by D S Kane
He punched a few keys into his cell phone. “There’s Xe. Used to call themselves Blackwater. I could contact them easily.” He pointed to the tiny screen: http://www.blackwater usa.com. “But they’ve made the television world news so if we used them word would leak.”
He entered another web address. “Here. Look.”
The website at http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ world/para/mercenary.htm showed a list of more than sixty mercenary companies. He clicked on one of the links. “This one looks especially promising: Kravgruppe from Israel. I’ll send out RFPs to a few and we can choose one that’s large enough to serve our needs and small enough to not attract attention.”
Cassie nodded. “Sounds like it could work.”
The fear he’d felt was obvious for her to see. He swallowed. “So if we do this, what’s the first thing we have to do now?”
She touched his hand. “Get out of Dodge. This hotel is nice, but every time we leave the room we’re visible on their video cams unless we’re disguised. Sooner or later, bad things will happen if we stay. To leave safely, we’ll need to change our appearance. Lower the probability someone will notice us.”
She paced the room. “I think we should move somewhere far away and very rural. Then I’ll need two or three hackers to begin coding and testing the GNU Radio cell phone software while you hire a merc army and direct black ops training. Look, I know you’ve never planned a black operation. Neither have I.”
Lee said, “Yes, a location with very low population density. No prying eyes. So go where?”
“Good question.” Cassie sat in silence for seconds. She pointed to a paintings in their room, an arid scene. “We need someplace that replicates a section of Middle Eastern desert so our black ops mercs can train there. I think Nevada or the California desert might work best. Mountainous terrain and far away from any towns.”
Lee nodded. “How about the Santa Lucia Mountains, ten miles east of the ocean, in the Fort Hunter-Liggett area? The Ventana Wilderness, near Camp Roberts. Altitudes up higher than five thousand feet. Our military used to train troops bound for Afghanistan there. We can easily remain hidden.” He smiled.
Her expression widened in evident surprise. “Lee, how do you know about this place?”
“I was brought up near Santa Barbara. When I was a teen, Mom and Dad took me on camping trips near the Nacimiento-Ferguson Road in the mountains southeast of Lucia Point in Big Sur.”
He realized until now, they’d never spoken to each other about their lives from before they’d met.
She said, “While I attended Half Moon Bay High School, my family made trips to Big Sur. I remember the majestic mountains with narrow fringe beaches at the Pacific Ocean. It’s a gorgeous place, one of my favorite place on earth. I’ve spent entire days in the area but never camped there. Mom insisted we stay at a hotel. We usually stayed at Lucia Lodge. The rooms had a queen bed for my parents and they brought a sleeping bag for me. There wasn’t any television or radio, so I went on hikes around the area with Mom and Dad.”
He said, “I think we can find the privacy we’ll need there to train our mercenaries. It’s always quiet there except for Highway 1, with a road leading from the highway up into the mountains. Very remote.”
She nodded. “Yes, let’s do it there.”
He paced the room. “Okay. Another thing settled. Let’s get out of here as fast as possible. What do we do?”
Cassie dug into her attaché case, pulling out articles of clothing, including a well-stained and ripped raincoat, a black ski cap, and other discards. Her first disguise. She tossed these to Lee, along with items she’d bought yesterday. “When we’re done, no one will recognize you. To start, strip off all your clothing and go into the bathroom.”
Lee did as asked. She filled the bathtub and poured three bottles of brown shoe polish into it. “Step into the tub, please. First, I’m going to change the color of your skin. Lie down, take a deep breath and use your fingertips to cover the openings of your nose. Let yourself sink totally under the bath water for as long as you can.” He held fingertips to his nostrils and splashed under, submerged for thirty seconds.
The smells of hair dyes, shoe polish, and unwashed old clothing mixed with the stale odors already in their room.
She worked on his appearance for almost an hour, until he looked wild. He’d stand out in a crowd, something no one in an undercover operation would want, but he wouldn’t look in the least like Lee Ainsley, and that would be enough.
“Lee, put these clothes on.” While he dressed, she became an old and cheap call girl, with thick makeup and bright red lipstick. “We carry everything in our attaché cases, and we put them into brown-paper shopping bags. We top the bags off with food and water bottles from the room’s bar, leave without paying the bill via the service entrance, and hoof it to the bus terminal.” She touched her makeup and smeared it just a bit.
“You, dear sweet boy, will be my pimp, but don’t worry. Snoop cameras aren’t programmed to pick up anyone that looks like this and that’s what we have to worry about. As for any johns I might attract, they’ll run away when they imagine my personal hygiene from seeing this disguise. I look frightful.” She smiled into the mirror. Then she faced Lee and burst out into laughter.
It took three hours to walk to the bus station. On the way there she bought some needed items at a costume store. His fear was so strong his palms slicked with perspiration. Slowly, he became oblivious to their danger. But once he got “into role,” Cassie had to keep reminding him not to attract attention. They purchased two bus tickets using some of her counterfeit cash.
It wasn’t until the bus crossed out of Washington’s city limits that he relaxed and no longer heard the blood rush through the arteries in his skull. Still cautious, he startled whenever the bus slowed.
Chapter Forty
Incirlik Air Base, Turkey
August 22, 2:50 p.m.
Ten days earlier, when Jon Sommers left the meeting with Tariq Houmaz, Bob Gault cursed. The terrorist had claimed Gault was the one who’d murdered Jon’s fiancée. Of course, it was a lie and Gault had told Jon so, but Gault was sure Jon didn’t believe him.
He’d thought of little else. Gault decided he’d have to consider Jon an enemy capable of revenge. He’d decided to send Houmaz off to Egypt for formal rendition, but when Houmaz escaped with a trail of dead bodies behind, Gault worried for his life from both Jon and Houmaz.
Gault felt he was in constant danger.
There was one saving grace in his situation. While Houmaz had waited in a prison cell for Sommers to arrive, Gault had visited and offered him a cup of coffee and a kosher Twinkie. They sat together in the cell, and Gault had tried to encourage his prisoner to tell him what he would say to Jon, but Houmaz wouldn’t. When Houmaz finished his coffee, Gault left and took the elevator to his makeshift office. There, he ran a program on his computer. He saw a view of Houmaz’s cell, and heard the man mutter something in Arabic. The Google Interpret function on his computer said in a female voice, He will die soon.
Gault had infected Houmaz with the Bug-Lok device, and it was working. Even if Houmaz was worthless as an ally, now Bob could track him back to where his camp was. But this Bug-Lok unit was one of the earlier versions and it didn’t have the TWP—terminate with prejudice—function. But if the Bug-Lok device could find Houmaz, then killing him and his entire gang with a predator would be easy. It would be no great loss as far as Bob was concerned.
The device had been within his brainstem for two weeks. He’d tracked Houmaz remotely through Bug-Lok and now knew exactly where he lived: the village of Upper Pachir in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.
The United States used to have a military presence near there, but that was long ago.
Gault pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He’d need his boss, Mark McDougal, to make the call to the Air Force officer who sat at a desk less than thirty feet away from where Bob was.
“Sir, it’s Bob Gault.
Tariq Houmaz won’t cooperate and he’s now escaped. I know exactly where he is and I recommend we terminate him.”
“Where is he?”
“Upper Pachir, near the Tora Bora Mountains. I’d like to send in a Predator.”
“How’d he end up there? You had him in a max sec prison.”
“I don’t exactly know. I believe from what the traffic cams saw, he had help. But he isn’t where we can get to him. The Predator would work just fine.”
“Bob, not so fast. If we know where he is, we can kill him any time. Let’s just track him for now. We can gather intel on his contacts. After all, how much damage can he do up there?”
Bob felt his body temperature rise. His life was at stake and his boss wasn’t going to help him. Now he wished the version of Bug-Lok he’d fed to Houmaz had the TWP feature.
Gilbert Greenfield waited outside the Oval Office for about an hour. When the President of the United States finally opened the door and called him in, it was difficult for Greenfield to conceal his ill feelings. They’d been college roommates long ago. Now, the President still treated him as if he was an idiot. When the President asked what had happened to the Bug-Lok devices, he actually smiled.
Greenfield took a deep breath. “What happened to the missing beta-test Bug-Lok devices? Sir, well, I believe the Israelis are responsible.”
“Even if you’re right, the Ness Ziona is the only weapons design source the United States has, so it’s of no consequence. We have to work with them. They’re the only game in town. I decommissioned DARPA because you told me we no longer would need them.”
The secretary brought in coffee for each of them. Greenfield felt a wave of anger wash over him. When the President turned away, Greenfield slipped a Bug-Lok into the President’s coffee.
He felt better immediately. He thought, now I’ll have a seat at the President’s desk.
Greenfield conjured the contents of his investment portfolio. Money is better than power, and money easily translates into power. Knowing the political moves made by this dolt running the White House will make me rich.
The repairs to the Cybercrimes Technology Lab of the Ministry of State Security in Beijing were on schedule. The Minister of State Security, Xian Wing, stood on the dust-shrouded floor and examined the building blueprints. All was in order. He signed another repair order and walked to the stairs. “Good work, Lieutenant Chan. How much longer until we can use the facility?”
Benjamin Chan stood at attention as he spoke. “Ten weeks, sir.”
Wing shook his head and scowled. “Are the substitute laboratories on schedule?”
Wing could hear Chan swallow and he looked up at the young officer. “Well?”
Chan frowned. “There is a complication. The Bug-Lok plans don’t work as specified. When we try to terminate a subject, all that happens is the subject develops a stomach ulcer. Nothing more. They recover enough to be fully functional after several days.”
Wing looked away. Had something happened to the plans Chan swiped off William’s computers? Or, had William never had a set of working plans? If so, why? He sighed. There was no way to know if William was the only traitor.
Or if William was indeed a traitor after all.
He needed to interrogate his son to find out the truth.
He decided to call off the team of terminators he’d sent to end his son. How could he tempt William to return to Beijing? He’d need something William valued more than his life. One of William’s friends? Did William have any? “Lieutenant Chan, find out if my son has any friends, male or female. I need a hostage.”
In Elizabeth Rochelle Brown’s white house at 4 Railroad Street, in Woodbine, Iowa, William Wing stood near the window. He folded the last shirt, dropped it into the suitcase and closed the lid.
From the kitchen downstairs, the sound of Betsy’s voice punctuated the silence. “Willy?”
He wiped the tear that budded in his eye. “I’ll be down in a minute.” Had she figured out he was about to leave? This was the moment he’d dreaded since he realized his destiny. He would need to vanish again, this time forever.
He picked up the suitcase and checked himself in the mirror. He straightened his coat and descended the stairs from the bedroom to the kitchen.
The tiny woman’s face fell as she stared at the suitcase. “Why?”
He moved toward her, to offer comfort. She cowered.
“Why? Damn you, tell me.”
“I’m still marked for death. I can’t protect myself. Together, we’re too easy to find. If you’re with me when they find me, they’ll kill you too.”
She glared at him, her mouth working but silent. She faced away from him. “What will you do?”
He could hear the sadness in her voice. “I need an organization to protect me. An army. I have to find Avram’s mercs. Should have thought of it before they took off.”
“Why can’t I come?”
“It would be dangerous. You aren’t trained for this. You’ve never faced anything like this before. I have.”
“But—”
“No. When the dust settles, I’ll contact you. Promise.”
She faced him. “I don’t believe you.” Her face showed she wanted to. The ends of her mouth twitched. He could see the tears well in her eyes.
He took two steps and hugged her.
She stood limp. “Go.”
After a few minutes he saw the taxi out front.
He left her in hallway, bawling.
He took the stairs to the sidewalk. The cabbie opened the trunk. In seconds he was headed toward the airport in Omaha. It was going to be a very expensive ride.
He realized his best hope of survival was to band with Avram, but Avram was busy running a merc force to assist Sashakovich.
He tried to compute the odds against him, but it was too difficult to think. Instead, he worked on trying to decide where to go for his first destination. Washington DC sounded like a good place to get lost in. A huge city, filled with liars.
Part Five
Chapter Forty-One
Lobby of the Hotel Visit, Vladivostok, Russia
August 24, 4:26 p.m.
Two days had passed since Jon had left William and Betsy, Avram, and the mercs. Jon had checked into the Hotel Visit. Now, another day had passed and he sat, aimless, in a room on the third floor.
He tried to think about what to make of his life. Couldn’t think for more than a few minutes without seeing Ruth’s corpse in his arms, Lisa Gabriel telling him she would only be gone for a week, his parents dressed in tux and gown leaving for a gala at the ambassador’s residence in London. All gone from him now, forever. He knew what he was feeling was overwhelming loss and depression.
He tried to force himself to do something, anything. Vlad was as depressing as his own soul. He remembered his final conversation with Samuel Meyer. What about Shula? Banking in Manhattan. Could it be worth a try? At least I’d still have something valuable to offer.
The hotel was ragged in places, but in Vladivostok he didn’t have the choices offered in most cities. He had no real need, he thought, to maintain security. The Russian mafiya owned the city and there was no way he could make a secure call.
He closed the door to his room and plucked his cell phone from his pocket. He punched in the number for Singapore Airlines. “Please get me on the first flight from Vladivostok to New York. Doesn’t matter if I have to make connections. I’m not in a rush.”
He waited while the travel agent worked. “That’ll work. Tomorrow at 4:22 p.m. Okay. Name’s Jon Sommers.” He gave the ticket clerk a credit card number and told them to hold his ticket at the terminal counter. It took a few minutes, but soon he could end this, his final adventure.
He looked at his watch. He’d had nothing to eat for more than a day. The food in Vlad was terrible, but now, anything would do. He took the elevator to the lobby and left the building.
As the afternoon faded, Lieutenant Benjamin Chan watched the British spy walking ab
out fifty feet in front of him into a downtown café. Chan crossed the street and ducked into a newsstand, the signal for his first counter-surveillance agent to take over. He’d followed Sommers for several blocks. There was an alley three blocks up the street and he ran the other way, circumnavigating around to get ahead of Sommers.
He crossed into the alleyway and waited. Sommers seemed to be oblivious. Chan spoke to his other agents using his earbud. He couldn’t believe his good fortune. As Jon passed by the alleyway, Chan reached out and jabbed the tiny needle into the back of Jon’s neck.
In seconds, two of Chan’s assistants were in the alleyway, binding his slack captive’s hands and gagging him. Chan pulled the mini-satphone from his pocket. “Sir, we have the package. I’ll call you when we’re on the jet you arranged.”
A black wagon pulled to a stop on the empty street and its trunk unlatched. The team loaded Sommers into the trunk and drove off in the direction of the airport.
William Wing’s cell phone buzzed. He scanned for the caller. His father had found him!
“I have something of yours, son.”
There were only three things his father might have gotten that meant anything to William, and all were people: Betsy, Avram, and Jon. He took a deep breath. “What do you have and what do you want?”
“Jon Sommers. I have him prisoner in a cell.”
William grimaced. All he could muster was a single sentence. “What do you want?”