by JT Sawyer
“You told me before that Africa is where the dollars are flowing these days for ransoming hostages.”
“True, but we’ve lost enough of our personnel there over the years and I just don’t see any need to sacrifice three of our people to rescue one worker who decided to break company protocols and play dumb tourist on his day off. I’ve lost enough fine men since my father’s passing that pretty soon it’s going to be me and Jacob, the guard at the front door, keeping this place afloat. Oh, and don’t get started on the tug-of-war with the board of directors on how things should be run.”
Mitch frowned and walked to the window, looking at the grounds below where a steady flow of clients were walking out of the other buildings while Gideon’s doors were still. “Maybe you need to look at restructuring things to a more manageable size and one that doesn’t cause such an elevated blood pressure every time you’re here.”
“Maybe, cowboy, maybe, but you didn’t come here to advise me.” She opened up her laptop and clicked on a file that pulled up black-and-white security camera footage from the Heathrow Airport. “So come look at this,” she said, pointing to the figure of Bob Schueller after he exited the plane. “Notice this blond-haired woman walking parallel in the distance to Schueller, occasionally glancing over at him.”
Mitch squinted at the screen for a moment, finding it difficult to pull his attention away from his troubled friend. Dev enhanced the photograph and then compared the woman in it to a picture from a passport. “These documents were obtained from a colleague who works in international customs. “This woman, Jessica Yin, shows up on the passenger manifest—she was seated next to your friend during the flight, in first class.”
Mitch strained his eyes, taking in the details of the half-Asian woman’s face and glancing back to the footage from Heathrow.
“So, what’s the connection?”
Dev pulled up another file which showed four images of Yin taken in different cities around the world. Each time her hair was a different color and length. “Chau, Yin, or whatever her real name is, is implicated in over a dozen corporate espionage cases over the past ten years. All of them are connected, in some way, with bio-tech research and pharmaceuticals. You tell me if that doesn’t link her to your friend’s disappearance.”
Mitch was gripping the edge of the desk, his fingers turning white as his breathing constricted with each glance at the woman’s image. “Margo, his wife, said that he hadn’t been working on anything out of the ordinary at the university. He was merely going to London for a routine conference. It didn’t sound like anything top-secret. I mean, hell, the DOD wouldn’t have even let him leave the country if it was a security risk.”
“Well, something caused him to appear on Yin’s radar or whoever is pulling her strings.”
“Ah, shit, Bob,” he said, tapping the picture of his friend. “What did you get tied up with? Maybe you weren’t even aware of the well you’d dipped into.”
Then he settled his gaze upon Yin, his eyelids narrowing. “Now I just need to locate this hellish fiend and pay her a visit.”
“Mitch, this is a job for MI6 and your U.S. agencies. I have some contacts that we can turn this over to.”
“So Yin can get hung up in an interdiction battle with all the countries that want their hands on her. No thanks.”
She started speaking in a monotone voice. “I’d like to help further but this is as far as my company can reach out.” She turned the laptop towards him then clicked on another screen which showed her company’s darknet facial recognition program, pulling up the image of Yin followed by GPS coordinates to a location in Austria. “I have to go grab some coffee and I may be gone for a few minutes and won’t be able to acknowledge to the board that someone gleaned information from my device during that brief absence.” She looked straight ahead and then walked to the double doors and exited, leaving Mitch alone.
Mitch’s crooked grin diminished after she left and he stared at the screen again, committing the information to memory. “Austria. As for you, Ms. Yin, your life may be forfeit.”
***
That night, back at his studio apartment, Mitch couldn’t sleep. His thoughts were focused on the upcoming mission and the welfare of Bob. His head hurt from the stress and he found himself unable to turn it all off. A hundred scenarios played out in his head including the dreaded one that involved him making a visit to Margo to tell her the bad news. Have to stay focused—he’s still alive. He has to be. Don’t let doubt undermine your training.
Mitch decided to go over his gear one more time which would keep him occupied for a while. He pulled out the Berenson leather jacket from his duffel bag. It was designed to look like a standard jacket but was tailor-made by a friend of his who designed tactical accoutrements for the Secret Service. In addition to the triple-stitched seams and reinforced shoulders to support weight for stowing weapons, it had a plethora of concealed pockets. Each of these contained specific items that he had used over the years during undercover work with the FBI. Every piece of gear was carefully selected for its practicality and durability.
Mitch rechecked each receptacle. In an internal zippered pocket near the chest was a tactical flashlight, a spare battery, a small first-aid kit, and a mini-tourniquet. Opposite that side was a velcroed pocket containing a small monocular, a chem-light, a button compass, and a finger-sized portable phone charger. In his outside pockets were assault gloves, an N95 dust mask, two protein bars, two energy gels, and a reflective blanket along with a bottle of iodine tablets for water purification. In a hidden shoulder compartment was a plastic handcuff key along with $100 in assorted bills and a few silver coins.
Since he was traveling internationally, he had to constantly run through a mental checklist for airport security regulations but since Dev had volunteered Gideon’s private jet, he could skip leaving his knives behind. Having trained for years in the Filipino martial arts, he relished having at least three blades on him at all times. Normally, he stowed these in his checked luggage but there were so many conflicting laws from country-to-country that he had opted for just buying some when he arrived in Israel. One was a folder which he kept in his right front pants pocket while the other two were four-inch fixed blades spread around his waistline in Kydex sheaths.
He had even removed the factory laces from his desert boots and replaced those with a specially made type of para-cord which contained seven strands of Kevlar thread which could be used for slicing through zip-ties, turned into emergency suturing material, or fashioned into foot snares.
As he laced up his boots, he reflected back upon previous missions in the Special Forces and how different this time felt. His objective had never involved rescuing a friend whose fate was uncertain in a country where he had no support to fall back on. It was just going to be him and Dev and now he felt responsible for her since she was putting her company on the line. Still, he didn’t feel like he had any choice—there were no fellow FBI agents he could utilize and no one that would pluck him out of an Austrian jail if things went south. He stowed his gear and walked to the window, gripping the edge of a chair as if he was trying to snap it in half. Mitch looked out at the busy streets below, taking a deep breath and wondering what the next day would hold.
Chapter 7
Jessica Yin was standing on the third floor of the Tudor-style estate in the foothills of northern Austria; beside her was a metallic briefcase and an ivory-handled Walther PPK pistol. Her long blond hair had been shorn to just below the ears and dyed black and she wore contact lenses that turned her normally blue eyes a shade of hazel. She knew it wouldn’t be enough to dodge sophisticated facial recognition software but it would help her slip by the Interpol images that were no doubt being circulated around Europe by the local authorities.
She’d managed to slip into the countryside safe house set up by Kyle and would be on her way out of Austria within the next twenty-four hours once she received the green light that the second phase of the operation was under
way. Then she could be out of this icy palace in the mountains and basking in the tropics. Patrolling the grounds outside the estate were five of her trusted bodyguards, men that Kyle had selected himself and that she had worked with extensively.
She was intrigued by Kyle as a woodworker would be taken with a twisted piece of driftwood. Having served on his deep-cover team in Beijing where she kept surveillance on Kyle from a distance, their interactions were largely via encrypted cellphone texts or old-school dead drops. After he went missing and was presumed dead, she went into the Hong Kong underworld, selling her clandestine services under an assumed identity, taking any mercenary work that could keep her afloat and on the move. She remembered the day three months earlier when she saw Kyle stride into a café in Singapore and sit at her table, like a tortured apparition coming to claim her soul. Yin went from shocked to relieved to enthralled within the hour as she heard him replay the horrors of his capture and his coming plan for retribution.
In the months since that fateful day, their relationship had largely remained strictly business, though she hoped to pry into the battered recesses of his soul one day. He had a sooty kind of charisma—one born of experience in the trenches but colored by gruesome events that had left more than his body scarred. He was perhaps as capable a field operator as she was but it was his indomitable spirit and perverse ambition that she was drawn to—that and the money he was offering her. She wouldn’t have to take on another assignment again if this all went down accordingly. Jessica had always slipped into the shadows after a mission but this time she wanted to see Kyle’s larger plan unfold, however little he had hinted at it. As for Tokarev, she couldn’t stand the Armani-wearing homunculus though it was largely the Russian billionaire’s funds that were driving this whole operation forward. He provided the vehicles, the weapons, passports, and the encrypted cellphones along with any incidentals along the way.
Her phone rang and she put it on speaker so she could keep pacing back and forth, feeling the plush carpeting on her bare feet.
“Did everything go according to plan?” said Kyle in the gravelly voice that she pretended not to like.
“Yes, though the files Schueller had on his laptop appear to have heavier encryption than I thought. I’ve not been able to crack it yet and Schueller is still under sedation with a few of my men delivering him to the next location you requested.”
“Send the file over to me. I’ll provide you with a secure uplink that will expire after delivery.”
“I was going to hand it to you in person, my good man.”
“Our timeline has been moved up. I won’t be making it to your location tonight. Send it over to me.”
“Did your little experiment not work out as planned?”
“It worked but the onset of death was not as fast as I’d hoped for. Too many of the victims survived, requiring them to be euthanized firsthand. I need the viral sequencing you obtained from the subject to obtain the raw materials so Schueller, with some persuasion, can go to work on weaponizing the samples in our possession. What he has on his laptop is of little use to anyone which is why he was traveling with it but combined with what’s in our possession and with his help, we can bring this to fruition.”
“If I send this file then what assurance do I have that I’ll get my money or ever see you again?”
Kyle’s voice softened. “My good lady, you can rendezvous with us in the tropics tomorrow. I’m not finished with you yet.” She heard him stretch out the last word as he sometimes did when returning her flirtatious comments.
“Very well. Very well. Send me the uplink site,” she said, blowing a strand of black hair off her nose then moving to the laptop and inserting the metallic flash drive with Schueller’s files.
“I’ve just texted you the flight number and your ticket so you know I’m a man of my word.”
She looked at her phone screen. “Hmm, Vienna. How romantic. Wish you were there to join me.” She clicked on the enter button on her laptop and sent Schueller’s files.
He chuckled. “No thanks. I’ve seen how you treat your fellow passengers.”
“Now, if you were here with me…” She stopped abruptly, her head swiveling to the balcony doors where she’d heard a crackling sound.
“Jessica, are you there?”
“Gotta go—something’s wrong.” She hung up and stuffed the phone in the rear pocket of her jeans then grabbed the PPK off the dresser and flicked off the light switch. She quickly slid her ankle-high boots on and then secreted herself against the wall, making her way past the closet. The balcony doors were still secure and there weren’t any shadows playing off the moonlight to indicate that someone was there. Still, something had prickled her instincts. Jessica moved to a small porthole window and glanced down at the driveway. Splayed on the ground near the gated entrance was one of her guards, his head evidently split apart by a high-caliber round. Jessica gasped then noticed another guard lying in the bushes beside the Audi, whose tires were flat.
Shit! Better grab my stuff and get the hell out of here. The glass on the balcony doors shattered as an armed man slammed through, the rooftop rope attached to his waist harness growing slack as he landed. Instantly, his rifle went full-auto and Jessica found herself diving through a hail of bullets, one of them grazing her right tricep and sending her pistol to the floor. She somersaulted behind a couch then darted for the dresser, which she overturned in a fit of fury. The cacophony of gunfire continued as she pressed her back into the thick wood of the dresser. With the familiar sound of the rifle clicking dry, she leapt over the furniture and sprinted into a linebacker tackle at the tall figure outlined in the balcony. Slamming him into the door frame, she struck him with a right hook squarely in the jaw then drove her shin into his groin, the blow slowed by the thick harness. The man folded forward with a groan but then came up with a fixed blade, slashing in an uppercut at her face. Jessica parried with her right hand while sidestepping and smashed her elbow into his face then drove her boot heel into the side of his knee, cracking the joint. The man bellowed in pain but continued to slash as he collapsed to the glass-covered carpet. Jessica grabbed a small brass lamp from an end table and struck him across the skull, ending his failing attack.
“Fucking Kyle—you piece of shit. You get the file then send your men to dispose of me.” She cursed something in Cantonese while kneeling down beside the contorted figure. Jessica grabbed his rifle off the carpet and took a fresh magazine from the man’s vest and swapped it out. She peeled off his black mask and saw a Caucasian face, her eyes expressing wonder at the sight. Who the hell is this guy? She lifted his arm and slid down the sleeve, searching for a particular tattoo, but only saw the bare skin. Not Indonesian. Maybe this isn’t Kyle after all. Ah, who the fuck knows. She twisted her head up at the ceiling, her eyes widening. Shit, is this Crenna’s doing? That old bastard could be on my trail again.
Jessica heard the faint sound of suppressed gunfire coming from the hallway. She stood up and ran to the overturned dresser to grab her laptop and a few belongings then squatted beside the splintered furniture with her weapon fixed on the door. Another volley of pistol fire was followed by the thumping sound of a body collapsing outside the door. Then she heard the husky voice of Edward, the lead bodyguard, calling her name. She yelled at him to open the door while she kept her weapon sights fixed on the entrance.
Edward slowly entered, his blood-stained hands clutching the suppressed Glock as he nodded towards Jessica, issuing a sigh of relief. His hulking figure took up nearly the entire doorframe. “The rest of our men are dead. We need to go, now.”
She tucked the laptop under her arm and followed Edward out of the room and down the winding staircase. Once they made sure the driveway was clear, they made their way to a small barn nestled in the treeline. Jessica had a second Land Rover stowed there for such an emergency egress. Driving out the rear, Edward headed down a narrow dirt road that led out opposite the main driveway while Jessica tried unsuccessfully
to call Kyle.
As her heartrate slowed with each passing mile, she felt the sting of the bullet that grazed her arm. She removed the med kit from the glovebox and began wrapping the wound while pondering her next move.
“Where to?” said Edward.
“Not Vienna, that’s for damn sure. I’m not sure who’s behind this but I need to cover my tracks,” she said. “Once you hit the main road, head northwest. We’ll fly out of Munich instead.”
***
Von was lying in a supine position in the woods with a sniper rifle, four hundred yards away from the estate when he’d seen Jessica dart outside with one of her bodyguards. As he was fixing his night-vision scope on her head, his ear-mic clicked on and the voice of Crenna jabbed into his thoughts.
“Have you dispatched the target already?” said his boss.
Von’s finger was hovering over the trigger while Jessica and the guard trotted to a barn. “Well, she’s nearly got one foot in the grave as we speak but there’s no sign of Schueller.”
“Withdraw. I repeat, withdraw. I need her alive. There’s a bigger fish in the water who just appeared on my radar. Follow her and see where she goes next. I’m on my way to Sweden to follow up on something.”
Von removed his finger from the trigger and watched through his scope as a Land Rover pulled out of the barn and headed into the forest. “Clever girl. It’s a shame you’re such a bad apple.”
He zoomed in on the license plate and memorized the numbers. Then he stood up and walked down the small hill to his SUV, stowing the suppressed .308 rifle in the rear and removing a small tablet from his backpack. He pulled up the agency satellite images for the area and typed in the license plate number. While he waited for the search to commence, he drove down the gravel road to the front of the estate to survey the scene and check for any survivors. He stepped onto the muddy embankment near the grass and examined the splayed bodies peppering the lawn of the estate. He looked at the body of one of his fellow agents near the side entrance. “What a shit-show. More good men lost to the fucking wind. Looks like I’m running solo on this one.” Von rubbed a thick knot in his neck.
