Betrayal j-2 Page 6

  She got into the SUV, opting for silence. He moved to within a few feet of her, and the agents discreetly moved out of earshot, the driver taking the hint and joining them.

  “I need an answer now, I’m afraid. Do you help me help you, or no?”

  “What if I decline?”

  “Then hold onto your memory of your daughter because it’s all you’ll ever have of her. And then hope that you can survive in a terrorist detention camp for the next fifty years because that’s where you’ll be going. You’ll be categorized as such by the CIA, and there will be no trial or defense.”

  “So much for the land of the free.”

  “Last time I checked, you aren’t a citizen, so don’t complain. You were apprehended with two passports in different names. You were on American soil for nefarious purposes. It’s your word against the CIA’s, and you have nobody to tell your story to. You’ll be sequestered twenty-four hours a day with no access to anyone but your guards, who won’t talk to you. That will be your life. That is, if I don’t decide to just put a bullet in your head while you’re trying to escape. The idea crossed my mind, and I’m sure I could find three volunteers back at the asylum — one of whom might die from the trauma to his lungs and the internal bleeding you caused.”

  “Those are the hazards of this kind of duty. You should train them better.”

  “Perhaps. Now I am out of time. Your answer — a million dollars and your daughter back, or incarceration and possibly worse?”

  Jet sighed. There was really no choice. If she’d been able to escape, maybe…but not now.

  “You win.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  “It’s a yes. But a couple of conditions. I don’t want to go back to the basement with the rats. And I’ll need a complete dossier on the target, as well as a full history of the two botched operations. And I will be responsible for coming up with a plan, with no strings or conditions. Just get the diamonds back, and terminate the target. Other than that, I answer to no one.”

  Arthur nodded, raising a cloth handkerchief to his mouth to blot the saliva that had begun welling in the corner. “I would expect nothing less.”

  “And you’ll supply me with whatever resources I need to pull this off, without question.”

  “No. I reserve the right to question. I won’t just write you a blank check.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment. “No interference, though. I won’t be second-guessed by agendas that differ from my prime objective. I’ve seen that too many times, and it can get you killed.”

  “That’s reasonable. Terminate the target, and get the diamonds back. There is no additional agenda. That’s it,” Arthur stated flatly.

  “Then we have a deal. Once I am successful, I get my daughter back, the million dollars, and we’re even. No surprises or strings. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  Chapter 8

  The big SUV took Jet to a safe house in Manassas, Virginia, where she found a simple but comfortable two bedroom residence with a fully-stocked fridge — a marked improvement over the damp cell she’d woken up to. A CIA physician was waiting for her when she arrived, and explained to her that she would need to get a tracking chip implanted under her skin near her shoulder as part of her arrangement with Arthur. She couldn’t think of any easy way to avoid it, so she sat in the offered chair and stoically allowed the doctor to insert the microchip.

  The procedure only took a few minutes, and then he and the two agents that had accompanied her left, one of them advising her on the way out that they would be in a parked car only a few yards away if she needed anything.

  Even though she was tired, she resolved to go through the files that sat on the dining room table, along with a laptop computer for her use. She assumed that everything she did was being watched or tracked — that would be standard procedure in a safe house. It wasn’t worth trying to spot the various hidden cameras that were sure to be in every room. She couldn’t do anything to disable them that wouldn’t result in immediate problems, so she would have to make the best of being a virtual prisoner, albeit one with clean sheets and freshly-squeezed orange juice in the refrigerator.

  Jet picked up the first folder and fell into an overstuffed reclining chair in the living room and then switched on a lamp next to it. A prominent Top Secret stamped across the top and bottom greeted her when she extracted the file.

  Flipping it open, she found five photos grouped together on a contact sheet, followed by six more head shots of a Caucasian man in his early forties. Blond in some of them, brown-haired in others, a chocolate brunette in still others. Neutral features that had likely been rendered even more so by cosmetic surgery — field agents were often made to look generic so as to better blend into any situation and draw no attention. Hairstyles changed across the photos, with side parts replaced with a longish shag that gave him a vaguely bohemian look.

  Most of the photos were taken from passport and official identification shots. His eyes varied in color as much as his hair, ranging from blue to green to brown.

  She appraised him and saw a decent-looking, completely generic white man with no distinguishing qualities — a chameleon. Designed to be the perfect operational asset, capable of convincingly being a businessman one week, a tourist the next, a professor the following one, a journalist or doctor or attorney at whim. She supposed, somewhere there was a file at the Mossad with similar photographs of her, although David had sworn that none of the team existed in the official records. Like so much of what he’d professed, she now doubted the veracity of his assurances.

  The target’s name was Matthew Hawker. Matt, to his ex-colleagues. His list of aliases ran two pages.

  Forty-four years old, born in Philadelphia, recruited from college after serving a stint with the American Army’s ultra-elite Delta Force commandoes, his service record while in the army classified, but with a short note that he was an expert in special operations, insertions, explosives, sniping, and every kind of weapon. Scuba certified. A pilot’s license dated three years after his honorable discharge. A bachelor in international business from Hampton University. Spoke fluent Vietnamese, Thai and Cantonese from having been raised abroad by parents who had been with the U.S. diplomatic corps. No further elaboration on what positions they’d held.

  Hawker’s first assignment in the field for the CIA had been in Cambodia, where he had been stationed undercover as a small time exporter, collecting data on strategic targets in the region and developing a network of informants. From there he moved around, to Vietnam, and then ultimately to Thailand, where he had been the most senior field agent in-country. The operations he was involved in were classified at a higher level than the file could reveal, but she could read between the lines with Myanmar right across the border. A senior field agent with these skills would have been involved in information gathering, insurgency sponsorship, and assassinations — whatever was required.

  He’d been offered promotions to desk positions in Langley three times over the last four years and had declined them all. Apparently, Hawker liked to play the field. She understood the type of personality — once you lived in the parallel reality that was covert ops it was hard to ever go back to living any kind of a normal life. It was addictive, even if hazardous to one’s health.

  She looked at the photos again and noted that his eyes had the same flat, expressionless gaze that her photos always had. A professional skill learned early. The eyes were indeed the windows to the soul, and one of the first lessons had been that it was best to shutter them at all times.

  Hawker’s personal relationships were limited to casual girlfriends that never got serious — the story she knew all too well from having lived the life. You avoided entanglements and compartmentalized everything — there was no way of knowing on any particular day whether you would be redeployed the next, or have to run. It was a difficult existence where an operative was an island unto himself, isolated from all the usual connections that humans natura
lly sought out. For that reason, her relationship with David had been forbidden and would have provoked immediate consequences, had it ever been discovered. You could never grow close to anyone. It was dangerous, and endangered your partner. Better to keep it limited to the superficial, never growing attached.

  Nothing in Hawker’s background suggested anything but a model agent. There could have been no warning that he would betray the master he’d served obediently for close to two decades.

  His last assignment wasn’t described in the file. Which was understandable. At some point, all documentation became vague as an agent became immersed in more sensitive areas — as Arthur had intimated, in affairs that required discretion and deniability.

  She pored over the information again, committing it to memory, and then stretched and yawned. It was two in the morning. The rest would have to wait till the following day.

  Jet locked the front door deadbolt, slid the security chain in place and peered through the window. The two agents were hardly visible in their government sedan. She padded to the bedroom, took a quick shower and brushed her teeth — making a mental note to go shopping soon and get some clothes. Hers were due for a change.

  The bed was blissfully comfortable, and she was asleep within a few minutes of her head hitting the pillow. The cameras and eavesdropping devices recorded her tossing and turning several hours later, along with a few muffled cries as her slumber was disturbed by visions of her daughter being torn from her bosom, and of a white-tufted monster covered with scar tissue tormenting her as she lost her grasp.

  Jet awoke at eight and, for a few seconds, didn’t know where she was. Then the prior day’s events came rushing back to her, and she forced herself to roll out of bed and start the day.

  She pulled open a drawer and found a pair of elastic waist running shorts that sort of fitted her and several extra-large T-shirts that didn’t. She pulled one on and studied her reflection in the dresser mirror — not the height of fashion, but it would do.

  The orange juice was a welcome breakfast complement to the energy bars she found in the pantry cupboard, and after consuming two, she was preparing for a run when the telephone on the kitchen wall rang.

  “I trust you’re up,” Arthur said when she picked up the handset.

  “You know I am. The cameras would have told you I was.”

  “I’ll arrange for some clothes to be brought in while you are out on what I presume is your morning run.”

  “Good guess.”

  “Any special requests?”

  “Yes. Skip the clothes, and leave a thousand dollars in cash and keys to a car. I want to select my own clothes.”

  “Fine on the money, but no on the car. You don’t have any ID yet, including a driver’s license. I can’t afford for you to get into an accident and trigger any questions. I’ll arrange for a driver at whatever time you like.”

  She glanced at her watch.

  “One o’clock. I want to spend a few hours on the files before.”

  “That will work. Is there anything else you need?”

  “If there is, I’ll just announce it in a loud voice in any of the rooms. You can take it from there.”

  “This is only for a short while. I’m hoping you’ll want to get into the field and take care of this errand.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “No. I’ll send someone by at one.”

  Just the sound of his voice enraged her while simultaneously giving her the creeps. She swallowed her anger with an effort, then moved to the door and swung it open. No point in locking it with the two agents parked outside. Two new ones, she noted as she stretched, before heading down the sidewalk towards a park at the far end of the block. A male jogger took up position a hundred yards behind her as she crossed the street to the park. The agency was wasting no effort.

  An hour later, she trotted back to the front door and did her cool down stretches before mounting the three steps and re-entering. A small pile of twenty and hundred dollar bills sat on the kitchen table along with a smaller T-shirt and a few hygiene items. Someone had been thinking, but it was hardly comprehensive, and she would need to stop at a pharmacy as well as a clothing store.

  After another shower, she towel-dried her hair and returned her attention to the files, selecting one of the two she hadn’t yet read.

  This one was different. A provisional report; incomplete and filled with speculation.

  Anthony Simms, age thirty-two, had been dispatched into Laos after receiving word that Hawker had taken up residence in the hills there and was employing a group of anywhere from ten to fifty armed men, depending upon the source. Simms was an experienced field agent with a ten-year history of successful sanctions in the region — in other words, an assassin who did nothing but kill. His operational background was purely one of executions. No other kind of missions.

  Simms had followed up on a tip about the location of the target’s base camp. He had checked in every four hours as required, but one and a half days into his trek he had gone dark. His tracking chip had placed him north of the Mekong river in an uninhabited stretch of jungle infamous for drug syndicates and smugglers. The chip had stopped transmitting at ten p.m. local time. Simms had never been heard from again. His body was found a week later near the Laos border in Thailand, badly decomposed and mostly eaten by the local animals. Final identification had only been possible through dental records.

  That wasn’t particularly helpful.

  Other than informing her that one of the CIA’s more experienced killers had made his final mistake.

  She returned the file to the table and opened the second one.

  This time two operatives, both from the most elite of the CIA’s wet teams, had been deployed when the Thai agent in charge had gotten wind that Hawker was involved with a network of human traffickers and a slavery syndicate that supplied one of the larger prostitution networks in Bangkok.

  She read the account, which described a series of seemingly unrelated bits of intelligence describing a new gang in the Golden Triangle headed by a farang — a white devil rumored to feast on human hearts and dance in the moonlight covered with his victims’ blood. The rumors were that he was impossibly rich and had a hundred men armed with the latest weapons, and was a ghost that even the Myanmar military was terrified of.

  Two men had gone in.

  Never to be heard from again.

  Both were seasoned combat veterans with extensive histories operating in the most dangerous environments on the planet. Africa. The Middle East. The Balkans.

  They had gone into the jungle a week ago.

  And disappeared without a trace three days later.

  The detail of the report described a group in Bangkok that specialized in underage prostitutes and sadism, offering more extreme versions of the spectrum to an international clientele that traveled from all over the world to partake in the forbidden fruits it provided. The head of the organization was a man by the name of Lap Pu, no doubt an alias, who was almost as much of a phantom as the farang.

  Pu was rumored to have a relationship with the white ghost, and acted as his eyes and ears in Thailand.

  She read for another hour, but the Byzantine maze of relationships, rivalries and rumored allegiances was overwhelming and would require much more study if she was going to formulate any kind of coherent plan.

  But one thing seemed obvious to her.

  The trail began in Thailand. That was where Hawker had been based, so that was where his contacts would be. Find a weak link in his associates, and with any luck, they would lead her to him.

  Chapter 9

  After two hours of shopping, Jet was reasonably outfitted, and when she made it back to the house, she was glad she’d decided to get her own clothes. Even though she was as drip dry as they came, it was nice for things to fit correctly and not look awful.

  She pushed the door open, toting three plastic clothes bags, and found herself face to face with Arthur, who was sitting
in the living room sipping a diet soda through a straw — a requirement, given the state of his face.

  “Ah, so you’re back. Did you find everything you need?”

  “I got the necessities. What are you doing here?”

  “I was hoping you have come up with some preliminary thoughts about our situation.”

  “You mean the one where you kidnapped my daughter and are blackmailing me so I’ll kill someone for you?”

  He ignored that.

  “No, more the question of how to find our rogue agent, and what will be required to do so.”

  She set the bags down and stared at him in disbelief.

  “I just finished reading the last of the files before lunch. Are you kidding me?”

  “You are rumored to be the best. I suppose I was overly optimistic…”

  “That may be, but I’m not a magician. This could take weeks to plan. I don’t have a lot of information to go on. Other than some rumors of your man having gone native, the files are thin on supporting intelligence.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that. We’ve actually received new satellite footage, but it isn’t going to be of much help. It’s such a large area. And there are caves, villages, and plenty of questionable encampments set up by the smugglers, any of which could be the target or a red herring.”