Steve Abbott - Devil's Gambit

“Yes. After all, it’s going to end up their show. What are the Koreans up to?”

Smythe shrugged. “Perhaps they have some old scores to settle. More than likely, they’re trying to reverse engineer the warheads to prop up their own program.”

Don Evans was worried about his partner. Watchers, as a rule, usually did not involve themselves in actual physical contact with people they were watching. Weston had always been a wild card. He and Evans had been hauled on the carpet a number of times for Weston’s engineered fiascoes. The surprising thing was that the majority of those times ended in career enhancement and citations. As hard and good a man as Weston was, Evans knew that Verkatt had a reputation for ruthlessness. It was a relief when he heard the front door to the building downstairs open. The relief was short lived when he heard more than one set of shoes climb the stairs. Evans brought his still-cocked gun to bear on the middle of the open office door. The steps continued slowly up the stairs. They paused at the landing and Evans heard the unmistakable metallic click of a gun being cocked. He moved behind his desk for cover. The steps stopped just outside the open door. Then, from the other side of the jamb came Weston’s voice.

“Don?”

Evans let out the breath he had been holding. “How’s Mother, Frank?”

“Mother’s just fine, Don. She sent me back with a guest for tea.” Weston stepped into the doorway, pulling an African with him. The man’s hands were Zip tied behind his back.

Evans stood up from behind his desk. “Jesus, you had me worried. Who’s the guest?”

“The driver. Had to kill the swamper in the back. Verkatt got out at the city limits and caught a helo back to God knows where, but it was following the highway back to Pretoria.”

Evans clicked his gun’s safety home. “HQ is sending out relief. We’re recalled. They want us at the company hanger right away. Barnes wants the tapes for verification. I’m sure our guest will be appreciated too.”

“No time to waste then. Might as well take the truck. We can hide it at the airport operation. We’ll drop the body in the back somewhere over the Svelte.”

“Suits me.”

Weston jerked his charge back the way of the stairs. “Come on. Looks like you and your mate get a helicopter ride. Too bad your friend’s going to have to get off mid-way.”

Evans grabbed the tapes and secured the office before he followed his partner. Sometimes Weston took it just a little too far.

“The crates. What was in those crates?” Joseph Mbuttu’s mind raced after the thought, but never quite fast enough to catch up. At a glance, the man would just have looked scared. Sweat ran down his skin in thin rivers, but a look under the worn table where he sat, hands clenched tight before him, and you would see. He shook. His knees quaked. The lean hard muscles of his body vibrated with fear.

He had good reason. He’d seen his partner dead, lying face down in a pool of blood.

The passage here had been rough, a blur of travel ending with him being shoved blindfolded into this room. Removal of the blindfold had revealed nothing but a few rough chairs and a table for company. Then all the pieces fell into place and the awful realization hit. BOSS had him. The dreaded South African internal security organization. His life was forfeit. Verkatt wanted him dead. Why was he still alive? BOSS should have killed him in Cape Town.

Joseph sucked air into his lungs with a start, when the room’s door swung open. A dark silhouette stood there. Later it would occur to him that he never even thought about escape. When the man spoke, it was with a definite English accent, not the Cape Town accent Mbuttu was used to.

“Time to talk.” There was no challenge in his words. It was a statement of fact.

Joseph licked his lips, his throat suddenly dry. There was a set routine to this. Both sides knew it. The shadow moved into the room, taking on feature in the dim light. The man was average size, with fading blonde hair that receded at the temples, but his body was trim and muscular. He read from a clipboard he held in front of him. “Joseph Mbuttu, aged thirty two, father of three, truck driver for Macron Industries seven years.” The man paced slowly back and forth in front of Joseph as he spoke in a slow, pedantic voice. “Suspected ties to drug and contraband smuggling.” Gene Anthony stopped pacing, turned and looked at Joseph. “But nothing anybody could prove, until now.”

Joseph sat in silence, waiting.

Gene stopped pacing and smiled at Joseph, but there was no warmth in it. He pulled a packet from a pocket and held it out. “Cigarette?”

Joseph took one from the offered pack, and the intelligence officer lit it. The smoke was welcome. Joseph was steadied by it, drawing strength with each pull.

Gene watched the man’s demeanor change. That was good. The cigarettes had been treated with a commonly administered psychiatric drug. It would make Mbuttu more tractable to questioning. When he had finished the cigarette, Gene lit and offered him another. Tentative, Joseph accepted it. He waved it around.

“This is not like BOSS.”

“You have been questioned by BOSS before?”

Joseph shrugged. The drug was starting to take hold. “A couple of times, but you know that.”

Gene shrugged. “We don’t care how many times BOSS got their hands on you. I want to know what you were doing by that Korean import dock at three in the morning with Andrew Verkatt.”

“Hey, I was just doing a delivery. Sometimes Mr. Verkatt needs things delivered. The hours aren’t the best, but the money is good.”

“I see. So you run drugs for him regularly?”

Joseph’s eyes grew wide at the accusation. “No, no man. No drugs, never!”

Gene leveled his voice and stared hard at the man. “Verkatt deals in drugs, when he has to. You work for him, so you transport drugs. Open and shut case really.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Of course, for information about Verkatt’s activities…” Gene looked back at Joseph with raised eyebrows.

Joseph was not a stupid man. With a sudden deadly clarity, he knew, this was not BOSS, but something infinitely more dangerous. His solid composure vanished as quickly as the cigarette smoke drifting to the ceiling. “Who are you?”

Gene was impressed. Even lightly drugged Joseph had made the connection quickly. He brushed the question aside. “Look around you. Who we are is not important. What you know about Verkatt is. Cooperation would be very beneficial to your continued well-being.”

“And if I am not?”

“Remember your friend?”

Alexandrov walked into the Base Commander’s office and tossed a manila file folder on the desk in front of Gayle. “Heinrich Burghoff, ex STASI Colonel.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and winced. “It’s like you Americans say. Everything comes back to bite you in the ass one day.”

Gayle opened the file and leafed through it. “I guess it does.”

Addison and Harris came through the door. “Well, it’s not good,” Sean said.

Gayle leaned back in her chair, put her hands down to the small of her back and stretched. “Let me have it.”

“Verkatt’s gone into the trucking business. MI6 Pretoria says he offloaded three crates at a North Korean-owned dock early yesterday morning. The good news is the A section lads there were able to grab the driver of the truck. The bad news is, the freighter the crates were loaded on has sailed.”