The man shut off his engine and exited the car. Ronald Dicks. The most senior aide to Senator Herbert Becker.
From the streets below came the sound of an urban outdoor luxury shopping center. The bustle of the crowd headed to chic restaurants and clothing stores. The happy hour crowd departing the bars. Young teens heading to the movies.
Up here it was quiet. Empty. Just two cars and two men. Neither man wanted to be seen with the other, although not for the same reasons.
“You’re with the firm?” Dicks asked, referring to Joseph Dahlman’s lobbying agency. Ron Dicks had used a back channel to contact them a day earlier. Dicks was trying to figure out a way to smooth things over.
So was Syed.
Unbeknownst to either party on the line, the ISI had listened to the phone call, provided courtesy of a Chinese communications security firm Syed had hired. Their capabilities were excellent. Within an hour, the lobbying firm had received another phone call rescheduling the meeting for a later date. The voice on the phone was computer-generated, and a perfect match for Ron Dicks.
The ISI had then reached out to Dicks via text message and orchestrated a new meeting time and place. At a discreet location, just like the Senator’s chief of staff had requested.
“I am with the firm, correct. Good evening, Mr. Dicks,” Hugo replied, reaching out his hand.
Dicks walked towards Hugo, his own arm outstretched. They shook hands and then Hugo motioned for him to get in the passenger seat of Hugo’s own vehicle. They both got in and shut the doors.
Dicks was jittery. “We need to find a solution here. Some common ground. I assume your firm is still in touch with the Pakistanis? This wasn’t what I signed us up for. There’s got to be some middle ground that we can—”
Hugo’s movement was swift. He swung his arm across to the passenger side, landing a strong open-handed strike to the trachea.
Dicks’ mouth let out an involuntary burst of spittle and air, and then he doubled over, making a choking noise and holding his throat. Hugo leaned back in his seat and looked around the still-empty parking lot. All clear. He opened up the center console of the sedan and removed a prepared syringe. He jabbed it into Dicks’ neck and depressed the plunger until it met the stop.
Dicks’ eyes went wide at the sting. His body was now flooded with a neuromuscular paralytic. The same type of drug anesthesiologists used, only in much smaller doses.
With Dicks still holding his throat, Hugo started the engine and drove his vehicle so that the passenger side was right next to the trunk of Dicks’ BMW. Ron Dicks was now losing control of his faculties. Hugo put on a pair of thin flesh-colored latex gloves and cleaned up his car, careful to wipe off the parts that he’d touched.
He checked his victim by pulling back on his shoulder. A wheezing noise and a twitch of his eye told Hugo that the drug was still in effect. But things were far enough along now.
Hugo grabbed the keys from Dicks’ pocket and popped his trunk by pressing the button on the key fob. He shut off his own engine, got out, walked around and quickly but casually transferred the still-alive body into the trunk. From his spot on the parking garage and the time of night, there was about a one percent chance that someone could have seen this activity, and a zero percent chance that someone would see his face.
He shut the trunk and then re-parked his car so that it was in a spot, not wanting to attract attention. Then he wiped it down once more.
Minutes later, he was driving Ron’s BMW north towards the Potomac. It was dark by the time he reached Riverbend Park on the south side of the Potomac. He shut his lights off, broke the gate lock, and opened it, driving through towards the water. He arrived at a small boat landing a moment later. Here he was just to the west of Great Falls, where the river turned into a roaring grinder of white water and sharp rocks.
Hugo popped the trunk and removed the body, carrying it into the water and giving it a push into the current.
Ron Dicks’ body was discovered the next day, bloated and battered and miles downstream.
Chapter 10
Wilkes followed the DEA assistant special agent in charge (ASAC) into the break room of the Task Force Echo ops center. The two men got a quick coffee fill-up before the long night, then walked down the hall towards the secure facility in the central part of the building.
“So your agent is on scene tonight?”
“That’s right,” said Wilkes.
“Hope she’s careful. Sinaloa is rough.”
Caleb Wilkes was nervous for his agent, Ines Sanchez. He wasn’t sure she was ready for this kind of exposure, but in the field, one had to make do with the materials on hand. Wilkes had done his best to steer her away from kinetic operations involving the violent and unpredictable gangsters of her country.
Until tonight.
Ines Sanchez had grown up in Mexico City, where she had been a part-time model, part-time call girl. Her modeling career had led to a job as an actress for a syndicated soap opera shot in Mexico City, and she’d stopped taking clients for her secondary occupation.
Ines had had dreams of getting picked up by a Hollywood agent and leaving Mexico for the US to become an actress there. Wilkes had fanned those flames and offered to introduce her to a few contacts he had in the City of Stars. The promise of a better future was a case officer’s best carrot.
She was young compared to most agents he ran — only twenty-six. But she was effective, relatively reliable, and brave. She seemed to get a kick out of working for Wilkes, and was quite happy with the monthly “consulting fees” that were wired to her numbered bank account on the island of Curaçao.
“Are you turning me into a spy?” she had asked him one night, early after her recruitment.
“No, Ines. You’re an actress. Think of me as your director. On my stage, there aren’t lights or cameras. There will be no clapping audience or adoring fans waiting for you after the show. But you’ll have great rewards, if you want them. You’ll help to make the world a better place. And eventually, I’ll help you to become the star I know you can be.”
She had liked that. The thought of doing good, and the twinkle of future fame. Sanchez, like nearly everyone else on the planet, just wanted a better life. When Wilkes had discovered her six months ago, she had been trying to sleep her way to the leading role in her soap opera. Determined and shameless, but cleverer than most girls her age. Wilkes had seen potential.
Three weeks after her recruitment, she had begun having social visits with a Russian diplomat in Mexico City, one that Wilkes had suggested could be a good person to know, if she was looking for someone to buy her drinks for an evening. From the Russian’s careless pillow talk, Ines had been able to provide Wilkes with the names of three SVR officers operating out of the local Russian embassy. Two had been known operatives, confirming the accuracy of the information. But the third name was new. Not bad work for the new girl.
With a little discipline and training on her part, and some Hollywood arm-twisting on his, Wilkes truly intended to make her into a full-fledged movie star. Then he could really put her to work. Wilkes’s team of spies, which included Max Fend, were among the world’s most rich and famous. They had exclusive access to elite clubs and social castes. Whether they achieved that status on their own or Wilkes grew them into it mattered little to him. He was about results.
But for Ines Sanchez to blossom into the productive Hollywood star and agent of the CIA, she needed to be alive and unscarred.