Terror Bounty (25 page)

Olivia threw herself sideways while
drawing her weapon and Rick hunkered down. His first instinct was to get the
hell out of this place, to flee to safety. But there were cars all around him.
They were boxed in.

“Fuck!”

He hazarded a glance in the rearview
mirror. What had once been Greenwood’s face was now a blob of torn flesh and
dripping blood. There was no question that the terrorist had died on impact.

Rick was filled with fury, his blood
boiling in his veins. He thought about his reward money going up in smoke –
even if deep down he’d stopped believing he’d ever get it. But more than that,
he saw it as a personal affront. He couldn’t carry out his mission to
completion. He couldn’t get closure.

He’d never been this mad before.

He tried moving the SUV again, bumping
into the Hummer behind and the Prius in front. He just couldn’t get out and the
people in the other cars didn’t seem to grasp how dire the situation was.

There was another gunshot. The bullet
this time hit Greenwood in the upper torso. Whoever was doing this wanted to
make sure the man was dead. Or were they trying to kill the two other
passengers?

Rick noticed the way the corpse moved on
the backseat. It didn’t take a ballistics expert to figure out the trajectory.
He looked out that way and found a decaying pre-war apartment building across
the street.

“The shooter must be in that building.”

He pointed toward the structure through
the broken window. Olivia followed his gaze and her face hardened with
determination.

“I’ll flush him out,” she said. “You cut
off the exit in the back in case he gets away.”

She got out of the SUV before he could
argue with her. She was so used to this lifestyle, to this type of operation,
that she didn’t stop to think that Rick wasn’t.

But he didn’t want to back out of this
either. He wanted revenge as much as she did.

She went fast as she crossed the street,
not going in a straight line. However, that didn’t stop the gunman who fired at
her.

Shards of pavement exploded around her
feet. Still she kept going, only looking once or twice to see where the shots
were coming from: a third-floor window.

Rick was terrified for her. The only way
he kept himself from panicking was to remember she had extensive training in
this. She was British intelligence, she was among the best.

He unfastened his seatbelt and carefully
climbed over the seat, going to the back. He landed on Greenwood’s gory body.

“Shit…”

Rick was immediately covered with blood.
He went further back and reached into the trunk area where he kept his hunting
gear.

While keeping his head down, he pulled
his shotgun out of its case and grabbed all the shells he could get his hands on.
Christ
, these were birdshot, definitely not the kind of ammo you wanted
in a gunfight.

But he had no choice.

~  ~  ~  ~

Olivia scampered into the apartment
building. Thankfully, the lobby door wasn’t locked though this wouldn’t have
stopped her. The porch light was off. One glance told her the bulb had been
unscrewed.

She was dealing with a professional.

She aimed her gun forward and took
measured steps toward the staircase up ahead. She looked left and right, saw
that this wasn’t an ambush, and picked up speed.

She climbed the steps, carefully but not
too slow. Her eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting and she controlled her
breathing so she would be able to pick up sounds that were out of the ordinary.

And there was such a sound. Footsteps.
The killer was coming toward her, coming down the stairs.

There was no doubt in her mind. They were
on a collision course. Before long they would come face-to-face.

One of them would die.

In any case, she continued climbing. Her
finger was inside the trigger guard, she had to be ready. The other person’s
footsteps were getting louder.
Any moment now
…

And then she saw it. The assassin turned
the corner of the second-floor landing. He had a disadvantage though, his
weapon was an assault rifle – it looked like a Beretta AR70/90 with a mounted
scope.

He had her beat in firepower but the
length of the barrel made it a bitch for close quarters combat. He fired at
Olivia!

She impulsively ducked even though the
round went wild, at least a foot over her head. She replied with two shots of
her own but the only thing she wounded was the crumbling drywall.

But now she had the upper hand because
she was mobile while the other was in retreat. She heard faster footsteps as
the guy climbed back up.

She raced after him, giving it all she
had. She saw a shadow rounding the corner above her and fired twice more. She
missed again. At least she had him on the run.

The gunman was back on the third floor,
running down the hallway. He kicked in a door and entered an apartment,
undoubtedly searching for a way out.

~  ~  ~  ~

Rick was perfectly aware that he looked
like a madman.

He was covered in blood and toting a
shotgun in the streets of Washington DC. In this day and age, this was grounds
for immediate lethal intervention by the police. He was sure that he was being
filmed right now by the people at the stoplight.

None of this mattered.

Olivia had given him a task and he wasn’t
about to fail her like he had failed everything else. He had to cut off the
killer in case she couldn’t get to him in time.

So he ran around the block and found the
alley which led behind the apartment building. He shouldered the Remington and
pumped in a round. There was a wrought-iron fire escape and he kept his eyes
riveted on it as he approached.

A window was smashed out and Rick looked
up. Somebody was coming out of an apartment. The person was dressed in black
but it was too dark to make out the features. Was it Olivia?

It wasn’t. It was a man and there was a
rifle in his hands. He was speeding down the stairs and when he was halfway
down both men recognized each other.

The killer was CIA officer Hertz.

“Don’t move!”

Rick was shocked that it was him but in
hindsight he shouldn’t have been. This guy had never played by the rules.

“I can understand you being pissed about
your money, Rick. But I’m sure Greenwood told you what I wanted from him.
Operation Blackthorne was a great idea. I mean, using bad guys to kill
other
bad guys for the US government? It was a win-win situation, too bad Langley
chickened out.”

“You’re a sick bastard.”

“I get the job done, Rick.”

“Did you really have to kill him?”

Hertz shrugged. “Matter of national
security. Can’t leave witnesses behind. And I’m afraid you’re a witness too,
kid.”

He raised his weapon.

“Wait, let’s talk!”

There was movement above him. Olivia was
climbing out the window, only she slipped on the broken glass and landed on the
metal platform with a loud thump.

Startled, Hertz spun toward her and
lifted his rifle, squeezing off a shot.

“No!” Rick screamed.

He had lost Olivia once, there was no way
in hell he would lose her again.

He aimed the shotgun and fired. He pumped
another round and fired again as he walked forward. Another pump, another shot.

The Remington might have been loaded with
birdshot but the range was close.

Hertz was dead.

His body tipped toward the railing, lost
balance, and tumbled all the way to the ground. Olivia got back to her feet and
joined Rick.

“You okay?” he asked her.

“I should be asking you?”

He was out of breath but smiled wanly,
emotions overwhelming him. It was weird how much relief he felt. This was the
first man he’d ever killed in spite of everything he’d been through lately.

A part of him felt like he should be
devastated at having killed someone, a CIA operative to boot. Yet he wasn’t.
This guy had been rogue, he’d been essentially part of everything that had gone
wrong with this. Instead of stopping Greenwood he had tried to fucking
recruit
him!

So yes, Rick was okay. He wrapped his
arms around Olivia and embraced her tightly. He was finally okay.

The next 18 hours were absolutely
chaotic.

Rick and Olivia were both detained by MPD
officers before Vanstedum and the FBI intervened. There was a little bit of a
turf war because the District of Columbia essentially had two murder victims on
their hands.

While strings were pulled and the case
was reassigned to federal law enforcement, Rick wound up in a featureless
interrogation room and Olivia was bailed out by the British embassy, invoking
diplomatic immunity.

It was early the next morning when Rick
was allowed to leave the police station. It was far from over, he knew it. His
uncle Peter was there to help smooth things over but Vanstedum would definitely
not let things go this easily. If anything, he’d want a full debriefing just to
cover his own ass.

Exhausted, Rick remembered that his car
had been impounded so he went looking for a taxi, which wasn’t so easy at five
o’clock in the morning. He wanted to call Olivia but it was someone else who
picked him up.

Someone he hadn’t seen in a long time.

Jemiolo, the CIA man who had been Hertz’s
partner in Europe.

“We need to talk,” he told Rick before
making him climb into his car.

“I’m not sure if I trust you.”

“That makes two of us, believe me.”

“What do you want to talk about?” Rick
asked as they drove away.

The man didn’t reply but as they headed
west into Virginia things became clearer. They were going to Langley.

Rick was worried for a moment before
realizing that if anything bad was going to happen to him it wouldn’t be at the
CIA headquarters. Then he decided he was impressed.

He was brought through security, escorted
to a conference room, and offered coffee as well as pastries. He accepted both
because by now sleep wasn’t going to happen anyway.

After a friendly start, Rick understood that
this was simply just another interrogation. However, now it wasn’t about
Greenwood’s death and the man he’d killed in the fire escape.

It was about Rick’s entire bounty hunt.

Not seeing a reason to lie and desperate
to get it over with, he told him everything. The only thing he left out was his
uncle giving him his FBI database access. He didn’t want to get him in trouble.
These last few hours, he’d realized that Peter had probably done him a favor by
not letting him join the Bureau.

Over the past week, Rick had come to see
that he wasn’t made for a desk job, even if it was with the FBI. He resolved to
forgive his uncle. He wouldn’t run into his arms right away, he had to let him
sweat a little, but they would be okay. Christmas wouldn’t be ruined, he agreed.

But now Jemiolo was starting to grate on
his nerves. They had spent several hours going over the same material and Rick
couldn’t take it anymore.

“So the reason you were hunting Greenwood
was for the reward money,” Jemiolo stated, taking notes.

“Yes.”

Rick’s eyes were beginning to droop from
the overpowering fatigue. He took a sip of coffee. Was it his sixth? He had
lost count.

“And you admit having shot Hertz to
death.”

“What makes you think I’ll change my
answer from the last four times?”

“I’m just checking for inconsistencies.”

“I would’ve guessed that you already know
everything, being Hertz’s blow doll and all.”

At that, Jemiolo straightened up and let
go of his pen.

“Ever since Hertz’s last screw-up in
Central America there have been questions about his ability to follow the
rules. That’s why I was assigned to keep an eye on him. I wasn’t tracking the
OWL, I watching Hertz.”

“You didn’t know that he wanted to
recruit Greenwood? You didn’t know about Operation Blackthorne?”

“No. I knew that Operation Blackthorne
had been ruled out and Hertz couldn’t be allowed to go through with it.”

Rick snorted with skepticism. “Right.”

“I swear. Believe it or not, we’re on the
same side.”

The two men stared across the table,
sizing each other up.

~  ~  ~  ~

The conference room was in fact an
official interrogation facility. Over a sideboard was a dusky reflective area
which acted as a two-way mirror.

On the other side was the observation
area, fitted with all matters of recording capabilities, audio and video. Most
of the interrogation had been filmed but Sarah Utley would need to review the
material before it entered official records. It wasn’t yet decided how much of
Operation Blackthorne people would be allowed to discover.

In the end, she’d wind up having a technician
accidentally
spill coffee on the data, she was sure. Some secrets were
best kept buried forever.

She was looking at Rick and her up-and-coming
protégé Jemiolo who’d proven to be quite dependable. She turned to the man who
was standing next to her, Peter Travis.

“This is the kind of conversation that
should never leave these walls.”

“I know, Sarah.”

“Can I trust your nephew?”

~  ~  ~  ~

Jemiolo let Rick go by lunchtime and he
was surprised it was over. He walked him to the exit.

“Really? I can go?”

“Yeah, you can go. We even had somebody
get your car from police impound.”

He gave Rick a set of keys and it was
indeed for his SUV.

“Uh, thanks.”

“It’s probably still covered with blood
though. Try not to get pulled over on the way home.”

Jemiolo winked and walked away.

Geez
, what
an intense week he’d had, he thought as he stepped out of the George Bush
Center for Intelligence. The day was nice, the temperature just about perfect.
It made him forget how tired he was.

He wandered through the visitors’ parking
lot and searched until he found a SUV with a plastic square taped over a broken
window.
Great, something else to do today
.

He walked toward his vehicle when
somebody fell in next to him. It was a woman, a redhead in her 50s but
appearing younger.

“Mr. Travis, how do you do? I’m Sarah
Utley, I’m a friend of Peter’s.”

“You mean you’re CIA.”

She smirked. “Very perceptive given where
we are right now.”

Something occurred to him. She was CIA, a
friend of his uncle’s. That meant she’d been the one who had provided the file
on Greenwood before he’d left for Europe.

“How do you know Peter?”

“We’ve both had long careers in
government service. Our paths have crossed once or twice. We’ve been known to
help each other out over the years.”

“What do you want?” Rick asked, his
temper threatening to boil over.

“What you heard in there must never be
divulged. I hope you can understand that.”

“What if I do, you’re gonna have me shot
too?”

The woman put a hand on his arm and they
both stopped walking.

“Look, in a perfect world we would have
captured Greenwood, that was the intended scenario. That’s what I really
wanted. He could have provided invaluable intelligence. But there are also
bigger things at stake in this business.”

“Such as?”

“Even if Hertz was wrong in trying to recruit
Greenwood he still did a right thing in shooting him. If this got out we’d lose
an unbelievable amount of credibility in the international arena.”

“Boo-hoo-hoo, so you’re not masters of
the universe anymore, big deal.”

Rick reached his car and opened the
driver side door.

“Years of work would go down the drain,”
Utley said. “Assets would have died for no reason. This could lead to yet another
war and none of us wants that. Do you? That’s how the world works.”

“Can I go now?”

“Pete told me what you guys talked about
and I saw your interview before. I know what you did and I know you’re a good
man. I have an offer for you.”

~  ~  ~  ~

Rick entered his apartment with takeout
from Wendy’s. He had bought it simply because it was that time of day. He
wanted to sleep, not eat.

He removed his jacket and brought the
food to the table when there was a knock at the door. The last time this had
happened a terrorist had surrendered to him. And after Sarah Utley’s unanticipated
proposition, he didn’t know what to expect.

He went to answer the door and found
Olivia on his doorstep with a carry-on slung over her shoulder.

“Hey!”

“Hi, Rick. I dropped by to say goodbye.”

“You’re leaving already?”

He moved aside to let her in and closed
the door.

“Yes, new orders from London. I think
they’ll hand me a desk job. MI6 smoothed things over with CIA so I wouldn’t
talk. How are they shutting you up?”

It took a few seconds for Rick to gather
his thoughts before replying.

“You know what Greenwood said last night,
about how I had enjoyed hunting him?”

“Yes?”

“I think he was right.”

“No kidding? You enjoyed it, tracking him
down?”

“I didn’t want to admit it, especially
after everything that happened, but I did. Greenwood would have killed all
these people anyway, whether I was involved or not. But I like knowing I was
making a difference.”

“That’s great, Rick. And as I said
before, I think you were a natural at this.”

“This woman from the CIA, she made me an
offer, reminded me of something.”

“What?”

“There will always be ten most wanted
fugitives. You take one down, another moves up the list. Most of them have
interesting bounties on their head.”

Olivia smiled as she understood what he
was implying. “You wouldn’t!”

“The CIA is offering to fund my trips, generously,
give me necessary resources to track them down. I thought… You know, I could
use a partner to help me. Somebody with more experience than me.”

Her eyes narrowed and she came closer to
him.

“We could discuss it,” she said.

“That’s right, you still owe me a date.”

He stared into her eyes and reached for
her hand. She made no move to stop him. Somehow, Rick had a feeling it would be
the first of many dates to come.

THE END