by Trevor Scott
At Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Jake and Steve Nelsen had returned only momentarily to retrieve their bags. Baskale, Nelsen’s prisoner, had been out cold for much of the trip. The Agency would take him to America, without regard for international extradition laws. While at Incirlik, Nelsen had briefed Jake on what the Director of Operations for the Agency, Kurt Jenkins, had told him on the phone when they were back in Carzani’s operations center. The U.S. Air Force master sergeant who had tried to get their attention while lifting off on the mission had been trying to deliver a message from the DO, who had word that they might have been compromised. Nelsen would have to live with the decision to ignore that man for the rest of his life. Ten men had died, including his partner Ricardo Garcia. That fact had finally hit Nelsen, who had become extremely reticent.
Worse than anything for Jake, perhaps, was the news that Quinn Armstrong had been killed in Odessa just after Jake had departed. Jake had tried to sleep on that fact for a few hours, but it had become useless to even try. He knew what he had to do, and he wasn’t going to enjoy it one bit. Somehow it had all clicked in his mind, and the bile rose up to his throat just thinking about it.
●
He was back in Odessa now. He had gone to the hotel, retrieved his 9mm from the safe, and was leaning against the wall in an apartment complex. He had never been there before, but had gotten the address from the DO before leaving Turkey.
It was just after noon and pouring rain outside. It was the kind of day that drove the solemn to insanity.
Jake was breathing hard. He tried to calm himself, but it was no use. He reached down for the handle on the door and let it sit there a moment. He pulled his Glock, thought of charging in, but then slipped the gun behind his back into his pants.
The door was unlocked. He slowly opened it.
Inside, the room was dark but everything was still in plain view. The man Jake had come to see was slouched back on the sofa, a glass of whiskey in his left hand and a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth.
“So, Jake. You’re back in Odessa,” Tully O’Neill said. “Have a seat.”
He was slurring his words. Jake could tell he was on his way to a great drunk. If he hadn’t already reached there.
“Why?” Jake said.
“So you don’t have to stand?” Tully laughed and then coughed until he inhaled on his cigarette.
Sitting on the table in front of Tully was his own 9mm automatic and an extra magazine, fully loaded. Jake assumed the magazine in the butt of the gun was also full.
“You know what I mean, Tully. Why did you sell us all out? Money?”
Tully swished his head from side to side. “You’d never understand. Just go back to your private practice and find some missing person, or save a Goddamned cat from a fucking tree, or whatever it is you do now. I don’t need you. I don’t need anybody.”
Jake didn’t like where the conversation was heading. “I could see someone giving the locals special consideration, like you did with Victor Petrov. You figure, ‘what the fuck’ make a few bucks off the Ukrainian Agriculture Ministry.” Jake watched Tully’s eyes, then continued on. “Then you decide to work a deal with Omri Sherut, who, I might add, sold you out pal.” A little lie never hurt, Jake thought.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“I know enough, Tully. You set up the hit on MacCarty and Swanson, which is the only thing I don’t fully understand, since they only wanted to set up a damn fertilizer and pesticide facility.”
“I’m supposed to know that?” Tully mumbled.
“You had them killed for nothing.”
“I didn’t do it. I swear. It was Sherut. He thought they had worked a deal with Tvchenko, since you were the last to talk with him, and you worked for them.”
Jake felt like pulling his gun and shooting the bastard right through the skull. He was breathing harder now. “You knew that wasn’t true,” Jake yelled.
“Sherut wouldn’t listen. He wanted to cut down all the competition.”
Jake shifted his stance, his hands on his hip ready to pull his gun. “You knew Tvchenko had sold out to the Kurds before I even got here, and that the Kurds and Sherut were simply cleaning up all the loose ends. You had overheard all that from the tapes. You had Quinn bring them to you so you could hear them exclusively. You also knew that Petra Kovarik had contacted the GRU and was thinking of selling what she knew. That’s why you sent Sherut’s men to kill her. And me. Or anyone else who got in the way. The man I shot at the apartment was one of Sherut’s men. I didn’t realize it until much later, when Sherut only had one goon at his side. I connected the dots.”
Tully lit another cigarette from the butt of the first, and then finished his glass of whiskey. “You’re a clever young man, Jake Adams. I could use a guy like you working for me.”
“Yeah, right. Like Quinn Armstrong?”
Tully looked away and then down at his gun on the table.
“You want to explain Quinn?” Jake asked.
Tully thought for a moment. “I never wanted him to die. He was a good man.”
“But?”
“He was too good. He found out about us. He would have blown the whole deal.”
“So, you blow his brains out?” Jake slid his right hand farther back on his hip, and fought off the urge to kill Tully.
Tully shook his head and inhaled deeply on the cigarette. Then he picked up the gun and stared at it. “We all die a little every day, Jake. Sometimes it’s better to go quickly. Life is more painful.”
Jake was about to slide his hand back to his gun, when Tully quickly shoved the barrel into his mouth and pulled the trigger. The shot was muffled, but there was a hole in the back of Tully’s head, with blood and brains splattered on the wall behind the sofa. Tully lay slumped awkwardly on the sofa like an old man who had fallen asleep in front of the television.
“Damn it, Tully,” Jake muttered. “Why?”
●
Jake left the apartment and took a cab to the airport. He checked his watch. His flight to Istanbul wouldn’t leave for another hour.
During the cab ride, he pulled Chavva’s driver’s license from his pocket. He smiled looking at her face. She was so beautiful. Maybe she could finally leave her past behind, forget about the horror she had known, that which had become so much a part of her. Maybe he could help her forget with time.
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
It was early evening, a red glow hanging over the tall minaret of the Blue Mosque.
The call to prayer echoed through the narrow streets as Jake walked along a busy market where vendors were selling fruits and vegetables, rugs and clothes, and live poultry.
He checked the address one more time and looked up to the second floor of an apartment building. He smiled and went inside, making his way up the stone steps.
When he reached the second floor, he found the door and stood for a moment wondering if she was even there. He started to knock, when the door slowly opened on him.
Standing inside, her dark hair resting on broad shoulders, Chavva smiled at him. Her large round eyes searched him carefully for any imperfection.
He went inside and she closed the door, turning back toward him.
“Finally,” she said. “You keep a date without sneaking into my room and pulling my naked body from my bed.”
He took her in his arms and they kissed for a long while.
“I was hoping to find you like that again.”
She kissed him quickly. “We have time.”
Consider the next book in the Jake Adams Series:
The Dolomite Solution (Jake Adams #3)
Vital Force (Jake Adams #4)
Rise of the Order (Jake Adams #5)
The Cold Edge (Jake Adams #6)
Without Options (Jake Adams #7)
The Stone of Archimedes ( Jake Adams #8)
Lethal Force (Jake Adams #9)
If you liked this thriller, please consider these fine
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Crown of Thorns by Hank Luce
The Seventh Deception by G. Dedrick Robinson
Spirit Flight by P.R. Fittante
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Hypershot by Trevor Scott