The Perfect Candidate: A Lance Priest / Preacher Thriller (No. 1) (6 page)
Read The Perfect Candidate: A Lance Priest / Preacher Thriller (No. 1) Online
Authors: Christopher Metcalf
“Excellent. I am going to have to ask you for an additional favor.” He looked directly into Philip’s left eye. He’d learned from his time at the dealership to look into only one eye so his own eyes did not shift from side to side. No one likes, let alone trusts, someone who is shifty-eyed. And automobile sales requires a modicum of trust as its foundation.
“Anything,” Philip replied without hesitation.
“I would ask that you please take a look at these two photos.” He held up the file folder and opened it to show Philip the two mug shots of the men hunting him. “These two individuals have presented a significant challenge for my employer in recent months. They have disrupted several transactions and made it difficult to complete our business. If you should happen to see either of these men, I would ask that you first call the police and then call me.”
“The police? Are these two dangerous?”
“They have committed crimes in several countries, including some very violent acts. In fact, one of their more spectacular incidents took place in Montreal several years ago.” Lance added another layer of detail to cement the story. The Canada connection was sure to hit home with Philip.
“I see.” The concierge reacted differently hearing his hometown mentioned.
“I don’t want you to be afraid. I just want you to be aware of the situation. I am sure you and your security staff have dealt with similar circumstances. We would have brought additional security ourselves, but didn’t want to upset the delicate balance of the negotiations. Both parties agreed to this stipulation.”
“I understand,” Philip took another look at the photos to memorize each face. “Do you have reason to believe that these two are in the area?”
“They were spotted at DFW three days ago and just a few blocks from here yesterday.”
“Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I feel with this information, I will be required to extend my shift each day for the duration of your visit.” Philip nodded to assure Lance. And with that, Preacher succeeded in bringing a resource into his sphere of influence. He had just employed one of the oldest tricks of the trade by placing confidence in another; thereby gaining trust and loyalty.
Before Philip shook Lance’s hand and turned for the elevator, they discussed the current occupancy level, expected activities over the next couple of days and of course, the weather. Lance got the concierge to talk about his car, a BMW 3i that cornered like an animal. Car talk is always good for male bonding.
Lance didn’t leave the room the rest of the day. He enjoyed sampling four different lunch items. Because he was holed up in the room, he jogged barefoot in place for 30 minutes and did his usual 200 pushups and sit-ups. He also devoured the road atlas Philip brought. In honor of his new Canadian friend, he memorized the arterial streets in Montreal.
He paused a few moments at 2:17 pm to mark 24 hours completed in his 72-hour survival assignment. No reason to celebrate. When evening arrived, he enjoyed most of a porterhouse steak, a medium rare filet mignon, chicken picatta and only one bite of the veal.
At 4 a.m. the next morning, he followed the same routine from the previous day. The same attendant was at the front desk. No one else stirred in the stately hotel. On this excursion he stopped and read several pages of a coffee table book about the hotel. He learned of its rich history spanning 70 years and was surprised he hadn’t put two and two together about the hotel’s name. Lance was a big fan and had been for a number of years a regular drinker of Anheuser Busch beer. The hotel was built by Adolphus Busch, founder of the beer conglomerate. There weren’t many people named Adolphus around. He’d raise a cold one in honor of the old fella if he made it through this. Lance returned to room 614 and began the third day of his exile.
The man with one eye darker blue than the other fell to his knees in slow motion. His left hand kept him from falling all the way to the ground. His right hand clutched at his chest. The cut, a deep, slicing gash gushed blood. He had only minutes.
The chase had lasted nearly an hour and the man never caught his breath. He never would. His chaser was too fast, too relentless. The chaser bent down on one knee to get closer now, to look into a dying man’s eyes and share these last moments.
Lance had never looked into a man’s eyes as he took his last breaths. He’d chased this stranger through the deep dark of endless night and caught him. Without a moment’s hesitation, he’d thrust his cold blade into the man’s chest. His eyes opened and looked about. The world was dark. The hotel room unchanged. He waited for the remorse. None came.
Chapter 6
5,859 miles to the east and north.
It wasn’t quite the firefights they’d been in during their time in that hell on earth known as Afghanistan, but this was good. These were real bullets flying around them, creating little explosions in walls and leaving craters behind. They nearly had them cornered now.
Soon to be former KGB agents
Evgany Korovin and Nikolai Kusnetsov
were in their element tonight. They hadn’t forced this violence, but were ready to end it. Instead of the streets of Kabul or frozen high mountain passes, this little battle was taking place on their home turf in dark alleys and abandoned apartment buildings in Kiev.
The 2 a.m. meeting was scheduled to facilitate a transfer of Israeli-made weapons in exchange for a significant amount of opium. Korovin and Kusnetsov, often referred to by the catchy acronym K&K, brought the opium to the party. Their access to large quantities of the narcotic was a remnant of their time in the heart of opium country.
Their objective in this particular transaction was twofold. They wanted to obtain the weapons, of course. But they also wanted to exploit a black market source. They’d been hunting this channel for six months and had maneuvered their way into a number of nefarious dealings to reach this point.
Rewind seven minutes
. Korovin drove the car to the designated location. It was a secluded street in an empty, dilapidated district. They knew it well from their childhood. Although they both grew up in Kiev, K&K didn’t meet until they were each recruited into the KGB from the Red Army in the early 70s. They had both been to this very location as children three decades ago. One with his father to visit a black market source for salmon. The other with a gang of street toughs pursuing another gang.
Tonight, the neighborhood was silent. There were no gangs, no fathers, no sons. The other vehicle waited as Korovin approached with headlights extinguished. Kusnetsov was 70 yards to the west in a darkened doorway; a radio held close to his mouth. Korovin held another radio just like it. At three other locations surrounding the site, men held similar radios. They also all held guns. Their sightlines triangulated to create a nexus of death at the center should they begin firing.
As expected, just over 45 seconds after the transaction commenced, one of the longhaired gentlemen who had emerged from the other vehicle pulled a weapon. The KGB veteran had his radio in his right coat pocket. He simply said the words “Okay then,” in Ukrainian. The weapons dealer lost a good bit of brain matter when three bullets entered his forehead and exited out the back. As shots were fired from four separate locations, Korovin took this opportunity to dive and roll to the rear of his vehicle. The guy standing next to the first to die then took four bullets to his head, neck and chest. Neither Korovin nor Kusnetsov were thrilled with this development. It meant they would likely be killing people instead of gathering information on their network and connections. But maybe if they were lucky, they’d capture one of these guys and keep him alive long enough to mine him for usable data.
The rolling gun battle moved to the next block and then the next. At the beginning, there were six of them against the five K&K brought. Moving from doorway to doorway to alley, the other side’s numbers dwindled to two. K&K had with them veterans of the Afghan war who had fought and killed hundreds. The other side fired randomly with little effect. None of their bullets reached their intended targets. The only thing keeping the remaining two alive was the pitch-black night as they hid, huddled really, in whatever alcove they could find. It was only a matter of time.
One of the two took off to the east in an all out sprint. K&K radioed to the others to stay with the runner. Korovin called to Kusnetsov over the radio with his next move. He really didn’t need to though. They knew each other’s tendencies like they knew their own. K&K were elite among the league of killers populating the ranks of the KGB. Their skills and reputations were unsurpassed. The black market weapons dealer they were chasing along a deserted street this early morning had no idea who he and his team were dealing with.
The weapons dealers did not know they were dead the moment they were contacted by men acting as conduits for K&K. This job and maybe one more would be the last K&K would complete as salaried employees of the KGB. They had built up their network, established multiple spheres of influence and stashed millions in accounts throughout Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Running now like they were was exhilarating, refreshing. They hadn’t been in a firefight since Afghanistan. They had participated in shootings. Mostly the two of them killing others quickly with no shots fired back.
This was actually kind of fun. K&K came together against a wall. The man being chased had stopped up ahead and lay flat on the downward slope of a loading dock. He fired 25 or 30 rounds in seconds. The bullets exploded on the wall above Korovin and Kusnetsov. They looked at each other and couldn’t help but smile. They could hear the man get to his feet and take off running again. K&K silently signaled each other their plans. One went directly after the man, the other peeled off to approach from the north.
Four minutes later, they had him cornered. Korovin leapt to his feet and angled across the street. He drew fire and Kusnetsov zeroed in on the muzzle flashes. His good ol’ AK-47 put a hail of bullets square in the weapons dealer’s chest. Hopefully they hadn’t killed him. K&K rushed him from their separate locations, staying low to the ground in case he recovered. Once they arrived, it was obvious Kusnetsov’s aim had been lethal. They wouldn’t get to interrogate this one.
Korovin bent and picked up the man’s gun to remove evidence from the scene. Without the high-end rifle, the dead man would look like any other dead drug runner. As they turned from the body, Kusnetsov brushed his hand against Korovin’s. The gesture was quick and could not be seen by anyone else as the two walked beside each other in the dark alley. But the gesture carried with it the commitment of two people devoted to their shared mission and to one another.
Chapter 7
Preacher was lost in thought.
He’d been thinking for hours. Just lying there in room 614 of the Adolphus Hotel. But his mind was elsewhere. He’d gone out of body big time, reliving the last eight weeks. He knew he’d get it. He’d figure it out if he could just get a hold of a few of the details missed along the way. He started at TU.
It was a simple one-page flyer pinned to the bulletin board outside the Career Counseling Office at the University of Tulsa. Lance stopped to look at the notice. He didn’t know why. Something about it caught his eye. It announced the upcoming Foreign Service Written Examination or FSWE in government acronym talk.
The test would be held in two weeks on Saturday, September 26, 1987. He thought about it for a few seconds. Foreign Service. Could be interesting, exciting even. He had just turned 21, was a junior with unremarkable grades, a part-time car salesman. He was in need of a new challenge. Maybe even a career.
The female work-study student at the counseling office reception desk was named Lori. He could see it on a graded exam atop one of her stacks. She was 19 or 20. Her clothes were casually unfashionable. And as she raised her head to greet him, Lance saw contacts, acne scarring and a smile improved by orthodontics. Details.
She blushed red with embarrassment at the mess she’d made all over the desk with her studying. After a brief exchange with Lori, featuring a delightfully assortment of white lies, Lance assuaged her embarrassment and turned around to wait for a counselor. Her smile was replaced with an ever so slight bite of the lower lip. Lance didn’t have to see it. He knew the look. He’d seen it on countless faces.
The counselor’s name was Janine. He heard a coworker call to her from across the room. Lance hated to ask people their name and instead preferred to learn it through other means. It was a silly little game he played with himself.
Her greeting was perfunctory as she walked him back to her office. Lance took in the postage stamp of an office in a flash. Kandinsky prints, husband with a paunch, two grown daughters, no grandkids yet, undergrad at the University of Missouri, masters’ at Creighton. Left-handed, flower doodles on the desk pad.
If Music be the Food of Love, Play On
streamed across the screensaver on her computer monitor. Lance recognized it as the opening line of Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night
. More details.
Janine handed Lance a one-page questionnaire with 11 questions.
“Here is a little form they ask that you fill out when you register for the exam. Can I ask why you are interested in the Foreign Service?” she asked.
“Foreign policy has always interested me.” He lied. Lance had never considered a career with the US Foreign Service prior to six minutes ago. He had read a number of foreign relations reference books in the library. He blurted out details of US-China affairs and Thomas Jefferson’s exploits in Europe during a time of revolution. But he was making it up on the spot as usual.
“Interesting,” she replied. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to immerse myself in another culture. Like the Middle East or Indonesia.”
“Absolutely,” Lance kept the beat. “Have you ever visited those places?”
“No. Just Mexico and Canada,” she sagged her shoulders a little. For a moment, her eyes misted over and she was off someplace.
Lance went with her for the ride. In fleeting moments when people speaking with him lose focus and drift to someplace visited or only dreamed about, his innate ability to disengage, to go out of body, wander the world and return in a split second, allowed him to bond with strangers as if they were lifelong friends.
The secret, learned as an infant looking up at the faces of those around him, was a brief smile and a moment of unfocused gazing into the distance. A subtle sigh or exhale adds to the effect. Complete strangers often share their dreams, their fantasies with him. Happens all the time.
Lance filled out the questionnaire in a few minutes. His short answers were a mixture of interesting facts and complete fabrications, like most of his life. He walked the form back to Janine’s office and she handed him the Foreign Service Written Exam prep envelope. Her parting smile and bite of her lip were not unlike Lori’s a few minutes earlier.
Lance opened his eyes. He could feel it. He’d missed something there. Something to do with Janine. He shook his head and closed his eyes to try to go back into a trance.
What he couldn’t see were the moments after he left the counseling office. Janine got up from her desk and walked across the office to the fax and copier room. She inserted Lance’s Foreign Service questionnaire – Form No. T12A - into the fax machine and dialed the number on the fax cover. A number, by the way, that does not appear in any listings with the university, the U.S. Foreign Service or any official government agency. The number existed for this one purpose.
A fax machine at the other end of the line fired up. The ensuing hiss and whine of internal modems resulted in two sheets of paper printing out in a nondescript office in an otherwise nondescript building on a very nondescript street on the northwest side of Arlington, Virginia. Just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. and about five miles southeast of Langley, the headquarters of a little government entity known affectionately worldwide as the CIA.