Defector: CIA Assassin (Jack Hunter Book 4) Read online

  Hale moved to a small island just off the coast of Venezuela and set up shop. He had his contacts in the capital who knew he was alive—they were people that he had the dirt on—people that he could crush.

  In Hale’s mind, Mastodon would become what the CIA could never become. It would be an intelligence agency free from the President, free from the peering eyes of the press.

  But his agency needed officers.

  Hunter was one of them.

  A relic of the past.

  A man who Hale had pushed too far.

  But, perhaps, the only man Hale could rely on.

  Outside his office, the sun began to dip below the horizon. A light, humid breeze rushed through the window and made the papers on Hale’s desk flutter.

  His phone rang.

  He answered.

  “What is it?”

  It was his secretary. “The man you’ve been waiting for—he’s here?”

  “Jack?”

  “Yes, sir. The tall one. The one with the dark eyes.”

  “Send him in.”

  “He’s … He’s on his way to you.”

  “Fucking hell.”

  Hale clenched both his fists. He wanted to give Hunter a piece of his mind, but he knew that he’d have to be careful. He was getting old—everything in his body hurt. A man like him, in his late seventies, had to be careful. In his youth, he would have never shied away from a fistfight.

  He waited for Hunter to enter his office.

  He closed his eyes and cleared his throat.

  THREE

  Waves from the Atlantic crashed against a stony beach of a small tropical island off the coast of Venezuela. The locals referred on the mainland referred to the island as Casa del Diablo or Home of the Devil. They knew that the man who had purchased the island was a bad man, though they didn’t know why. They just knew that the men they’d been asked to transport to the island from the mainland were the worst kinds of people.

  Hunter was one of those people.

  He knew he was as much a devil as the man who called the island home.

  He didn’t like to lie to himself.

  He jumped off the fishing skiff that he’d ridden to the island and made his way onto a small wooden pier that protruded from the island’s rocky shore. He thanked the fisherman who’d sailed him from the mainland and said, “If you wait for me, I’ll double your pay.”

  The fisherman nodded.

  Hunter looked at the building atop the highest point of the island—Hale’s fortress: Mastodon’s headquarters. He snarled, picked up his backpack from the pier, and walked the pathway toward the entrance of the building.

  The island was technically in international waters—it was secluded and small. It took less than fifteen minutes to walk from one end to the other. That was one of the reasons why Hale had chosen it as his operations center. It almost literally existed off the radar. Encrypted satellite communication meant that all outgoing and incoming messages were invisible to all government facilities. The island’s small size meant that even the most advanced satellite imagery technology would have trouble making sense of any of the buildings that Hale had built on the iland.

  A man in a black suit approached Hunter.

  “Name?”

  “Fuck you.”

  The man drew his gun.

  Hunter rolled his eyes and shoved the man’s wrist up into the air. The man pulled down on the trigger. The bullet it fired disappeared into the sky. Hunter kneed the man in the nuts, twisted the man’s wrist as to dislodge the grip on the gun, and then, with the gun in his possession, aimed it at the man.

  The man raised his hands. “Who are you?”

  “Are you new?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, are you new!?”

  “New?”

  Hunter sighed. With the quickness of a lightning strike, he smacked the young security officer across the side of the head, rendering the young man unconscious.

  Looking down at the body of the young man who’d tried to be a hero, Hunter shook his head. He knew that it would only be a matter of minutes before Hale’s other security personnel arrived. Hunter knew that Hale had hired about fifteen security personnel to secure the island.

  Not wanting to engage in a shootout, Hunter picked up his pace. He ran toward the main building of the island. Instead of going through the front door, he scaled one of the western walls. He crawled through a window and slowly made his way down the hallway toward Hale’s office.

  He didn’t knock on the door.

  He kicked it open, pulled out the small USB key he had in his pocket, and tossed it at Hale. He then pulled up the pistol he’d apprehended from the security guard at the pier.

  Hale’s eyes widened when he saw the small digital device fly through the air. He reached out in vain for it. It hit him in his chest and landed on his knees. “You son of a bitch,” he snapped. “Is this it? Is this the software?”

  “What the fuck do you think?” Hunter growled, still holding the pistol up.

  Hale looked at the small device and smiled. He quickly put it inside a pocket over his chest and then looked at Hunter. “Where the hell have you been? I expected you here weeks ago.”

  “I had a few errands to run.”

  “Errands?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” Hunter said. “I know you know.”

  “You told Clarkson that the mission wasn’t complete. You lied to my Chinese assets about everything. You raided a Hong Kong port after you had already secured the data. You saved some girl? What was her name? Metropolis?”

  “Margot,” Hunter grunted. “And she’s not some girl. She’s the only reason I’m still alive. I had to return the favor. She was kidnapped by those assholes because of me.”

  “Cry me a river.”

  “I got what you wanted.”

  “I sent you to Beijing for a pickup, not for a fucking heist!”

  “Are we done?”

  “I don’t know,” Hale said. “You’re the one still aiming a weapon at me.”

  “I’m worried that your security detail might burst into this room.”

  “Don’t worry about them. I’m going to fire them all.”

  “What?”

  “You just evaded them.”

  Hunter shrugged. “I got what you wanted.” He turned to leave.

  Hale scoffed. “You don’t want to be part of Mastodon?”

  “No.”

  “You quit?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Fuck you, Jack. You’re one of the only ones on this planet who knows I am still alive. I can’t just let you leave here like this. You could undermine everything I am trying to build.”

  Hunter stopped at the doorway. His hand gripped the edge of the door. He wanted to tear it off its hinges. “Is that a threat?” he growled.

  Hale broke out in laughter. He slapped his hand on his knee. “I had you, didn’t I?”

  Hunter turned around. “I can end this right here, right now,” he said. “I can end whatever game you’re trying to play. The only reason I agreed to go to China was that I knew it would get me close to her. After all, it was because of you that they had her.”

  Hale stood up from his desk and lifted his arms in the air. “You want to kill me, then kill me.”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You could be helping me to do some good. Wouldn’t want you to make the world a better place for once.”

  Hunter looked at Hale and shook his head. “Do you believe that? Do you really think this … this island and Mastodon will make the world a better place? You know the girl I saved was tortured. They broke her down. You wanted to know where I was. Well, I took her home. I made sure that she was safe.”

  “The old Jack Hunter wouldn’t have done that.”

  “I’m done being Jack Hunter. Yo
u can keep playing your games—you can lie to yourself that this is somehow different than what you were doing back at Langley. You’ll entangle yourself in a web that you won’t be able to pull yourself from. Unless, of course, you fake your death again and run … like a coward.”

  “Do you know that Fawn Aspen is joining my ranks?”

  “No.”

  “She is. I just got off the phone with her. She’s coming here in a couple days. She wants in.”

  “I’ll tel her otherwise.”

  “Fine,” Hale said. “But before you leave, don’t you want to know what this is? Maybe it will change your mind.” He pulled out the small USB key from his pocket.

  “Goodbye, Jeff,” Hunter growled. He looked at the USB key and then noticed a document on Hale’s desk. It had a strange symbol on it. It looked like a triangle on top of a square. Was that Hale’s PR marketing. Mastodon was no different than the CIA at the end of the day. He slammed the door shut and climbed out the window he’d climbed through to get access inside the main building.

  He made his back to the fishing skiff.

  He tossed the fisherman another roll of hundred-dollar bills and hopped inside. Before leaving, he tossed the pistol of Hale’s security officer onto the wooden pier.

  He was almost done.

  He had just one more visit to make.

  FOUR

  Hale grumbled to himself. He walked back and forth in his office and thought about his options. He had hoped Hunter had stayed around for a little bit longer.

  “Do I need him? No.”

  He was talking to himself. Something that he’d started to do while spending months alone on the island.

  He sat down at his desk and looked at the USB key. If Mastodon was going to be respected by world governments, the USB key was going to be part of the reason why.

  He sighed. He just had to push forward with the plan, Hunter or no Hunter.

  He picked up his phone and called a number—one of his contacts in Washington; another man who knew he was alive—a man who’d kept his mouth shut because Hale had compromising material on him. The Secretary of Defense, Ross Wain had a penchant for visiting foreign brothels in his youth while serving as a Commanding Officer for the 82nd Airborne Division. It wasn’t his attendance of the brothels in Iraq that was incriminating. It was that a dead girl had been found in his sleeping quarters one night.

  The incident had occurred while Hale had been the Black Ops Director of the CIA. One of his officers, who’d been stationed at the military base, informed him of the body in Wain’s quarters.

  Hale used the intel to make sure that Wain did what he was told.

  “What is it?” Wain said on the other side of the phone. He was in Virginia. It was late.

  “Are you with the missus?”

  Wain’s voice turned soft. “What do you want?”

  “I need to know that everything is still going through.”

  “It is. I have the Joint Chiefs meeting with me in San. Francisco in the three days. Everything is set.”

  “Good.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No,” Hale said. “I just wanted to make sure that everything was good to go. I’m excited. I have the key.”

  “Do you know what time—”

  Hale hung up.

  In one week’s time, Mastodon would have a contract with the US military.

  The spy world was going private.

  He was going to lead the way.

  No more yellow tape. No more bureaucracy. Just action and results. The way it should have always been.

  FIVE

  Fawn Aspen had spent a decade at the CIA, and during that time, she’d done everything they’d asked her to do. She was loyal to their cause and a patriot. On top of it all, she was damn good at her job. She knew that.

  But after one decade of service, after having served under three different Directors, she felt dissatisfied.

  She needed to take control of her life back.

  She was going to give the current director of the agency an ultimatum.

  Miles Tremaine looked at her. “What is this?” he said.

  Tremaine was the current CIA Director. A tight ass. Unlike Hale, he was a boy scout. He’d spent his days and hours putting together workshops on how the CIA could reinvent its image to be more public-facing and friendly. He ran the CIA like it was a charity.

  It made Fawn sick.

  She looked him in the eye. “You know what it is?”

  “You want me to give you a promotion? You want to be a Station Chief?”

  “I think I deserve it. I’ve been an officer for ten years. I’ve worked under various Directors. I know—“

  Tremaine cut her off. “That’s exactly the problem, Fawn. You’re damaged goods. You were involved in the shit that went down in Mexico. You were involved in the hellstorm that was Saudi Arabia. And I don’t even want to mention North Korea.”

  “Sir—“

  He cut her off again. “The agency needs to be progressive. We’re looking for new, fresh faces. People who haven’t been affected by the past.”

  “You do know what we are, right? We’re an intelligence agency. We’ve done bad things. We’ve been involved in wars—“

  “Enough!” Tremaine said. “America is changing. I acknowledge that our past might not be clean, but it’s the face we put forward with the future in mind that matters.”

  “So, we’re not going to continue to spy on our enemies, collect information from allies …” Fawn felt like she was living in a bizarro world. She couldn’t even believe she was asking the question.

  Tremaine gave her a condescending smile. “That’s not what I’m saying he said. “We’ll keep doing what we’ve always done… but with no faces. One’s not tainted by the past.”

  “Tainted? Sir, I wouldn’t call my past tainted.”

  Tremaine looked at the letter that Fawn had handed him minutes earlier. “Can we get to the point, Fawn?”

  “So, this is how it ends?”

  “If that’s why you want. I don’t want you to quit, but I can’t give you a promotion.”

  Fawn looked him in the eye and clenched her jaw. She took a deep breath and reminded herself why she was doing what she was doing. “I quit,” she said.

  Tremaine shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “You can leave.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You don’t want to know why?”

  “No.”

  Fawn’s face turned red. “The CIA is not a fucking PR agency. Who gives a fuck about our public image?”

  “Are you done?”

  She bit her tongue, smiled, stood up, and left his office.

  It had all happened as she’d expected.

  It made her sad and happy at the same time.

  But she was finally free.

  Free from the life that she had been living for so long. But her new freedom came with a heavy price.

  One that she wasn’t sure she was ready to pay.

  She left Langley and made her way to her apartment close to downtown DC. She turned off her phone, not wanting any distractions, just wanting the silence of her own mind, which she knew would be loud with worry. She poured herself a healthy glass of white wine and sat down on the couch.

  “Am I doing this?” she asked herself.

  She didn’t have time to mull it over.

  Her phone rang.

  It was him.

  Jack Hunter.

  “What the hell do you want?” she asked, answering.

  SIX

  Hunter walked into the small diner in the middle of rural Virginia and saw her alone at a booth. The place was quiet and secluded. He wore a ball cap and held his head low. He walked up to her and sat down.

  “You look like shit,” he grunted.

  “Thanks,” Fawn said. “I just quit my job, y’know. I am throwing it all away.”

  “I know what you’re doing. He told me about it.”
br />   “And why are you here?”

  “To tell you it’s a mistake.”

  “Well, isn’t that a little late?”

  “Timing was never my strong suit.”

  “Fuck you, Jack.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “The old Jack Hunter wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass about me.”

  “Well, I’m trying to clean up the house before I disappear for good. Make amends with my past. You’ve helped me before. You deserve the truth.”

  “And what’s the truth?”

  “Jeff Hale is hellbent on control at all costs. He’s going to get himself in trouble. He’s going to cross the line. Do you really want to be there when he does?”

  Fawn turned away. She looked at a woman sitting alone, reading the paper. She looked well within his seventies and at peace with her life. She was busy filling in the answers in the daily crossword, sipping her coffee slowly, and every now and then looking out into the thick and dense forest parallel to the diner’s lot. She looked into the darkness of the wood with a wistful look. “You’re the reason I even know he’s alive. Why did you tell me about him if you didn’t trust him? Why—“

  Hunter cut her off. “I guess I thought you were smarter than you are. I could easily ask you why you reached out to him.”

  “I wanted to know why he left.”

  “Well, now you know. He wanted to start his own version of the CIA. One that was completely controlled by him.”

  “And I wanted in. What’s the problem? Weren’t you helping him with a mission recently?”

  “I was helping him to fix a problem that he had made.”

  “What was that problem?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “So, you can’t tell me?”

  “I’m telling you that it doesn’t matter. All that does matter is that you won’t find what you’re looking for.”

  “Well, it’s too late. I’ve already quit.”

  “Good. The CIA is a mess, too.”

  Fawn shook her head. “You are just as much a fool. You’re just too stubborn to admit it.