Silent Assassin (23 page)

C
HAPTER
50

 

A
lex Morgan got back from her run energized, with legs burning and breath ragged from the effort of the last sprint. The sun was low in the sky, and the wind was starting to pick up. Her sweat was beginning to turn icy cold and the cold was beginning to hurt her lungs, so she was back just in time. She saw as she was coming in that her father’s car was not in the garage.

“Mom, I’m home!” she said, closing the kitchen door behind her.

“Hi, honey!” her mother called out in response.

Alex went straight upstairs to her room to practice her self-defense drills in front of the full-length mirror in her bedroom. She did her elbow strikes and palm strikes. She had started her shaolin kempo karate training at a dojo in Boston a little over a year ago. She’d known nothing about defending herself back then, but she had shot to the top of the students in her class. She had learned how to strike with her hands, elbows, and forearms, how to break her opponent’s balance, and how to take them down. She had also become proficient with knives, swords, and nunchakus.

She practiced removing the switchblade she had taken to fastening to her arm just below her wrist with an elastic headband and bringing it to an attack position in one fluid move. The she practiced the jabs and the slashes. When she had started training, she had cut her hand badly. She’d managed to hide it from her mother until it healed over—she didn’t want anyone to know about the knife. Now, she never cut herself anymore. In fact, it looked like she could really do some damage with the short blade.

Up until recently, her room had still been a little girl’s room. Her stuffed animals had occupied almost half the bed, which had a pink ornamented headboard, and she’d had a pink dresser to match, covered with old stickers that she had put up in her preteen years. It had undergone a drastic change since. There was nothing pink to be found at all. She had a plain adult bed with no headboard now, and a simple wooden dresser. On the walls she had posters of rock climbers and runners. On one wall she had her exercise routine, and a calendar where she had checked the days that she had performed it. The chain of checks was unbroken for three months now, and she was going strong. She had become obsessed with physical training, with the goal of being able to defend herself in any situation.

Once she was done, she took a shower, dressed, and made sure that the blade was secure and well hidden under the sleeve of her fleece shirt, then she went downstairs to the kitchen to get some water. She mixed cold with room-temperature water in a glass and downed it. As she put the glass down, she thought she saw something out of the corner of her eye.

“Mom?”

“Yeah, Alex?” her mother called out from her room upstairs.

“Nothing,” Alex replied. “Never mind.”

As she walked back up to her room, she thought she heard footsteps downstairs. She stopped dead in her tracks.

“Dad?” He was supposed to be in the city again, but it was always possible that he would come back early. “Is that you?”

When she reached the bottom of the stairwell, two men in black ski masks appeared in front of her. She screamed, but it was cut short when one of them grabbed her and put her in a chokehold from the rear. She could feel his breath in her ear, and was disgusted by the warmth of his body against hers.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the other man heading upstairs. Alex tried to elbow and kick the one holding her, but it was no use. In training, she could break anyone’s headlock—but this wasn’t training. There was no sensei to call off the strike here. Thinking quickly, she slipped the switchblade from under her sleeve, just like she had just practiced. Clutching it in her right hand, she thrust the knife backwards, into left side of the man’s neck. She felt his blood splattering on the side of her face and head. He roared and released her. He fell to the ground, grasping at his neck to stop the bleeding.

Without thinking, she went straight out the back door. She jumped over the fence and just kept on running, through the Harrisons’ backyard, from there out into the street, just running farther and farther away. She cried as she ran, choking with ragged breaths. The tears streamed down, her mind filled with the single purpose of getting as far away from the house as possible. Far, far away. She ran for minutes, but it felt like hours to her.

Her wits started to return to her, and the first thing that came to her mind was her mother. Her mother was in the house. Alex had panicked and left her mother there with the other masked man. The horror hit her all at once. She stopped running and, for a moment, just stood there, her fear on a perfect balance with her need to do something. Then she turned to run back to the house.

She ran as fast as she could, her already fatigued legs burning with the effort. The pain made her grit her teeth, push harder, go faster, each moment of ache a barb that, in her mind, was penance for having run away. As she ran, she imagined having done something different: that she had used one of her father’s guns and taken the other man out by herself. This fantasy sharpened the pain, because in reality what she had done was flee.

As she turned onto her street, she heard the police sirens in the distance, approaching. She got to her front door and took a deep breath. She was doing this. She had to, even if it meant that she would die or be taken.

She opened the door and ran inside. There was a pool of blood where she had taken out the man who had attacked her.

“Mom?” she called out. “Mom!”

She ran up to her parents’ bedroom. There was no one there. She checked her own bedroom and every other room in the house. There were signs of struggle, things on the floor, a broken mirror, but no one was in the house. The other man had left, and had taken her mother with him.

She was so frantic that it took her several minutes to calm down enough to call her father.

C
HAPTER
51

 

M
organ raced home probably as fast as he’d ever driven before. He sped up I-93 North out of Boston, weaving through traffic. He took his exit, nearly tipping over as he made the curve, then ran every red light until he reached his house. He arrived to find Alex, by the headlights of his car, sitting on the lawn in the dark, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Dad,” she cried as he got out of the car. She ran to embrace him, and he took her in his arms. “Dad. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t save her. I just ran. Dad. I just ran out of there and I
left
her.”

“Calm down, Alex, honey.” He hugged her, and felt the skin of her face against his. “Honey, you’re
freezing!
Tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt—”

“There’s blood on your face,” he said.

“It’s not mine,” she said, reflexively touching her face where he was looking. She sobbed. “Dad! They took Mom!”

“Who did?”

“Two men in masks,” she said. “They were in the house. I stabbed one and managed to get away, and then I ran and left her—” She broke down in tears. “Why did I run?”

“Did you check the house?” he asked. She nodded. He held her by the shoulders and stooped slightly so that his eyes were level with hers. “Alex. Alex. Listen to me. You did the right thing. You were faced with an impossible situation, and you ran.
You did the right thing
. You lived.”

She nodded weakly.

“Now,” he continued, “I’m going to find your mother. I need you to be strong for me and look after yourself while I do. Can you do that?” She nodded again, this time more calmly.

He took out his secure phone and dialed. It rang half a dozen times before he heard Lincoln Shepard’s voice on the other end. “Y’ello.”

“Shepard, it’s Cobra. I need your help.”

“Listen, I’m just running some test on a new thing I’m hacking together—”

“Right now,” said Morgan.

Shepard apparently took note of Morgan’s tone, because he asked, “What happened?”

“My wife’s been taken.”

“What?”

“Abducted. From my house. About half an hour, forty minutes ago. I’m going to need your help on this.”

“Can I get an address?”

Shit. There goes anonymity
. “Yeah, sure, it’s—” He gave Shepard his home address and heard him typing it through the comm.

“I’ll scare up whatever surveillance I can get,” he said. “Any idea on the color, make and model of the vehicle?”

He turned to his daughter. “Did you happen to see what car they came in?”

“No.”

“That’s a negative,” he told Shepard.

“All right. I’ll look at traffic cameras in a pattern radiating from your location. Running some algorithms to narrow down the search.”

“All right,” said Morgan.

“Hold on,” said Shepard. “Bloch’s here.”

“Cobra,” came Diana Bloch’s voice. “What’s going on?”

He explained.

“Do you think it was Novokoff?” she asked.

“The thought had occurred to me.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m diverting all our resources to this. I’m calling Bishop and tactical in. Meanwhile, I think it’s a good idea if you sit this one out.”

“Not a chance,” he said. “I’m coming back down to the city. Keep me posted.” He hung up, then looked at his daughter, who was shivering with her arms wrapped around herself.

“Alex,” he said. “I wish I could take care of you right now and take you somewhere safe, but every second counts right now. Listen carefully. I want you to take your mother’s car and go to the Mullinses’, over in Burlington. You remember where that is?”

She nodded weakly.

“Okay, good,” he said. “Here.” He took four hundred dollars from his wallet and put it in her hand. “If you need anything, don’t use your credit card. Don’t bring your phone. Call me from their house phone in two hours so I know you’re safe.”

“Wait, Dad!” she said. “Let me go with you. I can help!”

“You’re going to help me by being safe.”

“Dad, I need to do something!”

“I said go! Now, Alex!” He realized immediately that he’d spoken too gruffly, and softened his tone. “They already have your mother. I need to know that you’re safe while I get her back. Okay?” He hugged her, holding and comforting her for a minute. “Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” she said weakly.

“Okay,” he said. He got back into the Shelby, which he had parked askew on the curb. He backed up, then peeled out, moving back along the dark suburban streets. His phone rang.

“Cobra, I got the vehicle,” said Shepard. “Black van, getting onto I-93 South thirty minutes ago.”

“Then that’s where I’m going,” said Morgan.

He was speeding back down to Boston when his phone rang.

“Hello, Daniel Morgan.” It was cold and cruel. The voice of a stone cold killer, a man with no heart. The voice of Nikolai Novokoff.

“You bastard,” he said.

“Come down to the city, Danny Boy,” said Novokoff. “And turn the radio to the local news. I’ve got a surprise for you. And I guarantee you’ll find out where your wife is very soon.”

C
HAPTER
52

 

M
organ drove blindly down Storrow Drive, not knowing where to go. The urgency of finding Jenny, of rescuing her from the madman Novokoff, spurred him to accelerate, but it was, of course, useless. He had no idea where to go. The radio was tuned to a local station, but the anchor was giving a traffic update.

“Do you have anything for me yet, Shepard?” he asked, with his cell on speakerphone.

“I’ve tracked him down as far as getting to the city half an hour ago, but that’s it.”

“Keep looking!”

Morgan switched between radio stations until he came to another local news station.

“—we turn now to one of our citizen journalists, who just called in about something strange going on downtown. Sir, just what is happening?”

“Yeah,” said a man’s voice with a Southie accent, “there’s someone hanging from the crane here at that big construction site—”

“That would be the future Dwight Tower,” said the anchor.

“Oh no,” Morgan said to himself. “No.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Dwight. Anyway, they’re just hanging there, squirming. It’s a mob thing, if you ask me.”

“Thanks, sir. Well, there you have it, folks. We’ve got Steve going down to get a look at it himself—”

Morgan switched off the radio, then clutched, white-knuckled, at the wheel and sped off, grazing cars as he wove through the tight traffic, past the Common. He reached the block of the new skyscraper. A crowd was already forming, blocking his car’s access. He screeched to a halt and left the car, leaving the door open behind him.

Morgan ran down the street, barreling through the crowd, and looked up. By the skeleton of the rising skyscraper, already some thirty stories high, the huge yellow arm of the crane swung over the street. Hanging from its hook was a figure, tiny so far above the ground, contorting itself and swinging precariously. Her body was covered in what looked like a very heavy winter coat and pants. She was far enough above the street that all he could make out was her hair. The short, straight brown hair.

His phone rang and he put it to his ear. “Did you figure it out yet?” asked Novokoff’s mocking voice.

“Let her go,” he said. “Set her down right now, or I swear to you that I’ll—”

“You will do
what
? You have nothing to offer me and nothing to threaten me with. I am a dead man already. Courtesy of the savage beast you let loose on me. But I intend to go out in style, Mr. Morgan! And I intend to break you in the process.”

“What do you want?” Morgan asked. “What the hell do you want?”

“I want you to suffer.”

He pushed his way through the crowd, elbowing his way through where it was thickest. Four policemen had arrived at the scene, and were trying to keep an area clear underneath the crane. Morgan ran toward them.

“That’s my wife!” he said.

“We’ve got this under control, sir,” a policeman told him, holding up a hand to hold Morgan back. “We are going to get her down as soon as we can. We’re getting someone who can operate the crane to come down here right away.”

“Oh, could it be that easy?” Novokoff taunted on the phone.

“What did you do?” Morgan demanded.

Novokoff burst out laughing. “It’s too good. Just too good.”

“
What did you do?
”

“Look at your wife. Do you see the bombs I’ve strapped to her?”

Morgan tensed up, ready to dash to her.

“Don’t make for that crane, Morgan. I can detonate them remotely.”

Morgan stopped himself and stood still, not knowing what to do.

“Ah, but there’s more,” Novokoff continued. “You see, along with the bombs, I’ve strapped her with vials of the infectious agent.”

The world sank. “No . . .”

“Now, the bombs I have are set to go off in—oh, just over ten minutes now. If they blow, the fungus will rain on all the people below, and be set loose in this great city of Boston. But I haven’t even gotten to the best part yet!” he exclaimed with obscene joy. “I will give you a chance—
one chance
—to save your city. If you look to your right, you will see a trash can.” Morgan looked around at the confusion of faces in the crowd; then he looked up at the buildings around him. Novokoff had to be there somewhere. If he was half as devious as he was supposed to be, then Novokoff would also have a sniper trained on him. Morgan turned to face the building across the street from the construction site. It was a hotel, tall and boxy, with at least two hundred windows. It had the clearest line of sight to the street. If Morgan were a sniper, that’s where he’d be.

“I want you to walk to it and reach inside,” Novokoff continued.

Morgan did as he was told, and found something heavy and plastic inside. It had a handle of some kind. He pulled it out. It was a black detonator, with a red button on top protected by a clear plastic cover.

“What the hell is this?”

“The best part!” Novokoff said with glee.

“
What did you do?
” Morgan was a mess of rage and torment.

“You can save your city—by sacrificing her. Push that button and you activate the second set of bombs that I wrapped around her. Incendiary bombs. They will completely burn up her
and
the fungus.”

“I’m going to stop you,” Morgan said, gritting his teeth. “I’m going to save her, then I’m going to find you and kill you.”

“Oh, stop,” he said. “You’re taking all the fun out of my beautifully constructed moral dilemma.
Agonize
, Morgan. Live the decision.”

He wasn’t going to. That would mean to play on his terms. To make that choice would mean that Novokoff won. Except what if he couldn’t—he stopped himself from thinking it, and began to look around for ways to stop him. He hung up on Novokoff and put his communicator in his ear.

“Shepard! He’s got a bomb on Jenny. I need to you to get a jammer down here
immediately
. Think you can do that?”

“I’ll do what I can, Cobra,” he said.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, just do it! I need it here
five minutes ago!
”

“I’ve got Bishop here. He’s getting it ready as we speak.”

“Also, I think there’s a sniper on me. He’d be in the hotel across the street.”

“
In the hotel?
Care to narrow that down for me, Cobra?”

“I’ll try to get a visual,” said Morgan. “It’ll be hard from street level, though.”

“I’ll do what I can,” said Shepard. “I got Spartan on her way to your location as well.”

“Okay, keep me posted.”

Morgan’s phone rang once more. It could only be one person.

“What the
hell
do you want?” he asked.

“Rude, rude, rude,” Novokoff said. “Hanging up on me like that.”

“Are you having fun with this?” said Morgan. He scanned the windows of the hotel across the street as he held the phone up to his ear. Novokoff had to be around here somewhere.

“Would you like to talk to your wife?” he asked.

Morgan didn’t answer. Of course he did. But he’d never admit that he wanted something from Novokoff. But the question had been rhetorical, and Morgan heard Jenny’s voice coming from the cell phone.

“Dan?”

“Yes, Jen, it’s me. Talk to me, Jen. Talk to me.”

“I’m scared, Dan, and I’m cold. He put bombs on me. He has me tied up, blindfolded, and hanging from somewhere that feels like it’s high above the ground.”

“I know,” he said. “I see you. Listen, Jenny, don’t be afraid. I’m going to get you out of this. I’m going to hang up now, but trust me.”

“I’m so scared, Dan. . . .”

“I’ll get you down! Everything’s going to be okay! I just need hang up now, okay? Remember, I love you, Jen.”

“I love you, too, Dan,” she said tearfully. “Tell Alex I love her. Tell her I love her more than anything.”

“Time is ticking, Morgan,” Novokoff cut in. “And you are making promises that you can’t keep. Oh, and look, the police are getting ready to go inside the building. We can’t have that.”

“What the hell am
I
going to do about that?” Morgan asked.

“You’re a resourceful man, Mr. Morgan. Keep them out or she dies.”

Novokoff hung up. Morgan looked at a group of policemen, who were opening the gate to the construction site with a wire cutter. He had to move fast. He hastily pocketed the detonator and stealthily drew his gun from its ankle holster. Then he scanned the crowd until he found a young woman, standing near the police cordon. She must have been no older than twenty-seven, tall and curly-haired. She was apparently alone there, dressed in an elegant black coat. Morgan jostled his way to her, keeping his gun low and out of sight. He brought his gun to her neck and pulled her aside quickly, so that he had her against the fence, with no policemen behind him, as she let out her first scream.

“Stand back!” Morgan yelled to the policemen, who had turned immediately and now had their guns on him. “Everyone, back!”

“Let her go!” said the nearest policeman, who was young. Morgan saw that his bravado was a cover for a deep nervousness. He would be the most dangerous one there.

“There’s nowhere to go, buddy,” said another policeman. He was older, with a face weathered by experience, a real, old-school Boston cop, clearly in charge, though Morgan couldn’t make out his rank.

At that moment, the alarm in the hotel across the street went off.
Shepard, you genius
. The hotel would be evacuated, and the only one left inside would be the sniper.

“Cobra, I’m guessing you’ve heard the alarm by now,” said Shepard. “I’m running an infrared satellite sweep on the location. Once enough people are out of their rooms, we should be able to locate the shooter.” Morgan couldn’t answer him, but at that moment, he could kiss the little geek.

“Back, all of you,” said Morgan, calmly as he edged to the gate to the construction site. “What’s your name?” he said quietly to his hostage.

“L-lisa,” she said, in a trembling voice.

“Listen, Lisa, you’re doing great,” he said, still moving slowly along the sidewalk. The four policemen backed to make way for him, and the crowd contracted back in fear, all the while being pushed tighter by the curious people in the back. One of the policemen had his radio out, calling for backup. Morgan had to handle this carefully. “Just move as I move and do everything I say, and everything’s going to be all right. Okay, Lisa?”

“Please let me go,” she said. Her voice was trembling, but she was composed. She had been a good choice.

“What the hell are you doing out there, Cobra?” asked Shepard, exasperated, into the comm.

“Drop the gun,” said the more experienced cop. “Nobody has to die here today.”

“Nobody will, if you just stay the hell back,” said Morgan. Lisa whimpered quietly.

“We need to get through that gate to help that woman up there,” said the cop.

“You can’t help her,” said Morgan. He had reached the gate into the construction site now.

“Why not?”

“He said she was his wife!” said the policeman who had blocked Morgan’s way earlier.

“Is that true?” said the older cop. “Did you do that to her? Is that why you don’t want us in there?”

“Cobra, what the hell is going on?” Shepard repeated.

“No,” said Morgan. “It’s because I’m the only one who can save her.” Then, quietly, he said, “How is that jammer coming along, Shepard?” He looked up at the windows of the buildings around him. Novokoff might be up there somewhere. Morgan knew he’d be watching. But once the jammer was in place, there’d be nothing he could do, and Morgan could run and save Jenny.

“Almost there,” he replied. “I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”

“Who are you talking to?” asked the older policeman.

“You need to stay back,” said Morgan.

“You said you can save her,” said the policeman. “Let us help. Who are you talking to?”

“You can’t help,” said Morgan. He looked up at the crane again. Thirty stories. He’d have just over five minutes to get up there and defuse the bomb. “There’s nothing you can do, except stay out of my way.”

“The bomb squad is on its way,” said the policeman. “If that’s your wife up there, they can save her.”

Morgan saw a half-dozen more policemen making their way through the crowd. They’d have snipers on him within minutes.

“Okay, jammer’s in place,” said Shepard. Morgan noticed that one of the policemen was fiddling with his radio. Seemed like the jammer was working.

“You’re surrounded,” said the policeman. “Where are you going to go?”

Morgan pulled Lisa backwards into the construction site, looking back to locate the elevator.

“I’m going up,” he said.

He released Lisa and dashed behind a piled of bricks, as shots rang out behind him. Hidden from view, he fired two shots in the air.
That should keep the cops busy.
He ran around the corner of the building, out of sight of both the cops and the sniper, to find the construction hoist. It was a yellow elevator, with a cage at the bottom and a tower that stretched to the top of the construction. He opened the door to the cage and flipped the lever, but the power was off. It took him a split second to consider the stairs, and then looked at his watch. Three minutes to go. He’d never make it in time.

“Shepard, I need information on this elevator. It’s a Palson D-zero-five-five. Meanwhile, what’s the status on that sniper?”

“We’ve got two possible locations. Tactical is on their way.”

“Good. And that info on the elevator?”

“Got it here. What do you need?”

“I’ve got no power, and I need a way to make it go up. Fast.” He looked back, and fired two more shots into the air.