week, a tourist the next, a professor the following one, a journalist or doctor or attorney at whim. She supposed, somewhere there was a file at the Mossad with similar photographs of her, although David had sworn that none of the team existed in the official records. Like so much of what he’d professed, she now doubted the veracity of his assurances.
The target’s name was Matthew Hawker. Matt, to his ex-colleagues. His list of aliases ran two pages.
Forty-four years old, born in Philadelphia, recruited from college after serving a stint with the American Army’s ultra-elite Delta Force commandoes, his service record while in the army classified, but with a short note that he was an expert in special operations, insertions, explosives, sniping, and every kind of weapon. Scuba certified. A pilot’s license dated three years after his honorable discharge. A bachelor in international business from Hampton University. Spoke fluent Vietnamese, Thai and Cantonese from having been raised abroad by parents who had been with the U.S. diplomatic corps. No further elaboration on what positions they’d held.
Hawker’s first assignment in the field for the CIA had been in Cambodia, where he had been stationed undercover as a small time exporter, collecting data on strategic targets in the region and developing a network of informants. From there he moved around, to Vietnam, and then ultimately to Thailand, where he had been the most senior field agent in-country. The operations he was involved in were classified at a higher level than the file could reveal, but she could read between the lines with Myanmar right across the border. A senior field agent with these skills would have been involved in information gathering, insurgency sponsorship, and assassinations — whatever was required.
He’d been offered promotions to desk positions in Langley three times over the last four years and had declined them all. Apparently, Hawker liked to play the field. She understood the type of personality — once you lived in the parallel reality that was covert ops it was hard to ever go back to living any kind of a normal life. It was addictive, even if hazardous to one’s health.
She looked at the photos again and noted that his eyes had the same flat, expressionless gaze that her photos always had. A professional skill learned early. The eyes were indeed the windows to the soul, and one of the first lessons had been that it was best to shutter them at all times.
Hawker’s personal relationships were limited to casual girlfriends that never got serious — the story she knew all too well from having lived the life. You avoided entanglements and compartmentalized everything — there was no way of knowing on any particular day whether you would be redeployed the next, or have to run. It was a difficult existence where an operative was an island unto himself, isolated from all the usual connections that humans naturally sought out. For that reason, her relationship with David had been forbidden and would have provoked immediate consequences, had it ever been discovered. You could never grow close to anyone. It was dangerous, and endangered your partner. Better to keep it limited to the superficial, never growing attached.
Nothing in Hawker’s background suggested anything but a model agent. There could have been no warning that he would betray the master he’d served obediently for close to two decades.
His last assignment wasn’t described in the file. Which was understandable. At some point, all documentation became vague as an agent became immersed in more sensitive areas — as Arthur had intimated, in affairs that required discretion and deniability.
She pored over the information again, committing it to memory, and then stretched and yawned. It was two in the morning. The rest would have to wait till the following day.
Jet locked the front door deadbolt, slid the security chain in place and peered through the window. The two agents were hardly visible in their government sedan. She padded to the bedroom, took a quick shower and brushed her teeth — making a mental note to go shopping soon and get some clothes. Hers were due for a change.
The bed was blissfully comfortable, and she was asleep within a few minutes of her head hitting the pillow. The cameras and eavesdropping devices recorded her tossing and turning several hours later, along with a few muffled cries as her slumber was disturbed by visions of her daughter being torn from her bosom, and of a white- tufted monster covered with scar tissue tormenting her as she lost her grasp.
Jet awoke at eight and, for a few seconds, didn’t know where she was. Then the prior day’s events came rushing back to her, and she forced herself to roll out of bed and start the day.
She pulled open a drawer and found a pair of elastic waist running shorts that sort of fitted her and several extra-large T-shirts that didn’t. She pulled one on and studied her reflection in the dresser mirror — not the height of fashion, but it would do.
The orange juice was a welcome breakfast complement to the energy bars she found in the pantry cupboard, and after consuming two, she was preparing for a run when the telephone on the kitchen wall rang.
“I trust you’re up,” Arthur said when she picked up the handset.
“You know I am. The cameras would have told you I was.”
“I’ll arrange for some clothes to be brought in while you are out on what I presume is your morning run.”
“Good guess.”
“Any special requests?”
“Yes. Skip the clothes, and leave a thousand dollars in cash and keys to a car. I want to select my own clothes.”
“Fine on the money, but no on the car. You don’t have any ID yet, including a driver’s license. I can’t afford for you to get into an accident and trigger any questions. I’ll arrange for a driver at whatever time you like.”
She glanced at her watch.
“One o’clock. I want to spend a few hours on the files before.”
“That will work. Is there anything else you need?”
“If there is, I’ll just announce it in a loud voice in any of the rooms. You can take it from there.”
“This is only for a short while. I’m hoping you’ll want to get into the field and take care of this errand.”
“Is there anything else?”
“No. I’ll send someone by at one.”
Just the sound of his voice enraged her while simultaneously giving her the creeps. She swallowed her anger with an effort, then moved to the door and swung it open. No point in locking it with the two agents parked outside. Two new ones, she noted as she stretched, before heading down the sidewalk towards a park at the far end of the block. A male jogger took up position a hundred yards behind her as she crossed the street to the park. The agency was wasting no effort.
An hour later, she trotted back to the front door and did her cool down stretches before mounting the three steps and re-entering. A small pile of twenty and hundred dollar bills sat on the kitchen table along with a smaller T-shirt and a few hygiene items. Someone had been thinking, but it was hardly comprehensive, and she would need to stop at a pharmacy as well as a clothing store.
After another shower, she towel-dried her hair and returned her attention to the files, selecting one of the two she hadn’t yet read.
This one was different. A provisional report; incomplete and filled with speculation.
Anthony Simms, age thirty-two, had been dispatched into Laos after receiving word that Hawker had taken up residence in the hills there and was employing a group of anywhere from ten to fifty armed men, depending upon the source. Simms was an experienced field agent with a ten-year history of successful sanctions in the region — in other words, an assassin who did nothing but kill. His operational background was purely one of executions. No other kind of missions.
Simms had followed up on a tip about the location of the target’s base camp. He had checked in every four hours as required, but one and a half days into his trek he had gone dark. His tracking chip had placed him north of the Mekong river in an uninhabited stretch of jungle infamous for drug syndicates and smugglers. The chip had stopped transmitting at ten p.m. local time. Simms had never been heard from again. His body was found a week later near the Laos border in Thailand, badly decomposed and mostly eaten by the local animals. Final identification had only been possible through dental records.
That wasn’t particularly helpful.
Other than informing her that one of the CIA’s more experienced killers had made his final mistake.
She returned the file to the table and opened the second one.
This time two operatives, both from the most elite of the CIA’s wet teams, had been deployed when the Thai agent in charge had gotten wind that Hawker was involved with a network of human traffickers and a slavery syndicate that supplied one of the larger prostitution networks in Bangkok.
