Peter Kirsanow - Target Omega

The bag was a survival kit, a fail-safe of sorts. It contained items essential for Garin’s short-term existence in case he was cut off and on his own. He had used it — or more accurately, taken it with him — once before, for an assignment that required a lightning insertion into an Eastern European city without any preparation or staging whatsoever. As it turned out, he’d left the bag aboard the transport plane since he’d been able to make arrangements with local contacts for supplies.

The bag contained approximately fifty thousand dollars in cash — ten thousand of which was in dinars and euros — multiple IDs, credit cards in various names, a US passport for Thomas Lofton as well as a French passport for Andre Duvalier, a Glock 17 and several magazines, a tactical knife, a toiletry kit, QuikClot, a secure cell phone, and a couple of changes of underwear, socks, shirts, and pants.

Garin tried calling support once more. Nothing except a hum. Anxiety gradually began to replace frustration as he decided that the circumstances dictated he abandon Laws’s advice and try to contact his team immediately by phone. He hit the first of several preset numbers stored on a coded contact list. Rod Mears. Another hum. He looked at his phone as if he expected it to provide a written explanation for his lack of success and then hit the next number, Joe Calabrese. A hum. Eli Calhoun — hum. Cal Lowbridge — hum.

The muscles in Garin’s jaw tensed with each unsuccessful attempt to reach the members of his team and he began pacing the length of the counter as he dialed. Manny Camacho — hum. Gene Tanski… Garin stopped pacing. The phone was ringing. A sense of hopeful relief crept over him, only to be replaced by growing urgency as it continued to ring without answer. Garin disconnected and went to the last preset: John Gates — hum.

Garin’s mind rifled through the plausible reasons for his inability to contact anyone from Omega. None was pleasant. He quickly cycled through the calls once again, this time leaving Tanski for last, and once again, only Tanski’s number rang and rang.

Garin examined his watch: 2:53. He considered his situation. An attempt had been made on his life by two men of indeterminate nationality. They were professionals. He was unable to reach either his support or any of the men he’d last seen only a few days ago when they had returned after a successful, highly sensitive DA in Pakistan. His working assumption, at least for purposes of self-preservation, was that the rest of his team was dead and someone wanted him dead also. He hadn’t the slightest idea who that someone might be. If he tried to contact anyone outside of Omega for help, he might reveal his whereabouts to the very person behind today’s events.

It was time to move. There was at least one open door left: Gene Tanski’s phone was still ringing and he lived less than thirty minutes away. If Garin couldn’t reach him by phone, he would have to reach him in person.

Garin took the SIG and gym bag off the counter and stepped over the bodies of the two dead men as he went to the door. The matter of disposing of the corpses would have to be addressed later. He peeked out the window again before slowly opening the door, pistol held at eye level. He examined the entire area outside the apartment for several seconds before putting the weapon into the pocket holster on his right and covering it with his shirt. In similar circumstances he sometimes had a gnawing sensation that he was about to be struck by a sniper’s bullet, the only solace being that he would be dead before he even heard the shot. He knew the feeling wouldn’t go away until he was no longer in open space.

Turning left, he walked briskly up the concrete steps to the parking lot, this time stopping to check the undercarriage of the Jeep before jumping in and turning the ignition. When he pulled back from the curb, Garin saw Emilio appear at the window above. As he shifted into drive, Garin gave a casual wave, prompting Emilio to return the gesture enthusiastically, a broad grin covering his face.

As the brake lights of Garin’s Jeep disappeared around the corner, Emilio stood vigil by the window, putting the finishing touches on the latest Señor Lofton yarn.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JULY 13 3:10 P.M. EDT

Olivia Perry wasn’t surprised by the news she’d just received, but that did nothing to diminish her bitterness. There was simply no defensible reason for what was going to occur at Turtle Bay, yet few were even aware and fewer still seemed to care.

Olivia had been excited when she’d accepted the offer to be an aide to National Security Advisor James Brandt, her former advisor at Stanford. Moving to D.C. and being at the fulcrum of important global developments promised to be exhilarating. Although the move was a significant advancement in her career, her first few months on the job proved to be largely an exercise in mind-numbing tedium.

Her primary charge had been to monitor and analyze Russian commercial transactions and overall economic development for any hints of their strategic ambitions. Old-fashioned Kremlinology had been resurrected due to President Mikhailov’s increasing bellicosity and adventurism.

But she found nothing scintillating there. It appeared that in some respects the Russians were reverting to the disastrous practices of a command economy. Over the last couple of years they’d produced massive quantities of run-of-the-mill electrical equipment, only to have it all sit idly in row upon row of enormous warehouses scattered throughout the vast country. They’d manufactured enough generators to power a medium-size European country, but there was no corresponding market. Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia, it seemed, still hadn’t mastered the vagaries of supply and demand.

Moreover, the spike in US natural gas production due to new drilling techniques was depressing Russian economic growth. Hydrocarbons, after all, had been responsible for nearly forty percent of Russian GDP growth over the last decade. But the US natural gas boom was lowering world gas prices and undercutting Russian gas exports to Europe. Gazprom, the mammoth Russian gas company — indeed, the largest in the world — had suspended liquefied natural gas production at the Shtokman field in the Arctic because of plummeting prices. They were now forced to look to burgeoning Asian markets for salvation.

There was something about the Russian economy that bothered Olivia. Something annoying, like the irritating whine of a mosquito flitting about her ear, looking for a place to alight. It kept buzzing whenever she was concentrating on another task. Buzzing to remind her to pay attention. To take a closer look.

Olivia stared gloomily out the window of the Peet’s Coffee near the Old Executive Office Building, where she’d spent most of the day gathering information and preparing analyses for Brandt regarding the positions of various nations on the escalating tensions between Israel and its Middle Eastern neighbors. Earlier in the week, the IDF had conducted strikes on a number of Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon in retaliation for a blizzard of rocket attacks on the Golan Heights over the preceding four days. Although a dozen Israeli civilians had died, the international media became aroused only when one of the IDF’s strikes had resulted in the inadvertent deaths of approximately eight Palestinian civilians whom Hezbollah rocketeers were using as human shields. The familiar pattern of outrage and denunciations followed, beginning, of course, in Tehran and Damascus and concluding in Moscow, Brussels, and Paris.

The buzzing in Olivia’s ear persisted.

The United States was one of the few nations that stood by Israel’s use of force. President Marshall issued a statement of unequivocal support for Israel’s right to defend itself and caused a minor tempest when he demanded the UN investigate possible Hezbollah culpability for the deaths of the civilians.