Greg Rucka - A gentleman_s game

Chace understood it, right down to the symbolism of Box picking three targets of their own. But looking at the monitor, and on it the view of the kitchen table, of the bomb-in-the-making, it seemed an awful risk to take for the sake of soothing a bruised ego.

Kinney moved forward, bending his mouth to the ear of the CT leader, whispering. The leader glanced at Chace, then back to Kinney, nodding. Kinney returned to her, fingering the radio in his hand.

"I've informed Sergeant Hopton that if you so much as cough, he is to remove you from the site," Kinney whispered at her. "Further, should it be required, he has been directed to take whatever action is required to keep you silent. I'm sure you understand what that means."

Chace stared at him, then mouthed the word "yes" as widely as she could manage. Hopton was watching her, and she caught him looking, and he turned his attention to the laptop once more.

Kinney nodded and slunk back toward the bedroom.

She fumed, leaning forward on the couch, trying to get a better look at the monitor. Hopton shifted to his left, trying to accommodate her view, and that mollified her somewhat. She didn't doubt that he would do as Kinney had directed, but at least he didn't seem happy at the prospect. • At eighteen minutes to six, they blew the wall, and even then, it was almost too late.

Activity started in four-twelve at oh-five-thirty-three, with the return of the three men Kinney had been waiting on. They were all in roughly the same age bracket, mid to early twenties, two of them of indeterminate Middle Eastern origin, the third Caucasian, and Chace could hear them through the thin walls even as she watched their entrance on the video feed. They looked exhausted and nervous, and she thought that was a bad combination. They'd been living in fear since the seventh, she supposed, knowing what the inevitable response to the attacks on the tube would be, knowing that Box would be out in force, bent on finding anyone anywhere who might be a threat.

A justified paranoia, as far as Chace was concerned.

She watched over Hopton's shoulder as the three men removed their coats, dropping them onto the couch in a heap, then headed in different directions-one toward the bathroom, one toward the bedroom, the third, the Caucasian, digging into his discarded coat, where he pulled a small digital camera from its pocket.

Site selection, Chace confirmed for herself. They've been out choosing targets.

The Caucasian had moved to a chair at the kitchen table, and Hopton twisted the knob on his control, turning the camera to keep the man in view. Chace watched as the man opened a laptop computer of his own, booting it up, then attached a cable from the computer to the camera, preparing to upload his photographs.

Chace heard the soft click of the bedroom door opening, Kinney stepping carefully to join them. Chace glanced away from the screen long enough to look the question at him, but Kinney shook his head.

"Not yet," he murmured.

She wanted to scream at him.

"The women," Kinney explained softly. "They're too close to the wall from four-ten. If it's blown they'll get hit in the blast, and we don't want to risk losing them. I want them alive."

Chace rolled her eyes, looked back to the monitor. Hopton was getting to his feet, holding the detonator for the wall-charge in one hand, using hand signals to motion the rest of the team to prepare for their entry. All of the men were moving carefully, quietly, pulling their balaclavas and gas masks into place, swinging their weapons into their hands.

On the monitor, the Caucasian man was bent to the laptop, back to the camera, working.

Then he stopped, and Chace saw the tightening along his back as his head came up, saw him turn his chin, realized he was listening, that he'd heard something.

She felt one of the stuffed animals resting against her thigh where she sat on the couch, reached down for it, brushing the hard rubber of the teething bear with her fingertips.

It wasn't what he was hearing, Chace realized. It was what he wasn't.

"Now!" she hissed to Hopton.

"Chace," Kinney growled.

On the screen, the man had risen from the table, was walking toward the wall, their wall.

"Jesus Christ, do it now!" Chace said. "He knows, dammit-"

Kinney dropped a hand onto Chace's shoulder, already turning to Hopton, snarling, "Get her out, and don't be gentle about-"

She launched herself off the couch, trying to shrug free of Kinney's grip on her shoulder, pleading with Hopton. "He doesn't hear the baby, Sergeant! He knows!"

"Sergeant, get her out of here."

Hopton grimaced. In her periphery, Chace could see the man on the monitor, now at the wall, so close to the camera his image was distorting.

"Clear," Hopton said, and Chace shut her eyes, tucking her head, trying to save her vision from the inevitable flash of the explosion, and even then she could see the light, a searing red that matched the crackling burst of wood and wall. There was a scream, and Hopton shouting, and she opened her eyes to see the CT team pouring into the apartment, stepping over the Caucasian man, twisted on the floor.

Beside her, Kinney was shouting into the radio, telling the other team to go go go, but even as he was saying it Chace heard the second detonation, muffled, and a scream.

The bathroom door opened, and the man inside surged out, pants half-raised, and Chace had just registered the pistol in his hand when one of the CT team shot him.

She pulled the pistol from her waist, stepped through the breach in the wall, coughing as she caught a lungful of atomized debris still hanging in the air. The CT team was already disappearing into the bedroom, and she heard an exchange of fire, two single shots, and the rattle of multiple MP-5s in response.

Behind her, Kinney was shouting that he wanted them alive. Chace didn't know if it was directed at her, the radio, or God above. She didn't much care.

Pistol held low in both hands, Chace followed after the CT team, peering around the doorframe into the bedroom. Blood spattered the wall and ceiling, and she saw the two women, still in the bed, each in their nightclothes, one of them now being dragged free of the sheets by Hopton as another of the CT team readied a set of plasticuffs. The other woman was pitched face forward, as if she'd been sitting and then simply toppled, and past her Chace could see the gap into four-ten, where the explosion had taken the wall. It had also taken the back of the woman's head.

The third man was slumped against the wall, legs splayed, eyes wide.

Chace stepped back and nearly slammed into Kinney as she turned.

"You bitch, you stupid bitch! Look what you've done!"

Past him, on the floor, Chace could see the Caucasian man trying to roll onto his side. The blast had caught the side of his face and chest, and blood bubbled out of him where the shrapnel of the wall had driven through his flesh.

"You've fucking ruined it," Kinney raged. "I wanted them alive! We needed them alive!"

"Two of them are." She indicated the man on the floor with the pistol in her hand. "Though I don't fancy his chances. Shall I put him out of his misery?"

Kinney's face lost all the color that had flooded into it, and he struck at her forearm, trying to get her to lower the pistol. She laughed, tucking the pistol back into her pants.

"You're an evil piece of work," Kinney said, raising his radio again.

"No," Chace told him, heading for the door. "They're evil, Mister Kinney. Me, I'm one of the good guys."

London-Mayfair, Hyde Park 13 August 1217 GMT It was one of the oldest espionage cliches in the Firm, certainly outdated, and in the current day and age of parabolic microphones and laser-beam listening devices quite possibly tragically insecure. But walking in Hyde Park was still Paul Crocker's favorite method of information exchange with the CIA, and he balanced the potential of compromise with the benefit of being able to talk out of the office, away from the alarmist eye of the Deputy Chief and the distrust of C. Meetings like today, the only person who knew for certain where he was and what he was doing was Kate, and she'd run dutiful interference should the need arise.