Whirlwind (12 page)

Next, light weapons only. You’ll be issued nothing more powerful than varmint rifles .17 and .22 caliber rim fires Again, I apologize for the inconvenience. Our mission requires that Ms. Kolodenkova be interrogated, and therefore we cannot risk somebody inadvertently rendering her unavailable for questioning. For sidearms, no one is to carry anything heavier than a .25. Don’t use them unless you must. If you do use them, shoot to wound.

Yes? Right you are. Stun grenades will be issued. Likewise tear gas, shock batons, and such other non-lethal arms as the company armorer can provide. And I should mention that we will deploy five airborne teams armed with automatic weapons. In accordance with the restrictions placed on us, they will be using rubber bullets.

For vehicles, it’s civvies again except for my command car. That means no Hummers, and more’s the pity because our prey will most likely be found in desert country. However, I have arranged a fleet of high-performance four-wheelers. You can take comfort in their anonymity, and in the fact that in that part of America well-stocked gun racks are common on every highway.

Another point. I will be assuming personal command of this mission. As soon as we’re finished here, I’m boarding the company jet. I expect to be on the ground in West Texas at approximately twenty-one hundred hours local time. The usual chain of command will be in force, but with one exception. That exception is: if any of you come across anything that even hints as to McKenzie’s or Kolodenkova’s whereabouts, do not go through channels. Report to me immediately.

As per usual, we’ll be using field names. Given the likelihood that most of this mission will play itself out in the desert, those names will be taken from the herpetology handbook. I am King Cobra. Directly reporting to me will be three zone commanders, Messrs. Nishikawa and Ortiz, and Ms. Jager a.k.a. Adder, Fer-de-Lance, and Cottonmouth. Their orders are my orders. Their will is my will. Never think otherwise.

Finally, and not to belabor a point known to all, our fine firm is not the largest competitor in its field. However, it is my hope that one day it will be so. This mission this absolutely crucial mission will move us closer to that objective. Accordingly, we will reestablish our bona fides with our client. We will deliver the results expected of us. We will succeed.

You all five hundred of you are the elite, battle-proven warriors with top performance ratings, handpicked from the ranks of more than four thousand men-at-arms worldwide. You are our company’s A Team. I have every confidence in you. You should have every confidence in yourselves. Be proud, gentlemen. Be proud that you are among the chosen. Be proud and you cannot fail.

Now to summarize, you are to think of this operation as a minimally intrusive surgical procedure, leaving no scars behind. Our first step must be to find and follow Charles McKenzie. However, that is only a first step. We will not have earned our fees until we secure Kolodenkova and the materials in her possession and until I obtain her full and enthusiastic answers to an intensive interrogation.

Does anyone have any questions?

No? Very well, gentlemen, I’ve nothing more to say. Let’s saddle up and ride.

Tuesday, July 21. 1700 Hours Central Time

“I like your hair. The color becomes you,” said Charlie, who had never trusted a blonde in his life.

Irina, her mouth full of Big Mac, gestured irritably with her Tokarev.

Handcuffs rattling against the sink pipe, Charlie leaned against the bathroom wall. As planned, she’d taken him prisoner. As expected, she used his own cuffs to immobilize him. Right on schedule, she was grilling him. “Just trying to be polite,” he smiled. “Well, anyway, to answer your question, finding you wasn’t all that hard. Everybody the FBI, the state police, all of ‘em are convinced you’re headed east. The going theory is that you’re running for the Gulf, that you’ll try to steal a boat and sail to Cuba. Damfool theory, but then we’re dealing with dam fool people.”

He’d chosen his tone of voice carefully the inflection of an irascible old fart. “The nincompoops are breathing their own exhaust, believing their own publicity. You know, it was my dad who cooked up the Cuba strategy demonizing Castro, painting him as the incarnation of all that is ignoble, base, and vile. The idea was to convince you Russkies we thought he was a real threat which the dummies in the Kremlin swallowed hook, line, and sinker. Whereupon they started hurling money at the clown. Heh! Just what we wanted! So then after the Soviet Union went Chapter 11, Fidel saw the writing on the wall. He may not be the sharpest needle in the haystack, but he’s got some brains. Two years after Yeltsin took power, he was ready to roll over.”

A harmless, rambling antiquity with too many memories he hoped she was buying the act, although he couldn’t tell for certain. You just can’t read a face that’s wolfing down an overstuffed hamburger. “My source the number-two guy at your embassy as a matter of fact told me that Fidel had his pen out, ready to sign just about anything we sent him. The poor schmuck probably would have applied for statehood if we asked. But by then Congress had come to believe all that mud slinging. Add to that the fact that the sugar lobby is one hell of a big political contributor which most definitely does not want Cuban competition. Plus Bill Clinton was too spineless a wimp to stand up to them “

Irina waved her gun again. Charlie smiled inwardly. He’d made most of the points he’d wanted to. The rest could wait awhile. “Sorry. I was just explaining why I knew you wouldn’t be hightailing it for Cuba. Let me start over. The cops found that blue Ford buggy you swiped. By the time I got to the shopping mall, they’d made every clerk behind every cash register check whether his or her car had been heisted. Of course, nobody’s had. So they start going around the stores again, this time asking the managers if all their employees showed up for work this morning. Sure enough, a couple hadn’t. Well, lemme tell you, the sirens howled as those boys zoomed off to see if those employees were home with a tummy ache, or home with a gun to their head.”

He gave her a cunning grin. I’m just your foxy old grandpa, sweetheart, and you can trust every word I say. “I knew better. Hostage-taking isn’t your style. So, I went looking for a store with a Help Wanted sign in its window. Found one. Sporting goods and such. I talked up the manager. Sure enough, early morning just about the time you stole the Aerostar he’d interviewed a hard-luck cowboy named Mitch Conroy.” Charlie raised his voice in a sneer of prissy insolence, “”While having a professional athlete in our store is highly desirable, a rodeo rider simply would not be consistent with the outdoor adventure image we wish to project.” The pompous ass still had Conroy’s application form and address on his desk which I swiped and burned. After that, all I had to do was get rid of my car it was bugged forty ways from Sunday and dump the people who were tailing me. And now, you lucky girl, here I am.”

He gave her his best boyish smile, confident he was convincing her that he was a garrulous fool, so indiscreet as to identify a double agent in the Havana embassy. She was a spy. She couldn’t help wanting to hear more.

“Excuse me? I didn’t quite understand that, what with your mouth being full…. Oh, my car? Well, that was easy. They gave me an Explorer registered under my own name. I cruised around until I found a row of auto dealerships. Then I sashayed into a BMW showroom and told the salesman I had a low-mileage four-wheeler I wanted to trade in. He asked how low. Twenty-eight miles, says I, and he allows that, yessir, that’s pretty low mileage. So I offered him thirty-eight thousand bucks plus the Explorer for a new X5. Then I started counting the money cash greenbacks out on his desk. Well, he started playing silly car salesman games jabbering about having to check with the manager, and how he’d have to get the mechanic’s opinion on my Explorer, and all that stuff.”

Skilled actors use their entire bodies to create a character. Charlie, hampered by a handcuffed left wrist, did his best to become someone an FSB-trained agent would badly misread. He jutted his jaw and wagged a remonstrative finger. “I said, look, son, you’re earning twice your best-ever commission on this deal; now here’s the thirty-eight grand; I’m walking up the street to buy a couple of burgers to eat in my new luxury sportsute; when I get back, either you’re going to have that X5 waiting outside with the engine running, or I’m going over to the Mercedes showroom and buy an M-Class. Well, he was unhappy, wasn’t he? Here he was making more money off a single sale than he’d ever seen, and I was taking all the fun out of it. Ruined his day. Howsomever, the X5 was waiting when I got back. I signed the forms, climbed in, and floored it. While I was picking up your lunch, I’d timed the stoplights. I knew exactly when to peel out of that dealer’s lot. One of the FBI boys following me tried to run the light, but, you know, he didn’t make it. I was miles away switching license plates, actually before the rest of the feds managed to get around the wreckage.”

Irina licked her fingers, wolfed down a handful of French fries, and chug-a-lugged a swallow from her giant-sized Coke. Charlie still couldn’t quite read her reaction, although her words were encouraging. “And you claim you were not followed? You claim you are alone?”

“Like I said earlier, there’s no SWAT teams hiding in the bushes. I’m all by my lonesome. No one here but you and me.”

She started unwrapping her second hamburger. “You are lying. Saying that you are not here to arrest me this also is a lie.”

“I could sort of tell I was having credibility problems when you chained me to this pipe.” Damn, Charlie thought, it’s fun telling the truth to someone who doesn’t believe you.

“Why should I trust you?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m unarmed. For another, if I’d wanted to take you down, that hamburger you just finished eating would have been spiced with enough thorazine to knock out an elephant.”

Irina goggled. She dropped her hamburger and flung up the toilet seat. “I will put my fingers down my throat!”

“Oh, give me a break! We both know that if I’d sprinkled that stuff on your lunch, you’d already be asleep on the floor. Calm down and eat the rest of your food. It’s good for you.”

She gave him a disbelieving look. “A Big Mac?”

Charlie snorted. Good, he thought, she made a joke. We’re making progress. “Look, just like I said when you stuck that shooting iron in my face, I’m not who you think I am, and I’m not doing what you think I’m doing.”

Lowering the toilet lid, Irina sat down again. She leaned forward and thrust the Tokarev’s muzzle under Charlie’s chin. Oops, maybe we’re not making progress. “So then tell me what you really are, Mr. McKenzie. In your wallet there is a Central Intelligence Agency identification card with your photograph on it, and I do not believe it is a forgery.”

I’ll be damned. She didn’t buy a single word of my act. Nuts. No choice now but to be myself. “It isn’t. I tried to explain things earlier, but you weren’t in the mood to listen. This time,” he snapped, “try to pay attention. One: I spent my whole life with the Agency. Two: they screwed me. Three: I’m going to get even. Four: you’re the way I get even. Five: P.S. I get to clear my good name into the bargain.”

She gave him a narrow look. “Why has a disgraced agent been assigned to my case?”

Charlie let his voice turn into a growl. “Because I am very, very good at what I do.” Her nostrils flared. He’d struck the right note. “And because they are very, very worried about what you’ve got. Too damned worried. If they’re desperate enough to hire me, they’re worried about more than whatever you filched.” He showed his teeth. It wasn’t a smile. “Now that little fact piques my interest. I think they’re covering something up. If I can find out what that something is, if you help me “

She was taken aback. “Why should I help a secret policeman who wants to arrest me?”

Now he’d make her a little scared. “Because they’ll kill you if you don’t.” “Nonsense!” Irina tossed her head. “America does not execute intelligence agents. Show trials are a valuable source of propaganda.” “Do you want to know how I know they plan to kill you?” Almost sneering, she replied, “Convince me if you can.” “Because I’m the one they sent to pull the trigger.” A bald-faced lie, of course, since Sam had called off that part of the job not that Charlie planned to sanction the girl anyway. Regardless be it truth or be it lie his words produced the desired effect. Irina Kolodenkova was stunned into silence. Well, I believe I’ve scored a point at last.

Her pistol was still aimed at Charlie’s head, but no question in Charlie’s mind there was considerable uncertainty in the way she held it. She gasped a half dozen short breaths before managing to speak. “I should shoot you now. Yes, this is the right thing to do.”

Charlie grinned. Good line, he thought, crappy delivery. You weren’t cut out to be an actress, my girl. “Killing me would be the dumbest thing you could do.”

The pistol wavered. Not defeated, but surely indecisive, she murmured, “Why?”

“”Cause I’m the only one who can get you out of this mess.” “Oh? Is that what you think?” Her eyes sparked. The color returned to her cheeks, and there was anger aplenty in her glare. Uh-oh, Charlie thought, I just said the wrong thing. ” You think I am a weak little girl who cannot succeed on her own. If that is what you think, Mr. McKenzie, your thinking is in error.”

He had no choice but to bull his way through it. “Maybe. Maybe not. You’re good, Irina. You wouldn’t have gotten this far if you hadn’t been smart, nimble, and fast a damned fine tactician. But tactics is all it is. There’s no strategy, no plan. You’re just thinking on your feet, and grabbing opportunities. That’s no criticism. Hell, if I was your boss…” Or your father, but I’ll leave that unstated. “… I’d be proud of you. All I’m saying is that you are new to the job, and simply do not know what the other team will throw at you. You need somebody experienced enough to tell you how to get past them. You need a strategist. You need me.”

“I can do very well on my own, Mr. McKenzie.”

“I don’t doubt it for a moment.” Reinforce her, build her up. “My point is that ‘very well’ isn’t good enough. They want you bad, and they’ll send the best they have to bring you down.” She’s thinking. Good. Now let’s knock her a little off balance. “There’s another reason why you need my help. You don’t have a clue as to what you’ve stolen Project Whirlwind and that computer disk.”