by JT Sawyer
He felt like Crenna was keeping more than the usual mission details from him on this assignment and wondered what his boss was hiding. Not that it mattered—Von had little choice but to follow through on his orders from above. He’d heard about what happened to field agents who swam against the tide and probed into their superiors’ affairs. He didn’t need his helicopter to mysteriously crash in the mountains like one of his colleagues on another of Crenna’s teams did last year after doing wet work in Latin America. At least that’s what Von suspected. He continued rubbing his neck as the satellite image refined its search and zoomed in on the fleeing Land Rover which was headed towards Germany. Von grinned at the thought of heading to that country. He remembered a college semester abroad in Stuttgart—when the world seemed so good. Before he signed away his life to the agency and their claws became embedded in his soul.
Chapter 8
After arriving in Vienna on the Gideon company jet, Dev had arranged for a Mercedes Benz SUV to be waiting at the airport so she and Mitch could immediately head to Yin’s location. She didn’t want to bring an arsenal of weapons with them in case they had to quickly ditch their gear and flee the estate so she opted for two HK pistols, spare mags, and suppressors.
An hour and a half later, Mitch drove the rented black SUV along a narrow road until it emerged at the edge of the forest and a large field. Two hundred yards ahead was a three-story estate where Yin was supposed to be located based upon the plates of a stolen Land Rover Dev had been tracking. The spacious grounds looked to be well-maintained under the moonlight and the opulent home was nestled amongst a backdrop of groomed spruce trees. There was a single light on in the first-floor window, casting a soft glow onto the eerie scene of lifeless figures sprinkled around the lawn.
“This looks like the place,” said Dev, peering through a night vision device at the grassy area near the side entrance. “I count six men down and a disabled vehicle—quite a party they had here.”
Mitch approached cautiously in their SUV, pulling to the right of the Audi. He and Dev quickly exited, their pistols in hand.
Dev studied the scene, noting the precise headshots of the deceased and the large caliber entry wounds which had splintered a few of the skulls. There appear to be two different groups of men with some being Caucasian and the others dark-skinned, possibly Filipino. If I was able to track Yin down then others can do the same. Just a shame they got here first.
She and Mitch did a quick sweep of the inside, finding another dead body in a third-floor bedroom. Then they retraced their steps and scanned the grounds once more. She saw Mitch kneeling down near a muddy swath of exposed ground beside the door.
“Got something?” she said.
“Mmm…just an unusual boot pattern—the tread is different from the rest.” He pointed to the zig-zag pattern etched in the soil. “This reminds me of my old jungle survival boots. I used to refer to these as Charlie Brown boots because of that design with the Z-pattern.”
She gave him a puzzled look. “Who the hell is Charlie Brown?”
“It’s an American cartoon with Snoopy, Pig-Pen, and…” He stopped, shaking his head. “Never mind. It’s hard to explain.”
Dev rolled her eyes. “So, aside from that fascinating insight, what can you tell from the tracks?” She watched Mitch as he got up and followed the boot prints down the driveway with his redbeam flashlight, stopping abruptly at a thick patch of brush not far from the treeline.
“Looks like he got in another vehicle and headed off to the north.” Mitch backtracked towards the estate and examined the bodies again. He squatted beside one of the men who looked Malaysian. Mitch shined his flashlight on the face and then down at the hands. “You’re a long way from home, son.” He noticed a tattoo near the wrist. Sliding up the black sleeve, he saw a red-and-green tiger on the inner forearm. He bit his lower lip in faint recognition, trying to recall where he’d seen the image before.
Dev retreated back to their SUV and turned on her tablet, typing furiously while Mitch got inside and started the engine.
“The only thing of significance in that direction is the Munich Airport about an hour away from here.”
“She gets on a flight there then we lose her for good,” said Mitch, backing up the vehicle and following the road out in the other direction past a small garage. “Only question is: who are the ones who want her head on a platter—other than me that is?” Then he grew silent, focusing on the rutted road and wondering if his friend was still alive and what his connection was to this confusing trail of international breadcrumbs.
Chapter 9
The unmarked helicopter landed in a cleared field, swirling a micro-tornado of snow and spruce needles amidst the waiting vehicle that stood at the forest’s edge. Crenna stepped out and crouch-walked to the brown delivery truck where his field agent Olivia Tandy was waiting.
Climbing inside, he looked in wonderment at the shabby interior then into the nervous eyes of his subordinate. Tandy was a capable agent but she was not a Von Harut and that was always Crenna’s gold standard for comparing an agent’s relative usefulness.
“There are only eight vehicles on the entire island and this was the best one,” she said with a forced grin.
“It’ll do. Just take me to the survivor you said had escaped.”
She looked at the unmarked helicopter and at the lone pilot inside, giving a surprised look at Crenna, who only ignored her. Tandy manipulated the manual stick and descended the road that led to the cabin which had formerly served as Kyle’s operations center.
“The hazmat containment team indicated that the region is free of the airborne contaminants and the woman that survived has already been cleared by our medical staff.”
“Good. How many people do you still have on site?”
“One of our agents is with the woman at the cabin and the others have already departed.”
“After we’re through here, the proper European authorities will be notified and this place will be a fuckin’ zoo with all the bioweapons researchers.”
“How did we get intel on this biological attack ahead of the virology teams with the Swedish military?” Tandy said as she brought the truck to a halt at the rear of the cabin.
“A source notified me directly. That’s what boots on the ground in the war on terror is all about, Tandy.”
They got out of the vehicle and trudged through the ankle-deep snow, Crenna shaking his lace-up Oxford shoes in irritation as they reached the porch. He glanced around the area and noticed the silence draped over the forest and the lack of recent tracks in the snow.
“Have you debriefed the woman yet?” he said, reaching for the bronze handle of the door.
“Yes, she described the nature of the biological attack and indicated that there were five men who rented this cabin during the past two days. She’s in shock at the loss of her friends so I wouldn’t expect coherent sentences.”
Once they were inside, Crenna pulled up a chair and sat beside the gray-haired woman with arthritic fingers that were trembling. His demeanor softened and he spoke with her like she was a beloved aunt, caressing her furrowed hand and looking into her tear-riddled eyes as she recounted the horrific events in broken English. Tandy and the other agent, a lean man named Rawlins, stood in the other room within earshot.
Fifteen minutes later, Crenna stood up and moved towards his two field agents, nodding for them to join him in the back room. “Poor woman has been through hell. Not much she could provide about the men in this cabin who must have initiated the attack though she said one had a large scar by his right eye.”
“C4 was clearly used on the community building below from the residue and the blast pattern,” said Rawlins, who had a bookish demeanor. “The hazmat teams indicated there were probably portable aerosol devices that dispersed the pathogen through air ducts based upon what we gleaned from the survivor.”
“Where’s the body you found in here that you mentioned when we spoke on the phone this mor
ning?” said Crenna, looking at Tandy.
“He’s in the small bedroom next to the kitchen.” Tandy led him over to the dead man on the wooden bunk bed. His bullet-shattered skull was cloaked with a bath towel that was saturated with a circular bloodstain. Crenna stood beside the corpse, noticing that the right sleeve had been pulled up, revealing a red-and-green tattoo of a tiger on the inner forearm.
“Looks Filipino or maybe Indonesian,” said Tandy, who was standing with her arms folded.
Crenna’s eyes remained riveted to the tattoo as he registered her words. “Not Filipino.” He lifted the crusty towel and peered at the man’s face, his stare holding for a long moment. He instantly recognized the tattoo from a mercenary group based out of Indonesia. He had used them several times years ago when he and Redstrom, a then young agent under his tutelage, were running drug interdiction raids. They were trying to disrupt supply lines to thwart funding for an upcoming coup the U.S. didn’t want to unfold. A calling card from Redstrom—has to be—he was never so sloppy. That son of a bitch thinks he can slide the rug out from under me using my former contacts.
“Must’ve been a pistol at close range, I’m guessing, given how intact his head is.”
Crenna was silent but nodded in agreement. Then he took a deep breath and straightened up, turning towards her. “And who else has seen this?”
“Just myself, Rawlins, and the woman.”
“The woman,” sighed Crenna, whose lips went flat. “Pity—such a horrible thing to come upon after what she saw down below.” He motioned with his outstretched hand for them to leave the room.
“Why don’t you two get her ready to leave on the helo. I just want to do a final sweep of the cabin for anything we might have missed.”
Tandy and Rawlins went back into the living room while Crenna lagged behind, removing his Sig 229 pistol from his waist holster and silently attaching the suppressor. A second later, Rawlins’ cervical region was pierced by a single round, causing him to slump sideways onto Tandy, who fell under the weight. The next round sliced through the old woman’s temple, her head flopping backwards like a tetherball. Tandy was squirming out from under the dead weight of her colleague and shouting at Crenna, who stepped on her hand as she reached for her pistol.
“What are you doing? Are you insane?” she screamed.
“This is nothing personal. You’re a good agent.” He levelled the pistol at her forehead as she continued writhing and punching his leg with her free hand. She leaned back towards the fireplace to grab an iron poker but it was just out of reach.
“Please, for God’s sake, I have a daughter.”
“I’ll see to it she’s taken care of,” he said, pulling the trigger.
The waft of smoke discharging from the barrel of his weapon combined with the coppery odor of blood from Tandy’s head that was sprayed onto the warm fireplace. Crenna waited for the nausea to approach but nothing happened, it rarely did anymore. His hands didn’t even shake. Like the other necessary killings he’d undertaken during his one-man mop-up missions over the years, he knew this had to be done. He felt justified although he wished the Swedish woman could’ve been spared.
He tucked his pistol into his waistline then went into the kitchen and opened the gas stove, turning up all the knobs. Crenna tossed some crumpled newspaper on the hot coals in the fireplace near Tandy’s still figure. He scurried out the back door and hopped inside the truck, spinning it around towards the direction of the landing strip. As he headed up the hill and parked the vehicle at the treeline, he heard the explosion in the distance.
Climbing into the helo, he wiped the snow flecks off his shoes, noticing a few droplets of blood which he blotted out with his thumb. He pulled out his cellphone, making sure to keep the screen obscured by his wool overcoat. He glanced down at the text which he’d received earlier that morning. I look forward to when we can meet again—someday soon. In the meantime, here’s a taste of things to come, Kyle. There was a set of GPS coordinates for the Swedish island of Faro below the words.
Crenna bit his lower lip then hit the delete button. He took a deep breath, the moisture from his nose floating upward like silver phantoms in the semi-cold cockpit. Have to contain this—get to him quickly before this fucking gets further out of hand. Crenna reflected on his nearly thirty-year career in clandestine affairs with different government agencies. How he’d sacrificed three marriages and lost touch with his kids over the years. Then came the day a few years ago when even the job itself had lost its luster. He’d been so idealistic when he was younger, the world so much more delineated between black and white. I was a true patriot, giving everything for my country. No—I am a true patriot still. Kyle is the piece of shit who wants to unravel all of my work, the agency’s fine work. He’s the traitorous bitch I thought he was when I leaked word to the Chinese. Crenna looked out at the snow-covered forest in the distance as the helicopter sped along the coast back towards Stockholm. He mulled over his options. He had planned to retire in one more year and use his considerable funds to retreat to an estate he’d had built in Belize, far from the brutal winters of the East Coast. His latest wife wouldn’t mind as long as she could get away on frequent vacations. Then he thought about the go-bag he kept in his office and the other in a secure compartment in his Escalade. He had all the essentials for starting over if he had to disappear quickly—passports, money, credit cards, and an encrypted cellphone with the link to his Cayman Island account. Years working counter-intelligence had taught him what it takes to disappear permanently off the grid. Looking out at the frozen forest below, he grew angry at the thought of having to evade the law. He knew Kyle, who would be happy to see his career get incinerated if his treason were exposed. Fuck him, I’m not about to go dark and live on the run. I’ll find him first and put an end to his miserable existence. Nobody crosses me.
He removed his phone again and texted an unmarked number that was on speed-dial, alerting an off-the-books group of European mercenaries he had used in the past. He instructed them to meet in four hours at a location he’d text them shortly.
When he was finished, he leaned over towards the pilot and shouted above the rotor wash, “Take me to Copenhagen instead. I need to arrange for additional air transportation from there.”
Chapter 10
Mitch drove through the pitch-black forest until they reached the highway then followed the road to Munich. Jessica Yin had been flagged through Dev’s facial recognition program as having just passed over the Austrian border twenty minutes earlier in her stolen Land Rover.
“The route she’s on will take her right to the airport. She must have passed on whatever intel she obtained from Bob and is planning to disappear again,” he said, clutching the wheel tightly with both hands, his mind focused on more than the white lines on the freeway.
Dev retrieved a small black case from her shoulder bag and flipped open the lid. Inside was a syringe which was pre-loaded with a single vial of yellow fluid. The entire device was stout, with a blunt needle on the end that resembled an epi-pen. She lifted it out and shook the needle, examining the fluid container to make sure it hadn’t been affected by the cold or the cabin pressure in the plane on their flight over.
“So how’s that shit work again?” said Mitch, who’d snuck a glance at her.
“You don’t know about the joys of sodium pentothal? I thought you went through interrogation training at SERE school?”
“In my day, that consisted of just getting slapped around a lot and hosed down with ice water while hanging upside down in your cell. No drugs were used.”
“Ah, American interrogators always like such corporal punishment when extracting information from subjects when a few CCs of something like this stuff will really save you from getting bruised knuckles.”
“I’d like to pretend I didn’t hear that latter comment and focus on remembering that you have a sweet side to you.”
She smirked and put the syringe back in its case. “This setup was d
esigned for sticking a subject in a crowded place. It goes right through the jacket or jeans so there’s no need to restrain the person first. We call it stab-and-go. Then you wait about thirty seconds until the subject gets woozy and you sweep in and grab ’em.”
“I prefer just waiting outside in the parking lot and sucker-punching the bastard. That way you can see the oh-shit look in their eyes when they fall backwards while they realize their destiny caught up with them.” He cleared his throat and looked at the syringe case again. “But that’ll work just as well if it ensures getting my hands on this woman.”
Dev pulled up the image of Jessica Yin on her cellphone and studied the features again. “Our facial recognition program surreptitiously inserts itself into local security cameras around the world depending on the nation and how far we want to risk reaching out. It only functions for a few minutes at a time so we don’t leave behind a digital trail and it’s provided the location of where Yin disembarked from her SUV near the airport. The rest is up to us. I’m sending her photo to your phone in case we get separated.”
“Her face is already seared into my head but thanks.” He looked at Dev and then up at the overhead sign on the highway for the airport. “Your software program sounds like the realm of the darknet to me. You sure you want to dip into those waters with a high-profile company like yours?”
“Aww, are you looking out for me again? That’s sweet.”
“Come on, Dev, you know what I’m talking about. That’s not something a legit business wants to get tied up with however good your end intentions are.”
“My father had access to some of the finest minds in cyber-security and created this program strictly for internal use and only for cases deemed critical. It’s not something I ever use except on rare occasions like this.” She paused and looked out at a 747 angled skyward in its ascent. “To stay alive in the world of counter-espionage that goes with the K & R industry, we’ve had to expand our capabilities beyond what I’m comfortable with at times. Another reason why I don’t always see eye-to-eye with my board of directors.”
