“You didn’t get Erin off that mountain without incident. You should have known he’d be upset.”
“Ask me if I care. I’ve got more things to worry about than whether your old friend Cameron is going to get in my way. It may be time to take him down anyway. The only reason I haven’t done it yet is that his aims usually coordinate with the Company’s.”
“And you’ve found him annoyingly ghostlike when he’s in action. Look, neither of us wants to have to deal with Cameron. So get Erin into the U.S. and keep her from being taken under Cameron’s protective, big-brother wing.”
“It might be possible.” He knew damn well he’d do it, but he didn’t want Catherine calling the shots. She had a tendency to always want to run the show. He hadn’t known when he’d picked her up from the streets of Hong Kong and trained her as an agent that she’d be this dominant. Though he should have realized that when he saw how brilliant and intuitive she was in every aspect of the job. She was his best agent in the field, and he found it worthwhile to put up with her total independence—most of the time. “I’ll assign an agent to her right away and try to set her up on a flight.”
“Do that.” She hung up.
Which sounded remarkably like an order, he thought. So much for letting her think she wasn’t calling the shots. He turned to Agent Jed Stone, who was on the computer at his desk across the room. “I’m going to need passage for a civilian out of Hong Kong right away. Get me Colonel Radcliff.”
“Right.” Stone checked his directory and started to dial. “Would I be out of line to ask for a name? It’s not for Agent Ling?” He grinned. “I’ll volunteer to personally escort her. God, she’s gorgeous. I picked her up from the airport in Atlanta once, and it was a memorable experience.”
And Venable remembered how impressed Stone had been. He was sharp and enthusiastic but young enough to be dazzled.
“Oh, she’s memorable all right,” Venable said. “And very magnetic. But I don’t have to remind you that Jantzen just got killed because Ling got a little too close to him.”
“Not her fault,” Stone said. “I’m glad you’re pulling out all the stops to protect her.”
“The lift is for Erin Sullivan,” Venable said curtly. “And, of course, I’d protect Ling. She’s one of us. Do we have any more information about Santos?”
“Not yet.” He broke away and spoke into the phone for a few moments. He turned back to Venable. “There’s a plane leaving Hong Kong four hours from now. Okay?”
“We’ll make it okay.”
“Confirmed,” Stone said to his contact on the phone and hung up. He looked at Venable. “Anything else?”
“No.” He changed his mind. “Yes. Check and see what’s the latest we have on Richard Cameron.”
Stone accessed the computer. “Not much. He was under surveillance in Copenhagen, but he disappeared from there two weeks ago. We think he may be in Beijing.”
“Oh, shit.”
“A problem?”
“Cameron is always a problem. I’d hoped he was still in Europe.”
“We have no record of his contacts in Europe. But then we didn’t start shadowing him until he was in San Francisco.” He frowned. “I wasn’t with you in San Francisco. I was still in the Atlanta field office.” He was reading the screen in front of him. He gave a low whistle. “He blew up a fireworks factory in the middle of the city and walked away without even being charged? Did we intervene?”
“No, Cameron appears to have much more influential friends in his corner,” Venable said sarcastically. “Which is why we may have to take him down. Too much power corrupts.”
“What friends? I don’t see anything here that spells out much about—”
“Because we don’t know much. For years, we’ve just been hearing vague reports about Cameron from our agents in Tibet and India. It’s all guesswork and trying to put vague stories together.”
“So why are we even interested?”
“Because Catherine Ling is interested. Because Cameron got her and Erin Sullivan out of Tibet after Ling rescued Erin from that prison at Kadmus Palace.” He shrugged. “It seemed impossible at the time, but he did it. When we went in later and started asking questions about Cameron, I became … intrigued. He appears to be some kind of bandit or warlord or mystic who moves from place to place in the mountains. He has commando units and sophisticated weapons at his disposal. There are rumors of kidnappings of young, brilliant technicians and a few killings of Chinese agents.”
“Only rumors?”
“That’s all anyone has on Cameron. Here’s another one: He’s supposed to be backed by a huge conglomerate that has world political ambitions and put him in charge of the security of their operation. He’s known as the Guardian.”
Stone chuckled. “Shades of Marvel comic books.”
“Yeah, maybe. I’m glad you find it funny. Catherine Ling does not. The Agency was supposed to drop all protective services for Erin Sullivan when she arrived safely in the U.S. Catherine wouldn’t do it, and she teamed with Cameron to give Erin protection.”
“And it worked?”
“If you call blowing up half a block of prime real estate working. But Cameron managed to bribe his way out of trouble.” He grimaced. “Which has a significance that’s intimidating. I don’t like anyone who has that kind of power. With backing like that, you can fund revolutions and hire armies. That’s why I decided to take a closer look at Cameron.”
“Why not let Ling investigate him?”
“I might, but not until I have something concrete to show her that he’s a threat. She wasn’t pleased when she had to do without our help in San Francisco.”
“But she’s only an agent, sir. You’re her superior, and she should be guided by you.”
God, he was young.
“Absolutely right. Next time you see her, remember to tell that to Catherine Ling.”
CHAPTER
3