Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

Simon looked at the beaming college student one last time. “Okay,” he said and handed him the phone. “I’ll think about it. I’ll think about you coming along.”

Andrew spread his hands. “What more could I ask?” he said. “I’ll be waiting for your call. On that phone, of course.” He grinned again. “I mean, you can’t be too careful.”

Capitol South Metro Station

Jonathan Weiss stood under the main surveillance camera in the Capitol South Metro Station and waited for the train that would take him to the airport. It was one of the least photographed spots on the subway platform, and he found himself there more out of force of habit than anything else. He knew he was still visible in half a dozen ways, including the cams in the kiosks, the ones mounted on the train, and any personal imagers on commuters who wandered by, but it made him feel better, somehow. Inconspicuous. Out of sight.

Jonathan looked up at the arching concrete waffle-pattern of the station’s ceiling and took a deep breath. Even fifty feet underground, even looking at a concrete overhang, even trapped in a tunnel with a hundred other people, for the first time in a very long time, he felt…free. His boss had given him some well-deserved time off. He-and his superior-believed he was off on a hedonistic trip to the Cayman Islands, where he would be doing unspeakable things for the next ten days. And by the time they noticed his absence-from the Cayman Islands, Washington and the world at large-he would be far, far away, in London or beyond, deeply enmeshed in a brand new, entirely fictional life and off the radar forever.

Forever.

“Enough,” he heard himself say.

It had simply become too much for him. Everything he had done, everything he had learned-and not just in Antarctica, but everywhere: in the UNED headquarters, at Langley, in nameless facilities in anonymous countries all across the globe…no, he couldn’t do it anymore. He didn’t want to.

“Hello, Jon.”

Jonathan stopped moving. Stopped breathing. He turned on his heel to his right, very slowly.

His body froze for an instant-he had to realize what he was seeing. He had only heard of the woman through conversation and had seen her photo. It was Takara, an Asian beauty and one of the most efficiently trained assassins in all of UNED.

Takara was standing five feet from him, looking him straight in the eye.

How did I let her get so close? he asked himself. A rookie mistake. I was just feeling…good. I let my guard down.

“You need to come back now,” Takara said. Her dark eyes flickered for an instant to take in the few other commuters waiting for the train. They were a fair distance away at the opposite end of the platform near the ticket booths. No one was even glancing at the two people having a casual conversation in the far corner of the station.

“How did you find me?” he asked, less out of curiosity than as a delaying tactic. He needed to give himself a moment to put a plan together.

“Your…reluctance…to deal with the project in Antarctica made us take a second look.”

Jonathan nodded. “Ah,” he said.

His hands were already in the pockets of his raincoat. Now he shoved them in even deeper and stepped away from the wall. He let his shoulders droop. He lowered his head and sighed deeply, the very picture of a weary, guilty man.

“I’m sorry, Takara.” He took one step to the side, away from the wall. Takara side-stepped in the opposite direction, careful to keep facing her renegade employee full-on. He was tense, ready for a fight.

A careful woman, Jonathan thought. Which was absolutely no surprise.

“It doesn’t matter,” Takara said, clearly uninterested in making a scene. “We’ll just go back to the office and sort this out.”

Sort this out was his unit’s special code for severe interrogation, followed by imprisonment until he was no longer of value, followed by death. They both knew it. His scheme was exposed. His lies were laid bare. The game was over.

Jonathan took one more step to the side, as if he was simply shuffling his feet in embarrassment. Once again, Takara automatically compensated, putting her long, lithe body directly in front of the corrugated concrete wall. Jonathan couldn’t help but admire the lightweight camelhair coat she wore. Beautifully tailored. “All right,” he said. “You-”

Without an intake of breath, without drawing back, and with his hands still deep in his pockets, Jonathan launched himself forward, straight into Takara. He hit her hard, butting her squarely in the throat with his upper body. It took the woman completely by surprise-I’m not the only one feeling overconfident, Jonathan thought distantly as he rammed her back into the solid wall and drove the air out of her lungs. He heard Takara’s skull bonk against the concrete like a bell made out of bone.

It gave Jonathan only a moment, a bare instant while Takara recovered, but he used it well. He reversed direction, pulled himself straight back, and dragged his hands out of his pockets.

In his left was a telescoping baton, a brutal variation of an old-fashioned car antenna, as thick as an index finger at its base. In his right was a man’s sock filled with nickels-a cosh and a bludgeon. They were crude, yes, but Jonathan’s experience had taught him he could never be too careful. Both weapons cleared their pockets with a single, swift snap of each wrist, out and up before Takara had fully regained her balance.

Jonathan attacked quickly and in absolute silence. He swung the baton and connected to the side of the woman’s unprotected head with a meaty thwack. As Takara’s head bobbled to one side, he followed through with the stroke, cocked his arm, and swept it back, using his elbow as a club and ramming it into her throat with all his considerable strength. He felt something pop in the flesh and muscle inside the woman’s neck. Then he used the momentum of his backhanded swing to continue turning his body, bringing up the cosh in his right and driving it deep, deep into Takara’s belly, doubling her over, driving her to the concrete, onto her stomach.

It happened in less than five seconds.

Takara’s mouth opened, but no words came out.

Jonathan stepped in even closer, partly to hide the weapons, partly to take the full dead weight of the woman on his clenched fist. He turned and shoved with his hip, then turned and shoved again, literally guiding the upright body to the edge of the platform. Then all it took was a push, a step back, a leg up, a foot flat on Takara’s belt buckle and a kick. Takara’s body flew back and twisted to the left as it teetered off the edge of the platform and disappeared into the sooty shadows below.

Jonathan stepped back from the edge of the platform-two steps, three-and pocketed the weapons. He took a deep breath and turned to see three passengers nearby. One was staring at him with open, wide-eyed horror. That didn’t concern him; the man was too terrified to ever give an accurate description. The other two, like most good DC residents, didn’t want to see a thing. One was in the process of turning away, hurrying down the platform to get as far from whatever was happening as she could get. The third had his back to them already. Nothing was happening as far as he was concerned. Nothing would happen.

Jonathan moved swiftly but calmly toward the stairs that led up to C Street. He would have to switch to Plan B, that was all. He always had a Plan B. And a Plan C. That was how he stayed alive doing what he’d been doing since a nice matronly woman came to his door at Cornell and invited him to join the CIA. Plan A was just the easiest and fastest option. He would still get where he was going; it would just be a little more trouble and take a little more time. That was-