Don't Order Dog: 1 (Jeri Halston Series)

by C. T. Wente

  Tom nodded his head reluctantly. “Which is all the more reason to give your agent a heads-up. It wouldn’t hurt for him to take extra precautions, would it sir?”

  “Perhaps,” Preston replied. “Assuming he hasn’t found them already.”

  Tom stood up to leave. “Don’t take this the wrong way Director, but I hope for his sake he hasn’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some more letter reading to do.” He walked to the door, then turned and looked back at Preston sitting sullenly in his chair. “By the way, sir – do I know the agent you sent?”

  Preston looked at him absently for a moment before giving him a smug smile. “I can’t say that you would, Tom.”

  Tom nodded his head. “Right. Good afternoon, Director.”

  Jack Preston waited patiently for Tom to walk out of his office before grabbing his cell phone and quickly dialing a number.

  50.

  Sergeant Kearney moved cautiously down the fifteenth floor corridor of building 847, the pistol in his right hand concealed under his tactical vest. Like the courtyard below, the building was eerily quiet; its tenant now absorbed by the surrounding factories. Reaching apartment 1556, the sergeant paused next to the open door and brought his handgun to his chest. He stood silently, listening intently for any noise within the dark interior. Hearing nothing, he stepped back, raised his handgun into position and stepped inside.

  As a trained sniper with over forty successful special-ops missions under his belt and twenty-eight confirmed kills, Sergeant Kearney was familiar with nearly every form of tactical situation imaginable. His resume contained a wide range of expertly neutralized targets – a political figure enjoying his final course at a fine Italian restaurant, a vacationing drug czar playing on a jet-ski with his boyfriend in Thailand, a Congolese warlord raping a young girl in central Africa – all of them completed without so much as a scratch or a close call. The nearest he had ever come to a mission failure was an assignment two years earlier to neutralize an informant for a terrorist cell operating in the Philippines. The informant had been a beautiful twenty-something girl. Upon targeting her in his riflescope, Kearney had made a brief but nearly disastrous error – he’d looked at her as human. Had it been a short target window, he would have likely blown the mission. Luckily he’d had just enough time to regain his composure and complete the shot. Regardless of the diversity among them, the sergeant’s victims had one thing in common –

  None of them had ever seen him coming.

  But as he stepped inside the dark interior of apartment 1556 with his handgun raised in front of him, Sergeant Kearney suddenly realized with the certainty of gut instinct that his luck was about to change.

  He had barely leveled his gun on a man seated in front of him when a piercing, high-pitched scream erupted from the nearby corner of the room. Kearney instinctively turned to his right, his eyes straining to see clearly in the dim light. A small black box that appeared to be a speaker stood on a table. Kearney began to move towards it when a sudden flicker of light coming from the seated man caught his attention. Unable to hear and barely able to see, the sergeant dropped to one knee and aimed his gun at the man’s chest. The muzzle of the handgun flashed to life as he placed four rounds through the man’s heart with lethal precision before rising to his feet and retreating backwards towards the safety of the door. Once there, he slowly swept the room with his handgun.

  At that same moment, the high-pitched tone stopped.

  Disoriented and nearly deaf from the noise, Kearney crouched in the entry of the apartment, watching intently for any other signs of movement. The body of the first target lay motionless next to him, a pool of dark blood collecting around the man’s ash-colored face. Even without clearly seeing the damage he’d inflicted, the sergeant knew the silhouetted man seated in front of him must also be dead.

  So who was controlling the speaker?

  Kearney had barely considered the question when a blow to the back of his head sent him tumbling forward into the apartment. An explosion of light filled his vision as his left temple slammed violently against an unseen object in front of him. Stunned, the sergeant dropped his handgun and threw out his arms as he fell heavily to the floor. At that moment his training took over. Kearney rolled onto his side and quickly scrambled to his knees just as another direct blow – this time to his forehead – spun him painfully onto his back. As he struggled to get up, his assailant dropped his foot onto Kearney’s chest and pressed him hard against the ground. He groaned and opened his eyes to see a smiling, dark-haired man standing over him.

  “Lie still,” the man said calmly in a clear American accent. He kneeled down and quickly wrapped a small plastic strap around the sergeant’s wrists and bound them tightly together, then fastened the strap to the Kevlar collar of Kearney’s tactical vest.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Kearney replied, straining angrily against his bindings. Every movement of his body caused an explosion of pain in his head, and he could feel the warmth of his own blood running in a thick stream down his temple. The man leaned forward and pressed his foot harder against his chest until Kearney was unable to breathe.

  “I said lie still.”

  Realizing there was no chance of escape, Kearney finally conceded and dropped his head exhaustedly to the floor. He gasped for breath as the man finally removed his foot from his chest.

  “That’s better,” the man responded. He pulled a small, pen-sized flashlight from his pocket and alternately shined the light into both of Kearney’s eyes. “I’m afraid I’m not in a position to answer your question right now, but I doubt it even matters. You’ve suffered enough blows to your skull to produce a really nice concussion. You’ll be lucky to remember anything I say.”

  He put the flashlight away and leaned over the sergeant with a curious stare. “However, we do have some questions for you.”

  Kearney watched in surprise as another man suddenly appeared from behind the man’s shoulder and flashed him a wide grin. Even in the dim light he could see that the second man was tall and muscular, with bright blue eyes and a tousle of short, blonde hair. As the two men gazed down at him, Kearney realized with a dreaded sense of certainty that his smiling captors were his two intended targets.

  The blonde-haired man looked over at the body slumped against the wall next to him. “God, what a bloody mess,” he said with an Australian accent as he turned and walked to the entry. Kearney listened as the front door was closed and locked. A second later the sergeant heard the click of a light switch and winced in agony as the interior was suddenly filled with bright light.

  The dark-haired American removed a backpack from his shoulder before sitting down on the floor next to him. The sergeant tried once again to rise up, but the effects of the blows instantly brought on a nauseating wave of disorientation. He gently laid his head back onto the cold concrete as the Australian walked past him and sat down on what Kearney could now see was a bright red couch in the center of the room. Strangely, the man completely ignored the chair next to him where the lifeless body of Kearney’s second victim still sat.

  “Why are you here?” the American asked him as he reached into his backpack.

  “Do you really expect me to answer that?” Kearney replied.

  “Eventually, yes.” The American paused and smiled at something concealed in his bag. “Ah, here it is.”

  “Fuck you. I’m not giving you anything… no matter what you have tucked away in that fucking backpack.”

  “They always say that,” the Australian man said in a flat, bored tone. “They always say ‘I’m not going to talk’. And then, about two minutes after the injection, they start weeping and carrying on as if you were their mother and they hadn’t seen you in twenty years.” He looked down at Sergeant Kearney and grinned dolefully at him with perfect white teeth. “But who knows? Maybe this one will end differently.”

  “No,” his colleague replied. “It won’t.”

  The sergeant barely had time to notice the
small syringe pulled from the bag before the needle was plunged into his neck. The American watched Kearney with a cold, detached stare as he quickly depressed the plunger.

  “I admit, I’ve never injected sodium thiopental into a person suffering from a concussion or brain trauma, so it’ll be interesting to see what we end up with.” He removed the needle and pressed a piece of cotton firmly against the sergeant’s skin.

  Kearney looked up into the dark eyes of the American and slowly shook his head. A calming sensation immediately began to ripple outward from his neck across his body, erasing all pain in its wake. His skin tingled, his thoughts began to evaporate. As the American looked at his watch, Kearney dimly realized the sensation he was experiencing was not unlike being drunk and floating in a warm, still lake.

  He looked up at the friendly-looking American man and smiled.

  ∞

  He glanced again at his watch. “Two minutes.”

  “How does he look?” Tall Tommy asked half-heartedly.

  “Clinically speaking, he looks highly chemically induced.”

  Tall Tommy leaned over and glanced at the serene face of the drugged sergeant sprawled across the floor. “Nice work. I think you may have just discovered the cure for the common assassin.”

  “You might be right,” he replied, looking down at the sergeant.

  “Okay, are we ready to play?”

  The sergeant gazed up at him with glassy, dilated eyes.

  “What are we playing?” he asked slowly.

  “Twenty questions,” he replied, “starting with your name.”

  “Okay.”

  “No, that was the first question. What is your name?”

  “Oh,” the sergeant responded, blinking slowly. “My name is Sergeant Andrew Kearney. United States Army, 2nd Division.”

  “And why are you here, Sergeant Kearney?”

  “My assignment was to… to neutralize two terrorists believed to be operating in this location.”

  “Did you kill that man?” he asked, pointing towards the body slumped against

  the wall.

  “Yes,” the sergeant replied.

  “So he was one of your targets?”

  “I thought he was, but… but now I’m not so sure. I think... I think you might be the intended target. You both look somewhat alike, and I didn’t have any… any pictures, you know?” The sergeant turned his head towards the couch and pointed his finger at Tall Tommy. “That man is definitely the second target. I was looking for him when I entered the apartment.”

  The American suddenly grabbed the sergeant’s face and twisted it roughly towards the body on the floor. Kearney winced in pain.

  “Did you know that man was an agent for the US Department of Homeland Security?”

  “No… of course not,” the sergeant replied slowly, his face contorting into a strange grimace. “I didn’t have any idea.”

  From his seat on the couch, Tall Tommy leaned forward and let out a low whistle. “Now it’s getting interesting.”

  The American nodded his head. “Sergeant, I want to know who–”

  The ring of a cell phone suddenly interrupted him. He looked inquiringly at the sergeant before realizing the sound was coming from somewhere else. Both he and Tall Tommy glanced over at the wall by the entry.

  The cell phone rang again.

  He immediately rushed over to the body of the slain agent and began feeling along his chest and legs. He found the phone inside the man’s heavy jacket and pulled it free as it rang again. The small screen illuminated a single word as the caller’s identity.

  DIRECTOR

  “Who is it?” Tall Tommy asked.

  He turned and looked at his blonde-haired colleague, a slight grin on his face.

  “What?” Tall Tommy asked.

  “I have an idea.”

  “Alright, let’s hear it.”

  He held a finger to his lips for silence before clicking the answer button on the phone.

  51.

  Jack Preston was about to hang up when a sudden click on the line made him stop and bring the cellphone back to his ear. Annoyed, he didn’t wait for a response before speaking.

  “In case I didn’t make myself clear before, Agent Martin, I expect a goddamn progress report every fifteen minutes here forward. Now give me the status on the situation – starting with your exact location.”

  “I’m afraid the situation isn’t as expected,” an unfamiliar male voice replied coolly into the phone. “Agent Martin is dead.”

  “Who the hell is this?” Preston demanded.

  “Agent Martin has just suffered two shots from a high-powered rifle,” the man continued. “From what I can tell, the first shot collapsed his left lung but was non-lethal. Unfortunately, the second shot shattered his fourth thoracic vertebrae and severed his spinal cord before destroying his heart. I’m quite certain the second shot killed him instantly. Please give his family my sincere condolences.”

  Preston sat speechless in his chair as the unknown man paused and waited for his response.

  “Are you still there?” the man asked.

  “I’m… yes, I’m still here,” Preston stammered. “And who am I speaking to?” he asked as he rose from his desk and rushed towards the door.

  “I happened to be nearby when this whole horrible situation as you call it occurred. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to offer any useful assistance to Agent Martin after he was shot. His injuries simply were not survivable.”

  The Director threw open the door to his office and looked anxiously down the hallway towards the elevators. Dammit! Tom Coleman was already gone. He turned to Julie his assistant and irritably motioned for something to write with. She pushed a notepad across her desk and handed him a pen.

  “I’m… I’m very sorry to hear that,” Preston replied as he scribbled down a single underlined word and held it out to her.

  Trace!

  Julie nodded her head and immediately picked up the phone to initiate a trace of the call as the Director paced back into his office and quietly shut the door. “I’m sure you did everything you could. I apologize, but I didn’t catch your name.”

  “I didn’t provide it,” the man replied matter-of-factly. “My employer has a rather strict policy against the use of real names while on assignment. Of course, I might be persuaded to bend the rules a little if you were to tell me your name.”

  Preston stood by the window in his office and considered his reply. The voice on the other end of the line almost certainly belonged to the man – the terrorist – they were after, and yet nothing about this call made any sense. Agent Martin dead? It didn’t seem likely, and yet this man had just described his injuries in grisly detail. Even more perplexing was the call itself. If this man truly was their terrorist – the man who’d murdered four Petronus Energy employees and miraculously evaded the CIA – why had he answered the call? Preston knew the only chance of finding the answer and maintaining a traceable thread to this man hinged upon keeping him on the phone long enough to gain some information. But he had to play it smart. Under no circumstances could he provide any useful information in return.

  “I wish I could,” he responded. “Unfortunately my employer follows the same policy.”

  “That’s too bad,” the man replied. “I was hoping we could speak under a greater sense of mutual trust, Director.”

  A cold chill ran up Preston’s spine. How in the hell did he know this? Christ, what other information had Agent Martin given him? He ran his hand through his receding crop of red hair and started pacing the floor. “I was hoping for the same, but it seems you already know a lot more about me than I know about you.”

  Preston heard a brief click on the line. The signal trace had started. If his surveillance team in Phoenix was doing its job, they’d also started recording the conversation and initiating a voice analysis on his unidentified caller.

  “On the contrary, I know almost nothing about you, Director,” the man replied. “My knowl
edge is limited to two simple facts – you sent a U.S. Homeland Security Agent named Martin to China on an assignment, and Agent Martin is now dead.”

  The remark sent a bolt of anger through the Director. “You forgot one important fact,” he replied slowly, any trace of politeness now stripped from his voice. “You killed Agent Martin.”

  “No, Director, that’s not a fact. That’s an assumption… and an incorrect one as well. But this must be your lucky day, because the man that did kill Agent Martin is here next to me, and I would be delighted to introduce you. Please hold for just a moment.”

  “What?” Preston replied. “I don’t understand. Who–” He paused at the muffled sound of someone speaking in the background. A moment later, another male voice spoke languidly into the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Who is this?” Preston demanded.

  “This is Sergeant Andrew Kearney. United States Army… 2nd Division.”

  The Director stopped pacing and stood rigidly next to his desk. Did he just hear this man correctly? “Sergeant, what’s your involvement in this situation?”

  The sergeant hesitated for a moment before speaking. When he did, his baritone voice came across the phone line in a soft, faintly slurred whisper.

  “At twenty-one-hundred hours last night I received eyes-only orders to neutralize two terrorist targets believed to be operating at this location. I arrived on-site at zero-four-hundred hours this morning and set up my primary position on the roof of the building directly south of this location. Shortly after zero-seven-hundred hours, I observed a tall Caucasian male with brown hair who I believed to be the first of my two targets walking into the apartment number I was provided. Upon exiting the apartment, the target proceeded to enter another apartment with a weapon drawn, and it was at that time that I decided to engage. I then neutralized the target with two shots from my rifle.”

  Preston listened without saying a word as he walked around his desk and sank dumbfounded into his chair. The sergeant continued in a slow, droning monotone.