There was also a second layer of duplicity. Tom Jarvis paid Everett Cooper and John Abrams on behalf of the Venezuelan Special Services. And, wearing his CIA hat, Jarvis had hired Fatso Minton to destroy Sam’s home – with her and Brock inside.
She didn’t think Minton would willingly kill a friend for any amount of money, so her working theory was that Tom Jarvis had lied to Fatso Minton about the nature of the target he was being asked to bomb.
The pay had to have been outrageous, as undertaking such a bold, violent, brazen operation on American turf would have grievous consequences. It would take just one leak to a congressman, and Fatso could find himself facing jail time.
Jarvis must have sold it pretty damn well. Maybe he told Fatso it was an Al Qaeda cell, that they needed to send a stronger message than simply arresting them.
There was also the possibility that Fatso was moonlighting for the VSS as well, but she figured he was smarter than that. The Agency had made him a rich man, along with many of his employees at Executive Strategies, and it would have been beyond foolhardy to step out of line.
Guess we’ll never know for sure. Fatso Minton had been sliced to ribbons. He’d been tortured and killed by a madman.
Which led her back to Jarvis. He’d undoubtedly arranged to have the junior spy league chase them around outside of Homeland headquarters before their flight to Caracas. Hell, the guy with the switchblade might even have been the same guy who killed Minton.
She shivered at the thought.
And Frank. Ekman was the latest victim. Half his head had been blown away just minutes after arriving in Caracas.
She was pretty sure that Ekman wasn’t on the take. He was a true believer, a God-and-country kind of guy. She believed the account he’d given on the plane ride down to Venezuela, that Ekman distrusted Jarvis, and wasn’t sure whether Sam was in league with the wrong side, so Ekman had kept his head down while trying to figure out what was really going on.
Ekman’s likely neutrality meant that his death could have been orchestrated by either the Agency or the VSS. He was a potential threat to both sides. The Agency might have feared he was a VSS guy, and vice versa.
But Jarvis had him killed. Sam knew it in her bones. It was just a theory, in the same way that gravity and evolution were just theories. It’s fact enough for me, she thought.
A sickening thought struck. Dan Gable’s in trouble. Her deputy had been working his ass off to keep her alive over the past week, and he was in the process of walking a warrant for Jarvis’ arrest through the Justice department. She thought about Ekman’s revelation that he’d been monitoring Dan’s communications, and she wondered whether Jarvis was doing the same thing. She was suddenly extremely worried for his safety.
She had punched the first four digits of Dan’s number into her phone when it began to ring.
DC area code.
She was using a disposable phone, and she had no names programmed into it, but she’d only given the number to one person: Dan Gable.
“Hi, Dan,” she said.
She heard a familiar laugh on the other end of the connection.
But it wasn’t Dan Gable’s laugh.
“Surprise, Sam. I hope you’re having a good weekend. I hear it’s nice down there this time of year.”
It was Tom Jarvis.
19
Peter Kittredge entered his apartment for the first time in two days. It was only slightly less of a disaster than when he’d first discovered it ransacked, six days earlier. He’d barely had time to move the big piles of broken glass and strewn clothing around during the ensuing week, in which he’d made the acquaintance of Venezuela’s quasi-official guerrilla resistance to oil-thirsty American overtures in the region.
He’d also made a dead drop for Arturo Dibiaso on Monday, and was about to do the same thing again.
Except things were different now.
Now, Kittredge knew the score. Dibiaso was Agency, and so was Charley.
So the Agency had induced him to spy, and had then played the other side of his espionage transactions.
Then they’d captured and tortured him, made him sign away his soul in exchange for immunity from prosecution, and coerced him to continue risking life and limb by stealing secrets from his employer, the State Department.
What a complete, unadulterated mess.
Now, Homeland had shown up on the scene. Over the past two hours, he’d been kidnapped for the second time in the last week, and interrogated for the fourth time. The redheaded DHS agent hadn’t used a belt sander to extract the information she’d wanted, but neither had she been entirely cordial. She and her companion had almost broken his arm and his neck, then drugged him, then whisked him away to the middle of nowhere in a stolen car. Then they’d had a conversation.
He was confused, and miles beyond frightened.
He was also angry.
The Homeland chick seemed okay. It struck Kittredge that she was just as screwed as he was, somehow caught between the Agency and the VSS, maybe targeted by both. He wasn’t terribly upset with her.
But he was murderously angry at the Agency.
More to the point, he was murderously angry at Charley, the man he’d loved, and Dibiaso, Charley’s fellow CIA agent and the man who’d induced Kittredge to commit espionage.
Kittredge would have liked nothing better than to shove it up the Agency’s backside. He wanted to see them burn, to watch the smug smile wiped off of their faces, to watch them hurt.
He had agreed to notify El Grande of his next meeting with the CIA. He would certainly tell them about the Agency’s demand for an evening dead-drop, but El Grande wasn’t forthcoming about what he and his VSS compatriots intended to do with the information.
Kittredge knew what he wanted the VSS to do. He wanted El Grande and his men to show up at the dead-drop armed to the teeth, and he wanted them to gun down every Agency bastard in the country. He wanted to watch them bleed out all over the train station floor, and he wanted to smile at them and wave a glorious goodbye as the life drained from their bodies.
Kittredge poured a drink. Pure vodka, from the freezer. The coldness burned his throat, the alcohol burned his gut, and the joyous relief was almost a religious experience. The sensation of the alcohol hitting his bloodstream through an empty stomach felt like an old friend, like comfortable shoes.
He made for his favorite chair, but was only halfway there when he heard a knock on the front door.
Kittredge cursed, then padded softly to the peephole.
He saw a raised middle finger.
“Zip it up, get off your knees, stop whatever perversion you’re committing in there and open the door.”
Quinn.
Kittredge shook his head and unlocked the dead bolt. He didn’t bother opening the door. He knew Quinn would do that on his own.
Kittredge was nearly seated in his chair when the giant CIA assassin walked in.
“Gorgeous day for a drive, don’t you think?” Quinn said. “Maybe I’ll go steal a car. Wait, maybe I’ll just borrow your stolen car!”
Kittredge grimaced but said nothing.
“Haven’t had enough excitement this week, so you thought you’d try grand larceny too?”
“Quinn, feel free to fuck yourself.”
“I don’t do that. But sometimes I do make love to myself.”
Kittredge shook his head. “What do you want?”
Quinn plopped himself down on the couch, propped both feet on the designer coffee table, and crossed his arms behind his head. “Just checking in on my rock star new recruit,” he said blithely.
Kittredge took a draft of his vodka and looked out the window.
“I don’t want you to get arrested by the locals before your big dead-drop tonight,” Quinn said.
“Why don’t I save all of us the trouble and just hand the thumb drive to you?”
Quinn looked surprised. “What makes you think I want it?”
“You could hand it to your boy
Arturo. Or to Fat Fredericks. Or whichever Agency asshole wants it.”
Quinn smiled. “You’re more than just a pretty face, aren’t you? You’re a bona fide sleuthy spy! A real-life James Bond!”
“And you guys aren’t as sharp as you think you are, if a half-assed State Department economist like me can figure out your scheme in less than a week.”
Quinn laughed. “I know, right? I keep telling Fredericks how much he sucks. But he doesn’t seem to take my advice to heart. I don’t feel very empowered.”
Kittredge found Quinn’s schtick annoying.
“Listen, Quinn, I’d really like you to get out of here.”
Quinn feigned a hurt expression. “I’m just here to help, making sure you don’t need anything for the big dead-drop tonight, and this is the thanks I get?”
“I’m all set, thanks.”
“Actually, you could use a few pointers, I think. You look stiff and nervous when you’re putting the bag into the locker at the station. You should really loosen up a little bit, and stop looking around. Makes people think you’re up to something.”
“So you’re really just here to remind me that you’re still watching me.”
“Something like that.” Quinn rose and walked toward the door. “Maybe get a little drunker before today’s drop. The booze will relax you.”
Kittredge flipped Quinn off.
Quinn blew a kiss on his way out of the apartment. “Have a nice day, partner.”
Kittredge heard the door shut. He felt besieged, watched, violated, and compromised. Again. And he felt completely alone.
He flipped on the television for company.
Headlines in Spanish scrolled along the bottom of the news channel screen, and the talking head stood in front of a Caracas hospital.
Kittredge’s Spanish wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough to get the gist. Apparently, someone very important was dying an unexpectedly fast death. Cancer, the reporter speculated, or maybe some other liver problem, judging by the jaundiced skin and eyes of El Presidente.
Hugo Chavez.
He was perfectly healthy only yesterday, when he’d told the US Ambassador to get lost. Kittredge had seen him with his own eyes, shook hands with him even. The man was anything but frail, ill, or weak. His grip was strong, his eyes were clear, and his speech was never less than stentorian. He looked like he could’ve been the Venezuelan head of state for fifty more years. He certainly didn’t look like a man nearing the terminal stages of a liver disease.
Jesus Christ. It snapped into place for Kittredge suddenly, inexorably. He felt a crushing weight in his stomach. Rojo’s assessment had been absolutely correct: a great many things had happened during Friday’s seemingly-innocuous meeting.
We’ve assassinated Hugo Chavez.
With trembling hands, he turned off the television.
He longed to talk to Maria. She would know what to do. He wished he had the first clue about how to get ahold of her. He realized that she had been an anchor for him during the crazy events of the past week. It was also clear to him that he was far more than attracted to her. He felt the overpowering urge to cling to her like a drowning man to a life raft.
Because he was definitely drowning.
Tears streamed down his face. I am party to murder.
He rose, paced.
There was only one thing to do. I need to talk to El Grande. Right now.
20
“Hello, Tom,” Sam said, looking meaningfully at Brock in the driver’s seat.
“Dan gave me your number,” Jarvis said.
Bullshit. Not willingly. Sam was sure that Jarvis had either intercepted Dan Gable’s communications, or he had squeezed Dan directly to get the information.
That meant that either the warrant hadn’t been signed and served yet, or Jarvis had somehow slipped through the trap and avoided being arrested.
It wasn’t a good development, no matter how she sliced it.
Brock mouthed something silently: play dumb, he was saying.
She gave him a questioning look.
About Ekman, Brock mouthed, using his hand to mime a gun pointed at his head.
She nodded. She understood what he was saying. Giving away their knowledge about Ekman’s death would surely put Dan Gable in even greater danger.
“We’re following up on that lead we talked about,” she said with as much nonchalance as she could manage.
“I’d like you to stop what you’re doing and head to the embassy as quickly as you can,” Jarvis said. “I have reason to believe that there’s a contract on your life.”
“You think?”
“I’m serious, Sam. We found agents outside of DHS headquarters. We haven’t made any arrests yet, but we’re pretty sure they were following you guys.”
No shit. You hired them, asshole.
“We saw them,” Sam said. “We thought they were part of a security team,” she lied.
“They’re not, at least not one of ours,” Jarvis said. “Hurry, Sam. The embassy is expecting you, and they’re arranging a diplomatic flight back to DC tonight.”
The hell they are.
“Okay. Thanks, Tom. We’ll call you from the airport when we land.”
“Do that. We’ll have a car there for you. Be careful, Sam.”
Jarvis hung up.
Sam exhaled. “Crooked as a stick in water.”
“What did he want?”
“He wants us to walk into a bear trap.”
It was ironic that the most important thing for a car thief to do in order not to get caught was to steal another car. Driving the same stolen vehicle for too long was a great way to spend time in jail.
In Sam and Brock’s case, driving the same stolen vehicle for too long was a great way to end up dead.
So they pulled into a parking garage, parked in an open space adjacent to a reasonable-looking mid-sized sedan, and got to work.
“You scare me sometimes,” Brock told Sam with a smile, while he wiped the first car clean of their fingerprints. “Kidnapping, assault, and now grand theft auto. Three times. Sometimes I think if you weren’t playing for the good guys, you’d definitely be playing for the bad guys.”
“I’m glad you can tell them apart,” Sam said. “I sure as hell can’t.”
She jimmied the door lock open. A car alarm sounded briefly, but it was a cheap one, and Sam disabled it within seconds.
Two minutes later, she had worked the steering column cover free, exposing the ignition wires. She found the right ones, stripped the insulation using a pocket knife, and twisted the ground wire together with the ignition lead. The spark plugs would now have current to fire at the right time.
Then she touched the starter motor wire to the other two exposed leads. The starter motor engaged, and the engine sputtered reluctantly to life.
“Hop in,” she told Brock.
“Now for the difficult part,” he observed.
He was right. Stealing a car in Caracas was really no big deal. It happened a hundred times a week in the lawless city.
But getting ahold of significant amounts of cash, and a couple of weapons, would be tricky. They weren’t worried about the policia, or what passed for police forces in Caracas. There was little discernible relationship between the rule of law and the various competing police departments operating in the world’s most dangerous city. The cops were woefully underfunded and highly entrepreneurial, which meant that they operated much more like a protection racket than an actual police force. Their major function was extortion, accepting bribes in exchange for a laissez faire approach to almost everything.
Sam’s major worry was the hardcore and pervasive criminal element. There were no safe neighborhoods in Caracas. Murders, theft, and home invasions took place daily, and in broad daylight. Even in relatively affluent neighborhoods such as Baruta, Chacao, and El Hatillo, violent crime was a constant worry. Caracas’ murder rate was four times higher than Colombia’s, and six times higher than Mexico’s, even at
the height of the so-called drug wars.
For this reason, guns weren’t for sale in stores. Getting their hands on a couple of sidearms meant they’d have to use cash, and buy them on the black market.
But they didn’t have much cash to speak of.
Finding guns and working capital meant that Sam and Brock would have to deal directly with the violent criminal element, because criminals controlled the city.
In fact, Sam thought, the most adept criminals had risen to national political prominence. Thuggery wasn’t a problem in Venezuela. It was a way of life. They’d have to be extremely careful to avoid being kidnapped and murdered.
A few automated teller machines were scattered throughout the city, but they were almost always empty. The banks simply couldn’t afford to stock them with cash that would undoubtedly be stolen. They also couldn’t afford to pay armed guards enough money to keep them from robbing the machines they were supposed to be guarding.
So there were precious few remnants of the failed experiment, which meant that Sam and Brock had to find another method of obtaining cash.
There weren’t many good options. Banks required an established account before honoring withdrawal requests, and the currency exchanges were in league with the criminal element. Customers leaving with any appreciable amount of cash – the kind of cash Sam and Brock would need to extricate themselves from their shitty situation – wouldn’t make it half a block before being mugged. The exchange clerks had gangsters on speed-dial. In fact, the gangsters paid them more than their employers did.
There was yet another problem. Because they were obviously American, anyone who would be willing to do business with them would undoubtedly want payment in dollars. That was wildly inconvenient, because Venezuela’s particular flavor of socialism, which was much more delusional than average, had created one of the world’s most lucrative currency arbitrage environments. There was a booming black market for dollars, and the “street” exchange rate was several times higher than the official exchange rate.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 41