“Where’s Andreas Beckmann?” Russell said to the room in general.
“On his way,” another officer replied.
“Get him in position. As close as possible to the hotel.” Beckmann was a CIA sharpshooter, and one of the few stationed in the Netherlands at the moment.
Russell was temporarily stationed in McLean under a new program instituted by the director of national intelligence. The DNI was an entirely new entity signed into law after the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. The DNI reported directly to the president and since 2005 had been giving him his daily briefing. The DNI was mainly concerned with correcting perceived intelligence failures of the 9/11 attacks, and the latest program was designed to increase communication between officers in the field and McLean. Russell had proven her competence in the field time and time again, and her last mission had helped destroy a growing problem in Africa, after which the CIA had decided that she was best stationed away from that continent until memories faded. She’d been hauled home to act in a consulting capacity within headquarters and to manage a small cadre of agents spread across Europe. Despite the fact that the job was managerial in nature, she was surprised to find that she enjoyed the broad overview that the role gave her, as well as the power to implement real changes in protocol throughout Europe. Occasionally she chafed at the inactivity of a desk job, even a temporary one, but as an operative she knew just how vital it was to have a command center that could support rather than hinder.
The CNN cameras focused a lens on the third floor, where a man was standing in an open window. After a moment he emerged from the pane, holding on to the building’s side. The CNN correspondent noted the man’s actions.
“There appears to be a hotel guest desperate to leave the nightmare that is the Grand Royal,” the CNN correspondent said. Russell felt her irritation rise. The situation was dire enough without dramatic narration from the media.
The supervisor for her assigned area, the director of European Operations, stepped up next to her. Dr. George Cromwell was in his early sixties and had spent his entire career in the CIA. He’d risen from the ranks during the final days of the cold war and was set to retire in two more years. He wore a rumpled shirt and khaki pants, having clearly just left the comfort of his own home.
“That guy falls and he’s a dead man,” Cromwell said. Russell nodded. The man clinging to the wall wore drawstring pants in a black watch pattern with a black T-shirt. His feet were bare and he moved along the slender ledge with precision, never looking down. The CNN camera telescoped, and the man’s profile came into focus. Russell gasped.
“What is it?” Cromwell said.
“That’s Jon Smith.” Russell stepped closer to the flat screen. Smith’s image filled the forty-two-inch monitor.
“You know him?” Cromwell said.
“He’s army, and was engaged to my late sister, Sophia.” Both Wendel and Jordan looked up from their computer screens. Wendel gave Jordan a glance, her eyebrows raised, before returning her attention to the monitor.
Russell scanned the room. “Someone get me a list of hotel guests. Didn’t we have one?” An officer handed her some papers. She ran her eyes down the first page, then the second, then the third. She pointed to a name that she showed Cromwell. “There he is.”
“US Army. He’s a doctor?” Cromwell said.
Russell nodded. “And a molecular biologist. Highly skilled.” She waved a hand at Jordan.
“Do we have a channel to the fire department? Put me through, could you? But remember to use the cover ID.” Russell’s cover included a fake name and false picture on the CIA website, and her title was acting CIA director of public liaison. She’d been using it for the past month when sending out communiqués to various European agencies about current threat levels.
Russell resumed pacing while she waited for the fire department call to be connected to the wireless headset she wore. She watched Smith make his way across the wall and felt her stomach twist with tension. While her feelings about Smith were complicated, she didn’t want to watch him fall to his death. She stopped pacing when she heard the chief of the fire department address her.
“This is Brandweercommandant van Joer.” He spoke English with a British accent.
“Commandant, can you get a ladder to that man? Quickly?”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot. My orders are to keep my men away from the building. They have no body armor, and we’re afraid that the terrorists will kill them before they even maneuver a ladder into position. We’re waiting for our tactical team to contain the situation first.”
“But he might fall at any moment.”
“I’m sorry. But I’d like to point out that he also has a gun in his waistband. It’s entirely possible that he is one of the terrorists.”
“No, no, he’s one of ours.”
“But he has a gun…”
“Of course he has a gun! He’s United States Army.”
“What’s he doing at a WHO conference with a gun?”
Russell hesitated. She knew that Smith’s activity as a Covert-One operative often placed him wherever a crisis was happening, but in this instance his presence at the hotel could have been purely coincidence. His real job also placed him at the scene of disasters and near disasters, and it was entirely possible that he was there in that capacity as well.
“He’s an infectious disease specialist. I imagine he was invited by WHO to attend.”
“I’m very, very sorry, but I can’t risk my men. Again, I’m sorry.”
“Ms. Russell, Beckmann’s in position. I’m patching him through,” Wendel said, and she tapped on her keyboard.
Russell watched the screen. Smith was almost to the corner when she saw a masked man’s face appear at the window to his left. The terrorist maneuvered an assault weapon out and trained it on Smith.
“Beckmann, fire,” Russell said.
4
Smith turned his head to stare into the eyes of the man who was preparing to kill him. He expected some emotion there. Perhaps anger that Smith had eluded him so far, or glee that he finally had Smith where he wanted him, but all he saw was a calculated coldness. A gunshot cracked and the man’s head whipped back. Bits of blood shot out of a hole in the man’s temple, splattering across the window above the terrorist’s head. The bulk of the brain matter that Smith knew would be scattering as well remained contained within the man’s hood. The assassin slumped forward and his body hung there, half in and half out of the window. His fingers loosened and the assault weapon fell straight down. It made a clattering sound as it hit the ground below.
“Thank you, whoever you are,” Smith whispered the words.
Another attacker stuck his head out of the window.
Stupid, Smith thought. The gunshot echoed again and the second man slumped. This one hadn’t pushed all the way out, and his body fell backward, into the room.
Smith heard rather than saw the reaction of the crowds of police and fire personnel behind him. A man’s voice on a loudspeaker kept repeating the same sentence over and over in Dutch, and out of the corner of his eye Smith saw the crowds shifting, moving. One camera-toting observer stepped backward, keeping the lens of his commercial-grade equipment pointed at the hotel and Smith, but moving to a new position. The perimeter grew wider, farther away. There would be no ladder for him anytime soon.
Smith redirected his attention to moving to the corner. His fingers ached at each knuckle from the strain of gripping the small protrusion, and his biceps burned. His toes grasped the stone piece well enough, but his calves were in pain from being locked in the same position. He made it to the corner and carefully reached his hand around the point and grasped the section on the other side with a sigh. At least now he could stretch out his arms, which provided some relief to his biceps.