Once he got downstairs, Jake saw that Liam was behind the wheel of his black KIA. Alexandra was waiting for Jake at the open trunk. He pulled Alexandra aside. “Let’s see your gun and the extra magazine,” he said quietly.
She handed over her gun and Jake quickly wiped away her prints from both with a rag he found in the trunk. Then he did the same with his gun and extra magazine. When he was done, he wrapped them into the rag and placed them into the trunk.
“Let’s go,” Jake said. He closed the trunk and instead put their bags in the back seat, closing the door for Alexandra.
Jake got into the front passenger seat and Liam immediately pulled out of the hotel parking lot.
As they got down the road a ways, Liam finally said, “Is this the way it always is with you?”
Jake thought about that for a moment. He wished like hell he could answer no to that question. “Not always. Sometimes one of us gets shot.”
“Well, we lost our boat pilot,” Liam reminded Jake.
“That was bad luck,” Jake admitted.
“What about Remington?”
Looking at the driver for a moment, Jake tried to process the question. “What about him?”
“He’s dead. Your job is done.”
“I didn’t kill him, Liam,” Jake responded. “And that wasn’t my job. I was supposed to bring him in for interrogation. Remember, you get no good intel from a dead man.”
Alexandra leaned forward to join the conversation. “Did you expect to get anything good out of Remington?”
That was a good question, and Jake wished he had a better answer for her. “That wasn’t up to me. My job was to bring the man in. I obviously failed at that. Is that what you two want me to admit?” His voice had gotten increasingly tense.
Liam turned out onto a main road and picked up speed. “I meant no disrespect,” the Agency officer said. “We’re lucky none of us got killed. But I’ve got to report on this to my station chief. I wasn’t authorized to engage in a firefight.”
“You’re never given specific authority for that, kid,” Jake said. “You shot a man tonight. Probably killed him. If you hadn’t done so, the guy could have killed you or one of us. You have a right to defend yourself. And that includes anywhere on the planet. I don’t care what the local laws say. Someone shoots at you, and you sure as hell better shoot back, regardless of rules of engagement. You understand?”
Liam nodded his head. “Yeah, I guess so.” He let out a deep breath. “I’ve just never…”
“Killed someone?” Jake provided.
“Yeah.”
Alexandra let out a small chortle. “Well, you have only been around Jake for a day. That’s not a record by the way.”
Jake turned to Alexandra. “Thanks, girl.”
“Just stating the facts,” she said, leaning back into her seat.
There was a long silence, where the only noise came from the engine and the road from tire friction.
“What do I tell my boss?” Liam asked.
“The truth,” Jake said. “Mostly. Tell him I ordered you to come along as an interpreter. I left you out in the boat to stay out of trouble, but you heard the shooting and had the long-tail boat pilot pick us up. That’s the truth.”
“But what about Remington?” Liam wanted to know.
“I was meeting with the man when someone shot and killed him. Nothing more to tell. Based on the sound of the shot and the hole it put in Remington, he was killed with a high-powered rifle.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
Jake thought hard now, not wanting this young officer to get into trouble, but also knowing that what Remington had said to him was probably not relevant. Especially to the local Agency station chief. “Listen,” Jake said. “Just tell your boss what you know. I’ll brief the director on what I know. I work directly for him.”
“So you’re pulling need-to-know?” Liam asked.
“Are you dense?” Jake said with considerable edge. “I’m trying to protect your ass. There’s more to this case than either of us know.” He looked ahead and saw that the road was closed.
“I’m sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean anything by it.” The young Agency officer seemed to sink into his seat, like a young son having just been scolded by his father.
Now Jake felt like an asshole. But he was really trying to keep Liam out of the crap fest that was about to fall down on the Agency. Perhaps even the country as a whole. The second highest ranking person at the CIA had sold out his country for a considerable payday. That had never happened before. And Remington had sold out to the Chinese. That would have been equivalent to someone selling nuclear strategy to the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
“What’s going on up there?” Jake asked. As they came up a small rise, Jake finally got the answer to his own question. There were protestors as far down the road as the eye could see. “Get away from this,” Jake ordered.
Just as the words left Jake’s mouth, Liam had the car slowing for a corner and he turned to the right. Ahead, the edge of the protesters were blocked by police barricades and officers in riot gear lined up in front of their cars.
Jake instructed Liam to drop him off ahead outside a major hotel, where taxis sat waiting.
Liam stopped behind a taxi and Jake started to get out, but he stopped and reached out to the young Agency officer. The two men shook hands and Jake said, “Thanks for all your help. I won’t forget this. We left our guns in your trunk.” He explained how he had gotten them from the Singapore office, but they might need to be scrubbed, since they could be linked to the shooting at Wat Arun.
“I’ll take care of it,” Liam said. “You sure you don’t need them?”
“We’ll be fine,” Jake said.
Alexandra handed Jake his backpack, which he slung over one shoulder. Then she pulled her own out of the car and slammed the back door.
“Take it easy,” Alexandra said to Liam.
Then Jake closed his door and tapped the hood. The Agency officer slowly drove off. Yeah, Liam, we could use the Glocks, Jake thought. But it would be much better if they didn’t get caught with them in their possession.
“What now, Jake?” she asked him.
He had not had the opportunity to talk with her about what Remington had told him. So, Jake had a direction now, despite the fact that he had officially accomplished his mission. He had, after all, tracked down Bill Remington. The former deputy CIA director could no longer do damage to the Agency or his country. But was it really over? What information had Remington already sold to the Chinese?
He and Alexandra took a taxi to the international airport. Security there was heavy, but there was no way that the police could link the two of them to anything that had taken place at Wat Arun.
Jake and Alexandra stood before the departure screens until he saw what he was seeking. There was one more flight tonight to his destination.
“What’s the plan?” she asked him.
Jake put his bag on the floor and dug into an inner pocket. He pulled out a green passport and smiled at her.
“Okay. So, we’re going as an Austrian couple?” she asked.
“We have different names on these,” Jake said. “Maybe we should eventually coordinate our personas. We work so much better as a married couple.”
She dug around inside her pack and came out with a matching green passport. Hers was also Austrian. “That’s all right, Jake. As you know, a lot of European women keep their maiden names.” She smiled and added, “Besides, I like the photo on this one.”
“So, it’s just vanity that keeps you from being my wife.”
“That and a ring. And an actual proposal. I’m a traditional girl.”
“Who kills people,” Jake muttered under his breath.