“What’s left? You’ve given me the brief, we got the weapons—”
“You have a handler,” Tina interrupted.
Burke frowned, genuinely confused. “I have a what-now?”
“A handler. Someone who will be your liaison during your work in Sydney.”
“Who the hell came up with this bright idea?”
“Moore. It’s part of his restructuring of SpyCo after the Istanbul security breach.”
“But why give a handler to me? It seems like Perry Hall would be in more need of one, given his tendency to go all Lone Ranger.”
“It’s not only you. Every major engagement must have a central handler.” Tina handed Burke a scrap of paper. “Here’s the address. Memorize it and destroy the note. Your handler will be expecting you anytime within the next eight hours.”
And with that, Tina turned around and walked away, making it clear the conversation was over and leaving Burke too stunned to carry out the planned dinner invitation. She’d looked good walking away, but the pleasure was fleeting.
Once she had disappeared over the rise, Burke looked at the note and read the address. He read it once more, repeated it twice. He then rolled up the note, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed. It tasted like a flavorless dinner for one. Like an empty bed.
4
Burke stood outside the small house tucked at the end of a cul-de-sac, observing the white trim, green shutters, and assorted flora that decorated both the yard and—of all things—a genuine white picket fence. Any number of classic family television shows could have been filmed on this very location and Burke kept expecting a little grandmother to open the door and ply him with freshly baked apple pie. This expectation did nothing to soften the shock when the door did, indeed, open and revealed an old lady wearing a red calico apron. Her white hair was piled up in a bun and her red, cat’s eye glasses hung from a chain around her neck. She might have stepped directly from a Christmas card.
Burke continued to stand there, confused. He wished he hadn’t been so quick to destroy the paper Tina had given him. Either his memory had sorely failed him or he’d been given bad information. Clearly, this was not the right house. Finally, he raised his hand in an apologetic wave.
“Sorry,” he called out. “I was just...admiring your flowers.”
“The hell you were, Agent Burke,” the old lady said. “Now get the fuck inside the house before someone shoots your ass.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me the first time and I hate repeating myself. Now move it.”
Burke gaped. Was this his handler? She clearly knew who he was, so there seemed to be no other viable conclusion. Burke made a note to send Moore a list of reputable mental institutions. The man had clearly lost his mind. But ultimately, Burke shrugged and did as he was told. There was no sense making a scene out on the street.
The woman watched his approach, her arms akimbo in the universal stance of disapproval. She frowned at him and shook her head.
“Agents these days don’t have the sense to come in out of the rain.”
Burke glanced at the sky. “Doesn’t look like rain to me.”
“Oh my god,” the woman said. “I either got myself an idiot or a smartass on my hands and I don’t know which I hate more.”
Burke climbed the steps and stood on the porch. “You seem angry. Have I done something?”
“It’s my natural state, but so far, you’re off to a bad start.” The woman stood back to allow Burke to enter, which he did. The door closed behind him.
“Sorry, I was little taken aback by, well, everything.”
“You’re talking about my being a woman?”
“No, actually. Some of the best agents are women.”
“Ah, then you’re a dirty ageist.”
“A what?”
The woman sighed. “An asshole who discriminates based on age.”
Burke opened his mouth to protest the accusation but realized that was exactly what he’d done. He couldn’t have spoken anyway, because the woman had raised her hand to shut him up.
“Don’t bother to deny it,” she said, “but you might as well get over yourself. I was playing at this shit before your mama was wiping your own shit outta your ass crack.”
“This shit?”
“Spycraft, Burke, spycraft! I served with the OSS in World War II, after lying about my age, and the CIA after the war. I’ve kicked asses all over the globe in practically every country. I’m shit at hand-to-hand these days, but I can still shoot off a fly’s dick at a hundred paces. I get that you have doubts, but I’ve known that bastard Moore since he was sucking his mama’s tit, and he knows me. I’m the baddest old bitch in the game. With my wits and your body, we’ll make short work of this job and get the hell home.”
The woman’s eyes glinted when she mentioned Burke’s body, causing him to shift on his feet uncomfortably. To change the subject, he extended his hand.
“Well, you know my name, but I don’t know yours.”
“You can call me Dot.”
“That’s it?”
“What more do you need?”
“A solid point.”
“Good. Now get into the kitchen so I can go over a few things. I have a pie in the oven and I hate burnt crust.”
JI-WOO PARK TOOK the access card from her pocket and slipped it into the reader on Burke’s hotel room door. The location of the American’s hotel had been the only nugget of real intel she had come down her pipeline and it occurred to her that with rock solid agents such as herself on the ground, one would expect a little more from those higher up. A beat later, she realized how hazardous such thoughts could be. One did not criticize North Korean leadership.
The red light flickered, as if trying to make up its mind, and then turned green. She tried the door, and it opened. The universal access card had done its job—and it should. It had been expensive enough.
She slipped inside and looked around. The room was dim, the only light coming from a partially opened window blind, but she didn’t dare turn on a light. If she were interrupted, there would be only enough time to duck into the closet or shower, and a light showing under the room door would be an instant giveaway.
Park moved to the bed, where Burke’s suitcase lay open, and began carefully observing the contents. There was nothing unusual in the case: socks, shaving kit, underwear, travel-sized bottles of shampoo and body wash. She took out a t-shirt and held it to her nose, committing his scent to memory. She wanted to know this Burke as well as she could before killing him. A successful predator left nothing to chance. Not only would getting into his head make him easier to outwit, but she enjoyed the personal nature of killing. Ending the life of a stranger held no allure; there was no charm in it. Killing someone you’d come to know, even from a distance, was much more satisfying.
She replaced the shirt and moved into the bathroom. A towel hung from a hook and she felt it—still damp from use. Two shirts hung from the shower rod, no doubt left there to allow steam from the shower to soften the wrinkles. Park reached up and, pinching a section of side seam, inserted a tiny device inside of it. Then she did the same with the other shirt. The minute tracking devices would allow her to keep tabs on Burke wherever he might go. There was nothing she could do about the shirt he was currently wearing, but she doubted he was the type to wear the same shirt on consecutive days, which meant that tomorrow and the day after should be easy work. Yes, she planned to kill him, but first she wanted to be able to track his movements around the city for a day or two. There was no telling what valuable intel she might glean simply from the people with whom he interacted.
Park smiled. Working this mark was going to be easy. He was used to dealing with the blunt, meat cleaver techniques of Scorpion, not the clever scalpel she preferred. Tactics and strategy, that was what she preferred. Violence was perfectly fine with her, even enjoyable, as long as it was preceded by a skillfully crafted master plan, elegantly executed. Playing the puppet
master was her favorite part of the job, and she saw no reason why this mission should be any different.
THE PIE WAS delicious and Burke had to exert every ounce of restraint he had not to ask for thirds, especially since, for all her coarse nature, Dot had enough genuine grandmother juju that she kept telling him to eat more. “You’re too skinny. If you stick your tongue out, you look like a zipper.” And so on.
“So do you need me to fill you in on everything that’s happened since I arrived?” he asked. He quickly realized the question had been a mistake.
“Do you honestly think I don’t already know? I know when you got off the Qantas jumbo, what you were drinking when that prick Withers got himself shot, what Kitten thought of you, what you saw on—”
“Wait, back up. What did Tina think of me?”
“A lady never tells.”
“Well, that should free you up to tell me everything!” Burke chortled. He quickly realized he’d committed yet another mistake.
Dot slowly turned and walked to one of the many cupboards that lined her kitchen walls. She opened it and extracted a small vial.
“You see this, smartass? This is the antidote to the poison I put in that pie. You’re about one more wisecrack from watching me pour it down the sink.”
Burke’s eyes grew wide. It made no sense that his own handler would poison him, but as he looked at the expression on Dot’s face, he got the feeling she wasn’t kidding around.
“Poison? Why the hell would you do that? We’re on the same side!”
“I believe we are—now. But the people we’re dealing with are very crafty, Burke. Perhaps cleverer than anyone you’ve faced to this point in your career. I knew what you looked like before you got here, so I was pretty sure it was you. But they know what you look like too, and they have the means to make someone up to look enough like you to fool an old broad. So leading with poison seemed like the best plan, especially since I had this.” She waggled the vial back and forth between her fingers. “I figured if you were legit, I’d give you a dose and spare you a particularly painful death. And if you were an enemy spook, I’d laugh over your body as you foamed at the mouth and bled from your eyes and ears as your brain melted.”
“You’re a stone-cold bitch!” Burke said, instantly fearing he’d made the fatal third wisecrack.
But Dot smiled. “That’s the first thing out of your mouth I’ve liked!” She stepped toward him, offering the vial, but at the last minute, it slipped from her fingers and shattered on the flagstone kitchen floor.
“What the shit! Oh my god!” Burke gasped.
“Take it easy, Nancy. I was fucking with you. That was peppermint extract. There’s no poison. I can’t believe you fell for that one. Oldest spy gag in the book. Hell, we pulled that on newbies back during the Cold War. It was our favorite hazing ritual!”
Burke wanted to be furious, but as soon as his heart rate normalized, he realized Dot might just be the coolest person he’d ever met.
The old lady got down to business. “Alright, then. Brass tacks. Here’s what you need to do. This Korean bitch Park is, I’m almost one hundred percent sure, already onto you like curry on Chicken Vindaloo.”
“You’re mixing your racist metaphors,” Burke said.
“Shut up. Old people can’t be racist because we don’t know any better. Anyway, your first task is going to be to get a visual on her. We have one grainy security camera capture of her from a previous encounter, which didn’t end well for the operative tasked with finding her, I might add.” Dot drew a finger across her throat. “Now where did I put that damn thing?”
Dot went to a side table on which a rather unruly pile of paper flotsam was spread. In contrast to the cooking area, it was a disorganized nightmare. But after only a few seconds of shifting piles, she made a happy exclamation and returned to Burke, holding out a black and white print.
“Uh oh,” Burke said.
“What do you mean ‘uh oh’? I don’t like uh oh.”
“She’s made me, all right. This was the woman I saw at Olympic Park when Tina was giving me my briefing.”
“Uh oh,” Dot said, spitting out the word like a profanity.
“That’s what I said.”
“I know it is, goddammit! I didn’t like it when you said it, and I didn’t like saying it myself. She just happened to be sitting in the park that Kitten brought you to from the bar in your hotel, huh? How good does that sound to you?”
“Not very, especially since we stopped at the weapons cache on the way.”
Dot made a dismissive gesture. “That was burned five minutes after you geared up. If she was tailing you from the hotel all the way to the park, then the odds are she’s either rummaging through your underwear drawer right now or is done with that dirty job and is deciding when and where she’s going to kill you. I’m not kidding, Burke! She’s a different breed of enemy. I’m not one of those people who mocks Scorpion the way everyone in intelligence tends to do these days. They have some scary, kickass agents working for them. But next to the likes of Park, they’re a bunch of Alfalfas and she is a goddam Butch.”
“Little Rascals references?” Burke asked,
“It’s my age. Would you prefer a bunch of Chuckie Finsters and she was an Angelica Pickles?”
“Rugrats now?”
“I don’t know anything newer than that!” Dot barked. “You knew both the references. Pick the one that scares you more, because you need to tap into enough fear to keep your dumbass self alive. Shut up and let me think for a minute.” Dot lowered herself gingerly onto one of the wooden chairs around her light-stained hardwood kitchen table. “She’s not going to come running up to you shouting ‘Here I am! Let’s see who dies first!’ I’d imagine the peek you got of her at Olympic is the last easy one you’ll get. I’m thinking it might be better to focus on Dr. Allcock now. Sooner or later, she’s going to need to get to him, especially if you stop making yourself so easy to assassinate. You know what she looks like, although that doesn’t mean it’s what she’ll look like next time. We’ll work on getting you near Allcock. Keep your eyes open. I know you can spot women. What I’m not sure yet is if you can spot this woman before she kills you.”
“Well, I won’t accept any apple pie from any Korean women. How’s that for a start?”
Dot gave Burke a lascivious grin. “Don’t accept apple pie or baked goods and you may just have a chance.”
Burke chose to ignore the remark. “All I need to do now is find a way to observe Allcock in his natural habitat.”
“That’s easy,” Dot said. “Although I shouldn’t have to do your work for you. Mr. All-the-Cocks is scheduled to appear at a debate on the North Korea shit. Might be a good chance to get a feel for the guy while disappearing in a crowd. Although his original ‘worthy opponent’ is currently enjoying a morphine drip, I’m sure the University will find a substitute. They’ve sold a lot of tickets to the shindig. Here’s yours.” She handed it to him.
“Yeah, Tina mentioned this.”
“Oh, so you are capable of listening after all.”
“Thanks, Dot. You’re a peach.”
“No, apples. Did you forget already?”
5
The beeping of the tracking device woke Ji-Woo Park from a light slumber. Of course, she always slept lightly. It was a necessity in this business, when coming fully awake in an instant could mean the difference between life and death.
She sat the front car seat upright and looked at her phone, which already had the tracking app open, and watched as the little red dot moved along O’Connell Street.
Burke was on the move.
The dot stopped, waited, and then began again, this time at a much higher rate of speed.
He caught a cab, Park thought.
She started the car and waited for an open spot in traffic. She drove a few hundred feet, turned once, and then again onto O’Connell. Ahead she saw more than one white cab and so held back to allow herself some reaction time in c
ase they split up, which they inevitably did. One went left, one went right, and a second later, the change was reflected on the tracking screen. Burke’s cab was the one headed left. Park cut the distance in half to better keep an eye on her target.
Soon Park found herself on Broadway, and nearing the University of Sydney campus. On Cleveland St., the traffic thickened, and the cab turned onto Shepherd St. and pulled to the side of the road. Burke got out and the cab drove away. Park rolled past, her face slightly turned away, and drove casually into a nearby carpark.
By the time she got back to the street on foot, Burke had disappeared, but there seemed to be a steady stream of people headed in a single direction, so she fell in step, assuming there was some manner of event taking place.
And sure enough, there was. A poster on the door announced, “Allcock vs. Withers - A Debate on the North Korean Threat.”
I wonder who will be taking Withers’ place, Park wondered, at the same time cursing the stupid Scorpion assassin who tried to kill the man. That was the problem with Scorpion. Always hasty, always overplaying their hand, never understanding the virtue of patience. If she’d wanted to, Park could have already killed Burke, perhaps by waiting in his room and shooting him the moment he walked through the door. But it was not time yet; there was still much to learn.
BURKE ALLOWED himself to be swept along with the crowd. He was looking forward to seeing Dr. Leonard Allcock firsthand, not to mention finding out who would be taking the flamboyant Withers’ place at the other lectern. He had to smile at the audacity. Withers clearly enjoyed time in the spotlight and Burke was beginning to see the value of the man’s bold style, even though Burke was having a difficult time believing Withers was a real agent. Of course, he was—he knew too much to be otherwise—but the unorthodoxy of his style was difficult to reconcile with Burke’s own understanding of espionage.
He entered the lecture hall and was handed a modest pamphlet that gave details on the evening’s proceedings. On one page was Allcock’s picture and biography, and Withers’ was on another. But that picture had been stamped with a CANCELLED notice, with no further information provided.
Assignment- Danger A SpyCo Collection 4-6 Page 3
