* * *
Garrett sat in the rear of the cab and waited for Kitten to make her appearance. The subway ride to the Bastille had been crowded that morning since they had traveled during rush hour. He looked at his watch, which read a little after nine A.M.. “She should be here any minute,” he thought as he waited. Kit was supposed to wait in the subway tunnels fifteen minutes, giving Garrett time to get a cab and into position. They couldn’t be sure, but her contact may show up with a car, and if he did, Garrett needed to be prepared to follow. If, on the other hand, they left on foot, Garrett would thank the cab driver, hand him a generous tip, and follow on foot.
Suddenly, Garrett sat up and his senses became alert when he spotted Kit approaching the Bastille. She walked up to the memorial and started reading the names engraved in the monument. To an observer, she appeared to be just another tourist. Garrett scanned the area looking for any sign of her contact.
“Sir, there is a large sedan coming down the street behind us,” Garrett’s driver announced. He had asked the driver to watch the mirrors for him. He casually picked up the paper that had been laying in his lap and pretended to read it. To the casual observer, it appeared that Garrett was waiting for someone who was in the adjacent food market.
The sedan passed the taxi and Garrett looked over his paper, attempting to glance through its rear window. However, the glass had a dark film on it and he couldn’t see in. The sedan pulled up to the curb near Kit. The rear door opened and a tall brunette got out Garrett watched as she approached Kit. The two women spoke momentarily, turned and walked back towards the waiting car. Kit tucked her hair behind her right ear, signaling Garrett that everything was on. Garrett tapped the driver on the shoulder.
“That’s the car I want to follow,” he said with urgency in his voice. The driver grunted and put the car into drive. He probably thought that Garrett was a jealous lover, and Garrett was inclined to let him believe just that. The sedan pulled out and headed south. The taxi pulled out and followed. The two occupants of the taxi made their way through several neighborhoods, never quite losing track of their target.
“This driver is good,” Garrett thought of the taxi driver. He guessed that the cabby had done this numerous times before. Ten minutes later, they came to some major thoroughfares where the traffic started getting heavy. Kit’s sedan approached an intersection just as the light turned red. Her car slowed and traffic stacked up behind them. Garrett was about eight cars behind. He noticed another empty cab pull beside him. Without hesitation he threw a hundred-dollar bill at his driver and thanked him. Garrett grabbed his bag and jumped out of his taxi and into the adjacent cab. The startled driver of the second car was about to yell at Garrett when another hundred-dollar bill left his hand and landed in the driver’s lap.
“See that sedan at the light in the next lane?” he asked.
“Oui,” the driver answered.
“Follow him without getting caught and there’ll be another hundred for you,” Garrett offered.
He had deduced that the driver of the sedan would be watching for anyone tailing them. If he looked into his rear-view mirror and saw two different cabs behind him at different times, it wouldn’t raise any suspicions. The two cars drove on for another twenty minutes, and into a warehouse district. The sedan turned left down a narrow street.
“Pull over here and wait,” Garrett told his driver. He got out of the cab and walked to the corner. He stopped at the end of the building and got down on one knee. He peeked around the corner just in time to see the sedan take the next right. Garrett stood and ran back to the cab.
“Do you know this area well?” he asked the driver.
“Oui. I do,” the driver replied, “I used to work down here.”
“They turned right at the next street. Where does it lead?” Garrett inquired.
“Nowhere,” the cab driver answered, “It loops around and comes out another block further down the street,” he said pointing straight ahead.
Garrett was panicked. Had they seen the tail and made him? He had to think quickly. Jumping back into the cab he yelled, “Turn around and drive to the next block.” The driver did a U-turn and started driving as he had been told. “Pull over behind that delivery truck and park,” Garrett ordered, pointing straight ahead.
The driver did as Garrett instructed. They were facing the opposite direction now and about a block and a half from where the sedan had first turned. Almost as soon as they came to a stop, the sedan appeared on the street behind them and started heading their way. Garrett scooted to the curbside of the back seat, trying to make himself less visible. Just before the sedan got to the cab, it turned left and headed back the way it had come. Now Garrett had a decision to make. Had they dropped Kitten off or were they trying to make sure they weren’t being followed?
“Follow the car!” Garrett barked, having made his decision.
The driver pulled another U-turn and turned right onto the same street, falling in behind the sedan. The other car was almost two blocks ahead, now. Luckily for Garrett there were several cars between them, reducing the chances of being spotted. After a few miles, it became apparent to Garrett that the sedan was doubling back on its original route.
He made another decision and addressed the driver. “Get in closer and get ready to let me off at a corner,” he commanded.
Garrett continued giving instructions as the driver pulled in closer to the sedan. The two men watched the car and the traffic signals closely.
“This is it,” Garrett announced. When they got to the next corner, the driver pulled over. Garrett handed the driver five one hundred-dollar bills, grabbed his bag and exited the taxi. The cab pulled away and Garrett continued walking in the same direction they had been heading, all the time keeping his eye on both cars. The sedan slowed and came to a stop as the traffic signal turned red. The cab driver accelerated around another car and pulled into the lane behind the sedan. Hitting his brakes hard he came to a stop, but not before he tapped the rear bumper of the idle sedan. The cabby got out and approached the driver’s window, asking him to roll it down. Garrett waited as the cabby asked the sedan driver if everything was OK. He nodded, waved, and returned to his car, tapping the roof with the palm of his hand as he got back in the taxi.
“So, the car is empty,” Garrett thought. The tap on the roof had been the signal that he and the driver had agreed on to indicate and empty car. Garrett stopped, turned around and walked back to the street corner he had just come from. He waited a few minutes as the cab circled around the block to pick him up. “So, they too got out in the warehouse district,” he said out loud. A few minutes later, the driver dropped Garrett off back in the warehouse district. He thanked the driver, tipping him another hundred. As the taxi pulled away, Garrett started to survey the area, noting a number of workers taking a break. His attire was similar enough to the laborers that he did not stand out. There were two blocks of warehouse space to cover before Simon showed up, so he didn’t hesitate.
Garrett started down the street, opposite the direction the sedan driver had taken.
By the time he reached the side street and turned left, all of his senses were on high alert. Garrett knew he couldn’t take the chance of being seen. Both his and Kit’s lives depended on it. He pulled the collar up on his jacket and put on his sunglasses. Looking around, he slung the bag over his shoulder, and proceeded down the street. As Garrett made his way from warehouse to warehouse, he scanned the sidewalk before him. He had almost made it to the end of the block when he spotted what he had been looking for. Lying on the sidewalk before him was a stick of gum, still in its wrapper. Garrett smiled; Kit had come through, again.
He glanced at the warehouse entrance, noting that the building was locked shut. Continuing on his way, he entered the open doors of the adjacent warehouse. Workers were moving cartons and crates out through the open doors and loading them into semi-trail
ers. No one noticed Garrett as he walked all the way to the rear of the warehouse and climbed the stairs to the roof. Closing the hatch behind him, he scanned the roofline of the adjacent warehouse where Kit was waiting. Garrett noted that the roof was flat with a row of eight skylights running down the middle. He saw that there was one roof hatch. His attention shifted to the top row of windows that were four feet below the roof’s surface. Garrett felt good. All in all, there were a lot of ways into the building. He took out his field glasses and looked through some of the windows that had clear panes. Focusing his glasses, he saw that the building appeared to be gorged with goods.
Both buildings were about the same height, so he un-slung his bag and threw it across the gap separating them. Then Garrett walked back several yards from the edge, turned and took a running start for the eight-foot leap between the buildings. He didn’t allow himself to think about the almost four-story plummet to the ground as he pushed off the ledge of the warehouse roof. Garrett sailed across the gap between the buildings and hit the other warehouse roof. When he hit, he rolled, hoping the noise didn’t alert those inside.
Garrett grabbed his bag and walked to the roof hatch. Taking his jacket off, he laid down, his head nearly touching the metal cover. He put the jacket over both his head and the hatch, effectively blocking out any light that would otherwise appear when he opened the cover. Garrett waited a moment while his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Then, slowly, he opened the hatch, revealing a partial view of the interior below.
There appeared to be three levels of flooring, each extending fifteen feet out from the walls around the entire interior perimeter of the building. Cartons were stacked five to eight feet high on the top two levels, while the first level had some unfilled areas. The center of the warehouse, open from floor to roof, was covered with crates.
He couldn’t see any sign of Kit, so Garrett crouched and opened the hatch further, taking care to keep the jacket over the lid as much as possible. His feet found the rungs of the ladder below and he quickly lowered himself into the interior of the building, grabbing his bag as the hatch shut over him. He descended the ladder all the way to the second level. There, he disengaged from the ladder and walked among the cartons to a spot where he could see the warehouse floor below.
“Where is Kit?” he asked himself as he sat and listened. Garrett waited a few moments looking and listening for any sign of her. Moments later his ears were rewarded with the voices of two women. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought one of them was Kit. Garrett quietly made his way through the maze of stacked cartons towards the source of the voices. After a few moments, he could finally hear them clearly. They seemed to be coming from a spot directly below him, on the first level, not the floor level as he had initially assumed. He looked around for any gaps in the concrete floor, but couldn’t find any.
“Have to do it the hard way,” he thought, opening his bag. He grabbed some rope and tied one end off onto a support column and the other end around his waist, making sure he had the proper slack. He was on the edge of the floor, now lying on his belly. Using his legs to stabilize himself, he slowly lowered himself, head first over the edge. It was only a couple of feet, but the blood rushed to his head never the less. He now had a clear shot of the floor below.
Kit was sitting at a table with another woman, deeply engrossed in conversation. Her jacket was off and her bandaged arm exposed. She was alive, so apparently, she had passed the first test. Garrett quickly surveyed the rest of the area and pulled himself back up.
He untied the rope and adjusted the knots. He would be needing it again later. Now came the waiting. Garrett settled in for the rest of the afternoon, preparing for the leader of assassins. He found some boxes to sit against, made himself comfortable, and started formulating his plan.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
Garrett looked down at his arm in the dim light of the warehouse. His watch read just after nine PM and, once again, his legs were getting sore. He got up, stretched, and walked around quietly, trying to work out the stiffness in his body. He had been sitting and waiting all afternoon. It was now well into the evening and still there was no sign of Simon. He had listened to the girls talk quite a bit during the time he had been sitting there. The conversation had been interrupted by extended periods of silence when it appeared, they had exhausted all conversation. At around seven, he had nearly sprung into action when he heard the door to the warehouse open. However, it had just been the driver returning with their dinner. The aroma from the food had quickly made Garrett realize he hadn’t eaten a decent meal for a couple of days. While the women ate their quasi gourmet meal, he had to settle for a high-energy chocolate bar.
Thinking back to his days with the agency, Garrett remembered that the waiting had always been the worst part of the work. His training had included exercises to keep his mind sharp and techniques in fending off sleep. He had a pretty good idea of how he would handle things tonight, but too many unknowns made any detailed planning impossible. Garrett would have to handle events the best he knew how, by instinct.
The beeping of a horn, snapped Garrett to attention. The car had returned and someone, probably Simon’s right-hand man, was opening one of the large doors to allow its entrance. Garrett grabbed the machine pistols and, using the noise of the car to mask the sound, chambered a round into each. He stood and moved into the shadows behind some boxes. Garrett cautiously peered over the edge. As the dark sedan rolled to a stop, a man wearing a dark duster closed the large door to the warehouse. Then Garrett watched Kit and her team leader walk out to meet the occupants of the car. The driver turned the engine off and exited the vehicle, walking around to the rear passenger door. Garrett’s mouth was dry and his adrenaline was pumping. The driver opened the car door and he watched as Simon got out of the vehicle.
Salutations were exchanged below. Then the group made their way towards the stairs that led to the landing where Kit and her partner had spent the better part of the day. Garrett listened as they walked up the stairs and settled around a table right below him. Simon was the first to speak.
“Isabel told me what happened,” he began in English, “but I want to hear it from you. I need every detail, no matter how insignificant.” His icy voice echoed in the nighttime stillness of the warehouse.
Kit responded to Simon’s inquiry.
“Right after you left, about a half hour, Nat and I were upstairs picking up broken glass from the window and that wino’s bottle. All of the sudden we heard two silenced shots and a thud. Then we heard Jerome come running into the hall from the kitchen. There were more shots and a crash. We didn’t know if it was the authorities on a raid or who it was.
Nat grabbed me and we hid in the closet and waited, I don’t know, ten, maybe fifteen minutes. We couldn’t hear anything, so we left the closet and started looking around. No one was in the front bedroom or the upstairs hall, so we started back to your bedroom. When we got to the doorway, we couldn’t see anyone, so I checked out your bath, while Nat looked under your bed. Nat was standing there when I came out of the bath.
All of the sudden, this guy was standing in your door, this wild look in his eyes. It was strange. He was so quiet, like a ghost or something. Before we could do anything, he shot Nat. I got a shot off and he dove for the bed. I ran out the door and flipped over the rail. That’s when he shot me. I could hear him screaming, “Where’s Simon?” repeatedly, but I was on the run. I got out the back and kept running. A couple of hours later I called Isabel.
When Kit had finished, she added, “That’s it.”
The silence in the warehouse was deafening. Garrett assumed that Simon was digesting what he had just been told.
“Something’s not right,” the killer said. “We change that door code every day and only three people knew the code; myself, Jerome, and Natille, and they’re dead.”
More silence.
Suddenly Simon sp
oke again. “That wino wasn’t a wino. Damn! He threw that bottle to draw us outside. He got the code when they came back in.”
Garrett heard someone get up and start pacing.
“You only saw one person?” Simon asked Kit.
“Only one,” Kit replied.
“Did he say anything, anything at all?” Simon continued.
“Only ‘where’s Simon?’” Kit answered.
“Nothing else at all? Think, think hard,” Simon pressed.
“No Simon, nothing,” Kit protested.
Simon’s right-hand man spoke up.
“You didn’t hear anything about an attack or strike or anything about the millennium mentioned?” he asked.
“Shut up you fool!” It was Simon.
“I didn’t hear anything, except ‘where’s Simon?’” Kit repeated.
Garrett, straining to decipher the echoing words, thought to himself, “millennium attack or strike?”
“We’re going to have to move.” It was Simon again.
“Where are we going?” Kit asked.
“ ‘We’ aren’t going anywhere, thanks to Eric here,” Simon said referring to his right-hand man. “I don’t know you that well, and thanks to his big mouth, you know more than you should,” he said addressing Kit. He went on, “I hate losing such a good asset, but for what it’s worth, I promise to take it up with Eric later.”
Garrett recoiled internally at the callousness of this man. They were going to kill Kit and only because his associate had uttered three words. Three words she wasn’t meant to hear. Not stopping to think, Garrett tested the rope around his waist. With his back to the atrium below, he leaned backwards over the edge. He bent his legs and sprang back releasing the slack in the rope with one hand while leveling one of the machine pistols in his other.
Garrett swooped down into the meeting area, like an owl attacking its prey in the cover of darkness. He started firing his weapon, the noise shredding the stillness of the warehouse. The first to drop was Eric, who had his weapon leveled on Kit. The driver was next. Simon’s head snapped up, his eyes meeting Garrett’s. A startled look of disbelief betrayed his surprise.
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