Page 52 of The Big Fix

“I don’t think he knows, because Clark, the station chief, doesn’t.”

“Well, even if Clark finds out about me or Garland, nothing will come back on us. I mean, you know, her clearance isn’t as high as mine.”

It was terrifying but true. Clark was station chief, Dante was retired, but still, he was higher up the food chain, which meant that Dante would come back as having no record, anywhere. That would tell her what he was but not who. She didn’t have the credentials to discover who she was looking at. Of course, that would be a whole other can of worms for Dante. He’d have to explain to the assistant director of the CIA what the hell he was doing in Thailand. So hopefully, Dante and Garland weren’t on her radar. That would be the best-case scenario.

“So are we good here?” Dante asked me.

“If by good, you mean that I’ve just told the highest-ranking US official in the country to pound sand, then yes, we’re golden,” I said flatly. “But Daly will keep the dogs off us as long as we don’t make it too hard for him to.”

“Good,” Dante replied.

“And what did you learn while we were in there?”

“Well, earlier I had a thought about the guys chasing you yesterday.”

“When?”

“On the boat.”

“Okay. What about them?”

“Did those guys seem like professionals to you?” Dante asked.

“You mean military versus private?”

“I mean, did they strike you as trained at all?”

“No, sir,” Garland chimed in. “Those fellas we killed in the street were definitely not military, and neither were the ones on the river.”

“I agree,” I told Dante. “They all knew their business, and no doubt were killers for a living, but they weren’t pros. That’s probably why we’re still alive.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Dante concurred, “which means we’ve got it coming at us from all sides.”

“I don’t follow,” Garland told him.

“That’s because you weren’t with Jared at the morgue where he got the royal runaround. There are high-ranking people in on whatever this is, and then we’ve got this seemingly endless stream of foot soldiers.”

Jing agreed. “One puppeteer with many strings.”

“So it would appear,” Dante said, and turned to look at the scenery we passed.

“Are you going to say any more, or just sit there and be mysterious?”

He gave me a smile, his real one, that few ever saw. “I’m going to be mysterious for a bit until I figure this out.”

There was no use arguing, so I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes as Jing started asking Garland about the winery, and he was more than happy to tell her all about it.

TEN

I was starting to like the safe house, as it was actually safe, but almost changed my mind when we returned to find a guest had arrived, someone I didn’t want there.

“Why are you here?” I asked Isaak Skriabin, another friend from my days with Army Intelligence. Isaak had been Russian Intelligence, but really, CIA, and when he left the agency to be a contract killer, no one was surprised. He’d once taken a vow of silence, stopped talking for two years, just to get his head straight from all he’d done. It was impressive, and I respected his resolve. But the fact remained that he was someone everyone always checked to make sure he didn’t want a contract before they entered the fray. Isaak Skriabin was considered one of the most deadly men in the world. Once, in Belgium, we were on our way to a funeral and stopped for flowers. I’d seen him kill four guys that day with a philodendron that he then took home with him. As far as I knew, the philodendron was still alive.

The look Isaak was giving me at the moment was bored.

“I asked you a question,” I reminded him.

“Why am I here?” he returned in a thick Russian accent, which was unexpected. When we’d crossed paths many times before, he’d sounded like he was from San Diego—where his family had settled after being relocated from Moscow. Agreeing to be a double agent had its perks.