Blue with Black Dots (The Caprice Trilogy Book 2) (47 page)

She was taught to run without having her finger in the trigger guard, holding her weapon almost like a cocktail glass.  She could quickly slide her index finger into the trigger guard as she adjusted into firing position.  That’s what she did.  She knew she had to get closer to the man.  He wore a navy polo shirt and blue jeans.  The direct sunlight reflected off his tan, shiny head.  His shiny baldhead made it hard to lose sight of him but Georgia had to close the distance to get off a shot that had a decent chance of hitting him.  Her
Browning
was small caliber like the weapon he was carrying.  Whatever happened would happen at close range.  There wasn’t much point to firing outside fifty meters.  He was moving and the low caliber cartridge would start to stray from its intended path, the further it flew.  The point wasn’t to aim at him.  The point was to hit him.

Georgia was closing diagonal distance as the man ran along the road.  She hustled knowing the man was in shape.  He could run faster and longer than she could.  She had one advantage.  She heard the rounds he fired and earmarked them as .25 caliber.  Her
Browning
held seven .32 caliber rounds.  The advantage was slight but she didn’t have to get as close to him as he did to her.  It was also possible that he had only a few rounds left.  She heard four distinct rounds go off.  He had either three or two rounds left, unless he had reloaded.  The spy game was more like Blackjack than Poker.  Probabilities were hard to come by.  You did more assuming.  Like Blackjack, you assumed the down card was a face card.  It was the same as assuming every gun was fully loaded.  Without knowing otherwise, Georgia gave the man a seven-round magazine to match her own.  The idea sparked a small panic and she decided to stop and fire before getting to the painted-white fence that outlined the property.  The shot ripped through the top of one of the planks but the man didn’t seem fazed.  He was fazed.  She didn’t know who he was but no one was unaffected by gunfire.  She thought she changed the game psychologically, seeing how he did under pressure.  Georgia sped up as she approached the white wooden fence.  She looked down at her weapon and secured the safety.  She took the fence like she meant to tackle it.  She threw her right shoulder into the fence and used her cast left hand to brace on the cross board, as she cartwheeled her body over the fence.  Her shoulder joint was bruised as she came down on the other end of the fence.  But she didn’t flag it.  She kept one thing in mind, as she went upside down over the fence.  No matter how she landed; no matter what injuries she thought she had, she focused on remembering to disengage the safety.  She landed on her feet but rolled to her side to take the impact of the ground.  On her side, she flicked the safety switch up.  She scrambled to her feet and took one, two, three, four steps forward.  She put her arms out in front of her and let the muzzle of the gun line up between her eyes.  She could see the man was still running but more of a jog.  The mad sprint down the gravel driveway had winded him.  By Georgia’s estimate he was outside her desired 50-meter range so she aimed for his torso but aimed slightly high to compensate for gravity’s pull.  She slow squeezed the trigger and released it, feeling the blowback muzzle scrape the top of her right hand.  She readjusted her grip to compensate for her cast-bound hand.  She repeated the slow squeeze with her right hand to send another round toward her target.  She counted the rounds like she learned to.  She had four shots left.  She squeezed off one more round at the man who was still standing but didn’t appear to be running.  As long as he was on his feet, he was a target.  But because he wasn’t running, Georgia held out her pistol in his direction and marched steadily closer.  If he took off, she still had three shots to put him down.  She saw the man go down—not all the way, to his knees.  From a good forty meters back, the man looked like he could be readying his weapon.  Georgia rang out another shot that she saw hit his back.  He went forward down on his arm.  Georgia kept her gun pointed—two shots left.  She didn’t run up to him.  She walked.  She didn’t worry about cars passing by.  They could become the victims of a clever explanation.  She was more concerned about the downed man, who he was and what he had done.  As she walked closer to the man lying face down in the grass on the side of the road, she could hear him breathing.  His breathing wasn’t rhythmic.  There were short inhales and long exhales, more air going out than coming in.

“Spread your hands out as far as you can,” said Georgia, “If I don’t see ‘em I put one in your ass.”  The man’s hands went out.  Lying flat on his chest made his labored breathing become almost none existent.

“Gigi, let me roll over,” said the man.  The name made Georgia pause.  She didn’t want him to roll over.  No one had called her
Gigi
since they were all together—the boys and the girls. 

“Gigi, please,” said the voice almost sounding desperate.  Simone told the truth all along.  It was the truth that could have stayed unverified.  The man in the grass was one she trained with—one of the Peers.  Georgia didn’t want him to roll over.  She didn’t want to know which of them were dead.  If he had killed all the others but her, then he was the last man down and she was the last woman standing.  As she looked him over, she could see the three holes in the back of his shirt.  They looked like snags, like he had caught his shirt on the fence.  But he didn’t go over the fence.  Georgia did.

“Put both your arms straight up above your head,” said Georgia, “Roll on your back slowly or I’ll shoot you sure as shit.” 

“I’m not armed,” said the man sliding his hands over the grass above his head.

“I threw away my gun to avoid suspicion,” said the man, “Isn’t that how we were trained to do?”  The man began to slowly roll to his left.  When he landed on his back, she could see how dark his face was.  His complexion was the same as Simone’s.  Georgia squinted to go over his face.  It was a slow recognition, partly because his head was clean-shaven, not with a shaver, with a razor.  And his skin was darker than any of the boys had been.  He was unrecognizable from afar, almost unrecognizable from close.  Georgia swallowed.

“Gigi, please don’t point that thing at me,” he said, “You know I’m not armed.  I discarded my weapon.  You know that.”  Georgia put her head down and stared at his feet.

“Where were you going, Alan?” asked Georgia. 

“I parked my car about a click down the road,” said Alan.

“You went through the adjacent property and came up through the vineyard,” said Georgia.

“Wouldn’t you?” said Alan.

“You killed all the others, is what I’m told,” said Georgia, “Is that true?”

“Yeah,” said Alan, “Yvette was first.  I’m sorry, Gigi.  That was the reason why Witt didn’t want us to know where everyone else was going.  So he could keep us apart and then use Paris as the target destination to bring everyone, one-by-one.”

“He called Yvette and told her you went missing in Paris,” said Georgia, “Because you were both the suit of Hearts, she was responsible for investigating your disappeareance.  When she came to Paris looking for you, you killed her.”

“I said I’m sorry, Gigi,” said Alan.

“If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it,” said Georgia, “The King of Hearts.”

“Everything was out of my control,” said Alan, “I was supposed to tie everything up and go to Moscow.  If it makes a difference, I picked you for last.”

“Why?” asked Georgia.

              “I liked you,” said Alan, “I told Witt I wanted you for last.  It was easier that way, for me.”

“Did you shoot Simone?” asked Georgia.

“Yes,” said Alan, “I’m pretty sure she’s dead.  Four shots, three shots to the face and neck.  Point blank.”

“Why?” asked Georgia, “She had nothing to do with you.”

“That wasn’t for me,” said Alan, “That was for the Soviets.  They wanted everything tied up.  They knew Witt wouldn’t say anything about the transaction.  He was supposed to tell the Agency we were all missing in the field.  The bodies were supposed to start turning up.  He was going to blame a KGB wet works team and get more funding to go after them, a phantom that he could secure so much money to chase and never catch.  No one was supposed to care to look into his other funding gaps.  The left over money from
Full House
wasn’t going to be enough to fill the gaps from the money he took.  It would just be enough to survive a preliminary inquiry.  That’s why he wanted carte blanche to go after this whatever KGB wetworks team, black money to fill the black hole.”

“How much money did Witt steal?” asked Georgia.

“What difference would it make?” asked Alan.

“I want to know how much our lives were worth to him,” said Georgia. 

“I don’t know how much,” said Alan, “But he’s been at work at the Agency for a long time.  And he took little by little over years.  So I’m guessing it adds up to the king’s ransom,” said Alan.

“So the Soviets wanted Simone dead to cover all tracks,” said Georgia.

“She knew about the swap,” said Alan, “Me for Witt’s mole.  So the Soviets didn’t want anyone to know that they had a mole and that they made a deal to swap.  So they had me kill the mole and her before they would let me go to Moscow.” 

“Only that you didn’t kill him,” said Georgia.

“Are you lying?” said Alan, “I’ve been lying to the Agency for the past three years, passing reviews.  Witt was the only one who figured out I was giving stock to the Soviets.”

“Ok,” said Georgia, “So I won’t lie to you.  He’s alive.  He’s inside.  You shot him but he lived.  You’re a better liar than you are a shot.”

“Maybe,” said Alan, “I guess that was a possibility.  They have a tracker on him that they track by satellite.  It’s like Sputnik.  It just sends off a signal from a radio antenna.  That’s why it’s in his armpit.  It has to be close to the surface of the skin for the antenna.  But the Soviets thought Simone collected his body and took out the tracker.”

“Why?” asked Georgia.

“Because it hasn’t moved,” said Alan.

“What’s the pick-up range on the transponder?” asked Georgia.

“A little less than 250 meters, on the ground from space,” said Alan.

“That’s your problem,” said Georgia, “He hasn’t moved that much since.  He was in a coma and he’s been here at the house since he woke up.  So it reads like he’s in one spot, even though he’s been moving around.  But that’s how you found Simone isn’t it?”

“We knew she had the tracker,” said Alan, “And it didn’t move.  We figured we’d follow the tracker and we’d find her.”

“If you apologize for her, I’ll shoot you in the balls and watch you suffer,” said Georgia, “We’re so remote you won’t be heard screaming.  Fucking just own it.  She deserves more than an apology, so does Yvette and Tanis and Diane and the boys.  You killed them.  It’s what you meant, so just own up to it.”

“Ok,” said Alan, “I’ll own it.  I should have stuck to the objective.”

              “What objective?” asked Georgia.

              “You,” said Alan.

              “How’s that?” asked Georgia.

“I was on the same train as you to Le Havre,” said Alan, “Travelling second class.  You were in first class.”

“How do you know that?” asked Georgia.

“I was at the train station in Paris,” said Alan, “I watched you board the train to Le Havre.  I was like this, shaved head and tanned.  You weren’t expecting me.  You wouldn’t have recognized me.  I was three cars back.  I got out at each stop to make sure you didn’t get off the train.  But I saw the Soviet mole in Gare du Havre.  The Soviets gave me his briefing file.  I had already seen several photographs of him.  I didn’t know where he boarded the train but I knew where you were staying in Paris.  I figured I could take him in Le Havre and take you when you were back in Paris.  Why do you think Witt set you up with a flat?  So we’d know where you were.”

“You were working for both Witt and the Soviets, but why though?” asked Georgia, “Your family’s rich.  Why would you spy for the Soviets then escape to Moscow?”

“Because it’s nothing like the Hamptons,” said Alan, “And The Life is nothing like you think.  You don’t come from money.  You don’t know what it makes.”