The Counterfeit Agent

by Alex Berenson

  After a couple hundred meters they crested the hill. The road swung hard right, south. Past a thatch of trees, it dead-ended at a plot with a view of the bay and a low cement-and-glass box that looked like it had been airlifted from the Hollywood hills. Without ever having met Mason, Wells could imagine him here. The house was beautiful and strange. Its front side was a wall of glass, split by widely spaced support pillars. Thick black curtains hid the inside. It appeared to have been empty for some time. Cobwebs hung from the roof pillars. Still, someone was keeping an eye on the place, or at least weeding the gravel path that led around the front right corner to a brushed steel door.

  “Know who takes care of it? When they come?” Though Wells figured the odds were against anyone paying a visit.

  Prateep shook his head. “Bring money to bar.”

  “Take it now.” Wells fished a stack of hundred-dollar bills from his pack. “Thank you.”

  Prateep reached for the money. His eyes were flat as stones, his big lips pressed together. Wells knew the look. He’d seen it from more people in more countries than he could remember. You thought you could buy me. And you were right.

  —

  Prateep’s steps faded, leaving only the mad songs of birds hidden in the undergrowth. Wells walked slowly around the house. It was a single story, fifty feet long, thirty-five wide. Only the front wall was glass. The others were concrete. Up close they were cracked and stained. No surprise. Thai rainy seasons wouldn’t be kind to this design. And the concrete was probably less than skyscraper-quality. Just getting the sand and cement here must have taken half the men on the island.

  Koh Pu had nothing resembling a police department, so Wells didn’t expect an alarm. He didn’t find one. Nor cameras. Nor trip wires. Mason must have decided that his face-altering surgery and faked death were protection enough.

  Wells finished his loop and reached for his electronic pick. The house seemed to exhale when he opened the front door, as if no one had entered for months. He walked into a long living room with a wide-planked blond-wood floor that continued the California theme. He half expected a longboard hanging from the ceiling.

  Despite the big west-facing windows, the curtains kept the room black. When Wells closed the door he’d be in darkness. He flicked the light switch beside the door, but nothing happened. Prateep had said the island had a central power grid. Either this house had been disconnected or its lights were burned out. Wells wanted to pull the curtains, but he couldn’t risk announcing his presence if someone came up. He pulled the headlamp from his backpack. It looked silly, but it kept his hands free. He strapped it around his head, clicked it on.

  The headlamp threw out a narrow cone of light, a horror-movie view. With the door shut, the house smelled heavy. Like the concrete had not completely dried from the rainy season. Wells scanned the room left to right—and saw, almost too late, a spider the size of a child’s fist scuttling at him. He stomped it. The creature exploded with the wet gasp of an egg breaking. Wells was glad he’d chosen thick-soled boots despite the heat. Beneath his jeans, he’d hidden a knife.

  He turned his attention to the floor. Was the spider Mason’s version of a security system? Doubtful. More likely a local stopping by for a visit. Wells needed more light. He reached for the door—and heard a motorbike rumbling up the track toward the house. He waited for the bike to stop at one of the huts. It didn’t.

  Maybe Prateep had planned to set Wells up all along. More likely, the bartender bumped into the house’s caretaker on the road and slyly suggested a visit. Thanks for paying me early, dummy. Or maybe the visit was just bad luck. Either way, Wells didn’t think the good folk of Koh Pu would appreciate a farang breaking and entering. He would face an uncomfortable night or two in whatever closet passed for the island’s jail. Worse, the caretaker no doubt had orders to call Mason if he caught anyone at the house.

  The motorbike topped the hill. Wells stepped deeper inside. Most likely the guy would just peek inside the front door. Wells would stow himself in a closet, hope the spiders weren’t biting. The spider. If the caretaker saw it, he would surely wonder who had stomped it. Wells peeled the corpse off the floor, tossed it in a corner. Then wished he hadn’t. Spider bits were everywhere. A massacre.

  The engine grew louder as Wells hustled across the living room, pretending not to notice a second spider scuttling by, this one bigger than the first. He opened the bedroom door, stepped inside, saw a third spider against the closet wall to his right, much larger than the first two. It was black, furry, with an oversized sac at one end. Not a spider. A tarantula.

  Thailand had tarantulas?

  For the second straight mission, Wells found himself in an episode of Man vs. Wild. He’d much rather be looking at a guy with a knife. The tarantula provoked a sickly adrenaline rush rather than the calm of combat. Okay. He’d be honest. It creeped him out.

  He pulled his knife as it scuttled toward a crack in the closet door, like it was deciding what to wear for the evening. You’ll need four pairs of shoes, buddy. Must be expensive. Hardee-har-har. It disappeared into the crack. Then it reemerged, came at him, moving quicker than he expected. It escaped the cone of his headlamp. He ducked his head to follow it. Three feet away, two—

  He raised his right foot to stomp it. But the closer it came, the faster it moved. It cut to his left as smoothly as an eight-legged running back and crawled onto his left boot. His jeans were loose around the leather uppers of the boots. Wells looked down as the tarantula scuttled around the back of his boot, like it was searching for a way in. Was the warmth of his skin drawing it? He cursed in the dark as it crawled up the boot. With the knife in his right hand, he couldn’t get a clean swipe. He switched the blade to his left, jabbed downward at his calf with five inches of double-edged serrated steel. He aimed high, above the top of his boots. He was willing to cut his leg in order to get the thing off him. He wasn’t sure if its venom could kill him, but he knew he didn’t want to find out.

  But he felt the blade slice through his jeans as the tarantula’s front legs touched his skin. He drove the blade down into something soft. The tarantula hissed as it slid off his boot and landed on the floor with a wet plop. Now that he’d sliced it open, it seemed pathetically small. White fluid oozed from its belly as it writhed and tried to stand. It looked up at him and feebly waved its forelegs, its hiss fading. Wells crushed it under his boot.

  —

  The engine outside cut out. Wells heard a man walking around the front of the house. He would be stuck inside until the caretaker left. He closed the bedroom door, pressed himself against the wall. Above his breathing, he heard what sounded like another tarantula in the closet. Maybe the caretaker doubled as an exterminator.

  He looked around the room, which took up most of the north wall of the house. A king-sized platform bed lay beside Wells, no sheets or pillows, merely a bare mattress. A dresser rested against the wall opposite the bed. In keeping with the house’s modernist theme, all the furniture was steel-cladded, vaguely aeronautical.

  To his left was the windowed west wall. To his right, the tarantula closet and an open doorway. Through it, Wells glimpsed a bathroom mirror and sink. Based on its location, this bedroom was the master. The guest bedroom would be behind the bathroom, with no view.

  Wells had hoped for a laptop, piles of credit card statements, maybe even a photo of Mason postsurgery. But Mason had been careful, even here. Nothing was out. If he had any personal stuff, he’d hidden it. Wells reached for the dresser. The top drawer held an astounding collection of sex toys. The middle was filled with T-shirts and underwear. And the bottom contained shorts and sweatshirts. Wells started to close it—then stopped. Under the sweatshirts lay a manila envelope thick with paper. A single word was printed neatly on it: Records. Wells tucked it in his backpack. He shut the drawer, waited in silence as the caretaker puttered around outside. He didn’t care about the spiders anymore
. He would hide in this room as long as necessary, until the caretaker left and Wells could make a clean exit. This envelope would lead him to Mason.

  Then he heard the click of the front door swinging open. Seconds later, light streamed under the crack of the bedroom door. Wells had forgotten that the guy didn’t need electricity to come inside. He just had to open the curtains.

  Now Wells was trapped. Then he realized: the bathroom might offer a way out. He edged the door open, looked inside. As he’d hoped, the bathroom was what real estate agents called a Jack-and-Jill, two entrances. A door on the north wall led to the guest bedroom.

  Wells stepped through the bedroom, into the second bedroom. Mason had used the space as an office. A desk nestled in the corner. Wells prowled through its drawers, saw a tiny flash drive. It was loose, didn’t look like it had been deliberately hidden. Probably it was blank and Mason had left it accidentally. Even so, Wells scooped it into his pocket.

  He heard the man in the living room humming to himself, apparently unaware that Wells was in the house. Wells moved to the office door in two careful steps. He waited as the man stepped into the master bedroom. Wells pulled open the office door and stepped down the hallway that connected the guest bedroom with the living room. As he did, he heard the caretaker walk into the bathroom. As Wells had hoped, the caretaker was following his loop. Wells strode across the living room—and heard yelling in Thai behind him.

  Wells ran for the motorcycle. It was a tiny Honda dirt bike with a 150cc engine, barely big enough to hold him. The caretaker had left the key in the ignition. Why not, up here? Wells didn’t pause to consider his good fortune, but slid onto the bike. He pressed the starter and the engine came alive. The house’s door swung open, revealing a bantam of a man in mud-splattered jeans. Wells swung the bike around on the gravel path, easing back the throttle. These little engines could be fussy, and he couldn’t risk a stall.

  The man yelled in Thai and pitched his arm forward like he was trying to lasso Wells with an invisible rope. Wells straightened out, gave the bike gas. He kicked up gravel as he gained speed. The man ran for the front of the house, trying to angle him off. But Wells beat him to the corner. He reached the dirt path that led to the main road and bounced down it, resisting the urge to gun the engine. The bike was skidding and yawing too much already, dragging on its shocks under his weight. Anyway, thirty miles an hour, even twenty, should be fine. He had less than a mile to ride.

  Two and a half minutes later, he bounced up to the beach. The speedboat was still waiting. Wells dropped the bike’s kickstand, turned off the engine. No thank-you note. He’d have to be impolite. With the engine silent, he heard shouting up the road. He strode down the dock, swung himself onto the speedboat.

  The pilot spun in his chair, grinned under his ridiculous sunglasses at Wells. “Why so much a hurry?”

  The shouts grew more distinct. Wells could guess what they were saying. “Two hundred dollars, you go right now.”

  “Five.”

  Wells nodded.

  “Grab anchor.”

  Wells pulled the anchor, stowed it behind the seats. The pilot turned in his chair, started the engine. Then glanced back at Wells. “They telling me to keep you, you a thief.”

  “I haven’t taken anything from them, I promise.” An answer that was technically accurate. Wells had stolen only from Mason.

  The pilot shoved the throttle forward. The boat skipped ahead fifty yards. Then the pilot eased off and they drifted. “One thousand dollars.”

  If not for the coral, Wells might have tossed the pilot overboard and taken the helm himself. The caretaker ran onto the beach, shouting. All he needed was a pitchfork and a flaming torch. Wells half wished he’d knocked the guy out, tied him up.

  “One thousand. But no more.”

  The pilot pushed the throttle and away they went. Wells would never have imagined he’d be so happy to leave paradise behind.

  —

  Four hours later, he sat on a lumpy twin bed in a Bangkok hotel that wouldn’t be in any guidebooks this year or next. The place was on the edge of the city’s red-light district, even bigger and nastier than Patong Beach. Through his dime-thin window, he heard the noises people made when they were trying to prove they were having a good time. Men shouting. Women squealing. Wells had chosen this place not for its creature comforts but because it took cash and wasn’t concerned with his name.

  The more he saw of Mason, the more dangerous the man seemed. He was covering his tracks with the care of a man who had no agency to protect him. Yet he spent money like he had a government-sized bank account. And he’d been working on this operation since the day he left the agency, if not before. Wells didn’t know if Mason had access to NSA’s databases. But he had decided to err on the side of caution and avoid leaving his own trail wherever he could.

  The Records envelope and flash drive lay next to his laptop on the bed. He tried the drive first. His laptop reported it empty. He’d send it to Shafer, in the hope that the geeks at Langley could find something. Assuming they still answered Shafer’s requests.

  Inside the envelope, a sheaf of records from the Aesthetic Beauty Centre for Abraham Duke. The file began with a two-page letter from Dr. Rajiv Singh, director of the center, thanking Mason/Duke for his initial visit and putting the cost of his operations at $93,500. Plus an additional $24,300 for a thirty-day stay in a recovery suite. All payments up-front, cash or wire transfer only, cash preferred. Duke wanted a rhinoplasty, cheek augmentation, hair transplantation, and three other procedures whose names Wells didn’t recognize. By the time we have finished, your face will appear distinctly different, as discussed, the letter explained. Renderings attached—see your new look! But Mason had destroyed the renderings, or hidden them somewhere else. They were gone.

  The next letter thanked Duke for his payment and reminded him that the center offered three follow-up visits over the next eighteen months at no charge. The plastic surgery equivalent of free oil changes with a new car. Two dozen pages of medical records followed. Wells couldn’t be sure, but the operations seemed to have gone smoothly. Finally, the packet included two pages of postoperative instructions and reports on follow-up visits. The last visit had come two years earlier. Duke reported no problems, and Singh pronounced him fully healed.

  The records wouldn’t convince the CIA to take another look at Mason, especially since his name was nowhere in them. Wells needed before-and-after photos. Maybe Mason had burned them. More likely he’d locked them away in his house and Wells had missed them. Koh Pu was now off-limits. Wells thought his best chance would be with the surgery center. But he needed a good reason to visit. He had checked online, found the place had a one-page website. The kind that was intentionally exclusive. We don’t need to look for business on the Internet. Saying he was CIA or FBI chasing a terrorist wouldn’t work. Singh would call the American embassy in Bangkok to check his bona fides.

  Wells was exhausted. He tucked away the records, lay down, closed his eyes. The shouting outside melted into a prayer call in his mind and Wells knew what to do. He fell asleep anesthesia-quick and woke to a heavy knock.

  “Yes?”

  “Checkout eleven o’clock!” It was 11:05, according to the clock beside the bed. Service with a smile. Wells passed another day’s rent through the door, took a lukewarm shower, and got to work.

  —

  Years before, Wells had worked for King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to chase down a terrorist cell backed by other Saudi royals. Wells had killed the terrorists, but the mission remained unfinished in his mind. The princes who had financed the cell remained inside the Kingdom, where Wells couldn’t touch them. He hoped that one day he’d have his chance.

  Meantime, in the wake of the mission, Abdullah had promised Wells that if he needed the Kingdom’s help, he need only ask. Wells had drawn from that favor bank once already. He was wary of relying
too heavily on it. In this case, though, what he needed was simple: a phone, a passport, and someone to answer a call at the Saudi embassy in Bangkok.

  The king’s word was still good. By late afternoon, the embassy had arranged what he needed. Wells moved from his hotel to the other end of the luxury spectrum, the Four Seasons downtown. A thousand baht didn’t even cover valet parking there. On the other hand, the Four Seasons garage was cleaner than his old room.

  A Saudi-registered mobile phone waited in an envelope at the front desk, with the promise of a passport in the morning. On such short notice, it wouldn’t be live, but Wells didn’t need it to travel. He would use it only as proof of a fake identity.

  From his room, he called the Aesthetic Beauty Centre and left his message as Jalal. He expected he’d have to wait until morning for a call, but his phone rang back within the hour.

  “Asalaam aleikum.”

  “Aleikum salaam.” A woman’s voice.

  “Is this Dr. Singh?” Wells said in Arabic. A Saudi would know his accent was wrong, but this woman’s accent was even rougher than his.

  “I’m Aisha. Dr. Singh doesn’t speak Arabic. And you are Jalal?”

  “Yes. Jalal bin Fahd.” Wells was implicitly claiming to be a member of the royal family by naming his father so prominently.

  “How may the Aesthetic Beauty Centre help you, sir?” Wells heard her try to smooth her accent at his hint of al-Saud blood.

  “My daughter will be married in five weeks.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “There is a difficulty. I don’t like to speak of it over the phone.”

  She coughed. “A riding accident?”

  “Very much so.” Meaning: Her hymen is broken. She needs it in one piece if she doesn’t want the groom to beat her senseless, or worse, on their wedding night. “I know there isn’t much time. She told me only last week.”

  “We’ve dealt with this before.”

  “Thanks be to Allah. I’d like to come in, discuss it further with Dr. Singh tomorrow.”