SAVE THE QUEEN: AN ALEX HALEE AND JAMIE AUSTEN SPY THRILLER (THE SPY STORIES Book 4)

by Terry Toler

  Two or three hours!

  8

  Iran

  Pok was furious.

  He’d watch the whole debacle play out on screen as Halee and his wife obliterated Niazi’s man. The only thing good about it was that he now knew Halee’s wife was a CIA officer as well. Had to be in order to pull off the moves he’d seen her make. Watching the man have his arms shattered by his arch enemy was unsettling. Even more so because Niazi’s man hadn’t followed the plan.

  “Your man was supposed to come in from behind,” Pok said accusingly to Niazi. “So Halee wouldn’t see him.” Even though he wanted to make his point, he had to be careful. Niazi wasn’t a man to be threatened or disparaged. He was powerful enough to make Pok disappear off the face of the earth if he so chose.

  “That’s what he was going to do. Walk past him. Then turn and attack the first person behind Halee. But you saw what happened. Halee jumped him. My guy was defenseless, two against one.”

  “Well, at least one of our attacks was successful,” Pok said, talking about the one earlier that ended in the death of the woman. “We’ve at least gotten Halee’s attention now. You now know that Halee is not to be underestimated.”

  “I’m not to be underestimated!” Niazi bellowed. “Tomorrow are the acid attacks. Halee will rue the day he attacked one of my men.”

  “Remember, you’re not supposed to kill Halee yet. I need him to complete my plan. Halee needs to live until Sunday.”

  “What about the girl? The one with Halee.”

  Pok paused for a moment to think about the ramifications of attacking Halee’s wife. He didn’t see a downside. Seeing her face splashed with acid, would bring almost as much satisfaction as seeing Halee killed. Niazi had shown Pok pictures of what acid will do to a person’s face. The skin was literally peeled off and the person was permanently disfigured if they even survived it.

  “Do whatever you want to her,” Pok said. “I don’t care. Take her out tomorrow if you want.”

  I wouldn’t want to be that girl.

  ***

  Thames House

  MI5 Headquarters

  Westminster, England

  Weaver had kept us waiting for more than two hours. He’d said we’d be out of there in two to three hours.

  I wasn’t sure what our rights were. Could we walk out if they weren’t going to charge us with a crime? In America, they couldn’t detain you without a reason. Everything I did was in self-defense. Surely, there was no reason for them to treat us this way.

  Jamie had her head on the table resting on her folded arms. She was fading fast.

  I felt great. Curly was right. All I needed to get out of my funk was to maim a bad guy. The residue from the morning event had been replaced by the afternoon’s confrontation. The emotional complexity of what we did for a living was difficult to explain. Perhaps it was the only way we could keep our sanity. Which sounded strange. Killing or hurting another person, a bad guy, was the way to get over seeing an innocent victim die. Most people wouldn’t understand. I wasn’t even sure I understood it. Facing people who want to kill you over and over again, unless you kill them first, wasn’t something the average person could comprehend.

  Video games and action movies tried to simulate the feelings, but they couldn’t. Having a man swing a knife at you, and then live to tell about it, left a person with emotions that could never be duplicated without the real danger involved. That’s why more than ninety percent of the people in Curly’s training program washed out in the first month. Only half of the rest made it to the end. Very few lasted more than a few years in the field.

  Curly said Jamie and I were the best of the best. Two of only a dozen who had “it.” “What is “it”?” I had asked him.

  “I don’t know,” he replied. “It’s like a good woman in bed. You don’t know what makes her good. She just is.”

  I heard footsteps in the hall for the hundredth time. Each time before, they always passed by, and no one came into the room. I’d memorized how many steps before they would fade away to the other end of the hall, and I couldn’t hear them anymore. That’s how bored I was.

  This time, the footsteps stopped right in front of our door. I could hear breathing on the other side.

  Weaver walked in. Jamie lifted her head up from the table. Her eyes were sagging, and she rubbed them roughly to try and wake up.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” he said. “I had trouble getting all the security footage together.”

  “If you have the security footage, why do you need us?” I asked. “You can see what happened.”

  “I can see it, but I don’t understand it. Perhaps you can shed some light on it.”

  “What’s not to understand? Two people with a knife. From news reports it seems like it’s happening more and more frequently in London.”

  “Is it possible you two were the target?” he asked.

  “No!” we both said in unison.

  “How do you know for sure? It’s a pretty big coincidence that the two of you were in direct proximity to both attacks. I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  We didn’t either. Curly drilled in us that there were no such thing as coincidences. In the two hours we’d been sitting there, I’d been racking my brain trying to make a connection between us and the two Muslim attackers. I even tried to connect them to the weird occurrences surrounding our wedding. Nothing came to mind that made sense.

  I even wondered if somehow Pok was involved.

  “If we were the target, why didn’t the knifer attack us?” I asked what I thought was the obvious question. “Why did he attack someone next to us?”

  “I don’t know. You’re right. It doesn’t make sense.”

  “We don’t even know that the second guy was going to attack someone near us,” Jamie said groggily.

  “She’s right. I saw the guy from a distance and confronted him. He didn’t pull the knife until he saw me coming. If I hadn’t come after him, maybe he would’ve kept on walking. So really, the second attack is not like the first one. The first one was a random act of violence. We just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of the first one, I overreacted to the second guy.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Weaver said almost to himself. “I want to show you some footage from our security cameras.”

  I hoped it wasn’t of the woman getting killed on the subway platform. Those images were starting to fade. Seeing them again might cause all the emotions to come flooding back. According to Curly’s theory, they might be there until the next fight. Who knew when that would be?

  At least now I knew how to get rid of them. Put myself in another dangerous situation. If I had to, I’d go to a bar and start a fight. Or go to a bad area of town and put a sign on my shirt saying, “Please attack me.” My thoughts were amusing me. I tried not to let it show on my face.

  Not only that, I had a gun now. I’d hidden it outside the MI5 headquarters in some bushes. A gunfight might be just what the doctor ordered. The psychiatrist ordered as it were.

  I’m so weird.

  It took all of my energy to keep from smiling. Given the solemnity of the footage we were about to watch, I didn’t think that was a good look for Inspector Weaver to see. Was he an agent or inspector? I wasn’t sure.

  Weaver brought a laptop in with him. He turned it so it faced us. Then stood to the side. A laptop was another thing that helped my mental well-being. I could immerse myself for hours into hacking into a highly secure website. That made me oblivious to everything else around me. Including my feelings. Probably a better cure for my malaise than a gunfight.

  Fortunately, the footage was from the London airport. Where we first boarded the Tube. I turned my focus on the footage. The man who killed the woman was on the subway platform. Weaver was narrating as the video rolled.

  “That’s the man,” Jamie said pointing to the computer screen.

  “Yes, it is,” Weaver confirmed. “That’s our assailant. Not
ice a train comes, and he doesn’t get on.”

  “Is that train going to central London?” I asked to get a sense of where I thought he was heading with this line of thought.

  “No. But the next one is. Watch this.”

  We watched another train stop at the platform. And leave. The man made no move to board. He was nervously pacing back and forth on the platform. Several more trains came and went.

  The video skips ahead. I see us enter the platform and walk toward the car. The woman and child were not in the footage. I seemed to remember that they were already on the subway when we boarded.

  Suspicious guy followed us on.

  Weaver asked, “Why did he skip the one train to central London and wait to get on the same one as you?”

  “Maybe he was trying to build up the courage,” I said. “He seemed nervous to me.”

  Jamie wasn’t speaking up and adding something to the conversation which surprised me. She must’ve been really tired. When it came to missions, the operational aspect was what she loved the most. If she could, she’d watch footage of both attacks and analyze them ad nauseum. Her way of getting better. Learning from them. Evaluating what she could’ve done better.

  When I was in college, I played quarterback for Stanford University. Our team lost the National Championship game to Alabama on a last second touchdown. I’ve never seen a replay of the game, even though it was my best game as a collegian. For me, the past was the past, and I didn’t want to relive it.

  “That would make sense,” Weaver said. “But watch this.”

  He rewound the footage. Then hit play. Then froze it.

  “Look at his face,” Weaver said. “His demeanor changed when he saw you.”

  I had to admit that I saw the man’s eyes widen, and his whole body tense up. Something I wasn’t going to admit to Weaver. There was something else on the tape that Weaver hadn’t noticed. My demeanor changed as well, as soon as I saw the man. I hadn’t realized it at the time. Looking back at the tape, I could see my reaction. I knew immediately that the man was a threat.

  Guilt came rolling into me like a flood. The whole thing was my fault. If I’d been on a mission, I’d have acted on my recognition of the potential danger. It’s instinctive in us to always be alert. Curly drilled that in us. We were to always be on the lookout for threats to our mission. Every day, even at home, I took precautions. Sat with my back to the wall at a restaurant. So that no one could sneak up on me. I’m always aware of my surroundings. Looking for anything suspicious. It’s second nature to me. Sometimes I don’t even know I’m doing it.

  In this instance, I was clearly distracted. Being on my honeymoon was the only excuse I could think of. That and looking forward to getting back to the hotel and being alone with my wife which only made me feel guiltier.

  Clearly, I saw the man when we boarded. I knew he was bad news and ignored it. Something I’d have to live with. Even if it was in my subconscious.

  “Can you explain that?” Weaver asked, shaking me back into reality as I suddenly realized I hadn’t responded the first time he pointed it out.

  “The guy was looking for someone to attack,” Jamie answered. “He probably saw me and thought I might be a potential victim. Once he got on the train and saw that I was with my husband, he thought better of it and went after the easier target. The woman with a small child. It makes perfect sense to me.”

  Weaver closed the laptop. His mouth twisted to the side and his eyebrows furrowed like he was considering Jamie’s analysis of the situation. The guy was targeting us. I’d felt it on the subway at the time, I suddenly remembered. While I wouldn’t admit to Weaver, it had sent my mind scurrying in all different directions, trying to process the why and how.

  How did the man know we were in London?

  Who sent him?

  Why didn’t he attack me if I was the target?

  Weaver’s next question jolted me to the core of my being. “Are you with the CIA?” he asked.

  “No!” Jamie and I both answered again in unison.

  The truth.

  Technically, we were no longer with the CIA. Brad fired us the day before our wedding. Now we worked for AJAX. I wouldn’t even know how to describe our relationship with the CIA now. I made a mental note to ask Brad. What do we say if we’re asked? The day he fired us, Brad said the CIA would deny even knowing us if we got in a jam. I assumed that was the case if Weaver called them now. Maybe he already had.

  “Are you on a mission?” Weaver asked accusingly. “If so, you’re supposed to check in with MI6 first. You need their permission before you operate on British soil.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We’re just a couple on our honeymoon,” I said.

  “And can we go now?” Jamie asked in her most whiny voice. “I haven’t slept in two days. I’m exhausted.”

  “Yes, you can go. But… be warned,” Weaver said sternly. “If I find out you’re on a mission and you’re lying to me, I’ll arrest you on the spot. Then your honeymoon will be ruined. That’s if you’re even married. That might all be a ruse.”

  I wanted to make a joke about the fact that it had yet to feel like a honeymoon. But I bit my lip to keep from smiling. Jamie wouldn’t have been amused either.

  Weaver escorted us out of the building. “I’m watching you,” he said as we left.

  “I’m sure you have better things to do than watch us,” I retorted. “We’re extremely boring people. Tomorrow, we’re going sightseeing. I can assure you, sir, that following us is a waste of your time and resources. Go catch the man who killed that woman.”

  That seemed to satisfy him, and he walked away. I made a mental note to watch for tails tomorrow. Tonight, I was too tired to bother.

  “What do you think about all that?” Jamie asked as she let out another yawn.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think Pok could be behind it?”

  “I was thinking that might be a possibility.”

  But how?

  9

  By the time Jamie and I got back to our hotel shortly after ten o’clock, I’d convinced myself that Pok wasn’t involved with all the weirdness surrounding our wedding or the terrorist attacks in London.

  Jamie wasn’t so sure.

  “Pok’s a hacker,” I argued. “He’s not an operator. He doesn’t have the capability of coordinating terrorist attacks in the field. Besides, the attackers are middle-eastern.”

  “That’s true, Alex,” she said. “But isn’t Pok in Iran?”

  “I think so. But how would he know we’re in London?”

  “You can’t underestimate Pok. How do you know he’s in Iran? A good hacker can find anyone these days. Cell phone records. Travel records. Even social media pages. I bet you could find anyone if you searched long enough for them.”

  “How would he know we were at Kensington Palace?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jamie said, her eyes furrowed as she was deep in thought. “He couldn’t possibly know. Unless he had someone tailing us.”

  “I haven’t sensed any tails. Not that I’ve been looking for one.”

  “Me neither.”

  Tails were something we were trained to spot even if we weren’t looking for one. Most countries weren’t good at it. Iranian tails were laughable in their incompetence to carry one out. North Korea didn’t conduct spy operations outside their region. Those two facts ruled out Pok. He didn’t have access to any other spy agencies.

  Russians were better trained but could generally be spotted with some evasive maneuvers. We could rule them out. They didn’t carry out these types of terrorist attacks. While they wouldn’t be opposed to helping Pok under the right circumstances, they wouldn’t waste their time on something as small as a couple of knife attacks.

  Mossad agents were the best. The Israeli had the techniques down to a science. They could be detected, but it could take hours of evasion before you could discover them. Of course, they weren’t involved. T
hey were on our side.

  We could rule out being followed.

  “Not only that, but the tail would have to know we were coming to London to intercept us at the airport. How could they know?”

  Our passports and travel plans were under the names Alex and Jamie Steele. We never traveled under our real names, even if the trip was personal. In this instance, keeping the first names made sense, just to make it easier for us to remember. We only came up with the last name a couple of weeks ago and had never traveled under those names before. No one could possibly have known about our plans to come to London.

  That ruled out the first guy having a connection to us.

  “The second guy has me baffled,” I said to Jamie. “Curly always said there’s no such thing as a coincidence.”

  “While I don’t believe in coincidences as a general rule, they do happen,” Jamie retorted. “But we don’t know that the second guy was targeting us. Or anyone else for that matter. You moved on him before he could show his hand, so to speak.”

  “He was up to something,” I said. “I could see it in his eyes. Same as the first guy. I didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. I couldn’t live with myself if I let another woman die right in front of us.”

  “You did the right thing. He had a knife. But… that’s not what I’m saying. How many middle easterners are there in London?”

  “Thousands. Probably tens of thousands.”

  “Exactly. How many of them are trained terrorists?”

  “Probably thousands. What’s your point?”

  “The point is that the odds are pretty high that we’d run into one on the street. Given our training, we’d spot them in a second. After what happened on the subway platform, you were probably scrutinizing every middle eastern guy you saw. That man might’ve just been walking somewhere. The odds are he had nothing to do with us.”

  “First guy was definitely planning something.”

  “No doubt. And he carried it out. We both sensed it on the train. But that doesn’t mean he was targeting us.”

  The conversation was going nowhere. We were both too tired to be thinking clearly. And we had other things on our minds. At least I did.