Hunting for Caracas

by Anthony Fox

  After firing, Matthews dropped flat to the ground and quickly wiped his eyes again, his vision clearing. He watched as Luque’s car lurched forward and drove off into the night.

  Matthews tried to raise himself up, but felt a sharp pain in his side and dropped the gun. He grimaced as he looked down. The second bullet Luque fired had caught Matthews in the belly, and a wet, red mess was spreading over his white shirt. Matthews tensed his body and forced himself up onto his feet as he collected the pistol off the ground. The fire was now coming through the roof of the barn and even though the wind was working in his favour the smoke attacked Matthews again. He took a step or two back and through the smoke saw the rubbish bin filled with paper on the ground. He just about managed to stoop to pick it up and pushed the papers back down into it, along with the files, as he used his free hand to put pressure on the bullet wound. Carrying the bin, he stumbled away from the fire.

  ***

  Assia heard the shots and sat up to look out of the car window at the fire. She saw Matthews staggering towards the car, his shirt wet with blood.

  Falling three times as he went, Matthews finally made it back to her in the car. He opened the back door and looked relieved to see Assia still there. She was still holding her knee with one hand. Matthews knocked her aside and collapsed onto the back seat, both hands now around his waist, the bin and its contents falling beneath him inside the car.

  ‘Quick, get my phone. You need... to call... Grandad...’ he gasped.

  Assia heard the drowsiness in his voice. It scared her.

  ‘What? I...’ Assia began to say. But without hesitation she searched Matthews and found a phone in each of his trouser pockets.

  ‘Which phone?’ she asked frantically.

  ‘The... red one!’

  Assia recognised the first phone as Charlie’s. Matthews must’ve still had it on him from when he took it on the train. She instinctively put it in her own pocket as she looked at the other phone, and swore when she saw it was black.

  She searched again, asking Matthews where it was, but although his eyes were open he didn’t seem to hear her. Then she found the red phone.

  ‘Got it!’ she said.

  Matthews seemed to come to. ‘Call last dialled number. Tell him what’s happened... but don’t use any names. No names. He’ll recognise the number.’ Matthews coughed violently and spat onto the car floor. Sweat was streaming down his dirty face.

  ‘Now drive us out of here. Now!’ Matthews yelled through gritted teeth.

  His shout made Assia shrink back towards the door, but she stopped.

  `‘Drive? I can’t – I’ve hurt my leg,’ she pleaded.

  ‘Then drive with... one leg!’ Matthews yelled back.

  Then Assia saw his eyes close, and Matthews’ world went black.

  PART TWO

  39

  Six months ago…

  Edinburgh, Scotland.

  Matthews waited for the doors to open fully before stepping out of the elevator. His posture straight, his manner confident, he walked to one of the two desks. The man behind it gave a quick look up from his seat, lifted a phone and held it to his ear.

  ‘He’s here,’ said the receptionist in a curt, professional voice. ‘Go straight through,’ He continued with his work as if Matthews wasn’t there.

  It was a long time since Matthews had come to this building and the first time he’d ever come alone, but the twelfth floor was exactly as he remembered it.

  He reached the door. The gold lettering on the frosted glass looked as fresh as if laid that morning.

  Matthews remembered that from years ago, too.

  He’d known Alan T. Pincer, the White Wolf, almost his entire life.

  Rudy had been Matthews’ mentor. Saved him from war and starvation before Matthews reached the age of ten, and this man, Alan T. Pincer, had been as close as a brother to Rudy.

  As Rudy raised and trained Matthews, Alan T. Pincer, along with Rudy’s other partner, Andre, had been alongside them every step of the way.

  At least in the early years.

  But Matthews had never felt comfortable with Pincer. He considered this to be down to the fact Pincer seemed to hate everything about Matthews ever since he was a small boy.

  So even now, with Matthews in his mid-fifties, having to ask Alan Pincer for help took Matthews straight back to being the helpless boy he was forty-five years ago, and made the bile rise in his throat.

  He opened the door and stepped through.

  ‘The loyal son returns.’ The voice was level but contained a growl like that of an old wolf.

  ‘I was only ever loyal to Rudy,’ said Matthews. He didn’t take a seat and wasn’t offered one.

  ‘And it seems you weren’t even capable of that in the end.’

  Those words cut deeper than Matthews would have ever thought possible. He knew he’d been unable to keep his reaction from reaching his face. ‘There’s nothing I could’ve done.’

  The White Wolf’s eyes narrowed. ‘Of that, sadly, we will never know.’

  No one spoke for a moment. Matthews stood straight and strong. He was washed and clean-shaven, well dressed, and felt alert. Yet he was beginning to feel the weight of guilt, clinging to him like chainmail.

  ‘Perhaps this was a mistake.’ Matthews turned to the door.

  ‘Do you think you will succeed where Rudy failed? He took Rohan and Zoe with him to stop Caracas after your disaster in China. That’s how much of a threat he knew this killer was. Now they’re all dead. What chance do you have?’

  ‘If anyone can, I can,’ said Matthews. Pincer didn’t argue, and Matthews was annoyed with himself for feeling a small sense of pride at the White Wolf’s acceptance of his statement.

  Instead, Pincer said, ‘But you’re just one man.’

  ‘So’s he,’ countered Matthews. ‘And I’m not starting from square one. You’ve heard the iPod. The audio file from Rudy. I’ve everything he found on Caracas. Plus I’ve got a good focal point.’

  ‘This Luque?’

  ‘Right. It’s all in the recording. Rudy also left me Luque’s file. Should be easy enough to find.’

  ‘Don’t be so sure. Rudy didn’t find it easy, which is saying something. And you were never much of a puzzle-solver, were you, boy? Surely you see this is folly. Why waste your, and more importantly my, time? Go and crawl back under whatever rock you retired to. We were all better off the day you turned your back on us.’

  Matthews ground his teeth and waited for his feet to march him right out the door. But his feet held him there. ‘I’ll either find and kill Caracas, or die trying.’ That seemed to appeal to Pincer. ‘But I’ve always had Rudy for this kind of thing. I’ll get this done on my own.’ Matthews paused as he prepared to swallow the bitter pill. ‘But I’d move a lot faster with your help.’

  Pincer didn’t respond immediately. He seemed to be enjoying Matthews’ intense discomfort, and was basking in the moment. Matthews could even detect the hint of a smile. Not on his lips, but it was there in his eyes for anyone to see. Matthews turned back towards the door.

  ‘I can get one of my men to put a list of names together.’

  Matthews’ face knotted in confusion. ‘For what?’

  ‘Your team.’

  ‘My... If I’m not with Rudy, I work alone.’

  ‘Not for this.’

  ‘Always.’

  Pincer gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I see why Rudy never gave you any real responsibility all these years. I never did understand why he cared so much for you.’

  Matthews fought to keep his emotions from rising up. He was only interested in pushing forward with his desire for revenge.

  Pincer continued. ‘For Rudy’s sake, I’ll get you set up, then I never want to see or hear from you again.’

  Pincer took Matthews’ silence as affirmation. ‘Now I’ll explain something to you. Caracas has increasing resources at his disposal. He seems to have developed ambitions beyond simply being a gun
for hire. If he knew Rudy was coming for him, then he may well be aware of your existence. So if he discovers a lone man searching for him, he’ll know it’s you. You need to hide yourself within a team; it’ll cover your tracks and they’ll allow you to work quickly. To further conceal you, we should put others at the front of the operation, make it look like someone’s after Luque purely for his arms dealing. There can be no link to Caracas.’

  ‘Who? MI6?’

  ‘We just call them “Six” here, boy. But they’re too close to home. We can’t use the Israelis because that’s Rudy’s old territory, and why would they give a shit about Luque? Best not to use Europeans, as that’s where you’ll be operating. You’ll use Americans.’

  ‘Ex-CIA?’

  ‘We might have to make do with ex-military mercenaries, but I’ll see. If I give them the only link to me, that should do it. Use Americans and people will look that way if you’re uncovered. We’ll also need a couple of Brits, so you blend into the team unnoticed.’

  They spent another four hours going through various details, being interrupted frequently by Pincer’s phone. He told Matthews they could start out of a chalet in the Swiss Alps that was prepped and empty.

  ‘The operation will need a name.’

  Matthews thought about the chalet in Switzerland, then the size of the man the operation would be targeting. ‘Matterhorn – that fits,’ he decided.

  The White Wolf seemed OK with it. Finally, Matthews got up to leave.

  ‘Matthews,’ the White Wolf called as he reached the door. Matthews turned. ‘Make sure you find Caracas, the bastard, and kill him. If it was the other way with one of us, Rudy would have scorched the earth to find whoever was responsible. You can’t fail him with this, so get it done.’

  Without giving a response, Matthews left the office and closed the door, never to return to the building again.

  40

  The present day.

  Maryland, USA.

  Roger Clayton stretched in his chair like a cat stretching in its bed.

  He’d worked for the National Security Agency as a counterintelligence investigator ever since leaving the army. The words ‘special agent’ appeared on Clayton’s employment forms. Most people in his building were pencil pushers, desk jockeys, computer geeks.

  Roger Clayton was slightly different.

  The NSA doesn’t conduct communication gathering on a ground level, person to person, but as in all fields of expertise sometimes there are unavoidable crossovers, so they outsource certain tasks to other agencies. Clayton’s job was to liaise between those other agencies, and also be a line to local and federal law enforcement when required.

  Working in his position within the NSA, Clayton considered it made being a double agent both easier (having an inside knowledge of how the government kept tabs on every citizen in the country), and crazier (when you knew what they were capable of, how did you expect to keep getting away with it?). Yet so far, get away with it he had.

  The White Wolf recruited him early on, knowing everything about Roger Clayton, all his secrets, all the right buttons to push, blah blah blah. Truth was, Clayton was always happy to make a little extra on the side. He didn’t consider it selling secrets, he considered it an enhancement of his shitty salary. The White Wolf never asked him for anything excessive, and never for anything that would endanger America or any of its citizens (at least those who weren’t already convicted criminals). Just a little information here and there.

  So when the White Wolf called a week or so ago and asked Clayton to follow up on a flight number and a name, JENKINS, Clayton called Jay.

  Jay was an ex-DC cop. Now a private investigator. Jay did a lot of Clayton’s ‘unofficial’ work. In the same way that Clayton was on the White Wolf’s payroll, Jay was on Clayton’s payroll.

  Clayton and Jay never contacted each other by email, phone call or text message (the NSA were always watching!) so when Jay met Clayton at his usual lunch spot that afternoon and said, ‘Let’s get drunk tonight, Clay,’ Clayton knew which bar to meet Jay in.

  ‘Going for a beer’ was their usual code. ‘Let’s get drunk’ was code for an urgent meeting.

  ‘Jenkins is dead,’ said Jay as Clayton took his seat at the table in the corner of the bar that evening. Everybody else in there was fixated on whichever TV screen was closest to them, watching a boxing match live from Las Vegas.

  Clayton absorbed the news like someone being told it might rain tomorrow. He always liked to stay in control of these meetings, so he stayed still and gestured for Jay to lean in.

  ‘Details.’

  ‘Stabbed in the neck on a train. Police found him near Zurich.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  ‘The Casiraghi family,’ said Jay, referring to the criminal group out of Baltimore that Jenkins used to work for. The Casiraghi family’s main trade was drugs, previously cocaine brought up from El Paso after it crossed the border from Mexico. Now a new drug called spice had hit the streets of Baltimore. A powerful, synthetic drug, this stuff wasn’t taken for a good time, it shut you down completely, evoking a zombie-like state and in some cases seizures. It was for those who wanted to lose themselves, to escape their lives and the world. Clayton didn’t understand it personally, but he accepted he’d never hit rock bottom.

  Jenkins had done a stretch in prison for assault linked to the Casiraghi family. When he got out, a local prosecutor attempted to charge Christopher Jenkins on two accounts of murder when the guy who ratted Jenkins out on the assault charge, and another dealer, turned up dead. The prosecutor wasn’t able to make the charges stick. After that Jenkins kept a very low profile, it seemed, until Clayton discovered he was ready to violate his parole and jump the country on a false passport, heading to Austria.

  ‘How did the Casiraghi family find this out?’ Clayton asked now.

  Jay shrugged his shoulders. ‘Fuckers know everything down there, Clay. The word’s all over the street. I looked into it a bit, but if the cops over in Europe have any suspects they’re keeping quiet about it.’

  ‘OK. I’ll see what I can dig up.’

  ‘Any chance this can come back to us?’

  Clayton understood what Jay was asking. When you secretly look into a known hitman a few days before he illegally leaves the country, then the guy turns up murdered on foreign soil, people could get the wrong idea.

  ‘We’ll be fine. But I’ll keep an eye on it just in case.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Clay.’

  The next day Clayton investigated the Jenkins murder in more detail, tracking the train’s origin. Jenkins took a connecting flight from the States to Innsbruck via Vienna. The train his body was found on did indeed stop at Innsbruck station.

  Searching online through local papers and using translation software, Clayton discovered a bombing incident that occurred in a residential area just over an hour from Innsbruck. Five dead.

  It could be a coincidence, but Clayton went to a hotel he knew well on his next lunch break and used the phone in the lobby, calling a friend over at Langley.

  ‘Hey, Helen, do you still cover European affairs from time to time?’

  ‘Only when I’m being punished. Why, what’s up?’

  Clayton asked about the bombing in Austria.

  ‘Hadn’t heard about it, but weird you mention it. Something came across my desk yesterday about a mugging in Feldkirch, Austria. Victim a US citizen. That anything to do with you?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ said Clayton. ‘But I’ll take a listen to what you’ve got just in case.’

  ‘Hang on then. My desk looks like a landfill site at the moment. Just need to dig it out.’

  Clayton heard movement and groans. He waited.

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Helen as she came back on the line. ‘That was it. Phil Connelly.’

  Clayton felt certain he must have misheard her. ‘Say again.’

  ‘Phil Connelly. You know, the war hero. He was murdered the other night on some industrial est
ate in Austria. Think one of the guys here knew him from back in the day, so there was talk of it around the office.’

  Clayton felt his grip on the phone tighten instinctively. At any moment like this, he always gave himself a second so his voice still came out even and controlled.

  ‘First I’ve heard of it.’

  ‘He had no ID on him, but someone at the US embassy over there recognised him from the papers, what with him being an ex-special forces war hero and all. So they looked into it. You want me to dig a little deeper?’

  ‘No, that’s alright. It was just the bombing,’ said Clayton, eager to get off the phone now. ‘Never mind, I owe you one. I’ll–’

  ‘Wow. That’s weird,’ Helen was saying to him now. Not wanting to arouse any suspicion, Clayton had no choice but to stop talking and listen. ‘Another American turned up dead in this bombing of yours. I’ve just brought the file up here. Austrians ran DNA tests on all the victims, and after Connelly turned up dead around the corner they ran them through us to. Usually those things take ages till they get a hit, but this guy was ex-special forces too. Robert Paxman.’

  This time it took all of Clayton’s energy not to swear under his breath. Thankfully Helen finished her read-through and then had to go, but not before telling Clayton she wanted to talk again soon, now interested to know why he was looking into the bombing in the first place.

  Paxman killed in a bombing. Connelly murdered on the street. In the same city.

  If Clayton had ever imagined there was any chance those two names would pop up, he would never have made the call.

  41

  Somewhere near Feldkirch, Austria.

  Charlie was dead.

  The curve of the old, wooden chair Assia sat in gave no option but to slouch into it. She didn’t mind however, as the ache it gave her back allowed her to forget about the pain in her knee, temporarily. Her fall from the Feldkirch apartment had resulted in a dislocated knee. Apparently the direct trauma from the impact with the ground caused her kneecap to slide sideways to the outside of her knee. The pain was incredible. Still, it was preferable to a bullet between the eyes, she supposed, so she should be thankful for that at least.