The Spy Devils

by Joe Goldberg

  “I respect you as members of the same intelligence profession. So, let’s get this over—then you can go home. We can go home. And we are all happy. What do you say?”

  Bridger showed his white teeth through a sincere and friendly smile. He held it, then his chest rose and fell with a deep sigh.

  Bridger knew he would “get his hands dirty,” spending a lifetime hunting and destroying foreign intel operations and international criminals. Hell, he knew that decision was made for him a long time ago.

  His elevator descent from guiltless-saint level to guilty-devil level began in Honduras. Then came the human traffickers. The so-called warlords of insurgencies and civil wars. Arms dealers. Russian crime bosses. Ukrainian crime bosses. Russian SVR. Chinese Ministry of State Security. The list was endless. The work had been relentless.

  Bridger looked at Demon, then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a rusty pair of pliers. He waved them in front of Peng.

  “We may have to do this the hard way.”

  The right corner of Demon’s mouth twitched up and down like he was having a muscle spasm. It was as close to a smile as he ever got.

  Li Chu, the leader of MSS Bureau X, the Dragon Fire, crouched in the tall grass fifty yards to the south side of the building.

  So far, the trap to locate and kill the Spy Devils was working perfectly. The tracking signal gave away their location. After an excruciatingly long two-hour wait, the SUV finally reached its destination.

  Even with his monocular, he couldn’t see a thing through the dirty window except that the light was on. Under trees to his right, at the end of the drive and near the door, was the Mitsubishi SUV.

  Crouching low to his left was Fuhan, a new man fresh from the Ministry of State Security Academy in the Xiyuan area northwest of Beijing. All of the men with Li Chu about to assault the building were new graduates.

  Bai was all he had left of his best men. Bai had been with Li Chu since the beginning of Bureau X. Now he was willing bait, held captive by the cursed Bridger and the Spy Devils inside the one-story white building.

  Li Chu knew the resources he had were not optimal, but he had the element of surprise. Li Chu had one other weapon at his disposal—complete, unadulterated hatred.

  New strands of duct tape were wrapped around the MSS men's chests, mummifying them to the back of their rickety metal chairs.

  Bridger sat in a chair facing them. He expected Bai to hold up to the discomfort caused by the cattle prod setting of the Devil Stick. He did. He was a tough bastard and barely made a sound each time Demon jolted him.

  Peng, on the other hand, wasn’t doing as well. He was gasping for air. It was already hot in the room, but an unbelievable cascade of sweat was rolling down his face. His clothes were soaked with sweat and urine.

  “You know,” Bridger said as he leaned forward, “your man Shen, maybe you know him?” Bridger looked from Peng to Bai. “He only made it to setting four. Demon, how many volts is that?”

  “It’s the amps, not the volts. And the answer is not enough. Can we get on with this?”

  With his Devil Stick in his right hand, Demon stood behind the MSS men, irritatingly tapping it on the back of Peng’s metal chair. Cling. Cling. Cling. In his other hand, he was opening and closing the pliers with a metallic click click click.

  Bridger grinned. He had to admire his devotion to duty. Demon had always been there for him—since he was a kid living in CIA-paid housing in a dozen countries. Teaching. Training. He was always larger than life to a young, fatherless boy. In many ways, to Bridger, he still was. Bridger would always be there for him, too. He loved the man.

  “Now, on the other hand, I think Qiang made it all the way to six, but he lost a few fingernails in the process.”

  He looked at Demon.

  “Two. We are only at two,” Demon answered without being asked.

  Peng whimpered.

  “So, back to business.” Bridger smiled, leaned over, looked at the cookies, picked one up, and popped it in his mouth. He chewed and swallowed. “So much for that diet. Now, where was I? Yes, Fan, Ye, Dequan, and the others told us most of what we needed to know about the operation of Bureau X, with your fearsome Dragon Fire name.”

  Bridger knew that was only partially true. They had been extracting some information from the Dragon Fire captives, but May had been sending Bridger real intel since the beginning of the mission. His prisoners didn’t need to know that.

  “They became quite cooperative, eventually, and provided your mission, how long you have been active, your targets, and base and safe house locations. They also added detail on your leader. Li Chu, is it? Perhaps you can fill in some of the blank spots on this elusive Mr. Li Chu.”

  Bridger looked from one man to the other. His eyebrows raised as a quizzical look appeared on his face. Peng looked at Bai, eyes wide in desperation. Bai didn’t look at him at all. He just returned Bridger’s gaze with one of his own.

  “Gentlemen, you know how this will eventually end, right? In a day or two, no matter if you talk or not?” Bridger raised his arm to shoulder level. His index finger was out, his thumb was up, and the rest of his fingers were curled back in the universal hand position to look like a gun. He pointed at Bai.

  “Bang!” Then swiveled and pointed at Peng, who flinched when Bridger shouted “Bang!” at him.

  Bai’s expression of defiance dropped in the momentary realization of understanding, then went back to defiance. Peng started to moan.

  “Oh well,” Bridger sighed and motioned to Demon to continue. Demon increased the setting on the dial, but before he could tap a shoulder, three electronic beeps came from Bridger’s phone. He reached in and looked at the caller ID on the Signal secure communication app.

  “Are you kidding? Hang on, Demon. I have to get this. Sorry, guys.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Demon scowled, dropping the Stick to his side and stuffing the pliers in his front pocket.

  Bridger stood, hit the answer button, turned his back, and walked away from the men. He knew she didn’t call when they were operational in the field unless it was pre-scheduled or life-threatening.

  He put the phone to his ear.

  “Not a good time to chat, May.”

  “When I call,” said a voice with a slight Western New England accent, “it is always a good time.”

  4

  The Devilbots

  Taipei, Taiwan

  “You should be close to the completion of this operation,” said May Currier, Senior Advisor, Special Projects, to the Deputy Director of Operations for the CIA.

  “Yes, we are, so let us get on with dealing with the Chinese assassins.”

  “Yes, that is nice to know, but I have two important issues I need to discuss.”

  “Now? Don’t you have some paper clips to requisition or some other staff to terrorize?” Bridger said too loudly for the room.

  “I have intel you are about to be ambushed. Did you know that?”

  “Thank you, I do know. I am capable of spotting an ambush.”

  “Well, I hope so, son. I taught you. Then have a nice time. Don’t forget to call me.”

  For a moment, Bridger stood with his phone still at his ear when the line went dead. Then he dropped his arm and stuffed his phone into his pocket.

  “Imp. What’s the status?” Bridger said, his comm system picking up his question.

  “Status? You want the status? The status is I’m hiding in a car blocks away, hovering this toy on overwatch, while the others get to play bang bang.”

  “Grow up,” Milton replied with a hint of Alabama in his voice.

  “Be a good boy, Imp,” the soft voice of Beatrice contrasted with the hard sarcasm they transmitted. A few anonymous chuckles cut the tension.

  “Beatrice, you can—”

  “Stop right there,” Milton said, cutting Imp off.

  Milton and Beatrice. The lovebird couple.

  Bridger found Milton—named for the author of Parad
ise Lost—unsuccessfully flailing at pitching beyond comprehension start-up ideas to his alma mater, MIT. Scientific master of everything. He was twenty-nine but looked fourteen. Paper-thin. Red soup bowl-style cut bangs. One hundred fifty-five pounds, max. Wire-rimmed glasses over a freckled, ruddy face. A stereotypical egghead who spent most of his time in high school hiding in the science lab to avoid the daily beating by bullies.

  Bridger got a lead on Beatrice—her code name was plucked from Dante’s Divine Comedy—through a talent agency friend in New York. She was a talented actress who turned her mind to the paralegal profession to pay the bills. She was twenty-eight and could be described by the term “a knock-out.” Short Audrey Hepburn dark hair. Dark wide eyes. A great smile and the nicest person on the team, they all knew. Bridger rescued her from a life in law so she could use her many talents in makeup, acting, and research for the Spy Devil’s benefit.

  Some Newtonian force of nature he did not understand had bound Milton and Beatrice together. The thought of the combination—the beauty and the nerd—made Bridger smile. Milton, as Bridger reminded him, had out-kicked his coverage when it came to Beatrice.

  “Excuse me. Sorry to interrupt your humorous banter, but can someone tell me where the Chinese assassins are?” Bridger asked.

  “Alright,” Imp started as he raised his iPhone. It was controlling the Milton-modified DJI Mavic 2 Pro Quadcopter hovering at five hundred feet above the building. “I see three teams of two. Approaching from south, north, and west, as expected. Fifty yards out and closing. One team of two across the lane hiding in the grass. Two vans. Parked along the road at each end. One idiot each in the driver’s seat. Funny, isn’t it?”

  “What?” Milton asked.

  “The drones we are using to whack their asses are made in China.”

  “Poetic-fucking justice.” The deep baritone voice of Beast joined the conversation.

  “It is nice to know just how close they are. We are a little distracted and in the dark in here. The Devilbots are ready?” Bridger said.

  “We have all four in the air targeting each of their teams. We don’t have a clear shot at the guys across the lane. Trees are in the way. We will have to get a little closer. We will send up one right after to help Snake if he has issues.”

  “I ain’t having any issues,” Snake said.

  Devilbots, as Milton named them, were customized off-the-shelf DJI Spark Quad Portable Mini Drones, and with his tinkering, he thought were pretty damned impressive. Compact. About the size of an open paperback book with four propellers coming out of it at forty-five-degree angles. 2-axis stabilized gimbal camera. Infra-red. 12MP still photos. 1080P/30 video. Gesture control. Flight autonomy. HD Wi-Fi video transmission. Obstacle detection. Subject tracking. GPS. Vision position-based navigation. Tactical sensors. Face recognition and tracking.

  Milton was in love.

  However, the improvement that gave Milton mini-orgasms and turned the ordinary drone into a Devilbot was the precision auto-firing gun mounts attached under the mini-drone chassis. From these, the Devilbot could target, site, and fire two 9mm rounds out to three hundred yards with near one hundred percent lethal accuracy.

  If all else failed, each Devilbot had a shape charge on its top. It could be put in kamikaze mode, dive, and flip to slam the explosive into the target. The result was a quarter-sized hole into whatever it hit.

  They were silent. They were invisible in the sky. They were deadly.

  “Snake? You ready to play cowboy?”

  “Yippee-ki-yah,” Snake replied in an exaggerated southern accent.

  Snake’s solid tree-stump frame counted thirty-three years of rings. He looked like a cop. Acted like a cop. Talked like a cop. That made sense since he had spent ten years on the NYPD. The last few in the Intel and Counterterrorism Bureau—until he got shot. The seasoned street-wise investigator turned into a spy. He had the permanent look of mischief on his face under neat black hair. He wore blue jeans and a gray V-neck short sleeve t-shirt that was straining hard to hold in his biceps.

  He was a block away, idling on a dented orange-and-white 150cc Kymco scooter.

  “Alright. We go in thirty seconds,” Bridger told his team. “Tape them,” he said to Demon.

  With a rrrippp rrrippp two pieces of duct tape covered their captives’ mouths.

  Bridger bent over and put his face inches from Bai’s, who, for the first time, looked back with panic in his eyes. Beads of sweat on his face. His nostrils were sucking in air. His cheeks were billowing like gills on a fish.

  Bai saw the instant change of expression on Bridger’s face—from nice guy to devil.

  “If you would have talked, maybe you could have saved your buddies. More people are going to die. Hope you said good-bye to your family.” Bridger straightened and looked at his Shinola watch. “You didn’t think I would see this was a set-up? I don’t think you could have made it more obvious. What do they teach you at Dragon Fire school? Anything? Hell, the pimple-faced clerk at the 7-Eleven probably saw it coming.”

  Bai rattled in his chair, straining to break free.

  “No, sorry. You can’t warn your pals.” Bridger felt the anger rolling in his body. He didn’t try to stop it. Now, he didn’t want to. “You can watch and listen.”

  “Um, guys.” Imp’s voice came over the comm. “They are coming out of the brush. Twenty yards and closing. I’m zooming on pistols and little machine gun thingies. I think this might be a good time to do something.”

  Bridger checked the room. Beast had one hand on the door handle. Sig Sauer ready in the other. Demon was still behind Bai and Peng, with his suppressed 1911 pointed toward the door—ready for it to open.

  Bridger took a last glance at his watch.

  “In three, two, one…”

  5

  Greetings From the Devil

  Taipei, Taiwan

  Li Chu took a step out from the edge of the brush, paused, and scanned the fifteen yards of open space to the building. He checked one last time with his men. As untested as they were, he was pleased to see they all seemed focused and ready. The Spy Devils had eviscerated his Dragon Fire team. Li Chu hoped killing the Spy Devils would be the kind of success that could keep MSS leadership from killing him for his failure.

  Li Chu looked at Fuhan. His neck was jammed into his shoulders. Tension. His hands were shaking.

  “Stick with me,” he said with a smile.

  He wasn’t sure what he heard over his comm earpiece. Grunts? Popping?

  He did hear the thud when the shell went through the bridge of Fuhan’s nose and out the back of his head. Blood, brains, and debris splattered onto the side of Li Chu’s face. With muscle memory instinct burned into him during his training, he spun and dropped like a rag doll back into the brush.

  Li Chu felt the burn of the bullet on the right side of his head above his ear like a thousand bees were stinging his face. Blood seemed to be everywhere. His body was on fire. He was certain he was going to faint.

  But the adrenalin kicked in, as did his warrior senses. He didn’t have time to contemplate what happened to his team. Instead, he willed his body to move. His hands clawed at the grass. His feet propelled him forward in short hops like a rabbit. Blood filled his eyes. The ringing in his ear brought on dizziness. He was moments away from vomiting and passing out.

  Li Chu thought he heard a motorcycle and then buzzing. When he realized the buzzing was closing in on him, he got up. He ran through the trees and bushes, his arms lashing out in front of him against the obstacles like he was holding invisible machetes.

  When the sound was over his head, Li Chu planted his feet and jumped into the muddy water of the irrigation canal. The water on his skin and wounds gave him a moment of peace. It was four feet deep, his mind calculated. Deep enough for him to keep under the surface. Then his lungs started burning. He stuck his feet and hands into the muck on the bottom of the canal, clawing to find rocks and debris as handholds to help him stay under and mov
e with the current.

  After a minute, begging to pass out to stop the pain, he raised his head out of the brown water to eye level. Nothing was following him. He raised a few more inches and took in a lungful of air. Then let the current float him away.

  Milton and Beatrice flipped the Devilbots into auto mode. In seconds, the drones fired on the Dragon Fire men. They had no chance to save themselves. Seven were dead within eight seconds. Mostly center mass shots—a few to the head.

  The scooter screeched to a stop next to the door of the first van. Snake put four bullets from his Glock-19 through the window and into the Dragon Fire man’s head. Snake hit the throttle on the scooter. The back wheel smoked and fish-tailed as he rounded the slight curve. He drove straight at the other van.

  At ten yards, he swung his leg over and dismounted the moving scooter on the run—like a movie cowboy jumping off their horse in a hurry. The scooter kept going. It exploded into the front of the van, jerking it back as debris sprayed along the street.

  Snake had his Glock-19 up in firing position, but his momentum made him stumble as he fired. His first shot was high and to the left. The stunned Dragon Fire man opened the side door. Snake was able to steady himself. His bullets went into one side of the man’s brains and out the other.

  “That’s two.” Snake folded his arms to cover the weapon as he walked away from the wreck. “No issues.”

  “We have a crawler. Southside,” Imp announced.

  Milton put his Devilbot into dive mode to ram the man, but he had jumped into the water by the time it arrived.

  “He is in the water,” Milton said. “Do you want me to follow?”

  There was no answer.

  Beast threw the door open—pistol up and ready. Bridger glanced out, then heard a strange clanking sound of metal breaking.