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  THE PERFECT INSTINCT:

  Trieste 48

  ------------------

  A LANCE PRIEST / PREACHER EPISODE

  CHRISTOPHER METCALF

  TT Tree Tunnel Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 by Christopher Metcalf

  Kindle Version

  Published by

  Tree Tunnel Publishing, LLC

  Tulsa, Oklahoma

  Cover photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons / Author: Twice25 & Rinina25 / CC-BY-SA-3.0 / GFDL / https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trieste-STB_2961.JPG

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-9886016-4-2

  www.treetunnelpublishing.com

  www.christophermetcalf.com

  www.spiesandlies.wordpress.com

  For Kennedy

  One message received:

  Time: 9:17 pm

  Date: March 23, 1995

  Message: "Pomogi pozhaluysta."

  Translation: Help please.

  Chapter 1

  He'd been here before.

  Not this room, not Trieste, Italy. He'd never been in this port city at the northernmost end of the Adriatic Sea before this morning.

  Standing over and pressing the barrel of a handgun into the left temple of a man seated behind a table; he'd been in this situation before.

  That is how it all started.

  But this time, it wasn't the life altering surprise sprung on him by a CIA superspy that changed everything. No, it was his turn, his time to spring the surprises.

  And Lance Priest is full of them.

  He shot his eyes around the small room again. No one moved. All were frozen, staring at him and the gun in his hand.

  This whole thing would be a lot easier if she would have left a damn phone number to call.

  "Vy govorili?" The words spoken in guttural Russian - You were saying? The accent straight from the gritty streets and filthy gutters of Moscow. Lance had this particular dialect down cold. One of his favorites. He chose to speak Russian because of this guy's obvious phenotype. Classic Slavic features with that hint of Asian or Mongoloid. Uniquely Russian, or at least from the region.

  "I, I don't," the poor fella with a gun to his head confirmed Lance's assumption by answering in Russian. There was an accent though, sounded Ukrainian. The heavyset guy then closed his eyes, squinched them closed. It was a cleansing motion; meant to help him focus. Humans do it.

  Lance watched this gentleman's orbicularis oculi muscles tighten beneath the skin around his eye sockets. It caused wrinkles to form out there in the skin beside his closed eyes.

  The gent's procerus, Lance's favorite of the facial muscles, tugged at his eyebrows while flaring out his nostrils. He watched the man's laryngeal prominence, Adam's apple to those without Lance's in-depth knowledge of anatomy. Even encased in thick layers of fat, the dude's Adam's apple protruded as his esophageal muscles performed the involuntary human act of swallowing. This guy was scared, as he should be. Good.

  By the time the man's eyes opened after sighing deeply, Lance memorized the hundreds of features of his face. It took a whole three seconds. Nothing special about this human. Just bones and muscle and tendons and skin.

  And then there were the drugs. Lance could see them in the dude's hair, jewelry, long pinky fingernail and the suit he wore. Preacher could feel the heroin, the cocaine and more. He could sense it. An addict drowning in the stuff for a year and still in recovery more than a year later knows the signs. He felt the gravitational pull of sweet addiction in his veins. Heroin's come hither never went away. And this guy knew where to get lots of it. Preacher's year barely above ground swimming through a personal hell playing the role of the strung out Black Angel assassin would never leave him. He did things during that time; terrible, horrible, very bad things.

  A story for another time.

  "If you are looking for who I think you are, I don't know where she is, not this moment." The guy nodded his head slightly as he finished the sentence. Sweat broke out on his forehead.

  "But you know where I can find this person, correct?" Lance pressed the Beretta's barrel further into the man's skin, nudging the head sideways. A shudder went through his heavyset body. A ripple effect. Highly likely that a little spot of urine was spreading through the guy's silk boxer underwear. Lance guessed at the underwear type. He didn't have x-ray vision.

  As Lance looked up again at the other seven sets of eyes in the dark, smelly, smoke-filled bar, he saw the same shudder move through several of them. Good. Fear inspires action.

  He needed frightened people to react, to respond. Didn't have the luxury of time to work the usual angles, build up a backstory and leverage relationships based on layers and layers of lies. No, he needed action, today. Now.

  Important business waited back home in Colorado.

  Marta was just weeks, maybe less, from having a baby. Their baby. He needed to get this done and get home. Lance already pushed it with her during the pregnancy by taking that little 5-day trip to Juarez month before last. Things got more than a little crazy and bloody south of the border. The body count reached several dozen and Marta ended up coming down to escort him back home.

  He needed to keep the stress of this little excursion to a minimum. Marta allotted him 48 hours to complete this mission on her behalf. He'd already burned nine hours visiting several dead ends since arriving in Trieste this morning.

  His mind wandered, as it did all too often recently. Soon after he and Marta found out they were expecting, Lance gathered up every piece of reading material he could find on the subject of pregnancy. He read voraciously, memorizing it all into his screwy photographic memory repository. Every baby is unique and different. But in general, they follow the same pattern of gestational development. Marta was into week 35.

  That meant their little fella or honey -- they wanted to be surprised -- was in there with eyes wide open, bones fully formed and toenails growing. He or she was also able to detect light. Pretty dang cool.

  Lance shook his head ever so slightly as his zygomaticus muscle under the skin on the left side of his face constricted and the corner of his mouth rose in a delicate Cheshire grin. Couldn't help it. The other humans in the room, including the one with a gun jammed into the side of his head, probably took the smile on this longhaired, bearded stranger to mean something other than that of a proud, loving, joyful expectant first-time father unable to repress happiness. Anything but.

  In fact, they probably thought he was insane, a cold-blooded killer who smiled at those he was poised to dispatch. Lance stifled a laugh. He had no intention of killing anyone in this room. Didn't much care for killing these days. Not after that carnage left in his wake in Juarez. That was enough killing for this and the next few years. He revisited those five days in Juarez a few times while hiking the mountain range above their cabin. The body count didn't matter in the global grand scheme of things where 130,000 humans around the world die each day, but he got up to 47. That's a lot of killing. Lots of black holes left in the world. Lots of repercussions likely to come.

  Another time.

  He turned back to the seated man. Lance picked him out within five seconds of entering the bar minutes earlier. Had to be Voloshyn, the Ukrainian. Number eleven on the list Marta wrote down for him.

  A rapid scan of the characters in the room brought him back to this one as the optimal target. In the m
inute and eleven seconds before Lance walked over to the table and shoved the Beretta 9mm into the dude's temple, he racked up hundreds, no thousands of data elements from the room and the assembled humans populating the tiny establishment just three blocks off the chilly March waters of the Adriatic Sea in Trieste's postcard picturesque harbor.

  His ability to capture data points through only visual acuity and then translate this information into something of a mind map he can look down upon allowed him to essentially see from on high everyone in the room and everything they were doing. Marta calls it his satellite vision. For Lance, it has always just been there. Happens in the blink of an eye.

  Looking down on this small space, he saw both the physical and spatial dynamics of the room. Like a small solar system, he saw the subservient planets encircling a dark sun seated alone in the center. All the data points in the room pointed him to this guy. He was sitting alone because he wanted to drink alone. He was a man of prominence and significant power and was given respect and space. He looked the type that didn't need to open his mouth to get his usual drink. Looked to be Vodka in a short glass with three cubes of ice. Then there was the suit. It was basically the uniform for a drug-trafficking power player.

  The fine silk fabric still shimmered even in the muted light. It was black with fine pinstripe threads of silver, maybe gold. Very nice. The suit was custom made for this fella's heavy frame in Paris, maybe Milan. And even though money was likely no object, the suit came with a price tag somewhere north of $5,000. Add the custom white shirt, French silk tie, cufflinks and Italian leather shoes, and the big fella was walking around with $7,500 worth of clothing and regalia hanging off his large frame. Drugs and smuggling do pay.

  "I don't know where exactly, but I can call and find out in minutes." Voloshyn stammered.

  Interesting. The Ukrainian was lying. Even with a gun barrel jammed into his temple by an evil smiling stranger, he still felt the need to lie. With death a silly little finger's squeeze away, he feared Elena and the retribution she could wield. Now that is impressive.

  Marta had indeed picked a worthy successor for the Trieste network after she tore it down and rebuilt it nearly five years ago. That was just months before Marta met Lance in that apartment in Baghdad. Marta's multi-year mission before Baghdad was meticulously taking over a number of clandestine KGB operations throughout Europe. She excelled in the ultra top-secret assignment. The mysterious Elena was handpicked to carry on Marta's Trieste operations.

  Elena was both feared and loathed; two excellent qualities for the leader of a clandestine smuggling operation. She was also a total pain in the rear to find. She somehow kept herself and her operations hidden in the shadows.

  Lance didn't have time to analyze. He needed action, and fast. Clock was ticking.

  So he advanced the plot by pulling the gun away from Voloshyn's temple. The relief on the guy's sweaty face was immediate. It was also short-lived.

  Just as quickly as he eased the Beretta away, Lance lowered it toward the floor and pulled the trigger, blasting a neat little hole through the Ukrainian's $800 Italian-crafted left shoe. The foot flew up several inches when the bullet struck the stone floor beneath the crappy carpet and exploded.

  The gunshot changed the room, as gunshots usually do. Screams, gasps, cringes.

  A woman seated with a longhaired hippy sailor in the corner shrieked. The waitress standing near the bar dropped her tray. The three glasses on it smashed, shooting shards glass and alcohol in all directions. But that wasn't what Preacher was looking for. He saw what he needed from the two men seated at the bar with their backs to him.

  As he expected, they both reached for weapons inside their jackets.

  But they each made a mistake. They should have spun on their barstools before reaching to pull guns. The distance between the two men seated at the bar and Preacher standing in the center of the small room was 13 feet. Four steps, three and a half.

  And Preacher started their way before their hands reached their holsters. They still had to grasp handles, pull guns, clear holsters, spin in his direction and aim. Two, two and a half seconds if they were experienced pros. Way too long.

  Preacher was on the goon seated on the left in just less than two seconds. He grabbed the back of the fella's head and shoved it forward and down onto the bar. It was one of those sickening thuds that just sound awful because you know it is a skull making that noise. Listen closely and you can hear the brain slosh against the walls inside its carrying case. The immediately unconscious man's nose exploded a gush of blood across the glossy bar top.

  Within the same second, Preacher chose not to use the Beretta for the blow to the head of the gent on the right. Instead, he cocked his right arm and delivered a shot to the base of the man's skull with his bent elbow. It was a painful, disorienting blow, but not meant to incapacitate. He wanted this one conscious enough to talk.

  He reached around to this goon's holster and pulled out his gun, tipped him back on his stool and shoved him down to the floor producing another unpleasant thud as the back of his head hit the concrete barely cushioned by threadbare carpet. Dang, he was out cold. Preacher then turned and grabbed the other one's handgun from a holster under his jacket. He left him lying splayed out on the bar in the spreading dark ooze. He stepped back over to the well dressed and bleeding Voloshyn bent over grasping his bloody foot. Eleven seconds elapsed on the stopwatch in his head.

  After looking each of the five other conscious people in the room square in the eye, Preacher made himself at home and pulled out a chair to sit down across the small table from the heavy Ukrainian. "Your name, quickly." Smoldering anger in his Russian.

  "Maksym." The large man spat through gritted teeth, confirming his identity.

  "Ah. So that would make you Maksym Voloshyn." Preacher nodded in confirmation.

  The wounded drug smuggler sat back and wiped sweat dripping from his brow. "You know of me, but I have no idea who you are. You come in here demanding information about the whereabouts of a certain woman, without mentioning her name. And then you shoot me for no reason."

  "I had reason Maksym. Time, the rapid passage of time with each succeeding second, each moment eclipsed by the next. I am short of this most precious scarce resource. I need to know where I can find this individual. I have been unable to locate her so far. You can help me, yes?" Preacher tapped his middle finger on the tabletop with each syllable spoken.

  "I, I," too late. Useless. Voloshyn offered no assistance with his continual delay.

  Preacher leaned in close and shot out three pointed fingers into the guy's fat neck; a cobra delivering a lightning fast lethal bite. The autonomic muscle response and interruption of blood flow through the carotid artery causes almost immediate lightheadedness followed by syncope, passing out. The Ukrainian collapsed onto the table and then rolled with a messy thud to the floor. Someone was going to have to clean this mess up.

  Preacher rose and walked back toward the goon formerly seated at the bar. As he bent to pull the man up to a seated position, the woman in the corner shouted.

  "No, please don't." It was Italian. "Please."

  He turned to her, "Go ahead." He spoke in thick English/Russian to shake things up.

  "Don't hurt him. I can tell you where to find her."

  "Who?" Lance cocked his head and squinted his eyes, moving from her to the others in the room. All sat or stood motionless.

  "Her, you are looking for her, yes?"

  "Who, what is her name?" My god, will no one even say her name?

  The woman just shook her head slowly. She looked at the very tan sailor dude seated with her at the table. He glared at her. It was clear he wanted her to shut up.

  Preacher stood up from the bodyguard beginning to come to his senses. He took two steps toward the woman but kept his head on a swivel. He made a mental note of passing the seven-minute mark since entering the building.

  "Elena. Her name is Elena. If you won't say her name, at least te
ll me where I can find her. Quickly." He said the last word in Italian with menace in it. Velocemente.

  The woman looked down and then slowly brought her eyes back up to meet his. "She could kill me for telling you."

  Preacher smiled at that. "I understand your fear. But this time, she will be pleased you helped. I am actually here to help. Tell me immediately, or it may be too late." He kept a serious look on his face even though he just cracked himself up with yet another lie. He hadn't told one truth since walking into the place. "Now, tell me."

  Chapter 2

  That was a violent start.

  Necessary. He needed to stir things up. Nearly ten hours of wasted time since arriving in town needed to be made up for. Shooting the drug-smuggling Voloshyn in the foot would do just that. Finding him in the bar was her hunch, and like usual, Marta's instincts were right.

  Lance walked away and up the hill to the stolen Fiat he stashed around the corner. He tossed the two goons' guns behind a bush after removing their clips. When he was seated in the tiny car, he pulled the cell phone from his pocket and hit redial.

  "Eleven minutes." Marta spoke in Mandarin Chinese. They were working on the language together and playing a little game for this mission. They planned to conduct every conversation in Chinese. It made for brief sentences. Sometimes just words.

  "It went well," Lance replied. His control of the language lagged behind hers. "Success identifying possible target house. Target location."

  "Good. Next?"

  "Going now. I'll call." He hung up and tore the hat and black wig from his head and tossed them in the passenger seat. He turned the ignition and put the car in gear. He wasn't used to driving a manual and ground the gears several times as he pulled out onto the narrow lane to head further up the hill, away from water.