Hit For Hire

by David Archer

  “I’m going back for more voice practice in the morning,” Noah said, “and then I’m going out to R&D for a makeover. Apparently, he had red hair and green eyes, so I get hair color and contacts. Something about a big nose, too.”

  Sarah grimaced. “I’m having a little trouble seeing you as a redhead,” she said. “Make sure he gives you enough that you can touch it up as needed.”

  “I’m sure he will. Wally knows what he’s doing, and if anyone could anticipate what we might need, I’d say it’s him.”

  “Hey,” Neil said suddenly, “maybe he’s come up with a shot that can turn your hair red and your eyes green. Then you wouldn't have to worry about keeping up with it.”

  Moose smacked him playfully on the back of his head. “You’re reading too much science fiction,” he said. “I don’t think we’re anywhere close to doing that kind of thing yet.”

  Neil stuck out his tongue at the bigger man. “Did you not see that bomb-making 3D printer he gave us last time? I’m not too sure there’s anything Wally’s gang can’t do if they set their minds to it.”

  “Yeah,” Lacey put in, “and stop hitting my boyfriend or I’ll tell my dad to make you miserable on your next workout.”

  The banter continued throughout the evening, and all six of them seemed to enjoy the outing. Noah called it a night when the air began cooling enough that the girls were occasionally shivering and took them back to the boathouse. Thirty minutes later, he and Sarah were alone once again.

  Morning came on schedule and Noah let Sarah sleep in. He showered quickly and slipped out, then drove back to Mission ID for another morning of practicing his impersonation of Adrian. Mitchell was waiting for him when he arrived.

  “Ready to go at it again? I wrote up some particular phrases I want you to work on today, see if you can do them as Adrian well enough to fool my computer program.”

  Noah nodded as he took his seat and slipped on the headset. “Let’s do it,” he said.

  “Okay, try this,” Mitchell said. “Say, ‘my name is Adrian and I’ve been told you want to talk to me.’”

  “My name is Adrian and I’ve been told you want to talk to me.”

  “Geez, that was dead on.” Mitchell shook his head. “Blows my mind how you picked this up so easily. Let’s try another one.”

  For three hours, Mitchell fed lines to Noah, which he repeated back into the headset microphone. Over and over the computer registered a nearly perfect emulation of Adrian’s voice and speech patterns, so that by the time they ended the exercises at noon he stated that Noah had it down pat.

  “I don’t think there’s anything else I can do for you,” he said at last. “You’re so good at this it’s incredible.”

  Noah took off the headset and shook the hand that Mitchell extended to him. “I really appreciate all of this,” he said. “I understand it’s essential to the mission and that you’re just doing your job, but having you and your technology available is undoubtedly beneficial.”

  It was almost noon, so Noah said goodbye and drove back into Kirtland to find lunch. He decided to hit the McDonald’s that was close to the main office and grab a burger and fries to eat on his way out to R&D. He finished his lunch as he pulled up to the guard shack outside the big building.

  The guard checked his ID as thoroughly as always, then waved him on in. Noah parked the Corvette near the entrance and walked inside, where another guard checked his ID and then notified Wally that he was there.

  “Camelot!” Wally called as he stepped into the lobby. “Man, it’s great to see you again! I understand we got to pretty you up a bit, that right?”

  Noah shrugged. “Well, you've got to make me look different. I’ll have to let Sarah decide if it improves my looks any.”

  Wally laughed, throwing his head back. “I think she’s crazy about you the way you are,” he said. “She probably won’t like what we're about to do, but I got everything all set up so let’s get to it.”

  He led Noah down the hallway and into what looked for all the world like a beauty salon. Two women looked up and smiled as they entered.

  “Camelot, this is Carol and Lizzie,” Wally said. “Girls, this is Camelot. You got everything ready?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Lizzie said. “Camelot, if you’ll have a seat in the chair right here, we’ll get started on turning you into a ginger.”

  Noah took the seat she indicated and a moment later he was leaning back into a sink as she washed his hair. She scrubbed hard enough to make it hurt, explaining that she had to get all of the natural oils out of his hair in order for the special dye she was going to use to work properly. When she was finished scrubbing his scalp raw, she used a blow dryer to get all of the moisture out.

  Once his hair was dried, she turned the chair so that he was looking into a mirror. “This is a very special hair dye, something we developed that will completely cover your natural color without bleaching your hair. It’s about as permanent as permanent can get, so once we get finished, the only way you get your natural color back is to either let it grow out and trim off the red or stop back in and let us repeat this procedure.”

  She picked up a tube and uncapped it, then attached what looked like a comb to the open end. Little by little, she combed through his hair, and Noah watched with curiosity in the mirror as his hair went from blonde to red.

  “Okay,” she said after about fifteen minutes, “that about does it. I’m going to give you a couple of tubes of this stuff to take with you, so you can touch up roots as they start to grow out. Be sure to check yourself carefully every morning for any sign of blonde growing in under the red. It wouldn’t do for someone to figure out that you’re coloring your hair.”

  Noah agreed, and then Carol moved in beside him. “Camelot, have you ever worn contacts before?”

  “Nope,” Noah said. “My eyes seem to work just fine the way they are.”

  Carol nodded. “These don’t have any kind of correction to them, they’ll just turn your naturally blue eyes to green. These are very specially made, designed to let plenty of oxygen get through them to your cornea so that your eyes don’t dry out too badly, but you may need to moisten them occasionally. You can leave these in for up to two weeks at a time, but try not to go past that. What I’m going to do is show you how to put them in and take them out yourself, just in case you ever have to. Are you ready?”

  Noah said he was, and the girl began explaining how to put a couple of drops of saline solution into his eyes and then use the tip of a finger to carefully place the lens against his eyeball. Noah got it on the first try with his right eye, then again with his left. Once he had them both in place, she talked him through removing them, then had him rinse them in saline and put them back in. He did it again with no problem, and she pronounced him ready to go.

  At that point, another woman entered the room. This one was carrying a hypodermic needle, and Noah was reminded of Neil's comments about shots to change hair and eye color.

  "Hi, there," the woman said. "I'm Jackie, and you're probably not going to like me too much. I understand we need to make your nose a little bigger for your next mission, and that's my job. I'm going to give you a series of small shots in the skin of your nose that will make it swell a bit. The effect will last about a month, so hopefully you'll be done with your mission by then."

  "If I'm not," Noah said, "it probably won't matter."

  Jackie gave him a wry grin and leaned close to swab his nose with alcohol pads, and then she began poking the needle into various parts of the skin. Noah made no sound and did not flinch, and she was finished after less than a minute.

  "Now, that may feel strange for a couple hours, as the swelling takes effect and sort of locks itself in. Once you get used to it, though, I don't think it will even be noticeable." She turned around without even saying goodbye and left the room.

  Wally had taken a seat in the room and waited while the transformation was made, and he jumped to his feet as Noah rose from the chair. �
�Wow, Camelot,” he said with a grin, “you do look different. I don’t know, that girl of yours might decide she likes this look. Let me know how that goes, will you?”

  Noah looked at himself in the mirror one more time, then turned to Wally. “Just being honest, but I don’t think I like this look very much, myself. It makes me look like a guy I knew in the Army, and he wasn’t exactly a friend of mine. A real jerk, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Yeah, well, everybody looks like somebody,” Wally said. “Wait and see what your girlfriend thinks before you decide not to keep this look after the mission.”

  Noah shook his hand and then Wally escorted him out of the building. He looked just different enough that the guards might have had trouble accepting his ID, so Wally even called out to the gate to clear his departure.

  Noah climbed into the Corvette and headed for home. Sarah, Moose and Neil were all at his place, going through the files once more and looking for ideas they might suggest to Noah on how to handle various aspects of the mission. The three of them were at the table when he walked through the front door, and all of them stared when he entered the kitchen.

  “Who are you and where the hell is my boyfriend?” Sarah said after a long moment’s pause.

  “Holy crap,” Neil said, staring at Noah’s hair. “That’s really red.”

  "Yeah, and check out that schnoz!" Moose added in.

  “Supposedly this makes me look more like Adrian,” Noah said. He looked at Sarah. “Wally actually thought you might like this look. Can I tell him he was full of shit?”

  Sarah nodded slowly. “About three tons of it,” she said. “I don’t like that at all. Good Lord, Noah, you don’t even look like you.”

  Moose chuckled. “Yeah, you look like an Irish mobster.”

  Noah walked over to the counter and poured himself a cup of coffee, then took a seat at the table with them. “I knew a guy who looked a lot like this in the Army,” he said. “His name was Monahan, and he was about as Irish as you can get. A real asshole.” He took a sip of coffee and set the cup down. “So, where are we?”

  Moose picked up a sheet of paper from one of the files and slid it over to him. “We noticed something,” he said. “MI6 has been monitoring all of Broussard’s phone calls for more than a year, but they say they’ve never heard anything that could implicate him with IAR. We thought that seemed a little odd...”

  “So I got my computer and started searching for any photos of Broussard using a phone,” Neil broke in. “I found a lot of them in different databases, and it seems he has a phone they haven’t discovered yet. Look at these pictures.” He turned the computer around so that Noah could see the screen. There were two photos on it. “In the first picture, you see him using the phone he’s known for. It’s an expensive Vertu, one of the most expensive cell phones you can get. In the other picture, he’s using a blocky old sat phone, though, you see that?”

  “Yes,” Noah said. “I take it there’s no record of a sat phone?”

  “None at all,” Moose said. “That struck us as odd, since there are at least three photos taken by MI6 and NSA that show him using this one or one like it, but somehow their people never caught it.”

  Noah lowered his eyebrows. “So you’re thinking that he’s using a sat phone to communicate with his IAR associates?”

  “That’s possible,” Neil said, “but he uses it so rarely that I can’t help wondering if it’s for a special purpose only. What if he’s actually using it to talk to someone above him? I mean, the Dragon Lady said they aren’t certain he’s the top guy, right?”

  Noah looked closely at the two photos for another moment. “You may have just stumbled onto something important,” he said. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you can track down the number of that phone, maybe get a tap on it?”

  Neil scowled and shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. There are so many variables to a sat phone that it would be impossible to find any record of it. And before you ask, I already tried. There are no records anywhere of him purchasing one, but it’s not like he’d do it under his own name, anyway, right?”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t. Still, it gives us something to work on when we get close to him. And speaking of that, we need to get packed. We’re booked on a KLM flight that leaves Denver at eight in the morning. We need to pull out of here around two o’clock, that should give us plenty of time to get checked in and go through security.”

  “We’re already packed,” Neil said. “You’re the only one who hasn’t gotten there yet. Soon as you do, we can load your bags into Hummer-stein with all of ours.”

  Noah nodded his head. “Give me fifteen minutes,” he said, “and I’ll have them ready. We can kick back and watch some TV, maybe heat up some pizzas for dinner later.”

  FIVE

  Their flight took off a few minutes late the next morning and landed two hours later in Chicago. It was a short layover, and they were back in the air in only thirty minutes. In order to keep their place of origin a secret, they would land in Belgium and use their mission IDs to purchase tickets on a smaller European airline that would take them to Madrid. They had used temporary, throwaway IDs for the flight out of Denver, and ditched them as soon as they landed in Brussels.

  Overall, the trip took twenty hours. A taxi took them from the Madrid airport to the Wellington Hotel. They checked into four separate rooms, but no one was surprised when Sarah followed Noah into his.

  They slept in the next morning and then gathered around lunchtime in the hotel’s restaurant. Neil had done some research and selected the newspaper that Noah should place his ad in, so he took out a phone and called their offices.

  The ad was simple. “Available to discuss business. AD229.” Noah added the number of a throwaway phone he had picked up in Brussels, and paid for the ad with one of several disposable Visa cards.

  “That’s done,” he said as he ended the call. “The ad will appear in tomorrow morning’s newspaper, so we’ve got the rest of the day to ourselves. Now let’s get some equipment.” He took a business card out of his wallet and dialed a number. The card was for a rare book dealer, but it was part of the camouflage they used on a mission. The dealer was actually an E & E station officer.

  “Intrigue Books,” a British voice said. “How may I help you?”

  “I’m looking for a copy of one of Kurt Saxon’s books,” Noah said. “Would you have a copy of Granddad's Wonderful Book of Chemistry? It’s for a friend.”

  “How interesting,” the man said. “I believe I might have just exactly what you’re looking for. Could you come by my shop?”

  “Yes, I’d be glad to. Shall we say in about an hour?”

  “Very good, Sir. I look forward to meeting you.” The line went dead.

  “We meet with supply in an hour,” Noah said to the team. “After that, how about we act like tourists?”

  “I’m for that,” Sarah said. “Will you buy me souvenirs?”

  “Of course he will,” Neil said. “Otherwise you’ll just pester him all day.”

  “I do not pester,” Sarah said, glaring at him. “I don’t pester you, do I, Noah​?”

  “Of course not, Babe,” Noah said. “I don’t know why anyone would ever think so.”

  Sarah stared at him for a moment. “Did you forget what we said about not trying to be funny?”

  They finished up their late lunch and headed out of the hotel. Noah spotted a taxi van and ushered them all in.

  “We need to visit the Intrigue Books shop on Calle de la Bola,” he said, using Adrian’s speech mannerisms, “and then we are interested in doing some sightseeing. Would you be able to show us around?”

  “Oh, yes, Señor,” the driver replied. “I am Ernesto, I am the best for sightseeing. Come, let me take you to the bookstore, and then I shall show you the Royal Palace of Madrid!”

  It only took about fifteen minutes to get to the bookstore, and they left Ernesto waiting with the taxi while they went inside. The proprietor l
ooked up and smiled as they entered.

  “Greetings, gentlemen, and lovely lady,” he said. “How might I help you today?”

  “I called a little while ago about a Kurt Saxon book,” Noah said. “Do you have one in stock?”

  “I do,” he proprietor said. “I take it you’re looking for the first edition?”

  “Actually, the one my friend wanted me to look for was the revised edition from the 1980s,” Noah said. “I guess it has more of Tesla’s projects in it.”

  At the mention of Tesla, the proprietor smiled again, then motioned for them to follow him into a back room. Once the door was closed behind them, he picked up a box and set it on a table.

  “My name is Henry. I was told you would be looking for these particular items,” the Englishman said. He opened the box to reveal two Glock forty-caliber pistols, a 9-mm Beretta and a single MP9 machine pistol. Each of them came with three extra magazines, and the Glocks had concealable holsters. The MP9 had a lanyard attached that was designed to let it hang from the shoulder.

  “These will be ideal,” Noah said. He and Moose slid the special holsters down inside their slacks, while Neil shrugged into the shoulder harness. His light jacket would keep the gun concealed, since it hung slightly behind him. Sarah picked up the Beretta and looked it over, then slid it into her purse with the extra magazines. The men stuffed their spare magazines into their jackets’ inner pockets.

  “Will there be anything else?” Henry asked.

  “No,” Noah said. “I think you’ve met our needs quite nicely. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else in the future.” He shook hands with the Englishman and they made their way back out to the taxi.

  Ernesto was smart enough not to ask any questions, but only smiled as they climbed back inside. The car took off and the four of them enjoyed looking at the old city. Established more than a thousand years ago, Madrid had served as the capital of Spain since the early sixteen hundreds. During its long history, it had transformed from a Muslim community to a Christian one, and though there were few signs of its Muslim heritage still around, the city managed to maintain an atmosphere of diverse cultures all trying to fit together.