“That’s true,” Tracie admitted. “But this situation is one in a million; it seems highly unlikely anyone in Congress could have envisioned this scenario. I’ll take my chances and worry about the fallout later.”
Shane nodded. He saw Tracie watching him closely and tried not to wince from the pain. “I figured you were going to say something like that. But I still can’t imagine taking down a professional hit man without a team to work with, especially with no time to develop a plan.”
“Even with the support of a team,” she said, “there are no guarantees. Things always go wrong, that’s a given. It’s just that this time there won’t be anyone to pull my butt out of the fire if I get in trouble.”
“Yes there will.”
“You?”
Shane nodded gingerly.
“Absolutely not. That’s out of the question. You’re not going to be there.”
“That’s what you think.”
“There’s nothing you can do for me.”
“Bullshit. I can at least drive a car. I’m going.”
Tracie shook her head, her lips compressed into a thin slash across her pretty face. She had placed her fists on her hips and her eyes looked like chips of flint. Her red hair hung in fiery ringlets, cascading over her shoulders. Shane thought she might just be the sexiest thing he had ever seen.
He reached for her right wrist and pulled her down onto the bed, her lithe form molding onto his like they had been meant to be together. Maybe they had.
She whispered, “What about your headache?”
He said, “What headache?” as the tumor armies continued their assault, wave after wave of pain rolling through his skull.
But right now, none of that mattered. He didn’t care about the tumor. Didn’t care about the pain. Didn’t even care that a KGB assassin was out there somewhere right now, waiting to pull the trigger on the president of the United States. He needed Tracie and, what was more, he knew she needed him. Tomorrow she would undertake what might be a suicide mission, her protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. But tonight there was nothing to do but pass the time and wait. It was nine p.m.
He began caressing her, his hands moving of their own accord, breaking down her half-hearted resistance, until soon everything melted away and nothing existed but their dance.
Tracie lay still, listening to Shane breathe, the sound slow and steady. Peaceful. He had fallen asleep quickly, not surprising given what she now knew about his health. She savored the nearness of his body, warm and comforting under the blankets, wanting nothing more than to join him in sleep.
But there were things to do first. She sighed softly and slipped out of bed. Dressed quietly. Then she walked out the door, locking it behind her.
40
Nikolai Primakov eased his plain white panel van into an empty parking space. The spot was perfect — a block and a half away from his destination. Close enough to be within walking distance, but far enough away for the vehicle to go unnoticed.
Tomorrow would be a long day, a history-making day. Nikolai pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes out of the breast pocket of his shirt and tapped out a cigarette. He lit it and took a deep drag. Lucky Strikes were the closest thing he could find in this country to the Soviet-made Belomorkanals — unfiltered, strong and cheap — which he smoked occasionally when he was home.
Outside, the dim light from a quarter-moon cloaked the buildings of the city in a gauzy sheen. Millions of stars twinkled overhead. Nikolai examined the horizon and nodded. The weather would be perfect. Clear skies, virtually no wind. The temperature was chilly right now, but the day would warm nicely. Besides, cold didn’t bother Nikolai. He had been born and raised in the bitter chill of Yakutsk, where winter temperatures plummeted to depths the soft citizens of this decadent country couldn’t even comprehend, much less weather.
But Nikolai had withstood the temperatures just fine. And he had been comfortable with weapons from a very young age, excelling as a marksman. He had trained as a sniper in the Red Army, serving with distinction in Afghanistan before being recruited by the KGB for more delicate, and much more important, work.
Nikolai was one of the finest assassins in the Soviet arsenal. Over the course of the last decade-plus, Nikolai Primakov had eliminated somewhere in the neighborhood of forty people; he had lost track of the exact number years ago. All of the targets had been enemies of the Soviet state, although surprisingly few had been politicians. Some were, of course, but many more were business leaders, or dissidents, or people who to Nikolai’s eye were nothing special, simple people living simple lives who had somehow found themselves on the KGB’s radar, marked for removal from this earth.
Their offenses were irrelevant to Nikolai, as were their job titles. When he was given an assignment he carried it out, coldly and efficiently, and then moved on to the next. It was a job, no different than farming or factory work. He had a talent for assassination, so he was an assassin. End of story.
Tomorrow’s job, of course, was a rare exception. Eliminating the president of the United States was an assignment even Nikolai Primakov had to admit was special, even though it was a mission no one could ever know he had performed.
He checked his watch. Nearly midnight. It was time to go.
Nikolai took a last deep drag on his cigarette and opened the door, flicking the butt onto the pavement where it dropped into a thin film of condensation. It hissed and died away. He slipped into a windbreaker with the Capitol Floor Refinishing logo sewn onto the breast and stepped out of the van.
Capitol Floor Refinishing was a cover created specifically by the KGB for this mission. The temperature was cool, but not so cold Nikolai actually needed his jacket. However, creating the illusion of legitimacy was critical to mission success, so he shrugged it on over a uniform shirt with the identical logo sewn over the breast pocket, opened the van door and slid to the ground.
He stepped to the rear of the vehicle, then glanced around for any signs of law enforcement presence. All clear. He opened the rear doors, revealing only one item secured in the back of the van — a wheeled cart with the Capitol Floor Refinishing logo prominently displayed on its canvas sides.
To the casual observer, the cart would appear identical to those used by janitorial services everywhere. The top portion was filled with tools and equipment necessary for the business of floor refinishing. There was an electric hand buffer, brushes and cloths of all different sizes and shapes, and a healthy assortment of hand tools and small power tools, none of which Nikolai would be using.
Hidden under the top portion of the cart were the things he really needed, the tools necessary for the business of ending lives. There were four sandbags, each roughly the size of a cement block. There was a Soviet-made Dragunov SVD sniper rifle, disassembled and secured inside a hard plastic traveling case, along with three cartridges filled with 7N1 steel-jacketed sniper rounds, though Nikolai was confident he would require just one shot. There was a PSO-1 optical sniper sight with Bullet Drop Compensation turret and quick-release mounting bracket. There were shooting glasses, binoculars, a small pillow, candy bars and water. There was a Makarov PB silenced semiautomatic pistol with three eight-round magazines, an NR-40 combat knife, and a change of clothes in which Nikolai intended to effect his escape upon completion of the mission.