Field Agent

by Dom Testa

  “Remarkably similar,” I said. “How close are we talking? Could it be an entirely different disease that just happens to share traits with what you encountered?”

  “It will take some more study,” she said. “But I’ll tell you what I think. This is a toxin that’s based on a particular platform. At the core it’s the same platform found in the disease that wiped out the fields here. This is either a mutant, or its been intentionally modified to the point where it probably wouldn’t take down a crop of soybeans. I mean, it wouldn’t do them any good, but it wouldn’t cause the same destruction.”

  I leaned against the headboard of my bed, one hand massaging my left temple. “But it could potentially wreak havoc with a different species, I assume.”

  “We don’t know that. I’d need the actual sample rather than results on a piece of paper.”

  I sighed. “Okay. I’ll get some of it shipped to you immediately. If you have it by tomorrow morning, how long would it take for you to get your own results?”

  “Maybe a day.”

  “All right. Text me exactly where you want it to arrive and I’ll make it happen.”

  “Great.” Then she added, in a somewhat-warmer voice, “I appreciate it.”

  We ended the call. A moment later she sent me the lab address, which I forwarded to Poole with a note asking for a rush. Knowing the way she operated, Poole would get it on a private plane to Iowa within hours.

  I walked to the window and tried unsuccessfully to open it. A breeze sounded good, even therapeutic, but apparently security in the hotel trumped my need for fresh air. I gazed out at the city as dusk settled in and a succession of twinkling lights competed with the heavy shadows.

  Somewhere in that sea of humanity two very sick and dangerous people were plotting monstrous evil. And somehow I knew time was running out.

  23

  Of course she was smoking. Gamez stood against the side of her car, took a long puff when she saw me approach, then dropped the butt into the gutter and stamped on it.

  “How was your beauty sleep?” she asked.

  “You can’t tell by looking?”

  She gave one choppy laugh. “Get in. Let’s go play spy games.”

  Buckling my seat belt, I saw her give a curious glance before flooring it out of the parking lot.

  “You never wear a seat belt?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  I chuckled. “You drive like a maniac without a seat belt, you smoke like a tire fire, and you drink coffee brewed straight out of the bowels of hell. I can see how nothing in the spy world could possibly worry you.”

  She lit another cigarette. “Oh, plenty worries me about the job. But only when I have to rely on someone else.”

  “I’ll try not to let you down.”

  “You won’t let me down. If it comes to it, I don’t sacrifice my life to save visiting agents. I prefer to live to fight another day.”

  You had to appreciate her honesty. It was blunt as hell, but at least she let you know up front that she wouldn’t clean up your mistakes if the cost was her life.

  It was another aspect of the investment program I often thought about. Ramona Gamez had one life to give; for me it was reshuffle the cards and play another hand. Of course that influenced how I played the cards dealt to me. How could it not? I could afford to go all-in when the situation called for it. There would always be another hand, another opportunity to gamble.

  Miller and I once discussed whether or not this made me unnecessarily reckless. We never arrived at a conclusion, but I suspected it had more than once. What was more important, however, was whether or not my indifferent attitude toward life had resulted in some other poor sap forfeiting the only life they had.

  The answer was: Not directly. But yeah, I’d stormed in before when it may not have been the smartest play, and others had paid the price.

  What can I say? Sometimes you just have to act on your instincts, and react when there’s little or no time to ponder consequences. Besides, the job automatically came with inherent risks, not only for me but for those around me. I did my best to act wisely, but sometimes shit just blows up in your face. It’s called collateral damage, which may sound like an ice-cold observation, but it’s a totally candid and realistic one.

  The thing that haunted me about it was the fact I knew going in I got to hit the reset button and play again; the person with me had no idea.

  Gamez told me to settle in, the ride would take about half an hour. That gave me a chance to probe a little more.

  “Did you meet Quanta here in Paraguay, or somewhere else?”

  At first it seemed she was going to ignore the question, but after a long silence she said, “Here. Not too far from where you’re staying, actually.”

  I waited out another silence, using the time to rub my temple again.

  “We were both young agents. Neither one of us had ever worked with a foreign partner on an international case. And in all the years since, I’ve never met another agent who came close to her.” She threw me a glance. “No offense.”

  “Well, you haven’t seen me at my best.”

  “And I hope I don’t. That’ll mean we’ve run into a shit show. I’m at an age where I’d prefer to use my wits more than my weapon.”

  “Sorry to get personal,” I said, “but why are you still doing this?”

  “You mean why haven’t they moved me into a facility or something?”

  “I hear they can be pretty swanky. And who knows, you might meet a kind soul who digs retired spies. Lots of action in those places, I’m told.”

  “You’re a funny man, Agent Frank. Although that’s a pretty obvious bullshit name. What do your friends call you?”

  “Eric. And we detoured away from the Quanta story.”

  She smiled. “Oh, I can’t talk too much about Quanta. But I’ll give you this: If you work for her, you’re only seeing the administrator. So let me tell you something. She’d probably give anything to swap roles with you. It’s just that a lot of spy organizations are run by damned fools, too many without much—if any—real experience in field work. You need to know she only took jobs at the top because otherwise they’d be mismanaged to hell.”

  I turned and looked out the passenger window. Nothing else needed to be said.

  “What is this place?”

  I was curious. Were we getting something to eat, picking up her dry cleaning, or were we about to go play spy games, as Gamez called it?

  She’d parked in a pretty ratty-looking neighborhood, killed the engine, and sat still, peering into the gloom. I kept my voice low.

  At first she didn’t respond. Then, with a calloused finger, she pointed toward a door in the long, dingy building off to the right. Of the half-dozen doorways I could see, it was the only one with a functioning light of any kind. An odd, orange light bulb emitted barely enough juice to cover more than a few feet.

  Gamez checked her phone for the time.

  “Another minute or two. If the light goes out, we move.”

  It did, and we did. She led me down the rutted sidewalk, past storefronts mostly abandoned, some boarded. A man stumbled toward us, clearly drunk. We separated and he passed between us, continuing his wandering ways, carrying on both sides of a conversation.

  Gamez passed the illuminated doorway and kept walking. Two doors beyond, she gave a cautious glance around, then reached for a different door, pulled it open, and we were inside. She closed the door, bolted it, and used the light of her phone to guide us down a dark hallway. At the end another door awaited.

  This time Gamez gave a single soft tap. The door opened, revealing a giant.

  He had to be six-eight, and probably tipped 300 on the scales. With one quick scan I got the impression 280 of it was muscle. He would scare the living hell out of anyone. He scared me.

  I was grateful he was on our side.

  Gamez spoke to the man in Guaraní. Really all I caught was Frank. Then she turned to me.

  �
��This is . . . Well, you couldn’t pronounce it. Just call him Peach.”

  I gazed up at the monster. “Call him Peach?”

  She smiled. “He probably won’t answer anyway. He’s not crazy about Americans.”

  So maybe he wasn’t on my side.

  “Great. Tell him I’m Canadian.”

  “Doesn’t care for them, either.”

  I grunted. “We don’t need to be besties. Just tell him not to step on me.” Looking around, I uttered the same question I’d asked outside: “What is this place?”

  She moved past the Hulk toward a table set up with a small lamp and scattered electronic equipment.

  “It’s a surveillance post. I told you we were gonna play spy tonight.”

  I joined her at the table. A quick glance told me it wasn’t the most sophisticated of equipment. I kept my mouth shut. Gamez, however, read my thoughts.

  “We don’t get the kind of money allocated to us that you might. But we make do.” She indicated a small video screen. “There’s a shot inside Deele’s local lab, two blocks east of here.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Wait. You have a camera inside his lab? How the hell did you pull that off?” Then I turned to Gamez. “For that matter, how do you continue to pull it off? Deele must have some of the most sophisticated security gear in the world. How can he not know this is here?”

  She crossed her arms. “Which question do you want me to answer first?”

  “Take your pick.” I looked back at the screen just as it went dark.

  “There’s part of your answer,” she said. “It’s a very small camera and transmitter. French made. Based on some technology you might be familiar with: the STC?”

  I sat down on one of the chairs and gave a slow nod. It made sense now. Sometimes during an assignment I’d undergo a quick procedure to insert an STC. Formally, it’s a subcutaneous tracking device, a small wafer hidden beneath the skin. It allowed the eggheads on the 2nd floor at Q2 to follow me anywhere.

  It also operated on a rotating frequency system, changing every time it came on the air. The STC generally would send out a short, encrypted blast for just a few seconds, once every 15 minutes. The rest of the time it was dead, at least by any ordinary measurement. No signal, no sign of life at all, which made it practically impossible to locate.

  If this small camera operated in basically the same way for Gamez, it would come alive for only a few seconds every so often and fire images to a receiving station. Otherwise it, too, was dead. I liked to call it Zombie mode. Of course, it wasn’t ideal; we’d love to have non-stop video images ‘round the clock. But that was much more likely to be discovered. The trade-off was getting limited images, but remaining invisible.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m still surprised he hasn’t found it yet. But how did you get it in there in the first place?”

  “The landlord for this particular building found himself in a predicament involving his oldest daughter and a certain drug lord. He was encouraged to allow us access through the roof.”

  “Encouraged,” I said.

  “Well, you know. We’ve come a long way toward cleaning up corruption, but some techniques still come in handy.” She gave a wink.

  I gazed at the other gear strewn across the table. “Audio, too?”

  “In two locations. We couldn’t risk any more.”

  “And what have you found?”

  She sat next to me, then leaned back to open a small fridge, pulling out two Korok Red Ales and handing one to me. Either Peach didn’t drink or Gamez didn’t want him drinking on duty. With his size the beast could’ve downed a 12-pack before getting a buzz.

  Gamez took a long swig of her beer. “At first we didn’t find much to concern us. It took Deele a while to get an OK to even import his plants, but still quicker than normal. Probably made somebody rich in the process.”

  “Oh, that’s a sure thing,” I said.

  “Nothing unusual happened at first. Typical appointments with the Ministry for approvals, a random meeting with some of the larger players in the soybean industry. I didn’t get involved until the Ministry got a call from some politician in the U.S.”

  I had the beer halfway to my mouth and stopped. Slowly lowering it, I said, “Let me guess. Deputy Secretary Janet Halloran.”

  “Oh. You know her?”

  Now I took a drink and nodded. “Haven’t had the pleasure of meeting face-to-face, but she’s chewed my ass out on the phone. I hope she’s courteous to our friends in Paraguay.”

  Gamez shrugged. “I haven’t personally spoken to her. But the laws of physics are the same in both countries. Shit will always roll downhill. She spoke to the Ministry and, from what I understand, did not have nice things to say about the man.”

  I chuckled and took another drink. “She doesn’t have nice things to say about me, either, if that matters. All right, so you got a heads-up that Deele was trouble. Then what?”

  “I didn’t jump too high or too fast right away. I mean, he’s a billionaire with a soybean hobby. Why should I care? But then, just like with Ruiz, there was another tragic accident that, to me, didn’t really seem like an accident.”

  “This is starting to sound familiar,” I said. “Who died this time? Someone in the farming industry, I imagine.”

  “An attorney. Very involved in the battle between small, private farmers and the big soybean organizations expanding across the country. He was very successful in pushing back against some of the large developments that have taken place over the years.”

  I frowned. “So what are you saying? That this time Deele didn’t kill someone who stood in his way, really; he knocked off someone who stood in the way of the people he wanted to do business with?”

  Gamez finished her beer. “Uh-huh. He came in, got to know some important people, and then did them a favor, you could say.”

  “And they responded by purchasing his product.”

  “Correct. Of course, we have no evidence he was involved in the man’s death, but—”

  “But you know he did it.”

  She nodded again. We sat silently for a few moments while I caught up with her in the beer-drinking department.

  “Okay,” I said. “What’s happened lately?”

  “Mostly quiet. No more deaths, or at least none we can attach to Mr. Deele. I think he made his case pretty quickly and hasn’t needed to strong-arm anyone else. Of course, when your Deputy Secretary heard about the untimely accident of Mr. Escobar, she turned up the heat. Demanded we create a file with Interpol. Demanded a lot of things, actually. But there’s not much I can do besides watch him. At the moment he’s obeying all of our laws and restrictions. Frustrating, but that’s the way it is.”

  I could relate. There was nothing more frustrating in our work than knowing someone was guilty as hell—guilty even of murder—but not having the evidence to officially act. Now, granted, there are times I’ve stepped over the line of propriety in order to pursue justice. My only defense is that I’m paid to save lives from really, really bad people who never play by the rules, and sometimes the only way to prevent innocent deaths is to use my experience and training to make a critical call. Believe me, you don’t want to know about it. People rarely want to know how their team’s good guys fudge the rules; they just want us to keep their lives healthy and happy.

  It comes down to this: If you don’t know how I’m doing that, you’re spared having to make a moral judgment. You just go merrily on your way.

  In a foreign country, however, it would have to be Ramona Gamez who did the ethical line-hopping, not me. Something told me it wouldn’t take much of a push for her to do just that.

  I set my empty beer bottle on the floor next to my chair. The alcohol wasn’t helping my headache, but it wasn’t making it worse, either. “The only way we’re going to get any action is if we initiate it. Are you game?”

  “Sure.”

  “Both Deele and Jaclyn Stone know me, so I have to stay behind the scenes,” I sa
id. “We should set up a meeting for you.”

  Gamez gave a half smile, glanced at Peach, then back at me. “We’re not beginners, Eric. When I heard you were coming down I started that process.”

  “Oh. And?”

  “Have another beer. My appointment with Jason Deele is tomorrow afternoon at two.”

  24

  I slept poorly, but chalked it up to travel, the beers, and a monkey mind that refused to shut off. On one hand I was exhilarated that Gamez would make contact with Deele, but I also felt antsy just waiting on the sideline. I wasn’t trained to be an observer.

  But obviously I couldn’t show my face.

  The plan looked like this: Gamez made an appointment as an agent with the government’s Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock. She’d be Ms. Medina, and she had ‘additional questions’ that needed to be cleared up with Mr. Deele. He’d been told that several farmers had raised a stink, and the gentleman from the USA would hopefully be able to assuage those concerns. The insinuation, of course, was that the best way to soothe something of this nature involved the ol’ cash handshake. This was totally speaking Deele’s language. If the only problem was money, he’d happily make certain farmers feel more comfortable with the situation.

  Gamez would show up ten minutes late because, she told me, that was how it was done. She’d wear a wire and I’d listen from my hotel room. Her ultimate goal was to convince Deele she was interested in making everyone happy, but she’d need to know more about this crop disease he’d warned farmers about. That would be her entrée to Dr. Stone. In my opinion, Stone was the weak link, and the most likely to spill something she shouldn’t.

  Not that she was any less villainous than her partner, but Deele had played the ruthless game a little longer. This was essentially Stone’s first time at bat.

  The wire had me worried.

  “Don’t you have anything like this?” I’d said to her before we left the surveillance post, holding up one of my series-8 business cards.