Silent Assassin (22 page)

C
HAPTER
47

 

T
he foyer was all done in white and pink marble. There were large ornate mirrors on the walls, and fresh flowers in decorative vases. Morgan walked in confidently, but with due deference. He was about to ask a favor of a man who would not be happy to see him, and it would do him no good to act tough.

He heard the footsteps before seeing him: a large man, in a dark blue suit, his huge gut protruding from the jacket. “Hello, Sal.”

Salvatore Massaro was the head of a powerful crime family in Miami. He had a hand in all the dirty dealings in the city, from drugs to prostitution to illegal gambling. Back in his high school days, Morgan had gone to school with Sal’s niece, Gabriella, who was also Sal’s godchild. Morgan was friendly with her family, which was involved in organized crime in the Boston area. Shortly after high school graduation, Morgan had learned about a major drug bust in the town he’d grown up in, just outside of Boston, through a good friend who was a local police detective. Morgan had asked if he could go along for the ride and observe. Some warehouses had been raided, including one of Massaro’s located on the waterfront. During the raids, several of Massaro’s top people had been killed with several others arrested and a huge amount of narcotics had been confiscated. A crack house had also been raided and one of those detained was Gabriella. She’d been pretty strung out, but recognized Morgan and asked for his help. Dan had gotten his detective friend to agree to let Morgan take her to a clinic, where she would hopefully get clean. Dan had, and notified her family of her whereabouts. The family had made it clear to Morgan that they owed him a favor. Morgan had met Sal years earlier through Gabriella, and while they had never been exactly friends, there had been some degree of mutual respect between them. The police operation ended that relationship, and left Sal Massaro resentful of Morgan for not tipping him off somehow.

“Well, look who’s here,” Massaro said acidly. “What do you want?”

“And here I thought you’d be glad to see me,” said Morgan.

“We don’t like white hats, Dan. Not unless they’re on the payroll.”

“I’m not here to bust you, Sal, you know I’m not a cop. I’m here because I need your help.”

“Help?” he scoffed.

“There’s a shipment of cocaine that’s coming into port on a certain ship.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about any of that.”

“Please,” said Morgan. “You’re not letting anything come in and out of your city without your knowledge. Don’t play coy with me. I don’t want you arrested, Sal. Now hear me out. This stuff ’s been tainted as part of a terrorist plot. There’s a deadly fungus mixed in with this powder.”

“What, like anthrax or something?”

“Worse,” said Morgan.

“Worse?”

“If this thing gets out, I promise it’s going to be ugly. And if they trace it back to the cocaine, I can assure you that the DEA is the last thing you’ll have to worry about. Suddenly, ending the drug trade will be a matter of national security. And you know how civil rights and due process are the first to go out the door as soon as terrorism is mentioned.”

“That they are,” said Sal pensively.

“So you’ll help?” asked Morgan.

Sal laughed bitterly. “You come here with some half-baked story about some terrorist attack, and you expect me to leap off my feet to help you? To give up millions’ worth of pure blow? What the hell do you expect?”

“I expected a favor from someone who owes me,” said Morgan.

Sal looked dour, seething. “I never sold that junk. Meth. It made me sick to find out that Gabriella was sucked in by it. If it hadn’t been for you she would probably be a strung-out junkie or dead.”

“You can repay that debt today,” said Morgan. “In full.”

“All right.” He took out a pad and a pen and wrote four numbers down on a sheet of paper. “You’ll find the shipment in this container. It’s marked as being full of soybeans. Just get it out of there before the pickup crew arrives. They don’t play nice with people who steal their property.”

“Thank you, Sal.”

“My debt is repaid, Morgan. If I ever see you darkening my doorstep again, you’re a dead man. You hear me? Dead.”

Morgan looked him in the eyes and said, “I think we have an understanding, Sal.”

C
HAPTER
48

 

T
he sun had not yet come up in Miami, and Morgan was huddled in the back of a van with Bishop and Spartan, with Diesel at the wheel. It was warm enough that they did not have to wear winter clothing—although nothing near the blazing heat in Rio—so the team wore light black gear. They’d brought only handguns and no heavier weapons.

Bishop checked his watch and said, “Let’s move out.” Morgan swung open the back door to the van, emerging into the darkness of Port Miami. They were in a parking lot surrounded by containers piled high, and in the distance, he could see the silhouette of a row of towering port cranes. He held the back door to the van as Spartan and Bishop came out, then closed it behind them. Diesel came around from the driver’s door, and they ran, single file, in between the sparse, dim lights to the edge of a pile of containers. The security guards had already been bribed, and would stay clear of the unloading area for the next half-hour.

The
Argos
had been unloaded in the late afternoon into the yard, and the containers still sat there, unopened. They walked down the rows until they found what they were looking for: the container that held the tainted cocaine. It was a rusting dark blue that looked black in the darkness.

Diesel used a heavy bolt-cutter to take care of the lock, and Spartan opened the door. It was packed floor to ceiling with sacks marked as being filled with soy. They pulled out the sacks, piling them outside the container. It took several minutes, but having burrowed through the container, they reached what they were looking for: heavy unmarked bags.

“Jesus, there must be thousands of pounds there,” said Spartan.

“All right,” said Spartan into the comm, “looks like our information checks out. Send the chopper.”

The chopper in question was an S-64 Skycrane, a transport helicopter that was built especially for heavy-lift jobs such as this. They kept watch for the five minutes until Morgan heard the sound of the approaching chopper. They waved it down by the container.

“Diesel, Spartan, like we practiced. Cobra, keep a lookout.” They began loading the sacks of cocaine into the chopper.

Everything was still in the port. The night was bright, and in the clouds Morgan saw searchlights from the nightclubs in the city. A whole other kind of brightness suddenly called his attention.

“Headlights,” said Morgan. “I’ve got headlights.”

“Just about done here,” said Diesel.

The source of the headlights turned a corner, and Morgan saw that it was a truck and a pickup. They seemed to be coming right at them. It could only be one thing.

The dealers had come to collect the cocaine.

“Everybody get in the chopper,” said Morgan.

“But there are only three seats,” said Spartan.

“I know. Get the hell in there.”

He took off, running between two rows of containers, and taking a right. The whir of the choppers’ blades grew louder as it took off. Morgan heard automatic fire, as the dealers shot at the departing helicopter. The sound covered his footsteps as he circled back between rows of containers until he emerged from behind them.

There were seven men in all, three of them holding Uzi submachine guns and the others wielding handguns. There was no way he could face them alone in the open, but all he had to do was draw their attention long enough for the chopper to escape.

Crouching at the corner of a container, he took careful aim with his Walther and fired three shots at one of the men with an Uzi. Two hit home, and he dropped to the ground. They heard him and turned to find the source of the shots. He quickly emptied his clip, hitting another man in the leg, and disappeared between the containers again. He switched the clip in his Walther as he ran, turning left, going down the length of three containers and turning left again.

Being alone, he had to rely on stealth and misdirection. By moving constantly, he could convince them that there was more than one enemy and lead them into confusion. He emerged from the rows of containers and fired three times, then ran out of sight again. It had been enough to allow the helicopter to escape, but the dealers were now swarming on him. He ran back into the maze of containers. He nearly bumped into one of the dealers and shot him at point blank. As he ran down the corridor, he heard gunfire behind him. He fired his two remaining bullets for cover and turned a corner. He was faced with a dead end. Morgan was trapped and out of ammo.

He heard footsteps of the man approaching, running toward him. He rounded the corner of the corridor, a man in Bermuda shorts and a red shirt with four buttons undone, with an Uzi in his hand.

“There you are,” he said with a cruel grin. He had raised the Uzi to shoot Morgan when three shots rang out, and the man staggered and fell forward. Another person emerged into the corridor. A woman with close-cropped blond hair, dressed in black.

“Spartan? You were supposed to be on that chopper!”

“You didn’t think I’d really abandon you, did you?”

“You were supposed to run away!” he said, grinning.

“Yeah, right,” she said.

“The others?” he asked.

“Gone. Come on, champ. Let’s get out of here before the rest of the family shows up.”

They ran through the maze, away from the chopper’s landing point, until they reached their van. Morgan got in the driver’s seat and Spartan in the passenger’s. He found the key, which Diesel had hidden in the visor on the driver’s side. He peeled out, leaving the port’s unloading docks behind as dawn’s first light appeared in the sky.

C
HAPTER
49

 

M
organ arrived home late the next day to find Jenny alone in the house. It was a Saturday, and Alex was out having fun with friends. Jenny was sitting alone at the kitchen table, eating tuna salad and reading a decorating magazine, with a Sharpie sitting next to it. She always had it with her to circle pictures that inspired her.

“Hi, Dan,” she said dryly as he walked into the kitchen. “How was your trip? Do I even want to know?”

“I don’t think you do,” he said.

“I didn’t think so,” she said. “Look, I think . . .” She trailed off, looking into the middle distance thoughtfully.

“What is it, Jen?” he asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Never mind. But I did have something to talk to you about. Did you know that Alex has been out shooting a gun?”

Morgan winced. “How did you find out?”

“She had it in her purse,” said Jenny. “I didn’t snoop. She left it out and I could see it. So you did know about it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I caught her in the act. She was sneaking off to the woods to practice on her own. I told her I’d teach her.”

“Why on earth would you do that?” asked Jenny. “Are you crazy?”

“She wanted to learn, and I didn’t see any harm in it,” said Morgan. He didn’t see a need to tell her about their daughter’s career plans.

“No harm in our teenage daughter going off and shooting a gun God knows where? What if she hurt someone? What if she hurt
herself?
”

“I taught her to be safe,” said Morgan. “She knows how to shoot without hurting herself and others. It’s something she likes and she’s good at.
I
learned to shoot a gun when I was years younger. She’s seventeen already. If she had been a boy, she’d have learned it as early as me.”

“And I still wouldn’t have liked it,” said Jenny. “I hope she’s not getting any ideas from you. I hope it all really is harmless fun. But I see her training martial arts and working out like crazy, and I’m afraid there’s something else going on. I’m afraid she’s learning to shoot because she thinks she’s going to
use
a gun someday.”

“Is that really a problem?” Morgan asked.

“
Yes!
” Jenny exclaimed. “She’s moving into your world, which is a dangerous world, and you’re letting her because you want a way that you can connect with your daughter.”

“I’m letting her because it’s what she wants!” he retorted. “If I don’t let her, she’s going to do it anyway! I might as well teach her to be as responsible as she can while I still have some kind of say over what she does.”

“Well,” said Jenny, pushing away from the table and leaving one third of her uneaten sandwich on the plate. “I hope you know what you’re doing, because I sure as hell don’t. But I guess it’s just one more person in my life who’s going to be keeping secrets from me.”

“Jen, please understand . . .”

“I do understand,” she said. “I understand why you do what you do, and I understand, I think, what Alex is doing here. What I don’t understand is why you need to lie so much to me. Good night, Dan.”

She walked out of the kitchen, upstairs to their bedroom.

 

 

Morgan went into Zeta the next morning. He took the elevator down from the garage and found Bloch waiting for him there as the doors opened.

“Welcome back, Morgan,” she said with a measure of warmth, which for her was uncommon. He almost thought he had seen a smile form on her lips. Almost.

“I really hope you weren’t standing there all morning waiting for me.”

“I knew you were coming,” she said. “I’d just like to congratulate you on your performance during this mission.”

“We didn’t get Novokoff,” he said. “I don’t think that’s cause for congratulations.”

“True,” she said. “But you did prevent a massive biological weapons strike in the United States. You saved a lot of lives, Morgan. And I want you to know that I recognize that.”

Morgan chuckled. “Does Diana Bloch have a heart after all?”

“Don’t push it,” she said. “All I can say is that I’m glad to have you on our team. You did good, Morgan. But he is still out there, and so are the people he worked for.”

“Do we have any developments on that?” he asked.

“We handed it over to U.S. government intelligence, which we managed to do without revealing the precise nature of the organism. They have better man power and resources to deal with this kind of search. We got lucky with the mycologist. But the kinds of paper trails we’re talking about takes a little more than we have here. For now, anyway.”

Morgan didn’t respond, but he filed away that
for now
in his head.

“Meanwhile, why don’t we take a little walk to Barrett’s workshop?” she said. “We’ve got a little something for you.”

Morgan followed her through the corridors of Zeta Division, then upstairs. Bloch put her hand on a panel, and the door opened to Eugenia Barrett’s workshop. The space itself was cavernous and brightly lit, with numerous worktables and electronic devices lying open with their innards exposed. There was a truck-sized door on the far end that Morgan knew opened up into the building’s garage. Heavy metal was blasting from speakers in the middle of the room, reverberating far and wide in the enormous room. In the middle was a something large. It was covered by a tarp, but the shape was unmistakable.

“You got me a car?” he asked.

“Hold on,” said Barrett. “Let me get the fanfare ready.”

“That’s unnecessary, Barrett,” said Bloch. “Just show it to him.”

Morgan’s eyes were already tracing the shape of the vehicle, making conjectures about what it was. Even covered up, he had a pretty good idea.

“Just wanted to add a little theatricality to the mix.”

Bloch shot her an impatient look.

“All right, all right.” With a flourish like a circus ringleader, Barrett pulled the tarp to reveal the vehicle underneath.

Morgan’s face lit up as he realized it was a black-on-black Ford Shelby GT 500 Cobra. Barrett then said, “We had it customized just for you. I haven’t gotten around to writing a user manual yet, but I can show you the ropes. It has a six-fifty HP supercharged V8 capable of more than two hundred miles per hour, with a six-speed manual transmission. It has nineteen-inch front and twenty-inch rear wheels, which will give you much better handling at high speeds.”

“Holy crap,” he said, like a kid on Christmas. “It’s . . . perfect.”

And Morgan knew perfection. He had loved muscle cars since his teenage years. He had approached his cover job as a classic car broker with the passion of the enthusiast. He could rattle off car stats from memory, and he had personally taken apart and put back together a few.

“I thought you might like it,” said Barrett. “It’s totally custom-made. Heavily armored with overlapping titanium alloy plates. Lightweight, and still it laughs in the face of assault weapons. In fact, anything not mounted on a tank is not going to pierce this bad boy. The tires are made of carbon nanotubes. Ridiculously strong. They can’t be shot out and won’t go flat.”

“Plus,” she said, “I’ve added a few personal touches. The exterior appears to be completely stock, but the headlights swing open and are equipped with heat-seeking missiles. The parking lights drop down and can fire lasers. Both of these have steering-wheel controls that will recognize your palm and thumb prints to prevent anyone else from activating these weapons. And then you have two nozzles hidden under the back bumper.”

“The old oil slick trick?” said Morgan.

“Oil slicks are for sissies,” she said. “This has an amazingly potent rubber solvent. A car behind you runs over it, and whichever tires touch this thing are going to become streaks on the asphalt. The inner tubes give out pretty much instantly, too.”

Morgan got into the car to get a feel for the leather seats and layout of the controls. Barrett continued her description, “Both front seats can be ejected. It is fitted with a state-of-the-art onboard computer system linked to several satellites and programmed for voice commands. Once we get you registered, it will respond to you, and you alone, and allow you to send audible text messages. It has detection radar and a GPS with 3-D mapping with a tracker so we’ll always be able to find you. It also has a remote or sixty-second-delayed self-destruct button, if you should ever need it.”

“Cobra,” said Barrett, “this car has the most advanced technology known to man, and if used correctly can be as deadly as any agent. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” he said. “How soon can I take this baby out on the road?”

 

 

Morgan pulled up to his driveway as twilight became night, and parked in the garage. The car was a magnificent machine. He had torn down the highway, getting a feel for its handling. He even tested out some of the more exotic features—at least the nondestructive ones. Eventually, he came home, but not because he ever wanted to stop driving.

As he was getting out of the car, Jenny opened the kitchen door and stood against the doorjamb, looking pleasantly at him.

“What’s that?” she asked. “New car?”

“Yeah, company perk,” Morgan said. “It’s called a Cobra, which I thought was appropriate. What do you think?”

“Very sexy,” she said. “Very you.”

“You’re very friendly,” said Morgan. “Frankly, I thought you’d be angry, after last night.”

“Let’s not talk about last night,” she said. “Just come here.”

She fell into his arms, and they kissed. They walked into the kitchen together as he pulled the door shut behind him. He put his hand on her back and pulled her close. They kissed again.

“I’ve missed you,” he said. He had. He had missed her warmth and her smell. Being close to her made him feel truly at home.

“I’ve missed you too,” she said, smiling between kisses. She pulled him close and ran her hand through her hair. “Alex is out.”

“Hmm,” he said. As they kissed, her breathing became heavier.

“Wait, wait,” she said, gently pushing him away. “Hold on. I thought I could leave this conversation aside for the night. Only for tonight. But I don’t think I can. I need to talk to you, Dan.”

Morgan pulled back, concerned. “What is it, Jen?”

“I can’t just—look, Dan. Two days ago. I had a crisis, a perfect storm of a day. Mom had a breast cancer scare, Alex went off again, and I ended up losing my temper and yelling at a client.”

“Oh God, Jen, is she—”

“She’s fine, thank God,” said Jenny. “It turned out to be a benign mass. But I could have used you here, Dan. I
needed
you. At least to be able to call you, to hear your voice. But you were gone, and I had no idea where you were.”

“Look, I really can’t tell you,” he said.

“It doesn’t even matter,” she said. “You weren’t here. You left for days without telling me where. Leaving me not knowing if you would ever come back.”

“Jenny—”

“No, Dan,” she said. “Don’t say anything. That happened, and then this Alex thing. I didn’t really know what to say about that. But look, the truth is, I just can’t fight anymore. I don’t like what you do. As a matter of fact, I
hate
it. But I’m tired, Dan. Fighting with you is exhausting. I can’t stand not being able to talk to you. I miss things just being okay and normal between us.”

“Me too,” said Morgan. “I want that more than anything in the world.”

“Not more than you want to be a black op,” said Jenny. “That much is clear. Though for the life of me I can’t imagine why.”

“Jenny . . .”

“So I don’t understand, and I can’t really say that I’m okay with it. You should know that I’m not. But . . .” She sighed. “I promised that I would love you and stay by your side, when we got married. In sickness and in health. And unfortunately, that includes your stupid decisions as well.”

“I suppose that’s really the best I could hope for,” he said, and then smiled warmly.

“I’ve missed you, Dan,” she said, relief flooding her voice. “I’ve missed you so much.” She pressed her small frame to him as they hugged. “I can’t stand not talking to you, not sleeping next to you. You’re already away too much. I can’t stand not being with you when you’re here on top of that.”

“I’ve missed you too,” he said, lost in the warmth and closeness of her body. Her hair was soft against his face. They held each other for a long time with closed eyes. Then she released him and smiled at him with misty eyes.

“So you got a new toy, huh?” she said, with just a trace of joy creeping into her voice. “When are you going to take me for a spin?”