Millenium Strike

by Christopher Cole

  “You!” he exclaimed.

  Garrett continued to fire his weapon.

  His look of disbelief changed to one of pain as the bullets from Garrett’s pistol tore into the flesh of Simon’s legs.

  Kit used that moment of confusion to grab her own weapon, leveling it at her team leader, who froze at the site of the gun.

  Garrett’s feet touched the floor of the room just as Simon collapsed from his injuries. Garrett grabbed his knife from his vest and cut the rope, releasing the tension and slid onto his back. He jumped to his feet and leveled his weapon on Simon who was reaching under his jacket for his own gun.

  “Simon!” Garrett yelled; his weapon trained on the killer.

  Simon looked up at Garrett, but kept going for his weapon. He jerked twice as two more rounds escaped Garrett’s gun. This time the wounds were in Simon’s abdomen and his hands went to the source of the pain, momentarily forgetting about their search under the jacket.

  Garrett glanced over at Kit as he stepped towards Simon. She had her ex-team leader lying face down on the floor, hands behind her head. Seeing she was in control; he returned his attention to Simon. Garrett stood over him now, staring with hatred at the man who had killed his lover and best friend. He reached inside Simon’s jacket and withdrew the weapon, tossing it aside. The assassin was writhing in pain, and coughing up blood. Garrett knew he was looking at a dead man. It was just a matter of time now.

  “Garrett. Garrett don’t kill him. Not yet.” It was Kit. “We have to find out who he’s been working with.”

  “I’m not going to finish him. He deserves to die slow,” Garrett mumbled.

  “Garrett!”

  He looked up at Kit, a pleading look on her face.

  “We have him. Find out what he knows before he dies. Please!” she pleaded.

  Garrett nodded slowly and knelt down, straddling Simon. He put his face close to the assassin’s.

  “You know you’re going to die,” Garrett whispered.

  ‘The killer’s blue eyes just stared back at Garrett.

  He went on, “Tell me who you’re working with.”

  Simon spat blood in Garrett’s face, “Fuck you!”

  Garrett almost lost control but restrained himself. He wiped his face off and stuck his thumb into one of the killer’s wounds. Simon let out an involuntary scream of pain. Again, he addressed the assassin.

  “Who’s your client Simon?”

  The older man just looked up at him, steadfastly defiant of Garrett’s inquiries. Realizing the man was a professional and wouldn’t succumb to such interrogations, Garret switched tactics.

  “Simon, you came to me once and told me you loved your daughter. Do you remember?” he asked the dying man.

  Simon’s eyes widened a little. He nodded.

  Garrett continued, “For her sake, make the last thing you do in this life the right thing.”

  Simon reached up and grabbed Garrett’s arm. He noted that the older man’s grip was very weak. There wasn’t much time left.

  “Don’t you hurt her. She must never know,” he whispered.

  “She won’t. I promise. We’ll see that she’s taken care of.” Garrett replied. “Now tell me who you’re working with.”

  Simon’s eyes fluttered, “Chinese,” was all he could manage to say as he drifted toward unconsciousness.

  Garrett shook the dying man. “Simon. Simon.”

  The assassin opened his eyes again.

  “You said something about the Chinese.. Give us a name. We need a name,” he urged.

  Simon tried to talk but all that came out was a gurgling sound. Garrett leaned closer, “A name Simon, give us a name.”

  “General…..general Li Pin,” he choked.

  “General Li Pin?” Garrett repeated.

  “Yesss…” Simon whispered as the last breath of life left his lungs.

  The older man’s eyes glazed over in death as the rest of his body went limp. Garrett stared down at the man who had been the cause of so much pain for him over this past month and wondered if Simon was looking at him from the hereafter thinking the same thing about him. He stood and looked down at the dead man one last time. Then, turning to Kit he said, “We’d better get her secured and get out of here. No telling if anyone else is going to show.”

  “What are you going to do to me?” the female killer piped up from the floor.

  “Kill you, if you don’t shut up and cooperate,” Garrett responded.

  Evidently, she had seen enough to convince herself he would do just that, because from that moment on, she kept quiet and cooperated fully.

  Garrett cut off a section of his rope and tied her up. They walked toward the stairs and Garrett allowed himself one look back at the men he had just killed. Then the three of them walked down the stairs to the car. Garrett opened the large warehouse door, then got behind the wheel while Kit and the prisoner got into the back. Not a word was spoken by any of them as the sedan sped off into the darkness of night.

  * * *

  They had been driving in complete silence for almost forty minutes. Garrett had no idea where he was going; he just wanted to get as far away from the warehouse as possible. They had passed the fringes of the city and were now out in the countryside. Garrett took a small side road and pulled off into the gated entrance of a farmer’s field. The gate was locked so he stopped and turned the car off.

  “Garrett, what are we doing?” Kit inquired, breaking the silence.

  “We need time to think. Let’s tie her legs and take a walk,” he answered.

  When they had secured their prisoner, they shut the car doors and walked back towards the road. Garrett was the first to speak. “Kit, I may be out of line, but maybe you’d better tell me just what is going on. I just killed a guy who said his client was a Chinese General.”

  Kit took a deep breath and let it out. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, Garrett,” she protested.

  “Look, Kit. I’ve sold my business and, for all intents and purposes, I have disappeared from the face of the earth. I have nothing to go home to, nothing at all, so if you’re in danger, I want to help.”

  “Garrett, you don’t work for the agency anymore. I’m working with Interpol now; you’re not. My people are probably looking for you even as we speak, so my telling you anything could get me into big trouble. Besides that, you have an old habit of screwing up investigations. Remember?”

  Garrett winced at the words.

  “That hurt, coming from you. You know I always succeeded when I was in the field. I may have taken some short cuts, but only when I had to. It’s easy for those desk jockeys to Monday morning quarterback like they’re playing some video game. We’re out here where it’s real, Kit. There’s a little girl out there somewhere who lost her mother a few weeks ago and now her father, thanks to me. But if I hadn’t acted the way I did, there’s no telling how many more would have died by his hand alone. And if the Chinese are involved,” he continued, “I would say that many more lives will be lost if they aren’t stopped. I’m outside of the loop now, Kit. I know that. But I am also not accountable to anyone. Think about that for a moment. Someone with my training and skills, a rogue mad man, at your disposal; expendable if necessary.”

  Kit recoiled at first. Then she thought for a moment. What Garrett was saying did make sense. The ‘rules of engagement’ on their side had been tightened so much over the years that it was laughable. Even though thousands of lives could be saved, it was against the ‘rules’ to kill a foreign leader. Assassinations weren’t allowed. It wasn’t ‘proper’. She looked at Garrett, his eyes boring into hers, and answered. “OK Garrett. But, I’m doing this with great reservation.”

  She then proceeded to inform Garrett of the assassinations and the apparent Soviet connection. She also informed him, that it had been decided that infiltrating the
ring of killers would provide the best chances of discovering the truth. When Kit was finished, Garrett looked over at the car.

  “You know I’m going to have to question her.” Turning back to Kit, he added, “She knows you play by rules and that I don’t. Once she starts getting debriefed in those comfortable offices of yours, her memory is going to fail. You know that.”

  Kit was repulsed by what Garrett was suggesting, by the thought of his methods. But she knew he was right. She relented.

  “All right, but Garrett, I can’t allow anything cold blooded.”

  Garrett smiled wryly, “Considering what she has witnessed, I don’t think it will come to that, do you?”

  He nodded towards the road, “Take a hike. I want her to think you’ve gone for a while.”

  Garrett watched Kit head for the road to act as a look out. Then he turned and walked back towards the car and the waiting killer. He got into the front and with one fluid motion shut the door and extracted his pistol from his jacket, aiming it at the occupant in the back seat.

  “She’s gone to make a call, so it’s just you and me for a while,” he addressed his prisoner. “We’re going to have a conversation and if I like what I hear, we’ll both be here waiting when she gets back. If I don’t like what I hear, well, ….you get the picture,” he said, eyeing his gun.

  “What do you want?” the assassin started.

  “Clarification on what we heard back at the warehouse. First, what did they mean by an attack or strike and what does it have to do with the millennium?” he asked.

  “I don’t know”, she replied.

  Garrett stared at her for a moment.

  “Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” he threatened, “I don’t work for anyone; therefore, I don’t have any rules. I’m a man of action and I don’t like these games, so tell me what those words mean.”

  The assassin assessed Garrett one more time, realizing that she was dealing with someone who, like her played by no rules.

  “I only know that it refers to something the Chinese are planning. Simon kept everything compartmentalized, so you see, I don’t know any of the details. Really,” she added.

  “Why were they using you instead of their own people?” Garrett pressed.

  “I guess they were afraid that some of their own people were double agents. Simon’s organization has, or had,” she corrected herself, “an impeccable reputation for discretion.”

  Garrett paused for a moment.

  “Do you know this general he spoke of?”

  “Only by name,” she answered.

  “Do you know how to contact him?” Garrett pressed.

  The assassin hesitated, “Simon and his right hand always took care of the contacts. We just took assignments and reported back on our progress.”

  Garrett pulled the hammer back on the pistol staring into her eyes as he did. She had hesitated a little too long with her answer.

  “OK. OK. Just wait a second,” she said with genuine panic in her voice. “There’s this guy, a hi-roller, who hangs in a private casino in Macau. I went with Simon a couple of times when he went to meet with him. I think his name is Wong Hung or something like that.”

  “Macau? Isn’t that near Hong Kong?

  She nodded in affirmation.

  “Which casino? How would I recognize him?” Garrett asked casually. He had her talking just the way he wanted now.

  “The hotel Lis something. He’s always at the baccarat table and wears two pinky rings,” she answered, “That’s all I can remember. It was so tacky.”

  Garrett released the hammer on his pistol.

  “Anything else you want to add? It may work in your favor later,” he suggested.

  The captured assassin rolled her eyes at Garrett, “No that’s all I know. Too bad Simon died so quickly, you may have found out more,” she added.

  Garrett’s eyes narrowed at the challenge. Then he laughed, “You have a pretty smart mouth for someone who’ll be spending the rest of her life in jail.”

  He turned back towards the front of the car, putting his pistol back under his jacket.

  “Stay put,” he said as he left the car and started back towards the road. He laughed to himself as he heard the curses being hurled at him by their prisoner from the back seat of the car. When he found Kit, she turned and looked at him trying to read what he had done. When she saw his face, her shoulders dropped in relief, knowing that he hadn’t gone too far.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “She wasn’t as much help as I thought,” Garrett answered. “Simon was a professional. He had everything compartmentalized like I figured. However, she was able to help with a possible contact in Hong Kong.”

  Garrett proceeded to fill her in on what he had been told.

  “I guess you’d better get her in to your superiors,” he finished.

  “What will you do?” Kit asked, looking intently into Garrett’s eyes.

  He looked at Kit and smiled, “I was hoping that you would be able to help on that front.”

  Kit reached into her pocket. Taking a key from her ring, she tossed it to Garrett. “Don’t wait up, I’m going to be a while.”

  Garrett caught the key and pocketed it.

  “What time is maid service?” he asked playfully.

  Kit kicked at him and laughed. “Just get us back to town so I can get this over with.”

  As they approached the car, they could hear their prisoner still ranting.

  Kit gave Garrett an inquiring look. “Just what did you do to get her so wound up?”

  “Nothing. I was just my usual charming self,” he smirked.

  They opened the car doors.

  “Shut up!” Kit said as she climbed into the back seat with her former team leader.

  Garrett put the car in reverse and headed back the way he came. A few moments later, the lights of Paris and her suburbs appeared on the horizon. They made their way back into the congestion of the city and, after some consultation with pedestrians, found their way back to familiar surroundings. Kitten left the car briefly during one of their consultations and called her office. When she got back in the car, she addressed Garrett, “Just get us close and let me drive the rest of the way in.”

  After she instructed him where to go, Garrett asked, “What do I do?”

  “Disappear. I don’t ever want to see your face again,” she added for the benefit of her prisoner. She needed to put some space between the two of them in the mind of the assassin. Garrett was sure to be the subject of much interest from her superiors, and any cover she could manufacture would make it easier to avoid uncomfortable questions.

  Ten minutes later Garrett stood on the sidewalk and watched as the sedan sped off and disappeared around the corner. Reaching into his pocket, he felt the apartment key, and turned towards the nearest subway entrance. As he disappeared into the bowels of the Metro, the reality of vengeance completed started to take hold and the sorrow he had been repressing for over a week was released. He found a car with no other passengers. Sitting down, he buried is head in his hands and totally let go of his emotions.

  * * *

  Holden was woken, once again, by the ringing of his hotel room phone. As his hand groped for the phone, he noticed the clock read just after three A.M..

  “Frank?”

  “Yea. Who’s this?”

  “It’s Johanne. Sorry I woke you.”

  “That’s OK. I’m getting used to it,” Holden replied.

  “How soon can you get down here?” Johanne asked.

  “What’s up?” Frank inquired.

  “Our agent is coming in. You may want to be here for this. She’s got a prisoner. I’ve got a jet warming up, we’re heading to Paris.”

  “A prisoner? Sure. Yeah, I’ll be there in about a half hour,” Frank replied shaking the co
bwebs from his head.

  He hopped from his bed and threw some clothes on, not worrying much about his appearance. Grabbing a jacket, he ran out the door and to the elevators.

  “What a break,” he thought on his way down to the lobby, “maybe now we can start to make sense of everything.

  A few hours later, their taxi pulled up to the Interpol offices in Paris. Holden noticed a heightened state of alert, as extra security had been posted to patrol the area. When he tried to enter, he had a hard time getting through security until Johanne finally had to come down and escort him up to his offices.

  “Not taking any chances, are you?” Holden asked the Interpol agent in the elevator.

  “Are you kidding? We’ve got bodies spread over three continents and now I’ve got one of those responsible upstairs.”

  “Has he been debriefed yet?” Frank asked.

  “Not he, she. And the answer is no,” Johanne replied. “She’s in lock down, alone in the interrogation room.”

  “She? Frank asked. “I wonder if she paid a visit to a suburban Washington townhouse recently?” he added thinking of his deceased friend, Joel Levine.

  “I don’t know, but you’ll get your chance to ask her,” Johanne offered.

  “Johanne, that’s awfully generous of you,” Holden offered.

  “Easy Frank, you’ll have to wait your turn,” the commander stated.

  The elevator stopped and the three men exited, turning down the hallway towards the main office. Several agents were standing around, their interest directed at a woman sitting on a desk, talking to them with animated movements.

  “Kitten?” Johanne asked.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied as she got off the desk.

  “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

  Johanne made the introductions between the two.

  “I believe you are aquatinted with everyone else here, Frank.”

  “Yes, I am,” he replied, looking at the others. Holden turned back to Kit and addressed her.