Surveillance (A Chris Bruen Novel Book 3)

by Reece Hirsch

  In the clip Sam had stared into the webcam and explained that he had removed classified documents about a secret US domestic surveillance program. He’d explained that he was providing only the most tantalizing details in the video because this was a story that needed to be presented in carefully vetted form by an established media outlet. Otherwise, it could be dismissed as merely another crackpot conspiracy theory. Sam thanked the Russian government for its generosity in granting him sanctuary during a difficult time but explained that now he wanted to return to the United States and tell his story in full. Finally, he’d added, he was willing to face any consequences that might result from his actions, because he believed that the disclosures were in his nation’s best interest.

  With some savvy seeding of the Twitterverse from Josh and Rajiv and their proxies, the video had gone viral, garnering more than a million views in three days. Media outlets on the right were clamoring for Sam’s head on a pike, and the left was, at a minimum, dubious about his motives and veracity. However, all sides were in full-throated agreement that Sam should return to the United States so that the media could he could be properly devoured by the twenty-four-hour news cycle.

  “I just expressed my desire to return home to my country,” Sam told Grishin. “You wanted to see the materials disclosed, and they will be. However, I’d prefer to do it on my own terms.”

  “Didn’t Snowden disclose on his own terms?”

  “Yes, he did, but that happened before he arrived in your country. You simply offered him sanctuary. I don’t intend to be your public relations coup.”

  “You misunderstand us, Mr. Reston.”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “It was a mistake to attempt to force our hand. You assume that we care what the US thinks of us. President Putin has already demonstrated in the Ukraine that he is not concerned about antagonizing the West.”

  “I’ve made my wishes clear,” Sam said. “It’s up to you how you respond. I understand that you can detain me here if you like.”

  “You are not being detained.”

  “If you don’t allow me to return to my country now, then that’s the only word for it.”

  Grishin stared at him with what almost seemed like compassion. “Surely you know what they are going to do to you. You’ll look back fondly on this penthouse apartment when you’re confined to a tiny prison cell.”

  “I have faith in my country.”

  “Even after they lock you away and tear you limb from limb in the press?”

  “Maybe it’s my penance for the work I did for so many years.” Sam shrugged. “It’s what I want.”

  Grishin stood, walked to the kitchen, and picked a green apple from a bowl. He tossed it from hand to hand. “I really don’t understand you. You say you have faith in your country, and yet you regret the work that you did for its top intelligence agency. You say you don’t want to be exploited by my government, but you’re willing to allow the Western press to turn you into a sideshow. You seem to view yourself as a patriot, but you disclose your government’s most classified state secrets. Please, can you explain any of this to me?”

  “Would it make any difference?”

  “No,” Grishin said. “People more important than I will decide what’s to be done with you now. But still, I would like to know.”

  Sam joined Grishin in the kitchen. “You’re not wrong. My actions probably won’t make sense to a lot of people. Hell, sometimes they don’t even make sense to me. But I guess there are things about my country that are so right that they outweigh all of the things that are wrong.”

  “What are these things that are so right? I think maybe they are not so different from what I love about my country. You know, I am a patriot too.”

  “I don’t think I could tell you without sounding like Jimmy Stewart in a Frank Capra movie.”

  “I’ve seen those movies too,” Grishin said, placing the apple delicately back in the bowl. “I enjoyed them, truly. But what’s going to happen to you will be like nothing that you’ve seen in a Frank Capra movie.”

  42

  Michael Hazlitt had been following Gabriel Cardenas, a hit man for the Sinaloa Cartel, for most of the morning. He couldn’t believe that the man had already eaten two breakfasts, both with bacon, plus a snack. Murder for hire must be hungry work. Hazlitt wasn’t able to shadow him as closely as he would have liked, because Cardenas was a professional who without a doubt would be adept at spotting a tail.

  When Cardenas purchased a ticket at the Plaza México, Hazlitt knew he’d come for blood sport of a different sort. Cardenas planned to kill Zoey Doucet, who had passed through the turnstile only minutes earlier.

  Hazlitt wasn’t even supposed to be on the job. He had reported that he was taking some well-earned vacation time in Cancún. He knew that any investigation of Bruen and Doucet would lead him squarely into the path of the secret agency that was intent on killing them and their client Ayres. He respected his bosses for the most part, but he knew that they would not be able to stand up to the kind of national security shitstorm that would ensue if it became known what he planned.

  So why was he risking his career and pension to pursue this? Why was he risking his life for an off-the-books operation, messing around with a hit man for the Sinaloa Cartel who was as deadly as weaponized anthrax?

  The answer: Hazlitt owed Bruen and Doucet. A couple of years back he’d chased them from San Francisco to Barcelona to Paris to New York on what turned out to be a frame-up. And then Bruen and Doucet had added insult to injury by saving his life after he had been shot. Hazlitt liked collecting debts, not owing them.

  The agency had been buzzing about the bodies of Damian Hull and his trio of hackers, who’d been found with their throats slit, reddening the waters of a fountain in central Culiacán. His colleagues had also heard rumors that the hackers had stolen tens of millions of dollars from the cartel. There wasn’t a lot of ambiguity in the message that the cartel was sending in reply.

  Hazlitt was the only person at the FBI who knew that Doucet had once associated with one of the victims, Damian Hull. By calling in a favor from one of his buddies at the DEA, Hazlitt had accessed some of the latest surveillance of the cartel’s kingpins. Which had led him to follow Gabriel Cardenas. Which had led him to Zoey.

  Cardenas had been paying visits to known Mexico City hackers, looking for someone who had seen Zoey. He finally found her in the Condesa neighborhood, leaving the apartment of a hacker who went by the name GhostFace. Cardenas had followed her patiently, waiting for the right opportunity as she walked for blocks through the hot, sleepy, midday city, until arriving at the Plaza México.

  Hazlitt was fairly certain that Zoey was not the sort to enjoy bullfights, so this must be a meeting place. It was a good choice—a massive, noisy crowd, a warrenlike network of tunnels and ramps. Cardenas would also like the venue. It would be easy for him to slip in, put a silenced bullet in her head, and then slip away into the throngs.

  But only if Hazlitt didn’t reach her first. He let his hand rest near his gun, touching it lightly under his shirt. He kept imagining drawing down on Cardenas, hardwiring the action in his synapses, trying to ensure that he wouldn’t hesitate when the moment arrived. Hazlitt specialized in cybercrime, so when he brought bad guys into custody there was rarely much of a fight, much less gunplay. He knew this one was going to go down the hard way and regretted that it had been months since he had spent time at the firing range.

  Zoey hated bullfights.

  Really hated them.

  She hated the humiliation and pain inflicted on the poor beast, and she hated the testosterone-addled romanticization of death.

  Zoey hated bullfights even though she had never attended one, because some things you really don’t need to experience in person. Chris knew her better than to suggest Plaza México as a meeting place, so it must have been Ian’s idea. Even though she had never met Ian, she was already starting to dislike him.

  Zoey pu
rchased her ticket and waited for a few minutes near the ticket counter, as instructed. Then she decided that she looked too conspicuous standing around, so she began walking around the pathway that ringed the ground floor of the stadium. At each pass by the ticket counter, she lingered for a moment to look in vain for Chris and Ian.

  Her burner phone rang. Her pulse raced. It had to be Chris. No one else had the number. “Hello?”

  “Zoey, you don’t know me, but my name is Josh Epstein. You’re in a lot of danger right now, so you need to do exactly what I say.”

  Zoey absorbed that information, prioritizing a host of questions. “How am I in danger?” That was as good a place as any to start.

  “There’s a hit man for the Sinaloa Cartel following you. He’s watching you and he’s fairly close.”

  Zoey slowly rotated in a circle, looking for someone staring back at her, someone who looked like a hit man. “How close?”

  “Close enough,” Josh said. “About twenty yards. He’s still just watching you.”

  “Who are you, Josh, and why should I believe anything you say?”

  “Well, I don’t know if this is going to help, but I work for the agency that is trying to kill you.”

  “But you don’t want to kill me?”

  “No. I’m trying to help you get out of the Plaza México alive, and we don’t have any more time to discuss this. He’s moving. He’s coming toward you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Never mind. Just turn left and start walking—fast. If I tell you where he is, you’ll look at him.”

  Zoey turned and set out again along the walkway. She tried to dodge as quickly as she could through the crowd without giving the impression of running. Suddenly, everything seemed too bright and loud. Even though she took care not to run, adrenaline kicked in, and she found herself gasping for air.

  “You could be lying,” Zoey said, panting. “Maybe there’s no one there at all.”

  “If I wanted you dead, I would have just gone to lunch and done nothing.”

  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t go to lunch then.”

  “You should be flattered. I like lunch.” Josh’s voice became muffled as he spoke to someone.

  “Who are you talking to?” she asked.

  “My coworker Rajiv. He’s got your friend Bruen on his headset.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “About as okay as you are, which isn’t saying much.”

  “Where is he?”

  “There at the stadium. Not far.”

  “Take me to him.”

  “We’re working on it, but it’s kind of delicate.” A pause. “Wait. Here, take the elevator on your right. The door’s open.”

  Zoey saw that an elderly man with a cane had just exited the elevator and the door was still open.

  “Now! Get in there!”

  She ducked inside without activating the sensor, hit the button for the top floor, and turned to face the doors. A man in a sand-colored suit with deep-set eyes was walking quickly to the elevator, trying to catch it before it closed. He lunged past a couple, extending a hand for the elevator doors to trip the sensor, only steps away.

  Nowhere to run. Zoey braced herself. Too late to hit the “Close Doors” button. Too late to do anything but scream for help. Her mouth refused to open. Instinctively, she shrank back until her back touched the rear wall of the car.

  The door began to close as the killer’s left hand reached for it, his right removing a pistol from under his jacket.

  The door gasped shut.

  Zoey gasped along with it.

  “Are you still there?” Josh asked.

  “Yes,” she said in what sounded like a sob.

  “Get off on the third level.”

  “Okay. Can you see what he’s doing now?”

  “He’s coming for you—that’s what he’s doing. He’s running up the stairs. But we’ve got you, Zoey. Just do exactly what I say.”

  “Okay,” Zoey said. “I’m nearly at the third level. What do I do next?”

  She waited for an answer, then saw that the phone’s screen read, “Not Connected.” The display showed one bar.

  Zoey was alone in an elevator that would open in seconds, revealing her to a cartel assassin. The voice in her head had gone mute, but other, terror-stricken voices rushed in to fill the silence.

  43

  Chris walked briskly away, parting the concession stand lines, trying to put some distance between Corbin and himself. He descended a long ramp connecting the fourth level with the third. Perhaps if he could make it to street level and the ticket counter, he might find Zoey still waiting there as planned.

  He weighed whether it was still safe for him to go to Zoey, because that could lead Corbin to her. He decided that it was better to get her away from the stadium. If she continued to wait for him, as he expected she would, then Corbin would find her.

  Sensing something, Chris looked up at the ramp above him on the stadium’s upper deck. Anton Corbin was staring down at him with the same look that he’d given Chris from the fire escape of the San Francisco police station on the first day of his flight. He hadn’t drawn his gun; evidently, he didn’t intend to fire a shot into the crowd.

  Corbin gave a little nod and a smile, then disappeared from the railing.

  “Corbin’s spotted you,” Rajiv said.

  “I know. I just made eye contact with him. Where have you been?”

  “I’ve been talking to Josh, and I think we have a plan. But you’re going to have to follow my directions very precisely.”

  “Okay. Who’s Josh?”

  “He works with me. He’s talking Zoey through this.”

  Chris’s heart rose and sank like a surfer nosing over the crest of a monster wave. Elation that she was alive was promptly deflated by the danger she still faced.

  “So she’s okay?”

  “So far, yeah. I need you to go to the tunnel marked Section 22.”

  “Is she going to be there?”

  “I hope so.”

  Chris picked up the pace, pushing and pulling his way through a sea of people. The more he flailed and struggled, the more unyielding the crowds became. Hard looks were thrown like stones at the crazy americano. Time slowed to the pace of a New Orleans dirge.

  Inside the stadium the crowd roared “¡Olé!” Something was dying.

  Ian threw up in a toilet in the stadium restroom after leaving Chris in his seat with the killer Corbin on the way. He felt his entire body revolting against what he had done.

  For the past twenty-four hours he’d been receiving phone calls from Corbin on his burner. Ian didn’t know how they’d acquired the number, but he had learned not to be surprised at anything that the agency knew. He was more surprised when there was something that they didn’t know. The calls had always come when Bruen was not present, which made them all the more unnerving.

  The conversations were direct, or as direct as Corbin was capable of being. Each time, Corbin explained the hopelessness of their situation, and Ian required little convincing.

  “You know how this ends,” Corbin had said. “Bruen dies in every scenario. Just consider him a dead man, because that’s what he is. There aren’t a lot of choices left, but you have one. If you choose to help us bring Bruen down smoothly, then we’ll let you live. You’ll be in prison—I won’t lie to you about that—but you’ll live.”

  Some would say that a life in prison is no life at all, but Ian feared the alternative more. He didn’t give in during his first call with Corbin, but it started him thinking. By the second call it must have been obvious that his resolve was wavering. He was going to betray his friend. The third call was about logistics—the time they would meet Zoey at Plaza México, where they would sit in the stadium, what he would do if Bruen managed to successfully evade them.

  Ever since that third call with Corbin, Ian had felt constantly nauseated. He told himself that it wasn’t a moral failing but more of a structural weakness. He was like
a building that had been made with cheap concrete diluted with sand. He couldn’t be expected to withstand this degree of pressure. He was bound to crumble, because that was simply how he’d been engineered.

  Ian wished that he had been a product of better design and materials, someone who somehow found a way to do what was necessary, the so-called “brave” thing. Someone like Chris. Someone who didn’t put ironic quotes around words like “brave.” He suspected Zoey was like that too. They weren’t better people than he. They were simply built to higher specifications, with higher tolerances.

  Despite the many moments in which he’d thought he hated Chris, in truth Ian really only hated himself.

  He tried telling himself that what Corbin said was true—no matter what happened, Bruen was going to die. So Ian could be dead along with Bruen, or he could live with the guilt of knowing that he’d betrayed his friend. And what was the point of a courageous, loyal act if no one remained alive to appreciate it? That was like the Zen koan of the tree falling in the forest with no one to hear it, right? But Ian knew that there was a point, and he knew that it was perhaps the point of all points—that what we do when no one is watching is the measure of who we are.

  When he emerged from the restroom, wiping spittle from his lips, he returned to where they had been sitting, but the seats were empty. He had expected to see a crowd around Bruen’s dead body, but that hadn’t happened.

  Could he have been wounded? Ian saw no blood spatters, no disturbed spectators surrounding him. If Corbin had caught up with Chris, he wouldn’t have missed. He was a professional. Maybe Chris saw Corbin coming and ran. Or maybe he figured out that Ian was a lying Judas and ditched him.

  Ian was relieved and disappointed and profoundly nauseated. In the crisp, bright sunlight, he looked down into the pit of the stadium and watched a picador holding his lance aloft in a preening, taunting dance. The young bull lunged past, and the picador plunged the lance between its shoulder blades, drawing first blood. The bull lowered its head and horns and pawed the dirt, gazing up at the picador with what seemed to be a new appreciation of the stakes.