Jeff Abbott - Collision

A downstairs door opened. He caught his breath. He heard a chorus of greetings, the drug lord speaking in Indonesian, saying “Hello” and “Well all right, if you had to bring him,” sounding a bit surprised. Men’s voices, speaking quietly. An answering murmur from Gumalar. Then the drug lord said, “Yes, well, upstairs and to your right.”

Someone was getting directions to the bathroom.

Perfect, Choate thought, if it was Gumalar’s bodyguard-he could take the man out immediately, charge down the steps, kill the other guard, kill the drug lord. The drug lord was a heavyset man of sixty; Choate did not think he would be a problem. Gumalar was in his forties and had no fighting skills. The guards were the main threat, and if he could eliminate them separately the job would be smooth.

Maybe he could even catch an earlier flight back to the States.

He heard the soft tread of footsteps on the marbled stairs. Approaching him.

Choate aimed the gun with a leisurely, practiced stretch of his arm. A single shot to the throat. He was ten feet from the stairs and as the man stepped up the flight Choate would wait for the guard to turn, his eyes adjusting to the darkness of the landing, lit only by the faint glow of lamps from downstairs, not seeing Choate.

He waited.

A child stepped onto the landing from the stairs.

Choate froze. The boy was maybe ten, thin, dressed in jeans and a T-SHIRT that celebrated a Japanese trading card game, and wore high-top red sneakers. He glanced over at the corner where Choate stood and he froze.

Choate held the gun and his finger lay ready on the trigger and the boy’s throat was in his sight. The boy’s gaze locked on Choate’s face, as though looking at the gun was too horrible.

Decision. Kill the boy so he could kill everyone in the house.

Choate froze. Unable to fire. Unwilling to fire.

The boy screamed.

Choate ran into a bedroom and went through the open window. He hit the roof. He skidded down its sharp slant, grabbed at the roof’s edge, seized it, slowed his fall, dropped off the overhang. He landed on the first-floor roof, jumped from it to a metal patio table by the mansion’s pool.

He hit the ground, drawing both guns, and he saw an armed man- Gumalar’s thug, the one who’d tortured him-rounding the corner, firing, and Choate blasted rounds. The man went down, his chest a bloody ruin.

Choate turned and, through the window, saw four men standing in a room: the drug lord. The terrorist leader. Gumalar.

And the Dragon.

Alive, wearing dark-rimmed glasses and a suit, his shaved head covered by a dark wig. He still had both his hands. One of them quickly raised a Glock, centered its aim on Choate.

“Son of a bitch!” Choate yelled and emptied his clip, the window shattering, the drug lord and the terrorist leader each taking a round in the throat, Gumalar collapsing, clutching torn guts. The Dragon dove behind the heavy desk, one of Choate’s bullets announcing its accuracy with a spray of his blood against the wallpaper.

Choate ran. He scraped through the thick bamboo privacy thatch at the edge of the estate, plunged into the street. He dodged a BMW that was barreling down the road, ran north. The homes on the street were large and well lit; he had few places to hide. He had a motorcycle stashed a block away, in a darkened part of the driveway in an unoccupied house that was for sale.

He sprinted into the house’s yard. Tried to kick the motorcycle into life. It wouldn’t start.

He heard police sirens rising. He ran to the next house; an older but well-maintained Audi sat in the driveway. He broke the driver’s window, opened the door, cracked open the console underside, hotwired the car. He revved the car hard into the street just as three police cruisers tore into the road, closing in on him. He floored the car, took a hard right, putting a map of central Jakarta in his head. I can lose them if I can get to Mentang, get to the Agency safe house.

They chased him for a half mile, enough time for him to think, That damn Dragon was the traitor, and then another police car barreled right in front of him and he swerved to miss it, crashing the car into a storefront. He hit the steering wheel hard and his last thought was I’m going to miss my baby’s party.

When he woke up he was in the infirmary in an Indonesian jail. The CIA said they had never heard of him.

“You’re telling me my best friend is your worst enemy.” Ben turned the Mercedes into the parking lot of the apartment. Pilgrim leaned against the window of the passenger seat. He had just finished telling his story of Indonesia to Ben.

“I think he’s your worst enemy, too, Ben.”

“Sam Hector and the Dragon can’t be the same man.” Ben parked the car, turned off the engine. “Sam isn’t British and he was never bald. He never worked for the CIA. He has an entire life history. I know it.”

“Accents and hair can be changed. Did you know him ten years ago?” Ben was silent. They went inside the apartment.

“Ever meet any of his college friends? People he worked with before he started his company?”

“No. He worked overseas for the army. He was a military liaison to allied armed forces.” Ben muttered the words as if he were reading them aloud from a resume he knew by heart. Sam, taking him on a fishing trip to Florida to celebrate a big contract. Sam, introducing him to Emily, then two years later, toasting him and Emily at their wedding. Sam, voice breaking, paying tribute to Emily at her funeral.

Sam, an assassin? No.

“Ah. That was his cover, then. Being a liaison officer allowed him to move around easily. Kill wherever he was needed.” Pilgrim turned to him. “This is why I wasn’t going to be offered a job with the rest of the Cellar. He knew I’d recognize him.”

Ben turned off the engine.

“He wanted people to think that the Dragon was dead; that was his execution I was supposed to hear in the next room. He walked away from his cover in the CIA to set up his company. Maybe with the CIA’s help. Maybe on his own.”

“Oh, Christ.” Ben felt his stomach sink. His mouth went dry. “Sam’s first big contract with Hector Global was in Indonesia. With the foreign ministry, consulting work to their security service. Because there had been an attempted assassination against a prominent government family…”

“Holy Jesus, Ben. He played both sides. As the Dragon, he set up the attack on Gumalar that the CIA wanted done. He must have even killed his own informants, put their hands in that bag-if he was vanishing as the Dragon, he didn’t want any locals who could name him or ID him. The Indonesian intel guys in the park were there because he told them I would be there, doing a job on their own soil. Then he switched sides, told the Indonesians he could get the CIA to back off if they gave him a security contract. He launched his company with the blood of innocent people… He profits from ruining a perfect CIA operation. He makes it look like he’s lost his cover and even his buddies at the CIA buy it; they stay in bed with him. Maybe he paid them off. He profits from protecting people who were funding terrorists.” Pilgrim shook his head. “He destroyed my life…”

Ben reached for Pilgrim, touched his shoulder. Pilgrim flinched, pressed his fist against his mouth.

“I told them the Dragon was alive; they told me I’d killed him with that shot before I ran. They covered for him and sold me out. Jesus.” He sank to the floor, cupping his head in his hands. “I’m going to kill him.”

“No wonder you preferred not to have a partner all these years,” Ben said. “What was your family told?”

“I looked up the news accounts later… They were fed a story that I was smuggling drugs on the side. I’m sure they were told that I died in the jailbreak Teach staged.”