Chapter Twenty-Nine
Twenty-Nine
Irene Ortega felt her phone vibrate on the couch next to her, moments before she was about to fall asleep in front of the TV.
She’d been up for twenty-four hours, hadn’t slept well in days, and at first she lamented the disturbance, but when she looked at the number calling, her fatigue was the least of her concerns.
The call came from an extension at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, although this extension wasn’t saved in her phone.
She sometimes got late-night calls, so that was no big deal, but considering what she’d actually been doing at work the past few days, a sense of dread jolted her body.
Reluctantly, she reached for the phone. “Hello?”
A woman’s voice came over the line, speaking urgently, but clearly. “Irene, I need you to listen carefully to what I am about to tell you. You don’t know me, and I don’t have time to explain, but there is a man in your building right now, and we believe he is coming to do harm to you.”
Irene rose from her couch and stood there in the middle of the room. The TV was on mute; she had Fox News on and she glanced at it. A video of flashing police lights on a street somewhere. Her eyes focused on the chyron running below the images.
Double Murder Near CIA Headquarters
Momentarily distracted by this, she heard the woman’s voice again on the phone to her ear. “Irene?”
“What?”
“This is serious. Do you have a gun?”
It took her a moment to answer this. “No, I don’t have a gun. I live in the District. Is this…Who is this?”
“There is help on the way to you now, but you need to shelter until he gets there. Can you go to a friend’s unit on your floor? Quickly? If you hurry you might be able to—”
“I’ve only been here a month. I don’t know any of my neighbors. Not well enough to bang on their door at eleven thirty.”
The woman on the other end of the line sighed, then said, “Lady, you need to find a place to hide.”
“No. You need to tell me what the hell is going on. Is this related to what happened in Tysons Corner?”
“It’s related to Gauntlet, Irene. It’s related to Lewis Shaw, the man you followed this afternoon.”
Irene Ortega’s heart pounded so hard she could feel the blood pulsing in her neck. She stood there, frozen in panic.
“Irene?”
Still…she did not move. She tried to speak, to lift a foot, to go make sure her door was bolted shut, but she just stood there, looking at the news.
At the murders.
—
The Belarusian assassin known to the Russians by the code name Spiral and to the Americans by the code name Deep Space passed the sixth-floor landing, ascending at a relaxed speed.
The stairwell was empty, concrete, and the building owners had gone cheap with the lights.
Dim bulbs widely spaced gave the stairwell an eerie feel, and a damp dusky scent filled the air around him.
He’d pulled his FN pistol and screwed on the suppressor, and now he hid the weapon back in a deep inner pocket of his coat.
It bounced around over his right hip as he climbed.
Suddenly, an American’s voice came through his earpiece that itself was tucked inside his latex mask. “Spiral, this is One.”
“Yes?” One, Spiral knew, was in the driver’s seat of the Audi on the west side of the condo building.
“Uh…we’ve got a guy behind our vehicle on the sidewalk. He’s calling out to us; I think he’s saying he’s with Homeland Security. He’s got a gun out and he’s ordering us out of the car.”
Spiral stopped climbing, held his hand to his earpiece. “What does he look like?”
“He’s out of the light. But he’s average height, has a beard, a big coat. There’s definitely a pistol in his hand.”
“Uniform?”
“Not that I see, but some Homeland agents are plainclothed.”
“He’s by himself?”
“Seems to be.”
“That’s strange.”
“Yeah, that’s what we’re thinking. I used to be with Homeland, and I’d never make a stop by myself, at least not one I thought I needed my gun drawn for.”
“Don’t get out of the vehicle.”
“We’re licensed to carry in D.C., so we’re not doing anything wrong, but we don’t want to get our names flagged by the cops while you’re doing whatever you’re doing upstairs. Are you going to call off the op or—”
Spiral spoke into his earpiece. “Three, are you hearing this?”
Three was in the front passenger seat of the Ford Expedition parked on New Hampshire, facing the Carriage House condos, two blocks to the east and a half block north of the Audi.
Three replied quickly. “All quiet over here, Spiral. We can’t see the man who went in the loading dock a few minutes ago anymore; he might have gone inside one of the buildings. You want us to go over and support One and Two on the west side?”
“No. But send one man into the loading area to look around. Observe and report only. I want to know if that man is still at street level like the other guy, or if he’s in this building.”
“Roger.”
The back right door of the big black SUV opened.
A man in a leather coat and a watch cap climbed out and took a single step into the street, keeping his right arm down to prevent his coat from flying open in the breeze and revealing the pistol on his hip.
His number was Five on the Gauntlet team, and as the junior member he knew he’d be the one to climb out into the cold and put himself even closer to what, he assumed, would be the murder of the woman he’d been following for the past day.
A white GMC van approached from the south; he waited for it to pass, but instead it slammed on its brakes right in front of the Expedition, skidding to a stop there next to it.
The man who’d just climbed out of the vehicle froze; the two inside put their hands on their pistols but did not yet draw them.
A lone man leapt out from behind the wheel of the van; he wore a blue coat under black body armor that said “Police ICE” on it, dark blue cargo pants, and a black knit cap. His utility belt held a pistol, radio, and handcuffs. A neck gaiter was pulled up to nis nose.
He lifted a small tactical flashlight with his left hand; his right hovered over his gun.
The man seated next to the driver of the Expedition said, “It’s a fucking immigration cop.”
The light wasn’t bad here on the side of the road, but still the man who climbed alone out of the vehicle shined a flashlight on the three men. “ICE! Let’s see some IDs.”
All three of these Gauntlet men were white males.
The man standing near the vehicle kept his hands down by his sides. The man in the ICE uniform was just twenty feet away and walking towards the SUV, using the light to mask anything he might be doing with his other hand.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the man standing by the Expedition said.
The big ICE officer repeated, “I need to see some papers, motherfuckers.”
With no Hispanic accent, the driver said, “C’mon, dude. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“IDs, amigos, and I’m gonna need you two to step out of the car.”
The front passenger, call sign Three, said, “Look at us. We’re obviously not illegals.”
“Obvious to who? Not to me. How do I know you’re not illegal Finns, or Swedes? Reach for those wallets, but do it slowly.”
Number Three broadcast to Spiral now, speaking softly, cupping his hand over his earpiece. “We’ve got one man on us at this time. Claims to be with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
Spiral’s reply echoed, likely because he was in a stairwell. “What does he want?”
“He’s giving us some bullshit story about looking for—”
The man with the flashlight shined it at the front passenger window.
“Hey. Gustav? Who you talking to?”
The man rolled down his window now. “Look, brother. We’re government security contractors, and we’re on the job right now. We’ve got credentials. Green badges. Just get back in your van there and drive off before you blow our op.”
In the intelligence world, blue badges signified direct federal employees, while green badges meant contract employees.
“What’s your operation?”
“I’m not telling you that, but it’s sure as hell not some low-level ICE bullshit.”
The man holding the flashlight said, “I need both of you to step out, stand next to your buddy here. If it turns out you’re U.S. citizens, then you can go on about your evening.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” the blond-haired, blue-eyed passenger said.
“Less talking, ese. Get out of the truck. Manos arribe.” Hands up, the big man claiming to be an ICE agent said, shining his bright light in the man’s eyes.
—
In the building across the street, Spiral did not know what the hell was going on down below, but he wasn’t about to bail on his mission because his support crew had been stopped by police.
He began hurrying up the back stairs of the Carriage House.
He’d need to find a new extraction after the fact, but he wasn’t worried about that.
In Europe he’d been on his own almost all the time, and frankly, his support team here in America had done little more than get in his way.
He passed the seventh floor, heading for the eighth, taking the steps two at a time.
—
Court Gentry ran up the fire stairs of the Ritz-Carlton Residences, passing the fifth floor, taking the steps two at a time.
He could hear the activity happening at ground level through his earpiece, both Travers and Hightower making police-like stops on the men down there, and although it was a risky move, Court liked Hightower’s thinking.
He was trying to impede the support team, giving them something to worry about, and he was sure that the assassin moving towards Irene in the building next to this one would be aware that the two vehicles below were in danger of being exposed.