The Hunting Command (Grey Areas Triptych Book 1) Read online

  Silence … he couldn’t make out any ambient sounds from the room. The headphones must be closed-back.

  Three seconds later a frenetic piano introduction kicked in. The song was familiar, but it took until the vocals before he recognised it as one of Meatloaf’s grandiloquent epics.

  Resigned to his artificial isolation, he thought back to the Secret Service briefings he wished he had paid more attention to. Rest was important, he remembered that much. He let out a long breath, and he tried to relax.

  6. SUSPECTS

  ‘Okay folks, those were the Middle East contenders. Let’s have a look at our South American challengers. Over to you Brad.’

  Jesus H, thought Brad Weaver, he sounds like a beauty pageant host.

  He wasn’t. He was the Director of National Intelligence. Reporting directly to the President, he was the head of the United States Intelligence Community, and, despite his easy-going tenor, when he spoke he commanded the undivided attention of the representatives from the seventeen member agencies.

  That attention switched to Weaver.

  Laying a hand over the Central Intelligence Agency seal on the folder in front of him, Weaver felt the raised edges of the bald eagle and the sixteen-pointed compass below it. The other sixteen agency representatives had embossed folders of their own, but their agency seals were now hidden: each of them had opened their folders to check their notes while making their reports. Weaver’s folder would remain closed. A subtle one-upmanship he underscored by taking a slow look round the table before he said, ‘There are a couple of mouthy heads of state I’m sure you’re aware of, but frankly they don’t have the balls to back up their sabre rattling rhetoric. For completeness the assessments are on pages fifty-seven through to seventy-two of our report, but at this time I’d like to direct you to page eighty-four and our number one Latin American candidate.’

  Weaver gave them a moment to flick through the Langley-compiled document he had passed around earlier. Page eighty-four included a photograph: a close-up of a square-faced male with almond eyes, a small nose and straight black hair. Weaver knew some in the room would already be familiar with this particular mestizo.

  ‘Alejandro Quintero.’ Weaver said, making no effort at an authentic pronunciation. ‘Makes a pretty good fist of appearing to be a legitimate businessman. However, we know what he is, and one day we’ll be able to prove it in a court. In terms of turnover, we rate him the number three Capo in Colombia. For those of you keeping score, that’s fifteen million dollars per day.

  ‘Until recently Quintero kept his people politically neutral, and, depending on the location of their activities, they enjoyed protection from both left-wing and right-wing armed groups. For details of these groups go to pages one-oh-one to one-eleven. As you’ll see, these groups are classified as terrorist organisations.

  ‘Appendix Seven is a DEA report. To summarise, approximately twelve months ago Quintero became a little too cosy with the FARC rebels.

  ‘A previous DEA assessment determined there was no evidence of FARC involvement in the distribution of illegal drugs in the United States, and furthermore, as with other insurgent groups in the region, FARC was unlikely to become a major player as it lacked the ability to develop the logistical infrastructure required to establish itself as an independent drug distributor. FARC’s involvement in the Colombian drug industry was limited to collecting taxation from the drug trade in FARC controlled areas. So far, so good. Or at least, so far, so we-can-live-with-that.’

  Weaver and the Drug Enforcement Administration representative exchanged glances.

  ‘However,’ Weaver continued, ‘as you’ll see from Appendix Seven, we received intelligence suggesting Quintero and FARC had begun negotiating a strategic alliance. This would see FARC take over coca production in the areas they control, with Quintero providing the lab work and handling transportation, distribution and marketing in the United States and Europe. The judgement of both the DEA and the CIA was that the resulting boost in Quintero’s influence and the significant increase in FARC’s funding represented an unacceptable shift in the region. Action was taken.’

  Another glance between CIA and DEA.

  ‘Several smoking bolt and bang and burn operations, officially by Colombian agencies, successfully hampered further development of this strategic alliance, and our consultancy remained confidential.

  ‘However, Quintero is a smart boy.’ Weaver let the implication hang in an extended pause ... ‘If revenge is on his mind, he has the resources and the contacts in Europe to pull off what’s gone down in Vienna.’

  The print of the grainy traffic camera image, pincered between Feiersinger’s thumb and forefinger, was perfectly still. Diether Adler admired the smoothster’s control—the politico would surely be under significant stress—and Adler wondered if, in another life, Feiersinger would have made an excellent sniper.

  Adler nodded. ‘Yes, that could be Rikki De Witte. I know him from duties in Afghanistan and Kosovo. Good leader. Questionable human being. He certainly has … had appropriate skills and contacts for this morning’s action.’

  Feiersinger pursed his lips, laid the print in front of him and gazed at it. ‘So … putting aside the improbability of a most extraordinary coincidence, it is reasonable to consider it likely the De Witte shooting is linked to the abduction of the US Vice President. The Federal Police and the American agencies are investigating this. But we still need to talk to Degen.’ Feiersinger flicked through a file and pulled out a sheet. He shook it at Adler and said, ‘At the time De Witte was in Kosovo, Degen was also part of KFOR.’

  Adler waited until he was asked an actual question. When it came, Adler’s answer would begin with a girl’s scream.

  Kai Degen and Rikki De Witte had been in Kosovo at the same time. And they did have contact with each other. Once. But the exchange had been far from cordial.

  KFOR deployed into Kosovo with two main aims: to turn around the humanitarian crisis in the area; and to discourage Serbian hostility. Following their mandate, the NATO-led peacekeepers set about securing public safety and order. However, the presence of thousands of troops from forty-plus nations created an unexpected by-product: sexual slavery. With the introduction of the peacekeepers, Kosovo’s small market for prostitution exploded into a human-trafficking-supplied, highly organised and sizeable criminal industry.

  Of course KFOR personnel were not supposed to consort with prostitutes. But, boys will be boys. And far too many of those boys were unable or unwilling to distinguish between eyes-wide-open sex workers and abducted, intimidated and extremely unwilling sex slaves. And that was how Diether Adler came to witness Kai Degen and Rikki De Witte glaring into each other’s faces, like a pair of very angry, very dangerous bookends.

  De Witte growled, ‘Lay your sanctimonious hands on me again and—’

  Slap!

  Adler had blinked and missed the contact with the Dutchman’s face. But he caught the blur of Degen’s hand returning to his side.

  ‘Did you see that?’ An American voice. ‘Rikki got bitch-slapped.’

  Adler tensed, turned … relaxed. The table of Americans were being smart, and remaining spectators.

  De Witte was playing it smart too; he hadn’t been goaded into a rash lunge. He scowled at Degen, waiting for an opening. Seeing none, De Witte snarled, ‘The whore’s too skinny anyway.’ He stepped forward and Degen let the Dutchman get away with a shoulder bump as he made for the bar.

  Each nation was responsible for its soldiers’ conduct. Degen had no authority over De Witte, or any of the other out-of-uniform KFOR troops in the bar. But Adler could tell Degen was taking note of faces.

  Adler moved to the girl whose wrist De Witte had been gripping when Degen and Adler had burst into the bar. The girl looked to be about nineteen. And nervous. ‘Are you okay?’ Adler asked.

  The girl stopped rubbing her wrist; she shot a look at a gap-toothed local who was watching the scene from the end of the bar with unconceal
ed menace. ‘I good.’ The girl looked away from the bar. ‘All good.’ She smiled, unconvincingly. Adler noticed a thin scar on her chin. ‘You like drink?’ she asked. ‘I like drink.’

  Before Adler could answer, Degen was striding towards the end of the bar, demanding, ‘Who are you?’

  The gap-toothed local responded with a vainglorious sneer. ‘I am Besian.’ He spread his arms theatrically. ‘Welcome to Besian’s Bar.’

  Degen leaned in, speaking quietly into Besian’s ear. As he spoke, Degen waved a finger towards the girl, jabbed a thumb at De Witte and then stabbed a finger into Besian’s chest. Besian laughed. But his cackle was as unconvincing as the girl’s smile had been.

  ‘We both made reports,’ Adler said, ‘and I heard UNMIK sent police round to the bar. But …’ Adler shrugged. ‘A few weeks later we were rotated out of Kosovo early. That tended to happen when waves were made. I came across De Witte again in Afghanistan. He was still a prick, but he was an effective soldier.’

  ‘Did De Witte ever raise the incident in the bar with you?’

  Adler snorted a laugh. ‘De Witte didn’t remember me. Likely due to his alcohol consumption that night. I would guess scraps in bars weren’t unusual for De Witte.’

  Feiersinger steepled his fingers. ‘In the bar that evening in Kosovo, what did Degen say to this Besian?’

  Adler glanced at the photos on Feiersinger’s desk, and his eyes rested on the image of Rikki De Witte’s half-head ...

  ‘I never asked,’ he lied.

  7. MOTIVES

  ‘Son of a bitch,’ Grace Breckinridge whispered.

  Oliver Jamieson looked up from an organisational chart of the Senate leaders and officers. ‘What’ve you got?’

  Breckinridge sucked in a long breath. Her quick exhale segued into: ‘The Stop Trading On Congressional Knowledge Act.’

  Jamieson made an uh-huh face.

  ‘There’s a bill to amend the STOCK Act. It’s made it to the Legislative Calendar. The original Act focused on trading shares. Since it was passed, members of Congress, and their aides, can’t use inside information they learn on the job to trade stocks. But they can still sell political intelligence and pass on the information to hedge funds or other groups or individuals who can use it to make a killing.’

  An I-get-it nod.

  ‘And the STOCK Act doesn’t cover real estate or land deals,’ said Breckinridge. ‘The amendment aims to tighten things up. The original Act made it through the Senate sixty-forty. Voting on the amendment is expected to be a lot closer.’

  ‘Let me guess,’ Jamieson said. ‘The VP is in favour of the amendment?’

  Breckinridge nodded. ‘And there’s another bill. Well it hasn’t actually been introduced yet, but it will be soon, and this bill wants to put federal land back in the hands of individual states.’

  Jamieson immediately formed an idea where this was going. The US government had direct ownership of almost a third of the country. Six hundred and fifty million acres of military bases, reservations, nature parks, testing grounds and vast areas leased out to the private sector for agriculture, forestry and mining. Most of this was in the western states: In Idaho, Oregon and Utah more than fifty percent of the land was federally owned. In New Mexico, more than forty percent. Almost half of Arizona was federal land. And in Nevada, the figure was a staggering eighty-five percent.

  Breckinridge said, ‘The proposed bill will call for the Federal Government to pay rent for the use of military bases and testing grounds, for reservations to be managed by the individual states, and for the running of the national parks to be outsourced to commercial interests with federal subsidies.’

  ‘Privatise the national parks?’

  ‘Yup.’ Breckinridge picked up a pad she had scribbled notes on. ‘National parks account for eighty-five million acres of federal land. The National Park Service makes three hundred million dollars every year from recreation fees. Another seventy million from park concessions’ franchise fees. Plus three million for filming and photography fees. And then there’s the National Parks Service annual budget … three billion dollars. That’s a contract worth having.’

  A mouthed wow from Jamieson. ‘And the VP?’

  ‘Not a fan of the idea. Already intimated that if it came to it, he’d vote against.’

  ‘A little thin, Grace.’ Jamieson shook his head. ‘A bill like that will bounce around committees for a long time. The amount of horse-trading will be off the scale, especially with …’ Jamieson trailed off.

  ‘Presidential primaries coming up,’ said Breckinridge, with the look of someone whose point had just been made. ‘The President is in his second term. The VP is favourite for his party’s nomination. This is a popular administration. The VP has good numbers. If elected …’

  ‘He’d have the power to veto any new bill.’

  Breckinridge lowered her voice. ‘If this is what the VP’s abduction is about, we’re not getting him back alive.’

  Whatever he’d been plugged into had been on shuffle: Dean Martin, Blue Oyster Cult, something classical (used in a lot of movie trailers), Scott Walker, The Eels, something African (jingly guitars), Carly Simon, Wings (the one that sounded like three songs stuck together), Doris Day, Talking Heads and a few artists he didn’t recognise kept him company until the toilet break, which hadn’t been as humiliating as he’d been expecting. He’d been lifted out of the armchair, then—wrists handcuffed and trousers at ankles—lowered onto what he assumed was a portable camping toilet. He had only pissed. Probably a relief to his captors. Maybe next time he would make them wipe his ass.

  Back in the chair, the hood had been lifted enough for a sports-top water bottle to be pressed between his lips, and he’d quickly gulped down six or seven mouthfuls. He’d been parched: the temperature in the loft had increased considerably since his arrival, and the hood trapped a lot of his body heat.

  Food was a not-too-sweet energy-bar. He sat quietly, chewing.

  ‘Your sensible cooperation is appreciated sir.’ A woman’s voice. Heavier accent than the male who had spoken before. Russian maybe or— Wait, a woman! Had she been there all along? Indignation flared his cheeks, and his mastication became deliberate and sullen.

  Daniel Calhoun stared at the patterns made by the coffee stains on the wall as though they were some kind of Rorschach test. But he didn’t see bats, or butterflies, or clowns, or genitals. He saw blood spatter.

  ‘Do you believe in coincidence?’ James Kang had said, just before breaking the news that a Dutchman had been killed in the centre of Vienna.

  A Dutchman?

  ‘Headshot. While he was having a beer in a park. Former Special Forces. Name’s Rikki De Witte.’

  A pause.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I, uh ... what do we know about him?’ Calhoun had asked, but he had barely taken in Kang’s reply (something about a vacation, a farm and De Witte’s wife not knowing his whereabouts that morning). Calhoun had been distracted by the jolting panic in his chest.

  Eventually Kang had stopped talking and walked off to do … something. Sometime after that, Calhoun’s heart rate had returned to near normal while he’d stared at the coffee spatter, a numbness percolating through him.

  Newly appointed Special Agents with the US Secret Service were assigned to field offices throughout the USA, where they investigated crimes affecting the country’s financial infrastructure: counterfeiting, fraud, money laundering and identity theft. With six or seven years field office experience under their belts, Special Agents were typically transferred to a protective assignment, which would last three, perhaps five years, before returning to a US field office. However, agents with linguistic skills had the opportunity to work in one of the Service’s international field offices.

  Calhoun’s father had been among the thirty-seven million Americans claiming Irish ancestry. Calhoun’s mother had been born in Basel, Switzerland, and she had insisted her children were taught French and German.<
br />
  Calhoun’s fluent French saw him posted to the Paris field office.

  The Vice President, being from Austrian stock, had insisted his mini-tour of Europe (originally Belfast, Berlin, Bucharest) include a stopover in Vienna, to pay respect to his roots. Calhoun’s four years experience of protective duty, plus his reasonably-good German had seen him being reassigned to the advance team responsible for organising the necessary security measures in the Austrian capital.

  On his final night in Paris, Calhoun had been approached by a tall Dutchman.

  The coffee stains blurred. Calhoun wiped the moisture from his eyes and glanced about. No one was watching him. And to keep it that way he had to pull himself together. Perhaps there was a sniper on a rooftop waiting for him. Or someone would nudge him in front of a passing tram. Or ... speculation was pointless. If they wanted him dead, they would find a way. There was nothing he could do to protect himself. Calhoun could confess his involvement in the VP’s abduction, but would that guarantee his safety. Slim to zero, those were his chances.

  And what would coming clean achieve anyway? At best, prison. For a long time. No deals. He had next to nothing to trade: details of a bank account De Witte had set up for Calhoun’s fee to be paid into; the new identity De Witte (or whoever he worked for) had created for Calhoun to eventually assume; and one other name, Dierk Wald, whom Calhoun had met with only once—to pass on intel about the VP’s visit—and even then Wald had stayed in shadows.

  All Calhoun could do was hope the fact he knew so little would be enough to make him no threat, or that De Witte’s killing was something other than a tying up of loose ends. So he would stick to the plan: He would continue his irascible act. He would be moody and distracted (considering the situation, not likely to be a stretch). His performance levels would fall, and he would leave the Service. He would take a job with security consultants. He would lose touch with his former colleagues. He would fade away, becoming just another burn-out. And then he would start his new life. A new life paid for by the selling out of his old one.