The Ultimatum--An International Spy Thriller Read online

  Durand shook his head. “He wasn’t at the time that fingerprint was recovered. We were close, so close, to catching him. This is the man we were pursuing, and I see no other way Thayer’s fingerprint could have found its way inside that glove if he didn’t leave it there.”

  “As I understand it, the man you call Traveler is a high-end thief. The fact that he stole millions from Prince Al Khalifa? It has nothing to do with us.” Kemp closed the computer with a quick snap and gave Durand a small, sardonic smile. “We have our sources, too.”

  “It wasn’t only money.” Durand looked at the brigadier general. “Tell him what else Traveler took.”

  The brigadier general looked uneasy. When Durand nodded at him encouragingly, the man grimaced and said, “Among other items that, uh, came to us along with the money, there was a small notebook. It contained the names and cover identities of all the American agents operating in the Middle East and those who were helping them clandestinely at the time of Gaddafi’s overthrow. Gaddafi was going to use it to blackmail the Americans into getting him out of the country and securing for himself a safe place of asylum. As you know, many of the names are unchanged even today.”

  Kemp’s eyes narrowed. His gaze shot to Durand. “It’s my understanding that Traveler burned to death in a stolen truck last night along with his gang and Prince Al Khalifa’s misappropriated fortune. If the notebook was taken at the same time as the money, it surely burned, as well. Thus Traveler’s identity no longer matters, and your problem is solved.”

  Durand said, “One would think.” His attention shifted to the other man. “Brigadier General Al Amiri, your role in this meeting is complete. I thank you for coming.”

  The brigadier general stood and came around the table toward Durand. Durand held out his hand to him in farewell. Taking it, Al Amiri said, “You understand that His Highness requires the utmost discretion in this matter. If word of what was lost should get out—”

  “It will not. Please assure His Highness of that, and thank him for his cooperation.”

  The slightly bitter twist Al Amiri’s mouth took on as Durand said that reminded Rogan that the prince’s cooperation had been obtained under duress, and only because Durand had emphasized to him the consequences, not just worldwide but among his own family, if it should become known that Gaddafi’s widely rumored missing fortune had wound up in the prince’s possession.

  “Yes, I will do that.” The brigadier general allowed himself to be shown out. While he had the door open, Durand poked his head out into the hall.

  “Samira—”

  “Yes, sir.” The woman entered and, with a quick smile for Durand, headed directly for the laptop.

  “If you could pull up the other video.” Durand sounded apologetic as he followed her to the table.

  She opened the laptop, pecked at a few keys and said, “You need only tap the touch pad again.”

  “Thank you, Samira.” Dismissing her with a nod, he waited until she had left the room and closed the door behind her. Then he looked at Kemp and said, “Over the years, but especially in the past five years or so, Traveler has stolen not only millions upon millions of dollars in cash and valuables but also secrets. Highly classified material like what is in this notebook that could cost the lives of many serving and former intelligence officers if the information in it should leak out. The items that he has taken—documents, photographs, recordings, computer files—are SCI and SAP level. You will understand that the hunt for him has grown increasingly intense.”

  SCI and SAP level were above Top Secret, reserved for the most sensitive government programs and information. Kemp’s mouth thinned. “And what has Traveler done with this information?”

  Durand shook his head. “We don’t know. There has been no blowback that we know of, and so far we have not been successful in determining where the stolen material has ended up. But rest assured, Traveler took it for a reason. Identifying him, knowing now that he is most probably Mason Thayer, gives us even more cause for concern. As it should you.”

  “Thayer is dead,” Kemp said.

  “Yet somehow his fingerprint lives on. I am informally requesting your agency’s cooperation in this matter. I can submit a formal request if you like, but, as you know, formal requests have a way of leaking. I think everyone concerned would prefer it if we worked together to resolve this quietly.”

  Kemp appeared to consider. Then he nodded curtly. “We’ll do what we can.”

  “Time is of the essence,” Durand said. “We are closer than we have ever been to bringing Traveler in.”

  “I thought Traveler was dead,” Kemp replied. “Just as Mason Thayer is dead.”

  “I am not so certain about either.” Durand beckoned both Kemp and Rogan closer. “Watch this. Tell me what you think.”

  He tapped the touch pad, and the laptop sprang to life.

  Footage of a stopped garbage truck surrounded by soldiers closing in on it. A flash of light like a shooting star through the darkness, streaking toward the truck from out of frame. The truck erupting into a giant fireball that almost immediately consumed it—

  Durand tapped the touch pad again, and the image froze. For an instant he looked pleased with himself before glancing up at the others.

  “Traveler and at least two and possibly as many as four of his associates are thought to have perished in this blaze. Two hundred million dollars in untraceable US cash that was in the back of the truck burned to ash. My question to you is, in your opinion could this have been faked?”

  “Are you sure Traveler and the money were inside the truck when it burned?” Placing one hand on the tabletop, Rogan leaned forward to study the still image of the blazing truck. It was impossible to see inside the cab, impossible to tell if anyone might have been in the back with the cash. Hardened as he was to the almost infinite forms violent death could take, he discovered that he didn’t much like to think about the possibility that his scantily clad seductress might have burned alive in that truck.

  “We have eyewitness testimony placing Traveler and at least two of his associates inside the cab at the moment of explosion,” Durand said. “This is the only video that we have, and as you see it doesn’t show much. The people on the garbage scow that was to take the truck to Qatar profess to know nothing. They are being questioned, but I do not expect a great deal of new information. We have people sifting through the wreckage as we speak who have confirmed that the ash inside the truck is consistent with US dollars. Unfortunately, the bodies inside were also reduced to ash. It will take time to recover the DNA and do an analysis so that the identities of the deceased can be confirmed.”

  “Why do you suspect it might have been faked?” Kemp asked.

  Durand shrugged. “I do not so much suspect it as—how shall I put this?—wonder. It is very convenient that Traveler, his associates and the large fortune he was attempting to steal all go poof up in flames just as the authorities close in. If we believe Traveler is dead and the money burned, we stop looking for him—and it. Plus, if Traveler is in fact Mason Thayer, he has apparently successfully faked his death before. As you said, for twenty-two years.”

  “Impossible.” Kemp’s tone was harsh.

  “Is it?”

  “Who fired the shot that took out the truck?” Rogan had tapped the touch pad and gotten the video going again. There was footage—incomplete but interesting—of the military vehicles surrounding the truck. “The only thing I see that could cause anything approaching that level of explosion is the Mark 19 grenade launcher—” he pointed at the screen “—here, and it doesn’t appear to have been fired.”

  Durand gave him an approving look. “That is a very good question. So far no one is taking responsibility, but then the word is out that the prince is upset at the turn events took and so it is possible that they may be keeping quiet. We are having the footage a
nalyzed, of course.”

  Rogan said, “But you feel that it’s possible that Traveler himself had the truck blown up to cover an escape.”

  Durand shrugged. “Anything is possible. It is an avenue I am prepared to explore.”

  “How could they possibly have pulled that off?”

  “Perhaps by using doubles. Perhaps—I do not know. But we do know that Traveler is a master at the arts of misdirection and illusion. I am not willing to simply accept that he is dead without examining other possibilities.”

  Kemp took a hasty turn around the room. He stopped to look at Durand. “What’s being done?”

  Durand said, “There’s a Red Notice out.” A Red Notice being an international wanted-persons alert. “We found an old photo of Mason Thayer that we have had age-enhanced to present day. That is being run through facial recognition software to compare it with driver’s license databases, pilot and all other license databases, government ID programs—anything anywhere in the world that requires a picture ID. Unless he has changed his appearance drastically, and it does not appear that he has, we will find him.”

  “Do we have IDs on his associates yet?” Rogan asked. “If we find out who they are, that might lead us to him.”

  “Not yet. We suspect that the woman who was advising the prince on his art collection was part of it. She slipped away from the prince’s bodyguards while being brought in for questioning, and may or may not have been in the truck. The prince knew her as Jennifer Ashley, but we have ascertained that that was an alias. We have a description, a passport photo and pictures from security footage—here.” Durand tapped the touch pad and looked delighted when images appeared of a red-haired woman walking through an art gallery and, at a different time, across a hotel lobby, followed by what appeared to be the same woman entering the Gudaibiya Palace ballroom the previous night. Unfortunately, in all instances her face was turned away from the camera. The slightly blurry passport photo that followed showed an attractive, thirty-ish woman with a wild mane of red hair obscuring the sides of her face and most of her wide jawline. She had narrowed eyes and a slight overbite as she faced the camera.

  She bore little resemblance to the blonde beauty who had blindsided him in the restroom. But he knew they were one and the same.

  This, Rogan reflected, was the moment to come clean, to reveal what he knew about the woman’s drastically altered appearance.

  “We think there were two, possibly three others,” Durand said as the screen filled with rows of what looked like passport photos. Unwilling to examine his motives too closely, Rogan let the moment pass. Durand continued, “We’re cross-checking these known associates of Traveler’s with security footage taken in Bahrain over the past few days. We’ll let you know when we come up with some names.”

  Kemp said, “If Mason Thayer is dead—and he is—your whole strategy is a waste of time.”

  “This isn’t our whole strategy.” Durand met Kemp’s gaze. Something in Durand’s expression seemed to challenge the American, because his mouth tightened.

  “Oh? What else do you have in mind?”

  Durand said, “We’re going to shake the tree.”

  * * *

  Later that night, when Kemp was once again aloft in the private jet that had brought him to Bahrain, he made a call over a secure line. If what the Frenchman alleged was true, he would be blamed, he knew. Having failed to kill Thayer was the kind of blown mission that could cost him his career, maybe even his life. Annoying to discover that his palms were sweaty and his chest was tight as he faced the even more crucial question: Who else had he failed to kill?

  It was 3:00 a.m. Bahraini time, 7:00 p.m. in Washington, DC, where the man he was calling lived. That man was Alexander Groton, Kemp’s onetime boss and the recently retired head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under the Department of Defense umbrella, which among other things was charged with the research and development of emerging technologies for use by the military. The only person who had more to lose than Kemp did if Thayer was still alive.

  “Looks like we may have a problem,” he said to Groton when he answered.

  10

  Five months later

  It was 5:30 p.m. on the Wednesday before Halloween. Bianca emerged from her office, a large corner space on the top floor of one of Savannah, Georgia’s newest semi-high-rises (okay, so fifteen stories didn’t seem to her like it should actually qualify for the term high-rise, so she’d added the semi), to find Doc waving at her frantically from behind his desk in his office just off the sleekly modern reception area. Bianca acknowledged him with an upraised hand and a quick, negative shake of her head. Silent message: whatever it is will have to wait. Gordon Kazmarek, owner and CEO of the worldwide megachain of mall-based Gordon’s Jewelry Stores, and two of his associates had just walked through the front door into the reception area to hopefully seal the deal that would give Guardian Consulting—the security firm Bianca had established in this sleepy Southern town five years before, right after graduating from college, as part of the cover identity/bolt-hole that every prudent international criminal needs—an exclusive contract to provide all of Gordon’s Jewelry’s security.

  It was a big deal, a big legitimate deal. And legitimate was important. The problem with acquiring money by questionable means such as theft was, what did you do with it once you got it? Stuff it in your mattress? Squirrel it away in tin cans buried in your backyard? Stash it in a secret bank account or safety-deposit box somewhere? That was fine—unless you wanted/needed to use the money, which was generally the point of acquiring it. Plus there was the little matter of taxes. Al Capone was taken down by the tax man, and Bianca had no desire to follow in his footsteps. The solution was obvious: come up with a means to make the money look like it came from somewhere that didn’t involve anything illegal. Like an elderly aunt who died and left you an inheritance. Or a windfall profit on the sale of an object that turned out to be surprisingly valuable. Or the ongoing profits from your own thriving business, i.e., Guardian Consulting.

  And when it turned out that your father had secretly, dangerously depleted all your bank accounts, hidden and otherwise, to fund the operation that had gone to hell on a slide, rendered up no profit whatsoever and ended with him getting killed and you barely escaping with your life, why, then your legitimate business, the one that you could actually work at and make a profit from, became doubly important.

  Because a girl had to eat. And pay the rent. And make payroll. And—well, lots of things.

  The opportunity with Gordon’s Jewelry Stores had come about because Bianca had been able to illustrate gaping holes in the chain’s security by robbing six of their stores. Kazmarek had challenged her to put her moves where her mouth was when she’d approached him at a conference with a pitch about the terrible state of his security. When he’d seen how easily she’d been able to make off with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of his merchandise, he’d been floored—and impressed. Tonight, Bianca was almost sure, would be the payoff.

  “Mr. Kazmarek.” Holding out her hand, Bianca walked forward to greet him with a smile.

  “Kaz, please.” Kazmarek took her hand, shook it, then held it a little too long and a little too tightly. Bianca was conservatively dressed in a black pantsuit and a white silk blouse, with her straight, not-quite-shoulder-skimming blond hair parted on the side and tucked behind one ear and her makeup minimal, but still he looked her over with open admiration. Five-nine and stocky, he was fifty-three, a twice-married, currently divorced self-made multimillionaire with an unabashed eye for the ladies. He was bullish in manner and appearance, with a bald, smooth-shaven head, coarse features, pale blue eyes and a brash confidence that had its own charm. That confidence was currently on full display as, once-over completed, his eyes rose to meet hers again and he smiled.

  “Kaz, of course.” B
ianca hadn’t forgotten that they’d progressed to a first-name basis during their last meeting, when she’d flown to his Memphis headquarters to present Guardian Consulting’s proposal to him and his board. She just didn’t want to encourage him to think that he was going to get anything out of this contract besides her firm’s very best security consulting services.

  She was shaking hands with Kazmarek’s associates when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Doc was waving at her again and looking agitated. Lips compressing, she glanced around for Evie, who, she was happy to see, had risen from her desk beneath the big silver Guardian Consulting sign that took up most of the wall at the top of the room and was approaching.

  “I don’t think you’ve met my assistant, Evangeline Talmadge.” Bianca introduced them. Evie turned on that megawatt Deb-of-the-Year smile of hers and shook hands. Five-three and curvy, Evie was dressed today in a sleeveless, colorful rose-print sheath that, like all of her clothes, had cost the earth, a coordinating cardigan, pearls and, atypically, flats. She had a round, pretty face with the magnolia-pale skin that had been prized in the Deep South since time immemorial, a riot of shoulder-length coffee-brown curls, a small, upturned nose, wide mouth and big brown puppy-dog eyes. The only daughter of a real estate magnate who owned a good portion of Savannah and a lot of the rest of the South and Savannah’s leading blue-blooded socialite, she’d grown up rich and privileged—and feeling unwanted.

  Bianca had met her at Le Rosey, the boarding school in the Swiss Alps where really rich kids whose parents were too busy to be bothered with them were shipped off to be educated. Evie was at Le Rosey because her really rich parents were divorcing. Bianca was there because her father wanted an entrée to the really rich with the intention of robbing them, swindling them or, in some other iniquitous way, separating them from a portion of their wealth, although of course she hadn’t realized that at the time.