Counter-Strike (A Mitch Kearns Combat Tracker Novel Book 2)

by JT Sawyer

  Mitch leaned over her shoulder, staring at the waters below. “Did you spot an old shipwreck down there? Seems like something’s caught your interest.”

  She sighed, slumping her shoulders back into the seat. “So many quaint little islands that a person could just disappear into and spend their days on the beach, not a care in the world.”

  “Ah, a city girl like you—I’d give you a week and you’d be aching for a mall,” he said with a nudge of his elbow.

  She smirked and didn’t avert her eyes as her mind wandered over the bewitching contours of the landscape below. Her face was tense and she was sure it wasn’t from the sun streaming in through the portal. Her whole body was rigid despite her best efforts at relaxing during the long flight. She never wanted to be a CEO and run her father’s tentacled organization; being responsible for so many lives coupled with week after week in that corporate setting was bleeding her soul. She marveled at her father’s ability to command so many facets of the business while keeping so many alpha types in check. But then he had been a guerilla fighter in the trenches for decades so running a company with only egos to battle was probably a hell of a lot easier. How she wanted to talk to him again, walk through the cedars around their old house and to get his counsel. She was glad to be away from her duties for a while though the board of directors weren’t going to keep buying her story about assisting a new client.

  She needed a change in her mental landscape and leaned over towards Mitch. “You miss them much?” said Dev. “Your old unit buddies I mean.”

  Mitch rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “Yeah, sometimes. We all keep in touch via email. Whenever I travel, I’ll look up one of them or vice-versa. There were about a dozen guys I knew well but I was really only good buds with four of them. Like brothers—the Fantastic Four.”

  “Was Marco one of them?”

  “Mmm…no but he was a damn fine armorer and knew more about ballistics than anyone I ever met. He’s a solid guy whom I could always count on when the lead was flying. Plus, he owes me one after I bailed him out of the slammer for a drunken fight with some squids—you know, navy guys.”

  “So, how did he come to live in Kuala Lumpur?” Dev said, studying the rolling terrain outside her window.

  “After he got out of the military, Marco did a few stints as a private contractor in the Middle East, saving enough money to buy a used plane. Said he could make a lot of loot taking rich tourists out to remote beaches.” Mitch turned the ventilation fan over his head up a notch.

  “His first wife was Indonesian. He told me he met her in a brothel in Thailand. She’s the one who introduced him to the city during their ten-month marriage.”

  “Sounds like a ‘solid’ guy alright.”

  “Actually, he is in a firefight. He once got shot in the knuckles by an AK round after disembarking a C-130 in Afghanistan. He was walking off the loading ramp and some Taliban in the foothills unleashed on his guys on the runway. Good ole Marco waved the plane off and took to the boulders, refusing medical treatment for nine hours while sending hate downrange to assure his men were safe.”

  “I’ve known some warriors like that. They are exactly the type of person you want on your side when things get rough but they’re sometimes a menace to themselves in civilian life without a war to wage.”

  Mitch leaned over, pressing his shoulder against hers. “So, I know you’re a big girl and all, but be warned that Marco has a roving eye—and sometimes roving hands.”

  “Why, Mitchell Kearns, do I detect a vein of chivalry in you?”

  “Just watch yourself, though I’ll keep him in line if he gets to be too much.”

  “I’ll be fine, thanks.” She closed the shutter on the window and stared down the aisle. “So he’ll be obvious to find amidst that throng of people in the city.”

  “Marco—ah, yeah, let’s just say there are some streets in Kuala Lumpur he can’t go down.”

  “A habitual brawler who looks for trouble—great.”

  “Not that so much as the guy’s as wide as a rhino.” Mitch puffed out his chest as if he’d been inflated with helium. “You’ll spot him from a hundred yards off. The Indonesians usually just part when they see him coming. We used to joke in our unit that if we were ever stranded on an island, Marco would be the first guy we’d sacrifice to extend our rations.”

  The pilot announced that he was taking the jet in for its descent. Mitch pulled his seat forward and thought about his days abroad with Marco and his other SF buddies. It seemed like a millennium ago and he missed the camaraderie though his creaky knees from too many airborne jumps sometimes reminded him that he wasn’t in his twenties any longer.

  Chapter 18

  After checking into their hotel near Merdeka Square, Mitch strode down to a streetside clothing vendor and purchased some t-shirts and garments for the group. Urban camouflage meant fitting in with the locals and it was the first thing he did when arriving in a new country. The second-hand stores were the best places to obtain clothing with a more weathered appearance but since Kuala Lumpur was such a tourist haven it wasn’t hard to find suitable attire.

  Two hours later, the taxi dropped them off at the Golden Macau Bar four blocks from downtown Kuala Lumpur. The outer façade of the three-story building held a hint of British colonialist architecture amidst the gaudy red-and-green paint adorning the exterior walls. Across the street was an abandoned mosque with graffiti covering the flaking stucco walls. The Petronas Twin Towers and other skyscrapers were visible in the distance in the more affluent section of the city. Their present location could best be described as the budget side of town with its greasy boardwalk lined with pubs, cocktail lounges, and other alcohol-fueled entertainment venues. Filling the sidewalks were numerous hawker stalls peddling knock-off watches and shoes while a carnival of prostitutes mingled with the human river that spilled onto the street. The humid air was an amalgam of sweat and musty trash combined with charcoal smoke from the curbside food vendors.

  Petra paid the driver while everyone removed their backpacks, clutching them closely as they headed inside. Pushing past the haze of smoke, Mitch led them upstairs to the rooftop bar where his friend had told him he’d be waiting. His boots crunched over discarded beer bottle caps and peanut husks as he made his way past the medley of twenty-something ex-pats swaying to the karaoke music. A young Asian DJ with a bowl haircut was standing on a wooden crate while a throng of women yelled song suggestions at him.

  Upon emerging on the third floor, it wasn’t hard to spot Marco Rigby with his refrigerator-wide girth which nearly took up two seats at the back of the bar. The setting sun reflected off his bulbous bald head, making it seem like his neck had inflated a balloon. He was wearing a rayon blue shirt with green palm trees and sat before a sweating glass of amber ale. The man’s narrow eyes widened at the sight of Mitch and he shot up from his rattan chair.

  “Mitch, Mitch…you old dog,” Marco said, clutching Mitch in a vice-like bearhug then patting him on the shoulder with his shovel-like hand, which nearly knocked him into the table. “Shit, it’s been too long, bro.”

  Mitch sucked in a breath of smoky air and gave the man a handshake. “You’re as fit as when you were in the unit.” Mitch could see Marco had gained weight but didn’t think flattery would hurt. The hulking figure could probably still move like a puma and flatten anyone in his way with just a single punch.

  Marco motioned to the diminutive waitress at the bar to bring a round of beers then his gaze shot over to Dev. “Whoa—you said you were traveling with a fine lady but you didn’t mention she was a beauty queen.”

  Dev rolled her eyes and smirked. Marco moved past Mitch and grabbed Dev’s duffel bag, placing it under his chair, and then slipped his hand out over hers, leading her over to the table. “Please, come and sit. You’ve all had a long flight and we have much to talk about it seems.”

  After a few minutes of small talk between Mitch and Marco, the scantily clad waitress arrived with the drinks,
her youthful appearance revealing someone who was probably no more than sixteen. “Just put in on my tab, darling,” said Marco, who winked at her.

  “So, what brings you to my tropical paradise?”

  “More than just sightseeing I’m afraid.” Mitch leaned forward and spoke in a quiet tone. “What can you tell me about the Suma Tigers?”

  Marco stopped drinking in mid-sip and slowly lowered his beer. He rested his meaty arms on the table, scooching his chair forward and whispering, “I take it you don’t mean the big cats on the endangered species list?”

  “We encountered a few of their mercenaries at a site in Austria,” said Dev.

  Mitch gave him a look of urgency. “I know they hail from these parts but if you could provide a location, that’d be a big help. I figured Sumatra, of course, but that’s a helluva lot of territory to cover.”

  Marco continued hunching over, speaking in a low tone. “They are not on the big island here. You are correct that Sumatra, next door, is the location of that mercenary group though they are rumored to also be sprinkled along many of the smaller island chains west of Sumatra with their own little factions.”

  Marco rubbed his chin and looked at Petra and David then back at Mitch. “You lads in need of some work and wanting to join up with the Sumas or what?”

  “Remember Professor Bob Schueller from the cold-weather testing labs we went to in the army?” said Mitch.

  “That old fuck with the bifocals who kept me in that hypothermia chamber for two hours while he and his pasty-faced assistants scribbled notes on my body’s response to his punishment?”

  Mitch shook his head and smirked. “Yeah, that guy—that ‘old fuck’ is a good friend of mine. We kept in touch after that research project. Anyway, he’s gone missing and our trail led us to a safe house in Austria that had a bunch of dead Suma guys sprinkled around the lawn.”

  Mitch paused and looked at Dev, recalling their harrowing fight with Yin and her bodyguard at the airport. “The trail went cold in Munich and has led us here.”

  “Yeah, I remember you being interested in the old man’s research stuff and hitting it off with him. Sorry to hear about his predicament.” Marco drank the last of his beer and licked the white froth from his lips. “I’ll check with a few of my contacts to see if they’ve heard anything unusual going on around town here and on Sumatra. I know a few former Indonesian spec-ops guys here who can be trusted.”

  Marco stood up, his hulking frame dwarfing the table, and threw down some bills. “For now, let me show you my city.”

  Mitch finished his drink and got up, peering out over the roof at the cityscape below. He caught a glimpse of a man in a green t-shirt sitting on a rooftop bar across the street. He was certain the guy was looking his way. A second later, he felt Marco’s hand on his shoulder and turned around. “You gonna gawk at the eye-candy on the street or are we gonna hit the town?”

  Mitch swung his head back to the opposite roof and noticed that the man was gone, his full beverage still sitting atop the rickety wooden table. “Yeah, sure, let’s go. Let’s go.”

  ***

  Von hastily made his way down the steps of the restaurant across from Mitch and the others. The photo that he had sent to Crenna had pulled up Mitch Kearns’ files, a man who seemed like a worthy adversary. It also indicated that he had a previous connection with Schueller, which was probably why he had been pursuing Yin. He wondered if Yin had revealed anything before her death that could fill in the blanks about this globe-trotting search that Crenna had sent him on.

  He sent a text message to Crenna on his location and then shoved it back in his pocket before heading out the rear exit. He scanned the alley in either direction, making his way towards his moped. Hopping on, he felt a sharp prick in his neck and quickly turned around, his pistol in hand. There was no one in sight, only the loud music from the nearby street corner resounding off the walls of the buildings. He slid his fingers up to a burning patch of skin below his ear. He removed a one-inch needle just as his vision began blurring. He crawled off the moped, clutching his weapon. It felt like his brain was draining out from his ears and the music was growing muffled. He tried raising his pistol at the two men approaching but his limb was unresponsive, like it had turned into a chunk of waterlogged driftwood. His breathing slowed and he spiraled to the ground, his head smacking a trash can before resting on the silty pavement.

  Chapter 19

  Natalie Quint was standing with her arms folded, scanning the sidewalk below her office in Langley, Virginia. She wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just letting her mind float over the river of pedestrian traffic as she contemplated the events of the past twenty-four hours. The emergence of former operative Kyle Redstrom coupled with the sudden disappearance of two of Crenna’s field agents gave her cause for concern.

  Quint had been deputy director for four years and had worked both field operations and intelligence gathering over her twenty-six-year career. She’d dealt with her fair share of bullshit both in the field and in-house at Langley. Her instincts and gut feelings had served her well in keeping her alive and in climbing up the largely male-dominated ladder at the world’s largest covert agency. Those same instincts were causing her stomach to churn like a blender as she mulled over the connections and odd circumstances surrounding Crenna. She knew of his reputation within the agency for being old-school and had heard rumors about his off-the-books operations back in the early 90s. It was the stuff of legend, things that most operatives dreamed of doing before there was so much senate oversight. The thrill of the chase and working undercover is what had first led Quint into working for the agency. But she had learned over the years that even the most meticulous operator can’t cover their own tracks forever. Accountability to something other than your own rule book was essential. There was a chaotic hurricane brewing and she suspected Crenna was at the eye of the storm. Hopefully it could be rectified before it tarnished the image of the agency that Quint had fought so hard to uphold under her watch.

  Her secretary knocked and then entered, walking to Quint’s oval desk. The slender redhead handed her a tablet which contained the image of a dark-skinned man in his late twenties. “Everyone else at Crenna’s office is accounted for except this man, Von Harut. He was last traced to Munich.”

  Quint gave the woman a concerned look as she was handed the tablet and began scanning the man’s files. “Munich—there was just a notice that came out of our substation in Germany about a woman at the Munich Airport who was shot. She was apparently involved in dozens of espionage incidents over the past ten years—an Asian woman.”

  Quint thrust the tablet back to her secretary and sat down at her desk, frantically typing on her laptop. “Gather everything you can on Harut, Crenna, Redstrom, and the woman who died in Munich. Cross-reference their case histories and field assignments and see if there’s any overlap then have a team meet me in the situation room in fifteen minutes.”

  The assistant left as Quint pored over an old internal document about Redstrom’s disappearance in Beijing three years earlier. She accessed the agency’s employee database, looking up past members assigned to Crenna’s outfit who were involved in the search for Redstrom.

  As the files pulled up, she leaned back in her chair, her neck tensing while reading each line on the list. Two of the field operatives associated with the case were marked as deceased: one was killed in action, another died in a car accident, and the other, an Asian woman named Jessica Yin, was MIA. Each within six months of the disappearance of Redstrom. Shortly afterwards, Crenna was reassigned to Malaysia as a station chief. Quint studied the files and the facial images. What is the connection here? Are Crenna and Redstrom working together, and if so, where is the money coming from? Was Redstrom’s death fabricated and he’s been working off-the-books for Crenna all this time along with Yin? And now it looks like Crenna is eliminating any potential ties back to him, especially since two of his own people have gone missing.

&nbs
p; She scanned the files again, reading and re-reading the pertinent details. “This is looking like the mother of all shit-storms that could bring a lot of unwanted attention to the U.S.,” she whispered. She arched her shoulders back, narrowing her eyes into cat-like slits and focusing her gaze on Crenna’s image.

  Chapter 20

  The next morning as the sun shone over the bustling city, Mitch pried his eyes open and sat up on one elbow on the cheap couch in their shared hotel room. Dev had stayed in the small bed in the corner near the porch while the three men sacked out around the main room. David was already awake, the ever-vigilant warrior standing like a Greek statue near the patio door. Petra was still asleep, lying on his back on the couch across from Mitch. The young man’s fingers were interlaced on his chest like he was meditating.

  Mitch looked over at the bed but saw that Dev was absent and heard her soft footfalls as she emerged from the bathroom, her lush wet hair draped over her shoulders. He sat up, his eyes widening at her alluring image as he rubbed his temples.

  “Too many brews last night?” she said.

  “Whew—I haven’t drunk that much in a long time. I think I’ve lost my acclimation.”

  “How late did you guys stay out after we left?” said Petra, who had suddenly emerged from his slumber.

  “We hit three more bars and then I had to yank Marco away from a brawl that almost broke out when he accidentally stepped on a bouncer’s foot.”

  “So, you became babysitter for Mr. Charming,” said Dev, leaning over and shaking her hair before going upright again.

  “Yeah, you may have noticed he has a way with people,” said Mitch, standing up and pulling on a t-shirt.

  There was a knock on the door followed by Marco’s voice. David strode over and let the man in while peering both ways down the hall.

  Marco’s bloodshot eyes were still glassy and Mitch wondered if he’d stayed out all night bar-hopping. He dragged a beat-up suitcase on wheels behind him which he unceremoniously dumped in the center of the floor before Mitch’s feet.