Against the Clock (3 page)

Stepping behind the door-like panel, she saw a row of shelves spanning from the floor to the top of the clock's enclosure, recessed into the wall space. Piled onto each shelf were bound manila folders. Each folder had a code number neatly printed on its spine. She knew which file she needed and selected it from the pile. She leafed through the papers, abstracting several sheets which looked like all the others, but which had special significance for her.

She carried the documents to the window directly opposite the clock, moved the chair from behind the desk, positioned it directly in front of the large window, and stood on the upholstered seat.

She held each document up, pressing it hard against the glass at the top left-hand corner of the window. She held each document there, then paused to be sure the motion sensor camera positioned on the other side of the window captured a clear image.

When she was done, she returned the documents to the file and carefully placed the file back into the recess behind the clock. Before closing the front face of the old clock, she took one last look inside to be sure nothing was left out of place.

She took a deep breath, donned her "Marisol" persona one more time, and returned to the living room.

01:19:05

Carlo's phone vibrated in his side pocket. This was beginning to become an interesting night, he thought as he brought the phone to his ear.

"I have the photo." The voice sounded tense. It was unusual. "When the girl leaves, do not alarm her. Search her bag and person as you did when she first arrived, but do not spook her. A tracking device is on its way to you now. Can you slip it in her bag as you search it without her noticing?"

"Yes, sir," Carlo replied with more confidence than he felt.

"Good. When she's gone, the team will stay on her. I want you to have a chat with Mr. Civic about her."

"I understand, sir." Carlo thought for a moment and then asked, "How friendly do you want me to be, sir?"

"Answers are more important to me than our working relationship with Mr. Civic from this point on."

"Yes, sir. Understood."

chapter 1

"Knowing your enemy is good, until they know you better."

the book of seekay

10:08:04

Trent Barratt looked away from his reflection in the shop window. What he saw there disgusted him. The small phone in his large hand was almost crushed between the force of his rage and the depth of his embarrassment. There was little he could do now but to report his failure.

"We lost her, sir," he said into the phone.

A steely silence echoed back.

There was more to report, and for a moment, he considered keeping it to himself until he could somehow turn things around, but he was not a coward. He would admit his errors in full, then he would hunt her down and make her pay.

He took a deep breath and continued, "Three of my men are down, sir."

A moment let his failure hang in the air before he heard several loud smashes on the other end of the phone. The line went dead.

He returned the cell to his pocket and started planning his next step. It troubled him that she had escaped his grasp, and it troubled him more that she had killed three of his men.

Barratt was seasoned. He'd survived too long in an unforgiving business to have an exaggerated sense of ability. He recognized that he was not the best operative in the field, but his track record also told him he was better than most. For this woman to have eluded him indicated the reports on her ability and her resources were modest, at best. He vowed never to underestimate her again.

Something else bothered him. He had caught a glimpse of her as she was crouched over one of his men. She was in her late twenties, wore black loose-fitting jeans, and a floppy shirt two sizes too large. She looked homely, unremarkable at first glance, but he saw in her movements a woman capable of great speed and agility.

She moved with a fluidity uncommon in most people, and she had a sense about her that screamed an intense alertness. He understood those traits. He had them too.

Their eyes had met. There was something familiar in them. Something wild, hungry, and unafraid. He felt challenged by them, and then, behind a flash of blonde hair, they were gone.

Her face had been a blur, obscured by movement, yet he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her.

He had moved toward her, angling to get a better view, trying to get within accurate pistol firing range, when a car had driven past, obscuring his view for a moment, and by then she was gone.

10:09:12

Director Zelig swept the debris of the shattered phone off the desk, ignoring the cuts and scrapes on his bare knuckles. Whoever this woman was, she had managed to stay one step ahead of his team.

As if on cue, a gentle knock came on the closed door. April, his assistant, popped her head inside.

"Is there anything you might need, sir?"

Zelig waved absently at the smashed phone strewn on the floor. "A new phone," he said dryly. Already lost in thought, he added, "Thank you, April."

With a nod, she quietly slipped away and returned moments later, unpacking equipment as she walked.

Zelig barely registered his young assistant cleaning away the debris and hooking up the new phone. When she was gone, he picked up the receiver and made a call.

"Barratt lost her," he said into the phone, his voice soft, monotone, barely concealing the rage that boiled inside him, "We need to get rid of him, then we need to get that girl."

Measured carefully, the voice on the other end of the line spoke almost mechanically, "Barratt is a good operative. We could still use him. It's time we seriously consider that this woman is in fact Shirin Reyes."

"Impossible! She's out! She's been out for years." But even as he spoke the words, Director Zelig felt the seeds of doubt spouting in his mind. If the rogue operative was Reyes, the danger to his mission and the risks for himself were considerably worse than he could have imagined. Zelig fought to control the frustration bubbling up in his voice and took a moment to settle himself before he continued, "Find out who this girl is. If she is Shirin Reyes, kill her. And don't be nice about it. Just make sure she's dead!"

The voice on the phone, the voice of the man known only as "Smith," was quiet, without emotional inflection. "I have good reason to believe this woman is Reyes. And that she is back in play." The voice paused for effect but continued before Zelig could speak. "I had the agent guarding Bill Civic send me a screenshot from the security footage."

"And?"

"The image is dark and grainy, but it was Reyes. I'm sending you a copy of the photo now," the voice said matter-of-factly.

Director Zelig logged into his private email while the voice he knew only as "Smith" continued. "My man has spoken with Bill Civic, and he claims it was a girl by the name of Marisol Keplor. She had ID matching that name, sighted by my security man. Mr. Civic is adamant that this woman was clean. He says he had been watching her at his club for weeks. I am in the process of collecting recordings from the club for verification. He is also adamant that nothing had been touched or taken from his apartment. He says they had sex all night, and that she left in the early hours of the morning. My security team has confirmed that. Security cameras have her leaving the apartment at 0400. Her bag and person were searched before entering the apartment, and again when leaving. There was nothing of note."

The photo arrived in his email. Smith had been correct; the image was dark and grainy. Bill Civic was easily identifiable, whereas the girl was not. She was huddled under his arm, her face hidden.

"I have the image," Zelig said into the phone. Leaning closer to the screen, he strained to discern any identifiable features of the woman. "What makes you so certain this woman is Reyes?"

"It's her."

Zelig was not so convinced, but Smith had been a trusted, highly valued colleague far too long to dismiss his opinion so hastily. Instead, he said, "I'm sending you another team now. Track her; get me better pictures. We need to ID her quickly. Keep your man on Civic. I'll have a forensic team there within the hour to go over his apartment. If this is Reyes, she had a reason to be there. We need to find out what it was." He didn't wait for a reply before ending the call.

Reyes had been an unparalleled agent when she had worked for him. A pain in the ass, crazy as hell, and the source of many headaches, but she never failed, no matter the cost. In his world, that level of success was all that mattered. Regardless of rules, laws, or intelligence protocols, success warranted certain freedoms. Freedoms that he had readily provided her.

But after the death of her husband, her missions grew reckless, her behavior dangerous. And then, she vanished. He had hoped she was dead, but knew better.

It bothered him deeply that if this mystery girl was in fact Shirin Reyes, it would indicate she had been active for at least several months. But "active" on what? What was she doing? Who could she be working for?

Rubbing at the stubble forming on his chin, Zelig started making mental notes on the phone calls he needed to make.

If she were truly back and in play, extra precautions needed to be put in place. Zelig grudgingly conceded to himself that perhaps having her husband killed may not have been one of his best decisions.

10:24:19

Shirin Reyes stepped off the platform. Without looking back at the departing train, she walked through the terminal gates and out into the crowded streets of the Central Business District.

No one followed her; she was sure of it. But for the next hour, she navigated her way through a labyrinth of shops, fitting rooms, and past glass storefront windows before returning to her safe house.

Her blonde wig lay at the bottom of a trash receptacle outside a Starbucks café, and her handbag, emptied into and dumped in the ladies' room. She kept none of its contents.

The baggy shirt and black jeans she wore were scattered through various waste bins on her shopping spree through the Grand Plaza.

The guns collected from the dead men were secreted within the pockets of a new gym bag. Wearing her newly purchased Lycra long-cut shorts, running shoes, and tight singlet top, she looked like one of many other young ladies on their way back from the gym.

Her breath had come back quickly, and the adrenaline of the encounter was just now ebbing slowly away. Sipping a tall, full cream cappuccino, she headed back to the train depot. Her mind worked quickly over the events of the last few hours.

The ambush had been well executed, a four-man team, three converging on her from intersecting planes, the fourth, she assumed, from a higher vantage point. She had identified two of the three quickly, the third soon after, but too late to slip free of their sightlines. Deciding to wait for a better opportunity, she let them get closer to her, steering them toward a busy outdoor café close by.

Hoping to obscure any field of vision for potential snipers or security cameras, Shirin had ducked under the outdoor canopy, walked through to the middle of the crowded café, then headed toward a small vacant table.

She paused at the table as a steward deftly cleared it, wiped it over, and set down new cutlery. She had taken mental note of where her pursuers would be and prepared herself.

She felt the firm hand on her shoulder before she saw it. It squeezed hard on the pressure point toward the top of her shoulder joint.

Before the man could whisper his practiced threats encouraging her to do exactly as he said, Shirin thrust her arm up and slightly forward, releasing the pressure on her nerve. Gripping his wrist with her other hand, she pulled him in toward her while thrusting her head back violently into his face.

The impact had been fast and hard. She'd felt his nose give way on the back of her head, and before he could react she had his hand twisted up and out, opening him up, exposed to the brutal assault on the side of his neck.

Her fist connected with force, and as he buckled under the blow, she followed through with an open palm strike to his throat. The trauma was instant. The blood flow to his brain, stopped. His airway, crushed. He fell, dying.

The second man had pushed his way through the crowded café, drawing his weapon before the first man hit the ground. The silenced weapon had begun its sharp arc up from the folds of his jacket as Shirin hurled herself forward.

Her left hand reached for the cutlery on her table and gripped a metal fork while her right hand parried the gun up and away. She sidestepped fast to her right. She ducked under his raised arm, then thrust forward and up into his neck with the fork. The gun bucked in his hand as the first shot was fired, sending the bullet wildly skyward. Still moving fast, she stabbed the fork into his throat a second time and circled behind his back.

His shock lasted only a moment. She left the fork dangling from his flesh, gripped his head and chin, then twisted vertically with a sickening crunch.

His body crumpled on the spot like a rag doll. He was mid-fall when Shirin dislodged the silenced Glock from his grip and pointed it toward the third man as he stood momentarily stunned.