“Come on, let’s try that street-cross again, shall we?” I smile and take her arm.
She laughs and says, “They say practice makes perfect.”
As we stand at the corner of Beverly and La Cienega to wait for the light, I’m suddenly aware of everything around me moving in slow motion. Katia turns to me and begins to close in for a kiss. At the same instant the traffic on La Cienega moves forward and out of the corner of my eye I notice a white van crossing the intersection much too slowly. Two men are inside—one driving, of course, and the passenger, who is holding what appears to be a rifle out the window.
Oh, my God, it is a rifle!
Katia’s face is suddenly obstructing my view. I can’t stop her as her lips meet mine. I instinctively push her away as the harsh crack of gunfire rings through the air. Katia’s body jerks as I throw her to the street. I leap on top of her to shield her from the sniper, then roll my head back to look at the van. I can just see the face of the gunman as the vehicle zips through the intersection and disappears, blocked by Beverly Center.
It all makes perfect sense now. The gunman is Yvan Putnik, the Shop assassin. No wonder those 7.62mm shells rang a bell.
Turning back to Katia, I shout, “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”
I roll her over to face me and I see that her eyes are open but staring blankly. She must have been stunned by the fall so I lightly pat her cheek. “Katia, it’s all right. They’ve gone.”
But she doesn’t move. I panic, roll her to her side, and then I see it. The bullet meant for me struck her between the shoulder blades.
FROM this point on, everything is a blur. I seem to remember crying out in anguish. A couple of pedestrians leaving the mall ask if they can help. I remember telling them to call an ambulance.
In a case like this, Third Echelon protocol calls for me to leave the scene as quickly as possible. I’m not supposed to get involved with local law enforcement, whether it’s in a foreign country or here at home. I’m trained to simply get up, walk away, and let others clean up after me. This time, however, I’m unable to do so. I continue to kneel beside Katia and cradle her in my arms. I gently close her eyes and then hold her head against my chest. I feel the new pearl necklace against my sternum so I press her even harder into me, perhaps so the necklace will make a permanent indentation in my skin.
“Sam?”
It’s Coen’s voice but I ignore it.
“Sam, you have to get out of there.”
I can’t leave Katia. She’s not dead. She’s going to make it. Where’s the fucking ambulance?
This time Lambert gets on the horn. “Sam! Get out of there! That’s an order!”
This gives me the presence of mind to grasp Katia’s wrist and feel for a pulse. There isn’t one.
“Sam, you’re to stand up, cross the street, and go inside the hotel,” Lambert says. “Go straight to your room and gather your things. Frances and I will be there in five minutes. Do it now, man!”
I brush the curly hair off of Katia’s face and kiss her lightly. I’m unable to say anything to her so I gently lay her body back on the street and stand. Paying no attention to whether or not the traffic light is against me, I walk across the boulevard. A small crowd has gathered around Katia and some of the people shout at me. I enter the hotel and go straight to the elevator. As soon as I’m in my room, I put my head in my hands and begin to curse. I damn them all to hell—the Shop, the Lucky Dragons, the NSA, Third Echelon, Colonel Lambert . . .
But I save the worst of the obscenities for myself.
29
I sit numbly in the passenger seat of Frances Coen’s Lexus. We’re on our way to LAX. Colonel Lambert is in the backseat.
The last couple of hours slipped by seemingly without my participating in them. I remember Coen and Lambert showing up at the hotel and picking me up. Lambert insisted I wear a bulletproof vest beneath my civilian clothes just in case the sniper was still around, so I took a moment to put it on. I also held on to my backpack. There was no way I was letting them have it. We left the Murano in the hotel’s garage for some other NSA flunky to take care of. Other government bureaucrats are dealing with the police and clearing me of any involvement with Katia’s murder. It’s the kind of cover-up the U.S. government is good at. All the alphabet organizations—the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, you name it—have damage control teams in place that immediately jump into sensitive situations like this one. From this point onward, as far as the Los Angeles Police Department is concerned, I was never at the Sofitel and didn’t know Katia Loenstern. The poor woman was the apparent victim of a random shooting.
After handing Coen my duffel bag and equipment, I was quickly ushered into her car and now here we are.
Coen and Lambert are unaware of how I felt about Katia but they suspect something. We drive in silence for a long while—traffic is typically heavy on the 405 heading south—until finally Lambert speaks up.
“Sam, this woman, was she your girlfriend?”
At first I don’t answer. I continue to stare out the window and play mindless games such as counting all the red cars.
“Sam?”
“Colonel?”
“This woman. Was she your girlfriend?”
“Not really,” I answer. “She was my Krav Maga instructor in Towson.”
“Why were you with her in L.A.?”
I shrug. “She happened to be at the same hotel as me.”
Lambert sighs and waits a moment before he continues. “Sam, we know you were seeing her. We know she was in your hotel room last night. It’s our job to know these things.”
“I know.”
“So you don’t have to hide anything from us.”
“Why would I want to hide anything?” I ask. “If you know everything already then there’s nothing to hide.”
“Sam, I’m sorry about Ms. Loenstern. Really. If she meant something to you then it’s all the more reason why we need to continue the job at hand. We’re close to ending it, Sam. We can put these people out of business for good.”
My heart is currently somewhere else and I just don’t feel like chasing Shop personnel. That said, I would like to find Yvan Putnik and shove his head down a toilet, flush it, and let him drown in his own filth.
“Sam, we’ll be at LAX in ten minutes. You’re the only man that can do this job at the moment. No other Splinter Cells are in the vicinity; they’re all overseas. You’re familiar with the case, you know the people involved. I understand how you feel but the best thing for you to do is to leap right back into the action. It’ll help get your mind off of—”
“What the hell do you know what the best thing for me is, Colonel?” I snap. “You don’t know a damn thing about how I feel!”
Lambert is used to occasional spats between us. He ignores what I realize is an overreaction and says, “That may be true but you have to snap out of it, Sam. Perhaps you need to go on psych leave as soon as we’re done, and then you can go on a long vacation. You’ll feel differently then.”
We begin to approach the LAX exits. Of course Lambert’s right. I just don’t feel like walking away from Katia and pretending that nothing happened. I’m going to blame myself, dammit, and I want to blame myself. I need to blame myself. I want the time to do that.
On the other hand, if avenging her death is a priority then I do have to keep going. I do want to catch Putnik and the other Shop vermin he works for. Meeting the plane from Hong Kong is the first step toward accomplishing that goal.
“All right, Colonel,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“Forget it, Sam.”
“Just don’t say, ‘Forget it, Sam, it’s Chinatown.’ ”
Lambert doesn’t get it but Coen chuckles.
LAMBERT gets off his cell phone as we’re about to separate in front of Bradley International Terminal. There will be some undercover FBI agents working backup for us. I guess the Bureau figures I can’t do this alone. Coen and Lambert postpone their trip back to Washington fo
r another day so they can keep an eye on me and make sure I don’t have a nervous breakdown or something.
I must admit I feel a little better now that I’m “working.” In the car I was ready to murder anyone that so much as smelled like a government official, and that includes Lambert and Coen. It’s typical that I would beat myself up over Katia’s death. I certainly did the same thing over Regan, and she died of fucking cancer. The CIA shrinks at the time kept telling me it wasn’t my fault but for some reason I felt better if I could blame myself. I know it doesn’t make a bit of sense.
Anyway, now that I’m here at the airport and am in the thick of things, so to speak, my mind is clearing. I’m pretty sure I can focus on the task at hand and I told Lambert that when we got out of the car. He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. That gesture alone was worth more than any stupid words of sympathy he might have said.
The security photos from the Hong Kong airport are transmitted to my OPSAT right on time as we walk inside. We take a moment to go through them and I’m damned if I recognize anyone.
“Maybe seeing the passengers in the flesh when they come off the plane will help,” Lambert suggests.
My NSA credentials get me past airport security at the terminal. The flight is on time and will arrive in minutes. I wander into the gate area and take a look at the people waiting there. Because of security rules these days, only ticketed passengers are allowed to access the gates and it’s even stricter in the international terminal. So it’s a pretty good bet that the people I see here are waiting to board the next flight out, not waiting for incoming passengers. At any rate, there are no Asians in the mix. In fact, the folks here appear to be no one of interest.
“Sam?”
“Yeah?” I whisper. It’s Coen. I have to be subtle pressing the implant in my throat. It’s one thing to talk on those in-ear cell phones in public, it’s another to simply push on your Adam’s apple to speak to someone.
“I’m patching in FBI agent Firuta. He’s in charge of the three-man team here.”
“Okay.”
In a moment, I hear his voice. “Agent Fisher?”
“That’s me.”
“Special Agent Gary Firuta. There are three of us here. I’ve got two men in the baggage claim area. I’m stationed just outside of Customs at the escalator connecting Immigration with the baggage claim. If you spot anyone coming off that plane we should be pay attention to, let us know.”
“Right.”
I stand at the back of the hallway to have a full view of the gate area. Finally, the plane is here and passengers begin to disembark. Since it came from Hong Kong it’s only natural that most of them are Asian. I scan the faces as they come through the door and don’t recognize a soul. Then, when it seems that no one is left aboard, a lone elderly Caucasian appears. He’s using a walking cane and carries a briefcase. His hair is white and he has a neatly trimmed white mustache and beard. But there’s something about him that’s very familiar. I’ve seen him before.
I quickly snap a shot of him with my OPSAT. Even when I’m dressed in civilian clothes, my OPSAT never leaves my wrist.
The old man walks slowly into the waiting area, looks at the signs, figures out which way to go for Immigration, and moves in that direction. I follow him at a safe distance and inform Agent Firuta of what’s happening. In the meantime I rack my brain trying to recall where I’ve seen the old man before.
The lines at Immigration are long. I move on through to wait on the other side. The old man stands meekly in line and doesn’t appear to be threatening at all. While there’s time to kill I pull up his image on the OPSAT screen and study it. Zooming in, I focus on the guy’s eyes, his nose, his . . . beard. It’s the beard. Oskar Herzog. The last time I saw him he had the same beard. He’s changed the color to white, applied some aging makeup, and is doing a good job hobbling with the cane.
“Alert,” I whisper, pressing the implant. “Old man now approaching the Immigration desk for passport clearance, using a walking cane. It’s Oskar Herzog.”
“Hold on, Sam.”
I see the Immigration official pick up his phone as Herzog hands over his passport and visa. The agent listens a moment, nods his head, and hangs up. He then stamps Herzog’s passport and clears the man through.
“We’re letting him in,” Firuta says. “His passport says he’s Gregor Vladistock, a Russian national living in Hong Kong.”
“The guy’s really German,” I say.
“He spoke convincing Russian to the agent. My two men will pick up the tail downstairs at baggage claim.”
“Don’t lose sight of him. He’s here to meet someone.”
I take the escalator down with everyone else and find the baggage claim to be very crowded. Several flights have come in during the last half hour, which isn’t unusual for LAX. But the place is more chaotic because a couple of carousels are down and the only three working have been relegated to all incoming flights. On top of that the ground crew is running behind unloading the planes.
As I follow Herzog toward the carousels I notice two Asian men in business suits standing near the rental car counters. They’re obviously poised to catch anyone heading toward the baggage claim. Every now and then they whisper something to each other. Now that I think about it, the two guys look too punkish to be wearing business suits. I’d bet the farm they’re Triad hoods attempting to look mature.
I press the implant and whisper, “There are a couple of suspicious Asian guys by the rental car counters.”
But Dopey and Goofy pay no attention to Herzog as he passes them. In fact, after the man is several yards away, they shake their heads in disappointment. Whoever they were sent to meet didn’t show. The pair turns and begins to walk closer to the carousels.
Standing near the exit doors, close to the carousel designated for the Hong Kong flight, are three limousine drivers carrying signs with their clients’ names on them. I notice that Herzog nods at one of them and the driver—who happens to be Asian—smiles. His sign reads MR. VLADISTOCK. Bingo.
Just as I’m about to call attention to the limo driver, Dopey and Goofy surprise everyone by causing a well-orchestrated disturbance. They both jump onto the moving carousel and shout in English, “We have a bomb! Nobody move!”
Of course, the entire crowd panics. People scream and make a mad rush to the exits, dropping and leaving behind their baggage. Security personnel blow whistles and yell for everyone to calm down but it’s no use.
“Damn!” Firuta says. “What just happened?”
I keep my eye on Herzog. I don’t give a damn about the two Asians. The limo driver sneakily takes Herzog by the arm and hustles him out the door. I try my best to push my way through the chaos in order to keep up with them but the crowd is too thick. Police arrive on the scene and immediately take Dopey and Goofy into custody but people are still not cooperating.
“Firuta! Where are your two men?” I ask.
Apparently the FBI agents responded to the two Asians—exactly what the fake Triads wanted. I now realize that the two Asians were working for Eddie Wu, not Jon Ming. They were sent to cause a diversion so Herzog could get away unnoticed.
Screw that. Like a raging bull I shove my way through the crowd, throwing people aside with no concern for politeness, and burst through the exit doors. I spot Herzog getting into the backseat of a limo that’s illegally parked at the curb. The driver gets in and the car takes off.
I rush madly into the roadway and stop the first taxi I see. With no concern for protocol, I open the door, reach inside, unsnap the driver’s seat belt, and pull him out.
“Hey!” he shouts. He starts to hit me but realizes I’m a lot bigger than he is.
“You’ll get it back in one piece,” I say. “I hope.” With that, I’m already in the driver’s seat and slamming the door. Leaving the speechless driver on the street, I take off in pursuit.
30
TRAFFIC is heavy on the 405 going north, so there isn’t much I can do
but stop and start. The limo is four car lengths ahead of me. The situation is compounded by the onset of a rainstorm. Thunder cracks in the sky and the clouds overhead look villainous.
The limo eventually turns off the freeway and gets on I-10 heading east. I smoothly change lanes and exit also. Traffic is lighter but it won’t be long before rush hour congestion slows the main arteries. Along the way I give Lambert a report. Apparently the FBI back at LAX are pissed off at me for taking off after Herzog without them. Tough shit, I say. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lambert tells me that the two Chinese guys were arrested, even though they claimed to be “pulling a joke.” Lambert agrees with me that they were most likely placed there to create a diversion. Agent Firuta is berating himself for not being on top of the situation. I sign off after Lambert reminds me to keep him informed and mentions that Coen will be following me in her car.
“What’s with the weather?” I ask. The rain has become torrential, making it difficult to see out the windshield.
“Severe thunderstorm alert,” Lambert says. “It’s already flooding the roads west of you. Be careful.”
Great. I thought it was supposed to never rain in L.A. but today I have the pleasure of chasing a limo through the middle of a freak downpour. I guess that’s showbiz, folks.
Eventually the limo gets on the 110 and heads downtown but then it makes a left onto the Hollywood Freeway. By now the 101 is packed with vehicles. It isn’t long, though, before the limo gets off the highway at Sunset Boulevard and turns east toward Silver Lake. I manage to stay on their tail and keep a reasonable distance behind them.
It isn’t long before the limo turns in to a shabby motel parking lot. The place looks like it’s from the thirties or forties. I pull the cab over to the other side of Sunset, where I’m lucky to find a parking space at the curb. From here I have a good view of the motel and watch as the limo parks awkwardly across three regular spaces. After a moment, the Chinese driver gets out and opens the back door for his passenger. Herzog steps out, shakes the driver’s hand, and goes to one of the motel doors. The driver gets back into the limo and waits.