Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set

by Allan Leverone

  “Now we go inside.”

  “How about you go inside and do what you need to do, and I’ll wait for you out here? I’ll keep the car warm for you.”

  The Russian had been holding his weapon in his lap but now he raised it and trained it on Jake. He held it close to his body, being careful to give himself enough time to squeeze off at least one shot should Jake make a play for it. “Let me warn you. Do not mistake my good humor for weakness, General Tanner. I will not hesitate to put you down like a rabid dog.”

  “Fair enough,” Jake said. He worked hard to keep his voice steady, determined not to give this asshole the satisfaction of sensing fear in his captive. “But now it’s my turn. Do not mistake my good humor for weakness, either. The first chance I get, I’m going to take that gun away from you and shove it up your ass. Then I’m going to snap your neck and leave you inside this wreck of a house, which is a better fate than you deserve.”

  The Russian gazed at Jake, his expression flat. Jake knew immediately he’d made a mistake in speaking to the man the way he had, but he just couldn’t stop himself. Passivity and victimhood were every bit as foreign to him as the Soviet system of government, and every bit as repugnant.

  “Perhaps I should protect myself then, and just shoot you where you sit.”

  “Maybe you should,” Jake said, meeting the Russian’s gaze with a steely one of his own and refusing to look away until his kidnapper had.

  For a moment nothing happened and then the Russian said, “Having met you, General, I now understand your daughter much more clearly.”

  “My daughter is a better operative than you’ll ever be, and a better person, not that the bar is set too high on that one. If you think you’ll ever get the drop on her, you’re kidding yourself.”

  The Russian ignored his comment and said, “You will roll down your window, and then open the door and step out of the car. Once you are outside you will stand perfectly still until I tell you to move. If you get the bright idea to slam the door and run, I will shoot you before you make it three feet in any direction.”

  Jake did as he was told. He couldn’t see any reasonable alternative. This man was a professional. If there had been any doubt up until now, his instructions eliminated it. By forcing Jake to roll down the window before stepping out of the car, the Russian minimized the possibility of a gunshot being deflected by the glass and giving Jake a few precious seconds to escape.

  He stepped out of the car and then stood next to it as his captor slid across the bench seat and stopped behind the wheel. “Now step back six feet,” the man said, and Jake did as instructed.

  Then the man climbed out of the car and indicated the house with his gun. “Get moving,” he said.

  So Jake did.

  It wasn’t like he had much choice.

  He crossed the front yard and climbed the crumbling concrete front steps, stopping in front of the closed front door.

  “Do not be shy,” the Russian said. “Please, walk right in.”

  Jake turned the knob and pushed on the door and it swung open with a creak that belonged in a horror movie, a Grade B drive-in feature where a chainsaw-wielding maniac terrorized a slew of teens. He stepped inside and considered trying to slam the door on the Russian, trapping him outside, but the man was too quick, slipping a foot into the doorway to block just such an attempt.

  Besides, even if he managed to trap himself inside the wreck of a house and leave his captor standing outside, what then? He couldn’t exactly outwait the Russian, and the other man was holding a deadly weapon while Jake was unarmed.

  He took three steps inside and the man behind him said, “That is far enough,” so he stopped. From behind, the Russian produced a flashlight that illuminated the interior of what at one time must have been a living room. The hardwood floors were filthy and water-stained from years of rain and snow blowing through the shattered windows and leaking through the porous roof.

  And the room was empty, save for a single wooden chair placed squarely in the center. The chair was heavy, hewn out of what looked like white oak, with a sturdy back and blocky arms and legs that would be perfectly suited to securing, say, a two hundred pound kidnapping victim.

  A few feet away from the chair a canvas bag lay on its side. It was a good-sized bag that had been zipped shut but appeared filled with…again, Jake didn’t know but doubted he wanted to find out.

  Again, he was going to.

  “Take a seat, General Tanner.”

  He turned to face the Russian. “You first.”

  The man lifted his gun and trained it right between Jake’s eyes. It seemed unlikely he would shoot yet, because he had gone to a lot of trouble to get Jake here and if all he wanted to do was blow Jake’s head off he could have done that way back at the ambush site. Still, it was all he could do not to flinch at the sight of that black barrel pointing directly into his face.

  “I insist,” the Russian said. All traces of his previous good humor had vanished. His voice was cold and his face was hard and Jake knew that whatever his plan was for an endgame, it had already begun.

  17

  “I will not tell you again,” the Russian said.

  Jake nodded tiredly. He walked to the center of the room and turned to face his kidnapper, who had trailed him as he moved and now stood just out of arm’s reach, his weapon still aimed at Jake.

  “Tell me why you’re doing this,” he said, standing in front of the chair. “I want to know what it has to do with my daughter.” He’d been careful not to mention Tracie’s name on the off chance the KGB man was bluffing and didn’t know for certain who she was. That seemed a remote possibility, but he wasn’t taking the slightest chance of putting his own child in even more danger than she clearly already was.

  “Sit down and I will tell you.”

  “If I sit, I won’t ever be getting up again, will I?”

  The Russian’s eyes narrowed. “We can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way. It does not matter to me. In fact, I would almost prefer you resist.”

  The sick feeling Jake had gotten in the pit of his stomach the moment the crazy Russian bastard pulled a gun on him had never gone away, but now it solidified into a solid mass roughly the size of a basketball. The man’s refusal to respond to his question served as all the answer he needed, and the thought that he would never again see the wife and daughter he cherished more than life itself struck him like a sledgehammer to the face.

  He swallowed heavily and dropped into the wooden chair. Now he wished he’d taken a shot at escape as he exited the car. A bullet in the back would likely be far preferable to what this man had in store for him.

  The Russian stepped to his canvas bag and unzipped it, careful to keep his weapon trained squarely on Jake as he did so. He lifted out a roll of silver duct tape and held it up for Jake’s inspection. “Does this have any meaning for you?” he said.

  Jake shook his head, mystified. “No. Should it?”

  The Russian shrugged. “It seems to mean a lot to Tracie. I was just curious if she had inherited her affinity for duct tape from her father.” He smiled. “They say you can fix anything with it, and I have to admit, I have found that to be mostly true.”

  Jake stiffened. “How do you know her name? Is she all right? Where is she?”

  The Russian smiled coldly. He tore off two long strips of tape and slapped them over Jake’s wrists, moving more quickly than Jake would have predicted. The man was big and bulky but moved with the fluidity of an elite athlete. He added another strip to each arm, taking the time to pat them down firmly until their adhesive bonded securely with the wood on the underside of the chair’s arm.

  Then he spoke. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Please try to remove your arms from the chair.”

  “I’m not doing anything until you tell me where my daughter is.”

  The Russian laughed. With Jake secured, some of the affability he’d shown earlier seemed to have returned. “It is a little late to be ma
king demands,” he said. “But do as I ask and I’ll tell you whatever you wish to know.”

  Jake’s concern for his own fate had vanished at the sound of Tracie’s name. He tugged hard at the tape, making the good-faith effort at escape his captor obviously wanted to see.

  He got nowhere. His arms would not budge.

  The Russian nodded. “Very good.” He bent and began repeating the taping procedure on Jake’s ankles, taking his time and doing it right. “Your precious little girl is fine. For now. As we speak she is searching for me in Paris.”

  “Paris?”

  “Da. She thinks I am there.”

  “Why would she…” Jake’s voice died away as he made the connection. “The dead ambassadors I heard about on the news. That was you?”

  “You are fairly intelligent. For an American.”

  Jake shook his head, certain he must be missing something. “You murdered three American diplomats just to lure my daughter to Paris? Why in God’s name would you do that?”

  “Do not forget about the three security guards I also put down. I worked hard to gain access to the embassy compound, the least you can do is give me credit for a job well done.”

  Jake felt his eyes widen in horror. “You’re…”

  The Russian smiled. “Brilliant?”

  “I was going to say insane.”

  The man shrugged, utterly unaffected by Jake’s words.

  Jake tried again. “Why? Why would you kill all those people?”

  “To be certain your little girl was out of the way so I could do…this…without having to be concerned about the possibility of interruption.”

  “But you haven’t harmed her.”

  “Oh, no. I have not harmed her. Not yet. I want her to suffer as much as humanly possible before I kill her. And what better way to hurt a young woman than to torture and kill her daddy?”

  Jake heard the reference to torture but it barely registered. All he could think about was Tracie’s welfare. “I’m going to ask you again: how do you know her name? The CIA would never divulge that information.”

  This time the Russian actually laughed. It was a hearty guffaw, the sound of a man who thoroughly enjoyed the joke he’d just heard. “One can always access the information one needs as long as one knows where to look and whom to bribe.”

  “What did she ever do to deserve all this?”

  The Russian’s voice turned hard and cold again. “She destroyed my life. Took away my career and my dignity. She humiliated me. And she will pay for doing so.”

  “You’re afraid of her.” The realization came to Jake out of nowhere, and he was instantly certain he was right. Even in the midst of fear for his own welfare, he was filled with pride for his only child.

  The Russian scoffed. “Hardly.”

  “She’s going to kill you, you know.”

  Without warning the man snapped. He’d been holding the gun in his right hand and now he swung it at Jake’s head, pivoting his wrist at the last moment and clubbing him with its butt. Jake felt a gash open and blood begin to flow, warm and wet.

  Then the lights went out.

  When he awoke, it was to an intense pain, the likes of which he had never before experienced.

  He wished he could drop back into unconsciousness.

  He did not.

  18

  May 18, 1988

  6:00 a.m.

  Hôtel de Crillon, Paris

  Someone was shooting at Tracie. The darkness was impenetrable, making it impossible to tell from which direction the shots were coming, but the steady thump-thump-thump of semi-automatic weapons fire was impossible to mistake.

  And she had no idea where she was.

  She thrashed in the dark, reaching for her weapon to return fire, but the back of her hand struck something heavy and metallic, and she flashed awake just as the antique alarm clock supplied by the Hôtel de Crillon dropped to the floor with a teeth-rattling crash. It smashed into dozens of pieces.

  She was instantly wide-awake.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  The Hôtel de Crillon.

  She was in Paris thanks to her failed mission to flush out Piotr Speransky, but would be leaving for Rome in…she looked for the clock before remembering she’d just smashed it. Then she checked her watch. It was six a.m. Paris time.

  Thump-thump-thump.

  Someone was pounding on her door, likely awakening the guests inside every room along this section of corridor. And whoever was doing the pounding was insistent. He or she continued to rap on the door with the steady insistence of a metronome.

  Tracie threw her covers to the side and slipped out of bed, shrugging on a robe and grabbing her weapon, which was on the bedside table exactly where she’d left it. If her hand had thrashed a few inches to the left, she would have knocked it to the floor and not the clock.

  She hurried to the door and pressed her eye to the peephole. She half expected to see Piotr Speransky on the other side, armed and angry and bent on vengeance, although why he would ignore her for three days while she paraded around in front of the American Embassy like an idiot, only to confront her inside a hotel filled with potential witnesses she couldn’t imagine.

  But it wasn’t Piotr Speransky.

  It was the young Marine Corps Embassy Security Group guard who had accompanied Deputy Chief of Mission Henry Gatlin to her room yesterday. He had entered the room briefly and then stood sentry in the hallway during her meeting with Gatlin.

  Now he was just on the other side of the door, banging incessantly, showing no interest in giving up and going away.

  Tracie slipped her gun hand behind her back and reached for the doorknob. There was no reason to believe the young man was anything other than what he appeared to be—an American soldier carrying out an order to the best of his abilities—but there was no reason to take unnecessary chances, either.

  She eased the door open an inch or two, bracing it with her bare foot in the event the man attempted to bull his way inside. It wouldn’t prevent him from entering, but should give her time to remove her gun hand from behind her back and make him regret his decision.

  “What is it?” she said quietly. There was no reason to ask if he had any idea what time it was, or if he knew he might be waking up other guests. He was here because Gatlin, or someone else at the embassy, had sent him.

  “I have a message from Director Stallings, ma’am.”

  Tracie blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “Chief Gatlin asked me to pass along a message from Director Stallings. He said it was of the utmost importance, and that I was not to return to the embassy until I had relayed it.”

  Tracie stepped back and opened the door fully. “Please, come in.” she said. She had turned off and stored her secure satellite phone after speaking with Stallings last night, so he would have been unable to reach her directly. If he’d found it necessary to use Gatlin as a go-between, whatever message was about to be passed should probably not be passed in a public hallway.

  The soldier stepped inside and eased the door closed behind him. If he felt awkward in the presence of a beautiful, half-dressed young woman he didn’t show it. He looked her straight in the eyes and started speaking. “Director Stallings has instructed me to drive you to the airport immediately. The agency jet is waiting, and he wants you on it as soon as possible.”

  Tracie blinked in surprise. “That doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I talked to Stallings last night and he told me to buy a ticket for this morning on a commercial flight to Rome. Why would he tell me that and then send the Gulfstream for me? For that matter, why would he fly me on the company plane, anyway?”

  The soldier shook his head. It was an abbreviated little movement and he never took his eyes off hers. “I can’t answer that, ma’am. I’m just following orders. I do know the call came just a few hours ago, and Chief Gatlin conveyed to me that this was a matter of the utmost importance.”

  A few hours ago? There was a six-hour time difference bet
ween D.C. and Paris, so a few hours ago for Stallings would have been shortly after they spoke via secure satellite phone. Tracie’s mind was whirring as she tried to consider the possibilities. What the hell had changed in the short time since she had talked to Stallings herself?

  One thing was certain. If this Marine had been tasked with taking her to the airport, he wasn’t about to stop until he accomplished his mission. The only way she could change his mind would be by force, and without additional information she couldn’t justify disabling an American soldier who was just trying to do his job.

  “I’ll need a few minutes to get dressed and get my things together,” she said.

  “I understand, ma’am. I’ll be in the hallway when you’re ready.” He opened the door and stepped through it, and she waited until he had closed it completely before moving toward her dresser.

  ***

  She had exaggerated the time she would need to prepare. A career in covert ops had taught her to be ready to move anywhere, at any time, at a moment’s notice.

  But she wanted a few minutes to think, to consider what this new development might mean. Why would Stallings have changed the plan so dramatically, and so soon after speaking with Tracie?

  She threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and tossed the rest of her things into her go bag, acting almost completely by rote. Her mind was elsewhere.

  The obvious next step would be to haul out her secure satellite phone and call Stallings herself before ever leaving her hotel room. Let the embassy security guard cool his heels in the hallway while verifying the information he’d passed along.

  But having the director of the Central Intelligence Agency as a handler complicated matters immensely. Mission briefings and debriefings were conducted not at Langley in a meeting room filled with analysts and agency experts, but rather they took place after hours, inside Stallings’ own home. With very rare exceptions, their meetings consisted of just two people: Tracie and Stallings.

  The arrangement afforded the CIA director the plausible deniability he required should things go sideways on a mission, but the opposite was the case for Tracie: even more so than other covert ops specialists, she was often truly on her own. It was a high-wire act that worked for her, because she’d always been a loner, always preferred working solo to having to worry about one or more partners.