It had been six years since her feet had last touched these steps. Not that long in the great scheme of things, but it felt like an eternity.
She’d needed his help back then as well, maybe one of the reasons nothing had ever happened between them. She didn’t like needing people.
At the door, Marika paused before knocking, as if checking the apartment number. She knew it by heart.
Footsteps at the knock, a moment’s pause and then the bolt slid back, the door opening by little more than a crack.
Carter’s face. “Come in, come in.” The analyst beckoned nervously and they both followed him into the apartment.
It was cleaner than she remembered — perhaps men actually learned something as they grew older. The thick venetian blinds were drawn, shutting out the night. “What are we looking at, Ron?”
“The Bureau has been compromised, Marika. At a very high level.” The quality of the laser mic’s audio was impressive, that much Yuri had to admit.
They needed to know how much had been uncovered. There were three targets in the apartment now — each of them glowing bright in the Barrett’s thermal imaging, piercing through the closed blinds. Three targets…and a cat.
“You were right,” the black man went on, his voice strained with tension. “The NRO spy sat was commandeered — by a legitimate FBI user account. Username: SunDancer1350. The account was created from scratch two weeks ago and given full access.”
“Full access?” It was the woman this time. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this joker knew the brand of Haskel’s briefs. Everything. There wasn’t a place on the Bureau’s network that he couldn’t go.”
“Who could have set up an account like that?”
He’d heard everything he needed to know. Yuri’s finger curled around the Barrett’s match trigger, applying pressure…
In cold air, sound travels at an average rate of 1,085 feet per second. The 300-grain slug spat from the Barrett’s muzzle at almost three times that speed. It’s a truism: you never hear the shot that kills you.
Marika would never remember Carter’s answer to her question. She would never forget what happened next. Her first inkling of danger was when something warm and wet sprayed against the back of her neck.
She turned to see Caruso fall, a strangled cry escaping his lips, blood spraying from a ragged hole in his chest. Time itself seemed to slow down, the thunderous report of the shot striking their ears as her partner collapsed, his legs flailing against the faded linoleum of the kitchenette.
“Vic!” She screamed, pushing Carter down and out of the way as a second bullet ripped through the apartment. They fell together by the stove, flattening themselves against the floor.
A third shot came crashing through the window, spraying fragments of glass everywhere. She started to move, but the analyst caught her by the arm. “Stay down!”
None of that mattered. Not now. She shook off his hand, crawling on her hands and knees across the bloodstained linoleum to where Vic lay. He was bleeding profusely, fading in and out of consciousness.
“Come on, Vic,” she whispered, cursing underneath her breath as she ripped off her jacket, pressing it against the wound in an attempt to staunch the flow. It was a futile gesture. “Stay with me, you coward.”
Taunting him, swearing, trying to provoke an angry response. Any response.
Nothing. His head lolled to one side, unseeing eyes staring across the floor. She bent over his lifeless form, his blood soaking her jeans, a helpless anger flowing through her body. “Vic!”
“You think he’ll come alone?” It seemed an innocent enough question, but Harry shook his head.
“Alexei? No, he’ll have back-up — minimum of two, maybe three — the bistro is only a quarter-mile from the consulate. He didn’t pick it for the view.”
Sammy absorbed the information quietly, glancing out the windows of the hotel room. Out to where the sun was setting over the city of angels. A crimson-red orb disappearing into the sea, bathing the waters in blood. “And you trust me enough to back your play?”
“Of course,” Harry replied, shooting a look of surprise at his old friend. It was a lie, but it came easily to his lips.
What made it worse was that Han knew it. The SEAL turned away, examining the fruit basket that had been delivered by the hotel.
Silence, and then the sound of water from the bathroom, a showerhead being turned on. Carol. Unfortunately their operations didn’t allow for a great deal of privacy. The room didn’t even have two beds, but a bedroll on the floor would do. “There in Kentucky, I killed a man for you, Harry. Not even a man, really. A kid. A kid with a gun. So don’t lie to me. You don’t trust me now any more than you did in Yemen. You’re not capable of it…”
This wasn’t going according to plan. Yuri lifted his eyes from the scope, only too aware that only one of his targets was dead. They were running out of time, he realized, listening to the police chatter coming across the scanner on the table. People were streaming into the street as though the building was on fire and he could see several on their cell phones. He toggled his lip mike. “I can provide covering fire, Kalnins. Finish this.”
“We can’t stay here.” It was an obvious observation as yet another heavy rifle slug ripped through the apartment, but she made it anyway. “Do you own a gun?”
Carter put his head up long enough to look at her. “Blast it, Marika, I’m an analyst, not a freakin’ field officer. What do you think?”
It had been worth asking. She brushed a silver strand of hair out of her eyes, forcing herself to think, to concentrate. She was getting too old for this.
Vic! They’d both had their service weapons impounded after West Virginia, but Vic…
She crawled to where he lay on the floor, rolling him over on his stomach. His head struck the linoleum with a sickening thud and Marika cringed at the sound. There it was, a “baby Glock” tucked in a holster in the small of his back, a subcompact 10mm Glock 29.
She jerked it from its holster, laying on her back as she racked the slide to chamber a round.
“Do you have a plan?” This from Carter.
A shake of the head in the negative. “The shots should bring the local LEOs running, maybe even SWAT, if we get lucky.”
The thought hit her suddenly, fear seizing hold. “Ron, when they get here — your computer, it’s gonna be evidence.”
It took a moment for her words to strike home, but then the analyst’s face blanched. All the records, every last electronic vestige of his hack into the Bureau’s servers. Evidence…
Kalnins had been in the Spetsnaz for thirteen years before leaving Russia’s special forces for the more lucrative trade of the mercenary. One choice he’d never regretted. The Latvian took the stairs two at a time, the Uzi’s folding stock pressed into his shoulder as he bounded upward.
He half expected someone to come out of one of the apartments to stop him, perhaps one of America’s infamous private gun owners, but it didn’t happen. Everyone was either already in the street or hiding under their beds.
Home of the brave? A smile crossed the mercenary’s face as he reached the fourth floor, pausing outside his target’s door. Time to do this.