Chapter Twenty-Seven #2
“Roger,” Travers said. “Don’t forget something to cover your face.”
To the room, Court said, “Everyone on the net together.”
Gumdrop spoke up, her face glowing behind the monitors at the dining table. “I’ll open a group call on Signal to all phones. Everybody get your AirPods in.”
Hightower was still in the kitchen, but he moved over towards Hanley while he put in his earpiece. “What can I do?”
“You’re not operational,” Hanley answered flatly.
“C’mon, Matt. That’s three assassinations in the IC in the past twenty minutes, and we’ve got two vehicles around a woman in the IC who’s currently under surveillance by an unknown entity.”
Hanley deferred to Court. “Six? What about Zack?”
Court looked to Zack as he zipped up his brown coat and moved towards the door. “Zack, I want you downstairs.”
“Hell, yeah.”
“Behind the wheel of the GMC in the garage.”
“Oh,” he said, somewhat deflated.
“If we need a getaway, we’ll let you know.”
Hightower was already moving, grabbing keys off the counter.
Unlike Travers and Gentry, he was unarmed.
He was out the door first; the other men were still stuffing pistol magazines into their pockets and getting last-minute instructions from Matt, but a minute later Court and Chris exited the hotel room.
When they were gone, Hanley rushed to the position Travers had held behind the binos on the tripod. Looking across the street, he saw Ortega sitting there on the couch still, tapping on her phone, and he wondered if she was in danger…or if she was the danger.
—
The Belarusian assassin known as Spiral walked west on L Street NW, leaning into a cold breeze that blew mist into his eyes. This was a frosty night, but nothing near as cold as Minsk this time of year, so the conditions meant little to him from an operational perspective, save for one thing.
He wasn’t out of place at all wearing his wool scarf high on his face, just below his eyes.
Spiral walked alone, armed with his suppressed pistol inside his coat, a couple of extra magazines, and a fixed-blade knife in a sheath hidden below his coat on his right hip.
He saw the Carriage House condos straight ahead, walked along with the Savoy building on his right, and sauntered past a couple of slower-moving pedestrians on the sidewalk.
He’d decided against using the latex mask provided to him by his American employer until the moment he hit the woman’s condo to lessen any chance of being identified as a threat. He’d move through the lobby with his scarf up, then change into the mask before he made it to the eighth floor.
As he reached the three-way intersection of L Street, 22nd, and New Hampshire, he turned his head to the right, eyed the black Ford Expedition idling on New Hampshire, and knew that three of his American support team would be inside, watching the street, ready to notify him if there were any police or other threats down here.
He knew their second vehicle, an Audi sedan, would be straight ahead of him on L, just south of his target location, though he couldn’t see past the other cars parked between himself the Audi.
Spiral wondered, not for the first time, about the Americans who had hired him.
Specifically, he wondered about their plan; if their intention had been to hire foreign killers to deflect any attention away from their own organization, then what was the rationale for having Americans supporting them, in close proximity to their actions?
Couldn’t they be identified and linked back to whoever it was doing this in the first place?
He knew he wasn’t supposed to involve them in the assassinations, only in his surveillance of the target and the getaway, but he also knew that all these men were armed, and they were damn close to where the killings would take place.
It seemed like a bad plan, but Spiral’s plan, to earn over five million dollars U.S. in the next three days, seemed to him like a damn good one, so he trudged on towards the building directly in front of him.
He’d be inside the lobby in just a minute, he’d be done with this target within fifteen minutes, and he’d be out of the area shortly thereafter.
—
Court Gentry and Chris Travers stepped out the front door of the Hotel AKA Washington Circle together, then immediately split up.
Travers went to his right, turned right again at 23rd Street NW, then began heading up to L Street.
In the elevator on the way down from the suite, it had been decided that Travers would move behind the Audi, the closer of the two vehicles parked near Ortega’s building, and he’d get the tag number and, if possible, get a head count and the disposition of the occupants inside it.
Court went left at the front door, then left again on New Hampshire.
This would take him past the entrance to the Carriage House Condominium building, just beyond which there was a covered vehicle entrance and a loading dock.
His only mandate from Hanley was to get to street level, but he decided on his own he’d move into this garage.
From there he would have a couple of options to ascend towards Ortega if necessary, and he’d also have some cover from whoever was in the blacked-out Ford Expedition across the street.
He’d be in plain view of the Ford for most of his entire movement on the sidewalk, and anyone in the vehicle would be looking right at him as he went down into the darkened loading area between the Carriage House and the Ritz-Carlton, but he liked his chances at remaining covert, as long as he maintained a nonchalant gait to avoid arousing suspicion.
He did his best to move along on the street like any other person out on a frigid night like this, and in so doing he looked around at other pedestrians.
There were a couple of dog walkers, a young college-aged person jogging in front of the Ritz-Carlton just beyond the Carriage House, and a lone man with the lower part of his face covered by a scarf crossing the street in front of him and heading to the front door of the Carriage House.
Court tracked him as the doorman held the door open for him, then kept it open for a woman leading a rust-colored toy poodle on its leash.
The doorman began speaking with the lady with the dog, and the man by himself disappeared into the lobby of the Carriage House, out of Court’s view.
Softly, into his earpiece, he said, “Gumdrop, you get a look at that guy that went in?”
“Negative,” she replied. “His lower face was covered, and a hood shielded his forehead. He appeared alone on L Street, on foot from the east, and he didn’t seem to be acting weird or anything.”
Court turned left into the loading bay between the Carriage House and the Ritz, and he hoped he didn’t seem to be acting “weird or anything’’ himself.
He said, “Try and track him on the cams inside the building.”
“I’m watching him move towards the elevators, and the woman with the dog is still talking to—”
“Forget poodle lady. Focus on shady dude.”
Hanley’s voice came over the net. “You see something wrong, Six?”
“Just being thorough.”
“Copy.”