A Man Named Mike
Copyright© 2025 by Gina Marie Wylie
Chapter 1: When Checking In Nearly Means Checking Out
Mike Dunbar smiled gratefully at the hotel doorman who opened the taxi door for him. Bob Hammersmith, Mike’s partner for this trip, was on the offside of the cab and got his own door. That was fine with Mike; he’d never liked Hammersmith and this trip had capped his intention of never partnering with the man again.
His partner had all but made a PA announcement: “Hi! I’m an Air Marshal! I have a gun, and I’ll keep all of you safe!” That had been bad — stopping three times to talk to Mike had resulted in Mike telling the man if he ever spoke to him on a flight again, he’d kill him.
There were rumors of a big Islamic State op planned for Italy, involving foreigners, so Homeland Security and the US Marshal’s office had doubled the number of Air Marshals on the flights in and out of Rome. And the moron had blown Mike’s cover like it had never been blown before. Mike was still seething.
The hotel lobby was brightly lit and there were already a half dozen guests at the desk, checking in. Hammersmith touched Mike’s sleeve and received a glare in return. Hammersmith ignored it. “There’s Jerry Goldfarb — he’s the FBI SAC here. I’m going to go talk to him for a few. Check me in, will you?”
“No,” Mike said curtly, turned his back on the man and walked away.
Riding in the same cab was bad tradecraft; checking in for Hammersmith would be just plain stupid.
He rather liked this hotel. Most of the staff spoke fluent English, and they were alert and attentive. Even now — a few minutes after 9 p.m. local time — the desk clerks were bright and eager to help, with none of them showing signs of having been woken up in the last few minutes to deal with the surge of tourists arriving on the jet from New York.
He usually made the run alone, and if his cover wasn’t blown, he would sleep part of the trip. Blown, he’d stayed awake the entire trip and was arriving tired and more than a little cranky.
A pretty young woman desk clerk he didn’t recognize from previous visits smiled at him and asked for his passport and credit card, while passing him a registration card. Mike was aware of a slightly older man standing at her shoulder, watching her, not Mike. She was a trainee, he thought. But she had everything down pat and processed things quickly and correctly.
There was a long mirror behind the registration desk. Mike had never been sure why it was there, but it did give you a good view of the rest of the lobby. Probably, he’d thought several times, it was there so that you had something to look at while they did the paperwork. The staff was briskly efficient, but registering a foreign guest with a foreign credit card was something that they were careful with — so it took time.
He glanced along the desk, at the people waiting there. There was a couple in their early thirties to his left, clearly excited about being in a foreign land. To his right were a family group, mother, father, a teenage son, sixteen, Mike thought, a girl of about twelve, and a boy about six. It took about one second of observation to realize they were almost certainly Israelis.
Beyond them was a group that roused Mike’s professional curiosity. The principal was a man approaching sixty. Mike would have had no trouble picturing him as a Roman senator in the days of Caesar. He was trim, with a large, leonine head, covered with a fringe of silver-white hair around an otherwise baldpate. He was wearing a very expensive suit.
Behind him were two men in suits, good suits, but not as good as their boss. They stood facing the lobby, scanning the people, while a third man was checking out the desk and the people there.
Then one of the two men facing the lobby spoke harshly, “Trood!” Trouble!
Mike glanced up into the mirror; so, they weren’t Italian, but Russian.
Four men had come through the main doors and were even now lifting AK-47s.
It was instinct. To his left the registration desk ended just past the American tourist couple. He hit the woman’s legs and used his momentum to sweep the man’s legs. It was too late. The first burst had put three rounds into the man’s back, and one into the woman’s head an instant before Mike touched her.
He mentally cursed but kept moving. He fetched up behind a marble pillar, his pistol coming smoothly into his hand.
At the other end of the counter, the two bodyguards had killed one of their attackers, but two more of the men with AK’s had killed the bodyguards. The third guard had sent his principal sprawling and then neatly shot one of the three surviving terrorists.
Mike’s mind had made the instant assumption: their attackers were clearly Muslim. They were dressed in bathrobes and wore long beards. His pistol spoke and another of the men sprawled backwards. The survivor hosed down the last bodyguard, and Mike picked him off before he could turn the AK on him.
Two more men, also bearded Muslims, came through the outside doors a second later. Mike remembered the Israeli couple, looked, and grimaced. The father and mother were dead, crumpled heaps in front of the desk. The son was on top of his mother, obviously having tried to shield her. The other two children were beneath their father and unmoving, covered with blood.
Someone at the other end of the desk, the older man Mike thought, fired at the latest arrivals. Mike had been watching the men in the mirror. His enemies didn’t seem to be aware of him. Sure enough, the one survivor turned in the direction of the shot and Mike rolled over and picked him off with three shots, except the last was an empty chamber. He rolled back where he’d come from, hastily sliding his second magazine into the pistol.
For the first time he thought of Hammersmith and Goldfarb. There were no visible threats, although he could see vague shapes outside. He rolled back, aiming at the door, but his eyes were scanning the lobby. The two men were in heaps by the elevators. Goldfarb had his hand in his jacket, no doubt going for his weapon. It came as no surprise to see Hammersmith a few steps away, was face down, his back to the front door. The moron had tried to run!
Oh yeah! Like you can outrun four AK-47s!
He glanced at the door to the outside again, and then scrambled around the corner of the registration desk and behind it.
Like the lobby, it was a shambles. The middle-aged woman who’d been dealing with the tourist couple had died in the same burst of gunfire that had killed the couple. A few feet further on, the man who’d been watching the woman helping Mike was sitting on the floor, a surprised look on his face. His eyes were wide and staring; there was a bullet hole in his forehead. Next to him, the woman clerk was sobbing softly.
Mike glanced at the mirror again and then went to her. “Are you okay?” he asked roughly, squeezing her arm a little hard.
She looked at him, her eyes showing her terror.
“Are you okay?” he repeated, louder.
“Yessss,” she hissed. “Paulo, Renee ... Oh! Oh! Oh!”
Mike shook her gently. “Do you see the mirror?” He gestured at it.
She glanced up, and then her eyes returned quickly to his.
“What you have to do right now is look at it. If you see anyone come in, scream! Can you do that?”
She nodded. “Don’t look away, okay?” he told her, his voice gentler.
She nodded vigorously, taking control of herself.
Mike crossed his fingers and went down the desk to the other end. The older man was working on his bodyguard. Mike saw that the bodyguard’s coat and shirt had been cut away. The man had a sucking chest wound — not something you want to have.
The patrician not-Roman looked at him. “I am Andrei Badorin, sir. I am in your debt. I don’t suppose you know how to treat a wound like this?”
“Dittos. And yes, I do. We need to find something plastic or some cellophane we can use to cover the wound.”
Mike opened some of the cupboards behind the desk quickly and behind the fourth door he found some thin plastic document covers. While he was putting that in place, someone started firing a machine gun from behind the hotel.
There were short bursts, and after a minute or so, they stopped.
From a corridor that led into the lobby he could hear a spattering of shots as well. “It looks like they’re coming again,” Mike said fatalistically. “Look, someone has to hold the plastic tightly against his chest or he’ll die for sure. Let me see if the woman will.”
The other nodded. “I am in your debt many times over. Yuri is my friend as well as my employee. Thank you for what you’ve done for him.”
“We’re double-teaming them,” Mike said pragmatically. “You shoot and they look your way and then I shoot them. Then they look at me and you shoot them. I don’t know where these guys learned their trade, but it wasn’t from anyone who knew what they were doing.”
Mike crawled back to the woman. “There’s a wounded man down there. Please, can you help him?”
“I wouldn’t know what to do!”
“All you have to do is hold a piece of plastic against his chest to keep air from getting inside. It’ll be easy.”
“I don’t know...”
“I don’t know your name. I’m Michael.”
“Louisa,” she replied.
“Louisa, in something like this, your first job is staying alive. Your second job is to help anyone who is hurt. Third is to continue to succor the injured. You’re past job one now; now it’s time for parts two and three.”
She crawled down and he showed her what she had to do. When he was done, he looked at Andrei. “I can’t believe they haven’t rushed us.”
“Anytime, I think. There’s activity by the front door, and there are corridors in two other directions that are quiet. The restaurant is quiet, although there had to be people in there. I have no idea why they haven’t come either.”
“Well, Murphy says they’ll hit about two seconds before I get into position. Good luck, Andrei!”
The Russian man laughed. “Probably. Good luck, Michael.”
If nothing else showed the ineptitude of their attackers was that Murphy was on Mike’s side. He was back in position, had settled himself, and was ready before they came again. Three of them burst through the corridor door closest to Andrei a second later.
They weren’t even firing ... they were advancing cautiously. What? They didn’t realize someone was shooting back?
Mike had the pistol flat on the floor, not obviously visible. Now he lifted it and fired six shots as fast as he could, killing one, wounding another, and forcing the last back in the direction he’d come from.
Five men came through the front door in that instant and they couldn’t see Mike, as his favorite pillar obscured him. Andrei killed one and wounded another, and they turned on him. Mike watched it all in the mirror, and when they were rocking and rolling, he rolled out and added another to his tally.
The two survivors were the ones closest to the area by the elevators and they dove there for cover.
Mexican standoff! A hell of a thing!
And where were the cops? It had been a good fifteen minutes. Surely someone had to have noticed the shooting! No one had come out of the restaurant; no one had come from the elevators. And no cops! It was very strange.
About a half hour later there was a heavy round of firing from behind the hotel that seemed to rise to a crescendo that was topped by a thunderous explosion. Then two more of the same loud booms. After that the firing was vigorous for a few minutes, but there was no more machine gun.
Another half hour passed, and with a shrill yell, the two men from the elevators launched themselves screaming across the lobby, waving knives, not AK’s. Mike was half-drowsing. The two men weren’t even aimed at either end of the registration desk, but at the center.
Mike had a sinking feeling they were suicide bombers, even as he picked off the one closest to him. Andrei got the other, and Mike braced himself for the detonation.
Well, he’d gotten the suicide part right, but there were no explosions.
After that, it went from terrifying to enraging.
A few minutes later, a voice over a loud hailer spoke in Italian from the restaurant, commanding them to lay down their weapons.
“Michael Dunbar, US Marshal, here,” Mike called. “You come in here with your badge showing and we can talk.”
“I am Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Giardi, commanding the Lazio Carabinieri Battalion. Lay down your arms and surrender.”
At least that had been in English.
“There are a lot of dead and some wounded in here,” Mike called. “I’m going to trust but verify, sorry. Come in with your hands empty and where I can see them.”
The man stalked in, wearing a black balaclava, holding a small pistol in his hand, at what Mike would call port arms.
Mike stood up, his pistol at his side. “If you will permit me, I will produce my identification.”
“First, you will put down your weapon, most carefully, on the floor.”
Mike grimaced. Italians! They always had to prove they had more balls than any other two men! And their favorite way of doing that was grinding your face in the dirt.
Andrei spoke up. “Michael, I know this man. He is who he says. Go easy!”
Michael had already decided to go along, but he wasn’t happy about it. It turned out he had a good reason not to be happy with it.
More Carabinieri appeared, and Mike was quickly separated from his weapon. One of them was about to put on handcuffs when a trembling voice said, “Is it safe?”
Mike ignored the policemen, spinning and dropping to one knee next to the twelve-year-old Israeli girl. “Are you okay?”
“Unwounded,” she said forlornly. “My little brother is about to pee, but we are both unwounded.” Mike carefully moved her father’s body from her. Once the Carabinieri officer saw what he was doing, he ignored his boss’s command to cuff Michael to help get the two children free of their terrible prison.
More police appeared, including medics. Mike was pushed back, and eventually, belatedly, cuffed.
The night went steadily downhill. His requests to see someone from the American embassy were ignored. He was questioned interminably, well past the point where he could possibly produce anything worthwhile. In fact, he knew he contributed very little, and kept repeating that. He was ignored.
He asked what had happened to Andrei and Andrei’s bodyguard and was told nothing. Finally, mid-morning the next day, nearly delirious from fatigue, he was allowed a visit from one of the Embassy assistant consuls.
It was like the rest. He was told that the Italians were holding him for complicity in a terrorist incident and that the matter was very serious, and that he was going to have to hire an Italian lawyer.
He looked at the man from the American Embassy incredulously. “I am a US Marshal and I was on duty. And you say I have to hire a local attorney? On my own?”
“What you did was out of policy.”
“Since when is shooting terrorists attacking civilians out of policy? I thought that was my job description!”
“A great many people were killed, Mr. Dunbar. The Italians are being thorough.”
“And the US government is once again exposing its yellow belly,” Mike told the man. “The minute I hire a local attorney because my government won’t go to bat for me, I’ll be sending my superior my resignation. I will be sure that every newspaper and TV network in the US, in the entire world, hears my story.”
“You would be violating the rules you work under.”
“The rules I thought I worked under said that the government would stand for me if I was involved in official acts.”
“Standing in a hotel lobby, armed to the teeth, is not an official act. According to the Italians, you killed six or seven men.”
Mike was too tired, really too tired. “Maybe I should have notched my gun. At this point, I don’t really remember, and mostly I was too busy staying alive and keeping the people safe that I was sworn to protect, to keep track.”
Two hours later, the Carabinieri released Mike, returning all of his personal possessions ... everything except his pistol, and essentially tossed him out the door.
Andrei was waiting just outside, this time with a half dozen men, all of whom could have filled the Chicago Bears defensive line.
“I am sorry, Michael. I heard that they were holding you, and at first, I couldn’t believe it. When I learned they actually were, I called in favors and got you released. Only after I acted did I think — you probably didn’t need help from an exiled Russian oligarch.”
“Is that another word for the Russian Mafia?” Mike asked, bitterly.
“No, it is the usual meaning of the word, Michael. I will not pretend that I didn’t play fast and loose with the rules as the Soviet Union splintered. I will not tell you that I behaved in an entirely legal fashion — I excuse that in my mind because the laws would change so often, but yes, I took every advantage of the situation that I could.
“That said, I’ve never put the arm on someone, as you Americans so quaintly put it. I’ve never ordered someone rubbed out, and if one of my men had done such a thing, I’d have fired him — not killed him.”
Mike could only shrug. “Right now, the only thing I care about is a bed and sleep. I can deal with things a lot better if I stop nodding off in the middle of the conversation.”
“Come then, I will see you checked into another hotel. I will leave a couple of men to watch your door. The people who attacked the hotel are — upset — at you and me. And they know who we are. The Italians can be quite voluble when they think it is to their benefit.”
Mike was asleep as soon as he was in the limo, woke up enough to get upstairs to the small suite they’d gotten him, and then he crashed for the next fourteen hours.
He woke up at two a.m. local time, and with the help of his guards, found an open restaurant and had his first decent meal in two days, and then returned to the hotel, where he left a 7 AM wake up call.
He got up when the wake-up came and promptly phoned the American Embassy. He was politely told that the Italian police were looking for him again, and that he’d been declared persona non grata, and was to be on the next plane out of the country.
Mike tried his office in Washington, to be told that he was suspended without pay and told not to call again except during regular office hours. He was to report at 8 a.m., the next day, to face disciplinary action. Since that was physically impossible, he told them he’d be there when he got there.
A knock on the door made him concerned for a moment, and then he realized whom it must be. Still, he checked carefully first.
Andrei came in. “Events have progressed in some unexpected directions,” the Russian observed. “This has been a farce — that’s the only word that describes such a comedy.
“The terrorists had a plan that they no doubt thought they had worked out most carefully. It was actually only what you or I would call the mission statement.
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