Red Chaos, page 35
He looked for others. A brunette wearing a fashionable white hat leafing through a magazine; a group of four Asian women, standing and chatting busily; businessmen with briefcases; a teenager with a skateboard under his arm waving goodbye to his father; a family with a stroller; an elderly woman with a cane; and the bartender who appeared to be looking beyond his customers.
Nobody and everybody. Reilly was convinced he’d been made.
He labeled the man in front “A.” For now, the bartender was “B.” He didn’t doubt that there was a “C,” and they had triangulated on him.
Options. He raced through them. If he was right, the entrance was out. The stairs up would be slow going and “C” was now near the door he’d just come through. Reilly stood dead center with three hotel security officers and the D.C. officer equidistant from him. He considered how public his alphabet trio might get and who was the most dangerous.
He couldn’t risk creating a scene, but he had to get out.
New options. Walk purposely to the front desk and walk through the office to a side passageway. He turned to make the move. That’s when “C” revealed himself and stood no more than fifteen feet in front of him. And from behind he heard “A.”
“Mr. Reilly, don’t be foolish. The hotel has already had one incident. You don’t want to be responsible for another.”
Options. Fight or flee? He ruled out fleeing as quickly as he did just walking out with his escorts. But to fight, he would need help. Help, he hoped, that would act as trained.
Reilly led with his right foot, back to the stairs. “C” moved in kind, but Reilly cut left in front of a family of four. He picked up an empty water glass on a low table and launched it toward the nearest guard who was looking in the opposite direction. It hit the wall and shattered. The sound drew the hotel security’s attention.
“Who the hell did that?”
“I did!” Reilly yelled.
The other two members of the hotel detail rushed over. “A” and “C” backed away. “A” stopped at the entrance, glanced back and shot another look across the room to the still unidentified “B.”
“All right cowboy, come on. Hope you had a good reason for doing that,” the near officer said.
“I did. And I don’t have time to explain.” He reached for his wallet, flashed his Kensington ID for barely a second, and ran across the lobby. He stopped just between the sectioned-off bar and the lounge chairs and computed the interest he had created. Everyone froze; curious. He took in the wide shot, then tight. He read each face again. The bartender, the Asians, the man with the newspaper, the skateboard kid, the old lady, the family with their baby, and a dozen other faces.
Something was different. His eyes darted left and right. He turned in a complete circle. The hotel security officer spoke to him, but Reilly had tuned them out. He was looking—looking for the difference. Then he saw it in three parts. First, the magazine lying face up on the chair without its reader. Second, the publication itself—Puzzles and Games. Third, he saw a woman just feet away from the lobby door to the stairs he’d taken down. She disappeared through it.
“There!” Reilly shouted.
The D.C. cop was nearest the stairs. He took up the chase. Reilly was steps behind; the door just closing as he slipped through. He heard footsteps racing ahead and a muted pop.
“Careful,” Reilly warned. It was too late. As he rounded a landing taking the next flight two stairs at a time Reilly saw the police officer falling backwards. Reilly leapt over the railing to avoid getting pinned. He looked down and saw a hole drilled dead center through the temple. The pop, fired from the woman’s suppressed gun.
Three steps up, Reilly saw the guard’s 9mm Beretta on the stairway. He picked it up and continued the chase, keeping himself flat against the wall on every turn. Two flights up, he stepped over a woman’s hat. Ten more steps, a long black wig. The next floor, a wrap-around dress. Reilly knew who he was after. Not a woman. That was merely the last disguise. The assassin! And he was becoming someone entirely new while running, while killing the Washington cop.
Reilly felt his heart beating hard. He stopped to catch his breath and gauge where he was—between floors eight and nine. He heard running ahead of him and people behind—either hotel security or A and C. The killer had not yet fled onto a floor. Reilly remembered that there was no access beyond the fourteenth floor where the explosion had occurred. He considered the possibilities: The killer might be trapped, but that was unlikely. More probable was that he always had an escape plan and, on the way out, a new face and identity.
71
OFF THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND
Petty Officer Marcel James focused on his sonar console. He listened past whale songs and other marine life. He listened beyond nature and noise pollution for the nearly inaudible sounds. He listened for a mistake.
He tapped his cans; the earphones pressed hard against him. There was a sound. He looked at his wave scope. The frequency might be in the computer’s catalog of recorded sounds. But quicker than cross referencing, it was definitely in his head.
“Commander,” James whispered. “I have something.”
“What is it, sonar?”
He pressed both earphones tightly. “One, no two. Now three torpedo tubes flooding.” He looked around to Commander Policano. “There’s another, four.”
“Are you certain, Mr. James?”
“One-hundred percent, sir. She’s battle ready. But …”
“But what, son?”
“I’ve heard recordings of Admiral Kashira’s tubes. These aren’t …”
“Say it.”
“A minute, sir,” he said not knowing if he had a minute. Everything on his sonar was recorded. He scrolled back thirty seconds, froze the video, made a screen grab of the frequency wave, and imported it over to his audio library on his paired computer. Next he typed in index, then scanned the drop-down menu for Russian Yasen Class-M submarines, including Admiral Kashira, Russia’s newest, most expensive and deadliest sub. Four-hundred-fifty-six feet long, with ten torpedo tubes located near the central post instead of the bow.
His sound library had a sample. He laid the screen grab over the sample. They didn’t match. But it was inclusive. He returned to the drop-down menu and scanned his list of submarines, country by country, based on the latest Navy intelligence.
“Mr. James, You said a minute. What’s going on?”
While working, Marcel James heard another missile tube flood. And another.
“Captain, two more tubes flooded. Six altogether,” he said while clicking on another sub index. “But Admiral Kashira has ten. And …”
James’ fingers had been flying over the keys as he listened and talked. He scrolled to another Russian sub class, one that only had six tubes. He quickly found the sound signature, super imposed this screen grab. A match.
“It’s not Admiral Kashira. It’s a North Korean–built Gorae-class ballistic missile sub. I still have to confirm, but its signature aligns with the Karim Khan, last in the South China Sea.
“Karim Khan. Isn’t that—?” He searched his memory.
“Iranian, sir.”
Policano mashed his teeth. “What happened to the Yasen? And why another sub in its place with half the fire power?”
James shook his head. He was about to share it when he grabbed both ears and shouted, “Torpedoes away!”
The problems for Reilly multiplied as he ran up the stairs. His legs ached. His heart pounded. He was exposed. And there was no way out. The doors to the fire exits were locked from the inside. This meant it would be inevitable they’d meet at the top.
“Sonar, compute target and time,” Policano asked.
“No ships in range, sir. But they’re running steady in pairs, separated slightly.
“Headings?’
“Calculating, sir.”
Policano was most worried about 2nd Fleet ships, particularly the one most vulnerable to torpedoes, the flagship, USS Harry S Truman.
“Course two-seven-eight, commander.”
“Course two-seven-eight,” Policano repeated. He leaned over his chart and noted the last location for the carrier. It was out of the bubble. Good. Other promising news, the fish would tail out soon. This had all the earmarks of a test.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Reilly slowed as he reached the twenfth floor. One more flight of stairs would take him to the fourteenth. U.S. hotels still avoided the number in between based on triskaidekaphobia—the superstitious fear of the number 13. He cautiously rounded a landing, stepped out. A shot hit the stairway inches away and splintered the concrete. He held back. The killer was trapped but held the high ground, at least until police reached the floor from the elevators. But then again, Reilly thought he was trapped and didn’t have the luxury of time. With little else, so he yelled the obvious, “There’s no way out. You can end it here.”
He swore he heard a snicker, then footsteps again. Softly. Reilly pressed his body against the wall, bracing for a battle. But it didn’t come. Instead of coming closer, the sound was going farther away. Then he heard the fire door open—which he had presumed to be locked.
Dammit! he exclaimed. With his legs now stronger from the temporary rest, he could run up faster. He got to the door just as it was about to close. Reilly thrust his arm between the door and the door frame to keep it open and saw a brick on the ground that had kept it open. Workers or the assassin’s escape route. More likely the killer planning ahead.
Reilly led with the Beretta. As he emerged into the hall, he listened for footsteps. If there, they were impossible to distinguish over the radio and the chatter from the construction crew working to repair the damage.
The hall had the lingering moldy scent of gunpowder, burning embers, and dust mixed with water from the sprinklers. He heard fans throughout the hall, drying the mold. Reilly rounded the corner stairway opposite from where the blast had blown out the wall. He peered left and right, straight ahead and behind. The hotel floor was a wreck. It would take months of exterior structural reconstruction and interior debris removal, scrubbing, rebuilding walls, rewiring, painting, and replacing room and bathroom furnishings, broken tiles, rugs. Expensive and time consuming.
Ahead was a long hall, workers, and somewhere, the assassin. Further along, three other fire exits lead back down to the lobby. All the room doors were open. He glanced in each as he passed. His quarry could be hiding anywhere. Reilly dismissed the chance of escaping via a parachute as the killer—he was certain it was the same man—had done in Beijing. Not enough height to safely unfurl. The stairs or the elevator? The stairs, he determined.
Reilly approached the first man he saw, a Hispanic worker.
“Someone came up ahead of me! Where’d he go?”
Before the worker answered, Reilly heard a crash and tore down the hall. He stopped at the elevator bank, a four-way intersection in the floor plan. Left, right or straight? Stairways at the end of each. A worker doubled over, writhing on the floor, answered his second question. Left.
Reilly quickly assessed his injury. The man’s head was bleeding, his arm was broken. He was conscious but couldn’t talk.
“Over here!” Reilly yelled to anyone in earshot. “Guy needs medical help!”
Twenty feet ahead, Reilly saw a hotel security guard in his grey blazer and black pants walk toward him. Reilly lowered his gun.
“Someone just ran past me. You looking for him?”
“Yes.”
“That way, down the fire exit.” He tapped his ear and said, “I’ve called it in.”
“Thanks! Take care of that man.”
“Okay.”
Reilly ran past him toward the emergency exit. He opened the door, but he had a sudden thought. He looked behind him. The worker was still on the ground. The security officer hadn’t stopped.
Multiple images overwhelmed him, as they had minutes ago in the lobby. Flashes of a wig on the stairs. Snippets of what the then-woman had worn: a black jacket. Turn it inside out, maybe it was grey. Under the wraparound dress: pants. Now the man’s face. He’d touched his ear, but Reilly hadn’t actually seen a radio earpiece or wires.
Reilly raised his gun. “You! Stop!”
The man darted down the hallway, past the elevators, toward the third set of stairs. Reilly sprinted. Just before the corner, he stopped, crouched, and peered low around the corner to the hallway that continued to his left. The assassin fired but he aimed where he expected Reilly’s head to be. Reilly was ready to take him down, but a grey-haired Asian housekeeper stepped out of a room with a cleaning cart. She was old and hunched over. Confused.
“Get back in?” Reilly shouted.
She froze.
“Back in!”
She stared at Reilly, who rose. The moment was gone. She had cost him his shot. Now the killer was at the stairwell with another lead on Reilly. He slipped through the heavy metal fire door.
Reilly lowered his gun and continued his pursuit. But in that moment Reilly wondered why the assassin was running. Cornering him, killing him was what the mission was to get the package. Something wasn’t right. In the next moment he was aware that the old housekeeper didn’t clear the hallway. That’s when she pushed the cart in his way. He veered. She did the same.
The woman was no longer hunched over. No longer old. She was at least as tall as Reilly. Maybe taller. Definitely ready for him. She smiled.
“Mr. Reilly, you have something we want,” she said with an accent he placed as Korean.
She withdrew a gun from the cart but as she brought it up, Reilly rammed the cart back into her, knocking the pistol out of her hand. Reilly still had his until she rolled the cart away giving her enough room to sweep a roundhouse kick to his right hand. The Beretta fell to the floor.
She pulled two knives virtually out of nowhere; nowhere being sheaths midway down her legs.
Reilly stepped behind the cleaning cart and grabbed a spray bottle. The woman laughed. She swung the blades between her arms and body.
He brought the bottle up with his right and adjusted the nozzle with two fingers. Then sprayed her eyes. Whether it was glass cleaner or something even more irritating, it worked. She swore loudly, “Yeosmeog-eo!”
It had the ring of “Fuck you!”
She automatically went to wipe her eyes, impossible with the knives in both hands. She had the sense to throw one behind her and reach for a towel on the cart. This gave Reilly the chance to slam the cart against her again, pinning her to the wall. But she was stronger than Reilly. The woman blinked repeatedly, working tear ducts to wash out the cleanser, while driving the cart back into Reilly’s stomach. He dug in his heels trying to stop the woman and at the same time recover his gun. But she had the advantage: forward momentum and the anger of a wounded panther. Meanwhile, Reilly couldn’t get his footing on the wet carpet. He slipped, fell to his knees, and backed into the open hotel room, scrambling to get back on his feet.
The woman charged and hit Reilly chest level with her full weight. He fell backwards and she slammed her foot down to his neck. He caught it just before it would have crushed his windpipe. This left her off balance. Reilly twisted her leg. Her body followed. She went down. Reilly vaulted up in a way he hadn’t for years. He saw his gun on the floor in the hall. Too far. He grabbed a thin glass lamp on a dresser, smashed it against the wall, and held the broken base in his hand. He had a weapon again.
He waved threateningly. She sidestepped to the right. What he really wanted was his gun and a clear path to it. But he also saw that the file that had been tucked into his belt had dislodged and was near the doorway. She caught the reaction.
And here we thought we’d have to make you tell us where it was.”
She took two steps closer. He thrust the lamp forward and with the same roundhouse kick that first got him, she smashed the lamp. The next kick caught him in the stomach. She spun around and grabbed him from the back with a choke hold. He squirmed. She tightened and leaned into his ear. “Time to die.”
Not for him. He brought his elbow up to the side of her head and smashed hard. She staggered back. The momentum returned him to the center of the room, but still not close to his Beretta.
She staggered back, impatient for the kill. She charged. Reilly tripped. She lunged. He planted his feet on her abdomen and flung her over his head and through the window to the street, some 200 feet below; the second body to hit the pavement in a little over a week.
As he lay on the floor, trying to catch his breath, he heard running. Another round? No, they’re getting further away.
He sat up, regained his wits, and scanned the room. “Christ!” he exclaimed. The file was gone.
72
OFF THE COAST OF NEW ENGLAND
“Still running, sir,” Petty Officer James reported.
“What?” Policano asked.
“Long range. Longer than I’ve seen. Karim Khan’s torpedoes should have bottomed out four minutes ago. I still hear them. Faint, but true to their course and not running out of steam.”
Policano looked up to the low ceiling as if it were heavens. He thought, If the torpedoes have more than historic range, then what’s ahead? The answer wasn’t in the ceiling, but it was in his head. The mainland.
He leaned over his undersea chart and based on the heading of two-seven-eight he drew a straight line out from Karim Khan’s position. “Holy shit!” he declared.
