Long Shot

30

Lem James was wrapping up a long day. The special agent of the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service had been up to his elbows in work for the past forty-eight hours as tensions increased throughout Finland. The Russians were on the move on one side and NATO was awakening on the other, and Finland was in the middle. Diplomats in the laid-back city had been as busy as honeybees in the bright spring weather, and that meant that Lem and his fellow agents were working around the clock to protect them. Late-night meetings were becoming the norm, but maybe tonight he could get home to his wife and son in time for dinner.

He had locked his safe and his desk and was putting on his jacket when the cell phone began a little bebop tune that meant a call was coming in. He was tempted to let it go until he saw the picture and name of Inspector Rikka Aura of the Finland Security Intelligence Service.

“I told you never to call me here,” he answered in a teasing voice. “My other mistresses will get suspicious.”

“I have no time to be a mistress for anybody,” Aura said. She sounded tired. “Sorry to call you so late.”

“I always have time for you, Rikka. You know that.”

The woman paused, as if gathering courage. “This is way off the record, Lem. You remember that friend of yours with whom I had a disagreement a while back?”

“Yeah. You threw him out of the country.”

“Meet me at Molly Malone’s as soon as you can.”

Ten minutes later, they each had a foam-topped beer before them at a table in the rear of the pub, their heads almost touching so they could talk above the racket of a local band trying to play Irish music. Lem had rarely seen his friend so concerned, but understood that her neutral country was caught in a tightening vice because of its ardent neutrality. Failing to stand up to a bully never works — not on a playground and not in a global showdown.

“My source for the information about when and how Kyle Swanson was coming to Finland was General Sir Frederick Ravensdale of Great Britain. He called me personally from Brussels. I assumed at the time that he was acting in his role as NATO deputy commander.”

Lem pulled back, took a slug of beer, and said, “No shit? The guy who just got named to head the special northern task force? Why would he do that?”

“I thought it was an unofficial favor. You know how that works, Lem. Now I’m no longer certain. The general did not want Swanson to linger in Finland a moment longer than necessary. Having me expel him forced your friend to act immediately and not make other arrangements. It forced him along a certain path. Does that make sense?”

“No, but I’m not very smart. I will pass this along to my people. Thanks, Rikka. I know this was a difficult decision for you.”

“It was, Lem. It could get me fired or imprisoned if it gets out, but Helsinki is in the crosshairs of whatever is about to happen and I think this might have something to do with it. You go home now and say hello to the family for me. Tomorrow may be hell.” She got up, touched his shoulder lightly and left the bar while he ordered another beer to help him digest the news.

The guard parked in front of the home of Mayor Konstantin Pran had a problem common to most men his age. As the time passed, and darkness fell like a shade across the neighborhood, boredom set in and his attention drifted to the edge of sleep. He jerked himself awake and checked the time. Too many more hours. He decided to get out, stretch his legs, bend his back a few times and go to the trees and pee. Tomorrow, he would pack a plastic jug in the trunk so he could do his business in the car, just as he had on stakeouts when he was a young cop.

The night air was cool and welcoming. He could smoke out in the open, but not in the car. Silly rule. The neighborhood had settled down like a snoozing dog. The guard had done a pee break an hour before without incident. A jug would be better than getting a complaint from some neighbor who might see him urinating on the flowers. This time, the shadows were longer and the shade was deeper. As he unzipped his pants, a double garrote of fine piano wire was slipped over his head and bit into his neck.

Kyle Swanson had waited patiently, knowing that it was likely the guard would repeat his earlier behavior to empty his bladder. He snapped the wire loops into place, crossed his hands to tighten it and pulled hard with a knee in the man’s back to force a bend. The garrotte cut through the flesh as fast as a spinning butcher’s saw, and went hard and deep completely around the neck. Kyle kept pulling through pharynx, larynx, trachea, esophagus, pharyngeal muscles and a field of blood veins. In a few seconds, the thin wire was sawing on the top of the spine. The guard had automatically reached up to pull on the wire, but Swanson was using the French Foreign Legion method. By using a very long wire, he was able to wrap it twice around the neck, so even as the victim clawed at one loop of the collar, the other was made tighter. Once snared, there was no way out. The man went down and Kyle straddled him until it was over. The corpse had been almost decapitated.

Swanson unwound the wire, having to pull a bit to free it from the muscles and flesh, and stuffed the metal weapon in the backpack. He grabbed the dead guard by his shoulders and hauled him deeper into the trees. Peeling off a black raincoat that was smeared with blood, he spread it over the corpse.

Then he pulled down the knitted balaclava mask, drew his .45-caliber Colt, slung on the backpack and headed toward the front door. An ankle holster held the 9mm Beretta Px4 Storm Compact. There was a light on the small porch. He unscrewed it and rapped lightly, four times.

The mayor was at the dining table. His wife, Ivi, had come home right after the swearing-in ceremony and devoted herself to building a spectacular meal of roast chicken, fresh vegetables, potatoes and a salad mixture of her own design. A thick, sweet kissel with ice cream waited as dessert. She was very pleased both with the meal and with her husband, and the tapping at the door annoyed her.

“You stay and enjoy the food, Konstantin. I will get it. Maybe the guard has to use the bathroom.” Ivi put aside her folded napkin.

The mayor watched her go with a private smile. They had been married more than thirty years and he still loved her spirit and admired her grace. He called, “Whoever it is, send them away, Ivi. The workday is over. This is our time.”

She pulled the dead-bolt free and undid the thin brass chain. Just as she realized the light was not working, Kyle Swanson kicked in the door and sent her spinning across the hall, bouncing off of the wall. By the time she hit the floor, he had closed the door, was wrapping strips of duct tape around her hands and over her mouth like a cowboy roping a calf.

Three and a half seconds after the door had opened, Swanson was down the hall, across the living room and descending on Konstantin Pram like an indoor hurricane. The mayor had managed to drop his silverware and begin rising from the chair when Kyle hit him with a body-tackle, feeling the weakness of the old man. In a few more seconds, the mayor was also hog-tied.

Swanson stood and took a few deep breaths, then put them both in facing chairs in the living room. He had holstered his Colt, but now took it out and pointed the barrel directly at the top of Ivi’s head. In conversations with Anneli and Brokk about their election opponents, Kyle had been told that the mayor spoke English. In fact, the mayor bragged about his ability to bring in foreign investment because he could negotiate face-to-face. “You speak English?”

Both of them nodded in the affirmative, and he put the gun away, went out and locked the door.

Swanson shrugged out of the backpack and opened a side pocket to withdraw a block of gray plastic, which he placed on a table. He rolled the mass with his palms in easy strokes until the malleable material was a long, thick string. Moving to the wife, he roped it around her neck, gently pulling her hair free, and then connected the awkward necklace at the front of her throat.

Ivi Pran tried to struggle, but Kyle whispered for her to be still. Her husband could not hear the promise that she would not be hurt. Her eyes remained wide in fright as the man in the black mask stood back and studied his work.

Satisfied, he went into the backpack again and found a pencil-like device that he held for them both to see. “Mr. Mayor, that material around your wife’s neck is a powerful plastic explosive called C-four,” he said, then wiggled the pencil. “This is a detonator. I am setting it to go off in exactly one hour.” He adjusted the detonator and showed the mayor a little screen that said 60:00, then pushed it into the plastic necklace on his wife.

“There is only one way to stop this from blowing up.” He moved to the mayor and knelt before him. “You will get in your car and drive to wherever you are keeping Jan Hollings, the American. You will bring her back here to me. Understand?”

Konstantin shook his head, thinking, If I can only get out, I will get the police.

Swanson knew what he was thinking, because it was natural. He walked slowly around the room and gathered the framed photos of children and adults. Christmas, beach scenes, new babies, teenagers and friends. “You should know that I am not the only one working tonight. Friends of mine are tracking all of these people even as we speak. Do you understand me?”

The mayor was horrified and jerked at his bindings. His children and grandchildren were being threatened.

“You have crossed a mark. You have begun toying with war, little man, and that is not allowed.” Swanson dumped all of the pictures at the feet of the man, and then he ruthlessly crushed the glass and frames beneath a thick black boot. “Not only is your wife at risk now, but if Hollings is not standing here within the hour, all of these other loved ones of yours will be murdered tonight or tomorrow. I will burn this house. We will kill your brothers, sisters, parents, friends and in-laws. Your line will come to an end. If you try to bring in the cops and the military, I will not be able to call it off. Still understand me? It will be wholesale slaughter. Just like you guys did to the Disappeareds.”

The mayor was pleading with his eyes. He flinched when Swanson jerked the duct tape off his mouth. “Wait, sir. Please,” he gasped.

Swanson casually reached for the detonator and started it, so the mayor could see the little numbers begin to count down… 60:00 became 59:59, then 59:58. “I suggest you leave now, Mayor. You will have to drive yourself because your guard outside is dead. Go, you fat bastard. Bring me my friend.”

Konstantin Pran drove as a man possessed, barely noticing other cars or people, pushing his old green Volvo hard as he retraced the route back to the town hall while counting seconds in his head. So much was at stake that nothing mattered but retrieving that woman spy from the basement cell. There was no time to call out the guard, or summon any other kind of help, because he believed in his soul that the madman back at the house would carry out his threat and not give it a second thought. Pran would worry about possible repercussions to his career later, but right now the only way to save his entire family was to do as he had been told.

When he reached the Raekoja Plats, light were shining from the spire of the Town Hall, which had been closed for the night. It had taken almost ten minutes to drive there and he looked at his watch in panic. Less than fifty minutes left. He stopped directly in front and leaped from the car with his chest pounding so hard he thought for a moment that he might be having a heart attack. That slowed him. Dying meant the deadline would be missed. He did not stop, but slowed and swallowed big bites of air as he went up the stairs. The place, so familiar to him, now seemed like an evil castle.

The double door was locked, which forced him to ring a bell and shout and pound and wave at the security camera to get the attention of the night watchman. No one else was in the entire plaza and the sounds he made stirred only sleeping pigeons. Seconds of waiting stretched to minutes. He is asleep! The watchman is asleep! He was about to leave and try to break through a window when a voice whined out from the intercom speaker on the wall.

“Who is it? The town hall is closed.” The voice was accusatory as the night watchman showed his authority.

“It’s Mayor Pran! Let me in immediately!” Konstantin demanded, sounding as mean as he could.

“Why?”

The mayor thundered, “Why? You don’t question me, you fool! Open up now or I will have you fired and arrested. I am on official business that is of no concern to the likes of you.”

There was a bit of silence before the man thought it over, then replied, “Yes, sir. Right away.” He moved slowly because of the way he was being treated. Reluctantly, he obeyed, and left his post.

Two more minutes were wasted for the mayor, who was huffing air and leaning against the wall while his feet moved in a nervous dance. The locks clicked and the door swung open. The night watchman, in a sloppy uniform, stood back as Konstantin Pran sailed past him. “You asshole,” the mayor said, and dashed for the marble stairs. Tick, tick, tick went his mental clock.

Kyle Swanson went to the woman and laid a hand on a shoulder. “Now that he is gone, ma’am, I can tell you not to worry about that thing around your neck. It is not a bomb, just some ordinary children’s clay, and there is no charge in the detonator. You are going to be fine, and your family is safe. I apologize for frightening you and damaging the pictures, but I had to scare your husband into doing what I wanted.”

He saw her close her eyes in relief. She murmured something impossible to understand from behind the tape.

“I have to leave you taped up for a while longer to be sure that you don’t scream or try to escape. You have no reason to trust me, but you can relax. He will be back soon, then I will leave. You will be fine. OK?”

Ivi Pran stared at him, then visibly eased her posture. It was impossible for her to fight against this man.

Kyle turned to the dining table, drawn by the aroma, and he gave the other rooms a quick search as he went. He rolled his mask up far enough to allow him to eat some chicken and potatoes while he waited, and it was delicious. He kept his big pistol on the table.

At the Town Hall, the guard in the basement was the same patrol officer as before and he once again snapped to attention when he recognized Mayor Pran. “Good evening, sir.”

“Good evening.” The mayor’s voice was a gravelly rumble in the echoing basement. “I have come to collect the prisoner.”

“Sir?”

“Open the door for me, Comrade Officer,” he said, falling back into the communist jargon. “I don’t have time to explain.”

The policeman said, “I should check in with my sergeant first, sir. My orders were that after the building closed for the day, she became my personal responsibility.”

Pran was short on patience and even shorter on time. “This is for a high-level and confidential meeting, young man. Officials from Moscow have arrived to interview this spy in a private place that has the proper equipment. Also, I am the one now giving you an order, and I outrank your sergeant.”

“Nevertheless, she remains my responsibility, Mayor Pran.”

That was the sticking point. Pran said, “Then you will accompany us. She will be in your presence except while being interviewed concerning sensitive information, then you and I will return her back here in a few hours. We will not awaken your sergeant. If any question arises, I will take full responsibility. I want no trace of her being with the Russians before the official transfer tomorrow. It might worsen an already delicate international problem, do you understand?”

The policeman was satisfied. It was a thoroughly Russian operation. He was covered. “Just one moment, sir.” He reached for his keys.

Inside the bomb shelter cell, Jan Hollings heard the scrape of metal on metal as the door was unlocked. She dropped the blanket and awaited the unknown, willing herself to remain strong, no matter what.