by Wesley Cross
A baseball bat crashed into the door where her head would have been had she walked through the door instead of rolling in. She looked up in time to see another man, a carbon copy of the killer from the bar, raising the bat for another blow.
Cooper rolled into the swing, reached for the man’s groin, and squeezed with all her might. The assailant yelped in pain and shock, and she sprang to her feet, delivering an elbow into his trachea. As the man collapsed onto his knees, Cooper planted her thumbs into his eye sockets and pushed. The man made a gurgling sound; his body tensed for a fraction of a second and then almost immediately went limp.
She pushed the body away from her and leaped to the room’s door, slammed it shut, bolted it, and stepped away in time to see two ragged holes appear below the peephole. Cooper ran on her fours to the small bag next to her bed, pulled out the Glock and racked the slide, getting a bullet into the chamber. As another two holes appeared in the thin door, she aimed for where the shooter should have been and pulled the trigger.
There was a click as the firing pin slammed on the bullet’s primer, but the gun didn’t go off.
“You’re shitting me,” she cursed, racking the slide again to eject the bad bullet, and getting a new one into the chamber. She aimed and pulled the trigger again. There was another empty click.
Something heavy crashed into the door, straining the deadbolt and then slammed again. The door wasn’t going to hold for much longer, Cooper decided, and the room was turning into a death trap. She threw away the pistol and dashed toward the balcony, ignoring the rhythmic pounding on the door. She looked down, searching for escape options.
There were two daybeds with thick mattresses sitting on the lawn right under her balcony, but after some deliberation, she decided that jumping on those was too much of a gamble. For all she knew, the frame of the bed would splinter, and she had no intention of helping the assassin by having herself impaled.
Cooper bent over the railing and looked at the level below her. If she timed it right, she thought she could grab the rails of the second-floor balcony as she fell.
There was another sound of a crash behind her and Cooper flung herself over the railing and let go as the door to her room swung open. There was a brief rush of the air and then she reached out just in time to catch onto the wooden balustrade. Hot pain exploded in her shoulders, but she ignored it, pulled herself in, hurled a beach chair through the glass door blocking her way to the room and ran.
A few seconds later, Cooper bolted out of the building and mixed into the group of people heading for the beach. As they passed a few hotel patrons sunning by the pool, she snatched a big straw hat laying on the grass and covered her head. She could hear the sounds of commotion coming from the hotel. Some people were shouting and then a fire alarm went off, drowning all other sounds away.
As she gained some distance from the hotel, she started to relax, her heart slowing to a normal pace, but as the adrenaline drained, the pain in her shoulders returned with a vengeance. The pain was going to have to wait, she thought. First, she needed to find a place to hide, lick her wounds, and regroup. Once she was safe, she’d be able to make plans on how to find those who were responsible. Someone was going to pay for this.
42
November 2007
New York
Simon Engel had been coming to Billy’s Steakhouse on Broad Street in downtown Manhattan almost every day since it had opened its doors a few years ago. Something about this place checked all the right boxes for him. He always thought that it was a combination of things.
Part of it was the location, just across the street from the famed New York Stock Exchange. Another part was that the main entrance didn’t open into a spacious dining room like in most restaurants, but instead led you to the basement that once housed J.P. Morgan & Co.’s original bank vault, installed by Remington & Sherman back in 1902. Coming here made him feel like he was a part of a secret club—an insider with a special invitation.
And, of course, because they served a magnificent thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon with balsamic reduction.
Simon was enjoying the bacon as he sat in the corner of a paisley tapestry-covered banquette while admiring the original three-feet thick vault door, when his son, Alexander, joined him at the table.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Alexander said as he pulled the chair to sit across his father. “The traffic was atrocious. I don’t understand why you insist on keeping this office downtown. Frankly, I don’t understand your obsession with this place, either.”
“I like being able to keep my hand on the pulse of the markets. And you can’t hear the pulse better than being right next to the heart. As for this place—I like this door.” Simon pointed to the massive vault door. “It’s easy to forget these days the lengths people are willing to go to protect what they think is theirs. This door reminds me of that. And I love the bacon.”
“There are places in Midtown that have doors like that, and you shouldn’t eat this much bacon.”
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” The waiter, wearing a white jacket and a black bow tie, approached their table and gave a slight bow. “Would you like to hear our specials?”
“No, thanks.” Alexander cut him off. “I’ll take your chicken Caesar and some mineral water, please. And make sure we’re not disturbed.”
“Of course, sir.”
“What was so urgent that you wanted to talk to me about? And why did you have to drag me down here across town when we could discuss whatever it was over the phone?”
Simon cut the strip of bacon into short pieces, dunked it in the inky pool of balsamic reduction and threw it in his mouth. “I wish you enjoyed yourself more. Life’s short and being too strict with yourself is about the worst thing you can do.”
“I’m enjoying myself plenty.”
“Buying things doesn’t always count, but it’s your life. You sure you don’t want to try the bacon?”
“I have a meeting in two hours, and as much as I’d like to chat about nothing, I need to be going soon.”
“Well,” Simon put his fork down and looked at his son, “it has come to my attention that you’ve been using some of my assets in a somewhat frivolous manner.”
“Assets? What kind of assets?”
“The ones that give us answers when nothing else does.”
Simon watched as his son shifted in his chair, but to his surprise he saw no remorse on the younger man’s face. The emotion was the one he hadn’t expected at all.
Anger.
“You’ve never told me I couldn’t use them and what’s the purpose of having them if I can’t touch them?”
“It’s true—I never said you couldn’t use them, but things like that should be used sparingly. Strategically. And most definitely not against our own people.”
“She was poking her nose where it didn’t belong.”
“It’s not for you to decide when to write them off. You’ve made a lot of mistakes lately, and I don’t like cleaning up other people’s mistakes. Even my own son’s.”
“What are you saying?”
“What I’m saying,” Simon leaned closer to Alexander and lowered his voice to a whisper, “is that we are not in the business of cutting loose threads every time it gets a little bit inconvenient.”
“It’s not actually a moral lecture, is it? Because I don’t need to remind you that the stuff that we sell, well, let’s say it affects thousands, tens of thousands, not an inconvenient few. I’d say it is time to move ahead. The landscape’s changed, Dad. We have to take what’s ours. Do it by force if necessary. We’ve been hiding in the shadows for too long and why? We don’t answer to anyone, and we’re finally in the position to assert our rights—”
Simon slammed his hand on the table so hard it stung. The glasses danced precariously, splashing cold water on the white tablecloth. The few patrons sitting at the neighboring tables were throwing them surprised glances, but Simon didn’t care.
“Only a fool th
inks he doesn’t answer to anybody. You are my son and one day you’ll have to sit in my place and make those decisions but, by God, you’re not ready yet. Do the work for the company you do, get involved with the board, oversee the acquisition team, fine. You’re good with those things and I appreciate what you’ve done for the firm. But I forbid—you hear me?—forbid you from using my cleaning crews.”
“Dad.”
“Do you understand me? If you so much as want to clean somebody else’s car, you come to me first, is that clear?”
Simon stared at his son with a mixture of fury and disbelief, but there was nothing but defiance on Alexander’s face.
“What’s perfectly clear, Dad,” Alexander said and stood up, “is that you don’t have the vision anymore. As long as I can remember, you’ve been the guy who broke the rules and blazed his own trail. I don’t have to retell you the stories—you’ve lived through them. But you’re not that guy anymore.”
“Son, sit down.”
“Did you know that there was a new governmental program that was created with the sole purpose of shutting us down?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you did? And you’ve kept it from me? You didn’t think I needed to be in the loop?”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” Simon said, his cheeks flush with anger. “Because you don’t know how to handle these things. There’s a place for brute force, but some things must be handled with finesse and, trust me when I tell you, this is exactly the thing that must be handled delicately.”
“Quite the opposite. There’s only one way to handle something like this—by force. Remove the threat before it has a chance to blossom.”
“You can’t fight the government outright. You can’t win that war. That will make things worse.”
“It used to be the case. But I can’t believe you don’t see the state we’re in. The balance has shifted and whoever takes this opportunity will change the future. It’s sad, but you’re not a leader anymore. You’re just an old man reliving his glory days who thinks he’s still in control. Enjoy your bacon.”
Simon watched as his son put on a coat and walked out of the restaurant. The waiter, who was observing the conversation from a safe distance until this point, finally moved and waltzed to the table.
“Is everything okay, sir? Should I still bring your entrees?”
“No, thank you. I won’t be staying,” Simon said. He stood up and threw a few twenty-dollar bills on the table. “I have to go.”
“Was it your son?”
“Yes.”
“He looks like you.” The waiter smiled. “Kids. They always think they know best. My teenage—”
“Get the fuck outta my face before I smash it into the table. And don’t presume you know anything about me or my kids.”
He stormed past the stunned waiter, ran up the stairs, and burst outside into the cold November afternoon.
The area in front of the exchange was bustling with tourists, taking selfies outside of the fence separating the crowds from the building. A few office workers were striding purposefully to and from their lunch breaks, dodging the crowds with a mix of determination and annoyance on their faces.
Simon looked around for his son, but Alexander was nowhere to be seen.
43
November 2007
New York
“This retirement isn’t living up to all the hype,” Andrew Hunt said as he turned off the lamp on the nightstand and lay down. “I haven’t been this tired since college, and I’m starting to run out of excuses of why I never go out to play golf anymore.”
“You should go play a round or two,” Audrey said. “It’ll help you to clear your head and unwind. As for being tired—you should stop checking your email on your phone after you go to bed. That’s why you have trouble sleeping. I’ve read somewhere that the light excites your brain by tricking it into thinking it’s still day.”
“That’s not what excites my brain.”
“Don’t even think about it. Not tonight. I’m spent.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He scrolled through the company’s emails, trying to catch up. Separating himself from the organization he’d build from the ground up turned out to be more emotionally challenging than he’d anticipated, and he tried to mitigate the loss by occasionally checking in and staying in the loop. Most of the emails were the routine day-to-day, and he was ready to retire for the night when he saw it.
The message appeared to have come from the agency, which in itself was strange—he never received any communications from the CIA before, other than on a separate secure phone. Andrew hesitated opening it for a moment, thinking that it might be a scam email and have a virus, but it didn’t seem to have any attachments, and it wasn’t flagged as suspicious by the server.
He clicked it open and started to read.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, why?”
“Because you’re not in bed and standing in the middle of the room.”
Andrew stared at his wife and then glanced down at his bare feet.
“Yeah,” he finally said. “Come to the study. You gotta read this.”
He walked to the study, powered up his desktop and pulled up the email on the big screen for Audrey to see.
“The address is wrong,” she said, after finishing reading the email and pointed at the domain’s name. “Those letters are backward.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I hadn’t noticed it before. I guess it knocks off a couple of points for the legitimacy of the information altogether, but—”
“But what?”
“It reads genuine. And it gives us actual names. Look at this—Guardian Manufacturing, Otomo, the Red Dragon gang. It sounds like the organization we are pursuing or at least some parts of it. If this is real, this is our lucky break. My God, we could really do some damage. Cripple them from the get-go. First the money bust and now this. Let’s call Jim.”
He reached out for the phone, but Audrey put her hand on top of his before he could take it.
“Wait. There’s another part that we have to consider.”
“How do you mean?”
“It says here that someone’s been using the Department of Defense without them having the slightest clue. Whoever that person is, he or she must be mighty high on the food chain.”
“You’re not actually suggesting—”
“I’m not suggesting anything, but we ought to be careful before we do something that might hurt us.”
“I can’t believe I even have to say this, but I don’t think Jim is compromised. That doesn’t make sense. He’s the one who came to me with all this in the first place.”
“Once again, I’m not suggesting that he is. Not at all. But he is in Kabul until Friday. You told me yourself that we use military communications for calls like that. Who knows who’s going to be listening in if we call him right now? Why risk it? Let’s wait for a few more days and then we can talk to him about this in person.”
He leaned back in the chair and considered that for a few moments. “You’re right. That can wait. But I should meet with this person before Jim comes back.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“That may be the case but it’s too dangerous not to talk to them right away. This message is already a few days old. What if they have a change of heart? Or worse. It sounds like they’re being hunted down by those people. They might not even make it until this Friday.”
“I’d feel so much better if we did it the proper way,” she said. “Stake out the place in advance, put surveillance teams on it, but I guess you’re right. Unless—”
“What?”
“Unless someone’s found out who you were and this entire email is bullshit. A setup. A ploy to lure you somewhere and either kill you or kidnap you.”
“It’s unlikely.”
“Maybe, but there’s no way to find out, but to meet them. Let me go to the meeting instead.”
“What? No way.”
Andrew looked at her, reached out, and squeezed her hand.
“You know I’m right,” she repeated, softly this time, “but if it makes you feel better, I have no intention of getting killed or kidnapped, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
“Very funny. Okay, then this is how we do it,” he said. “We email them tonight and lay down our conditions. It’s gotta be a public place.”
“Agreed.”
“We give them the time and a thirty- or forty-block radius in the city with the condition that we’ll communicate the exact coordinates to them fifteen minutes before the meeting. In that case, there’s no way they can prepare for something in advance.”
“There’s another advantage of me going,” Audrey said. “If they are monitoring you in the hopes of figuring out where you’ll want to meet them, they’ll be taken off guard when you tell them they are meeting me instead.”
“So, I should try to be visible then,” Andrew said. “Let them trail me through some public places, some shops maybe.”
“Manhattan Mall,” she said. “Very visible and very public.”
“I have a better idea,” he said. “I should be moving in the opposite direction of where you’ll be.”
“Which will be where?”
“Oh.” He smiled. “I know the perfect place.”
He clicked on the Reply button and started typing.
We can meet tomorrow in the city at 9:00 a.m. in the area somewhere between Washington Park in the south, Times Square in the north, Tenth Avenue in the west, and Park Avenue in the east. The exact location will be transmitted to you fifteen minutes before the meeting. This will be your only opportunity.