Dying Breath (Cobra Book 2)

by Blake Banner

  “My call.” It was the brigadier. The door had opened and a man in a dark suit stood waiting in the doorway. Buddy Byrd turned to him and gave him his instructions.

  “O’Connell, have Alice bring up a plate of cheese and ham sandwiches for Mr. Bauer, he hasn’t had supper yet and he is hungry. Have her bring up a couple of beers for him as well. I think the Marston’s IPA should do. Meanwhile, have Ramirez and Jones come and collect Miss Ling, will you.”

  “Of course, sir.” O’Connell gave a small bow and left.

  May Ling was looking worried. “Who are Ramirez and Jones?”

  “They are professional interrogators, but don’t worry, we left the techniques they use in China behind a very long time ago, particularly in a case such as yours, where we are not fighting against national loyalty, ideology or anything of that sort. All we need to do is persuade you that your interest runs with ours. Am I right?”

  “Completely. So why do you need to hand me over to these bozos? And, am I going to get paid? I need money, a new identity, somewhere to live…”

  He smiled. “Yes, you’ll get paid, and you’ll be taken care of. And I am handing you over to these gentlemen because they, like you, are good at what they do.”

  The colonel got to her feet and crossed to the bar to pour herself another drink. “I’m getting nauseated by the stench of testosterone in this room.”

  I stood also and went to stand with my back to the fire. I watched her a moment.

  “Colonel,” I said, “in 1936, when the Spanish Civil War broke out, you know one of the reasons why it was so easy for Franco to march into Spain?” She sighed, but I didn’t give her a chance to answer. “There were two Spanish Navy destroyers lying off the coast of Valencia. They could both have made it to Cadiz, where the invasion had taken place, in a matter of a few hours, and helped halt the invasion before it even started. But, believe it or not, at that time, every battleship in the Spanish Navy was a cooperative, and the crew of each ship had to sit down and vote on whether or not to head for Cadiz and engage Franco’s troops. Not surprisingly they voted not to, and Franco’s men, assisted by the Foreign Legion, swarmed over Andalusia and marched steadily north, toward Madrid.”

  “Thank you for that history lesson, Mr. Bauer. What’s your point?”

  “That when you have a job that needs doing, it’s not helpful to get sidetracked into ideological debates and soul-searching about who has what rights and why. When planning an operation, you need to leave your ‘isms’ at the door.”

  The brigadier cleared his throat. “Can I suggest you have your very interesting conversation somewhere else at some other time? There are a couple of things I need from May Ling before she leaves us for the night. Are you willing to answer a couple of questions for me now, May Ling?”

  “That depends on the questions, Buddy. I told you there’s a price.”

  “You will be paid for the information you give us, May Ling, and we will ensure your safety, but there is a degree of urgency about this and it affects your security as well as our operation. Once they discover the carnage and theft in the suite at the Mandarin, Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou will leave New York posthaste. Have you any idea where they will go?”

  She nodded. “Sure, I know exactly where they’re going to go.”

  I said, “Where?”

  “Casablanca, in Morocco.”

  “Why?”

  “There is a lab out in the desert there, where they are working on a vaccine or something.”

  Colonel Jane Harris stepped toward her. “What kind of vaccine, May Ling? A vaccine against what?”

  May Ling smiled. “You know what? This is fun, but I think I’m getting Alzheimer’s, because my memory is going all kinds of foggy.”

  There was a knock at the door. The brigadier barked, “Come!” and two guys in jeans stepped in. A pretty girl in a French maid’s uniform slipped past them and delivered to me a tray with beer and sandwiches on it. I gave her a wink and my thanks and she blushed and scurried away.

  The guys were both in their thirties and both had the look of soldiers about them. Ramirez was shorter, olive skinned with intelligent eyes. Jones was bigger, black and had the patient smile of a guy who’s seen it all and knows all the plays. They stood waiting, looking at May Ling with interest. I said:

  “When Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou see she’s gone they’ll assume she’s talked and they’ll change their plans. There’s only one thing we can do.”

  He nodded.

  “We have to kill her and have them find the body.”

  Her eyes went wide like saucers and her skin went very, very pale.

  Chapter Seven

  Fortunately she didn’t start screaming again. She went very pale and the brigadier hastily explained to her that her death would be faked if she would just give them her fingerprints on some latex pads and a sample of her DNA. She agreed and Ramirez and Jones led her from the room.

  When the door closed the brigadier turned to me. His face was hard and his eyes would have made penguins shiver.

  “Would you mind explaining this almighty cock-up to me, Bauer? As I recall, it was a fairly simple operation. Go in, get what intelligence you could, kill the guards, kill Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou and get out.”

  I nodded and sighed.

  There is something about officers like Buddy Byrd, who never lose their cool and are always fair and even-handed. When they do get mad, they make you feel like shit.

  “I went down the outside, cut a hole in the glass and went in. Believe me, I studied all the alternatives and that was the only viable one.

  “The intel I had said May Ling was Yang Dizhou’s assistant, not Heilong Li’s playmate. There was nothing at all to suggest she was sleeping with Li. But when I got through the window the first thing I found was May Ling sleeping in Li’s bed, an empty bottle of champagne, a mirror and a silver box of coke.”

  The colonel swore under her breath like it had been my incompetence that had May Ling screwing Li and snorting coke. I ignored her.

  “Obviously the mission was immediately compromised. At that time of night and as Yang Dizhou’s assistant, she should have been with him at the UN. Now, one thing would have been lying in wait for Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou in their suite and taking them out with a suppressed weapon, while everybody else in the place was dead. Quite another was seeing the operation through with a stoned, unconscious woman in the bed, who could wake up at any moment.”

  The brigadier said, “And I assume that is what happened.”

  “I decided to take what intel I could, while she slept. Eliminate the two guards on the inside of the suite, but leave the two guys outside so as not to raise the alarm. Then, provided everything went to plan…”

  The colonel barked, “You should have aborted immediately!”

  I looked at her a moment, then turned back to the brigadier. “Provided everything went to plan, I would gag and bind the girl and wait for Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou to show and take them out with the Maxim 9.”

  “But?”

  “But May Ling woke up while I was going through his desk.”

  The colonel snapped, “You woke her!”

  “She woke!”

  “Oh, come on!”

  I turned to the brigadier. “Am I being accused of lying, sir?”

  He shook his head. “No, certainly not. Colonel, you are out of order. If this man says he did not wake her that is good enough for me. But even if he did wake her, he was operating in near impossible conditions.” To me he said, “What happened next?”

  “She started screaming hysterically. I tried to gag her but it was too late. The four guards stormed in.”

  “The two from inside and the two from outside.”

  “Yes. They were tough and well trained.”

  The colonel’s face said she didn’t believe a word of what I was saying. Her tone of voice agreed. “And you killed all four of them…”

  “Yes. I got the combination for the
safe from the last one and acquired the USB and the notebook. That was when I called you. I knew I couldn’t make the hit in those conditions, but I figured that with May Ling and the information I’d gathered we might be able to set up a second hit.”

  He nodded. “Yes, you did well.”

  The colonel’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me? He screwed up the damned operation!”

  He sighed. “Jane, any operative who had gone in at that time on that day, would have encountered the same problem. Perhaps we should have foreseen that May Ling was a prostitute…”

  “Yes!” she snapped. “You should have!”

  I blended a frown with a smile and offered it to her. “Based on what? What intel was there to suggest that she was a prostitute sleeping with him?”

  She drew breath to tell me it was something we should have assumed, but I cut her short.

  “Should we also have allowed for the possibility that Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou were sleeping with each other? Or with one, some or all of their guards?” She saw too late that she’d backed herself into a corner, but I didn’t let up. “Or should we have assumed that just because May Ling was a girl she was also a prostitute? Isn’t that a bit sexist?”

  The brigadier spoke quietly. “I won’t have this infighting on my team. It stops now. The fact is that right or wrong, we did not foresee that May Ling might be in his bed at that time of the evening. Now, the damage is done but we have also acquired a great deal of information which needs to be analyzed before we make any firm decisions. Has anyone got some positive observations or suggestions to make that do not involve blaming anybody?”

  I bit into a sandwich and said, “Yes.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I fly to Casablanca tomorrow, or as soon as possible, and start looking for this lab. Whatever you get from the documents or from May Ling you can feed to me while I’m there. We need to strike while the iron is hot and before they have a chance to recover. One thing seems obvious to me. They can’t move the lab. If he was due to go there, he still has to go there. Maybe he’ll be a bit more careful, that wouldn’t be hard, but he still has to go. I should be waiting for him there.”

  “Colonel?”

  She thought for a moment and sighed. “I agree. The damage is done, we need to exploit what we have managed to salvage from the operation. So yes, going to Casablanca as soon as possible is the right thing to do.”

  “Fine.” He drained his glass and stood. “Tomorrow may be too soon. I think you need to have a conversation or two with May Ling and with her interrogators before you go. We also need to prepare you a new ID. We’ll talk tomorrow over breakfast. I’m off to bed. Good night.”

  We wished him a good night and he left. I sat chewing and staring at the flames in the fire. Beside them Colonel Jane Harris stood holding her gin and tonic, looking at the ice and the piece of lemon as they bobbed around in circles. Finally she said, “Why are you hostile to me, Mr. Bauer?”

  I sighed and took a pull on my beer. “I’m not.”

  “That’s a lie!”

  “Again?”

  She closed her eyes. “It is obvious. The hostility comes off you in waves.”

  “Look, I look at you and I see a uniform. I see a colonel. If I disagree with you, I tell you. If you were a guy that would not be a problem. But you, you look at yourself and you see a woman dressed up as a colonel.”

  “Why you…!”

  “Shut up and listen to me. You see a woman. I don’t. You see a woman dressed up as a colonel. And if you say something I disagree with and I tell you so, it’s not two guys disagreeing over weapons, tactics or strategy, it’s a misogynistic grunt giving a female officer a hard time because she’s a woman. So if I have anything against you it’s this: when the going gets tough, you play the sex card. You can’t do that.”

  I stuffed the last of my sandwich in my mouth and washed it down with the remains of my beer. She watched me do it without saying anything. When I had finished I stood.

  “I have fought side by side with men of every race on earth. Some of them were great soldiers, others were not. All of them got upbraided, dressed down and humiliated at some point, just as I did. None of them ever played the race card, because they were all soldiers and they all understood, you can’t turn an operation, where everybody is fighting for their lives, where everyone depends on everybody else for survival, into a self-indulgent, poor-me whinge about your own private insecurities. We all have baggage, Colonel. In the Regiment, we all carried our own. We didn’t expect anybody else to carry it for us. You’re a colonel. I respect your rank. I don’t give a damn whether you’re a man or a woman. Good night.”

  I went out into the checkered hall and climbed the old, mahogany stairs to the second floor. There, at the end of a long corridor in the west wing, I found my room. It was large, with a six-foot-square fireplace and massive oak beams supporting the ceiling. In the far wall, two narrow lancet arch windows overlooked the apple orchards.

  I hung my jacket in the freestanding oak wardrobe, stripped and went to the en suite bathroom to shower. After ten minutes under the piping hot water I emerged, toweling my hair, and heard a soft tapping. I wrapped the towel around my waist and opened the door. I wasn’t all that surprised to see May Ling leaning on the jamb smiling at me. She had a bottle of single malt in her hand.

  “Quite a day, huh?”

  “I’ve had quieter.”

  “You killed four guys.”

  “I’ve had busier, too.”

  She grinned. “You’re a bit of an asshole, aren’t you?”

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  She arched an eyebrow and it made an already attractive face desirable. “You want a drink or not, Harry?”

  “Sure. Do you come with the drink?”

  She shook her head. “I usually take a little longer than that.”

  “That’s funny. Come on in.”

  She moved through the door and I heard a footfall outside. I stepped out to look and found myself staring into the colonel’s blue eyes. She was maybe seven or eight feet away and stopped in her tracks. A hesitant smile played over her lips. Then she seemed to make up her mind and drew closer until she was barely two feet away.

  “Bauer,” she said, “I… Harry, I wanted to talk to you.”

  I raised an eyebrow in an odd echo of the way May Ling had looked at me just seconds earlier. “Can it wait till I’m dressed?”

  She glanced at the towel and then into my face, searching for something she wasn’t going to find.

  “Perhaps I could come inside while you…”

  I watched her gaze drift past my shoulder. Her face hardened and her cheeks flushed red. I heard May Ling’s voice, an amused, insolent drawl, “You going to be long, Harry?”

  The colonel’s eyes found mine and locked onto them. Her face was tight with anger and humiliation.

  “It can wait, Mr. Bauer, until you are less busy. Good night!”

  She turned on her heel and I watched her walk quickly away toward her own room, in the east wing.

  I turned and smiled at May Ling. “You going to pour those drinks, or do I have to pour them myself?”

  “Do I have to apologize, Mr. Bauer? Have I been a very bad girl?”

  I went back into my room and closed the heavy oak door behind me. May Ling removed the towel.

  * * *

  I rose late, showered and dressed, and went down for breakfast at ten AM. May Ling was still sleeping. I found Brigadier Alexander “Buddy” Byrd and Colonel Jane Harris having coffee on the patio by the east lawn, under a very blue sky. The brigadier smiled amiably as I approached. The colonel looked away at the trees. He said, “Good morning, how did you sleep?”

  “Like a log. Now I am hungry.” I sat. “I saw O’Connell. He’s bringing bacon and eggs. How about you?”

  “Superb. I always sleep well.” He said it like it was an achievement. It probably was. I poured myself some coffee.

  “We have a plan yet?”
/>
  The colonel answered without looking at me. “Ramirez and Jones didn’t get long with May Ling last night. She was apparently otherwise engaged.”

  “Busy girl. What about all the other material?”

  The brigadier said, “It’s being analyzed. I agree with you, Harry. I think we need you on the ground there ASAP. We have an address for Heilong Li’s office in Casablanca, and we have an approximate location for the lab in the desert. I want you out there snooping, gathering information and setting up the hit. I want to know if Heilong Li and Yang Dizhou are there. If they are not, I want to know when they arrive, and what they do when they get there. And above all I want them eliminated.”

  I nodded. A French maid had appeared at my shoulder and set a plate of bacon, eggs, beef sausages, fried mushrooms and toast in front of me, along with a knife, a fork and a linen napkin. She smiled at me and left. I asked:

  “What about Gutermann, Goldbloom and Browne?”

  “We’re tracing them, as far as we know they are still in New York.”

  I cut into the bacon and skewered it to a piece of toast which I dunked into an egg yolk.

  “Have we any idea who he met with yesterday at the UN?”

  “Yes, our friends at the Agency sent us the names. But you don’t need to know that right now.”

  I grunted and drank strong black coffee.

  “When do I go and who am I?”

  “You go tomorrow, JFK to Madrid, Madrid to Casablanca. Your documents will be delivered sometime today. You are Guy Patinkin, a travel writer, working on a series of articles for the New York Times. ‘The Other Side of Islam.’ You’re traveling around the Muslim world looking at ordinary Muslims, their ordinary values blah, blah blah.”