American operator, p.35
American Operator, page 35
part #4 of Tier One Series
“Took them long enough,” Dempsey said. “Do you have eyes on the target?”
“Rook is heading for Galata Bridge,” said Baldwin, referring to the 150-year-old bridge that connected historic Istanbul with the Galata district on the other side of the Golden Horn waterway. “The top deck of the bridge is for automobile traffic but does have sidewalks. The lower deck is like a boardwalk—packed with cafés and restaurants. Rook went to the lower deck.”
Dempsey scanned back and forth on both levels but didn’t see the shooter. Dozens and dozens of amateur fishermen lined the upper deck on both east and west sides, casting their spinning lines off the bridge into the blue-green water below.
“I don’t see him. Which side did he go?” Dempsey said.
“East side,” came Baldwin’s reply.
Tourists and pedestrians parted like the Red Sea as Dempsey charged toward the east side of the bridge. He took the concrete stairs four at a time, striding from landing to landing to landing, as he hustled down to the seawall level. When he reached the bottom, he sprinted toward the lower promenade, yelling for tourists and the army of shoeshine scammers to clear out of his way. Gunfire echoed as bullets raked the metal safety railing that spanned the length of the lower level along the water’s edge. Dempsey dodged left, toppled an aluminum café table, and dropped in behind it.
It appeared that Rook had procured himself a new weapon.
Dempsey ejected the magazine from the HK to check the count: eight rounds, plus the one in the chamber. He slammed the magazine back home just as a new three-round volley sent bullets into the panicked crowd fighting for cover at a restaurant. A middle-aged woman took a round in the back and pitched forward, collapsing on the ground fifteen feet behind Dempsey.
That’s two civilians this asshole has shot.
Dempsey popped his head out for a split second, looked down the lower-deck promenade, and spotted the assassin sprinting toward the middle of the bridge. Dempsey jumped to his feet and gave chase. After ten meters, he came to the body of a uniformed patrol officer, whose lifeless corpse lay sprawled across the sidewalk, glassy eyes staring at the heavens. Dempsey checked the holster at the dead man’s side and found it empty. Dempsey pushed himself harder, digging deep into his body’s reserves, not prepared to stop until he’d drained every last drop of energy he possessed. Ahead, the assassin was closing on a metallic, monolithic structure that rose like a tower two stories above the upper deck.
“What’s that gray structure I’m looking at?” Dempsey asked over the comms circuit.
“Galata Bridge is a bascule-style bridge,” Baldwin said. “There are four of these structures, which indicates to me they contain the mechanical equipment for the bridge’s operation.”
“What kind of bridge?” Dempsey said.
“A drawbridge, Falcon.”
Each mechanical tower sat atop a concrete foundation surrounded by a sizable landing. A dozen people huddled and crouched in clusters of twos and threes as the killer spun to fire another two-round volley. Dempsey dropped into a tactical crouch as both rounds missed him, sailing wide right. He slowed to a shooting stance, took aim, and fired. The bullet missed, pinging off the metal tower structure as the assassin once again defied gravity, using the gaps between the metal fascia panels to rapidly ascend. Dempsey unloaded two more rounds at Rook as he flung himself over the guardrail and disappeared from view onto the upper deck.
“Damnation,” Dempsey cursed, looking for a staircase.
A beat later, he found the switchback stairwell leading to the upper deck. He took the first staircase in a sprint, bounding up the steps two at a time. But instead of blindly making the turn upon reaching the first landing, he stopped. His gut told him the bastard had a sight line down the stairs and would shoot him dead the second he turned that corner. He crouched behind the waist-high metal panel that formed the railing wall between levels. At some point, the assassin would abandon his ambush position, but when?
“Eagle, where is he?”
“We don’t have him, Falcon One. He has not emerged from the structure,” Baldwin said.
Dempsey blew air through his teeth.
Five rounds left . . . I’ve only got one shot at this.
He aimed the HK at the ceiling inside the metal tower and fired two rounds. The gunshots echoed loudly, amplified by the metal structure around him. In that instant, he popped to his feet, but instead of rounding the corner, he leaned over the top of the rail and sighted in. The distraction worked and bought Dempsey a half-second reprieve as the assassin was momentarily distracted by the unexpected sound and trajectory of the two rounds hitting the metal floor beneath him. Dempsey squeezed off two rounds before his adversary could adjust his aim and fire. The first round hit Rook center of mass, and the second clipped his left deltoid, causing him to drop his weapon.
With a fresh surge of adrenaline, Dempsey scrambled around the bend and charged up the stairs toward his fleeing adversary. He reached the top of the staircase a beat later and ran out onto the upper deck of the bridge, scanning right first, the direction he thought he’d seen the target go. Police cruisers with sirens flashing were converging from both directions on the middle of the bridge. In three minutes, they would be surrounded by Turkish police, and this engagement would be over whether he was ready for it to be or not. A heartbeat later, he found Rook—perching on a narrow concrete ledge on the wrong side of the safety railing, fifty feet above the water. Dempsey’s operator doppelgänger turned his head and looked at him.
Dempsey raised his pistol.
One round left.
They locked eyes over the barrel of the weapon—one man on the receiving end, the other on the judgment end. Dempsey’s right index finger shifted from the guard to the trigger as he aligned the iron sights on Rook’s forehead.
No more body shots . . .
The assassin inclined his head—a wordless, conciliatory nod, one operator to another—and then slipped from view as the bow of an eastbound ferry emerged below.
“Noooooo,” Dempsey bellowed and ran toward the spot on the railing from where the assassin had jumped. By the time he arrived, the stern of the ferry was emerging from the underbelly of the bridge. On the roof deck, a man struggled to his feet—a man who, save for the eyes, could easily be mistaken for John Dempsey. For a fleeting instant, Dempsey contemplated climbing on that railing and going for it, but the ferry was moving too fast. The only thing he’d catch was air on his way down to a big drink in the Golden Horn. He raised his pistol and sighted in. In response, the assassin squared his shoulders and presented Dempsey with his chest.
Behind Dempsey, sirens screamed, and a baritone voice ordered him to put down his weapon, first in Turkish and then immediately after in heavily accented English. He didn’t even have to look; he knew there were at least a dozen semiautomatic weapons trained on his back. If he took the shot at the ferry, they would open fire. Even with his vest and SAPI plates, this was one engagement he was guaranteed not to walk away from. With an angry growl, he released his two-handed grip on the HK and moved his index finger off the trigger. With his back still to the Turkish police contingent, he slowly, very slowly held the pistol out to his side and lowered it to the pavement. As he stood up and raised his hands, he returned his gaze to the ferry and, to no surprise, found the roof deck empty.
“Looks like you’ve made some new friends, Falcon One,” said Smith in his ear.
“Yeah, so it seems,” he grumbled. “If I spend one night in a Turkish prison, I’m taking it out on you when I get back. You copy?”
“I hear you Lima Charlie, my friend. Don’t worry, we got you covered.”
“What about Falcon Two?”
“Ambulance already picked him up.”
“Tell me you got the sonuvabitch” came Munn’s hoarse voice on the line, the doc apparently having refused to give up his earbud and link to the team this whole time.
“Sorry, bro. Not this time,” Dempsey said, staring at the ferry as it slipped from view over the horizon. “Not this time . . .”
CHAPTER 52
Three Days Later
Washington, DC
Grimes sat in the back seat of Dempsey’s Tahoe beside Amanda Allen, lost in thought.
Allen had specifically requested that Dempsey be present for her homecoming with Chief Justice Allen. She’d probably thought it poetic or honorable to have the man who’d rescued her deliver her to her father. Dempsey, being Dempsey, had of course obliged the request but then later come to Grimes and asked if she’d ride along. Reluctantly, she’d agreed.
She and Dempsey had not spoken one-on-one since the conversation on the Boeing before he left for the rescue op. That was the first time since Crusader that she’d tried to talk to him about everything that had gone down. And that was the first time since Crusader she’d let Elizabeth have a voice. After Jerusalem, she’d locked Elizabeth in the closet under the stairs and let Grimes completely run the show. The postrehab, nine-month ass-kicker CrossFit training regimen—that had been Grimes. The decision to go to sniper school: Grimes. Cutting all alcohol, caffeine, and sweets from her diet: Grimes. Sniping too many men to count with precision headshots and without remorse: Grimes. Shutting down all emotions that don’t serve an operational or tactical purpose: Grimes. Hell, she’d been Grimes for so long now, she was having trouble remembering that her alter ego once had a softer side. As for Kelsey Clarke, the girl she’d been before she’d joined Ember and adopted Elizabeth Grimes as her NOC, well, that girl might as well be dead and buried. How long had it been since she’d seen her parents?
A year?
Yeah, it’s been a year . . . not since the anniversary of Jonathon’s death.
She shook her head.
I never even told them that I’d been in the hospital. I never told them that their little girl died on the operating table. Probably a good thing, because I would have also told them that, for their little girl, there was no white light at the top of a magical staircase leading to heaven, no choir of angels singing hymns, no kindly bearded man in flowing white robes telling her in a comforting voice that her work on earth was not finished yet and that she needed to go back.
No, when she’d died, she had not experienced any of these things. Just darkness, coldness, and emptiness . . .
What she’d experienced was nothingness . . . hollow nothingness.
But that was not the sort of thing people wanted to hear. Nor was it the sort of thing people needed to hear. People needed encouragement, they needed empathy, and most of all, they needed hope. Grimes could not give Amanda any of these things, which meant that it was probably time to unlock the closet door and let Elizabeth out . . . if only for a little while.
Watching Amanda now, wringing her hands in her lap, Elizabeth felt a pang of pity for the girl. Of course, Allen wasn’t really a girl. She was a woman—an incredibly brave and strong woman—who was only five years her junior. But right now, in this moment, she seemed very much a girl, and Elizabeth felt a maternal inclination to comfort her. Maternal was probably not the right word—sororal was more accurate. She’d not had a sister growing up, only a big brother, so slipping into a big-sister role was not something she’d had any real experience with. She’d always found herself fulfilling the opposite caricature—the defiant kid sister trying to prove to everyone she was big enough, strong enough, and smart enough to do it . . . whatever “it” happened to be. It had been no different at Ember, but she’d finally proven herself there, hadn’t she?
Watching Amanda, she wondered who Amanda truly needed her to be right now: Grimes or Elizabeth?
Who do I need me to be?
From the driver’s seat, Dempsey let out a barely audible sigh—a note of irritation that probably only she noticed. For the past five minutes, they’d been parked along the curb in front of the Chief Justice’s DC townhouse at idle. He cut the engine and leaned his head against the headrest.
“I’m not ready yet,” Amanda said immediately, a defensive edge to her voice.
“It’s okay,” Elizabeth said with a warm, empathetic smile, pulling her gaze from Amanda’s nervous hands to her face. “We’re not in a hurry.”
Amanda nodded and lowered her gaze to her lap. They were silent for a while, until she said, “I don’t feel like me anymore.” Her gaze went to the middle distance. “Is that normal for people who go through something like, um . . . like what happened to me?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yes, it’s normal.”
“It’s hard to explain,” Amanda continued. “Before, there was just one me. But now, it’s almost like there’s different versions of me all trying to occupy the space in my head. There’s the me from before, the one I’d been my whole life, but she seems very far away. Then there’s the helpless me, the one who was abused and violated and basically got her ass kicked. And last, there’s the rage-monster me, the one who ripped a Coke can in half and used it to slit a man’s throat and gouge out his eyes . . . It’s kinda hard to keep straight which me I’m supposed to be now.”
Grimes shifted uncomfortably in her seat at the words—almost her own words, but coming from a relative stranger. She forced herself to again be Elizabeth and reached over and took Amanda’s hand.
“I think when something traumatic happens, we become the person we need to be to survive. I think that new person, the survivor, often has trouble giving up control when—” She stopped, noticing Dempsey’s eyes locked on her in the rearview mirror.
“When what?” Amanda asked.
“I was going to say, when life goes back to normal, but for people like us, life never goes back to normal. That’s the fairy tale we try to tell ourselves, but the sad truth is, in reality, the threat level is the only thing that dictates who we get to be and when.”
Amanda nodded slowly. “So what you’re saying is, the old me is gone? This is who I am now?”
She was formulating her response when Dempsey surprised her by turning in his seat and saying, “That’s right. You can’t go back. And even if you could, in time, you wouldn’t want to.”
Grimes looked at Dempsey, whose usually hard eyes were compassionate and earnest. There was a lot more to John Dempsey than people thought. She wondered who, besides her, understood that.
Amanda’s lips curled into a sad smile. “I guess, deep down, I kinda figured that.”
“But know this—there is a place for people like us,” he said. “A place where you can cut the umbilical cord to your past. A place where you can learn to harness your demons and put them to work for you pulling the oxcart. A place where trauma, angst, and loss can be channeled into purpose and forge the bonds of camaraderie with your teammates. We’re the guardians of the gate, Amanda. That’s more than a job—it’s a calling.”
Grimes felt a chill at the words that were meant for her as much as they were for Amanda—for all three of them perhaps.
“Interesting,” Amanda said, narrowing her eyes at him. “I guess I should probably keep this place in mind when I get put on terminal leave.”
Grimes shot Dempsey a What the hell are you doing? look, to which he responded with the universal clueless-guy expression: What’d I do?
Realizing she was still clutching Amanda’s hand, Elizabeth gave it an encouraging squeeze and let go. At the same time, movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention, drawing her gaze past Amanda’s shoulder and through the rear passenger window. Justice Allen had appeared in the front window and was staring at the Tahoe from beside a drawn curtain.
“Looks like he’s waiting for you,” Elizabeth said.
Amanda turned in her seat and looked out the window at her father. “What should I tell him? I mean, he’s not read into any of this.” Then her eyes rimmed with tears, and she started to laugh and cry at the same time. “Christ, he doesn’t even know I work for the CIA.”
“Tell him whatever feels right,” Elizabeth said.
“But he’s not read in.”
“Actually, we took care of that with the DNI,” Dempsey said with a nod. “You’re cleared to tell him whatever you want, or whatever you need.” He smiled that boyish smile of his. “Except about us, of course. We don’t exist.”
“Oh, okay,” Amanda said, wiping her eyes and taking a deep centering breath.
“You can do this, Amanda,” Elizabeth said. “Of all the people in the world, I promise, he’ll understand.”
“I know.”
“Would you like me to walk you up?” she asked.
“No,” Amanda said, taking one final cleansing breath. “I got this.”
“Good luck,” Elizabeth said and smiled as Amanda climbed out and shut the door behind her.
They watched together, Grimes and Dempsey—or in this moment, was it John and Elizabeth? She wasn’t sure—as father and daughter reunited in a tearful, loving embrace on the front steps of the townhouse.
“Do you think she’s going to be okay?” Dempsey asked.
“Yeah, do you?”
“Hell yeah,” he said. “I saw her in action. She’s a badass.”
Grimes cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Her? Fifty bucks says she can’t do a single pull-up, dude.”
“Give me three weeks with her and you’re on.”
“Hell no.” She laughed as she climbed over the center console to get into the front passenger seat. “No prep work allowed.”
He looked at her and grinned.
“What?”
“I just figured Your Highness would have wanted to stay in the back seat while I chauffeured her back to the palace.”
She slugged him in the shoulder, proud that her blow made the former SEAL wince. “That’s for calling me Your Highness.” Then she slugged him again.
“Ow,” he said. “What the hell was the second one for?”
“For trying to recruit her.”
“I wasn’t trying to recruit her,” he said, fighting back a grin as he started the engine.
“Yes, you were, John Dempsey.”
“Okay, so maybe I was. I’ll tell you this—I underestimated Simon Adamo as Ops O. He does things differently from Shane, but I’m starting to think he was the right pick for the job.”
