Espionage Games Read online

  “You accepted the promotion,” Angie said.

  She was right of course. After going against her better judgment, sleepless nights followed. Liz berated herself. She went back over every decision and every step she had ever taken. Her first mistake—and it was a doozy—was bringing Jack into the Firm. Even though he had the perfect skillset for the job and would make an excellent asset, too much history existed between them. When he came onboard, the nearness of him became a distraction. Old feelings returned. He crept back into her heart.

  “My work has been suffering. I’m sure everyone’s noticed.”

  She had been keeping everything bottled inside. Her doubts, her fears, her guilts. She couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t remember the simplest things. She was a trigger ready to go off at the least provocation. John’s death, and Milly’s death too, had to be someone’s fault, and that someone must be Elizabeth Langdon. There was no one else to blame.

  “John wasn’t a weak man,” Liz said, thinking it out, facing the dilemma she had been wrestling with ever since his so-called accident. “He wouldn’t have jump. He was murdered.” She directed her gaze on each of her colleagues in turn. To their credit, everyone avoided looking at her. “I keep asking myself questions. What had he done? What did he find out? What was so incriminating that someone would kill him for it? How were Jack and Milly and Harry and Lindsey-Marie connected? And the final question, the only question really. Who put out the order?”

  “He jumped, Liz,” Angie said quietly.

  “He didn’t jump. You know it. Everybody knows it.”

  “Which is exactly why we need you,” Chris said.

  “I can never fill John’s shoes. And frankly, I don’t want to. It would be ...” She searched for the right word. “... morbid. Like walking on his grave. I don’t want the job. Give it to someone else.”

  Chris glanced away, subdued yet concerned, remote but bothered. He was a man of few words, a distant man who kept his thoughts to himself but backed away from passing judgment on others, making him more approachable than most. Liz harbored no qualms or suspicions of being called into his office, but the presence of the high-powered women heralded trouble. They were ganging up on her.

  “I have blood on my hands,” she said at last.

  “It’s not your fault,” Angie said.

  “If not me, then who? No, hear me out. I question myself every day. Most of all, I question our agenda, our methods, our deceit, our dirty little tricks. When Hitler rose to power, the whole of American intelligentsia opposed him, but only at the price of accepting Stalin. A choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. We’re either a democracy that upholds the Constitution and the rule of law, or we’re not. If we’re not, then we’re on the wrong side. That’s what I believe. What do you believe?” Since it was a rhetorical question, she didn’t expect an answer.

  Angie looked at Camilla who looked at Chris who turned back toward Angie. Angie was the one who organized this farce, but they were all in on it. The reason why was plain. Liz was their best shot for reeling in Jack.

  Owning up to it, Angie asked, “Have you heard from him?”

  Liz answered the question in stilted tones, almost as if she rehearsed it, which she had. “I haven’t seen Jack since the night of the fundraiser for Senator Reed.”

  No one could possibly know he had broken into her apartment later that evening, only to be greeted by the barrel of a loaded semiautomatic. Never a man to be rebuffed, he seduced her. It wasn’t only her body he was after. He wanted to know if anyone at HID could be trusted. She told him there was no one, not even her.

  “Then you don’t know where he went after leaving the Caymans.” Chris’s probing statement was telling by itself. Since he was charged with listening in on world leaders as well as enemies both foreign and domestic, he would know where Jack was before anyone else did. Could it be he didn’t know where Jack was? Or maybe he did and wanted confirmation.

  “Did he leave? I wasn’t aware.” Her tone was blatantly ludicrous, but she said it with perfect innocence, at least she hoped so.

  Chris sat back, heaving an exasperated sigh, and for the first time during this meeting, deigned to smile, however reluctantly.

  “We keep hearing about this mystery woman who supposedly set him up,” Camilla said.

  There was no point in refuting the rumor. “I wouldn’t put it past him to go after her.”

  “And the money,” Chris said.

  “But if he stole it,” Camilla said rhetorically, “why would he have to chase it down?”

  “Did he steal it?” Liz pressed the point. “Or was the money planted to make him look guilty? Of Milly’s death and everything else?”

  “Everything else?” Chris asked calmly, his eyes almost sleepy, his fingers idly drumming the surface of his desk.

  Liz nervously cleared her throat and paused, analyzing her position and her possible culpability, of what she had done or said, but also of what she omitted. “The exposé in the Washington Gazette.” Knowing that some or all the unnamed persons indicted in those articles might be present in this room, she hesitated saying more.

  “Then you think he’s going after some nebulous enemy out there,” Chris asked.

  “Real,” she said. “Very real. Somebody did this to him. I don’t know who. And I don’t know why.”

  “And if he really did steal the money?” Angie asked. “And killed Milly?”

  “Harry, too? John? Lindsey-Marie?” Liz would have chuckled if the subject matter weren’t deadly serious. “Jack may be clever. And resourceful. But not that clever. Or that resourceful. But I’ll tell you this. He’s got guts, more guts than all of us put together. At the risk of sounding disloyal, I’ll tell you something else. I’m rooting for him. He’s fighting for his life. While you’re here, sitting in your cushy chairs, and passing sentence on a man you really don’t know.”

  She smiled delicately, slyly, savoring the sweetness in her mouth as the words rolled off her tongue. If they didn’t accept her resignation, then she would know with absolute certainty she couldn’t trust any one of them ever again.

  Chris eased back into his chair. “You’ve confirmed our suspicions.”

  “Have I?” One by one, Liz studied the people she still considered her superiors and saw in their eyes the truth of this meeting. “I get it. This was just a witch hunt. To find out what I knew and didn’t know. A test of my loyalty.”

  “The purpose was ... and is... to convince you to stay.” Angie slid the resignation letter out from a file folder.

  Liz searched each face in turn. Their supportive expressions and nods of encouragement spoke as one. She was forced to look away. “But you see, I brought him in. If it weren’t for me―” She couldn’t blurt out the truth. Say it, Liz. Just goddamn say it. “If it weren’t for me, Milly would still be alive.”

  For much of the meeting, Camilla had remained silent. Liz knew her as a woman of high moral character. A little brusque, very demanding, and harsh when circumstances warranted, but the oil that lubricated the Firm. She mostly kept her thoughts and feelings to herself. Rarely did Liz know where she stood with her. No one did.

  With the tips of her fingernails, Camilla slid the letter of resignation across the desk. “Tear it up, Liz. And do what you must do. Find him. Convince him to give himself up. And if he won’t surrender, bring him in.”

  Liz closed her eyes and considered the offer. The office stilled. She could sense four sets of heartbeats, hers the loudest. She took a deep swallow, opened her eyes, and looked each man and woman in the eye. None blinked. “Tomorrow I’m going home to see my folks. You’ll have my decision when I get back.”

  “Fair enough. And now,” Camilla said, checking her watch and pushing back her chair, “we have a fucking funeral to attend.”

  4

  Republic of Nauru, Micronesia

  Monday, August 18

  THE TRANSPACIFIC FLIGHT departed Brisbane at ten-thirty on a Wednesda
y evening and prepared to touch down on the island of Nauru at half past four the following morning. When pinpoints of lights appeared on the distant horizon, hours of flying over nothing but boundless ocean was ending.

  Jack Harrier gazed over the silver-tipped wing of the jetliner and wondered about a man’s fate, any man’s fate, and the decisions that delivered him step by small step to his future. There are many paths a man can take, but he can only choose one path at a time, all the while knowing that in time he will reach a fork in the road where once again he must choose to go either left or right. He can look down one road and view glimmers of what’s in store for him. Then he can look down the other road and see other possibilities. However long he stands there, he must eventually decide. And so he chooses, never truly knowing whether he has chosen the right path. For a man like Jack Harrier, there is no going back, only pushing forward until once again he comes to yet another bend in the road and another decision. As Jack looked down on the remote Pacific island, this he did know: civilization, however remote or sparsely populated, was a welcome sight.

  Several days ago, on a rain-slick road in Grand Cayman, while driving back to his hotel after confronting a sweet young thing who prostituted herself for a hundred dollars, a panel truck ran him off the road. Unknown persons dragged the wreckage of his body into a shack, there to interrogate him using persuasive methods. Escape was impossible and rescue but a whimsical dream had not a lone assassin dispatched Jack’s kidnapper and wordlessly departed the same way he arrived, like a ghost on a windless night.

  Some fifteen minutes later—it could have been longer or shorter since Jack lost track of simple things like time—he worked his way out of his bindings and ripped away the blindfold. Carnage lay at his feet like an offering to the gods. His interrogator had been shot five times on approach and another three times at pointblank range, his skull obliterated by the volleys and one of his eye sockets rendered into a bloody crater. The toughs who beat Jack to a pulp lay moldering just inside the open door of the structure, their throats slit into silence from ear to ear, blow flies already feasting on their entrails. The woman who remained silent throughout the proceedings had expired in a prayerful position, though God was probably quite busy with other things at the precise moment of her crossing from the earthly realm into the unknown. Jack felt a sense of glee at their departure, a feeling previously alien to him but welcomed like a child welcomes a birthday present at a party thrown just for him.

  “You don’t mind if I borrow your truck, do you?” he had said, chuckling over their corpses. “Nah, I didn’t think so.”

  He made his back to the hotel, entered his room through the beachside veranda, ripped away his bloodied clothing, took an icy-cold shower under a prickling spray, and watched with morbid fascination as blood washed into the drain. After stepping out of the tub, he assessed the damage in the sink mirror and laughed at his reflection. He resembled a zombie risen from the grave. The physical damage would heal in time. The mental damage, never. They had nearly brought him to his knees, begging for mercy. He would never forget that for as long as he lived, however long that might be.

  He grabbed a cab and arrived at the airport with time enough to make his international flight back to Miami, where he exchanged one set of identity papers for another set secured in an airport locker. A few hours later, he hopped on a flight to Nassau. This would be the last time he would have to return to the States to metamorphose into another identity. On Grand Cayman, he tracked down a cobbler, a master forger who created false passports, visas, and any other documentation necessary for new aliases, including diplomas, driver’s licenses, and birth certificates, everything arranged with eagerness and forwarded anywhere in the world by overnight courier.

  After checking into a Nassau hotel, he put a call into his hacker friend Rupert, told him about Aneila, and gave him her number. “Take her under your wing. Watch out for her. I told her to go home. Turned me down flat. Thinks she’s safe. I know she isn’t.”

  “Can I make a play for her?”

  “She might need a shoulder to cry on.” Jack sniggered as he rang off. It still hurt to laugh. Everything hurt. The torturer had done his job well, leaving deep-seated damage but few scars.

  He stayed in Nassau to rest up and heal his broken body. He also took advantage of the many casinos lining the pristine beaches, playing several blackjack tables and counting cards while increasing his available funds. He stashed the proceeds in a Bahamian bank account and walked out with a debit card. Three days later, he boarded a flight bound for London with a connection to Brisbane, Australia. A nearly twenty-four-hour marathon of flight time followed, interspersed by meals, snacks, bar service, pampering, and fitful sleep. Once in Brisbane, he slept off jet lag before boarding a late-night flight to Nauru.

  Eighteen miles of coastline surrounded the tiny equatorial island, visible on approach in the pre-dawn hours. Asian, European, and Nauruan faces made up a handful of security personnel staffing the airport. Nearly to a man and woman, they wore crisp white shirts, dark trousers or skirts, and the façade of boredom. The all-business Europeans barely noticed the American; the Asians were too busy to glance up from their labors; and the islanders, exhibiting a pleasing mixture of Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian lineage, discounted all Westerners as being conceited and unfriendly.

  Jack had learned to disguise himself as either a businessman or a tourist. So far, he passed muster without so much as a suspicious blink. He had many advantages. He was an American of apparent means. He was young. He was affable. He was relatively good-looking. And except for the recent scratches and bruises, he bore no disfiguring scars. Today he played the part of tourist. When he approached the checkpoint, the uniformed officer compared the passport photo with the individual standing before her, noted the return flight coupon, glanced at the confirmed hotel reservation, asked for the purpose of his visit, and waved him through.

  He took a taxi and checked into the three-storey Oceana Boulevard Hotel, a modern facility boasting well-appointed rooms, breathtaking views of the Pacific, and every amenity well-heeled travelers expect from their tropical paradises. He took breakfast on the veranda and greeted a blood-red morning rolling across the sea. The perpetual waves of jagged ocean waters transfixed his eyes and intensified his exhaustion. He drank in the sea air with calming sighs. Had he thought about, which he hadn’t, it would have been the first time over the past several weeks when he was able to inhale a cleansing breath unencumbered by dread and guilt. It was to be short-lived.

  He finished his coffee. The concierge approached, advising him about the readiness of his room. Escorting him to the elevator, she asked if Mr. Harrier wished to take advantage of Nauru’s nine-hole golf course. Or barring that, a day of deep-sea fishing. Perhaps snorkeling or scuba diving on the reef. Or something more leisurely, such as a beach picnic replete with recliner, table, and umbrella made to order. After he declined each offer, she informed him of the hotel’s same-day laundry services, its photocopying facilities, the ethernet connection available in each room, the expert secretarial services at his disposal, and the rental car that could be easily arranged, automatic transmission and air conditioning standard.

  “Or perhaps a private island tour?” she suggested. Standing primly, she joined her hands below waist level, yearning for a chance to be of service. Jack took her up on the island tour. Her smile of relief was tangible. Her posture straightened with satisfaction. “This afternoon? Say two o’clock?” She smiled winningly at him. Harboring a delightful mixture of European and Polynesian features, she was a scrumptious candy wrapped in colorful tinfoil. She couldn’t have been much past eighteen years of age. Regrettably, he had no time or inclination for dalliances with nubile eighteen-year-olds willing to please American tourists. But she was lovely to gaze upon and even lovelier to stroll beside. A pleasant aroma of tropical perfumes and ocean delights wafted off her crisp blue uniform, trimmed in red and offset by a white blouse, everything pressed
and laundered, including the fresh face that offered a wide smile and bright eyes. She was only too happy to please. When the elevator arrived and guests stepped off, she asked, “How long will you be staying with us, Mr. Harrier?” He couldn’t say for sure, but she wasn’t worried. She knew the next flight back to Brisbane wasn’t scheduled for departure until Friday.

  In his room, a printed notice requested guests to be sparing of water consumption since the country was undergoing a prolonged drought. Jack’s attempt at a shower lasted a brief five minutes, at which point the hot water dwindled. Dripping wet and enjoying the prickly sensation of water evaporating from his body, he stepped onto the balcony to view the scenery. He didn’t care who saw him standing there. The early hour preempted a large audience, and he was positioned well enough in the shadows to be relatively undetectable.

  He went back inside and fell into bed. Even though he was exhausted, he stayed wide awake for one hour, and then two hours. Willing himself to sleep did not work. At intervals, he watched a movie or stared at the ceiling or tapped impatient fingers on his chest. Sleep finally arrived in dribs and dabs of tossing and turning. He was unable to erase from his mind the vision of Keri Parris lying on her sepulcher of sand, surrounded by curious onlookers harboring unquenchable thirsts for tragedy. She was only one of the many ghosts who haunted him. Milly, of course. Harry Tobias. The woman in the Metro station. Janice Brodey and her daughter. Duncan Spears. Dani Nguyen. And now, according to news reports, John Sessions and Lindsey-Marie Moffat. Even if he wasn’t a praying man, he prayed for the souls of those innocents. He also prayed no more sacrificial lambs would go to their premature deaths on the altar of Jack Coyote’s mistakes. But as he learned as a boy, his prayers would not be answered.