Avenger (11 page)

She took another sip of rum.

“I could see her,” she said, voice slightly slurred by exhaustion and the calming pull of the drink. “She was tall, taller than me, towering over all of them. She’s white and built like an athlete, fit and strong. High cheekbones, Eastern European type, you know. Short blonde hair, really short, like an eighties cut, lots on top but not much around the sides … which makes sense when you think about the buzz cuts on her bodyguards. Her hair was almost white-blonde, like peroxide. That’s her. That’s the Witch.”

“You mentioned the Witch in your report, but how can you be so sure?” he asked. “I thought all we had was a Blue Notice without an identity?”

“Because I know in my gut it’s her. Identifying herself as the Night Witch will have some significance to her, somewhere in her history. A family connection maybe; someone she loved or respected. Assuming that identity gives her strength; a persona nothing like her own to hide behind.”

Morgan listened in silence as Reigns moved slowly about the cabin, exploring her thoughts in much more detail than she had outlined within the report. He could see that although she was consumed by her assessment of the Night Witch, she was tired. Eventually she returned to her seat, curling up like a cat and laying her head against the palm of her hand, long black hair dropping like a curtain behind it. She just sat there, looking at him. Studying him. Morgan fought the temptation to go over and comfort her. She was, after all, an agent just like him. She needed to deal with the violent chaos of her first confrontation in her own way. It was a rite of passage and today she’d earned hers, tenfold. All Morgan could do was be there, observe, and if she wanted to talk, listen. For now he was happy sitting across from her, enjoying her proximity and the calm he felt when he was close to her.

“The moonlight across the top of the clouds looks pretty incredible. Spectacular, in fact,” he said, looking outside, wanting to say something unrelated to their traumatic day. “Don’t you think?”

With feline poise, Reigns unfurled herself from the luxurious depths of her seat, took a pace forward and leaned over, resting her hands on Morgan’s knees so she could gaze from the same window.

“It’s definitely spectacular,” she said, turning to him. “You know, Morgan, despite everything that’s happened today, you and I haven’t been properly introduced or even said hello to each other. Isn’t that a bit weird?”

“Come to think of it, it is pretty weird,” he said, looking up at her. He offered his hand. “We should remedy that immediately. Alex Morgan. I’m very pleased to meet you.”

“Elizabeth Reigns,” she replied, her hand warm as she took his, smiling. “I’m very pleased to finally meet you, Alex Morgan. You can call me Beth.”

“And you can call me Alex Morgan. I like the way you say it.”

They remained quiet against the gentle hum of the Gulfstream’s pressurized cabin, their faces close, holding each other’s gaze for just a second too long. Morgan could smell the apple fragrance of the shampoo she’d used. He could feel her body arching toward him, her breath warm against his face, when suddenly she released his hand.

“Whoa! Are we having a moment?” she asked ingenuously. “Because I think we are.”

“I think it was very close to being a moment,” he replied. “But then you called it and ruined everything.”

She hit him hard in the arm and they both laughed, a little awkwardly. But she didn’t step away. Morgan was drawn to her raw, unabashed confidence. The elation of surviving death and violence was a powerful stimulant. They had prevailed and a primal reward had been earned. He wanted her and he knew she wanted him. The need was urgent.

“Screw you, Morgan,” she said, teasing him. “You’re not getting off that lightly.”

She sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair and across his face, her eyes never leaving his. Morgan’s hands found her waist and he held her, enjoying the feel of her, remembering the thrill he’d experienced seeing her in action, imagining her taut, finely tuned body naked.

“We could get in serious trouble if anyone finds out about this,” he said.

“Yeah, I guess we could,” she said. And began kissing his face, slowly, softly. “So maybe we shouldn’t, right?”

“Yeah, we definitely shouldn’t.”

Morgan allowed his hands to find their way beneath her sweater. His fingers caressed the soft velvet valley in the small of her back. Reigns leaned into him, arms resting on his chest and her body curving instinctively toward his. They kissed like that, Morgan holding her, Reigns resting upon him, for minutes. It began fervently with the energy and abandon of two people not in control of their own bodies, but then something changed, something that shocked them both, although neither of them thought about stopping. Their fervor fought a deep sensual connection that made them pause.

Reigns stood up. Taking Morgan’s hand, she drew him from the chair to his feet. Then she stepped in close, reached her arms around behind his back and rested her head upon his shoulder. Morgan wrapped one arm around her waist and with the other began to gently stroke her hair.

“I’m not asking for anything more than tonight, Alex.” She sighed deeply and he felt her breath warm the skin beneath his T-shirt. Then she lifted her face to look at him. “But right now I need this and I know you do too. So, if we’re not going to do this, then let’s not go and do it back in my cabin. Fuck the consequences.”

Jung-Woo “Andy” Chow was back on shift at the hospital.

Earlier in the evening he had walked in through the staff entrance at the back of the hospital to commence the night shift, just as he had done every working day for the last fifteen years. He’d smiled and said hello to colleagues in the Repair and Maintenance division, stowed his bag carefully within his locker in the staff changing room and dressed in his overalls. He met his supervisor, who handed him his task sheet for the night, then collected his gear from the equipment cage. Then he set off from the Facilities Management area and headed across to D block.

Chow took the service elevator to the seventh floor and pushed the maintenance trolley out in front of him as he exited. It was quiet up here, just as he’d known it would be. It was the time between the end of visiting hours and the shift change, when the night shift staff and the graveyard shift were all on the floor doing their respective handovers. He had to be done by then. There’d be too many people around if he left it till late.

“Hi, Andy,” called someone from the nurses’ station.

Andy gave her a friendly, slightly awkward wave and kept his eyes on his trolley.

“What are you up to tonight?” she asked.

“Toilets!” he replied.

“Good times,” she answered just as a phone rang. She gave him a friendly wave and took the call.

Andy made a show of heading to the men’s toilet. After knocking on the door to check that it was vacant he walked in, placing a “Closed for Maintenance” sign outside as he did so. Inside, he leaned against the basin and rubbed his eyes. His jaw and fists were clenched tight. How could he go through with this? He thumped his fists against his forehead repeatedly. How could Wu Ming expect him to do such a thing after all these years? Andy was taut with confusion, pacing back and forth across the small room, challenging himself angrily in the mirror, splashing water on his face.

He hadn’t slept at all the previous night and his tossing and turning and generally unsettled behavior had worried his wife no end. It was totally out of character for him to be concerned about anything. On numerous occasions throughout most of the morning and into the afternoon she had pressed him to tell her what was wrong, but he couldn’t tell her. How could he? Where would he start? In all these years she had learned nothing of his past. She still thought that he had been just a simple delivery boy before they met, which was mostly true. Although who he made deliveries for and what the deliveries were was a secret he would take to the grave. At least, he had hoped to take it to the grave. After all these years he’d never for a moment expected to revisit that part of his life, but it had caught up with him again. All he could do was make it go away, and the only way to do that was to carry out what Wu Ming had asked of him and wipe away his debt. Andy was a simple man. He didn’t think about the cop he’d killed. He’d blocked most of that incident out of his mind. His only concern now was not losing the life he had made for himself ever since that day. Whatever happened, he could never go to jail.

After five minutes he straightened up, gripped the trolley and walked out, collecting the sign on the way.

He walked in the opposite direction from the nurses’ station. He knew which room he was headed to and he knew what to expect when he saw it. Nervously, he turned a corner at the end of the corridor and made his way, with the wheels of the trolley squeaking along in unison, toward room number six. As he reached the corner and looked down the length of the corridor, he could see what he’d been told to expect at the far end.

A United States Marine was standing beside the door to room number six. He was young, about twenty-five, in uniform dress: white cap, light brown short-sleeved shirt with medal ribbons, dark blue trousers with a wide red stripe down the outside leg, and black boots polished to a mirrored sheen. Andy couldn’t see it from where he was standing but he knew there would be a holstered sidearm on the Marine’s right hip. The moment he moved fully into the corridor and the squeaking trolley wheels announced his arrival, the Marine’s gaze turned to him. Andy kept moving; he remembered enough about the old days not to do anything out of the ordinary. Still, he felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety coming on. His blood was racing through his body, under pressure from a raging heartbeat.

He heard the Marine say, “Do you know this guy, Doc?” followed by a familiar voice answering, “Oh, sure. That’s just little Andy Chow. He’s worked here longer than I have.” Andy looked up. He never spoke to the doctors, but he was as familiar to the man as he was to most of the staff at the hospital. After fifteen years of routinely working in every building in the place he was now part of the furniture. Just little Andy Chow.

Then – disaster – the Marine waved him over. Andy walked slowly toward him. He managed to assume his most humble expression, head slightly bowed, shoulders hunched, shuffling along with his squeaking wheels aimed straight at the Marine.

“I’m sorry, sir,” said the Marine politely. “But I gotta check your gear. Would that be OK?”

Andy knew it wasn’t a request. He nodded cooperatively, said, “Sure, sure,” as agreeably as he could manage, and stood back a couple of paces.

The Marine stepped forward and with great precision and economy of effort gave Andy a thorough pat down and then searched the trolley, beginning with the tool box, followed by the cleaning products and toilet rolls.

“I gotta make sure you don’t have any weapons of mass destruction in here, you know what I mean?” the Marine joked good-naturedly. “Looks like you’re all good, sir.”

“Thank you,” said Andy, smiling.

“Oh, just a minute,” said the Marine. “One last thing.”

Andy froze as the Marine extracted a short metal baton from a deep pocket in his trousers. With an expert flick, the Marine extended the baton. Andy’s heart almost stopped as the man then leaned forward and thrust it into the water of the mop bucket on the end of the trolley. He jabbed the baton into the bucket a number of times, hearing nothing but a series of dull metallic clunks as the tip of the weapon foraged for anything untoward. Nothing.

The Marine smiled. Grabbing a rag from the trolley, he wiped the baton dry and then, dropping to one knee, slammed the tip hard into the floor. The weapon collapsed back into its handle just as it was designed to do and was returned to the pocket without further fuss.

“Thanks again, sir,” said the young Marine. “You’re good to go.”

Andy’s heart began to beat again. He had to regain his composure. He was in danger of shaking visibly. He said, “Thank you,” to the Marine and stepped away. There was a women’s toilet about ten yards along on the left-hand side of the corridor. He walked purposefully but unhurriedly to it, knocked on the door, waited patiently for a few seconds, opened it, placed his “Closed” sign in the corridor, followed his trolley inside and quietly slid the bolt across.

It took him another five full minutes to regain his composure, but he used the time productively. He drew up the sleeves of his overalls all the way above the elbow, and plunged his hands into the very bottom of the metal mop bucket on the trolley. He rummaged around inside the bucket, beneath the fresh soapy water, until he was able to extract the flat, circular metal box that had been given to him and which he’d fitted snugly into the base of the bucket. He pulled the round box out completely and rested it on the basin. He wiped his hands and the box with paper towel until everything was absolutely dry.

Then, slowly and methodically, he twisted open the box’s lid and took out the Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum Model 360 with the two-inch barrel.

“Good morning, sir,” Mila Haddad called from the briefing podium at the front of the room as General Davenport walked in. Alex Morgan and Elizabeth Reigns sat at the far end of the table closest to the podium. They stood up as their chief entered the room. It was 10am sharp.

“Good morning.” Davenport approached Morgan and Reigns and said, “Good to see you both back and in one piece. I’ll see you both separately after this to discuss the details of your respective assignments.”

“Thank you, sir,” they replied in unison, each shaking the general’s hand in turn.

“Good news about Dave, sir,” Morgan said. “Mila just filled us in.”

“It is indeed. According to the chief surgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, he’s responded well to the surgery. Very encouraging.”

“He’s as strong as an ox,” said Morgan. “If anyone could survive that, it’s him.”

“I agree, and what he needs now is to rest and recover while we get on with the job of tracking these people down.”

Morgan nodded. Any thoughts he’d had about mission fatigue or taking leave had been shelved. With his friend lying in Intensive Care on the other side of the world, Morgan knew there was no better place for him to be than back in the field, tracking down the bastards who’d shot Dave, and the sooner the better.

The Conference and Operations Briefing Room – COBRA – was located within the very heart of the secret Intrepid Headquarters building in Westminster. It was a large, modern, windowless space, arranged in a fashion that was standard for such facilities, with a video conference-capable central screen surrounded by an array of smaller screens, with additional monitors positioned high along both flanking walls. In front of the main screen, dual briefing podia faced a long central table, supplemented by a dozen black leather swivel chairs. Ceiling-mounted sensors designed to detect the latest surveillance technology prevented unauthorized communication to or from the room. Access to COBRA was via two secure airlocks: one in the southern wall at the rear, which was usually reserved for VIPs and where Davenport had entered; the other via the western wall, which led directly into the Operations Room.

General Davenport took a seat at the top of the table, closest to where Haddad was standing at the briefing podium. Directly opposite sat Morgan. Reigns had moved around the table to sit beside him.

When they were all settled, Davenport dropped his spectacles on to the table and leaned back in his chair.

“OK, Ms Haddad, let’s get started.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll summarize where we currently stand as at the cessation of operations in Hong Kong and then I’ll hand over to Elizabeth.”

“Very well,” said Davenport. “Proceed.”

Haddad rested one hand upon the podium and tapped a few commands into an iPad with the other. As a series of images and graphics began to stream across the screens around the room, she began her briefing.

“It will come as no surprise to you that the Hong Kong Triad boss Wu Ming has gone to ground. There was no trace of him at the factory when the HKPD arrived and it appears likely that he was tipped off by this man.” A new image replaced the grainy, black-and-white police-file images of Wu Ming.

“This is Chief Superintendent Chan Man-kin. He is currently in the custody of the commander of HKPD’s Kowloon West District, Assistant Commissioner Kwong.” Another image change. “Kwong is a highly respected law-enforcement official and has a solid reputation within Interpol circles. He is providing every resource to assist us and has offered the opportunity for us – well, officially for Interpol – to sit in on the interrogation of Chief Superintendent Chan. To that end we dispatched one of our Intel people from Beijing across to Hong Kong last night. They’re eight hours ahead of us so I expect the interrogation is underway as we speak. I’ll update you the moment we receive any information resulting from that.

“One thing is clear: a meeting occurred between Wu Ming and a European woman, yet to be formally identified but currently known by the alias ‘Night Witch,’ who we believe to be a major new global player in the human trafficking arena. It is evident that Wu was keen to impress the European during the visit to his factory, which suggests a business collaboration between them – possibly a merger, or even a takeover of his operations in the Asia-Pacific region. Given that the global profit made from the exploitation of human beings in forced labor situations is estimated to be in the order of thirty billion dollars US annually, and that the Asia-Pacific area accounts for thirty percent of that amount, the potential combining of these two operations is considered to be a significant development.

“Our original interest in the Night Witch was as a result of previous intelligence regarding an unidentified European woman emerging as a person of interest in Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. Our decision to infiltrate Agent Reigns into the factory in Kowloon was prompted by a recent US Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into Wu Ming. We saw an opportunity to work with ICE and hopefully identify a connection between him and the European. I’ll now hand over to Elizabeth.”

Reigns stood up from her seat and walked confidently around to the podium. Morgan caught a hint of her perfume, Si by Giorgio Armani, and despite his focus on the operation, for a moment his concentration wavered. She’d barely looked at him since she’d entered the room.

He hadn’t seen her since they’d parted company at Heathrow in the early hours of the morning. Two separate cars had been sent to collect them and there wasn’t much of a chance to chat once the jet had taxied to a halt in its private hangar. As she was collecting her thoughts and taking control of the audio-visual technology, Morgan found himself admiring her. Her taste in clothes was impeccable. She was dressed in a navy three-piece pinstripe suit, with an off-white blouse worn open at the neck. Her long hair was down. He remembered it tumbling forward last night and brushing across his face, and her magnificent, sculptured body above him, illuminated by the glow of the dimmed lamp in her cabin. Before she began to speak, she bundled up her hair casually in one hand and drew it over her right shoulder.

“Good morning,” began Reigns, addressing them all. She made no eye contact with Morgan. “Current estimates indicate that over twenty million people globally are victims of forced labor, including those trafficked for sexual exploitation purposes. Women and girls account for seventy-five percent of all trafficked victims. Almost sixty percent of victims are trafficked for sexual exploitation while the remaining forty percent will find themselves in forced labor situations. About half of all trafficked victims are moved across borders within their geographic regions, while the remaining numbers are an even split between straight domestic or internal trafficking, and inter-regional trafficking – meaning that they are moved beyond their own geographic location. Common destinations are the Middle East and Western Europe. East Asia tends to be the primary transnational origin point for most victims, which coincidentally pointed us in the direction of Wu Ming.”

A series of slides appeared around them – global maps identifying agencies by name and location, statistical information on human trafficking, lists of international law-enforcement operations, images of victims, and mug shots of individuals arrested or wanted for trafficking offences. It was both a compelling and an ominous backdrop to the days and weeks ahead. The scale of the problem and gravity of its impact upon victims was profound. The arrest of Chomba in Malawi and the extraction of Reigns from Hong Kong had been Morgan’s first exposure to the world of human trafficking and the more he learned about it, the more he found himself wanting to take on the main players.

“Some time ago, in collaboration with a number of Interpol’s National Central Bureaux, Europol and various other law-enforcement and intelligence agencies around the world, we identified a new figure emerging on the European scene. All we had to go on was anecdotal material buried within hundreds of hours of recorded statements taken by European police agencies during interviews with victims of human trafficking. What made this person so interesting was that there was no intelligence available that would enable us to categorically identify them, nor any actual evidence to link them to a crime. We just knew there was someone new operating in the space and that their influence was becoming significant, at least at grass-roots level. Normally there would be some kind of criminal history or profile available as the majority of traffickers tend to be men operating within their own countries of origin. They usually move into trafficking from other criminal activity because it is so lucrative.

“However, when women become involved they tend to operate at the facilitator or middle-management levels rather than the upper echelons, and are mostly involved in the trafficking of girls for sexual exploitation. Which, as we pieced together various threads of information, led us to the conclusion that this new player was in fact female, young – most likely late twenties to early thirties tops, of Eastern European extraction – possibly Ukrainian. Her age and nationality would suggest sexual exploitation as the most likely way she entered the criminal arena. Other than a lot of theories and speculation, she’s been a ghost, a complete enigma to authorities. All we had was a very vague physical description of her as young, attractive and, apparently, quite tall.

“This led us to issue an Interpol Blue Notice in order to gather as much information as possible regarding her identity, location and criminal activity. Then in 2012, a situation in El Salvador resulted in the issue of a Red Notice for a Salvadorian national, a male by the name of Gaspard Mateo Ponciano, accused of running a sex-trafficking operation throughout Central America. Questioning by local authorities didn’t manage to get too much from Ponciano himself. However, in statements taken from his victims – young girls lured into sexual servitude on the promise of domestic work – information emerged about a tall, beautiful European woman known only by the alias ‘Witch’ or ‘Night Witch,’ predominantly the latter. None of the victims had direct contact with her and only a couple actually saw her from a distance. Mostly they’d heard Ponciano referring to the Night Witch.”

“There’s some incredible history behind this Night Witch reference,” Davenport said. “Have you looked into that?”

“Yes, sir,” said Morgan, wading in. Reigns looked at him. “They were a squadron of female pilots of the Soviet Night Bomber Regiment during the Second World War, and the most highly decorated female unit in the Soviet Air Force. The Nazis called them
Nachthexen,
the Night Witches.”

“Precisely,” said Davenport. “That’s the only other reference I’ve ever heard of to a Night Witch.”

“I had to Google it,” Morgan confessed.

They all laughed and Reigns finally smiled at him.

“So, apart from Major Morgan’s groundbreaking intelligence-gathering capabilities, have you managed to establish any connection there, Miss Reigns?”

“There’s a definite Eastern European connection, sir. Nothing concrete yet, but we’re continuing to explore it and have compiled a list of every woman recorded as a serving member of the Soviet Night Bomber Regiment. Once we have an actual name for our Night Witch, we’ll check to see if there are any further connections,” Reigns replied.

“While I was embedded within Wu Ming’s factory in Hong Kong I overheard the term ‘witch’ being used by members of Wu Ming’s crew while discussing the imminent arrival of their high-profile visitor – the woman I subsequently observed on the factory floor, flanked by her bodyguards. My observation married with what we already knew about the appearance of the Witch. She’s tall – in fact extremely so – white, Eastern European features, athletic physique, with very short blonde hair, almost white-blonde. My seeing her at first hand and confirming this description has enabled us to refine our search through the database. In the meantime, while analysis continues, we’ve had an encouraging new development, which I received news of just prior to coming in here.”

Morgan watched Reigns with an intensity that surprised him. Despite their profession, despite what she’d been required to do in Hong Kong, and despite the fact that she was, like him, an agent, trained to kill and survive under the worst conditions imaginable, there was a softness to her that he could not get out of his mind. Her effect on him had been such that he’d scarcely thought of anything else since arriving at Heathrow.
J
esus! You’re getting fucking soft, Morgan. Snap out of it and listen.

“Overnight our Intel team has been scouring every known source to identify the Europeans I described. Through Interpol Beijing’s sub-bureau in Hong Kong, we’ve been working closely with HKPD and authorities at Hong Kong International Airport, and one of our analysts stumbled upon an anomaly over a certain batch of passports.”

“How so?” asked Davenport.

“Well, to start with we were looking for people traveling into and out of Hong Kong under EU passports and of course there were literally thousands to review. However, overnight one of our analysts decided to take a different approach and started looking for European names traveling under non-European passports. She eventually found these guys.” Reigns tapped another series of commands into the iPad and the screens flickered as new images appeared. They were the scanned front pages of passports and showed one young woman and half-a-dozen men. “In terms of their ages and general physical descriptions, all resemble the people I observed at the factory, all have European names, but they are all traveling on Belizean passports.”

“Didn’t I read an Interpol report recently about a passport racket operating out of the Belizean immigration department?” said Morgan. “A number of senior officials were charged or at least under investigation over it.”

“Correct,” Reigns replied. “Did you Google that as well, Morgan?”

“Hey, don’t knock open source,” he replied.