Andrew Britton - The Assassin

The cameras. He had to get back to the screens, to see what was happening. Rising on unsteady feet, he moved toward the office, which was not visible from the exterior of the building. Stumbling through the doorway, he made it to the makeshift desk just after Ryan Kealey, the last person running into the warehouse, moved out of the cameras’ line of sight.

The first floor was neat and mostly intact, a marked difference from the rubble-strewn parking area, except for the motionless form of Lewis Barnes and the scattered remains of Ronnie Powell. Samantha Crane still had a sizable lead, Foster falling back and breathing hard. Kealey had closed the distance to 15 feet, but it seemed like miles as Crane hit the stairwell. She reached the second floor just as Kealey got close enough to hear her yell, “FBI! Drop the weapon!”

A long burst of automatic fire and crashing glass, followed by a series of sharper, shorter reports. Kealey reached the top of the stairs to see Foster on one knee behind a pile of metal containers. Samantha Crane was beyond him and out in the open, her gun up in her right hand, her left fumbling for another magazine. Mason was still in the office, a dark stain on his chest, working desperately to clear a jam in his weapon. Fixing the problem, he steadied the rifle against his hip with his one good arm. He was wearing a strange expression, something Kealey couldn’t place, but he didn’t have time to think about it.

Sprinting forward, he hit Crane with a flying tackle as Mason’s G36 raked the wall behind them, the last round angling down, tearing the air past Kealey’s face. Crane hit the ground hard, her breath coming out in an audible rush, and Kealey moved forward to cover her body as Foster came up from behind the containers and opened fire. Mason’s weapon fell silent a second later.

“Stop shooting!” Kealey shouted the command, but Foster kept squeezing the trigger. “Stop fucking shooting! ”

The FBI agent finally complied, or maybe he just ran out of ammo; Kealey couldn’t tell. He got to his feet and, ignoring Crane, who was still lying prone, stepped forward to the office, swearing viciously when he saw what awaited him.

Anthony Mason was on his back, surrounded by shattered glass, eyes wide and unseeing. He’d taken several rounds in the chest as well as both legs, and blood was already beginning to pool beneath his inert form. Kealey saw it was hopeless but moved forward anyway, kicking away the G36 and kneeling to search for a pulse. Finding none, he pulled his fingers away, and Mason’s head lolled to the left.

Matt Foster was standing in the doorway, a Glock. 40 up in his right hand. He was still breathing hard, but did not look particularly distressed by the sight of the man he had just killed. “He’s dead?”

“Yeah.” Kealey got to his feet and looked through the wooden frames where the glass had been. Crane was sitting up now, her back propped against the metal containers. She was checking herself for injuries, finding nothing at first, but Kealey saw it all unfold, saw the stain on her left shoulder even before she did, and when she found it and pulled her hand away, dark red streaks on her fingers, her eyes went wide and she said, “Oh, shit. I’m shot.”

Still in the doorway, Foster turned and stupidly said, “What?”

“I’m shot. I’m… shot.” She started to get to her feet, and Foster said, “No, DON’T MOVE,” and ran out of the office. Seconds later he was on his knees by her side, checking the wound, talking low to keep her calm even as she struggled to see for herself, twisting her head at a sharp angle, eyes wide and locked to the left.

Kealey could already hear voices moving up from the stairwell. He knew he didn’t have long; they would remove him as soon as they got the chance. Fighting the urge to rush, he looked around the office, eyes skipping and dismissing all at once, searching for some way to salvage the situation. He paused on the papers strewn about the desk, but that was too obvious. Then something caught his attention: an attache case propped against the side of the desk and partially hidden from view. The retaining wall was high enough that when he crouched down, he couldn’t be seen by the people swarming up to the second floor. Grabbing the case and trying the latches, he was surprised when they instantly popped open. Inside, nothing but more loose paperwork.

He swore again and looked around. Something caught his eye on the cot, poking out from beneath the blanket. Pulling it back he saw a laptop.

The voices in the stairwell were now accompanied by the sound of fast-moving feet. Samantha Crane was saying something, sounding angry and scared. Kealey caught, “Bastard tackled me…,” and then her voice was lost in the background. He looked round the room, searching, finding a backpack. Staying low, he dumped out the contents, stuffed in the laptop, and removed his coat. The footsteps coming closer, the backpack on, the coat going over…

Foster was in the open doorway with another agent, a questioning look on his face. Getting back to his feet, Kealey pointed to Mason’s still form and said something inane as he moved forward, trying to distract them from the lump beneath his jacket. Foster reached out for his arm in a hesitant way, sensing something was wrong, but Kealey pretended not to notice and brushed past. Crane was still sitting up as another agent checked out her arm. She shot him a furious look as he walked past. Then he was next to the stairwell, half expecting a hand to come down on his shoulder, a raised voice ordering him to stop…

He moved against the tide on the stairs, holding his CIA credentials up at arm’s length, knowing they wouldn’t help, but doing it anyway. The first floor was rapidly filling with frantic agents, some of whom wore suits or casual attire, others the black Nomex and bulletproof vests that marked them as SWAT assaulters. Kealey forced his way through the throngs, relieved when no one gave him a second look. He stepped out into the destruction of the parking area a few seconds later.

Vehicles bearing government plates were already lined up on Duke Street, parked off to the sides to make room for the police cars and ambulances racing toward the scene. Kealey could hear the discordant sirens working against each other, growing closer as he jogged across the rubble-strewn cement. The pack was bouncing against his back beneath the coat as he scanned the cars for something familiar.

He finally spotted Jonathan Harper standing next to the rear cargo doors of the black Suburban. Breathing a sigh of relief, Kealey abruptly changed course. Someone called out from behind him. It might have been Crane, but he didn’t turn to look, and reached the road a moment later. Harper started to say something, but Kealey cut him off in a hurry.

“No time, John. We’ve gotta move.”

The other man nodded and opened the front passenger door. Kealey climbed in back, and the Suburban squealed away from the curb. Seconds later, the vehicle swung a hard left onto Union Street and disappeared from view.

PARIS, LANGLEY

Midday in a busy part of the 8th Arrondissement, people ambling in and out of cafes, searching for a late and leisurely lunch in the Parisian tradition. It was, perhaps, the least appropriate time of year for the City of Lights, the well-known moniker reinforced only by the natural sheen slipping over the blue slate roofs of time-worn, half-timbered homes and shops.

Sitting in the driver’s seat of the Renault taxi he’d temporarily procured for the exorbitant price of four hundred euros, Will Vanderveen watched the scene unfold through the windshield — the same scene, in most respects, rolling over and over again, with just slight variations on a common design. A series of popular shops climbed the gentle slope of the street, making their way up in price and prestige to the Place de la Concorde, the largest square in the city and the heart of the Right Bank. On this road just north of the famed Champs-Elysees, there was much to catch one’s attention, especially for a tourist whose entire experience, at least in the long run, was mired in images. That particular point of view was lost on Vanderveen — he knew the city inside and out — but he could imagine the sight through the eyes of the typical guest: charmingly dilapidated buildings towering over the worn cement, flower boxes filled with dark soil and bright flowers, and tiny compacts fighting for room with the colorfully clad bicyclists making their way up and down the precarious street.