Clear by Fire (2 page)

Once he reached the third floor, he pushed open the thin metal door that led into the hall and made his way to a nondescript wooden door. Thick gray paint peeled beneath the flickering light, which struggled to draw power from the overworked grid.

Mason used a bump key to force the lock and stepped quickly through the door. The apartment was small and cramped and smelled like saffron and cooking oil. A small couch sat in the main room next to a neat pile of sleeping mats, while an overhead fan turned lazily above his head.

No one was home, and the American shut the door behind him and walked over to the sliding glass door. He slid it open and stepped out onto the balcony, looking down over the tightly packed neighborhood to see if anyone was watching before shaking the metal railing to see if it would hold. The bolts securing it to the wall were rusted but seemed to be in decent shape, so after a final check he climbed up and jumped over to the next apartment.

He pulled the pistol from his pocket and peered through the glass into the apartment. A cursory check around the edges of the door frame didn’t turn up any wires, and once he was sure it wasn’t booby-trapped, Mason slipped out a knife. He was about to pry it open when he realized the sliding glass wasn’t locked.

The pungent smell of kif drifted out into the air, alerting him to the presence of his target.

So much for tradecraft
, he thought to himself as he stepped through the window.

Mason brought the pistol up and quickly cleared the main room. Moving to the bedroom, the smell of hashish grew stronger, and he followed the smell to its origin before stepping into the small room.

“What’s up?” he asked in Arabic.

The Algerian sitting on the bed looked up from the large hookah, his eyes wide with surprise. He reached across to the table for his pistol and Mason raised his Glock and said, “Don’t do it.”

The man ignored his warning, and just as his fingers were about to touch the weapon, Mason shot him in the hand. The suppressor didn’t make the pistol silent, but it did muffle the report to a dull
thwack
.

The bullet hit Karim’s hand below the knuckles and sprayed the wall with blood. He instinctively snatched his hand back to his torso and began to scream in pain.

“I told you,” the American said with a shrug as he snatched the pistol off the table. It was a Russian Makarov and had been freshly oiled.

“Mason, I— I . . . ,” he stammered in Arabic.

“I’ll never understand you people. You clean your gun, then get high and forget to lock your back door. I guess you figured I wasn’t coming back.”

The man just stared at him blankly.

“Karim, I thought we had a deal. I mean, that’s why Ahmed paid you, right? To make introductions and watch my back?”

Mason adopted a casual air as he scanned the room for any more weapons that the spy might have lying around. He thought he knew why Decklin wanted him dead, but he couldn’t figure out why the Algerian had betrayed him.

“For the last six months, I’ve been running around every shit hole in Africa, dodging the Americans, the French, and your jihadist friends. Hell, everyone wants to kill me, and all you had to do was take the money and keep your mouth shut.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing, believe me,” the man begged.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but then I ran into an old friend in Kona. How the hell did Decklin know I was there?”

“Mason, there has been a misunderstanding, let me explain—”

The American cut him off by holding the pistol in the air and slowly pointing it at the man’s knee.

“C’mon, Karim, a mistake? You’re going to sit here and tell me that Barnes’s triggerman just happened to stumble into Kona and try to put a bullet in my head? You know how this works; we’re both pros, so do me the courtesy of not lying to my face. I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me the truth, and then I’m going to put a bullet in your kneecap.”

The man nodded as blood ran down his mangled right hand and onto his soiled gray shirt. Mason knew he was weighing his options.

As a child, Mason had been soft, and he’d paid for it. Growing up in a tough neighborhood meant that he had to get either stronger or smarter. He had taken more than his share of beatings, but that person was gone now, purified and hardened by the cauldron of war. There was nothing soft in him now, and if not for the constant struggle to keep his humanity, he could easily have been just like Decklin.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the Algerian said finally.

Mason steadied the pistol and squeezed the trigger, firing a round into the Arab’s kneecap. Karim was already screaming before the expended brass tinked off the concrete floor.

“Karim, you’re smarter than this. Don’t make me be an asshole.”

“Mason, I swear to you—”

The American lined the Glock’s sights up with his other knee and slowly moved his finger to the trigger.

“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. The man with the CIA.”

“Vernon?” Mason asked.

He had never trusted the man, but he’d never expected him to sell him out—especially not to Barnes.

“Yes, there was never a job. This was all about delivering you to Decklin.”

Mason stepped away from the bed, struggling with what he knew he should do next. Karim deserved to die, but the American was trying to get free of all the death.

He grabbed a towel off the floor near the door, and tossing it to Karim, he said, “I don’t ever want to see you again. If I do, you’re dead.”

•  •  •

Mason took the back way out of the apartment. The heat of the day had not yet fallen on the city, and the streets were crowded as he headed toward the Gueliz district. The “new city” attracted American tourists and wealthy Europeans, and he walked as quickly as possible through the sea of faces without attracting any unnecessary attention.

He’d had a rough life but had never been one to blame his situation on others. Mason wished he could say that his mother had done her best, but that was a lie. The only thing she ever cared about was getting wasted, and while most kids had childhoods full of good memories, he had the sullen days and violent nights of an alcoholic’s son. His mother might not have loved him, but she’d made him into a survivor from day one.

Tossing the Makarov into a trash bin, he took out his phone and dialed a number. A moment later a man answered in Arabic.

“Yes?”

“You were right, it was Vernon. Have you finished the download?”

“I’m just leaving. I will send what I have to your phone,” the man replied.

“Good. He’s at the Emirates Café. Bring the package with you.”

Ten minutes later, Mason was standing in the shadows, near the front of the Emirates Café, scanning the documents stolen from Vernon’s computer. A pair of sunglasses hid his dark eyes as he glanced at the target’s table.

The glare made it hard to read the smudged screen, and he was
just about to hold the phone up when something clicked. It had taken less than a millisecond for his brain to interpret the two words that his eyes had seen, and he frantically swiped backward until he saw them again.

“Operation Karakul,” it read.

He felt his heart skip in his chest, and a wave of adrenaline washed through his nervous system. He was barely able to steady his finger enough to open the message.

Mason’s time in Anvil had given him access to more classified data than the entire analyst division at Langley. It was important that his team could track threats as they evolved, and he had come across the name “Karakul” before—it was the code name for Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan.

The e-mail was from Razor 5, which he knew to be the call sign attached to the Joint Special Operations Command, but it was the content that floored him. It was simple and to the point: “Razor 5 confirms Operation Karakul is a go. Prosecute target ASAP.”

Mason couldn’t believe it. His mind scrambled as he slipped the phone back into his pocket and stared at Vernon, who was sitting at an outside table in front of the café methodically wiping the inside of his empty glass with a white napkin.

“This motherfucker,” Mason muttered, running his hand quickly over his dark, slicked-back hair. Flicking the cigarette into the street, he made his way to the front door and disappeared inside.

The surprise on the CIA agent’s face when Mason appeared before him told the soldier everything he needed to know.

The Algerian had told the truth; Vernon had betrayed him.

“Sorry to drop in like this, but it’s been a hectic couple of days.”

Vernon smiled sickly and tried to stall by taking a sip of water. “It’s good to see you. I was just . . . having some lunch. I didn’t know you were back,” the spy stammered honestly.

“You gave me a job and I did it. Now I’m back for your end of the bargain,” Mason said as he studied the spy’s reaction.

“Uhh, yes, of course.” Vernon turned white and scanned the crowded café, looking for a way out and trying to tell whether Mason was alone.

The waiter approached, and Mason ordered coffee and hummus and lit a cigarette with a battered Zippo while the man squirmed across the table.

“You aren’t going to order anything?” he asked innocently.

“No, I’m not really hungry.”

Mason watched tiny beads of perspiration appear on the spy’s forehead. His pupils dilated and he shifted often in his chair as he struggled to get comfortable.

Who the fuck is Razor 5?
he wanted to scream at the man, but he had to play it cool if he hoped to use the spy. Vernon was a slippery son of a bitch who might have been short on brains, but he was long on cunning. In fact, he was slick enough to make a career out of what had started as a joke.

The first time someone suggested arming a drone, everyone had laughed, but Vernon saw value in the idea and managed to gather enough support to get his own team. Five months later, the room was packed as Vernon’s armed Predator smoked a house full of jihadists. He went from zero to hero before the shrapnel ever hit the ground, and soon after, he was charged with populating the kill list the drones would use for targeting jihadists. It was a good job, with zero oversight, which made him a perfect match for Barnes.

How had he not seen it coming, Mason thought. Vernon and the colonel fit together like pieces of a puzzle, but he’d been so desperate, so eager to trust, that he had let his guard down.

Vernon was back to inspecting the glass when the waiter returned to the table, and Mason spoke to him in Arabic.

“He’s afraid of germs,” Mason said, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the glass.

“Fucking Americans and their germs,” the waiter replied before walking off.

Mason slipped the sunglasses off his face and stared at Vernon. “We had a deal. I work for you, and you get me back to America. You remember that, don’t you?”

“The deal is still on, I promise. This has to be a mistake. Let me make a call . . .” Vernon started to reach into his pocket and Mason slammed his palm down on the table.

“Hold on there, boss. If you are trying to call Karim, let me save you the trouble. I just killed him.”

The man froze, his hand an inch from the light jacket he was wearing. Mason could tell he was trying to figure out whether Mason was going to kill him in the open or let him live. The agent loved war by proxy, but when the conflict was right in his face, he became very uncomfortable.

The waiter dropped off the plate of hummus, and Mason tore a strip off the pita bread and used it to spoon some of the hummus into his mouth. He knew just as much about Vernon as the spy knew about him.

“The job was compromised. I think you tried to burn me,” Mason said.

“Now hold on, I don’t know where you’re getting your information, but someone is filling your head with a bunch of bullshit.”

Vernon was reaching, and they both knew it. He was buying time—hoping he could regain control of the situation.

“Really? For the last six months I’ve put a fucking continent between me and Decklin. For all he knew, I was dead, but the moment I show up in Kona, there he is. Are you saying that he’s clairvoyant or that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing?”

The spy tried to go on the offensive. “You had a bad op—it happens—but don’t try to put this on me. Five different countries want you dead, including the US. Before you start making accusations, I think you might want to take a second to remember who your friends are.”

“Friends like Barnes? Is that whose dirty work you’re doing?” It
was a gamble, but Mason couldn’t give the man an inch of traction. He had to push him now, or he’d never get the truth.

“What?” Vernon was frozen by the question, and Mason knew he had him.

“I know what you’re up to, and it’s never going to happen,” Mason lied.

Vernon stared at him, his mouth hanging open like a broken gate. The spy was stunned, but recovered quickly and pulled an envelope out of his pocket. Passing it across the table, he locked eyes with Mason.

“Look, I didn’t tell you to grow a conscience and fuck up your life. You did that on your own, pal. You made a choice and it backfired. I’m sorry the world’s not fair.”

Mason reached for the envelope, which Vernon was holding down with the tip of his fingers. The spy felt a shift in the momentum; Mason still needed him.

“Do you know what they had us doing out there?” he asked.

“I don’t know or care. Mason, you need to grow up. There’s a war going on and you need to get over the past. I’ve read your file, and it’s a sad story, but here’s a news flash: no one gives a shit. The only reason you’re not dead or locked away is because I want it that way.” He lifted his fingers off the envelope and let Mason take it. “The only people who care about you are gone. The only record of your existence is in a file that I burned the day I found you. Remember that.”

Mason slipped the envelope into his pocket as the waiter returned with the bill and a carafe of water. The young Arab sat the check on the table and began filling Vernon’s glass. Mason reached for the check, bumping the waiter’s arm, causing him to spill the water across the white tablecloth and onto Vernon’s pants.