Enemy Agents, page 23
Jack asked just one question, “Who set me up?”
He got the response he expected, which was silence.
“Call the President,” he said. “The President trusts me. He owes me one. You’re arresting the wrong man. Whoever called in my location is the one who planted that packsack full of my gear.” Jack knew he sounded crazy now. His excuses were flimsy, his evidence non-existent. Someone had known he would try to stop the theft of nuclear materials from this site, and they had known exactly when to plant the incriminating evidence. Digamma, whatever they were, were good.
The agents said nothing, and their faces revealed less. If they were from the government, they were a top CIA extraction team; if they were soldiers from the storage site, they were probably among the best of the best. Hall could risk taking them on, but with his handcuffs chained to his ankle shackles,he’d have narrow odds of winning the fight. Twenty years earlier, or even ten, he’d have been foolish enough to try it anyway, and strong enough to survive. But Jack Hall was in his fifties now, and he wasn’t likely to defeat three armed men while shackled and surrounded. Still, the itch was there. The nagging feeling at the base of his skull that told himYoudon’t have time for this. Do something. It was a feeling he hated, but rarely ignored. He swallowed hard and tried to push the feeling out of his thoughts.
After about twenty minutes of riding in tense silence, the three vehicles pulled onto interstate 85 going east. It was past dinnertime on a weekday so the traffic wasn’t bad. The convoy picked up speed and Hall leaned back in the seat and let out a sigh through his nose. It was a deliberate test to see how the agents would respond. The one on his right, a short white guy with a crewcut, responded to Hall’s sigh by letting his guard down. His eyes looked out the side window and his shoulders slumped a little. For that instant, he wasn’t on edge, and wasn’t protecting his weapon.
It was enough.
Hall threw his body up and to the right, whipping his head sideways at the short man. His headbutt snapped the agent’s nose to the side. That kind of jolting pain would flood his eyes with tears and distract him. As the agent screamed, Hall was already grabbing the gun from the agent’s shoulder holster. A small Sig.
Sensing the other soldier, the Asian man, going for his own weapon, Hall pulled his feet up, leaning his whole weight on the short man, and kicked at the Asian guy with both feet. The chain between his shackles took the Asian in the front teeth, breaking them. Without hesitation, Hall raked the chain down the man’s chin to the hand at his chest. When the chain hit his knuckles, the agent dropped his gun, which clattered the floor between his feet.
“Don’t you dare reach!” screamed Hall, who now had the short man’s sidearm aimed at the Asian’s bloody face. “Hands on your knees! Lean your head toward me.”
The agents slowly complied, tilting his head toward Hall. Hall raised the gun and hammed it down, cracking the top of the agent’s head and knocking him out cold. That was where Hall had made his mistake. Because he had leaned over, the Asian man’s body had nowhere to go but straight down into Hall’s lap. That was enough of a burden and distraction that the short man was able to get his hands around Hall’s throat. The agent was cutting off his air, but so far he hadn’t cinched the choke hold enough to cut off the arteries and knock Hall unconscious. He didn’t want to kill any of these guys, but as the panic of choking started to take over, he raised the gun, angling it backward at the short man.
The black Jeep at the front of the convoy exploded.
The green Hummer hit the wreckage at full speed.
For a second Hall felt that he was free from the short guy’s choke hold, and for another moment he was weightless.
Then there was just pain.
Hall had crashed cars before, but generally he was in the driver’s seat, hitting an airbag. This time he was in the back, laid out across the seat and entangled with two other men. When the hummer rolled—and he couldn’t count how many times it rolled—Hall was bombarded with impacts from every direction. The Asian man’s head and arms pummelled his torso. The short man’s arms cracked against Hall’s skull. The roof of the Hummer hit him like a wrecking ball.
When it was over, Hall had lost the gun. His wrists and ankles were bleeding where the steel restraints had dug into him. He was pretty sure he had a broken rib, and his head was incredibly heavy. The whole right side of his head felt like it expanded to double size, and his ears were ringing so loud that no other sound could be heard. He freed himself from the other men’s bodies and felt for the window. He felt only air, crawled forward with his hand outstretched, and the feeling of empty air continued for a distance that seemed too far, as if he should have found the Hummer’s door already. He had to make an effort to lift his head to look, since just tilting it upward sent jolts of pain through his whole body. His hand was sticking out through the hole where the window had been. Shaking off cobwebs, he felt along the bottom of the window frame for a door handle and couldn’t find it. It took a moment to realize that in an upside-down car the handle would be above the window, not below. He was vaguely, distantly aware that he was thinking too slowly, his mind not understanding what his eyes were showing him. In a very dreamlike way, he knew that his brain wasn’t working right.
Crawling out, he was surprised that the Hummer was still on the pavement. In the roll he was sure they must have gone off the side and down the embankment. The team from the silver Mercedes were hiding behind their car, popping out occasionally to return fire at whoever were inside a maroon plumbing van parked two car-lengths away. Unable to hear anything and with blurry vision, Hall didn’t realize the implications of the flashing light coming from the van’s windows. The windows were a constant flash of muzzle flare from a machine gun, but Jack just stared at it, trying to figure out why the van was flickering like that. Once he clued into the fact that the van was full of enemies who had attacked the convoy, and that someone was attacking the CIA team, his instinct was to crawl toward the silver Mercedes and join the fight. He struggled to crawl, pain flashing though his numbness with each movement, and saw a flicker of recognition from the nearest member of the Mercedes team when they saw him coming.
Then the plumbing van moved, cutting him off from the Mercedes. The side door slid open and two men in black ski masks jumped out to pick him up and pull him into the van. Once he was in, the van took off. He saw the thick barrel of an RPG launcher sticking out from under the seat and understood what had blown up the Jeep.
Someone stuck a needle in Hall’s arm. The stinging made him turn to look, and there he saw a familiar-looking man with a face that was half-melted. Of course it was him. Who else could lead an attack against a CIA kill team and win so easily?
“You’ve always been a traitor . . .” he managed to say, still trying to focus his eyes on his captor.
“Go to sleep, Jack,” the man said in that gruff, familiar voice.
#
Jack woke up in a bed, shirtless, his head and ribs bandaged. He was tied to the bedposts at hands and ankles, although the captors had been kind enough to wrap gauze around those areas before they tied him up.
“Hello?” he called out, grateful that he could still hear.
His voice triggered the sound of movement and a man stood up from a chair in the corner. He was a big man, muscular and square-jawed, but his grey hair and deep wrinkles showed his age. Jack was familiar with him, having chased him around the Mediterranean for most of the nineties. Anton Sidorov. Former KGB, but since the fall of the USSR he was extending his talents in all manner of illegal trades. Killer for hire. Drug smuggler. Some informants called him the king of the Russian underground, others said he was just a trained dog whom the real shot-callers turned to when times were tough. Either way, Jack hadn’t wanted his first face-to-face to happen like this.
“Sidorov.”
“Jack Hall.” Sidorov smirked. “It’s insulting to meet an adversary like you under such circumstances, but sometimes these games are necessary.”
“Games?”
“Distraction. Misdirection. You were arrested for treason, Jack. But you broke out of custody. Cameras in the truck saw you fight the guards just before the kill squad came to free you. Lots of dead Americans, Jack.”
Then there was the gruff voice again, the hard, hateful American who had killed the CIA team on the highway and stuck a needle in Jack’s arm. He stood in the doorway, smoking a cigar and squinting at Jack.
“It’s your turn to be public enemy number one now, Jack,” said Shark Scarret. “Let’s see how you like it.”
30
Chris Quarrel was lingering at a railing, looking down at one of the best looking rooms in Washington. The reading room in the Library of Congress, with tables proportioned to form concentric rings inside the round room, was something Quarrel hadn’t expected to be so impressed by. It was simultaneously historic and modern, busy but not crowded. It felt like a building that was important both historically andright now. And Quarrel was waiting for the CIA to escort him to a private room to show off some documents that were definitely not housed here.
After he had been unable to call Thorpe and warn him that Fatale was tricking him, Quarrel had called the number from Hinkston’s business card. The card only listed the name “Hinkston” and a phone number, and Quarrel felt foolish that he didn’t even know the guy’s first name.
“Central Intelligence Agency,” answered a pleasant-sounding woman.
“Director Hinkston, please.”
“Authorization?”
“I don’t have one. Just tell him it’s Quarrel from Canada. Regarding a Ms. Reville.”
“Hold the line, sir.”
Quarrel waited for five minutes before the telephone clicked repeatedly. Quarrel was still standing in the kitchen of the CSIS-2 safe house belonging to Edwin Brown, while Swift slept in the bedroom with the door open. Finally, Hinkston’s voice came on, sarcastic and angry. “Mr. Quarrel, so nice of you to think of me. I hear you killed a bunch of men in my back yard this morning.”
“I don’t know what you mean, but if a bunch of people were dead, would you be able to tell me who they were working for?”
“The guys you killed were Americans, actually. And don’t play games with me when you shoot up an apartment down the highway from Langley.”
“What?” Quarrel shouted, his voice a little too loud. Swift stirred in the bedroom. She walked into the kitchen, stretching and yawning. She opened up Mr. Brown’s fridge. It was mostly empty, but there were a few unopened bottles of Gatorade, so she took one. She sat on the counter and sipped it, her eyes alert as she watched Quarrel cautiously.
Hinkston continued, and seemed to delight in layout the dangers that Quarrel faced. “They were Americans. Born here, trained here. Former Marines who went pro about six years back. We’ve seen their work before, mostly in South America. These are the guys the drug cartels use when their own soldiers can’t get it done. Honestly, I’m surprised you got out alive. These guys don’t mess around.”
“They shot the other guy first. Gave me a chance to hide.”
“Of course they did. After all, someone was impersonating Agent Smith. But you knew that, didn’t you, Mr. Quarrel?”
Quarrel wondered if Hinkston could identify Matthew Crowe but chose to ignore that for now. “And who did they work for?”
“Anyone who pays the bills.”
“So I still can’t tell who to trust in this mess.”
“Never trust, Mr. Quarrel. Only use people as long as you need them. And I hear you want to use my witness.”
“My witness,” Quarrel corrected, “she had some documents, they were some kind of blueprints or schematics. Per your request, I didn’t make a copy for myself and now I need them back. I’ve got evidence of something big and I need to piece it together.”
Hinkston’s end of the conversation went totally silent, and Quarrel knew he’d been placed on hold. Hinkston was talking to someone else and didn’t want Quarrel to hear. Swift knew it too and interjected.
“Who the hell are you talking to?” Quarrel waved her off as Hinkston came back on the line. “Sorry, Mr. Q, but the information on those pages was very sensitive. We’re not in the business of handing out state secrets.”
“Tell me about the array, Mr. Hinkston.”
“Array?”
“That’s what’s on those plans, isn’t it? Some kind of high-tech machine you guys cooked up. Funny how GX had that data on their server and how an international terrorist group is sending coded messages about it.”
“Which group is that?”
“I’m not in the business of giving away my information for free, Mr. Hinkston. By the way, did you know GX is run by a KGB assassin?”
Hinkston blustered that he was “tired of games,” but then the line went silent. Someone else had pushed the hold button and cut off Hinkston in mid-sentence. There was another silent wait where Quarrel could practically feel Swift’s eyes poking him. Hinkston returned, sounding deflated. “OK, Quarrel, you have a deal. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. We’ll meet tonight. You’re calling from D.C. so how about we give you a nice tourist destination. Library of Congress, twenty-hundred hours. Got it?”
“Got it. And Mr. Hinkston?”
“Yes?”
“Do you have a first name?”
Hinkston hung up.
Quarrel had instructed Swift to use whatever resources she had available to plan a trip back to Zurich. She swore she could arrange passports, and other IDs, good enough to get them through an airport without Harry Milton or CIB knowing about it. While she went out to manage that, Quarrel came to the Library to see what Hinkston had to share.
His pocket vibrated. Quarrel had ditched the cell phone he usually carried; the one whose number he had given out to Milton and everyone involved in the investigation. But he had kept the second phone, the one only Thorpe knew about. It was a relief to finally hear from Thorpe, although it was worrying that he had been alone with Fatale for so long.
It was a text:I have photos of the traitor. Will deliver to you. Where?
Quarrel typed back:What happened with Fatale?
Thorpe:I will explain it all tonight. On my way to see Milton right now. Meet tonight?
Quarrel wondered if he could trust Thorpe, but remembered Hinkston’sadvice.OK. Meet me at Library of Congress, 1 hour.
Quarrel deleted the messages.
A man in a navy blue suit approached Quarrel. “Mr. Quarrel? Director Hinkston is waiting. I’ll take that cell phone.”
Quarrel didn’t bother to ask Navy Blue’s name. He was one of the CIA-types who wouldn’t even bother to use an alias. He would just smirk and not respond, as if his name was an unpronounceable look of contempt. It was no wonder that Milton had trusted an impossible-to-read robot like Smith, considering how common such men were in various roles within the intelligence world. Guys who had maybe been military, or perhaps trained somewhere off-the-grid, who believed that showing an emotion—any emotion—would betray state secrets. Quarrel had once believed that Hershey would eventually become one of these drones, but the person who drove a fertilizer bomb into CSIS-2 had guaranteed that Hershey’s career ended as a functionary in lower-middle-management.
God, Quarrel thought,I actually miss that brown-nosing asshole.
Quarrel allowed the navy blue spook to lead him down a hallway and into a private reading room where Hinkston’s hulking figure waited, leaning over a small chestnut table. Quarrel was still impressed by the American’s imposing size. For someone who seemed like a desk job type, Hinkston sure was huge. Once Quarrel was inside the room, Navy Blue nodded to his superior and left the room, closing and locking the door behind him. No doubt he would also block the wooden door with his impressive frame while Quarrel saw what he came to see.
“Where’s my information?” Hinkston demanded without so much as a greeting.
Quarrel untucked his shirt and pulled the folder out of the back of his pants, where it had been resting against his back.
“How clever, Mr. Quarrel. If someone decided to chase you, you could have had my government’s secrets falling out of your ass.”
“The group is called Digamma. Archaic letter F. As in archaic number six. As in six people who once had a purpose, but now exist with no defined meaning or allegiance. There were six members in the early nineties, founded after the USSR fell. Two Americans, Two Ruskies, a Brit and a private interest. The group’s founder, also called Digamma, was Martin Mercier.”
“Who?”
“Exactly. He was an assassin. Ended up mostly aligned with KGB. This group got together to erase him from your files so he could slip away anonymously. The only people who even had his prints on file were the Brits.”
Hinkston grabbed the folder from Quarrel with one of his massive gorilla hands and flipped through it so fast it was hard to believe he was reading anything. “Where did you get these? Most names are redacted. Not much information to be found in black sharpie marks.”
“I got them from a dead American. Matt Crowe. He didn’t die after all. Well, he’s deadnow . . . ”
“In that parking garage.” Hinkston paused, thinking of the right words to use in front of an unknown like Quarrel. “He was disguised as Smith. So Smith was the mole then?”
“Smith was the tip of the iceberg. Crowe was the one who finger-painted that symbol on the wall and he was the one who mailed it to my office in Ottawa, too. Trying to start an investigation outside of England or the US. Hoping to shine a light on Mercier before any of the moles could stop him.”
