She nodded. “Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. We need you to make Anton understand. If he answers our questions, we’ll see what we can do to help him. Okay? If not, things go bad.”
“Okay.”
Brian got a pitcher of cold water from the kitchen and dumped it over Anton’s head. Then he and Dominic retreated to the far side of the living room while Maria knelt before Anton’s chair and started whispering to him. After five minutes, she turned around and nodded to them.
My aunt filed a report,” Anton said a few minutes later.
Dominic nodded. “She hadn’t seen you. I guess she was worried. You thought it was about something else? Something to do with that plane?”
“How did you know about that?”
“A hunch,” Brian replied. “Until now. You did something with the transponder?”
Anton nodded.
“What?”
“Duplicated the codes.”
“For another plane, a Gulfstream?”
“Right.”
“Who hired you?”
“The guy-the owner.”
“Of Hlasek Air. Lars.”
“Yes.”
Brian asked, “Not the first time you’ve done this for him, is it?”
“No.”
“How’s he pay you?”
“Money… cash.”
“Were you there the night the Dassault came in and took off?”
“Yes.”
“Tell us about it,” Dominic said.
“Four passengers, Middle Eastern, came in a limousine. They got aboard, and the plane took off. That’s it.”
“Can you describe any of them?”
Rolf shook his head. “It was too dark. You said something about the Radish. Someone else looking for me?”
Brian said, “According to the waitress. Four Middle Eastern men. Any idea why they’re looking for you?”
Rolf glared at him. “Are you trying to be funny?”
“No, sorry.”
Dominic and Brian left Maria with Anton and stepped into the hall. “You think he’s telling the truth?” Brian asked.
“Yeah, I do. He’s scared shitless, and happy as hell we were white faces coming through the door.”
“Doesn’t change much, though. He’s got nothing we can use. No name, no faces, no paper trail-just Middle Easterners traveling incognito to who knows where. If DHS or the FBI had Hlasek or his pilot, they wouldn’t have asked Zurich and Stockholm to beat the bushes.”
“Probably right,” Dominic replied.
“What about those two?”
“Best we can do is get them to Stockholm. If Anton’s smart, he’ll turn himself in to the Rikskriminalpolisen and pray they’re interested in his story.”
Dominic watched over Anton and Maria as they gathered their things. Brian left through the back to retrieve the car. He returned three minutes later, panting. “Problem. Tires on our rental are slashed.”
Dominic turned to Anton. “Your friends?”
“No. I told them not to come back.”
From outside came the squelch of brakes. Dominic shut off the table lamp. Brian locked the front door and peered through the peephole. “Four men,” he whispered. “Armed. Two coming to the front, two going around back.”
“You were followed,” Dominic told Maria.
“I didn’t see anyone-”
“That’s sort of the point.”
“You have a gun?” Brian asked Anton.
“No.”
Dominic and Brian exchanged glances. Each knew what the other was thinking: too late to call the cops. And even if it wasn’t, their involvement would bring more problems than it would solutions.
“Get in the kitchen,” Dominic ordered Anton and Maria. “Lock the door, then get on the floor. Stay quiet.” Dominic and Brian followed them there. “Knives?” Brian whispered to Anton, who pointed to a drawer. Hunched beneath the level of the window, Brian walked over, slid the drawer open, and found a pair of five-inch stainless-steel steak knives. He handed one to Dominic, then pointed to himself, then the living room, then moved that way. Dominic followed, and together they shoved the couch, the coffee table, and a side chair up against the door. It wouldn’t stop whoever was coming, but it would slow them down and, they hoped, even the odds. Though unavoidable, Brian and Dominic had, in fact, brought knives to a gunfight. Dominic gave his brother a good-luck wave, then returned to the kitchen. Brian took up station at the end of the hall, eyes fixed on the front door.
From the floor, Maria whispered, “What-”
Dominic held his palm up, shook his head.
Outside the kitchen window came a pair of hushed voices. Ten seconds passed. The doorknob on the back door turned, creaking, first one way, then the other. Dominic crab-walked around Anton and Maria, then pressed himself against the wall beside the door on the knob side.
Silence.
More hushed voices.
From the side of the house came shattering glass. Dominic heard what sounded like a rock thump against the floor. A feint, he decided, knowing Brian would have reached the same conclusion. The screen door creaked open.
Something bulky crashed against the door. Then again. The wooden jamb beside Dominic’s head splintered. On the third crash, the door flew inward. A forearm and a hand holding a revolver appeared first, followed a second later by a face. Dominic waited for his target-the soft spot just beneath the earlobe-to appear, then straight-armed the knife, burying it to the hilt in the man’s throat, then using it as a lever to bring him farther in the doorway. The man dropped the gun. Dominic kicked it down the hall, where Brian scooped it up. Dominic withdrew the knife, then reached across, grabbed the door, and slammed it shut, driving the man back outside.
From the front came two gunshots. The windows shattered. Brian crouched down and pointed the revolver at the front door. Dominic stepped around Maria and Rolf, ducked down, then peeked through the kitchen window. Outside, two men were kneeling over their partner. One of them looked up, saw Dominic, and fired two shots through the window.
On his hands and knees now, Dominic asked Maria, “Cooking oil?” She pointed to the opposite lower cabinet. Dominic ordered them into the living room with Brian, then retrieved the oil and dumped the bottle on the linoleum floor five feet from the door, then headed for the living room. As he stepped around Brian, the back door burst open again. A figure rushed through, followed by a second. The first hit the oiled floor and went down, taking his partner with him. Revolver outstretched, Brian stepped down the hall, right shoulder pressed to the wall, then opened fire. He put two rounds into the first man and three into the second, then grabbed their guns and tossed one to Dominic, who was already heading down the hall, pushing Maria and Rolf before him.
Careful to avoid the oil, Dominic stepped over the bodies, peeked out the back door, then pulled back. “Clear-”
From the living room the front door crashed inward, followed by the grating of furniture legs on the hardwood floor.
“Go for the car,” Dominic told Brian. “Start it up, make some noise.”
“Got it.”
As Brian ushered Maria and Rolf out the back door, Dominic looked down the hall in time to see a figure push through and begin crawling over the stacked furniture. Dominic ducked out the back door and sprinted across the lawn and around the back corner of the garage; inside it, Brian had Rolf’s car started and was revving the engine. Dominic dropped to his knee and peeked around the corner; the fence at his back was dark and covered in shrubbery. It would make his outline all but invisible.
The last man appeared in the doorway. Having seen his dead comrades in the kitchen, this one was more cautious, looking this way and that before stepping out. He paused again, then slid down the wall and checked the driveway before starting across the lawn. Dominic waited until his hand had almost touched the knob of the garage door, then rasped, “Hey!” He let the man turn ever so slightly, just enough for a good solid-mass shot,
then fired twice. Both shots took the man in the sternum. He stumbled backward, dropped to his knees, then toppled over.
37
T IME TO land a new job, Clark told himself after breakfast. He called ahead and arranged to arrive at 10:30, then woke up Chavez, and they met at the car at half past nine.
“Well, we’ll see what they pay,” Ding observed. “I’m ready to be impressed.”
“Don’t get too enthused,” Clark warned as he started the car. “Hell, I never expected to see a hundred grand from Langley when I started there. My starting salary was nineteen-five a year.”
“Well, the guy said their IRA plan-whatever you call it-works pretty well, and I saw all the Beemers in the parking lot. I’ll let you do the talking,” Chavez suggested.
“Yeah, you just sit there and look menacing.” John allowed himself a laugh.
“You suppose they really want us to whack people?”
“I guess we’ll have to find out.”
The traffic on the American Legion Bridge wasn’t too bad with the approaching end of rush hour, and soon enough they were northbound on U.S. 29.
“You decide what you’re going to do about my fuckup?”
“Yeah, I think so. We’re going down the rabbit hole, Ding-a lot farther than we’ve been before. Might as well go all the way. We’ll hand it over to them and see what they can make of it.”
“Okay. So this Hendley guy-what do we know about him?”
“U.S. Senator from South Carolina, democrat, served on the Intelligence Committee. They liked him at Langley-smart, straight shooter. Ryan liked him, too. Hendley lost his family in a car accident. Wife and two boys, I think. He’s very rich. Like Ryan, he made a pile of money in the trading business. He’s good at seeing things other people don’t.”
Both men were properly dressed, in decent suits both had bought in London during their Rainbow tour, with Turnbull & Asser ties and nicely polished shoes. Actually, this was something Chavez still did every day, from his time in the U.S. Army, though Clark occasionally had to be reminded.
They parked in the visitors’ lot and walked inside. Ernie Chambers still had the desk duty. “Hi. We’re here to see Mr. Davis again.”
“Yes, sir. Please have a seat while I call upstairs.”
Clark and Chavez took a seat, and John picked up a current copy of Time magazine. He’d have to get used to reading the news four days late. Davis appeared in the lobby.
“Thanks for coming back. You want to follow me?”
Two minutes after that, all three were in Tom Davis’s office, looking out at some Maryland horse country.
“So are you interested?” Davis asked.
“Yes,” Clark replied for them both.
“Okay, good. Rules: First, what happens here stays here. This place does not exist, and neither does any activity that may or may not happen here.”
“Mr. Davis, we both know about secrecy. Neither one of us talks much, and we don’t tell tales out of school.”
“You’ll have to sign another round of NDAs on that. We can’t enforce anything with statutory law, but we can take all your money away.”
“Are we supposed to have our personal attorneys review them?”
“If you wish, you can. There’s nothing compromising in the agreements, but then you could tear it up. We can’t have any lawyers wondering what we do here. It’s not all, strictly speaking, legal.”
“How much travel?” John asked next.
“Less than you’re used to, I suspect. We’re still figuring that out. You’ll spend most of your time right here, looking over data and planning ops.”
“Source of the data?”
“Langley and Fort Meade, mostly, but skim a little from the FBI, Immigration and Customs, DHS… Those kinds of places. We’ve got a damned good technical team. You probably noticed the hedgehog on our roof.”
“We did.”
“We’re the only building on a direct line of sight from CIA to NSA. They swap data by microwave, and we download all their interagency transmissions. That’s how we do our financial trading. NSA keeps a close eye on domestic and foreign banks. They can also tap into the bank computer systems and internal communications.”
“What you said the other day about wet work…?”
“We’ve only run one real operation to date-the four people I mentioned yesterday. Truth be told, we were halfway curious about what would happen. In fact, nothing much happened. Maybe we covered our tracks too well. All the killings looked like heart attacks, the victims were posted, and the autopsy reports all said ‘natural causes.’ We think the opposition bought that story and kept going. The fourth one-MoHa-netted us a laptop with encryption keys, so we’re reading some of their internal mail at the moment-or were, until recently. Looks like they might have switched up their communication protocols last week.”
“Out of the blue?” Clark asked.
“Yep. We intercepted a birth announcement. Big distribution list. Within hours, everyone went quiet.”
“Switching channels,” Chavez said.
“Yep. We’re working on a lead that may get us back in.”
“Who else will be operating like us?”
“You’ll meet them in due course,” Davis promised.
“And the pay?” Ding asked.
“We can start you both at two-fifty a year. You can participate in the office investment plan with as much or as little of your salary as you wish. I told you already about the rate of return. We also pay for reasonable educational expenses for any kids. Up to one Ph.D. or professional degree. That’s the limit.”
“What if my wife wants to go back to medical school for some additional work? She’s a family practitioner now, but she’s thinking about getting trained up for OB/GYN.”
“We’ll cover it.”
“If she asks what I’m doing here, what do I say?”
“Security consulting for a major trading house. It always works,” Davis assured him. “She must know you were an Agency guy.”
“She’s his daughter.” Chavez pointed to Clark.
“So she’ll understand, won’t she? And your wife, Mr. Clark?”
“Name’s John. Yeah, Sandy knows the drill. Maybe this way she can tell people what a real job I have,” he added with a thin smile.
“So how about we meet the boss?”
“Okay with us,” Clark said for them both.
The pardons are real,” Hendley assured them a few minutes later. “When Ryan pitched me the idea of setting this place up, he said it would be necessary to protect such field personnel as we sent out, and so he signed a hundred. We’ve never had to use one, but they’re an insurance policy should they ever become necessary. Anything you’re curious about that Tom didn’t cover?”
“How are the targets selected?” Clark asked.
“You’ll be part of the process for the most part. We have to be careful how we choose the people we want to go away.”
“Do we also pick the methods?” Clark asked delicately.
“You tell them about the pens?” Hendley asked Davis.
“This is one of the tools we use.” Davis held up the gold pen. “It injects about seven milligrams of succinylcholine. That’s a sedative used in surgical procedures. In stops the breathing and voluntary muscle movement. But not the heart. You can’t move, can’t speak, and you can’t breathe. The heart keeps beating for a minute or so, but it’s starved of oxygen, and so death happens from what appears on postmortem examination to be a heart attack. It evidently feels like it, too.”
“Reversible?” Clark wondered.
“Yeah, if you get the victim on a respirator immediately. The drug wears off-metabolizes-in about five minutes. It leaves nothing in the way of traces unless the victim is posted by a really expert ME that knows what they’re looking for. Damned near perfect.”
“I’m surprised the Russians didn’t come up with something like this.”
“They surely tried,” Davis responded. �
��But succinylcholine didn’t make it to their hospitals, I guess. We got it from a doc friend up at Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons who had a personal score to settle. His brother-a senior broker with Cantor Fitzgerald-died on Nine-Eleven.”
“Impressive,” Clark said, eyeballing the pen. “Might be a good interrogation tool, too. It would be a rare customer who’d want to go through that experience twice.”
Davis handed it over. “It’s not loaded. You twist the tip to swap out the point. It writes perfectly well.”
“Slick. Well, that answers one question. We’re free to use more conventional tools?”
“If and as the job calls for doing so,” Davis confirmed with a nod. “But we’re all about not being there, so always keep that in the back of your mind.”
“Understood.”
“And you, Mr. Chavez?” Hendley asked.
“Sir, I just try to listen and learn,” Ding told the boss.
“Is he that smart, John?” the former Senator asked.
“More so, actually. We work well together.”
“That’s what we need. Well, welcome aboard, gentlemen.”
“One thing,” Clark said. He withdrew Ding’s flash drive from his pocket and laid it on the desk. “We took that off one of the bad guys in Tripoli.”
“I see. And why is it sitting on my desk?”
“An oversight,” Clark replied. “Call it a ‘senior moment.’ I figure we can give it to the Swedes or to Langley, but I suspect we’d put it to better use here.”
“Have you looked at it?”
Chavez answered, “JPEG image files-a dozen or so. Looked like vacation shots to me, but who knows.”
Hendley considered this, then nodded. “Okay, we’ll take a look. Tom, do we have an office for them?”
“Right down with the Caruso boys.”
“Good. Have a look around, guys, then we’ll see you first thing tomorrow morning.”
Hendley stood, encouraging the others to do the same. Davis headed toward the door, followed by Chavez and Clark.
“John, can you hang back for a moment?” Hendley asked.
“Sure. Ding, I’ll catch up.”
Once they were alone, Hendley said, “You’ve been around the block a few times, John. I wanted to get your take on a couple things.”
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