But the notion that her actions—or in this case, inaction—had been directly responsible for the deaths of three innocent people, that was another issue entirely. That knowledge was like a weight resting on her shoulders, a weight that made it next to impossible to move. Her sense of despair sucked the energy out of her body. It made her feel lethargic, like she’d been awake for seventy-two-plus hours.
Stallings let her sit for a moment and then said, “Okay, Tanner, you need to get moving. I’ll have the Gulfstream fueled and ready to depart for Orly the moment you arrive at National.”
She nodded and somehow rose to her feet. Turned toward the door and then stopped and again faced the CIA director. “I assume you’re going to coordinate with France’s Directorate of Territorial Security regarding my arrival in Paris?”
Stallings had returned his attention to his paperwork, but now he looked up and said, “Of course. We don’t have enough assets inside France to blanket the area surrounding the embassy ourselves, and in any event it would be a serious breach of protocol to do so without involving the DTS.”
Tracie nodded again. “Do me a favor. When you coordinate with them, don’t let them know I’ll be arriving in Paris overnight. I want at least one day to myself to conduct my own surveillance without interference from the French or anyone else. Tell them I’ll be there Sunday and they’ll never know the difference.”
Stallings stared at her. “You want to finish this thing alone.”
“I doubt it will be possible,” Tracie said. “Piotr Speransky is a professional spook and a good one, if obviously sociopathic. It seems unlikely I’ll be able to locate him, sneak up behind him and then bury two slugs in his hat, but I’d at least like twenty-four hours to give it a shot.”
“No pun intended,” Stallings said.
“It was definitely intended.”
He regarded her a little longer and then said, “Okay. I would want the same opportunity if I were in your shoes. Of course…”
“I know,” Tracie said. “You wouldn’t be in my shoes because you would have finished Speransky when you had the chance.”
“If the shoe fits,” Stallings said.
Tracie nodded again and sighed. She dropped her head and stared at the floor. She was exhausted and hadn’t even begun what very well might turn out to be her final mission.
“Is there something else, Tanner?” The impatience in his tone was unmistakable.
“Actually, there is.” She reached into her pocket and removed the gold cross and chain she’d spent so much time cleaning and attempting to restore. She displayed the jewelry to Stallings and he spread his hands in confusion. “What’s this?”
“These belonged to Ryan Smith. He wore the cross around his neck, and I took it off his body just after he died, before I escaped the Soviet base in Bashkir a couple of months ago.”
“You took it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I just…I don’t know, I wanted to bring something of his home for his family to remember him by, since I wasn’t able to save him.”
“What are you saying, Tanner?”
“Sir, I know you can’t tell me Smith’s real name or where his family is located.”
“You’re damned right I can’t.”
“I know he wasn’t married, because he told me that much, so I was hoping you would take it and return it to his parents. Let them know he died with honor serving his country. Maybe it will bring them some peace.”
“I can’t do that, Tanner, you know that.”
“But sir, he—”
“He was working as a covert intelligence operative inside an enemy nation. His missions and his whereabouts were—and still remain—classified. I can’t return that jewelry to his family, and you know it. And there’s something else, now that you’ve brought up the subject.”
“What’s that, sir?” Tracie’s heart dropped at Stallings’ refusal to accept Ryan Smith’s cross. She hadn’t thought it could get any lower than discovering she was responsible for Piotr Speransky’s killing spree.
“Even if I could return the cross to Smith’s family, what would we tell them? We had an operative within arm’s reach and she was only able to walk out of that base with a piece of jewelry? That kind of acknowledgment would open the agency up to questions we could not answer, and rather than getting any sense of closure, Smith’s family would be tortured even more than they already are.”
Tracie stood motionless and Stallings said, “I’ll take it from you if you want, but it will go into storage in my personal safe if I do. It can’t be returned to Smith’s family, and that’s final.”
She dropped the cross and chain back into her pocket. Her fingers felt as numb as her brain.
“I’ll keep it then,” she said, in a voice that sounded like someone else’s.
5
May 14, 1988
12:40 p.m.
Paris, France
Tracie strolled along the Champs Elysee, trying to imagine how an American tourist might act and then duplicating those actions. She moved slowly, gawking at the exquisite French architecture, craning her neck and occasionally turning a full three hundred sixty degree circle before continuing to walk.
As a cover, the tourist angle suited her needs well. With less than twenty-four hours in which to flush Piotr Speransky out of hiding without being hindered by French authorities, it was critical she observe as much of the area as possible. The American embassy—where Speransky’s latest victim had been murdered—was located one street to her left, on Avenue Gabriel, directly across the Allée Marcel Proust.
So the act of taking in her surroundings was real, it was just focused on determining where a KGB operative with vengeance on his mind might be staked out, rather than appreciating the statues and the history and the late spring sunshine.
Tracie had arrived at Orly in late-morning, the CIA G4 touching down just after eleven a.m. Unfortunately for her, between the nearly eight hours flight time and the six-hour difference between D.C. and Paris, she lost three precious hours out of what was available to her before tomorrow’s seven a.m. meeting with French law enforcement and intelligence officials.
On the bright side, if this situation could be said to have a bright side, her depression and exhaustion had been so great last night that she’d slept soundly for a solid six hours as the agency jet rocketed over the Atlantic to Europe. She’d made this trip with the CIA flight crew multiple times now, but after greeting the pilots warmly at Washington National, there had been none of the previous flights’ light-hearted conversation.
Tracie doubted she would ever feel light-hearted again.
The crew had apparently sensed her mood, and while they were as friendly and professional as ever, the two-man flight crew left her alone with her thoughts following their brief greeting on the tarmac.
The weather upon arrival in France was unseasonably warm, a fact Tracie appreciated only as it would apply to her ability to conduct surveillance. The airport was located about twelve miles from the heart of Paris, and after taking a bus to her hotel and checking in, she had begun her walking tour of the embassy area just after noon. There was no time to waste.
Staying in the immediate vicinity of the embassy—the area Piotr Speransky would be waiting to end her life—was not the smartest move, strategically. But Tracie was willing to risk it for two reasons.
One, if Speranksy had established any connections inside French or American intelligence services, the assassin would have been notified by now of Tracie’s planned arrival tomorrow morning. He would not be expecting to see her today and thus his operational awareness would be down. It was only human nature.
Two, Tracie had disguised herself. Speransky referenced her flame-red hair in three separate notes at three separate murder scenes, so it was obvious hair color was the one physical trait he associated with her above all others. She had piled her hair atop her head on the Gulfstream prior to landing at Orly, and then cover
ed it fully with a black kerchief.
Her hair color would be invisible to anyone looking for it.
She’d also chosen clothing that she hoped would make her appear older than her twenty-nine years. Between her dark slacks and floral-print blouse, combined with large sunglasses in a very traditional style, Tracie hoped to present the illusion of a middle-aged female tourist, say in her forties or even fifties.
Up close, of course, it would be much more difficult to maintain the illusion, but if Speransky happened to be scanning the area, even with binoculars, Tracie felt confident in her ability to escape detection.
At least for one day.
And one day was all she had. If she weren’t able to flush out and kill Speransky today, tomorrow’s plan would be the exact opposite: she would show off her hair fully in an effort to draw the KGB killer out of hiding and finish this thing. One way or the other.
Tracie continued to stroll at a leisurely pace, approaching the Place de la Concorde and its magnificent fountains. She passed the Obelisk of Luxor and then turned left, keeping the American Embassy off her left side. The temptation to focus on the embassy complex was strong, but doing so would be counterproductive to her current mission. Piotr Speransky would be camped out somewhere on the periphery of the embassy, likely atop one of the surrounding buildings, planning to shoot downward and toward the compound.
Tracie needed to devote her full attention to the embassy’s surroundings if she was to have any chance of kicking the rock Speransky would be hiding under.
She crossed Avenue Gabriel and started down Rue Royale. It was narrow, not a main drag but a side street, almost an alleyway, with buildings looming virtually to the pavement on both sides.
She maintained her tourist cover but moved a little more quickly. It was highly unlikely Speransky would have chosen Rue Royale for his sniper’s nest for the simple reason that it offered virtually no sight lines into the embassy complex thanks to the densely packed construction.
A left onto the Rue Saint Honoré took Tracie past the British Embassy. She continued to the Avenue de Marigny, and a left turn there took her back to Avenue Gabriel and her starting point.
The entire circuit took barely thirty minutes to complete, and that was with Tracie moving slowly, examining her surroundings for likely hidey-holes a KGB assassin might utilize if he wanted to fill a petite American operative with Russian lead.
The results were discouraging. Despite nearly nine years as an American covert operative working outside the United States, Tracie had only been to Paris once or twice, and never in the vicinity of the American Embassy. She’d pictured something a little more open, not the congested—albeit breathtakingly beautiful—cityscape she discovered.
The number of potential hiding places Piotr Speransky could utilize was practically limitless. Even with French law enforcement and intelligence personnel blanketing the area tomorrow, catching the assassin before he opened fire would almost be a matter of sheer luck. They might be able to capture or kill him once the bullets started flying, but that outcome would provide little comfort to Tracie if she were bleeding out on the front steps of the embassy.
And if the odds of a team finding him were slim, the chance that Tracie could sniff him out, particularly while disguised as a middle-aged American tourist, seemed about as close to nil as it was possible to get. She figured the odds of getting struck by lightning were greater, and the weather was crystal clear and beautiful.
She continued walking while considering her options. Making a second pass would be her top choice. Perhaps another look would reveal some of the more likely hiding spots a professional assassin would choose.
But a second pass would also put Tracie at much greater risk of blowing her cover. The fact that Speransky had managed to access the American Embassy in the first place, much less execute three members of his personal security team as well as the ambassador himself, told her all she needed to know about his abilities as an operative, not to mention his dedication to his mission.
He was out here somewhere, and while he wouldn’t be expecting Tracie to show up until tomorrow, he would be paying attention. Offering him a second glimpse of the middle-aged “tourist” might just be enough to bring the same hail of bullets Tracie was expecting tomorrow, only a day earlier and with no one to chase him down after he’d killed her.
The heavy sense of depression she’d been feeling since learning last night that her actions had been directly responsible for the deaths of three innocent Americans deepened.
She turned toward her hotel. Maybe she could regroup and come up with a new plan, one with a better chance of success.
It seemed unlikely.
6
It didn’t take long for Tracie to return to her hotel. She’d chosen lodgings close to the U.S. embassy complex for one very practical reason: Paris was densely populated, particularly in touristy areas, and with less than twenty-four hours to smoke out Speransky, she hadn’t wanted to waste valuable time riding a bus or taxi.
She walked briskly down the Avenue Gabriel, passing mere yards in front of the U.S. Embassy entrance. She continued to scan the area for any location a KGB assassin might select from which to murder an American CIA operative, but did so without any real conviction.
The area wasn’t ideal, and a professional like Speransky would recognize that fact immediately. Any location along Avenue Gabriel would place the killer too close to his target area. He would want the benefit of some—but not too much—distance, and, again, in all probability he would choose an elevated location so he could fire down on his target.
After passing the embassy, Tracie crossed the narrow Rue Boissy d’Anglas and found herself at the entrance to the Hôtel de Crillon. She entered the building and crossed the opulent lobby to the stairs. The hotel had originally been constructed, along with an identical building across the Rue Royale, for use as a palace in the mid-1700s.
The Hôtel de Crillon and its sister structure, the Hôtel de la Marine, had rich histories and, in fact, the building that now served as Tracie’s lodging had been the site of the first treaty-signing between France and the fledgling United States of America on February 6, 1778.
With a career military man for a father and a career diplomat for a mother, Tracie supposed it was inevitable she would have grown up an American history aficionado. Despite the bloodstained reason for her trip to France and the very real possibility her life would end tomorrow on the streets of Paris, she couldn’t help but appreciate the knowledge that Ben Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee may well have sat in the very lobby she’d just crossed, negotiating the terms of the French-American treaty officially recognizing the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.
In 1909 the Hôtel de Crillon opened its doors in the structure that had even then been around for more than a century and a half, following a nearly two year renovation. It had been lodging guests ever since. Given its opulence, its location and its historical significance, Tracie had known even before registering that the cost of a stay would be exorbitant, and she was right.
Room charges were far in excess of what Aaron Stallings would approve for reimbursement, not to mention far above what she could afford to pay based on her salary. Despite the danger and the—very occasional—glamor of her job as a covert operative, when push came to shove Tracie was still nothing more than a civil service employee of the United States government, albeit an unofficial one whose affiliation with the CIA had been terminated last year.
Tracie booked the room anyway. Over the course of her career, she’d done what virtually all spooks did: hidden money, weapons and numerous forged identification documents away in multiple locations around the United States and the areas in which she typically worked.
Her lifestyle was frugal and she worked nearly non-stop, so her opportunities to spend significant sums of money were few and far between. Over the years she had socked away an impressive amount of cash, weapons and IDs. Given the fact he
r survival beyond the next twenty-four hours seemed tenuous at best, she’d decided this was as good a time as any to access a small portion of that cash and use it on this mission.
She entered her room and eased the door closed behind her. She’d hoped for a room that looked out onto the American Embassy property, but none were available so she’d had to “settle” for a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower, the structure rising into the sky in the distance, proud and magnificent.
She made a cup of tea and then sat at the room’s writing desk, sipping slowly and staring out the window. In retrospect, she decided that not being able to see the embassy complex was a good thing. She was already obsessing on the killings for which she bore direct responsibility, and on the man she had allowed to live who had then gone on to execute a half-dozen innocent people, including three American diplomats and three embassy security guards.
Staring morosely at the building where the third murder had occurred, and where she would likely die tomorrow, would accomplish nothing positive and might even interfere with her ability to think clearly and logically.
And it was hard enough to think clearly right now. It was one thing to accept the possibility of dying in the field on a mission—she’d come to grips with that prospect years ago—but it was another thing entirely to know that sometime after sunrise tomorrow morning she may well find herself bleeding out on the streets of Paris, the victim of a murder for which she’d been given advance notice.
And that outcome was becoming increasingly likely. She’d flown to Paris with the vaguely formed notion she would smoke out a professional assassin in a matter of hours, and she would do so with no assistance. Speransky had to be close if he was going to execute the “redheaded American spook,” so she would use that knowledge to her benefit. She would ferret out his hiding place and then put two slugs in his skull, and that would be that.
But she’d been kidding herself, obviously. A team of operatives might have managed it, given unlimited resources and the benefit of days or weeks with which to work, but for one woman, alone and unfamiliar with the city, it was nothing more than a pipe dream, and a silly one at that.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 149