The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich

by Lars Emmerich

  “Grab it as if you were a male,” she said with a good-natured jab to the young man’s ribs.

  Sam turned to the pilot. “Can you get us ready to get out of here quick?”

  “Sure. But I’ll need a flight plan, which requires a destination. And we’ll have to hope the locals will still take American currency to pay for the fuel and servicing.”

  “Destination unknown right now, but do everything else, please.”

  “What about the fuel cost?”

  “Surprise me with your ingenuity.” She turned to her deputy. “Dan, can you access Zip Line from down here?”

  “Strange you should ask,” he said, pointing to an open window on his computer screen. “I’ll know in a few minutes. Leave me Rojas’ cell phone so I can dig out the other guy’s number. We’ll have some angle problems down here because the satellite is primarily pointed at US territory, but as long as we’re still inside the satellite’s footprint, Zip Line should be able to ping the phone and get a decent location ellipse.”

  “Sweet.” Sam reached for Brock’s hand. “Want to take a stroll, baby? I have a feeling I’m going to need to rely on your experience as a hero fighter pilot. You can impress them with your big wristwatch.”

  He smiled. “Anything for you, sweet tits.”

  She pinched his ass on the way down the staircase, and they walked as quickly across the tarmac as Brock’s wounded thigh would permit.

  “We could use a bit of a break,” Sam said as they entered the airport’s flight management office, located at the base of the control tower.

  Brock nodded his assent. “A little good luck wouldn’t kill anybody.”

  14

  Zelaya replayed the tape. Fredericks strained his eyes to make out Mondragon’s form in the dark cell, and leaned in close to the speaker to hear the mumbled phrase. “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘then come and get it,’” Zelaya said.

  “So it’s done. Nice work. Go get the account information.”

  Zelaya frowned, wearied yet again by the gringo impatience. “Certainly,” Zelaya said. “But you want a new asset, do you not? Not just to steal his lollipop and discard him. That will take a little more time. And a great deal more finesse.”

  Fredericks nodded, looked at his watch, sighed. The old man had expected Mondragon’s death hours ago, and had expected Fredericks to be on a plane back north with the account information. Fredericks wasn’t looking forward to the phone call. “Get me someplace near a cell tower,” he said.

  Zelaya’s jaw flexed. Fredericks had the personality of a cheese grater. “Certainly. The lieutenant will take you. I have an appointment with Mr. Mondragon.”

  Sabot heard footsteps. “Not again, you bastards!” he yelled. “You’re not getting me with that trick again!” Walk down the hall and then lurk around outside the door. What kind of bullshit is that? Trying to drive me insane.

  His mind still felt heavy, foggy, not quite his own. He was starving, and food had become an obsession. He dreamt of Fat Joe’s Meat Lover’s Special, his favorite dish at his favorite Seattle pizzeria. Lots of parmesan and red peppers on top. And he dreamt of Angie’s carne asada, some secret family recipe passed down for generations. He was wild about it under normal circumstances, and thinking of the warm, spicy aroma and tender beef nearly drove him to distraction as he sat chained in his cell, freezing, starving, and rapidly losing his wits.

  He was beyond surprised when the cell door opened, the rusty hinges screaming their customary protest. In marched two guards. But something was different this time. Was that… Marisela? In a guard’s uniform? She stood at attention at one side of the door. A guard Sabot hadn’t seen before flanked her on the right.

  Sabot stared at her. She was insanely beautiful. Her eyes moved to his. Was it his imagination, or did she wink at him? She shook her head ever so slightly back and forth. Quiet, she seemed to be saying. Our little secret.

  Or maybe he was making it up. He looked at his left wrist. No marks on it at all, as if it had never been chained to the wall, as if he had never torn it up thrashing against the shackles at the height of passion.

  He looked up at her again, and this time he swore he caught the vestiges of a surreptitious smile on her lips.

  More footsteps, moving quickly. Boot heels pounded in the hallway. A short, crisp, slight figure appeared in the doorway, close-cropped white hair reflected in the dim light. Zelaya.

  “Señor Domingo Mondragon,” he said, his cool, raspy voice filling the room. “I am Terencio Manuel Zelaya.”

  “We’ve met,” Sabot said.

  Zelaya arched his eyebrows. “I assure you we have not.”

  “No, man, we’ve met,” Sabot said. “You said, ‘Now you know who to fear,’ or some shit like that.”

  Zelaya studied him for a long moment. “My staff have informed me that you have been experiencing some, shall we say, mental difficulties.”

  “Really? Let me chain your ass under a cold shower for a week.” Sabot waved his shackled hand. “We’ll see how long it takes you to lose your shit.”

  If Zelaya heard him, he gave no indication. “I’ll send the physician to examine you.”

  “That sonuvabitch? He drugged me. I’d swear on my mother’s grave.”

  “Mr. Mondragon, you’ve not yet met the physician, either.”

  Sabot was awestruck. “Are you out of your mind, man? Fat bastard, whiskey on his breath, some tingly shit on that tongue stick. He was definitely in here. Right after Marisela came in…”

  Shit. Was he supposed to say anything about that? His eyes darted involuntarily to Marisela. She stared straight ahead, ignoring his searching gaze. She never even flinched at the mention of her name. This is way beyond weird.

  “Mr. Mondragon, I’m afraid I do not know what you’re talking about. I do not employ anyone named Marisela at this facility. And I will ask the physician to visit your room to ensure that you are in adequate physical and mental health to begin the legal proceedings.”

  “Legal proceedings?”

  Zelaya looked at him as if he were crazy. “Of course, Mr. Mondragon. Surely you are aware that you will stand trial.”

  “Trial? For what?” Sabot leapt to his feet. “Man, this is messed up!” he bellowed. “We landed at the airport, and you kidnapped us!” He pointed his index finger at Zelaya. “You. Kidnapped. Us! That’s how it went down, and you know it!”

  “Mr. Mondragon, please calm yourself and be seated.” Zelaya’s voice was low and even. “You are restrained because you are considered dangerous. You are being held without bond on charges of espionage and murder.”

  “What the hell?” Sabot stared at Zelaya, open-mouthed and incredulous.

  “There is substantial evidence against you,” Zelaya continued. “Including a corpse.”

  “You’ve got to be out of your mind! I mean, you obviously have me mixed up with someone else!”

  Zelaya’s expression remained impassive. “If you do not already have an attorney, a public defender will be provided.”

  “This is crazy! I haven’t done anything! And I sure as hell haven’t murdered anyone!”

  “Mr. Mondragon, in the Honduran justice system, those who confess are treated with greater leniency than those who are convicted. Given the evidence against you, it is an option you should consider.”

  Sabot’s mind reeled. He sat back down in the chair, and tried unsuccessfully to gather himself. Espionage? Murder? Confession?

  Honduras?

  His eyes snapped to Zelaya’s face. “Did you just say Honduras?”

  “Of course, Mr. Mondragon. Where else did you expect?”

  “Goddamned Honduras?”

  Zelaya looked at him impassively. “Mr. Mondragon, let us set the games aside. I am neither judge nor jury. It is not me whom you must convince of your insanity.”

  Sabot shook his head incredulously. “Insanity?” This was a nightmare. They obviously had him confused with someone else. “Can’t y
ou see what’s happening here?”

  Zelaya sighed, tired. “Mr. Mondragon, as I mentioned, I am not the appropriate person for you to be having this conversation with.” He produced a typewritten page from a folder and placed it in Sabot’s hand. “Please read carefully, make any appropriate changes, and sign.”

  Sabot looked at the page. He recognized many of the letters, but none of them formed any words. Nothing on the page made any sense.

  He thought at first that it might have been written in Spanish or French, but it wasn’t even close. Vowels and consonants were jammed together improbably, like in some strange Eastern European language, and some of the letters had odd and seemingly random accent marks. Some didn’t look like letters at all. “What the hell is this?”

  “Please read carefully,” Zelaya said.

  Sabot stared at Zelaya, bewilderment on his face, then looked again at the page of gibberish. There were no recognizable words on the paper. Sabot could glean no meaning from the letters. It was written in no language he’d ever encountered. “Is this some sort of a sick joke?”

  Zelaya rose. “Mr. Mondragon, I assure you that this is no laughing matter. As you can plainly see, the charges laid out against you on that page are very serious. I will leave you to consider them.” He turned to walk out of the room.

  “Wait!” Sabot called. Zelaya turned to look at him.

  “This is crazy,” Sabot said. “I mean, these aren’t even words! It’s like a child got ahold of your computer.”

  Zelaya shook his head silently, turned, and walked out of the cell.

  Sabot’s eyes darted to Marisela. She returned his gaze, but her face was completely impassive. There was no spark of recognition in her eyes, no hint of a connection whatsoever. “Help me,” he mouthed.

  She looked blankly at him, as if he were an inanimate object. Then she turned and left the room, followed closely by the second guard. The door hinges assaulted his ears with their familiar screech, the lock clicked into place, and Sabot was left alone again.

  Am I completely insane?

  Espionage? Murder?

  Honduras?

  He looked once again at the piece of paper in his hand. There are no goddamned words on this page!

  Oh, no! What about Angie? In his bewilderment, he had completely forgotten to ask about Angie and Connie. Were they in just as messed-up a situation as he was? Was there anything he could do to help them? Was there any information he could provide that would straighten out this colossal misunderstanding?

  He shook his head vigorously, rubbed his eyes, and tried yet again to make sense of the piece of paper that Zelaya had handed him. Hopeless. He balled it up and threw it, then watched it bounce off the far wall and land in a puddle of water near the drain in the floor. “Sonuvabitch!” he screamed.

  And then the voices started again. Faint, distant howls, peals of laughter, whispered voices that felt as if they came from inside his skull, admonishments to confess, Domingo, delivered in a freakish Darth Vader basso.

  Once again, his consciousness disassociated from his body. His sentience suddenly perched itself in the far corner of the room, looking at his body, slumped pathetically in the wooden chair. The feeling of vertigo was almost unbearable. His stomach turned with nausea. He retched bile, his empty gut cramping painfully with each dry heave.

  He felt helpless, befuddled, and completely out of control. His hands covered his eyes, and he discovered that he was crying.

  15

  The Facilitator hung up the phone angrily. Just a week ago, he would not have dreamt of tolerating the impertinence of a man like Fredericks. The orders and the timeline were excruciatingly clear, and Fredericks’ failure to deliver was entirely unacceptable.

  Breaking a man — especially an amateur such as Mondragon, someone completely untrained in interrogation resistance techniques — was a simple matter. It took competent agents just a couple of hours to achieve the required results. Fredericks had so far spent two entire days, and was yet to come through.

  “There’s some technical stuff that we’ll have a hard time replicating,” Fredericks had said. “I need him healthy enough to guide me through it. Otherwise, we’ll have no idea how to get at the money.” Plausible enough, the Facilitator had concluded. But the length of time that had elapsed since Mondragon had been taken was what worried him. Operations that dragged on had a far greater chance of going sideways.

  He missed the layer of insulation from operational headaches previously afforded by the Intermediary’s presence. And he wasn’t such a sociopath that he didn’t also miss the Intermediary himself. But mostly, he missed having someone to handle bullshit like this, allowing him to focus almost exclusively at the strategic level.

  But his isolation, necessary in order to insulate him from discovery, and to ensure that the man at the center of the Consultancy remained sufficiently anonymous yet ubiquitously influential, had set the stage for a serious problem. Over the past several days, he had lost three very senior operatives, who themselves accounted for the bulk of the operational expertise and useful contacts he had come to rely on.

  He shook his head, and his mouth formed a hard line. It was always a risk, he knew. But the timing couldn’t have been worse.

  Onward. There is only this moment. It demanded action, resolve, clarity. He called out to his steward. “Jordan Mandrake.”

  “I’ll get him on the line for you, sir,” the steward replied.

  Perception was power. Few understood the concept as thoroughly as Mandrake. One didn’t amass the largest single portfolio of media outlets on the planet without having more than just a little savvy regarding the power of public discourse. And no one manipulated it as thoroughly, subtly, and effectively as Mandrake.

  People wanted mostly to piss in the wind, Mandrake had once said in an extremely private conversation. They didn’t want real choice, real change, or real movement. They had no patience for nuance. They didn’t want to choose an outcome; they wanted to choose a side. They had tons of latent anger in search of an enemy. They wanted some small, distant thing to be momentarily outraged about. Then they wanted to get on with their day.

  Most of all, Mandrake had said, people didn’t want to be responsible.

  Obviously, a patently monolithic media stance caused suspicion and reduced credibility. Worse, it was boring. Mandrake cultivated controversy, loved a good cock fight, loved it when people slung epithets and hackneyed labels at each other, and championed a feisty press corps.

  But he chose the agenda, carefully picked the impassioned players, and expertly, almost imperceptibly, guided the battles. When oligarchs bought air time, which they did in copious quantities, Mandrake knew exactly how to craft the narrative for maximum impact. He was a king-maker. He delivered riches and ruins, simply by grabbing the herd’s attention for a passing moment, thousands of times each day.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to call,” Mandrake said, the words seeming to come out his nose rather than his mouth, thick and fast and New York all over, bouncing despite the late hour. “Should I be hurt that it’s taken this long?”

  The Facilitator exhaled, tired, less than amused. “Feel as you wish.”

  Mandrake cackled. “You’re like an ashtray with lips. I love it!”

  The Facilitator heard a click. Mandrake had hung up on him.

  The old man sighed heavily and handed the phone back to the steward. “Reconnect us, please.” He tapped his finger on the leather armrest and gazed out the window at the Canadian Rockies as the steward again navigated the labyrinth of gatekeepers en route to Mandrake. The little magnate was as mercurial as ever, the Facilitator reflected. Undoubtedly a few days into an amphetamine-fueled frenzy.

  Unfortunately, Mandrake was more necessary than ever.

  It took several more minutes before the steward handed back the receiver. “We must have been disconnected,” the Facilitator said flatly.

  “It’s my thumb,” Mandrake said. “It hangs up on
the entitled. You should try kissing my ass instead.”

  “I wouldn’t know how to begin.”

  “‘Dear Jordan. Please help me. You are wise and powerful. I’m lost without you.’ Try that.”

  The Facilitator summoned a patience he didn’t feel. “Name your price.”

  “Steeper than usual, for obvious reasons,” Mandrake said. “Insurance against all the uncertainty.”

  “How are your viewership numbers?” the Facilitator asked.

  “Better than ever. What did you expect me to tell you?”

  “The truth,” the Facilitator said coolly.

  Mandrake cackled again. “Which one would you like?”

  The old man recalled with agitation the same distant conversation with Mandrake. A new reality is just one headline away. Arrogant and brazen, but unassailable. Nothing in the human experience existed raw and unfiltered. Observation was an act of creation. The mind made its own truth.

  And it was exceptionally susceptible to persuasion. That was precisely why he was putting up with Mandrake’s petulant bullshit.

  “I would like to purchase several new truths,” he finally said. “For immediate dissemination.”

  16

  “Si, Señora, we have been expecting you.” Sonora, the administrative clerk on the midnight shift at the Dirección General de Aviación Civil office, the Costa Rican counterpart to the Federal Aviation Administration, buzzed Sam and Brock through the door. “Always eager to help our friends at the DIS,” the clerk said. Sam wondered whether the flat delivery disguised a sarcastic note.

  “Thank you,” Sam said. “We’ll hopefully be out of your hair in no time at all.” She handed over the slip of paper with the details of the flight she was looking for. “It originated at the Pitt Meadows Regional Airport in British Columbia, Canada, and ended up here, maybe a little over an hour ago.”

  The clerk typed at her terminal. And typed. More typing. “Not a streamlined system,” Sam observed.