Rogue Asset (Book 3 of the Wade Hanna Series) (9 page)

Chapter 9

Richmond, Canada

Leo’s man didn’t give a name when he called early the next morning. The conversation was short, only confirming that Wade should have only one set of extra clothes and toilet articles. He told Wade a blue sedan would pick him up at his apartment in two hours. Wade asked if he wanted directions. The man replied they already had them.

The flight to Vancouver, British Columbia, had a connecting flight in Los Angeles. When Wade arrived in Vancouver his instructions were to make sure he didn’t have a tail before proceeding to the area where commercial limousine drivers waited to meet arriving guests. He was to exchange codes with the driver standing in front of the black car with a commercial license plate number of 606B380.

After checking for tails, Wade approached a driver standing in front of a black sedan with that license number. The driver spoke first, “Are you Mr. Stanley?”

Wade replied as instructed followed by a question, “I am indeed Mr. Stanley. What color tie have you brought me today?”

The driver replied, “Blue and white stripes, sir.”

If any one of the keys with the driver didn’t match, Wade was not to get into the car. If that happened, he was to go back to the terminal, call a number at the payphone and wait for further instructions. He would then be met by a woman in a red dress who would give him another set of instructions.

All of the exchange keys were in order. The driver took Wade’s bag and looked in all directions before pulling out of the airport.

Wade could see from the bulge in his coat that the driver had a weapon. They proceeded south from the airport on Highway 99 towards the quiet town of Richmond, Canada. The driver constantly watched his rear and side view mirrors as he maneuvered the vehicle in and out of traffic. The pattern he used would quickly make anyone who was following expose themselves.

The driver suddenly moved two lanes to the right going across traffic. His maneuver was made just in time to make the exit ramp. Coming to the stop at the cross street at the bottom of the ramp, the driver made a right. They were now proceeding along the road that separated acres of low-growing bean fields on each side.

The driver pulled the car to the side of the road in the middle of the bean field and stopped. Binoculars from the seat were quickly brought to the driver’s eyes as he scanned the perimeter of the bean fields and two parked cars at one end. Every direction at the isolated stop was unobstructed for at least a mile in all directions. Wade knew this particular bean field site had been preselected. He was impressed by the carefully thought out security measures but didn’t know why they were necessary.

Satisfied that the horizon was clear on all sides, the driver slowly moved to the other end of the bean field and took two paved streets, returning to the freeway. Two similar checks were made before they passed the welcome sign marking the entrance to Richmond. Several more streets and turns brought them a few blocks from the middle of town.

They stopped just before entering the four-story glass and steel office building with an underground parking structure protected by a steel metal roll up gate. The gate started to rise before the car turned for the garage. The car stopped at the underground entrance.

Glass doors opened into the lobby of the four-story office building in downtown Richmond. Except for a few different design features, the building looked like all the other buildings on the same block. The driver followed Wade and his bag, directing him to a conference room on the second floor.

The driver tipped his hat and disappeared as Wade entered the large conference room. Nine men and two women mingled around a long table set against the wall covered with coffee, rolls and an assortment of plates and silverware.

Among the crowd, everyone was dressed in causal street clothes except for two gentlemen who were in Canadian military uniforms. As everyone picked up their coffee and rolls, a few people introduced themselves using only first names. One of the military men asked for everyone to please take a seat.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Major Beasley of the Royal Canadian Air Force, and this is my second in command Cornell Bradsom. I wish to welcome you to Canada.”

A moment passed as everyone took a seat and began sipping coffee.

“First of all I want to let you know that Canada and our group will only be serving as hosts for your meetings here over the next few days.”

Beasley paused to let his statement sink in before continuing.

“In case you are wondering, the Royal Air Force is not involved in any aspect of your operation. In fact, we don’t even know what your operation is. The persons conducting your session today are sitting here in the first row. I will be introducing your group leaders and Mr. Bradsom and I will shortly be leaving the room after a few basic announcements. Your hotel accommodations and travel will be handled by Ms. Fabley of my office. There is a packet of information with your name on it resting on the table outside the conference room door. I am told you should pick up your envelope when today’s session is over in preparation for tomorrow’s briefing. Sitting to my right, I am pleased to introduce you to James Colby of MI-6 and to his left is Mark Holsman of the CIA, Brussels office.”

The two men came up and shook hands as the two Canadian military officers moved towards the double doors and left the conference room.

“Hello. I’m Jim Colby, and I will be starting today with a couple of slides. Mark will jump in to cover parts of the larger operation. I’ll start with the main ‘target’ of this operation.”

Mark went over to the sidewall and turned down the lights. A full-length frontal picture of a man appeared on the large screen at the center of the stage.

“This is Colin Sikes. Sikes is a former MI-6 agent. He served for seven years in the service in various posts in Africa, the Middle East, and Russia. He was an excellent agent. I have known him since he came into the Service. We trained together, and I served with him in Russia for a short period of time.”

Colby paused while everyone took a good look at a close-up photograph now on the screen.

“As far as we are able to tell, Mr. Sikes served the Crown well until approximately two years ago when he began to have some personal problems. His wife asked him for a divorce at that same time. We know he had gotten into some gambling debts that contributed to financial strains on their marriage. His Agency work started to get a little sloppy around this same time.”

Colby continued his presentation as he changed to various photographs of Colin Sikes over the past several years.

“We all know agents are not immune to getting into problems from time to time. Our policy in the U.K. has been to try to come to an agent’s aid when they have these types of problems. In Sikes’s case I know MI-6 provided psychological counseling for him and his wife. The service pulled him off dangerous undercover assignments while he was receiving counseling, giving him only desk jobs. This is a standard practice when the Agency becomes aware that an agent is having a personal or psychological problem. In some cases, I have even known the service to provide financial assistance. I don’t know if that happened in the Sikes case.”

Another close-up picture of Sikes came on the screen. He had obviously aged well beyond the few intervening years since his last photo.

“As you can see from the picture, Sikes seems to have aged ten years or more since our last photo. Counseling wasn’t helping. I can tell you first hand that as his personal life became worse his performance in the field also suffered.”

Jim Colby continued his description of Colin Sikes’ problems.

“A year ago while undercover Sikes became romantically involved with a local information source we have been using in Romania. That relationship ended up falling apart. The woman called the local police several times indicating she felt threatened by Sikes. She reported that Sikes was stalking her. In one interview, she threatened to go to the police and newspapers with what Sikes was doing for MI-6 if he didn’t stop. We found out that Sikes apparently told this woman way too much about his work. The next thing we knew the girl disappeared without a trace. We think Sikes may have eliminated this woman. He was certainly capable of this, given his black ops training and mental condition.”

Colby paused for a moment, as everyone in the audience was anxious to hear the next part of the story.

“Sikes continued slipping up on more assignments. The Agency at this point decided to call him in and put him on permanent probation. He was ordered to return to London. That order was issued on his last mission seven months ago. He never complied. In fact, he disappeared from our radar. Before he disobeyed the last order the service was going to require him to have psychological testing and enter our long-term disability and recovery program. This essentially meant the end of Sikes’ service career in the field. Recovered agents are sent to desk and administrative positions. At this point, Sikes went underground without a trace. He was on the run, using a variety of passports, false identities, and unconventional communication devices. Despite our resources, I am sorry to say that MI-6 was unable to pin him down. We had a rogue asset on our hands. If that were the only problem, our service would have quietly taken care of it by removing him from service. As it turns out, he not only disappeared but Sikes resurfaced with a new identity in a most unexpected manner. I’ll let Mark tell you the next part of the story.”

Mark Holsman of the CIA, Brussels office, took center stage and continued with the briefing. “CIA sources picked up a lead from an informant in Chad that an African arms deal was brewing in Sierra Leone, and Sikes was in the middle of it. We first heard Sierra Leone was obtaining a Russian arms shipment brokered out of Tunisia by Sikes. We assumed it was an MI-6 sting operation.”

Holsman smiled at the audience that was now expecting the worst.

“When our sources confirmed Sikes was behind the arms deal as well as the vessel for transporting shipment we assumed it was an MI-6 operation all the way. Sikes used MI-6 contacts in Russia for sourcing the arms as well as chartering the vessel to transport them. We were envious of the undercover operating skill to secure both ends of the deal.”

“We didn’t want to upset the applecart, so we just started monitoring Sikes’ movements from afar. It was only by accident in an initial conversation with Mark that we realized the arms deal wasn’t an MI-6 undercover operation, and they had no control over Sikes. They didn’t even know where he was. The discovery of the arms deal sent wires buzzing between MI-6 and CIA. We used some mutual undercover contacts in a mercenary group out of Tunisia and quietly pursued a joint investigation. What we found out blew our minds.”

Mark Holsman paused as he saw agents sitting on the edge of their chairs absorbing information as fast as he could provide it.

“We soon found Sikes was not only involved in the Sierra Leone arms deal but was involved in numerous arms and drug deals over the past three years. At some point during his rehabilitation he entered into a planned rogue endeavor and was in it for the money.”

“The other deals Sikes was involved with included selling information to unfriendly countries about U.S. and U.K. assets. It seems Sikes was willing to sell anything for a buck including the identities of U.K. and U.S. undercover operatives. Among other ventures we were able to determine, he sold information on the identity of agents and how and where stakeouts were being conducted. His list of agents and their identities is extensive, and he didn’t care whom he sold the information to. We uncovered that in addition to the sale of intelligence information and drugs he was also brokering other arms sales out of Russia, primarily to undeveloped countries. I’ll let Jim take it from this point to our current operation and why you are here.”

Jim Colby returned to center stage and changed the images on the screen to a map of North Africa.

“It became clear that we needed to not only stop Sikes, but we needed to know the organizations he worked with, infiltrate those groups and shut them down. Sikes is well on his way to becoming a big international embarrassment for the U.K. and the U.S. He has already compromised many of our assets and interests and believe me he has the attentions at the highest level of our two governments. We believe Sikes now knows we are onto him. However, he feels he has amassed enough of a covert army around him that he no longer feels threatened. In fact, he has been issuing threats to us in the form of new disclosures if we come any closer. There are already press inquiries from investigative reporters on the missing woman from Romania that disappeared. In the U.K., the press is suggesting that she may be involved with a missing covert operative gone astray.”

“Sikes has told others that he knew it would get back to us that he has set up fail-safe measures if anything happens to him. Those measures include packages of sensitive information listing the names and locations of covert agents and operating details that would be mailed to U.K. and U.S. newspapers in the event he was arrested or killed.”

“The U.K. decided that a direct operation on Sikes and Sierra Leone was too politically sensitive to take by itself. In meetings with our closest ally, the U.S., it was clear that neither country wanted the risk of a publicity sweep in the event something went wrong. There were also particular issues regarding Sierra Leone that the U.S. was dealing with that Sikes might exacerbate.”