Deep Black

62

Certain habits are so ingrained that they are impossible to change — the way a man sucks in the last swirl of beer at the bottom of a glass, the way he moves over a woman when making love, the way he squints into the high sun when he’s been up too long for too many days running.

Among Charlie Dean’s many inherent habits was one of considerable benefit under the current circumstances — the ability to look at a site and read it for the best possible sniper locations. Standing at the chain-link fence around the construction site Kurakin was scheduled to visit, he spotted a dozen great ones, another four or five good ones, and even a few marginal ones that might be chosen for specific reasons. Dean wanted to check them all.

Lia held him back. “Hold on. We have some work to do first.”

“Like?”

“For one thing, figuring out how to get past the guards at the gate. For another, eliminating some of the possibilities. At least a few will be covered by video devices our friends have already planted. So are the entrances.”

“The guy could’ve come in days ago.”

“We’ll check everything out that needs to be checked,” said Lia. She crossed and began walking up the street, part of a residential area in southeastern Moscow.

“You’re going in the wrong direction,” Dean told her.

“You know, Charlie, sometimes I wonder how you get your clothes on right in the morning.”

“You know, I think it’s about time you and me had a talk,” said Dean.

“Not the birds and the bees again.”

“You always have to be a wiseass, huh?”

A look of regret flickered across her face but changed quickly into a sneer. Lia quickened her pace.

“See, I don’t think you are an asshole,” said Dean.

“You’ve been wrong before.”

“Not about that.” Dean tried to grab her arm, but she pulled away, then spun, and put her finger at his throat.

“Don’t fuck with me, Charlie. Let’s just get it done, OK? This is a shitload more important than anything you’ve ever done.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I know everything about you. Everything — Khe Sahn, the highlands, the lowlands, California, South Africa. I know your fuckups and your successes. I know how many medals you have, and how many people you killed. I also know how many got killed saving your ass. I’m not going to be one of them.”

She whirled away before Dean could find something to answer.

Lia found a small park two blocks up from the housing site. A few mothers were watching kids and talking; she sat on a bench out of earshot, then took her handheld out and punched into the SpyNet portal. It took almost a minute for the system to register and authenticate her; Dean, still sulking, trudged over slowly and sat down.

She wondered if he kept doing things to piss her off on purpose.

“So?” he asked.

“Hang tight,” she said. She thumbed in the most recent satellite picture of the site, then had the computer render it as a schematic. After she deleted the topo lines, she showed it to Dean. “Use the stylus to highlight the places you wanted to look at.”

“Kind of small,” he said after taking the computer.

She took it back and pulled down the zoom. The area was now displayed on four screens. As she started to show him how to go from screen to screen, she noticed that one of the women in the distance was looking at them.

“Put your arm around me,” she told him.

“What?”

“Charlie, do you need an instruction manual on that, too?” Lia leaned into him and he finally figured it out.

A little too well — he leaned down and kissed her.

Not unpleasantly, though she pulled back to break it off. The old biddy who’d been watching frowned and moved on.

“In the line of duty,” he said quickly.

“Four screens,” she told him. “Use the compass arrows.”

She continued to lean on him. She might have admitted it felt good — but only under severe torture.

“I think I have them all.”

“Don’t think you have them—have them.”

Lia waited as he went through the screens again. Probably she wasn’t really attracted to him — he was too old and at times a bit obtuse.

Good-looking, though, with the chiseled shoulders and arms she liked, tight butt, soft but deep voice. He’d be good in the bedroom but probably — certainly — get too attached.

No, she probably wasn’t really attracted to him, except in the most theoretical sense. The problem was that she didn’t have sex enough. This stinking assignment — her fucking life since what, joining the Army? — had turned her into a nun.

Just about.

Karr was nice but too nice, too up all the time; he never turned that bullshit smile off. And Fashona — very nice guy, very not her type.

“Done,” Dean said. “Want me to explain?”

Stuff like that. That’s what pissed her off.

She pulled the computer away and reduced the magnifi- cation. Then she sent the image back to the system for analysis.

“Just because there’s no one there now,” said Dean, “doesn’t mean they didn’t set up already.”

“Really? You think?”

“You want me to help or not?”

The screen came back up. Out of the nearly three dozen places Charlie had identified, only six had had IR readings over the past twenty-four hours. Two were covered by the video cameras the CIA agents had planted, and another was near a microphone.

“These images are made every ten minutes,” she explained. “So it’s conceivable that someone very, very fast could get in and out without detection. But the approaches are being monitored, so really we’re down to four spots.”

“What if they came in a couple of days ago?”

“OK. That screen will take a little longer,” she told him. “The schedule was only set yesterday.”

“They may have staked out the site a month ago.”

“Possible,” she said. “But not probable.”

Extending the analysis to sixty-four hours — that was the longest period available — yielded two other sites.

“I gotta tell ya, I don’t trust all this high-tech shit,” said Dean when she showed him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you guys have been smoked twice. It never works right.”

“Hold on — when were we smoked?”

“Getting Martin out.”

“How?”

“You didn’t know where he was.”

“Well, shit, this isn’t a movie. You think we could have gone in with four people — four people, only two of whom were on the ground — without all our gear? Jesus.”

“How come you didn’t know where he was?”

“He doesn’t have a surgically placed locator,” she told him. “Just like you don’t. You lose your gear and we lose you. Even then, the system has gaps. Shit, nothing’s perfect.” She realized she was talking way too loudly and took a moment to lower her breath. “How would the Marines have done it?”

“Well—”

“That was rhetorical, Charles. I’m not looking for an answer.” She stood.

“I bailed you out at the car place.”

“Yes, you did. Thank you.”

Dean got up, standing close to her. “You don’t say it like you mean it.”

One or two of the women on the playground were staring. Lia turned and looked up into his face. “You know?”

“What?”

Good question, she thought. What?

Dean put his hand on her shoulder.

“Let’s just do our jobs, OK?” she said.

“Fine with me.”

“Then we’ll go our separate ways.”

“Perfect.”

“Start by removing your hand.”

Dean pulled it back with an exaggerated sweep. Lia shook her head and sat down.

“All right,” she said. “We have to get in and check these sites.”

“There are a couple of good windows and the roof in the apartment block,” said Dean, sitting back down as well. “They’re at the far end of the range, but possible.”

“We’ll check them, too. First we get into the site, get that out of the way.”

“How?”

“Technology,” she said, jumping from the seat. “And a little T and A.”