Counter-Strike (A Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Novel Book 2)

Counter-Strike

By JT Sawyer

Copyright

Copyright
April 2016 by JT Sawyer

No
part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording,
mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the
publisher.

This
is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are
fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses,
incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

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Chapter 1

New York, John F. Kennedy
International Airport

Professor Robert Schueller strode past the
brunette stewardess inside the entrance to the 747, giving a perfunctory nod as
he pushed by her with his black laptop bag. He could detect the faint fragrance
of her hairspray, which resembled peach blossoms.

He moved through the narrow aisle towards
his first-class seat in aisle 4B and plunked down next to the empty blue seat.
Maybe
I’ll luck out and have the row all to myself. That would make for a good flight
across the Atlantic. I could certainly use the time to review my research notes
before this conference.
As he adjusted a lumbar pillow behind his back, a
petite half-Asian woman with her dyed blond hair in a long, braided ponytail,
approached the aisle and scanned the seat numbers then glanced down at her
ticket. She was wearing a white button-up blouse and a blue skirt with
high-heels. Her light pink lipstick accentuated her sculpted cheekbones and
brown eyes.
Wow, I get to spend the flight next to such a beauty.

“Hello,” she said. “I just made it—another
ten minutes and they said I would’ve missed the flight. I think my taxi driver
must have been on his first day of work.”

Schueller detected a slight hint of an Oriental
accent and her appearance indicated she was probably a businesswoman. The aroma
of cherry hovered around her as she swished her hips past the armrest and
bobbed into the chair beside him. He inhaled deeply while giving an awkward
smile. Schueller tapped a foot nervously on the carpeted floor beside his
laptop case. As she got comfortable, he made sure to keep his eyes forward and
not stare at her shapely legs. Though he had been happily married for
thirty-seven years to his wife Margo, he relished being in the presence of a
beautiful woman. He reminded himself that she was half his age as he ran a hand
over his follicly-challenged scalp, recalling his personal code when it came to
other women:
It doesn’t matter where you get your appetite as long as you
dine at home.

He opened his laptop and began reviewing
some of his bullet points for his upcoming speech, hardly noticing the cabin
door being closed.

“Eek, that’s an old device. How can you
even read the screen on that anymore?” she said. The woman half-giggled and
swung her ponytail onto her shoulder. “Sorry, I just came from the consumer
electronics convention in the Big Apple and I’m still seeing recurrent images
of laptops every time I close my eyes.” She muttered to herself, “You’re not
sitting at the trade booth anymore, girl.”

“Are you a sales rep?” he said.

“Sort of—I work as a software engineer for
SONY.” She crossed her legs and leaned towards him, pointing to his laptop.
“Chances are that my company did half the upgrades on your device there as that
model was expanded back in 2014.”

She touched his arm. “Oh my God, I just
can’t turn the techie in me off. I’m sorry.”

He smiled and turned sideways. “Not a
problem. I know how consuming work can be.” He extended his hand. “Bob—and all
I know about computers is how to turn ’em on and off.”

“Jessica.”

He closed his laptop and tucked it away in
his briefcase, amazed at the animated delivery she just provided of something
so mundane. “There, I’ll give you a break for a while so you can forget about
work.” He was so taken with her scintillating personality and striking eyes that
he never noticed the plane accelerating.

“Ah, work, yes—this seven-hour flight is
the only break I’ll have for the next week,” she said.

“Me as well. I’ve gotta blab in front of a
bunch of my colleagues in London.”

“Are you a professional speaker—or an author?”
She squirmed in her seat and touched him on the arm again. “Oh, I’ve never sat
next to an author before.”

“No, I hate to disappoint you. Not an
author—just a college professor who stares at lab slides all day long, though I
have written a few technical papers.” Their bodies fell back into their chairs
as the plane angled upward into the sky.

She laughed barely pausing to take a
breath in between sentences. “Well, there you go, I am sitting next to an
author after all.” Jessica yawned and sunk her shoulders into her seat as the
plane levelled off. “Oh my, the steam is draining out of me. I knew I’d crash
hard after this convention.” She looked at him with wide eyes then leaned
towards him to whisper, her eyes darting around the cabin. “I didn’t mean
actually ‘crash,’ you know.”

He just grinned and then looked at the
window, realizing how high they’d ascended.
Whew
—
if this is what
she’s like when she’s tired then what’s she like the rest of the time? If only
I had her energy.

When the stewardess came by, Jessica asked
for a drink of vodka and a pillow. Forty minutes later, after more small talk,
she fell asleep, leaning on Bob’s shoulder for much of the remaining flight.
Not that he minded. Her lovely fragrance, which covered him like a velvety
blanket, along with her vivacious personality made him forget briefly about the
nature of his overseas visit to London. Schueller’s work as a professor of
microbiology at Cornell University kept him confined to his lab for much of the
year. Only a few family vacations allowed him to escape the demands of his work
along with the bi-annual trip to England to discuss his scientific research in
virology with a think-tank comprised of U.S. and European scientists. The only
difference between Schueller and his colleagues was that he was a consultant to
the CIA in their bioweapons division, though his work with them had diminished
considerably in the past three years due to budget cuts. His employment with
the agency was never anything illustrious or mysterious as he’d hoped in the
beginning. Instead it usually involved a call a few times a year inquiring
about the trade name for a new vaccine or asking what he knew about recent
developments in pathogens that were being tested out by Asian researchers who
had become, next to Russia, the top threat against the U.S. military.

Schueller left his laptop tucked away and
just ran through his mental notes while feeling Jessica’s head bob on his
shoulder with each air pocket. He found himself dozing off a few times and was
surprised to hear the overhead speakers announce their upcoming arrival at
Heathrow.

The stewardess came by to ask them to move
their seats and trays upright and Jessica awoke with a startled expression.
“Oh, heavens, please tell me I didn’t fall asleep on you and drool on your
shoulder.”

“You were fine, my dear. It wasn’t a
problem.”

She gathered up the small shoulder bag
under the seat and checked her makeup in her cosmetic mirror, glancing over at
Bob in between passes of her lipstick. “The company limo is picking me up at
the airport and then I’m off to see my boyfriend.”

After the plane came to a halt on the
runway, Jessica stood up and touched him on the shoulder again. “Well, thanks
for putting up with all my yapping and then my snoozing on your arm. It’s been
a pleasure, Bob.”

Schueller nodded and followed her out.
“You take care and enjoy your down time.”

As they walked off the plane towards the
arrival area and made their way through the lengthy customs line, Schueller
found himself getting hungry. He didn’t want to battle for a taxi to his hotel so
he made his way to the Café Rouge. The vintage Parisian-themed restaurant
wasn’t crowded and he was quickly seated at a side table near a
floor-to-ceiling glass partition that separated diners from the pedestrian
walkway.

Thirty minutes later, after finishing a
cognac and a filet mignon, he settled back in his chair to watch the human
river beside the glass divider. To his right, he noticed Jessica standing near
a newsstand. She was talking frantically on her phone, her hands gesticulating
in the air and her face very taut. A few minutes later, she thrust the phone in
her coat pocket and lowered her head, swiping her index finger by the corner of
her moist eye.

Poor girl
—
hope
everything is alright.

He watched her drag her luggage, her
shoulders slumped forward as she made her way towards the entrance of the café.
Schueller saw her talking to the maître d’ and being escorted in the opposite
direction to a corner table. He stood up and called her name, waving his hand.
Jessica’s forlorn look brightened slightly as she made her way towards him.

“Would you like to join me?”

She wrinkled her nose and smiled slightly.
“Yes, that would be wonderful. I’d rather not be alone right now.”

They made their way back to his table,
Schueller ushering her into the chair and motioning to the waiter to bring
another glass of cognac after seeing the young woman take notice of his drink.

“My dear, you seem upset. Is everything
alright?” He felt his paternal feelings pushing to the surface.

“Apparently my boyfriend can’t make it
tonight after all. Even though he swore to me yesterday that we’d go to dinner
as soon as I returned. He said something came up at work again but I’m sure
he’s having an affair with one of his co-workers. This brunette bitch I saw him
flirting with at a work party last month.”

“I’m so sorry, Jessica. That’s no way to
be treated. Can I help in some way?”

“I’ll be fine, thank you.” She slowly
raised her head up, reaching for the cognac the waiter had just brought. “You’re
very kind and a good listener—I wish more men were like you.” She paused and
glanced at the thin silver watch adorning her pale wrist. “My company’s limo should
be here by now, in the parking garage below. If you’d like I can give you a
ride to your hotel.”

“It’s OK. I wouldn’t want to put you in an
awkward place with your employers.”

“It won’t be a problem—you’ve just been so
thoughtful. But I’ll understand if you don’t accept. You probably think I’m a
foolish little girl rattling off about herself the entire time you’ve known
me.”

“Not in the least. We all get hit with a
flurry of nastiness every now and then. You just seem to have been struck particularly
hard. Life will lighten up.” He stood up and grabbed his luggage and briefcase.
“I’d be happy to escort you to the parking garage.” Schueller pulled his
shoulders back, feeling his chivalrous side emerging.

Jessica dabbed a napkin around the base of
her moist eyes then finished her drink before walking out with him. The crowds
in the terminal had grown thin in between arrivals as they made their way to
the elevators in a side hallway and proceeded to step inside the first one on
the left.

A minute later, the doors opened in the
parking garage. A few feet away was a black limo with dark tinted windows, the
engine idling. As he stepped out, Schueller saw two dark-skinned Asian men move
in from either side of the elevator entrance, the one to the left punching him
hard in the stomach with a nearly invisible motion of his hand. Schueller
folded forward while he gasped uncontrollably for air, the cognac surging up
into his throat. Amidst the impending nausea, he felt Jessica’s grip on his arm
but it seemed much stronger than he remembered, as if she could snap his
humerus in half.

They dragged him to the back seat of the
vehicle while Jessica handed one of the men the professor’s briefcase. Schueller
saw her turn and talk to an approaching police officer. As the red-haired man
came closer to Jessica, there was a blinding motion from her left arm followed
by a glint of silver. The officer staggered sideways, clutching his neck while blood
gurgled out from the cavernous opening in his trachea. She flung a soiled blade
on the ground and pivoted towards the limo.

Schueller’s heart was punching through his
chest.
God, who is this woman? How could I have misread her?

He felt his stomach coiling in knots.
Schueller tried to get out but his arms felt limp. Then he saw Jessica’s face
as she closed the door behind her and sat next to him. She still had those same
almond-colored eyes but now they resembled a deep whirlpool that he was being
swallowed up within. Her voice had changed from being so airy to something that
resembled a wraithlike growl. She shoved him back into the seat, his entire
body still reeling from the sucker punch to the solar plexus that seemed to
rattle his entire being.

“What were your words?” she said. “Getting
hit by a
flurry of nastiness
. I’m afraid that’s your predicament, Professor,
and unless you want me to filet you like that officer back there, you’ll sit
there and be quiet.”

He sunk back and blinked hard at the dimpled
leather ceiling, wondering if he was suffering from some kind of post-flight
delusion as the vehicle sped along the parking structure and exited into the
sea of traffic.