Chevy Chase, Maryland
The next morning
Jason had found a hotel in Crystal City with a kennel for Pangloss. Both had spent a morose evening: the dog in unhappy confinement, Jason considering calling to get a table at Kincade's, one of the capital's better seafood places, before deciding the restaurant was too infested with memories. Instead, he elected to avoid his room's ever-remindful view of the Pentagon and eat in a dining room that justified every joke that had ever been made at the expense of hotel food.
A morning sky unmarred by clouds and a sun that turned a city of glass into gold improved Jason's spirits. Better weather did nothing for Pangloss, who barked most pitifully when Jason left the kennel after checking on him. Renting a car, he was at a nearby men's store when it opened. After purchasing two sweaters, slacks, and a Burberry raincoat with removable lining, Jason got on the Beltway and headed north.
When he exited the multilane road, he picked his way carefully, relying on memories two or three years old.
Where quaint towns had dotted the landscape, strip centers and outlet malls competed for space. Rolling farms had become subdivisions of McMansions on tiny lots. By equal parts navigational skill and blind luck, he finally saw the snaking brick wall that formed the boundary of the office park he sought.
Jason scanned the uniform plaques outside each building until he found the one he wanted: Narcom, Inc., one more acronymically named entity whose title did nothing to inform the observer of the company's function or distinguish it from its neighbors. Its one unique feature was a subterranean parking lot, a seemingly superfluous amenity in an office park where space was readily available. At the entrance to the down ramp, a wooden arm blocked passage until a ticket was taken.
Any semblance of normality ended with appearances.
Jason knew that while the car was waiting for the machine to spit out a ticket, scales set into the floor were weighing the vehicle. In less than a second, a computer compared the poundage to the manufacturer's specified weight, adjustments were made for a possible full tank of gas, and a formula applied for the number of occupants. Should the car exceed what the system deemed normal, a steel curtain would drop from the ceiling, preventing further access while probes extended from the walls to take air samples in much the same way bomb-sniffing dogs operated at airports.
The machine determined the rental car posed no risk, and Jason drove into a nearly empty basement. An elevator returned him to ground level, and he entered the three stories of smoked glass. Last night's rain was still a thousand diamonds on the carefully manicured lawn along the flagstone pathway to the entrance.
Almost all the buildings in the vicinity displayed signs announcing the services of one or more security companies. So did this one. Visibility was, after all, part of security. An intruder would, presumably, be less inclined to invade the premises of an establishment guarded by the usual electronic devices.
There were certain differences from nearby similar structures, had one looked in the right places, differences of which no ordinary burglar would have ever heard. But then, it was not the ordinary burglar Narcom wished to deter.
Jason knew his image was being transmitted inside by a series of well-concealed cameras. One step off the path would trigger sensors buried an inch or so deep under lush grass, green despite the season. The glass of the exterior was reinforced sufficiently to withstand any projectile smaller than an artillery shell. Well out of sight from below, the roof sprouted a forest of antennae. Window shades were rubber lined. When pulled, as they were anytime an important conversation was in progress, they made it impossible for listening devices outside to pick up vibrations in the glass caused by words spoken inside.
An electric eye opened the door as Jason reached it. The lobby, the twin of hundreds of others in the area, contained the usual potted plants and a reception desk manned by a woman who, by any measure, should have made an appearance on one of those reality shows where looks compensated for lack of plot. She had the pale, clear skin that went with naturally blond hair, and blue eyes without warmth.
As Jason approached, she watched with cold disinterest. From a few feet away he could read the tag pinned to the black camisole-type top, which, though not transparent, gave the impression of frilly lingerie underneath. He was not surprised to learn her name was Kim, nor would Lisa, Lori, or Ashley have been a shock.
He knew from previous observation that her fingers were never more than a few inches from a panel of screens that, when touched, could do everything from locking every door in the building to lowering a steel curtain between the entrance and the receptionist. Behind her, a mir rored wall was actually two-way glass, giving a complete view of the lobby to armed men who waited in perpetual readiness for whatever situation might arise. The place's security was second only to the White House's.
Kim imitated a smile, flashing teeth that would have inspired any orthodontist. "Help you, sir?"
"Good morning, Kim. I'm Jason Peters, and I'm expected."
She gave Jason a slow inspection, making no effort to conceal the fact that she was appraising him in the same way she might decide whether an insect was likely to sting or bite. Under other circumstances he might have taken a lingering look like that as interest, but her manner was of one who had no intent of inviting personal overtures. An expensive fur coat draped over the far corner of the counter explained a lot. He doubted Kim could have purchased it on her salary. She already had a "friend" with a bankroll.
Girls like Kim got minks the same way minks got minks.
"If you'll just step over here, sir."
Jason was familiar with the drill. Extending both arms, he placed the thumb of each hand on a screen that was part of the top of the desk.
She watched a monitor behind the desk. "Mr. Peters, I see you have a meeting in a few minutes. Know your way?"
"Indeed I do." He walked to the left of the desk, bowing slightly. "A delight to have made your acquaintance."
Kim had already returned to staring at the monitors in front of her.
A previously invisible door wheezed open, and Jason entered a small room, where he was patted down by one man while another, an M16A2 assault rifle in the crook of his arm, observed. A large dog of indeterminate breed sniffed for explosives.
The dog made Jason think of Pangloss, and he wished they both were back in the low-tech world of the Turks and Caicos. By now the day would be well under way there, the sun up hours ago. Reality intruded and he sighed, aware that it was unlikely he would ever claim North Caicos as a residence again, not if he wanted to stay alive. The place would be under observation.
"You'll have to empty your pockets."
Jason produced the rental car keys, a handful of change, and a small pocketknife.
The man not holding the rifle looked skeptically at the latter. "This some sort of weapon?"
"Not if you're attacking anything larger than a mouse. The blade is less than two inches long."
A moment of indecision. Jason could almost hear the line of thought: if box cutters could be used to take over airliners…
Jason handed it over. "Tell you what: you hold it till I come back through. If I have to kill someone, I'll do it with my bare hands."
"Thank you, sir." The man was clearly happy to be relieved of having to make a decision. "It'll be waiting for you."
As Jason stepped forward, there was a buzz, the snick of heavy bolts sliding, and the door on the other side of the room whirred open. A bank of two elevators faced him. Jason knew there were no buttons for selection of floors inside either. The cars moved at the direction of people elsewhere in the building.
Two floors up, another man greeted him with an expressionless face and voice to match. "This way, Mr. Peters."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned to precede Jason down a corridor flanked with steel doors.
The hall was deserted, filled with only the faint hum of electronic equipment and the sound of four shoes squeaking on linoleum. At the end a door swung open, throwing a beam of light into the otherwise dim hall. Framed in silhouette was a woman whose features appeared clearer as he drew close. Not old but not young, either. She wore listless brown hair in a bun behind her long, thin face.
She dismissed his escort and extended a slender hand to touch Jason's. The feel of her skin was as arid and cool as the first autumn breezes along the Potomac. She wore the fragrance he remembered, something that smelled of dried flowers.
"Bond, James Bond, to see M," he said in an overdone British accent.
She favored him with the threat of a smile. "Hello, Jason. Good to see you again. You're looking fit, all tan. The tropics must agree with you."
"Certainly more than Washington, Miss Tyson."
She clucked disapprovingly. "Now, now, Jason. We're happy to see you again."
He wondered if the pronoun included her boss. He had never known the boss to be happy about anything that didn't involve death, destruction, and mayhem of some sort.
"Nice to see you again, too."
Still holding his hand, she drew him across the threshold and the door silently swung shut.
Jason glanced around, noting the lack of change. The same bleak reception area, furnished with only a desk and secretarial chair that faced a worn leather couch. The walls were without windows or pictures. The room had the personality of a dial tone. He had often wondered how someone could spend time in such quarters, looking at nothing. Particularly if, as was the case with Miss Tyson, they never seemed to have anything to do. Perhaps she came in here only when her boss was expecting someone.
As though reading his thoughts, she pointed to the only wooden door he had seen in the building. "Go right in."
He knocked briskly, the comparatively mellow thump of wood somehow soothing after all the steel, and the door opened.
On the other side, the office was as lavish as Miss Tyson's space was spartan. Jason stepped onto the muted blues and reds of an antique Khurasan that cost more than most houses. The rug's colors were softly repeated in four original Renoirs whose gilt frames hung on fabric wall covering. An Edwardian breakfront occupied most of the far wall, behind its rippled glass a collection of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century first editions. Floating on the rug's center medallion like a ship adrift, a mahogany partners' desk was topped with hand-tooled, gold-edged
Behind the desk sat an enormous black woman clad in a flowing caftan with an African print. With a hand the size of a catcher's mitt, she held the receiver of the telephone that was the only item on the desk. With the other, she motioned Jason into one of four Scalamandre silk wing chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of her.
He was unable to understand the language she was speaking, but, from the rare familiar word and hand gestures that accompanied each utterance, he guessed it was some dialect of Arabic or Farsi. He sat and waited.
Jason had to smile as he watched her, the ultimate minority-business-program beneficiary. An emigre from Haiti, she was simultaneously black, female, and non-Christian, embracing a belief in the African gods of voodoo and Santeria. She was the poster girl for politicians espousing egalitarianism above all. Unlike many such recipients of government largesse, however, she had qualifications beyond race, sex, and religion. As former second in command of her native land's Tonton Macoute, she was skilled at interrogation, torture, assassination, and manipulation of the political process, a resume the awareness of which no elected official could admit. Had anyone demurred at the government doing business with a person previously associated with an organization whose brutality made Hitler's Gestapo look like Boy Scouts, he would have been denounced not only as a racial and religious bigot, but sexist as well.
She served her only client well and was generously compensated for taking on unsavory tasks to which no democratically elected government could admit, but which no government, democratic or otherwise, could do without. Any scruples she possessed related only to her "boys" and to the proper preparation of the fiery Creole cuisine of her homeland. Dealing with the nation's enemies of today required an unrelenting barbarity that made congressional stomachs churn. Narcom, Inc., provided the political antacid of deniability.
It was a marriage made perhaps not in heaven, but strong nonetheless.
In less than a minute she hung up and came around the desk. Jason stood to receive a hug that might have crushed the lungs of a man less fit.
"Jason! Good to see you again; always good to see one of Mama's boys!"
Mama's boys, the name she gave all her operatives, although Jason had met very few. By its nature, Narcom's business was strictly compartmentalized.
She relaxed her embrace, allowing Jason to draw a breath before he sat down. She returned to her chair behind the desk before speaking.
"How you doin' on that island of yours?"
"I'm not there anymore. I had some visitors."
As he related what had happened, she nodded. "Uh-huh. You stirred a stick in a bees' nest when you did Alazar down there in St. Bart's."
"You know that wasn't my fault. Whoever mixed the tranquilizing solution overdid it."
"I know, but somebody doesn't. Not that it matters. One less of those animals. I would have liked to ask him a few questions, though."
Alazar was fortunate, Jason thought, to be dead.
Mama continued. "Sounds like six bad guys won't be a problem anymore."
"At the cost of a damn nice house," Jason grumbled.
"With what you get paid, you can afford it," she said amicably. "But that's not why I invited you here."
She reached into a desk drawer and handed him a sheet of paper. On it was a series of lines in what Jason recognized as Russian. "This came off the computer you sent me, the one you took from Alazar."
Jason stared at the paper, unable to even guess what it was. "I speak a little Russian, but I don't read it."
Mama took the paper back. "Appears to be some sort of shopping list, an order for something that he supplied that was successfully used by the customer; refers to a type of new weapon. From the context, military intelligence thinks it's some sort of biochemical warfare, since it refers to 'containers.'" She wrinkled a brow. "Also talks about 'keeping it healthy,' like some sort of microbe."
The most oxymoronic of all government bureaucracy: military intelligence.
Right up there with legal ethics.
Jason leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs at the ankles. "And?"
The woman on the other side of the desk shook her head reproachfully, sending gold chandelier earrings flashing with reflected light. "I'll get there, Jason; just show me the courtesy of listening. Thing that got the attention over to Langley was the date this new whatever-it- is was used, last June."
Jason swallowed the urge to ask a number of questions, knowing Mama would answer most of them in her own way and in her own time.
"Last June, one of our coast guard boats in the Bering Sea found a Russian trawler, one of those supersize fishing boats. The whole crew had had their throats cut."
Jason hunched forward in his chair, impatient to get to the point. "So? We're not in the business of protecting foreign fishing boats, particularly those poaching in our waters like I'd bet that one was."
Mama nodded, multiple chins shaking. "Jason, you just won't wait, will you? Whatever happened to manners? Anyway, this Russian trawler was just the beginning. Since then, there've been loggers in Georgia, a team of geologists looking for possible oil off Florida's west coast, an Indian chemical plant executive and his whole family, a Polish coal mine owner and…" She stopped and took a deep breath. "You get the idea. All found with their throats cut, no sign of any resistance."
Jason leaned back, letting the chair's softness envelop him. "Overfishing, timber cutting, petroleum exploration… All ecological hot buttons. We've seen people chain themselves to trees, lie down in front of earth movers, even blow up some labs where animal experimentation is going on. But murder?"
"Not the first time. There've been occasional acts of violence by the lunatic fringe. This time, though, it looks like a well-organized, concerted effort."
"And why does the client want to dump this in our lap?"
"I don't ask questions, Jason. I just take the money and perform the service. That's part of the company's success. If I had to guess, though, I'd say the present administration doesn't want to get involved with anything looks like opposition to environmental causes, even violent ones. This is, after all, right before an election year, and the president isn't the tree kissers' hero. On the other hand, the Feds can't just sit by while people get killed."
Jason thought that over. Made sense. "And none of them seemed to put up a fight? I mean, someone was trying to give me that close a shave, I'd at least try."
"That's part of the problem."
"Or a clue." Jason uncrossed his legs and sat up straight. "Any idea why they didn't put up a fight? Drugs, poison?"
Mama placed the report on her desk, sausagelike fingers squaring the edges. "Not a glimmer. Autopsies on the Russian crew and the loggers were no help. Only thing unusual was that each person had a slight amount of sul- fates in the lungs and bloodstream, probably less than they would have inhaled from auto exhausts in any large city. And ethylene gas in the lung tissues."
"There aren't any cities in the Bering Sea. And what, exactly, is ethylene?"
"Dunno. Part of your job's gonna be to find out." She slipped the report across the desk. "Take this with you. It's classified, of course."
"Of course." Jason would not have been surprised if the people at Langley classified their grocery lists.
"That's jus' a summary. They got a complete one they'll deliver to you, a report on 'the Breath of the Earth.'"
"The Breath of…?"
"Breath of the Earth. At least, that's how the note on Alazar's computer refers to whatever it is."
Jason recrossed his legs, this time at the knee. "Breath of the Earth, sulfur, ethylene… sounds more like halitosis to me. But then, halitosis is better than no breath at all."
Mama leaned forward, the desk groaning under her bulk. "Make all the jokes you like; our client takes this very, very seriously."
"So, you want me to do what?"
Mama shrugged. "First, we need to ascertain exactly what happened to those men on the fishing boat, the loggers, the others, see if there's any threat in this Breath of the Earth, whatever it might be. Then destroy it and whoever is using it."
"I don't suppose we have a name, an idea of who's behind this?"
Mama leaned farther forward, her elbows on the desk. "Matter of fact, we have an idea."
"Want to share it, or you'd rather I find out myself?"
She slowly shook her head in disapproval. "Sarcasm doesn't become you, Jason. There's an organization-if you can call it that-called Eco. Maybe you didn't know it, but the various conservationist groups around the world raise more money than the economy of a lot of third-world countries. Eco has gotten rich from unwitting but well-meaning green groups. Every concert in Japan to cease whaling operations, every T-shirt sold in Germany bearing the Grun logo, every contribution to a conservationist cause, even the sale of some ecology-friendly devices such as recycling bins and biodegradable trash bags, Eco gets a cut, either by contract or just plain, oldfashioned extortion. You know, 'We'll "guarantee" your rally for the three-toed tree frog will be peaceful' et cetera.
"Eco's agenda, so far as we can tell, certainly includes the industries where people have been killed, and they have the money. We don't have anything more concrete than that."
"So, why not infiltrate and see what they're up to?"
"Easier said. They don't have members in the conventional sense. The only reason they came to our client's attention was a large transfer of cash to Alazar's Swiss account from a number of banks around the world, all within twenty-four hours."
Although the Swiss still prided themselves on bank secrecy, they could do nothing to prevent a record of any wire transfer of funds by SWIFT, Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, the Brussels- based clearing center for all electronic transfers. Most of the world, including international criminals, were ignorant of SWIFT's existence or its post-9/11 cooperation with the CIA, FBI, Interpol, and other agencies. Fortunately, so were American politicians, whose rush to expose the arrangement in televised displays of righteous indignation would have compounded the country's security problems.
"And the CIA traced those accounts."
Mama treated him to another gleaming grin. "Anytime that much money changes hands, they know about it."
And the American people still thought privacy existed.
"Anything else?"
"Running some cross-checks, our customer believes
Eco is run by a man name of Boris Eglov and some buddies from the Russian Mafia. They have the money to finance something like this but haven't been heard from since the Russian police were hot on their trail a few years back. Not likely they all became honest businessmen."
"They don't get involved in causes other than their own pocketbooks. What's in it for them besides skimming and
"Most of the ecology-friendly groups are honest and nonviolent, but the word gets around when Eco strikes a real blow-something other than chaining little old ladies to bulldozers. You'd be surprised how many activists secretly cheer them on. After the murders on that fishing boat, contributions jumped forty percent to worldwide causes-and Eco gets a cut, remember. They want that sort of cash. Also, when Eglov was running black-market fencing and extortion schemes in Moscow, he was fanatic on the subject of the ecology. May have something to do with the fact that his parents and younger sister died from radiation at Chernobyl when the nuclear plant blew. He's suspected of personally strangling two of the surviving plant managers with his own hands."
Jason was impressed. "You've done your homework."
She reached into the same drawer and slid two sheets of paper across the desk. "I try. Here's what our friends in
Jason studied the picture stapled to the top right-hand corner of the first page. Though the image was grainy, he saw a broad-shouldered man with a shaved head. The eyes were hooded, slightly Oriental, while the rest of the face had a Slavic flatness. Below was a list of attributed crimes. Murder in one form or another was the most frequent offense, with strong-arm extortion or robbery a
"I'm surprised they let a guy like this stay on the
"You'll notice he wasn't convicted of any of those charges."
"I also notice a high mortality rate of witnesses."
"Some people are just lucky."
"Not if the police want you to testify against this guy."
Jason finished the list. "Professional criminal, vegetarian, and passionate friend of the environment. Somehow it doesn't seem to add up."
Mama retrieved the papers and returned them to the drawer. "What? You saying a criminal can't be a nature lover? Seems to me the man has set up a worldwide scam of conservation organizations to fund his own agenda."
Jason groaned. "You're saying we're dealing with an idealist here, someone who kills in pursuit of his own Utopian ideals. Or, not to put too fine a point on it, a nutcase."
"Perhaps, but a deadly one."
Jason stood, circling his chair. "The customer didn't hire us to do a job unless they need to be able to deny any involvement. What is it you're not telling me?"
The woman's eyes widened with mock surprise. "Are you suggesting I wouldn't tell you everything?"
"Not suggesting-clearly stating. Come clean; what's the hitch?"
Mama put her hands on the desk, fingers interlocked. "If we are talking about a chemical agent here, chances are Alazar's buddies didn't manufacture it-at least, not in his part of the world. Not much chance of setting up a laboratory when you're on the run."
"So, our clients figure whatever it was, it was concocted somewhere else, maybe some sovereign nation that might just resent foreigners conducting an operation on their soil."
Mama nodded. "You're smart, Jason. Looks like mebbe Langley finally figured out the sovereignty thing."
Both remembered the international outcry raised when an undetermined number of CIA operatives had snatched a terrorist suspect right off the streets of Milan. The Italian authorities had indicted six names on credit card receipts that indicated the kidnappers were American. Luck, rather than tradecraft, had stymied the prosecution when no real people could be matched with the credit cards. The only clue to surface so far was the fact that the cards involved were all Diners Club, a less than helpful discovery, even if the CitiCorp card did constitute less than three percent of the world's credit card charges.
Jason walked over to study one of the Renoirs, a woman lounging in the bow of a boat being rowed by a man in shirtsleeves and a straw hat. He was forever fascinated by the works of the earlier impressionists, pictures more likely created with palette knife than brush. At a few feet, the subject was clear. At close range, the whole thing dissolved into meaningless globs of paint. Only one of many things that didn't withstand minute inspection at Narcom.
He managed to forget late-nineteenth-century France and turned to face the desk behind him. "So, what now?"
Mama shrugged. "You're the one makes the big bucks. You know what facilities we have. They're all available."
Few third-world countries had the intelligence and military resources of Narcom, Inc.
He paced over and stood directly in front of the desk. "For a starting point, I'd like to see whatever reports were made, see if they took specimens, fluids, any of that really gross stuff. Run 'em by that spectroanalyst we use…"
Mama stood, handing him a plain white envelope. "Here's your contact."
Jason opened it, annoyed but not surprised to see what he took to be a single name and a phone number.
"Password is fife," Mama added.
"Fife, as in Barney?"
"As in fife and drum. Drum's the countersign."
"Don't these guys know we're on their side? Or at least they're paying us a hell of a lot of money to be." Jason held up the envelope. "Tell me this isn't going to burn a hole in my new suit when it self-destructs."
Mama grinned, one gold incisor sporting a diamond. "This isn't Mission Impossible, you know."
Jason nodded. "Yeah, I know. Question is, does the CIA? I wouldn't be surprised which bathroom is the men's and which is the women's is classified over there."
Mamma chuckled, her massive bosom quivering enough to shake the desk. "That might lead to interesting results." She swallowed, serious again. "You need anything, call."
Jason had been dismissed.
He was reaching for the door when she said, "Jason, I almost forgot."
He turned to see her holding out what looked like an ordinary BlackBerry, the combination cell phone and computer that had become the badge of anyone who wanted to be considered important.
"Thanks, but I have one."
She motioned him back with the hand holding the BlackBerry. "Not like this you don't. It's straight from the Third Directorate."
The CIA was divided into four compartmentalized divisions: Operations, or Ops, included the actual spycraft, cloak-and-dagger activities. Intelligence consisted of the satellite-picture-searching, communications-monitoring computer nerds. Supply, the Third Directorate, functioned somewhat like Q of James Bond fame. They had actually developed a gas-spraying fountain pen, a belt- buckle camera, and a poison-laden hyperdermic needle concealed in an umbrella. With the demise of the Soviet Union, the need for these "toys" had diminished to the point that Jason had had to search his memory to recall exactly what Supply did. The Fourth Directorate, Administration, included the bean counters, the cost analysts, procurers of equipment and the like.
Jason looked at the BlackBerry with renewed interest. "And it does what?"
"Functions just like an ordinary BlackBerry." Mama opened her other hand, revealing what appeared to be a newly minted quarter. "When you squeeze this, though, it goes bump in the night."
Jason took both, examining them closely. "How much 'bump'?"
"Enough that you don't want to be holding it."
Jason slid them both into a pocket. "I'll try to remember that."
"And keep the two in separate pockets or you'll be singing soprano the rest of your life."
"I'll definitely remember that."
As he passed through the lobby, he waved to Kim. She ignored him.
In the garage he sat in the car a moment, planning his course of action.
He remembered his first job for Narcom, Inc.
After 9/11, after Laurin had… disappeared, the days and weeks had blended into a haze of equal grief and impotent fury. He was part of the most elite small-engagement organization in the world, Delta Force. He had dropped into inky darkness to places so deserted, so void of life that even the appearance of a scorpion had provided relief. He had slipped across borders into jungles that stank of decay, where boots rotted away in a week and both animals and plants were equally likely to be poisonous.
But no place had been as near to hell as the empty house on P Street in Georgetown, the home he and Laurin had shared. No encounter was as bad as being able to do nothing other than accept that she had been taken from him and there was nothing he could do about it. Getting even was out of the question; no life would equal hers. Still, he would gladly give years of his for just a chance at those responsible for her death.
Then Mama had called.
At first he had thought some prankster was playing a cruel joke. Then he remembered she was calling on a secure line, a phone that not only was unlisted but did not exist as far as any phone company knew.
It was as if she were intentionally playing Mephistopheles to his Faust.
The soft woman's voice named the members of his last squad and the code name of their mission, information so classified that less than a dozen people knew it. Would he be willing to take a high-paying job that desperately needed doing but carried far too much risk for politicians, a job ignoring national boundaries to stamp out international terrorist organizations, those who were perfectly willing to kill the innocent to impose their politics or religion on others?
Did a bear shit in the woods?
Did he have qualms about killing extremists, no matter their sex or nationality?
Did a shark ask questions before it fed?
A week later, Jason handed in his resignation from the army and Delta Force amid the sounds of debris removal at the Pentagon. That night he was on a plane for Munich, from where he would travel to a small town just across the Austrian border to a place the leaders of three European cells of Hamas were meeting.
Two days later he was on his way home, his rage at his loss partially slaked and his newly opened Swiss account over half a million dollars fatter.
It took the Austrian officials over a week to conclude that they would never find all the body parts.
Narcom had given Jason two things: wealth and revenge. There might be enough of the former in the world, but never the latter.
So much for Memory Lane. He had a new job to do.