Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (178 page)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ian kept his gun pointed at Markov’s head. Markov’s men flanked him on the right and left.

Four shotguns to his handgun. And these were not the psych ward guards.

“Call off your men,” Ian said. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”

“I don’t believe that,” Markov said. “You haven’t flown halfway across the world because you’re suicidal.”

“You know I’ll take you down before your men can respond.”

“You might kill me,” Markov said. He seemed unconcerned by the possibility. “But before you enjoy the satisfaction of seeing me fall, those shotguns will turn you into hamburger. And Dr. Nolan, too. Is that what she signed up for?”

Ian didn’t take his eyes from Markov, but he could see Julia out of the corner of his eye being led toward him by two more men. They must have come around behind her. She looked terrified. He fought to silence his mind. Implant was active. And this time he was certain he had given no command.”I didn’t track you down to kill you,” Markov continued. “If that was the case, you’d be dead already. Think about what I’ve got at my disposal. If not these guys, I’ve got SOCOM resources to call on. I’ve had a Predator tracking you since you entered Namibia. I could have launched a Hellfire missile at any time. Could have even taken you out through your implant.”

“Then what? You’re going to stick me in another asylum and mess with my brain?”

“Or maybe you could give me the data from Kendall Rose’s implant and I could help you figure out what happened here,” Markov said.

Julia was now standing next to a pair of soldiers on the right. One had a shotgun trained at her, and the other pointed his weapon at Ian.

“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” Julia said, her tone incredulous. “You’re always by the books. Why would you help us?”

“You don’t know me better than that by now?” he asked in an irritated tone. “I’m the one who sent you to Utah, do you remember? I told you to keep your mouth shut, and why do think that is? Is it because I was going by the books? Wake up, Nolan.”

“Leave her alone,” Ian said.

“The longer we stand on this road, the greater the odds Blackwing soldiers will find us,” Markov said. “And then what? I guess there’s a chance you could escape in the confusion. Very, very slim chance. There’s also a chance that I’m telling the truth. Why don’t you take it?”

“And what happens when I lower my gun?” Ian said. “Just so we’re clear.”

“You will set the gun on the ground. One of my men will search you, verify you’re clean. You will then walk, flanked by my men, toward the second Land Rover. Once we get inside, start to talk, my side will put away their weapons.”

Ian made a sudden decision, driven more by necessity than trust for Markov. “I’m putting down the gun.” He bent and set down the weapon, then lifted his hands to his head.

Markov waved his men over. Ian braced himself to be bashed over the head with their gun stocks, but it was all very civilized. A man patted him down, while another picked up his Glock. And then they marched to the Land Rover, just as Markov had promised.

Ian allowed himself a moment of hope.

________

“I figure we have less than twenty-four hours before Sarah Redd gets suspicious,” Markov said. “And I can’t trust my men, not fully. They’re used to working in adverse conditions, following strange orders, but if they think I’ve gone rogue, they might turn on me.”

Markov had sent his men to the other Land Rovers, together with all of the weapons. He told Ian to drive, Julia to take the passenger seat, while he sat behind Ian, alone with them in the vehicle.

Julia took that as a good sign that Markov was telling the truth. It was clear, however, that he didn’t trust her or Ian.

“Have you?” she asked. “Gone rogue, I mean?”

“If by rogue you mean violating the orders of a superior, then yes, I suppose I have. But what if your boss has gone rogue? When her actions lead you to believe that she is undermining your true superior—that being the President of the United States of America—shouldn’t you risk insubordination?”

“You’re talking about Sarah Redd, aren’t you,” she said.

“Yes, I am.”

It was hard to wrap her mind around. The Director of National Intelligence served directly under the President. Was Markov saying that she had turned traitor?

“Is she the one who called the airstrike on our position at the camp?” Ian asked. He turned the car off a rutted, mud road onto a flatter road, made of crushed gravel. Still no pavement.

“I’m not sure, but if she did, I can understand why. Not that I agree, but Ian you’ve been at this long enough to know that nobody is untouchable. You’ve got technology in your brain that is one of this country’s most important secrets. If you were captured by someone who could discover the implant… the technology is not expendable. You are. Get over it. That’s not what I’m talking about. It’s about
why
you were sent to that camp.”

Ian glared at Markov.

“We should call my husband,” Julia said. “He works with Sarah, he might know something.”

“Let’s talk about your husband,” Markov said. “First, I should give him credit. He told me how to find you.”

“What? How? I didn’t tell Terrance where we were.”

“He called Chang, who put together the installation for the software to access Kendall’s implant. Chang inserted a Trojan Horse program into the installation that would monitor your location and feed it to the CIA.” Markov paused. “The Trojan Horse was your husband’s idea. He passed me your location as soon as you logged in at that hotel in Springbok.”

The news left her reeling.
How could he?

“But that’s still good, right?” she asked after several seconds of silence. She was trying not to feel betrayed, to get a handle on what Terrance had done. “He told you how to find us and now you can help us.”

“If that had been his motivation, then yes, it could have been a good thing,” Markov said. “As it turns out, Terrance gave me the information with the understanding that I might use it to eliminate you.”

Julia had been looking back at Markov, but now she whipped her head around to stare out the front. The red, sandy landscape blurred in her vision. She couldn’t breathe.

“Damn,” Ian muttered. Then, “I’m so sorry, Julia.”

________

“American spies are back in Namibia,” Li Hao said.

“They never left,” Charles Ikanbo said.

The second meeting with Li took place on more favorable terrain. The Central Intelligence Service Director met with the ChinaOne official in the Owela Museum in Windhoek.

The museum sat on Robert Mugabe Avenue, named in a fit of pan-African pride. Mugabe had transformed over the years from liberator and patriot to just another kleptocrat and thug, and Ikanbo thought that it was an embarrassment to have Namibia’s premier natural history museum on a street named after the Zimbabwean dictator.

The museum was closed for a private party of Chinese engineers and executives. The other Chinese—mostly men, but also a few women—were on the opposite side of the museum, enjoying a tour in Mandarin.

“I’m not talking about the usual crop of spies,” Li said. “I mean the ones involved in the attack on our drill site.”

“Yes, I know, they entered the country yesterday. I have two of my men watching this man and his team at all times.”

Li Hao was studying a display of a stuffed leopard in a tree with an impala in its jaws. A pair of stuffed hyenas paced at the bottom of the tree. He looked up, blinked.

“Team? What team? He’s only traveling with the woman, nobody else.”

Charles didn’t know anything about a woman. Anton Markov came with another man and two others joined him in the country. One, he’d previously thought of as a legitimate diplomatic at the U.S. Embassy. Whatever Markov was up to, he’d thought it important enough to blow the cover of one of his operatives.

Li studied Charles’s face and it must have given up something. “You don’t know anything about the woman, do you?”

“Of course I do.”

“No, you don’t. You said there was a team.”

Charles didn’t want to surrender information to Li Hao, but the truth was, he was already losing ground to the Americans. He’d spent valuable resources watching his brother, William, as the man tried to make overtures to General Katz—the Old Crab. Every day Charles grew more afraid of the coup hinted at by both Li during their previous meeting, and by his brother a couple of days earlier. As a result, Markov’s team had slipped from surveillance and were free in the country.

“Maybe we could share information,” he said with reluctance.

The two men walked into the next gallery. It was a collection of baskets and other Herero artifacts. “That might work,” Li said.

“Okay, you first. As a show of good faith.”

A slight frown crossed the man’s face, but at last he nodded. “Very well. The woman is a doctor. She is civilian, but works for DARPA.”

“DARPA. They develop top-secret technology for the U.S. military, right?”

“And the CIA, yes,” Li said.

“What’s her name?”

“No, you next.”

“The agent I’ve identified has three men working for him,” Charles said. “He’s in the country under a diplomatic passport, but he’s no diplomat.”

“Is your man Anton Markov?” Li asked.

The question surprised him, but then he remembered that Li Hao didn’t just have Blackwing resources, but Beijing’s own intelligence apparatus to back him up. Beijing wasn’t Washington, or even Moscow, but their resources dwarfed anything Charles could muster.

“Yes, it is.”

“Where is Markov now?”

“No, it’s your turn again,” Charles said. That was a question he couldn’t answer even if he’d wanted to. “Who are the two people you’ve been following? How did they enter the country?”

“They drove in from South Africa. They have fake passports and traveled as tourists. You should have caught them when they crossed.”

Charles gritted his teeth. He had men watching the border, but they weren’t his top shelf resources.

“The woman is Dr. Julia Nolan. You met her at the jail cell when she came with Markov to rescue the prisoner.”

“Of course. There was a computer expert, too. Guy named Chang.” Charles narrowed his eyes. “Chinese.”

“He’s no Chinese,” Li said. “His grandparents moved to San Francisco from Singapore fifty years ago, and he has nothing to do with us, I promise you. I wish that he did.”

Charles wasn’t sure he believed it. “And Chang is traveling with Dr. Nolan?”

“No, I have no idea where he is. The man traveling with Dr. Nolan is Ian Westhelle.”

Charles felt his jaw clench. “The rogue agent.”

“Only maybe not so rogue.”

“No,” Charles said, “maybe not. Do you know why they’re here?”

“I don’t. I was hoping you could tell me. Last time Westhelle was in the country, things didn’t go so well at the Ondjamba camp. Naturally, we’re anxious to prevent a second confrontation.”

“They won’t get away with the ‘rogue agent’ excuse a second time,” Charles said. “And the president—weak as he is—won’t stand for more air strikes.”

“Then why are they here?” Li asked. “The two teams obviously intend to meet up and…what?”

The Chinese tour group streamed into the room at their back. The two men moved ahead to keep their distance.

“You remember the warnings you gave me at your villa on Henties Bay?” Charles asked. “About the coup?”

“I didn’t have specific intelligence, we just knew the Americans were maneuvering in every direction to keep us from gaining access to the Ondjamba oil field. They have friends, easily bribed, within the government.”

“Oil field?” Charles regretted it the instant he said it. Stupid to show his ignorance.

“Do you know nothing? Hasn’t your own government told you why we’re here?”

“I know plenty. I’m well aware that the Americans are planning unrest.” His brother, William, the back-stabber, chief among them. “You were right. They are moving against the government. I can’t do anything about it, not yet.”

William had come in after a night of drinking and ranted at Charles. It had appeared that the CIA was pulling its support for the coup-plotters. And yet the Americans were back in the country. What could that be about, if not to stick their noses in?

“Tell me something,” Charles said. “Why now, why this particular oil field? There are oil fields in Nigeria, Angola, all over Africa. We’re a small country, easily manipulated, but that doesn’t explain why the Americans would take so many risks over this particular find.”

“So you really
don’t
know,” Li said. A smile crossed his lips. “That’s the most interesting thing of all. And maybe when I explain it to you, you’ll see why it’s so important that you capture these enemy agents and neutralize them.”

“Nothing would make me happier than to have a valid excuse,” Charles assured him.

“This is more than an excuse. It’s a question of national survival.”