Robert Ludlum's the Treadstone Exile

by Joshua Hood

Tyler nodded and picked up the pistol. He checked the cylinder to make sure that it was loaded before putting it to his temple. “I always knew you were a son of a bitch,” he said, and then he pulled the trigger.

  “Didn’t think he had it in him,” Cabot said, looking down at the body.

  “Tough men, those Texans,” Beck said. “Now, what do you want to do?”

  “Get the helicopter ready, I want to be airborne in an hour.”

  “Where are we going, sir?”

  “To get my money.”

  48

  ANGOLA

  Hayes mashed the accelerator to the floor and blew through the intersection, the needle sweeping toward sixty when he cut the wheel hard, sending the top-heavy SUV drifting around the corner.

  He kept the lights off and the pedal down, pushing the Land Cruiser hard to clear the city, not letting off the gas until there was nothing but black in his rearview mirror.

  Hayes had no idea where he was, but quickly realized that it didn’t matter. He was alive and if he wanted to stay that way, he needed to find out what in the hell was going on.

  Fifteen minutes later, he pulled the Land Cruiser off the road, the headlights casting long shadows across the bare earth before him. He climbed out and did a quick recon of the area before returning to the truck, opening the back door, and looking down at the bleeding man on the floorboards.

  “You and me got some unfinished business we need to attend to,” he said, grabbing Wikus by the hair and dragging him out of the truck.

  Hayes kicked the South African’s legs out from under him and slammed him to the dirt, then reached down and yanked the pistol from the holster on Wikus’s hip.

  “You miss me, girl?” he asked.

  The South African’s eyes were hard and angry even through the swelling. He tried to scream at Hayes, but with the duct tape covering his mouth all that emerged were random vowel sounds.

  “What was that?” he asked, tearing the tape from the man’s lips, trying to take as much skin as possible.

  “I said, fuck you!” the man spat.

  “You know, Wikus, I’ve been looking forward to this day since we first met,” he said, shoving the pistol into the back of his pants and limping back to the truck.

  “Just get it over with, then. Take that pretty pistol of yours and put a bullet in the back of my skull.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Hayes said, opening the back hatch and pulling out a five-gallon jerrican of gasoline.

  “Wait . . . now just wait a bloody minute,” the South African said.

  “Oh, now you want me to wait?” Hayes asked, unscrewing the cap. “What happened to getting it over with?”

  “Look . . . I’ll tell you everything I know . . . just give me a—”

  “Oh, I’ll give you something, all right,” Hayes said, upending the can over the man’s head.

  Wikus tried to scream, to beg, but the fumes choked him, stole his breath, and with his hands zip-tied behind him, he was helpless to do anything but squirm as Hayes doused him with gasoline.

  When the can was empty, he flung it into the darkness and pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He pressed one between his lips and lowered himself into a crouch.

  “D-don’t do this . . .” Wikus begged.

  “I thought you had something to say,” Hayes said, the book of matches he’d taken from the hotel in his hand. “If that’s the case, you might want to start talking.”

  “Zoe . . .” he began.

  “What about her?” Hayes demanded, tearing a match from the book.

  “I know where she is.”

  Hayes scraped the match against the striker, the flare of the flame dancing in his cold eyes. He lit the cigarette before extinguishing the match with a shake of his hand and then settled the weight of his gaze on Wikus.

  “And how the hell do you know that?”

  49

  USS BATAAN

  After one hundred and eighty-two days at sea, the sailors and Marines aboard the USS Bataan were ready to go home. But while the rest of the Amphibious Ready Group galloped west across the Atlantic Ocean, ready to make up for the anniversaries and birthdays they’d missed during their six-month tour, the Bataan was still on station, the crew forced to loiter seventy-five miles off the coast of Angola until their unexpected guest cut them loose.

  Levi Shaw stood on the signals bridge, the burn of the salt air across his freshly sutured cheek cold as a knife. He looked down at the pair of V-22 Ospreys sitting on the flight line, knowing how bad they wanted to go home and hating himself for being the one standing in their way.

  But it couldn’t be helped.

  After the wreck Shaw knew he had to move fast, make something happen before Carpenter and Senator Miles learned that he was still alive, knowing that the moment they found out they would cut him off at the knees. Shut him out of both the CIA and Treadstone.

  Out of options and running short on time, Shaw played the only card he had left—he went to the DoD.

  Getting a meeting with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs had cost him every favor that he’d collected during his thirty years with government, and even then all the man would give him was five minutes.

  “Better talk fast, Levi. I’m flying out to Camp David in twenty.”

  “Sir, what do you know about Operation Treadstone?” he began.

  That got his attention.

  “Go on,” the general said.

  Shaw knew the next words out of his mouth could very easily end him up in a black site, but he didn’t care. The Department of Defense was the only organization left that could protect him—keep men like Miles and Carpenter from using Treadstone as their personal kill team.

  In the next few minutes, Shaw told him everything, stripping back the curtains on thirty-plus years of secrecy.

  “Jesus,” the general said when he was finished.

  “I realize it’s a lot to take in.”

  “Like trying to drink from a firehose,” the man said. “But I’m still not exactly sure what it is you want.”

  “It’s simple, sir. I turn Treadstone over to the DoD, give you the labs, the training, the assets, everything you need get the program back on track.”

  “And what do you want in exchange?”

  “One of my men is in trouble and I need your help to get him out before the CIA kills him.”

  Shaw was still thinking about the general’s face when the door swung open and the Bataan’s commanding officer stepped out—steam billowing from the coffee mugs clutched in his pawlike hands.

  “Thought you could use one of these,” he said, offering one of the mugs.

  “Appreciate it, skipper,” Shaw replied, following the captain back to the railing.

  He took a sip, the strong black coffee warming him from the inside out.

  “You get any sleep, or did you spend all night in the signals room?”

  “I managed a few hours,” Shaw said.

  “Liar,” the captain smiled.

  “How far would you go to save one of your men?” Shaw asked.

  The captain sipped his coffee in silence, his brown eyes darting over the deck, taking in the pilots checking over the Ospreys and the team of Marine Raiders collected around the ramp.

  “To the ends of the earth, if I had to,” he said.

  Shaw was about to tell him he’d do the same when the door slammed open behind him and one of the sailors from the signals room stepped out.

  “Sir, we just intercepted a call. I . . . I think we found him.”

  50

  LUANDA, ANGOLA

  The Antonov An-12 flew west over Angola, the sound of its flaps and the pitch of its Ivchenko AI-20 turboprops signaling its final approach into Quatro de Fevereiro Airport. In the cargo hold, Andre Cabot watched as Beck and the rest
of his security detail busily donned their body armor and checked their rifles before turning his attention to the window.

  The first lesson he’d learned at the DGSE was the importance of a simple plan. “People around here believe that for an intelligence operation to work it had to be as complicated as a Swiss watch,” his first training officer had told him. “It’s bullshit, Andre. Total nonsense, just keep it simple and you will be fine.”

  It was a lesson Cabot had taken to heart.

  One that had guided his rise through the ranks of the intelligence apparatus, and later allowed him to take DarkCloud from a small startup of five employees to a multibillion-dollar empire.

  By the time he met President Edward Obote, the “lesson” had become a rule, the centerpiece of the strategy that guided his every action, which was why Cabot had initially declined to help the Ugandan strongman shore up his sham of a government by spying on his opposition.

  But you didn’t, did you?

  There was no need to answer.

  The fact that Cabot was risking everything by coming back to Angola with his Russian transport packed full of mercenaries was answer enough.

  While other men in his position would have been lured to take the job by the handsome paycheck waiting at the end, it wasn’t the money, but the unprecedented access to President Obote’s Internal Security Organization and the files the Ugandan intelligence service had been collecting on its African neighbors since 1986 that proved impossible to resist.

  It was from these files that Cabot learned of Lars Gunderson, the Senior VP of Angola’s Banco Angolano de Investimentos, and the two hundred million dollars of aid money just waiting to be transferred from the bank’s wire room.

  Before Uganda he wouldn’t have even gotten out of bed for two hundred million dollars, but now, with his empire crashing around him and the French government stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down, the money was everything.

  It was the perfect plan: simple in its design, elegant in its execution. Cabot could have pulled it off without ever leaving his office if it hadn’t been for that fat fuck Nigel Pritchard screwing him in Mahé, holding back the codes that would have allowed him to remotely transfer the money from BAI’s wire room to the bank accounts he had spread across the globe.

  The chirp of the wheels on the tarmac snapped him from his reverie and he turned to find Beck already standing at the tail of the aircraft.

  “On your feet,” the fierce German yelled, throwing the ramp lever.

  The heavily armed mercs collected their gear and weapons, and when the Antonov rolled into the open hangar, followed Beck down the ramp.

  By the time the pilots cut the engines and Cabot stepped off the aircraft, the pair of six-wheeled Ural 4320 utility trucks were already running, the mercs packed beneath the vinyl tarps that hung over the cargo beds.

  “Are we ready?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Beck answered.

  51

  ILHA DE LUANDA, ANGOLA

  Hayes drove west on Avenida 4 de Fevereiro, the sight of the Museu da Moeda reminding him how much things had changed in the past hour. Just as he’d suspected, Wikus and Mallory had been planning to kill him at the meeting in the morning.

  But now Wikus was gone and if Hayes had his way, Mallory and whoever else was waiting for him across the bridge on the Ilha de Luanda were soon to follow.

  A half mile ahead, the road split, the signs planted on the median advising drivers to veer left to stay on the highway. Hayes stayed straight, following the road up the hill, the Land Cruiser’s thirty-year-old engine whining in protest as it climbed to the top of the rise.

  From the apex, he had a clear view of Luanda Bay, the blinking red lights from the port to his north followed by the strobing marquees and yellow stream of traffic coiling through the city center, and the lengthening blackness of his destination directly ahead.

  Hayes drove until the road came to a dead end and turned right onto Avenida Murtala Mohammed, the five-mile thoroughfare that ran the length of Ilha de Luanda. A glance at the map told him that he was nearing his destination. Hayes doused the headlights, cut the wheel to the left, and eased the Land Cruiser off the roadway.

  The tires bounced over the curb and Hayes guided the SUV down the back side of the hill. He guided the Land Cruiser into the trees until he was sure it couldn’t be seen from the road.

  Having already disabled the dome light, Hayes eased the door shut behind him and stepped to the rear of the truck. He opened the hatch and threw back the dusty blanket spread across the floor—the moonlight glinting off the weapons arrayed before him.

  The plate carrier he’d taken from Wikus was a size too small and even after letting out the straps, it left a portion of his lower abdomen exposed. But this late in the game, Hayes was just happy to have any body armor at all.

  He secured the straps over his torso, threw an extra thirty-round mag for the Glock 18C into his assault pack, and grabbed the H&K 416. Closing the hatch behind him, Hayes slipped a 40-millimeter HE round from the pouch on the front of his kit, fed it into the grenade launcher mounted to the bottom of the barrel, and closed the breech.

  Then it was time to move.

  Hayes ducked into the trees and started east, using the Silva compass he’d taped to the buttstock of the rifle to guide him back toward the road.

  Five minutes later, he dropped to a knee at the edge of the tree line—the tiger-striped BDUs and the black-and-green greasepaint smeared across his face rendering him invisible to anyone who might be watching.

  He pulled out a pair of night-vision binoculars that he used to study the compound across the street, the sight of the target area taking him back to the darkened stretch of coastal lowland and the fear he saw in Wikus’s eyes when he scraped the match against the striker and lit the cigarette.

  * * *

  —

  “Zoe . . . I know where she is.”

  “And how the hell do you know that?” Hayes demanded.

  “B-because, I . . . I . . .” he stammered.

  “You what?”

  “Listen, if I tell you . . . you’ve got to—”

  “No,” Hayes said, cutting him off.

  “If I tell you, he is going to kill me. You have to—”

  This time, instead of words, he backhanded Wikus hard across the face.

  The blow snapped the South African’s head to the side, spraying droplets of gasoline across the dirt as he fell.

  “This isn’t a negotiation,” he said, grabbing Wikus by the shirt and hauling him back onto his knees. “You either tell me the truth or I’m going to turn you into a human tiki torch.”

  “It was Cabot’s idea,” the South African blubbered. “He took a job working for the president of Uganda, something to do with elections, and it went south. The press found out about it and he got jammed up with the French government. They were seizing his assets and . . .”

  “What the hell does this have to do with Zoe?”

  “I don’t know all the details. All Mallory told me was that his passport had been revoked. He couldn’t travel to Africa, so he sent Zoe, she was some kind of collateral.”

  “Collateral for what?”

  “For the two hundred million dollars of aid money that BAI is holding in their wire room.”

  * * *

  —

  Hayes had seen some evil shit in his life, things that would make Ted Bundy look like a choirboy, but nothing as twisted as Andre Cabot using his own flesh and blood to get his hands on two hundred million dollars.

  What kind of man does that?

  Hayes didn’t know, but of one thing he was certain: I’m not going to get any answers standing out here.

  He was about to start across the road when he heard the distant rumble of heavy vehicles coming his way. He ducked back into the trees, threw himsel
f flat seconds before a wash of white light bloomed over his position.

  Hayes hazarded a quick glance at the road, which only added to his confusion. A line of massive Russian 6x6s were lumbering toward him.

  Who the hell are these clowns?

  He watched the cargo trucks turn into the drive, the lead vehicle’s brake lights flashing red as it stopped short of the gate. The passenger door swung open and a tall man with a suppressed rifle climbed down and started toward the wrought-iron gates with what looked like an explosive charge in his hand.

  The man bent to study the lock, but instead of placing the charge as Hayes had expected, he grabbed the iron bars and simply shoved them open. He waved the first truck through but stopped the second with an open hand, then moved around to the back of the truck and banged on the tailgate.

  A gloved hand reached out, pulling the flap free, revealing a cargo compartment full of heavily armed men.

  Hayes was too far away to hear what the man was saying, but as soon as he moved to the front of the truck, two men climbed down from the back, and trotted to the guard shack while the vehicle pulled away.

  Well, that’s great.

  He turned and moved north about fifty yards, making sure he was out of the line of sight of the men in the guard shack before darting from cover. He dashed across the street and ducked into the trees that surrounded the target area.

  While waiting for his heart rate to settle, Hayes studied the wall and was considering going over, bypassing the guard shack altogether, when he saw a pinprick of red light.

  Camera, shit.

  With going over the wall now out of play, Hayes turned south and started back toward the guard shack. He crept soundlessly through the trees, taking his time, each step slow and silent as a jungle cat stalking its prey. The journey seemed to take an eternity, but he knew that it was probably less than ten minutes later when he stopped short of his target and dropped to a knee—senses straining in the darkness for any sign of the men.