“Whoa, now,” Burke said. “Hold on a minute. Just because we’re no longer tasked with killing Perry doesn’t mean we’re okay to freelance. We need to contact Moore and find out what the hell has been going on before we embark on any side missions.”
“I can tell you right now the answer is no.”
The voice came from behind them and they whirled, guns materializing in their hands.
Perry’s eyes felt as if they might pop from their sockets.
J. Carlton Moore stood at the back of the room, apparently having just come from the rear hallway.
“Ho-ly shit,” Burke said. “Speaking of the devil. What the hell are you doing here?”
“It must be important if he’s out of his office,” Adabelle said. “I don’t know anyone who hates fieldwork more than Moore.”
“Right you are, my dear. It is not, shall we say, where I am at my best.”
Burke coughed. “Pardon my monotony, but—what the hell are you doing here?”
“Stopping you all from engaging in an unfortunate series of really stupid things.”
“That originated from you,” Lyndsey accused.
“No, Archer. The Code Grey was never from me. I admit I was angry with Perry for disobeying my directive to return home, but I never put a hit on him. Not that he didn’t deserve it, mind you.” Moore cast a sour glance in Perry’s direction. “Not only did he breach the chain of command, but he unwittingly assisted in the overall plot that caused this entire mess. I sent Jacobs to stop you while you were still in Rome. I assume he didn’t find you.”
“Jacobs?” asked Lyndsey.
“Older, balding, favors dark sport coats?”
Burke and Lyndsey glanced at one another, remembering the man at the café who had not fared as well as they during the attack.
Burke was relieved when Adabelle changed the subject. “But you called me to insure the Grey was executed,” Adabelle said.
“Again, not me.”
“You mentioned a plot,” Burke said. “Care to elaborate? Exactly which plot are you referring to?”
“The plot to destroy SpyCo from the inside out, to make all the top agents turn on one another, and the plot to kill your fearless leader.”
“Oh, you mean Adabelle?” This snide remark came from Lyndsey, who clamped her mouth shut as soon as the words escaped it.
Moore looked confused. “What? No! I’m talking about me!”
“I don’t get it,” Burke said. “Who’s trying to do all this? Who has the resources to pull something like this off?”
“I don’t know what they call themselves, or even the names of those at the top. I have, however, been hearing some rumblings about a new group emerging on the global scene. From the reports, they even tangled with Scorpion a time or two.”
“Perhaps this will end up being a matter of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend,’” Lyndsey said.
“That’s the best case scenario, but their recent action against SpyCo would dispute that. They don’t seem to want to play nice with anyone.”
Burke cut in, “Do you have any sense of their abilities or potential?”
Moore shook his head. “They are well-organized enough to come within a hair of crumbling SpyCo’s command structure, with a deviously simple strategy. That could be an indication of their cunning or simply that their small size required ingenuity.”
Perry spoke at last. “Did anyone contact you, sir?”
“No. I was tipped off by increasing chatter that coincided with some unusual activity that seemed to be mirroring my online activity. It felt like a noose was tightening. That meant I was on alert when the attack came.” He exhibited the bullet hole in his clothing.
Burke whistled. “Couldn’t have been much closer.”
“And then they tried an ambush at my private hangar.”
“If you couldn’t take your plane, how’d you get here?” Adabelle asked. “Surely you didn’t—”
“I flew commercial, yes.”
“Oh my god, you poor man.”
Moore assumed the expression of a martyr being led to the lion’s den. “It was as dreadful as I remembered. A horrible woman with odorous armpits and an equally horrible child sat next to me. I seriously considered running for the emergency exit and leaping to my death.”
“I’m glad you didn’t, sir,” Adabelle said. “Jumping from 30,000 feet is never the answer.”
Moore humphed. “Simple enough to say. You weren’t there.”
“Wait a minute,” Burke said, sounding annoyed. “We’re getting off track. I still have a lot of questions that need answering!”
“As do we all,” Moore replied. “And they will be answered in due time. For now, though, we need to prepare for the inevitable conflict. If these new kids on the block want a fight, then we’ll give them one.”
Burke brightened at the possibility of conflict. “How do we find them?”
“We don’t,” Moore said. “We let them find us.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Simple. All I have to do is log in to SpyCo’s mainframe. They’ll see I’m there and be able to track my location. I’m also quite positive they have agents in the city. They’ll be knocking on our door in no time.”
“Oh, shit,” Burke said. “Are you telling me they gained access to SpyCo’s network? Does that mean the entire agency has been compromised?”
Moore shook his head. “I don’t believe so. There’s a safety mechanism that automatically locks down upon command or if it detects tampering.”
“And it shut down?”
“Yes. I made sure of that before I ditched my original phone. The failsafe cuts off all access to and from our operatives, while appearing to the intruder there’s been no change. I then got a burner to send the tweet, which I assume you received, since no one was trying to kill anyone when I arrived. No, the most sensitive information should be secure, but that doesn’t mean other files weren’t accessed. We won’t be able to fully assess the breach until this is resolved and we get back to New York.”
“If there’s a SpyCo left by the time we get back,” Lyndsey said. “Hell, what if they storm the place and torch it?”
“A remote possibility. I’m not sure they have the manpower for that quite yet,” Moore said. “They seem to be quite new on the scene. Rising and a definite threat, but still new.”
Lyndsey looked doubtful. “So we lure them here and then—what, take them out?”
“That’s the idea. Best case scenario we keep one alive we can pump for information. Then it’s back to New York like our asses are on fire.”
Perry cleared his throat. “Sir, this might not be the best time to bring this up, but I have unfinished business here in the city.”
Moore’s face immediately darkened. “You’re speaking of Flick.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The answer is still no, Eagle. The falsity of the assassination order shouldn’t suggest I’m no longer extremely displeased with your behavior. Be aware you will likely face disciplinary action upon return to New York. But return you will or we may have reason to reconsider the question of the code.” Moore leaned toward Perry, his eyes intense. “Are you hearing me, Eagle? Is the seriousness of the matter finally getting through to you?”
Perry nodded stiffly, hoping the flush of anger creeping up his neck wasn’t too noticeable. “I understand your position, sir.”
“See it stays that way. Now is not the time for rogue agents to run around pursuing a personal agenda. It’s about the greater good of SpyCo.”
“Better be careful, sir,” Burke said, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “Talking about the ‘greater good’ might get you on some kind of watchlist.”
“My capitalistic credentials are impeccable,” Moore quipped. “I spend my weekends putting down the little guy.” He flexed his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, and then said, “Now, someone lend me their phone.”
“I thought you said there was no access to the
system? How can you log on?” Adabelle asked.
“I still have a trick or two up my sleeve,” Moore said, his face as serious as a heart attack.
15
In an office the size of a postage stamp, located in a building in Odessa constructed when the Ukraine was still firmly entrenched in the Soviet Union, an indicator began to blink on a panel. The 14-millimeter diameter lights were identified by plastic labels from a Cyrillic Dymo label maker, also dating from before the Wall fell in Berlin, but still being used today. The one underneath the flashing light translated to “Call Yuri.”
Dimitri Popinovich was not working for the Soviets, for there were none anymore, nor was he working for any other government. The bare truth was he didn’t really know who he worked for. He’d been hired through a temporary clerical service to sit in front of this bank of lights all day and call the person indicated should one light up. It was the most boring thing he’d ever done in his life, and that included school, the army, and ten years in the sewers of Odessa. This last had not been boring, as one never knew what they might trip over in the pipes on any given day. But he’d been at the new job for ten months now, and he still hadn’t completely gotten the smell of the excrement and other leavings out of his nostrils.
So this was better.
He picked up a telephone, yet another relic of the bygone age of Socialist glory, and stuck his finger in the rotary dial. After five rings, a man answered.
“Vashe svitlo pryyshlo,” Dimitri said. “Your light came on.”
He hung the phone up without waiting for a response. There was never a response. These lights came on all day and all night, and there was never a response. It was worse than trying to talk to his wife.
But it was better than the sewers.
Yuri set down his cell phone and opened his laptop. Unlike Dimitri, Yuri—whose name was actually David Simpson—knew precisely for whom he was working. It was a man who did not tolerate fuck-ups, so before he proceeded to the next step of his duty, he began feverishly typing instructions into the computer. Soon he was rewarded by a map of Istanbul popping up on the screen. Simpson knew his employer, Mr. Zmaj, had been orchestrating the movements of the top agents of the SpyCo group to the Turkish city for several weeks, beginning with getting Raul Hernandez to play both sides of the coin with his own group and with Scorpion. Flick had no interest in Scorpion’s showboating plan to destroy Paris, other than the several million euros he collected. His real goal was to identify himself to Perry Hall. The next step was to allow himself to be seen in Istanbul, news certain to reach Hall.
It was at that point Simpson’s part in the plan was activated. For months prior to the Paris setup, he’d been working tirelessly to infiltrate the SpyCo computer network. It had not been easy. For all Mr. Z’s railing against Moore’s “outdated” and “obsolete” group, their system was years, maybe decades ahead of the pack, utilizing proprietary technology Silicon Valley would have sacrificed their first-born child at the Altar of Tech to get their hands on. Assuming, of course, any of them knew how to make babies.
Simpson, a thirty-two-year-old former marine with extensive intelligence training, knew things the average hacker never dreamed of, but even he struggled—sometimes for thirty and forty hours at a time—merely to understand the system, let alone crack it.
His breakthrough proved almost anticlimactic. He’d been tipped off that J. Carlton Moore, the rock-solid figurehead at the bow of the mighty SpyCo ship, was seeing a shrink. For depression! Mr. Zmaj had laughed uncontrollably for ten full minutes when he’d heard the news.
Moore had made the mistake of communicating with the psychiatrist through the SpyCo network, thinking it secure and unassailable. His error was in not considering the fact that the doctor’s computer was a wide-open door. Simpson merely walked through that door, and soon he was standing among the 0s and 1s of SpyCo’s binary code. From there he could go anywhere he wanted.
That had made several things possible. First, it had allowed Mr. Z to send a false Code Grey, SpyCo’s assassination directive, to James Burke, with Hall as the target. Perry’s decision to disobey a direct order to return to New York made what should have seemed like an obvious fraud at least marginally believable. The fact he’d been meeting Archer at the time of the false order’s delivery was a gift from the gods of espionage. Not only was she yet another top operative, she was Burke’s sometimes lover, and Hall’s best friend since grammar school. She was sure to accompany Burke to Istanbul, if only to stop him.
The next piece of the puzzle was bringing Adabelle Fox into the picture. The Oxford educated former Turkish national, raised by adoptive parents in the UK, was the fastest rising SpyCo operative in the Middle Eastern theater, and a threat if not handled properly. She was told to ensure the Grey was executed to the letter.
Everything was in place for them to kill Hall at the very least, and perhaps all of them would end up shooting it out should Archer decide to protect Hall, while the other two toed the company line.
And now a light had blinked on in Odessa, prompting some anonymous Eastern Bloc leftover to call him. And wonder of wonders, Moore had logged onto the compromised SpyCo mainframe from…wait for it…Istanbul. For whatever reason—probably in some vain effort to stave off the destruction Mr. Z’s plan had all but assured—he’d gotten his old ass to Turkey.
Simpson didn’t consider himself a traitor to the country he once served. SpyCo wasn’t America, it was an espionage organization, answering to no one. Now they would answer to Zmaj. He retrieved his phone and dialed a number only he and two other people in the world knew. On the first ring Mr. Zmaj answered.
“He’s in Istanbul. The login was less than five minutes ago.”
“Address?”
Simpson relayed the information and the line went dead.
Simpson closed the laptop and turned his attention back to his television. The Mother of Dragons was emerging nude from a burning building on Game of Thrones. He smiled.
“Dragon,” he said aloud.
Zmaj had been in Istanbul for ten days, and he was ready to go home, back to his office, back to his larger-scope planning. There were so many moving pieces, so many interconnections. For most people, keeping track of this much apparent chaos would have been mentally crippling, but Zmaj thrived upon it. The more plates spinning simultaneously, the happier he was.
But now it was time for this plate, the spinning china disc that was SpyCo, to fall to the ground and shatter. He had manipulated every player into place, even Moore, who he knew would eventually detect the data breach, perhaps even isolate the last few false communiques, and spring into action, flexing his long-atrophied field operative legs into order to salvage the untenable swamp of confusion he had wrought. The address his IT man in Los Angeles had given him was none other than the home of Adabelle Fox, the local girl who he’d hoped by now would have killed at least one of the other operatives, perhaps all of them, for either failing to follow protocol, or for attempting to turn on her for not doing so.
That appeared not to have happened, but something even better had: everyone, with the arrival of Moore, was now in one tidy, central location.
He tapped his Bluetooth headset and issued instructions for the house to be surrounded, and for Flick to be notified, but for nothing further to happen until he arrived.
It was late now, and Zmaj was a man who needed to keep his mind razor sharp, and that meant not neglecting to rest it. With the house surrounded he would be told if anything needed his attention immediately. He stretched out on his ornately carved bed, and closed his eyes.
16
Perry opened his eyes and looked around the darkened room. Everything was quiet, except for Burke’s snoring from the bed. Perry shifted on the air mattress and cringed as it squeaked and groaned. He had let Burke take the bed, his theory being it would make his friend sleep heavier and less likely to awaken when Perry made his exit. But the air mattress had turned out to be so noisy he now worried abou
t waking the entire house.
Perry moved once again, a minute adjustment that nevertheless caused the mattress to emit a sound not unlike an elephant farting. Perry swore under his breath. Fuck it all to hell, he raged. He did not need this right now.
He reached for his crumpled pants and fished in the pocket until he found his keys. On the ring was a miniature army knife, complete with blade, file, tiny scissors, and corkscrew. The gadget was too small and fragile to be of much practical use in the field, but it had proven handy once or twice around the house. Perry opened the corkscrew and slowly twisted it into the air mattress. He wasn’t sure what would happen, if the thing would burst like a balloon or shrill like a teapot as the air escaped. Neither of these happened, however, and the air simply leaked from the puncture with a light hissing. He worked the corkscrew around, opening the breach slightly wider, to let the air out more quickly. Perry pulled the blanket over the hole to muffle the slight sound even more and then stretched himself out, trying to distribute the weight.
It seemed to take forever, but the method was effective as the air mattress slowly deflated, lowering Perry to the ground with almost no sound.
Once limp and unable to perform its primary function, it caused far less trouble.
“Much like a penis,” Perry mumbled, and then had to cover his mouth to keep from chortling aloud.
He rolled from the mattress and fumbled with his clothes, managing to dress without waking Burke, who hadn’t so much as stirred since the entire saga had begun. Moore had the other guest room down the hallway, so he shouldn’t be any trouble. The two women were sharing Adabelle’s room, which was right next to this one. It was possible one of them had heard something, but Perry hadn’t noticed any sounds of movement from that direction. Everything seemed quiet and still. He hoped the women’s silence was because they were asleep and not because they’d killed each other. The longer Lyndsey was around Adabelle, the more likely this seemed.
Assignment- Adventure A SpyCo Collection 1-3 Page 23
