by Anthony Fox
Clayton slowed, approaching cautiously. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked her.
‘I believe so.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Call me Jill.’ She walked around his vehicle and offered a hand. ‘And you are?’
‘Reticent when it comes to personal information.’
‘Nice to meet you, Mr Reticent. No need to be like that, I was just being polite. I know you’re Roger Clayton. I wouldn’t just stand by a random car, would I?’
‘How did you get in here? This is a secure site.’
‘And a great job they’re doing, too. Now, I know you’ve been looking into the bombing in Feldkirch, and the murder of Phil Connelly, and that you’re doing it unofficially. As well as the man you uncovered dead on a train, there’s a fourth incident you don’t seem to know about, at a barn just outside the city. So, please, let’s get in your car and drive to my apartment in DC. We should be able to help each other. Then I can continue to keep your involvement unofficial.’
Clayton frowned at the not-so-subtle threat. It was clear this woman had access to information at a high level, so she might be able to help him as she claimed. Standing here in the parking lot wasn’t a smart idea.
He looked around to confirm the woman was alone. As long as it stayed that way he should be safe enough.
Moving to open the driver’s door, he signalled for Jill to get in on the other side.
‘So, Jill,’ he said as he started the car. ‘You got anything in the fridge? I’m starving.’
***
They drove for over forty-five minutes to Franklin Square, then past McPherson Square metro station, and pulled up outside a new-build on the edge of downtown DC five minutes later. The journey was conducted in silence, both of them professionals, both uncomfortable speaking with so much electronic equipment around to pick up their conversation.
Clayton popped his phone into the glove box. ‘If we’re going to talk inside, could you leave your phone here, please?’
‘I don’t carry a cell phone any more.’
‘Does your watch have a microphone?’
Jill showed him her wrist. ‘Antique.’
‘Please don’t use my name in your apartment.’
‘I sweep the damn thing every day, but suit yourself.’
Clayton followed the woman up the stairs to the fourth floor.
‘Why don’t we have some wine?’ said Jill as she unlocked her door and they stepped inside.
She went to an overhead cupboard in the kitchen and pulled down two glasses, then swiped up a bottle of red from on top of the kitchen counter and led them to the lounge.
Despite being American, Jill reminded Clayton of a typical upper-class English country lady: all prim, proper and entitled.
He quickly glanced in every room of the two-bed. In the spare bedroom he noted a Browning A-Bolt shotgun in a glass display cabinet on the wall, and wondered if it was the only gun in the apartment. Clayton was trained to use various firearms, but he hated them and hadn’t held one in a long time. He had no intention of ever holding one again.
He sat down on the sofa. Jill across the coffee table. Her handbag rested on the table in between them.
‘This is an agency apartment. You’re CIA.’
‘You have a good eye, don’t you? It used to be. And I used to be.’
‘None for me, thank you,’ said Clayton, referring to the glass of wine Jill was about to pour.
‘It’s good, I can assure you. A two-thousand Grand-Puy-Lacoste.’
‘I’m on a diet,’ he quipped.
‘Behave. It’s wine. It’s not a bag of doughnuts.’
In the end she poured herself a glass and they got down to business. As it was Jill who had dragged him here, Clayton refused to talk until she’d told him about the fourth incident in Austria.
‘Have you ever heard of the name Caracas?’ Jill asked him.
‘No, I know it as a city, not a name,’ Clayton replied.
‘Ever heard of a condition called heterochromia?’
‘Two different-coloured eyes? Isn’t that what dogs get?’
Jill smiled with hidden meaning. ‘It’s far more common in dogs, but people can get it too. Rudy, that name ring a bell?’
Clayton sighed. ‘Should it?’
‘I see I’m going to have to start from the beginning.’
‘Just tell me about this fourth incident. I’m supposed to be taking my son to a birthday party.’
Jill sat forward.
‘Not long after the explosion in Feldkirch there was a barn fire just outside the city. At the site police recovered bullet casings from two separate weapons, along with tyre tracks in the dirt from two different cars.’
‘How can you be sure that’s connected to the other events?’
Jill smiled at him. ‘Three shooting incidents in the same area all on the same night? I hadn’t connected the murder of the American on the train in Zurich until you started looking into it.’
Clayton didn’t ask how Jill had tracked his movements. He knew how such things could be done, and she wouldn’t tell him anyway.
‘How did you connect it?’ Jill was asking now.
‘Same as you. I was made aware of Jenkins’ murder. When I heard about the bombing, I knew it couldn’t be coincidence.’
‘So what links Paxman, Connelly and Jenkins?’
Clayton shrugged, not wanting to give too much away. ‘They’re all American.’
Jill stared at him for a long time.
‘At the fourth incident, the barn fire, along with bullet casings and tyre marks they also found blood. It appeared someone was shot. Connelly’s body was recognised by someone in the US embassy in Austria, which is why they tested Paxman’s DNA through US databases so quickly. When they collected this blood sample at the barn fire, they also tested it through us, and it got a match. A very interesting one.’
65
Verona, Italy.
‘Start talking.’
The single light that hung from the ceiling offered a pretty weak glow, like it was permanently dimmed. However, even in the soft light, the hurt on Assia’s face was plain to see.
‘I’m not a killer. Don’t ever say that to me.’ Her tone was defiant, but she looked away as she spoke, unable to face him.
‘Not what your file says. It says you were charged with murder. You went to jail.’
‘Does it say why I’m not in jail any more?’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
‘It was the same as you. The same as everyone. Just assumptions. I never did anything wrong, but they locked me away.’
‘Where?’
Assia took a deep breath as unwanted memories rose to the surface. ‘Bang Kwang central prison in Bangkok.’
Matthews gave nothing away in response. He’d heard of Bang Kwang prison. It was an all-female facility and it was notorious for all the worst reasons.
‘It must’ve been something pretty bad to be thrown in there?’
‘I told you. I didn’t do anything. What the hell do you know? You think you know everything, Mr I’m-gonna-kill-whoever-gets-in-my-way.’
‘They wouldn’t put you away for nothing, Assia. So stop lying.’
‘Why?’
‘Because otherwise I can’t trust you.’
‘You can’t trust me? Fuck you. This isn’t the first time you’ve stood in front of me holding a knife, you know.’
Matthews just stood and looked at her. He wouldn’t let go of the knife until he got answers. ‘You remember where we just were? Those cars coming for us? You being dragged away? Those men’re still out there. And others besides them.’ He thought of what the White Wolf had said on the phone. She knows too much. ‘What d’you think would happen if they came for you and I wasn’t there?’ He watched Assia’s face. ‘Just tell me what happened to you,’ he said, a little softer.
She took a heavy breath. ‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Some Thai guy mugged us whilst I was b
ackpacking. And some stupid guy I was with, some Aussie guy I’d met, decided it would be a good idea to fight back rather than hand over his stupid passport and a few thousand baht. Then the Aussie guy turned and ran, so the mugger turned on me. There was a bit of a fight and I shoved the mugger into the road. He was hit by a car and killed.’
‘So you were just an innocent girl defending herself?’
‘I don’t care if you believe me or not. It doesn’t matter now. But there’s no way I would have instigated a fight – not back then. Before prison I was very different. I was naive, timid, just a stupid, spoilt little girl with her head filled with TV shows and boys and getting dressed up for a Saturday night out, and not much else.’
‘And you’re saying the police didn’t believe you?’
‘Didn’t believe me! Like I could have convinced them! They didn’t talk to me or say anything. I was sitting by the road crying like a baby when the police arrived. They handcuffed me, threw me in the back of a van, and either they didn’t speak a word of English or they pretended they didn’t.’ Assia’s laugh was layered with frustration. ‘There was no questioning.’
‘That was it?’
‘Much later, when I spoke to my father and brother and finally got a lawyer, they told me it was the worst possible timing. There’d just been a television programme aired in the UK about British, American and Australian girls in Thailand getting drunk and taking drugs and causing all kinds of trouble with the local boys. The programme exaggerated things to get better ratings, but apparently the Thai government was furious about the show, about how it portrayed the local people and gave the country a bad name.
‘They released a statement saying they were sick of Western teenagers coming over and polluting their country, leaving the beaches and jungles full of rubbish and not respecting the local temples and their customs. But tourism brought in too much money, so nothing was done. The problem was just left to fester.
‘Then a few weeks later the police were called to a disturbance, something about a hotel party being too loud, so a handful of police showed up. The party was a large group of kids all hyped up on some local drug. When the police turned up the kids weren’t in the mood to finish their party early and a fight broke out. All the police officers were left beaten. It was mostly boys in the party group, but apparently a few girls were involved as well. I didn’t know or hear anything about it at the time, only when my lawyer told me about it months later. The attack happened just two nights before I was mugged, so the police that were beaten were part of the same local force as the ones that arrested me.’
Assia paused to brush her hair from her face. Only then did Matthews realise he was sitting right on the edge of his seat, listening intently.
‘So you see,’ Assia continued, ‘when I was arrested the police were pissed off. They were wanting blood, they were prejudiced, and when they grabbed me they didn’t read me my rights or try to question me. They threw me in jail without so much as asking me my name. I wasn’t even a petty thief, and they threw me in with career criminals and then threw away the key.’
‘If that’s true, how did you get out?’
‘When my dad didn’t hear from me for a while he raised the alarm and eventually the embassy tracked me down. I gave them the name of the Aussie guy who had been with me that night, and they picked him up a month or so later when he tried to book a hotel. He confirmed we were the ones attacked. With the bullshit legal process it still took months for them to release me.’
She looked up at Matthews. ‘I know eight months doesn’t sound like much. But one week in that place felt like a year.’
Matthews had lied to Assia about not knowing the full extent of her time in Thailand. On the phone Grandad had told him the same story Assia just had – but he needed to be certain the information in the file was true, if only for his own reassurance.
***
Assia felt the migraine previously bubbling at the back of her skull had now forced itself to the front of her head. The rest of her felt numb, withdrawn.
‘How old were you?’ Matthews asked.
‘I’m nineteen now. When I was arrested I was a few weeks past my eighteenth birthday.’
She stood up from her chair, wanting to move somewhere else, but having nowhere to go.
‘You said a week felt like a year. How was eight months in there?’
‘I don’t even know how to describe it.’ Assia looked up at the ceiling, her words tailing off. All she could think of was the noise, the riots and the violence. The overcrowded cells. The filthy conditions. No health care. Feeling like you weren’t looking at the real world any more, because what was in front of your eyes was simply too awful.
She thought of all the sleepless nights when she’d tossed and turned until her eyes turned to black holes and her brain was boiled down to nothing more than an animalistic survival instinct. Eight months, but a glimpse at a true horror most people can’t even comprehend.
Then she was suddenly reminded of the jacket she’d seen the woman wearing in Zurich. The one with the map of South-East Asia in the middle, and the quote about how they knew they were going to heaven after what they were made to live through.
‘It was like living in hell,’ she said.
66
Maryland, USA.
Jill now had Clayton’s attention. The match from the blood sample at the barn could be another person who was working with Connelly at the time of his death, or the person working against him.
But first, Jill wanted to know how Clayton connected the incidents. She wanted some honesty from his side. ‘We’re on the same team, here,’ she insisted.
‘I was made aware when Jenkins left the country by someone I know. The same someone hired Paxman and Connelly to do a job.’
‘Interesting,’ said Jill as she produced a notepad and pen and quickly scribbled something down. ‘So Paxman and Connelly were working together as mercenaries.’
‘Looks that way. I believe they were either meeting or tracking Jenkins from Innsbruck airport. Jenkins got on the train at Innsbruck station. A few hours later they’re all dead.’ Clayton glanced at the clock on the wall. He didn’t feel comfortable staying here long. ‘Tell me about the blood.’
Jill took a deep breath and sat back. ‘As you don’t seem to know the main players involved, I’ll give a little background.’ She paused. ‘I’m sure you’re aware that sometimes the US government outsources operational intelligence work to private companies for overseas projects.’
Clayton knew this. Technically it was illegal – not that the law ever stopped the US government doing anything. It was often done when the government wanted no connection to the work being carried out, maybe if it was in a country they had publicly declared they were not operating in.
‘There was a man named Rudy. Understand, I’m only telling you his name because he’s dead. He ran one of these private companies, but unlike most of the others he did it in an extremely secretive way at the highest level, with only a small handful of expertly trained people. This was so they could always remain mobile and act with fluidity. Usually his employment involved special protection for highly important people, and unlike anyone else he didn’t work for profit.’
‘Special protection?’
‘For one, they had the ability to fight back against a potential threat. Something the government cannot be seen to do.’
‘You mean a pre-emptive strike.’
‘We’re talking men on the ground here, up close and personal stuff. Not dropping bombs on a village. It’s the most dangerous work imaginable. The problem was, there was a man – an assassin – who had to be stopped.’
‘Who?’
‘We don’t know his real name. It seems he adopted the name of the city in Venezuela that he originated from.’
‘Caracas,’ Clayton jumped in. ‘So let me guess. No one believes he exists, so you had to send Rudy’s GI Joes after him?’
‘Oh, we know he exists. But as
we all know when it comes to law and order, there’s a big difference between what we know and being able to prove it. Intelligence agencies work on facts and information, but real fieldwork operates around rumour and suspicion, percentages and guesswork. This isn’t a movie; Caracas doesn’t leave clues or a calling card. It doesn’t matter how many of us know Caracas exists; until we can prove what he’s done then the powers-that-be aren’t interested.’
‘So why is Caracas so important?’ Clayton asked.
‘He’s one big piece of a very scary puzzle. One I haven’t finished putting together yet, involving a number of seemingly unrelated assassinations over the past few years.
‘Caracas has a colleague – recent rumours are they could even be related – called Luque. Luque has become incredibly wealthy over the years, but we believe he works for Caracas, not with him. As an individual, Caracas is just about as dangerous as anyone we’ve come across in recent history. With Luque’s money and influence, they’re a formidable team. Most terrorist organisations can be easily crippled by taking away their funding, but we can’t get to Luque’s. It’s too well hidden.’
‘So you sent Rudy after Caracas?’
‘You could never send Rudy anywhere. But let’s say we sat down behind closed doors and decided Caracas must be stopped.’
‘Why now?’
‘The assassinations were getting more high-profile, and more frequent. We didn’t know who would be targeted next. It’s clear now Caracas has a friend high up. He has access to classified files, travels completely undetected, and acquires the most detailed information on his targets. With Rudy the push came when suddenly a few years ago we heard strong rumours that the life of a UN ambassador was in danger.’
‘Why?’ asked Clayton again, keen to keep the woman talking now.
‘The ambassador went one step further in his fight against climate change, showing that overpopulation was the link to it all. But to make any changes that can have a real effect, relying on countries to work together isn’t doing it. There’s too much political manoeuvring, too much ego, too much history there.