by Marc Cameron
“Okay,” Adara said. Her dot on Chavez’s phone showed her moving west on Canal, approaching Elizabeth. “Dom’s staying on the rabbits. I’m going to slow at this shop window and give them a chance to pass.”
A former Navy corpsman, Adara Sherman had seen action in most of the Stans, where most of the killing was being done these days. A CrossFit fanatic, she was an extremely competent operator, and, more important, dead calm under pressure. She was also romantically involved with Dominic Caruso, the only actual federal officer on the team—seconded to The Campus. Ryan’s cousin, Caruso was a Feeb—still on the FBI rolls. Chavez imagined that the tight-ass middle managers in the Bureau—every agency had them—surely wondered what the hell kind of special duty their agent had disappeared to do for such a long period. The director knew. That was enough.
“Running some countersurveillance, eh, Ding . . .” Adara said.
Chavez looked at Clark again, more than a little embarrassed that his guys were seeing ghosts. Clark’s face remained as passive as one of those stone dudes on Easter Island. Completely unreadable.
As the director of operations for the off-the-books intelligence agency known as The Campus, John Clark was grading Chavez, just as Chavez was grading his team.
This training op had been in motion for the past five hours, with Dave and Lanny playing the role of rabbits. Both former Marines, they were handpicked force-protection specialists for the company—the guys who handled physical security at the building, the Gulfstream, and countersurveillance when the need arose. They’d started early, leading the four members of the operational team on a series of winding surveillance-detection routes that began in Alexandria, Virginia, not far from the financial arbitrage firm Hendley Associates—the name that was on all their paychecks.
Everyone on the team was pro—experienced, tried by fire. But even pros needed periodic training. Tradecraft, like any skill, grew stale when it wasn’t used. Clark’s motto to practice “not until they got it right, but until they didn’t get it wrong” was ingrained in each of them by now. All were naturals, endowed with innate talent that lent itself to surveillance, surveillance-detection runs, surreptitious entry, and, more important, the social engineering that intelligence work required. The life’s blood of intelligence work. They practiced defensive tactics as well—and some offensive ones—and firearms. Everyone enjoyed that the most, though no one was carrying today except Clark, Chavez, and Caruso. All of them were highly proficient with firearms—but they also trained extensively for the countless times when they would not have access to one of Samuel Colt’s equalizers. Still, situational awareness trumped a gun only until it didn’t. They’d arm up when able. Hence the leather BOG—bag o’ guns—hanging over Ding’s shoulder.
The securities and forensic accounting side of Hendley Associates was a working front, the “white side” that paid for the hidden raison d’être of the firm. Highly sensitive, and generally autonomous from the other intelligence agencies of the United States government, The Campus was conceived and organized in concert between former senator Gerry Hendley and President Jack Ryan.
Ryan Senior took a hands-off approach to their actual assignments. Hendley was an avuncular boss, friendly, strict when he needed to be, in on the planning while at the same time staying out of the way. He left the actual mission execution to the pros, John Clark in particular.
Clark’s leadership style had surely developed from the way he liked to operate. He believed strongly in setting parameters and then allowing his team to rattle around inside those boundaries, making their own decisions with the knowledge that could be gained only by someone with boots on the ground. He continued to play an active role, but was stepping back a little, playing elder statesman, and turning more and more of his duties over to Chavez.
The object of this mission was straightforward if not simple—just like the real world. The team was to surveil their rabbits to their hide. Once they learned that location, the team would create a diversion, defeat any security systems, break in, and steal Ding Chavez’s prized RAF Credenhill—otherwise known as Hereford—coffee mug. Easy peasy—so long as Dave and Lanny didn’t identify them.
The countersurveillance Jack Junior had seen was a nonissue, because it didn’t exist. The kid must have dreamed it up.
Midas Jankowski broke squelch next. A retired Delta Force colonel, his voice was calm and resonant, like he’d been born to speak on the radio. “Adara, no kidding, I got two Asians, one male, one female, just coming off Mott onto Canal, about fifty feet behind you, moving your direction.”
Chavez looked at the dots on his phone, all of them heading east on Canal now.
Ding decided to let it play out. It would be good training—embarrassing as hell for Ryan and Midas, but good. To professionals like these, failure in front of peers was more horrifying than getting shot by an actual enemy.
Time plus distance plus boredom equaled mission fatigue, making the training more realistic—so Chavez made sure the scenario contained large doses of all three.
The rabbits had transferred to the Red Line on the D.C. Metro system, arriving at Union Station with tickets already in hand, just in time to jump on the 8:40 a.m. Northeast Regional Amtrak train going toward Boston. Ding had been proud of the way the team scrambled to make it on board just before the train pulled away. He and Clark had taken the Acela Express ten minutes later, carrying the bag o’ guns. As a credentialed FBI agent, Caruso could travel armed virtually anywhere he went in the United States, but the rest of the team needed to go slick in the event they had to follow a rabbit into a museum or onto a commercial airplane. Clark rarely went anywhere without his 1911, and though intelligence work often called for operatives to be unarmed, he knew all too well the dangers of their job. He believed strongly in overwatch that had the ability to provide deadly force quickly when needed. If at all feasible, someone on the team carried the BOG. Caruso carried his Glock as well as Adara’s M&P Shield in holsters inside his waistband. This was a drill, but there were additional Shields in the leather BOG, including one for Adara, in case Dom couldn’t link up with her.
Chavez and Clark’s Acela Express beat the Northeast Regional train to Penn Station in Manhattan by twenty minutes. The rabbits stopped to eat some cheesecake at Junior’s off Times Square, then led the team on a merry walk around Central Park, then back to Midtown before boarding the N train to Canal Street.
“Are you running countersurveillance?” Clark asked.
“Nope,” Chavez said.
Chavez was no slouch when it came to his tactical background. He had eons of experience in the Army, as a protective officer in the CIA, and a team leader of the multinational Rainbow counterterrorism unit. He’d been there and done that all over the world. He had the T-shirt and the scars to prove it. But Clark was a legend in the intelligence community, which was saying something in a business where anonymity was the rule of the day. A former Navy SEAL and longtime operator for the CIA, the details of Clark’s past were fuzzy, if not altogether redacted. Few in the business knew exactly what he’d done, but they knew he’d done it. A lot of it. And knowing that was enough.
Since Clark also happened to be Ding’s father-in-law, this added a nuanced layer of stress—and trust—to every operation. They’d worked together long before Ding had met Patsy. John must have approved of the union, because Chavez was still standing upright. He and his father-in-law had gone on to spill blood and have plenty of their own blood spilt.
Clark glanced at his watch—a Victorinox analog, plain but hell for stout. Chavez took another drink of bubble tea. Funny how the boss looking at his watch could make even the most even-keeled person squirm. As assistant director of ops, Chavez was running point on more and more missions, allowing Clark to stand back and quietly observe—while he drank coffee and looked at his watch.
“Something bothering you, Mr. C?” Chavez asked.
It w
asn’t like Clark to fidget. They’d been together all morning and Clark had just now suffered a tiny crack in his stony composure.
“I’m good,” he said, giving the slightest of shrugs as he aimed his thousand-yard stare down East Broadway. Chavez was surprised one of the passersby didn’t catch fire. “Just thinking.”
Midas spoke again, more urgently this time. “Guys, no kidding, white male just popped out from Mott on Canal behind the Asian couple. He’s juking back and forth, but moving after them with real intent.”
“I see him,” Ryan said.
“You’re serious?” Caruso said.
Odd, Chavez thought, that Dom would question intel from another member of the team.
“Dead serious,” Midas said. “This guy’s wearing a light jacket, khaki slacks. He moves like a cop. I think I caught a glimpse of handcuffs on his belt.”
Ding stood up straighter now.
“Our rabbits are crossing Canal,” Adara said. “Heading south on Elizabeth.”
“Okay,” Midas said. “The Asians and Khaki Slacks are continuing east. I don’t see any other coppers. I’m guessing this guy is off duty.”
“Or some kind of hit,” Jack Junior offered. “No kidding.”
“Out of role, Ding,” Adara said. “Out of role.”
Ding reached in his pocket and flipped the isolation switch on his radio so everyone could hear him. “Abort the scenario,” he said. “I say again, abort scenario. Keep your distance, but hang with the lone dude in khakis just in case. Who has eyes on the two white males you spotted? They are not mine.”
“Forget them,” Adara said. “Those two are a nonissue. A little game in order to win, Boss. We’ll explain later.”
“Yes, you will,” Chavez said. “Confirming, no one else in play besides two Asians and Khaki Pants.”
“That is correct,” Adara said.
Chavez bit back the urge to chide her. Instead, he coordinated team movement while Clark called Lanny’s cell and got the rabbits on the common frequency so they’d be in the loop.
“Everybody stay loose,” Ding said. “We don’t want to step in the middle of another agency’s op.”
Midas piped up. “Asian couple turning right on Bowery.”
“Okay,” Ding said. “Lanny and Dave, keep going south on Elizabeth. Midas, how about Khaki Pants?”
“Approaching Bayard,” Midas said. “He’s locked on. If he had a team, somebody else would be taking over the eyeball about now. I’m thinking he’s alone.” There was a pause, like Midas was trying to get a better look at something. “The Asian male has a pistol in his waistband.”
“John and I are coming off the bridge,” Ding said, picturing the map in his head as he ran. “We’ll cut behind Confucius Plaza to stay ahead of you. Dom, hang a left at your next cross street. Hustle over to Canal so you guys can leapfrog with Midas if need be.”
“Adara and I are east on Bayard,” Dom said.
Jack Junior spoke next. “Coming down Bowery—”
The radio bonked, meaning two people attempted to speak at the same moment, leaving both transmissions garbled.
Dom came over the net, breathless.
“I know this guy,” he said. The jostling in his voice suggested he was jogging. “He’s FBI. His name’s Nick Sutton.”
“The Asian couple just turned right,” Midas said. “The next street past Bayard. Sutton’s still on them. I’ve lost the eye.”
“I’ll move closer,” Dom said. “See if I can catch his attention—”
The radio fell silent. Seconds later, Dom came back, breathless, running.
“Man . . . down,” he said.
3
Caruso swept aside the tail of his jacket to draw his Glock. His eyes were up, scanning. Nick Sutton lay slumped in the grimy concrete stairwell leading below street level next to the entrance of a nail salon. The steel door to the basement behind him was closed, forming a concrete pit at the bottom of the steps. It would have been an easy matter to hide and ambush the agent when he came by. Caruso had heard no shots. The half-dozen pedestrians coming and going down Doyers either hadn’t seen anything or had simply ignored what they saw.
“It’s Dom,” Caruso said, stepping around Sutton in the cramped space and trying the door while Adara assessed the agent’s wounds. “We’re here for you, bud.” He wanted to drop to his knees and help, but neither he nor Adara would be any help if they got shot.
Arterial blood painted a massive arc on the concrete wall. Even now, after years on the job, Dom found himself astonished at the apparent gusto with which blood left the human body. If anyone besides a trauma surgeon could save Nick Sutton now, it was Adara Sherman.
Dom shielded Adara as best he could in the small alcove, then, pistol tucked in tight against his ribs, pulled on the door handle with his left hand. It was locked tight. That didn’t mean much. Caruso had read somewhere that there were tunnels all over Chinatown. Sutton’s attackers could have gone through the door or just walked away—in which case they would be walking directly into Chavez and Clark.
Caruso jumped back on the radio. “They may be coming your way, Ding.”
The radio clicked twice, signifying Chavez had heard.
Dom fished the FBI badge out of his shirt and let it dangle on a chain around his neck. The Bureau badge carried a lot of weight, but it was relatively small. The little gold shield would do little to avert a blue-on-blue shooting if another cop showed up pumped with adrenaline, but it was better than standing beside a bloody body brandishing a gun without it.
Pistol in low-ready, he stood over Adara and the wounded agent, scanning the doorways and windows along Doyers—the street known as the “Bloody Angle,” where Chinese tong hatchet men stained the street red, hacking rival gang members to death in the early days of New York.
“Talk to me, Nick,” Adara said. “Can you hear me?”
Sutton mumbled something Dom couldn’t make out.
“We’re gonna get you fixed up,” Adara said, her voice grim. “Ambulance is on the way.”
Dom glanced down at her blood-soaked phone on the steps.
Sutton moaned. Despite Adara’s efforts, he was losing a lot of blood.
“They’re long gone,” Dom said. “What do you need me to do?”
She pointed to Sutton’s armpit. “You can help me with this artery. There’s another bleeder somewhere and I need to find it.”
Caruso holstered his weapon and knelt across from Adara. She used two fingers to hand off a spaghetti-like end of Sutton’s brachial artery. A gaping three-inch gash laid bare the meat and bone of his upper arm. Two smaller wounds framed the gash like bloody parentheses. The blood and gore made it difficult to tell how many times Sutton had been stabbed, but his wounds were many and deep. His aggressor had gone for his neck, but he’d been able to get his arm up, taking most of the damage to his triceps and his ribs—small consolation, since such a wound only meant he would bleed to death at a slightly slower rate than he would if he’d had his throat cut.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
Sutton gave a rattling cough. His eyes fluttered open, and he appeared to see Caruso for the first time.
Adara pressed her palm over a hissing stab wound in his chest, doing her best to seal it until paramedics arrived.
“Dom?” Sutton coughed again, croaking, wincing from the effort.
With his hand literally half buried in Sutton’s flesh, Caruso could feel the man’s hummingbird pulse—rapid but extremely weak, as his heart worked to deliver the little blood left in his system to his brain.
The agent blinked. “What . . . What are you doing here?”
“Tell you later, bud,” Caruso said. “Who did this to you?”
“Rene . . .” He coughed again. “She stabbed the shit outta me. Rene Peng . . . hiding down here while I followed her h
usband . . .” Sutton swallowed. “You got any water? I’m really thirsty.”
“Sorry,” Dom said. “We’ll get an IV in you as soon as the ambulance arrives. Save your strength.”
Sutton shook his head. “Pengs are Chinese nationals. Run . . . snakeheads out of the docks.” He shuddered, spit out a mouthful of blood, then stopped to catch his breath.
“Ambulance is almost here,” Adara said.
“Trying to get these bastards for months . . . Took my wife and kid to Vincent’s . . . damned if I didn’t see Rene walk by on the street . . .”
Sutton’s eyes widened. “My wife . . . I told her to wait . . . at restaurant.”
“I’ll go get her,” Dom said. “We’ll bring her to the hospital so she can visit with you.”
“Thanks . . . dude,” Sutton said, panting harder now. “Oh, man . . . I should . . . never have brought Melissa here . . .”
Caruso patted the agent’s cheek, gently but firmly. “Stay with us, Nick. No going to sleep. Where do you think Rene Peng is going?”
“No idea,” Sutton said, his words slurred. “If I woulda known that, I coulda caught ’em already . . .”
Ding’s voice broke squelch on the radio. “We have a woman wearing a white ball cap coming at us on East Broadway, toward the bridge. She’s restrained, like she’s trying to look relaxed but isn’t. There’s a guy with sunglasses and blue hoodie about three steps behind her.”
“That has to be them.” Dom looked down at Sutton’s wounds. “There no way she doesn’t have blood on her. Either that or she changed shirts.”
“Stand by,” Chavez said. “She’s walking past me now . . .” He whispered the next. “Bingo on the blood. It’s them, all right.”
* * *
—
The swath of red across the front of Rene Peng’s shirt was almost hidden by her arms. Her husband moved up beside her as she passed Ding, stuffing a cell phone back into his pocket and trotting to catch up as if he’d been on a call. He said something to her and they both laughed.