by Brett Baker
“So does this agent know anything about Chamberlain? Who hired Mount?”
“I don’t know,” the man said. “All we had on Chamberlain was in the public record already. He’s a tree hugger who lives like a pauper in the woods. Not much to know about him.”
“Then why did Mount take him out?”
“First of all, we don’t know that it was Mount. The agent is trying to establish that. Second, just because we don’t know anything about Chamberlain doesn’t mean there’s nothing to know. That’s why the agent is there. He’s trying to figure it out. I’m afraid we don’t have anything else useful at this point. I’m sure we’ll know more when the agent concludes his investigation and files his report, but until then I’m afraid you know what we know.”
“Is the agent investigating Chamberlain in California, or is he elsewhere?”
“He’s in California. Chamberlain’s place was in Tulare County. The agent is there for a few days poking around.”
“Can I make contact with him there?”
“You have clearance to do so?”
“I do. Unconditional clearance.”
The Summit protected its agents. Our work demanded secrecy and covertness, and each agent understood that these demands were non-negotiable. Although we usually worked alone, circumstances sometimes required us to work jointly. The Summit, and more particularly Polestar, didn’t want to unite agents unless they could be absolutely certain that doing so wouldn’t endanger either agent. Chance meetings occurred at times, but meetings were never arranged by The Summit in advance. The most-trusted agents—those who had worked highly-sensitive missions and performed flawlessly, or those who had a lengthy track record with The Summit—were permitted to arrange meetings on their own. The Summit provided an agent’s location and description, and then left it to the initiating agent to track down the agent they wanted to talk to. This gave the non-initiating agent the opportunity to suss out the intentions of the initiating agent. It offered the self-protection that The Summit always emphasized. My long history with The Summit gave me clearance to meet with any other agent.
The man at Polestar provided the agent’s name, description, and approximate location. I’d initiated meetings with other agents a couple of times, and tracking them down with the minimal information provided was always difficult. Twice I had failed to ever make contact with the agent I was pursuing. Agents from The Summit possessed avoidance training essential to our survival, which made pursuit difficult even for those of us who knew the techniques the agents would employ.
Before hanging up I asked for the location of the Roost nearest Chamberlain’s cabin in case I needed to check-in. The Polestar agent was reluctant to give me the exact location, but he provided a general description of the building, the vicinity in which I’d find it, and reminded me that every Roost has the same entrance door so that our entry bar let us in to every Roost in the world.
I stood at the window overlooking the street below and replayed the conversation I’d just had, and plotted my next move. The agent in Tulare County would be difficult to find, but if he’d discovered more about Chamberlain or Mount, then he might know how I fit into the puzzle. I sat on the floor of the Roost and ate my sandwich, not wanting to leave and then have to come back if I thought of something else I needed from Polestar. Content that I’d done everything that had to be done, I left the Roost to head home. I needed to pack a few things before flying to California, which I hoped to do that night.
But before that, I had a new refrigerator on its way.
21
Chapter 21
Two burly men pounding on my door usually would have alarmed me, but instead I felt a sense of relief. Since I’d returned from the Roost I felt a bit uneasy occupying space with Toilet Brush. At some point after a person dies they transition from being a person who just died to a dead person. A body. A person who just died has never freaked me out. I’ve killed enough people to know that sometimes I have to stick around them a bit before I can leave. But when that transition occurs, when rigor mortis begins to set in, the person becomes a body, and that creeps me out. I’d walked past Toilet Brush a few times and could tell that she was beginning to stiffen. Had I felt her skin I’m sure it would have no longer felt warm. Time for her to go.
So I answered the door with a smile and said, “Boy, am I glad to see you!”
The men looked at each other with slight unease, and one of them took a slight step backward. The other man said, “We have a refrigerator delivery. We just wanted to be sure you were home before we dragged it up here.”
“That makes sense. And you’re taking away the old refrigerator, right?”
The first man nodded his head a few times, and then said, “Yes, ma’am. We’ll load that into the truck and get rid of it for you if you’d like. Or you can just put it outside and the electric company will give you a few bucks for it if it’s in working order.”
“No, I’d just as soon have it out of here,” I said. The first man nodded again and they turned around and walked away.
I closed the door behind them and waited. Every few seconds I looked through the peephole so I could open the door and they could make their way in without hesitation. I didn’t need my training from The Summit to know that my neighbors shouldn’t see the body on my floor. The men brought the refrigerator inside the apartment, unplugged the old one, and removed its shelves. One of the men asked, “Where’s the body?” so nonchalantly that he might as well have been asking about the weather. When I led them to Toilet Brush they both let out a joyous yelp that I worried would alert the neighbors. They complimented me on my inventiveness, and said they’d never seen such a ridiculous way to die, to which I responded that no matter how we die, we all end up the same. They both nodded, but said nothing, taking a moment to reflect on whether they’d end up like Toilet Brush, without the toilet brush. After folding her body, and angling her into the refrigerator so effortlessly that it was obvious they’d done this before, they thanked me for some unknown kindness, and wheeled the refrigerator, and the dead body, out the door.
22
Chapter 22
The soonest flight I could get from Chicago flew into San Francisco, so I packed a bag, and took the El out to O’Hare. I remained vigilant for the length of the five-hour flight, and when we landed at San Francisco I picked up my rental car at the self-service kiosk. I’d reserved a standard sedan, but when the kind, automated voice at the kiosk offered an upgrade to a convertible, it sounded like the exact sort of luxury I needed to counteract the recent madness and sadness that surrounded me.
After landing in San Francisco just after 9:30, I drove four hours to Porterville, a small town on the outskirts of Sequioa National Forest. Chamberlain’s cabin was closer to nowhere than to somewhere, and a quick look at a map and a few telephone calls revealed Porterville as the best place to root my mission from. I checked into a hotel at which the desk clerk chomped on gum, and wiped her runny nose with her hand. The clerk’s hygiene wasn’t indicative of the hotel though, and I was giddy with excitement at the prospect of enjoying a restful night of sleep after a ridiculously eventful day.
I woke the next morning, showered and went downstairs to take advantage of the free breakfast offered by the hotel. Polestar had provided only the most basic information about the agent I wanted to meet. I knew his name, but since he likely didn’t live in Porterville, it would do me no good. It was typical of my work for The Summit that although I wanted to spend the day investigating Abner Chamberlain, I first had to spend the day searching for an agent.
When the elevator doors opened a man stood in front of me, waiting to board. He was skinny, had a dark mohawk, and looked around the age of my buddy from the veggie grill restaurant. As I said, “Excuse me,” the look on his face changed into what I thought was surprise. He took a step to the side, and as I passed him he smiled, said, “Sorry,” and boarded the elevator.
Not until five minutes later, as I sat at a small
round table eating scrambled eggs and a piece of toast with raspberry jam, did I realize that I’d seen the man before. The mohawk and the worried look gave it away.
I bolted from the table, pushed the button on the elevator, and when it didn’t respond right away I ran to the end of the hallway, and up the steps. I was on the third floor before I realized I had no idea where I was going. I hadn’t waited to see where the man exited the elevator, and with five floors and hundreds of rooms in the building, he could have been anywhere. I scampered back down the stairs and hustled through the breakfast and lobby area, then around the parking lot, to look for the man, but I couldn’t find him. I decided to stand at the elevator, which provided a view of both sets of stairs at either end of the hallway, and wait.
I didn’t have to wait long. Less than ten minutes later the man exited the stairs and ducked out the door, into the parking lot, without looking in my direction. I ran down the hall, burst through the door, and shouted, “Stop!”
I’d been prepared to chase after the man, somewhat worried about the lingering soreness in the bridge of my nose from my encounter with Toilet Brush, but for maybe the first time in my career with The Summit, a person stopped when I told him to. He looked up at the sky, let his arms fall to his side, and slowly turned around to face me.
“Hello, Mia,” he said.
“How do you know my name?” I asked.
“I’m Davis Arlen.”
“You’re Davis Arlen?” I asked. He nodded. “What’s your favorite film?” This was the most basic verification question any agent for The Summit could ask. Although the question was basic, the form of the answer left little doubt as to the authenticity of the person being questioned.
“Nine-seventeen green on the Euphrates.”
“Fuck,” I said. At the beginning of an agent’s career, The Summit issued an answer to the favorite film question. Every answer consisted of a time of day, a color, and the name of a river. Agents only provided the true answer when they wanted to verify their identity to someone with whom they were somewhat familiar, and the person seeking verification only knew the correct answer because they’d received the information from Polestar.
Not only was Davis Arlen the name of the agent investigating Mount, but he’d verified his favorite film, and, I realized as I exited the elevator, he was Sunshine, the guy who I chased down the alley when I confronted him near the Roost in Chicago.
“What were you doing in Chicago?” I asked.
“Let’s go somewhere we can talk,” he said. “The middle of a parking lot probably isn’t the best place to have this conversation. There’s a diner around the corner.”
“I just had breakfast,” I said.
“We don’t have to eat. Their coffee is good.”
“I don’t drink that shit.”
“Jesus Christ, Mia, it doesn’t matter where we go or what we do. We just need to find a place to talk.”
“The diner’s fine,” I said, realizing that I was making things difficult for us, despite being on the same team. I just needed some time to transition Davis from enemy to ally.
We met at the diner and sat in the only empty booth, near the entrance. The place was vibrant and alive with conversation. Ours would be just another set of voices added to the milieu. A waitress greeted us as soon as we sat down, and despite just eating I ordered two eggs, hash browns, and a glass of water to fit in.
When she walked away Davis apologized. “I’m sorry about Chicago. I should have told you right then who I was, but I wasn’t expecting you to be there and when I saw you I just sort of freaked. And then after I ran I figured you wouldn’t believe who I was, so I decided to just back off and try again sometime.”
“What were you trying to do?”
“Talk to you. I’m tracking this guy Mount. He’s a real asshole. Assassin. Long list of victims. Some deserving, some not. A couple months ago another agent is on a mission in Florida, a Cuban cartel. Big money. Cocaine, heroin, meth, the works. Smuggling it into the country, and then distributing it after they get it here. Supposedly the FBI is on their tail, but you know how that goes. Anyway, there’s a big deal going down in Fort Lauderdale, and some little girl, eight years old, saw something she wasn’t supposed to see. The cartel threatens her family, beats up her dad, makes it known that there’s more bad stuff coming if this little girl doesn’t keep her mouth shut. The family understands, they’re willing to play ball. They don’t want any trouble, they just want to protect their daughter. Problem solved, right? Not so quick. Someone in the cartel gets antsy, decides that the girl has to be eliminated. They don’t want to take any chances. But turns out, these cartel guys have a heart. They can’t find anyone to do the job.”
“Kill the little girl, you mean?”
“Right. And these are badass dudes. They’d kill their own mothers if they came between them and a deal. But some of them have daughters, sisters, and they sort of identify with the little girl. So they decide to hire someone to take care of it.”
“Someone without a heart.”
“Right. Someone cold-blooded.”
“Your guy Mount,” I said.
“Exactly.”
“And does he do it?”
“Well, that’s how he becomes my guy.”
“He becomes your guy because he killed an eight-year-old girl?” I asked. “I mean I know you don’t really mean ‘your guy’ but still. This is horrible.”
“No, well, listen. The agent who’s working on the cartel gets close to them. Like really close. Practically a member of the cartel. Not officially, but close enough that they trust him, they consult him, he has their ear. He gets wind of the plan to kill this girl, and he decides that saving the girl is more important than whatever work he’s doing on behalf of The Summit. So he makes a few calls, gets permission to pull the mission, capitalizes on a few favors, long story short, he evacuates the girl and her family. They relocate elsewhere in the U.S. Basically witness protection. New house, new identity. They don’t give them money or support or anything, but he got them out. Only it was too late for the agent. He decided to do the evacuation himself. He shows up in the middle of the night with a van, loads up the family, a few belongings, and drives them away. Just so happens, while he’s doing this, Mount is lurking in a tree across the street, waiting for the girl to leave for school the next morning, at which point he’s going to take her out.”
“Why didn’t he just do it right then? Take out the whole group of them? If he’s cold-blooded then I’m sure he doesn’t care whether he kills an eight-year-old or kills an entire family. Doesn’t make sense why he’d do nothing.”
Davis nodded in agreement. “That’s the same thing I thought. But that’s not what they paid him for. It’s not what they ordered. They paid him to kill the girl, to do it from a tree, to not get caught. If he comes down from the tree and takes out the whole family there’s no guarantee he’ll get paid for it and no guarantee he won’t get caught. Not worth the risk. But he saw everything. He recognizes the agent, sees what he’s doing, and reports back to the cartel, who obviously aren’t happy about it. They’re pissed about the girl, but they’re out-of-their-mind furious about the agent’s infiltration. So now the cartel’s trying to track down the agent and the family. They’ll never find the family. They’re too far removed from that world. And they’ll probably never find the agent. They think he’s working for law enforcement, so they’ve been checking those avenues. It’s unlikely they’ll ever get to The Summit.”
“So then what’s the problem?” I asked. “How does this lead to you being on Mount’s trail?”
“Mount didn’t do the job. The cartel hired him to kill the girl and he didn’t kill the girl, so they didn’t pay him. You can imagine this didn’t make Mount very happy. He told the cartel about what happened to the girl. He revealed that our agent had been working against them. He gave valuable information to the cartel, so he wanted to be compensated for it. The cartel disagreed. He didn’t do hi
s job, so he doesn’t get paid.”
“Seems like a bad idea to stiff an assassin on payment,” I said. Davis laughed and nodded his head in agreement. “I mean of all the criminals in the world that you want on your side, I’d think an assassin would be at the top of the list.”
“Make sense,” Davis said. “But I don’t think they’re worried about Mount killing them. He’s one guy. They’re a whole organization. Mount knows that if he takes out one of them his days are numbered. He’s not an eight-year-old girl. They’ll have no problem killing him, and probably in the most painful, vicious way possible.”
“And where do you come in on all of this?”
“All right, Mount’s pissed off that he got stiffed. He’s pissed off that he failed on a job. And who’s to blame?”
“Our agent?”
“Precisely. So Mount decides that in addition to killing people for hire, he’s going to devote himself to tracking down the agent. By the way, I don’t know the agent’s name. Polestar gave me details, but the agent is in core cover, so there’s no chance they’ll tell us who it is.”
Core cover was The Summit’s designation for an agent whose identity had to be protected at all costs. Very few people in the organization knew which agents were in core cover, and often when an agent went into core cover it was the end of their career. Even when working for a secret entity, a threshold of known information is tolerated. But when an agent went into core cover, no one was supposed to know anything. The term comes from the core of the earth. All agents work undercover, some work in deep cover, but very few are in core cover. An agent can’t get any deeper than the core.