Christopher Reich - Rules of Vengeance

Kate stood on her tiptoes, craning her neck in an effort to locate the source of the shouting. About 300 meters up the sidewalk, she caught sight of a dark head running toward them. The head bobbed up and down. Visible one instant, gone the next. It belonged to a white male. Graying hair. Blue jacket. More than that she couldn’t tell.

A second Suburban shot into the intersection, followed by a trio of Mercedes sedans, all black, all with windows similarly tinted to prevent unfriendly parties from identifying their occupants. A miniature flag flew from the antenna of the lead Mercedes. She recognized the blue, white, and red tricolor of Russia.

She checked her watch. It was 11:15.

Mischa , she thought.

Seated in the rear of the cab , Jonathan watched Emma climb from the BMW and walk away from the car. He had his money ready and as soon as Emma had gone ten steps, he passed the cabbie two fifty-pound notes. He waited another moment, his eyes fixed on his wife as if there were a cable connecting them, then opened his door and set off down the sidewalk. He kept close to the buildings, slowing now and again to keep some pedestrians between him and his wife. “Natural cover,” she’d called it, explaining her work to him.

Emma continued down Storey’s Gate for exactly one block before stopping at the intersection of Victoria Street. The light changed. Pedestrians on either side of her crossed the street, but Emma remained where she was.

Jonathan hung back, watching. Any second now, a car was going to pull up, Emma was going to climb in, and that would be that. He would never see his wife again. He turned, looking for a cab, but for once there were none to be seen. He balled his fist and pounded his thigh. He should never have abandoned the taxi.

It was almost 11:15. Dr. Blackburn would be frantically searching for him at the hotel, wondering where his keynote speaker had disappeared to. He imagined Jamie Meadows pounding on the door of his hotel room, asking if everything was all right. Jonathan put them out of his mind. He could give his talk tomorrow.

It was then that he saw a motorcycle policeman zip past him, and all thoughts about the conference vanished. The policeman continued to the intersection of Storey’s Gate and Victoria Street, where he stopped his bike, dismounted, and blocked off all eastbound traffic. Quickly the road emptied of vehicles and grew curiously calm. Jonathan was put in mind of the eerie silence that precedes an avalanche.

By now a group of pedestrians had surrounded Emma. Even so, he could see her clearly standing with a cell phone to her ear, gazing intently in front of her.

Behind him, he heard the hum of a powerful engine. He turned in time to see a flash of black, and a Chevrolet Suburban zipped past him, then another identical to it, close behind. Both were followed by a fleet of jet-black Mercedeses. Three in all. He saw a flag fluttering from one of the cars. The red, white, and blue of the tricolor shimmered in the bright sunshine. It took him a few seconds to guess the country. Not France, not Holland … Russia .

It hit him then. He knew why Emma was waiting at the corner.

Lebanon . Kosovo. Iraq . She had told him about her work in those places. Invariably it involved the kidnapping or assassination of a high-ranking figure deemed unfriendly to the cause-the cause being the security and well-being of the United States of America. It was no coincidence that she was standing on this particular street corner at the precise moment that a motorcade ferrying Russian officials across London was passing.

Emma had come to London to kill someone, or, as he’d once heard her refer to it, “to secure a political objective.”

All this passed through Jonathan’s mind in a second.

He began to run, shouting her name. He wasn’t sure why he was doing it. Emma had taken pains to explain why her actions were necessary, and in every case he’d come to share her views. It was a common misperception that aid work is a liberalizing force. In fact, time spent in impoverished countries, caring for the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, had the opposite effect. Jonathan had no tolerance for the corrupt and powerful who furthered their gains at the expense of their countrymen. It didn’t matter what country. He didn’t believe in second chances, either. The fact was that most of the people who ended up on Emma’s list had it coming. But this was different. This time he was involved. This time he knew . To watch and do nothing, to stand still and bear mute witness-it was asking too much. He would not be an accomplice to murder.

“Emma!”

The last Mercedes drove past. Jonathan’s voice was drowned out by squealing tires, the aggressive roar of so many powerful engines. The motorcade shot down the street, only now coming abreast of the gray BMW.

The car .

The parking space conveniently available .

The text message on Emma’s phone was emblazoned on his memory. “Package ready for pickup. ETA 11:15. Parking arranged. LT 52 OCX Vxhl. Meet WS 17:00.”

The BMW was the package. The attack was set for 11:15. It was a Vauxhall car that had vacated the space.

“Emma!”

Finally she turned toward him, and in the instant before the explosion, their eyes met. And as the blast wave hit him and lifted him into the air and threw him with astonishing force through the windshield of a Range Rover parked nearby he registered only the ferocious explosion and inside it the image of Emma’s condemning eyes.

He had never seen her more angry.

The first thing Kate noticed was the silence . She didn’t think, Oh, I’m alive. What the hell just happened? She knew that she was alive because her throbbing head told her so, and the sharp ache in her ribs wouldn’t let her forget it. And she knew that it had been a car bomb. She had seen the flash of light, the incendiary star burning to orange, before the blast wave knocked her to the pavement. But she hadn’t expected the silence. It was as if the entire city were holding its breath.

Gradually she became aware of the tinkle of glass falling to earth and the groaning of distressed metal. Her vision cleared. The first thing she saw was a line of burning cars. Every automobile parked within 20 meters of the bomb was on fire. They must have exploded instantaneously, she thought to herself, because she’d heard only the one bang, and then she wondered if maybe she’d been knocked unconscious for a moment or two.

She picked herself off the pavement, aware of an ache in her chest. “Christ,” she mumbled. “We’ve stepped in it this time. Can you believe this, Reg?” She looked over her shoulder for Cleak, but didn’t see him anywhere. “Reg? You all right, then?”

He lay on the ground next to the car. His eyes were open and fixed, as if he were staring at the sky. A piece of metal protruded from his forehead. It was a four-inch bolt.

Kate dropped to her knees, putting a hand to his neck to check for a pulse. There was none.

Nearby, Graves stood with his phone to his ear, speaking entirely too calmly as he instructed his subordinates to get a bomb response team to Victoria Street and Storey’s Gate, and only as an afterthought to “send some ambulances. Plenty of them.” He hung up and looked at her, then at Cleak. “He’s dead. Help me secure the blast scene.”

“You’re hurt.” She pointed to his cheek.

Graves appeared peeved by the comment. He touched his hand to his face, and when it came away bloody he swore, then took a handkerchief and pressed it to the wound. “Get on to SO15,” he said, referring to Special Office 15 of the Metropolitan Police. “Have them issue an evacuation notice for the area.”