The Perfect Candidate: A Lance Priest / Preacher Thriller (No. 1) (31 page)
Read The Perfect Candidate: A Lance Priest / Preacher Thriller (No. 1) Online
Authors: Christopher Metcalf
He leaned against the wall and listened. He held his silenced handgun with the safety off. Seconds later his answer came. A door opened and closed up above. Rapid footsteps made their way to the stairs. The footsteps came down the stairwell, turned at the landing above and a moment later the man was on the second floor pivoting to step down the next flight.
In this instance Preacher, plastered to the wall just feet from the man, saw three things. This dude was armed with a compact assault rifle; he was dressed in local Baghdad apparel and wore a cap. And this lone man was not Russian. Most likely he was Turkish like Nimad had said. As the Turk pivoted to step down onto the next stair, Preacher whispered, “Hey.”
Josef was surprised and turned his head to the voice. Preacher had his gun leveled at the man’s head and pulled the trigger. A perfect hole appeared in the Turk’s forehead before the clack of the silenced gun was heard.
“Bullseye.” Preacher whispered in Russian.
Blood splattered the wall as the man fell to the floor with a loud thud. Preacher was on him in a flash pulling the body down the hall away from the stairwell. He rifled through the dead man’s pockets and found a radio just like the one in the pocket of his thawb. Preacher depressed the transmit button and left the line open for a moment and released the button.
It achieved the desired result.
“Report.” The same voice as before. Now irritated.
Preacher was even briefer than before. “All clear. Coming back.” He spoke in Arabic with his best attempt at a Turkish accent.
The male voice responded with annoyance. “Where is Nimad? What about the police?”
“Nothing. Everything fine.” Preacher said this into the radio from a distance so that his voice was even more faint. “Coming back.” He bent down over the Turk and pulled the cap off the dead man’s head and put it on his own. He then stripped the jacket off the man and put it on. Just then, a woman carrying laundry came out of an apartment unit several doors down. She gasped at the dead man and spreading pool of blood underneath him. Preacher turned the gun on her and could have easily put a bullet through the woman’s brain to silence her. That would have been expedient. Instead, he lowered the gun.
“Go back in your home. The war has started; they are here. If you come back out you will likely die.”
She didn’t protest and turned back to close and lock the door behind her. Preacher turned and bounded the stairs to the third floor with the dead Turk’s assault rifle in one hand, his silenced Sig in the other. He moved down the hall and stood outside the door for a moment before knocking. He thought briefly that he should have gone into the empty apartment reserved for him to get a lay of the land -- a better understanding of the apartment’s layout. The unit behind the door before him was likely laid out in a similar design. No time for that now. He knocked on the door and bowed his head so only the brown cap and jacket could be seen through the peephole.
He heard the footsteps approach; could sense the weight of the person on the other side lean in to look through the view hole. The latch turned and the door opened. Before Nir could react, Preacher reached in with the Sig pointed up and sent three successive bullets up through the bottom of Nir’s chin which then traveled up and out the top of his head. Before the body could fall or the airborne blood droplets dissipate, Preacher grabbed Nir to lay him down gently. A moment later, he was several steps into the unit.
He was in a living room with a kitchen to his left. Preacher could see into that small kitchen. No one was in there. He turned to his right and burst into short hall with a bathroom immediately to his left and two bedrooms a few more steps down the hall.
He was there in a flash and once in the doorway, saw a woman getting up and turning around from a backwards chair. She had been looking through binoculars out the window and was turning to the door as he stepped in. She had the binoculars in one hand and a radio headset in the other. Her holster and guns lay on the bed four feet away. She glanced down at the guns and thought for the briefest moment about diving for them. And then she simply relaxed her shoulders as their eyes met.
She was beautiful in a way Lance had not seen in his 24 years.
How much life can be lived in one second? Just how much can someone be affected, changed in one brief moment. The earth turns. The sun shines. A child smiles and laughs. Another cries.
What is love? Is it a thought? Maybe it is just a mixture of chemicals that come together in perfect amounts at a precise time.
Love has to be more than a certain look in one’s eyes, or does it? The eyes that answered him now offered something he’d never seen or felt before. Did she have any idea how much she had just changed his life. He would never be the same after this one moment.
Never
.
And then the second is over. In the next moment, he saw what was surely a true and accomplished killer. He could see in the fluid movement of her eyes taking him in that she was dangerous, deadly. For the next fraction of a second he felt like the youngster, the rookie he was. He was an amateur in her midst.
“Hello Marta.” Preacher smiled and said in Russian.
“Hello Lance.” She answered in impeccable English and smiled right back.
He should have been surprised, dumbfounded even. But for some reason he wasn’t. She was comfortable in his presence. Preacher broadened his smile to a shy toothy grin and expertly put a silenced bullet through Marta’s right thigh without taking his eyes off of hers. He was getting better with his aim.
Most people when shot through a major muscle from a distance of 12 feet will scream, curse, flail about and make a general ruckus. Marta Illena Sidorova did none of these. She did wince and drop to her left knee to apply pressure to her thigh above the damaged leg. The smile did leave her face as well. But aside from that, someone watching this scene from afar might think she had merely stubbed a toe.
Lance studied her reaction for a few moments before speaking. He was impressed with her pain tolerance and control. “Toss the radio onto the bed and sit back against the wall.” He gestured to the wall to the right about five feet from the bed. She did as told and limped over to the wall, turned around and eased down the wall to the floor. Lance took a step closer but not too close. “I can see from here that you are dangerous with a very high tolerance for pain. I’ll bet you have at least two other weapons on you.”
She wore dark brown pants, a slightly lighter sweater and brown boots. “I can see you have a knife strapped to your left leg. Makes me wonder if you are left or right handed. Or are you equally dangerous with either?” She pulled the knife and tossed it on the floor.
He stared at her and she back at him. Something finally flashed across her eyes. A thought, or strategy maybe. She was thinking, assessing. “I am right handed.”
“Good. Hold up your left then.” She slowly raised her left hand and Lance put a bullet through the center of the palm. The bullet passed through and into the wall behind her. This shot elicited a little more reaction from her. She flinched and brought the damaged bloody hand to her chest and gripped it with her right hand. But she did not scream or cry.
“Jesus, why don’t you just kill me?” She finally whispered and showed some emotion. Her English impeccable.
“Like you killed the family who lived here until a little while ago? Too good for you. You need to suffer a bit.” He took a step to the bed. “I don’t know how you know my name and I’m going to guess you probably aren’t going to tell me. But right now I don’t have much time. Which, of course, you already know.” He pulled the satellite radio from his left pocket and dialed. “Kaleidoscope?”
Seibel replied. “Where have you been? Been trying to reach you.”
“No time. I am in the company of Green 3.”
Seibel hesitated, obviously caught off guard. “Location.”
“On lookout scene. Down the hall.”
“Down the hall? Down the damn hall? Sit rev?” Seibel stuttered.
“Captive.” Lance replied. No emotion.
“Number?”
“Green 3 only. Others eliminated.” Preacher was clinical with his words.
“Allah be praised.” Seibel inserted this in place of shouting ‘Jesus Christ.’
“Finish?” Lance inquired about his next steps.
“Hold. 30.” Seibel ordered him to wait 30 seconds.
Lance moved the phone from his mouth to speak to Marta. She beat him to it.
“Getting your orders from Seibel? You have to do what Papa says.” Her English was flawless. The fact she knew Seibel’s codename was troubling. Just what else did this killer know?
“I was going to tell you he said to say hi.” Lance smiled. Something about her beckoned to him. He just looked into her eyes for a few seconds more before speaking again. “I’m pretty sure he’s going to come back on the line and tell me to put a bullet in your brain like I did to your friends. Anything you want to say before I get that order?”
“I don’t think so Lance.” She was in pain but still managed a smile. “You’ll catch up before too long.” Her comfort in using his name was a little unnerving. “I guess this is where I’m supposed to plead for my life? Maybe offer up my sources, my network in exchange for my life?”
“No, not that. I already have all that.” Lance lied and squinted his eyes. “No I was hoping you would say something like ‘geez, you’re better looking in person than photos.’ Or maybe even tell me how good at this I am. Something to feed my ego, you know?” And with this, he raised the gun in his hand to silence her. Seibel was back.
“Co-opt transfer.” Seibel ordered.
“Serious?” Lance didn’t like this. Seibel wanted her captured, not killed.
“Yes.” Seibel replied.
“No. Solid no.” Lance protested.
“Leave unfinished and get back out there.
10
.” Seibel confirmed the truck was 10 minutes out.
“Unfinished?” Lance was incredulous.
“Now, move.” The boss ordered again.
“One more.” Preacher had more to say.
“Go.”
“Green 3 knew. Looks like she knows everything, even about you.” Lance added.
“Of course.” This last statement from Seibel was a thunderbolt.
Lance pressed the disconnect button on the bulky phone and pursed his lips. “Huh. The boss gives the orders and I don’t follow them. Guess that’s adios.” He raised the gun to level with Marta’s forehead.
“Okay, okay, I’ll plead for my life. Please don’t kill me.” Her words lacked conviction. She even started to giggle.
“That sucked. You didn’t even try.” Something didn’t jibe.
“What could I possibly say to keep you from killing me?” Her giggling continued.
“What did your father say before you killed him?” Her file was sketchy, but Lance had read between the sparse lines of her backstory. “What did your brother say?” Seibel and Lance had brainstormed Marta’s sketchy life story just last week and built an impromptu psychological profile of this born killer. He looked at his watch. Nine minutes and the truck loaded with nuclear warheads would be pulling into the warehouse 300 yards from where he stood.
“My father? My brother? You fool. You’ve taken it all hook, line and sinker.”
He just looked at her.
She continued. “Okay, you want to hear my father begged. My brother never saw it coming. None of the others got much warning either. Some were tortured, of course. But most were dispatched quickly. That’s what the file said right?” Her eyes and mind went somewhere else. Lance could see it. Sitting here slumped on the floor against the wall, this mysterious and dangerous killer was not who he thought or had been told she was. He could see the little girl, the lonely and scared creature who would become an evil murderous villain. But it was an act. He could see it now. There was not time for this.
“Can’t believe I’m saying it, but I’m actually sorry to have to do this,” he took aim between her eyes. In those eyes he finally saw what had been troubling him since he first looked into them.
“Go ahead, I’m tired.” She was resigned and apparently relieved at the prospect of dying. She looked much older than 27. She seemed aged and shrunken and tired.
Lance realized what it was that was nagging at him. He was looking into a mirror. He saw himself in her. From the first moment he’d heard of Marta from Seibel about a year ago, through the brief dossier compiled on her life and ruthless accomplishments, right through this moment looking into her eyes, he had been faced with the stark reality that this human looked at and lived life just as he had.
She had undoubtedly seen a whole lot worse than he. But like him, she had never really been alive. Obviously never known love and never found the value in the lives of others. It was there on her face. Like a map.
Great. Here he was about to try to keep nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of known mass murderers and he was having something of an epiphany. He stepped back and sat on the bed but kept the gun leveled at Marta’s head. He didn’t need to look at his watch to know he now had eight minutes.
Marta seemed to recover from her disappearing act and saw the change in Lance. She was in a whole bunch of pain and not really seeing things clearly, but she should be dead right now. She deserved to be dead. Why hadn’t he killed her? As she looked into his eyes, she could see he was off somewhere. He was struggling. He’d killed Nir and Josef without much apparent effort but couldn’t bring himself to kill her.
He didn’t know the truth about her. Seibel hadn’t told him.
“Seibel already has the nukes.” Her words were clear, concise.
The words brought Lance back to Earth from planet self-doubt. The words shocked the hell out of him. What did she mean? How would he already have the nukes?
Then it clicked. The answer was stupid obvious. They weren’t on the truck. She knew.
“What?” He answered, playing dumb.
“They never had them.”
“K&K?”
She shook her head. “Of course. All Seibel. All his work. Just like me, and you. Brilliant, as usual. Moving at a level far above us mere humans.” Lance tried to keep up with what she was saying, but needed to see the deeper meaning. She had been relying on Korovin and Kusnetsov to complete the transaction as well. She most likely had someone on the inside of their operation. She had been a few steps ahead.
But now Marta was telling him the CIA already had the nukes. But if they weren’t on the truck, where were they? “You had to learn sometime Lance. Why not now?” She smiled.
Preacher had to move. Had to alert the Delta teams. Eight minutes. “Bullshit. You act like you don’t care if you live and you come up with some last minute scheme to try to stay alive.”
“I don’t care if you kill me or not. I’m done after today. Free.” She responded.
“From what? The KGB? You are already out. From what then, Smelinski? He’ll never really let you go.”
“He never had what he thought he had.” She looked at the ceiling.
“From who then?” Lance thought a few moments more and then the bell went off. “Seibel.”
“Yes, from that bastard. He has run my whole life.”
“Smelinski you mean.” Lance needed to go, now.
“They’re all in this together. They run it all. On opposite sides but running the whole game.” She looked like she was drifting now. Starting to fade into unconsciousness. Not making sense. “Seibel is God and Satan. Smelinski is his understudy.”
He leaned in close to Marta and put the silencer to her forehead. And just like Dallas three years earlier with Seibel, he didn’t pull the trigger. “Bang, you’re dead. You’re free.”
He leaned in even closer. “You should be dead and I know for certain I’ll regret it, but I think maybe you are already gone. So now you get to live. You get to be free after today right? What you do is up to you.” With that, he lowered the gun and kissed her.
There was no hesitation, no delay in her reaction.
She came to life in the kiss. As he began to pull away after a moment she used her good hand to grab his neck and pull him closer. She had him right there and had the strength left in her to grab his Adam’s apple or plunge her thumb into his eye, but she didn’t. She just pulled him closer for that lasting moment.
They kissed deeper, came closer. Finally, they released and looked into each other’s eyes. “Goodbye.” Lance smiled and suddenly, violently brought the butt of the gun up to her temple delivering a blow that slammed her head back against the wall and knocked her out cold. He ripped a portion of her sweater and tied it around her leg and then her arm to slow the blood loss. He ripped more fabric and tied it around both injuries to apply pressure. Twenty seconds later he was up and moving.
“That may go down as the shortest, most screwed up affair in history,” he said turning away from her to leave. To be safe, he grabbed the radio headset and Marta’s guns from the bed.
He was further snapped back to reality as he hurried down the hall, stopping only briefly to see the pile of dead humanity Marta and her friends had left in the bedroom across the hall. He just shook his head and walked to the living room and into the kitchen. He found a grocery bag for the extra guns and radios he had accumulated over the past 15 minutes. Before leaving the apartment, he dialed the satellite phone again.