Vertigo

by Wesley Cross

  “Spacesuits?” Chen asked incredulously.

  “Yeah,” Hiroko said as she took a French fry from the plate and took a bite, “but I don’t think those were spacesuits. I think those were whatever the hell project Nyctalope was developing. The prototypes for the cyborg army.”

  35

  October 2007

  Kabul, Afghanistan

  The sun was setting over Kabul when Mike Connelly and two of his teammates parked the van on the corner of the street of the target house in the neighborhood of Sherpur.

  It was a strange place. Once dotted with poor mudbrick houses, it was now the local version of Los Angeles’ Beverly Hills—the home of so-called poppy palaces. Drug lords, gun dealers, money launderers, and corrupt bureaucrats occupied the glittering extravagant mansions sitting behind roadblocks and concrete barriers.

  The target house, sitting in the middle of the street, was a red-and-white brick villa adorned with a glass-lined balcony and an ostentatiously large statue of an eagle carrying a snake in its beak perched on top of the sloping roof. Two guards were stationed outside of the heavy iron gate and a few more sentries walked the grounds on the inside.

  “There’re two tangos outside of the main gate,” Connelly said, pointing to the satellite image on a small tablet. “Two more are sitting on the roof, and the rest of them are positioned throughout the villa.”

  The team had picked up the van at the location given to Connelly by the CIA contact. Inside, there was a weapon case stocked to the brim, three bulletproof vests, and—to the delight of the team—a large bag filled with water and fresh local food. The smells of kebab and qormah, a rich stew with caramelized onions, filled the van, making their mouths water.

  “We should take the guys on the roof first,” Doug said, his mouth full of food. “Is there a place we can climb around here?”

  “Unfortunately, there isn’t,” Connelly said. “At least, not close enough, so we’ll have to take the guys out front first. But the gate is pretty high, so if we hit them fast and stay close to the walls, those two dudes on top will not be able to see anything until we’re gone. It looks like they check in via radios every ten minutes or so, but that should give us plenty of time.”

  “What about the neighbors?” Patrick chimed in. “Any guards out?”

  “Not on this block,” Connelly said. “The house to the left of the entrance is for rent, but for the moment it seems to be empty. The house on the right seems abandoned. There’s, of course, a bunch of video cameras on the other houses, so there’s a risk that someone’s monitoring those feeds in real time. If they see us, they’ll call the police or some other reinforcements, but that’s what we have to work with.”

  “Where do you think Zubair is going to be?”

  “There’s a second-floor balcony in the back, facing the backyard and the pool. It looks like they’ll be throwing a party tonight and they’ve set up a table with the view of the pool. My guess is Malik Zubair and the buyer will be watching the festivities from there, while they discuss the transaction.”

  “A party?” Patrick said with concern. “That means more people.”

  “I don’t think so,” Connelly said. “They’ve brought some dancers before in a bus, but it looks like a private event for the buyer.”

  “Frontal assault then. In this case, it looks like speed’s our best friend here,” Doug said, turning the image this way and that. “Hit them hard and fast. Get them before they realize what’s happening. Ideally, before they start shooting. This is a bad neighborhood to be in if the neighbors hear the gunfire.”

  “Agreed. Also, the entire backyard is under a glass dome, like a giant greenhouse, so let’s try not to get any stray bullets flying, or else everyone in a mile radius will know something’s up.”

  “Nice. And they say that crime doesn’t pay.” Patrick chuckled. “My girl’s been chewing my ear off for over a year to build a pool in our backyard, ’cause apparently, she thinks I shit money.”

  As the night descended onto the city, they stayed in the back of the van for the next two hours, keeping tabs on the house and watching the neighboring streets. The area seemed to be deserted, with only a handful of people passing their van during that time. A few cars sped by, but none stopped at the house’s main entrance. It seemed that not too many ventured to the neighborhood populated by the rich and the powerful, as if repelled by some invisible force field.

  “It looks like the party’s started, boss,” Patrick said, putting down his binoculars. “Look.”

  Before Connelly even had a chance to look through the window, he could hear it—the booming vibrations of bass speakers, pumping out a dance rhythm. As Connelly peeked through the back of the van, he could see the house awash with colorful lights, pulsating with the music.

  “All right,” he said, turning to his teammates. “This is our cue. Let’s crash this party.”

  The guards at the front entrance went down in unison as the nozzles of Connelly’s and Doug’s submachine guns flashed fire.

  “Pat, get the door,” Connelly whispered as they rushed toward the gate adorned with intricate iron designs welded onto the massive brass frame.

  Patrick dragged the corpse of one of the guards who’d collapsed near the entrance and then kneeled in front of the lock.

  “Mukhtar?” A voice came from behind the gate, followed by something that sounded like a question in Arabic.

  “Shit,” Connelly whispered, motioning to his teammates to move back as he trained the business end of his gun at the door. The guard on the inside must have heard the commotion despite the blaring music in the back of the house.

  “Mukhtar?” the voice repeated, this time with some urgency. The lock clicked, and the gate swung back ever so slightly to give the person behind a view of the street without exposing them.

  Connelly squeezed the trigger, placing the bullet into the man’s left eye, and kicked the door before the dead body had even started to fall, sending it tumbling backward.

  As he rushed through the door, he scanned the front yard, the business end of his submachine gun looking for targets, but the area was empty.

  Connelly motioned to his teammates, and they dragged the two bodies from outside of the gate and hid them along with the third guard behind the manicured bushes.

  The front door to the mansion opened up into a wide hallway leading into separate staircases on each side of the building.

  “You two, take this one.” Connelly pointed to the left staircase and started toward the right. “We’ll converge on the second floor.”

  As he jogged toward the stairs, a pair of military boots appeared in his view. Connelly paused, hugging the rail as he waited for the guard to come down, and then placed two bullets in the side of the man’s head before he had a chance to see him.

  A pair of quiet pops came a second later after he pulled the trigger.

  “Two down, boss,” Patrick said in his earpiece. “Coming toward you.”

  “I got one,” Connelly responded.

  They met by the door to the second-floor rooms and Patrick went down on his knee to look through the keyhole.

  “There are two guards, right outside of this door,” he whispered as he turned back, “and there are two more by the balcony. I can see two dudes sitting at a table out there, and two girls are sitting on their laps. I don’t see anyone else.”

  “The door?”

  Patrick touched the knob and gingerly turned it back and forth for a few seconds. Then he gave Connelly a thumbs-up.

  “Do it,” Connelly mouthed.

  Patrick swung the door open and before the guards could react, the two bursts of suppressed automatic fire cut them down. The scantily dressed Asian-looking women who had been sitting on two men’s laps on the balcony jumped up, alarmed by the commotion, but then froze in place as they saw Connelly gesturing them to stay quiet. He could see the dancers by the pool continuing their rhythmic gyrations, seemingly unaware of the deadly developments on t
he second floor.

  “No one will hurt you,” he said to the women in English. “Get your stuff and get out of here.”

  “You,” he barked at the two men sitting at the table, “get the fuck up and move. We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”

  36

  October 2007

  New York

  “Listen, love. You’d expect me to be the last person to say this, but this is the time to go to the cops or perhaps even to the feds,” Eugene said as they picked on the leftovers. “The guy has a torture chamber installed in his warehouse and apparently is building a cyborg army. I can’t imagine the police, as slow as they are sometimes, will pay no attention to something like this.”

  “I’ve tried to have this conversation with her,” Chen said, “but she thinks that there are high-placed cops, and even some high-placed feds, who aren’t going to be happy if we do. Besides, I’ve given some information to the NYPD and never heard back. What I don’t understand is how a mobster like Victor Ye and a pharmaceutical giant like Guardian Manufacturing are connected. I thought that Guardian was building cyborg prototypes and somehow used the DOD resources without them knowing. Now, I’m just confused and can’t connect the dots. What did Victor Ye want with us in the first place and how did he get the suits?”

  “Well,” Hiroko said and shifted uncomfortably in her chair, “Victor Ye’s been working with Guardian for a long time. He was quite chatty when he came to visit me in the warehouse, and now the pieces are kind of falling into places.”

  “Shit,” Chen said and hid her face in her hands. “I can’t believe this. It’s all my fault. If it wasn’t for my stupid idea of revenge, we wouldn’t be here. I could have gotten us both killed. I still might.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not like Victor Ye had been running a bunch of nonprofits for orphans and rescued animals before we showed up. And in any event, it’s too late to engage in a shoulda, coulda, woulda kind of a conversation,” Hiroko said. “Let’s concentrate on what we know and what we can do going forward. I’ve been following this hornet’s nest for a while, but until now I had no idea they were interconnected. By hacking Guardian, we forced their hand, and now we know something that I bet even the law enforcement agencies don’t.”

  “I should have bought beer,” Eugene cut in. “It sounds like it’s turning out to be one of Hiroko’s infamous brainstorming sessions.”

  “You should have.” Hiroko smiled at him. “So. There are at least three players in this group. One is the Red Dragon gang, led by Victor Ye. Another’s Guardian, with Simon Engel at the helm, but some are saying that his son, Alexander, is more and more active in the day-to-day operations. I can only assume that it involves whatever shady shit they’re in as well. And there’s also Otomo Corporation, run by Takeshi Yamamoto.”

  “But how are they working together?” Chen asked. “Hearing about Otomo is news to me, but in some way, it makes sense. Though it’s not their bread and butter, they do have a large pharmaceutical arm, and I guess by colluding with Guardian, they can split the markets better and help one another, rather than compete. But how does Victor factor in? As an enforcer?”

  “That was my first thought, but now after listening to him talk and seeing the spacesuits in the warehouse, I’m starting to think I was wrong,” Hiroko said. “Victor is the number one guy in this alliance, or whatever you want to call it. He’s the one calling the shots. How did he get there—I’ve no idea. Perhaps he blackmailed Guardian and Otomo, or maybe he offered them something they couldn’t get otherwise. Ultimately, it doesn’t make any difference. Somehow, he got in the position of power to lead this alliance, and we have to take it as a starting point.”

  “Should we go to multiple agencies then?” Eugene interrupted. “Let’s call all of them—the NYPD, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security. Someone’s got to be honest in those places.”

  “No, I don’t think so. There’re plenty of honest people who work there but all it takes is one crooked cop for us to end up dead before they can help us,” Chen said, “and I have a better idea. We should go to an agency, just not the cops or the FBI. We should find a way to get the CIA involved. For starters, they are much less likely to be compromised by Victor Ye and his ilk. And also, they’d be in a better position to do something about it.”

  “The CIA? I thought they didn’t have jurisdiction over the things that happen within our borders?” Eugene said and then shrugged. “What? Stop looking at me like that. That’s what they say in the movies. Besides, to do this right, we’d need someone on the inside and do we know anyone who works for the CIA? Don’t answer—that was a hypothetical.”

  Hiroko raised her hand for a moment and then made a dramatic gesture of pointing at Chen.

  “Love,” Eugene said, “you brought a spook to my own house? Now I most definitely need a drink.”

  “I worked for the CIA, as in past tense,” Chen corrected, smiling at the man’s exaggerated reaction, “and I was a one-time contractor for a project that later landed me a gig for the Department of Defense, so not even like a permanent position or anything. So, no, sorry, not a spook.”

  “Do you still have any contacts?”

  “Yes,” Chen said. “Well, kind of. I built a door when I was there, so I could come back and look up a few things, if I needed to, but it’s gonna be a one-time access. It will deactivate itself after being used. So, we better know exactly what we’re looking for. There’ll be no do-overs.”

  “Okay, I can’t have this conversation without two things—a laptop and something with alcohol in it,” Eugene said as he stood up and headed for the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Is he always this…” Chen paused, looking for the right word. “Theatrical?”

  “More or less.” Hiroko smiled and stretched. “God, I’m tired. He’s worried about me, that’s all.”

  A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door, and Eugene barged in carrying a laptop under his arm, a small box of glasses and a bottle of Remy Martin.

  “I thought you were going out to get some beer?” Hiroko said.

  “No, love,” the man said, setting up the glasses on the table. “We’re past the beer time now.”

  He poured everyone a drink, threw an empty box to the corner of the kitchen, and opened a laptop.

  “First of all,” he said as his fingers flew over the keyboard, “what exactly does your door allow you to do?”

  “Not much,” Chen admitted. “Look up contact information within the agency, read some top-level folders and files in them. Nothing too deep.”

  “Can you send a secure message to someone within the agency so they would see it as if it was coming from the inside?”

  “Sure,” she said, “that could be the way to do it. Make a compelling case and leave it there. Let them figure it out.”

  “The question is,” Hiroko interjected as she sipped on her drink, “who do we send the message to?”

  “Look.” Eugene turned the screen of the laptop so the two women could see it. An organizational tree chart dominated the bigger part of the screen. “This is the organization structure of the CIA. The unclassified part of it, of course.”

  “I guess it’s safe to say we can skip Support and Science and Technology,” Hiroko said, looking at the diagram, “which leaves us with Intelligence and National Clandestine Service. Any of the subdivisions of those, I suppose?”

  “Let’s see.” Eugene scrolled down the list of subdivisions within the two departments, reading out the likely candidates. “There’s crime and narcotics, corporate resources, terrorism analysis, weapons intelligence. These are all within the Intelligence department. What’s HUMINT?”

  “Human Intelligence,” Chen said, “but when you said unclassified, it got me thinking. Maybe the best place would be actually the classified guys. The ones who run the black ops. The National Clandestine Service. They’ll have the biggest pull and more freedom to follow up leads wherever they come from. Can yo
u look up who’s the head of the Service?”

  “Can’t look up things like that on Google,” Eugene said as he typed, “but hang on.”

  Chen took a sip of her brandy as she watched Eugene work. She concentrated on the warmth as the liquid traveled down her throat. She let herself relax, the fear-induced tension finally leaving her body. It’d be a long time before she’d feel normal again, but she was in good company, and they were going to make sure that Victor Ye regretted ever crossing their path.

  “Found it,” Eugene exclaimed, plucking her from her daydream. “This is our guy.”

  Chen studied the picture of a man in his early fifties. His gray eyes, an effortless smile, and a shock of gray hair cropped on the sides gave him a distinguished appearance of a university professor.

  “All right.” She looked at the bottom of the photograph to read the small inscription. “Mr. James David Rovinsky. Let’s send you a message.”

  37

  October 2007

  Unknown location, Afghanistan

  The mountain road was flanked by a heart-stopping cliff of crumbling gravel on one side and a nearly vertical wall of jagged blue-gray limestone on the other. The path was an offshoot of the Kabul-Jalalabad road that ran through the Tang-e Gharu gorge in the Hindu Kush mountain range. It started as a proper gravel road as it separated from the main artery, but as they continued on north, getting deeper into the mountains, it’d gotten narrower and steeper with every mile.

  This was the Taliban’s backyard and spending more time here meant a greater chance of running into some of the heavily armed groups roaming the area. But after coming too close to sliding off the road one too many times, Mike Connelly finally ordered to abandon the van. On the section of the road where it was still wide enough to allow a U-turn, he maneuvered the vehicle around. From there, the group continued on foot.