Footsteps on the sidewalk behind her. She craned her neck to see a man in a hooded sweatshirt headed her way. He was alone. Six feet tall, a lean, athletic build. Hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt. Wearing sunglasses, his gaze toward the ground. He carried himself with a military swagger.
It almost reminded her of Chase Manning…
A hollow feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. The queasiness was returning. What the hell was wrong with her? She never felt this way.
Sitting inside the fence of the restaurant’s outdoor patio, she was separated from the man, but turned away so that he wouldn’t see her face. She looked at him in the reflection of her water glass, ready to move if he turned towards her. He kept walking past her and then… opened the door of the restaurant. The door chime going off again. The waitress smiling and pointing towards the patio.
Lena placed her hand in her coat pocket, feeling the cold metal of her pistol grip. They wouldn’t do it this way, she told herself. They would send a team. This was something different.
Chase Manning removed his hood and looked her in the eye.
“May I join you?”
Her mind raced through a dozen scenarios. None of them had a desirable ending.
Her pulse racing, she said, “Be my guest.”
Chase sat down at the table. His face was stone, but his eyes were filled with emotion.
“How long do we have?” she asked.
Chase just shrugged. “Are you going to run?”
“Why just you?”
“Because I didn’t want anyone to hurt you. And if we did it any other way, they would have.”
Did that mean that he cared for her? After everything she had said and done? She silently admonished herself. Of course he didn’t. He couldn’t possibly love a monster.
She noticed that they both kept one hand hidden from view. There. That was her proof. He would shoot her if he had to. Only to protect himself. Only if there was no other way, said the look in his eyes.
“What’s the plan?” she said.
“You agree to come with me quietly, without signaling your men.”
“You know I can’t agree to that. And you’ll eventually kill them.”
“You could order them to surrender.”
“You know better, Chase.” Lena gave a soft smile. “You wouldn’t obey that order. Neither would they.”
Chase smiled. “Maybe.”
She held her chin up. “This must be pretty important for you to go to all this trouble.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Don’t you? You don’t know what information I came to get?”
“No.”
“Hawaii? Johnston Atoll? Your country is developing a counter to our Jiaolong-class ship’s new technology. Tell me, is it ready? That’s all I want to know.”
“Lena, put your gun on the table.”
A minivan pulled up to the curb down the street. Then another, right behind it.
“Looks like your team is getting nervous. Don’t they have faith in you?”
Lena heard the chime of her cell phone. Cellular service was not available in the US yet, but this phone had been specially calibrated by the MSS. The receiver had finished uploading all of the data from Luntz’s transmitter. She smiled, realizing that he must have been in one of the minivans. They probably didn’t even realize that they had just delivered to her what she had come to take. Luntz was never going to sit down and speak with her. He would just walk by, and his transmitter would do the rest. She just needed to read his face to make sure he wasn’t under duress. But this was going to have to do.
Chase said, “Let’s resolve this as peacefully as possible. Lena, I really don’t want you to get hurt.”
She felt invigorated, knowing something that he didn’t. Her eyes glowed with realization. She could still win.
She stood.
Chase stood, removing his pistol. “Lena. Please.”
The waitress screamed. It took all of Chase’s discipline not to take his eyes off Lena, the gun still aimed at her chest.
“Hey!” An angry male voice, coming from the restaurant’s kitchen. Then the distinct sound of a pump-action shotgun sending a round into the chamber. Even Chase’s years of experience and training couldn’t fight the human instinct of preservation of life.
His head turned towards the sound. Only for a split second. But it was all Lena needed.
Her hand rose from her purse and she shoved a Taser into the flesh near Chase’s collarbone. He convulsed, and Lena let go of the device, letting it clatter on the floor. The restaurant owner with the shotgun called out, but she had already hopped the small iron fence and made her way to the sidewalk. As she walked, Lena reached into her purse and thumbed her radio transmitter.
Susan was livid. “He went alone? Why the hell did Chase go in alone?”
David sat on the couch of a nearby safe house that was operating as the command center for this op. He was new to this type of clandestine work but was still pretty sure that this was not how things were meant to go.
“There’s a team a block away ready to… stand by…”
Susan practically screamed into the radio. “What is going on?”
“Man down at restaurant number two. Subject is on foot. Just headed into the alleyway west of the restaurant.”
Susan was furious. “Notify local law enforcement and SEAL Team Two. Tell them what to look for. And make sure they know that there’s a Chinese SOF unit nearby that might try to assist her. God help us, this is a clusterfuck.”
Lena had entered the building adjacent to the restaurant via a fire escape and unlatched second-story window. She could hear the squeal of tires and rush of engines as government vehicles approached the entrance of the restaurant. She shut the window, blocking out the sound of running footsteps on the pavement below.
The townhouse she was in was a residence, and she could hear people speaking on the floor below. She walked into the carpeted hallway and crept down the stairs. An elderly woman sat on the couch in front of a TV, mouth gaping as she saw Lena coming down the stairs.
“Martha, there must be ten men out there. They got guns and everything. Honey, I think it’s the FBI! Must be a murder or something. Maybe it’s them Chinese?”
The elderly woman who was gaping at Lena looked like she was about to scream, so Lena put a bullet in her forehead.
“Martha, what was that?” The elderly man came in from the kitchen and Lena fired a single shot into his chest. He collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain. Lena walked over to him and fired another shot down into his left eye.
The home had street access from the front and rear. The old man had been looking out his kitchen window, to the street that ran by the restaurant. It would only be a moment before some of the FBI agents ran through the door. She began walking to the opposite side of the house, to the back street, where she expected to find her South Sword support team coming to her rescue. Her internal clock told her it had been approximately one minute since she had tased Chase.
A sedan pulled up ten feet in front of the home, three Chinese men inside, each scanning the streets. Lena was about to open the door when a wave of nausea hit her. Overcome, she leaned over and retched behind the door for a full five seconds, then spat a few times and wiped her mouth with her sleeve.
What is wrong with me? She looked back at the two corpses on the floor. Images of others that she had killed over the past few months flashed through her mind. Especially the teenage girl. The Chinese president’s daughter, standing on the penthouse outdoor terrace. That was it. That was the one that had changed her. She used to get a rush when she killed. A kick of endorphins similar to sex. It was something that she could never tell anyone about, but she knew it existed in her. But that had faded. Seeing these corpses here — two innocent civilians — was it guilt that had made her sick? Lena wanted to scream. She hated feeling weak.