Laynie Portland, Spy Resurrected

by Vikki Kestell

  He added, “What if we gather the task force members, including Lance and Sherman, and announce that the three of us attended Bella’s memorial service. I can concoct the details—how touching it was, what we shared with her family, how appreciative they were that we came. We let Sherman report that info to his handler.”

  Tobin said, “I get you, and it’s a good idea . . .”

  “But you don’t like it.”

  “No, sir, not a bit. That burned body isn’t Bella, and I want to shout the truth of it to the heavens.”

  “The burned body isn’t Bella. Hmm. You know . . .” Jaz drummed her fingers on the side of her laptop. “We’ve been so relieved that it’s not her and distracted by the intel Cossack smuggled to us that we haven’t dissected what ‘it’s not her body’ means. I’m talking from AGFA’s point of view.”

  Wolfe invited her to continue. “Do tell.”

  “Gotta ask ourselves, who is this woman whose body was supposed to be Bella’s? And how did she end up in the car with Cossack’s men?”

  “Right—"

  “I mean, did the terrorists abduct Bella before she met with Cossack’s men and replace her with a living, breathing reasonable facsimile, a woman who could initially fool Cossack’s men? Or, did the terrorists ‘just happen’ to have a dead body at the ready, a body the same height and weight as Bella?

  “Either of those scenarios leads to the same two conclusions. Conclusion one, the car crash was no accident. It was intentional. AGFA knew Bella was coming to Tbilisi and they had worked out a plan to abduct her.”

  “So—”

  “Not finished.” Jaz raised a finger. “Hence, we know Bella is still alive.”

  Tobin frowned. “How do you figure that?”

  Jaz bent a look of disdain on him. “Because, Tobin, they wanted us to believe she was dead. If AGFA simply wanted to kill Bella, they would have done so. Instead, they went to a great deal of effort to abduct her and, while doing so, convince us that she was dead.”

  Tobin and Wolfe slowly nodded their agreement with Jaz’s point-by-point lecture.

  “What next, Director?” Tobin asked. “How do we find Bella?”

  “Sir,” Jaz said. “What if we . . . confront Sherman—just the three of us. Tell him we know he’s being coerced. Ask him to help us expose the other mole . . . and save his family. I mean, what other hope does he have of saving them?”

  Tobin looked at Wolfe. “You are the spy master, sir. You know how to do this.”

  Wolfe started to shake his head, then stopped and pulled in on himself.

  “Let me think on it.”

  Chapter 11

  TOBIN AND JAZ HAD DRIVEN straight through from Germantown to New Orleans. For the return trip, Wolfe insisted they do the same. Tobin and Parker switched off on the driving, catnapping when it was the other person’s time to drive.

  Wolfe and Jaz spent the remainder of daylight studying the documents Cossack had smuggled out in the unknown woman’s casket. The intelligence he’d supplied was both important and helpful—but it didn’t contain the key the task force needed to unlock the attack.

  Jaz tipped her head back and rested it on the seat back. The muscles of her neck were stiff and sore from bending over the documents. Eyes closed, she silently reviewed the portions of the intel that validated the task force’s working assumptions.

  AGFA is providing fentanyl to the New York branch of the Ukrainian mob—check. The New Year’s Eve attacks will also utilize fentanyl—check. Unlikely that the mob knows about the impending attacks right in their backyard—check. In fact, everything in Cossack’s intel confirms Rusty’s fentanyl theory—check.

  Jaz snickered to herself. Far you have come, my young padawan apprentice.

  She moved on to the new intelligence Cossack had given them. The attacks will occur in ten cities in the same time zone.

  “No doubt timing the attacks to occur simultaneously. A blitzkrieg strategy—looking to maximize fear and chaos.”

  “What’s that?” Wolfe asked.

  “Sorry. Just going over Cossack’s intel.”

  She returned to her thoughts, trying to tease out any new hints to the puzzle the team so desperately needed to assemble.

  Ten cities, but not a clue as to which ones. Perhaps not, but couldn’t we . . .

  Jaz’s forehead furrowed, and she cursed the fact that she couldn’t plug into the Web while on the road. She started a mental list of tasks for when she was back at Broadsword and reconnected to the Internet.

  Not to worry. By analysis and elimination, we will identify most of the targets. Rusty and I will make quick work of it.

  She smiled when she pictured the eager young man with freckles and reddish-brown hair. He’d grown on her. They were partners and “buds,” although she was the senior partner. She’d even developed real affection for him—as a friend.

  Yes, they’d run up against the usual pitfalls of a partnership but had survived them. A couple weeks back, Rusty had gathered the courage to send out tentative feelers, signaling he’d like to be more than friends. Jaz had signaled back that she preferred things as they were.

  In a complete reversal of her usual modus operandi, Jaz had let him down gently, and he’d taken it well enough. Gently? Not at all the way she usually handled unwanted male advances. Meaning she hadn’t, with heartless intent, demolished Rusty’s male ego in the process.

  To think I didn’t “do” friends before . . . before becoming part of this team. Okay, this amazing team.

  From far out in left field, Harris’ grinning face popped up, and Jaz shivered. How she detested that man and that presumptuous smirk. So completely self-satisfied. So opposite her, so full-on macho to boot. Harris. Huh! A complete and utter . . . dork.

  Dork? What am I—in kindergarten?

  But it was the only label that fit . . . or that she found herself willing to employ.

  Jaz waggled her head and felt her neck pop, sending relief down her entire spine.

  Harris. Yah, a full-on, card-carrying dork. Going on and on about the merits of this gun versus that gun and what ammo was better and why—while I stand there bored out of my brain not even pretending to be interested. Why, that man is the last male on earth I’d ever consider . . .

  Jaz shivered again. Last man I’d ever consider? Consider for what? And what’s with the shivering business?

  She snickered again with sly amusement. Wait—I’ve got it. I might be induced to consider him for target practice. Yah. Heh-heh-heh. Target practice . . . with Harris as the target.

  She crammed Harris’ face into a box at the back of her thoughts—stuffed him there twice more before he finally stayed put—and yanked herself back to the task at hand.

  Select and list top twenty east-coast cities by population.

  Research public New Year’s Eve celebrations.

  List venues by capacity and popularity.

  Analyze event security measures—rank venue security by order of vulnerability.

  Distill list to top twenty candidates for terror attack.

  Best-guess AGFA’s targets.

  LATER—HOW MUCH LATER she couldn’t tell—Laynie’s aching body raised her to consciousness again. Her head throbbed and her throat felt like sandpaper. She was beyond thirsty. She was parched.

  Then . . . she heard something. Words. In an unfamiliar tongue. They sounded distant, muffled but like her whispers had sounded.

  The words were followed by scraping, clawing, and a scree so close to her head that she instinctively tried to shy from it.

  Light struck her eyes, light so bright that she moaned.

  The voices were atop her now, one ordering, another replying, but she did not speak their language. Hands touched her. She wanted to pull away from them—even fight them—but she had no strength except to moan.

  She felt a slight tug at her arm. A moment later, a familiar warmth coursed through her. It overspread her body, and she sank, sank, sank . . . down, down, down. />
  She floated on a cozy, comforting wave that rocked her gently. Nice. No pain. No fear. She heard the words echoing inside her and nodded her agreement.

  Whatever happens . . . conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ . . . For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him . . .

  Yes.

  “Faugh! How she reeks, Kameta!” The young woman drew back and spit on the floor. She wiped her mouth and wrinkled her nose in distaste.

  Her companion unhooked the empty saline bag from the inside of the crate’s lid and hung a full one. “Is that not why you are here? To clean her? Get to it.”

  Kameta had been a nurse most of her life. She had worked in hospital wards for decades, but she had grown gaunt and gray from a lifetime of labor and the ruinous effects of a two-pack-a-day smoking habit. Unable to hold down a full-time job but still needing to support herself and her addiction in her old age, she took whatever work came her way.

  As she adjusted the IV line’s drip rate, she muttered, “Your stink is not much better than hers, Amina. You might want to shower more than once a month, eh?”

  Amina sulked at Kameta’s rebuke. Was it her fault her family rarely had hot water?

  Kameta checked the thick tape binding the patient’s hands together and examined the transparent film dressing over the catheter inserted into the back of the woman’s hand. Other than a spot of bruising around the catheter, things looked fine. Nodding to herself, she picked up the syringe she’d injected into the catheter’s medication port, capped the needle, and placed it in a small sharps container.

  “Let me know when you have finished cleaning her and changing her gown, Amina.”

  “Almost done.”

  “And change her blanket if it is soiled.”

  “Yes, yes. You don’t need to tell me.”

  Kameta squinted at the girl. “I will check your work. She had better not stink when you say you are done or have any sores from ill-treatment. Tomorrow morning is the last time you and I will attend this woman, and I do not want any complaints about her care that might affect my fee.”

  “Yes, I know! I will be thorough.”

  While shrugging on her coat, the old nurse said, “After I’ve changed the dressing on her ankle, you will help me turn her on her side.” Kameta pulled a pack of cigarettes from her coat’s pocket and shuffled toward the other end of the disused factory where she usually smoked.

  “Don’t I always?” Amina grumbled as she started her distasteful chore. She had accompanied Kameta to this place for eight days, three times each day, to clean and change Kameta’s patient. The hours they were ordered to tend the woman were not ideal—one o’clock in dead of night, nine in the morning, and five in the evening. The odd schedule made the notion of “each day” laughable since they attended to the woman every eight hours. Three times every twenty-four hours for eight days, Kameta picked Amina up in her rattling old car and brought her to the old factory. And at the end of each visit, they turned the unconscious woman from side to back or back to side to prevent bedsores.

  Unlike Kameta, Amina had no formal nursing training. She merely followed Kameta’s orders. The disquieting man who had hired Kameta seemed to trust the old woman. He trusted Amina only on Kameta’s recommendation. He had inspected Amina in stolid silence before approving her, but he had also made Amina swear to say nothing to her family or friends about this job or about the patient who was, quite obviously, not a patient by choice.

  Amina was glad she and Kameta would not see him again until he came to take the woman away.

  Truth be told, Amina had set her heart to care little for the unconscious woman. She needed the money too desperately to worry about what she was paid to do. As long as she did as she was told and kept her mouth shut, she would soon receive enough money to buy her family a decent-sized load of coal. December was cold in Tbilisi, and Amina was happy at the prospect of a warm house for a change. Maybe even a hot bath.

  And who knew? This job might lead to others. Perhaps then her father would look at his unmarried daughter with something other than sadness and disappointment.

  As she finished her chore and tossed the soiled rags and gown into a plastic bag, she scrutinized the patient’s long blond hair. Even unbrushed for days and dirty, it was hair to be envied. Amina’s own hair was a muddy brown. Nondescript and stringy.

  Amina looked down. A pair of the nurse’s scissors had sprung into her hands. Before Kameta came back, before she gave it thought, Amina snipped a strand of the patient’s hair and held it up, marveling at its color, the high- and low-lights in it.

  Kameta’s trudging footsteps announced her return from her cigarette break. In a panic, Amina threw down the scissors. They landed on the floor. She grabbed them up and laid them back on the dressing kit Kameta brought.

  Amina glanced down, startled to see the thick strand of hair in her hand. The plodding steps were close now. Unable to think of a better hiding place, Amina twined the hair around her finger and tucked it into her bra.

  “Are you done?”

  “Yes. All done.”

  Amina sneered at Kameta behind her back. The cloying stink of cigarette smoke was every bit as disgusting as the body odor Kameta criticized her for.

  Soon my mother will have a load of coal in the basement—not the pitiful scraps of wood and lumber she and Father must scrounge for just to light a fire in the fireplace. We will have coal in the furnace to heat the whole house—and to heat water. Perhaps as early as tomorrow night, I will draw a bath, a whole tub of steaming hot water! With the money left over after paying for the coal, I will buy shampoo—pretty, nice-smelling shampoo—and I will wash myself all over with it. When I am done bathing, I will put on clean clothes. Then I will smell nice, too, and my hair will be clean and shiny.

  Amina was smiling to herself when Kameta unwrapped the dressing kit, drew on a pair of sterile gloves, and cut the old dressing from the patient’s foot. The patient had a deep laceration above her left ankle. “From a car crash,” Kameta had told Amina. Initially, the foot had been swollen and bruised, so swollen with pooled blood that Amina had wondered if bones were broken. But Kameta seemed only concerned with how the thirteen stitches she’d placed above the woman’s ankle were healing.

  For the first day or two, the laceration had been red, puffy, and hot to the touch. Kameta had fussed over the wound. The old nurse had cleaned it, daubed it with antiseptic cream, and watched it carefully. She had no antibiotics to administer, and the man who hired her was not around to buy any. The only medication he had provided were the vials of liquid that Kameta injected into the patient’s IV to keep her unconscious.

  “I will remove the stitches today,” Kameta announced. She snipped and tugged until the threads came free, washed the healing wound, applied more antiseptic cream, then lightly bandaged the wound so it could breathe.

  “There. Done.”

  Together, the two women turned the patient onto her right side and covered her with a blanket. Checking a last time to assure herself that the patient was stable and unconscious, Kameta gestured to Amina. The two of them replaced the lid on the wooden crate and hammered it back in place.

  When they left the rusting Tbilisi factory, the moon was high in the sky. For a change, they were in good spirits. They would return at nine in the morning to perform their final ministrations on the woman—and to receive their wages.

  Chapter 12

  JAZ SAT UP, RUBBED her eyes, opened them to daylight. “Must have fallen asleep.”

  “You and me both.”

  “What time is it? Where are we?”

  “Half past seven in the morning. Less than thirty minutes from Broadsword.”

  She looked up front. Tobin was driving. Parker was dead to the world, his face plastered against the passenger-side window.

  Wolfe said, “I want to go over our plan and priorities with you and Marshal Tobin before we roll into the com
pound.”

  “Yah. Okay.”

  Tobin nodded that he was listening.

  “Breakfast should be over when we get there. Since Sherman notified his handler that you two went AWOL, stirring up his handler’s concerns, our first task is to assure Sherman that everything is fine. We need him to text his assurances to his handler, so I’ll call an immediate meeting of the full task force and include Lance and Sherman. What they’ll hear is that the three of us attended Bella’s memorial service. I’ve fabricated some notes on the service and will deliver them to the team.

  “Marshal? When we’ve assembled for our meeting, position yourself where you will have eyes on Sherman at all times. Do not let him out of your sight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When I dismiss the meeting, my hope is that Sherman will immediately text his handler. Miss Jessup? I want you monitoring Sherman’s phone so that we know the moment Sherman communicates with his handler.”

  “Yes, sir. The minute I plug into Broadsword’s DSL, I’ll be able to tell you when Sherman’s phone pings the cell tower.”

  “Good. As to your suggestion that we bring Sherman over to our side? I have decided to go with it—but only after Sherman relays the details of our trip to NOLA to his handler. We want Sherman to tell the mole we attended Bella’s memorial service. We don’t want the mole to suspect that we’re on to him—in particular that we know the burned body in the car wasn’t Bella’s.

  “Once Sherman has reassured his handler, we’ll take him, get him in a room, and crack him like an egg. He will be made to see that working with us is the only possible means of recovering his family alive. Hopefully, he will then spill the handler’s ID. I’ll be putting a strike team on alert as soon as we reach Broadsword.”

  Tobin asked, “What about the task force after you’ve taken Sherman? Our teammates shouldn’t be kept in the dark about Bella any longer than necessary. They are gonna be mad enough as it is when they realize your rendition of Bella’s memorial was pure baloney.”