“Of course I do. I’ve been thinking about this for two years. We set up someplace near a big military base that also has a big hacker talent pool, like Seattle. Lewis-McChord is just south of there, and that’s where we find our field men, ex-military. We launch by infiltrating a major company, then present their board of directors with what we found. They sign a contract to consult on their security, but before long they’re paying us to steal from their competitors.”
The asset took out a disposable flip phone and took a photo of Chip standing beside the briefcase, all without taking his eyes off Chip or his finger from the trigger. The implication was clear. Proof of Chip’s involvement. Then he motioned Chip away with the muzzle of his rifle. “I’ll take half,” he said.
Chip stepped back, but he went all in. “Hell, no,” he said. “Take everything, including that bag of greenbacks. You’re the best one to get it back to the civilized world. I was thinking overland to Turkey, but you’d know better than me. Set up a small business, open some accounts, and start paying yourself with that cash, run that shit through the laundry, baby. I rotate home in twelve weeks. I already have a buyer for the Eurobonds. We are going to make a pile of money and have a blast doing it.”
The asset didn’t say anything.
Chip watched him decide.
But he was confident in how it would play out. He knew the man. He’d given his asset the information he needed to make the right choice. They were a good team before, they’d be a good team again.
The asset, whose name was Shepard, lowered the rifle, shouldered the duffel, picked up the briefcase, and walked off without another word.
A week later, Chip got a nasty shock when the station head called Chip into his office and started asking questions. They’d been tracking the colonel and his escort with a Predator drone, had stumbled onto Chip’s operation, and caught the firefight on video. The Predator had tracked Chip back to his waiting driver/fixer and the FOB. The station head had sent a team to the scene to see who else was involved.
Shepard’s keffiyeh had concealed most of his face, and they’d lost him anyway, of course. Shepard was half ghost when you were standing right next to him. From five thousand feet wearing the Arabic equivalent of a baseball hat? He basically evaporated. With all that money.
As it turned out, Shepard holding Chip at gunpoint was what kept Chip out of Leavenworth. An unexpected benefit of his plan.
Chip was a talented actor. He was contrite, he’d been caught, the story spilled out of him, and some of it was almost true. He pled love of country, frustration with the bureaucracy, and hatred of corruption. He was used by an unknown local player who’d fed him information about the colonel through third parties, only to step in and take all the intel, proof of corruption, everything.
He was embarrassed and ashamed and lucky to be alive.
He fooled four interrogators and six polygraphs and submitted his resignation.
Unbelievably, the agency actually asked him to stay on.
He told them he wanted out while he still had some scrap of his soul.
And laughed all the way to the bank.
25
PETER
Peter headed toward the freeway, June’s laptop open and running on the passenger seat. He assumed the hunters had taken it over completely, so he had the Web browser open to a map of British Columbia and a half-dozen Vancouver hotel websites, and took advantage of stoplights to click from one site to the next.
Waiting at the on-ramp, he used his anonymous phone to find a number and made a call.
“Semper Fidelis Roofing, can I help you?”
“Hey, Estelle, it’s Peter Ash. How are you?”
“Peter who? I know this can’t be Ashes because he got eaten up by Bigfoot. Why else wouldn’t he have called like he promised?”
“I got sidetracked, Estelle. And I never promised you anything. Don’t bust my balls, okay?”
“Oh, I’m not,” she said. “’Cause if I were, you’d for damn sure know it.”
Estelle Martinez was thirty-five years old and managed the office for her brother Manny’s roofing business. She’d been an Army drill instructor for ten years and now ran ultramarathons on the weekends. Her last boyfriend had been hospitalized for exhaustion. All the roofers were combat veterans, and they were scared of her. Peter was scared of her, too.
“Estelle, can we do this another time? I need to see Manny.”
“Manny’s busy.”
“Estelle. Cut the shit. This is serious. Put him on.”
She sighed. “He’s not here. Don’t you got his cell?”
“I lost my old phone. I need to see him in person, I’m heading up to your office now. Where is he?”
“Out doing estimates.” He could hear the clack of a keyboard. “He’s in Mountlake Terrace right now. I’ll text you the address of his next appointment and let him know you’re coming.”
Peter found Manny standing in the driveway of a McMansion, holding a tablet computer in both meaty hands, staring into the air above the house. The tablet showed a moving view of the house from above. A high penetrating whine came from somewhere over the roof. The soft rain had stopped.
“Ashes, mi hermano. Gimme a sec, let me finish this run.”