She laughed, the sound girlish and sweet. It never failed to turn him on.

  “Sit down before you fall down, baby,” she said. She wrapped an arm protectively around his waist and eased him back onto his chair, then crossed to the other side of the table and slipped into the seat.

  “So,” she said with a bright smile. “What are we drinking tonight?”

  “Jameson’s.” Thanks to his three-hour head start, it came out more like “Shameson’s,” which struck him as appropriate. Also far more amusing than it probably should have.

  “Really,” she said, her megawatt smile clicking up another notch. “You only drink Jameson’s when you want to be an extra bad boy.”

  Was that true? David had never thought about it before. But looking at the vision of loveliness and barely-contained sex appeal sitting across the table, he decided her observation was a good one. He really did want to be bad tonight.

  And he wanted to be bad with her.

  He raised his hand to get the attention of the overworked cocktail waitress. He needed to order Lisa a drink.

  Hopefully only one drink.

  And then they could stagger down the street—well, he could stagger while she walked—to his apartment and get bad.

  2

  March 17, 1984

  8:50 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  Tonight would be the night.

  Lisa Porter—whose real name was not Lisa Porter, although she had not used her real name since she was a very little girl—had worked hard to get to this point. She’d been given David Goodell’s name by her handler more than six months ago and instructed to proceed slowly, with extreme caution. To avoid spooking the man at all costs.

  Goodell was near the top of the CIA’s management roster. If successful in turning him, Lisa would ensure KGB access to one of the highest-ranking American officials they had managed in years. Decades, perhaps.

  And she liked her chances. Goodell had recently been exhibiting many of the classic signs the KGB looked for when identifying potential CIA moles: extreme financial difficulties, marital problems, and alcohol or drug abuse.

  To prepare for her assignment, Lisa studied up on David Goodell, learning all she could about the CIA bigshot before ever approaching him: where he had grown up, where he had gone to school, when he’d gotten married, the names and ages of his children as well as where they went to school. She learned how many credit cards Goodell had (a lot). She learned how many cards his wife had maxed out (also a lot).

  She practiced patience, maintaining as close to constant surveillance on the target as it was possible for one woman—one stunningly beautiful woman—to manage without being noticed, either by the subject himself or by his coworkers or family members.

  It wasn’t easy. It was lonely work, and dangerous, operating with minimal backup in the very society she had sworn an oath to overthrow. She’d moved to the United States as a very young child and the American version of society was all she knew. She never doubted the superiority of the Soviet system to the American one, but having grown up among the American people made her realize most of them were every bit as good and decent as the ones in the country of her heritage.

  But that realization changed nothing. She had been well trained and was dedicated to her cause. She would follow her instructions to the letter, or die trying.

  So she watched and waited, allowing Goodell to slip ever farther down the rabbit hole and into a hell of his own making. When she had finally determined the time was right—six weeks ago—she struck up a conversation with him at a bar very much like this one.

  He’d been nearly as drunk that night as he was tonight, the desperation and hopelessness as plain to see as if he’d shouted it to the world. Even drunk he’d been clearly surprised that a girl as beautiful and young as Lisa would give him a second look, much less chat him up and drink with him and smile at him and talk quietly at a corner table until last call.

  They made plans to meet again the next night, and the night after that, and by the fourth night, she’d allowed the man to bring her home and take her to bed. He thought it was all his idea of course, all his doing, and she was perfectly happy with allowing him to think that.

  It was exactly what she wanted him to think.

  Because if it were his idea, there would be no cause for suspicion on his part.

  The affair was a torrid one, and soon they were spending nearly every free moment together, often drinking, more often making love. He spilled his guts to her on a regular basis about his estranged wife and his financial difficulties, but never did he mention his job and she didn’t ask.

  For awhile.

  Eventually it would have been more suspicious to continue avoiding the subject than to inquire how Mr. David Goodell earned a paycheck, so she did.

  “Bloodless bureaucrat,” he had answered. “I’m nothing but a nameless, faceless entity, an anonymous cog in the cumbersome machine that is the United States government.”

  Even drunk, he never said a word about the Central Intelligence Agency.

  And that was fine, too. Lisa continued to cultivate the relationship, using sex and a sympathetic manner to convince this poor, lost man that someone in the world gave a damn about him, that at least one person would listen to him, and sympathize, and allow him to cry on her shoulder and then screw her silly.

  All of it had led to tonight.

  She could not have helped but notice the fact that even when he was drinking, he was very careful not to misplace his briefcase, nor to leave it unattended in public, nor to toss it casually onto his living room couch even when his apartment was locked up tight. No matter how drunk he might be, or how depressed, or even how amorous, he was always careful to stow the case in his hallway closet.

  He was more likely to forget his name than to misplace or mishandle his briefcase.

  But one thing Lisa had noticed he was not careful to do was spin the tiny wheels that served as a mechanism to activate the briefcase’s pair of brass locks when he was at home. He’d rummaged through the case on three different occasions in front of her, and not once had he spun the little brass wheels when he was finished.

  The briefcase had been the prime focus of Lisa’s interest almost from the moment she “met” David Goodell. Thus, it had been critical he not become aware of her interest in it.

  She was careful never to mention it or ask questions about it.

  She pretended not even to notice it.

  All of that would end tonight.

  Tonight she would search it.

  * * *

  March 17, 1984

  9:20 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  “Nightcap, baby?” They hadn’t been inside David’s apartment more than three minutes and already Lisa had stripped down to her bra and panties.

  Normally she would have waited the few minutes it took her horny “boyfriend” to get around to undressing her, to let him think, as always, that he was making the first move. But now that she had decided to make a play for the briefcase it was all she could think about. She wanted to get down to business.

  Immediately, if not sooner.

  “I don’t know,” he slurred. “I’ve had a lot to drink already and I wanna be able to…perform…”

&
nbsp; “Please, baby?” she purred. “I’ve only had one drink and I want to have at least one more before we start. You know how alcohol makes it easier for me to get naughty.”

  A pleased smile slid across his face. She had known he wouldn’t be able to resist the offer of a drink when she phrased it in terms that were so dear to his heart.

  “Fair enough,” he said, and began to rise unsteadily from the couch.

  “No, baby, I’ll make the drinks. You just relax, it’ll only take me a minute.”

  He sighed gratefully and dropped back onto the couch. “Good. I love watching you walk around when you’re…undressed.”

  She flashed him a lascivious smile and padded to the small bar in the corner of the living room. Grabbed the whiskey bottle and a tumbler of water. Dropped ice cubes into two glasses. Poured the whiskey and then mixed in the water.

  Her back was to David and she glanced over her shoulder to see him watching intently, features slack, eyes glazed. She grinned at him while reaching into her bra and removing a tiny plastic bag filled with two even tinier white tablets.

  She dropped the tablets into the drink on the right and they began fizzing quietly. By the time she’d finished stirring both drinks the tablets had fully absorbed into the liquid.

  Lisa wasn’t into drugs—in her line of work, altered states of consciousness did not lend themselves to long careers, or long lives—but she considered Rohypnol almost magical. She’d used it before to render targets unconscious and she knew she would use it again, once David Goodell had faded into the past, nothing more than another career success.

  David’s eyes were drooping as she carried the drinks to the couch. The drug was probably unnecessary, given how much he’d had to drink. Once he passed out—and he looked like he was almost at that point now—she doubted anything short of a nuclear blast would rouse him.

  And even then, he’d be too damned hung over to worry much about what his “girlfriend” might be up to.

  She didn’t care.

  Better safe than sorry.

  * * *

  March 17, 1984

  9:50 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  It took maybe twenty minutes for the Rohypnol to take effect. Lisa—whose real name was Anna Tarenko—could tell immediately when it did. David went from drunk and wobbly and slack to unconscious. Out cold.

  He would remain that way for far longer than Lisa needed him to, but that was fine with her. And when he awoke, what would have been a painful hangover to begin with would be almost unbearable.

  Again, fine with her. She had nothing against David Goodell per se, but felt no particular fondness for him, either. He was a means to an end, nothing more and nothing less.

  She lifted his feet onto the couch so he was prone and then covered him with a blanket. That was the best she could do for him; she wasn’t about to try to wrestle his unconscious bulk into the bedroom.

  She dressed quickly and moved to the living room closet where Goodell always stored his briefcase. She hadn’t touched the drink she’d made for herself a couple of minutes ago, and her slight buzz from the one she’d consumed at the bar was by now almost completely gone.

  The briefcase was leather, scuffed and cracked in spots, and approaching the end of its life span. She guessed it had been given to David as a graduation present somewhere along the line, which would explain why he hadn’t replaced it yet.

  She set it on top of the coffee table and knelt next to it, pulse racing. She hadn’t been able to get close enough the few times he’d opened and closed the case in her presence to see the combination that would unlock the clasps, so if he’d gone against his history and spun the numbers when he last locked it, she would be out of luck. Everything she’d done to get to this point would be nothing more than wasted effort.

  The Soviet State had outlawed organized religion decades ago, but many Russians had a history of faith going back much longer than the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. As dedicated as she was to the advancement of the Soviet cause, Anna’s family was one of those, and she said a quick prayer before reaching up with both hands and placing a thumb on each of the locking mechanisms.

  Then she slid them smoothly away from each other and the clasps sprang open with a pair of identical rich “clicks.”

  She was in.

  3

  April 12, 1984

  6:20 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  “We need to talk, David.”

  Lisa stood, hands on her hips, and waited for a response from the older man. He had lessened his drinking since beginning his “relationship” with her, which made him much more dangerous as a foe. She had plied him with a couple of very strong drinks tonight, though. Ensuring he was loose and suggestible would make him much easier to control.

  He stumbled backward a step, surprised at the commanding tone in her voice. It was unlike anything he had come to expect from her, which was exactly the point.

  After drugging David Goodell and breaking into his briefcase nearly a month ago, Lisa had maintained the fiction of a romantic interest in the CIA bigwig.

  For a while.

  Most of the stuff she’d found inside the case was worthless. Pens, pencils, writing paper, a calculator, bar napkins. The detritus of a life spent sitting behind a desk, attending staff meetings, and pretending to matter.

  But one item had more than made up for everything else.

  One item had been worth its weight in gold. Worth more than its weight in gold.

  One item had been so explosive and valuable it took Lisa a moment to fully comprehend how lucky she had gotten.

  It was a single sheet of computer paper, slipped into one of the briefcase’s file folder divisions. David had obviously stuffed the paper into the case at some point in the last couple of months and then forgotten about it.

  Printed on the paper were a date and a list of names under the heading “Russia.”

  These were not just any names. The list contained one row of names next to a corresponding row of names, the significance of which was immediately obvious, even to Lisa, who as a KGB field operative had never seen anything like it.

  The names on the left side of the paper were aliases, and the names on the right side were the actual identities of CIA covert operatives working in Russia. Or maybe it was vice-versa, the real names on the left side and the aliases on the right.

  It was a minor detail that was irrelevant to Lisa. The type of detail that would be resolved by someone much higher in the intelligence chain of command than she.

  She had smiled and secured the list as David lay unconscious on his couch a few feet away. Then she’d transmitted the information to Moscow at her first available opportunity.

  To say her handler had been impressed would have been a massive understatement. Within days, her orders had come through: continue to move slowly with Mr. David Goodell, Assistant CIA Director for Eurasian Operations, but when the moment was right, turn him.

  And that was exactly what Anna had decided to do tonight.

  So when she told him they needed to talk, she barked at him, her voice clipped and angry, copying exactly the manner one of her KGB instructors had taken with her years ago during training.

  It had succeeded in focusing her completely, and she hadn’t been half drunk at the time like Goodell was now. She was certain her gruff manner would command—and retain—his attention. The attitude was utterly unlike anything she had exhibited toward him in the nearly three months they had known each other.

  His brows knitted together in confusion. “What…what are you talking about? What’s going on, honey?”

  “What’s going on is that the situation has changed. You will no longer refer to me as ‘baby’ or ‘honey,’ and I will no longer utilize those terms with you.”

  “I…I don’t understand.”

  “You will understand soon enough.”

  His face flushed. “Is that so? Enlighten me then.”

  It was tim
e to bring the hammer down, to reveal to David Goodell the new dynamic in no uncertain terms. “The nature of our relationship has changed. We are no longer lovers, we are now employer and employee.”

  “Employer and employee? What are you talking about, Lisa?”

  “What we are talking about is this: I own you. The vast majority of the time, you will go about your business as Assistant CIA Director for Eurasian Operations as you always have. You will—”

  “How do you know about—”

  “I know plenty, David. I know much more than you realize. As I was saying, most of the time nothing will change for you. However, on occasion you will be expected to gather intelligence regarding certain CIA activities in the Soviet Union. You will gather that intelligence and supply it to me on demand. Do I make myself clear?”

  “I most certainly will not.” He was making a show of resistance, as she had known he would. But all the blood had drained from his face and he looked as though he might be sick. “Who are you? More importantly, whom are you working for?”

  “Your first question does not matter. As you have probably deduced by now, my name is not Lisa Porter. You will never learn my real identity, and it is irrelevant to our purposes, anyway.

  “As for your second question, well, I think you already know the answer. You should, at least. You’re not much of an Assistant Director for Eurasian Operations if you cannot by now make that very basic connection.”

  He sank to his knees. She could see the synapses firing, could see all the pieces falling into place in his head. Suddenly it made perfect sense why a beautiful younger woman would show such an interest in a middle-aged alcoholic bureaucrat with a broken marriage. His thought process was pathetically transparent.

  “You’re KGB,” he mumbled quietly.

  “What did you say, David?” She’d heard him perfectly well, but wanted to force him to say the words again. They were music to her ears, and after months of listening to his pathetic whining, day after day, and constantly having to prop him up psychologically—not to mention having to sleep with him and pretend she was enjoying it—she felt she had earned the right to a little gloating.