by David Archer
“Okay, no problem,” Jenny said. “And if it turns out Newsom is not the head guy? How long do you want me to pretend I’m going to take whatever contract they offer?”
Allison made a grimace and cocked her head slightly to the left. “Probably as long as you can. Depending on the contract, you may have to actually carry it out to maintain your cover. This is the first chance any of us have had to get somebody inside that organization, and we can’t afford to let the opportunity slip away. If we can cut off the head, it’s possible this is a snake that will actually wither and die.”
“Then that’s what I’ll try to do,” Noah said.
“One other thing,” Allison said. “You’re going to be mostly on your own with this one. We’re providing you with ample financing through the credit cards we’re giving you, but we won’t be able to use many of our assets to help you out, once you leave. Victoria worked independent of any government or organization, always arranging anything she needed on her own. We’ll give you contact information for a few of our people who aren’t directly affiliated with any embassy or agency, of course, and you can use them to get weapons, equipment and such. Other than that, you have to stay away from any American agents. Can’t risk anyone spotting you talking to them, it’s always possible they’ve been identified.” She smiled sadly. “If stopping PRA wasn’t so important, we probably would have refused this mission. As it is, you’re the only team that has a chance of actually pulling it off, or I wouldn’t have given it to you. I can’t afford to lose you, Noah, so whatever you do, you make sure you come back. We’re down to only three teams, and I don’t know how long it will be before we can resurrect any of the others. Don’t let this become a suicide mission.”
“Understood. I guarantee I’ll do my best.”
Jefferson passed out the wallets and files, while Allison handed a large purse to Sarah. The two of them whispered over the contents for a few minutes, and Noah couldn’t help noticing that they giggled like a couple of schoolgirls at times. On their last assignment, Sarah had been given an engagement ring to wear, posing as Noah’s fiancé. He found himself wondering what surprise Allison had given the girl this time.
THREE
The five of them left the briefing room and headed back to Noah’s place. When they got there, they gathered in his dining room to talk the situation over.
“Jenny,” Noah said, “you’re scheduled to spend this afternoon and tomorrow with Gary out at Mission ID, learning whatever they can teach you about Victoria. I’m assuming we’re going to fly out sometime early Thursday, so we all need to study the files on the PRA and Peter Newsom, so the rest of us can work on that while you’re busy out there. You’ll just have to catch up what you can in the evenings. Marco, you and I will be choosing the weapons or equipment that we need to take along. I’m thinking Glocks for you and me, Rugers for Sarah and Neil, a couple of the Paratus take-down sniper rifles.” He turned to Jenny. “Jenny, anything in particular you want us to get for you?”
“I like my little Kimber,” Jenny said. “Problem is, it sounds like Victoria likes to do things up close and personal. I’m not sure a gun is going to be all that useful.”
“That could be true,” Noah said. “I think you should bring it along, anyway, and your knives, of course. Can you think of anything else you might want?”
“Ask me this evening,” Jenny said. “First, I need to learn as much as I can about Victoria.”
“That makes sense. It’s important that you find out all you can about her previous assassinations. Remember to ask about techniques she might have used, because it’s quite possible Newsom already has that information. If he brings up previous assignments, you need to know what you’re talking about.”
Marco chuckled. “Hey, if there’s anybody who can pull off pretending to be a highly skilled female assassin, it’s Jenny. I mean, think about it, she’s really just going to be acting like herself.”
Jenny rolled her eyes and grinned at him. “Oh, trust me, there’s no doubt in my mind that I can pull this off,” she said. “I just don’t want to blow the mission for the rest of us, so I want to be sure I get her down as pat as possible.”
“That’s what’s important,” Noah said. “You better get on out there, and get to work. We’ll start studying the files on Newsom and the PRA.”
“Hang on a minute,” Neil said. “Hasn’t anybody but me noticed that it’s getting close to lunchtime?”
Jenny glanced at the clock on the wall and smiled. “Neil, it’s just barely 11 o’clock. Didn’t you get full on doughnuts this morning?”
“Not really,” he said. “You know me, I like the cream-filled longjohns, and they didn’t have any of those this morning. I can’t help it if I’m still hungry.”
Marco grinned and knuckled his shoulder. “You’re always hungry,” he said. “Come to think of it, I could probably stand an early lunch, myself. What do you say we go to Charlie’s and grab a bite to eat?”
Jenny and Sarah looked at Noah, who nodded. “That sounds fine,” he said. “It might be the last chance we get for a while.”
Neil got to his feet quickly. “Great,” he said. “We can all ride down there in the Hummer.”
“That’s all right,” Sarah said. “I don’t think I could take your driving today. We’ll just meet you there.”
Marco chuckled and announced that he would take his own car, so Noah and Sarah went out to get into the Corvette, while Neil and Jenny got into Jenny’s Jaguar, and then all three vehicles headed for Charlie’s in downtown Kirtland.
Charlie’s had recently become their current favorite restaurant, partly because of its proximity to the head office. They had discovered it a few months earlier, and it became a frequent hangout for many of the E & E personnel, since the owner and most of its staff were connected to the organization.
“Hey, gang,” the waitress said as she put glasses of water in front of each of them. “Glad you came by. I hear you’re getting ready to go out on a business trip, is that right?” Her name was Carolyn, and she actually worked part-time for E & E, herself, so she was cleared for general information about the organization and its missions.
“Yep,” Marco said. “Might be a long one, so I figured we ought to come by for lunch.”
“We don’t leave till Thursday,” Sarah said. “But poor little Neil was hungry, so we figured we should come grab a bite to eat.”
Since they all ate there fairly often, it didn’t take long for them to decide on what to order. Their mealtime chatter was casual and friendly, with Jenny and Neil spending a lot of the time talking between themselves. Jenny was barely five foot one, while Neil stood six-foot-five, and the two of them had a tendency to draw a lot of attention whenever they were out together. Noah and the others had gotten accustomed to the way they mooned over each other, and had learned to ignore them.
When they had finished eating, they headed back to Noah’s house and then started working on their individual agendas. Jenny dropped Neil off, then drove out to Mission ID. Marco headed for the armory to start gathering weapons, while Noah, Sarah and Neil sat down in their living room and began going over the files on PRA and Peter Newsom.
PRA was fairly new on the national scene, and while it had gotten itself a lot of publicity, most government agencies were not fully aware of it. Over the past few years, a lot of terrorist actions seemed to have connections back to it, but they were vague and often undefined. In many cases it was only money, but there was mounting evidence that the organization might be providing conventional weapons, explosives and even chemical weapons to known terrorist organizations. The CIA felt that this explained the fact that a lot of smaller terror cells, who simply didn’t have the people or assets necessary to make some of the explosive or chemical devices they had been using, were lately finding access to them.
The file on Newsom was actually pretty small. Until relatively recently, it had always been assumed that he was little more than he appeared to be. Des
pite the fact that he had made more than a billion dollars trading in weapons, there hadn’t been any credible evidence that he was doing anything illegal, or that he had any dealings with any known terrorist groups.
Now, it appeared that he had been funneling many such transactions through PRA, keeping them completely off of most government radars. By running them through intermediaries like Jermaine, he could personally avoid having any contact with organizations that might have exposed him to risk.
The same was true of his financial dealings. It was apparent that there were many accounts scattered throughout several countries that could be tapped for resources as needed, including right near his home in Brazil. There was little doubt that Jermaine had left his meeting with Newsom carrying a large amount of cash, and yet there were no financial records connected to Newsom showing any kind of transfers or withdrawals. None of the big government agencies had been able to determine how Newsom managed to have large amounts of currency in his possession, but it was clear that he had found a way.
“He’s got some kind of system set up,” Sarah said, “a way to move money around with nobody knowing how he does it. The CIA says they don’t have any idea how he’s getting his hands on so much cold, hard cash.”
“He spends a lot of time traveling,” Noah said. “It really wouldn’t be all that hard to pick up cash in different places, amounts small enough not to raise any radar flags, and then smuggle it back home. You could get an awful lot of money into the false bottom of a well-built suitcase, or it could be hidden inside souvenirs he brings home.”
Sarah looked at him. “I wonder why CIA hasn’t thought of that. Or, do you think they have and they just aren’t saying anything?”
Noah shrugged. “They probably have,” he said. “There could be a lot of reasons why they keep that under their hats.”
Sarah nodded. “Good point.” She read a bit further, then looked up at Noah again. “He definitely gets an awful lot of visitors, from all over the world. And it isn’t just the normal type of people you’d expect to be involved with mercenaries and arms dealers, it’s not just terrorists and criminals, there are people on this list who are big names in the business world. I can’t help but wonder how he had stayed off the radar all the way up until now. From what I’m seeing right here, the CIA has been watching him for quite some time. It’s a little hard to believe that none of these contacts set off any red flags, you know?”
“Look at the notes on the very back page. Apparently, these types of people are normal visitors for someone in his line of work, so that wasn’t necessarily any cause for alarm. Newsom has even gone through the motions of reporting contacts he thought might be suspicious to both the Brazilian and American governments. It looks like nobody was all that surprised.”
Neil cocked his head to the right. “Wait a minute, we’re talking about the CIA. Are you really going to tell me that they didn’t check out all these visitors of his? Those guys are absolutely paranoid about everyone, that wouldn’t make any sense.”
“You’re right,” Sarah said. “I’d bet there was at least some part of the CIA that was paying attention, but somehow fumbled when it came to connecting the dots. I can agree that any arms dealer is likely to be contacted by representatives of terrorist groups as well as legitimate military forces, but it’s quite a stretch to think the CIA would not bother to investigate at least some of these people.”
“That’s part of what Jenny is going to have to figure out,” Noah said. “By making contact with them as Victoria, she’s going to be in a position to learn some of the details of their operations. I just hope she can contain herself until we are absolutely certain that Newsom is the right target.”
Neil put down the folder he was studying and looked at him. “Noah, this thing has me worried a bit. If Newsom or any of his people think for a single moment that she’s not really Victoria, I don’t think she’s coming out of that party alive. I mean, think about it, wouldn’t they have people of their own there to watch her when she gets close to Newsom?”
“Without a doubt,” Noah said. “That’s why she has to get her act together quickly, and make sure that it’s as perfect as it possibly can be. On the other hand, there is no way in the world I’m going to let her go to that party alone. One of the things I want you to do, Neil, is get on your computer and find out everything you can about the event. If it takes invitations, I want you to figure out how to get or forge invitations for the rest of us. We are all going in with her.”
Neil and Sarah both stared at him for a long moment. “Thank you,” Neil said softly. “I was trying to figure out how to suggest that.”
Noah shrugged. “If it ever comes up again,” he said, “just ask.”
THREE
Jenny arrived at Mission ID just as most of the staff there was breaking for lunch. A security guard in the building checked her ID, made a quick phone call and then directed her to an office where she met Gary Mitchell.
“Jenny Lance, right?” Mitchell asked. “Come on in and make yourself comfortable. Have you had lunch yet?”
“Yes,” Jenny said. “Did I interrupt yours? I can come back later, if you want.”
Mitchell shook his head. “Oh, no,” he said. “I eat lunch at my desk, and I actually just finished it. I’m the acting coach for ID Development. Whenever any of our people have to impersonate someone, they send you out to me to give you some pointers on how to accomplish it. You have an advantage with this Victoria, because nobody knows what she looks like. We are at a disadvantage, however, because we don’t have any kind of information about how she acts or talks or walks or anything else. It’s basically going to be a matter of just adjusting your mindset into that of a killer. If we do it well, nobody should doubt that you are capable of committing these types of assassinations.”
Jenny stared at him. “Gary, you do know who I am, right? My codename is Cinderella.”
“Oh, yes, I know,” Mitchell said, his eyes suddenly going wide. “I didn’t mean to imply that you’re not capable of doing it, just that we want to work on projecting the image they’re expecting to see. Does that explain it better?”
Jenny grinned. “Okay, I can handle that, I guess. So, where do we start?”
“Well, I got hold of some information about some of her more well-publicized killings. I think the idea should be for you to study those carefully, and then try to tell me about them as if you’re describing something you did yourself.”
Jenny grinned. “That shouldn’t be difficult,” she said. She took the file that Mitchell handed to her and began reading through it. “Oh, this was a good one. I killed the deputy defense minister of England, by poisoning him with cyanide. And this one, where I killed the wife of the man who owned the biggest private bank in Germany, I shot her in the head in front of thirty different witnesses. That was a good one. The Russian general, I got him to let me into his hotel room and cut his throat.” She looked up at Mitchell. “Trust me, I’m not going to have any problem talking about these if they come up. This girl worked a lot like I do.”
“It sounds like it,” Mitchell said, suppressing a grin. “To be honest, Jenny, I don’t see how I can be a lot of help to you. I think what you ought to do is take that file with you and study it, and try to memorize all of the different cases. If you can do that, and discuss them in the way you just did if someone asked, that I think that’s pretty much going to put you where you need to be.”
“Okay, I can do that,” Jenny said. “Should I still come back tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, just so we can kind of go over it and play around a bit, to make sure you’ve got it covered. We’ll need to be as sure as possible that you can stay in this persona, so we’ll experiment with that a bit tomorrow.”
“Cool, I’ll see you then.” She picked up the file and left the office, waving at the security guard as she walked out the front door.
* * * * *
Marco had finished up at the armory, picking up the weapons
Noah had requested, and then driven out to R&D. Wally looked up with a smile when he entered.
“Marco, right? Where’s Noah?”
Marco grinned and shook the hand Wally offered. “He’s getting ready for the next mission,” he said. “Decided to send me out as the errand boy. I’m supposed to talk to you about what kind of equipment we might need, but I got a couple of ideas of my own.”
“Okay,” Wally said. “I got an email from Allison about the mission, so I know the basics. What do you need?”
“Well, first off, we’re going to be basically running support for Jenny on this one. Number one priority in a case like that is going to be communications. We need a way to be able to keep in touch with her no matter what’s going on, so I’m thinking about wireless communications that she can keep on her all the time. Any suggestions?”
Wally giggled. “Oh, boy, do I ever! We’ve got something brand-new, and it’s ready for the field. Well, I shouldn’t say brand-new, there have been things like it before, but none that ever worked like this. Come on, let me show you.” Wally took off down the hall, and Marco hurried to follow.
They came to a door marked “Clandestine Communications,” and Wally used a key card to open it and led Marco inside. There were several people in the room, and the first thing Marco noticed was that it was incredibly quiet.
“Should we whisper in here?” Marco whispered.
Wally giggled again. “No, it’s not necessary. Just come on, let us show you what we’re doing here.”
He walked over to one of the people in the room, a young woman. “Judy, this is Marco. Can you tell Leo to come on over?”
The girl grinned at him, and her lips moved slightly. There was absolutely no sound, but a man across the room suddenly turned and looked at her, then hurried over to Wally.
“You wanted me, sir?” he asked.
“Yes,” Wally said with a grin. “This is Marco. Marco, did you notice that Judy didn’t say anything out loud at all?”