Day of Reckoning (Shadow Warriors) Read online

  It was a reputation that had served him well in Hancock’s administration.

  “The Bureau’s locking down Virginia tighter than a drum, got agents swarming all over the place,” Cahill replied, looking down at the screen of his smartphone. “So far…nothing. That goes for both Langley’s rogue and the DCIA himself.”

  Hancock murmured an oath, staring out tinted windows at the signs waved by protesters down the long street. Then the motorcade picked up speed, leaving the shouts and screams of the rioters to fade away in the distance.

  If only all problems could be dealt with so easily.

  4:11 P.M. Eastern Time

  NCS Op-Center

  Langley, Virginia

  Thomas looked up over the screen of his workstation as Tex Richards entered the small, windowless cubicle.

  “Got your text,” the Texan announced simply. “Were you able to get access to the satellite feed?”

  “Negative,” Thomas replied with a shake of his head. “Those are all tied up this morning and heavily restricted—I don’t have access, certainly not from this terminal. No, I went around the backdoor and began checking on utilities.”

  Tex crossed the room to look at the screen, at the continually updating graphs of colored lines zig-zagging across it. “And?”

  “Right here—around 1100 hours, water and electric usage spiked at the safehouse. Not a great deal, but if McNab’s at work…”

  “Is he?” Richards asked, an unusual intensity creeping into his voice as he referenced the retired Air Force pilot who served as the caretaker of the safe house.

  Thomas nodded. “He is. I checked with his employers—been at work all morning. Usage levels subsided to their normal levels shortly after noon.”

  That only left them with one option, and both men knew it.

  “He’s come and gone,” Tex whispered, gazing at the screen. “Harry, what are you trying to do?”

  5:02 P.M. Eastern Time

  New Market, Virginia

  There was no sign that they were being followed. On a good day, the drive from Graves Mill to the antebellum town of New Market took about an hour and a half.

  This wasn’t a good day, and driving a surveillance detection route, or an SDR, meant that Harry wasn’t taking the most direct roads.

  “Mind if I ask where we’re going?” Carol asked, clearing her throat from the passenger seat beside him. She didn’t mince words, a refreshing change from a lot of the women he had known. And it was probably time to tell her.

  Harry took his eyes off the road long enough to glance over at her. “Does the name Samuel Han mean anything to you?”

  A long moment of silence, then, “He was one of your men, wasn’t he?”

  That she even knew the name took Harry by surprise. He hadn’t expected…

  “Yeah. He was,” Harry replied, staring out the windshield at the passing forests of Appalachia, denuded of leaves and covered in a fresh coat of snow. Flakes of white drifted down past the speeding Excursion as dusk fell.

  What to say? How to sum up a man’s life in the space of a moment?

  Harry had always been good with words—good at using them to persuade, to manipulate.

  To deceive…but now, as a flood tide of emotion came swirling back with the memories, words failed him.

  Han had been one of the best the Agency had ever seen. The son of a Nung mercenary who had fought alongside the U.S. in Vietnam—Samuel, or Sammy as the men of Alpha Team had called him, had come to the CIA’s Special Activities Division direct from Little Creek, Virginia, the home of SEAL Team Two.

  A big man, the direct contradiction of the stereotypical Asian, Sammy had been a gentle giant, probably the kindest man Harry had run across in fifteen years of running clandestine operations.

  Lethal on the battlefield, at home he was a loving husband and father of two small boys. Of course, that had all been before the fall.

  “Yeah,” Harry repeated, almost more to himself than her. “Sammy was a friend.”

  5:12 P.M.

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  On any other day, Michael Shapiro would have already left for home, punctual to the dot of five. Particularly this month, with Christmas shopping to be done.

  The twins had deposited their wish lists in his cereal bowl this very morning, a whimsical touch to start off a day that had quickly gone sideways.

  Nothing this day had gone according to plan. If it had…well, as it was, the morning had provided fresh proof that sometimes cleaning up one problem only created another. Even when you went to the best.

  “One final thing,” he said, raising a finger. Bernard Kranemeyer stood in the doorway of Shapiro’s office, preparing to leave.

  “Yes?”

  Shapiro took a deep breath. He had never been comfortable around the DCS. The former Delta Force sergeant just didn’t fit into the Beltway culture. And someone that didn’t fit—you just couldn’t trust them to react predictably—to shut up and do what they were told when the situation required it.

  “I need you to sideline Alpha Team.”

  Raised eyebrows. “Why?”

  Shapiro swore silently. Delta Force, or the Unit, as insiders sometimes called it, was made up almost entirely of non-commissioned officers—no one lower. And with that reality, the D-boys weren’t used to taking orders without question. Unit briefings had been known to turn into shouting matches.

  “They’re too close to the developing situation.”

  “Bull,” Kranemeyer replied, light flashing in those eyes. “The Bureau is handling the ‘situation’. I need every man I’ve got on stand-by for the extraction operations we’ve initiated. Every man—Richards and Parker are two of my best.”

  The DD(I) took another deep breath. He wasn’t used to confrontation. “In October, Alpha Team’s second-in-command, Hamid Zakiri, was found to be a sleeper agent, working for the ayatollahs. This very morning, their Team Lead took a hostage from this building and is currently the subject of a manhunt. My order stands, Kranemeyer. Put them on leave, get them out of the circle before it’s too late.”

  “Done,” the DCS assented, nodding his head. “Will there be anything else?”

  “No, no, that’s all,” Shapiro replied, at once relieved and taken off-guard by Kranemeyer’s sudden capitulation. It wasn’t natural.

  And then Kranemeyer was gone, but the vague sense of disquiet remained. Shapiro stared down at the screen of his computer, at the phone number displayed there. Something wasn’t right…

  5:34 P.M.

  Cypress Manor

  Cypress, Virginia

  Darkness had fallen, but the lights set up by the dozen or so FBI agents swarming over the old antebellum mansion lit up the yard and lane, casting monstrous shadows in the form of the boxwoods lining the walk.

  It had been dark here, completely dark on his last visit to Nichols’ home. A visit just as unprofitable as this one.

  Vic looked up from searching the credenza to see Marika Altmann descending the mahogany staircase. Her hands were buried in the pockets of her windbreaker, the look on her face anything but reassuring.

  “What’s the good word? Manage to crack Nichols’ safe?”

  The glare told him just about everything he needed to know. “Yes. And no. He had a self-destruct code programmed into the mechanism.”

  “And?”

  She swore under her breath. “And all the documents inside were charred to ashes, Vic.”

  Caruso closed the drawer of the credenza with a gloved hand and nodded. “Coming up dry here too. Nothing in the least bit damning.”

  “I’ve worked some paranoid suspects before, but…” The older woman looked over at him. “This one takes the cake.”

  5:41 P.M.

  Staples

  New Market, Virginia

  The snow was falling faster as Harry closed the door of the SUV and looked over at a woman loading bags of groceries into the trunk of her sedan.

&nbs
p; The plaza of the shopping mall was full of cars, no doubt due to the snow. It would never fail to amaze him, but every time it was the same—no one was ever prepared ahead of time.

  But he wasn’t here for the groceries. He took a look ahead, taking in his target—the Staples store—then back across the parking lot to the two Virginia State Police patrol cars parked at the Dunkin’ Donuts.

  With any luck, they were cold, hungry, and tired of looking for a phantom. No use in depending on luck.

  He checked his watch. Five minutes.

  A snowflake stung his cheek and he pulled up the collar of his leather jacket against his face, striding into the warmth of the store.

  Harry had barely gotten through the door when a clerk approached, asking if he needed help.

  “Not tonight,” he heard himself say. Blasted customer service. Four minutes.

  The laptops were displayed at one end of the store, lined up in a nice row with placards proclaiming their speed, hard drive size, etc. He knew it was his age talking, but he could remember when disk space had been measured in megabytes.

  The good thing about Staples was that their laptops were connected to the Internet. After a brief pretense of looking over the various models, Harry clicked on the Internet Explorer icon and went on-line.

  It didn’t take long to find what he was looking for—not far outside town, either.

  He took a pen from an inside pocket and scrawled the address on the palm of his hand.

  Three minutes. The Mapquest page loaded and he typed both his current address and the destination into the search box.

  Got it.

  6:03 P.M.

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  The pungent aroma of cigarette smoke struck Thomas’s nostrils as he pushed open the door to Kranemeyer’s office. As a federal building, smoking was officially prohibited, but the DCS had never been known for following the rules.

  He closed the door behind him and advanced into the room, only then catching sight of Richards, already seated in front of Kranemeyer’s desk.

  “Have a seat, Thomas,” Kranemeyer gestured with a flick of his hand. The offending cigarette lay a couple inches in front of him, still smoldering in the ashtray.

  “What’s going on?” Thomas asked, still standing. Something was wrong. It was only when the DCS waved his hand once more that he sat down.

  “Was waiting till you got here.” Kranemeyer looked down at his desk, then back at the two men. “Orders have come down from the top. The two of you are to be sidelined until Nichols is apprehended and this investigation is over.”

  Thomas started to speak, but the DCS cut him off. “I’ve already appealed the decision, but it stands, and will continue to do so as long as Shapiro is acting director.”

  “Then we’re being placed under arrest?” This from Tex, his coal-black eyes expressionless. Only the set of his chin revealed the tension there.

  “Not exactly,” Kranemeyer responded, letting out a heavy sigh. “Shapiro just wants you as far out of the loop as possible. Got a few days of deer season left, I’d make the most of it.”

  Thomas blinked as though he hadn’t heard correctly. The DCIA was missing and presumed dead or taken hostage, their colleagues had been blown up in the bowels of the Headquarters building itself, and their Team Lead was the subject of a manhunt. Take a vacation?

  Then Kranemeyer picked up the laptop from off his desk and swiveled the screen toward the two paramilitaries.

  Across the screen, a simple message read: MEET ME AT THE BLACK ROOSTER. 2100 HOURS.

  The former Delta Force sergeant smiled briefly and pressed Backspace. Another moment, and the message had disappeared.

  “Any questions?” Kranemeyer asked, clearly not referring to the message.

  There were none.

  6:21 P.M.

  A warehouse

  Manassas, Virginia

  The warehouse was a poor staging area, but it would have to do. Sergei Korsakov had seen worse.

  The Russian Army had always been short on money, even after the fall of the Soviet Union, and even in the “elite” Spetsnaz units.

  So, you learned to improvise—make do with what you had. The hackneyed old cliché of necessity being the mother of invention came to mind.

  “Anything yet, Viktor?” Korsakov asked, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

  The gaunt young man looked up from the Toshiba laptop he had perched precariously on top of a fifty-gallon oil drum. “Nyet.”

  At twenty-one, the Bulgarian-born Viktor was the youngest member of the team and the only one with no prior military experience. A scraggly black beard masked the lower half of a death-pale face and the Glock 19 looked ludicrously out of place in its holster on his skinny hip. But what he lacked in physique, he made up for in technical expertise.

  They’d been a team for six years, ever since Korsakov had rescued him from the Black Sea brothel where he’d been enslaved.

  Six years, and yet the boy still cowered whenever a stranger came near him. His body still bore the scars.

  Most of his quickness with a computer he owed to the fact that he had been forced to upload videos from the brothel to the servers of a pornographic website.

  That he had received most of the scars from being nearly beaten to death after he had infected those video files with a homemade computer virus only proved to Korsakov that the boy still had spirit.

  “Are you sure the American’s not playing games with us, Viktor?” Korsakov asked softly, laying a hand on his protégé’s shoulder. He felt the boy quiver at his touch and murmured a silent curse. The owners of the brothel were dead, killed by his own hand, but nothing could undo the damage they had wrought.

  The boy thought for a moment. “It’s hard to know if he’s restricted my access when I don’t know everything that’s supposed to be there. But I’m on the FBI’s servers, this much I know. Look, I’ll show you their patrol grid.”

  His hands danced over the keyboard, bringing up a map overlay of the tri-state area. “Red dots, FBI-DHS. From the memos I’ve seen—their Department of Homeland Security is trying to take over the search.”

  Another couple clicks, and yellow dots scattered across the screen, adding to the growing web. “Police of the state of Virginia.”

  Blue dots. “The locals—sheriffs’ deputies, so forth.”

  Korsakov swore under his breath. They were everywhere. Had his own mission not been so critical, it might have been awe-inspiring—the full might of the American federal government thrown out after one man. But now…

  “Keep a close eye on things, Viktor. If they find Nichols and Chambers, we’ll have to be ready to intercept.”

  “Da, tovarisch.”

  The assassin had already turned away when it occurred to him. “Viktor?”

  “Da?”

  “How long until the second tracker goes live?”

  The boy glanced at the computer screen, then consulted his watch as though there might be a contradiction. When he looked up into Korsakov’s face, his eyes held the expectation of a rebuke. “Sixteen hours.”

  6:29 P.M.

  Outside New Market

  Virginia

  Snow was still falling when Harry climbed back into the driver’s seat of the SUV. “Looks like everything’s clear.”

  He saw her face in the brief moment before the dome light went back off, plunging them both into darkness. She looked weary, rumpled, her face shadowed by the grief of the day. The Kahr .45 was still in her lap, clutched tightly in both hands, the way it had been ever since he’d left her alone.

  Harry moved the torn packaging of a consumed MRE off the center console and put the vehicle into gear, moving slowly down the lane, past the realtor sign that had become ever more common in the years since the financial crisis of 2008: Foreclosed.

  The abandoned split-level was off the main road, tucked into what Harry’s grandfather would have called a “hollow.” Perfect for their purpos
es.

  Harry’s lockpick gun got them through both the deadbolt and front door lock in under a minute. As he had always said, locks were for honest people.

  Gripping a tactical light between his teeth and his 1911 in both hands, Harry led the way into the deserted house, clearing it room by room.

  The former homeowners had left a bed and a moth-eaten recliner in a downstairs bedroom, a room decorated on one wall with a mural of a unicorn. A little girl’s room.

  Once upon a time, it might have been beautiful, but now the fading image loomed threateningly in the glare of Harry’s tactical light. A relic from more prosperous times.

  He gave the recliner a suspicious prod with his foot, as though wondering if it would crumble into pieces.

  It didn’t. His light swept the room once again, a final check before he turned to face her. “The bed’s yours.”

  He couldn’t see her face, but he could hear the hesitancy in her reply. “Thanks, I guess. Are you going to be able to sleep in that recliner?”

  Harry pulled back his jacket, sliding the big Colt into its leather holster. “I won’t be doing much in the way of sleeping.”

  8:53 P.M.

  The Black Rooster Pub

  Washington, D.C.

  Thomas had never been to the Black Rooster, had never even heard of it before doing a Google search for the words on Kranemeyer’s screen.

  Arriving on-site, it wasn’t hard to understand why. The bar occupied the corner of an office building on L Street, its brick exterior about the only thing distinguishing it from the rest of the buildings.

  Warm air and the sound of ‘70s music hit him in the face as he entered. He brushed a melting snowflake off the sleeve of his jacket, looking around him.

  Tex was already there, his long legs wrapped around a barstool in front of the massive wooden bar. Even from across the pub, Thomas could see the big man’s eyes—watching the mirrors that hung behind the bar. Nearly the perfect setup.

  “What you having, buddy?” the bartender asked, a weary smile on his face as Thomas took the stool beside Tex.

  “All depends—what’s my friend having?” he asked, eyeing the clear liquid in Tex’s glass.

  The smile was replaced by a crooked smirk. “Water.”