Deep Cover (The Trigger Man Book 2), page 19
“Where did you go?” Jaya stood in the hallway, her eyes sunken and bloodshot. Her tone accusatory.
Zang shrugged. “Like I said, loose ends.”
“You won’t tell me?”
“It’s better you don’t know.”
Jaya stood motionless for a moment, used the wall to hold herself upright. “You would say that. Why should I have expected more?” She motioned down the hall. “Mackenzie’s sleeping. Earlier she was responsive. She’s lucky she survived.”
“That’s good.”
Jaya shook her head. “A ‘thank you’ would be nice.”
Zang smiled. “Sorry. I forgot my manners. Thank you, Jaya.”
The surgeon returned a faint smile. “I’ve just boiled the kettle. You want a coffee?”
“How about a tea?”
“I can do that.”
Five minutes later they sat together on the kitchen bench. Zang had worried that upon her return she would discover police or a surveillance team watching the house, but a thorough check of the street and surrounding buildings showed no sign that anyone had tracked them here.
With hot steaming mugs in their hands, Jaya and Zang sipped their beverages and stared at nothing, both too exhausted to talk. Zang soon had a headache, and if she wasn’t careful, it would turn into a migraine. She’d already drunk too much caffeine in the last twelve hours, which would only aggravate the dull but concentrated pain in her head. Sleep would help, but she needed to stay awake a little longer.
Jaya opened the refrigerator and poured two large glasses of orange juice. She passed one to Zang and drank the other. “Your blood sugar will be low. Drink up.”
Zang obeyed.
The surgeon laughed without humour. “You make one mistake, that will cost you your career if it ever comes out, and then people like you abuse it, again and again.”
“What did you do?”
Jaya laughed louder than before. “If you don’t know, I’m not telling. Enough people in your business, whatever it is, already abuse that knowledge. I don’t need more of your kind holding my dirty secret over me like some kind of threat.” She finished her orange juice. “Another day I’ve had to call in sick at the hospital. One day, my superiors will question all my absences.”
“You do this a lot? Save people from bullet wounds?”
She nodded. “More than I thought possible in a safe town like London.”
Zang finished her orange juice and stood. The sugar had helped lessen her headache, a trick to remember for the future. “Thank you for your help, Jaya. It’s not a lie when I say I appreciate it.”
“You’re leaving already?”
Zang nodded.
“Mackenzie isn’t well enough to travel.”
“That doesn’t matter. The longer we stay here, the greater the risk we put you in, and her. Bad people are looking for both of us. We need to be away from here, and soon.”
Jaya paled at the realisation she herself might be in mortal danger. “Where will you take her?”
“Better you don’t know.”
Jaya didn’t argue and just nodded again.
Zang headed down the hall. Jaya followed her. Splashes of blood stained the floors and walls. “You must clean that, and soon.”
In the bedroom, a listless Summerfield lay on the double bed, but stirred as Zang and Jaya entered. Then she winced as a fresh surge of pain erupted through her.
“A man shot you,” Zang explained. “Jaya saved your life, but now we must leave.”
Without protest, Summerfield climbed out of the bed while Zang helped her to get dressed. Ten minutes later, they were on the road in the silver Ford Fiesta Zang had stolen the previous night from a long-term car park, where its absence wouldn’t be immediately noticed.
“Mackenzie, do you have an off-the-books place we can stay?”
“Yes. A cottage in Nottingham.”
They took the back roads, avoiding built-up areas, where surveillance cameras were unlikely. The countryside was green and covered with a constant drizzle. Summerfield remained pale and unresponsive to the outside world, but she kept herself awake.
“I was thinking.” Zang broke the silence, knowing there was much to talk about, and now was as good a time as any. “My team in Kazakhstan. Everyone on it were the most vocal against Idris Walsh’s methods…” She let the statement hang as she zipped past several cyclists in their bright, body-hugging jerseys who didn’t seem to care about the miserable weather.
Summerfield didn’t answer straight away. When she did, it was a hoarse whisper. “You want to know if I think it was Walsh who tried to have me and you killed?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“It’s possible. Walsh and I only worked together for a week. But long enough for me to understand what kind of psychopath he was. Still is.”
“I’ll call Walsh soon. Fabricate a story and see how he responds. Don’t worry, I’ll set it up so he can’t find us, but I need to do this to know what kind of man he really is.”
Summerfield tensed as she readjusted her position in the passenger seat.
“Hurts like hell?”
Summerfield nodded as she gritted her teeth.
“First time you’ve taken a bullet?”
“Yes. But I’ve suffered far worse wounds.”
Zang didn’t ask. She wasn’t here to learn Summerfield’s every secret, just enough to understand what kind of mess she was in. What kind of mess they were both in.
Summerfield cleared her throat. “Mark Pierce is a good man. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a killer, and a proficient one at that. Despite few of his CIA peers liking or respecting him, he’s a hyper-efficient field operative, but also able to express the deepest sympathy and compassion. I’ve met no one like him. He also holds back much information about himself. Even when we worked together for so long and came to trust each other, there was much he didn’t tell me. If what Walsh is saying is true, that Pierce is stealing nuclear waste to make a dirty bomb, then Pierce has a good reason to that has nothing to do with terrorism or profiteering.”
“You still trust him?”
“Yes… I did… Once.”
“What stopped you?”
“Mark betrayed me in Morocco.”
“Could he have been protecting you?”
Summerfield didn’t answer. She instead stared ahead at the road and the light traffic as they fled north across England. The drizzle turned into rain, and soon the windscreen wipers operated on full speed. Minutes later she said, “You’re like Pierce in many ways.”
Zang said, “As in no one in the CIA respects me?”
“No, as in you are as competent as he is. You’re a field assassin, just like him. Probably just as hyper-efficient.”
Zang sighed through clenched teeth and stared through the windscreen wipers. “It’s all academic, Mackenzie, what you and I think. I’ll call Walsh shortly and provoke him. His actions after that will prove who the liar is. Walsh or Pierce.”
39
Heathrow Airport, United Kingdom
Idris Walsh drummed his fingers on the leather armchair as he reflected on his plan to control the world’s diamond market. He might have been too ambitious.
Too many elements had unravelled. Too many participants had failed to perform. Willpower had eroded.
The view beyond the floor-to-ceiling window of the premium lounge showed a dozen airplanes ready to take flight from Heathrow Airport to all corners of the earth. New York. Frankfurt. Dubai. Sydney. Moscow. Beijing. All cities he knew well, where he had killed men who had stood in his way, and where he had betrayed others. Drizzle flowed down the window, and rain fell on the taxiways and runways, washing away into puddles of nothingness like all those individuals who had impeded him in the past. It would be so easy to step onto one of those flights and disappear from this mess. Instead, he’d met Aaron Stone here and sent him on a mission into Central Africa to assassinate Pierce, knowing that was where his nemesis was likely to head next.
He was about to leave when his cell phone rang, and he realised he knew the number. A cell phone assigned to Rachel Zang. This, he mused, would be an interesting conversation.
“Sir?” Zang was out of breath.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in Langley?”
“Yes. Sorry about that.”
Walsh switched to his headpiece, then activated the call-tracing app on Zang’s phone. The tracker soon positioned her just outside the university town of Cambridge, about seventy miles north of Heathrow Airport. “What’s going on, Zang? I haven’t heard from you since you got back.”
“Why I’m calling, sir. I presume Stone filled you in on my five days with Pierce?”
“He did.”
“Well, I got thinking about Mackenzie Summerfield and how she could help me understand Pierce’s actions a little better.”
“I told you not to go near her.”
“I know, sir, and I’m sorry. It was a mistake. Pierce had her killed. You… saw the news?”
“Yes.”
“I tried to save Summerfield, but she bled out.”
“I’m disappointed. You led Pierce straight to her!”
“I did… I know, and I’m sorry.”
Walsh studied the people seated near him, ensured none were in earshot. “What did you do with her… body?”
“Don’t worry. No one will ever find it. But I have another problem…”
“Go on.”
“I’ve gone to ground. If I show my face anywhere public, Pierce could take me out too. I need an emergency exfil.”
Walsh drew a silent breath. This was the opportunity he was waiting for, and a plan formed in his mind. “I can help with that. Where are you now?”
“The CIA’s Birmingham safe house.” He knew this was a lie because the app placed her in Cambridge. “It’s just me. What do you want me to do?”
“Stay there. I’ll come to you. Just need a few hours to get your exfil sorted.”
“You’re here? In England.”
“Yes. Stay where you are, Zang. Go dark. Don’t contact anyone, and don’t share any intel until I can talk to you face to face.”
“Okay. Why face to face? Isn’t that a risk for you? I might lead Pierce to you as well?”
“There are developments…”
“What kind?”
“Not over a line that might be compromised.”
“But we’re encrypted?”
“Trust me, Zang. I need to tell you this to your face.”
Several seconds passed in silence. Then she said, “Okay. I’ll see you soon. Thank you, sir.”
The call ended. Walsh kept his app locked in on her cell phone signal, which was motionless for the moment. Eight minutes passed before it moved, at a speed of forty miles per hour, headed west towards Birmingham.
Zang should have died in Kazakhstan. The criminals Trager had hired should have killed the four CIA operators and field support officers and left Pierce’s corpse as the culprit. Four CIA employees who for too long had questioned Walsh’s methods and motives for going after the Trigger Man. When Pierce had saved Zang’s life, fuck knew what he had told her in those five days they spent together, and what she had told him. Zang’s meeting with Mackenzie Summerfield would have been to confirm whatever it was they had discussed, which would be nothing that supported the fake narrative Walsh had spent months preparing and pushing out into the world.
Like Pierce, Zang had to die. There was no other path for her now. He’d perform the messy task himself if he had to.
But the CIA operator was no fool, and a highly trained and efficient field operative. He’d have to be careful with her.
He suspected she knew that he knew she’d turned traitor, and would wait to trap him. But Walsh hadn’t survived this long with the CIA through luck alone. He would find her first, and he would eliminate her, and then he would hide her body so no one ever found it again, just like she had claimed to have done with Mackenzie Summerfield. The bitch was full of lies.
Walsh paid for the drinks, found his BMW Series 8 Coupé in the long-term car park, then drove with speed towards Birmingham and his forced date with the problematic woman whose life expectancy was long overdue.
40
Gaborone, Botswana
Pierce stepped off the goods truck, thanked the driver for the lift, then stood for a moment on the streets of Gaborone as he gathered his bearings.
Botswana’s capital was a mixture of British Colonial and modern buildings. The sun shone overhead in a clear sky, and the weather was a perfect thirty plus degrees, or about eighty-five degrees in the old system. People in their well-cut clothes smiled at each other and didn’t pick up their pace when they thought someone was about to mug them. Thanks to a bountiful diamond industry, low levels of corruption and a progressive government, Botswana was one of Africa’s success stories, and that was obvious in the serenity before him.
He found a modern bar, the Zenyatta Mondatta, and stepped inside. Being early morning, the few patrons drank non-alcoholic beverages of coffee, tea, and fruit juices. Pierce ordered a coffee, a beef burger and chips. He hadn’t eaten a meal like it in more than half a year, and his mouth soon salivated thinking about its taste.
A wall-mounted wide-screen television played a clip from the BBC World News channel. An image of Rupert Ponsonby drew Pierce to the screen, a public relations photo of the Englishman flashing a smug grin. A reporter appeared and proclaimed that the police still hunted for the second of two Australian suspects in the assassination attempt on the Polytope chief executive officer. The first had died during a dramatic shoot-out with Cape Town police. A sketch of the surviving man flashed up with a passing resemblance to Alex Trager.
“Crazy South Africans,” said a bar worker when he brought Pierce his food. The young man wore a brightly patterned shirt, stoplight red jeans and yellow canvas shoes. “Highest murder rate in the world, South Africa has, and they make a fuss about one rich white guy who survived a single attack.”
Pierce nodded and thanked him for the food.
“Where you from?” the man asked.
“America. The United States.”
“You’re a long way from home.”
“Quit my job two months ago. Thought I’d challenge myself to an African overland adventure.”
“On your own?”
Pierce nodded again. “More people should come to Africa. It’s a beautiful continent and not anywhere as bad as the Western media likes to make it out to be.”
“That’s for sure. Let me know if you want a refill on the coffee. Complimentary second cup before eleven.”
“Thank you, I will.”
The man returned to the bar, and Pierce ate. In between watching the room for any potential threats, his eyes often returned to the television. The BBC had come into information that Rupert Ponsonby maintained a financial relationship with the Central African Republic warlord Captain Daniel Eloko, also described as an evangelistic and fanatical Christian terrorist. The Hague wanted Eloko to stand trial for many international crimes, including genocide in the Seleka-Anti-Balaka conflict, and a host of other crimes Pierce already knew about.
As the report continued, Pierce couldn’t help but smile as the reporter laid out the details as he had provided them, one fact after the other.
Recent documents provided by an anonymous governmental source, said the reporter, revealed how Polytope Diamonds frequently paid off Eloko through various front companies, which the reporter then listed. Highlighted sections of correspondence between the two individuals detailed how Ponsonby planned to construct a full production mine in Eloko’s territory, with twenty per cent of the profits going to Eloko when the mine was operational.
The BBC and likely other networks across the globe had run with the same intel package Valeriya and Yebin had provided to Pierce. There was no mention of the former Australian SASR soldiers Alex Trager or Javor Terzic, but at least Polytope’s links to an African warlord and conflict diamonds were now in the public domain.
Pierce grinned. Twice now he had struck at Walsh and his co-conspirators. They would wonder how and when he would strike again.
When he finished his meal, he paid at the counter, then took a taxi to the airport. Walsh, Trager, Ponsonby and Eloko would soon congregate in Bayanga, and that was where Pierce would seek his final retribution.
During the drive past avenues of lush trees, his thoughts turned to the CIA operator Rachel Zang.
Despite his tormented state of mind during their time together, he had enjoyed her company — particularly when he believed she might be a Russian prostitute called Irina. Pierce again wondered how much of that personality was genuine, and how much she had faked so Pierce would only see her as Zang had wanted him to see her?
He also considered the possibility that she worked for Idris Walsh and was hunting him even now. That she was as dangerous an enemy as the rest of them.
Pierce pushed the thought from his mind. The next stages of his plan required careful execution, which started with a visit to another location from his pre-CIA past.
And then it involved smuggling himself into Central Africa via its neighbour Cameroon.
41
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Athunderstorm erupted late into the night as Idris Walsh entered Birmingham, yet the overcast weather suited him. Rain kept most people inside, or if they were outside, they hid behind hats, coats and underneath umbrellas. No one would see or remember him coming or leaving.
Zang’s cell phone had deactivated as soon as she had entered the outskirts of the city. But he expected that. The operator was merely applying tradecraft as taught to her by the CIA.
The safe house’s location was in a middle-class suburb of brown, two-storey houses packed close together with lush green garden frontages. Bars protected the safe house’s windows, and all curtains were closed. Walsh knew from CIA manuals the glass was bulletproof and the wooden doors hid steel-lined armour.
