Covert One 2 - The Cassandra Compact (29 page)

___________________

General Frank Richardson inadvertently knocked the cigar burning in the cut-glass ashtray.

“Say again,” he spoke into the phone.

A patchy, mangled voice came back at him. “...is Nichols ...Hurt ...coming in.”

Richardson clenched the receiver. “Go to safe point Alpha. Repeat: safe point Alpha. Copy?”

“Copy,”

The connection was broken.

Richardson stared at the telephone as though he expected it to ring again. But the silence in his office was broken only by soft ticks of the grandfather clock and the distant drones of Humvees as security details went about their patrols around Fort Belvoir.

Nichols... Hurt... Impossible!

Richardson took a draw on his cigar to steady himself. A seasoned commander, he quickly reviewed his options and made his decision. The first call went out to the noncom barracks on the base. A crisp, alert voice answered.

Richardson's second call was to NSA deputy-director Anthony Price. He too was awake, and luckily not that far away in his townhouse in Alexandria.

While Richardson waited for the two men to arrive, he listened to the tape of the conversation. Even though his secure phone was hooked up to the latest recording equipment, the quality of the speaker's voice was scratchy. Richardson couldn't tell if the call was local or long distance. He didn't think that “Nichols” was all that far away, not if he was ready to rendezvous at safe point Alpha.

But Nichols is dead!

Richardson's thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the office door. His visitor was a big, strapping man in his midthirties with straw-colored hair cut close to the scalp and bright blue eyes. Normally baggy fatigues were stretched taut over a linebacker's powerful muscles.

“Good evening, General,” Sergeant Patrick Drake said, saluting crisply.

“At ease,” Richardson replied. He gestured at the wet bar in the corner. “Help yourself to a drink, Sergeant. Believe me, you'll need it.”

Fifteen minutes later, Anthony Price was escorted into the room by the general's aide-de-camp.

“Good evening, Tony.”

Price looked at Drake and raised his eyebrows. “What's going on, Frank?”'

“What's going on is this,” Richardson replied and jabbed the play button on the tape recorder.

He watched the expressions of the two men as they listened to the brief exchange. He detected nothing except genuine surprise--- and in the case of Price, alarm.

“How the hell could Nichols have made that call?” Price demanded. He turned to Drake. “I thought you said that he was dead, soldier!”

“With all due respect, sir, Nichols is dead,” Drake replied tonelessly. He looked at Richardson. "General, I saw Nichols take a knife in the gut. You know that there's no way a man can survive that unless he gets immediate medical attention--- which wasn't forthcoming.

“You should have made sure he was dead,” Price snapped.

“Tony, that's enough!” Richardson cut in. “I remember your afteraction report, Sergeant. But you might want to explain the details to Mr. Price here.”

“Yes, sir.” Drake turned to Price. “Sir, our contact, Franco Grimaldi, was careless. He allowed Peter Howell to spot the trap. Howell took him down first, then came after Nichols and myself as we were closing in. Howell managed to get Nichols's gun and shoot Grimaldi. At that point, I had no choice but to retreat. My orders were to conduct this operation in a clandestine fashion. If something went wrong, I was to fall back and wait for a better opportunity.”

“Which never came,” Price said sarcastically.

“The fortunes of war, sir,” Drake replied tonelessly.

“Enough backbiting!” Richardson snapped. “Drake followed orders, Tony. That the operation went to hell in a handbasket was not his fault. The question is, who is passing himself off as Nichols?”

“Peter Howell, obviously,” Price replied. “Clearly Nichols lasted long enough to give him the contact number.”

Richardson glanced at Drake. “Sergeant?”

“I agree that Nichols gave up the number, sir. And the rendezvous point, too. Otherwise your caller would have asked you to identify safe point Alpha. But I don't think it was Howell.”

“Why?”

“Howell lives in this country, sir. Although he's retired, we've long suspected that he's still available for certain operations, and it came out that he and Smith worked together during Hades. I think Howell would go active if Smith asked him to, but he would do so only outside the country. That's why he, not Smith, was in Palermo. I think Smith made that call, General.”

Richardson nodded. “So do I.”

“Smith...” Price muttered. “It all comes back to him. First he's in Moscow, then Beria disappears. Now he's here. Frank, you've got to take care of him once and for all.”

“Yes,” Richardson agreed. “Which is why I instructed him to go to safe point Alpha.” He looked at Drake. “Where you'll be waiting.”

__________

Wearing hightops, black pants and a turtleneck, and a dark nylon jacket, Jon Smith slipped out of his house and into his car. Driving out of Bethesda, he continually checked his mirrors. No vehicle fell in behind hirn on the quiet suburban streets. No tail picked him up on the beltway.

Smith crossed the Potomac and entered Fairfax County, Virginia. At this time of night traffic was light, and he drove quickly through the horse country around Vienna, Fairfax, and Falls Church. South of Alexandria he found the river again and followed it almost to the border of Prince William County. Here the affluent landscape gave way to stretches of waterfront bordered by thick forest. As he approached the county line, Smith saw safe point Alpha.

The Virginia Water and Power pumping station had been built in the 1930s, when coal was cheap and health issues nonexistent. The advent of newer, cleaner units, coupled with the outcries from environmentalists, were enough to close the plant in the early 1990s. Since then, all attempts to modernize the station had floundered on the rocks of budgetary considerations. So it continued to stand on the Potomac, a dark, hulking structure looking like some abandoned factory.

Smith turned off the two-lane blacktop and, cutting his headlights, cruised up the access road. He parked under a copse of trees a quarter mile away and, setting his backpack on his shoulders, jogged the rest of the way.

The first thing he noticed as he got close was the Cyclone fence--- still shiny, topped with glistening razor wire. A fat padlock, showing no rust, secured the heavy chain around the front gates. The perimeter was well lighted, the halogen lamps giving a winterlike glow to the deserted parking lot in front of the plant.

Being used but not in use...

Smith had come across buildings like this before. The army preferred the neglected, the abandoned, and the derelict, where it could give its special squads the kind of training impossible to duplicate on military reservations. The Virginia Water and Power plant had that peculiar feel about it... used but not in use.

Perfect for safe point Alpha.

Smith circled almost the entire perimeter before he found a suitable entry point, where the fence met the river's edge. Climbing over slippery rocks, he made his way around the fence, then sprinted across a section of the deserted parking lot to the nearest wall. After pausing to get his bearings he scanned the perimeter. He saw nothing, heard nothing except for the faint calls of night creatures near the water. Yet his intuition warned him that he was not alone. His call had sent a shiver along the web. He just couldn't see the spider .... Yet.

Hugging the side of the building, Smith moved along the face of the wall, searching for an entry point.

__________

Three stories above Smith, in the shadows of a broken window, Sergeant Patrick Drake watched Smith through night-vision binoculars. He'd picked him up as soon as Smith had climbed around the fence, the logical entry point. According to the contents of the dossier Drake had read, Smith was nothing if not logical. It was an admirable quality in a soldier, but one that made him predictable. And in this case, fatally vulnerable.

Drake had been flown to the plant by helicopter. Later on, a car would be waiting for him when he finished his work. Getting here so quickly had allowed him to familiarize himself with the plant's layout, choose the killing ground, and find a vantage point from which to observe Smith's entry.

There he was, at the door Drake had hoped he would find, testing it... opening it.

Drake turned away from the window and crossed the barren room that had once housed pumping machinery. His crepe-soled shoes moved soundlessly along the dusty concrete floor.

Slipping into the stairwell, he drew out his silenced Colt Woodsman. The .22 was an assassin's weapon, meant for close-range work. Drake wanted to see Smith's face before he shot him. Maybe the terror in his expression would help ease some of the pain Drake carried on account of the loss of his partner.

Or maybe I'll gut-shoot him first, so that he can feel what Travis went through.

Two floors down, Drake paused in a landing and carefully pulled back a door that opened on a second pump room. The moonlight coming through the tall windows bathed the pitted concrete floor in what could have been a layer of ice. Moving swiftly from pillar to pillar, Drake positioned himself so that he had a clear view of another door, still closed. Given where Smith had entered, this was the only entry point into the room. Like any good soldier, Smith would check every space he encountered, making sure that it was secure, that no one would surprise him when his back was turned. But in this case, not even the logical precautions would save him.

Somewhere outside the pump room Drake heard a footfall. Slipping off the safety on the Woodsman, he trained the barrel on the door and waited.

__________

Smith stared at the door, its metal sheath streaked with old red paint stains. Safe point Alpha. Where Travis Nichols would have gone to report in. Where the owner of the horribly mangled voice would be waiting.

He wouldn't have come alone, Smith thought. He'd have brought backup. But how many?

Smith shrugged the backpack off his shoulders. Digging inside, he brought out a small, round object the size of an India rubber ball. Then he drew out his SIG-Sauer and pushed open the door with the tip of his hightop.

The blanket of moonlight destroyed his night vision, making him blink. At the same time he took one step across the threshold. Suddenly something very hard slammed into his chest. The backpack fell from his grip as he staggered back. A second blow sent him spinning against the wall.

Smith felt as though his chest were on fire. Gasping, he tried to remain standing but his knees buckled. As he slid down the wall, he saw a shadow emerge from behind a pillar.

His thumb flicked the pin on the stun grenade in his hand. With a weak toss he threw it across the room and quickly covered his eyes a and ears.

__________

Drake advanced on Smith with the confidence of a hunter who knows he's scored a direct hit--- two, in fact. Both the bullets had hit Smith center mass. If the colonel wasn't already dead, he soon would be.

Drake was relishing that thought when he saw a black sphere arc toward him. His instincts and reactions were superb, but he couldn't cover his eyes in time. The stun grenade exploded like a supernova, blinding him. The shock wave hammered him to the ground.

Drake was young and very fit. During live fire training and on actual missions he had taken his share of explosions. As soon as he hit the ground he covered his head in case of shrapnel. He did not panic when, opening his eyes, he saw nothing but white. The flash would wear off in a few seconds. He still had his gun in his hand. He knew that he'd hit Smith and that he was down. All he had to do was wait for his sight to return.

Then Drake heard the distant wail of sirens. Cursing, he staggered to his feet. Although the room was still a blur he made it to the windows. His vision cleared enough for him to make out two red dots flickering between the trees bordering the access road.

“Goddamnit!” he roared as he heard the sirens. Smith had brought his own backup! Who were they? How many?

His vision almost normal, Drake rushed to where he'd seen Smith fall.

But he wasn't there!

The sirens were getting louder. Cursing, Drake snatched up the backpack and headed into the stairwell. He made it outside just in time to see two sedans pull up in front of the gates.

Let 'em come, he thought. All they're going to find is a body!

__________

Staring at the loose wires dangling from the panel, Megan Olson struggled to fend off her despair. She had lost track of all the combinations she had tried, running different wires to different terminals. So far, nothing had worked. The shuttle's air-lock door remained firmly sealed.

Her only consolation was that she thought she'd fixed her mike. But she didn't want to test it just yet.

Calm down, she told herself. There's a way out of here. All you have to do is find it.

It was maddening that less than a foot away, on the other side of the door, was the emergency-release lever. All Dylan Reed had had to do was pull it.