Gemini Series Boxset

by Ty Patterson

  General Klouse hugged her affectionately when he opened the door for her, in person. He had a security detail around him and his calendar was managed tightly, but he always received the twins in person. They were the daughters he never had.

  They dined on a light lunch of salads and juices while he briefed her on the evening’s event. ‘Several speeches over dinner, a lot of backslapping, and endless drinks,’ was how he put it.

  Meghan wasn’t put off; Beth and she had attended similar dos when her folks were still alive, in Jackson. She knew what to expect.

  They set off to The Presidential View Hotel on Sixteenth Street, in the evening, a hotel that Meghan knew very well. It was where they had been held hostage by terrorists, on a previous mission. It was the mission that had brought Broker and Sarah together.

  The evening set off well enough; wine and light bites, a welcome speech by someone whose name Meghan soon forgot, thanking the Maker that at least it was a funny one.

  Another speech followed, a dull one, and she smiled bravely when the general gave her a sympathetic look.

  The general was to her right, and to her left was a Chinese American woman, Lianne Tsiu, who was a senior official in the Department of Defense. She worked in the office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research, as if that title meant something to Meghan.

  Meghan nodded politely, at which Lianne Tsiu had laughed. ‘It’s your first time, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah. I came along with General Klouse.’

  Lianne Tsiu’s eyes widened and she shot a glance to the general who was conversing with another person to his right. ‘Wow,’ she gasped just as a bell rang to announce the first serving.

  Lianne Tsiu made small talk with Meghan and when the twin said she was from New York, the Chinese American’s fork stopped its ascent to her mouth. ‘Petersen. I’ve heard that name before.’

  Her brow cleared when it came back to her. ‘Calliope Minter! You were involved in all that.’

  ‘Not just me,’ Meghan replied. Jack Minter had let slip the twins’ involvement during a TV interview which had played on several stations. ‘The FBI and the NYPD were part of the hunt too. You’ve got a good memory.’

  Lianne Tsiu made an aw shucks motion with her hand. ‘I followed the case. We had to investigate whether the research was compromised.’ Her hand waved again in a you know how it goes gesture.

  Meghan didn’t know and wasn’t keen on knowing. She concentrated on her food and hoped Liane Tsiu would get the hint.

  She didn’t.

  The Chinese American clicked her fingers suddenly. ‘Cain. You alone were convinced he didn’t kill the FBI agent.’

  Meghan didn’t allow any expression to cross her face. Her mouth didn’t stop chewing, but her mind was whirling. Interesting. Jack Minter had mentioned that too in the interview, but she still remembers it.

  She paid more attention to her companion on the left who was asking her questions on the investigation and on the counterfeiting conspiracy. She noticed the woman’s handbag lying next to her feet on the floor and through its half open mouth, she got a glimpse of her phone.

  Meghan answered her questions in auto-mode and when another speaker came on, she excused herself.

  She went to the cloakroom where she’d deposited Zeb’s duffel and recovered a phone battery from it. The battery would work on Lianne Tsiu’s phone; it wasn’t just a battery, however. It was a listening device that broadcast all conversations to Werner. It was also a GPS device that the supercomputer could track. It sucked all data from the phone and sent it to Werner.

  Meghan pulled out her phone and sent a few commands to Werner. One of those was to find everything on Lianne Tsiu.

  She wondered for a moment if she was overreacting and then remembered one of Zeb’s commandments. Never overrule your instincts.

  The speaker was well into his practiced spiel by the time she joined her companions. She inclined her head in answer to General Klouse’s is everything okay expression and assumed a look of concentration.

  More speakers extolled the DoD and talked about their work, none of which was classified information. More wine was served and during a lull, Lianne Tsiu turned to her. ‘How do you know the general?’

  ‘He’s our godfather.’ Take that and smoke it.

  ‘Wow,’ Lianne Tsiu struggled for words and came up with a lame, ‘that’s something.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Lianne Tsiu steered the conversation back after another interminable speech.

  ‘Cain was employed by that gang, wasn’t he? They gave him victims.’

  Meghan, swallowed and took a sip of her wine to buy time. ‘It wasn’t proven. I think the NYPD’s still investigating, but they don’t have much to go on.’

  A clumsy move on her part made her glass tip over and spill her wine. She shoved her chair back and in her haste, kicked Lianne Tsiu’s handbag, making it unload its contents.

  Apologizing profusely, Meghan bent and retrieved the items while a uniformed server rushed to them and tidied the table. Calm resumed and so did the dinner.

  Conversation around the table died when the key speaker rose and talked for an hour. He specifically thanked General Klouse for his attendance and when he’d finished, some guests started departing.

  Meghan was tidying her hair in the bathroom when Lianne Tsiu emerged from a stall, the two of them using another lull to make their escape.

  The bathroom had a long mirror over which was a row of dim lights. Meghan watched the Chinese American approach the sink and wash her hands. She handed a fluffy towel and got a smile in return.

  ‘No one knows about that, you know. That Cain got his victims from the gang. Neither the NYPD or the FBI ever went public with that information.’

  Lianne Tsiu’s smile quivered. She threw the towel in a basket and freshened her makeup. ‘I probably got it from some FBI agent who briefed us. There really aren’t any secrets, are there?’

  ‘No,’ Meghan agreed, remembering the message Werner had sent just before the bathroom break. Lianne Tsiu and Xiong Dingxiang had been in three cities at the same time in the last four years.

  Berlin, where Lianne Tsiu had attended a NATO conference, while Xiong Dingxiang had presented at a business conference. London was the second city, and Manila was the third.

  The two of them had separate itineraries each time and hadn’t met. However, Werner had struck gold in Berlin. It had unearthed a photograph of Lianne Tsiu sitting at a hotel bar in Berlin. Alone, in the hotel where Xiong Dingxiang was staying.

  ‘No,’ Meghan repeated, ‘there are no secrets.’

  Lianne Tsiu dug her hands in her coat pockets to conceal their trembling as she left the hotel swiftly. She had spoken too much, the wine loosening her tight control. It wouldn’t have been a problem ninety-nine out of hundred times.

  This time, Meghan Petersen had been her dinner companion.

  She knows. Or at least she suspects, she thought frantically as she brought out her phone to hail a cab.

  Lianne Tsiu regarded herself as the Chinese equivalent of sayan. The sayanim was a network established by the Mossad to help its operations. There were hundreds of sayan, non-Israeli Jewish volunteers, in various countries who offered help to Mossad operatives.

  A real estate sayan would offer a house for operatives, a pharmacist sayan would deliver drugs, no questions asked.

  Xiong Dingxiang had called Lianne Tsiu his sayan, the fourth time they met, a term the DoD employee liked. She believed in the country of her ancestry, an emotion that the Chinese minister had skillfully tapped into.

  They had first met in Las Vegas, while waiting at McCarran International Airport, for their bags to arrive. Introductions had happened, reasons for visiting the city had been exchanged. The minister was attending a business briefing, Lianne Tsiu to a DoD meeting.

  They met for drinks later, the minister turning on his charm and Lianne Tsiu was smitten. She crushed on him big time and respected him all the mo
re when the minister didn’t act on it, even though she gave out enough indicators.

  That first meeting led to several when they synchronized their travel wherever possible. At the fourth meeting, the minister proposed that she be his sayan.

  Lianne Tsiu agreed, excitement churning deep inside her. He didn’t ask her to break any laws. So what if he asked her about research programs? And who worked on them and what they were about?

  So what if she mentioned that some of those programs might have undercover FBI agents? Xiong Dingxiang was an honorable man. He wouldn’t make her betray her country.

  The minister had sworn that he had no hand in Calliope Minter’s disappearance when the topic came up. His government didn’t do all that. Lianne Tsiu believed him.

  Nevertheless, they had agreed on a code if anything alarming happened. That code was still active, Xiong Dingxiang had assured her via a secure email after his departure from government.

  His removal from office had scared her and for several weeks she had been a wreck. She had finally reached out to the ex-minister who had replied promptly, calming her.

  He was out, he said, but he wasn’t done. He still had a role to play in the government. Lianne Tsiu needn’t worry. If she raised the alarm, help would come to her.

  Am watching a rerun of The Great Escape. How’s your evening? She texted to a number that would bounce off servers and countries.

  Help came to her, though not in the shape she was expecting.

  She was woken up at four in the morning by pounding on her North Virginia home. She hadn’t slept well since there had been no reply from Xiong Dingxiang or anyone connected to him.

  She shuffled to the door and peered through the eyehole. Three men in suits stood, stamping their feet, on her doorstep.

  FBI? Her blood chilled. ‘Who’re you? What do you want?’ she called out in her strongest voice.

  ‘We’re here to help, ma’am.’ A warm, friendly voice replied. ‘You sent a message in the night.’

  They’re Xiong Dingxiang’s men. Relief flooded through her and she opened the door wide.

  The relief didn’t last.

  A hand grabbed her and covered her mouth. Another man slipped behind her and restrained her. The two men half carried her to a waiting black van and flung her inside, while the third went to the driver side. Doors closed on her before she could yell or scream, before she could even comprehend that she was being kidnapped.

  The van set off and turned sharply and came to a sudden stop when another vehicle crashed into it.

  Zeb threw open his SUV’s door and taking cover behind it, drew his weapon. The three men were visible through the shattered windshield, the driver slumped on the wheel.

  The front of the van had caved in, following its impact with his SUV. His vehicle had a steel and titanium reinforced body. It could stop a semi. The van was a commercial vehicle and put up no contest.

  One suit thrust his arm out and fired wildly. He ducked swiftly when Zeb’s round punched a hole in the windshield and starbursts spread across it. Zeb fired another burst and pinned the men down in the van.

  ‘Go,’ he told Meghan. ‘I’ll cover you.’

  Meghan slid out of the SUV and raced to the rear of the van, keeping well away from Zeb’s sight line. One suit raised his head and lifted a gun to fire as she ran past, but a flurry of shots from Zeb dissuaded him.

  Meghan opened the rear doors gingerly, one hand holding her Glock. The rear had one occupant, a cowering, frightened, Lianne Tsiu.

  Zeb had arranged for the SUV as soon as Meghan had called him after Lianne Tsiu fled the hotel. The two had decided to mount a watch outside her home after reading her text message. The battery that Meghan had expertly replaced on Lianne Tsiu’s phone, had started delivering the phone’s activity and its secrets.

  Their watch had been rewarded when the van had turned up. ‘Only three men,’ Zeb pointed out to her. ‘Look at their build, and their walk. I’m betting this isn’t a rescue team. It’s a disposal team.’

  The take down of the van was surprisingly easy since the three-man team wasn’t expecting any resistance. The men intended to make a quick getaway on the quiet streets of the suburban neighborhood.

  Meghan made another call once they had recovered the DoD employee and had secured the three men.

  ‘Get your butt over here, now,’ she told a groggy Sarah Burke. ‘We’ve finally closed that case.’

  Meghan brought up the case one day when the city was well in its autumn. Trees had turned gloriously gold, orange and red and the sidewalks were dotted with leaves.

  She and Zeb were on their morning run, just the two of them since Beth was spending more time with Mark. The Calliope Minter case was history as was the counterfeiting. Lianne Tsiu was on trial for several charges, including espionage and would end up in prison.

  The twins along with Zeb and the other operatives, had recently returned from Puerto Rico where they had taken down a drug lord who was also funding terrorists. Normal life, for them, had resumed.

  ‘Do you wonder why Cain set out to meet me?’ she breathed the morning air and matched Zeb’s pace.

  ‘Nope,’ came the lengthy reply.

  ‘That was some risk he took. Breaking cover,’ she persisted.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So you don’t think why?’

  ‘Nope.’

  She grinned suddenly, feeling light and free and good about herself and her friend beside her.

  Zeb was right. It really didn’t matter why Cain had set out to meet her. No one really understood what went on in the mind of a psychopathic killer. What mattered was the man beside her. Zeb Carter. Her friend. What mattered were her friends and what she could achieve, along with them.

  ‘Come on, slowpoke,’ she challenged Zeb and raced him in the city that was their home.

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  No book is a single person’s product. I am privileged that I Am Missing has benefited from the input of several great people.

  Sylvia Foster, Cary Lory Becker, Charlie Carrick, Pat Ellis, Dori Barrett, Simon Alphonso, Dave Davis, V. Elizabeth Perry, Ann Finn, Pete Bennett, Eric Blackburn, Margaret Harvey, David Hay, Jim Lambert, Terry Pellman, Jimmy Smith, Theresa, and Mark Campbell, who are my beta readers and who helped shape my book, my launch team for supporting me, Eliza Dee and Dawn Nassise for their editing, and Donna Rich for her proofreading.

  Dedications

  To Michelle Rose Dunn, Debbie Bruns Gallant, and Cheri Gerhardt, for supporting me.

  To all the men and women in uniform who make it possible for us to enjoy our freedom.

  Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.

  —George Washington

  Chapter One

  As days went, there was nothing special about this particular one.

  Beth and Meghan Petersen were at their screens in their Columbus Avenue office, working on the logistics of a mission.

  There wasn’t anything burning, missionwise.

  Zeb Carter, the lead agent of the clandestine outfit they worked for, was on a solo mission in the Middle East.

  Broker, the intel guy in the unit, was on vacation with his girlfriend, Sarah Burke, who was high up in the FBI. Bear and Chloe, two of the operatives, were away too.

  On one couch, a tall black man was sprawled out. He was large, and when he stood, he invariably dwarfed all those present. Bwana was six feet four, muscled, and yet moved like a cat.

  On another couch, a blond-haired man slept. He was movie-star handsome and made a show of being a gift to womankind.

  His friends knew Roger, the blond Texan, was all show. He had a girlfriend who he was deeply committed to.

  The eight of them worked for the Agency. Just that, no other name.

  It was a unique small-footprint outfit that dealt with terrorists, international criminal gangs, and threats to national security.

  It was headed by a female director, Clare
, no last name. She was based out of D.C. and reported to only one person. The president.

  Of course, the Agency didn’t advertise itself. It didn’t exist, not on paper or in any other record.

  All of them worked for a security consulting firm that advised corporations on people and perimeter protection.

  The firm was a front. They had real clients and genuinely advised them, but it still was a façade.

  For such a small unit, they were very well resourced. That was courtesy of generous rewards from grateful Middle Eastern royalty they had helped.

  Like that building on Columbus Avenue. They owned it outright.

  Then there was that Gulfstream. They owned that one too.

  Werner, a highly sophisticated artificial intelligence program, they owned outright. The software resided in a supercomputer in their office and was the envy of the NSA and a few other intelligence agencies. They used the name Werner loosely, to refer either to the program or to the machine.

  They possessed a fleet of vehicles—SUVs, armored, equipped with run-flats and stealth paint, more gadgets and tech in them than the Batmobile had.

  The twins were the only ones who didn’t have an Army background. Zeb, Bwana, Roger, and Bear were former Special Forces operatives.

  Broker was an ex-Ranger, a higher life form, he declared. Chloe had been with the Eighty-Second Airborne.

  Zeb was an odd one. He rarely smiled and hardly spoke. He was single, didn’t date, and had no interest in romantic entanglements.

  Despite his peculiarities, there was something about him. He was the reason the Agency worked. He was their leader, but he didn’t do all that command stuff.

  He was a friend, first and foremost, and that just suited the rest of them.