Covert Network (A Jake Adams International Espionage Thriller Series Book 14)

by Trevor Scott

“I’m not asking for names,” Jake said, knowing that might set off alarm bells. “I’m just thinking you might want to contact those friends to see what they know about the investigation into the senator’s death.” And the NSA and CIA could track those calls, Jake thought.

  “It couldn’t hurt,” Larsen agreed.

  “Right.” Now Jake needed to bring it on home. “In the meantime, why don’t we shore up the supply chain. Make sure that everything is flowing properly to Santiago.”

  “What are you proposing?” Larsen asked.

  Jake looked at Sirena and waved his arm to include her as he said, “The two of us will follow the next shipment to make sure that everything flows properly.” He was taking a chance now.

  “Do you really want to ride across the Pompas and Patagonia in the back of a van?” Larsen asked.

  “Of course not. We’ll simply follow in our car.”

  “That works for me,” Larsen said. “As long as it’s all right with the Boys from Nazca.”

  “Of course,” Jake said. “Go ahead and call.”

  “You know that’s not possible,” Larsen said.

  That’s what Jake figured. They would have to be crazy to go beyond one level with communications. Jake got Larsen to divulge the contact name and the location for the next departure. That was more than Jake had hoped to get out of this man. But he had one more problem. He couldn’t just leave this guy in business.

  “Where is your wife this evening?” Jake asked.

  Larsen shook his head. “She’s out fucking a trade minister from Peru.”

  Jake tried not to be too shocked. “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “Why should it?” Larsen said. “We met in Vegas years ago at an after party for the porn awards. She had just won best female lead in a double penetration sex scene. That’s it on the mantel above the fireplace.”

  His gaze shifted to the mantel, which had five awards lined up. It looked like someone had simply bronzed a massive dildo with a Barbie Doll wrapped around it. Jake said, “Impressive.”

  “Yeah, she’s a trooper. Taking one for the team. But this trade minister is of Japanese descent, so she’d probably get more satisfaction screwing our dog Brutus.”

  Jake got a text and he checked his phone. It was from the Agency boys outside. ‘We have company.’

  “All right,” Jake said. “We should be going. We’ll be sure to brief you on your supply chain when we return.” He started toward Sirena.

  Larsen shrugged.

  Then, without any warning, the entire room exploded, with glass flying everywhere. Jake dove and caught Sirena, crashing hard to the living room floor. More shots from outside. This time from another direction. Jake aimed his gun, but he had nothing to shoot at. No target. When he turned his head to check on Larsen, he saw the man riddled with bullets, his head drooping down to his chest, as if he was trying to bite the head off of Mao.

  18

  Jake got up from the floor and helped Sirena to her feet.

  “Are you all right?” Jake asked.

  Sirena brushed herself off. “Yeah. Better than him. We need to get the hell out of here.”

  He nodded and headed toward the door, his gun leading his way toward their car. “I’m driving,” he said.

  She gladly handed over the keys and Jake got behind the wheel, starting the engine.

  “Find out if our Agency friends are out there doing their nails,” Jake said.

  She took out her phone and texted them as Jake turned the car around, driving on the grass to make the turn. “No answer.”

  “They should be out on the road behind that hedgerow.”

  They passed the outer row of hedges, but the Agency car was gone.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  “Did you text the driver or the other guy?”

  “Crap. The driver. I’ll call the other dude.”

  “Put him on speaker,” Jake said as he pulled out on the side road and stopped with the sea across the road from them. By now darkness had enveloped the area, but the lights to the city shone brightly to the west.

  The phone call connected and the two of them heard gunshots.

  “They followed the shooters,” Jake said. “Which direction did they go?” He said this as much to Sirena as to the CIA officers.

  “Toward downtown,” said the CIA officer. “They’re in a white Mercedes van.”

  Jake hit the gas and turned to the right, the engine powering through the gears. This road curved around the edge of the sea from their location to the ferry terminal and beyond, passing some of the best beaches in Uruguay. And Jake’s mind flashed for a second on the white bikini he had bought Sirena earlier in the day. Looking ahead, the road curved around a bay and Jake could see the van with the white CIA Ford just behind it. But they were about a mile ahead of them. He jammed the gas to the floor and the car responded without much authority.

  “Next time we get a car with some guts,” Jake said. “Something German.”

  More gunshots, and Jake could see the flashes from the vehicles just before they went out of sight around a corner ahead.

  They were gaining on the two vehicles. Sirena was holding the phone toward Jake and he tapped to end the call.

  “Why’d you do that?” she asked.

  “He’s busy shooting. And I don’t want them to hear this.” He hesitated as he swerved around a car on the right side. “Do we trust what Larsen said?”

  “I think we have no choice,” she said. “Besides, someone is covering their tracks. First they kill Ramos in Buenos Aires, their acquisitions man, and now their supply chain manager, Larsen. They’re trying to cover their tracks.”

  Jake hit his horn when a driver ahead of him started to drift across the line into his lane. As they passed, Jake could see the guy was texting. Asshole.

  “I agree,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean his intel is wrong. The guy was wasted. He probably would have told us the same thing if we had told him we were the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.”

  “Which one would I be in that scenario?” Jake asked.

  “I can’t see you as an Easter Bunny,” she said. “But the Fairy part doesn’t work either. Maybe you were Santa Claus and I was the Easter Bunny.”

  “That makes sense,” Jake said. He slammed on the brakes when the light turned red ahead. When he saw no cars coming from the side street on the right, he hit the gas hard again.

  They rounded another corner and Jake could see the chase ahead again. They were now less than half a mile behind the others.

  “What do you think about Santiago?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It didn’t seem like the end of the line.”

  “My thoughts exactly. But we must travel there to see if Maria is still there.”

  “We have to hope so,” Jake said. “Or they could have taken her anywhere by now.”

  “She will fight them. She’s strong.”

  Jake knew how these people worked. Strength was mitigated with drugs. They would get her hooked on something to wear her down. Make her more pliable. But he couldn’t think like that now. There was more than just Maria to think about. Someone was willing to kill to keep their secrets. And this was obviously a worldwide network, taking out the Danish politician, the Oregon senator, and now their own people in Argentina and Uruguay.

  “We had a saying in the Air Force,” Jake said. “You could tell when you were over the target, because that’s when you took the most flak.”

  “I’ve heard that,” she said. “The Israeli Army had a similar saying.”

  “Sometimes I forget that you were a badass with the IDF.”

  “That was a lifetime ago.”

  “Some things you never forget.”

  “Like driving in Germany?”

  Jake smiled. “You got that right.” He swerved around more cars and now was just two blocks behind the Agency Ford, which was about three car lengths behind the white van.

  The passenger i
n the Ford ahead waved his gun out the window, acknowledging them.

  Jake powered down the two front windows and the wind rushed in. Then he shoved down the gas again and pulled up alongside the Agency car. He glanced briefly at the CIA officers, who seemed concentrated on the task at hand.

  Just as Jake started pulling forward, the back doors of the van opened and flashes from two guns were visible. Bullets struck the car to his right, but instead of pulling back, Jake powered forward to cut off the angle, making it almost impossible for them to hit his car unless they swerved into his lane.

  But Jake didn’t give them a chance to swerve at them. Instead he rammed the front of his car into the left rear of the van, which sent the vehicle out of control to the left in front of them and then to the right as the driver tried to overcorrect. The guy almost had the vehicle under control when the left front tire blew and the car turned sharply to the left, crossed the lane, and hit the curb, sending the van flying into the air and rolling several times before the van disappeared over the edge of a small embankment.

  By now Jake had been able to hit the brakes and skid his car to the side of the road. He looked back and saw that the Agency officers had stopped across both lanes behind them stopping all traffic from that direction.

  Jake started to get out. “Check on the guys behind us,” he said to Sirena.

  Then Jake ran across the road and looked over the edge of the small embankment. The van lay on its top, crumpled and destroyed, smoking but not on fire.

  He heard the sirens and glanced toward the downtown of Montevideo. They needed to get the hell out of there. Gunplay in Uruguay would land them in jail without government cover.

  Jake ran back to the car and Sirena was already there waiting on the other side. “Are they all right?”

  She nodded and got in.

  Jake got behind the wheel and started the car. Then he pulled out and found the first side street, turning right and taking it nice and slow at the speed limit.

  “They were narrowly missed,” Sirena finally said. “The passenger took some glass in the face, but it’s a minor cut.” She turned and looked at the side mirror.

  Jake saw that the Agency Ford was right behind them. He drove deeper into the neighborhoods, turning right and left randomly, until he found a quiet street with a large school. He pulled over and shut down the engine.

  Then they waited as the two CIA officers approached on Sirena’s side. Jake and Sirena got out and met the men on the sidewalk.

  The young CIA officer looked like he was still in shock. His partner had his hand over a wound on his left cheek.

  “Are you all right?” Jake asked.

  “Just a little glass cut,” the Agency officer said. “In the Army I took shrapnel from an IED. Now that hurt.”

  “What happened back at Larsen’s house?” Jake asked.

  The young officer took the question. “We noticed this van come around the block. The first time it cruised by slowly. That’s when we texted you. Then it came around the block, stopped out front and the side panel opened. They blasted the shit out of the house. We thought you had to be dead.”

  “Well, Larsen’s dead,” Jake said. “We got lucky.”

  “This is the first fire-fight we’ve been in since joining the Agency.”

  Sirena laughed. “That’s because you just met Jake.”

  “We were briefed that he had a tendency to draw fire a lot.”

  “That’s an understatement,” she said. Then she bit her lower lip, as if she had said too much.

  “Where do go from here?” the young officer asked.

  Jake needed to lose these men before heading to Santiago. There was no reason to read them in on what Larsen had told them.

  “They’re covering their tracks,” Jake said. “Cleaning up loose ends. This is no longer your fight.”

  “That’s bullshit,” the former soldier said. “Our mission is to stick with you.”

  “To Uruguay,” Jake said. “You’ve done that. You’ve covered our back here. Now we’re heading out of Montevideo.”

  “This is not over,” former Air Force said.

  “Maybe. But it’s over here for us.”

  The wheels seemed to be turning in the man’s head. “Larsen told you something before he died.”

  “Larsen was drunk,” Jake said. Not really a denial. “If you want to look into something else here, go find Larsen’s wife and see what she knows.”

  “You think she’s involved?” Sirena asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jake said honestly. “But it sounded like Larsen used her to acquire information.”

  The Agency men looked confused, so Jake explained what Larsen had told them about his wife being a former porn star and how she had been screwing a Peruvian trade minister that night.

  “Why don’t we divide and conquer,” Jake said. “You two find and talk with the wife before the local police question her about the death of her husband.”

  “And what will you two do?” the former soldier asked.

  “We’re heading back to Buenos Aires,” Jake said. “We’ll check into the death of Mateo Ramos with our contact there.”

  Both of the Agency officers agreed and shook hands with Jake and Sirena. Then they drove off.

  Jake and Sirena got back in their rental car. Jake was thankful he had taken out the insurance now—even though he had rented the car under a fake name.

  “You’re a good liar,” Sirena said.

  Jake shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of practice. If we’re going to catch up with that next shipment of girls heading to Santiago, we need to get going now.”

  “Damn. I was looking for a good night at our hotel.”

  “You can sleep on the fast ferry.”

  Sirena looked disappointed and Jake thought she might have wanted more than just good sleep.

  Maybe he was still too broken to consider doing what he had already done with Sirena. That was a mistake, he thought, despite the fact that it had felt so right at the time.

  19

  Maria Vega walked gingerly across a grass and dirt courtyard, lit by perimeter lights around the encampment. She could not kid herself any more. This was nothing more or less than a compound. A prison. Despite her constant state of dizziness and lethargy, she had been able to form an opinion of the place. The buildings looked like they had been built some fifty years ago. They had metal roofs and had been hastily constructed, much like the military barracks built in similar camps during time of war. Construction just good enough to keep the troops out of the rain and snow, but not good enough to bring comfort.

  Her captors had taken everything from her, from her personal items to her clothes. Then they had issued them uniforms of some sort. Medical scrubs, she thought.

  She let her eyes wander but not her head. They had been very specific about keeping their eyes straight ahead. But she had been trained for this. The others, the young girls around her moving in a gaggle, had no apparent training. They were young and vulnerable and scared. She would have to comfort them as best she could.

  This was the first time she would be gathering with the others in the Great Hall. As Maria stumbled inside, she saw the thin matts on the floor, and the girls knew to find one and sit down with their legs crossed, as if this were a yoga class.

  Some of the girls eagerly grabbed the front row, while others did their best to move far away from that position. Maria decided to sit in the center of the herd, like a vulnerable gazelle on the Serengeti.

  The room did not live up to its name as great. The ceiling was missing a couple of tiles, the walls had peeling paint falling to the rough wood floors, and a couple of the windows along the front had cracks.

  Her eyes had a hard time staying open. The only thing making them do so was the fact that the room was so hot and stuffy and smelled of something dead—like a rat had gotten caught in the wooden walls and died.

  Suddenly a side door opened and a line of men streamed into the hall. All but tw
o of them wore uniforms of some kind, from khaki pants bloused above polished black boots to matching shirts with epaulets. Around their waists were old-school military web belts with semi-automatic handguns in leather holsters on one side and long knives sheathed on the other side. On their heads they wore black berets covering short-cropped hair. The constant with all of the men was the fact that they were all muscular, as if they worked out daily to maintain their chiseled physiques.

  The last two men were different. They were in civilian clothes. Still, they were in khakis and nice button up shirts. One man was obviously in charge. It was the way he carried himself that gave Maria the feeling that this guy was special.

  “Welcome to Nazca Center,” the leader said with an accent in English. “My name is Gerhard Beck. You will call me Herr Beck. Do you understand?”

  Most of the crowd said in unison, “Yes, sir.”

  Beck smiled and let his eyes drift across the group of some thirty young girls. “You are here for proper indoctrination. Some of you have been here for a while and understand our purpose. But I also see some new faces. I will speak with each of the new people soon. In the meantime, those who have been here a while must help with the integration of the new girls. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” the girls said enthusiastically.

  Using only her eyes, Maria looked at the faces of the young girls. They truly admired this man. No, they loved him. What in the hell had she gotten herself mixed up in?

  The leader moved back and forth across the front of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. “When our people first came to this place, they found a backward society. A group of people who used human sacrifice to try to please the Gods. They soon came to understand that our ancestors were the Gods. But they told our forefathers that there was only one God, and that was the leader of our people. This one God would help them through life.” Now Beck pulled his hands out to swish across the flock. “This God would give them hope in the face of adversity. Would be a comfort in times of pain and misfortune. During death and the loss of crops.”

  Beck paused now as if weighing the reaction of his followers.