Thomas Caine series Boxset

by Andrew Warren

  He flipped another page in the file to find a beautiful girl staring back at him. The photo was black and white, but he could tell her hair was lighter than most Japanese girls, an auburn brown. Her skin was starkly pale, almost pure white on the glossy photo paper.

  She was reclining on her side, propped up on her arms on a small bed. The details of the room were blurry, but Caine guessed it was a flat or apartment, perhaps a friend’s or boyfriend’s. But her eyes ... Caine could not imagine anyone looking at a lover with such haunted intensity.

  Hitomi Kusaka.

  Or so he assumed. The pictures were simply labeled “Hitomi.” There was no other information about her in the file.

  He leaned back in his chair. That’s wrong. Rich bastard like Kusaka, with enough juice to pull favors from the goddamn CIA, but no birth certificate for his daughter? No family pictures or outrageously expensive birthday parties or vacations abroad? No paparazzi photos of her cavorting at nightclubs or stumbling out of limousines? He supposed they could be paranoid, privacy conscious. But it still felt off.

  He sighed and looked around the empty, dingy room. This was probably the most pleasant thirty minutes he’d experienced since arriving at this prison.

  Hell with it.

  There was a business card taped to the front of the file folder with Rebecca’s name and phone number on it. Nothing else. Caine picked up the ancient phone and listened to the dial tone for a moment, turning the dark possibilities over and over in his mind. With a shrug and a sigh, he dialed the number on the card.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.”

  Rebecca paused. “Change your mind?”

  “Maybe. Does Bernatto know about this? Does he know I’m involved?”

  “No. He doesn’t know I approached you. He doesn’t want to know. He wants a deniable asset in case this blows up in our face.”

  “All right. Fine. I’m in. Fifty thousand. Half up front. In cash.”

  Rebecca was quiet for a moment. He could hear her soft breathing through the phone.

  “Why didn’t you come back?” she asked. “If you didn’t do it, if Bernatto sold you out, why didn’t you come back to prove it?”

  He thought for a moment, unsure how much to reveal to her. She was tenacious, he knew, and that could be dangerous. “I did come back,” he said. “It didn’t work out. And if I stayed, someone would have gotten hurt.”

  “You mean me? Did Allan threaten me?”

  “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters; it was all bullshit. I killed people, and I thought I was making the world safer, better. But all I was doing was making people like Bernatto richer.”

  “This matters, Tom. If Kusaka’s intel is real, lives are at stake. I have to know you can do this, that you’re not just going to disappear again.”

  He thought for a moment. “I won’t. Not until it’s done. Fifty thousand, twenty-five up front. Cash.”

  “No.” Her voice became cold and hard. “Not on this job. You get paid when you find her. Then you can crawl back under your rock if you want. I’ll send a car for you tomorrow morning.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Not yet.”

  He smiled. “Smart. And Rebecca?”

  “What?”

  He looked around the small, drab room.

  “Send the car now.”

  “I will.”

  Caine listened to the static on the phone for a moment, then hung up. He walked back to the table and picked up the picture of Hitomi.

  He wondered who she was looking at. He had a feeling he would soon find out.

  Chapter Nine

  It was about 5:00 p.m. when the plane landed at Tokyo Narita International Airport. It took another hour to clear immigration.

  In the men’s room, Caine splashed cold water on his face and scrubbed his skin. Then he ran damp fingers though his messy hair, slicking it back. He eyed his reflection in the mirror. The face staring back at him looked weary, on edge. There was a hollowness to his features, a shadow that seemed to hang over the raw, tan skin of his face. His eyes twitched like those of a predatory animal, caged for far too long.

  He knew he was giving off bad energy, allowing the darkness inside him to creep its way onto his face, into his voice. Back when he had been operational, he could turn on and turn off the dangerous parts of his psyche, put the killer in the box until he was needed.

  But now ... Lau’s setup, the fight in the prison, seeing Rebecca again after all these years ... there was no box. The scars on his soul, only just healed, were torn open again. The darkness was out, for all to see—and that was dangerous. People keyed into that vibe, whether by training or simply an instinct for self-preservation.

  Caine had caught the hesitation in the immigration officer’s eyes as he handed over his carefully forged passport and visa. Luckily, the official had decided it wasn’t worth his time to stop a lone American tourist with no criminal record.

  He took a deep breath. He hadn’t been on mission in years. His body and mind were not sharp, he knew. Not at their peak. But they were good enough.

  As he turned away from the mirror, he caught a look in his own eyes, a look he recognized. It was the same haunted, intense stare of the girl in the picture. Hitomi.

  He stopped in the shopping concourse to buy some clothes and other basics with the credit card Rebecca had provided. They had both agreed it was a bad idea for him to return to his apartment, in case Lau had people watching for him. Instead, he’d travelled in some old clothes from a bug-out bag stashed at a local bar.

  He didn’t like using the card. He knew it was a data point. It could track his purchases and location, but he figured she already knew where and when his flight arrived. He wasn’t giving up any new details.

  The glass doors leading out of the baggage area opened with a rush of air. Caine carried his lone suitcase and shopping bags out onto the sidewalk. He took a deep breath. The smell of the air filled his brain with hazy images. He had spent two years here, most of it pretending to be someone else. The images in his mind flashed past, like a movie playing on a warped, translucent screen ... a jumble of memories and lies. He couldn’t remember which was which anymore.

  As he joined the taxi line, he pulled out the phone Rebecca had given him. It was an older model from the agency, but still global and encrypted. And, of course, completely trackable. None of which matters, he thought. I’m going to use it only once.

  He dialed the number she had given him from memory. The phone rang twice before she picked up. He sighed and waited for her to speak the recognition code, as they had arranged.

  “I take it you landed. How was the flight?”

  “Okay. The food was bad, and I already saw the movie. But I bought a book in the airport. Have you read any Basho?”

  “No. I’m more of a Murakami fan.” The responses were all correct. The names of the authors they used signified that neither party was speaking under duress or suspected others were listening in.

  “Do you have an update for me?”

  “No, the deadline is the same. Four days. And keep in mind, the home office didn’t approve these expenses, so it’s vital these negotiations are successful.”

  Great. Typical Bernatto. The higher-ups at the CIA hadn’t approved his little favor for Kusaka. Probably didn’t even know he was in Japan.

  “I’ll do my best,” he said. “And Rebecca?”

  “Yes?”

  “Next time you hear from me, it will be a different number.”

  “What? That’s not—”

  He hung up on her, popped the back off the phone, and removed the battery and SIM card. Then he dropped the bundle in a trash can as he walked past. He would keep her informed of his progress, but he had no intention of letting her, or anyone else at the CIA, track his movements.

  He walked up to a waiting taxicab. As he approached, the rear door automatically swung open, powered by a motor. For some reason, this strange little detail made him
smile. He left his bags on the sidewalk, but watched to make sure the attendant placed them in the open trunk.

  The driver, an older man, looked back and blinked. “Park Hyatt, Onegai shimasu,” Caine said.

  The cabbie smiled, his eyes wide with surprise. Caine’s Japanese was not fluent, but it was better than the average tourist. As the car pulled away from the curb, he realized his instructions were the first time he had spoken the language since....

  He halted that train of thought. Instead, he took in another deep breath of the cold night air. Here, far from the metropolitan center of Tokyo, the countryside consisted of rolling hills, dark against the moonlit sky. The air smelled of trees and grass and damp earth. It was invigorating. Caine closed his eyes and cleared his mind.

  The past is in the past. Deal with it later. You’re working now.

  He opened his eyes and focused on the rearview mirror. He scanned the traffic behind them, looking for headlights that seemed too close or matched their movements. From time to time, he would look at the cars that drove alongside them. He searched for warning signs that they were being followed, but each car seemed to pursue its own, independent path. Each driver was moving towards their own destiny in the dark, cold night.

  Occasionally, he would take interest in a driver or passenger, a pretty girl or a young man with glasses, flowers on the passenger seat next to him. He wondered where they were going, what waited for them at their destination.

  If only you could answer that question for yourself.

  The cab ride from Narita to Metro Tokyo was normally about an hour, but Caine requested several stops along the way. First, he asked the driver to pull into the parking lot of a convenience store. “Chotto matte,” he apologized. Just a moment.

  With practiced ease, he rubbed his eyes and tilted his head down as he entered the store and walked past the counter, obscuring his features from the domed security camera.

  The clerk, a younger man maybe in his early twenties, greeted him with the traditional welcome: “Irasshaimase.” He didn’t even look up from his manga as he said it. Caine approached the newsstand in front of the shop window. He flipped through a few magazines, letting himself dissolve into the background of the store.

  Another man came in, wearing a suit and tie. He trudged over to the glass cabinet of cold drinks and grabbed a strange-looking beverage, whose label read “Pocari Sweat.” Then he made his way up to counter. Business as usual.

  Caine looked up from his magazine to scan the parking lot outside. He was looking for cars that lingered too long—people standing alone, watching the parking lot or his cab. But he saw nothing that aroused suspicion. Cars came and went, people finished their drinks and left. Only his taxi remained in the parking lot, its engine quietly humming.

  He dropped the magazine back into the rack, returned to the car, and the driver pulled back into traffic. Caine requested two more random stops, but there were no issues. The confused, inquisitive glances from the driver made Caine smile. He was sure the man was beginning to wonder just who was in his cab.

  It was a little after eight when they pulled into the circular driveway of the Park Hyatt Tokyo. A valet stood next to the cab, even though the rear door opened automatically. Caine handed the driver the credit card Rebecca had given him, knowing it would electronically place him at the hotel. The driver handed it back, along with his bill. As he signed the small piece of paper, he started to add in a sizable tip for the driver. Then he remembered that tipping was not the norm in Japan. He shrugged and signed for the larger amount anyway. The driver looked at the total, then looked back up, confused. Caine smiled. “Gokuru sama deshita.” Thank you for your trouble.

  He slipped out of the cab and went around back to grab his bags from the porter. The driver sped off. Caine looked up at the hotel.

  Three gleaming towers pierced the night sky, each taller than the next, like a series of steps. Each tower was capped by a sparkling glass pyramid, traced by glowing neon light. They were brilliant spears of metal and glass, piercing the dark purple sky. It was beautiful, but Caine had no intention of sleeping anywhere the agency could trace him.

  He checked in at the front desk and let the porter bring his bags up for him. The room was spacious, modern, and luxurious. He barely even looked at it as he threw his belongings on the bed.

  He pulled out a roll of black electrical tape, which he used to block the security hole in the door. He wasn’t planning to stay there, but no sense in giving that away. Next he threw some of his new clothes and a few essentials into one of the larger shopping bags.

  He left the room, slipping a toothpick into the doorjamb as he closed the door behind him. When the door clicked shut, he broke off the stub of wood he held in his hand, leaving the other half of the stick wedged invisibly in the door frame. If anyone opened the door to search the room, the tiny fragment would fall, and alert him if he returned.

  He had to laugh. The people he was protecting himself from, the people who had tried to kill him in the past, were part of the largest, most well-funded intelligence agency on the planet. They had spy satellites, remote surveillance drones, and an unlimited army of operatives at their disposal. And he was relying on toothpicks and hotel switches for protection.

  He took a combination of elevators and stairs down to the lobby, slipping out through a side entrance. He avoided the main driveway and taxi line. Instead, he walked a few blocks north and managed to flag down a cab on Minami-dori.

  He had the cab drop him off just outside Kabukicho, a common destination for lone male tourists. He walked around the neighborhood for a bit, re-acclimating himself with the city’s frenetic heartbeat. He made sure he looked like just another tourist, window-shopping, taking in the lights and sounds. He walked past the twin red arches that led into the infamous red light district, but he didn’t pass through.

  When he was certain no one was following him, he caught another cab to the Shinjuku Prince Hotel.

  In his emergency stash he’d kept a spare wallet, complete with ID and credit cards under the name John Wilson. The cover wouldn’t hold up under intense scrutiny, but for three to four days, it would serve his purpose.

  It was 10:30 p.m. when he finally rode the elevator to the fourteenth floor of the Prince. The hotel towered in the Tokyo sky. The building was a thin slab of black granite, like an ancient monolith, watching over the city. It was not as fancy or ostentatious as the Park Hyatt, but it was known for its spectacular views of the city.

  Caine stepped into his room and drew back the drapes. The lights of Tokyo spread out before him, a rolling carpet of stars, twinkling, flickering, burning, and dying. They surrounded him, taking up his entire field of vision. There was no other city like it. No other place on Earth felt so alive. It was like watching evolution on fast-forward.

  He locked the door behind him and taped over the security hole. He considered dragging the dresser in front of the door, but he was just too tired.

  He collapsed on the bed and looked around the small room, his vision blurry. It was nothing like the spacious, luxury suite he had left at the Hyatt. But it was anonymous. No one knew he was here. He was hidden. Invisible. Safe.

  And that was the greatest luxury of all.

  Within minutes, he was sound asleep. No nightmares disturbed his rest. Instead, he dreamed of dark, haunted eyes. They were waiting for him in the sea of light, just outside his window.

  Chapter Ten

  Rebecca wiped her brow and took several shallow sips from her water bottle. She had begun her run early, leaving the lobby of the Bali Hai Bay Hotel at 6:00 a.m. She had been out only an hour, but the temperature was already in the high eighties and climbing. The humid air made the park trails and walking streets feel like a sauna, and her sleek body glowed with a sheen of sweat.

  She had circled around the hotel and then made her way down the Bali Hai pier and back. The pier was of recent construction, part of Pattaya’s efforts to attract family tourists. The pristine,
white beams jutted out over the teal sea water. An array of bright, colorful fishing boats were docked at the various berths along the way. Few tourists ventured out so early in the morning, and she was grateful to have the serene beauty of the ocean to herself for a short time. But even the stunning view couldn’t distract her thoughts from one uncomfortable subject...

  Caine.

  She was still processing the series of events that had brought him back into her life. One moment, he was a memory, a shadow, dead to her and the world. The next, he was standing in front of her, staring at her with those intense green eyes. She shivered in spite of the heat and humidity. The anger in those eyes, in his voice ... something had happened to him. Something not in his file. Something so bad he preferred the anonymity of death rather than seek her out. Rather than confide in her.

  Operation Big Blind. His last mission. The file said Caine had been working a long-term deep cover operation, posing as an arms dealer and international criminal operating out of Japan. Through his association with the yakuza, he was able to forge connections to Aydin Turel, a Turkish arms dealer. Turel was believed to be the primary weapons supplier to a collection of fundamentalist terror groups in Afghanistan and throughout the Middle East.

  Turel was simply a step along the way in Caine’s mission, which was to identify and eliminate key players in the White Leopards. The Leopards were an upstart drug cartel operating out of the southern Kandahar region of Afghanistan. Their drug money was believed to finance numerous extremist terror groups in the area.

  The yakuza linked Caine to Turel. Caine gained his trust, then set him up for a CIA rendition. All standard procedure. After a short but brutal stay in a black site prison, Turel was ready to play ball. He vouched for Caine and introduced him to the Leopards.

  A meet had been set, complete with merchandise samples. Caine and his partner, an operative named Tyler, were both there when something had gone wrong.