Savage Recruit (Ryan Savage Thriller Series Book 8)

by Jack Hardin

  She woke up here, nauseous and itching. What she wouldn’t do for a bottle of Benadryl.

  A rattle came from the arched door. The lock clicked, and the door swung open. A man stepped through. His skin was olive, his nose long and crooked, his black beard thick, combed, and well-oiled. He wore leather sandals, loose-fitting cotton pants, and a thin button-down shirt with sleeves rolled to his elbows.

  He shut the door behind him, pocketed the key, and approached the table. A small mound of grapes sat on the left side of the food tray. He picked several grapes off the stem, popped them into his mouth, and sat on the oversized chair next to the bed. He chewed the grapes and looked pleasantly at Kathleen. His hazel eyes were piercing and unsearchable. Kathleen detected no ambivalence in the man’s disposition, no sense of unease that might suggest he was a novice. This was a man who was used to being in control. He exuded an air of solemnity; he was comfortable with this situation and maybe even enjoyed it. He smiled at her as he swallowed. It was a pleasant smile but carried a subtle gleam of superiority.

  “Kathleen… How are you feeling? You have not touched the food we provided.”

  She locked eyes with him and remained impassive. She took her time responding. “How long have I been here?”

  “It has been sixteen hours since you were at the market.”

  “You mean since you kidnapped me.”

  He shrugged.

  “Your men who escorted me from the market... They gave me tricosene-pentothal?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Yes. How did you know that?”

  She glanced down at the red splotches on her arms. Her whole body felt like it was crawling with chiggers. “I’m allergic to tricosene-pentothal.”

  “You don’t say. That is not an allergy your average person is aware of.”

  “But then I’m not your average person,” she replied. “I suspect you know that. Isn’t that why I’m here?”

  “Of course.”

  She nodded. “So then, what do I call you?”

  “You can call me… John.”

  Kathleen smirked. “Okay... John. Are you going to tell me why you cut my vacation short?”

  “Certainly.” He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. “It is a simple thing, really. One which I am hoping we can quickly come to an understanding about. Then we can once again go our separate ways. Me, back to what it is that I do, and you, back to America.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You are familiar with a man by the name of Simon Lagunov.”

  It wasn’t a question. He watched her expression, expecting it to falter—the flicker of an eye, the twitch of a brow. But there was nothing. Inside, however, Kathleen was awhirl. Lagunov’s name was certainly at the very bottom of a list of possibilities that she would have considered a topic of interest.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “It is important that I speak with him.”

  “And what makes you think I know this man?”

  “Kathleen, let us not play games. Prior to your transition from the CIA to Homeland Security, you spent three years as the CIA station chief in Brussels. During that time, Mr. Lagunov attended a scientific convention in Brussels and reached out to your office, asking for assistance in a defection from Russia. I have it on good authority that you personally oversaw this request and helped him get settled in a new country under a new name. You know where he is, and I need to have a conversation with him.”

  “I’m sorry to say you’ve wasted your time,” she said. “I have never met a man named Simon Luganov. Your sources are mistaken.”

  Her captor rubbed the tip of his index finger along the bridge of his nose. “Kathleen, I know that you spent most of your career working for the CIA. It is not a far stretch from there to assume that you have been on my side of an interrogation many times yourself. But please know, my patience will evaporate. I would advise that you consider giving me Luganov’s location sooner than later.

  They locked stares for a long while, each trying to get a read on the other, neither successful. “I’ll tell you what,” Kathleen finally said. “Why don’t you get me some Benadryl, and we can see if that helps clear my mind at all.”

  “I will see what I can do.”

  “This Luganov guy... Why do you want him so badly?”

  “You know why. He is the only man on this planet who understands certain scientific variables. He is a genius of the first order. The application of his research is endless. And I am a businessman. The old children’s stories might speak of him as a goose that lays golden eggs.”

  “And you’re the witch who throws children into the oven?”

  He spread his hands. “Perhaps.” He stood up. “But for now, this witch will get you something for your allergic reaction.” Then he left the room, leaving Kathleen alone with her thoughts and the camera staring at her from the corner.

  So, all this was about Simon Luganov.

  Kathleen’s memory took her back nearly four years, during her curtain call role with Langley as Brussels’ chief of station. Simon Luganov had walked into the lobby of her building one snowy afternoon and refused to leave until he spoke with her. After her team spent the afternoon vetting him, Kathleen gave him the audience he was seeking. For the next two hours, in a tiny interrogation room in the building’s basement, Kathleen listened with intrigue as Luganov told her of his position with Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation and his groundbreaking research in the field of nuclear and biochemical energy. Much of the biochemical research was proving to be beneficial and showed great promise in its commercial uses. But on the nuclear side, Luganov was greatly concerned about the potential applications and the damage it could cause. If, he said, the wrong politicians or businessmen were to gain unmitigated access to the technology his research could inform, great harm could come to the entire human race. Kathleen recalled Luganov’s continued references to Oppenheimer. “I would rather die than be the next Oppenheimer,” he had said more than once. Robert Oppenheimer had led the U.S.’s development of the nuclear bomb in the New Mexico desert, his team developing the technology that resulted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

  Luganov said he wanted to defect and wished to never return to Russia. In his absence, his research could not advance without him, at least not on any meaningful timeline, and he did not want to empower the wrong men with the wrong technologies. Personally, he was a pacifist; professionally, he was a minnow swimming in a tank full of technocratic sharks with no moral compass.

  Kathleen had wanted to help him, but since the United States was not in the charity business, Luganov would have to fork over some useful information that would benefit them. He came through, handing over hundreds of documents that detailed the most recent advances made by the R&D department of Russia’s Defense Cabinet.

  It took nearly a week for Kathleen’s office, in tandem with Langley and the office of the Director of National Intelligence, to verify the authenticity of the information and to make preparations for Luganov to begin a new life. During that time, Luganov slept on a couch in an empty office. Kathleen spent hours with him, interviewing him about his work and the inner workings of his state employer. With each passing day, she got to know him better and found that she rather liked the man. He had a compassionate nature, a good sense of humor, and a moral compass that held straight and true.

  Luganov spoke of all the ways he had dreamed of changing the world for the better. Since he could no longer do that, he wanted to spend the rest of his days in peace, far away from the overblown egos of politicians and warlords. If the workings of his mind would not ultimately leave the world in a better place, then the world would not have them at all. He had no family, no wife or children. His parents were already dead, and there were no siblings. All he had was his research, and he was willing to leave it all behind.

  When Einstein penned his theory of relativity, it was said that only three or four other minds in the world could fully understand the body of his work. Sim
on Luganov’s mind had yielded the same effects, although in a more niche field of study. By leaving Russia, no one would be left to continue the work without his direct oversight.

  Over the next week, by the time Luganov’s new identity had been established and he was ready for resettlement, Kathleen considered him a friend. He felt the same and requested that Kathleen be the one to escort him to his new home, rather than someone from the CIA’s Office of International Defection. She had agreed, and ten days after he first walked into her building, they were escorted out the back under the cover of darkness. A day later, he was settled, and after wishing him well amid the knowledge that she would never see him again, she returned to Brussels.

  Now, she sat on her bed and gently rubbed the bruise where her captors had pricked her with the needle. Why now? she wondered. Why, after four years, had someone finally decided that it was urgent enough to find Luganov and to risk kidnapping someone of her positional caliber to do it? Luganov’s value was easily apparent. As “John” had suggested, whoever had Luganov had a gold mine.

  But only a handful of people even knew of Kathleen’s direct involvement with Luganov’s defection. And none of those people would be behind this. They were good Americans, who Kathleen knew well.

  Whatever the case, she meant what she had told her captor. They could do what they wanted to her, and probably would. But she would never give up Simon Luganov.

  Kathleen laid back down and sighed.

  Chapter Seven

  A thorough sweep of Adonis Galatas’s house yielded nothing useful. Whoever had killed him had cleared out any pertinent electronic devices. We left his house empty-handed. No cell phone, laptop, or flash drives that might point us in a new direction going forward. We retraced our route out of the neighborhood as quietly as we had come and drove back to the staging site. No one spoke on the ride back.

  All of us were warriors in our own right. And while I wasn’t an elite operator, every one of us thrived on the adrenaline rush of the mission, fed on the thrill that came from running a successful operation. We all felt a little dispirited for hitting a dead end and having no further leads to run down. It was becoming clearer that whoever had taken Kathleen had planned for it well in advance. They were highly skilled and ruthless enough not to leave any loose ends lying around. Adonis Galatas was proof of that.

  The initial surge of energy that came from hearing of Kathleen’s kidnapping was wearing off. Now I was left feeling the full weight of the nightmare that Kathleen had been kidnapped by someone who was dedicated to leaving no traces.

  Teapot clapped a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Savage. Know that this is personal for us. But I know it’s a lot more for you. We’ll find her. And whoever took her, we’ll make them pay.”

  “Thanks, Teapot. I know that, and I appreciate it.”

  When we finally pulled back up to the warehouse, a brown sedan was parked next to the Hummer.

  “Chachi’s back,” Granger noted.

  We went inside and took accountability for our gear, cleared and safed our weapons before returning them to the tool tables and shrugging off our body armor. Granger kept his HCI uniform on and returned to his computer station.

  Footsteps echoed from across the rafters, and a solid man appeared from behind a curtain. He wore tan cargo pants and a plain black T-shirt. His head was buzzed, his cheekbones flat, his pale green eyes piercing.

  “Savage,” Boomer said, “this is Chachi.” We shook.

  “You learn anything?” Boomer asked him.

  “Maybe. An old contact with the Greek Intelligence Service has his ear to the ground for us. Said if he hears something, he’ll give us a head start before his team sends it over to General Diakos.”

  “Good,” Boomer said.

  “And Solon is going to ask around. This kind of thing is within his purview, but with this one, he has to be careful the way he asks around.”

  “Chachi’s ex-brother-in-law is from Athens,” Boomer said to me.

  “He and I are oil and water,” Chachi said, “but even though his sister ended up being a real hellcat, he and I still get along decent enough. Back in the day, he used to work a corner for the neighborhood drug pusher. Now he runs a tattoo parlor in Ilioupoli. Where’d you guys come in from all suited up?”

  Boomer filled him in on our run over to Galatas’s house. “Whoever took Kathleen isn’t messing around. Makes me think it was planned well in advance. They knew who she was and aren’t willing to run the risk of someone talking.”

  Granger had his boots back on his desk and his keyboard on his lap. “I’m going to check Galatas’s recent call logs.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. I slipped it out. The screen displayed a local number. I answered.

  “Agent Savage, this is General Diakos. How are you?”

  I shot Boomer a look. “General Diakos. Good to hear from you.”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and watched me. Boomer sat on a metal folding chair and crossed his arms.

  “I have not seen you since you left the base this morning,” Diakos said. “Are you finding your way around Athens okay?”

  “Just fine, General. Thank you. How are things on your end? Has your team found anything?”

  “I am afraid not. But be assured that we are looking, using all our resources to locate Ms. Rose. You have my word.”

  “Yes. I’m sure you are.” I thanked him for the call and told him, falsely, that I would share anything I learned with him.

  “He doesn’t have anything, does he?” Teapot asked.

  “No. He was fishing.”

  “Probably about to get his ass kicked by his president or our ambassador,” Granger said, his attention still on his monitor. “It’s already been twenty-four hours.”

  “Fine by me,” Boomer said. “He’s not getting a damn thing from us.”

  “Anybody hungry?” Teapot asked. “I’m famished.” He grabbed a set of keys off one of the tables.

  “Just grab dinner for the team,” Boomer said. “Any requests?”

  “Chinese,” Granger said.

  Chachi nodded contentedly. “Same.”

  “Chinese?” I said. “In Greece?”

  “Outside of China, it’s all the same the world over,” Teapot said. “Sweet and sour pork is bland, overcooked fried pork wherever you go.”

  “Chinese, it is,” I said.

  After Teapot left, Boomer stepped around a curtain and returned with a travel bag. “Here,” he said, and tossed it to me. It was my ruck. “I had Chachi stop by the base on the way in and grab it for you.”

  “Thanks, guys. Nice move.”

  “We’ll get you set up here with us for the night.” Boomer pointed to the far end of the floor. “There’s a shower down there and a seating area with some more comfortable chairs. Everyone has a cot in their own curtained area.”

  “Any towels?” I asked.

  “On a shelf in the bathroom. And you’ll have all the cold water you want.”

  “Mostly because there’s no hot water to speak of,” Granger said. “No water heater. Two minutes in there, and you’ll step out with nipples harder than that steel plate in Teapot’s head.”

  Boomer gave me a knowing look. “He’s not wrong.”

  The shower, cold as it was, left me refreshed. When I stepped out, my skin was tingling and my mind was clear after a long day. I toweled off, changed into fresh clothes, and found the team in the common area. Except for the small bathroom area, there wasn’t an interior wall in the place. The common area was in the east corner of the building: a selection of worn and cracked leather chairs near a refrigerator, a freezer chest, and a table. The chairs were situated around an upturned wooden packing crate that served as a coffee table of sorts.

  I found a chair and watched Boomer pull a bag of ice from the freezer and dump it into a large metal pail. He took the pail over to the fridge, removed a selection of beers, and stuffed them down into the ice. He shut the refrigerator, car
ried the pail over, and after selecting one for himself, popped the top and laid back with a long sigh.

  The rest of us helped ourselves to a bottle. Mine was an Athens brewed IPA. Its bold, hoppy flavor reminded me of Kritter, an IPA crafted by Florida Keys Brewing Company. It hit the spot, and the tension in my body eased.

  “How long since you guys have been home?” I asked.

  “We were in Syria bumping up on six weeks,” Boomer said. “Two in Turkey before that.”

  “Did the rest of your element continue stateside?”

  “They did. The four of them got wheels down at Bragg a few hours ago.”

  “I appreciate you answering this call. I’m sure you’re all ready for some R&R.”

  “It’s what we do,” Chachi said.

  “And we’re damn glad to do it too,” Granger chimed in.

  Boomer took a long pull on his bottle. “I know we’re sitting around shooting the breeze, Savage. As soon as we find or get fed something actionable, we’ll move on it. I don’t want you thinking that we’ve brought it down a notch because we’re sitting here on our asses.”

  “No explanation needed,” I said.

  “I’ve got our operations team at JSOC looking into Galatas’s recent phone calls,” Granger said. “He must have had another, unlisted number because so far they’ve only found calls to his bank, his landscaper, and a fast food joint.”

  Boomer leaned forward and set his elbows on his knees. “The merchant at the market said that he saw Kathleen leave with two men. That leaves at least one more out there, and probably a third if there was a dedicated driver. Odds are that whoever commissioned them to get Kathleen wanted them out of the picture too.”

  “That’s a fair bet,” I agreed. And if that was true, then we were out of leads. We were already at a dead end and down to sheer luck, which wasn’t a position I ever enjoyed being in. Luck often factors into a successful investigation. Sometimes the right person pops up with new information, or the criminal you’re pursuing makes a crucial, unexpected mistake. But right now, looking for Kathleen, I wanted something hard and sturdy to work with. Waiting around shooting the breeze didn’t feel right. But I knew Boomer was right. We had to wait and see what our trusted teams on the operations and intelligence side of things could come up with. My shoulders tensed, and I drained half my beer.