by Wesley Cross
VERTIGO
THE UPGRADE SERIES #2
Wesley Cross
Contents
JOIN THE UPGRADE SERIES
Publisher information
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue 1: Rovinsky
Epilogue 2: Helen
JOIN THE UPGRADE SERIES
Also by Wesley Cross
Acknowledgments
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Publisher information
Published by
Cerberus Prints
PO BOX 90399
Brooklyn, NY 11209
1
July 2007
Westchester County, New York
The roof was hot. Jill Cooper could feel blisters forming on her unprotected elbows as she lay prone under the scorching sun, watching the semicircular driveway in front of the formal boxwood garden. The massive slate and stone English manor was nestled on top of a gently sloped hillside surrounded by two acres of sweeping lawns and stately trees. As she looked down at the narrow brook, to the right of the house, gurgling down the hill and disappearing into the woods, Cooper thought she would’ve even enjoyed her stakeout if not for the unforgiving July sun.
It was worth it. Everyone has a weakness, she thought, as Cooper listened to the growing rumbling sound of a powerful engine drawing closer. A minute later, a bright-red Ferrari F430 Spider with an open roof burst out of the cover of the trees, made a screeching turn and came to an abrupt stop in front of the house. The man she’d been tracking for the last six weeks killed the engine and pulled out a Blackberry.
“Hey, baby,” he said, the words drifting through the hot, humid air like half-deflated helium balloons. Neither capable of running toward the cloudless sky nor ready to come back to Earth. “I have to work this weekend again.”
Cooper watched him pause as he exited the car and stretched without bothering to listen to the person on the other end.
“I know, I know,” he brought the phone to his face again, “but the merger is getting close, and it’d be big for us. It’s a miracle it’s even happening considering what’s going on with the markets. I’ll make it up to you, I promise. Kiss the girls for me, okay?”
The front door on top of the marble steps squeaked, and he held up a cautionary finger as a woman in a pink silk negligee appeared on the porch.
“I love you too,” he finally said and hung up the phone.
“I love you too,” the woman on the porch parroted. “You said you were going to tell her.”
“Sydney—” the man started saying, but the woman cut him off with a wave of her hand. Before he could protest, she turned around and went back to the house, slamming the heavy oak door behind her. The man rolled his eyes and loosened his tie, his broad clean-shaven face turning a shade brighter than the Ferrari.
Cooper felt like rolling her eyes as well, but instead, she lowered her head, making sure she was well out of the man’s sight, beads of perspiration rolling down her face as she held her cheek close to the hot surface of the roof. The door opened, then closed, and after a few seconds, the sounds of a muted quarrel were coming from inside of the house. She waited for another minute, and when the argument moved from the foyer deeper into the house, Cooper lowered herself off the side of the roof, steadied her breath, and let go. She softened the twenty-foot drop with a roll and then sprang to her feet, ready to flee if discovered. The house remained quiet save for what now sounded like passionate lovemaking.
Cooper sprinted to the porch, climbed the set of marble steps and pulled on the front door. She winced as it squeaked, but the moaning coming from the bedroom only grew louder, and Cooper crept through the hallway, her footsteps swallowed by the soft beige runner with geometrical designs.
A bright pink silk tie was hanging on the bedroom door handle, and Cooper picked it up. The tempo of the sounds coming from inside the room was getting quicker, and she risked a quick peek through the narrow opening. She took mental stock of the objects in the room, trying her best to ignore the heaving bodies on top of the light-blue linen-clad bed. Satisfied with what she saw, Cooper headed for the bathroom and hid in the linen closet, wedged between a towel drier rack and some fluffy bathrobes that cost more than some people’s entire wardrobe.
After a few minutes, as Cooper peered through the slightly opened closet doors, the sounds reached a crescendo and then stopped. There was some giggling and shouting, and finally, Cooper could hear the footsteps leading to the bathroom.
“You better be ready when I come back,” the woman shouted as she entered the bathroom.
As Cooper stayed quiet, she watched as the woman filled the tub with hot water, stepped into it and lay down, her head resting on the side of the Roman tub. Without making any noise, Cooper opened the closet door and walked to the bathtub in two quick strides.
The movement must have caught the woman’s attention as she lifted her head and turned to see what was happening behind her. Cooper could see as fear flashed in lovely brown eyes and the woman’s mouth opened as if for a shout that was not meant to be. Cooper hooked the silk tie around the woman’s neck as a garrote and bore down with all her might.
The neck snapped with a sickening crunch. Cooper left the tie on the victim’s neck and stood up. There was no reason to hide anymore. She pulled out a 9-millimeter Glock 19 and walked back to the bedroom.
“That was fast—” the man started saying, but his words caught as he saw Cooper with the gun in her hand.
“Stay still,” she commanded, coming closer.
“Who are you? What do you want?” he demanded.
Cooper ignored him, walking around the bed and toward a wooden Yukon coffee table by the window.
“I have money,” the man said. “I can—”
“Shut up. That’s why I’m here,” she said, beckoning him with the gun. “Follow my instructions, and I’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”
The man stood up and took a few steps toward the table. He hadn’t made an effort to cover his nakedness.
“Sit down,” Cooper commanded and pushed an ottoman closer to the table. “All I need you to do is to write a few lines to your wife, confessing the affair.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because, otherwise I’ll kill you.” Cooper produced a humorles
s smile. “Do as I say, and once I have the note, you’ll pay me fifty grand. Cash. I’ll keep the note as my insurance so you can never come after me.”
“I’ll pay you the money, no problem,” he said, “but what’s gonna stop you from demanding more money later?”
“Nothing,” her smile was genuine now, “but that’s not how I do business, so you’ll have to trust me on this. Sydney’s fine, by the way. I’m glad you’re concerned.”
The man cast a nervous glance at the door and sat down. He drew a deep breath and then moved a legal pad in front of him and picked up an old Bic pen from the pile of bills, magazines, and shopping receipts.
“Write I’m sorry, Rebecca. I shouldn’t have done it.”
The man tensed at the sound of his wife’s name. Cooper watched his knuckles whiten as he squeezed the pen. She pressed the Glock into his right temple. The man stayed immobile, and for a moment she thought he might try to attack her. But, finally, his shoulders slumped, and his hand started to move. Elegant cursive covered the top of the page, each letter almost the same exact height. He put down the pen.
“Impressive penmanship. A dying art,” Cooper said and pulled the trigger.
The sound was deafening. The man’s head jerked away from the gun as if it’d been hit by a battering ram; red splatter, with bits of something dark, covered the white rug and the light-blue bed sheets. His body turned and slowly slid off the ottoman, hung on the edge for a moment and then hit the floor head first. Inertia carried it forward until the body flipped over and came to rest on its back. A dark circle started to spread on the rug around the man’s head.
Cooper watched the ruined face. The bullet must have hit the thicker part of the bone as it exited through the man’s jaw, taking a part of his face with it. She placed the Glock into his hand and pressed his fingers into the gun, then stood and looked around. She replayed the man’s trajectory in her mind, concentrating on the movement of his right hand. Finally, she placed the gun on the rug about a foot away from the body. It looked as if it had fallen out of his hand as he had slid from the ottoman.
She spent another hour at the villa, painstakingly removing every shred of evidence that there was ever somebody else in the house but the two lovers. Then Cooper returned to her car, an unremarkable Toyota Camry, parked in a forest clearing, a few miles from the property. Once in the car, she took out a simple flip phone and sent a text to a memorized number.
I bought two steaks for dinner, like you asked.
The reply was almost instantaneous.
Nice! I got a bottle of merlot for you, so we’re all set.
A few moments later, Cooper’s phone beeped, alerting her of a million-dollar incoming transfer.
She looked at the confirmation with relief. It was always a big gamble taking on new clients, regardless of how much time she’d spent vetting them. But the payout was quadruple her going rate, and it seemed now that the client was solid. So far, the gamble seemed to be paying off.
She took the battery out of the phone and then broke the phone in half and shoved the pieces under the roots of an old tree. Then, she put the car in reverse and backed out onto a gravel road. Fifteen minutes later, Cooper merged onto I-87 South and set for New York City.
There were few people in the world who could make a double hit look like a suicide and Jill Cooper was the best in the business.
2
July 2007
Arlington, Virginia
The thermometer on the wooden panel, below the sliding bulletproof divider, read 88°F, but Rovinsky thought it was well over one hundred. The open parking lot outside of the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport offered no protection from the blazing sun baking the black town car and its passengers.
“Could you crank up the AC?” he called out to his driver.
“It’s already on full blast, sir. I’m sorry.”
They’d been sitting in the back of the limousine for over an hour, and by now his suit was drenched in sweat. Yet, the heat was only partially to blame. It was the second time in his decades-long intelligence career that Rovinsky felt as if he were out of his depth. The first time came when two weeks into his first job at the agency he was assigned as a junior analyst to a case of an operative who’d gone rogue.
A team of FBI agents searched a hotel room in Honolulu, acting on an anonymous tip. There, inside of a suitcase, they found a small, plastic travel pack with a calendar and an address book. Both belonged to a former CIA officer, Jonathan Lee, and contained handwritten notes with classified information, meeting places, and the true names and phone numbers of CIA sources in China.
The find triggered a two-week-long hunt for the rogue agent to prevent him from transferring the data to the Chinese, which would’ve led to a dozen CIA agents in China killed or imprisoned. During those two long weeks when Rovinsky slept in the office at least on four occasions, too tired to drive home, he questioned the wisdom of joining the CIA and his mental capacity for the job. But the breach was prevented, and Rovinsky received a promotion, making him one of the youngest senior analysts at the agency. Today, he reflected, the stakes were higher by orders of magnitude.
“It looks like Mr. Hunt’s car,” the driver said, pointing to a white Maybach sedan pulling up next to them.
A tall blond man in a seersucker tailored suit stepped out of the vehicle as soon as it stopped and then dived into the limo. The privacy glass smoothly rose into place.
“Nice to see you, Andy,” Rovinsky said, shaking his friend’s hand.
“Hey, Jim, long time, no see.” The man smiled, his eyes studying Rovinsky. “Sorry for being late. Got stuck at JFK.”
“How’s Audrey?”
“She’s well.” Hunt stretched his legs and shifted in his seat, making himself comfortable. “Should be back from Kenya next week. They are about to open a new school there. But I know you’re on a tight schedule. What have you got for me?”
“Well, I’m not sure.” Rovinsky opened up a leather dossier and took out a few pages of what looked like financial reports printouts. “Maybe you could help me make heads and tails of this. Are you familiar with Bill Clinton’s repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act?”
“Not in depth, but sure.” Hunt scratched his chin, collecting his thoughts. “He didn’t repeal it, per se. In 1999, if memory serves me right, Clinton signed the new law that repealed some of the provisions of the original act of 1933.”
“You’re gonna have to do better than that,” Rovinsky said, chuckling. “You might as well be speaking Chinese.”
“Well, let’s see. Congress passed the original act after the Great Depression and prohibited commercial banks from engaging in the investment business. But the new law allowed the commercial banks to buy investment companies again. I’m sorry, what exactly are you looking for?”
“I stumbled upon something I wasn’t specifically looking for. I’d been going down a completely different rabbit hole,” Rovinsky said, flipping through the pages, “when I came across some interesting political contributions that led me to the co-sponsors of the new bill. Nothing criminal, just questionable.”
“Ah,” said Hunt, sarcasm in his voice, “what a shocker in this town.”
“I know,” Rovinsky smiled back, “and yet it set off some bells in my head.”
“You think somebody pushed the bill through for some greater agenda?”
“I don’t know, Andrew; you tell me. You’re the expert here.”
“I’ll have to look into this.” Hunt shook his head. “As far as I remember, the bill passed the House and the Senate with enough votes to make it impossible for the president to veto it. There was clearly enough support for it on both sides of the aisle.”
“That might be true,” Rovinsky persisted, “but what if the seeds simply fell on fertile ground? I’d like you to think of it in global terms. What could be done by our adversaries using this bill?”
“Adversaries? Like who? The Russians? The Chinese? You’re scaring me, m
an. The resources to influence something like this would have to be enormous. It sounds impossible. You’re not going full paranoid on me, are you?”
“It’s way too late to worry about my paranoia,” Rovinsky said, smiling, “but look into it for me as soon as you can.”
“Sure.”
“Also,” Rovinsky looked his friend in the eye, “there’s another reason I wanted to talk to you in person.”
“Thank God,” the other man said. “I almost thought you dragged me down to DC just to check on my legislative history skills.”
Rovinsky reclined in the hot leather seat, gripping the folder in his hands, his fingers tracing the rugged surface of the old leather. He’d come here prepared to do this, but now, sitting across from his old friend, he couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
“Jim?”
“All right,” he said, straightening. “A few heads came together at the agency, and I decided that we need a new organization. I call it the Unit. There are some new forces at play, man; I’m sure of it. It’s a new threat, and it’s unlike anything we’ve ever faced. What I’ve found and what I’m asking you to look at is just the tip of the iceberg. I can’t quite articulate it, but I’ve been seeing a lot of loose threads hanging in all the wrong places. The problem is—I can see it, but I don’t understand it. What I do understand, and I can tell you this with as much certainty as I’ve ever had during my years in this town, is that if we don’t act now, by the time we figure things out, it’ll be too late.”
