“How much longer?” Marika asked from her position behind the overturned kitchen table.
In the semi-darkness of the apartment, she could barely see Carter holding up three fingers as he lay underneath the computer desk. “Data corruption has already begun, but the electromagnet’s gonna need a few more minutes. Then we’ll—”
Whatever the analyst had been about to say was lost as the apartment’s door came flying inward, a burst of machine-gun fire tearing through the night. Bullets puncturing the drywall. Suppressive fire.
In the end, Maxwell saved their lives. As the shooter came through the door, the bobtailed cat leaped from the bookshelf where he had been cowering ever since the shooting started.
Kalnins turned reflexively at the movement, firing a burst into the empty shelf. It was a fatal distraction.
He saw the muzzle flash, down low, near the floor — heard the slug embed itself in the wall beside his head. Another flash, two blasts coming almost as one, and he recoiled backward, gasping in pain. His Level II tactical vest stopped both rounds, but it was like being hit in the ribs with a sledgehammer. The breath driven from his body.
He swayed, reaching back for the doorframe to support himself as he raised the Uzi in one hand, firing a wild burst. No targets.
The Latvian swore, gritting his teeth against the pain as he moved deeper into the apartment, the submachine gun against his shoulder. Every instinct of his mind screamed caution, but police sirens sounded in the distance.
He was running out of time. “Hold fire,” he ordered, keying his lip mike. The last thing he needed was to be shot by his own team.
Caution to the wind. He stepped into the kitchen, the barrel of the Uzi leading the way.
“Don’t shoot!” A man’s voice and Kalnins turned on heel, seeing the black man on his knees near the computer desk. His hands locked behind his head.
Perfect target…his brain never had time to finish processing the thought. Something cold and hard struck him in the back of the neck and he felt himself falling, the Uzi slipping from his fingers. Then everything went black.
Never leave your partner. It had been her life, the mantra of her training. Second nature.
A life that had now been turned upside down. Old rules now. There was no help for it. Marika pulled her gaze away from Vic’s corpse, looking over to where Carter knelt crouched by the desk.
Pull yourself together. Let the dead bury their dead.
She hit the Glock’s magazine release and slid the double-stack magazine out into her hand. Seven rounds left.
“On my signal — head for the door. Don’t stop till you reach the landing. Keep your head down.”
A nod. She took a deep breath, visualizing her target. Replaying the mental image of the muzzle flashes, the open window. Now!
“Go, go, go!”
She fell forward on one knee, the subcompact coming up in both hands. There. The window across the street — just as she had envisioned it. The Glock recoiled into her hand, the slide cycling. One, two shots.
Cover fire.
Next moment she was up and on her feet, moving toward the apartment door. She caught up with Carter on the landing.
No time to stop, no time for words. Her hand came down on the analyst’s shoulder, pushing him forward. On into the night…
No shot, no clear angle. Yuri swore, slamming his gloved hand against the sandbagged firing rest. Just like that, his targets were gone.
Sirens jarred him from his trance. Focus. Think. He took a final look down the Barrett’s scope, picking out the heat signature of his partner, laying on the apartment’s floor.
He wasn’t dead.
The assassin made his decision in a trice. Forget loyalty. Forget honor — there was no such thing in this business. It was simply the practicality of the matter. You didn’t leave someone behind, someone who could talk. Be identified.
And his mission had changed. Recover Kalnins.
Chapter 14
A chill breeze tugged at the flap of Kranemeyer’s trench coat as he pushed open the door of the Agency Suburban, stepping into the street.
Flying blind. He didn’t like that. Never had. Never would. Blind left you crippled — as he knew all too well. Approaching the line of police tape, he held up his CIA identification, transfixing the young Bureau agent there with a hard stare.
A moment, and then she waved him through. “Director’s in the building — top floor.”
It was Carter’s building, he knew that much. Didn’t explain getting a call in the middle of the night from the director of the FBI.
As it turned out, the FBI director was coming down as he made his way up. “What’s going on, Haskel?”
They weren’t on a first-name basis, at least as far as Kranemeyer was concerned.
“What isn’t, Barney?” The forty-four-year-old Haskel possessed all the easy familiarity of a skilled lawyer. Which he was. “Do you know a Ronald Jefferson Carter?”
The DCS never blinked. “Name sounds familiar. Is he in the movies?”
“Don’t give me that need-to-know crap, Barney,” Haskel exclaimed impatiently. The oiled façade slipping. “We know he works for the Agency, we know he works for you.”
“Then why waste my time with rhetorical questions?” He didn’t like being played with. “Get to the point.”
“The point is I’ve got an agent DOA upstairs and your man Carter is nowhere to be found.” The FBI head cleared his throat, continuing on down the stairs. Kranemeyer fell in step beside him. “Shell casings all over the apartment, at least two weapons — 9mm and 10mm. Sniper in the abandoned complex across the street. Care to know what we found over there?”
No response was necessary, and Haskel didn’t wait for one. “A Barrett M98B — it’s an Agency weapon, Barney.”
Kranemeyer shook his head. “What have you been smoking, Haskel? No way that’s possible.”
Haskel ran three fingers through his sandy hair, the gesture causing his coat to fall open. A suit and tie? At midnight?
Even Haskel wasn’t that sartorial. Not on short notice. “I don’t know what to tell you, Barney. Give me another working option. We’ve spent the last two hours running the rifle’s serial through our database — finally lost it in a maze of near untraceable JSOC procurements. You know what that means.”
Agency. Kranemeyer hit the door with the flat of his hand, leading the way back onto the street. “Mind telling me what your man was doing here in the first place? You want to talk to my people — you come through me.”
The FBI director put up both hands, a defensive posture. “He wasn’t on official business, that much I can tell you. Trust me, no one wants to know the answer to that question more than I.”
Trust me. Never trust a man that asks for it, Kranemeyer mused, staring into the darkness of the December night. Movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, agents converging on the perimeter.
“Weapon on the ground! Get down — hands behind your head. Now!”
A thin black man stumbled into the bright beams of FBI flashlights, a small Glock held loosely in his right hand.
Carter. Kranemeyer watched as his analyst fell to his knees on the cold pavement, dropping the pistol. The Bureau was all over him in seconds, cuffing his hands behind his back.
The DCS turned to see Haskel standing there, open-mouthed and strangely pale. It was probably the closest the former DOJ lawyer had ever been to the scene of an actual arrest.