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Viper slipped unobtrusively out of the private office on the fourth floor of the US Embassy, moving quickly down the deserted hallway. According to the calendar on the desk, the employee who worked there was on a two-week holiday in Athens, leaving the office deserted. Getting in was almost too easy, she reflected as she headed toward the stairwell. No wonder the country’s security was in such disarray. Gaining access to the Marine and Army databases was decidedly harder, but again, not impossible. At least, not when you knew what you were looking for and how to bypass the firewalls.
Her lips tightened as she disappeared into the stairwell. After spending three hours poring over pension and disability records, she had found three potential candidates on the mainland, and two on neighboring islands. She would start with them.
Moving down the stairs, Alina wondered what Hawk was up to. He had left after their breakfast of coffee and fresh fruit, saying he had something to take care of. She sighed now as she jogged down the steps. They both clearly had their own goals today, and that was unlikely to change even if they continued to spend significant amounts of time together. Neither of them were used to working as a team, and at least in this instance, they had separate agendas.
Reaching the ground floor, she pushed open the door with her shoulder and moved into the back corridor of the embassy. A frown crossed her face as she thought about the cryptic phone call with Charlie this morning. Why was she here? Last week she was on lock down in New Jersey, under orders to stay out of the international arena until Charlie could find the leak that led to her being pursued through the Mediterranean. Now he sent her half-way around the world. Why the sudden change?
Viper was well aware of the vastness of intelligence Charlie had access to. If there was one thing she had learned over the years, it was that Charlie knew things that no one else did, and he used that knowledge with impunity. It was part of the beast he had created with the Organization. He knew more than his assets, and he manipulated and directed them as the need arose, to keep US soldiers and citizens around the world safe. Knowledge was his weapon, and he wielded it ruthlessly. Viper never questioned it. This was the way her world worked, and her role in it was very clear. He passed select pieces of intelligence on to her, and she eliminated the targets accordingly. She did not question the orders. She performed her own research, her own planning, and her own execution. All he did was provide the initial intel. Viper had never had a reason to question his motives.
Until now.
She paused outside the entrance to the public area of the embassy and took a deep breath. Exhaling, she opened the door and slipped into the bustling lobby. She lowered her face and partially turned her head, obscuring her features from the camera pointed at the door. Moving confidently away from the door, she crossed the marble floor and moved through the embassy toward the entrance. No one spared her a second glance. She was just another face, making her way out after completing her business.
Two weeks ago she was identified in Damascus by people who should never have known she was there. She was pursued through Greece and Italy, again by agents who shouldn’t have known of her existence. Charlie had a leak in his Organization, and while he was working to uncover it, his assets were at risk across the globe. Viper had known this when she stepped onto the plane with Hawk forty-eight hours ago. They both knew their survival was solely in their own hands. A leak in Washington knew much more about asset movements than was safe, and their very anonymity was in question. Now, for the first time since this nightmare began, Alina found herself questioning everything, even this trip.
Charlie was up to something, and he dispatched her and Hawk to Singapore for a purpose. It wasn’t her job to question it, but Viper found herself wondering what was so important he was risking not just her, but Hawk as well. Was this ex-soldier really so critical that Charlie was willing to expose them?
She nodded to the Marine guard at the door and stepped outside into the hot, muggy afternoon sun. A few minutes later she was passing out of the gates and striding away from the fortress-like embassy. She hailed a cab a block away and gave the driver the first address on the mainland. The questions and doubts swirling in her mind were pushed aside. For the time being, they were immaterial.
It was time to start hunting.
Hawk watched in the store front window as his target stepped out of the restaurant on the opposite side of the street and turned to walk the single block to his hotel. He waited until the tall man was halfway to the corner before turning and leisurely strolling along the sidewalk, two bags from designer stores in either hand. He was just another tourist out wandering the shopping district while his significant other spent his money. He glanced into the next store window, his eyes watching the man as he paused on the corner and waited to cross to his hotel.
When Hawk got the text from Charlie this morning, telling him Sergei Kuriev was heading to Singapore, he actually chuckled to himself. For once it appeared he knew something before Charlie. It was with great relish he had responded that Sergio was already here. Hawk had seen him in the street on the way to their hotel.
The man crossed the road, and Hawk turned to watch as he strode to the entrance of the hotel and disappeared inside. Pressing his lips together thoughtfully, Hawk turned and continued his leisurely stroll, crossing the street and walking along the pavement, his sharp blue gaze picking out the doorman and security in the alcove of the hotel. He turned his head and looked up, then stopped and turned to face the building next to him. To any observer he appeared surprised that the building was another hotel and not a store, and he turned to wander back the way he came. A small smile played on his lips as he crossed back to the other side of the street again.
He knew just how to get to the illusive Chechen warlord. Now he just had to convince Viper that she wanted to go to another hotel for dinner tomorrow night.
Damon strolled along the street, maintaining his slow pace even though his target was no longer in a position to see. It had been easy enough to find him. Sergei had a very specific routine which he followed every morning, no matter the weather or how late he was up the night before. Last night, while Alina ordered room service, Damon went online and found the only two restaurants that included Syrniki on the menu. This morning at eight o’clock sharp, Sergei walked into one of them, dressed in running pants and a windbreaker, fresh from the gym. Habits were maintained, even when away from home. His target was nothing if not predictable.
Damon continued down the street and turned the corner. He wondered if Charlie had intel that Sergei was going to be here before he sent them to Singapore. They knew when they got on the plane in Philadelphia that Charlie was sending them halfway across the world for a reason. As it turned out, he had two reasons. Hawk swore that man was omniscient.
If he could do that, why couldn’t he find a leak within his own Organization?
When he left the hotel this morning Viper was getting ready to go out, and it hadn’t escaped his notice that she wasn’t wearing her back or ankle holsters. That meant no weapons, which meant she was going somewhere she couldn’t take them. He didn’t like the idea of her wandering around unarmed when they had no idea who might be watching.
Hawk frowned, his own weapon sitting comfortably in his holster. There were only a handful of buildings with security measures stringent enough to make her leave her ever-present .45 behind. The Embassy seemed the most likely destination. He glanced at his watch and turned to hail a cab. Charlie told her to look for a soldier, and the Embassy was the quickest way to do that.
A cab pulled up and Damon got in, giving the driver the hotel address. As the car began to move, he turned his attention out the window. So much for a relaxing few days with his Jersey Girl. At this rate he wouldn’t be able to show her anything of the city. He sighed silently.
One day, he promised himself. One day they wouldn’t be bound to a brilliant spy-master. One day their time would be their own.
And he had every intention of grabbing that time with both hands and not letting go.
Blake Hanover held the leash with one hand while he unlocked his front door with the other. Buddy, his fifty-pound pit bull, stood next to him on the doorstep with his tongue hanging out. After leaving the city morgue earlier, Blake went back to the office and worked on his report from Sunday’s bomb escapade. It was past six before he left the office to run some errands. As a result, it was pushing nine o’clock before he got home. When he walked in, Buddy was practically standing with his legs crossed.
Blake opened the door and Buddy shoved past him into the house. He followed, closing the door behind him.
“Ok, ok,” he muttered as Buddy pulled on the leash, trying to get through the living room to his water bowl in the kitchen. “Give me a second already!”
Blake reached down to unhook the leash from his collar, straightening up as Buddy started for the kitchen. Suddenly the dog pulled up short, a low growl coming from deep in his throat.
Blake froze. Buddy was staring into the dining room, his whole body still and tense, his top lip curling back. Without thinking, Blake reached for his gun, unsnapping his holster as he moved forward slowly.
“What is it boy?” he murmured, moving next to his dog.
Buddy glanced at him, then returned his attention to the dining room. The growling had stopped now that his master was beside him, and Blake dropped a calming hand on the top of his head.
“Easy.”
He pulled his weapon out of his holster and moved forward silently, sliding the safety off as he went. Reaching the door to the dining room, Blake kept his back to the edge of the wall and looked in. A quick glance was enough to assure him that the room was empty. Empty, but not undisturbed. A frown settled on his lips as Blake stared across the room at the open window.
That window was always closed and locked.
Blake glanced behind him and watched as Buddy sat down, staring at him.
“Some guard dog you are. You’re just gonna sit there and watch?”
Buddy’s response was to yawn widely and stretch out his front legs, resting his large head on his paws. Blake grinned and shook his head, moving past the dining room to the kitchen. He listened to the deafening silence in the condo, straining to hear the slightest sound that would indicate an intruder, but there was nothing.
Blake looked around the kitchen, noting that nothing had been moved since he dropped his mail on the counter before taking Buddy out. The stack of mail was just where he left it, undisturbed. He moved on toward the bedroom at the rear of the hallway, his pistol ready near his shoulder. Despite the silence, his heart was pounding in his ears as he moved silently into his bedroom. He reached out and flipped the light switch on the wall.
No intruders jumped out at him. The room was just as it had been this morning. Blake wasn’t a man for clutter. A queen-sized bed, mission-style dresser, and one bedside table were the only furnishings in the large master bedroom. There was nowhere for an intruder to hide and, once Blake glanced behind the door, his shoulders began to relax.
He strode over to the open closet door and glanced into the walk-in closet. It was empty.
Turning, Blake looked around the bedroom with a frown. Nothing was out of place. He strode out of the bedroom and across to the bathroom. After checking behind the shower curtain and in the linen closet, he holstered his gun and moved back down the hallway.
Buddy was still stretched out on the floor outside the dining room, watching him with his big, dog eyes, and Blake moved past him into the living room. He looked around. The TV was still mounted on the wall, the entertainment system was still on the rack beneath it, and his laptop was still plugged in and sitting on the desk in the corner.
“What the hell?” he muttered. Buddy whined and Blake looked at him. “Yeah, I don’t get it either. Come on. Let’s get you some water.”
Blake went into the kitchen and picked up Buddy’s empty water bowl, carrying it to the sink. Buddy padded into the kitchen behind him, waiting for him to set it down. Blake obliged before going back to the living room. He went straight to his laptop and opened it, unlocking the security layer quickly. While Buddy noisily drank his water in the kitchen, his collar jiggling and jangling in his enthusiasm, Blake sat before his computer and opened up a security program. By the time Buddy wandered back from the kitchen, he was staring at the video footage from the cameras he had installed throughout the small condo.
Buddy flopped down next to him, but Blake didn’t even notice. He was too busy watching as a man dressed in dark jeans and a black hoodie jimmied open the dining room window and climbed through. The hood on his sweatshirt was up, concealing his face from the camera in the dining room. He moved straight into the hallway. There the hall camera showed him looking into the living room for a moment before he turned and headed down the hallway toward the bedroom. The intruder glanced into the kitchen as he passed, but never broke stride. The hall camera lost him when he went through the door, but the bedroom camera picked him up as he walked in. He paused inside the doorway, looking around slowly. A moment later, he disappeared into the walk-in closet and the bedroom camera lost him.
“What the...”
Blake muttered a few choice words as he stared at the silent footage, waiting for the intruder to reappear. A minute later he did, heading straight out of the bedroom.
He left the way he came, never stopping anywhere else in the house.
Blake sat back in the chair, staring at the laptop screen, bemused.
Who the hell broke into a house and didn’t take anything?
Blake scowled and closed his laptop, standing up. He turned and strode down the hallway to the bedroom, Buddy following amiably. Going straight to the closet, he pulled the cord to turn on the overhead bulb. What was the guy doing in here?
Blake looked around, studying everything. His clothes were hung neatly on the bar circling three sides of the closet, all spaced perfectly as his OCD demanded. The coated wire modules installed on either wall beneath the clothes for extra storage were untouched, the various boxes and storage bins right where they should be. The gun safe at the back of the closet didn’t appear to have been tampered with. Nothing was amiss.
The intruder came in here for a reason. Something had to be different. Blake stared at everything again, starting on one side and concentrating on a section at a time. He was halfway around the closet when he tilted his head suddenly.
There!
Just as his clothes had to be perfectly spaced apart on the rail, so did his shoes on the shoe racks. Blake would love to be able to blame his time in the military for this particular OCD of his, but in all honesty, he could not. For as long as he could remember, he would obsess over the spacing between his apparel. If the spacing wasn’t even or, heaven forbid, two articles of clothing actually had the audacity to touch, it drove him crazy until he fixed. In Afghanistan, some of the guys would move his gear half an inch, laying bets on how long it took him to notice.
Now his OCD had unexpectedly paid off.
Blake turned and strode out of the bedroom, going back to the living room quickly. Reaching the desk, he picked up his work bag and pulled out a pair of latex gloves. He pulled them on as he strode back to the bedroom. Re-entering the closet, he moved forward and picked up a snow boot that was about an inch too close to the hiking boot next to it. He glanced inside as he picked it up and frowned. Turning it upside down, Blake’s eyebrows soared into his forehead as a plastic bag fell out and hit the carpet with a soft thud.
Blake set the snow boot down and bent down to pick up the plastic bag. He opened it slowly, careful to disturb it as little as possible.
Inside was a pile of sealed plastic baggies filled with white powder.
Michael frowned and pressed end on his phone as the call went directly to voicemail. He laid the phone down on the island in his kitchen and turned to open the fridge. He’d been trying in vain to get through to Alina for two days now. Each time he tried, the call went straight to the impersonal, computer-generated voice telling him to leave a message. Where was she?
He studied the contents of his refrigerator with more interest than they warranted, and after a moment, closed it again with a sigh. He didn’t want anything in there. He was just restless.
Michael turned to leave the kitchen, swiping up his phone as he went. On Saturday night, he left Alina’s in Medford to go to his parents’ house in Brooklyn. The next day he tracked down a bomb in the back of a kid’s car, saving Manhattan from countless fatalities, while Viper went after the terrorist that planned it all. That was the last he had heard from her.
Michael scowled and went into the dining room where his laptop sat on the large farmhouse table. According to Blake, Stephanie Walker had spoken to Alina later that day on the phone, but no one had heard from her since. Where was she?
His phone rang suddenly, making him start, and he turned it over to look at the number. He raised an eyebrow and answered, glancing at his watch. It was past ten o’clock.
“Hello?”
“Hey Mike, you still up?” Blake asked.
“I answered, didn’t I?”
“Is everything ok over there?”
Michael frowned.
“Yes, why wouldn’t it be?”
“I just got home from taking Buddy for a walk. Someone broke in while I was gone.”
Michael’s eyes widened in surprise.
“What?!”
“The dining room window was open. It was closed when I left.”
“What did they take?”
“Nothing.”
Michael frowned.
“Nothing?”
“Not a thing.”
“Are you sure you didn’t leave the window open?” Michael asked after a moment of silence. “People don’t just break in and not take anything. How do you know someone was there?”
“After your girlfriend made herself at home in my house last year, I installed hidden cameras. And they really are hidden.”
Michael smiled reluctantly.
“Fair enough. What did they pick up?”
“Some guy in a hoodie entered through the dining room and went straight for the bedroom closet. He came out a minute later, then left.”
“And he didn’t take anything?”
“Nope. So, I checked the closet.”
“And?”
“I found something that wasn’t mine,” Blake said grimly.
“Do you want me to guess?” Michael asked after another moment of silence.
“The dude put a brick of heroin in one of my snow boots.”
“What?!”
“The only reason I found it was because he didn’t put the boot back in exactly the same spot,” Blake said, his voice tight. “Thank God for my OCD.”
“Who would have thought that would turn out to be useful?” Michael agreed, getting up and taking a restless turn around the dining room. “Blake, this isn’t good. You didn’t move it, did you?”
“’Course not. I left it there and took pictures, then called you. What the hell is going on?”
“I have no idea. Who have you pissed off lately?”
“You want a list?”
Michael grinned despite himself.
“Let’s try this, where are you in your investigation on the Casa Reinos Cartel?” he asked. “Could they have done it?”
“Who knows,” Blake sighed. “I guess it’s possible. I have to call it in to my boss, but I have no idea what to tell him.”
“The truth,” Michael advised. “That’s your only option. Show him the video and tell him exactly what happened.”
“Do you realize what could have happened if I didn’t install those cameras last year?” Blake demanded after a moment of silence.
“You’d be joining Agent Walker on the inactive duty roster,” Michael said. “Call your boss. The sooner you report it, the better. Whoever planted it will probably call in an anonymous tip. You want to beat them to it.”
“I know.” Blake sighed. “Just when I thought things were settling down after the weekend.”
“Do you want me to swing by?” Michael offered after a second.
“No, I’m fine. I’ll call it in now. He’ll send some agents over and you’d just be in the way,” Blake said.
“Well, let me know what happens. I’m working from home all week.”
“Will do.” Blake paused. “Hey Mike? Be careful. I’m not convinced this is the Cartel. It’s not their style.”
Michael frowned thoughtfully.
“You think it might be connected to those bombs?”
“I’m just saying pulling a dirty trick like this is more consistent with the general population of DC than the Cartel or random terrorists.”
Michael thought of the unusual request Viper made of him over the weekend to investigate one of the staple figures in the town and his frown deepened.
“I’ll take care of me,” he told his friend, “you just make sure you take care of you.”