Rogue Operator

by J. Robert Kennedy

  But not in Ogden, Utah.

  The guy on the left twitched, and Kane immediately recognized the decision to open fire.

  Kane squeezed the trigger, taking out the twitcher, and was already squeezing the trigger as the second target came into his sights. The second jerked backward, toward the tiny bathroom, as the first one fell into the nightstand. The other two opened fire, but were also diving for cover, their aim wild, but not wild enough for Kane’s liking.

  These guys were good.

  The door frame took several hits, blasting apart into a million shards of wood as Kane twisted his head out of the way, closing his eyes to protect them, still squeezing his trigger with no doubt as to his aim, only doubt as to whether or not his targets were in the locations his educated guesses suggested they were.

  He heard a cry as he ejected the spent clip and smacked in a new one. The gunfire stopped and he poked his head inside to see a third body near the door to the adjoining room and the fourth in the bathroom, shoving himself through the window.

  “Don’t make me shoot you in the ass,” said Kane, stepping into the room, his gun aimed directly at the man’s chute. He froze, then slowly crawled back inside, his arms raised, gun hooked on his trigger finger. “Toss it in the tub.” The man flicked his wrist, and there was an unsatisfying thud as expensive polymer hit cheap plastic. “Now step out here, nice and slow, and empty your pockets on the bed.”

  The man complied, his eyes never leaving the gun, except for a brief instance to confirm his three comrades were down and out. Footsteps from outside, pounding on the pavement caused the man to look at the door, but not Kane.

  “Detective Percy, would you mind covering my six while I interrogate this prisoner?”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” growled the detective. “You put your damned gun down, now!”

  “From your little perch at the gas station, I assume you saw these four men enter my room?”

  “How’d you—”

  “Yes or no, Detective?”

  “Yes, of course—”

  “Therefore they are trespassing in my room, are they not?”

  There was a grunt. “Yes.”

  “And I have a right to defend myself?”

  “Yes,” he muttered, then his voice seemed to find strength. “To a point!”

  “True, and I think that point has been reached,” said Kane, still not taking his eyes off the one remaining man. He knew that if this man had been through the same training he had, a mere second was all that was needed to make a successful dive for one of his comrades’ weapons still lying on the floor. “Would you please pass me your handcuffs?”

  There was another grunt, then the jangle of cuffs as they came into view. He took them with his spare hand, and tossed them at the prisoner, who caught them easily.

  “Now put those on, nice and tight.”

  The man glared at Kane, but complied.

  “Now, Detective, would you mind frisking him?”

  “Yes I would! Who the hell do you think you are?”

  Kane smiled.

  “Would you believe I’m an insurance investigator from Shaw’s of London?”

  “Not for a fuckin’ second.”

  Kane chuckled.

  “All you need to know, Detective, is that I’m on your side, they’re not. These are most likely part of the crew that killed your partner.”

  He heard a deep breath get quickly sucked in through the detective’s nose.

  “Cover me.”

  Kane stepped aside as Detective Percy entered the room and approached the last man standing. A quick pat down revealed a gun in an ankle holster.

  “Check his belt buckle.”

  Percy nodded, and grabbed the buckle, then shook his head and removed the belt.

  “How’d you know?”

  Kane smiled as he looked at the special issue belt with two small blades integrated into it.

  “Just a hunch.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Kane looked at their prisoner.

  “Now, please take a seat.”

  The man sat down, the scowl on his face suggesting he was as pissed off at the situation as Kane would be if the roles were reversed. And his constantly roaming eyes left no doubt he was looking for a way out.

  “Why have you been following me?”

  He could tell by the sniff that Detective Percy wasn’t happy with the first question. No doubt he wanted to confirm if this guy was involved with the murder of his partner.

  But first things first.

  He needed to know if this was sanctioned or rogue. If it was sanctioned, it meant he had become a target of the Agency for some reason. If it were rogue, then at least he knew he could come in from the cold and find out what the hell was going on.

  But, as expected, he received no reply.

  “Listen,” said Kane, approaching the man. “You know who I am, obviously. You know what I am. You know I can cause you an extreme amount of pain, and never leave a mark.” Kane stopped in front of the man, looking down at him. The man had little choice but to look up, otherwise he’d be staring at Kane’s crotch, something most men refused to do if given an alternative.

  “Now, if you are who I think you are, you no doubt have been trained, like I was, to withstand a tremendous amount of pain. But, since you’re on a domestic operation, and you’re about the same age I was when I came out of basic, I’m guessing you haven’t actually had to put that training into practice.” He paused, the man’s eyes meeting his, but a little wider than before. “Have you picked your safe place?”

  The man said nothing, but his eyes flashed wider for a split second.

  “Is it something from your childhood? Your home when growing up? The family cottage? Or is it some place you like to go. Fishing perhaps? Skiing?” No reaction. “Well, I suggest you go there now, or answer me this simple question. Are you on a sanctioned Agency mission, or not?”

  Again no response.

  Kane reached forward, his thumb and index finger held out, and rested them on the man’s neck, his thumb in the hollow under the ear.

  “Have you gone to your safe place?”

  Their captive sucked in a deep breath, his teeth clenching, the jaw muscles flexing, as he prepped himself for the pain.

  “Tut tut,” said Kane, shaking his head. “You really do have no experience at this, do you?” He leaned forward and whispered in the man’s ear. “I’m really sorry about this. If you answer my simple question, either way, the pain will stop. I don’t care whether you are sanctioned or not, I just need to know which it is.” He leaned in, placing his lips within an inch of the man’s ear, and lowered his voice. “And remember, I’m trained to be able to tell if you’re lying.”

  He stood back up, and began to push firmly with his thumb, his index finger providing leverage, and the man began to turn red.

  “Safe place…” whispered Kane, knowing full well that every time he mentioned it, it would drag the man back from it, the acknowledgement of the coping mechanism subconsciously negating its effectiveness unless you were truly experienced in having had pain inflicted upon your body where you could shut out your captor’s voice.

  Like he had experienced on more than one occasion.

  Fortunately he’d always made it out alive, usually due to the overconfidence most torturer’s had. They assumed after a short while that you were broken physically and mentally, with no hope of putting together a coherent escape plan, and certainly not capable of noticing and taking advantage of a little thing such as a loose bolt or rusty nail.

  He pushed harder still, and the man gasped in pain, the breath he had been holding escaping with a burst. Kane heard the detective about to say something, and cut him off with a raised finger before the first syllable was completed.

  “This will all end if you just answer my simple question.”

  “Sanctioned!” yelped the man.

  Kane let go, and the color quickly began to return to the man’s
face as Kane felt a pit grow in his stomach. If they were sanctioned, that meant he had killed three of his comrades, on the job. It didn’t make sense. First off, CIA wasn’t supposed to operate on US soil unless sanctioned by the President or very senior administration, but that was ignored all the time when dealing with one of their own, so that part didn’t really bother him. It was the fact that they’d resort to killing him that had him concerned.

  “Why did you try to kill me?”

  The man was no longer looking at Kane, his head sagging into his chest as he realized he hadn’t even lasted sixty seconds of torture, and the humiliation that would bring him if it were known. What he should have realized, but Kane certainly wasn’t about to help him with that, was that Kane was an expert at manipulating people, and there was no shame in cracking under the physical and psychological torture his mind knew would be coming, and the inevitable breaking point that would have been reached regardless.

  “You shot first.”

  “Only because your buddy was about to shoot me.”

  “He wasn’t one of us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was an outside contractor.”

  “With who?”

  The man shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know. BlackTide I think.”

  Kane pursed his lips. If BlackTide were involved, this took on an entirely different slant. They were notorious, not only for some of the shit they had pulled publicly in Iraq and Afghanistan, but for what the public didn’t know. They were private security, but special ops trained. Their services went far beyond providing extra bodies in US war zones. Visit their website, and you’ll see they hired out their services to anyone with money. And those services included hostage rescue, extraction, security and “other” services that would be discussed for a price.

  These guys would do anything for money.

  Including apparently shoot and kill a CIA agent.

  “So your orders weren’t to kill me?”

  The man shook his head.

  “No, we were to track you, then question you as to why you were here.”

  “How’d you find out I was coming back?”

  “No idea. I’m new on the team. Last minute replacement. All I know is something happened last week, something bad. I arrived yesterday to replace someone in Salt Lake City. Apparently appendicitis.”

  “Are you the only team here?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “Who’s your handler?”

  He shook his head. “No idea, above my pay grade.”

  Kane frowned. This guy was too new and too green to have any useful information, beyond the fact that it appeared the surveillance was sanctioned, but perhaps not the op from last week.

  “What’s your protocol if things go sour?”

  “Call the switchboard, request extraction.”

  The detective cleared his throat. “He’s not going anywhere.”

  Kane ignored him. “Were these guys”—he motioned at the bodies with his chin—“here last week?”

  Shrugged shoulders.

  “Can’t say for sure, but the chatter I overheard suggested so. Like I said, something bad happened, but I don’t know what. I think they were sent in to clean it up.”

  “Any idea what that op was?”

  The man shook his head. “No idea, above—”

  “—my pay grade, yes, I get it.” Kane sighed, then picked up the man’s cellphone off the bed. He dialed the switchboard and held the phone to the man’s ear. “Request a clean-up crew and extraction.”

  There was a pause, then a deep breath.

  “This is Eagle Watch, code forty-seven. I say again, this is Eagle Watch, code forty-seven.”

  Kane took the phone away, snapping it shut. He turned to Detective Percy.

  “We’ve got anywhere from five minutes to a couple of hours, depends on how high a priority they assigned to this op. I’m guessing low priority, but you never know. Either way, we need to leave, now.”

  Percy shook his head.

  “There’s no fuckin’ way I’m leaving a murder scene like this.”

  Kane looked at Percy.

  “I don’t think you get it. When that clean-up crew arrives, there will be no murder scene. It will be scrubbed clean, as if it never happened. And depending upon how tight they want to keep a lid on it, anybody here that shouldn’t be here, will be scrubbed along with it. So I suggest you and I get out of here, and leave our friend here, who had nothing to do with the murder of your partner, to deal with his handlers.”

  Kane began to walk from the room, holstering his weapon. He could hear the shuffling of feet as the detective tried to decide what to do, then a growl as he apparently made a decision against his better judgment. Kane held the door open for the angry detective, then closed it behind them.

  “You know, somebody probably reported the shots.”

  “Perhaps, but unlikely. This time of day, this part of town? The motel’s almost empty, and we’re next to a highway with nothing but a gas station and a trucking company within earshot. My guess is if anyone heard anything, they decided to just not get involved.”

  Detective Percy growled again.

  Kane climbed in his SUV and rolled down the window.

  “We need to talk. Meet me where you were parked earlier.”

  Percy frowned, then nodded, climbing into his car as Kane started the Expedition. He pulled out and drove to the gas station, parking near a tree where a set of dumpsters would protect him from view of any arriving cleanup crew. A moment later the detective pulled up beside him and climbed out of his vehicle.

  “Join me in here, Detective, I’m thinking it’s a little more comfortable.”

  Kane closed his window before the detective could protest, and a few seconds later the passenger seat was occupied.

  Percy looked at him.

  “You’re no insurance investigator.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “What are you? FBI?”

  “Try three different letters.”

  “CIA?” Percy’s voice sounded almost incredulous.

  “I can’t confirm that,” said Kane, directly looking into the detective’s eyes, hoping he’d catch the meaning of the stare.

  Percy frowned, and nodded. “I see.”

  Message received.

  “So what’s going on?” asked the detective, turning his body slightly and relaxing against the door.

  “I wish I knew. All I know is that a group of scientists, working on something very top secret, were presumed dead. The same day, the families of the only two scientists that had families, were kidnapped, and their lab was cleared out. That part I got from you, so it has been buried so deep, even my sources don’t have access to the information.”

  “But why is the CIA involved?”

  Kane shrugged his shoulders. “I’m on vacation, doing a favor for a trusted friend. All I know is one of these supposedly dead scientists called his mom yesterday, saying they were alright. And to not look for them.”

  “Sounds almost like they went into Witness Protection.”

  “It does, doesn’t it? But the US Marshals wouldn’t have been so sloppy about it. This operation looks to me like it was done by a team or teams who didn’t care if there were witnesses, because they knew they’d be untraceable.”

  “Why kill my partner?”

  “Evidence that something happened is one thing, being arrested by police is another. And if BlackTide is involved, I’m willing to bet that’s who opened fire on you, and that’s who you killed. I can’t see a CIA sanctioned team killing police officers on our own soil, especially when we’re not even allowed to operate here officially unless there’s a terrorist threat.”

  “Sounds like BlackTide needs to be taken down.”

  “That’ll never happen. They’re too well connected.” Kane looked at the cop and put his hand on the back of the passenger seat, leaning in slightly. “Look, don’t get any ideas. They will kill you. Without h
esitation. They’ll just bring in somebody from outside the country to do it, and it will never trace back to them.”

  “There’s no way I can let my partner’s death go without those responsible going to jail.”

  “You killed those responsible.”

  “No, I killed the shooters, not those who gave the orders.” Detective Percy looked away, his voice lowering. “I want them to pay.”

  Kane knew exactly how the detective felt. He’d lost partners on missions before, and the pit it left in your stomach never really went away. But killing those responsible always seemed to help a little.

  Sometimes a lot.

  “Tell me everything you know, and I promise you, they will.”

  The detective looked at him, then began to spill. About the Peterson kidnapping, the abandoned truck and SUVs, the helicopter that presumably took them away, the kidnapping of the Shephard family and the black SUVs reported at the scene, the near-miss with the military transport plane, the presumed pickup of the hostages, and the shootout on the way back from the landing strip, the theft of the bodies, and the emptying out of the scientists’ lab.

  A full report, but nothing useful.

  “Did you go to the landing strip?”

  Percy nodded. “The next day. Something big had landed there alright.”

  “Anything on the helicopter?”

  “Nothing.”

  “They probably brought it in special. If this were my op, and I didn’t care about witnesses, I’d take the Peterson family, evac them by helicopter, leaving all the vehicles witnesses saw, behind. There were two SUV’s involved. I’m thinking two four man teams. Two driving the semi, two in the back, two in each SUV. The helicopter and two more SUVs, the ones you saw them in later, and the ones used in the Shephard kidnapping, are prepositioned. They arrive with their hostages, one team evacs them to the landing strip, the other team picks up the Shephards and drives them out to the strip. The C130 comes in for a pickup of the hostages, leaving the two full teams behind. Their job is over.

  “My guess is you’ll never find the chopper. It was either brought in special and taken away, or it was borrowed and put back. You could try canvassing local heliports to see if anybody rented something, but I doubt you’ll find anything that will connect back to anything.