Enemy Agents (29 page)

“You expect me to believe that?” Saleb felt his face tightening into a grimace of rage and hate. He fought to keep the gun from shaking. “You killed my wife.”

“No, I didn’t,” Boswell insisted. She took a softer tone. “I didn’t kill your wife. I couldn’t have possibly been there. Because I was the one who sho
t
yo
u
.”

“What?”

“You were in separate cities. That means two shooters. Someone else got Jessica, but I was assigned to kill you. You know my reputation? I kill what I aim at. Every time I wanted someone dead, they ended up dead. You understand
?
I shot you and you live
d
.”

Bystanders were watching this happen on the streets of Zurich—an Arab man aiming a gun at a white police officer in the middle of the street. Sirens were coming.

“Let’s get out of here and I can explain it,” Boswell said. “You’re alive because I deliberately didn’t hit anything vital in your brain. I let you live because I thought you were innocent.”

The part about her reputation was true. They said that Boswell had literally never missed. If she had shot Saleb, he should have died.

“Then why have me destroy the files?” asked Swift.

“Think it through, girl. I didn’t. Would I need to send a thief to access my own box? I was keeping those files for my own investigation. My own suspicions that something was wrong inside CIB. And someone found out and sent you to steal from me. That was my evidence that you stole, get it? I’m not your Jupiter.”

“Then who is?”

“Best guess? Harry Milton. He’s the one who ordered the hit.” She still stared in Saleb’s eyes. “It was Milton who ordered your wife to be killed. Milton who sent me to kill you. Milton who had you locked in the desert without a trial when you inconvenienced him by living. Milton is the rotten egg here, not me.”

“Why did you follow us to Zurich?”

The sirens were on the same street now, closing fast. “We don’t have time.”

“Answer the question!” Saleb shouted. “Why are you trying to arrest me if you think I’m not guilty?”

“Because Milton has to believe that I fell for it. Because I need to arrest you. Because this bitch was dumb enough to break you out of the safety of secure custody and put you in grave danger out in the real world.”

“She’s lying to save her own ass,” said Swift, moving to the driver’s door. “We have to get out of here, and she’s not coming with us.”

Boswell ignored her. “Take me with you, we can talk this over—”

“No chance I’m confining myself in a van with you.” Swift shouted, as she got in and started the engine. She leaned back to shout through the rear door. “Leave her and get in, we have what we came for!”

Saleb stared down the sights of the gun, lined up to the face of the woman who had either shot him or killed his wife, depending on which story he believed. Part of Swift prayed he wouldn’t shoot her but she was mostly praying that he’d get back in the van before the real cops boxed them in. The thought of going back into captivity with so much on the line made her sweat. A police car roared down the road behind Boswell.

Saleb shouted another question, not shouting out of anger but because the sirens were so loud. “Was my wife a traitor?”

Boswell’s eyes watered. She was either telling the truth or a hell of a good actress. “I don’t know.”

Saleb lowered the gun, climbed in the van, and shut the door. Swift was already pulling into the street before he had the door shut. Saleb slumped to the floor, ejected the magazine, popped the bullet from the chamber and then pulled the trigger over and over, shooting imaginary rounds at the back door as if he could take out all of his frustrations on Boswell then and there.

Swift pulled over in a parking lot, looking to steal a new vehicle. When she pulled the van’s door open to get Saleb, she saw that he was still sitting there, his cheeks streaked by tears.

#

After abandoning their stolen car, Swift and Saleb used the city’s tram service to travel back to the small hotel where they were staying. They were sharing a room, under the pretense that they were a couple of American tourists. Once back in the room, Swift gave Saleb the files to read over to see if anything jogged his memory, and called Quarrel on his new cell number. Earlier, just after she landed in Zurich, Quarrel had called to tell her that he was with Hall, that his CIA contact was dead, and that Hall swore Shark Scarret was the traitor. Now she called him back to let him know that Scarret wasn’t the only one.

“How did it go?” Quarrel said as soon as he answered.

“Got in and out,” she said. “And then Boswell was waiting for me.”

“Boswell? She followed you?”

“It was her safe deposit box.”

Quarrel sighed into the phone. “Damn. Boswell and Shark both?”

“She swears she’s not Jupiter. Says the file was her evidence against Milton. I don’t know what to believe.”

Quarrel said nothing, so Swift kept talking. “How are you?” she asked.

“I’m OK. Better than Jack. He got beat up pretty bad in a car wreck, then Sidorov tortured him for more than a day. He’s sleeping right now.”

“But you’re . . . ?”

“I’ll live. Hershey took me captive but the only injuries were the ones I gave myself when I crashed the truck into a tree.”

“You did what?”

“I’m fine,” he said with a little chuckle. After another pause, he offered, “I think Boswell’s the mole. I think she lied to you today.”

“How do you know?”

“Thorpe. I told you he’s answering to Fatale, but I didn’t tell you why. The mole kidnapped his wife.”

“His wife!?” she said the latter word too loud, and Saleb shot her a look, suddenly more interested in her conversation than the file of documents. She shook a hand at him reassuringly, trying to make him go back to reading. “I didn’t know he had a wife. It wasn’t in your briefing.”

“I didn’t know. He’s kept her secret all this time. Officially, his wife died on his honeymoon. I think she must be in England, somewhere in the London area. So if our mole is on that side of the Atlantic, and Shark is still in the USA as of this morning . . . ”

“ . . . then Boswell’s the mole,” she said, completing his sentence. “If she’s on this side of the ocean, then she’s the mole.”

Quarrel agreed. “And, the other thought I had was that we need to know if we can trust Harry Milton. I’m going to call him and tell him Jack’s story about Shark. I’ll give him Sidorov’s location as proof. If he moves on Shark, he’s a good guy. If he leaves Shark free to roam the world, he’s not so good.”

“Sounds like a plan, I guess.” She wanted to say more to him, something more personal, but it was awkward and Khalid was sitting right there. “What do we do? Now, I mean?”

“Find Boswell. Follow her back to Mrs. Thorpe. We need to get Thorpe off the other team and back on our side. Think you can do that?”

She watched Saleb turn the pages and decided that they could. “Yeah. We’ll watch the airport for anything bound for London. She’ll be on one of them, and we’ll follow.”

“OK,” Quarrel said, “I’ll see you soon.”

“See ya,” she said casually, maybe too casually since Saleb raised his eyebrows.

They hung up.

Saleb looked up at her from his position lying across the bed with the files spread in front of him. “Flying to London?”

“We’re gonna follow Boswell. Quarrel thinks she kidnapped another agent’s wife.”

“This Quarrel seems pretty sure of himself.”

“He’s the man in charge of the whole thing.”

Saleb nodded. “OK. But I don’t think you’ll find her there.”

“Why not?”

“Because I believe her. I think Boswell was on my side. What evidence do you have that she’s this kidnapper?”

Swift wished that Saleb had been with her throughout her ordeal in America. He would have seen how Boswell threatened her at their meeting—attacked her so savagely when she broke into CIB. Of all the agents on Quarrel’s list of suspects, Swift had more reason to hate Boswell than any of the others. It was her box, her fake passports, and she had just coincidentally flown across the Atlantic on the same day that Mrs. Thorpe was kidnapped in England. Swift explained it all, and Saleb, still doubting, nodded.

“We’ll go to the airport. But I really think you’re wrong about this.”

“This is what the evidence gave us. We put everything into finding that safe deposit box. We have to follow up.” She didn’t want to force him to come along. She wanted him to be fully on-board. There was only one way to earn that. They had to find Boswell at the airport.

34

Chris Quarrel entered the bank first, followed by Jack Hall. The agent who normally greeted people under the guise of offering banking services recognized them immediately, and she just stepped aside and let them enter the office that held the hidden elevator. Nobody made any move to stop them. If anything, the faces of the greeter and the various tellers showed a look of shock and something close to fear. Jack Hall was number one on the federal Most Wanted list. In their eyes, he had killed an entire CIA team when the team interfered with Jack’s theft of nuclear materials. He was a terrorist, a traitor, and an unrepentant killer. Their retreat meant that they felt safer staying out of the way and pressing the alarm. Quarrel didn’t like to induce fear in everyone, but at least he didn’t have to draw his gun and force his way to the elevator.

As soon as Quarrel and Hall were in the office, the drop-away floor hidden in the carpet started to lower into the hidden elevator shaft, and both men had to hop down to catch it before it got too far.

“They’ll have the Marines waiting for us,” said Hall.

“Guaranteed,” agreed Quarrel. “Better disarm now.”

Hall nodded. Both men pulled out pistols and ejected the magazines. They both pulled back the slides to eject the bullets from their respective chambers, then set the guns and magazines on the floor, close to where the door would be once they reached the bottom.

“You ever think,” asked Quarrel, “that maybe this thing stops half way down and they’ll just gas us?”

Hall smiled. It was the first time Quarrel had seen that since the training exercise in the Ontario woods. Despite his concussion, possible cracked skull, badly burned scalp, and generally tortured condition, Jack still seemed to find amusement in Quarrel’s inexperience.

“It’s a base that happens to be underground, kid. Not a magical underground lair.”

“I was just sort of, you know,” Quarrel said, suddenly unsure what he had meant, “just half-joking.”

Hall nodded a little. “It’s OK to be cautious. But trust me, Harry will want to talk and talk means we’ll both be wide awake.” The elevator was low enough that the first inch of the doorway cracked above the floor now, a line of light in the dark shaft.

“Best to get against the back wall, hands up,” said Jack. Both men followed that advice, raising their hands and standing with their feet shoulder-width apart. As the elevator settled to the floor they saw that the entire doorway was filled with Marine guards, dressed in their black suits and ties with white shirts. There were six of them here, each with an automatic rifle aimed at Quarrel and Hall. They were waiting for orders, or for Jack to make a move. For a little while, nothing happened.

“All you, boss,” said Jack without turning his head.

Quarrel swallowed hard, worked up some courage, and spoke sternly at the Marines, as if giving them orders. “I brought him in. This is still my case,” said Quarrel. “Jack Hall is my witness, let us through.”

“Your jurisdiction ended when you murdered Agent Hinkston, Mr. Quarrel.” The voice was Harry Milton, who must have been standing somewhere behind the guards, out of sight.

“That was not me. I was there, I put my prints on the gun. But it was the Canadian agent, Thompson. And the house agent was killed by Pete Hershey.”

“Yet another survivor of your bombing?” Milton’s voice asked. “Seems a lot of untrustworthy people walked away from that one.” He was caustic, spiteful. Quarrel had turned his organization inside out; Hall was seen as a traitor. It was no wonder Milton sounded like he was about to order the Marines to fire.

“Yeah,” shouted Quarrel, trying to talk past the wall of Marines. “Hershey pulled the trigger on the bomb. He bragged about it.”

“And I presume Jack’s also innocent of his crimes?” asked Milton, adding a heap of sarcasm onto the word ‘innocent.’

“Yes,” shouted Jack. “That was all Scarret. He’s your goddamn rat.”

There was a long pause. Quarrel felt one of the Marines staring at him. Most were focused on Jack, but the Marine directly in front of Quarrel was staring right at him, challenging him, and almost daring him to move. Quarrel felt more afraid of that guard than he had been of the men he killed in the apartment.

Finally, Milton’s voice came back. “Escort them to the interrogation cells. Keep them separate.”

Quarrel and Hall were marched down the corridor in a column of soldiers. Milton was nowhere to be seen, and Quarrel realized that Milton was talking to them over the speakers from the safety of his office. Jack was placed in the first interrogation room, the same one where Swift had been held, while Quarrel was taken a little farther, room 2.

Quarrel had to wait over an hour before Milton came to see him. He must have spoken to Hall first. When he came, Harry was alone. He wore suit pants and an untucked, wrinkled dress shirt. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, with pale skin and dark circles under his eyes. He looked old. Milton sat across from Quarrel, who was cuffed and shackled to a metal chair at one end of a bolted-down steel table.

“So let’s have it. Everything from the safe house where Hinkston died to walking into my office uninvited. I want to hear it all.”

So Quarrel told him. He told him about the Teacup, about Hinkston’s team waiting in Washington state, about Hershey and the long drive south to Sidorov’s hideout. He told him about meeting Jack on that long, narrow driveway in the forest, and gave a vague account of Swift leaving the country to follow a lead. All the while, Milton just listened. He didn’t ask questions or need clarification. He just sat and took it all in, his face revealing nothing. The only thing that got a response from Milton was when Quarrel mentioned that Fatale had gotten to Thorpe’s wife.

“His wife?”

“That’s what he wrote.”

“Officially, they were never married. And even among those who knew about her, Julia died twenty years ago.”

“I don’t know anything about—” Quarrel started to say.

“You wouldn’t. Only a handful of people in the world knew that Julia was still alive. And William Thorpe wouldn’t tell you she existed at all unless it was true. Fatale has Julia. Son of a bitch . . . ” Milton trailed off, lost in thought. After almost thirty seconds of silence, he told Quarrel to continue with the story, so Quarrel told him some more, staying vague about Swift but being very clear that he believed Hall that Shark Scarret was the traitor who killed that CIA team. When the story was done, Milton asked no follow-up questions, instead he just stood up and left the room without a word.

#

Harry Milton had spent an hour alone with both Hall and Quarrel, evaluating the stories they told, and dammit if Milton didn’t believe it. Too much of what they said fit with evidence that had been puzzling him until now. Quarrel swore that Thompson had killed Hinkston, and the crime scene report had already told him that Thompson was covered in gunshot residue. The team on the highway had recovered Jack’s toolkit, which had seemed like slam-dunk proof except that the bag was still neatly packed. If Jack was going to break into a nuclear storage depot, wouldn’t he have packed the tools onto his body for the mission, not left them neatly packed in a backpack? And the highway attack itself had been so sloppy. Van exploding on public highways, Jack’s SUV rolled over so violently. It wasn’t Jack’s usual sneaky style. But it did fit Shark Scarret’s explosive tactics to a T.

And the address they had given of Sidorov’s hideout had turned out to be real. Sidorov was still rotting in the basement, in a puddle of water that had once been a pile of ice. Milton had a team searching the place for any sign that Shark had ever been there.

After working his way back to his office, Milton poured a tall scotch from his decanter, took a long gulp, and sighed. He paced around the room, taking a few smaller sips, and moved behind the desk. He stared at the phone, and within a few seconds, it rang. Answering it, he got the confirmation he needed: they had Scarret’s fingerprints all over Sidorov’s hideout. Hall was telling the truth.

He wiped a layer of dust off his computer monitor and booted it up. The machine was top-of-the-line, upgraded more often than Milton actually used it. It was connected to the satellite network within thirty seconds. Milton brought up Scarret’s file, and the satellite tracked him down right away. He checked that the satellite was in position to send a signal to Shark’s implanted bomb. It was.

A small window popped up, asking for the password. This was a code only Milton knew; a random series of numbers that he used as a password on some of his more “unorthodox” projects. He typed it from memory and it appeared onscreen as ten asterisks.

Now it was just a matter of choice. Click on “Execute,” or click on “Cancel.”

“Execute” was an appropriate word for what this program would do. He clicked it. The signal would be sent after a one-second delay, and a second after that, Shark Scarret would be dead.

Another window popped up. Signal sent.

There was no third window. Milton had used these devices before, and there should have been another message. One that says, “Target detonated.” It never came.

He reached for the phone on his desk to call Kilo and find out what was wrong with the system, but the phone rang before his hand reached it.

“Milton,” he said as he picked it up.

“Hi, Harry,” said a taunting, spiteful voice. “It’s about time you tried to blow me up,” Shark Scarret teased.

“How?” Milton couldn’t understand how Shark was still talking to him. The signal should have killed him already.

“Oh that bomb you had them wrap around my spine? I had that taken out a year after you put it in. Bet you thought that was impossible, eh? Tamper-proof? Not with the people I know, Harry.” Shark chuckled, but it was forced, taunting. “I took it out and took it apart. I kept the GPS tracker in my neck, so that when you scanned for it, you’d still think you had me. You’d still think I was on your leash. But the explosive? That fun little nugget of plastic explosive you wanted to use to blow my head off? That, I kept safe.”

Milton saw red, the anger, frustration and futility of the moment washing over him. For over ten years he had thought Shark was leashed, contained, that the traitorous bastard would never risk betraying CIB. All that time, he had been wrong. Shark kept taunting.

“The real question is, were you stupid enough to use the same password on my bomb as you were on this big ol’ particle emitter? Just let me see . . . ”

Milton felt numb. Shark was typing something, then he came back on the line with a smile in his voice. “Ahh, yes. Well, that just about wraps things up. Thanks, Hare. You’ve been a real treat. I guess I’ll be going. Oh, and Harry? If you were wondering what I did with that little remote-activated bomb after I took it out of my neck . . . ”

Milton had never been so defeated, so useless, so defenceless. For the first time in a forty-year career, he didn’t know what to do next. Shark continued: “ . . . I reprogrammed it and put it in a pacemaker. Bye, Harry.”

Milton dropped the phone. If it was all true, if Scarret had outsmarted him, strung him along for all those years . . . no, Harry didn’t have time left to think about that. He had to check the GPS. See if Scarret really was where Milton suspected him to be. He might not have much time left, but he could still help Jack, help Quarrel, tell them where Scarret was hiding now. He closed the extra windows on his screen and told the satellite to zoom in, all the while reaching for the dropped phone with his left hand, but never finding it.

The left side of his chest exploded outward as if someone inside his chest had swung a sledgehammer into his ribs. Broken ribs jabbed and tore the fabric of his shirt, and the force of the internal explosion forced blood into Milton’s brain so fast he died before he even knew that it had happened. He slumped backward in his chair, both his eyes turning red with burst blood vessels.

Harry Milton was dead, sitting in the office where he spent most of his life, bloodshot eyes still open, sitting at his desk. And on the screen a window popped up.

TARGET DETONATED.