Cold Shot: A Novel Page 9

  They approached a security door, no different from the ones at Langley, gray with a badge reader and a massive dial bolted into the metal. Mills swiped her badge, the door clicked open after a second’s delay and she pulled it open.

  Mills’s office was typical of her position, large, with a view of the valley and shopping district a few thousand feet beyond the embassy wall. The desk was real hardwood, handcrafted by some local artisan, and Mills had cleaned out an entire drawer of her file cabinet for use as a tea shelf. Kyra saw that she kept no vanity wall in her office the way the men usually did, no pictures of family, just a few relics and photographs drawn from past assignments. A large photo sat behind the desk, Mills standing in some sand-swept village and looking attractive even in a brown tactical shirt and utility pants, surrounded by rough American men in Levi’s and dirty shirts, all carrying automatic weapons or sniper rifles. Beside the picture was an engraved KA-BAR knife thanking her for her service to some Agency unit whose designator Kyra didn’t recognize beyond the first initials of SAC. The Special Activities Center wasn’t the most welcoming unit to outsiders, even fellow NCS officers. Some officers could work with them but only those with Special Forces training ever really were allowed to join.

  “Director Cooke opened up your file for me,” Marisa said, looking at Kyra. “Forgive me for asking, but how’s the arm?”

  Worried about whether I can carry my load in the field. Kyra turned and lifted her sleeve. Mills cursed in amazement. She leaned over the desk and touched the jagged lateral scar running across the younger woman’s triceps where the 7.62mm round had torn out the skin and muscle a year before. “That must’ve been a bloody mess.”

  “It healed up okay. I was on painkillers for a while. Physical therapy took a few months,” Kyra said. She thought about mentioning the psychological counseling but decided not to volunteer that story. She rolled her sleeve down.

  “I’m sure,” Mills said with sympathy. “They tell me you had a hand in taking down the last station chief down here?”

  “That was Director Cooke, ma’am. She just used my case to pull the trigger on him.”

  “Wish I’d been there,” Mills said. “I never met my predecessor and I’ll crack his head if I ever do. That jackass destroyed this station’s asset networks, tech ops, you name it. I had to send most of the staff back to the States because we didn’t know whether their names had been leaked to the locals. It’s going to take another year to get this place back on its feet.”

  “I would’ve thought that the NCS would have this place back up and running by now,” Kyra told her.

  Marisa shrugged. “Venezuela has never been a high-priority target and the Agency moves at the speed of government. I had seven people in station, counting myself, until last month, when el presidente decided to randomly accuse half the embassy of espionage just because. He declared a dozen people persona non grata and got lucky. He named my one case officer and the only Global Response man I had . . . couldn’t have done better if Michael Rhead still was passing him names. Heck, I actually launched an investigation to see if we were penetrated, but with only five people left to question, it only took me two hours. Avila just got lucky. So now I’ve three techs, two reports officers who have no reports to write . . . and now I’ve got you.”

  She fell back into her chair, looking suddenly tired. “Sorry, not your problem. But you need to know that we don’t have a lot of resources in place right now, so it’s good to have someone who’s been on the ground here. We need the help.”

  Jonathan said nothing, nodding only slightly, grunted, tried to half smile, and failed. It was as close as he usually came to you’re welcome. Mills exhaled, leaned back, then stared at him. “And now they’re sending me analysts to run field ops,” she said. Her smile announced that she wasn’t truly annoyed at the thought. A proper station chief should have been cursing Kathy Cooke’s lineage and sanity by now, if not outright refusing the orders. You know we’re analysts but you’re not even putting up a fight . . . station chiefs don’t like sending analysts into the field. She’d been there before. She looked over at Jon and decided to let him handle the answer. She’s giving you an opening . . . trying to get you talking?

  If so, he didn’t take the opening. Mills leaned forward again, opened a file, and pushed it gently to them. “I think this is already a wasted trip. The Markarid finished docking procedures not long after you got on the plane and the locals got busy right after dark.” She pulled out two satellite photos from the folder and laid them side by side on the table. “This was taken two hours ago.”

  Jon lifted the photo and held it so both he and Kyra could see. The Markarid sat in her berth, lit by halogen lamps and overrun with dockworkers and, presumably, soldiers scattered in random fashion. A security cordon sealed off a nearby warehouse and access to the ship. A line of five-ton military cargo trucks sat dockside.

  “And this was taken after you landed at the airport,” Marisa said, touching the second picture. Kyra looked down at the photograph. The Markarid was in the same location, but there were no men to be seen. The security cordon was absent now and the cargo trucks gone.

  “You don’t have images of the actual cargo?” Jon asked.

  Marisa shook her head. “Whatever they pulled off that ship, they did it when we didn’t have a bird overhead. They knew exactly when there would be a blind spot in our coverage and timed that bit of the operation to match. Sorry, Jon, but that cargo is gone and we don’t have a clue where it went.” She sat back in her chair. “But to be fair, you probably couldn’t have gotten close enough to do us any good anyway. The government took control of the major ports over a decade ago and they block off whole sections of the docks from time to time.”

  Jonathan took the papers and scanned the new satellite imagery, with Kyra looking on. He’d fallen into his professional mode now, all emotion gone from his voice and face. He held one of the photos inches from his eyes.

  “I’d still like to get out there,” Kyra said. “The dock is cleared, no soldiers or anyone else. If they’ve already unloaded whatever it was that they cared about, I might be able to get in there now. They might have left something behind that would tell us where they went.” She looked at her partner, who was still staring at the picture. The silence was unlike him and she wondered whether he wasn’t using this development as an excuse to stay quiet.

  “I’d be surprised if you find anything. This was a precision operation,” Mills countered.

  “Everyone makes mistakes,” Jon said finally.

  The comment shut Marisa down instantly. No answer for that? Kyra thought. Precision strike, Jon. She watched the other woman’s face carefully. The chief of station held a good poker face, giving away nothing . . . but she was staring at Jon. The senior analyst stared back, some unknown message passing between them.

  “You remember where the garage is?” Marisa said finally, not looking at Kyra.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kyra said.

  “You can pack up down there.” She finally turned her eyes to Kyra. “We keep ops gear in the storage room in the back. Once you get out there, I want updates on the hour. You run into any trouble, back off and come home.”

  “I’ll leave tonight . . . less chance that I’ll run into anyone on the docks in the wee hours.”

  Marisa nodded her approval, then focused on the man in the room again. “Jon, why don’t you go get some chow, then set up shop next door. I don’t have a deputy yet, so you can take that office.”

  Jon sat in his chair for a minute and Kyra could almost see his brain processing the order, something conflicting. Finally he grunted again, scooped the papers, and made for the hall.

  • • •

  Kyra focused on Marisa as the older woman watched Jon march out of the room. The station chief’s face twitched a bit and it took her several seconds to refocus on the young woman still in the room. “Just
us case officers and girls now. I’ll walk you down to the garage,” Mills said. She stood and followed Jon’s path out into the hallway, Kyra trailing behind, and the station chief caught the younger case officer’s gaze. “Jon is a direct one, isn’t he?”

  “He won’t cop to having Asperger’s, but it’s the current theory,” Kyra offered.

  “How long have you known him?”

  “Almost two years,” Kyra said. “How long have you?”

  “Picked up on that, did you?” Mills asked. She sighed. “Ten years. We met in the Sandbox.”

  Iraq, Kyra realized. “And how long were you dating?”

  Mills’s eyebrows went up. “Did he—”

  “No, he didn’t.” Kyra stopped her.

  “You guessed.”

  “Not really. As a general rule, station chiefs don’t drop everything and escort DI analysts through an embassy, suggesting you had a special reason for doing so. We sent a travel cable in advance, you would’ve read it, seen his name, and known he was coming; hence your reason. Jon’s pucker factor went up ten notches when he saw you, and given his usual disdain for authority, that’s an unusual reaction unless the other person is someone he knows and dislikes. Jon doesn’t care for people in general but his actual dislike is earned,” Kyra said. “You wouldn’t be a station chief unless you had significant time in the NCS, and you wouldn’t be the station chief here, cleaning up Michael Rhead’s mess, unless you were very, very good at the job. In the NCS, that means you’re both charismatic and ruthless, even more than usual since you’re a woman. I would know. But you have no wedding ring and there are no pictures in this office of anyone resembling family or a long-term boyfriend or girlfriend. Either would give you a reason to hold him at arm’s length when you met us in the lobby, but you didn’t do that.”

  Kyra opened the stairwell doors, eschewing the elevators, and the two women began the march downward. “Given how you persisted in trying to be friendly with Jon despite his hostility suggests you know why he wasn’t warming up to you and you feel some responsibility for it. All of which means that you had a previous relationship with him, a close one, and you flipped the off switch, probably because it was standing in the way of your career.”

  Mills smiled, not in a perfectly happy way. “I see why he likes you.”

  “What makes you think he does?”

  “I’ve only met one other person who does what you just did and he just left the room,” Mills told her. “He’s been teaching you observation and logic but he can’t read people like you can, even people he knows well. That’s beyond him. You have a talent he doesn’t, so when you master the other bits you’ll be better than him at this business and I suspect he knows it. He wouldn’t waste his time with someone who didn’t have that potential. As you said, he doesn’t care for people. His dislike is earned but so is his tolerance.”

  “We’ve been through some business together,” Kyra confessed.

  “That business with China, I assume,” Mills said. “Anyway, we didn’t know that ship was coming until it was practically throwing towlines onto the dock. So the best I can do is send you out with some general kit and pray. Are you good with that?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kyra said. “I volunteered for this. I’m not going to back out now.”

  “Good woman,” Mills said. “One more question. How long were you down here before the Chavistas shot you?”

  “Six months.”

  “Do you know who you were supposed to meet on that bridge?”

  “Does it really matter?”

  Mills smiled, sympathetic. “Maybe not.” She pushed open the stairwell door on the bottom level, which led to a long hallway. She pointed at one of the doors. “Welcome to the garage.”

  • • •

  The CIA garage was separate from the regular embassy motor pool for reasons that had nothing to do with elitism, much smaller, and housed a far wider variety of vehicles. Several of the vehicles were SUVs and trucks, not the town cars and vans the State Foreign Service officers had at their disposal. Kyra preferred that. Her upbringing in central Virginia had left her partial to vehicles built for unpaved roads. She’d learned to drive on dirt trails bordering the James River and had bent the axles on three vehicles before she’d started college, all to her father’s frustration.

  The darkened shop was full of autos but devoid of people. Marisa flipped a switch and the fluorescent lamps brightened the space with a harsh, unnatural light.

  “There’s your ride.” Marisa pointed to a far corner occupied by a Toyota 4Runner that had seen a few minor collisions. It made sense not to fix every scrape, Kyra supposed. New cars, unblemished, driven by Americans, would draw attention. Curiosity from the locals was never a good thing and the dirt and dents would turn no heads.

  “It’ll do,” Kyra said. “Wish I had more time to prep.”

  “You and me both. Gear is on the table,” Marisa said without sympathy. She waved a hand toward a table by the corner.

  Kyra stared at the inventory laid out on the plywood slab. “They haven’t given you the latest and greatest here, have they?” she asked.

  “Rhead pretty well gutted the entire operation down here,” Marisa replied. She leaned against the Toyota. “HQ set up a task force that still hasn’t figured out just how far it all went and they didn’t want to risk Avila’s boys laying hands on any of the really good stuff until they could be sure we were battened down. So the NCS took the best gear home and left us with this. They swear we’ll get a full load-out when the station gets built up again, but they’re in no hurry. So take whatever you’ll need.”

  Kyra looked over the weapons. “These jokers shot me once. I’m not going out without a gun again.”

  “As long as you’re smart about it,” Marisa told her. “Shouldn’t need anything bigger for this than a sidearm.”

  Kyra stared down at the guns, then hefted a Glock 17. “My favorite.” She looked over the table and another weapon turned her head. “You mind if I take that one?”

  “I can live with that,” the chief of station said. “Just don’t get caught with it. There’s a hidden panel under the floorboard.” The woman paused, trying to find the soft way to serve up hard news. “If you get in trouble, I have no one to help you. You’re up on the personnel recovery protocols?”

  “I am,” Kyra assured her.

  “For the record, you’re Arrowhead on this one. Do not get seen, do not get caught. They tried to bag you once. I’d hate to serve you up on a platter after what you went through to get away from them the first time.”

  • • •

  The deputy station chief’s office was embassy standard, only a little larger than Jon expected, furnished with a hardwood desk and a large couch. That position was unfilled so it was little wonder Mills had looked tired. She was probably doing a tremendous amount of the grunt work usually reserved for lesser bodies. It didn’t help that the computers took all day to boot up. He’d waited almost fifteen minutes before the computer had finally finished its business. He supposed that the servers needed time to establish secure connections with Langley—

  “Jon?” He saw the chief of station standing at the door.

  “You’ve got a few minutes before she leaves. The girl knows how to pack a bag but the commo gear is giving her fits. You know those old units,” Mills said, her attempt at humor weak and she knew it. “Did you see the opplan?” she asked him.

  “I read the file,” Jon said. “Doesn’t look complicated.”

  “Simple is better.”

  He said nothing and made no effort to move the conversation. “I was hoping to talk,” Marisa said, finally uncomfortable with the silence.

  “You had five years to start a conversation. I don’t see any reason why you’d want to now,” he said.

  “Because today we’re finally together again?”

 
; “Not a great reason in the age of the telephone,” he said.

  “You hate phones.”

  “Yes, I do,” he admitted. “But I make exceptions and use them from time to time.”

  Marisa shifted her weight on her feet, nervous. “Your hair is longer. You’re going gray,” she told him.

  “I should be. I earned it.”

  “We might all earn a few gray hairs on this one,” Marisa said, trying to shift the conversation to something less personal.

  “I did tell Kathy Cooke this wasn’t a good idea,” he conceded.

  “You’re having meetings with the director?” Marisa asked, surprised. And telling her that you don’t like her decisions? That was the real question she’d wanted to ask but she held it back.

  “We know each other,” was all he said.

  Kyra appeared at the door. The conversation was finished and Marisa felt a sharp pain in her chest, something she hadn’t felt for some time. “Kathy Cooke is a smart woman. I’m sure it’ll come off okay,” she said. Then she fled the room as slowly as dignity allowed.

  • • •

  “That was sweet,” Kyra said a few moments later, slight sarcasm tingeing her voice. She had changed clothes, her blue jeans and casual shoes gone in favor of khaki pants and boots that were going to be warm in the equatorial heat. At least she had chosen a plain tee instead of some heavier long-sleeved shirt. Her dirty-blond hair was tied off into a single ponytail that fell just to the top of her shoulders. She looked every bit the foreign tourist come to hike through the backcountry. “Are you going to tell me what went on between you and Miss America there?”

  “Eavesdropping, were you?” Jon asked her.

  “I’m a spy. I get a pass,” she replied.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll just leave it alone?”

  “You can tell me now or I can keep hounding you over the comm when I’m out in the woods. Surveillance is boring. I’ll have nothing but time.”