‘Yes, Sir,’ Johnson said.
‘Sir, what equipment mix?’ Louise asked.
‘Combat surveillance operations. Bring in the Nightfalcons.’
‘Yes, Sir, we can base the helicopters out of Logan airport.’
‘Do it.’
Louise nodded, dialing her Shadowstone smartphone.
James stared at the Panopticon screen which was now a sea of red, orange and yellow, his hands reflexively clenching into fists.
They’re Order of Thoth, and they’re not going to get away from me.
James took a deep breath, relaxed his hands, and went to the nearby secured room. He opened his smartphone and voice dialed General Chloe Armitage.
The phone rang eight times before it was picked up.
Her voice was flat, ‘yes?’
‘There has been a development.’
‘You’ve lost them haven’t you,’ Chloe said sardonically.
How did she know that?
‘... Yes, Ma’am.’
‘You will find them again before sunset tonight,’ Chloe said with absolute certainty.
A shiver went up James’ spine, it was clear that failure was not an option.
‘Yes, Ma’am.’
‘I will be there tonight with a Special Forces team, now remember - do not engage the Order of Thoth. The mission is to identify them, track them, and if they go to ground, put a cordon around the site and stop them escaping again. Is that clear?’
‘Crystal clear, Ma’am.’
‘Good.’
The line went dead.
James Haley was not an easily frightened man, but he felt a disturbing unease as he put his phone away.
I must find these Order of Thoth terrorists.
* * *
Li crossed the traffic of Bedford Street.
Ducking beneath some trees she came up against a rusty and weathered security fence. Beyond was an apparently unused industrial site that fronted onto the Mystic River. She tracked the fence for about twenty yards before she found a split in the wire where it had come away from a post. Peeling it back another foot, she slipped through to the other side. A minute later she had crossed the deserted car park and was up against the corner of the front wall of a large warehouse.
The building was easily two hundred yards long and half that wide. Its front had two enormous steel doors that spanned openings that were twenty yards across and half that high; both were closed. Above the doors were large gantries constructed from thick steel frames with rails and access walkways, they looked worn but solid. The back third of the warehouse sat on a finger of land that jutted out into the river.
Where she stood, at the front right corner of the building, Li could see a solid stone dock that ran forty yards past the far end of the warehouse.
The whole structure was built with gray masonry stone, which up close gave the building an ambiance of solid, industrial permanence.
Cold War era? Was it designed to survive nuclear blasts?
Li pressed her back up against the wall, cutting her silhouette to a minimum.
A steel door opened a dozen feet away along the side of the warehouse, Gang poked his head out and said, ‘Li, I’m in here.’
Li darted over, joining Gang in the cool dimness of the warehouse.
‘Has Anton arrived?’ Li asked, taking off her sunglasses and looking around, there were numerous shipping containers and a pair of giant rolling cranes, but no sign of Anton.
Gang shook his head, ‘no, but it’s still early, he should be here soon.’
I hope so.
‘While we wait for him, we have much work to do,’ Gang continued with a grin. ‘This place is a treasure trove.’
‘Yes?’
‘I will show you, come this way.’
Li followed Gang as he walked between rows and lines of shipping containers stacked in pairs to make walls nearly twenty feet high.
It’s like a maze in here, I wonder what Father has found.
* * *
Sergeant Detective of the Boston Police Department Homicide Unit, Luke Watts, was driving his Ford Explorer SUV along Bedford Street Charlestown when he saw a young man on the sidewalk apparently waiting for a break in the traffic so that he could cross the street.
Luke was about sixty yards away from him and closing quickly. He slowed his car down from thirty miles per hour to give himself another couple of seconds before he passed him by. There was something about him; the forward tilt of the cap, the broad sunglasses, the gray long sleeve hooded top, the backpack and a long, slim case that was being carried as if it held something precious.
He’s hiding something.
Luke Watts felt a sudden sense of familiarity and his “Hunch Meter” red-lined.
I’m sure that I should know him, but I haven’t met him.
A feeling of complete certainty flooded through him and his SUV screeched to a halt directly opposite the young man. They stared at each other for a second, then the young man turned away, walking briskly along the street toward the nearest intersection.
An evidence photograph that he had resented having to hand over to the FBI and the memory of a brutal unsolved murder flashed through his mind.
It’s Anton Smith.
Slapping a portable police light onto his dash, he switched it on; just as someone tooted him from behind. Luke was already rolling forward to keep pace with Smith, he glanced in the mirror and saw the driver of a Toyota Corolla already backing off now that his police lights were flashing.
He looked forward again, glimpsing Smith as he went around a corner and disappeared from sight.
‘Damn!’
Luke floored the accelerator, his SUV lurching forward, he made a hard left turn into the side street that the fugitive had fled down. The one-way street was lined with parked cars and had numerous narrow alleyways branching off it. It was more than a hundred yards to the end of the street, there was no sign of Anton Smith.
Luke rolled slowly down the street, his head swiveling left and right, looking for Smith. Swearing under his breath he pulled his car over as he came to the end of the street.
‘Damn it all to hell, where is that boy?’ Luke growled as he shut off the police light and dialed the duty desk to call the sighting in.
What the hell, it’s been more than five weeks, what is he doing still walking the streets? What on Earth are the FBI doing with this case? After all, they took every last shred of evidence from my crime scene.
What are they doing with it - sitting on it?
Luke fumed as he waited for the duty desk to answer his call.
* * *
James’ laptop chimed as the Panopticon alerted him to a hit on one of his targets.
The transcript of a phone conversation of a Sergeant Detective Luke Watts of the BPD was flashed onto his screen. James read the conversation in seconds, absorbing all the salient details. Watts had called in a sighting of a fugitive, named Anton Smith, wanted by the FBI in connection with a terrorism investigation.
Well, not actually the FBI. I will have to make some calls and squash this again.
Noting the location of the sighting, James used the Panopticon mapping service to display it. The Panopticon provided real-time map data in extraordinary detail. He zoomed in on the reported location, the corner of Bedford and Mallston streets in the Boston suburb of Charlestown. The transcript had stated that Anton was last seen running down Mallston Street before disappearing.
If he was running away, where was he going before he was spotted?
James zoomed away from the street so that he could see for half a mile around the street corner. Smith could have run into some of the narrow inner suburban streets with abundant hiding places. On the opposite side of Bedford Street was a broad industrial park that fronted onto the Mystic River. He ran an infra-red filter across the satellite imagery, carefully scanning the park, about half the park was active, filled with operating businesses. The rest looked empty, except for a warehouse
with two very faint human contacts in it.
That building is shielded. Two people. Is that Gang and Li Wu? Is this their rendezvous point?
James flipped off the filter and zoomed in on the warehouse. The Panopticon supplied situational metadata that streamed alongside the images on the screen. He read that the building had originally been commissioned into service with the US Navy in 1958. An armory for repairing heavy ship equipment, it had been decommissioned in 1991 after the fall of the Soviets when budgets had been cut. Ownership of the building was now with a company named Clayton Holdings, registered in Massachusetts, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of another company registered in the Cayman Islands. The local company had a managing director, a Mr. Paul Roberts, and no other staff. The utility bills and taxes were all paid on time from an account owned by Roberts. Roberts even had a rarely accessed Facebook account and looked like a genial fiftyish white male with a wife, two grown up children and a cocker spaniel.
Well, the original military purpose and cold war era construction would explain the shielding; however, I wonder Mr. Roberts, are you real or just a phantom?
James zoomed in on the area around the building. There were untended weeds growing in the cracked asphalt of the car park, but no fresh engine oil spills. Nothing had been parked there for months. He used the Panopticon to search electrical power utility logs; the site normally used only a minimal amount of electricity, yet usage today had spiked much higher than normal. Further examination confirmed in James’ mind that the building was usually deserted.
And yet there are two people in there, today of all days, and Anton Slayne was within five hundred yards of this place when he was sighted.
James didn’t believe in coincidences.
James’ smartphone rang, he saw that it was Louise Wesson calling him, he answered it.
‘Sir, the van is fully packed, Higgins is bagged and Johnson is ready to roll.’
‘Good, get Johnson moving and meet me at my car. I will be there in two minutes; we have somewhere to go.’
‘Sir?’
‘I will tell you in the car.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ Louise said, hanging up the call.
James looked around at the remains of the stakeout. The floor where Higgins had bled out was now the cleanest part of the room. The room reeked of too much bleach mixed with smoke from the morning fire across the street. The late morning sunlight streamed through the broken window frames, illuminating dust motes floating in the air.
James stood up, closed his laptop and slotted it into a carry case. He hung back from the front wall, glancing out through the broken window frames, the Noodle House had lost half its structure and would need to be demolished. The Wu residence was a steaming pile of wet ash. Surveying the room for the last time, he was confident that everything had been done to eliminate any connection between the recent events in this building and Shadowstone.
I hope that I never see this dump again.
James strode from the room, descending downstairs to where his car was parked.
Louise Wesson stood on the opposite side of the car, a combat surveillance kit bag at her feet.
James flicked the lock and got into the car. Lobbing her kit bag onto the back seat, Louise sat down in the front passenger seat and turned to face him.
‘Yes, I think that I have found them. So now we move.’ James declared.
Louise smiled, ‘yes, Sir.’
‘What is the status on Green-4?’
‘They have arrived with a Nightfalcon helicopter with a combat operations mission fit out, and are waiting at Logan Airport. They can be anywhere in Boston in less than fifteen minutes.’
‘Good. Put Red-1 and Blue-5 teams on ready alert for combat operations. What is the flight time from Fort Dix?’
‘Green-4 got to Boston in seventy five minutes.’
‘Wait, no, that’s too long, get those teams into the air and forward base them with Green-4 at Logan. That will give us three combat helicopters, and forty eight troops to use at short notice.’
‘Sir, that would be forty six, Green-4 is down two men, Higgins, and Johnson.’
‘Forty eight counting us - I think we can expect to get our hands dirty tonight.’
‘Sir, there is one more thing.’ Louise said, arching an eyebrow.
‘Yes?’
‘We also have a four-man squad from Indigo-6 in town. They have an armed rigid hulled inflatable boat that we can put on the river.’
‘An armed RHIB, outstanding, make it so.’
‘Yes, Sir. Do we have new orders?’
‘If we can get all three Order of Thoth in the same location, then we have to put in a cordon and keep them there. General Armitage will be coming tonight with a Special Forces team to deal with them.’
‘I would like to see that.’
‘So would I,’ James said, starting the car and driving off toward the warehouse.
As he pulled out onto the main road, the ten seconds of scrubbed video of the previous night’s fight replayed in his mind.
Those Special Forces troops would need to be a damn sight better than those Chinese thugs that took on the Wu’s and Slayne last night.
Louise was already on her smartphone giving orders to the other teams of Shadowstone operatives that would be marshaled at Logan airport and along the Mystic River.
Just how good are these Order of Thoth operatives? Well, we’ll soon find out, my men are far better trained and armed than those triad wannabees were. I sure that if needed they can do the job.
Vampire Dominion? They’re insane.
James chaffed at the restrictions that General Armitage had placed on him. This was an opportunity for real action, it was why he had signed on to Shadowstone in the first place - to make a difference in the world.
James grinned as he gunned the car, speeding off down the road.
* * *
The mid-afternoon summer sun blazed in a bright blue sky.
Anton stood in the shadows of an abandoned house facing onto Bedford Street. Across the road was a disused car park and a large warehouse that jutted out into the Mystic River. Anton carefully studied the surrounding area, he had been watching it for hours. He hadn’t seen anything that might be an indication of active surveillance. He had identified visible traffic cameras, their orientation, and paths that would avoid them.
But what about satellites? I mustn’t be found again.
He reflected on the morning, what terrible luck to run into the Detective from the night that his mother had been murdered. As soon as he had broken visual contact by turning into the side street, he had ramped for about two seconds, covered thirty yards, run down an alleyway and hid behind a dumpster. Through a crack between the dumpster and a brick wall, he had watched the Ford SUV trawl its way past the mouth of the alley.
Anton had felt certain that the Detective had recognized him, there was no doubt that he would call in the sighting. Anton had decided to stay in the area, a few minutes searching had discovered the abandoned house that he now stood in front of. He had waited patiently; however, nothing had happened, no police cars, no helicopters, nothing at all.
The secret keepers are at work; I don’t have to worry about the BPD, they’re not the problem.
Anton had waited hours before risking any movement. Gang’s note had said to meet at the address of the warehouse by mid-morning, he was now more than four hours late.
He felt the tension, four hours was a long time, Gang and Li would be worried, he hoped that they would stay put and not try and look for him.
It’s time to make a move, I’ll just have to chance the satellites.
A break appeared in the Sunday traffic, Anton pushed off from the wall of the house, leaped over the front fence, walking calmly across the road. A minute and a half later he was through the boundary fence, across the car park and up against the corner of the warehouse.
He saw movement to his right as a steel door opened an inch and he readied himself to
Ramp.
‘Anton, finally you’re here,’ Gang said. ‘Quick come inside before anyone sees you.’
Anton ducked inside and Gang pulled the door shut behind him.
He felt a wave of relief when he saw that both Gang and Li were safe.
* * *
James watched his laptop screen, the Panopticon satellite feed showed a third figure walking quickly across the open car park toward the warehouse.
He dialed Louise Wesson, she immediately picked up her smartphone.
‘Sir?’
‘Was the target sighted?’
‘Yes, Sir. He has just reached the warehouse.’
‘Good work, call in your helicopters, we will rendezvous in the car park. Put Green-4 on the dock, and the other two out front of the warehouse. Get the RHIB to sit a hundred yards off the dock in the middle of the river.’
‘Yes, Sir. The helicopters will be on site in about ten minutes, and the RHIB in about fifteen.’
‘How long will it take you to get to the car park?’
‘I will be there when the Nightfalcons arrive.’
‘Excellent,’ James said and hung up.
James put his laptop down and started the engine of his car. He welcomed the air conditioning, as he had been waiting in his car for the last four hours. He had parked about a mile back on Bedford Street underneath the shade of a large tree, sending Louise Wesson into a nearby industrial park with a suite of surveillance gear to get a clear sight of the area near the warehouse. He considered the Panopticon all well and good, but often it was best to have human eyes on the target.
James felt a surge of relief as he confirmed that the Wus and Anton Slayne were now holed up in the warehouse. In less than half an hour he would have a cordon around the site that no one would be able to escape from.
He noted his unusual feeling of relief.
I’m responding to the General. She seems to have a special interest in this operation.
The thought concerned James. He had been reporting to General Chloe Armitage for the last eight years, and for all of those years he had prided himself on his professionalism and skill in executing the role of Lead Operative within the United States arm of the Shadowstone organization. But this mission was different, it felt like the General had a personal agenda in play.
A Subtle Agency Page 18