The Assassin (17 page)

On the second floor of the brownstone across the street, Special Agent Kyle Sheppard leaned into the fiberglass stock of his SSG 3000 Sig Sauer rifle, his right eye positioned 2 inches behind a Nikon Tactical mil-dot scope. He was completely focused on his area of responsibility, despite the numerous distractions: the spotter crouched by his side, peering through a tripod-mounted Schmidt-Cassegrain scope; the calls coming loud and fast over the radio; the flash of purple cotton and blond hair in the parking area below.

The radio sputtered. “Sierra teams, I repeat, agents are moving through your fields of fire. Provide cover if necessary.”

The spotter picked up the handset. “Control, Sierra Two. Copy last—”

Sheppard never heard the rest. Finding a target, he squeezed the two-stage trigger much faster than he would have liked. The rifle’s report was impossibly loud in the small room, the .308 match-grade round well on its way before the spotter could even say, “Subject scoped.”

Mason was turning right at the top of the stairwell when he felt something slam into his left shoulder. Vaguely aware of tinkling glass, he fell to the ground and scurried for cover, which he found behind a series of stacked metal containers. It was only then that he realized he’d been shot a second time, but this was different. When the pain came a split second later, it was intense, unreal — unlike anything he’d ever felt. The bullet had passed through the glenohumeral joint, sending jagged shards of bone tearing through the fragile tendons of the rotator cuff before coming to an abrupt halt in the left side of his clavicle. But he didn’t know any of that. All he knew was that it
hurt
, and when he tried to lift his arm, he let out a choked scream and nearly passed out from the pain. He looked around wildly, trying to find some way to level the field.

The cameras.
He had to get back to the screens, to see what was happening. Rising on unsteady feet, he moved toward the office, which was not visible from the exterior of the building. Stumbling through the doorway, he made it to the makeshift desk just after Ryan Kealey, the last person running into the warehouse, moved out of the cameras’ line of sight.

The first floor was neat and mostly intact, a marked difference from the rubble-strewn parking area, except for the motionless form of Lewis Barnes and the scattered remains of Ronnie Powell. Samantha Crane still had a sizable lead, Foster falling back and breathing hard. Kealey had closed the distance to 15 feet, but it seemed like miles as Crane hit the stairwell. She reached the second floor just as Kealey got close enough to hear her yell, “FBI! Drop the weapon!”

A long burst of automatic fire and crashing glass, followed by a series of sharper, shorter reports. Kealey reached the top of the stairs to see Foster on one knee behind a pile of metal containers. Samantha Crane was beyond him and out in the open, her gun up in her right hand, her left fumbling for another magazine. Mason was still in the office, a dark stain on his chest, working desperately to clear a jam in his weapon. Fixing the problem, he steadied the rifle against his hip with his one good arm. He was wearing a strange expression, something Kealey couldn’t place, but he didn’t have time to think about it.

Sprinting forward, he hit Crane with a flying tackle as Mason’s G36 raked the wall behind them, the last round angling down, tearing the air past Kealey’s face. Crane hit the ground hard, her breath coming out in an audible rush, and Kealey moved forward to cover her body as Foster came up from behind the containers and opened fire. Mason’s weapon fell silent a second later.

“Stop shooting!” Kealey shouted the command, but Foster kept squeezing the trigger. “Stop fucking
shooting!
”

The FBI agent finally complied, or maybe he just ran out of ammo; Kealey couldn’t tell. He got to his feet and, ignoring Crane, who was still lying prone, stepped forward to the office, swearing viciously when he saw what awaited him.

Anthony Mason was on his back, surrounded by shattered glass, eyes wide and unseeing. He’d taken several rounds in the chest as well as both legs, and blood was already beginning to pool beneath his inert form. Kealey saw it was hopeless but moved forward anyway, kicking away the G36 and kneeling to search for a pulse. Finding none, he pulled his fingers away, and Mason’s head lolled to the left.

Matt Foster was standing in the doorway, a Glock .40 up in his right hand. He was still breathing hard, but did not look particularly distressed by the sight of the man he had just killed. “He’s dead?”

“Yeah.” Kealey got to his feet and looked through the wooden frames where the glass had been. Crane was sitting up now, her back propped against the metal containers. She was checking herself for injuries, finding nothing at first, but Kealey saw it all unfold, saw the stain on her left shoulder even before she did, and when she found it and pulled her hand away, dark red streaks on her fingers, her eyes went wide and she said, “Oh, shit. I’m shot.”

Still in the doorway, Foster turned and stupidly said, “What?”

“I’m shot. I’m…
shot
.” She started to get to her feet, and Foster said, “No, DON’T MOVE,” and ran out of the office. Seconds later he was on his knees by her side, checking the wound, talking low to keep her calm even as she struggled to see for herself, twisting her head at a sharp angle, eyes wide and locked to the left.

Kealey could already hear voices moving up from the stairwell. He knew he didn’t have long; they would remove him as soon as they got the chance. Fighting the urge to rush, he looked around the office, eyes skipping and dismissing all at once, searching for some way to salvage the situation. He paused on the papers strewn about the desk, but that was too obvious. Then something caught his attention: an attaché case propped against the side of the desk and partially hidden from view. The retaining wall was high enough that when he crouched down, he couldn’t be seen by the people swarming up to the second floor. Grabbing the case and trying the latches, he was surprised when they instantly popped open. Inside, nothing but more loose paperwork.

He swore again and looked around. Something caught his eye on the cot, poking out from beneath the blanket. Pulling it back he saw a laptop.

The voices in the stairwell were now accompanied by the sound of fast-moving feet. Samantha Crane was saying something, sounding angry and scared. Kealey caught, “Bastard
tackled
me…,” and then her voice was lost in the background. He looked round the room, searching, finding a backpack. Staying low, he dumped out the contents, stuffed in the laptop, and removed his coat. The footsteps coming closer, the backpack on, the coat going over…

Foster was in the open doorway with another agent, a questioning look on his face. Getting back to his feet, Kealey pointed to Mason’s still form and said something inane as he moved forward, trying to distract them from the lump beneath his jacket. Foster reached out for his arm in a hesitant way, sensing something was wrong, but Kealey pretended not to notice and brushed past. Crane was still sitting up as another agent checked out her arm. She shot him a furious look as he walked past. Then he was next to the stairwell, half expecting a hand to come down on his shoulder, a raised voice ordering him to stop….

He moved against the tide on the stairs, holding his CIA credentials up at arm’s length, knowing they wouldn’t help, but doing it anyway. The first floor was rapidly filling with frantic agents, some of whom wore suits or casual attire, others the black Nomex and bulletproof vests that marked them as SWAT assaulters. Kealey forced his way through the throngs, relieved when no one gave him a second look. He stepped out into the destruction of the parking area a few seconds later.

Vehicles bearing government plates were already lined up on Duke Street, parked off to the sides to make room for the police cars and ambulances racing toward the scene. Kealey could hear the discordant sirens working against each other, growing closer as he jogged across the rubble-strewn cement. The pack was bouncing against his back beneath the coat as he scanned the cars for something familiar.

He finally spotted Jonathan Harper standing next to the rear cargo doors of the black Suburban. Breathing a sigh of relief, Kealey abruptly changed course. Someone called out from behind him. It might have been Crane, but he didn’t turn to look, and reached the road a moment later. Harper started to say something, but Kealey cut him off in a hurry.

“No time, John. We’ve gotta move.”

The other man nodded and opened the front passenger door. Kealey climbed in back, and the Suburban squealed away from the curb. Seconds later, the vehicle swung a hard left onto Union Street and disappeared from view.

CHAPTER 16

PARIS • LANGLEY

Midday in a busy part of the 8th Arrondissement, people ambling in and out of cafés, searching for a late and leisurely lunch in the Parisian tradition. It was, perhaps, the least appropriate time of year for the City of Lights, the well-known moniker reinforced only by the natural sheen slipping over the blue slate roofs of time-worn, half-timbered homes and shops.

Sitting in the driver’s seat of the Renault taxi he’d temporarily procured for the exorbitant price of four hundred euros, Will Vanderveen watched the scene unfold through the windshield — the same scene, in most respects, rolling over and over again, with just slight variations on a common design. A series of popular shops climbed the gentle slope of the street, making their way up in price and prestige to the Place de la Concorde, the largest square in the city and the heart of the Right Bank. On this road just north of the famed Champs-Elysées, there was much to catch one’s attention, especially for a tourist whose entire experience, at least in the long run, was mired in images. That particular point of view was lost on Vanderveen — he knew the city inside and out — but he could imagine the sight through the eyes of the typical guest: charmingly dilapidated buildings towering over the worn cement, flower boxes filled with dark soil and bright flowers, and tiny compacts fighting for room with the colorfully clad bicyclists making their way up and down the precarious street.

For the most part, the city’s natural charms were lost on him. The only thing that concerned him was the solitary café halfway up the rue de la Paix. The exterior tables were sparsely occupied, as the weather was surprisingly cold for September. In fact, only two people were presently braving the crisp autumn air: an elderly man with a grizzled white beard, a worn flannel cap perched over his forehead, and a young woman with flowing dark hair, her lithe body draped in a white woolen cardigan. She had one elbow propped over a thick novel, a steaming cup of café au lait at her right hand.

Vanderveen had been watching her for the better part of the last forty minutes. He could not help but admire her tradecraft; she’d kept her head down the entire time, seemingly lost in the book, except for the few brief occasions when she’d raised her eyes to take in her surroundings.

There was something that didn’t quite fit, though. She was almost too casual… A woman of this reputation would not put herself in such a vulnerable spot. He knew this instinctively, and yet everything he saw — her easy demeanor, the indifferent people hustling by on the street — made perfect sense.

He was reluctant to rush to judgment. When it came to tasks like this, he was painfully aware of his own shortcomings. He’d joined the U.S. Army in 1984, at the age of eighteen, starting out as a private with the 25th Infantry Division (Light) before completing airborne training, Ranger School, and Explosives Ordnance Disposal. After that came Special Forces Assessment and Selection, followed by the Q Course at Bragg. By 1993, he was assigned to the 3rd Group as a staff sergeant, soon after which he received his sixth and final promotion.

As a relatively young E-7, Jason March had completed nearly every advanced school the army had to offer. He learned how to hit a mansized target from distances up to 700 yards with 90 percent accuracy; to jump from a plane at 30,000 feet, landing within 30 feet of his target destination; and to kill another human being using everything from a rifle down to his bare hands. However, the tradecraft required for intelligence work was simply not part of the curriculum; such training was reserved for people on a very separate career path. Even those who were “sheep-dipped” — borrowed by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies for covert paramilitary operations — were only allowed a very brief glimpse into the world of governmentfunded “black” operations. Once he’d taken everything he needed from the army, though, such information became invaluable to the newly reborn Vanderveen, and so he sought to educate himself in the camps along the Pakistani border. He quickly discovered that the guerilla groups he was involved with had no idea what they were doing, and the archaic manuals and Russian instructors on which they relied were all but useless.

The truth was that he was out of his element here, but he was fairly sure of one thing: the woman had slipped up. The most experienced professional could make mistakes, but mistakes of this severity were extremely rare and hard to forgive. If what he was seeing was correct, she’d left herself open to a secondhand contact, which meant that she trusted her handlers much more than she should have. Unless…

He pulled out the pay-and-go phone he’d purchased earlier and dialed the number by heart. As expected, he saw the woman glance down at her side, then come up with a phone in her right hand, her face twisted away from the road — away from him. It was this last gesture that caught his attention, the first real sign that something was wrong.

“Yes?”

“It’s Monterré,” he said in fluent French, using the prearranged code. “I missed you at the restaurant last night.”
I’m ready to meet.

“Yes, I’m sorry about that. We should set something up.”
As soon as possible.

“How about Le Bouclard at four p.m.?”