Oath of Office

6

It was difficult to say if the row after row of whitewashed hotels and tapas bars spilled down from the cliffs of Carvoeiro or crawled back up from the sea.

Dominic Caruso and Adara Sherman sat together at a covered table at the Più Grand Café, one of many restaurants located along the road leading down to the beach. Mournful guitar chords poured from overhead speakers, traditional Portuguese fado, prompting Caruso to sigh.

“They must like to be sad here.”

“I like it,” Adara said. “They call it saudade—irreparable loss, longing.”

“No kidding,” Dom said. “It makes me long for some classic rock. Give me some AC/DC over this stuff any day.”

Though they were on surveillance, the chemistry between them was real, so they did not have to pretend to be a couple. Caruso was a credentialed special agent with the FBI, “on loan” to The Campus. He wore a loose cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up over strong forearms, khaki slacks, and comfortable lace-up Rockports that he could run in.

Adara Sherman was in her mid-thirties, with blond hair that fell just over her ears; her white shorts and navy-blue polo accented her propensity for CrossFit. She’d been Hendley Associates’ director of transportation, dealing with travel logistics as well as physical security of the company G5 when it was on the ground. It was the position now held by Lisanne Robertson, a fact that gave hope of eventual promotion to the latter. Sherman was a former Navy corpsman and always had at least a small tactical medic’s kit within easy reach. The relationship between her and Caruso had happened naturally, and, so far at least, they’d proven they could work together without any issues. Caruso told himself that at times like this the fact that they were a couple made the op even more believable. Clark and Hendley weren’t altogether happy about the work relationship, but neither of them tried to put a stop to it. The heart wanted what the heart wanted, even in the intelligence community. There were plenty of operational couples in the FBI and the CIA, though they rarely worked on the same cases. Even Mary Pat Foley, the director of national intelligence, and her husband had been spies together back in the day.

Their table at Più Grand gave Sherman and Caruso a direct line of sight to the covered balcony on the second floor of a tapas bar and restaurant called Casa Ibérica. There had been no time to put listening devices in place. In fact, it was little more than luck that they had such a good visual. The two Russians had arrived a half-hour before, first getting a table at a small restaurant across the street from Dom and Adara called the Bar Restaurante O Barco. John Clark had walked past, aware that they were probably checking for a tail. He was proven right five minutes later when the Russians stood and dropped their menus on the sidewalk table, apparently unable to find anything to their liking. They walked down the ramp to the beach, on the sidewalk just feet away from Dom and Adara, before returning to get a table at Casa Ibérica, up the switchback hill from the promenade of shops and restaurants above Carvoeiro Beach. Guarding against another turn-and-burn by the Russians, Clark sat down across the street on the same level as Adara.

“Eyes wide,” Clark said into the mic on the neck loop under his shirt, as if muttering at his menu.

Dom toyed with a shrimp in his cataplana, a seafood-and-pork stew. “Copy. Our friends are just sitting there, chatting over their beers.”

Adara paused for a beat, waiting to see if Clark responded or if Lisanne came back with a sitrep on where they were with the fleeing motorcyclist.

“I’m thinking they’re either in the dark about Gaspard,” she said, “or they are complicit to the hit.”

Jack’s voice crackled over the net. “She’s heading right toward you. Makes me think they’re probably involved.”

“Maybe,” Clark said with a whispered grunt. “I don’t see any countersurveillance, but guys like this will surely have some. We do.”

Adara took out her phone and raised it to take a couple of photos of Dom with the sea behind him. She handed him the phone and let him take some of her. Like a giddy couple on holiday on the Portuguese coast, they put the phone on the table between them and scrolled through the photos, paying special attention to anyone behind either of them that looked out of place. Two men behind Caruso caught their attention. Both were young, rawboned, with shaggy blond hair. Their clothing was just ill-fitting enough that it looked like it had been purchased by a distant aunt who’d never met them — or an SVR quartermaster. One of them hid discreetly behind a menu and the other turned his face.

“Watch this, John,” Adara said. She motioned a waitress over and asked her to take a photo before sliding her chair around beside Dom. Again, the men ducked their heads.

“Got ’em,” Clark said. “Somebody’s cage just got rattled.”

Farrin Galle pounded on the dashboard with his left hand, his right touching the butt of the Steyr GB pistol at his belt. He was originally from Belgium. Seven years in the French Foreign Legion’s elite 2e Régiment Étranger de Parachutistes had ingrained in the bullish thug enough tactical sense not to draw his weapon during a chase. There was too much of a chance the handgun would be dislodged during even a minor fender bender. And anyway, shooting was too good for the bitch. What he really wanted to do was cut her up in tiny little pieces and then step on each piece before feeding them to the crows. It wasn’t that she’d killed his boss — there was no love lost for Hugo Gaspard — but this woman had had the balls to kill him right under Farrin’s nose. There was no way to keep something like that a secret. Word would get out. Good work would dry up and he’d be forced to protect low-level drug dealers, or worse yet, some prima donna actor. No, this little brunette bitch was dead. If he managed to kill her, that might salvage his reputation, at least a little.

“Want me to run her over, boss?” Yves, the man behind the wheel, said.

“That would be most welcome.” Farrin nodded at the fleeing Ducati, now fading into the distance. “But would you not have to catch up with her to do that?”

Instead of answering, Yves stomped on the accelerator.

Farrin glanced in the side mirror. The dark Audi loomed larger as it gained on them. They were likely in league with the assassin. Louis and Alain would make short work of them.

Alain’s voice crackled over the yellow FRS handy-talky in the seat between Farrin’s legs. He snatched it up.

“Go.”

“We’re in position, boss,” Alain said.

“Take them,” Farrin said. “And make an example of it.”

“Black Peugeot,” Lisanne said. “Coming up behind us fast.”

“I see them,” Jack said through clenched teeth. He swerved the rental car back and forth, keeping the Peugeot from moving up alongside. He had a Smith & Wesson M&P nine-millimeter in his daypack, but shooting from a moving vehicle at another moving vehicle with a pistol was not just a last resort, it was a waste of meager ammunition. Beyond that, there was little point in relying on 128 grains of lead when he had three thousand pounds of metal at his fingertips.

The guys in the Peugeot didn’t understand the concept, because the passenger rolled down his window and leaned out, aiming over dark sunglasses to open up with some kind of SMG. Both Lisanne and Ryan ducked instinctively when a couple of lucky rounds thwacked into the trunk.

“We’re taking some fire,” Lisanne said, her voice matter-of-fact, describing the offending Peugeot over the net for the rest of the team.

Jack rolled his shoulders to keep them loose, willing himself not to squeeze the wheel as he continued to swerve the Audi across both lanes. “So much for blending in. Someone is bound to call the cops.”

“Hang tight.” Ding’s voice broke squelch on the radio. “We’re three-quarters of a mile behind them and gaining.”

“They’re resorting to spray-and-pray,” Ryan said. “But I like their odds if they have enough ammo. Good chance they’ll get off a lucky shot by the time you can close the gap.” He shifted in his seat, settling in deeper behind the wheel, reaching a conclusion. “I’m going to try something.”

Ding inhaled so deeply his mic picked up the groan. “Jack…”

“Trust me,” Ryan said. The machine gun clattered behind them again, this time shattering the Audi’s rear window. “I think they’re going to try and PIT us.”

Lisanne craned around to look over her shoulder, and then up at Ryan. Her head cocked to one side, dark brow arched. “So what’s your plan?”

Jack turned and gave her a quick wink.

“I’m going to let them.”

Yves slowed the Mercedes on the outskirts of Carvoeiro. “She disappeared, boss,” he said, pushing a lock of blond mop out of his face and gulping back the croak of failure.

“This I can see,” Farrin said. He slammed a big hand into the dash, a blow he really wanted to deliver to Yves, but that would have made the imbecile run into a utility pole. “Get out!”

“Boss?”

Farrin’s voice grew quiet. “Get out of the car and switch seats. I will drive.”

“They won’t get a chance to actually PIT us,” Jack explained to a slack-jawed Lisanne Robertson — and the others holding their collective breath on the net.

“Nah,” Lisanne said. “They’ll just put a few bullets in our skulls.”

“There’s that,” Jack said, watching the car behind him grow larger in the rearview mirror after slowing down for a sharp left curve. The guys in the Peugeot had to get lucky only once. For this to work, Jack had to do everything right.

The PIT, or pursuit intervention technique, allowed the driver of one vehicle to use his front quarter-panel to untrack the rear wheels of a second vehicle while traveling at highway speed. When done correctly, the vehicle on the receiving end simply spun out of the way, allowing the vehicle initiating the PIT to continue driving, or, as in the case of the guys in the Peugeot, turn around and murder Jack and Lisanne while they sat stuck helplessly in the ditch.

Lisanne leaned forward, craning to see around a white stucco building as they reached the junction with Route 124–1. Lagoa and Portimão lay to the right. To the left were Carvoeiro and the sea. “I can’t see left,” she said. “But I’ve got a good view toward Lagoa, and the bike is nowhere in sight.”

Ryan punched the gas, shooting around the corner to the left as the black Peugeot rounded the corner fifty meters behind them.

“Turning toward Carvoeiro on 124–1,” she said over the radio, her calm voice belying her wide-eyed look.

Jack brought the Audi out of another tight turn and mashed the accelerator to the floor on a relative straightaway. Houses gave way to tree-covered limestone hills on either side of the road. If he was going to do anything, this was the place. “You know the OODA Loop?” He asked without looking up.

“Of course,” Lisanne said.

The OODA Loop described the steps the human brain had to go through in order to take action — Observe, Orient, Decide, Act. An interruption of the process meant starting over — or a costly mistake. Disorient someone, they had to observe again, before making a new decision. Change things up as that decision was being made, and the original action was often executed, even if it was wrong.

“Well,” Jack continued. “I’m gonna throw a wrench in their loop.”

Ding came over the net again. “Can you make it into town? I show you just a couple of klicks out.”

Another volley of fire answered the question. More rounds popped against the Audi’s trunk.

“Not likely,” Jack said.

He tapped the brakes, bringing the speed down to just below seventy miles an hour. His serpentines back and forth across the winding two-lane grew less pronounced, allowing the Peugeot to inch up on the left side.

Lisanne slid down in her seat so she could just see out the side mirror. “Now we’re down to the nut-cuttin’, as my father used to say. Jack… Guy on the right is lining up for a shot.”

“I’m counting on it,” Ryan said. He kept an eye on the Peugeot in the side mirror, holding his breath as the passenger leaned all the way out to take careful aim in the buffeting wind. The guy seemed sure in the knowledge that since Jack was trying to run, he’d just keep running.

Twenty feet away, fifteen, then ten, the shooter leaned half his torso out the window.

Jack stomped the brakes hard, coming just shy of locking them up. He let off immediately so he maintained control, but the damage was already done. The Peugeot sped past. Metal screamed against metal, catching the hapless shooter and smearing him between the two vehicles with a sickening thump and dragging him out the window of the Peugeot.

The decision for his next move already made, Ryan floored the accelerator again before the other driver could reorient. He nosed the Audi up next to the Peugeot’s rear tire. Tapping the brakes slightly caused the Audi to squat, stabilizing it as he cut the wheel toward the other car. At nearly seventy miles an hour, it required little more than a kiss to untrack the Peugeot, but Ryan started his PIT aggressively, giving the other car a solid nudge. He straightened the wheel immediately after impact. The Peugeot fishtailed to the right, continuing to spin around in front of the Audi, crashing against a low limestone wall facing the other direction and flipping up on its side. Steam poured from the radiator.

“And… they’re done,” Lisanne said. She rose half out of her seat so she could get a better look as they flew down the road toward Carvoeiro.

“Son of a bitch!” It was Midas on the radio, obviously passing a piece of the dead shooter in the road. “That had to hurt.”

“You guys okay?” Ding asked next, checking on his troops.

“Good to go,” Ryan said, breathing for the first time in thirty seconds. “But the Ducati is in the wind.”