He took a step toward the windows and took a quick, careful peek behind the blinds. “These windows actually open,” he said as he leveled a penetrating gaze at Ganz. She seemed more unnerved now than ever. “Calm down and think about it. Vegas PD had us in jail. Why couldn’t the CIA just pick up two spies, two dangerous murderers, there? Wouldn’t that have been safer? Why did your unit bring us all the way out here and stick us in unsecured offices, offices with windows, with no armed guards in the room watching us?”
She looked like she didn’t know what to say.
Bennings paced the room, not bothering to watch her closely. It was almost unbelievable, but his execution had been ordered due to the turf wars Padilla had been fighting. Padilla had told him the agency and other outfits were furious that the president had allowed her to secretly run the mole counterintelligence op in Moscow; face and power had been lost, and influence had shifted. And his going rogue and stealing the Sandia bomb with a Russian national hadn’t exactly helped his position. No doubt the political-appointee dolts at Langley truly thought he’d gone bad and was teamed up with a Russian agent on some kind of mission to wreak havoc and possibly imperil national security.
And no doubt they’d concluded that if he were killed “escaping,” his guilt would be sealed, Padilla would be severely damaged, and the president would be unlikely to authorize any more secret operations that encroached on agency turf. Bennings understood it wasn’t personal on their part, but being on the receiving end of a bullet fired by your own government made it a bit personal for him.
“If what you say is true, why wouldn’t the CIA take you into custody and just shoot you on a desert road and say you had tried to escape?” she asked.
“Because they want to make it look like army MPs did it. Keep the blame away from themselves.”
She thought about that, then shook her head slowly. “You might be telling the truth. I don’t know. But I know what my orders are.”
Bennings quickly rolled up his right sleeve and showed her a series of tattoos. “Recognize these?”
She squinted to see better, as she moved her eyes up his arm. “Seventy-fifth Ranger Regiment, Special Forces Command… Is that ISA? You were with the Activity?”
He tilted his head and looked at her a bit strangely. “Not many people recognize that one. Good on you.” Bennings looked at her sharply, as if he’d made a decision. He removed the Beretta from his waist, spun it so the grip faced her, and held out the gun for Ganz to take. She looked shocked to see the prisoner, who had just turned the tables on her, offer her weapon back. “So whose side are you on, Lieutenant? The army’s, or the CIA’s?”
She paused, then: “I’m a soldier.” She reached out, took her sidearm back, and stuck it in her ballistic nylon holster.
“That makes two of us.” He extended a hand and helped her to her feet. He took a step as if to cross behind her, then lashed out with his left arm, wrenched her into a bar-arm choke hold, and applied symmetrical pressure using a V configuration of his forearm and upper arm on the sides of her neck. After fifteen seconds, she went still, and he let her drop to the floor.
CHAPTER 44
Recovery from a carotid restraint hold is generally quick; in Ganz’s case, about thirty seconds. Time enough for Bennings to handcuff her arms behind her back and put duct tape around her legs and over her mouth.
“I need a couple of minutes to think this out,” Bennings said loudly, as he unbuttoned her camouflage BDU blouse. He checked the inside of the garment, then looked at her bra; something didn’t look right. “So just be quiet for a minute, okay? Don’t talk.” He was speaking for someone’s benefit, but it wasn’t Ganz.
As Ganz came to, her eyes went wide and she began to squirm as she realized her predicament. Kit quickly straddled her to keep her from rolling away. Careful not to touch her breasts, he used scissors to cut the front of her bra in half. Her breasts were now exposed, but he paid no attention to them. It was the “wire,” the transmitter and microphone attached inside the bra, he was interested in. And the .380 subcompact semiauto Velcroed inside one of her breast cups.
He snipped the wire of the transmitter, neutralizing it; now no one could listen in on the conversation. He took the .380 and then quickly covered her breasts by rebuttoning her BDU blouse. He moved off of her, kneeling next to her. “I apologize for cutting open your bra. If you were really in the army you could get me into all kinds of trouble for that. But you’re not in the military, are you?”
Ganz’s eyes were like saucers.
“Let me guess: your Beretta has a broken firing pin. I was supposed to take it from you, thinking it was actually a functioning gun. It’s why I gave it back to you, and it’s why you holstered it. You couldn’t use it on me if you wanted to. Right?”
No doubt about it now, Ganz was scared. She looked like a lady who knew she was in a world of trouble.
“You’re good, and you’re probably former military, but there were a couple of different things that gave you away. You said ‘Special Forces Command,’ but it’s Special Operations Command. And you recognized the old ISA logo. Chances of a female first lieutenant knowing that logo are slim—ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of the army doesn’t know that logo—but a CIA assassin who had read my dossier would know it.”
He performed a quick search of her cargo pockets and found a Gerber folder with a nasty serrated edge—a gutting knife, which he opened.
“Now we’re going to have a quiet, honest chat.” He slowly moved the tip of the knife under her right eye and pressed slightly. “The first time you lie, you lose your eye. Another lie, another eye. You also have ears and a nose, so think carefully before you speak.”
Ganz swallowed hard, and Bennings tore off the tape from over her mouth. “Who do you work for?”
“I’m a contract player.”
“For…?”
“Name a three-letter agency. American or foreign. You know how it works.”
Bennings indeed knew how it worked. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands of such “contract players” rented themselves out as freelance operators around the world. Allegiances were murky at best, but Bennings knew all too well it wasn’t just in the arena of contract players where allegiances were murky.
“When I said ‘for’? I meant who are you working for tonight?”
“Langley.”
“How many of you?”
“Seven.”
“So all five of the ‘MPs’ who picked us up from Vegas PD, plus two others?”
“Yes.”
“And Petkova and I are both to be killed while escaping?”
“Yes. Preferably shot by real army MPs. Two platoons of MPs have set up choke points all around the post. If we radio them that you’ve escaped, their orders are shoot to kill.”
Bennings nodded. Crap, it was one thing to have police detectives and CID agents trying to track him down, but when killers are dispatched by the intelligence service of the nation you serve, well… He let out a big exhale.
“Listen carefully,” he said with a ruthless intensity. “If you want to see tomorrow, you will get me and Petkova out of here. Alive. In one piece. Right now.”
“I can do it. I know exactly how to do it.” She swallowed again. He could see in her eyes that she really wanted him to believe her. The question was, would she lead him into a trap. “Bennings, I don’t know the truth about what you did to piss off the Company, but this was nothing personal.”
“Oh, it’s all personal, girl,” said Kit, as he used the knife to cut the duct tape that had bound her legs. “Everything I’m doing these days is personal.”