Читать книгу The Assassin - Andrew Britton - Страница 23

It was just after 8:00 PM as the last of the 82 passengers on Lufthansa Flight 1822 trudged into the glass and concrete expanse of Terminal 2F, weighed down by the standard mélange of discarded coats, carry-on bags, and sleeping infants. For the most part, the travelers moving toward the main building looked as tired as they felt, which was not surprising, as most had merely connected in Frankfurt. Essentially, their journey had begun eight hours earlier in Istanbul’s Ataturk International, only to end here, on the northeastern fringe of the French capital. As one of two main hubs in the Paris area, Charles de Gaulle International was sometimes referred to as “Roissy Airport” by the abrupt locals, although the second part of this title was occasionally dropped altogether.

The last passenger to step out of the Jetway moved with a studied ease and appeared remarkably well rested, which was ironic, as his journey had been considerably longer than that of the other passengers. After leaving Tartus, Will Vanderveen had driven a Peugeot back to Lattakia, where he’d dumped the vehicle and caught the Qadmous bus to Aleppo, essentially retracing his steps. From there, he’d purchased a bus ticket to Istanbul. While the ticket was remarkably inexpensive, the equivalent of twenty dollars, the modest sum was not the reason for his circuitous route. Of far more importance was the fact that the bus crossed into Turkey via the Bab al-Hawa border station, the most congested—and, therefore, the least demanding in terms of security—of all four border checkpoints. His French passport had been expertly crafted two months earlier by an embittered former department head with the DGSE, the French external security service. The gold-embossed burgundy booklet—which contained the appropriate entry stamp acquired at Damascus Airport—had been enough to satisfy the overworked Turkish officials. From Istanbul, the passport and 1,400 Turkish lira had bought him a seat on Alitalia Flight 386 to Frankfurt, and from there, it was another hour in the air to Paris.

The only luggage he carried was a black Coach messenger bag, which contained a change of clothes and basic toiletries. His numerous false passports were concealed on his person. Stepping into a bathroom, Vanderveen relieved himself and stopped to wash his hands. Looking into the mirror, he was pleased with the face he saw, although it was not his own. As Nicolas Valéry, senior lecturer in Greek studies at the Sorbonne, his brown hair was cut short and streaked with gray, as was his three-day growth of stubble. His eyes were still green but were subdued by a pair of clear-vision contacts. He wore a pair of fashionable wire-rimmed spectacles as well as a fawn-colored corduroy sport coat, vintage jeans, and frayed suede loafers. The completed ensemble gave him the air of an aging academic, which suited him fine. His current persona was not entirely random; Vanderveen could discuss the trials of Heracles and Homer’s Iliad for hours if the need arose, although he did not expect that it would.

After passing through the main building, he stepped out into the cool air and joined the taxi queue. He didn’t have to wait long, but he cursed his luck as soon as he climbed into the backseat of the Renault wagon. The driver stank of liquor. As Vanderveen shrugged off his sport coat and set it aside, he caught a quick glimpse of the man’s glassy eyes in the rearview mirror. The vehicle rolled away from the curb, and soon they were streaking south on the A1 toward the city center.

Ten minutes passed in strained silence. Despite the fact that traffic was light, they were driving much too fast, tires squealing on the slightest curves in the road. Glancing at the mirror once more, Vanderveen saw beads of sweat pooling on the driver’s broad forehead, a nose full of broken capillaries over unkempt facial hair…all the telltale signs of a raging, lifelong alcoholic. He thought about the thick bundle of notes tucked into the pages of his false passport, glanced at his watch, and made a decision.

“Monsieur Grenet?”

“Yes?” The man’s bloodshot eyes moved up to the mirror, appraising his passenger. There was a brief, uncertain pause. “How do you…?”

“Il est sur le tableau de bord,” Vanderveen said, responding to the unasked question.

“Yes, of course,” the driver muttered. He glanced down at the dash, where his name was prominently displayed, along with his license number. “I’m sorry. You had a question…?”

“When does your shift end?”

“It just began.” The driver swept a filthy sleeve over his damp face. “I have until six in the morning.”

He made it sound like a death sentence, an interminably long period of time. Vanderveen leaned forward, close enough to inhale the man’s rank odor. “Undoubtedly, there are things you’d rather be doing,” he murmured. “There are several good bars just north of the Pont Neuf. I’m sure you know them well.”

The driver hesitated, unsure of where this was going, unwilling to disagree. There was something about this passenger that frightened him more than the thought of another ten hours without a drink. The man’s observations were blatantly offensive; he knew he should say something to that effect, but he couldn’t quite summon up the courage to object.

“Grenet, I have a proposition for you.”

In the CP on Duke Street in Alexandria, the tension was mounting slowly but steadily. Most of the junior agents had been sent outside to keep the radio chatter audible, but dozens of tense conversations still clouded the air. As an outsider whose presence was barely tolerated, Ryan Kealey had been pushed to the back of the group, along with Jonathan Harper. Although he was clearly removed from the proceedings, Kealey didn’t mind in the least; he was fairly sure he wanted no part of what was about to happen.

From where he was standing, his view was limited to the shiny bald dome of Dennis Quinn, the D.C. SWAT commander. At this point, the man’s job was all but finished; once the teams crossed “phase line yellow,” the last point of cover and concealment, all commands from that point on would be relayed by the assault team leaders, the ranking men on the ground.

“Control, this is Alpha One. We’re in position, requesting permission to advance, over.”

All noise in the CP abruptly ceased. Quinn keyed his radio and said, “Alpha One, this is Control. I copy you five by five…Bravo One, what’s your status?”

A brief hiss of static, then, “Control, this is Bravo One. We’re ready to roll, over.”

“Roger that. Standby.”

Quinn ran an uncertain hand over his glistening scalp, then turned and scanned the crowd. “Schettini, where do we stand?”

The young woman broke off from her cell. “The techs are on channel nine, sir. Wilson’s running the show. He’s waiting to hear from you.”

Quinn punched in the appropriate frequency and repeated the question.

The disembodied voice came back right away, reedy and high. “We’re good to go, sir. Power is off the board.”

The SWAT commander confirmed the report, then switched channels once more. “Team leaders, this is Control. You are clear to advance.”

Kealey suddenly pictured ragged sections of chain-link fence being torn aside, the assaulters moving fast through the narrow gaps. As if reading his mind, the first of several black-clad men appeared on the first monitor, which provided a view of the west side of the warehouse.

“There they are,” someone murmured. Moments later, the second team appeared on the third screen, five men spaced in even intervals, cutting a straight path toward the target building.

The office was unusually large in comparison to the overall size of the building, enclosed by four-foot cement walls, which were topped by panes of glass. The exposed concrete of the west wall was lined by a pair of cheap wooden foldout tables, which bowed under the weight of six monitors and a computer tower. Pausing in the open doorway, Mason cursed under his breath as he studied the makeshift desks, which were strewn with heaps of paperwork and fast-food debris. The search for the keys could take some time, he knew. The office doubled as his living space and was littered with his personal effects. He’d purchased the building three months earlier through an Illinois-based holding company, which in turn was owned and managed by a half-dozen fictitious individuals.

Mason spent most of his waking hours inside the warehouse. It was one of the few places he felt comfortable, as he had no reason to doubt its security. Very few of his clients had the time or desire to track down his base of operations, and he had little cause to distrust them; after all, he was doing more for them than they could ever do in return.

Pushing a stack of paperwork off the desk, Mason began his search, then stopped when the overhead lights went off. He instantly looked up at the bank of monitors and froze in disbelief.

The FBI techs had done their job as instructed. The power to the building had been cut, but what the technicians hadn’t known—what no one knew—was that Mason’s security system was run by a PoE (Power over Ethernet) connection. The eyes of the system consisted of twelve IP cameras, all of which monitored the exterior of the building. The cameras were connected by Ethernet cable to a twelve-port midspan, which was similar in function to a server. The midspan, in turn, was linked to a switch, which ran directly to the tower. The computer was set to automatically switch to a backup battery in the event of a power disruption. The battery wouldn’t last more than a few minutes, as it was supporting too many end terminals, but it did provide a crucial window during which time the system would stay online. As Mason stared at the screens with escalating panic, another team moved in from the east, making its way to the second steel door.

Swearing viciously, he turned and took a few quick steps to his foldout cot, where he pulled back the coarse woolen blanket to reveal a Dell laptop computer and a Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle. A 30-round magazine was already in place, the first round chambered. After grabbing two spare, fully loaded magazines, Mason ran out of the office and back to the stairwell.

Benjamin Tate, the lead assaulter on the team moving in from the west, was a wiry eight-year veteran who’d spent half his career serving on SWAT teams in numerous cities, including Houston, Atlanta, and New York. During that time he had served dozens of high-risk arrest warrants, many of which had involved this same type of tactical entry. But that was the smallest part of his job; he was also a fraud investigator with an MBA from Cornell and a heavy caseload. As such, he’d been among the first to suggest that the HRT take over in Alexandria. When his request had been shot down, however, he’d left it at that; over the course of his career with the Bureau, Tate had learned that you could make the suggestion once, but then, regardless of the result, you did as you were told. Complaining just wasn’t an option.

Reaching his destination, he crouched and motioned for his breacher to move forward. The other man began prepping the door with strips of Primacord, then inserted the detonator and stepped away. Moving back to the MSD—minimum safe distance—Tate keyed his mic and said, “Bravo, this is Alpha One. We are ready to breach, over.”

“Copy that, Alpha One. You have the lead, over.”

“Roger that.” Tate signaled his men, two of whom stepped forward, flash-bangs loose in their free hands, pins out. “Entry in five, four—”

Ronnie Powell had guessed something was wrong as soon as the lights cut out on the first floor, but he knew when he heard more than saw Mason’s form on the stairwell, unsteady feet on rickety steps. The other man was barely visible in the weak light streaming through the high windows.

“What’s happening?” Powell asked. Then he saw the outline of the G36, and his stomach balled into a knot. “Feds?”

Mason nodded sharply, throat constricted, unable to speak as he crossed the last few feet.

“Shit.” Powell was already reaching for one of the unsecured cases. “Where are they?”

“Both doors.” Mason pointed and managed to choke out the necessary words. “Two teams, five or six men each. Heavily armed.” This last part was wholly unnecessary. Powell had seen firsthand on numerous occasions how such assaults were carried out. In his experience, the government always brought two things to a federal raid: overwhelming force and firepower.

Barnes, the youngest of the three and the only one who’d never served time, seemed to catch on too late, but when Powell popped the latches and came up with an olive green tube, his mouth went slack. Backing up, he held up his hands and said, “No, no, we gotta talk to them—”

Mason didn’t hesitate; if the man wasn’t going to contribute, he would only be in the way. Lifting the G36 to his shoulder, he fired a single round, catching Barnes in the base of the throat. The younger man stumbled back over one of the cases and hit the floor hard, his head bouncing on the cement with a wet, sickening crack.

Mason looked to the man left standing. Ronnie Powell had the gaunt, strained features of a man who’d started life with little and had gone downhill from there, the kind of career criminal who could describe—in intricate detail—the accommodations offered by at least five state penitentiaries. They’d once discussed what they would do in this kind of situation and had reached an agreement of sorts. Neither was prepared to finish out his days in a concrete box. “You ready?”

Powell lifted the fiberglass-wrapped tube to his right shoulder, his face tight with resignation and resolve. “Yeah.”

“All units, this is Bravo One. Compromise. I repeat, compromise. We have gunfire inside the building, over.”

Tate immediately looked to his breacher, saw the other man grimace and nod quickly, then keyed his mic and said, “Roger, we’re going now—”

He was instantly cut off as the wall next to his men exploded outward, slinging concrete and the torn remains of four assaulters into the parking area, Tate included. The two surviving agents instinctively ran out to assist the fallen men and were promptly cut down by a hail of automatic fire.

In the CP, all eyes watched in disbelief as the bright flash appeared on the first monitor.

“What the hell was that?” Harrington shouted, inadvertently cutting off part of the next transmission.

“Bravo One! We have agents down! I repeat, we have—”

A second flash on the screen cut off the call, the blast engulfing most of the second team. Grainy black figures could be seen lying amidst the piles of rubble; the two members of Bravo left standing appeared to be running back toward the fence. The chaos seemed to bleed from the screens and into the room; everyone Kealey could see was moving and yelling. Despite the confusion, Dennis Quinn seemed remarkably composed as he tried to gain control of the situation, though he was having a hard time fighting his way through the frantic radio traffic.

“Snipers, Control. What do you got?”

The calls came back in rapid succession. “Control, Sierra One. No shot.”

“This is Sierra Two, no shot.”

“Sierra Three, no shot…”

A sudden movement caught Kealey’s eye, and he turned to see Samantha Crane pushing her way across the room. Harrington was yelling something after her, but she ignored him and kept running forward, stumbling once, then breaking free from the crowd. Flinging open the door, she banged her way down the iron stairs at a dangerous speed, Matt Foster close on her heels.

“Ryan, what are you—”

Kealey didn’t hear the rest as he pulled away from Harper and burst out of the building, hitting the street a moment later. Cars were screeching to a halt behind him on Columbia Street, which had not been closed to through traffic, as people jumped out of their vehicles to get a better look at the rising plume of smoke a block to the east. Turning left, Kealey saw Crane, 40 feet away and gaining ground, her hair streaming behind her in the westbound wind. She was sprinting toward the ongoing battle, Foster running a few feet behind. Screams behind him as shots rang out. Kealey moved after the agents, doing his best to close the distance.

What the hell is she doing? The question kept pounding away at Kealey’s mind. None of it made sense, but one fact cut through the confusion: unless Mason had wired the doors in advance, he must have had access to some type of launcher, and Crane would be hard pressed to compete with the dinky 10mm clipped to her belt.

Of course, Kealey wasn’t faring any better himself in that department. He reached back under his coat, awkwardly because he was still running, and came up with his Beretta. Knowing what he was heading into, the weapon didn’t inspire a lot of confidence, but it would have to do.

He kept running hard.

Inside the warehouse, Anthony Mason turned away from the ragged holes in the south wall, choking on the dust and smoke that the twin explosions had thrown into the air. He was completely focused, despite the small, intensely painful hole in his right thigh. Someone had gotten off a lucky shot, but that didn’t matter. He had done more damage than he would have thought possible, and it was all because the Bureau had jumped the gun before discovering what was stored inside the building: a total of 136 M136 man-portable launchers, four to a case.

Better known as the AT4, the shoulder-fired launcher had been readily adopted by the U.S. military in the mid-1980s, and for good reason: the weapon was light, easy to use, and devastatingly effective. The 84mm High Explosive (HE) round it fired was capable of penetrating 14 inches of armor or, as Mason had just discovered, more than 12 inches of reinforced cement. Although each launcher cost just $1,500 to produce, they could easily go for five times that amount on the international market. Although he had moved the AT4 before, this would have been his first sale of this particular weapon in more than two years. While he’d never complete the transaction, there was some satisfaction to be had in the fact that he’d been able to put the launchers to some good use.

Powell was already dead. He’d been standing too close to the south wall when he fired his launcher and was torn apart by the resulting shrapnel. Dropping his own empty tube to the ground, Mason touched the grip of the G36, which was still slung across his chest, then turned and started back up to the second floor, counting on the smoke and confusion to block the snipers’ line of sight. It was a reasonable assumption, as the front of the building was, in fact, partially obscured. When he reached the top of the stairwell, though, he was plainly visible through a south-facing window, and although he appeared for less than two seconds, that was all it took.

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.