Act of Treason

11

Rapp turned the phone to vibrate mode, dialed Coleman’s number, and stuffed the phone in the breast pocket of his coat. As he grabbed the door handle with his right hand his left hand slid around to the small of his back and gripped the handle of his Glock 19 pistol. Rapp drew the weapon and looked through the peephole to make sure no one was waiting outside his door. With the gun at the ready, he flipped the dead bolt and opened the door. A stubby suppressor added another three inches to the gun. He did a quick check of the hallway, slid the gun into a specially designed pocket on the inside right side of his jacket, and moved out. Rapp bypassed the elevator and went straight for the staircase. As he opened the fire door, Coleman’s voice came over his wireless earpiece.

“Brooks says we’re five to ten minutes out. Traffic’s pretty bad.”

“This whole damn thing might be over by the time you get here.”

Rapp had just reached the first step when he heard a commotion from below.

“What do you mean it might be over?” Coleman asked.

Rapp couldn’t answer right away. Two men burst into the stairwell one floor beneath. One of them was speaking loudly in Russian. He recognized one of them as the man who had shoved money in the old man’s shirt earlier in the evening. It was exactly as Rapp had feared. Gazich had already killed one of them, and now he was drawing these two into a trap.

“What’s going on?” Coleman asked.

Rapp waited for the two men to get to the second landing before he whispered his reply. “I think we’ve got an unsatisfied customer.”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

“I’ll explain it when you get here.” Rapp started down the stairs. “That is, if I’m still alive.”

“Slow down, Mitch. You’re not making any sense.”

“Tell Brooks to call Marcus so he can bring her up to speed on who this Deckas guy really is, and tell him the guys in the surveillance photos are Russian.” Rapp hit the next flight.

“Where are you?”

Rapp glanced over the railing as the two men hit the first floor landing. “I’m in the hotel following two Russian idiots who are about to get killed.”

“Just wait until we get there.”

The men hit the fire door hard and burst into the lobby.

“You don’t think I can take care of myself?” Rapp bounded down the steps two at a time, now that he was the only one in the stairwell.

“That’s not what I said. You’re going into this blind with no backup. That is not what I would call a prudent tactical decision.”

Rapp laughed. “You SEALs are all such pussies.”

“Don’t make this about some macho bullshit. Just hang tight for a few more minutes.”

As Rapp hit the first floor landing he could hear Coleman yelling at Brooks to step on it. He pushed the fire door open and entered the lobby.

“Two minutes okay?” Coleman pleaded.

“Sorry buddy, the train is leaving the station. I need to make sure these idiots don’t all kill each other.” Rapp walked casually through the lobby so as to not raise any unwanted attention. This was not difficult due to the fact that everyone was staring at the two bulls squeezing through the turnstile door. “Just stay on the line,” Rapp said, “and I’ll keep you appraised as best I can.”

Rapp calmly smiled at the bellman as he reached the door. Out in front of the hotel one of the Russians was stopped in the middle of the street trying to get the attention of his friend sitting in the parked car. The other Russian was already across the street and yelling at the man to follow him. Rapp continued to give Coleman the tactical update as he waited for a car to pass. He watched as the Russians bullied their way through the crowd of people waiting to get into the café. Rapp moved to the left and crossed between a row of parked scooters. He avoided the dozen-plus people standing by the hostess stand. While all of the patrons were focused on the commotion caused by the two rude men shoving their way through the crowd, Rapp stepped over the sagging, faded, velvet rope that formed the perimeter of the patio. He discretely threaded his way through the tight tables and bobbed his head to avoid the corners of table umbrellas.

Rapp checked the patio to see if the old man was about, but he was nowhere to be found. This thing was going to go one of two ways. Either bad or good. Rapp was not exactly sure how he was going to proceed, but he had a rough idea what his rules of engagement were going to be. The Russians were now pressing through the front door of the restaurant. Through the large plate glass window Rapp watched them start up the stairs to the right. With a dose of caution he slid through the front door and resisted the urge to follow them. Going up a set of stairs blind like this was a good way to get shot, which Rapp presumed was exactly what was about to happen to them.

Straight ahead the old man was conversing with a table of customers, but it was obvious his concern was elsewhere. He kept looking up at the stairs. Rapp turned to his left. There were two tables between the bar and the front window. The bar ran a good thirty feet, taking up the front third of the restaurant. In the back and to his right there were more tables. The customers were stacked three deep at the bar and virtually every single person had a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The place was loud. Plaster walls, with a tin ceiling and tile floor. Wood tables and wood trim. Lots of hard surfaces.

As Rapp smiled, excused, and nudged his way through the crowd he kept an eye on the mirror behind the bar. Two shelves of liquor bracketed the top and bottom of the mirror, and in its reflection he could watch both the old man and the staircase. Rapp did not hear the noise, but he did catch the mirror and the bottles shake ever so briefly. No more than a second later the liquid in the bottles danced yet again. Rapp sighed and cracked his neck from one side to the other. As he thought about what had just happened upstairs he flexed his fingers, extended them and then scrunched them into the palm of his hands. One dead for sure, probably two dead.

His left hand slid over to his right wrist and without looking, he pressed the stopwatch function on his digital watch. Next came his breathing. It automatically settled into a steady, almost hypnotic rhythm. He was about ninety-nine percent sure the tremors were a result of the Russians hitting the ground one after the other as they’d been shot by Gazich. Was there a chance Gazich was already climbing onto the roof? Rapp doubted it. The way he’d stood next to the car after he’d killed the first man suggested he was too cool to turn and run. There were also the police to consider. Simply leaving the bodies lying around would mean the police would show up at some point. And they would have a lot of questions. Rapp’s bet was that he would stay and clean up his mess.

Someone was still alive upstairs. In truth, any of the three would do, but Rapp wanted it to be Gazich. He was the man who had been standing on the street that day in Georgetown. Someone had hired him to do the job and now they wanted him dead. Rapp wanted that information, and playing it safe wasn’t going to get it. In life there’s the phrase, the calm after the storm. In war there is the letdown after the battle. Some people call it an adrenalin hangover. Elite soldiers train methodically in an effort to reprogram their biology to fight off this letdown. It is drilled into them to replenish spent magazines, clean weapons, and make sure they are battle ready before they so much as relieve themselves in a roadside ditch. Gazich was not an elite soldier. He was a sniper and an assassin. He would be focused on other things right now.

Rapp was going upstairs. That much he’d already decided. There’d been too much watching and waiting lately. The only real question was how long should he wait? At least a minute. That would allow for the post adrenalin hangover to kick in.