Mortal Crimes 1

by Various Authors

  He wasn’t prepared for the emotion of seeing his friend’s body. Rage welled up at the injustice of Kendall’s death. He sank back on the ground with his head in hands, breath heavy. It was too much. He had to make it stop. Get the feeling back. He tried to make his brain change how it was feeling. Not fast enough. He wanted more. Slipping out of control.

  “You okay?” Julia whispered in his ear. She stood behind his shoulder and rested a hand on his head.

  He managed a nod and pointed to the pile of rock.

  Julia already had her laptop booted and now squatted on the ground, pointed her probe at the rocks. She typed briefly on the keyboard and then sat back. “Got it!” she mouthed to Ian.

  Ian looked at the computer and saw a progress bar running across the screen. When it finished, he took a few of the rocks he had removed, his breathing now more even, and covered Kendall’s leg again, then turned and walked back down the slope without another word. Julia followed silently.

  A minute later their truck was back in view. So were two other Land Rovers.

  Ian grabbed Julia and pulled her to the ground, where they lay prone. Men flanked the Land Rovers, armed with shotguns.

  He beckoned Julia to follow him on hands and knees up to the ridge and dipped over the other side. He drew his Glock, then crept along the ridge to circle back along the cars. Once they circled around, he pointed to the ground and whispered to Julia, “Stay here.”

  Then he crawled behind to where he could see Anton Markov from the rear with a sniper rifle on a tripod, trained at the hillside. He inched closer as everything slowed and he saw the moment with perfect clarity. No way out. Try to hide in the desert and they’d be dehydrated and dead in twenty-four hours. Approaching the Blackhawk camp with Julia would be suicide. It was over, but maybe he could get Julia out safely. If she could keep her laptop, with what she’d taken from Kendall’s implant, it might be worth it.

  He abruptly stood, pointed the pistol at the back of Markov’s head and shouted, “Freeze!”

  Markov whirled around with a look of complete surprise.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Ian kept his gun pointed at Markov’s head. Markov’s men flanked him on the right and left.

  Four shotguns to his handgun. And these were not the psych ward guards.

  “Call off your men,” Ian said. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  “I don’t believe that,” Markov said. “You haven’t flown halfway across the world because you’re suicidal.”

  “You know I’ll take you down before your men can respond.”

  “You might kill me,” Markov said. He seemed unconcerned by the possibility. “But before you enjoy the satisfaction of seeing me fall, those shotguns will turn you into hamburger. And Dr. Nolan, too. Is that what she signed up for?”

  Ian didn’t take his eyes from Markov, but he could see Julia out of the corner of his eye being led toward him by two more men. They must have come around behind her. She looked terrified. He fought to silence his mind. Implant was active. And this time he was certain he had given no command.”I didn’t track you down to kill you,” Markov continued. “If that was the case, you’d be dead already. Think about what I’ve got at my disposal. If not these guys, I’ve got SOCOM resources to call on. I’ve had a Predator tracking you since you entered Namibia. I could have launched a Hellfire missile at any time. Could have even taken you out through your implant.”

  “Then what? You’re going to stick me in another asylum and mess with my brain?”

  “Or maybe you could give me the data from Kendall Rose’s implant and I could help you figure out what happened here,” Markov said.

  Julia was now standing next to a pair of soldiers on the right. One had a shotgun trained at her, and the other pointed his weapon at Ian.

  “That doesn’t sound like you at all,” Julia said, her tone incredulous. “You’re always by the books. Why would you help us?”

  “You don’t know me better than that by now?” he asked in an irritated tone. “I’m the one who sent you to Utah, do you remember? I told you to keep your mouth shut, and why do think that is? Is it because I was going by the books? Wake up, Nolan.”

  “Leave her alone,” Ian said.

  “The longer we stand on this road, the greater the odds Blackwing soldiers will find us,” Markov said. “And then what? I guess there’s a chance you could escape in the confusion. Very, very slim chance. There’s also a chance that I’m telling the truth. Why don’t you take it?”

  “And what happens when I lower my gun?” Ian said. “Just so we’re clear.”

  “You will set the gun on the ground. One of my men will search you, verify you’re clean. You will then walk, flanked by my men, toward the second Land Rover. Once we get inside, start to talk, my side will put away their weapons.”

  Ian made a sudden decision, driven more by necessity than trust for Markov. “I’m putting down the gun.” He bent and set down the weapon, then lifted his hands to his head.

  Markov waved his men over. Ian braced himself to be bashed over the head with their gun stocks, but it was all very civilized. A man patted him down, while another picked up his Glock. And then they marched to the Land Rover, just as Markov had promised.

  Ian allowed himself a moment of hope.

  ________

  “I figure we have less than twenty-four hours before Sarah Redd gets suspicious,” Markov said. “And I can’t trust my men, not fully. They’re used to working in adverse conditions, following strange orders, but if they think I’ve gone rogue, they might turn on me.”

  Markov had sent his men to the other Land Rovers, together with all of the weapons. He told Ian to drive, Julia to take the passenger seat, while he sat behind Ian, alone with them in the vehicle.

  Julia took that as a good sign that Markov was telling the truth. It was clear, however, that he didn’t trust her or Ian.

  “Have you?” she asked. “Gone rogue, I mean?”

  “If by rogue you mean violating the orders of a superior, then yes, I suppose I have. But what if your boss has gone rogue? When her actions lead you to believe that she is undermining your true superior—that being the President of the United States of America—shouldn’t you risk insubordination?”

  “You’re talking about Sarah Redd, aren’t you,” she said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  It was hard to wrap her mind around. The Director of National Intelligence served directly under the President. Was Markov saying that she had turned traitor?

  “Is she the one who called the airstrike on our position at the camp?” Ian asked. He turned the car off a rutted, mud road onto a flatter road, made of crushed gravel. Still no pavement.

  “I’m not sure, but if she did, I can understand why. Not that I agree, but Ian you’ve been at this long enough to know that nobody is untouchable. You’ve got technology in your brain that is one of this country’s most important secrets. If you were captured by someone who could discover the implant… the technology is not expendable. You are. Get over it. That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s about why you were sent to that camp.”

  Ian glared at Markov.

  “We should call my husband,” Julia said. “He works with Sarah, he might know something.”

  “Let’s talk about your husband,” Markov said. “First, I should give him credit. He told me how to find you.”

  “What? How? I didn’t tell Terrance where we were.”

  “He called Chang, who put together the installation for the software to access Kendall’s implant. Chang inserted a Trojan Horse program into the installation that would monitor your location and feed it to the CIA.” Markov paused. “The Trojan Horse was your husband’s idea. He passed me your location as soon as you logged in at that hotel in Springbok.”

  The news left her reeling. How could he?

  “But that’s still good, right?” she asked after several seconds of silence. She was trying not to feel betrayed, to get a handle
on what Terrance had done. “He told you how to find us and now you can help us.”

  “If that had been his motivation, then yes, it could have been a good thing,” Markov said. “As it turns out, Terrance gave me the information with the understanding that I might use it to eliminate you.”

  Julia had been looking back at Markov, but now she whipped her head around to stare out the front. The red, sandy landscape blurred in her vision. She couldn’t breathe.

  “Damn,” Ian muttered. Then, “I’m so sorry, Julia.”

  ________

  “American spies are back in Namibia,” Li Hao said.

  “They never left,” Charles Ikanbo said.

  The second meeting with Li took place on more favorable terrain. The Central Intelligence Service Director met with the ChinaOne official in the Owela Museum in Windhoek.

  The museum sat on Robert Mugabe Avenue, named in a fit of pan-African pride. Mugabe had transformed over the years from liberator and patriot to just another kleptocrat and thug, and Ikanbo thought that it was an embarrassment to have Namibia’s premier natural history museum on a street named after the Zimbabwean dictator.

  The museum was closed for a private party of Chinese engineers and executives. The other Chinese—mostly men, but also a few women—were on the opposite side of the museum, enjoying a tour in Mandarin.

  “I’m not talking about the usual crop of spies,” Li said. “I mean the ones involved in the attack on our drill site.”

  “Yes, I know, they entered the country yesterday. I have two of my men watching this man and his team at all times.”

  Li Hao was studying a display of a stuffed leopard in a tree with an impala in its jaws. A pair of stuffed hyenas paced at the bottom of the tree. He looked up, blinked.

  “Team? What team? He’s only traveling with the woman, nobody else.”

  Charles didn’t know anything about a woman. Anton Markov came with another man and two others joined him in the country. One, he’d previously thought of as a legitimate diplomatic at the U.S. Embassy. Whatever Markov was up to, he’d thought it important enough to blow the cover of one of his operatives.

  Li studied Charles’s face and it must have given up something. “You don’t know anything about the woman, do you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “No, you don’t. You said there was a team.”

  Charles didn’t want to surrender information to Li Hao, but the truth was, he was already losing ground to the Americans. He’d spent valuable resources watching his brother, William, as the man tried to make overtures to General Katz—the Old Crab. Every day Charles grew more afraid of the coup hinted at by both Li during their previous meeting, and by his brother a couple of days earlier. As a result, Markov’s team had slipped from surveillance and were free in the country.

  “Maybe we could share information,” he said with reluctance.

  The two men walked into the next gallery. It was a collection of baskets and other Herero artifacts. “That might work,” Li said.

  “Okay, you first. As a show of good faith.”

  A slight frown crossed the man’s face, but at last he nodded. “Very well. The woman is a doctor. She is civilian, but works for DARPA.”

  “DARPA. They develop top-secret technology for the U.S. military, right?”

  “And the CIA, yes,” Li said.

  “What’s her name?”

  “No, you next.”

  “The agent I’ve identified has three men working for him,” Charles said. “He’s in the country under a diplomatic passport, but he’s no diplomat.”

  “Is your man Anton Markov?” Li asked.

  The question surprised him, but then he remembered that Li Hao didn’t just have Blackwing resources, but Beijing’s own intelligence apparatus to back him up. Beijing wasn’t Washington, or even Moscow, but their resources dwarfed anything Charles could muster.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Where is Markov now?”

  “No, it’s your turn again,” Charles said. That was a question he couldn’t answer even if he’d wanted to. “Who are the two people you’ve been following? How did they enter the country?”

  “They drove in from South Africa. They have fake passports and traveled as tourists. You should have caught them when they crossed.”

  Charles gritted his teeth. He had men watching the border, but they weren’t his top shelf resources.

  “The woman is Dr. Julia Nolan. You met her at the jail cell when she came with Markov to rescue the prisoner.”

  “Of course. There was a computer expert, too. Guy named Chang.” Charles narrowed his eyes. “Chinese.”

  “He’s no Chinese,” Li said. “His grandparents moved to San Francisco from Singapore fifty years ago, and he has nothing to do with us, I promise you. I wish that he did.”

  Charles wasn’t sure he believed it. “And Chang is traveling with Dr. Nolan?”

  “No, I have no idea where he is. The man traveling with Dr. Nolan is Ian Westhelle.”

  Charles felt his jaw clench. “The rogue agent.”

  “Only maybe not so rogue.”

  “No,” Charles said, “maybe not. Do you know why they’re here?”

  “I don’t. I was hoping you could tell me. Last time Westhelle was in the country, things didn’t go so well at the Ondjamba camp. Naturally, we’re anxious to prevent a second confrontation.”

  “They won’t get away with the ‘rogue agent’ excuse a second time,” Charles said. “And the president—weak as he is—won’t stand for more air strikes.”

  “Then why are they here?” Li asked. “The two teams obviously intend to meet up and…what?”

  The Chinese tour group streamed into the room at their back. The two men moved ahead to keep their distance.

  “You remember the warnings you gave me at your villa on Henties Bay?” Charles asked. “About the coup?”

  “I didn’t have specific intelligence, we just knew the Americans were maneuvering in every direction to keep us from gaining access to the Ondjamba oil field. They have friends, easily bribed, within the government.”

  “Oil field?” Charles regretted it the instant he said it. Stupid to show his ignorance.

  “Do you know nothing? Hasn’t your own government told you why we’re here?”

  “I know plenty. I’m well aware that the Americans are planning unrest.” His brother, William, the back-stabber, chief among them. “You were right. They are moving against the government. I can’t do anything about it, not yet.”

  William had come in after a night of drinking and ranted at Charles. It had appeared that the CIA was pulling its support for the coup-plotters. And yet the Americans were back in the country. What could that be about, if not to stick their noses in?

  “Tell me something,” Charles said. “Why now, why this particular oil field? There are oil fields in Nigeria, Angola, all over Africa. We’re a small country, easily manipulated, but that doesn’t explain why the Americans would take so many risks over this particular find.”

  “So you really don’t know,” Li said. A smile crossed his lips. “That’s the most interesting thing of all. And maybe when I explain it to you, you’ll see why it’s so important that you capture these enemy agents and neutralize them.”

  “Nothing would make me happier than to have a valid excuse,” Charles assured him.

  “This is more than an excuse. It’s a question of national survival.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Markov led them to a safe house at a farm outside Omaruru, a town in central Namibia. The farm itself had cattle and wheat, but most of it was fenced into a game preserve, including on the far side of the river, with everything from rhinos to ostriches.

  The farm was off grid. Some of the electricity came from solar panels, more from a wind turbine, with load balance provided by a diesel generator for when the sun didn’t shine and the wind didn’t blow.

  All that power fueled a small, easily disassembled s
et of servers in the basement. It was the coolest place in the house, with fans and air conditioning. Markov took Ian and Julia to the basement while his men kept watch upstairs.

  The first thing Markov did was transfer Kendall’s implant data file from Julia’s laptop onto a USB external hard drive, then wipe clean Julia’s hard drive. She claimed she wouldn’t connect to the internet, but he didn’t trust either Julia to remember, or Chang not to have infected her computer with other goodies. Chang, he guessed, was just in it for the tech-thrill, but better to be safe until he figured out who he could trust.

  Markov had his own, clean version of the analysis software. Julia knew how to load the data file from Kendall Rose’s implant. While she worked, Ian and Markov stood on opposite sides of the room, eyeing each other.

  Markov found himself wondering if he could take the man. Not now, of course, but in his prime, say fifteen years ago. Ian had six, eight inches on him, a longer reach and all that implied. Markov had always kept himself in superb physical shape and still lifted weights, swam, and ran.

  He was also quick. Quick with a weapon, quick to duck a man’s punch and quicker to return a blow to the kidney or larynx. But wasn’t Ian a former athlete? Maybe that advantage wouldn’t hold.

  “You sold us out,” Ian said. He crossed his arms and planted a scowl on his face. “Lied to us about why we were infiltrating the camp, then, when everything went to hell, you tried to cut your losses by killing us.”

  “I did nothing of the sort.”

  “You didn’t try to kill us when things went wrong?”

  “I didn’t order the American attack on your position, if that’s what really happened.”

  “Oh, it happened. Wait until we get the stuff from Kendall’s implant. You’ll see.”

  “Fine, but I didn’t order it. And I didn’t drug you in Windhoek or send you to the psychiatric ward in Utah.” He considered how much to disclose and decided to come clean. “Admittedly, I did track you in Mexico with the goal of eliminating you and bringing Dr. Nolan back to Langley.”