too much manpower required.
Up ahead, she could make out some more buildings through the trees. Houses. Another subdivision.
She altered her course and made for the closest home, and was just rounding a large tree when a car swung onto the cul-de-sac and pulled to the curb no more than thirty yards away.
Arthur opened the door of the black Lincoln and stepped out, looking directly at her position behind the tree.
“It’s over. Stop wasting my time. If you ever want to see your daughter again, step away from the tree, put down the gun and move slowly towards the car,” he said, his distinctively unpleasant voice straining to be heard.
She debated her slim options and then did as he instructed, placing the gun on the grass and then moving to where he stood.
A Chevrolet Suburban lurched to a halt behind the Lincoln, and two muscular men in suits emptied out of the back doors.
She raised her hands over her head and stood still as they stepped to where she waited.
Arthur watched as they forced her arms behind her, cuffed her, then walked her to the SUV. She glared at him with obvious hatred.
“My dear, save your energy. You’ve caused me considerable trouble this evening. That was your one chance. If you ever want to see your daughter again, you’ll get with the program and knock this shit off. I’m not the enemy, or at least not yours. Now get in the truck, don’t try anything, and stop this now. Do I make myself clear?”
“How did you find me?”
“Chip in the gun. New technology. You never had a chance.”
She nodded and allowed herself to be led to the back seat of the Suburban.
“If I agree — how do I know that you’ll keep your word about Hannah?”
“Because I have no reason not to. And because I’m quite sure you’ll kill me if I don’t.”
She studied him.
“We agree on something.”
“Yes, I suspected as much. Look, this whole escape thing was pointless. All you accomplished was to injure three of my men and piss me off. You are no closer to getting your daughter back. The truth is that there is only one road to accomplishing that, and you’ve been told where it leads and what you need to do. Just get that through your skull, and we’ll get along better. In order to get her back, you need to pay me back for my assistance in bringing down Grigenko. Everything has a price. David knew that. I know it. Now you know it. Pay the price and go on to live happily ever after. Don’t invest any more energy in these childish theatrics. They are getting you nowhere,” Arthur suggested, spittle spraying occasionally from the effort of stringing so many words together.
She got into the SUV, opting for silence. He moved to within a few feet of her, and the agents discreetly moved out of earshot, the driver taking the hint and joining them.
“I need an answer now, I’m afraid. Do you help me help you, or no?”
“What if I decline?”
“Then hold onto your memory of your daughter because it’s all you’ll ever have of her. And then hope that you can survive in a terrorist detention camp for the next fifty years because that’s where you’ll be going. You’ll be categorized as such by the CIA, and there will be no trial or defense.”
“So much for the land of the free.”
“Last time I checked, you aren’t a citizen, so don’t complain. You were apprehended with two passports in different names. You were on American soil for nefarious purposes. It’s your word against the CIA’s, and you have nobody to tell your story to. You’ll be sequestered twenty-four hours a day with no access to anyone but your guards, who won’t talk to you. That will be your life. That is, if I don’t decide to just put a bullet in your head while you’re trying to escape. The idea crossed my mind, and I’m sure I could find three volunteers back at the asylum — one of whom might die from the trauma to his lungs and the internal bleeding you caused.”
“Those are the hazards of this kind of duty. You should train them better.”
“Perhaps. Now I am out of time. Your answer — a million dollars and your daughter back, or incarceration and possibly worse?”
Jet sighed. There was really no choice. If she’d been able to escape, maybe…but not now.
“You win.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“It’s a yes. But a couple of conditions. I don’t want to go back to the basement with the rats. And I’ll need a complete dossier on the target, as well as a full history of the two botched operations. And I will be responsible for coming up with a plan, with no strings or conditions. Just get the diamonds back, and terminate the target. Other than that, I answer to no one.”
Arthur nodded, raising a cloth handkerchief to his mouth to blot the saliva that had begun welling in the corner. “I would expect nothing less.”
“And you’ll supply me with whatever resources I need to pull this off, without question.”
“No. I reserve the right to question. I won’t just write you a blank check.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “No interference, though. I won’t be second-guessed by agendas that differ from my prime objective. I’ve seen that too many times, and it can get you killed.”
“That’s reasonable. Terminate the target, and get the diamonds back. There is no additional agenda. That’s it,” Arthur stated flatly.
“Then we have a deal. Once I am successful, I get my daughter back, the million dollars, and we’re even. No surprises or strings. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
Chapter 8
The big SUV took Jet to a safe house in Manassas, Virginia, where she found a simple but comfortable two bedroom residence with a fully-stocked fridge — a marked improvement over the damp cell she’d woken up to. A CIA physician was waiting for her when she arrived, and explained to her that she would need to get a tracking chip implanted under her skin near her shoulder as part of her arrangement with Arthur. She couldn’t think of any easy way to avoid it, so she sat in the offered chair and stoically allowed the doctor to insert the microchip.
The procedure only took a few minutes, and then he and the two agents that had accompanied her left, one of them advising her on the way out that they would be in a parked car only a few yards away if she needed anything.
Even though she was tired, she resolved to go through the files that sat on the dining room table, along with a laptop computer for her use. She assumed that everything she did was being watched or tracked — that would be standard procedure in a safe house. It wasn’t worth trying to spot the various hidden cameras that were sure to be in every room. She couldn’t do anything to disable them that wouldn’t result in immediate problems, so she would have to make the best of being a virtual prisoner, albeit one with clean sheets and freshly-squeezed orange juice in the refrigerator.
Jet picked up the first folder and fell into an overstuffed reclining chair in the living room and then switched on a lamp next to it. A prominent Top Secret stamped across the top and bottom greeted her when she extracted the file.
Flipping it open, she found five photos grouped together on a contact sheet, followed by six more head shots of a Caucasian man in his early forties. Blond in some of them, brown-haired in others, a chocolate brunette in still others. Neutral features that had likely been rendered even more so by cosmetic surgery — field agents were often made to look generic so as to better blend into any situation and draw no attention. Hairstyles changed across the photos, with side parts replaced with a longish shag that gave him a vaguely bohemian look.
Most of the photos were taken from passport and official identification shots. His eyes varied in color as much as his hair, ranging from blue to green to brown.
She appraised him and saw a decent-looking, completely generic white man with no distinguishing qualities — a chameleon. Designed to be the perfect operational asset, capable of convincingly being a businessman one
