Collision (12 page)

“We’ve had facial recognition programs running to see if we can find a match on him.” Pritchard tapped her fingertips together. “Kidwell, poor son of a bitch, he was much closer to striking gold than he knew.” She clicked on another file, conjured another photo on the screen.

In the picture, the man was a decade younger, had brown hair. His old jaw was more pointed and his nose was thicker, more hawkish then. He was plain, neither handsome nor ugly. A face that you wouldn’t remember. But the eyes—the blue eyes that watched her over the barrel of the gun—were the same. Intense. “I think it’s him. He’s had minor surgery, there on the nose and cheeks and chin. Who is he?”

“Randall Choate,” Pritchard said. “He was a top CIA assassin. He massively screwed up a CIA mission in Indonesia ten years ago, got caught. He was jailed near Samarinda, and then died in an escape attempt while crossing the Mahakam River. An Indonesian police captain testified he shot Choate four times in the back.”

“I thought corpses didn’t keep so well in humid climates.”

“The body was never recovered. Police assumed that it was swept down to the Makassar Strait and out to sea.”

“The police captain lied.”

“Clearly bribed,” Pritchard said. “Choate’s the key, Joanna, he’s the smoking gun.” An odd joy tinged Pritchard’s voice—driven by the scent of the prey close at hand, Vochek thought. “He’s been working for someone for ten years, and it’s not the CIA, it’s not any agency. We find him, maybe we find our first real unapproved group inside the government. Our first major success in bringing down the unauthorized, illegal dirty dogs.”

The big prize; this guy could be
it.
The key to the suspected private CIA, the biggest of the illicit groups. Shivers of anticipation, of fear, of resolve, traveled down Vochek’s spine.

She studied the man’s face. It held no weakness, but last night he had been weak; he should have killed her when he had the chance.

She would bring him down.

Margaret Pritchard closed her laptop. “Your work has never mattered more, Joanna. This is our best chance. I want to feel this group wriggling right under my thumb. Especially if Choate killed Kidwell.” She gave her a half smile. “I’m counting on you to give them to me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She paused. “He could have killed me, he didn’t; why would he kill Kidwell?”

“Unknown. And we don’t know the relationship between Forsberg, Choate, and these Arabs. Make no assumptions. These people could have all been in league together. These alliances often fracture into bloodshed.”

“And what, Choate and these Arabs kill Kidwell and the contractors and then Choate kills the Arabs?” She shook her head.

“Well, we’ll only find out how they all connect by finding Choate and Forsberg.”

“My cell phone’s gone. I’m assuming that Choate took it and still has it.”

“So here’s a new one. Call them.” She handed Vochek a phone.

Vochek dialed her old number, said after her voice mail greeting, “I’d like my phone back. And to talk. Maybe we can help each other.” She gave her new number and hung up. “They may not turn the phone on so it can’t be traced. What now?”

“You say good-bye to me. I’ve got a private jet ready to take you to Dallas. Adam Reynolds tried to call this Delia Moon woman there four times yesterday, before he died. I’d like to know why. She was in no shape to answer questions when I called her; she didn’t know about Adam’s death. She went into hysterics. I warned her, rather sternly, she was not to speak with the press.” Pritchard glanced out the window; they were turning into the Austin airport, heading toward a section for private planes. “And I want to know if there’s any connection between Ben Forsberg and Nicky Lynch, other than that business card. If Forsberg is working with Choate, there has to be an earlier time in their lives where they intersect. And see what else you can learn about Ben’s life with his wife. She died in Hawaii, but they lived in Dallas. Anything else?”

“Yes. The security guards that died . . . they worked for Hector Global.”

Pritchard paused for the barest moment. “Yes.”

“Hector Global’s based in Dallas. I should stop by and extend my condolences.”

Pritchard shook her head. “Best to keep a distance. I’m getting massive grief for hiring contractors for security, but when you’re hunting dirty dogs in your own yard, they’re easier to trust.”

“Forsberg said Sam Hector was a major client of his. Hector might be able to give me some insight into Forsberg.”

Pritchard shook her head again. “Sam Hector’s going to be under a press microscope because his people were killed. I don’t want you showing up on his doorstep and creating more questions for the media. Stay out of sight. Focus on what I’ve asked you to do. Hector will provide us information if needed.”

“All right. I feel the need, though, to clear up a problem before you set me loose.” She crossed her arms. “I’m not Kidwell.”

“How so?”

“He was crossing lines with Forsberg. I don’t want to criticize the dead . . . but he was threatening Forsberg’s family, friends, with arrest. Threatened to destroy his career, get all his contracts canceled.”

“Threats can work wonders. We have a mandate, Joanna. Shut down all illicit covert operations. If I have to bend a few laws to catch the lawbreakers that we normally have little to no chance of catching otherwise, I’m not going to worry about it, and neither should you.” Pritchard put steel in her stare. “You wanted to come to work for me, Joanna, because you were tired of these people doing dirty work and not being held accountable. Don’t complain now.”

It wasn’t an argument she was going to win. “This Choate guy . . . what will he do to Ben?”

“Depends on how useful Forsberg is.” Pritchard shrugged. “Choate’s been rogue for ten years. I doubt that has inculcated loyalty in him. Forsberg could be dead real soon.” She put on her sunglasses. “Kidwell’s service will be in a few days. I’ll let you know the arrangements. Hopefully our dirty dogs will be brought to heel by then. And call your mom. Give her the new number. I doubt you want her chatting with a man like Choate.”

Pritchard’s small and secretive group of “dirty dog hunters” lay tucked in a back corner of the Homeland Security department. Given their low profile, they were not about to tip a hand by asking the CIA for Randall Choate’s file, if the man in the parking garage photo was the Agency’s not-so-dead former agent. But Pritchard’s worker bees had put together a rushed dossier for Vochek since the face match had been tentatively made, and she studied it in detail as the Homeland jet made the fast flight to Dallas.

Born Randall Thomas Barnes, thirty-six years ago in Little Rock, Arkansas. Randall was his mother’s maiden name, Thomas a grandfather’s name. Father died, drunk behind the wheel when young Randall was age two. Mother moved around taking a variety of secretarial jobs, from Arkansas to West Virginia and finally to Lafayette, Indiana, where her fortunes took a considerable leap upward when she got a job working as a secretary in the foreign languages department at Purdue University. One of the junior professors, Michael Choate, who specialized in Russian literature of the nineteenth century, took an interest in the young widow and her son. Randall soon acquired a stepfather, who eventually adopted him, encouraging the boy to apply his considerable intellect to school. His stepfather also taught him Russian from an early age. Randall double-majored in Russian and history at Purdue, graduating with honors. The file included a scattering of old photos of Randall from the Purdue student paper and yearbook.

Randall was a nondescript boy, pale, but with a strong body and those eyes of certainty, of intensity. In most of the photos, he was alone or standing off from the group. In one photo taken at an intramural football game, his teammates had arms around him; Randall Choate smiled like he’d rather go play the game all on his own. She recognized the smile—same as the one he’d given her after he’d knocked the baton from her hand, one of amused respect.

At the suggestion of a faculty colleague of his stepfather’s who had contacts at the Agency, Randall applied to the CIA and was accepted. And there the file ended, except for the note that he was reported killed while escaping prison in Indonesia four years later. The mission he’d supposedly botched remained classified and the busy bees at Homeland were working to glean more details without directly asking the Agency.

Personal details: His mother and stepfather still lived in Lafayette. His wife Kimberly, daughter Tamara, were all unaware of his status as an assassin. Wife had remarried five years ago, the new stepfather adopted Tamara. History repeating itself. Family told that he had been involved in drug smuggling in Indonesia, died during a prison escape. A nasty story for the disavowed. No evidence of contact of the family by Choate in the intervening years.

Vochek closed the file.

The CIA either knew that Choate was still alive, and his death a decade ago had been a cover story to pull a screwed-up agent out of jail, or they didn’t—in which case it would be easy to ascribe sinister motives as to why Choate faked his own demise.

The plane dipped into the northern stretches of urbanized prairie, and to Vochek’s surprise the runway appeared, stretching along a row of high-end houses, in a square formed by four busy thoroughfares, lined with shopping centers and restaurants.

“What airport is this?” she asked the pilot.

“Plano Air Ranch Park,” he said. “Private air park, with a runway right alongside the homes. Buy a house, get access to the runway, park your plane in your backyard. Got built before Dallas boomed this far. Homeland bought a house here a couple of years back. More private for our comings and goings than flying into Addison or DFW. Ms. Pritchard said you could stay at the house. I got a key for you, and we’ve got an extra car we keep there you can use.” He paused. “I’ve flown a few bad guys out from there, flown ’em to Mexico or the Caymans and I don’t know where they get shipped to after that.” He paused. “Sometimes them bad boys cry during the flight, knowing they don’t know where they’re going.”

“Uncertainty’s not a good feeling,” she said. The plane landed and the pilot drove the plane to the Homeland house, parked it under a covered hangar, and handed her a set of car and house keys.

“Holler at me whenever you’re ready to fly out your bad guy,” the pilot said. “I’m on call.”

“I won’t be bringing back a really bad guy,” she said. “I just have people to question.”

“The day is young.” The pilot smiled. “You never know what you’re gonna find.”

7

Indonesia, Ten Years Ago

The man they called the Dragon hadn’t shown up for the rendezvous. Fine, Choate thought. He hated working with a partner and particularly disliked one being forced on him.

One more hour, he decided. Night began to fall on the park. The pond turned a hazy purple as the sun began to dip below the smoggy rooftops of Jakarta. Choate sat near the gazebo; a trio of young musicians, slightly drunk and out of key, sat on the steps and picked out Beatles covers on their guitars.

Choate’s orders from the CIA chief in Jakarta had been clear:
We have a freelancer working for us. He has information on a financial trail to a terroristgroup here. You’re going to help him. Meet him at this park at seven this evening.

Choate waited as the park’s sunny-day crowd began to thin, just him and the musicians left and a couple of old sisters tossing scraps of bread into the water for the ducks.

He got up as the trio started on an off-key rendition of “Hey Jude.” Done. He walked past the gazebo, scattering a few coins into the open guitar case.

“He’s not coming,” a voice behind him said and Choate turned. The trio of musicians stood, smiling, one of them pulling a gun from behind his guitar, the other pulling one from a weathered knapsack.

Choate froze. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

“Your friend the Dragon,” the guitarist said. He laughed. “Stupid name; is it supposed to make him sound fearsome? Dragons are false, they’re nothing. He’s gone into hiding. For good reason.”

“I don’t understand,” Choate said. “What do you want?”

“You’ll come with us,” the guitarist said. “Only to talk.”

Choate took a step back. One grabbed his arm. The shot rang out and the guitarist’s chest gashed a red fog and he collapsed onto the stairs. The crack of the shot was as loud as a whip.

The two old sisters at the pond screamed. They fell behind a bench, still screeching.

Choate slammed a fist into the second man’s face, spun him around. Choate closed hands over the man’s wrists; they grappled for control of his gun. Choate could smell the man’s breath, reeking of fish and garlic. Another shot echoed across the parkland. It caught the man’s head, a bare two inches from Choate’s, jerked him off his feet and spattered Choate with gore.

Choate yelled and dropped the corpse.

One left, the tallest musician. He turned and ran. No avenging shot from the distance rang out, so Choate grabbed the gun from his attacker, steadied his aim, and fired. Missed. His second shot caught the man square in the calf. He collapsed with a choking howl, clutching his leg.

Choate heard running feet behind him. He spun, leveled his gun at a man hurrying toward him, a sniper rifle in his hands. The man had a shaved head, was about ten years older than Choate, big-framed. He spoke with a British accent.

“Grab him. Let’s find his car. We need to know who he works for.”

“You’re the Dragon . . .”

“God, you’re green,” the man said. “Stupid of you to let yourself be followed here and listen to their bad music for two hours.”

“I wasn’t followed . . .”

“Clearly, asshole,” the Dragon said, “you were. Let’s go. The police are actually responsive in this part of Jakarta.” He grabbed the wounded man, hurried him to his feet, and spat words in Indonesian while pressing the barrel of the rifle against the man’s throat. The man gestured toward a parking lot on the east side of the park and gasped what Choate thought was a plea for mercy.

Choate fished car keys out of the man’s pocket and they rushed toward the lot, Choate pressing the auto-unlock button in wide sweeps. One of the car’s taillights blinked. They shoved the man into the backseat with the Dragon; Choate drove.

“Thank you,” Choate said.

“What?”

“Thank you. You saved my life.” He felt dizzy with adrenaline.

“Ah. Well. Of course.” The Dragon spoke as a man unused to niceties. In the rearview, Choate saw the Dragon watch the road ahead and behind, making sure they were not being trailed, and that Choate knew how to navigate the tangled maze of Jakarta streets. He asked the prisoner a question in Indonesian and got an reply in English. “Yes. A little English.”

“Who do you work for?”

The prisoner hesitated.

“I have one more bullet in my gun. Just for you. You talk, you live.”

The prisoner licked his lips, shuddered. Choate thought maybe he was nineteen.

“Blood of Fire. But I am new. Please. I don’t know names, I can’t help you.”

“Blood of Fire?” Choate said.

“Small terror cell. Big ambitions,” the Dragon answered. “And the target for the job we were supposed to discuss tonight is tied to Blood of Fire. Which means they know. We have a leak. They know we were rendezvousing and they tried to take you out.”

Choate’s throat went dry. Life was easier when the targets were unsuspecting.

“How did you know CIA’s after you?” the Dragon asked.

“I don’t know . . . My friend told us. He was the first one you shot. I just follow their orders. They feed me,” he added in a small voice. “I am a nobody.”

“You’re not convincing,” the Dragon said to the prisoner. To Choate he said, “Do you know where the Deepra garbage dump is?”

Choate nodded.

“Drive there.”

“Shouldn’t we take him to CIA . . .”

“No. I’m not official CIA, and on this job, neither are you.”

That was news to Choate, but he kept his mouth shut and put his gaze back to the road.

It is unholy the amount of garbage eighteen million people can produce. The junk dumps of Jakarta covered thousands of acres, populated by scavenger families wise in the ways of salvage. The Deepra dump loomed like a miniature mountain range, the discarded steel of cars purple in the starlight, flocks of gulls hovering over the waste, the smell of refuse like a slap from the hand of death.

They drove inside, Choate following the Dragon’s directions to a secluded area. Scavenger tents huddled on one side, but as the car approached, the waste-finders ducked back into their hovels.

“You know why they hide?” the Dragon said to the prisoner. “They hide because they don’t want to be witnesses. A nice sedan does not come here after nightfall to dump a ton of garbage. Nice sedans only come here to dump bodies.”

The prisoner made a soft, wet noise in his throat.

“We should take him back to CIA,” Choate said again. “They can interrogate him.”

“I don’t do interrogations on CIA property. I’m all about deniability.” He jerked the prisoner by the shirt. “How did you know about our meeting?”

The prisoner stared at the waste.

“Worst case isn’t killing you and dumping your body out there. Worst case is hurting you really badly and leaving you out there. To have all the flesh on your bones picked off by the birds. The scavengers won’t help you. No one will help you. Now. In an hour you can be free, with a doctor to tend your wound and a nice hot bowl of soup to eat. Your choice.”

The prisoner said nothing for thirty long seconds and Choate thought:
Just tell him, answer his question.

“Gumalar knows that you are targeting him,” the prisoner said.

“Who is Gumalar?” Choate said.

“Financier. Got Allah in a big way and he’s the one funneling the money to terrorists,” the Dragon said. “His brother’s a big deal in the Indonesian government, so that’s why taking him down is such a quiet job.”

The prisoner said, “I require a doctor.”

“How does Gumalar know this?” the Dragon said. “Where’s the leak?”

“We found people working for you,” the prisoner said. “Over the past few days. Five of them. They gave us enough information to know about your meeting, to know where to watch for you.”

“Where are my people?” The Dragon’s voice went low and cold.

The prisoner shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“You have a staff?” Choate asked.

The Dragon didn’t look at him, stare locked on the prisoner. “I have informants. Who feed me info I sell to CIA.”

“You
had
informants,” the prisoner said.

The Dragon gave the prisoner a jaw-snapping slap. “Where do I find Gumalar?”

“You can’t touch him.” The prisoner finally spoke with defiance in his voice.

On the radio, a news report began to play. Two men identified as agents of Badan Intelijen Negara, the Indonesian government’s intelligence service, had been found shot to death in a park.

“Oh, shit,” Choate said. “You killed good guys.”

“Good is relative,” the Dragon said. “Our target has the good guys on his payroll.”

“You can’t touch Gumalar and I don’t know where he is,” the prisoner said.

“Then what use are you?” the Dragon said. He fired once, the bullet making a hard, percussive noise in the tight confines of the car.

“Jesus, he could have told us more!” Choate yelled.

“Hardly,” Choate said. “Pop the trunk.”

Choate, hands shaking slightly, obeyed. The Dragon got out of the sedan, went to the back. Froze.

Choate hurried out of the car. In the truck was a large plastic bag. Inside of it, smeared with gore, were a bunch of severed hands. Big, calloused ones; smooth feminine ones; ones wearing rings; others bare of jewelry.

Choate leaned away from the car and fought down the urge to vomit.

“Ten,” the Dragon said after a moment. “There are ten. My five informants.”

“So . . . what do we do now?” They sat in the dark throat of a Jakarta bar, miles from the park, miles from the dump.

“Gumalar’s leak is because he has someone big inside BIN in his pocket. So this stays an off-the-books job for the Agency.”

“I was told to follow your orders,” Choate said. He wasn’t comfortable with this, but orders were orders.

“Then we stick with our original plan. We need to find the money trail this Gumalar fucker is using to finance terrorism. We find the money, we tie him to it, and we kill him along with his terror cell contact. We make it look like the terrorist turned on him. Keep CIA’s nose out of it.”

“And you need me to find the money trail.”

“Gumalar owns a large bank here. It’s going to undergo a cyber attack in twelve hours. You’ll be called in as a representative of the IT support company to repair and inspect the databases. You’ll need to run a query against the five aliases that Gumalar’s terror cell contact has been using. We’ll use that information to find him, so we can get him and Gumalar together for a meeting and take them both out.”

“Running a query will leave an electronic trace. Gumalar may have those accounts tagged to take note of a query.”

“You’re supposed to be smart. Deal with it.”

Choate said nothing.

“I’m not big on coddling, kid,” the Dragon said.

“Not expected or wanted.”

“You won’t have long to do the trace. Get the account information and then get out. I don’t want you stuck inside his bank all day; you’d be a target if they know your face.”

“How did you get these aliases?”

“My contacts.”

“Did your contacts know about our targeting his bank?”

“No,” the Dragon said after a moment.

“I really dislike the hesitation you just showed.”

“They didn’t know.”

Choate tapped fingers on the table. The adrenaline rush faded. “We need to report back to the Agency.”

“Of course. But the mission goes on.”

“That’s for the Agency to decide.”

“The Agency can decide what the hell they want. These bastards don’t get away with killing my people. I run my network like a nice little family business. I took care of these folks, their families. I had their loyalty. They have mine.”

“All very noble,” Choate said. “But I’m not going on a suicide mission.”

“Fine. Get Agency approval. Be sure and mention I saved your life.” The Dragon got up, finished his beer. They got up, left money on the table, went to a small house of the Dragon’s on a quiet street.

Choate called, got connected to the CIA chief in Jakarta. Explained. Listened. He hung up.

“We’re a go.”

“You forgot to mention I saved your life.”

“I’m not big on coddling,” Choate said. “When do we go to the bank?” The Dragon cracked a smile. “Tomorrow morning. Review the files. Get some sleep. You can bunk down at the room at the end of the hall.” The Dragon went into another room. Choate put an ear to the heavy door. Soundproofed.

He went to the room and collapsed on the bed.

He didn’t like this at all, but he had his orders. He curled into a ball and let sleep close over him, trying not to think of the bag of severed hands or the shocked face of the dead prisoner, staring up past the mounds of garbage toward the star-kissed sky.