Threat Level Black by Jim DeFelice Page B

hit the man square in the chest, where he was protected by his bulletproof vest.
    The other policeman fired back, missing. The CIA backup team finally got its act together, firing a barrage of tear-gas canisters that sent the policemen retreating across the street. Fisher, choking, grabbed Kung and dragged her away, then went back for Dr. Park. His eyes blurred with the gas; he grabbed a figure in front of him and pulled backward, his whole body burning with the thick gas. His eyes clamped themselves shut.
    “Go, let’s go!” Madison shouted.
    Fisher managed to crack open one eye and saw that he’d taken Mathers, not the Korean scientist. Cursing, he let go of her and started back toward the restaurant.
    Madison grabbed him. “No! The police are coming,” he shouted. “We have to leave. Now!”
    Fisher hesitated just long enough to hear a fresh hail of bullets hitting the concrete a few yards away.
    “All right,” he said, heading back around the corner where a van was waiting, eyes and nose raw with the gas.
    “You okay?” asked Madison as they sped away.
    “Yeah,” said Fisher. “But I really hate tearjerkers.”

Part Two

Tacit Ivan

Chapter
1

    Faud Daraghmeh closed the book and got up from the small table where he had been reading. He could hear his landlady’s television downstairs as he went to the kitchen. The old woman would be dozing in her chair by now, no doubt dreaming of the grandchildren she never saw. She talked of them often to him, with the fondness that he thought his great-aunt must use when she spoke of him.
    It was a weakness, one of many. Faud took the teapot from the stove and began to fill it. The imam had warned him; the worst temptations were the subtle ones, the almost silent callings of slothfulness and indecision.
    But his path was set. He had completed the most difficult job more than a month earlier. Now he only waited for the next set of instructions. Whatever they were, he would be ready. Faith must win out over temptation.
    He turned off the water and placed the teapot on the stove.

Chapter
2

    In the aftermath of an operation, there are always several perspectives on its conduct and outcome. Often there is an inverse relationship between proximity to the operation and the opinion thereof: While those who had been at the scene might consider that things had gone decently under the circumstances, those several times removed might opine that lousy was a more appropriate adjective.
    And then there was the opinion of Fisher’s boss.
    “A fiasco. Utter and complete.”
    “I wouldn’t call it utter,” said Fisher, speaking from the protection of the American embassy in Ukraine, where he’d been spirited after the fallout from the operation.
    “What would you call it?”
    “Something other than utter. I’ve never really understood what utter meant.”
    “You’re a screwup, Fisher. Whatever you touch screws up. You’re lucky the ambassador got you out of Moscow; I’d drop a dime on you myself.”
    Fisher hadn’t heard the expression drop a dime since his days as a nugget agent investigating the Mob. It had a nostalgic feel which he couldn’t help but admire.
    According to both the NSA and the CIA, the Russians believed that they had broken up a robbery by a group of mafiya, a story supported by the versions of the incident supplied by Dr. Park and his security agent bodyguard. The Korean government had apparently accepted that explanation. But Fisher wasn’t about to point that out to Hunter, who clearly wasn’t in the mood to accept anything short of ritual suicide as an apology for the mission’s failure. For some reason known only to Hunter, the fact that the CIA had taken over the project failed to mollify him; he considered a screwup a screwup. Fisher thought this an unusually altruistic opinion for one so committed to advancing in government service.
    “You’re off the case, Fisher,” said Hunter.
    “What a shock,” said Fisher.
    “I’m not putting up