Operation Barracuda

28

As I’m driving back to the hotel, Lambert speaks to me through the implants.

“Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“We have information on upcoming American Airline flights from Hong Kong to LAX. The first one arrives around three o’clock today. There’s another at five. We have the passenger lists but nothing is raising a red flag.”

“Anyone can use an alias,” I reply. “What about security cameras at the points of origin?”

“Haven’t got ’em yet. There’s a lot of red tape involved in getting hold of those things quickly. We should have them in hand by the time the flights arrive. I want you to be at LAX and meet the first flight. If there’s no luck with that one, stick around for the other one.”

“Will do, Colonel.”

He gives me the airline and flight information. “Now you can go get some rest.”

“I want to get this empty shell to you. I’m dying to find out who the bastard is that shot at me.”

“Put it in an envelope, write ‘Frances Coen’ on it, and leave it at the front desk at your hotel. She’ll come by this morning and pick it up before we head back to D.C.”

“You’re leaving today?”

“Yeah, we have to get back. Mike Wu is under wraps and we don’t need to babysit you here.”

“I hope not.”

The sun is just beginning to rise when I arrive at the Sofitel. I leave the Murano with the parking valet, enter the lobby, and ask the concierge for some hotel stationery. I drop the shell into the envelope, write Coen’s name on it, seal it, and give it to the nice lady at the front desk.

I then go up to the room and quietly let myself in. The bed is empty and unmade but I hear a feminine voice humming in the bathroom.

“Katia?”

The door flies open and there she is, naked as the day she was born and more beautiful than I can describe.

“Damn, it’s Aphrodite herself!” I manage to say.

“Don’t tell me… Apollo?” she says, pointing at me with feigned surprise. “Mars? Zeus?”

“Pick one and that’s who I’ll be.”

She saunters over to me and helps me take off the uniform. She notices the bullet hole in the top of the backpack and wrinkles her brow. “Sam?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I whisper, taking her by the back of the neck and pulling her close. “Everything is fine.” And I kiss her.

We fall asleep again after a couple hours of fiery lovemaking. When I wake up the digital clock tells me it’s nearly eleven. Having skipped breakfast, I’m famished. Katia stirs beside me and must be thinking the same thing, for the first words out of her mouth are, “Where are the eggs and toast?”

I suggest exploring the outside world for a while, perhaps find a nice place to have brunch, and maybe go shopping for an hour. I express the desire to buy her something.

“You don’t have to buy me anything.”

“I know I don’t have to. What I want to do and have to do are always two different things. But in this case, I want to and I have to. Besides, I have to be at LAX at three o’clock.”

Her eyes widen and she asks, “Are you leaving?”

“No. I have to meet a plane. Business.”

“Oh. So you’ll be back.”

“Definitely.”

“All right then. In that case we don’t have much time.” We take a shower together, soap each other up, and resist the temptation to heat things up again. She spends ten minutes in the bathroom primping. I kick her out to shave and she goes upstairs to her own room to find a new change of clothes. Fifteen minutes later we meet in the lobby. To save time we elect to go to the hotel’s restaurant, Gigi’s Brasserie. It’s French cuisine with a good selection of breakfast and lunch items. We order eggs and share a plate of fruit, cheese, and bread. The coffee and juice are tasty and we agree that it was a good choice.

“We’ll go over to Beverly Center,” I say. “Let’s find you something you like, something women enjoy buying. Shoes? Jewelry? Lingerie?”

She kicks me under the table. “Lingerie is something men enjoy buying.”

“Okay, let’s buy that, then.”

While we’re eating I can’t help but be constantly aware of our surroundings. Am I being too paranoid? With that sniper loose in the city, there’s no telling where he’ll show up next. If I was indeed his primary target then how did he know I would be at the pier? There’s no way. I have to believe he was after Eddie Wu. Maybe he was sent by the Triad to eliminate the guy for turning coat. I just happened to be in the way. That seems to be a very logical explanation of what happened and the more I repeat it to myself, the more I believe it. I’m trained to detect when I’m in danger and right now the internal radar simply isn’t beeping. This makes me feel more secure in going out in public with Katia but I can’t be too careful. I’ll just make sure that we stick to indoor places, avoid walking on the street, and spend our time in shops. We should be fine.

When we’re done, I pay the bill and take a look outside while she uses the ladies’ room. Traffic is typically busy for a midweek midday. Katia comes out in a moment, gives me a big smile, and we head outside. I take her hand as we walk to the corner, wait for the light, and cross the boulevard. I’ve said it before — I hate malls. I can’t stand them. But for some strange reason, entering one with Katia is a different experience. I’m suddenly one of the normal Americans who don’t have to think about national security, counterintelligence, and terrorism on a daily basis. I could be another average Joe, out at the shopping mall with his wife, the kids at home with a sitter or at school, with nothing on my mind but car payments and taxes.

Yikes.

I put those thoughts right out of my head and concentrate on pleasing Katia. We go into Adrienne Vittadini and she spends some time looking at clothes. Next we visit Banana Republic and she spends some time looking at… clothes. She then decides to go into Macy’s to look at more clothes, so I pop over to Niessing to look at the jewelry. I feel like being extravagant for the first time in years so I buy her a unique pearl necklace. The pearls are framed in black, white, gray, and yellow gold. It sets me back a tidy sum but I don’t give it a second thought. She’s worth it. I have it gift wrapped and I suddenly feel that funny warmth in the center of my chest. It’s been so long since I’ve experienced that particular sensation I’ve almost forgotten what it is. Am I falling in love? Is it just infatuation? A little of both?

Screw it. Stop analyzing and let it flow. Whatever happens is what happens. I’ve lived too many years to know not to try to predict things. One thing is certain — I feel great and it makes me happy to buy the gift for her.

I find her looking at shoes in Macy’s and present the package to her. She nearly cries when she opens it and sees what’s inside. I help her put it on and she gives me a big hug and kiss right there in the middle of the store. An elderly shopper mutters, “Aw, isn’t that sweet?” and I think I’m supposed to be embarrassed but I’m not.

Katia is beaming when we leave Macy’s. The gift has overwhelmed her and she can’t concentrate on shopping anymore, so we wander around the mall looking in windows. I still have a little over an hour before I have to leave for LAX so I suggest we go back to the hotel. She thinks that’s a marvelous idea.

We go down the big escalator that empties onto the street and prepare to cross Beverly, but I hold her back for a second while I take a look.

“What is it?”

“Just being cautious,” I say. “It’s in my nature.”

“You really do dangerous stuff for the government, don’t you.” It’s a statement, not a question.

“Let’s not talk about it, Katia.”

We start to cross the boulevard and I scan the buildings in front of us. The hotel swimming pool is on the roof of the building next to the Sofitel and I can see something glittering at the edge. The sun reflects off a metal object and for a split second I think it’s the sniper. I grab Katia and pull her back.

“Sam!” she shrieks as I push her, perhaps a little too roughly, back under cover next to the escalator. “What the hell?”

“I thought… I thought I saw something,” I say. My heart is pounding as I look up to the roof again. Then I realize it’s just some kid with sunglasses playing with a squirt gun. I silently curse and apologize.

“You scared me,” she says.

“It won’t happen again,” I reply but of course that’s not true. It will always happen again. Suddenly, all the doubts and fears of being in a relationship come rushing back to me. I’ve put Katia in danger simply for being near me. It’s no good. Everything I’d been feeling for the past several hours vanishes in the blink of an eye. My heart hardens once again and I dread having to tell her that whatever it is we’re doing must stop. But perhaps I can put it off until we’re back home in Maryland. Yeah, that’s it. No need to spoil her vacation. No need to wreck my last hour with her. We’ll say, “See you soon,” and then I’ll wait until a better time to break it off. That way we can both retreat to our private lives in Towson and do whatever grieving needs to be done.

“Come on, let’s try that street-cross again, shall we?” I smile and take her arm.

She laughs and says, “They say practice makes perfect.”

As we stand at the corner of Beverly and La Cienega to wait for the light, I’m suddenly aware of everything around me moving in slow motion. Katia turns to me and begins to close in for a kiss. At the same instant the traffic on La Cienega moves forward and out of the corner of my eye I notice a white van crossing the intersection much too slowly. Two men are inside — one driving, of course, and the passenger, who is holding what appears to be a rifle out the window.

Oh, my God, it is a rifle!

Katia’s face is suddenly obstructing my view. I can’t stop her as her lips meet mine. I instinctively push her away as the harsh crack of gunfire rings through the air. Katia’s body jerks as I throw her to the street. I leap on top of her to shield her from the sniper, then roll my head back to look at the van. I can just see the face of the gunman as the vehicle zips through the intersection and disappears, blocked by Beverly Center.

It all makes perfect sense now. The gunman is Yvan Putnik, the Shop assassin. No wonder those 7.62mm shells rang a bell.

Turning back to Katia, I shout, “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

I roll her over to face me and I see that her eyes are open but staring blankly. She must have been stunned by the fall so I lightly pat her cheek. “Katia, it’s all right. They’ve gone.”

But she doesn’t move. I panic, roll her to her side, and then I see it. The bullet meant for me struck her between the shoulder blades.

From this point on, everything is a blur. I seem to remember crying out in anguish. A couple of pedestrians leaving the mall ask if they can help. I remember telling them to call an ambulance.

In a case like this, Third Echelon protocol calls for me to leave the scene as quickly as possible. I’m not supposed to get involved with local law enforcement, whether it’s in a foreign country or here at home. I’m trained to simply get up, walk away, and let others clean up after me. This time, however, I’m unable to do so. I continue to kneel beside Katia and cradle her in my arms. I gently close her eyes and then hold her head against my chest. I feel the new pearl necklace against my sternum so I press her even harder into me, perhaps so the necklace will make a permanent indentation in my skin.

“Sam?”

It’s Coen’s voice but I ignore it.

“Sam, you have to get out of there.”

I can’t leave Katia. She’s not dead. She’s going to make it. Where’s the fucking ambulance?

This time Lambert gets on the horn. “Sam! Get out of there! That’s an order!”

This gives me the presence of mind to grasp Katia’s wrist and feel for a pulse. There isn’t one.

“Sam, you’re to stand up, cross the street, and go inside the hotel,” Lambert says. “Go straight to your room and gather your things. Frances and I will be there in five minutes. Do it now, man!”

I brush the curly hair off of Katia’s face and kiss her lightly. I’m unable to say anything to her so I gently lay her body back on the street and stand. Paying no attention to whether or not the traffic light is against me, I walk across the boulevard. A small crowd has gathered around Katia and some of the people shout at me. I enter the hotel and go straight to the elevator. As soon as I’m in my room, I put my head in my hands and begin to curse. I damn them all to hell — the Shop, the Lucky Dragons, the NSA, Third Echelon, Colonel Lambert…

But I save the worst of the obscenities for myself.