Page Ch. 07

I wonder how Pyotr got there so quickly and continue driving. When I reach the exit for his area, I get another text, "They're at the mall near Franconia and Frontier." It is actually closer to me than his place, so I drive there directly and begin looking for Nina's van. Pulling into the mall parking lot, I spot Peter hanging out across the row from an SUV I recognize as Nina's other vehicle. I pull up beside him, hit the unlock and motion him to get in the car.

"Why are you standing out here, you're going to be seen," I tell him.

He gets in and says, "I've got Mike installingk tracker."

"Mikhail is here too?"

"We were at bar together."

That's when I notice his breath and ask, "You're not fucking drunk are you?"

"No, we're fine. We just had a few beers watching hockey."

I know he's lying because that's not beer on his breath. I'm about to call him on it when I see 'Mike' stand up and get into a car catty-corner to the one he'd evidently been under. Nina maneuvers backward into the space directly behind the A6, turns off her lights and parks.

"Which store are they in and how long have they been here?"

"It's the fancy clothing store there," he says pointing and opening my door. "We've only been here about ten minutes. I'm going back to my car; we can trade following if there are problems with tracker."

He hops out, closes the door and I watch him go back to his car, the whole thing seems surreal. They are parked right behind him. We've reestablished contact. I'm thinking we should all take off and leave Nina on this, but Peter seems to think we need to tail him tag team. It doesn't make any sense and if I'd known he was involved, I'd've stayed home. To avoid the conspicuousness of so many vehicles near our subject, I pull across the lot to the far side and back into a spot against the shrub row. Turning off my lights and engine, I am resigned to wait and see where this goes.

A short time passes and Nina calls to say they are coming out. I keep her on speaker phone as I watch the couple approach their car. Ryan is carrying some bags. I can make them out but the pavement of the parking lot is glary as they pass beneath a light pole. When they reach his car, they go to the trunk. With it open, my view of them is obscured a bit.

They are there longer than I'd have expected and suddenly there's movement in Peter's car. I see Mike is approaching them from the dark side of the SUV. The sinking feeling in my stomach turns in to gut wrenching turmoil when he lurches out at Page. In a blur of moves the petite young woman has put him on the ground out of view and they are running together across the lot.

"Shit, Mike's down and they're running!" Nina breathes into her headset.

Peter is out of the car running toward them and stops. Out of nowhere a dark panel van is rushing across the lot in front of the couple and skidding a bit sideways. A flash near Peter grabs my attention again. A fraction of a second later I hear a light pop from the phone and realize he's shooting at them or the van.

"He's going to turn this into a full-scale incident," I say.

"Fucking idiots," Nina replies.

Some people in the van drag the woman inside. Peter continues to shoot as the van pulls away and then at Ryan's feet until he stops. The van drives away rapidly and Ryan is raising his arms while Peter approaches him quickly. I want to make Peter stop and consider blowing my horn, but I don't want to distract him. I know his adrenaline is already pumping after he'd watched Mike go down.

This is all going horribly wrong and I feel dread about what Peter will do to our target. His giant hands roughly place Ryan's behind his back. Holding them with one hand, he raises his gun as if to strike him with it and suddenly there's a struggle. In the blink of an eye, a reddish-brown cloud of mist comes from Peter's back and his gun flashes again as they both slump to the ground. The events are so abrupt, that I barely have time to process what is happening. Instinctively, I start my car and prepare to go pick them up.

"What the fuck happened?" I ask her.

"Those drunken idiots are what happened and now Peter is dead!" she says over some background radio noise.

"Do you have Mike?"

"No, the blows she gave him, may have killed him too," she says over another female voice that is obscured by static.

"Was that a scanner?" I ask.

"Yes, I turned it on. We need to leave."

"No, we need to get them," I tell her pulling out of my space.

"There's no time! The police are already responding to the shooting," Nina replies and I hear her gunning her SUV and she screams, "What the hell?"

I hear Mikhail shout, "Just drive!"

"He's in the back," she says and the SUV rushes toward the north exit while I head in the opposite direction saying, "Meet up at the safe house."

She disconnects and I see her heading into town. It isn't the way toward the safe house, but I expect she's trying to put some distance between us. I drive slowly onto the street of Ryan's neighborhood to scout his condo. Passing by, I see no evidence of anyone there and I head toward the safe house over back roads into the countryside keeping right at the speed limit.

Regardless of Pyotr's condition, I'm running things now, so I call Natalie. I tell her to keep an eye on Ryan, maybe even go to the hospital. She wasn't at the scene and she was his girlfriend, she's got cover.

---

About forty-five minutes later I arrive at the safe house. A lone street lamp on a large metal tractor building behind the one-story brick home is all that lights the moonless night. This part of Virginia is much less populated and the night is very dark. I turn off my light as I pull around behind the house and observe Nina's SUV is already in the structure. She's removed her plates and I can see her in the shadows with her gun drawn. I pull in and watch her slide the door closed behind me. I turn off the car, get out and wait for the lights to turn off. As my eyes adjust, there is a dim light over a workbench where Nina is standing.

"He needs a doctor to set that, but I did what I could and gave him a sedative," she tells me.

Mike is lying across the bench with cotton stuffed in is nose. It's clearly broken even in this dim light. Nina's already got his arm splinted and in a makeshift sling. His eyes and face are already blackening from the blows.

"We'll get him inside and call Sofia," I tell her.

"We need new paint and plates on these vehicles," she says already jumping to what is next.

"Yeah, get our guys out here tomorrow. We need to lay low for a while and see what has happened."

Nina has a low light flashlight out leading the way to a side door. Right beside the door is a pickup truck that isn't old or new. It'd fit in just about anywhere without raising suspicions. Nina opens the door and turns off her torch. The ground here is lightly covered with snow and it crunches under our feet as we make our way to the house.

"They called for a homicide unit, an ambulance and the FBI," she says as she turns the key to open the door.

"We aren't catching much of a break," I reply following her inside and close the door.

She walks forward through the mudroom and feels for a light in the kitchen. When it is on she says, "They put out an APB on the black van."

"You think the ambulance was for Ryan or Pyotr?" I ask.

"The chatter was cryptic, but they said there was a dead Russian national."

I'm not sure whether to feel relief or panic but continue gathering information from her, "Who do you think was in the van? Was Page abducted or did someone rescue her?"

"I'm not sure, but that bitch has moves. She'd of taken Mike out even if he'd been completely sober."

"I didn't see the whole thing," I reply. "But she's clearly got to be some kind of agent."

"What are we up against, Rayne? We'd didn't expect anything like this, did we?"

"I don't know and no, nothing like this. Right now, I'm most concerned about the cameras around the mall. They're sure to have picked us up."

"There's anti-aliasing film on the SUV and you were pretty far away from the scene."

My phone buzzes with a text from Natalie, "He's not in any of the hospitals, I'm heading over to his condo now."

I text her back, "Good luck."

"Nat is going over to Ryan's place, says Ryan isn't in any of the hospitals -" I'm saying when I get another text. "Oh, it's a message from Oleg. It says: 'P is done & Mark was to med. I know you'll follow up.'"

I text Oleg back, "Rest @Track. Nat headed Mark's place."

"Guess that means Pyotr really is dead," Nina says oddly.

"Yeah, it was bad timing combined with his crappy judgment."

"I think we feel the same about this. Some mistakes can't be corrected. I never wished him dead, but I didn't like working with him. He doesn't - didn't know what he didn't know," she says.

"That's very perceptive," I tell her.

"So, if Ryan isn't at the hospital we think he's dead too?" Nina asks.

"I'm not sure, but they called for an ambulance, he's a congressman, they may have taken him somewhere else," I say. "Let's get Mikhail into one of the bedrooms."

After we help him to a bed, I call Sofia's message service from the land line and give her the crypto message "Our tractor needs repair." I hang up and start searching the kitchen supplies.

Nina joins me. There are some canned beans and the like. But I find some frozen dinners in the freezer. I pull two out and put them in the microwave and turn it on for twenty minutes. We head into the family room where there's a couple of easy chairs, a sofa and a TV. I sit in an easy chair, pick up the remote and turn on the TV to see if there's any news.

"The situation could be worse," Nina says sitting in the chair beside me.

"I guess."

---

When the news finally comes on, it is all about the shooting. Every local station has their own version of it.

Strongly accented female voice, "That's right, the former Congressman claimed not to know his attacker. They aren't saying where he's being treated or if they have any suspects -"

Click

Male voice, "- the FBI has stepped up efforts to find the Congressman's wife, Page -"

"They're saying she's his wife?!" I say with disbelief.

Click

Female voice, "- a source is saying this may have been a politically motivated attempt to keep Levik out of the upcoming special election -"

Nina asks, "Who do you think that source is?"

"I'm not sure. Might be a good campaign manager."

---

Shortly after the news goes off I get a text from Nat and I read it to Nina, "Agent let me in to talk, but zero interest. Will monitor @sh2."

"Well, we know he's alive," Nina replies.

"Yeah and we have the new cameras, so we should have some audio and video," I say.

I text Nat back, "Keep updated."

"We need to back off and see where things are," I tell Nina.

"Yeah, I'm tired. I've got to crash for a while."

"We should be fine here. See you in the morning," I say as she heads for one of the bedrooms.

I awake with the TV still on when a car pulls up outside around back. I click off the TV with the remote and go to see who it is. A muscular woman gets out of an ordinary sedan with a heavy black leather bag and I breathe a sigh of relief.

Opening the door, I let Sofia in and escort her back to the room where Mike is. I tell her the adjacent room is hers if she needs to stay overnight, but I have to get some sleep and head to another of the four bedrooms. I turn on the bedside light and debate stripping down, but keep my clothes on and lay awake in the bed. My mind replays tonight's events on a loop trying to suss out what we could have done differently to prevent this outcome. There were a lot of things that went wrong that were out of our control but several of them were self-inflicted.

As it stands we aren't in a very good situation and my mind keeps rolling through everything that has happened. Pyotr is dead. Mikhail was hurt but is getting help and will get more soon. Ryan is injured and has an agent, probably FBI, protecting him now. I'd hoped Natalie would reconnect with Ryan, but he's not interested. I might be able to send Nikki to him, but wonder if I shouldn't attempt contact. His involvement with Page may simply rule out a romantic or sexual approach.

On top of all this, is my involvement with David. I don't want to give it up and I'm already missing him after a day apart. How long should I wait to answer him on the New Year's celebration? He's a good guy and I find myself feeling lucky that I found him. In that moment, I seem to have made a decision. I pick up my phone and text him, "Yes to New Year's." Turning off the lamp, I roll on my side filled with visions of what we may do at the party and after. I'd answered his request without getting any details. I drift to sleep as my thoughts wander through the tantalizing possibilities.

---

I awake abruptly in the morning to Nina telling me, "All of the new devices are offline. We think they've been removed. There are agents at his condo and news trucks all over the place."

"Damn it! We've got to figure out what is going on here," I say with frustration.

"I've got guys coming to paint the vehicles. I can take you back to town in the truck. No one has shown up at any of our places or appears to be monitoring them."

"Okay, let's go."

---

Sitting in the back of another van, I'm still feeling the effects of my New Year's evening with Dave. This van has window signs that act as one-way mirrors and is parked one block over from Ryan's condo, situated such that we can see the front door. I watch Nina on the video as she crosses the street and places our vase of flowers on the stoop. We've gotten a new smaller device implanted in the plastic card holder. It's state of the art and should be undetectable.

Nina is almost back when Nat's comm comes through, "I think that's their car, hurry up."

When Nina gets into the driver seat, I say, "Let's circle around and come back."

Nina starts the van and we drive away. She slowly circles back and stops on the corner of the cross-street. We have a perfect view of the front door from the back and are recording them as they approach. When they reach the door, they stand there in front of the condo talking for a few moments and then go inside.

"What the fuck? We need to hear what's happening. Any idea Nat?" I ask watching them disappear inside with the flowers still setting outside.

"They didn't take them. I'm not picking up anything on the laser mic either. I guess I'm going to have to get more creative."

"What'd you write on the card?"

"Just that I hoped he was feeling better and that I wanted to see him soon," Nat replies.

"I'm starting to think this Page is behind a lot of our trouble; play it back for me."

She scans back several moments and sets it playing again zoomed in closer so we can see. We both watch as Page picks them up to inspect them, quickly sets them back down and waves Ryan off.

"Yeah, you're right, see what she did there? She didn't let him take them inside."

"What have you been able to come up with on her?" I ask.

"There's not a lot to go on, everything is coming back with blanks."

"Everything? That's a little too - convenient, wouldn't you say?"

"Maybe, we'll keep digging, there's bound to be something."

"We need someone inside," I say and pause. "I keep thinking maybe he needs a new campaign manager," I say. "And maybe she should be me, since we've already met."

---

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