The Janus Reprisal

3

Randi Russell stood in the CIA’s situation room in McLean, Virginia, surrounded by eight flat-screen televisions mounted on the walls and sixteen computer terminals stationed at desks. At least ten people filled the eighteen-by-twelve-foot room. It was 9 PM Eastern Standard Time, and her entire crew had arrived when the first reports of gunfire near The Hague began. Her best officers sat at computer terminals monitoring the Internet status updates from various networking sites, while others watched the traditional media report live from the perimeter of emergency vehicles surrounding the hotel. Russell herself had been working round the clock to decipher the exact location of the attack and had only just gone home to sleep when her phone rang to tell her that what they had warned about had begun. She’d thrown on a pair of jeans, boots, and a cotton long-sleeved shirt while she raced to her car. For the entire drive to McLean she’d prayed that the terrorists would be thwarted before they took too many casualties.

Now she paced before the screens watching the Dutch police handle an action that was straining their capabilities and plotted how her group could help. The live feed from CNN showed the stately Grand Royal Hotel with fire pouring from a sixth-floor window. Russell could hear gunfire and explosions through the microphones. The CNN correspondent kept pointing out how often shots were heard in a voice pitched high with adrenaline.

“The hotel guests are updating. There appears to be a shooter on every floor.” Jana Wendel, a new hire fresh out of Yale, was monitoring a networking site that provided short updates in real time. The site had crashed twice since the beginning of the attack, but each time had been brought back online only to show a continuous stream of heartbreaking sentences. “My husband’s been shot, he’s bleeding to death, please send help to room 602” was the latest. Wendel set her jaw, and Russell thought she would soon be crying. The man sitting next to her, Nicholas Jordan, another new hire, was in charge of monitoring a second, European version of the site, and he, too, looked ready to weep. Despite the obvious emotion they were feeling, they stayed in position, grimly doing their jobs.

“Where’s Andreas Beckmann?” Russell said to the room in general.

“On his way,” another officer replied.

“Get him in position. As close as possible to the hotel.” Beckmann was a CIA sharpshooter, and one of the few stationed in the Netherlands at the moment.

Russell was temporarily stationed in McLean under a new program instituted by the director of national intelligence. The DNI was an entirely new entity signed into law after the attacks on New York and Washington in 2001. The DNI reported directly to the president and since 2005 had been giving him his daily briefing. The DNI was mainly concerned with correcting perceived intelligence failures of the 9/11 attacks, and the latest program was designed to increase communication between officers in the field and McLean. Russell had proven her competence in the field time and time again, and her last mission had helped destroy a growing problem in Africa, after which the CIA had decided that she was best stationed away from that continent until memories faded. She’d been hauled home to act in a consulting capacity within headquarters and to manage a small cadre of agents spread across Europe. Despite the fact that the job was managerial in nature, she was surprised to find that she enjoyed the broad overview that the role gave her, as well as the power to implement real changes in protocol throughout Europe. Occasionally she chafed at the inactivity of a desk job, even a temporary one, but as an operative she knew just how vital it was to have a command center that could support rather than hinder.

The CNN cameras focused a lens on the third floor, where a man was standing in an open window. After a moment he emerged from the pane, holding on to the building’s side. The CNN correspondent noted the man’s actions.

“There appears to be a hotel guest desperate to leave the nightmare that is the Grand Royal,” the CNN correspondent said. Russell felt her irritation rise. The situation was dire enough without dramatic narration from the media.

The supervisor for her assigned area, the director of European Operations, stepped up next to her. Dr. George Cromwell was in his early sixties and had spent his entire career in the CIA. He’d risen from the ranks during the final days of the cold war and was set to retire in two more years. He wore a rumpled shirt and khaki pants, having clearly just left the comfort of his own home.

“That guy falls and he’s a dead man,” Cromwell said. Russell nodded. The man clinging to the wall wore drawstring pants in a black watch pattern with a black T-shirt. His feet were bare and he moved along the slender ledge with precision, never looking down. The CNN camera telescoped, and the man’s profile came into focus. Russell gasped.

“What is it?” Cromwell said.

“That’s Jon Smith.” Russell stepped closer to the flat screen. Smith’s image filled the forty-two-inch monitor.

“You know him?” Cromwell said.

“He’s army, and was engaged to my late sister, Sophia.” Both Wendel and Jordan looked up from their computer screens. Wendel gave Jordan a glance, her eyebrows raised, before returning her attention to the monitor.

Russell scanned the room. “Someone get me a list of hotel guests. Didn’t we have one?” An officer handed her some papers. She ran her eyes down the first page, then the second, then the third. She pointed to a name that she showed Cromwell. “There he is.”

“US Army. He’s a doctor?” Cromwell said.

Russell nodded. “And a molecular biologist. Highly skilled.” She waved a hand at Jordan.

“Do we have a channel to the fire department? Put me through, could you? But remember to use the cover ID.” Russell’s cover included a fake name and false picture on the CIA website, and her title was acting CIA director of public liaison. She’d been using it for the past month when sending out communiqués to various European agencies about current threat levels.

Russell resumed pacing while she waited for the fire department call to be connected to the wireless headset she wore. She watched Smith make his way across the wall and felt her stomach twist with tension. While her feelings about Smith were complicated, she didn’t want to watch him fall to his death. She stopped pacing when she heard the chief of the fire department address her.

“This is Brandweercommandant van Joer.” He spoke English with a British accent.

“Commandant, can you get a ladder to that man? Quickly?”

“I’m sorry, but I cannot. My orders are to keep my men away from the building. They have no body armor, and we’re afraid that the terrorists will kill them before they even maneuver a ladder into position. We’re waiting for our tactical team to contain the situation first.”

“But he might fall at any moment.”

“I’m sorry. But I’d like to point out that he also has a gun in his waistband. It’s entirely possible that he is one of the terrorists.”

“No, no, he’s one of ours.”

“But he has a gun…”

“Of course he has a gun! He’s United States Army.”

“What’s he doing at a WHO conference with a gun?”

Russell hesitated. She knew that Smith’s activity as a Covert-One operative often placed him wherever a crisis was happening, but in this instance his presence at the hotel could have been purely coincidence. His real job also placed him at the scene of disasters and near disasters, and it was entirely possible that he was there in that capacity as well.

“He’s an infectious disease specialist. I imagine he was invited by WHO to attend.”

“I’m very, very sorry, but I can’t risk my men. Again, I’m sorry.”

“Ms. Russell, Beckmann’s in position. I’m patching him through,” Wendel said, and she tapped on her keyboard.

Russell watched the screen. Smith was almost to the corner when she saw a masked man’s face appear at the window to his left. The terrorist maneuvered an assault weapon out and trained it on Smith.

“Beckmann, fire,” Russell said.