“Mr. Chase?” the lead guy said.
“Hey, guys.”
“There’s been a change in plan. They’ve moved up the rendezvous point.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t tell us that. They just sent the message to wait at these coordinates.”
“OK,” I said.
Two of the guys stood behind me, a wiry guy and his taller companion in front. As a rule, I don’t like having people stand where I can’t see them, but we were all on the same team, so I didn’t sweat it. Then I saw a flash of light in the distance and heard the low throb of another diesel over the waves. Our rendezvous, I thought. Even earlier than expected.
That was pretty well exactly when my luck that had been so good to me for the entire mission, finally, ran out. I knew that it was gone because a black hood came down over my head. Then I felt an arm-bar over my neck while one of the guys put me in chokehold from behind, the other tightening the hood shut. I arched my back and kicked to get away, but then I heard the deadly metal-on-metal slide of a pump-action shotgun.
“It’s a Mossberg 590,” the wiry guy in front of me said. “I don’t even have to aim.”
I know a thing or two about shotguns and he was right about the aiming part. All he had to do with that thing was pull the trigger somewhere in my vicinity and body parts would be strewn up and down the dance floor. I relaxed my back and felt my arms twisted up behind me, before cold metal handcuffs were secured over either wrist.
“What the hell are you doing?” I said.
“Just shut up and come with us. It’ll go easier for everyone that way.”
I didn’t argue. Not right then anyway.
Chapter 67
They didn’t abuse me, but we didn’t exactly hang out and shoot the shit either. I was recuffed with my hands in front of me and transferred off the ship. I had to negotiate a ladder off the stern and down into a tender, and then, after a short ride, I climbed a longer ladder up the side of another ship. I smelled bilge and realized that I was on a much larger vessel. I heard an onboard crane hum, but all the while, all I thought was just how unimpressed I was with the CIA. I had given them good solid work, I had given them my blood, and in return, they had given me a hood and cuffs.
They led me down three flights of stairs and through a narrow corridor. I rehearsed my speech as I walked. If the CIA insisted on leading me around with a bag over my head, I figured the very least I could be was ready with a sharp tongue. I was prepared to tell them that they had seen their last mission out of me. Hell, I was still operating under a short-term, independent contractor agreement. I hadn’t even been sworn in yet and, honestly, if this was how they treated their employees, I didn’t want to be one. If you do a good job and you get treated like crap, you react. You can’t help yourself. If they didn’t have a very good explanation, then I was as good as gone.
I was shoved into a metal chair and recuffed to the wall behind me. There was some shuffling as the door was closed. I didn’t bother moving, not immediately. I could feel that I was securely shackled with some sort of padlock. Instead, I just waited, engine noise reverberating around me. I didn’t have to wait long. Fifteen seconds later, the heavy door opened again, engine noise flooding the cabin. Then, the hood was removed from my head.
I gulped in a lungful of air, squinting as my eyes adjusted to the light. I was in a spare cabin with a tiny porthole, right above the waterline. The cabin was painted in a thick olive enamel brushed over the rusty metal of the hull. A greasy fluorescent sconce lit the room and, for a moment, I couldn’t see my companion. Then I looked to my left and saw a familiar face. Crust. He smiled at me, beaming through a three-day growth of beard.
“Am I glad to see you,” I said.
“How are you feeling, Mike?” Crust asked.
“Like crap. How do you think? Get me out of these things.”
Crust smiled and said, “Sorry, Mike. No can do.”
Whatever my rehearsed speech was, the anger welling within me caused me to forget it.
“What do you mean, no can do? What does that even mean?”
“They want to talk to you. And they figure they might get better results, when you’re, you know, our guest.”
I was beginning to lose it.
“You tell the guy in charge, our buddy Grolling, that I don’t care whether he thinks he’s going to get better results by chaining me to a chair. He could light my hair on fire and staple feathers to my ass and the result would be the same. I did the mission. I performed my duty. I brought in the Tesla Device. Now give me a bed, let me sleep, and debrief me in the morning. I know the CIA are a bunch of assholes, but I always figured the part about them being animals was exaggerated.”
“I get what you’re feeling, Mike, I do. But I’m sorry. Like I said, no can do.”
“Are you listening to me? You tell Grolling the CIA can go to hell. If he doesn’t have me uncuffed, I’m out.”
Crust took a stool.
“See, Mike, that’s the thing. You are out. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the CIA. Actually, as far as they’re concerned, you went AWOL four days ago.”
I felt a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach as I stared into Crust’s cold green eyes. I had the feeling that whatever discomfort I was experiencing, it was nothing compared with what was to come.
“Jean-Marc wasn’t the mole,” Crust said.
I allowed myself a sigh. I really didn’t like where this was going.
“I mean, he wasn’t the kind of guy I’d want to have my back,” Crust said. “But he wasn’t the mole. He was acting on my orders. I told him that after he’d assessed what you’d found on the ship, he was to engage you.”
I felt myself deflate farther. Like a low-pressure system had somehow taken up residence in the pit of my stomach.
“You mean kill me?”
“I mean take appropriate action. Look at it from my perspective, Mike. The CIA got wise to the leak. Somebody needed to be labeled the mole. Might as well be the new guy.”
“But Jean-Marc failed. He didn’t kill me.”
“Which is about when I started thinking you might be useful to find the Device after all.”
“What are you trying to tell me, Crust?”
“You ever wonder how Kate showed up out of the blue? The Dragons run a deep network, Mike. A very deep, very dangerous network.”
I didn’t want to hear his self-satisfied voice any longer. But I needed to know.
“How long have you been working for them?”
“Sorry, Mike. Can’t answer your questions. That’s strictly need to know and I’m only the Welcome Wagon around here. My employer wanted you to have a familiar face when you arrived. At least until Kate could take over.”
I thought about Kate. Thought about how she had wanted me to set down in the castle. Run away. Could Kate have been telling me the truth? Could she actually have been trying to help me? There was no way of knowing.
“You let Kate escape,” I said. “We worked the China Op perfectly and you just let her go.”
“Like I said, sorry.”
I focused my gaze at Crust. I stared right through him.
“You lied to me. You used me. You set me up to die. You know that when this is over, I will come after you.”
“I know. I wouldn’t expect anything less. But you have to look at it from my perspective. I’m doing you a favor here.”
“A favor?”
“What can I say, Mike? You wanted to get close to the Dragons right?”
“So?”
“So welcome to the Den.”
Crust flipped the hood back over my head and I heard another set of footsteps echoing down the corridor. Crust didn’t move, but somebody else was coming, I was sure of it. Then there was a loud buzzing noise and a flash of light. The light was followed by what I thought was a bite to my abdomen. As though a dragon had latched onto my gut with its teeth. A sharp, terrible pain shot up through my core. Then I blacked out. I neither saw nor heard anything more.