Free Jet by Russell Blake

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    Back at the car, she stripped off her clothes and dropped them into a trash bag, along with the backpack and the weapons, donning a muted sweater and jeans before tossing the sack into the back and closing the hatchback. She slid behind the wheel and started the motor, then paused to study her face in the rearview mirror. In the pale wash of moonlight, she could make out a few flecks of dried blood on the bridge of her nose, which she wiped off with a tissue wetted with saliva. The eyes that looked back at her were calm and flat, divulging nothing, giving no hint of what she had just done. As she put the car in gear, she thought about what Ariel had said to her in the early days. He’d complimented her, praising her as the perfect operative after a particularly difficult mission she’d carried out flawlessly.
    Perfect . She was, she supposed. But what he didn’t realize was that the engine that drove her was fueled by a volatile combination of anger, hate and despair. Every time she carried out an operation, she felt pride at being the best. The rest of it – the killing, the personal danger, the flirting with death while dancing on a razor’s edge – was immaterial. And part of her hated it, she realized – a sudden revelation that explained why she felt so empty inside even after a successful operation. Somewhere deep down in her core she hated herself and those who had made her this way, who had created a cold, calculating killing machine for their own selfish purposes.
    A solitary tear rolled down her cheek as she pulled down the little road to the larger highway that would lead her to the contact point, where she would abandon the car to be sanitized by another operative, then take a flight from Grozny to Moscow, where she would disappear, only surfacing when she was needed again. In that forlorn tear was concentrated all of the anguish and loathing that a lifetime of hardship had forged, a monument to a life without a future or a past.
    Only today.
    And today, she’d done her job. As usual. As expected.
    As always.
     
     

Chapter 6
     
     
     
    Three Years Ago, Algiers, Algeria, North Africa
     
    The security detail manning the perimeter of the walled beachfront compound on the bluff three stories above the sand wore heavy windbreakers to fend off the evening chill. Even though Algiers was situated on the Mediterranean, the moods of March could plunge it into the high forty-degree range at night, and tonight was one of the more frigid, even though the sun had only set an hour before.
    In addition to the compound’s guards, each of the guests had brought their personal bodyguards, resulting in an uneasy equilibrium within the villa, as menacing figures in dark suits with barely concealed weapons passed one another in the halls and jockeyed for position in the larger common rooms.
    Luxury automobiles had been arriving since five o’clock, when the first of the targets came straight from his private jet. Every light in the massive villa glowed bright, its expansive grounds and huge swimming pool illuminated by discreetly mounted spotlights designed to eliminate potential hiding places. The neighborhood was one of moneyed power and exclusivity, and police cruisers were stationed at either end of the beach to ensure that nobody disturbed the residents.
    The tiny earbud crackled in Jet’s ear.
    “Delta. Are you in position?”
    “Roger that,” she whispered.
    “Anything new from your end?”
    “Negative. The last of them showed up half an hour ago. It looks like everyone’s gathered for a late dinner in the formal dining room.”
    “Nice. What’s your take on hostiles?”
    “They’ve got a small army and look alert.”
    “How many do you see?”
    “Exterior, two dozen. Inside, it’s hard to make out, but based on the head count we did as they arrived, I’d have to say at least twenty, total. So almost fifty armed and dangerous.”
    The voice paused…then said, “Let me touch base with