Contract to Kill (29 page)

Being in US waters always created some restlessness. A good captain read his crew’s collective mood, and there’d been signs over the last few days that everyone was anxious to dock. They’d been at sea for nearly ten days, and although the
Yoonsuh
offered every available amenity, there was no replacing the feel of being on solid ground. His ship was big, but far from a cruise ship; it pitched and rolled with the swells, often severely. Fortunately, his North Korean gemologist had weathered the voyage well.

Through his field glasses, he watched the fishing boat’s skiff racing over the swells toward his boat. As it always did, the transfer of the duffels would take place while moving at a slow speed with a distance of two nautical miles between the two vessels.

The skiff would need to make two trips. One with the cargo, and another with their passenger.

The captain radioed his engine room to verify the duffels had been properly weighted to sink in a hurry. His first officer confirmed the bags were all set. He hated the idea of throwing the bags overboard in the event a cutter intercepted the fishing boat, but it beat spending the next twenty years in a seven-by-ten-foot prison cell.

The gemologist’s accommodations aboard the fishing boat would be quite different from what he’d enjoyed on the
Yoonsuh
. There’d be no oil massages, gourmet food, or home theater, proving the old adage that all good things must come to an end. The North Korean would just have to slum it through the last fifteen hours of his voyage.

Nestled in the mountains just east of Escondido, Mason’s safe house offered complete privacy. The single-story residence wasn’t more than a rustic cabin, but it sat low in a valley and no other homes were within eyeshot. The ten-acre property used to be an avocado orchard. The stumps of the trees were all that remained, their timber long ago sold as firewood. And the beauty of this place? It wasn’t even his. Its owners, an elderly couple who were friends with the old man, spent half their lives aboard a condominium-style cruise ship. In fact, the old man had no idea that Mason even knew about the place.

The notion of ripping Alisio off had come to him about six months ago after Ramiro reported seeing a huge pile of US cash atop Alisio’s desk—a mountain’s worth—at least $5 million. The whole idea had crystalized that day for Mason, triggering the long-dormant memories of Mullah Sanjari’s compound and that twenty-dollar bill he’d found as a child. The way to hurt Alisio badly, he’d realized, was to hit him where it counted: in the pocketbook.

The question was where and when? And the answer came soon afterward, in the form of critical intel from Ramiro. The news of the upcoming Korean exchange was too good to pass up. Mason had been waiting for the right opportunity to come along, and finally it had.

Recruiting Darla for the eventual heist hadn’t been part of the original plan. Hahn and Mason knew that bringing her in would involve risk, but they’d needed a third person. She’d seemed a kindred spirit, and her PMC background mirrored theirs. Sure enough, she’d wanted in on the move against Alisio, especially when Mason offered her an equal share. And the first thing she’d done for them was use her charm on BSI’s bookkeeper to locate the safe house they were using today.

He grabbed a bottled water and reentered the living room while Chip and Darla stayed in the kitchen.

Psychologically shattered, Michaels sat with his head hung. It hadn’t taken long to break him. Bound to a chair atop painter’s plastic, the man was a pitiful sight. Mason gave the guy credit: he’d lasted longer than predicted. But sooner or later, given the right kind of persuasion, the will to resist vanished. Although Mason believed everything Michaels had told them on the drive up here was true, he needed to verify the information with more forceful and—uncomfortable—methods. They hadn’t worked on his face and hands, but everything else had been fair game.

Mason didn’t enjoy this part of the business, but he knew it should bother him more than it did. Not surprisingly, it had been Darla who’d penetrated Michaels’s shell. He’d watched in awe as she’d systematically peeled him down to his core. The finishing touch had come when Darla whispered something in his ear. Michaels had looked at Mason with a shocked, almost disbelieving expression. Mason had shrugged, his message clear:
I have no idea what she said, but I warned you
. . .

Darla had run her hand down Michaels’s chest and stomach before brushing his groin. Mason knew from firsthand experience that men don’t like being interrogated by women, especially a woman who puts on a convincing act that most men are no better than pigs and deserve to be castrated.

Michaels became very cooperative once he’d been disrobed from the waist down. Darla had asked Mason to spread the man’s legs and secure them open for the “procedure.” She’d then produced a cigar torch, applied the flame to the business end of her small pocketknife, and hummed “Amazing Grace” during the process. The finishing touch came when she’d put on her goggles.

Whoa!
Mason remembered thinking.
Remind me to never cross this woman.

So they now had what Michaels hadn’t spilled on the drive up here. They had a date, time, and location for the arrival of the duffel bags at Shelter Island but no date, time, or location for the exchange of the duffels with Alisio. Michaels received the exchange info after the delivery to the marina was complete. Perhaps most importantly, they knew what the duffel bags contained, and Mason had a hard time wrapping his mind around it.

The bags held 300 million pesos in the form of state-of-the-art counterfeit bills that could fool most bank employees. In American dollars, it was the equivalent of nearly $24 million. Mason didn’t yet know how Alisio planned to exchange the bogus money, or how much it would be discounted. But based on what he’d learned from Ramiro over the last six months, he had a pretty good idea. It would be a sweet victory forcibly taking both halves of the exchange from Alisio’s grubby little hands.

Mason had re-grilled Michaels about the fishing boat’s role because, on the surface, it seemed outrageously risky. Michaels said that the fishing boat always towed a small skiff out to the coordinates, then sent the skiff to pick up the duffels from the yacht while it was still moving. Mason had to hand it to the South Koreans: they were savvy smugglers.

If everything went according to plan, the yacht should’ve transferred the duffels to the fishing boat about fourteen hours ago. Mason looked at his watch. Michaels said each leg of the fishing boat’s journey—out to sea and then back—took fifteen hours, putting the fishing boat’s return at 6:00
AM
, around ninety minutes from now. An hour before docking, the fishing boat’s captain would text Michaels to verify everything was all set.

Mason thought it ironic that Alisio’s smuggling activities had become so closely monitored in Mexico that he’d been forced to move his ROK deliveries north of the border. The opposite should’ve been true. It gave new meaning to the definition of a “porous US border.”

Now all Mason and his team had to do was stay away from BSI headquarters, avoid the police, and elude the gunmen who’d protected Toby. None of that should be too difficult.

Everyone needed sleep. They’d been awake for thirty straight hours. One thing Mason had learned during OEF was to get shut-eye whenever you could. Depending on the timing of the exchange with Alisio’s people later today, they might be able to get some rack time. All things considered, his current fatigue level paled in comparison to what he’d experienced in Afghanistan.

He stepped out the back door and looked up at the smidgen of stars. He missed that about Shindand: the incredibly dark night sky. He felt like knocking down several shots of whiskey, but that self-destructive behavior was no longer an option, especially now, being so close to achieving his lifelong dream. There were times when he wished he’d never seen the box of cash at Mullah Sanjari’s compound or the twenty-dollar bill. He still thought it strange that after all the carnage and bloodshed he’d seen—and dished out—the sight of a box full of cash had affected him so deeply. It was the allure of power, he suspected. Power not only to lead soldiers and operatives and succeed in one’s endeavors but also to travel the world, buy what you wanted, influence whomever you wished, and ultimately to control your own destiny.

In another ninety minutes, he’d be that much closer.

CHAPTER 29

“When I gave Tanner Mason the reins of the November Directive,” George Beaumont explained, “I didn’t want his control to be absolute, so I built in a safety catch to verify the information he gave me. Every one of my undercover operatives also reports directly to me or one of my sons, and Mason has no clue they’re doing it. Put simply, I’ve got a direct line of communication to Ramiro.”

Stone said, “So may we assume the information Ramiro’s been giving you has varied from what Mason’s been giving you? And tonight’s murders could be related?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so. I can’t pinpoint exactly when I began to suspect Mason, but it was several months ago. Just as you said, there were discrepancies in what Mason told me versus what Ramiro told me. At first I thought they were just oversights on Mason’s part. I had to remind myself that he’s dealing with twelve agents in three countries. The last time I spoke to Mason, a few days ago, there was a bigger . . . inconsistency. He failed to tell me something important that I’d just learned from Ramiro. It involved an unprecedented shipment of duffel bags out of North Korea. There’s no way Mason could’ve overlooked telling me something like that. Mason purposely withheld the intel.”

“Is that how it normally works?” Nathan asked. “Do your field agents give you the info before Mason?”

“Not usually. In fact, my updates from the field aren’t nearly so frequent as Mason’s, or as detailed. They’re pretty generalized. When Ramiro reported this latest shipment wasn’t being treated like the standard guns-for-money type of deal, I’d expected to hear the same thing from Mason, but he made no mention of it. Since then, Ramiro’s gone silent. I understand why Ramiro has to be careful, but when one of my operatives gives me a prolonged period of silence, I get nervous. I have no idea if they’re blown or just unable to make contact.”

His dad said, “I know exactly how you feel, George. I felt the same way when Nathan and Harvey went on their covert ops. Silence is horrible.”

“That’s the norm in my world. I have to constantly remind myself they can’t just drop what they’re doing and call me on their cells.”

“So what are we going to do?” Stone asked.

“Based on what I’ve learned from all of you tonight,” Beaumont answered, “I’m going to initiate contact with Ramiro right away. I usually hear back within six to twelve hours if I use an emergency code. Sometimes sooner.”

“How do you do that?” Harv asked. “If you don’t mind telling us.”

“Online gaming,” Beaumont said with some pride. “We play a combat video game with other online players. It has the most players of its kind, worldwide. Multiple millions, I’m told. Anyway, we talk to each other in real time using headsets. There’s a lot of teasing and trash-talking. It’s like a community, and we all have monikers. Ramiro uses his own name so it won’t look suspicious. Everyone in Alisio’s cartel knows him by Ramiro, anyway. I’m MGK, short for Machine Gun Kelly. Alisio doesn’t suspect a thing because Ramiro plays the game right in front of everyone. Some of Alisio’s lieutenants play as well. Even Alisio gets online occasionally. He uses the moniker Mr. A. He’s pretty good. He’s killed me a bunch of times inside the game. Just to be safe, I morph my voice. Lots of players do that, so it doesn’t raise any suspicions.”

Nathan shook his head and looked at Harv. “So Alisio and his men have no idea they’re playing a video game with Ramiro’s undercover handler. Remarkable.”

“No kidding,” Harv said.

“We have one-liners we use as code phrases to communicate. If I say the bolt-code phrase during the game, he knows to get the hell out of there ASAP. I also have a normal ‘make contact’ phrase and an emergency ‘make contact’ phrase.”

“Can you do that from any computer?” Harv asked.

“Yes, but I like to use my own because I can mask its IP address. Ethan, if I can use one of your computers, I’ll be able to contact Ramiro a lot sooner. I won’t have to wait until I’m back in San Diego.”

“Come by my office after we hang up. I’ll get you hooked up.”

“Does Ramiro use the same kind of system to contact Mason?” Harv asked. “Online gaming?”

“Yes, but it’s a different game run by a completely different gaming company.”

“It’s brilliant,” Nathan said. “Making contact right in front of the boss.”

“It’s worked well so far,” said Beaumont.

Harv asked, “If Mason rips Alisio off, what does that do to your ongoing investigation of Alisio’s cartel?”

Lansing cut in. “It could screw everything up. Years of work could be lost. We’re an eyelash away from setting up a major sting to nail Alisio and dismantle his cartel. I’ve been working closely with the ATF and PFM, setting everything up. Which makes the timing of Mason’s actions highly suspect. He might be planning to make a move against Alisio before we bring him down.”