End Game (Jack Noble #12)

by L. T. Ryan

  53

  “This has gotta be it.”

  I opened my eyes and looked around the room. Bear was seated at the table with a mug of coffee and a plate of food. He held the fork mid-air, stared at Lexi. She stood in between the two of us, holding a piece of paper. Her smile and the vigor with which she spoke indicated she had news to share.

  “Jack, come on,” she said. “Get up.”

  My right leg had stiffened from the knee down. I stretched over the edge of the bed, waiting for gravity to do its work. Slowly it lowered toward the ground. Pain flared throughout my calf, centered on the patched up laceration.

  “How you doing there, partner?” Bear said through a mouthful of food.

  I winced in pain. “Hanging in there. The hell you eating?”

  He stared at the clump of food on the end of his fork. “Pancakes. I think. This place ain’t no Waffle House, but the food’s serviceable.”

  “You’re gonna feel like garbage in a couple hours after all those carbs.”

  He shrugged, pointed at my bandaged leg. “I’ll still feel better than you will.”

  I turned my attention to Lexi. She had managed to find a change of clothes. Fresh black pants, a black long sleeve shirt, and black tactical boots.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “The number checks out,” she said.

  I swung my other leg over the bed and sat on the edge. “How so? How do you know?”

  “I had David run it—”

  “We talked about this, Lexi,” I said. “I don’t know how comfortable I—”

  “Look, I saw an opening, and I took it. We could sit around all day, or you could call into SIS, but as far as I’m concerned all the resources we need are right here. Might as well take advantage of them.” She folded the paper and shoved it in her pocket, turned away from me and headed toward the door.

  There are times when it’s hard to let go. I preferred to be in control whenever possible, but I was confronted with a situation where my normal channels weren’t accessible to me. I couldn’t trust the Old Man considering I’d met Matt on his watch, and then the guy showed up a thousand miles from New York, ready to kill me. And Frank, well he was Frank. At this point I had no clue whether he was friend or foe. If I let him in on any of this, we were sure to see him, or his guys, at our next destination.

  “Lexi, stop.”

  She had her hand on the doorknob. “Why should I?”

  “What’d you find out?”

  “You don’t have to do this, Jack. Neither of you do. You can leave. I can take it from here. Thanos was my case anyway. All of this is my mess to deal with. Why don’t you guys just go home?” She stepped through the doorway, let the door fall shut behind her.

  I shot Bear a look. He shrugged, took a bite of food.

  I hopped off the bed. “Too friggin early for this, man. I need some coffee.”

  “For what it’s worth,” Bear said. “I’m willing to see this through to the end.”

  I pulled the door open and stepped into the hall, my head swiveling from left to right. I flinched back at the sight of Lexi standing a few feet away. She had her arms folded over her chest, and one foot pressed against the wall behind her.

  “Leaving?” she asked.

  “What is going on here?” I said. “One minute you’re excited to show me something, the next you’re trying to send us packing. Makes no sense. We’re in, Lexi. OK? We’re with you until the final whistle on this one.”

  She nodded, lowered her chin to her chest, reached into her pocket. The black clothing looked good on her, accentuated her curves. She unfolded the paper and handed it to me.

  I studied it for a moment. A wave of possibilities washed over me. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  She looked up. “That’s what he found.”

  “Fernando Sousa?”

  She nodded.

  “Fernando Sousa as in leader of the Brazilian Senate? What did he have to do with Thanos?”

  “Working on that. In the meantime, I say we hop on the Gulfstream David has been so kind to lend us and go interrogate Sousa today.”

  “We haven’t talked about this much, but do the men you were dealing with while undercover have something to do with this? You think Denton might be involved here? Did he have dealings with Sousa?”

  She turned and leaned against the wall with her shoulder. “I only saw the basics of his finances. That’s what I did while undercover, fixed money for them. But he wasn’t totally on board with letting me in on his dealings yet. Another week and I would have had it all. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t screwed up.”

  “You can’t know that. What about McGrath? What’d he have to do with Brazil?”

  She shrugged. “As far as McGrath goes, I never saw anything connecting him to South America. He preferred his European contacts in the drug industry. He had someone on the inside here in the States for weapons.”

  I paused a moment before my next question. “And Thanos? What about him?”

  She took a deep breath, nodded. “He’s got connections there.”

  “Had.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so. But they don’t know he’s dead. Look, you don’t know everything I do about Thanos. This could get tricky if we cross the wrong people.”

  “You can fill me in on the flight, yeah?”

  She nodded. “Glad to have you with me, Jack.”

  54

  I saw Kate to check on my wounds and re-bandage and wrap my calf. She said everything looked good and I should be back to normal within a couple weeks. Didn’t feel that way, but then again, it didn’t matter. I had to make it work starting today. I met Bear in the kitchen, grabbed a mug of coffee, and filled my stomach with eggs and bacon. He helped himself to another serving of pancakes, while Lexi and David reviewed the flight plan. I’d reached the point where I was comfortable with him assisting us. He had every opportunity to turn us in last night and he didn’t. And I had to admit, I was curious about the guy. He seemed to be a master of many trades.

  The Gulfstream could get us to Rio inside of eight hours. That’d be plenty of time for David to dig up anything and everything related to our target and his connections. We had to know every link between Sousa and Thanos. I was curious to see how it tied in with Yashkin and the people in Chicago Lexi was working to bring down while undercover, because right now everything was one big cluster in my mind.

  By this point, Frank had to be nearby. There was little doubt as to his involvement with Thanos, though in what capacity still eluded me. Frank didn’t care about unethical businessmen. He didn’t deal in finance. If Thanos had been diverting five million a year to support a terrorist, Frank wouldn’t give a damn. His focus would be on the terrorist. He’d let someone else deal with Thanos to get the names Frank had to chase. By this line of thinking, it wasn’t a stretch to assume that Thanos was involved in some sort of terrorist activities beyond donating money. Lexi shot this down immediately.

  We’d ditched the car, phones, and anything we had on us the last time we saw Frank. Unless he’d implanted something in one of the three of us, he’d never come near this facility.

  I still couldn’t shake the feeling we’d see him soon. My mind needed calming.

  “Any news on the warehouse?” I said.

  Lexi looked up from the chart she and David were leaning over, shook her head. “If it makes you feel better, David can try and ping SIS activities to see if they’ve got someone here yet.”

  I considered the option for a moment. “Frank would be watching for that. I don’t want to drag David into the middle of that mess.” I pushed my plate to the center of the table and leaned back in the chair, arms behind my head. “I suppose it doesn’t matter too much if someone else gets there first. News on Thanos will break eventually. We’ll be out of the country either way.”

  “Speaking of which.” Lexi tapped her fingers on the table. “How closely does Frank monitor air traffic?”

  I
shrugged. “Guess that depends on whether he feels he needs to. He’s got the resources to know what’s going on at any moment.”

  David looked up from the map. “You all might as well be flying in an invisible jet today. He won’t find you. No one will. You can slip in and out of any country as long as I have twenty minutes warning.”

  “Who the hell are you?” I said to him.

  He smiled, shrugged. “I could tell you, but…”

  “Don’t even go there, pal.” I laughed. “I like you, man. You might hear from me again one day.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said. “I don’t know if I can handle any more drive-bys. Lexi is one thing, but I gotta draw a line somewhere.” He smiled as he traced his finger across the center of the table. “Besides, it appears that I’m doing you a favor here today. Not the other way around. So you should be prepared for me to come calling on you when I need a, uh, problem dealt with.”

  “Anytime,” I said.

  Bear echoed my sentiment.

  Kate hurried into the room. All eyes fell on her. “I’ve got some results if you all are interested.”

  It was DNA test result time. The first test would be matching my DNA. I was curious about their database access. Certain aliases were planted for different agencies. So if they came back with alias A, I’d know who was helping him. Or who he had hacked. The SIS and other agencies used the tactic to narrow down who was muddling around in our business.

  I limped down the hallway with Bear on one side, Lexi on the other. They kept pace with me in case I needed someone to lean on. I told them not to worry, but they remained with me, stride for stride. We entered a small meeting room at the other end of the facility. A rectangular table with three chairs on either side filled the space. I took the one closest to the door, leaving my back exposed. It was uncomfortable, but I didn’t expect anyone to sneak up on me inside the building.

  Kate dimmed the lights, then took her seat. She connected her laptop to a projector. A few keystrokes later, a chart appeared on the wall. She gave us an overview of what we were looking at and then proceeded with more detail.

  “Four different results were returned. All four came from blood samples found on the clothing we collected last night.” She pecked at the keys and the chart was replaced with my photograph. “Here, obviously, we have you, Jack Noble, from Crystal River, Florida.”

  I slowly turned my head toward David. He met my gaze, a slight smile on his face. Who the hell was this guy? The only way to access the information Kate just spouted was to have the highest level of security clearance available, the kind only three people in the most restricted area of the Pentagon had. Not even the best hackers in the nation, guys like my top asset Brandon, could gain access to that database.

  On the one hand, I felt violated. In thirty seconds these people could have my life story.

  On the other, I knew we’d know for sure who was who in that warehouse.

  “I don’t think we need to go any further there,” David said, looking at me and nodding.

  Kate’s fingers worked the keyboard once again. After my image disappeared, we were staring at Thanos. My chest and abdomen tightened as I waited for the reveal.

  “Marcus Hamilton Thanos,” she said. “US-born, but parents immigrated from Greece in the late fifties. His father was rumored to have ties to individuals in Russia, which it is believed help fund his fledgling business and grow it into the quasi-empire that Marcus took over and turned into a money producing machine. The CIA has long believed that Marcus Thanos kept close ties with his father’s contacts in eastern Europe after his father’s passing.”

  I glanced at Lexi to see if she looked surprised by the information. Her expression was solid and steady, not revealing anything.

  Kate leaned over to the side, out of sight. She returned with a manila envelope from which she pulled a stack of papers. She tossed four or five sheets stapled together toward our side of the table.

  “That’s more on Thanos you can read up on while in flight.”

  The image changed again.

  “Christiana,” I said.

  “Sort of,” she said. “This is Christiana Zhenya. A former member of the KGB who was expelled from the agency due to a refusal to carry out an order. Apparently she developed a sense of morality and wouldn’t terminate a target because the mark’s children were present. When pressed by her handler to complete the job and leave no witnesses, she ripped out her comm gear and fled. No one could tell if the bullet she took was shot by the man she was sent to kill, or another agent nearby. Common practice in that agency is to have any agent they deem a risk tailed by another agent. After all that, the target still ended up dying, as did the children.”

  I stared into her pale eyes once again. Christiana wanted her family to know nothing of her dealings in our world. It made sense she’d balk in such a situation. And whoever her handler was knew it. That’s why they had someone waiting in the ready to complete the job and take her out. They didn’t deem her a risk. They wanted her out of the picture. Perhaps she was close to Yashkin, and after he left, they wanted none of his liabilities around.

  “Apparently the bullet was a strong enough punishment, because she was released from her position, then she dropped off the radar for five years. Showed up about twenty-four months ago, working for a former General and high ranking KGB official named Nika Yashkin.” She flipped to another image, this time of the General. “That’s Yashkin right there. We had intel that he was in the country as recently as a day ago. All chatter along that front has stopped and we’re not sure where he is now.”

  Our side of the table remained silent. Whose intel were they working off of regarding Yashkin’s whereabouts?

  “Last one.” She shifted in her seat, straightened her back, put up an image of Matt. “Vasiley Rudin. Former military intelligence officer who served under none other than one General Yashkin. Followed him to the KGB. Shortly after Yashkin’s, um, retirement, Rudin joined him in his new enterprise.”

  Bear leaned forward and looked past Lexi at me. “Weren’t you calling him Matt?”

  I nodded. “What aliases do you have on file for Rudin?”

  Her fingers danced on the laptop keyboard for several seconds. She tapped her mouse and the screen changed again, displaying a rudimentary dossier of Rudin. Among the names and information, Matt Henschel stood out. There was a police record attached. I pointed it out. Kate opened the file and read off a laundry list of crimes. Breaking and entering, assault, assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and so on.

  “I have trouble believing those charges are legit,” she said.

  “Most likely an attempt to give him some ‘street cred,’” David said. “Tell me, where’d you learn his name, or alias, I should say?”

  I changed the subject. “What about his other aliases? Do we know who he’s associated with based on name?”

  She sighed as she hunched over the laptop and began pecking at the keys again. I noticed she only used her index and middle fingers to type. “It’s sending me on a roundabout. It’ll take some time, but I think I can map everything about him by the time you land in Brazil.”

  I leaned back in my chair and stared up at the ceiling for several seconds. We had all the info they could provide. And I was more confused than ever.

  55

  The riskiest part of our day was the twenty-minute drive north to the private and deserted airstrip in the middle of the woods. The trip had been one long line of evergreen. We were a stone’s throw from Canada and I had half a mind to sprint off in that direction with every intention of getting lost. Only thing holding me back was that I could barely walk, let alone run.

  Before we boarded, Kate gave me a bottle of pills with instructions to take no more than two every six hours. I popped one on the stairs, and another once I was seated and had a glass of water in hand. I was tempted to chase it with a shot of whiskey, but decided against it. The meds were bound to get me loopy, and I needed as much of
my wits about me as possible.

  Bear opted for a drink or three. From the moment the car stopped in front of the jet I noted his anxiety building. The big man was scared of nothing. But flying twisted his nerves into a bundle that left him more vulnerable than any other time. It was painful to watch. He made it through every flight we’d been on without too much of a scene, managing to internalize his living hell at thirty-six-thousand feet. He was aware there were other chemical options available, but alcohol was the only one he knew he wouldn’t grow dependent on outside of an aircraft.

  Bear and I settled into plush executive seats opposite each other. Lexi plopped down next to me, leaning her shoulder into mine.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” she said.

  I leaned back against her, turned my face toward hers. “You could use a shower, but I think I can manage.”

  She reached over and backhanded my gut with enough force to make me cough.

  “That’ll teach you,” she said.

  “Caught me unaware,” I said. “Try again and—”

  She landed another blow, though this time I was prepared.

  “Maybe you should sit next to him.” I gestured toward Bear.

  She lurched forward toward the big man.

  He immediately threw up his free hand while guzzling his drink down. After swallowing hard, he said, “Not a chance. Can’t go into Brazil with both of us all banged up.”

  Lexi stood in the aisle between us, looking down at Bear. “I suppose you’re right. Better if I beat up on Jack only for this flight.”

  She fit right in with us. How would she feel about the kind of work we did? Once an FBI agent, always an agent? Could she look past the gray areas we spent most of our time in? Doubtful. Besides, it was enough keeping tabs on Bear. It’d be hell to add the responsibility of another life to watch over.