The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) (42 page)
Read The History Thief: Ten Days Lost (The Sterling Novels) Online
Authors: Joseph Nagle
Michael casually looked over his shoulder.
Charney walked into the bastion.
The two men stared briefly at one another. Charney quickly looked away.
Michael turned his attention back to York.
“Lioz limestone, as I said earlier, exists only because something else once lived. The calcium carbonate that was left from its demise is a substance so hard that it could be used to make this tower; a symbol from an era that existed over four hundred years ago—get your head around that, kid. Not only is it solid enough to last so long, it is also very, very good at blocking the signals of cell phones and anything else that sends or receives a signal.”
Michael reached into his pocket and pulled out the bug. He showed it to York whose eyes had grown wide.
“Look over my right shoulder, kid. What do you see?”
York did and then he replied, “I see a man. He’s looking at one of the cannons. His nose looks a bit busted.”
“That man, kid, is the same man that I ran into when I was on my way out of the back door of the coffee shop. I’m the one who busted his nose. That man is also the same man that you and I both ran past when we left the hotel. He was sitting at the café smoking a cigarette and drinking espresso. At his feet was a pile of cigarette butts. He had been there for some time. He’s also the same guy that was in a cab much like ours that followed us here.”
Michael paused.
“Kid,” he continued, “that man is following us.”
Michael dropped the bug to the ground and placed his heel over it. With a simple twist, he crushed it.
“What are we going to do?”
Michael didn’t hesitate; his mind had already created the battle plan.
“You take his right flank; I’ll approach from the left. Be casual. Don’t spook him. I want some answers.”
Michael turned and followed the wall casually as he closed the distance between himself and Charney.
So much for giving me the signal to begin
, thought York, as he started to move toward Charney’s right flank.
Charney stood taller. He sensed movement. He saw the CIA officer and the Green Beret split up.
Divide and conquer, eh?
Charney eyed the two men through his periphery; a young boy, no older than five, ran awkwardly by. Charney reached out and snatched the child by his hooded sweatshirt.
Both York and Michael stopped.
Kneeling to the child, Charney put his hand almost affectionately around the boy’s neck and then looked at both of the men.
He shook his head slowly back and forth as if to say
no—not now, not here.
Michael edged slightly closer to test the man. Charney gave the boy’s neck a firm squeeze and didn’t release. The child’s muffles were silenced by the chokehold; his face was turning a deep shade of crimson.
Michael held out his hands to concede.
Charney stood and backed his way through the bastion’s entrance. He let the child go, sending him sprawling across the limestone floor.
Michael bolted to the entrance, but the man was already gone.
Back inside, York picked up the young boy from the floor. But the child screamed and fled.
T
he parking lot near the south entrance of the CIA’s headquarters was nearly empty. The night was typical for Virginia; Samantha L. Hightower shivered slightly from the damp air.
She fumbled through her purse and couldn’t find her keys.
“Damn it,” she mumbled.
Stopping for a moment, she mentally retraced her steps, trying to remember where they were. She remembered having pulled out a small tube of ChapStick earlier; the keys had been in the way.
Ms. Samantha realized that she had set them on the desk of her workstation.
Crap,
she thought,
now I have to go back and get them.
It wasn’t so much that she was bothered by the extra few minutes it would take to walk back to the arched doorways of the headquarters, or the time it would take to clear security, wait for the elevator, walk the long hall to the reinforced, secured door, or the distance she would cover retracing her steps back to her car.
Returning to the room after having been ordered to leave bothered her.
Ms. Samantha contemplated calling for a cab, and even had her cell phone in hand, but then thought about the fifty-dollar or so fare it would cost for the ride home. She would have to pay as much to get back tomorrow.
Better suffer the wrath of the section chief than be out a hundred bucks.
She turned and walked back toward the headquarters building.
Inside, Ms. Samantha made her way back to the unassuming door; sliding her security badge next to the electronic reader, she heard the three steel tumblers slide from their locked position. With a slight sound of released pressure, the door cracked open slightly.
As she walked through the room, the quiet unnerved her.
Her entire career had been spent with the CIA, a large part of it as an active field officer with the Clandestine Services (formerly called the Directorate of Operations).
She had seen much in her career.
Her senses were on fire.
Something was wrong.
Out of instinct, she reached for her weapon.
It wasn’t there. She almost felt embarrassed. After being removed from the field, she had no need to carry a weapon; the CIA had taken it from her.
She slowly set down her purse; simultaneously her eyes panned the room. Across the room she saw the section chief’s body. A normal woman, a man even, would have jumped or let out some sort of shriek at the sight, but Ms. Samantha was not a normal woman. Her actions were methodical, almost surgical; this was not the time for emotion. She let the scene digest. The damage caused by the shot to the head was apparent. There was no way the man was alive.
Her eyes moved across the room.
Nearby, the feet of Jorge Garrido stuck out from behind one of the desks.
Before making her way to the bodies, she finished reconnoitering the room. The assailant might still be inside. She traced her careful stare up and into the chief’s office and then reversed course to make sure that she hadn’t missed anything.
It took only a few moments. She was satisfied that she was alone.
Quickly, she hit the panic button underneath the nearest workstation.
The protocols were set into action. Emergency lights lit brightly; an ominous, overhead alarm sounded, and, Ms. Samantha knew, the entire campus of the CIA was being locked down. Soon, operatives of the Special Activities Division would swarm the campus; they would encapsulate the grounds in an annular fashion and quickly tighten the noose.
They would be entering the room with their MP5s pointed internally. She knew that in less than sixty seconds, they would fill the room and force her to the ground.
Time was not her ally. With the section chief clearly dead, she ran to Jorge to evaluate his wounds.
On her knees at his side, she saw the bullet hole through the clothing over his chest, but curiously there was no blood. She ripped open his shirt and saw why.
Jorge was wearing a very thick and large religious symbol of San Juan Bautista—Saint John the Baptist—which was attached to a chain around his neck.
The bullet was embedded in the emblem.
Feeling for a pulse, there was none.
Ms. Samantha ripped open Jorge’s shirt and saw a tremendous amount of bruising. Gingerly, she felt the area. It was tender and moved easily against her touch.
The ribs surrounding the impact of the bullet had been shattered, and his xiphoid process—the place just over the heart where the ribs meet at the center of the chest—was more than soft to the touch: it was obliterated.
The impact of the bullet against the Catholic medallion had stopped it from entering into his heart, but the impact was close range. It was vicious enough to have acted like a sledgehammer to the chest.
The impact had stopped his heart.
Ms. Samantha jumped to her feet and ran to the wall. Time was running out. She snatched the automated external defibrillator (AED) from where it was mounted in a red box on the wall. Running back to Jorge, she painfully landed atop her knees on the carpet but ignored the burning from the friction caused by the rug.
With efficacy she turned the machine on with one hand while attaching the leads with her other. She quickly went back to compressing Jorge’s chest. The AED would take ten to fifteen seconds to diagnose either ventricular fibrillation or tachycardia before delivering the high joule shocks necessary.
Ms. Samantha forcibly and rhythmically compressed Jorge’s chest; with each compression, she heard the grating of broken bones.
The door to the room burst violently open.
Screams from the operatives were nearly indecipherable.
Ms. Samantha continued to pump Jorge’s chest. “Wait! Wait!” she shouted.
“On the ground, face flat to the floor! Do it now!” commanded the nearest operative.
Ms. Samantha ignored him and continued compressing Jorge’s shattered chest. The AED wasn’t fully charged; it was still readying itself.
The operative fired his weapon. She had been prepared and knew the first shot would be a nonlethal bag.
It hit her square in the back.
With an awkward fall, she first twisted at impact and then was on her side. At that moment, the AED chimed, and a current of nearly two hundred joules screamed through the leads and into Jorge’s chest.
Ms. Samantha was in agony; streaks of black intermingled with flashes of white in front of her face as her body fought to not pass out. From where she lay, she could see Jorge’s face. She watched for any sign of life. She hoped it would take only the one shock.
Her mind raced.
You can’t die
.
Y
ork bolted for the entryway to the bastion.
“Stop!” Michael shouted, shaking his head a bit.
The young soldier heeded Michael’s command. His chest heaved slightly; he didn’t ask for an explanation. He saw it written all over Michael’s face.
Michael walked to the entryway and held his finger up to his lips as if to say
quiet
. While still in the casemate, he reached outside of the door’s frame and traced its outside edge with his fingertips. First the left side, then the right, then he moved his fingertips over the top edge of the frame and stopped with his fingertips still on the door’s frame.
He had found something.
He looked at York, and then pulled in his hand.
Balled in a fist, he opened it slowly to show York what was on the inside. He held it gingerly, as if it were dangerous.
York moved closer.
Michael raised his hand closer to York’s face so that he could get a better look.
“Kid,” Michael said paternally, “your Special Forces skills are a tremendous asset and will help to keep you alive in a number of combat situations, but this is different. This is the Clandestine Services; your enemy is in every face that you see; he is around the corner, hell, he can even arrive in the mail. In this business, technology is our second-most-dangerous obstacle.”
Michael slowly unfurled his hand.
When York saw it, a look of confusion draped over his face.
“I don’t understand.”
“Look closer.”
York was bent over at the waist with his face close to Michael’s hand. As he stared, Michael playfully slapped the back of his head.
York jumped back, his body erect; he was rubbing the back of his head. “Jesus Christ, what’d you do that for!?”
Michael looked at his hand, and then showed it to York. It was empty. Then he looked York direct in his eyes. “As I was saying, technology is our second-most-dangerous obstacle; what man is now capable of doing with even the smallest bit of computing power could keep you from sleeping for a week. But, kid, the most dangerous thing we face in the field is our own stupidity.”
York’s face went flush with both anger and embarrassment. He knew a lesson was coming.
“Impetuousness and puerile, irrational behavior, kid. You must think clearly through every step that you intend to take. Never run through a door without first knowing what’s on the other side—you must have already thought of every possibility and a way to counter them. As far as you know, that man was on the other side of the door with a pistol aimed face-high. Am I being clear?”
York said nothing but did nod a bit, affirming that he understood; his concession was obvious, but it was more obvious that he was angry from being scolded like a child. Michael motioned that it was time to leave.