He looked at her. The set of her jaw, the resolve in her eyes, told him she’d already made up her mind. He could try to force her to go, but that would only make it more likely that she’d bolt once they reached Washington. If Davis did that, the whole mission would be a failure.
“Okay,” Bolan said, regret washing over him as he uttered the word. “It’s late. We have a safe house. We stay there. You get a shower and some coffee. We go to the bombing site first thing in the morning. Then we get the hell out of the country.”
* * *
THE SAFE HOUSE WAS a two-story duplex several blocks from the Thames River. Bolan poured coffee into three mugs. He slid one across the counter to Grimaldi. With a nod, the pilot took the cup, strode to one of the windows and peered outside at an oppressive rain that had begun falling on the city. Bolan picked up the other two and walked to the round dining table where Davis sat. He set the coffee in front of her and she thanked him.
He seated himself across the table from her. He tested the coffee, found it was too hot and set the cup on the table. Davis curled an index finger through the ring on her cup and stared at her coffee.
“Why’s Yezhov after you?” Bolan asked.
“Didn’t Nigel tell you?”
“Said he didn’t know.”
“Nigel went to his grave a liar. He knew why. I told him. I wonder what else he lied about?”
Bolan shook his head. “Doesn’t matter at this point. What didn’t he tell me?”
She scooted back in the chair, drew up her right ankle and tucked it beneath her left thigh.
“I didn’t just take his money, Yezhov’s money, I mean. I got hold of some other files.”
“What files?”
“I’ll get to that. Occasionally, when I hack into a system, I vacuum out whatever else I can find. A lot of it ranges from mundane to downright disgusting, homemade snuff films and other crazy stuff. There are some horrible people in the world.”
“I’m hiding my shock.”
“Yeah, you strike me as someone who’s seen it all.”
“Seen it all two or three times over.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s no way to live.”
“We all make our choices. Tell me what you found.”
“Right. A lot of the stuff on Yezhov’s computer was pedestrian. I mean it was an intelligence gold mine. Lists of shell companies and accounts. It was all valuable, but none of it surprised me. I kept digging, though, figuring I might find a horse underneath all the manure.”
“And you did.”
“More like a bear, a very angry bear. Yezhov’s up to his neck in extremely bad stuff. Not the usual organized-crime stuff, either—though there’s plenty of that. But this is a lot more sinister.”
“Explain.”
“Well, for starters, he’s not working alone. He’s got a network of people, all Russian, some are government officials, others work in the private sector. Bunch of pilferers. You couldn’t fit a piece of paper between the government and the private-sector people. They use the government as their own personal ATM and prop up the government officials with bribes and gifts.” She took a sip of coffee. Holding the cup several inches from her face, she stared into it.
“Group calls itself the Sindikat,” she said. “It’s loosely organized. Yezhov’s the top dog, though. From what I gather, he wields a lot of power. He owns a shipping conglomerate, air transport, all sorts of things. He has a figurehead president who runs the company, gives it an air of legitimacy.”
“Legitimacy?”
“Yezhov was big in Russian intelligence, a real rising star, according to my sources.”
“Sources? Like Nigel?”
“Better than Nigel. Much better. A couple of former spies who are still plugged in when it comes to Russia and Asia.”
“These spies, do they have names?”
“Yes.”
A few seconds passed. “And they are?” Bolan asked.
“My secret.”
“I can’t check their authenticity if you don’t give me the names.”
“I can live with that,” Davis said icily.
Bolan drew in a breath, exhaled slowly. Should he push the issue? Not yet, he decided. With the help of Stony Man Farm, he could verify a lot of the information without pushing Davis too hard. He was trying to establish some rapport, not prod her into bolting.
“Fair enough,” he said. “But let’s skip the build up and get to the punch line.”
“You heard of something called Keyhole Twelve?”
Bolan thought about it for a moment and realized it didn’t mean anything to him. He shook his head.
“You’ve heard of the original Keyhole satellite program?”
Grimaldi spoke without looking away from the window. “Cold War satellite program.”
“Exactly,” she said. “There were at least a couple versions of the Keyhole satellite that the public knows about. We used them to spy on the Soviets and their nuclear programs. Publicly, that’s all the Keyhole ever was.”
Grimaldi turned away from the window. “Publicly?”
“There was another, parallel program. It was called the Sentry Satellite. It had a fancy, twelve-word name, too. But the short version was Sentry. It was a satellite killer. The way it was explained to me is that the original Sentry satellites focused on jamming techniques. The idea was to cripple the satellites without leaving fingerprints. They just suddenly—” she snapped her fingers “—went black. But they were still there, so it got chalked up to faulty designs or faulty manufacturing. I don’t understand all the technology, but they were able to make it look like the satellites just went belly up.”
She shifted in her chair.
“Over the years, they merged the two programs together, added and dropped names. Eventually, they kept Keyhole as the umbrella name for both programs. Publicly Keyhole was dead, old technology. But they decided to keep it internally. It sounded less threatening, like a spy satellite.”
“Which it no longer was.”
“No,” Davis said. “The country has plenty of eyes in the sky, especially with private companies getting into the act. This thing is pure destructive power. It uses directed energy—”
“A.k.a. laser,” Grimaldi said.
“Sorry for the jargon. Yeah, it’s a laser. A powerful laser capable of taking out satellites with the press of a couple of buttons. The U.S. has a half dozen flying in space. We’d have more, but they’re expensive as hell. Gets too unwieldy to hide black projects once they exceed a certain dollar amount.”
“But that’s good, right?” Grimaldi asked. “At least from our perspective, we have the upper hand.”
“Sure, except the Sindikat has placed a couple of spies, high-level egghead types, into the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, the organization in charge of the program. They fed the Sindikat all kinds of information, particularly on the laser capabilities and ways to link an outside computer into the U.S. system. Yezhov, in turn, has been selling that data back to the Russians. They’ve been able to gather important design information about the satellites. And they just scored an even bigger coup. They convinced one of the guys to provide the override codes for the satellite controls whenever they ask.”
“So even if they change, the Sindikat can get the updated codes.”
“Exactly.”
“How does Yezhov know that you have all this information?”
“I wondered that, too. Now that Nigel’s dead, I guess I have the answer.”
“You told him all this?”
“I did.”
“Who else knows?”
“My intelligence sources. Remember? The ones I won’t name.”
“We can’t warn them if we don’t have their names.”
“He doesn’t communicate with anyone else in the organization?”
Her brows furrowed. “Just one,” she said. “But I didn’t tell either one that the other had the information.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bolan said. “If he assumes that this person knows, or even if he gave up their name, they could be in danger, too.”
She brought up her hands, covered her face with them. “Damn, damn, damn. I am so stupid.”
“No, you’re not,” Bolan said. “You trusted someone who seemed to be on your side. He turned on you. It happens.”
“Seems to be happening a lot—and quickly.”
“Give me the name.”
“But—” Her shoulders slumped. “Damn it. Okay, her name’s Maxine Young.”
“Can you contact her?”
Her expression miserable, she shook her head from side to side. “She’s on her way to England tonight. I got a text from her a few hours ago. I guess Nigel called her, told her that I needed her here. I tried calling, but couldn’t get through to her. She must be in transit.”
Chapter 9
Maxine Young climbed down the steps of the chartered jet. The chilled air whipping across the tarmac tousled the stray strands of ash-blond hair not tied into a ponytail. A cold drizzle fell on the airport. She looked skyward at the black thunderheads rolling in over the city and scowled.
The strap of her overnight bag, a black leather satchel that she normally kept stored under her bed, was looped over one shoulder. Her purse was slung over the other shoulder. The overnight bag contained a change of clothes, toiletries, a hair dryer and a curling iron. However, sewn into the liner was a fake passport and fake credit cards and several thousand real U.S. dollars. Though retired for some time, she’d kept the bag at the ready, partly from habit and partly from necessity.
Having received Nigel Lawson’s call, she was glad she’d prepared for a last-minute trip.
Her emotions were conflicted. She was worried for Davis’s safety. After years of working together, the former CIA agent felt as though the younger woman was like a daughter and not just a friend. Even their brief telephone conversations and rare face-to-face meetings filled the void left behind after her husband and son had been killed in Mumbai, India. At the same time, it felt good—damn good, actually—to be back in action again. The excitement fluttering in her stomach felt at once familiar and foreboding, but welcome nonetheless.
She got her passport stamped with no problems, exited the main building and headed for the parking lot Lawson had directed her to. She swept her gaze over the gathered cars until she found the one she was looking for, a red compact. Walking to the car, she opened the passenger’s side, stripped off her overnight bag and sat it on the floor of the vehicle. Pulling off her purse, she set it on top of the overnight bag. Resting a hand on the passenger’s seat, she reached across the small car’s interior, and felt around below the dashboard. When she found the lever that opened the trunk, she pulled on it and heard the latch release in the trunk compartment.
Easing back out of the car, she walked around to the trunk. Inside it, she found a cardboard box, the flaps held closed with a piece of masking tape. A logo on the side of the box included a drawing of a man and woman locked in passion. Underneath the drawing, written in bold, red letters: Night Moves Magic Body Oils.
Very classy, Nigel, she thought.
With the tip of a red-lacquered fingernail, she sawed through the masking tape and peeled back the flaps, half afraid to look inside. A cloth bundle sat in one corner of the box. She picked it up, unwrapped it and inside found a SIG-Sauer pistol sheathed in a holster. Two more ammo clips, bound together with a rubber band, sat in the box, along with a mobile telephone. Undoing the belt of her overcoat, she peeled back the right side, quickly slipped a hand beneath the folds of her coat and clipped the holstered weapon to her belt. She slid the magazines into one coat pocket and the phone into another.
She slammed the trunk closed and she quickly climbed into the driver’s seat. With her left hand, she grabbed the edge of the sun visor and pulled it down. The keys fell into the waiting palm of her right hand. The parking-lot ticket also fluttered down. She set the slip of paper on her left thigh, belted herself in and fired up the car. Before she put the tiny vehicle into gear, though, she remembered to power up her cell phone, so she wouldn’t miss any calls.
* * *
AS SHE DROVE, Young tried to recall how long it had been since she’d visited London. Five years? Six? She honestly couldn’t remember. Losing her family had turned her life into a cold, gray blur, an unending journey through a barren and uncertain world. Weekends, holidays, anniversaries, all had lost meaning for her. Like the young woman she’d teamed with, the only thing that allowed even the smallest slivers of sunlight into her days was the knowledge that she was fighting the good fight, in most cases for people unable to fight for themselves. A lot of days, that knowledge and the lump of cold rage the killers had shoved into the space once occupied by her heart were the only things powerful enough to push her out of bed and back into life.
Checking the GPS unit on the dashboard, she saw the street she needed was coming up on her right, a couple dozen yards ahead. When she came to the turn, she tapped the brake to slow the car and twisted the steering wheel to the right. She traveled a block down the street, pulled the car up to the curb and parked it, amazed to find a spot so close to her destination.
Grabbing her things, she disembarked from the car and walked another three blocks to her hotel. After the long flight, all she wanted was to take a hot shower, crawl into bed and grab a few hours’ sleep before she caught up with Davis.
Truth be told, she would have rather met her immediately, but Lawson had told her that wasn’t part of the plan. Davis was nearby and would be in the neighborhood long before they actually rendezvoused, Young had been assured. However, the younger woman had planned to do a little recon around the meeting site beforehand, sweep the place for bugs and make sure Young hadn’t picked up any followers.
Young initially had bristled at the notion that she couldn’t spot a tail and had told Lawson just that. Ultimately, though, she admitted—to herself at least—that her protégé was practicing good operations security and Young decided to shut up.
She checked into the hotel and requested that a chilled bottle of white wine be sent to her room in thirty minutes. That’d give her enough time to get a quick shower and slip into her pajamas and robe before room service arrived.
She rode the elevator to her room, her eyes scanning her surroundings the whole time. For reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint, she began to feel unsettled. Her mouth was dry and sweat slicked her palms. Was it intuition or just a case of jitters since she’d been out of circulation so long? She guessed it was the latter. But just the same, she unbuttoned her jacket so she could more easily reach her pistol. Was she being paranoid? Probably, she thought. Last she checked, though, paranoia in her line of work wasn’t fatal; complacency was.
Unlocking her hotel room, she pushed the door inward and peered inside. Lights were on in the room and from her vantage point it looked in order. She took a step inside, slid the overnight bag’s carrying strap from her shoulder and eased the bag to the floor.
Something hard suddenly slammed into her right shoulder blade. The force propelled her body forward, spun her to the left and stole her footing. She tried to correct herself, but landed on her right thigh and ribs. Her elbow caught a lot of the impact and the sharp bolts of pain reverberating through her body caused her to hiss through clenched teeth.
The pale-skinned man who had knocked Young over shut the door behind him.
“Hello, Maxi
ne,” he said.
Two men came through the door, brushed past the man who’d just spoken and closed in on Young.
She already had unsheathed her pistol from its holster. She brought the weapon around and punched a 9 mm slug into the forehead of the man closest to her. His head rocked back. Teetering for a stretched second, his limp form suddenly hurtled forward.
Young batted at the onrushing corpse, his eyes locked open, his jaw hanging slack.
By that time, the other two men were on her. While one grabbed her shooting hand, twisting the gun from her grip, she caught a glimpse of the man who’d addressed her by name.
Closing her hand into a fist, she threw a punch that hammered against his jaw. The force of the blow shoved his face to one side. Young’s fist had gone numb, but she drew it back for a second strike. A sharp pricking sensation flared in her neck. Both men suddenly stepped away. Her vision blurred almost immediately. Her right hand reached up for the edge of the bed. She willed her fingers to close and grab a handful of the bedspread. They didn’t respond.
The face of the man with the waxy skin suddenly appeared inches from her own.
“Good night, Maxine,” he said. “Fun’s just starting.”
His laughter sounded far away as she lost consciousness.
Chapter 10
“I don’t like it,” Brognola growled through the phone. “Not one damn bit.”
“Join the club,” Bolan replied.
The soldier had slipped into one of the bedrooms in the safe house to call Brognola. Sitting in an armchair, he held his cell phone to his ear. He had just told Brognola about his plan to take Davis to the site of the blast that had killed her sister.
“It’s crazy,” Brognola said. “There’s no way you can have her out in the open without putting her at risk. Not to mention the risk to you and the others. I don’t mean to sound like a mother hen—”
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