Enemy Agents, page 5
The hotel had a bar in the lobby and she lingered, looking in, tempted. Her hands clenched and she walked away.
In her room she ran a scalding bath, stripped out of her clothes and scratched out the third-floor escape plan on her blueprints. With the water still steaming she climbed into the tub, kneeled down, dunked her head under painfully hot water, and screamed until she was out of breath.
6
Chris Quarrel was sitting in an empty office in a government building on the other side of Ottawa. The walls were recently patched but not painted, so several spots of white putty blotted the pale violet walls. The desk was cheap chipboard and peeling veneer, and the filing cabinet had two locked drawers nobody could find the keys for. Not that it mattered. This wasn’t Quarrel’s office. It was more like a waiting room. Or a jail cell.
With his entire office dead, Quarrel had become both a witness and a liability. He had spent the Tuesday and Wednesday in interrogation rooms, being asked the same questions by a series of men and women. He had very little to tell them. There was a strange letter. “Have you noticed the Letter Six yet?” A report classified level seven, that Quarrel had never opened. Correspondence from several foreign employees, who Quarrel did not know by name. A copy of Jekyll and Hyde that Quarrel guessed was part of a book cipher. That was all he knew. The detail of whom the letter was addressed to—T. Takahashi—Chris kept to himself. Carol had been damned worried about that little detail and Chris wasn’t about to break the last promise he had made to her.
With every new person who came to ask questions, Quarrel became more convinced that they all wished someone more important had survived. Someone who had real answers. Every few hours, for the entire week, someone new had come along to ask questions and left disappointed. The one thing everyone knew for sure was that a lowly functionary like Chris probably didn’t have any clue about any information that would be worth blowing up a building to destroy. Most of these interrogations/interviews/grief counselling sessions included a middle-aged man with greying red hair named Mr. Thompson. Thompson was a clearance level 4, and as such he was a nice buffer between lowly Chris Quarrel and the higher-ups who answered to the politicians.
Nevertheless, the mere fact of surviving was enough to draw suspicion. Chris was neither a helpful witness nor a very likely bomber, but there were people in the service who saw him as both. Thompson was nice enough, and Quarrel was glad to see that Thompson at least seemed to believe Quarrel’s eyewitness account was helpful. Because of this, instead of sitting him in the interrogation room each day, Quarrel was given this half-renovated office to sit in and while away his days whenever he wasn’t being questioned. He was given freedom to leave at night (under surveillance so obvious Chris felt both insulted and disappointed), and was back to sitting in the waiting room on the Thursday, the third day after the bombing.
Bored and fed up with his status as a pariah, Quarrel headed out into the hallway and started to wander. He poked his head into offices, rounded corners where he’d never been. When he saw an unfamiliar face he tried to act like he belonged there, and when he saw someone who knew him he pretended that he was just getting some coffee.
“Twelve hours to the deadline and you still don’t have it?” The voice came from inside an office on the third floor.
“It’s an entire country. At this point any analysis would be more guesswork than science.”
“I’ve got to give the Brits something. Triple-Eight won’t last much longer. They expect an answer within a half hour.”
Quarrel stood in the doorway and looked inside. The office was more like a classroom, with papers and maps stuck to bulletin boards along the walls. The centre center of the room was a large table covered in papers, laptops, and coffee cups. Three men, plainly bookworms, sat at the table, looking like they hadn’t slept in days. All three wore rumpled clothing, and the room smelled like they’d been there too long. The demanding one wore glasses, the others didn’t. All three had their backs to Quarrel, focused on a map pinned to the wall. It was a map of France, with pins stuck in three places. One was obviously Paris, one a little southeast was likely Lyon, and one on the Mediterranean coast might have been Cannes or even Monaco.
“What are you looking for?” Quarrel asked.
They turned. “Who the hell are you?” asked the one with glasses. Before Quarrel could answer, he continued with “This is restricted information. Stick to your security level.”
But Quarrel was starting to remember that corner of paper Carol had been holding. What was the title? R E :888. And the man had just said something about triple-eight.
Quarrel ignored him, walked through the room and approached the map on the wall. He fought to remember the email he had seen in Carol’s hand. He had gone through training for this sort of thing, speed-reading, visual recall, and so on. The pin on the Med coast wasn’t stabbed in either Cannes or Monaco, but between them.
“How did you narrow the cities down?”
“Who the hell—” stammered Glasses.
“I work in an office that you don’t know about, and never will because it blew up on Monday. Now tell me what the hell I’m looking at.”
“These are the only French cities where Sidorov is known to control properties.”
Quarrel had no idea who this Sidorov was, but Carol’s email had been very clear about what to say next. Quarrel jabbed his hand at the pin on the Med.
“Nice. Definitely Nice.”
“Because some random guy walks in—”
“Tell them CSIS-2 confirmed it. Definitely Nice.”
Quarrel walked out, leaving the three men to gape at each other. When he was back out in the hallway, one of them shouted, “There’s a CSIStwo?”
#
William Thorpe had not slept in three days. He had spent all three of those days naked, tied to a chair in a warehouse. He could tell he was in France, but otherwise he didn’t know where he was.
Sidorov liked torture. He lived for the prospect of maiming and killing his enemies. And Thorpe had been his enemy for a long time. However, they hadn’t hurt him as much as he expected. Sidorov had a reputation for making tortures last up to a month, often resuscitating his victims so he could kill them again later.
What was it he had threatened?“Tarred and feathered or drawn and quartered.” Thorpe expected that sometime soon, Sidorov would make good on that promise. While he had trained himself to resist any torture, to never let his spirit break, a small voice inside hoped that Sidorov would at least leave his body somewhere his country could find it. He wanted to be buried in England, to spend eternity next to Julia.
No, said another part of him, a stronger part. You’re not dead yet, old man.
Sidorov had tied him to a wooden chair and then simply did nothing to him. That was the torture. No standing or lying down, no bathroom breaks, and starvation. Sidorov’s goons would let Thorpe drink as much water as he wanted, but food was strictly denied. It was now day three, and Thorpe’s lower body was completely numb. His head throbbed constantly, his belly ached and distended, and every muscle he could still feel was in agony at the combination of starvation and discomfort.
So far, Thorpe had not screamed.
On this evening, he was only guarded by a single thug, a local hire who he didn’t recognize as one of Sidorov’s regulars. Thorpe knew that even if he could somehow get free of his bonds, his extreme weakness and exhaustion would ensure that this thug could take him. Sidorov didn’t need to post more than one guard now, because Thorpe’s body was wearing down.
When he first woke up, Sidorov had been there, and so had Morris, who was wrapped in bandages after an underworld doctor had cut Thorpe’s bullet out of him. Morris was the one who had told them to take Thorpe’s clothes, a lesson he learned after Thorpe’s watch had freed him the first time. But now, both Morris and Sidorov only visited occasionally. Ignoring a prize as hated as Thorpe meant they were working on something big. Something that required a lot of attention.
There was s crash somewhere to the left, out of sight. It was Sidorov, kicking the door open. He entered slowly, hunched over, carrying a heavy, lidded bucket in each hand. Thorpe’s eyes needed a moment to focus before he could read the labels on the buckets. Sidorov had brought two 17-litre containers of driveway sealer. Tar.
Following Sidorov was a second goon, one who had guarded Thorpe the day before. This one rolled an empty oil drum. Thorpe understood immediately. They probably had feather pillows somewhere too.
“So that’s it, then?” he asked Sidorov.
The Russian grinned. “I’m looking forward to your death.”
“I heard you could torture a man for weeks on end. Those stories must be rubbish if you can’t even go four days before killing me.”
Sidorov was already setting up a little ring of cinder blocks. He would want a fire under that barrel to get the tar nice and hot. He spoke casually, as if he didn’t even feel the malice in his words. “Mr. Thorpe, if I could, I would make you my masterpiece. I would cut off pieces one-by-one, letting each heal before I took the next. I would leave you as a faceless, armless, legless beast. I would take one lung, one kidney, both eyes, and all your teeth. I would burn and freeze and bludgeon and stab you. I would deafen you with loud music and feed you your own organs. I would deliver your heart to your Queen. But I am a busy man and I don’t have time to give you what you deserve. Tar and feathers shall do.”
Thorpe didn’t hesitate in his response, not wanting Sidorov to think, even for a moment, that this torture was working. “I don’t see any feathers.”
Sidorov started to say something, then stopped and his cheek twitched. He spoke to the Russian thug, and the Russian gave a nervous answer.
“It seems we forgot the feathers. Nevertheless. The tar will take time to warm up. By the time I get back, we’ll have quite a show.”
He barked orders at the two goons, and left the same way he had come. The two goons set about building a fire pit from the cinder blocks, placing the barrel on top of it, and pouring the thick black tar into the drum. The quiet inner voice once again thought of Julia.
And then there were two quiet sounds. Twip-twip.
And the goons dropped dead.
There had been no warning. No siren, no signal. They had entered and infiltrated in total silence, like fog creeping through an open window; a team of MI-6 agents coming in from every direction. They swarmed toward Thorpe, cutting him free while the old agent fought the urge to sigh in relief.
“Where’s Sidorov?” one black-clad agent asked.
“Out buying pillows.”
“Anything you need, Triple-Eight?”
“I’ll start with my pants,” Thorpe said, “then a bloody large martini.”
7
A day later, still sequestered in the unfinished office, Quarrel was sitting with his feet up on the desk reading a magazine, when the phone rang. Quarrel was surprised the phone was even hooked up. It had never rung before, and he’d never had any reason to pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Speedy?”
Carol had assigned everyone at her CSIS-2 office both a number and a codename. The number was on file. While those in the field got low numbers, double-digits, Chris was number 4042. The names, however, were not on file. They were strictly in-house, memorized by those who needed to know. Chris had only known his own name and those of a few direct superiors, and Erica, the one person who worked under him. In a quirk that must have given her some private fun, Carol had named everyone for DC Comics superheroes. Carol herself was Wonder Woman, and others included Mr. Freeze and Black Canary. Chris had been named Speedy, after the sidekick of Green Arrow. He had been disappointed, after Wikipedia-ing the character, to find that modern-day Speedy was actually a girl. It suggested that Carol didn’t give the slightest thought to personalizing a cool codename. But that concern was childish even back then, and was absurdly petty now that Carol was gone.
In fact, everyone who had known that name was dead, weren’t they?
“This is Speedy.”
“My Name is Harry Milton. I work for the CIA. You’ll want to verify that, even though simply getting through to your phone is proof enough. So call your superior and ask about me. I’ll call back in five minutes. And you might want to take this seriously if you intend to learn about Takahashi.”
The man hung up. Chris did as he was told and called the head of the station. He asked about Harry Milton and if he was legitimate. The chief, a man called Brooks, was unhappy that he had to lower himself off his pedestal to talk to someone as useless as Chris, but the mention of Milton made him sigh loudly and confirm that Milton was for real. While he waited for Milton to call back, Quarrel tried not to focus on how much he hated dealing with his so-called colleagues and once again wished he could be deployed into a nice, faraway city somewhere. Somewhere alone. Man on a mission. None of this bureaucracy and politicking.
The phone rang again.
“Quarrel,”
“Speedy?” said the man on the phone.
“Yes. I checked you out.”
“Good,” said Milton. “I’m told that you’re the last person who ever talked to Carol Kimura.”
“Yes.”
“Wrong. I was. After you spoke to her about the letter you opened, she called me. An hour later she was dead. And we both know why. Theresa Takahashi.”
“I never told anybody th—”
“Never told a soul. I know. And that means you have good instincts. We have a leak, Quarrel. Someone’s got high-level information and they’re using it against us. Your co-workers were not the first to die. One of my deep-cover operatives was taken out the day before. Which means that you and I are the only people who know that something’s fishy in the community. My people are already booking your transfer to Langley.”
“Transfer, sir?” asked Chris.
“You’ve just been called up to the big leagues.”
#
Chris Quarrel approached the customer service desk at a bank in suburban Virginia.
“How can I help you, sir?” asked the woman at the desk.
“I’d like a loan to buy a Jet Ski,” said Quarrel.
“Do you have collateral?”
“Only my father’s watch.”
“Follow me.”
The woman led Quarrel to an office at the back of the building, told him to sit, and left. She closed the door behind her, and Quarrel heard it lock. Quarrel looked around. It was a very boring office: An organized desk with a large blotter, a framed photo of a woman dressed in out-of-date fashions, and a motivational poster on the wall that said “Faith” with a picture of a man about to bungee jump. The blinds on the window were closed. Most of the brushed concrete floor was covered by a large, ugly area rug depicting a squiggle of blue lines on a background of brown squares. After a moment’s hesitation, Quarrel followed the woman’s instructions, and sat in the armchair in front of the banker’s desk.
After about twenty seconds, there was a click and Quarrel started to lower into the floor. The busy tangle of lines on the rug had perfectly concealed the seams where the drop-away floor was outlined. Chris, the chair, and a four-by-six-foot section of the carpet steadily lowered into the floor until he was so deep underground that the bank office became a small square of light overhead.
Finally, the downward movement slowed, and light appeared in front of Chris’s feet. The other three sides of the shaft were solid concrete, but in front of the chair the wall ended eight feet above the floor, creating an opening. Once the elevator reached the same level as the floor in front of him, Quarrel stood.
There was an old man waiting for him. Harry Milton was almost seventy, with sagging jowls and thin, grey hair. He wore a neatly pressed shirt tucked into rumpled pants, and his shoes were a new pair of sneakers.
“Quarrel,” said Milton. “Good of you to join us.”
“Sir,” said Quarrel, shaking the elder’s hand. “It’s an honour.”
“Nonsense. You wouldn’t call me ‘sir’ if you knew the things I’ve done.” Milton paused while they started to walk down the corridor. “But then again, you never will.”
The office was four stories below ground, and made entirely of concrete. In a few spots the walls had been painted, but mostly this was a grey, ugly place with fluorescent lighting and no windows. Quarrel noticed a series of coloured lines on some of the walls, like you’d see in a hospital, but decided not to ask what they meant or where they led.
He also noticed the dozens of security cameras that were constantly watching him. They were out in the open, hanging from the ceilings, not hidden under plastic domes or behind mirrors. These were the ones they wanted you to see, and Quarrel immediately understood that the best cameras were undetectable. The hallway led to a large office space, divided into cubicles. Along one wall was a bank of TVs, and there were several small rooms off to the left that looked like editing bays or some kind of video-dubbing rooms. They walked straight through the middle of the office, and the pathway led them directly into Milton’s private office. Milton closed the door to provide some privacy, and Quarrel sat down.
“No cameras in here?” asked Quarrel.
“None that I approved of. Or that I can find. But probably, someone’s watching.” Milton sat behind his messy desk, littered with both intelligence reports and fast-food cartons. “Why, you paranoid already?”
“Someone did try to blow me up. Plus I’ve just never been to a CIA facility before.”
“We’re not CIA. That’s just what I tell people on the phone. We’re CIB. Counter-Intelligence Bureau. It’s our job to screw with the guys who want to screw the CIA.”
