Dark Deliverance (7) – Epilogue I
The Leopard V Club, District XXII, Budapest … 2:30 am, just before the CIA Attack
“You betrayed me. I thought of you as my friend …”
Barta knew that he had little time left before needing to make his escape, and this was a task he hoped he would never have to do.
“Grzegorz please …” Balazs begged, as Barta pulled his Glock out and aimed at his supposed colleague.
“I heard you on the phone. You work for the CIA, and they’re on their way here now, and to my home and to the warehouse, and I suspect they are also about to intercept the cargo flight to Texas …”
Aleksander Balazs had nothing to say.
Barta pulled the trigger.
Two bullets hit Balazs exactly where Barta intended … in his right wrist and knee. The shots throw him back against the wall, incapacitating him immediately, and screaming, he clutched at his bleeding arm. The Mafia gang boss heard a commotion on the street and knew that he would have to be on his way, down through the trap door, through the basement tunnels and out into the Budapest night.
Barta’s eyes captured those of the fallen man, and for the first time since they met, the Mafia boss saw fear in the dark-eyedgaze of his erstwhile friend, and he knew that Balazs could read the cold intent on his face.
“Please, don’t …” the pleas are desperate, but the man with the gun squeezes the trigger again discharging five more rounds into Balazs’ stomach and chest. In the brief silence that follows, Barta watches as the riddled dead body slides down the wall, almost in slow motion, its face slack with shock, blood dribbling out of the corner of the frozen mouth, and the eyes are grotesquely open, staring back with an expression of numb disbelief.
He moves his lips, as though to say something, but only a rattledgurgle escapes the throat as more blood bubbles up to dribble between the lips. Lowering the gun, Barta steps closer to his victim, drawn by a strange compulsion to see his last seconds.
The fallen man pleads silently, begging for mercy. Grzegorz Barta holds his gaze, stretching out the moment … and then he aims the Glock at the forehead of Aleksander Balazs and pullsthe trigger for a final time. The back of his head explodes, blood and morsels of brain tissue splatter against the wall.
The dead man’s eyes glaze over, the whites around the irises turning crimson as blood vessels pop and burst. His body goes limp, and the smell of death, sharp and pungent, permeates the room as Barta, fake passport and wad of Euro’s stashed safely in his inside pocket, makes his escape.
Broadmoor Luxury Apartments, Langley, Virginia
The shards of a shattered wine glass fell amongst those from three previous glasses hurled against the apartment dining room’s scarred and stained wall. Across the den, leaning unsteadily against the sideboard, Barb drained the last of a bottle of Moselle Riesling into a fresh glass.
She scowled darkly, muttering to herself, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”
She was naked save for a small black thong … unbathed, hair disheveled, eyes reddened from crying. Grasping a fresh wine bottle in one hand and the freshly poured wine glass in the other, she weaved her way over to the leather couch and collapsed onto it.
She’d been more or less in this state for nearly two days … since the time when Jase had left, grim-faced, and uncommunicative. She’d tried everything to dissuade him … arguments pointing out that what he was about to do was foolhardy, catty words of hate and invective with regard to his estranged wife in London, as well as tears and outright begging.
Even sexual allurement … desperately inserting herself, as he was about to leave, between him and the apartment’s front door, stripping down to her thong, pressing herself up tight against him, one hand reaching for his crotch, the other grasping one of his hands by the wrist and forcing it to grasp one of her breasts, thumb pressing downward on and tweaking a hardened nipple … she knew he liked that … and so did she!
But he’d responded by shoving her roughly aside, throwing open the door, letting himself out and slamming it shut behind him.
It was all painfully bewildering. Things had been so good between them immediately after the rescue at Boston Logan. After what they’d both been through in Budapest, the reunion had been joyous and highly sexual. They simply couldn’t get enough of one another.
But then came the news from London about Grace … that she’d turned up there, left in the dark of night on the street outside MI6 headquarters nailed nude to the inside of a wooden coffin, alive but nearly dead. Barta had left his calling card.
It was all too much for Jase. Neither Langley nor Mi6 were willing to let him go to her. He pleaded with them, but his official banishment to Langley could not be abrogated under any circumstance. He sulked, became totally unresponsive, and in time decided … out of a combination, no doubt, of guilt, shame and affection … to be at her side.
To Barb, however, it amounted to no less than a betrayal, making her sad and emotional on top of damn angry.
She drained the wine glass and tossed it aside in favour of drinking directly from the bottle.
She was feeling mostly sorry for herself at that point … wallowing in self-pity when she heard someone at the door. Thinking he’d come back, perhaps had second thoughts, regrets, she roused herself and staggered to the door. Only to find a pimply-faced young man on the other side, pizza delivery box in hand.
She’d forgotten about the takeout delivery she’d ordered nearly an hour earlier.
He stared wide-eyed at her nakedness. Looking as though he was uncertain as to whether he should flee or invite himself in.
He chose the latter and she did nothing to stop him.
Secure Wing, Wellington Private Hospital, Wellington Place, London.
Senior Nurse Abigail Jones entered Grace’s room to check her vitals. It was her duty to do so every half hour.
There’d been no change. Not that she expected any. The poor thing was in such very bad shape. Abigail knew that was so because she could read, from many years of experience, what the doctors really thought regardless of what they openly said. They weren’t hopeful. This one was going to be touch and go.
The policeman stationed outside the door had informed Abigail that the patient was MI6. He shouldn’t have revealed that to her, she knew, but he had. It seemed a mystery to her why a pretty young thing like that would choose work that would put her in harm’s way. Wasn’t that the role of those James Bond types? And why would His Majesty’s spymasters choose to endanger a pretty young woman like her. It didn’t seem right. But then, in her opinion, there was a lot that didn’t seem right in the country these days!
She hoped this Grace had a man out there somewhere who’d be coming to her side soon. She needed that. She knew there was family, of course. A daughter had been there to sit with the patient earlier. But in Senior Nurse Jones’ solemn opinion, the patient needed her man. She’d overheard someone say that Grace had a husband, but that they had been separated. She hoped that he, wherever he might be, would learn of her condition and come.
Heathrow Airport, Arrival Area Terminal 4
All the way back to UK, for the full seven hours of flight from Logan to Heathrow, Jason had thought about nothing but Barb and Grace. What the fuck was he doing. He loved Barb, he knew that now, but Grace was still technically his wife and she was dying, might in fact already be dead. He just had to go home … for Grace … and for Issy.
Fuck!
Barb! I’m so sorry, were the inadequate words flying around his head.
The plane landed. Now was D-Day in the life of Major Jason Underwood. Would he get through customs on his Jason Turner passport?
Bag collected, heading towards security and passport control, his training kicking in keeping him calm, swiping at his phone like an ‘ordinary’ person would.
Until … Six dark blue uniformed police officers, weapons drawn, burst out and ran toward him.
Screams echoed around the arrival’s hall of Heathrow’s Terminal 4. The lead officer yelled, “Don’t move Major underwood, DO. NOT. MOVE.”
Jase froze and raised his hands.
“Give me that phone.” Jason’s phone was snatched away and he was thrust up against the white plaster wall as the remaining officers formed a wide perimeter around the action.
“Put your hands on the wall,” the officer said. “Now step back and spread your legs. Spread them farther. Keep your head down, don’t look at me.”
Jason said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Having fully searched him, they led Jase away through a nearby door, up metal stairs, and down a hallway to a small windowless room with a table and four chairs.
They sat him down, left the room, and locked the door behind them.
A call between Clark O-Shaughnessy, Head CIA Agent, and Roger Moore the MI6 Chief following the discovery of Grace Miller and the arrest of Jason underwood.
“Roger …”
“Clark … I thought we should …”
“… touch base, yes I agree.”
Roger Moore and Clark O’Shaughnessy needed to speak, but yet they had nothing official to talk about.
“Is she still alive …”
“Yes … just. Still in an induced coma.”
“Will she survive?”
“I have no idea Clark, even the medics don’t know. It depends on her.”
“Did you call her family?”
“Yes. Her parents and brother are with her constantly.”
“Poor girl.”
“Indeed.”
A halfway comfortable silence reigned on the call for a few reflective moments, until O’Shaughnessy spoke again.
“And is that idiot still locked up?”
“He is. But in MI6 lockdown, we took him off the Police and kept hold of him, it’s the only way we can offer him any kind of protection.”
“Good plan Roger. That man is more trouble than he’s worth.”
“Too many females on the go. With Agent Moore left behind in the US, and Grace being at death’s door, it has been his first wife Steph and daughter Issy along with his son Jack that we’ve heard from the most.”
“That man.” Was all that O’Shaughnessy said.
To Be Continued …
