Clear by Fire (3 page)

“What the fuck,” Vernon yelled, pushing away from the table as water soaked his pants. Mason’s hand flashed to his pistol at the spy’s sudden movement, but he quickly regained his composure as the waiter set the carafe on the table and made a big show of blotting the water on Vernon’s jacket.

“Jesus, Mason, what is this bullshit?” Vernon’s face was red with anger as he tried to brush off the waiter’s clumsy attempts to help him.

“Calm down, it’s just water,” he said as Vernon finally untangled himself from the zealous Arab.

Vernon sat back down, keeping his chair away from the dripping white linen, and looked accusingly at Mason. “That was some bush-league bullshit.”

It was obvious that the CIA man thought he had done it on purpose.

“Look, I said I was sorry. It was just a little water.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one who looks like he pissed his pants, not you.”

“Fuck, maybe I just need to find someplace to hide out for a while and get my shit together,” Mason said, a plan forming in his mind as he lit another cigarette and the other patrons turned back to their meals.

“You need to do something. You’re falling apart on me. Go get laid or whatever it is you do. I’ll make some calls and see if we can get you back in the States in a few weeks.”

“You’re right. I’m sorry for getting in your face like that.”

Vernon looked across the table and studied him. Mason looked defeated, and that was exactly what the spy wanted.

“I told you that I would take care of you. You’re going to have to trust me, okay?” Vernon’s voice had softened, but it was all an act.

“I know. I’ll take care of the check and then I’m going to get out of here. I think I need a new country. Can you get me some papers?”

“Where are you trying to go?” Vernon asked as he stood up. He wanted to get the hell out while Mason was off balance.

“Maybe up the coast. I’ve got friends in Libya,” Mason replied, lowering his head in false defeat as his mind scrambled to connect the dots. He needed to get Decklin out in the open, and he hoped Vernon would take the bait.

“Let me see what I can do. Give me an hour,” Vernon said, shouldering his assault pack and walking away from the table.

Mason finished the rest of his coffee and pulled a handful of crumpled bills out of his pocket and tossed them on the table. The waiter came back to collect the bill and looked down at the desolate American.

“Do you want some more coffee?”

“Yeah, I’ll take another cup,” Mason said as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a stack of fresh American bills from Vernon’s envelope.

The waiter nodded, took the money from the American, and then placed a phone on the table.

“That was a nice switch,” Mason told him.

“I know.” The waiter smiled as he pocketed the cash and began clearing the table.

Mason had never trusted Vernon and had paid a great deal of money to keep the man under surveillance. The cloned phone was a result of that significant investment. Picking it up off the table, he ran his fingers across the small screen, clearing away a layer of dust. He needed to get out of the country but had to be sure that Vernon had taken the bait.

The American had learned the hard way that there were very few people he could trust. He’d trusted Colonel Barnes once and was still paying for that mistake. Finishing the coffee, he slipped the phone into his pocket and headed to the street.

T
he middle-class neighborhood looked like a postcard sent from the god of suburbia. Stately trees and cookie-cutter houses stood watch over the men and women jogging up the impossibly black asphalt as Renee Hart turned down the street for the third time.

Sprinklers lazily baptized manicured lawns and pruned bushes while perfectly distributed drops of water sparkled brilliantly in the fading sunlight.

Renee frowned behind the wheel and squinted against the sun’s fading rays as it slipped behind the Sierra Nevadas. She was living a nightmare, a Special Operations soldier lost in suburbia.

She felt out of place in the blue jeans and polo shirt she was wearing instead of her normal combat gear. Being in civilian clothes made her feel vulnerable, and her left hand slipped to the horseshoe pendant hanging from her neck, an unconscious grounding technique. Her mother had given her the simple talisman, and the sterling silver was worn to a glossy finish from nervous friction. It reminded her of the life she had left behind and the damage her decision had done to her tight-knit family.

It had been hard telling her mother that she was joining the army. She’d felt guilty as the tears spilled down her mom’s face, but she had made her choice, and there was nothing more to talk about.

“You’re giving up your future to follow a boy?” her mom had screamed at her. “You are going to regret this for the rest of your life.”

Renee tried to tell her the same thing she’d been trying to tell herself. She wasn’t doing this because her boyfriend had signed up. She wanted to tell her mom that she was afraid of college, and that after the awful years of being a terrible student, struggling with dyslexia, and feeling like an idiot in school, she felt this might be exactly what she needed. But she just couldn’t quite get it out.

Finally, she found the address and pulled into the driveway she’d already passed three times. The white stucco walls and dark wooden trim were a drastic contrast to the dirty brown compounds of the Middle East, and the unfamiliarity made something as simple as finding an address incredibly difficult.

She knocked on the heavy oak door and a moment later a man’s distorted face appeared in the lead-glass window. Her contact, Joseph Davis, worked for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and he was ruining her day.

“Hey, I didn’t know you were coming by,” he said, holding open the door for her to come in.

“We have a problem. I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up,” she said, getting right to business.

“I must have been in the shower. You got time for dinner? Annie’s making meatloaf.”

Renee looked around the pristine entryway, taking in the little touches that people fill their house with to make it a home. Joseph turned and walked through an open door, and she stepped in, careful not to track dirt onto the spotless terra-cotta tile.

Following him into the kitchen, Renee saw a fit brunette standing over the stove. The woman frowned as Renee walked in, and immediately a palpable tension filled the air.

“Annie, this is Renee. She flew in from Afghanistan to help us out at the office.”

Renee could tell Annie didn’t like her right away, but she was
used to the injustice of women acting hostile around her. Wives were the worst. Female soldiers weren’t supposed to look like she did, and the fact that their husbands were working long hours with the pretty blonde was interpreted as a threat. This was exactly why she preferred to stay in Afghanistan.

Relationships had never been her strong suit, and observing the couple gave her a glimpse into what she’d given up to pursue her career. Renee had always planned on getting married, and she knew vaguely that she was running out of time. Someone had once told her that a young girl’s father is her model for future mates. If that was true, then it was no wonder she was still single. Her dad had only paid her attention when she stood in front of him and demanded it.

“Renee said she called, but I never heard it. You didn’t hear my phone ringing while I was in the shower, did you?”

“Nope,” Annie said, looking back down at the pot she was stirring.

She was a terrible liar, and Renee realized immediately that she’d probably heard the phone and most likely erased the call log.

“The target got a call. He was on the line for ten seconds before hanging up and deactivating his phone,” Renee said, ignoring Annie’s scowls.

“Shit, did you let the guys know?”

“I let them know, but apparently someone canceled the surveillance. No one is watching him.”

“What the
fuck
do you mean it got canceled? We had authorization for the rest of the month.”

“Joseph,” his wife exclaimed, apparently surprised at his language.

“Sorry, baby. Look, I have to go,” he said, grabbing his pistol from the kitchen table.

“I’ll be in the car,” Renee said. It was obvious that this was going to need some smoothing over.

She could hear the emotion in Annie’s voice as she made her way to the door. Outside, she shook her head as she unlocked the Jeep
with the key fob and climbed in. Renee could imagine what Joseph was going through inside. The job demanded flexibility and total dedication, which left little time for healthy relationships.

Renee had left Afghanistan forty-eight hours earlier and had already lost a day trying to get caught up with Joseph’s end of the operation. Her team was counting on her to bring back actionable intel, and she was getting nowhere sitting in her new partner’s driveway.

According to the intelligence report Joseph had sent up the chain, he had found evidence that her target was about to make a major buy, and she needed to know what was important enough to pull him out of hiding. Three months ago she’d come across an American soldier of fortune by the name of Decklin who was funneling guns and money for al-Qaeda affiliates in the Mideast. At the same time, the Department of Defense’s intelligence division, or DIA, was investigating a two-million-dollar wire transfer that originated in Saudi Arabia and was traced to California. The recipient, a Dr. Keating, ran a company called BioCore, which had a handful of government contracts with the CIA and the DoD. Believing Decklin could be working with this Dr. Keating, Renee had been sent to California to assist the DIA.

Renee was frustrated as she sat in the Jeep, waiting for Joseph to join her. There was no time to waste; she had a job to do. When she was gone, Joseph could go back to domestic life, but right now they needed to move.

Renee had tried her hand at balancing work and love, and she’d failed miserably. During her first deployment, she had been naive enough to think her relationship with Jonas was the real thing. But the reality quickly became obvious. He had wanted her to be two people, an equal during the day but subservient at night. Their relationship had died before they ever left Kuwait, and Jonas had gotten himself transferred to another unit by the time they landed in Iraq.

Joseph worked for the Department of Defense, and according to his file, he had requested to come back to the States five times in the
last two years. Being an operative wasn’t exactly conducive to having a family, and Renee understood, but he still had a job to do. The fact that she’d wasted so much time driving out to his house annoyed her the most. Personal issues were a by-product of the job, but Joseph was coming with her one way or the other.

“Sorry to take you away from meatloaf,” Renee said when he finally got into the Jeep.

“Just shut up and drive.”

“There, there, little bear, national security comes first,” she laughed as she backed out of the drive.

“Women,” he huffed. “Since I’ll be sleeping on the couch tonight, you mind telling me what the plan is?”

“Help me figure this out. Jim Green is the chief of station, right?”

“We don’t call them that, we call them the agent in charge,” he replied.

“Okay, well, as the agent in charge, why is he pulling your surveillance package? My guess is that he doesn’t like taking orders from a girl, but I could be wrong.”

“But the Riyadh transfer was legit. Hell, he signed off on it.”

Renee had learned the hard way that men had a huge problem taking orders from a woman. As a member of Task Force 111, Renee was the tip of the spear when it came to tracking high-value targets for the military, but the job came with more than its share of bullshit. The Special Operations community was an all-boys club, and they felt that women were being forced on them. Since she had the dubious honor of being the only operational female in her unit, Renee was seen as the enemy.

The government had long ago cracked the network of accounts that rich jihadists used to finance terror cells, and the large amount of cash was cause for concern.

“I wouldn’t think Jim Green would jeopardize his career for something so juvenile,” Joseph said. “He can’t wish to be the assistant agent in charge his whole life.”

“Yeah, well, some people have a hard time seeing the whole picture. I’ve got someone working on the phone issue. The doctor might have shut off his work phone, but he doesn’t go anywhere without being able to talk to his mistress.”

“That’s pretty slick, Renee.”

“I try.” Her phone rang, interrupting the conversation.

The caller ID read “Blocked number,” which told her it was coming from a secure line. She knew immediately it was her contact in the NSA, a fellow Southerner whom she’d first met in Somalia.

“What’s up, Sammy? Tell me you have good news.”

“Yeah, I have the phone. He’s on the freeway heading for the airport.”

“I need to know where he’s going.”

“Well, I can’t tell you that, I’m not a mind reader. Hold on.” The muffled rustling on the other end told her he had placed his hand over the phone. Despite his attempt to block the receiver she could hear someone else talking in the background.

“Renee, he’s getting a call on another line. We’re trying to triangulate it right now.”

“I need that phone.”

She could hear a flurry of keystrokes and then another muted voice was talking in the background. “All right, I’ve got audio, just stand by for a second.”

Renee pulled onto the freeway and headed toward the airport.

“Okay, he’s off the phone and headed to 976 Mayweather. It’s a parking garage just south of the freeway.”

They were ten minutes out from the meet-up. Renee pulled over on the side of the road and had Joseph take the driver’s seat so she could get her camera ready.

Renee plugged the address into the SUV’s GPS and Joseph followed the red line right to a bunch of warehouses behind the airport. No matter what country she found herself in, it always seemed to get shitty around the airports. Renee checked the focus on the camera’s
lens as Joseph pulled onto a side street about a block south of the parking garage.