by Ronie Kendig
“The only thing that worries Sienna is position and power. If she wasn’t stealing it, she was sleeping with it.”
“Whoa, that’s harsh,” Leif said around a laugh.
“I warned you she brings out my ugly side. But really, is it harsh?” Peyton challenged. “Is it a coincidence she just so happened to show her pretty face at the same time we are there? The location we had just told Acton we’d be visiting?”
“Boom!” Cell said. “Told you that guy felt off.”
CHAPTER 7
REAPER HEADQUARTERS, MARYLAND
“Can we talk?”
Leif stopped short, surprised to find Iskra in the bunker again. “Sure. Always.” He guided her to the side, noting Iliescu and Braun talking near the hub. “What’s up?”
“Your sister-in-law called me.”
“Okay.”
“No. It is not.” Color flushed her cheeks. “I appreciate what you were trying to do—”
“I didn’t have an ulterior motive,” he said, feeling the need to lift his hands. “You said you had no friends or family here, so I reached out to mine.” He wouldn’t mention how much he hoped the kids would hit it off so Iskra would be more comfortable around his family. “It’s important to be connected to people. And I figured it wouldn’t hurt Taissia to have other children to play with.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s nice.”
“I’m a nice guy.”
“And a liar.”
He blinked. “What?”
“You did not do that for my daughter.”
“Then why did I do it?”
Iskra looked so conflicted with her shoulders bunched and eyebrows drawn together. She darted her gaze to the hub, then back. “It was a nice gesture, Leif. But please—let me take care of these things.”
Now it was his turn to frown. “I don’t get it. I was trying to help—”
“I know.” She seemed to struggle with something.
“You said you couldn’t go on the mission because there was no one to take care of Taissia. Now that’s resolved.” He shook his head. “How did I screw up?”
“Because I don’t need you to do these things for me.”
“We are zero for two,” Cell announced at the hub, severing their argument. “Yes, Carsen Gilliam has a cell phone. No, I cannot get a lock on it.”
When iskra walked off, Leif sighed and joined the others around the conference table. “So it’s either off or dead.”
“Or he’s somewhere signals don’t reach.”
“Pretty sure they don’t reach hell,” Lawe snarked.
“How can you know the condition of someone’s soul?” Devine challenged. “I think you should look to your own, Adam.”
“It was a joke,” he said.
“Lawe, Culver, and I found absolutely zero at the New York condo,” Mercy reported. “It was more sanitized than an operating room before surgery. Not even sure I saw any fingerprints.”
“So that’s a bust,” Leif said.
“Carsen’s laptop is another story,” Cell went on, ignoring the drama. “I can’t trace it now, but two days ago it logged IP addresses in North Carolina, Georgia, then Miami.”
“So he was on the move,” Lawe said.
“Well, his system was,” Leif countered. “Can’t definitively prove that’s where he was, but it’s a starting point. Have you identified what was at the location of those IP addresses?”
Nodding, Cell clicked a few keys on his laptop. “A bookstore in North Carolina, an all-night pancake place in Georgia, and then a coffee shop in Miami. All free Wi-Fi spots.”
“Are you able to see what he did on the computer at those spots?”
“Negative, not without the device itself or a direct link.” Cell shrugged. “But Mercy could probably piggyback his system if we can catch him online next time.”
“Of course I can,” Mercy scoffed.
North Carolina, Georgia, Miami. “He was driving down the Eastern Seaboard, basically,” Leif noted. “Why? Where was he going?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Dru said. “We’re scouring SIGINT for him, but have yet to find anything. My guess is that he’s looking for a quick, anonymous exit from the States.”
“If he gets off U.S. soil, we are unlikely to find him again,” Braun added.
“So we just sit and wait until he shows up?”
“Negative,” Leif said. “We head to Africa to find Kurofuji.”
***
CAMP LEMONNIER, DJIBOUTI CITY, HORN OF AFRICA
“It’s too hot here to be May,” Lawe grumbled.
They’d landed and exited the plane and had to hoof it to the hangar in the African heat. After stacking their gear, they checked for updates from Iliescu and even had time to scout the mess hall.
“Thought we were meeting someone,” Saito said as they settled back into their space in the hangar.
On the far side of the room, Culver and Lawe were going at it on the Xbox while Devine serviced her rifle and chatted up Maddox and Iskra.
“Okay,” Cell said from the corner where he worked his laptop. “I’ve given y’all call signs to make it easier during sensitive missions. As I said before, the team is code-named Reaper.”
“Reaper’s cool,” Saito said. “And our call signs?”
“Leif is still Runt, since it has no bearing on his true identity.”
“And the rest of us?”
“Peyton keeps her field name, Coriolis—”
The former cheerleader looked up. “For the Coriolis effect. Any object moving horizontally on or near the earth’s surface is deflected slightly off course due to the spinning of the planet.” Nodding, she smiled. “It’s legit.”
Cell’s expression seemed to waver between relief and pleasure. “So, Culver is Tabasco.”
The southern guy snorted. “Because I’m just that hot.”
“Uh, well, because of your red hair.”
Lawe guffawed.
“Lawe is Badge.”
“You mean badger?” Culver suggested.
“Dude.” Lawe frowned. “Lame.”
“It works—Lawe, law enforcement officer, thus badge,” Cell countered. “Baddar is Smiley, Iskra—I’m stealing Mercy’s nickname for her—Storm. And Mercy is Kitty.”
Mercy pumped both hands in the air. “Yes! Katherine Pryde, folks, at her best.”
“And me?” Saito asked.
“I hope you won’t think this is racist, but I went with Samurai.”
Saito’s expression was implacable, but then he grinned. “An honor.”
“So, now that we all have goofy names, let’s get ready for RTB,” Leif said.
RTB Concepts was the paramilitary contractor that employed Qiang Kurofuji and the reason he’d been in Djibouti when he went MIA. While civilian contractors were paid well and often had approval to operate in-country, sometimes they didn’t. Just as with any organization or entity, some were corrupt. Most weren’t. Though it put him on edge to work with their kind, Leif set that aside. They were here to meet the men of RTB and find out what they knew.
Leif heard steps beyond the door before it opened and whistled to the team. Heads swiveled, games ended, and silence fell as a brawny, bearded guy in a ball cap entered, flanked by two equally beefy guys.
Slowly, Leif came to his feet. “Can we help you?”
“You Runt?”
He started toward the newcomers, sensing Reaper forming up. “Spill?”
The lead guy grabbed his hand. “That’s me.” He tossed his head to the left. “That’s Dribbler, and the little guy”—which was like asking which mountain was smaller—“is Ghillie.”
“Appreciate you coming out to help us,” Leif said.
“No problem,” Spill said as he tugged the brim of his hat, then folded his arms. “Glad to assist anyone looking into Fuji’s disappearance. You ready?”
Noting Spill didn’t care that he hadn’t provided Reaper’s names, Leif grabbed his ruck, and the team did the same. Outside
the hangar, they piled into two armored SUVs.
“So, what’d they tell you about Fuji?” Spill waved to the guards at the security checkpoint before they pulled onto the road.
“Well, I didn’t know he was called that.”
Spill grinned, navigating Djibouti City like a pro. “I hate long names, and so do the guys.”
“Is that why you’re called Spill?”
“Spiliotopoulou.” He turned onto a congested four-lane road. “They used to cuss me out in Basic because they couldn’t fit my last name on a tape or pronounce it. Everyone mangles it. And out here, you don’t want people knowing your name anyway.”
“Which is why you didn’t care when I didn’t introduce my team.”
“All I care about is finding Fuji and making sure he’s not in trouble or dead.”
“I hear you.” Leif tagged each street sign he saw, memorizing the route as they slipped deeper into the city, passing slums one second and a massive compound the next.
“Looks like Ghillie’s hitting it off with one of your team,” Spill said as he gunned it around a tangle of cars, the SUV barreling down a sidewalk.
Leif glanced back and saw the heavily tattooed guy deep in conversation with Devine. He snorted. Ghillie. “He a sniper?”
“We all are.” Spill shrugged. “But he’s obsessed with it.”
“So’s she.” Leif scanned rooftops and alleys and kept eyes on the second SUV behind them. “What’s the temperature like here?”
“Up and down,” Spill said, knowing Leif wasn’t talking about the weather. “Things have been tense, and now with the adviser’s death . . .”
Right—he’d heard the American ambassador’s adviser had been gunned down. “What’s RTB’s focus?”
“Mostly helping local military with training and security. When Lemonnier brings in VIPs, we assist.”
“What was Fuji working on last?”
“We’d just signed a two-year contract with Global Initiative Alliance, who’s looking to set up a company here.”
“Haven’t heard of them.”
“Me either.” Spill angled down a road flanked by cracking, peeling, abandoned warehouses. “But they paid well, so we took it.”
“And Fuji signed on, too?”
“Happily. He’d been putting away money to get a place. Had a girl he wanted to bring over.”
Maybe that was how Fuji paid for that NYC condo. “Foreign bride?” A klick down, the road seemed to end, and they were moving pretty fast toward it.
Spill shrugged. “Think it was an arranged thing. He might’ve been born and bred in the good ol’ US of A, but he was hard-core Chinese.”
“And yet Kurofuji is a Japanese name.”
“Yep. He said his dad was Japanese and died, then his mom remarried. His mom has some serious power over him. Know what I’m saying? Still has pretty big connections in China and was key in setting up the bride. Fuji was stoked—they’d Skyped and all that. He was hot for her.”
“And yet he walked.”
“Messed up, isn’t it?” Spill shook his head as he lifted his phone, thumbed in a series of numbers, and flicked his gaze to the looming dead end. A series of concrete barriers set in a switchback pattern forced them to slow. A steel gate topped with barbed wire trundled out of the way, funneling them into a bottleneck between another gate that remained closed. Spill pulled in until the SUV’s grill nearly touched the gate so the second SUV could squeeze in.
In his side mirror, Leif watched the first gate lumber back into position. When Spill entered another code, the second gate surrendered, allowing them into a parking lot. On his three there was a small garage-like structure. Straight ahead loomed what looked like an old apartment complex.
“Welcome to Fort Dodge,” Spill said with a grin. “Where even the bullets dodge bullets.”
“Sad,” Ghillie said, throwing open the door and climbing out.
Leif scanned the whitewashed building as the second vehicle emptied out. “That’s a lot of area to cover.”
“Eight levels,” Spill said, waving them in through the main doors. “All empty save the second”—he strode down the hall to the left and flicked open a door to a flight of stairs—“and what we call the penthouse, which gives us a bird’s-eye view of the street and surrounding city.”
They hiked up a flight, then in through a door to an elevator, which took them to the eighth floor and dumped them into . . . some serious luxury.
Dumbstruck, Leif hesitated at the main area.
Culver let out a long, low whistle at the space. High-tech and manned with a half dozen men, the center had a circular command area with five or six computers. Monitors hung from the ceiling at an angle. Around the perimeter were workstations and glass-walled rooms protecting tables and chairs. The far side had three doors, set equidistant apart. Offices, Leif guessed.
“Fuji’s station is over there,” Spill said, pointing to a cubicle in the hub. “His bunk’s through here.” He stepped back and flipped a door handle, moving into a hall lined with a dozen doors. “There are more bunks on the lower level, but we haven’t used them in a while.”
Cell shifted, messenger bag slung over his shoulder. “Mind if I check out his system?”
“Great minds think alike.” Mercy slid up next to Cell and smiled at Spill. “I’m sure you have your security protocols in place so we don’t bump into something we shouldn’t see, right?”
Leif wanted to laugh—there wasn’t a protocol in place that could block Mercy Maddox. And while he didn’t condone her hacking one of their own, it could be exactly her skills that would find the unfindable on Qiang Kurofuji.
Lifting a hand, Spill looked past them back into the hub. “Jeeves!”
“Yeah, Boss?” A guy in a black T-shirt and jeans pushed to his feet from the far side of the circular setup, headphones around his neck.
“Show them Fuji’s station and help them get logged in.”
“Sure thing.” Jeeves came around the hub and met Mercy and Cell.
“Doubt they’ll find much.” Spill turned back to the bunk rooms. “Besides video conferencing with his girl, Fuji wasn’t a tech guy. Said he was old-fashioned. Didn’t even like to read books on a device.” After opening the door, he stepped aside and let them enter.
Grunting, Leif moved into the space, a place he couldn’t call a bunk room. More like a four-star hotel with a bed, sofa, table, and kitchenette. A tapestry depicting Buddha hung on a wall.
“Son of a . . .” Lawe muttered. “I think I’m getting ripped off.”
“We’re always recruiting skilled operators,” Spill offered.
“Back off,” Leif said, forcing a smile he didn’t feel. “He’s mine.”
“When am I getting that raise you promised?” Lawe asked as he walked the room, eyeing the packed bookshelves, nightstand, and coffee table.
“You got a bad memory,” Leif said. “Gave you that raise when you left the Army for our team.”
“Is that what that extra two dollars in my paycheck is?”
“Two? It was supposed to be one.” Leif opened a door and found a closet with clothes on one side and on the other, shelves—ammo stacked neatly next to cans of chili. Nothing like priorities.
“Spill?” a voice called from outside the room.
RTB’s chief moved back into the hall and glanced toward the main hub. “S’up?”
“HQ’s on the line for you.”
Concern flicked through Spill’s face. “Coming.” He looked at Leif.
“Yep.” Glad for the opportunity to be alone, Leif waved him on. “We want to check around some more. We’ll find you when we’re done.”
With a nod, Spill left them to their own devices.
“Seriously,” Lawe grumbled, “we’re getting ripped off with bunks and vinyl mattresses. I need to talk to Iliescu.”
“Good luck,” Saito muttered.
“It ain’t all about money,” Culver said, moving away from a bookcase to a small table.
“Arrogance, then?” Devine offered.
Leif scanned the spines on the bookcase. There were contemporary thrillers, historical accounts, a Bible, and a couple dozen paperbacks, but the majority were nonfiction about military operators who’d gotten out and needed a way to keep the cash flow strong. Lucky for those guys, their work could be shared—once it was declassified.
“Did you see this?” Culver asked. “This is some piece of work.”
Leif glanced over his shoulder at Culver, who was studying the tapestry. Dark teal and orange were set off by cream-colored figures and a very prominent Buddha at the center. Surrounding him were several characters, each doing something different. “What is it?”
“Buddha,” Saito said.
“I know that,” Leif growled. A nebulous thought swelled at the back of his head but refused to take shape. “It has . . . meaning.”
“Of course it does,” Saito said. “In Chinese mythology, Mara is a demon. This is a painting called The Assault of Mara, in which Mara and his lusty daughters try to tempt Buddha away from the right path so he will not attain enlightenment.”
There was something about this that went beyond its oddity. Mesmerized by the depictions within the tapestry, Leif focused on each figure to memorize them. He couldn’t explain why, but it felt important. Significant.
Wait.
Leif shifted back. Buddha tapestry. He checked the bookshelves. Strode over and tugged the Bible from between two thrillers and flipped it open. Rifled through it, noticed some marks. A sticky note. Highlights. At the front, an inscription in Mandarin.
“Saito.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you read this?”
Saito came over and eyed the Bible. “‘For Qiang and our future. Your most loyal Ru Shi’.”
“And how do you read Mandarin so well, being American and all?” Culver challenged.
“Military wanted me to learn it for a mission. Quite extensive and intensive.” Saito shrugged and glanced again at the inscription. “I took it as a challenge.”
After a nod, Leif refocused on the inscription. Loyal. A Bible with notes scribbled in it. Read. Studied, it seemed. And yet . . .
“What’re you thinking?” Saito asked.
“Dunno,” Leif muttered, and glanced at the wall tapestry of blues and grays depicting the seated, round-bellied Buddha. “Why would Fuji study the Bible, then have a tapestry of Buddha?”