Serpents in the City (Mac Ambrose Book 3) Read online

  “Not very long.”

  “How long have you been tracking me?”

  An embarrassed look. “Long enough to know you’re single.”

  He laughed. It was a deep, guttural laugh that she remembered in an instant. It sent a thrill through her.

  He asked,“And how long does it take a spy to figure that out?”

  “A few weeks.”

  He gave her a ‘not bad’ grin. Then he said,“I missed you.”

  And just like that, Joe had brought her back in. It had always been Joe.

  A taxi driver laid on the horn for endless seconds, pulling her back to Times Square. She sipped from the coffee.

  The night before, she had tried to explain her motivation: the need to make her own decisions and the lure of personal freedom. The fact that extortion in politics was anathema to democracy and was particularly galling when the target was one of only twenty women in the Senate, meant this was a mission she could rally behind.

  “I’ll find the guy,” she had said. “I’ll put some pressure on him, and poof the problem goes away.” She had assured Joe that this trip was only a first ‘look-see.’ Nothing risky.

  He had understood, “What you’re saying is that you’re doing this for you.”

  “It will help me. It’s what I’m good at. This is what I’ve been trained to do. I can do it.”

  “They could find another Mac if you changed your mind.”

  “I don’t think they know another Mac.”

  Standing in the middle of the chaos of Times Square, the motives behind her decision now seemed less substantial. Perhaps her decision in the senator’s living room had been reckless.

  Annoyed with herself, she pushed off the wall of Walgreens to begin the reconnoiter of the block. The sooner I get this done, she thought, the sooner I can get back to Joe. Across from her, on the southwest corner, the pristine, glass encased lobby of the Patriot News building stood sentry over the masses.

  8

  Langley, VA

  Herbie Linen was a legend in his own mind: a long-suffering, stalwart CIA operative tossed around the map like a pawn with little direction from HQ who nevertheless got shit done. Herbie had endured a string of crappy assignments to far-flung banana republics, tasked only with keeping tabs on brutal dictators and warlords. While he resented his career run of futile assignments, Herbie knew in the back of his mind it was exactly what he had signed up for all those years ago in college, the penultimate decision of a young rebel too smart to get caught, too reckless for a traditional career.

  When he was a child, his father had been a jovial company man for Dupont and his mother a smiling, dedicated housewife. During those early years, Herbie had been told he was precocious and cheeky—a whip of a lad. When Herbie was eight, his father lost his wife to cancer. The aftermath had been immediate and devastating: their sunshine house became a roiling thunderstorm of drinking and explosive anger. Herbie’s teen years were spent in isolation by a stream that ran through the neighborhood, scheming ways to prick his father’s inebriated haze and avoid juvie. During his four-year college career, Herbie’s chosen hornet’s nest had been the Academic Judiciary Board, before which he had appeared no less than nine times. By graduation, Herbie was ripe for the plucking by a bureaucracy he could forever denounce.

  The conference room was like any other in Langley. Grey, stale, and utilitarian. The first suit to speak was like any other in Langley, grey, stale and grating. Herbie thought his name was Kelvin, maybe Kevlar. Something Kevlar. With Internal Affairs.

  Kevlar asked, “How did the extraction go?”

  Herbie looked around the room at the ten white men of varying ages. He only knew one well, Felix Dwyer, Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Services for HUMINT (Human Intelligence). Dwyer was his boss’s boss.

  Herbie replied with a shrug, “I got the call. I left.”

  “Anything dangling?” Kevlar was apparently the talking head for this debrief.

  “No. I was clean. Martini was the last one out. I heard he was hassled at the airport. They pulled him into the back room. Lots of questions. They watched the clock, kept him there until his flight was scheduled to depart. He was sure they weren’t going to let him go. But they held the flight for him. Walked him to the gate.”

  “You think they knew?”

  “I think they saw all four of us cleaning up camp and departing.” He cocked his head. “How long did you know before you got us out?”

  It was a tricky question. It involved cross agency cooperation, which he knew was a sticky subject. From what he had gathered, a Chinese hacker had breached the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) database. OPM conducted most of the background checks for US Government employees. In theory, this hack should have nothing to do with the Agency because they did their own background checks and their records were nowhere near the OPM server. But some clever Agency analyst had concluded that the Chinese could crosscheck those ‘officially-listed’ State Department staffers against the OPM list and deduce that those not listed were CIA operatives. Very dicey. The recall had been issued over secure lines 72 hours ago.

  But how long had he and his Agency colleagues been left dangling in the proverbial wind, their pants around their ankles?

  Dwyer set down his pen slowly, as if to make a very serious point. “OPM knew about the hack for a while before informing us.” He paused, looked around the room to ensure he had everyone’s attention. “We think they’ve known for a month.”

  Jesus. Jesus Christ. For an entire month some fucking assholes across town had yanked on their dicks while he had been getting a target drawn on his pucker.

  Wait. He stared down Dwyer. “Wait. How long did you know before you called in the extraction?”

  Dwyer’s dictation was concise. “You’re not NTK.” Translated: you’re not Need to Know.

  Which meant these fuckers right here in this room had also delayed. Jesus Christ. Over in Beijing they could have arrested him for international espionage and thrown him in some fucking prison camp. Jesus, this place really hacked him off.

  He blinked slowly and bit his tongue. He had two months to full pension. In 60 days, he’d walk down to Union Bank and cash out. He’d get a cashier’s check because he didn’t believe in wire transfers after working with the financial boys who sure as fuck did not trust the underlying SWIFT routing systems. He’d get on the next plane to Costa Rica and a fishing village on white sand with two bars. Clean and simple. Ocean, white sand and two bars. And a fishing boat. Only two months away. 60 days to play by their rules.

  Herbie was a survivor. He looked out for Herbie. He nodded, waited for the next round of questions from the grey suits.

  An hour later as the meeting was adjourning, Dwyer eased up to him. “We’ve got something for you. I need you to go check in with Frank Odom downstairs.”

  The hallway was dark like creepy childhood cellars. The light from a far office threw an anemic yellow rectangle onto white tile.

  Herbie reached the open door, tapped on the aluminum frame.

  Frank Odom swung his chair around from his desk, sized up Herbie. “Thanks for stopping by, Herbie.”

  “I’d heard you were put on R&R, Odom.” The Agency was one enormous rumor mill. He had heard Odom had fucked up and had been put on ice for a month or so.

  “I got called back in. Something critical.”

  “Is that right?” Herbie gave him an amused look. “Dwyer told me to check in.”

  “Have a seat.” Odom indicated the solitary, uncomfortable metal chair by the door and waited for him to settle down. “I think Mac Ambrose is back on US soil. We think she’s up to something.”

  9

  New York, NY

  Ernest Couillard strode across the tiled foyer of a four-story apartment building in the neighborhood affectionately known as Alphabet City. In this part of the East village, a mix of residential and commercial buildings, trendy restaurants, and apartment buildings, street names were sin
gle letters. Originally home to immigrants from Eastern Europe, it was now decidedly bohemian. The building was pre-war, grey and dusty. The walls needed a dose of fresh paint to hide the darker stained corners and the floors had a layer of grime no bleach could cut. The superintendent had clearly given up against the city’s limitless grit. The stairs were similar to any in buildings in this part of town—slabs of stone worn in the center from years of weary climbs.

  Ernest took the stairs in a steady, determined pace. Standing over 6’6” with oversized shoulders and tree trunk legs, he was a huge man. He walked canted forward in an effort to diminish his size and in response to a lifetime of pushing against low expectations.

  From large windows the morning light warmed the otherwise gloomy hallway on the second floor. Two apartment doors were a 1970s faded beige, the paint probably purchased from a hardware store that had since been replaced by Home Depot. A musty smell of cooking oil hung low and thick.

  The third floor landing was an exact replica of the second.

  Ernest crested the fourth floor landing to find a young, uniformed NYPD cop, arms crossed and legs apart, standing outside apartment 401. He knew what the young cop would see when he looked up: a clean-shaven giant with a sloped forehead, straight eyebrows, and wide-set eyes. Then the cop would glance at the hard mouth under the prominent, straight nose and recognize the darkened skin of a Native American.

  Ernest was Pawnee. From Oklahoma. Well, Ernest’s story had started in Loyal, Oklahoma. The Pawnee story started in Nebraska. But his Nation had been forced out, generations earlier.

  Ernest flashed his badge, “FBI. I just got the call.”

  The uniformed officer couldn’t hide the surprise. “We just called it in like five minutes ago.” His accent was Bronx dense.

  “I was in the neighborhood.” Ernest explained.

  Ernest’s memories started at the age of ten when his mother had given him up. As a child he had assumed she hadn’t wanted him anymore. As an adult, he had begrudgingly come to acknowledge the likelihood she had been desperate, perhaps destitute or trapped by an addiction. His first clear memory was of a large car with a long, black backseat, his hand gripping a small, tattered leather suitcase and his feet painfully squeezed into stiff shoes. The man and woman in the front wore dark suits and white shirts. The ride had been silent.

  The cop nodded toward the apartment, “My partner is inside.”

  Ernest rubbed his large hand over his bald head.

  The car had taken him to live with a white Christian family who changed his name from Shiriki—Coyote—to Ernest. The kids in the new school called him Ernest too. His teacher called him Ernest Couillard. Months later, he realized Couillard was the name of the new Christian family.

  Ernest pushed into the apartment, the large wooden planks creaking under his weight. The second cop was just approaching down the thin hallway.

  Ernest flashed him his badge. “The rest of the building is clear?”

  “Yeah. We checked all the apartments. The building super helped. He’s the Latino guy outside. It was called in as a gas leak. Dispatch said New York Gas is on the way.” The cop indicated the desk by a front window. “It’s the desk. When we were clearing the building, we noticed it. Hard to miss. That’s why we called it in to HQ. I guess they kicked it over to the Feds.”

  “Mind closing the door on your way out?” Ernest nodded in thanks, “Nobody comes in for ten minutes. I don’t care who they are. Federal order.”

  “Sure.” The second cop quietly shut the door behind him.

  His first day as a freshman in high school, Ernest signed up for football. He disliked the anger and pure physicality of football, but had hated the coaches the most. ‘Cagy Injun’ Ernest wouldn’t ‘amount to much,’ they said often. As a large kid who got bullied, got called the brown Shrek, he found the shorn hair and the football uniform made him look tougher. The kids left him alone after that. He had been alone a lot. He remembered hours spent staring from inside a football helmet at the tall wheat swaying in the blustery wind and dreaming of escape.

  In the apartment, he started a methodical sweep in the kitchen, the easiest room in which to estimate a resident’s occupancy. This kitchen was clean, but not spotless. One dirty plate rested in the sink and a few crumbs were scattered across the counter. He rubbed a crumb between his thumb and finger: still moist, which meant the occupant had eaten this morning. A drying rack held one more plate and two clean glasses. The occupant was most likely a man who lived alone.

  Down a darkened hall, the sagging queen bed with a lumpy comforter took up the entire bedroom. Two flat pillows were doubled up on one side. The walls were bare. Of the two bedside tables, only the right held a book, a phone charger, and a lamp. A still fan, its edges thick with dust, was centered over the bed. It probably hadn’t been used in months. The apartment was tidy, but not necessarily clean.

  Yup, single guy.

  In the closet, he found a police uniform neatly hanging in a plastic protector and a locked gun safe bolted to floor. This had to be a retired policeman who kept his dress blues for special occasions. The thought didn’t make him feel better. He’d known a lot of crooked, bad cops.

  In the front living room, Ernest stared at the desk and formed a mental image of the brand new computer, the dust free screen, the plugs still coiled with twist ties. To the right of the computer equipment sat a new digital camera with an expensive telephoto lens. The camera and lens looked professional grade. A professional tripod lay on the floor by the desk.

  The guy who lived in this apartment was setting himself up for serious surveillance. Or, more likely, someone wealthy had decked out this retired cop with top-of-the-line equipment to run surveillance.

  Ernest picked up the camera, turned it on, and flipped through the photos. The first twenty images were various angles and distances of Times Square. A dozen were variations of the same shot, but with different apertures and zoom settings.

  This guy was casing Times Square. Odd, but not illegal.

  Ernest paused on the next image. It was a close up of Senator Billy Greene exiting a taxi.

  His skin prickled. Ernest quickly flicked to the next shot: the senator and an aide were speaking with heads leaning in, walking a busy sidewalk.

  Now we’re into some dodgy ass territory. This retired cop was literally stalking a US Senator.

  Ernest glanced to the closed front door, took out a small portable hard drive, plugged it into the camera and copied its entire memory. He pulled open desk drawers and riffled papers until he found a utility bill with a name: Otis Reddenbacker.

  Spelled almost like the popcorn.

  10

  Langley, VA

  Herbie let Frank Odom’s words sink in. Mac Ambrose was working in the US. And the Agency knew about it.

  Herbie knew Mac. They had worked two ops together. Both delicate. During the first operation, Mac had been in Macau where she had extracted a gorgeous mistress of a senior military guy. It had been a daring, audacious plan and it had worked.

  The second op had been even more impressive. There weren’t many like Mac who would put their own lives on the line for an asset. A seventeen-year-old kid working out of a gaming cafe had infiltrated a high-level government database, and was willing to sell the data to the US. But the Chinese government had identified him. They were on their way to pick him up. Mac went in to grab him before they arrived. Under cover, looking very much like a Chinese girl, Mac had walked into the cafe, taken the kid’s hand, stared him down, nodded toward the door, and silently walked him out. Just like that. She pushed him into the van and sat down next to him. Herbie had shut the doors, banged the roof, and they had sped away. Sitting down next to her, Herbie had noticed she hadn’t even been short of breath. It was like she had been born to live on the edge, like it was hard wired into her DNA.

  In the basement office, Herbie eyed Odom, “So?”

  Odom said, “She hasn’t checked in.”

  “W
e’re not children.” He had never trusted Odom. He was a rat of a man motivated by purely selfish reasons. In the grand scheme of the Agency, Odom was the worst type of bureaucrat: only interested in getting ahead.

  “I need to find her,” the rat squeaked.

  “Why?”

  “I think her cover in China is blown.”

  “Are you kidding me?” He tossed the rat a look of contempt. “That’s the best you can do? It’s all over these walls that we got hoisted out yesterday. Come up with a better excuse, Odom.”

  Odom ignored him. “We need to speak with her. Bring her in.”

  Uh oh. This was more than Odom wanting to warn Mac Ambrose. “Who’s we?” Herbie asked cautiously.

  “Upstairs and myself. We. Specifically Hawkinson.”

  Benedict Hawkinson was CIA Director of National Clandestine Service. One of the Mandarins. Herbie shook his head. “You are one huge ass kisser, you know that? Your overuse of the ‘we’ gets old very fast.”

  “Careful, Herbie.”

  “Or what?”

  “You’re on a short leash.”

  “I don’t report to you.”

  “Yes, yes—“ with a vermin sneer, Odom handed him a memo. “I believe you do. On this you do.”

  It was a memo from Hawkinson. Reconnoiter Mac Ambrose. No wiggle room.

  Herbie smirked as he looked up. “So fucking predictable. She got something on you, Odom? Or this place?”

  Odom’s lips tightened, confirming his suspicion.

  Odom said, “I need you to find her and bring her in.”

  Herbie waved the memo. “Yeah, I got that.” He folded the memo and slid it into a jacket pocket. “But hear me as I use my loudest protest voice allowed in these hallowed halls: this is not good use of Agency personnel. For sure I shouldn’t be doing surveillance on domestic soil. When Hawkinson asks, how did Herbie Linen respond to the order, I want you to tell him I protested vociferously. V-O-C-iferously. Got that, Odom? Because the way this works around here is that we’ve got a chain of command. I follow orders. I won’t be the last man standing when the music ends. To fucking mix metaphors, when the buck stops it will come to a screeching halt a few rungs up that chain of command from me and I do believe it will be your rung.”