by M. A. Lawson
She knew she wasn’t better than Sterling—she was just luckier. She was lucky she hit him, firing without really aiming, and while holding Ramirez upright. But where she really got lucky was that none of the bullets Sterling had fired passed through Ramirez’s body, which meant that Sterling was probably using frangible ammo—dumdums—the type air marshals used. Why Sterling had loaded his gun with that type of bullet she didn’t know, but she thanked God that he had.
Kay dropped Ramirez to the ground, and she couldn’t believe it when she heard him moan. He’d been hit so many times she knew he’d be dead very soon, and she was astounded he was still alive. He was a tough little motherfucker. She ignored Ramirez, however, and focused on Sterling. He was lying on the ground, but she could tell he was still alive, too, and his gun was in his hand. She pointed her weapon at Sterling, intending to shoot him again if necessary, but it wasn’t necessary. Sterling was too weak to lift his weapon and aim it at her.
She started to approach Sterling but then looked down at Ramirez. His eyes were closed and blood was seeping from his mouth. She wondered how long it was going to take him to die.
She thought about it for less than a second and shot him in the head. There was no point in letting him suffer.
She walked over to Sterling and kicked the gun out of his hand, then knelt down next to him. He had a classic, bubbling chest wound, meaning her bullet had pierced a lung and air was escaping through the hole. Had she wanted to save him, she would have put a piece of plastic, like Saran Wrap, over the wound to seal it and then wrapped bandages around his chest to keep the plastic in place—but she didn’t want to save him.
“If you tell me where Anna Mercer is, I’ll call the medics,” she said to Sterling.
Without opening his eyes, he said, “I don’t know where she is.”
Kay believed him.
“How much did she pay you to help her?”
Sterling’s lips were moving, but he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—speak.
“Tell me how much she paid you and I’ll call the medics,” Kay said. She wasn’t going to call anyone.
“Five.”
“Five million?”
“Yeah.”
That’s all she really needed to know. If her plan had worked out and she’d been able to question him, she would have tried to make him tell her where the money was and force him to transfer it back to one of Callahan’s accounts. That wasn’t going to happen now, however, because Sterling died a few heartbeats later.
—
THE GARAGE DOOR was still open, so Kay closed it. She then searched the storage lockers in the garage and found some plastic garbage bags, rags, and a gallon of a liquid chemical for removing oil stains from concrete. The label on the bottle said the product contained bleach, which was good, as bleach made it harder to get DNA results.
She used the rags and the chemical cleaning agent to wipe up all the blood she could see, then placed the rags, Sterling and his buddy’s guns, and all the shell casings she could find in the garbage bag. She couldn’t be sure that she found all the casings, but she couldn’t search any longer.
She took one final look around the garage; a hotshot CSI team like you see on TV would certainly find evidence that a shoot-out had taken place in the garage and blood had been spilled, but to a casual observer, everything looked fine. One other bit of luck: None of Sterling’s bullets had hit a window, and where they’d hit the back wall of the garage they’d fragmented and the wall was just dinged up in a couple of places. All the bullets she’d fired at Sterling, except for the one that hit him, had flown out the open garage door.
She found the keys to the Escalade in one of Sterling’s pockets, put on her baseball cap, and tied her bandanna around her face to make sure Sterling’s invisible surveillance cameras didn’t record her. She then opened the garage door, drove Sterling’s Escalade into the garage, and closed the garage door again.
It took her about ten minutes to load Sterling, Ramirez, the garbage bag with the bloody rags, and her knapsack into the Escalade. She searched the garage storage lockers again, found a paint-splattered tarp, and tossed it over the bodies. She opened the garage door, hopped into the Escalade, and began to back it out of the garage—when she suddenly slammed on the brakes.
What the hell was wrong with her? She’d forgotten to get Sterling’s smartphone, the one that had images of her walking up the driveway and entering the garage. She’d better get her head on straight. She pulled the tarp off Sterling and retrieved the phone.
—
KAY CALLED CALLAHAN. She was driving Sterling’s Escalade very carefully, making sure she stayed below the speed limit. The last thing she needed was to get stopped by a cop with two corpses in the car.
“I have two items to be disposed of, plus the vehicle I’m driving, plus the contents of a garbage bag inside the vehicle.”
“Two items?” Callahan said.
“Yeah. There was a complication.”
“Okay. Is the drop-off point still the same?” Callahan asked.
“Yeah. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“You’ll find a blue Camry at the drop-off point, keys on the left rear tire. A couple of guys will be there to take care of the disposal in exactly an hour and a half, so you need to be gone before they get there.”
“Copy that,” Kay said.
“Come to the office as soon as you’re back in D.C. I want to hear what happened.”
“No. I’m going home to my daughter. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
She hung up before Callahan could remind her that he was the boss.
40 | Nathan Sterling wasn’t reported missing for five days, two of those days falling on a weekend.
Sterling’s partner, Cannon, was out of town the first day Sterling was absent from work, which happened to be a Friday. Cannon and his wife had decided to take a long weekend at Nag’s Head. The administrative assistant that Cannon and Sterling shared was surprised when Sterling didn’t call her and tell her he wouldn’t be coming in, but he was a rude, inconsiderate man and she didn’t think too much of it. She was annoyed by his absence but certainly wasn’t alarmed or concerned.
When he didn’t show up on Monday, Cannon and the admin assistant both called Sterling several times but he didn’t return their calls. Again, the admin assistant wasn’t concerned—but Cannon was. He’d grown to dislike Sterling during the years they’d worked together, but Sterling had always been reliable. On Tuesday, when Sterling still hadn’t returned his calls, Cannon called the cops. He told them that Sterling lived alone and maybe he’d had an accident or a heart attack, though a heart attack seemed unlikely given Sterling’s physical condition.
The police entered Sterling’s house—they had to call the security company to disarm the security system—and looked around, but saw no signs of foul play. They just glanced into the garage and saw it was empty except for the Z3. The cops checked flight records but could find no evidence that Sterling had taken a plane anywhere. They checked his credit cards, but he didn’t appear to be using them, nor could they locate him via his phone. The cops informed Cannon that they’d keep their eyes open for his partner, but there wasn’t much else they planned to do, particularly as there was no evidence that Sterling had been harmed or that he’d committed a crime and fled.
Cannon immediately had a CPA come in and audit the C&S books. Cannon knew Sterling was in bad financial shape, and he wondered if he’d embezzled from their failing company. The CPA said no money was missing—not that there’d been a lot of cash there to begin with—and maybe Cannon ought to think about filing for bankruptcy if business didn’t pick up.
No one at C&S Logistics noticed or cared that Ramirez was absent from work the same days Sterling was missing. Ramirez lived alone, had few friends at the company, and had a drinking problem. Maybe Ramirez was on a bender. Or maybe, since Ramirez ha
d just gotten back from Afghanistan, he’d taken a few days off. Or maybe, Ramirez being the asshole he was, he just quit and didn’t bother to give notice.
Ramirez was like the line from that Dixie Chicks song “Goodbye Earl”: He was a missing person whom nobody missed at all.
—
THERE WAS NOTHING NEW with regard to Anna Mercer: The damn woman was just gone. The Brits were searching databases for home purchases made by single women in their forties, looking for people who had no apparent history, but so far no one who might be Mercer had been found. To complicate matters, a lot of the women who purchased homes in the U.K. weren’t U.K. citizens, divorced women often used their maiden names, and property records for home purchases weren’t updated in a timely manner.
“Jesus,” Kay complained one day to Callahan, “there must be something else we can do. The worst thing is, we don’t even know if she’s in the U.K. She could be in fucking Timbuktu for all you know.”
“Hamilton, will you relax,” Callahan told her. “It’s only been three weeks. I know you don’t want to hear this, but it may take us years.”
41 | Five weeks after Anna Mercer disappeared, Callahan pulled Kay out of the training program to take part in an operation.
The pre-op briefing was held in Callahan’s conference room. In addition to Kay and Callahan, three other people were present: a good-looking young couple in their twenties named Rick and Sharon—no last names—and a no-nonsense guy in his forties who had short gray hair, was tall and slender, and wore wire-rimmed glasses. The man was introduced as Morgan, and Callahan said Morgan was the one who would be in charge of the operation. Kay never found out if Morgan was his first name, his last name, or an alias.
Morgan began by showing photographs of a hotel in Geneva, Switzerland, one exterior shot followed by several pictures of the hotel lobby, the elevators, and a hallway on the sixth floor. He then showed pictures of four Korean men who all looked tough enough to bite the heads off alligators.
“These four men are the subject’s security detail, and two are always guarding him,” Morgan said. “You need to memorize their faces, as we don’t know who will be on duty tomorrow night. One will be in the hotel lobby and the other will be stationed outside the subject’s room, and they relieve each other every two hours. We’ve only had one day to observe them, but last night the guards switched positions at seven, nine, eleven, et cetera. Odd hours, in other words.
“The operation will start at exactly eight p.m. Hamilton, your job will be to watch the guard in the lobby, whoever he is. If he leaves the lobby and gets in the elevator before eight p.m., you’ll call me, I’ll abort the op, and we’ll regroup. But if he leaves the lobby and gets in the elevator between eight and eight-ten p.m., then you’ll get in the elevator with him. If he punches the button for the sixth floor, you will make sure he doesn’t get off the elevator. You’ll be given a gun that fires a tranquilizer dart to incapacitate him. The reason you were selected for this op is we think he’ll be less on guard if a woman gets into the elevator with him.”
“What if there are other people in the elevator?” Kay asked. “What do I do with him after I shoot him?”
Irritated by the interruption, Morgan said, “We’ll get to all that. Right now I’m just giving you an overview of the plan, and like I said, your job will be to make sure the lobby guard doesn’t get off the elevator on the sixth floor.”
Before Kay could ask another question, Morgan said to the young couple, “As I said, on the sixth floor will be another guard, standing in front of the door to room 618. You two will be the distraction. You’ll get off the elevator at exactly eight p.m. and you’ll pretend to be a couple of young drunks in love. You’ll stagger down the hallway, laughing, playing grab ass, making a bunch of noise. Before you reach room 618, and when you’re four or five feet from the guard, you,” Morgan said, pointing at Sharon, “will fall to the ground like you’ve had too much to drink. As you fall, you’ll let out a shriek which I’ll hear, and while the guard is looking at the two of you, I’ll open the door to room 619, which is directly across the hall from the guard, and I’ll tranq him.”
To the young man, Morgan said, “You will also be carrying a weapon that fires a tranquilizer dart, and if necessary, you’ll be able to shoot the guard as well as help me overpower him if he doesn’t go down immediately. The guard, by the way, will be armed with a gun that fires real bullets, and he will not hesitate to kill you. Once the guard is out, I’ll knock on the door to room 618, a man will exit, and you’ll drag the guard into the room. Then all three of you will leave the hotel. Okay? Everybody clear on the big picture?”
The young couple nodded. Kay didn’t nod—she looked over at Callahan. Had Callahan been a more sensitive type, he would have known that Kay was not happy with what she was hearing.
“Now,” Morgan said, “I’m going to cover contingency plans, communications, transportation, escape routes, and what to do if things go wrong.”
And that’s what they did for the next hour.
When they were finished, Morgan said, “We’re leaving for Geneva in two hours, and I want everybody at Dulles with half an hour to spare. That should give you enough time to go home and pack a bag. Assume you’ll be gone two or three days. When we’re on the plane, we’ll go over everything half a dozen more times.”
Callahan said, “I’m sorry, guys, but I got very little notice for this job and the only window we have is for tomorrow night. Okay, get moving and be at the airport on time.”
The young couple rose to leave, but Kay said to Callahan, “I want to speak with you privately.”
“If it concerns this mission, I want to hear what you have to say,” Morgan said.
“What part of privately didn’t you understand?” Kay said.
Before Morgan could blow a gasket, Callahan made a calm-down gesture with his hands and said, “It’s okay, Morgan. Let me talk to her.”
Morgan left the conference room, and Callahan said, “What’s the problem?”
“I’m not going to work like this.”
“Like what?”
“I am not going to be part of an operation where I don’t know the reason for the operation.”
“Hamilton, this is the way covert ops work. Everything’s strictly need-to-know. Things are compartmentalized. And the reason we do it this way is so if you’re caught and interrogated, we can possibly limit the damage because you don’t know everything. The other reason, quite frankly, is the less people know, the less chance there is of someone leaking information, intentionally or unintentionally. That’s the whole principle behind need to know.”
“Fuck need to know, Callahan,” Kay said. “I am not going to shoot a man with a horse tranquilizer without knowing why. I am not going to risk going to jail or getting killed without knowing why. And if I don’t agree, uh, morally with the reason you’re doing something, then I might not participate.”
Morally wasn’t exactly the right word. What she meant was that she had principles, and although it might be hard for her to articulate exactly what those principles were, there were things she wasn’t willing to do.
Callahan looked at her for a moment, his lips set in a firm line. “Okay. If that’s the way you’re going to be, then I’m going to have to let you go. Good luck finding a job. I’ll have somebody contact you in the next couple of days with regard to severance pay, that sort of thing, and to go over the nondisclosure agreement with you again.”
“Fine,” Kay said, and rose from her chair. She had her hand on the doorknob when Callahan said, “Oh, goddamnit, sit down.”
She sat back down, and Callahan stared at her for another few seconds, trying not to smile. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you, Hamilton. I imagine that one of these days I am going to have to fire you, but for now, you’ve won.” He paused, then said, “I just hate it when somebody calls my bluff.”
>
“So who’s the man in room 618?” Kay asked.
“He’s a North Korean physicist and he’s in Geneva because he’s attending a convention hosted by CERN.”
“Cern?” Kay said.
“Yeah. CERN stands for the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire,” Callahan said in surprisingly good French, “which translates into the European Council for Nuclear Research, and just outside Geneva, on the French–Swiss border, is where one end of the Hadron Collider is located. The Korean’s there to attend a convention and hear about the latest stuff going on with the collider. It’s an egghead convention.”
Kay found out later that the Hadron Collider was the world’s largest particle accelerator, which still didn’t mean anything to her.
“Anyway, this guy is one of their top guys, and two days ago he passed a note to an American scientist saying he wanted to defect, and the scientist passed the note on to the U.S. Consulate in Geneva. We obviously want the guy, because we want to know where certain North Korean programs stand, like their ability to actually hit California with a nuclear missile.”
“So why doesn’t the CIA help him? Why us?”
“The CIA would be happy to escort the guy to the embassy in Bern for asylum, but they are not going to help him escape if that means overpowering his bodyguards. If this operation is successful, in a week or two the North Korean scientist will hold a press conference saying he hired a private security company to help him defect and the U.S. government had nothing to do with it. Nobody will believe him, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter is, if you or anyone else on Morgan’s team gets caught or killed, the U.S. government will be able to honestly say that you’re not government agents, and nobody will be able to prove otherwise.”