Cole had therefore entered the prison — complete with shaven head and a maze of bodily tattoos — in order to make friends with the man, distasteful though such an idea was, in the hopes that he could learn more about the AU’s organization and future plans.
It had been easy enough — such men respected strength and violence, and so Cole had wasted no time in establishing himself as someone to be wary of. His first night there, Cole had stabbed a man through the neck with a sharpened toothbrush, bringing him quickly to Groves’ attention. Cole hadn’t felt too bad about it; the man he’d almost killed had been serving life imprisonment for serial rape.
More acts of violence brought Cole closer and closer to the AU lieutenant, and soon they were on first name terms, Groves wanting to use Cole as his personal enforcer. Groves still hadn’t trusted Cole enough to tell him who the leader of the AU was, nor what they had planned in terms of future operations, but that had changed when Cole broke out of the prison, taking Groves with him.
Deeply indebted to Cole, Groves had taken him straight to the ranch in Tucson, where he’d introduced him to Clive Haynes, a fanatic in the Hitler mold. Haynes hadn’t been sure about Cole, but Groves was his second in command, and he eventually let himself be worn down by the man’s praise.
What Cole had then found out was frightening in the extreme; the AU was far better funded, organized and motivated than anyone in US intelligence or law enforcement could possibly have imagined. And their next order of business was to detonate enough explosives underneath the US Capitol to bring it crashing down around the gathered members of congress.
It would have seemed farfetched, except for the fact that the AU had infiltrated several government organizations, and already had the explosives within the city limits.
Cole sighed internally. What was he doing? There was no point wasting time thinking about the past; what was needed now was action, not mental distractions.
Without moving his head, careful that he appeared only semi-conscious and a lot more injured than he actually was, Cole took in his surroundings.
The barn was large, made of cedar wood with a long central track running past wood and steel-gated pens to large double doors at one end. Cole could see daylight beyond, and knew that outside was the main farm compound which consisted of several outbuildings, Haynes’ sprawling single-story home further up a spruce-covered hill on the western edge of the complex. There was a large, ten-vehicle garage near the house, but one of the other barns in the farm compound held tractors and other machinery. Cole remembered that there were quad bikes and trucks in there too.
Letting his eyes drift upwards, he saw a line of open windows running the length of the barn, below the beamed roof on either side of the central track.
Opposite the double doors at one end was a smaller door which Cole knew from a previous visit led to a small equipment room. Between both ends of the building was a dirt floor, already starting to become further covered in pig feces.
Behind the safety of the pen doors stood five members of Aryan Ultra, their tattooed, muscular bodies tense and ready. They held various weapons, from Magnum revolvers to shotguns, but Cole noticed they were more intent on defending themselves from the pigs than they were on making sure Cole didn’t go anywhere.
Cole himself was two thirds of the way through the barn, his wrists tied together with a length of twine, which had been passed over one of the ceiling beams. He had been hauled up, and the end of the rope had been tied off on one of the pillars which separated the pens.
Hanging from his wrists, the pain throughout his hands, wrists, arms and shoulders was intense, but Cole cut off the pain as best he could, using it instead to keep his mind sharp and focused.
The pigs continued to sniff around his feet, and Cole could see that their curiosity was getting stronger and stronger with each passing second. He knew that it wouldn’t be long before they took their first bite, their tusks brushing against his legs.
Just as Cole was considering his options, the double doors burst open and Clive Haynes himself walked in, Jim Groves right by his side. From the bruises on Groves’ face and the man’s busted nose, Cole could see that the AU lieutenant had received his own punishment for bringing him here.
‘Hi,’ Haynes said with a big smile, two other men entering with him, keeping the pigs at bay. ‘Glad to see I’m not too late. Wouldn’t want the hogs to get started without me, would we, Mark?’
Cole twitched involuntarily. How did Haynes know his name?
Haynes smiled. ‘Mark Cole, covert government operative. Working directly for the president.’ The grin spread across his face. ‘I wonder what she’ll say when we mail her the pieces that the pigs don’t want?’
Cole didn’t respond, his mind racing furiously. How did Haynes know so much? Cole’s identity was more than a secret; only a handful of men and women in the entire world knew who he was.
‘Or,’ Haynes continued, stalking steadily closer towards Cole, ‘should I call you Mark Kowalski?’
Cole’s blood ran cold; if only a handful of people knew him as Cole, even less knew him by his real name.
He shuddered. Mark Kowalski had been a Navy SEAL, seconded to the covert Systems Research Group before being declared Killed in Action after a disastrous mission in Pakistan. But he hadn’t been killed; instead, he had been found alive, and subsequently been asked to leave behind his previous life. To become a ‘contract laborer’ for the government, with a new life, a new identity. Mark Cole: codenamed ‘the Asset’, a deniable, highly-trained, unstoppable first-strike weapon against America’s enemies.
How the hell did Haynes know?
‘Surprised?’ Haynes asked with a grin, and Cole did his best to keep his face calm, impassive. Haynes nodded sagely. ‘You can try that tough guy act, but I know you must be just dyin’ to find out how I know about you, right?’ Still Cole refused to respond. ‘Right, Kowalski?’ Haynes’ grin turned to a frown. ‘So you’re not talkin’. That ain’t no problem.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘You know what, I don’t think you’ll even talk when I set the hogs on ya. And I’ve got so many questions,’ he said almost wistfully, still shaking his head. ‘So many. What you know. Who you’ve told. What other spies you’ve got out there, who else we might need to pick up and… talk to. You know?’
Haynes stared across the barn at Cole, saw the resolve in the captured man’s eyes and seemed to come to a decision. ‘Nah, you’re not gonna give me shit, right?’ He laughed. ‘I’m gonna let the hogs have you anyway though. But before they have you, I might let them have an appetizer.’
Cole worked hard to keep his face impassive. An appetizer? That must mean that Haynes had captured someone else. But who? Nobody else was working on this; Cole was in it alone. But someone had tipped off Haynes, and Cole wondered if it was this same person.
Haynes nodded to Groves, who left the barn, returning moments later with a woman. A girl really, Cole saw with disgust; she couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen.
She was gagged and had her wrists and ankles bound with duct tape, and Cole could see that she had been badly beaten; her skin was covered with welts and bruises. Her puffy eyes were so swollen that Cole wondered if she could see anything at all.
The girl was Japanese, or so it seemed; with the gag and the damage to her face it was hard to tell.
And then Cole realized that he recognized her; he didn’t know who she was, but he recognized her.
He had been in San Quentin penitentiary, and the guards had come to tell him he had a visitor. He had been surprised; nobody knew he was there. He had been escorted to the visitor’s room, but on his arrival there had been nobody on the other side of the Plexiglas partition. He had scanned the other side of the glass, seen a woman retreating rapidly from the room; she had never looked back, but from her profile Cole had seen she was Japanese.