by Chris Allen
“You look like a man who’s ready to relax. And there’s nothing better than some good old-fashioned blues guitar to help you with that.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Morgan replied. “I’ve got this album. It’s a favorite.”
The Cadillac drove out of the marina and right onto Ala Moana Boulevard. High-rise hotels bordered the wide road on both sides, facing off, opposing forces in the war for the tourist dollar. The lush palm trees that lined the center islands of the boulevard marked the sanctuary of no-man’s land between them.
“You drive for Mr. and Mrs. Zolner often?”
“Whenever he’s here in Honolulu he asks for me,” Bill replied. There was pride in his voice. “I take care of him and Mrs. Zolner and any other guests they need looked after.”
“Well, he obviously holds you in high regard. That must be a good thing.”
“It certainly is, sir. Mr. Zolner is a personal friend of one of the owners of the hotel,” he said. “He has a big place out on Diamond Head Road; but keeps that to himself when he’s here. Only he and Mrs. Zolner stay out there, it’s their holiday house. His guests always stay at the Halekulani, even his special guests.”
“Sometimes you just need a private sanctuary to return to where you can shut out everything and everyone else. I can relate to that.” Morgan thought of the Zolners’ mansion on the beach and then immediately of the modest, semi-rural retreat he called home back in Surrey and the respite he’d found there over the past few months. “I can definitely relate to that.”
They turned right onto Kalia Road and got stuck for a few moments behind a Polynesian Adventure Tours bus and a private charter trolley bus before Bill managed an expertly executed maneuver to get them clear. Morgan fell silent for the rest of the drive and enjoyed the journey along the sweeping tree-lined twists and turns of the final approach until they arrived at the hotel a few minutes later.
“You know, sir, seeing as how you’re into blues and jazz and all, you may wanna check out Eddie Henderson in Lewers Lounge tonight. You won’t be sorry.”
“I may just do that,” Morgan replied, then thanked the driver, tipped him and walked into the reception area.
Before he’d had a chance to open his mouth, a young woman approached him from the concierge desk and introduced herself.
“Welcome to the Halekulani Hotel, Major Morgan. My name is Lolana and if you’d like to follow me, I’ll take you up to your room. You’re in the Royal Suite.”
“Thank you,” Morgan replied, enjoying the red carpet. Helldiver was definitely looking after him.
Morgan and Lolana took a private elevator to the third and top floor. Lolana opened the door to the suite with practiced ceremony and Morgan was instantly treated to a breathtaking view of Diamond Head and Waikiki Beach. It was late afternoon and the scene was brushed with the romanticism of impending nightfall and the promise of a totally unencumbered evening. Morgan walked straight out onto the balcony and breathed in the magnificence of the location. He could almost reach down and feel the soft sand of the beach below; instead he reached out and touched a palm that was brushing gently in the breeze across the corner of the balcony. Lolana continued to brief him on the house-keeping details of his suite and the fact that everything would be taken care of by Mr. Zolner. Morgan needed only to ask his personal butler, Makaio – who materialized behind Lolana – and everything would be arranged.
Yes, Morgan thought, the inexplicable events of the afternoon notwithstanding, he could definitely get used to this peaceful, gilt-edged lifestyle very easily.
Of course, how long it could last was a vastly different proposition. Cold fingers of suspicion had emerged from his gut and were scratching at his conscience. Who the hell was Zolner, really? And what kind of person calls himself Helldiver?
CHAPTER 10
Morgan looked at his watch. It was almost 10am. He was flat on his back on Waikiki Beach, and had been dozing with a baseball cap resting on his face. Following Bill’s advice, he’d spent the evening in the hotel’s Lewers Lounge relaxing to the music of jazz trumpeter Eddie Henderson and shutting down the day. When he eventually returned to his suite he sat on the balcony for an hour or so, pondering the issue of the attempt on Helldiver’s life while soaking up the beauty of the beach at night. Despite chasing endless theories down endless rabbit holes, his musings on the subject got him nowhere and so, after a club sandwich and a couple of Coronas, he hit the hay exhausted by 11pm.
He was ensconced on a narrow strip of beach directly in front of the hotel, soaking up the sun, alternately swimming, looking out to sea and reading Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse, a favorite. He was actually enjoying doing nothing. There were only a few people around and they were all keeping to themselves, which suited Morgan just fine. He wasn’t much for making small talk with strangers. Of course, the moment he realized that he was doing nothing and enjoying it, his mind instantly reminded him of why he was doing nothing and who was paying for him to do it. So he was mercilessly returned to his ruminations over the whole debacle of the previous day and, more importantly, the future.
He still had no idea what had gone down or who could possibly have wanted Helldiver dead so badly. They were, after all, in Honolulu, not downtown Kabul. Running gun battles between opposing SUVs weren’t the norm here. Or were they? How the hell would he know? A seemingly endless stream of questions and theories that had begun last night while he was drinking beer and gazing up at the stars over Waikiki told Morgan that his naturally inquisitive mind – which he openly acknowledged was just the PC word for suspicious – was not likely to let the matter rest. He needed to know.
“Excuse me, do you mind if I lay my towel down here? Promise I won’t get too close.”
Morgan lifted his cap and turned his head in the direction of the voice. Bare feet very close by and half buried in the beach sand lured his gaze to a pair of perfectly toned, evenly tanned legs, then a hand clutching a rolled-up beach towel, a slender arm, an oversized faded T-shirt with a “Hopkins 1876 Blue Jays” motif, a trail of long dark hair over one shoulder, and a face, a beautiful, familiar face, smiling down at him under a wide-brimmed straw hat.
“Jesus!” Morgan said, still flat on his back. He made a move to get up.
“Whoa, down boy. Don’t jump up and hug me; especially not with that beard! Act like we just met, OK?”
Morgan did as he was told, reluctantly, sitting up instead. “OK. But, what the hell are you doing here? It’s great to see you.”
“It’s great to see you, too,” the woman replied, meaning it. “So, can I join you or what, Morgan? Don’t leave a girl hanging, here. It looks bad.”
Morgan smiled and held out his hand, inviting her to the spot beside him.
Elizabeth Reigns flicked her towel expertly out in front of her and let it sail directly down alongside Morgan’s, albeit with just enough space between them for it not to seem intimate or too familiar, just two strangers who were happy to enjoy each other’s company for a while. A small beach bag appeared from somewhere and she dropped it beside her. She kept her T-shirt on and sat on the towel facing the sea with her arms wrapped around her knees. Morgan turned to her.
“Well, if we just met,” he said, “shouldn’t we at least appear to be introducing ourselves?”
She smiled. “Yeah, good call.”
Morgan offered his hand. “Alex Morgan,” he said. “Very pleased to meet you. And you are?”
“Elizabeth Reigns,” she replied, taking his hand and holding it firmly, exactly as she’d done the first time they’d introduced themselves aboard an Intrepid Gulfstream G650 executive jet somewhere over China about a year ago. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Alex Morgan. You can call me Beth.”
“And you can call me Alex Morgan.” He smiled. “I like the way you say it.”
“You’re such an idiot, Morgan.” She laughed. “And, for the record, I’m not sure about that beard. Since when?”
He laughed. “Since whenever. I
almost shaved it off this morning, actually. I may just keep it now.”
“We’ll see about that,” she said. “So anyway, it’s been a while. And suddenly, here we are.”
“Yes, here we are. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, you walk right into mine,” said Morgan. “It must be destiny or something. Right, Reigns?”
“It’s something. Not destiny. And, if you hadn’t noticed, this is Honolulu not Casablanca.”
“Still, you just appearing out of nowhere like this, without warning. How did you know I’d be here?” he asked, a tinge of suspicion evident in his tone. “I mean, I know it’s easy to trace me to Honolulu but, Jesus! This exact spot, at this exact time and you all ready for a swim …”
“Come on, Morgan. You know the score. You didn’t expect the General to just cut you loose, did you? You and Sutherland were his A Team. He knew you needed to decompress. He just needed to be sure you were OK. You know?”
“So, he’s had me under surveillance all this time, ever since he granted me a leave of absence? I was supposed to be left alone to consider my future.”
Reigns remained silent, studying Morgan. “You look good,” she said eventually. “Settled and healthy, I mean.”
“I’m better, that’s for sure. I’ve been setting my own agenda and it feels pretty damn good after years of being told what to do.”
“I’m glad, Morgan. Really. It’s good to see you this way. Hell knows you were pretty intolerable back there for a while. Remember?”
“Yeah, I remember.” He looked at her. Memories, lots of them, swirled in his head. Good memories. Memories dominated by her. The relationship they’d kept secret from Intrepid. Her patience with him and her support as he struggled to deal with mission fatigue and a textbook case of burnout. He owed her so much. “Beth, there’s—”
“No, Morgan. Not now. Not here. There are things I have to tell you first. Things we have to discuss. The personal stuff will wait.”
Morgan bristled but fell silent. The sounds of the ocean and the people around them enjoying it filled their world for a while, neither prepared nor able to speak. Clearly they were entering territory that was going to be difficult to navigate and Reigns was taking her time, making up her mind how she was going to kick off.
“I can’t help but think you’re an olive branch, Beth,” Morgan said. “Otherwise, why else would you just turn up here out of the blue like this? Why else would they have sent you? And don’t tell me Davenport is just getting himself a whisky from the bar and is heading over here with his towel and trunks.”
Reigns laughed out loud. “I can’t even imagine him like that. Maybe he has a suit made especially for the beach.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Morgan said. “But seriously, I have a bad feeling that this unexpected reunion is about to get ruined by whatever it is you’re actually here to tell me. So why don’t we get that out of the way first?”
“Why does it have to ruin everything?”
“I don’t know,” he said. He was enjoying just looking at her and didn’t want anything to taint the moment. “It’s great to see you.”
“Yeah, you too,” she said.
After a while, Morgan sighed. “So, what’s going on, Reigns?”
She looked away from him and back out to sea, clearly conflicted. “You should know, when they asked me, I agreed to come here for two reasons. Well, three really. One, it’s Hawaii, right? Two, I wanted to see you. I had to see you.” Morgan tried to speak but she wasn’t about to let him. “Shut up, OK, and just listen. Three, I knew if you heard this from anyone else we’d probably lose you for good.”
“Jesus. What the fuck is it?”
The two of them were looking directly into each other’s eyes, gauging, wanting to just forget all of the baggage and enjoy the moment but struggling with the context of their meeting.
“I’ve been leaving you alone, remember? Because you asked me to. So, it took a lot for me to accept this job, knowing what it could do to us.”
Now Morgan looked away. “Unless we’re faced with some real-time, global-level event that I don’t know about, then I’m going to need some serious convincing if this is about getting me to come back. Because, I’ve gotta tell you, all this freedom has been good for me.”
It was Reign’s turn to bristle. Morgan saw it.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant …”
“The truth is, Morgan, you never really left.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“What it means is that every move you think you’ve made of your own free will over the past six months has been carefully choreographed in accordance with a very detailed strategy.”
“What fucking strategy? Wait, don’t tell me – this is some psychological profile assessment. He’s trying to work out if I’ve lost it. Is that what this is? Jesus!”
“Would you shut up! It’s nothing like that. The General knew you’d be fine. He has more faith in you than you give him credit for. So does Sheridan, by the way. He’s been in your corner the whole time.”
Morgan stood and wandered down to the water with his hands clasped behind his neck. Reigns dropped her hat, peeled off her T-shirt and followed him.
By the time she reached him, Morgan was waist deep in the ocean, standing quietly. He turned when he heard her splashing up to him. He couldn’t help but check her out despite his frame of mind. In nothing but a brightly patterned bikini, she looked spectacular, her honed body just as he remembered: absolutely perfect.
“Jesus! That’s not fair, Reigns,” he said. “Getting around looking like that, you’ve got to be in breach of the Geneva Convention, or something. There are strict rules about torture, you know.”
“All’s fair in love and war, Morgan. You know that. Besides, pain is gain, remember?”
He smiled at a memory they shared and kept his eyes on her until she was finally close to him.
“OK, so you’ve completely disarmed me and I’m fighting every natural impulse to grab you just in case we’re still being watched, so now’s probably your best shot at giving me all the gruesome details. Just say it, Beth. Whatever it is, just spit it out.”
“You’re really ready for this now?”
He nodded. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
“OK, Morgan,” she replied. She took a deep breath and looked out to sea, standing closer than Morgan could reasonably cope with. “You’ve been infiltrated into the center of a major investigation into Hedeon Zolner – aka Helldiver – his wife Kristina and their entire global empire. Helldiver is believed to be behind the disappearances of the commercial airliners – Patiala Airlines flights 550 and 190, Chimbu Airways flight 376, and most recently Katak Airlines 712.”
Morgan’s eyes locked onto hers, his attention so focused on what she was saying that he had subconsciously shut out the interference of everything else around them. A knot was forming in the pit of his stomach as though he was being punched, blow by blow, until his solar plexus had fully constricted and all the air had been forced from his body. Suddenly all those suspicions he’d been harboring about the Zolners were lining up one by one. Reigns kept going.
“We believe their actions so far have been directed at Islamic countries in Southeast Asia, targeting their national carriers. Global enough for you? We’re reasonably confident that these aircraft have all been deliberately brought down following failure by the targeted countries to meet certain demands within stipulated time frames. To what end we’re not yet sure, although I know that the General and Sheridan are working on a theory involving deliberate action by crew members. And that’s where you come in.”
Morgan didn’t speak. He couldn’t. To any onlooker he and Reigns would appear to be just two people chatting, enjoying the sea and each other. Now his thoughts had shifted away from annoyance at having been monitored by Intrepid and back to his old self, the secret agent, recalibrating to tradecraft and the need to maintain the facade of two strange
rs engaging in full public view. It all returned to him instinctively.
“We believe the incident you were involved in yesterday was an attempt by one of the targeted countries to take Helldiver out. Obviously, probably thanks to you, it failed.”
Morgan suddenly remembered his observation about the pickup of Tengku occurring in the center of a number of foreign consulates. “The consular area downtown. Fuck!”
“I said ‘thanks to you,’ Morgan, so don’t beat yourself up about it. We don’t want Zolner dead. Not yet anyway. We need him alive because we still don’t know what his next move is or even why he’s doing it. Like I said, we have some theories but we’re light on detail. I’m authorized tell you more but before I do, there’s something I need to ask you.”
“What? Ask me anything.”
“Are you ready to come back?”
“You mean, am I ready to come back in from the cold?”
“Yeah, something like that. Unless you prefer all this freedom you’ve been telling me about.”
CHAPTER 11
Cap d’Antibes, Côte d’Azur, République française
Masterson enjoyed the trip along the Côte d’Azur from Aéroport Nice to Antibes. He’d done it over a dozen times now and each time he found himself enjoying it more. It was a welcome change from the complexities of his clandestine life and a million light years removed from the warzones and dark allies that represented the traditional tapestry of his personal history. The drive was quick, about thirty minutes, give or take, and always agreeable, especially once you were past the Marina Baie Des Anges and heading south, treated to the spectacle of the bay itself with its golden sands paralleling the Route du bord de mur and nothing but clear blue skies and a turquoise sea for company. In the far distance, Pointe Bacon reached out into the bay and the resort town of Antibes itself began to emerge. The rendezvous point always changed but still it needed to be within a certain general radius; his contact didn’t always have a great deal of time to disappear from her duties at the château. Fortunately Masterson had a healthy acquaintance with this corner of France now – he’d rented a villa in St. Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume, a small country town about an hour and a half drive to the west – so he knew the general layout of not only Antibes, but all the key features of the nearby towns, surrounding countryside and main approaches; a force of habit from a lifetime of having to become rapidly familiar with places he’d never heard of, been before and thankfully, in many cases, never would again. Today, however, he’d flown in from Paris on another task. The US State Department had requested his help with a politically sensitive issue involving one of their embassy staff. Masterson knew a few of the right people. It wouldn’t take too long to sort it out.