Falling Stars Read online

  They watched with wide eyes as the petite brunette pulled Raven closer, handhold by sweaty handhold, inch by incredible inch.

  “How are we on battery?” Michael asked.

  “We’ve still got 67 minutes, even with the extra load,” Pavel said.

  “Options? Can we ram her with Raven? Try to knock her loose?”

  “Don’t do it,” Boris said. “The drone’s not designed for that.”

  “I thought you compared it to a tennis racquet, light but tough and strong,” Michael pressed.

  “That may be, but its not engineered to be a battering ram. This might be bad, but it could get worse.”

  Michael suddenly felt very aware of that possibility. Reporting a failed capture was one thing. Reporting the loss of a drone would be quite another. “Pavel?”

  “I agree with Boris. Wise men never fire unfamiliar weapons.”

  Michael couldn’t believe the words that were about to escape his lips. He certainly didn’t want to think about Ivan’s reaction to them. He took a deep breath. One battle at a time.

  “Release The Claw. Abort the mission.”

  4

  No Words

  Versailles, France

  AS THE DRONE DISAPPEARED into the dawning sky, Jo slid down the post that had saved her life. Uncertain if she should believe it was actually over, but unable to act otherwise, she collapsed onto the cool cobblestones. Even as joy and relief overwhelmed her heart, she found herself sobbing uncontrollably. Every muscle in her lower body burned from a chemical fire. She feared her legs would fold if she attempted to stand.

  “Are you okay?”

  Jo looked up to see the paperboy. He was on a bicycle built for a bigger body. She found herself struggling to answer his simple question. Compared to how she’d been a few minutes earlier, she was fantastic. Compared to her usual self, she was a wreck.

  By nature and training, Jo tended to keep things to herself. Especially complaints. But even if she wanted to share her story, what could she say that wouldn’t make her sound like a candidate for an insane asylum? I was lassoed by a mechanical snake as I came out of my home this morning. Then a drone attempted to abduct me.

  “You’re bleeding from your arm and chest.” The paperboy pointed. “Was it locusts? I heard locusts.”

  Jo looked down and saw coin-sized spots of blood. When Raven retreated, it ripped the barbs from her flesh. She hardly felt it at the time, with her pain receptors already on overload, but picturing the process now made her grit her teeth. She’d seen taser barbs up close. They resembled fishing hooks. She would probably twitch at the sight of yellow plastic for the rest of her life, and angling was out of the question. “It’s nothing, Pierre. I’m just recovering from a particularly tough workout. Thank you for asking.”

  “Shall I help you up?”

  “I think I’m just going to lie here for a few minutes. Enjoy the morning sky while I catch my breath.”

  Pierre looked up, shrugged, and pedaled on. A few seconds later, newspapers started thunking the ground.

  She attempted to analyze what had just happened, if for no better reason than to keep her mind off the pain pulsing through her body. There on the cobblestones, she couldn’t come up with a better explanation than the one that had first struck her. Ivan. She’d run awry of many people in her lifetime, but only two had the resources to call in a customized drone for retribution. Ivan the Ghost and CIA Director Wiley Rider.

  She discounted the Director as a candidate. If Rider were inclined to turn his attention to retribution, she would be way down his list. Certainly not in the first hundred anyway. Ivan, however, was a different story. She’d dealt a serious blow to his reputation and his career. In fact, he hadn’t been attributed with a single crime since she and Achilles had crossed his path years back.

  That sounded like sufficient motive to her.

  But what next? Where did that leave her?

  She could go after him—but the problem with that plan was obvious. It was right there in his name. Ivan was a ghost. The law enforcement community knew almost nothing about him. European residence was assumed, as was Russian nationality—thus Ivan—but both were speculation, and neither really mattered. National borders were meaningless to men who flew on private jets.

  They did know what Ivan looked like. Achilles had seen him, face to face. And while he hadn’t captured a digital image, he had worked with Agency sketch artists to create a rendering that was almost as useful. At least temporarily. Jo had no doubt that Ivan had changed his appearance while in hiding these past few years. He was a meticulous planner who could afford the best plastic surgeons and brightest make-up artists. She was certain that his appearance was now indistinguishable from millions of other fortyish Europeans.

  Perhaps, Jo reasoned, she was going about this all wrong. Perhaps the operative question was What would Ivan do next? Would he attempt to complete what he’d started this morning? On that topic, what had he attempted? And why had he used a drone? And what was his larger plan?

  There had to be a larger plan.

  While Ivan might be susceptible to the sweet siren song of revenge, he was not impulsive. He was a planner. A ruthless, inventive, patient planner. A man who devised complex schemes to create situations his victims never saw coming.

  But what could that scheme be? Who would become his next victim?

  Energized by the provoking questions, Jo peeled herself off the ground. Her legs didn’t scream, but they protested—loudly. No doubt the insides of her lower legs would be badly bruised for weeks. Fortunately she didn’t have far to go. Ivan had attacked on her doorstep.

  Inspiration struck as Jo twisted the knob. Although Ivan’s plans and motives remained a mystery, she knew her best next move.

  She shuffled over the worn stone sill and limped toward the kitchen phone. Ignoring the stools, she grabbed the receiver and slumped back to the floor. She dialed a number she knew by heart but hadn’t called for many months. An American number. A cell phone. Jo called Kyle Achilles.

  5

  Important

  Yosemite, California

  KYLE ACHILLES was at the crux of The Nose when his phone rang. Tell most people that was where you were and they’d look at you with crossed eyes. But say that to a fellow rock climber and you’d receive a slow nod of respect. Add that you were free soloing, and that slow nod would transform into wide-eyed wonder.

  Once thought to be unclimbable, The Nose on Yosemite’s El Capitan was the most famous American ascent in the sport climbing world. Three thousand vertical feet of granite monolith rising above one of the most beautiful valleys on earth. Thirty-one “pitches” of a 100-foot rope. Except Achilles wasn’t using rope. He was free soloing. Climbing without protective equipment. Just sticky shoes, a bag of chalk and a whole lot of hope.

  He’d just dislodged a mouse, sending it up his arm and down his back before it disappeared into a crack, when he got his second surprise in as many seconds. His phone rang.

  Most climbers wouldn’t have their phone on during such a dangerous climb. It would be powered down and in reserve for emergencies. But Achilles received emergency calls on a regular basis, so duty kept him connected. Nonetheless, he was not in a great position for chitchat. The crux of The Nose route had overhanging rock, so Achilles’ shoulders protruded behind his ankles. He dug in on three points of contact and carefully slipped in an earbud using nothing but touch to guide his moves. “Yes.”

  “Achilles?”

  A familiar voice, but one Achilles couldn’t quite place. “Yes.”

  “This is Director Rider.”

  The head of the CIA wasn’t the last person Achilles expected, but he might have been the second-to-last. Their relationship had ended three years earlier, and that end had not been amicable. They hadn’t spoken since, and Achilles hadn’t expected that they ever would. “Yes?”

  “We need to meet. I’m in San Francisco. Can you be at the Top of the Mark at 11:00 p.m. tonight?” he
asked, referencing the InterContinental Hotel’s landmark rooftop restaurant.

  Achilles had no interest in meeting with Wiley Rider, and he was certain Rider had no personal interest in meeting with him. Therefore it had to be professional. The CIA must need something pretty badly for Rider to suck it up enough to ask in person. Achilles made the calculation. It would take him four or five hours to get back to his car and another four to reach San Francisco. “I can.”

  “Good. Thank you.” Rider disconnected.

  Achilles had left the CIA specifically because of Wiley Rider. The Director had levered his way into the corner office at Langley by blackmailing key members of congress. He had used Ivan the Ghost to do that dirty work, and then attempted to cover his tracks by sending Achilles to kill Ivan. Achilles eventually figured out what Rider was up to—but couldn’t prove it. So when Ivan escaped, Achilles resigned rather than selling out and spending his career serving a dishonorable man.

  At the time, Achilles had fully expected Ivan to eliminate Rider for double-crossing him. But years had passed, Ivan had vanished, and Rider had remained king of the castle. Achilles’ best guess regarding tonight’s agenda was that Ivan had finally threatened Rider, and Rider was going to try to cajole Achilles into going after him with “you’ll be next.”

  But that was just a guess.

  Achilles wasn’t one for pretenses or formalities, and he was short on time, so his only prep for the meeting was a quick shower in the Yosemite parking lot, cold water sprayed from a hanging plastic bag. Fortunately the scruffy look was trendy, and casual clothing remained hip with the Silicon Valley crowd.

  Achilles entered the restaurant’s dedicated vestibule at 10:58 pm and immediately spotted the telltale bodyguard.

  The spotting was mutual.

  The bulky suit gave him a thorough pat-down topped off by a magnetometer scan. Once satisfied, he used a key to summon the elevator. When it arrived, the bodyguard stepped aside, gesturing without saying a word.

  No witnesses, Achilles thought. That fit his hypothesis.

  The elevator door pinged open on nineteen to reveal another suit. This one gestured toward a stairway leading to the rooftop bar. He stayed put as Achilles climbed.

  Emerging into the open air and a skyline view of San Francisco, Achilles spotted Rider standing by the rail. He was ostensibly dressed like his guards but in a suit that no doubt cost thousands more.

  The Director turned around at the sound of Achilles’ footfalls. He was not wearing a glad-to-see-you grin. In fact he did not look the least bit pleased. Meeting Achilles’ eye he said, “This better be important.”

  6

  Upside Down

  San Francisco, California

  ACHILLES UNDERSTOOD that an attack was imminent the moment Rider’s words reached his ears, but that was a moment too late. Even as the implication registered and the conclusion calculated, he detected an approaching hum.

  As a former field op, Achilles reacted on reflex, diving and rolling for cover while shouting for Rider to do the same. But Langley’s chief bureaucrat was exactly that. He had not come up through operations with a gun in his hand and a mic in his ear. His duck-and-cover reflexes had been honed in press rooms, not back rooms. The only assaults he ever dodged were verbal.

  From beneath a marble-topped table, Achilles turned his head toward the source of the sound and caught sight of a descending drone. One of those pesky model helicopter-like pseudo-toys that were all the rage with techies and teenage boys. It dropped down from the sky a few feet in front of the spot Achilles’ head had just occupied.

  For a split second, Achilles felt relieved. Drones carried cameras. They were the paparazzi’s favorite new tool, and Rider was a celebrity of sorts. But it wasn’t a telephoto lens that Achilles observed dangling beneath the quadcopter’s belly. It was a handgun complete with suppressor.

  Achilles sprang to his feet and grabbed the back of a chair with both hands. He swung it around like a big fat bat, putting his back into it and hurtling the chair toward the electronic intruder with careful aim and considerable speed. The handgun barked at the same instant he released the makeshift missile. Three things then happened at once. The recoil propelled the drone backward a few feet. The chair flew through the empty air where the drone had just been. And CIA Director Wiley Rider took a bullet to the heart.

  Actually four things. Achilles let loose a few expletives.

  Before the chair crashed to the ground, he began calculating moves. Offensive and defensive. Achilles fully expected the drone to adjust its aim and empty its magazine in his direction. He searched for other objects to throw, scanned for sources of cover, and identified potential exits.

  But the drone didn’t turn on him.

  It did the last thing he expected—but the first thing he should have anticipated.

  It dropped the gun. A suppressed Glock 19.

  While Achilles watched the sinful steel clatter onto the tiled floor, the drone shot skyward and disappeared, its mechanical whirr melding into the city soundscape.

  Achilles muttered a few more choice words and ran to Rider—just to be sure. Rider hadn’t twitched or flailed, grunted or groaned. He’d acted exactly as any mammal would if it suddenly found itself without a functioning circulatory system. He’d dropped like a glass brushed off the edge of a table. Only instead of shattering, he’d just slumped.

  Achilles pressed his fingers to Rider’s neck, and laid his ear next to Rider’s nose. He got nothing.

  Rider was gone.

  Achilles looked back toward the dropped Glock and then over toward the door beyond. He had no doubt that within seconds the bodyguards would burst through with weapons raised, responding to the noise. He did have doubt that they would stop and assess the situation before firing. Their duty was to protect the director. Nobody would question an “overreaction” to such a clear and credible threat. If they did stop and assess, the situation wouldn’t be much prettier. He’d be arrested and isolated faster than you could burn the Bill of Rights.

  The next moves of the judicial dance played out quickly and clearly in Achilles’ mind. It wasn’t pretty. He had the means. He had the motive. He had the opportunity. Meanwhile, the CIA had a situation that would cause it great embarrassment. The only way to blunt that public relations nightmare was to “serve justice.” Swiftly, soundly and severely.

  Standing dumbstruck beneath that moonlit San Francisco sky, the conclusion came calling like a freight train. If he was still there when the bodyguards burst onto the murder scene, he might never see sunshine again—uncaged.

  Achilles chose option B. He vaulted over the rooftop railing and began the 19 floor descent, wondering all the while if this evasive action was precisely what the real killer had planned.

  7

  Battle Prep

  Versailles, France

  JO EXPERIENCED a surge of relief when Achilles answered his phone. She hadn’t considered the time difference until after the first ring, but by then the damage was done.

  “Yes.”

  “Achilles, it’s Jo Monfort. Do you have a minute?”

  He took a second to answer. “How urgent is it?”

  How urgent? She wasn’t sure. But since answering the question would take as long as presenting the situation, she dove right in. “I think Ivan just tried to kill me.”

  Another pregnant pause, followed by an answer that shouldn’t have shocked her, but did. “Me too. Just now. He did kill Director Rider.”

  Achilles pressed on before she could process his startling comeback. “Another few minutes and you wouldn’t have caught me. I’m about to destroy this phone.”

  To buy herself a second, she asked, “Are you okay? You’re breathing heavy.”

  “I’m about a hundred feet up the side of the San Francisco InterContinental Hotel.”

  “And yet you took my call.”

  “I thought you were Ivan. And since my phone is about to be out of order, I took the opportunity to he
ar what he had to say.”

  “I’m glad you did. We need to talk. Team up. Where should we meet?”

  “What were you driving when we first met?”

  Worked up as she was, the non sequitur struck Jo’s racing mind like a speed bump she didn’t see coming. Then she understood. Identity verification. “A black Kawasaki Ninja with neon-green highlights.”

  “There’s a Mexican restaurant in Manhattan on the corner of 3rd and 50th. Dos Caminos. You can sit outside. I’ll look for you there at 19:00 hours.”

  Jo checked her watch and did some quick calculations. CDG direct to JFK, eight hours. A six-hour time change working in her favor. A few hours on either side. “I’ll be there.”

  She considered his choice of rendezvous location. Achilles had picked a place that could be observed from a hundred different vantage points. A meeting point that facilitated disappearing into a crowd. She’d have done the same thing if he’d initiated the call. A good sign.

  “Fallback is 24 hours later at The Grill,” he added before ending the call.

  Jo ruminated on that last point for a minute. She’d never been to a grill with Achilles. In fact they’d never been to a restaurant. Their time together had been brief, but intense, and their shared hours had played a pivotal role in both their lives.

  The location of the backup rendezvous came to her a few seconds later. She hadn’t trained with Achilles, but everyone who went through CIA training at Camp Peary, aka Spy U at The Farm, knew Berret’s Taphouse Grill. Their motto was “Beer on tap, oyster in hand,” and they played live music on the patio. It was the go-to place for frazzled new recruits let off their leashes for a few precious hours.

  The memory made Jo aware of her stomach. She looked around the kitchen. Normally she picked up bread and croissants at the end of her run, but she’d be skipping her regular workout today. Her legs wouldn’t take it and her heart rate had been sufficiently elevated. Her flatmates would be disappointed when they came down for breakfast.