Jeff Abbott - Collision

“Gumalar’s leak is because he has someone big inside BIN in his pocket. So this stays an off-the-books job for the Agency.”

“I was told to follow your orders,” Choate said. He wasn’t comfortable with this, but orders were orders.

“Then we stick with our original plan. We need to find the money trail this Gumalar fucker is using to finance terrorism. We find the money, we tie him to it, and we kill him along with his terror cell contact. We make it look like the terrorist turned on him. Keep CIA’s nose out of it.”

“And you need me to find the money trail.”

“Gumalar owns a large bank here. It’s going to undergo a cyber attack in twelve hours. You’ll be called in as a representative of the IT support company to repair and inspect the databases. You’ll need to run a query against the five aliases that Gumalar’s terror cell contact has been using. We’ll use that information to find him, so we can get him and Gumalar together for a meeting and take them both out.”

“Running a query will leave an electronic trace. Gumalar may have those accounts tagged to take note of a query.”

“You’re supposed to be smart. Deal with it.”

Choate said nothing.

“I’m not big on coddling, kid,” the Dragon said.

“Not expected or wanted.”

“You won’t have long to do the trace. Get the account information and then get out. I don’t want you stuck inside his bank all day; you’d be a target if they know your face.”

“How did you get these aliases?”

“My contacts.”

“Did your contacts know about our targeting his bank?”

“No,” the Dragon said after a moment.

“I really dislike the hesitation you just showed.”

“They didn’t know.”

Choate tapped fingers on the table. The adrenaline rush faded. “We need to report back to the Agency.”

“Of course. But the mission goes on.”

“That’s for the Agency to decide.”

“The Agency can decide what the hell they want. These bastards don’t get away with killing my people. I run my network like a nice little family business. I took care of these folks, their families. I had their loyalty. They have mine.”

“All very noble,” Choate said. “But I’m not going on a suicide mission.”

“Fine. Get Agency approval. Be sure and mention I saved your life.” The Dragon got up, finished his beer. They got up, left money on the table, went to a small house of the Dragon’s on a quiet street.

Choate called, got connected to the CIA chief in Jakarta. Explained. Listened. He hung up.

“We’re a go.”

“You forgot to mention I saved your life.”

“I’m not big on coddling,” Choate said. “When do we go to the bank?” The Dragon cracked a smile. “Tomorrow morning. Review the files. Get some sleep. You can bunk down at the room at the end of the hall.” The Dragon went into another room. Choate put an ear to the heavy door. Soundproofed.

He went to the room and collapsed on the bed.

He didn’t like this at all, but he had his orders. He curled into a ball and let sleep close over him, trying not to think of the bag of severed hands or the shocked face of the dead prisoner, staring up past the mounds of garbage toward the star-kissed sky.

His first morning as a fugitive. Ben was afraid the maid would come early to the room, or that the motel owners would see his face on CNN. This was a new kind of fear; it didn’t pass when you turned on the lights in the darkened room, or reassured yourself the midnight tap at the window was a tree branch, moved only by the wind. This fear stayed with you, it worked on your mind, it made every moment urgent.

At 7 A.M. Friday they left the hotel. Ben drove, heading north toward Dallas. Pilgrim wrote directions down on paper, told Ben, “This is where we go first in Dallas.” The X on the map was near the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Pilgrim dozed fitfully in the back, still in pain, but his color was much better than the night before.

They got a bag of breakfast tacos at a stand in Lorena, south of Waco. Pilgrim woke and ate with a lion’s appetite, drank a giant bottle of juice. Ben swapped the license plates off the stolen Volvo with those of a Subaru parked close to the Baylor University campus in Waco. Ben did the work quickly, using a wrench he’d found in a miniature tool set in the back of the station wagon.

Now I’m a fugitive and a thief, he thought, and the day is still young.

“College students are slow to notice things like changed plates,” Pilgrim said. “I find it useful to steal plates from fraternity parking lots on weekends. Not to stereotype, but they’re too drunk.”

“It’s a Baptist school. Baylor kids are not supposed to drink,” Ben said.

“Then I hope they’re distracted by spiritual matters.” Pilgrim closed his eyes and slept again.

The traffic wasn’t heavy until they hit the southern suburbs of Dallas, a long trail of cars heading into downtown, and Pilgrim woke up.

“Questions for you,” Pilgrim said. “About Sam Hector.” He sounded stronger now, more alert. Ready to rumble. “How big’s his operation?”

“One of the biggest. Three thousand employees. Huge training complexes, one an hour east of Dallas, the other in Nevada. Most of his execs are former military, decorated officers. Security, training, software… if the government uses it, he sells it.” Ben gave a soft laugh. “Sam joked once about using that as a company motto.”

“And you worked with him for how long?”

“My wife, Emily, worked for Sam. That was how we met. She was an accountant in one of his divisions, he hired me to help him win new contracts. After she died, I left Dallas, I became a consultant and he kept me busy. His revenue’s grown five hundred percent since I’ve been working with him.”

“So you’re just a really good pimp,” Pilgrim said.

“Excuse me?”

“I read about some of those contracts these guys land. The government gets in a hurry-like when we invade Iraq-and they don’t take lots of competing bids.”

“Yeah, sometimes. There are huge time pressures to get the work done.”

“And these contracts, they have profit built in. No matter how bad the contractor screws up or goes over budget.”

“Well, these are often high-risk operations,” Ben said.

“News flash, Ben. Every business is a risk.”

“Not every business can get you killed. For about every four soldiers who die in Iraq, a contractor dies. They don’t get medals or military funerals or army benefits. They don’t get military hospitals. They don’t get a parade when they come home.”

Pilgrim was silent.

Ben couldn’t resist: “And I don’t think it’s bad a business makes a profit.”

“But guaranteed profit. How many regular companies are guaranteed a profit? Sort of takes quite a bit of the risk and the responsibility out of the equation.”

Ben returned his gaze to the road.

“I hit a nerve,” Pilgrim said.

“Sure, there are crooked contractors, people taking money for work they can’t or won’t do. But abuses happen any time millions of dollars are dangled.”

“But you’re not part of the problem, right, you’re part of the solution.”

“If you want to insult me, I can stick that bullet back in your shoulder. At high speed.”

“It might be interesting to see you try, Ben.”

“The reason contractors exist now is because of choices made by the governments we’ve elected,” Ben said. “People don’t want a draft. They don’t want a huge military. And they don’t seem to mind that gaps in military infrastructure are being filled by private companies. I don’t see protestors at my clients’ offices very often. These guys are making a good return on investment.”