One Minute Out Page 38
“That’s ridiculous, Gentry. You know me.”
I say, “Then who’s pulling your strings?”
I can hear Matt sigh, which he does with regularity when talking with me. He asks, “What do you know?”
“Not a chance, Matt. Let’s hear you talk.”
Hanley next says, “Court, have I ever lied to you?”
This is rich, coming from him. “Have you ever lied to me? Fuck, Matt, you tried to kill me. Does that count?” I glance at Hightower next to me. “Both of you did.”
Hanley barks back instantly. “That was under orders!”
And Hightower raises a hand in the air. “Same. Get over it, dude. Move on.”
Hanley says, “I did not know about the Consortium. Not by name, anyhow. But when you called Brewer, I looked into it. We know about their operation, and we knew about the meeting tonight in Venice.”
“Who is the American who runs it?”
“He’s an asshole, apparently. But he’s also an asset.”
I understand. “He is providing you some sort of intelligence product, and in return you are protecting him. Is that it?”
“That’s it.”
“So, Matt, when you gave me that impassioned plea for me to drop this pipeline thing and haul ass back home so that Zoya wouldn’t die alone in some shit-stained hellhole, it had less to do with Zoya and more to do with you trying to protect international criminals so they could continue to feed you intel product.”
“If I say yes, are you going to show up at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night?”
I don’t answer him, but I get the reference. I did come to him one rainy night for a chat, and it was clear he did not appreciate the intrusion.
After my silence, Hanley adds, “People in the real world aren’t like you, Court old buddy. The rest of us, we take orders. We work to the best of our ability to satisfy the wishes of our higher-ups. I’ve got bosses I listen to and respect, unlike you, out there just winging it, dancing to your own music playing in your goofy head. Music nobody hears but you.”
“You’re stacking your metaphors, Matt.”
“Let me help you understand, then. I’m saying this. I was told the man at the center of this—”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know his name. I just know his code name.”
“The DDO doesn’t know the name of an intelligence asset? Bullshit.”
“He’s the one who’s kept it hidden. He came to us originally, a walk-in, and he set protocols in place to where we can’t easily identify him.”
“All right,” I say. “People in the Balkan pipeline call him the Director.”
“Okay, fine. The Director, he works with us, and the intel product he generates takes precedence over whatever side business he may or may not be involved in.”
“Side business? For God’s sake, Matt! He’s running a massive international sex slavery ring; this isn’t a fucking chain of Pinkberrys!”
The rest of the cabin around me is dead silent.
I believe Hanley to be a good man, despite how he treats me sometimes, and he wouldn’t want to be part of a scheme to ruin the lives of thousands of young women and girls. But still, his devotion to his duties is stronger than his moral compass, because he says, “I truly hope that sex slavery operation gets shut down. But it can’t be shut down by stopping the Director. He’s proven himself too important to America’s national interests.”
“How the fuck so, Matt?”
“He’s doing something we need him to keep doing.”
I’m not the sharpest tack, but I’ve been in this game a long time, so I had been suspecting this all along.
“This is about international banking. I know the Consortium has money laundering down to an art form. He’s working with other entities. Terror groups, rogue states, weapons proliferators. And he’s passing that info on to you.”
“Can neither confirm nor deny,” he says.
I’ve known Matt ten years, and when he says this, he is one hundred percent confirming, not denying.
I say, “But . . . you do understand he’s only playing ball so you guys will run interference for him while he conducts criminal activity, right? Every country I’ve been in over the last week is full of government personnel either working for him outright, supporting his efforts in some way, or covering for him. I’m sure he pays out millions of dollars to those who can be bought off, and he gives vital information to those who cannot.”
Hanley sighs again. I imagine he’s recirculated more air in whatever room he’s in than the HVAC system has in the last ten minutes. He says, “That’s how this works. That’s how any intelligence operation works. Court, you know better than anybody how to play this game! You work with the biggest shitheads on the planet so you can go after some other big shithead. That’s your own business model, is it not?”
I don’t answer this, because I hate it when he’s right.
“Isn’t it?” he shouts again.
It’s quiet for ten seconds, until Zack breaks the still. “Six, I love the sound you make when you shut the fuck up.”
Hanley speaks again. “And here you are, telling me the right thing for me to do is to roll up the Director and give up vital national interests: intel on terror groups, opposition dictators, warlords, drug cartels. Sorry, Court, I love you, man, but you need to get off your goddamned high horse. What the Agency does on a large scale, you do on a small scale.”
Again, I sit quietly.
But he keeps going. “That time you dealt with the biggest cartel in Sinaloa . . . Remind me, did you bring them down, or did you use their resources to help you bring down someone else?”
He has a point. A strong point. An unassailable point. But I’m not in a conciliatory mood.
“Look,” I say, but he talks over me.
“Just today. Just today, Violator! Who did you meet with in Venice? I bet it was your buddy Luigi Alfonsi, wasn’t it?”
He’s wrong, I met with Alfonsi’s security chief, but I don’t quibble.
“You know what they’re up to? Gun running, drug running, immigrant running. A boat linked to them just last month sank in the Med; thirty-eight Libyans were on it. They still haven’t picked all the dead kids out of the water.”
Everyone in the Falcon looks towards me, ready for my brilliant rejoinder to Hanley’s reasoning. But all I can say is, “Fuck you, Matt.”
Matthew Hanley is the deputy director for operations for the CIA; he has every right to hang up the phone in the face of some foul-mouthed and insubordinate contract agent, but he does not.
Not because he loves me or respects me.
But because he needs me. He needs me to come home and work for him and be the best fucking killer of men on the planet.
And I know it, which means I know I can lose the argument on the merits, and win the argument with leverage.
And he knows it, too. He says, “Look, son. I respect you for what you are trying to do. But you will die trying, and you won’t fix anything. I can’t have you dying. I mean . . . not unless it’s on one of my ops.”
He snorts out a laugh at the end, but he’s not kidding, and I’m not laughing.
Neither are the others on board, because they all know Matt Hanley would sacrifice them for a greater good without a moment’s hesitation. We all knew it when we signed up for this shit, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we want him joking around about it.
After a few uncomfortable seconds, I say, “There is an American psychologist who works for the Consortium. I know her name. I know where she lives. And I know where she is going to be for the next several days.”
The speakers are silent for a moment, and then Hanley says, “Let me just get out ahead of you here. Request denied.”
Dick. “This is not a request, Matt.”
“No, Matt. I’m not fighting anybody. You are going to let me do what I need to do.”
“And why would I?”
“You may have me in pocket, but you don’t have my associate. I’ve been working with someone else on this, and even if you have her name, you don’t know where she is right now. If I don’t contact her in six hours”—I take a quick look at my watch—“sorry, five hours and twelve minutes, then she is going to call your good friend Catherine King at the Washington Post and tell her an amazing tale about how the CIA is propping up a sex trafficker.”
“We’re not propping him up, we’re just—”
“We’ve got the evidence of the relationship, that’s all we need. Do you think the Post is going to tell your side of it, or are they going to tell the most sensational version they can?”
Hanley doesn’t answer me. He hates it when I’m right.
I continue. “I don’t want to do that, and you know I don’t. But I will do it, and you know I will.”
Hightower leans over closer to the speakerphone. “Say the word, Matt, and I’ll toss this prick out of the plane without a chute.”
But Zack winks at me after saying this, letting me know he’s just sucking up to his boss.
I’m surrounded by nutjobs.
When Hanley doesn’t reply, I say, “My associate has banking records tying Dr. Claudia Riesling to the trafficking ring. There is also one of the heads of the Consortium, a South African. I saw him. His first name might be Jaco, but I can’t be certain. He was on the boat that transported a shipment of victims to an auction in Venice, where they were sold off into slavery. My associate knows this, too. Shit, Matt, the Post won’t write about anything else for a fucking month!”
“What is it you want, son?”
“I want to get off this aircraft in D.C., unmolested. I want to walk away.”
Hanley hesitates a long time, but that feels promising to me. His “hell nos” come quickly. His reluctant “yeses” take a minute.
Eventually he says, “Approved, under conditions. Is that it?”
He knows that’s not it. “No. I want Hightower, Travers, and four more Ground Branch guys at my disposal for seventy-two hours.”
Hanley laughs now, and I worry I just overplayed my hand. “That request is denied. They’re not your men to use, and you certainly can’t use them in the States.” He pauses, and I wait him out. Finally, he says, “But I’ll talk to Romantic privately. We might be able to throw you a bone. Again, with conditions.”
I’m not sure what he means by this, but it sounds like more than I had hoped for originally.
“What are the conditions?” I ask.
“You won’t find the Director; this guy is as good as anyone on the planet at insulating himself from his operations. That’s why he’s been informing on international criminals for ten years and he’s not taking a dirt nap in some gully somewhere. And it’s why we don’t know who he is.
“And if you roll up this psychologist, or this South African asshole, they won’t talk. They know the reach the Director has.”
“What are the conditions?” I repeat.
“But if I’m wrong. If you do somehow find the Director,” Hanley says, “then you absolutely cannot kill him, and you cannot have him arrested. He must remain in place. I don’t give a shit if you tear down his entire sex trafficking ring, but we need him in play in the international finance world; we need him able to operate a computer and deal with the offshore tax havens and criminal elements. And there can be no comebacks on the Agency. He can’t think we sent you.”
I don’t like this. Not at all. But I tell myself there is more than one way to skin a cat. “Deal. If I find the Director, I will let him live, I won’t turn him in, and I won’t let him know I spoke with you. What else?”
“I need you to be as discreet as possible. I know what you do, and I know how you do it. You can be deep cover, invisible, stealthy like a fucking greased ninja cat.” He pauses, then says, “And you can also shoot up city blocks on live TV like you’re Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger. If you are going to operate in the U.S. against an entity you aren’t sanctioned to take down, then I need you to be the greased ninja cat and not Rambo. You hear me?”
Arnold wasn’t Rambo, but I take his meaning.
“Agreed. What else?”
“What else? Don’t die, that’s what else. I have work for you.”
I bet he does. I say, “I understand and wilco on all, Matt. Thanks.”
He doesn’t say You’re welcome. No, he says, “Court, one of these days you are going to be more trouble than you’re worth.”
“But not today.”
Another long sigh. “Not today, no. I need you back here. Do your thing, follow the ROEs I set down, and then get your ass back to work. No more delays, no more excuses, no more rogue do-gooder bullshit.”
“Understood, sir.”
Hanley tells Hightower to take him off the speaker, and then Zack takes the phone to the front bulkhead and sits there, well out of my earshot. I look at everyone sitting around me, and as one they all relax. I’m no longer their prisoner, I’m no longer a threat. No, now I have sanction, more or less.
I’m back in the game.
FORTY-THREE
The Gulfstream aircraft owned by a shell corporation for the Consortium had taken off from Venice’s Marco Polo Airport over an hour before the CIA flight left Treviso, so it was over four hours into its transatlantic crossing now. In the cabin were Cage, Sean Hall, Hall’s six men, the two European girls known as Maja and Sofia, Dr. Claudia Riesling, and Jaco Verdoorn.
For the first hour of the flight Verdoorn, Hall, and Cage sat in the back, out of earshot of the rest, and they tried to piece together everything that had happened. Cage was furious at Verdoorn, Hall was furious at Verdoorn, and Verdoorn was furious at his men, especially Loots, who’d had the fucking Gray Man in the sights of his Sig pistol and yet failed to shoot him dead.
And he was furious at Rylond Jonker for getting his stupid ass shot and killed in a Venice alleyway.
Loots and the seven other surviving White Lion men would be taking a different private jet out of Verona, several hours to the west, because of concerns that the police presence would be significantly ramped up at Marco Polo after the shootout in the city proper.
For the second hour of the flight, however, Verdoorn had sat alone up at the front bulkhead, leaning forward and talking into his phone, scrolling through information on a tablet computer on his knees, and taking notes on a pad of paper. Behind him, Claudia Riesling talked to Maja and Sofia nearly constantly, trying to work them harder and harder so that they would accept the fate ahead of them. Sofia was teary eyed, no longer under the influence of drugs, but Maja was essentially impassive. Riesling saw her look over at Cage from time to time, but otherwise she did not show much reaction to anything said. Riesling knew the young woman was still in a state of shock, but at least she was compliant.
She’d be a good pet for Ken Cage, and the Director would appreciate his in-house psychologist for it.
* * *
• • •
Kenneth Cage sat next to Sean Hall, who drank vodka on the rocks with a shaky hand. That his bodyguard was shaken up by the events of the evening was not lost on him, but Sean and his boys had done what he paid them to do. He wasn’t pissed at Sean; he was pissed at Jaco.
Cage himself was into his third scotch and soda when he saw Jaco at the front of the aircraft turn around and ask Claudia to come sit
with him. He wondered about this; he couldn’t imagine why the severe South African, after losing a man and his target tonight, needed to confer with the psychologist used to reprogram the merchandise, but he didn’t think about it for long, because his eyes moved to Maja.
As Cage drank down more scotch, he fantasized about grabbing the little Romanian by the hair and dragging her to the sofa in the back, clearing out the bodyguards seated there, and then raping her on the spot, in full view of everyone else. The thought gave him a charge, a sexual thrill intermixed with his rage.
He needed someone to take it out on. Who better than the Romanian bitch who’d insulted him and slapped him?
He could see the fear in her eyes each and every time she glanced his way, and he loved it. He’d be home in a few hours; he’d have to spend a day or two with his family, and then he’d drive up to Rancho Esmerelda and he’d begin schooling Maja on how to treat him properly.
And when he was done with her, he’d have Jaco “take her back home,” his euphemism for disappearing the girls so they couldn’t identify him.
* * *
• • •
Dr. Claudia Riesling sat down next to the big man Verdoorn and did her best to hide the intimidation she always felt around him. In an attempt to empathize with him and his terrible night, she said, “How are you feeling, Jaco?”
But he did not answer this question. He said, “I’ve been making some calls, back to Romania, back to Hungary, back to Belgrade. I’m trying to figure out how the fuck Gentry has been able to stay on our heels like this.”
“And you found something?”
“I did.”
Riesling was confused. “Well . . . why are you telling me this? You are the operations and security chief. Sean is the Director’s lead protection agent. I have nothing to do with—”
“I did some research on the merchandise on board this aircraft.”
Riesling said, “Research? What sort of research?”
“Genealogical research.”