Mark Greaney - Full Force and Effect

“¿Marleni?” he said. “¡No lo creo! ¿Como te vas, amiga?” Marleni? I can’t believe it! How are you doing, friend?

She glanced up and saw the Asian men standing on the platform, their hands still in their coats. Confusion on their faces. The men leading her to the subway didn’t seem to notice them.

“¿Todo bien, chica?” the smaller of the two said. He was on her left, and he continued to guide her toward the track’s edge. He acted like he knew her, and was happy to see her, but it was clearly an act.

“¿Quién es usted?” she asked. Who are you? The man on her right was a little taller, just as dark but bearded, and he shielded her from the two Asian men who were now behind her. A few more people came forward on the platform as the train came to a stop.

The Latino with his hand on her back—from his accent, Marleni had identified him as Mexican—spoke softly now, still in Spanish. “Get on the train with us. It’s okay, we’re friends.”

She did as she was told, not because she understood or trusted him, but only because there were two of them and they moved her forward with gentle but unmistakable force.

—

When the doors closed, Chavez turned around to look for the two North Koreans, but he couldn’t see through the crowd of people leaving the train and heading for the exit. He thought it possible they had boarded another car, but he hoped the sudden appearance of him and Dom gave them enough pause to slow them down.

Chavez helped the woman to a seat; she was compliant but scared.

He said, “Ms. Allende. I don’t want to alarm you, I am a friend.”

“Who are you?” She clutched her bag. Ding was a forty-seven-year-old Hispanic male in warm-up pants and a gray sweatshirt. While he didn’t look threatening, his approach like this was jarring enough to make Allende wonder if perhaps she was about to be robbed.

“Those men have been following you since you met with Riley. We think it’s possible they were going to hurt you in some way. We can’t let that happen.”

“I don’t know any Riley.”

“He may have given you another name. I am talking about the man you met with at the restaurant on Mott Street twenty minutes ago.”

Allende’s face reddened. “I don’t know—”

“It doesn’t matter what is going on. We just want to make sure you are safe. Please let us escort you back someplace where we can talk.”

“I don’t know what this is all about. Really. I demand to be allowed to call my embassy immediately.”

Chavez said, “You aren’t safe in the subway. We can get you out at the next stop and meet friends at street level who can help us.”

Allende stood suddenly. Her confusion was subsiding quickly, and now she had acquired a sense of authority, even outrage. “I told you. I demand to speak to my embassy.”

The train slowed at the Prince Street station. Dominic moved for the door, his hand hovering at his waist, ready to draw his weapon if any North Korean operatives entered the car.

Ding said, “Okay. You can call whoever you want, but we’ve got to go up to the street, right?”

“I refuse to talk to—”

Dom spun away from the door, moved over to the Chilean UN official, and reached for his wallet. “Pay attention, lady.” He opened his wallet and displayed his Bureau credentials. “I’m FBI. You are coming with us.”

“I have diplomatic immunity.”

“And I don’t give a shit. You are not being arrested, you are being escorted to safety. You need to appreciate what is happening. We’re leaving right now.”

She started to move, but it took her too long.

At the stop a thick crowd of some fifteen people, the majority obviously tourists, were already boarding at the door nearest to Allende before she made it close enough to get off. An equal amount boarded at the door at the front of the car. By the time Chavez and Caruso had her moved through the group, the doors had closed again.

The train began moving.

Ding looked at Dom. “Stand her by the door and keep your head on a swivel. At the next stop we are moving.”

“Roger that.”

If not for the large group of straphangers standing in the middle of the car, Ding and Dom would have seen the two Asian men board from the door between their car and the car forward of them. But the men entered the car and began moving through the crowd, looking for their targets. When they did see the woman and her two mysterious protectors, they were only ten feet away, close to the rear side door. Instantly the North Korean operatives reached inside their coats to the small of their backs.

Caruso and Chavez saw the men right as the guns came out.

The North Koreans drew pistols, pushed a middle-aged woman and her grown daughter out of the way, and the guns rose in the middle of the group of stunned passengers.

The two Campus operatives went into their pants for their own weapons. Dom pulled a Smith & Wesson M&P Shield .40-caliber from inside his waistband under his shirt, and Chavez snatched a Glock 26 nine-millimeter from a Thunderwear holster. As Chavez drew, he stepped in front of Marleni Allende and shielded her with his body.

The North Koreans got the jump on the Americans, but the Americans executed their drawstrokes faster, so the race to get sights on targets was a four-way tie.

The screams and yells of thirty people came last of all.

Within one and a half seconds of the two teams seeing each other in the same train car, the four men had one another at gunpoint, each with two hands on his pistol in a combat grip. Their extended arms and gun barrels meant their muzzles were within eighteen inches of one another.

Men and women all around them dropped to the floor or recoiled out of the way in all directions, but the four professionals stood still as stones in the middle of the train car.

—

It was clear to Chavez these were North Koreans; he guessed they were members of their foreign intelligence service. He was surprised they were operating in the city with firearms, but, Chavez told himself, a gun was a decent tool for an assassin, so it stood to reason these guys were packing.

Caruso was on Chavez’s right, and as it happened, he had his gun on the man directly in front of Chavez, while Chavez himself was targeting the man just six feet in front of Caruso. The North Koreans had crossed their aim as well. The four weapons formed a near-perfect X that rocked and rolled with the rhythm of the moving train, and Chavez couldn’t help but think about the fact that he and the other three men would catch simultaneous point-blank rounds to the head if anybody on this train car so much as even sneezed.

He pictured what that would look like to the captive audience here. One extra-loud bang and four armed assholes dropping dead to the floor in a massive pool of blood.

That would be one hell of a vacation memory for all the tourists on the train.

No one said anything for the first few seconds, so Chavez took the role of master of ceremonies. “English? Either of you boys speak English?”

Sweat covered the brow of the man at the end of Chavez’s notch-and-post gunsight. Chavez didn’t look at the man in front of him, because that was Dom’s responsibility, and he knew Dom would have that guy covered.

Chavez’s man, dripping with sweat, had eyes that were wide and alert, but he did not seem panicked. He said, “I speak English.”

Chavez nodded. “That’s good.” He smiled a little, trying to bring even the slightest bit of calm to the scene. “This is a mess, huh?”

The North Korean didn’t reply.

Chavez continued, “I bet you and your partner want to go home tonight just like me and my partner. Am I right?”