Alex Berenson: The Secret Soldier

He slipped the Subaru into the garage beside the house and padded into the kitchen through the unlocked back door. Tonka, his dog, a German shepherd mutt, trotted up to greet him, her big tail wagging wildly. She put her paws on him, buried her head in his chest. He’d bought jerky at the gas station, and he fed it to her strip by strip.

“John?”

Anne’s bedroom was upstairs. She slept sideways across the bed, stretched like a cat under a down comforter. He slipped under the blankets and hugged her warm, sleepy body and kissed her slowly.

“Flannel pajamas. Sexy.” He tried to reach under them, but she twisted away. “You stink of the road. Brush your teeth and come back. I’m not going anywhere.”

And she wasn’t.

An hour later, she lay beside him, touching the scar on his upper arm, a knuckle-sized knot from a bullet he’d taken long before. She rolled the dead flesh between her fingers like a marble. “Does it ache?”

“No.”

She pinched it. “Does it now?”

“I thought we were supposed to be relaxing.”

“You never struck me as the cuddling type.”

He closed his eyes, and she rubbed his face, tracing slow circles over his cheeks. In seconds he fell into a doze, imagining an endless narrow highway. But he woke to find her hand sliding down his stomach.

“Really? Again?”

“If you can handle it.”

“Easy for you to say. I do all the work and you get all the credit.”

“Is that so?” She lifted her hand, tweaked the tip of his nose.

Wells turned sideways so they were face-to-face. “Maybe not always.”

Again she dropped her arm. He was eight inches taller than she was, and she had to scoot halfway under the blanket to follow her hand. “I’m looking for something.” Her hand was on his stomach now.

“You found it.”

“That’s your belly button.”

He leaned down, and their mouths met.

“There it is.” She paused. “You’re worn out. But I can fix that.”

“We’ll see. Maybe… Yes. Yes, you can.”

LATER SHE NESTLED AGAINST him, her breathing soft and steady.

“You’ve got a mission coming. An operation. Whatever you call it.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I saw it when you came in. In your shoulders. Want to tell me?”

“It’s old business.” He waited. “Are you mad I can’t tell you?”

“John. Please. Do you want me to say I am, so you have an excuse to leave? You don’t need an excuse.”

He was silent. Then, finally: “I’m sorry.”

“It’s like you want to reinvent yourself but you know there’s no point in trying, because you know that you can only be who you already are.”

“Isn’t that the same for everyone?”

“Most of us have some give. You’re cut from rock.”

“Let’s go to sleep.”

“You want to spend your life with me here, you will. If not, you won’t. Just don’t ask me to fall in love with you while you’re deciding. I have to protect myself, too.”

He closed his eyes. He felt that somehow she was accusing him, though he wasn’t sure of what. Anyway, everything she said was true.

He slept heavily and without dreams. When he woke, she was gone. She worked the afternoon shift. He padded downstairs to find that she’d left coffee and a tray of freshly baked biscuits. He always wound up with women kinder than he deserved.

Wells drank the coffee as he considered his next move. He was guessing that Robinson dealt drugs small-time. He’d be handy to the local dealers. As a white face, he’d be less likely to frighten tourists who wanted to score.

Wells wondered how long Robinson had been playing this game, and why. Maybe he’d drunk or smoked though his cash and was supporting his habits by dealing. Maybe he had the insane idea that if he put together a big enough nut, he could get back to the United States. Maybe he was hoping to relive the thrills he’d had as a mole. Even he might not know the answer. Guys who listed pros and cons on a yellow pad didn’t wind up as double agents.

Now that Robinson had given up his best defense, his invisibility, Wells figured that finding him shouldn’t be too difficult. Montego Bay was only so large. Still, Wells wanted backup for the mission, a face that Robinson wouldn’t recognize. He thumbed through his phone, found Gaffan’s number.

MONTEGO BAY WAS JAMAICA’S second-largest city, the hub of the tourist trade. From November to April, cruise ships disgorged clumps of sunburned Americans to buy T-shirts and rum at a heavily policed mall near the port. They were back on board by nightfall to head to the Bahamas or Puerto Rico.

Montego also had a busy international airport. Many wealthier visitors saw the city only on their way to the fancy all-inclusive resorts outside of town. But younger tourists on tighter budgets often stayed in Montego itself, in an area south of the airport called the Hip Strip, a name that immediately proclaimed a trying-too-hard uncoolness. Centered around Gloucester Avenue, the Hip Strip mixed hotels and clubs with shops selling overpriced bongs and bead necklaces. The hotel rooms facing Gloucester were useful for heavy partiers or heavy sleepers only. Until early morning, reggae and rap boomed from beat-up Chevy Caprices, the old square ones, and Toyota RAV4s with tinted windows. Outside the clubs, barkers promised drink specials and Bob Marley cover bands. Wells and Gaffan had rented a room just off Gloucester. Wells figured they would cruise the clubs until they ran across Robinson.

But catching Robinson had proven more difficult than Wells had hoped. Until he arrived, he hadn’t understood the scope of the drug trade in Jamaica. Pot and other drugs were technically illegal on the island, but at every corner on Gloucester, dreadlocked men cooed, “Smoke. Spliff. Ganja, man. Purple Haze.” After a while, the words blended into background noise. “Spliffsmokeganjaman.” The Jamaican national anthem.

The Montego Bay cops were around, too, walking the avenue. As far as Wells could tell, they weren’t trying to stop the trade. Their presence was intentionally obvious, giving the dealers plenty of warning. The only people they caught were tourists too stupid or high to hide their smoking. Wells had seen an arrest, a barely disguised shakedown. A young woman — mid-twenties, maybe — passed a tiny joint to her husband when the cops approached. “Come here,” one of the cops said. The couple wore narrow wedding rings of bright, cheap gold. “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “We’re sorry. We didn’t mean to disrespect your country.”

The lead cop pulled the man into an alley. The other cops stood in the street around the woman. “You know, it’s the first time I ever smoked pot,” she mumbled. “I don’t even feel anything. Just thirsty.”

Wells watched from a shop across the street, riffling through T-shirts that read “Life’s a Beach in Jamaica” and “No Shirt. No Shoes. No Problem.” A couple minutes later, the guy emerged from the alley, an unhappy smile plastered on his face.

The cop in charge seemed satisfied. He patted the husband. “Enjoy your trip, mon. And be careful.”

“Yes, sir. We’ll do that.” The cops disappeared. The husband pulled out his wallet, cheap black Velcro, and opened it wide. Empty. “Two hundred dollars. Assholes,” he said.

“You said it would be okay,” his wife said.

“It could have been worse.”

A philosophy of sorts, Wells figured. Then the couple disappeared, poorer and wiser. The shakedown had happened the second day, when Wells still hoped to find Robinson on the street. But Robinson was no doubt working carefully, popping up for a few days and then retreating. And the sheer volume of the drug trade meant that Wells and Gaffan couldn’t simply hope to bump into him. They would have to search him out, a more dangerous proposition.