Oath of Office

43

Montgomery clutched the steering wheel with both hands, leaning forward, fighting the urge to get involved.

Chadwick’s BMW X5 pulled up just before she walked out.

“Movement, Bravo,” an agent said.

Another piped in. “Charlie’s up, walking toward the street.”

Then: “Gun Bravo! Gun Bravo!”

In front of the restaurant, Delray Witherspoon, a six-foot-three rawboned special agent who’d played tight end for Mizzou before joining the Service, bounced Bravo’s head off a concrete pillar before he could bring up the pistol. Bravo collapsed on the sidewalk.

Special Agent Soong moved to her right, body-checking subject Charlie at the moment he tried to come through the glass doors, knocking him back into the arms of the two agents who’d sprinted up behind him.

Chadwick and her date got into the Beemer and drove away, seemingly none the wiser that she’d narrowly avoided execution.

“Subject Alpha, running east,” one of the rooftop shooters said, calm, sniperlike. His voice held the unique buzz of someone whose face was pressed against a rifle chassis. “She’s on the paved trail, heading down toward the airport.”

Montgomery hit the steering wheel. Ayers would follow Chadwick’s vehicle, staying with her to look out for secondary attacks. With the remaining agents either on the roof or across the street, Alpha was as good as gone.

“Oh, hell, no,” Montgomery muttered, slamming the Durango into gear. Flooring the accelerator, he turned quickly off Crystal Drive into the parking lot to his right, cutting between the two apartment buildings. He’d gotten enough of a look at Alpha to see she had long legs and an easy stride. Probably bought her running shoes by the gross. There was no way he’d be able to outrun her. But he was a boxer, and boxers knew how to work the angles.

The Mount Vernon Trail stretched for eighteen miles along the Potomac River between George Washington’s estate and Roosevelt Island to the north. The entry onto the trail from Crystal City ran east through the woods as it crossed the tracks and then cut almost due south to follow the George Washington Parkway before finally joining with the trail via a concrete ramp overlooking Reagan National Airport. In other words, if she wanted to run north and stay on the trail, Alpha would have to run south first. Montgomery had run it before with friends from the U.S. Marshals Service, headquartered in Crystal City, and he knew every sickening foot of it.

He took the Durango as far as he could, eventually finding himself stopped by a swimming pool behind the apartments. Out and running immediately, he scrambled over the rusted metal wall along the train tracks. He tore the knee on his khakis when he hit the gravel, but his predatory drive put him past caring. He hit the woods at an all-out run, crashing through dense greenery of oak shrubs and sassafras, half sliding, half bounding down the side hill. The thump of evening traffic on the GW Parkway covered the noise of his approach.

Montgomery slowed a hair as the vegetation began to thin and he neared the edge of the woods. Alpha was to his left, still running as if pursued by demons, just about to go under the bridge. Montgomery dug in, sprinting up the grassy hill to GW Parkway, where he waved at oncoming cars like a madman. Traffic was never good inside the Beltway, but Sunday evening gave him a relative break, and he was able to scramble across in fits and starts like the frog in the video game without getting squished. Energized at having reached the high ground in advance of his target, he stepped into the woods where the Crystal City access T’d into the main trail and waited for Alpha to run directly to him.

He drew his SIG Sauer, but there was no need.

Alpha stopped dead in her tracks and raised her hands when she saw the badge hanging from the chain around his neck.

“My name is Elizaveta Bobkova. I am the Russian attaché for economic affairs and I have diplomatic immunity.”

Gun up, Montgomery kept his distance.

Without being ordered, Bobkova knelt on the grass, put both hands on top of her head, and crossed her ankles. She knew the drill. An Arlington PD patrol unit pulled to the shoulder of the road and stopped, pistol out, surveying the scene from behind the safety of his engine block.

Montgomery tapped the badge around his neck. “Secret Service. I could use some help here.”

Two more APD cars showed up in as many minutes, more relaxed with the situation now that they had superior numbers. Montgomery holstered his sidearm and let the officers, who were accustomed to working as contact and cover, take Elizaveta Bobkova into physical custody.

“Nice Glock,” Montgomery said when one of the Arlington officers passed him the G43 they took from her waistband. “Small, but a little much for an economic attaché.”

Bobkova cocked her head to one side. Sweat beaded on her upper lip. Her chest heaved from exertion and nerves. It was getting dark now, and the blue and red lights of the squad cars flashed off her passive face. “You are very large man,” she said, her Russian accent stronger than it had been earlier. Her eyes were almost shut, as if she were trying to figure out some riddle. “I do not mean to say fat. You are large in good way. But I cannot believe a man as large as you caught up to me on foot. It is… remarkable…”