Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
Court himself had been a contract killer, however, and he doubted the man the CIA called Deep Space would just call off his mission this close to his target.
There had already been at least three other killings of intelligence community employees in the past hour, and Deep Space would know that breaking off from his objective now would just make it that much harder to pick her back up again in the future.
Ortega would go to ground, Ortega would get protection, Ortega would disappear.
It was now or never for Deep Space, which meant Court had to haul ass.
Ortega was on the eighth floor of the Carriage House, but Court’s plan now was to head to the ninth floor of the Ritz-Carlton Residences, so he still had a lot of climbing to do.
He shot up the stairs, praying the assassin next door had been distracted enough by the commotion below to give Court’s plan half a chance.
—
Jill Mori had been holding her phone to her ear, but she tapped it on speaker now and continued looking at the screens showing her Irene Ortega just standing there in her living room, wearing socks, yoga tights, and a sweater.
Jill had called her name multiple times, but she had not reacted. Now the young Asian American woman shouted. “Move your butt, lady!” Jill pleaded. “He’s going to kill you!”
Irene finally responded. “Gauntlet? Someone from Gauntlet?”
Before she could answer, Jill saw movement on the laptop screen on the far right-hand side of the dining room table.
It showed several camera views from inside the building, and one of them displayed a real-time image of a man coming out of the stairwell on the eighth floor, wearing a high-quality latex mask.
He looked left and right, then began heading up the well-lit hall, walking purposefully in the direction of Ortega’s condominium.
Jill said into the phone, panic welling in her voice. “It’s too late, he’s in the hallway.”
Hanley spoke into the speakerphone now. “Irene. Get into the bathroom off the bedroom. Lock the door. Help will be there soon, but you have to barricade yourself.”
Irene began moving. Jill threw her hands in the air in frustration; it had taken the woman nearly half a minute to respond, after all.
Over the network, Hanley said, “Six, she’s heading into the bathroom off the bedroom. Be advised, that bedroom is the closest window to the balcony of the Ritz, only about six feet away. If you can figure out a way to get to that window, you can breach at the bathroom.”
Jill spoke with incredulity now. “Only six feet? It’s eight stories up. How’s he going to—”
Hanley spoke over her, calling to Arnold Reyes, who was watching Irene’s apartment through the bedroom window. “Bricklayer, we’re going to collapse this position. Gumdrop and I are going to stay at our stations until we’re clear here; the rest is up to you.”
“Understood.” Arnold began rushing around the suite, cramming binoculars and tripods into cases.
He had to make it seem like no one was ever here, because it was looking extremely likely that this area was going to be crawling with police in a few minutes.
—
The right hand of the man behind the wheel of the Audi was down low, out of Travers’s view, and Chris assumed that to mean there was a pistol in it, and it was pointed his way.
“Sir, I’m going to need you to put your hands on the steering wheel.” Shining the light on the other man, he said, “You, hands on the dash.”
He tried to speak calmly; he knew he couldn’t look amped up right now, it would just alert these guys that something else was going on beyond a law enforcement officer checking on suspicious people.
“Who the hell are you?” the driver asked.
“Already told you. Homeland Security. We’re investigating—”
“What’s your badge number?”
Travers pulled a string of bullshit out of thin air. “Seventy-eight, thirty-nine. Arlington office.”
“Nice try, asshole. I was Homeland. Feds don’t have to give badge numbers or stations.”
“Well then,” Travers said, “I can see why you’re no longer employed. I was just being courteous. You should give that a shot yourself. Both of you, show me those hands. I’m not going to ask a third time.”
The driver’s eyes narrowed slightly. To Travers the man looked extremely confident and calm. With a chuckle, he said, “You’re not? So…what? You’re going to shoot us if we don’t? What kind of traffic stop is this?”
Travers realized these guys weren’t buying what he was selling, so he decided to drop the ruse. “The kind of traffic stop that involves detaining the two assholes in a getaway car waiting for an assassin to kill a woman on the eighth floor of this building to my left.”
The facade of the driver wavered slightly as his eyes widened back up.
Travers continued. “I know you guys are Gauntlet, and I am assuming you’re providing perimeter security to the son of a bitch in there trying to kill Irene Ortega.
Maybe somebody told you this was righteous government work, maybe you genuinely don’t know what that dude is up to, or maybe you just don’t give a shit that a woman’s about to die.
Don’t know, don’t care. I can’t stop that guy up there, but me and my colleagues down here sure as shit can stop you and your buddies in the SUV on New Hampshire from getting away with your part in it. ”
The driver bit his lip, looked all around. “Yeah? I don’t see your colleagues. I’m thinking you’re alone.”
Travers said, “Nah, bro. I drew the short straw to come down here and try to talk you out of this. The rest of the team are on balconies across the street, and they’ve got their scopes on all your foreheads right now.”
The man in the passenger side muttered, “Jesus Christ.” And he put his hands on the dashboard. To the driver, he said, “I’m not dying for this bullshit, Kyle.”
“He’s fucking bluffing,” the driver said, and Travers saw that the man’s cool demeanor was no put-on at all. He did not believe Travers’s ruse, and he was not going to comply.
—
Eight floors above, Spiral headed up the hall to Ortega’s door; he was twenty seconds away. Softly, he called the Expedition. “Three. Status?”
When he got no answer, he called One in the Audi. “One. Status?”
Again, there was no response.
His support team was dealing with law enforcement on the street, but he had no reason to think law enforcement was aware of him, here, eight floors above.
The Americans would have to deal with their problems. Even if he lost all his support below, he’d be long gone from the scene by the time there was any response up here to Ortega’s place.
As he approached the door, he thought about ringing the bell, but he didn’t think about it for long.
Ortega wasn’t going to let a stranger with a Belarusian accent into her condo willingly, at least not without a good story, and he didn’t want to take the time to concoct one in case more cops were soon to show up.
This had to happen now, considering the complications downstairs. It was inevitable that this hit would get messy, so he leaned into the mess, made the decision to go loud.
He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small C-4 breaching charge not much larger than a box of playing cards, tore the cover off the adhesive on one side of it, and affixed the explosive between the latch and the doorjamb.
He pressed a tiny blasting cap into the device, unspooled the wire connected to it, and stepped to the side, out of the way of the threshold.
Now he attached the wire to a detonator, pushed himself up against the wall two meters from the door, and pressed a button on the device.
The breaching charge beeped three times, then detonated the explosive, blowing a hole right where the locked door latch had been.
Smoke filled the doorway and the hall. Spiral put his detonator back in his pocket and drew his silenced weapon, then adjusted the latex mask while he waited for the smoke to clear. In five seconds, he’d spin in front of the door and kick it in.