by David Archer
“I will, babe.” Noah took her hand and led her to the bedroom, and held her through the night. She woke at six the next morning, saw that his side of the bed was empty and lay down to go back to sleep. The tears made it difficult, but finally she drifted off an hour later.
* * *
Caleb Dawson had come up through several stages in his life, from the military to working for criminal organizations, starting out as just another bit of muscle who enforced the rules that came down from on high. He had become widely known and feared, so that merely the mention of sending him to visit someone would produce a lot of cooperation in a hurry.
As the old saying goes, anyone who can properly handle a small task will be given a bigger one. It wasn’t long before he was elevated to enforcer, charged with ensuring that other members of the organization would know better than to try to skim off the profits, or be too loose with information that should be kept confidential. He was “the guy,” the one who would leave you alive, but make sure you never, ever wanted him to visit you again. A single visit from him was enough to ensure obedience and cooperation for the rest of a man’s natural life.
But then he had come across one who wasn’t that easy to scare, one who felt he was strong enough and tough enough to take on even the bosses of the organization. Dawson couldn’t let anyone get that sort of attitude, because it could come back to haunt him. That’s why, despite the fact that the man had more than two dozen of his own soldiers ready to protect him, Dawson had managed to eliminate all of them and dragged the man in front of Spear.
The boss had asked a few questions, then told Dawson to kill the fellow. Without hesitating even for a second, Dawson had grabbed the man by his head and twisted hard, snapping his neck. The spinal cord was broken, and it was only a matter of seconds before the lack of oxygen to the brain put an end to the pained, frightened expression on his face.
From that moment on, he had been the boss’s right hand man. Only Spear could give him orders, and that was exactly the way Dawson wanted it. He didn’t have to work often, and that was fine by him. He was rich and he was good looking. It left him plenty of time to indulge himself in all the things he actually enjoyed.
Of course, there was always more work coming. That was why he was currently in Paris. There was an assignment coming for him, and he would need to handle it quickly and efficiently.
* * *
The Gulfstream was waiting at the Kirtland Airfield when they arrived at four, and the team relaxed for the flight. They got some sleep, but most of the time was spent talking about what they expected to find when they arrived. Arrangements had been made in advance for vehicles and accommodations, so they were on station less than an hour after the plane landed.
Rather than putting them up in a hotel, Molly had arranged a house. The keys were hidden near the front door, and Noah retrieved them and unlocked it. They walked in to find that it was luxuriously appointed, and certainly big enough for their purposes.
“Do we know which rooms we’re set up in?” Marco asked.
Gary dropped his bags near the coffee table and turned to look at Noah.
“There are three bedrooms in the house.” Noah stepped forward as he spoke. “Gary and I will be using the first one at the top of the stairs. Neil and Jenny can take the next room, you and Renée in the third.” He looked at Neil, who nodded in confirmation.
Noah nodded. “All right,” he said. “The minute I know what Dawson’s doing, I will alert all of you by subcom. Let’s get some rest.”
The team quickly complied and withdrew to their individual spaces. They would be starting work the following morning, and as always, Noah wanted them rested and ready.
* * *
One of the things Wally had given them was a box containing what looked like simple jewelry, four men’s wristwatches and and two ladies’ style watches. A card stuck in the box explained that they were portable Wi-Fi hotspots, each powered by one of the newly developed diamond batteries that were good for years on a single charge. By keeping one on them at all times, their subcoms could communicate over virtually unlimited distance through the Internet.
“But that’s not all,” Wally had said. “I got to thinking about extended capabilities, so I talked to this young lady,” he said, nodding toward a petite, dark-haired technician. “She came up with an absolutely brilliant idea. Did you know that you can make phone calls through the Internet?”
Noah raised one eyebrow and looked at him. “Yes,” he said simply.
“Well, yeah, so did I,” Wally said with a grimace, “but it hadn’t occurred to me that the subcoms could do it. Janelle thought of that, and set up a routing server right here in our building. All you have to do is say ‘subcom phone call’ and your subcom immediately connects to that server. Each of them has its own serial number, so the server will recognize it and allow you to make calls either by naming your contacts, or by speaking the number you want to call. It will also allow calls to be placed to you through the subcom, but that’s something that should be used only sparingly.”
Noah nodded. “That’s definitely a nice addition,” he said. He looked at the technician. “Any other special features I should know about?”
“Yes,” she said. “You can also set the server to record everything that comes through the subcom. That way, you or someone else can go through the recording at a later date in order to make sure that all the information is properly documented. It could be very useful, if there’s any question about how you performed your mission.”
“Thank you,” Noah said. “I think that’s an excellent idea.” The girl blushed, and Noah turned back to Wally.
“Did you get everything else I asked for?” he asked.
“And then some,” Wally said. “I understand you may be having to set up bait for the killer, so I’m sending Geraldo with you. Geraldo is a surrogate victim, a slightly animatronic mannequin. He can make a lot of natural seeming movements, but he doesn’t have any real intelligence, unlike Esmeralda. He’s designed so that you can make him taller or shorter, fatter or thinner, lengthen or shorten his arms and legs, and I’m sending a realistic looking silicon mask of each of your faces. Set him upright, and your killer would have to be within a few feet to realize he wasn’t alive.”
Once again, Noah nodded. “He might come in very handy.”
It was early the next morning when the team assembled in the main room, the one they all called the conference room, and Noah thought of privately as the command center. It felt appropriate. War was what he was planning for, if it came to it. He hoped the others were ready.
On the wall-mounted wide screen, Neil called up the footage of Caleb Dawson, then paced slowly around the room while he prepared to explain the details of their next move.
“Late yesterday, we got word Dawson has been seen regularly near the Eiffel Tower. We don’t know who his target is, but we need to get as close to him as we can, and as quickly as we can. He’s supposed to be leaving Paris within a week, so we don’t have a lot of time.”
“Which means if he’s going to kill someone here, he has to do it within that time frame.” Gary, sitting on the couch farthest from Noah, picked up on the detail Noah was hoping they’d all notice. This was their window of opportunity.
Standing behind Gary, Marco leaned against the back of the couch and asked, “And we have no idea who his target is?”
“Not yet,” Noah answered. “Apparently, he is waiting for someone to approach him with that information. Unfortunately, we have no idea who it will be or how they are supposed to identify themselves. And if he doesn’t get the word soon, he’s going to be heading toward London again.”
“He’s not going to make this easy,” Jenny commented. “From everything I’ve read, he’s a sneaky bastard.”
Noah agreed. Dawson may appear to be boxing himself in by such a short timeframe, but he hadn’t become so elusive by not being flexible.
Neil echoed the concern. “Dawson has stayed al
ive by not making things easy. In all the assassinations he’s been linked to, he’s never killed twice in a row in the same fashion.”
“Yes,” Noah acknowledged. “From the hallucinogenic drug he gave Donald Jefferson to a sniper’s rifle. He always chooses something different. And the problem is he seems to wait till the last possible moment to choose.”
“Random choice, that’s the key,” Gary said, and Noah could see that his mind was already jumping ahead in the plan.
“There’s a certain logic to that,” Marco added. “If I don’t know what I’m going to do, then neither does anybody else.” He met Noah’s eyes and Noah could see that the plan was starting to come together for him as well.
“And that’s why we have to get as close to him as we possibly can, right under his skin. We have to know what he’s going to do at the same time he knows it himself. The problem is that we may not be able to do so while in Paris, so we are probably going to make our move in London. Neil?”
Neil moved over to the computer console, starting to type while saying, “Well, I’ve been in contact with our gal in London, and she’s going to loan us the extra men we’ll need when we get there.”
“Does that include the electronics technician you wanted?” asked Noah, knowing that Neil had been speaking on the phone about it since the crack of dawn.
“That’s right,” Neil confirmed. He then keyed a picture onto the screen and started to explain, “We’re looking at the kind of hotel Dawson seems to favor, small but classy. He selects these at random also. In this case, we’re going to make his random selection for him. This will be the one he chooses, absolutely under our control. All previous identification has been removed. Right now, it’s a total blank.” He looked up at the others, then nodded to let Noah know that he was finished.
Noah looked over his team. They were ready, he knew, ready to avenge Donald Jefferson. “All right,” he said to the team. “We can’t afford any mistakes. If we lose Dawson, we’ll lose our chance to identify his boss, Spear.”
“Noah, we’re not going to let that happen.”
“We know what this one means,” added Jenny. “To all of us.” Neil and Marco nodded with her, meeting Noah’s gaze with assurance and fortitude. Noah wasn’t sure what he should say, what he could say. He’d taken on personal missions before, but he had always avoided asking others to put themselves at risk. Even the times when he had gone to rescue Sarah from one terrible situation or another, he had planned to go alone until the rest of them insisted on going along to help.
He remembered a particular mission, one not even remotely sanctioned, or even known about, by Allison. It had meant breaking a lot of laws, but it was the only way to save Sarah, and Allison herself, before it was over.
Marco had sat patiently through his short speech, his face expressionless, then asked, “Are you done?”
“Yes,” Noah said.
“Good,” Marco had said in his typically dry way. “Noah, not often, but every now and then, you just plain talk too much.”
Neil and Gary reinforced the statement with wry nods of agreement.
Noah had learned from them and knew now not to discount what it had meant for his team to help a friend. He lifted his chin in appreciation, acknowledging their unified front. Perhaps they did know exactly what this one meant to him. He was fully aware that it meant just as much to them.
The week passed, and there was no sign of Dawson’s handler showing up. Time ran out, and then they got the word that Dawson was preparing to go back to London. Noah had Neil make all the arrangements for them to travel, and they prepared to make their move when they got back to merry old England.
FOUR
Noah had the team stagger their arrivals in England, for no other reason than the convenience of setting them to different tasks in different locations before they came together again late Thursday afternoon. They knew that things could go terribly wrong on a job like this, but Noah seemed confident that they were ready for Dawson. When Dawson failed to arrive before the following Monday morning, however, the feeling of readiness was overshadowed by a looming sense of potential disaster.
Noah called one last meeting with Catherine Potts, his old friend in the London office, just to cover all their bases. He wanted to make certain that they’d have resources and support beyond what they’d already asked, should the need arise. Dawson was one of the most dangerous men in the world, possibly even the equal of Noah himself; it wouldn’t pay to fail to be cautious enough.
The accommodating Catherine shifted several agents into Noah’s periphery, where they would stay awaiting his orders. Noah felt that he now had enough extra personnel to fill cracks in the plan, if any opened up.
By the time he finally caught a cab back to Neil’s blank hotel, traffic in that direction had frozen like ice. Ahead, Noah could just make out a double-decker bus laying on its side and what was left of the lorry it had collided with. The delay could make him late for Dawson’s arrival, scheduled for just before noon, but it was just at that moment when Marco called to say that Dawson’s plane was going to be delayed, as well.
If anything could go wrong, apparently it would. As he sat behind the disabled lorry and bus, waiting for whatever emergency crew was coming, Neil subcommed him to say that they were hastily rewiring surveillance equipment they had installed in the hotel. Someone had plugged them into the hotel’s power without using a step down adapter and fried several of the transformers. They were working as fast as they could, but it was going to take time.
Crane trucks were brought in and the wreckage was moved out of the way. Noah arrived at the hotel at 11:30, well in advance of Dawson’s scheduled arrival. Now that his flight was running late, they would have some extra time to ensure that their preparations were complete.
“The outside camera is fully operational, and this one will be ready in a minute.” Noah knew the voice wasn’t Neil’s and the accent told him that it belonged to one of the MI6 agents already assigned to help them.
“Good.”
That voice, however, he knew well; even with just the one short word, he could recognize Jenny’s voice easily. Both Jenny and the unfamiliar agent looked at him when he opened the door and entered. “Anything new on Dawson’s plane?” he asked.
“It’s running over an hour late.” Jenny shrugged. With a small gesture, she indicated the man she was with. “Noah, this is Albert Corey from MI6. He’s here to help Neil with some of our electronics work.”
And helping with the camera wiring, as well, I see, Noah thought. He stepped forward to shake Albert Corey’s hand, saying honestly, “Glad to have you aboard, Albert.”
“Thank you, sir. It’s an honor to work with you.” It was a sincere response. “I was new on the job when you saved the Queen, and I’ve wanted to shake your hand ever since.”
Noah let go of his hand and turned back to Jenny. “An hour late,” he said. “I wonder how that happened.”
“Is it likely to cause a problem?” she asked, walking with him through the ornate but uncomplicated lobby, carrying the toolbox Albert had been using to fix the camera.
Noah led her behind the front desk as he answered. “It could. If he has to make his phone call at a pre-arranged time, if he has to make the call before he checks in to his,” Noah gestured at the nameless, marquee-less room, “hotel.” They were already cutting the schedule close. If the plane was any later, Dawson could drop out of character to choose a hotel closer to the airport. That would mean that all their preparations were for nothing. “I want everybody to keep subcoms on,” he said. “We use radios only with those who are out of subcom range.”
Noah pushed on the rows of small shelves lining the back wall behind the desk. The entire section swung inward, revealing the secret room behind. This room actually did look like a command center. Cemented and unfinished walls framed the E & E equipment they’d brought in. Gary’s makeup supplies and his and Marco’s clothing changes were sitting in one corner, and N
eil’s electronics were scattered throughout the rest of it.
Noah weaved toward where Neil sat at a makeshift desk, staring into a computer monitor. “Anything new, Neil?” he asked, sliding out of his trench jacket.
The skinny kid looked up from the screen. “Dawson’s plane will touch down in just about three minutes.”
“Good,” Noah said, feeling a sudden sense of déjà vu. Somehow, he had the feeling that he and Neil Blessing had done this exact thing sometime before.
Neil saw Noah pause to stare at him while folding his jacket over his forearm. He wondered, not for the first time, what Noah saw when he looked at him. Was he just the computer geek? Or was there more to their friendship than that?
Neil turned his attention back to the computer. “Twenty-five minutes,” he said to Noah. “That’s all I’ll need once he hits his cab.”
Noah dropped his jacket onto one of the tables as Neil turned up the volume on the scanner to his right. The squawking voice from the box clarified why Neil had suddenly turned it up. They were listening for the movements of the taxi cabs going to and from the airport. The dispatcher was in the employ of MI6. As requested, she was sending a majority of the drivers away from the airport, giving Dawson limited choices on the ones he could take.
* * *
Marco Turin leaned casually against the door of his appropriated taxi, looking menacing and in desperate need of a fare all at once. He maintained the casual pose effortlessly while marking every face that emerged from the airport’s main doors.
He growled at anyone who approached him for a lift; they’d have to find other ways to get where they were going. He was saving his ride for Caleb Dawson.
Marco had liked Donald Jefferson. For Marco, catching the man’s killer made this personal enough on its own, but there was also the fact that Jefferson had been like a father figure to most of them. Marco had never been one to take defeat or loss easily, particularly when it involved someone he cared about. He wasn’t one to let things like that go, not if there was something he could do about it.