Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set

by Allan Leverone

  She jammed her foot in a little farther and stopped it before he could achieve any leverage.

  “No,” she agreed. “I’m not here from UPS.”

  “I knew I hadn’t ordered a package,” the voice grumbled. “Goddammit.” Surprisingly, the suspicion left his voice even as the resignation seemed to increase.

  “My name is Fiona Quinn,” Tracie said. “I represent the same organization you do. In fact, we work for the same man. I’m here at his request, Mr. Goodell.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do. May I come in, please? I won’t take up much of your time, I promise.”

  “You work for…”

  “That’s right. Aaron Stallings. Please, Mr. Goodell, I’m going to have to insist you allow me inside to speak with you. Unless you’d rather I do it here, in a public hallway.”

  “You need to let me close the door so I can remove the chain lock.”

  “Fine,” Tracie said. “Don’t run. Don’t make me chase you. You won’t like what happens if I have to chase you.”

  She pulled her foot out of the opening and as soon as she did the door eased closed. She listened intently for the sound of panicked footfalls inside the apartment.

  A raspy metallic sound on the other side of the door eased Tracie’s mind. Apparently Goodell had taken her advice.

  The door swung open and a tired-looking middle-aged man indicated the shabby apartment with his left hand like Vanna White revealing the next puzzle.

  “Come on in,” David Goodell said.

  Tracie stepped into a small living room. It featured threadbare carpeting that had been recently vacuumed, and furniture that appeared to have been picked up at the local Salvation Army.

  Jesus, she thought. Treason must not pay what I would have guessed.

  “As I said outside your door, Mr. Goodell, I assume you know why I’m here.”

  He sighed. “It took a lot longer than I imagined it would.”

  “You’ve been expecting me?”

  “Or someone like you, yes. For the last four years. Every three a.m. in my nightmares.”

  “Speaking of nightmares, I’m sure you can imagine you’ve been responsible for a few. Wives who are never going to see their husbands again. Children who will grow up without fathers. Aging parents enduring the losses of their grown sons. Those people have all undoubtedly had their share of nightmares as well, and will continue to have them for a long time.” Tracie’s anger was building as she flashed on Charles Fowler enduring the agony of a drawn-out death, locked away inside the CIA’s Langley medical facility.

  Goodell’s shoulders slumped and he hung his head.

  The scene was pathetic.

  He was pathetic.

  “Why did you do it?” Tracie whispered.

  “It wasn’t like you think.”

  “Then what was it like?”

  Goodell shook his head, steadfastly refusing to meet Tracie’s gaze. “I never intended to sell out my country. I didn’t get up one morning and decide, ‘Today I’m going to condemn innocent men to death.’”

  “Then how did it happen?”

  His eyes wandered around the room as he pondered the question. They were red and watery. In that moment Goodell looked old. Older than old. Ancient.

  And tortured.

  “Things were falling apart for me on a personal level, even as my career advanced. I could feel my wife and I growing apart. She spends money like it’s an Olympic sport, and when you added in my kids’ college tuition bills, everything was crashing down financially.”

  “Lots of people have money problems, Mr. Goodell. They don’t sell out to the Soviets.”

  “It wasn’t just the money problems. In fact, it wasn’t even mostly the money problems. I…”

  His voice trailed away and he was quiet for a moment. Then he took a deep, shuddering breath and continued. “My life felt completely out of control, like I was drowning and a hand was holding me underwater, and the hand was so strong that no matter how hard I fought and tried to get to the surface, I just couldn’t do it. And…and then I met Lisa.”

  “And she was young and pretty and sexy,” Tracie scoffed. “I get it.”

  He shook his head. “That wasn’t it. I mean, she was young and pretty and sexy, she was all of that and more. But it was the way she looked at me that did it. She looked at me like I mattered, like my opinion meant something, like I was interesting and worthwhile and…and competent. Everything I hadn’t been getting at home for years.”

  He finally met Tracie’s eyes. It was almost as if he’d run out of other places to look and had no choice.

  “I know what you think,” he said. “I can see it just from the way you look at me. But I’m not stupid. Foolish and reckless, obviously. But not stupid. I was well aware of the potential for Russian infiltration. I knew full well the KGB would love to get their hooks into someone in my position. I just…”

  He shook his head again, lost in a memory. “It’s just that Lisa seemed so…so real.”

  Another sigh. “And then, once she got ahold of that first roster list it was all over. I should have gone straight to Stallings, should have told him immediately what had happened. My life would have gone down in flames, but maybe we could have gotten those agents out of Russia before it was too late, could have saved all their lives.

  “But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the balls to admit such a horrible screwup. I was a coward. And thanks to my cowardice, all those people died, and now my life has gone down in flames anyway.”

  They stood face to face, still just a couple of feet inside Goodell’s front door. Tracie wanted to hate David Goodell, had hated him as recently as fifteen minutes ago. His actions had condemned people just like Tracie to horrific deaths. She had spent most of her career working in the Communist Bloc and the fact she hadn’t been marked for execution was due to sheer dumb luck and not a damned thing else.

  But the hatred she felt for Goodell had evaporated as she listened to him speak. She still hated what he had done—nothing would ever change that; nothing could change that—but all she felt now was nausea. That sick feeling in the pit of her belly that she feared would never disappear, and disgust for the pathetic excuse for a human being who had caused so much suffering.

  She shook her head sadly. “You know it’s time to go, Mr. Goodell, right?”

  “I know. Do I have time to pack a bag?”

  “That won’t be necessary. Where you’re going, everything will be provided for you.”

  40

  January 27, 1988

  10:25 a.m.

  D.C. Arms Apartments

  Washington, D.C.

  “Do you have to cuff me? I’ll go with you but I don’t want to be taken out of here in handcuffs.”

  Tracie thought about the deserted parking lot and wondered what possible difference it would make. Was Goodell worried there would be TV cameras and reporters and crowds of jeering citizens?

  She could drag him to her car wrapped in chains like Jacob Marley and unless things had changed dramatically in the last few minutes, not a single person would be around to even notice. It would just be one disgraced bureaucrat crossing an empty expanse of pavement, on his way to face the music.

  It wasn’t like D.C. hadn’t seen similar scenes over the years.

  “I’m not going to cuff you, Mr. Goodell. I’m not a law enforcement officer. I couldn’t handcuff you even if I wanted to, because I don’t have any. However, it probably goes without saying—but I’ll say it anyway—that if you try to run when we leave here, or if you make any move I interpret as threatening, things will not go well for you. Do you understand?”

  “I understand.”

  Tracie couldn’t imagine this defeated shell of a human being even considering attempting to resist, but there was no reason to take unnecessary chances, either.

  “Then let’s go,” she said. “It’ll just be two people walking to a car and driving
away. Totally innocent and completely anonymous.”

  Goodell nodded. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and waited for Tracie to open the door. Then she ushered him into the dim hallway and they walked toward the building’s entrance, Goodell shuffling slowly, Tracie by his side and a half-step behind, guarding against sudden moves by a man she knew would not be making any.

  The morning was cloudless and cold, and as they exited the building the sun was dazzlingly bright in comparison to the weak light of the hallway. Tracie squinted and wished she’d thought to bring her sunglasses.

  She pointed to the anonymous white K-Car backed into a parking spot directly across the lot. “That’s mine,” she said.

  They were halfway across the open expanse of pavement when the shot came.

  A crack Tracie instantly recognized as unsuppressed rifle fire, and Goodell dropped straight down like he’d been shot.

  Which, of course, he had.

  Tracie dived to the pavement, aware of a second shot following the first by no more than a second. She waited to feel the slug biting into her body, or for the curtain to come down and everything to fade to black, but neither event happened.

  That was when she realized she was not the target.

  She might yet become a target, but for now this was David Goodell’s party.

  She leapt into a crouch and grabbed Goodell by the wrists. Blood ran from his skull, a lot of blood, flowing from under his hairline where the first bullet had struck. She didn’t know where—or even if—the second had hit him, but based on the accuracy of the first shot, she doubted it had missed.

  A third crack and the slug thudded into Goodell as Tracie dragged him desperately behind the shelter of her vehicle. She fumbled for her key and unlocked the passenger-side door, her hands shaking with adrenaline.

  Then she lifted her gun from its shoulder holster and returned fire. She had no more than the vaguest general notion of the sniper’s location, and given the presence of apartment buildings in nearly a three hundred-sixty degree circle, her options were limited. She feared hitting an innocent bystander despite the fact she hadn’t seen a single person besides Goodell since her arrival at the complex.

  So she fired into the ground in the general direction from which the shots had come. Give the assassin—KGB, she thought. Lisa Porter—something to think about. Maybe Tracie could maneuver Goodell’s limp body into the car before she took a bullet herself.

  She squeezed off a second shot into the same mound of earth on the far side of the parking lot and then grabbed Goodell under his armpits. He wasn’t a particularly large man, but he’d lost consciousness and his body lolled like a life-sized doll in her grasp. She shoved and tugged and finally got him into the car as another shot sounded.

  Tracie picked up her weapon and fired again. Then she dived into the K-Car, scrambling across Goodell’s bleeding body and into the driver’s seat. She bent as low as possible and jammed the key into the ignition.

  Another bullet. This one whistled into the car, shattering the driver’s side window and missing Tracie by inches, and she cursed.

  The sniper had changed her focus from Goodell to his captor.

  Tracie was out of time. If she didn’t escape now, she never would. The sniper had the advantage of location and surprise, and the moment it occurred to her to take out a tire in the K-Car, Tracie would become a sitting duck.

  The engine wheezed to life. Tracie jammed the accelerator to the floor and the car leapt forward just as another bullet struck, this time shattering the rear window. She remained low, using the vehicle’s body to shield her as much as possible, and spun the wheel to the left. Then she lifted her head just high enough to see over the dashboard, just high enough to avoid driving into a building or another car.

  Then she turned a corner and left the shooter behind.

  41

  January 27, 1988

  11:35 a.m.

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, VA

  Tracie realized she hadn’t even washed the blood off her hands yet.

  The symbolism of that fact seemed as depressing as it was wholly appropriate.

  After shoving/pulling/forcing David Goodell’s limp body inside the K-Car and escaping the assassin’s bullets at the D.C. Arms Apartments, she’d briefly considered driving to the nearest hospital or even finding a phone booth and calling for an ambulance.

  But she hadn’t done either thing.

  Hospitals and ambulances meant calls to law enforcement followed by probing questions when the patient was suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

  None of those questions would come with easy answers. Tracie had no official ties to the CIA, which itself had no mandate to operate inside the United States. She’d been on an unsanctioned mission assigned by the agency director himself to escort a suspect to CIA Headquarters—using force of arms if necessary—who was as yet facing no charges.

  And who was under no legal obligation to accompany her.

  Anywhere.

  So once she’d gotten out of the line of fire, she pulled to the side of the road and checked on his condition.

  No detectable pulse.

  Massive cranial damage from a slug that had exploded into Goodell’s skull upon impact.

  He wasn’t breathing.

  He was dead, or soon would be.

  Tracie put the car in gear and drove as fast as she could to Langley.

  * * *

  Stallings had instructed Tracie to bring Goodell into headquarters via the entrance reserved for high-level agency employees. It was the same gate David Goodell himself would utilized every day during his tenure as Assistant Director for Eurasian Operations.

  Tracie doubted he’d ever come into work unconscious and leaking blood from a gaping head wound, though.

  It was clear the security officers had been advised to expect Goodell’s arrival as a passenger in a car driven by a non-agency employee, and it was equally clear the officers had been told to expedite approval into the facility. The men’s expressions had changed in record time from bored as they approached the K-Car to shocked concern when they got a glimpse of the car’s bullet-riddled exterior and the gravely injured—if not already dead—passenger inside.

  Medical personnel appeared almost in an instant, arriving seemingly out of nowhere. They removed Goodell from the car and secured him to a wheeled stretcher, then raced away. The last Tracie saw of her charge was as the stretcher clattered through an automatic door that looked exactly like an entrance to any decent-sized hospital emergency room.

  She allowed the security personnel to frisk her and remove her primary weapon as well as her backup gun from its ankle holster and her combat knife from its sheath at the small of her back. The men seemed unsurprised—and unfazed—at the extent of her weaponry.

  Once she’d been disarmed, the security officers called for an escort and in seconds, two additional officers arrived to accompany her through the complex to Aaron Stallings’s office suite.

  The men were polite and professional but cold. Distant. Tracie wondered—not that it mattered—whether these officers were aware she’d previously worked as an agency field operative and been fired for insubordination.

  Or maybe the carefully cultivated chill was their default mode.

  The walk was a quiet one. Tracie guessed the silence was meant to intimidate, and while it wasn’t going to come close to accomplishing that goal, she was grateful for it anyway. Because it gave her time to think.

  Quiet reflection had always been her friend. It was during those moments, when she allowed her mind to wander and her thoughts to crystallize, that she was often able to connect dots and reach conclusions not always plainly evident, especially during the non-stop frenetic activity of a mission.

  And the last few days had been frenetic.

  Exhausting.

  Stressful.

  Her only downtime since leaving for Moscow had been the few hours during her trans-Atlantic flight o
n the agency jet from Helsinki to D.C. after being smuggled out of Moscow by Ryan Smith. She’d used that time to catch up on much-needed sleep and had then been shuttled directly to Aaron Stallings’s home upon her arrival back in the states.

  Things had happened quickly since then, and now David Goodell was either dying or dead.

  The walk through Langley with her two silent companions represented an opportunity for Tracie to reflect on the assignment the CIA director had given her this morning. Bringing in a man suspected of one of the most damaging acts of treason in American history, exhausted and alone and with no mission planning, had been highly unusual.

  It was almost predictable that it would have ended badly.

  That likelihood of a negative mission outcome was what Tracie considered during the walk through the Langley campus. She gnawed on it like a dog chewing a bone. She considered it from all the angles she could as she crossed the lawns and turned the corners of the massive CIA complex.

  She didn’t like the conclusions she was reaching.

  And then they arrived at the office suite of CIA Director Aaron Stallings.

  * * *

  The security officers waited with Tracie outside the suite until receiving permission to enter. They had positioned themselves one on either side and slightly behind her during the walk, and they remained in that configuration now.

  It was as if they feared she might suddenly make a break for freedom, like perhaps her fear of the legendary CIA chief might drive her to a panicked sprint for the exit.

  But Tracie wasn’t about to attempt an escape. She was exactly where she wanted to be.

  Stallings’s personal secretary called Tracie inside and dismissed the security officers, and a moment later Tracie stepped into the chief’s office.

  42

  January 27, 1988

  12:10 p.m.

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, VA