DARK EDGE: Prequel to the COIL Series Page 2

  She browsed the corridor, maybe anticipating an ambush. Only an experienced field agent was that cautious.

  "I'm alone, Chloe." He crossed his legs and put his arm across the back of the chair next to him. "I come on behalf of my employer, Corban Dowler."

  "Corban . . . Dowler?" Chloe Azmaveth frowned, and swiped the dark curls from her temple, perhaps to improve her peripheral vision. "Dowler's in no position to employ anyone last I heard, which was pretty recent. What's your question?"

  "Well, it's more of a proposition, actually. Dowler is being hunted because he became a Christian and refused to kill a man, a British traitor to the North Koreans."

  "Dowler's a Christian?" She scoffed. "We must not be talking about the same Dowler! The Dowler I know . . . well, let's just say I'd prefer walking into the same room as a suicide bomber than be in the same room with him."

  "In a few days, the Agency will allow Dowler to retire in peace. Then he wants to use his network to set up a Christian spy agency."

  "The CIA will never allow Dowler to retire, unless it's to an unmarked grave." Chloe unbuttoned her blazer, as if she expected physical conflict. "Dowler's been around too long. He knows too much."

  "That's precisely why they'll soon realize they're better off keeping him alive. They'll have to. Dowler has an Endgame Protocol."

  "Figures. If anybody did, he would." She sat up a little straighter. "So, you said a Christian spy agency? How's that supposed to work?"

  Corban hesitated as he noticed a large black man veer away from his approach when Corban looked his way. The man had a scar across the bridge of his nose and seemed familiar. But an airport identification on his belt marked him as a baggage administrator. Looking back at the Israeli agent, Corban noticed that Chloe was now holding a pair of glasses. He knew she didn't wear glasses. She'd weaponized a pair of reading glasses, he guessed.

  "Christians are dying for the gospel all over the world," Corban said. "Those of us who are Christians, like Dowler now, are so busy operating for amoral governments, we have no time to tend to God's people. But we could. Dowler wants you to help."

  "Like I said, I don't want to be anywhere near Dowler. The man's a walking target—not to mention more dangerous than anyone I've heard about. You sound like you're an America, so you know how the top gunslinger in your Western movies attracts the most bullets."

  "What's a few bullets if you could save souls?" Corban rose to his feet, and saw her tense. "Dowler will come for you in a few weeks."

  "Well, I'm not going with him!" She laughed. "We've never even met!"

  "I know you're a Christian, Chloe. Last October, you filed a DAR from Sydney stating that as a Christian, you were morally obligated to help persecuted Christians in Indonesia. Then you flew to Sumatra against your government's orders, and you saved lives."

  "How . . . do you know about that? Daily activity reports are top secret." She stood up, the glasses gripped firmly in her fist. "Leaving the Mossad won't be any easier for me than Dowler leaving the Agency."

  "Easy or not, we have to trust God with the details as we obey His call. Will you risk your life for God's people?"

  "I—" She smiled and pocketed the glasses. "I've risked my life for my amoral country, as you called it. Seems as a Christian, I should gladly do the same for God's own people. You could say . . . I'm interested."

  "I'll tell Dowler you're in." Corban shifted his feet. "Tell me: is the black man over my right shoulder watching us?"

  "Yes. A friend of yours?" The glasses came smoothly from her pocket again. "I've seen him before, in the Ukraine."

  "Who does he belong to?"

  "He's a Brit, I think. A Russian diplomat died in Moldova when he was there."

  Corban turned as his flight number was called.

  "That's my flight. Stay safe, Chloe. We'll be in touch."

  "Wait. What about the Brit? You want me to, I don't know . . . distract him?"

  "No, he already found me." Corban smiled. "Maybe I can turn him, huh? Preferably before he kills me."

  Corban studied the faces of those in the airport terminal. His life depended on remembering their faces. If they were agents sent to kill him, he wanted to recognize them again if they approached him later.

  "Sounds like something only Corban Dowler would be confident enough to say." She held out her hand. "Go with God, sir. It's an honor to hear you're finally in the shadow of the cross."

  Corban shook her hand, then left to board his flight. The last he saw, the black agent—probably an assassin—was approaching Chloe Azmaveth at her departure gate. But Corban didn't worry about her. If she was half as skilled as her IDF profile claimed she was, the British assassin would have his hands full.

  *~*

  Chapter Four – The Poison

  As Nace "Pyvox" Scanlon passed his target, he skillfully brushed the back of the man's hand. Within an hour, the man would be dead. Maybe then the other agents trying to catch Corban Dowler would get out of his way and let him work.

  In the men's restroom, Scanlon took off his glove and flushed it down the toilet, the poison with it. No one would ever know he'd just killed a German agent in the Paris airport deli, but death was part of being a government specialist. They should've been more careful approaching such a highly valued target as Corban Dowler.

  Scanlon paused at the sink and washed his hands as he scowled at himself in the mirror. At fifty-two, he looked about sixty, maybe older with the scar across his nose. The hard life of an assassin had worn away the years faster than he'd been able to enjoy them. In fact, he'd not truly enjoyed any of those years. As a chemist, he'd slaved in the lab, without taking vacations or making friends. There were no trophies on his shelf at home to celebrate his years of sacrifice for the government that barely acknowledged him.

  And he now hunted a man much like himself. Nearly. Scanlon was fascinated with Corban Dowler. He'd heard of the man over the years—a lone operator, a ghost from Langley who could infiltrate any nation and access any target that needed to be eliminated. Was he good enough to take out Corban?

  "Aconitum napellus," Scanlon said to the mirror. The name had a nice sound to it—a deadly and almost romantic ring. Any part of the monkshood plant was deadly, inducing heart failure. It was the poison he'd chosen with which to kill Corban. No one would ever know.

  However, his job had become quite difficult. German agents in the airport had about captured Corban, but Scanlon's orders were to kill him. In the process of beating the Germans to his target, Scanlon knew Corban had made him.

  And then there was the Israeli woman, Chloe Azmaveth. He'd run her face in his portable recognition software as soon as he'd seen Corban talking to her. She was connected to the Mossad, a mid-level agent heading home after an operation in Argentina. Scanlon had approached her after Corban boarded his jet to India. When he was just a dozen paces from her, she'd turned, a pair of reading glasses in her hand. She had smiled and shook her head at him, her confidence suggesting she was more than a mid-level agent, even if that was all her file had said.

  So instead of questioning and killing Chloe Azmaveth, Scanlon had swiped the German operator's hand. Eventually, they might suspect it was his doing, but no one would bother trying to prove it, he hoped. It was more blood on the Americans' hands for hiring a crowd of assassins when one precision instrument such as himself was required for someone of Corban Dowler's caliber.

  Leaving the restroom, Scanlon found the nearest ticket booth and purchased a flight for Bangalore. India was a likely place for a fugitive to hide—in the midst of a billion people. But Scanlon knew Corban wasn't a man to hide from anyone. He had a feeling of foreboding that Corban was drawing him in. After all, Corban had made him in the airport, yet he had calmly boarded his plane anyway.

  But Scanlon was determined to see Corban die in India, then he would return to the Thames to await the next promising contract to ring through his phone. In a week, he would forget the face of Corban Dowler. Scanlon never reme
mbered the dead.

  *~*

  Chapter Five – The Lie

  CIA Director Jacob Dench sipped his vodka, then set the glass down and cracked open his shotgun. It was a double barrel .12 gauge. Divorced and alone on his estate in East Maryland, he saw no reason why he shouldn't have a hobby involving guns. And Russian vodka.

  After reloading the shotgun, he threw the vodka glass into the night sky. His balcony provided the perfect shooting platform. The shotgun butt found its home against his shoulder and he pulled the trigger. The blast echoed across the manmade lake, around which only four mansions had been built. If the residents didn't like his late night hobby, they'd never said anything.

  "Because they know who I am," Dench said into the darkness. He poured himself another shot in a new glass and reloaded the gun.

  It had been a particularly bad day, and that usually meant his hobby lasted a little later than usual. Sure, drinking vodka was probably un-American, especially for an intelligence administrator who had earned his merits during the Cold War fighting Russians in East Germany. But he didn't care any longer. Though he was a patriot, it seemed like it had all been for naught. Communism was still threatening the world, and Russia was still flexing her muscles against weaker nations.

  And then there was Corban Dowler. If Dench had made a bet thirty years earlier, he would've wagered that Dowler would die before he turned against the Agency, America, and his family. But he'd turned. And for what? His God? A self-proclaimed Savior two millennia ago?

  Dench swore as he remembered his own daughter was a Christian. Her faith had been her downfall as well. That was her mother's doing, sometime after the divorce. Now Kim was gone—kidnapped and probably sold into some human trafficking slum ring in India. It was nearly impossible to trace such transactions, and more impossible to care much for a girl he'd never taken the time to know.

  "Christians!" Dench cursed, and threw another glass into the sky. When he shot it, the glass exploded. He flinched away but it was too late. The shotgun clattered onto the deck as he held his cheek, blood dribbling past a piece of embedded glass.

  He plucked out the glass, causing the wound to leak freely, but he didn't care. All that mattered was winning, and right now, because of Corban Dowler, he was losing.

  A report from Paris had arrived through Chip. A German agent had been mysteriously killed, probably poisoned, in Paris. That meant Nace "Pyvox" Scanlon was on Dowler's trail, but there was still no sign of either man—the hunter or the hunted.

  As long as Dowler was alive, he was a threat to Dench's legacy. Dowler had to die. The best the Agency had to offer, even though hardly anyone knew he existed, had refused to kill his target. Sure, it happened with agents, but not seasoned hunter-tracer agents who had nearly two-hundred operations under his belt. And those were just the ones in his file.

  Dench frowned at the piece of glass he'd taken from his cheek. The deck light passed through it, bent the light, and caused a tiny prism.

  Bending. Yes, Dench thought. That was the answer to Paris and the dead German. The problem that Dowler had become simply needed to be bent to Dench's satisfaction. Even Dowler himself would appreciate it, wouldn't he?

  Pocketing the piece of glass as a memento of the moment, Dench entered the house and went to his study. He logged into his work server via an encrypted satellite signal, and studied the Paris report more carefully. His deceit settled into place.

  If Dowler simply refused to kill anymore, that was a quiet problem for the Agency. But if he could turn Dowler into the Paris killer—and sell it to the Germans—then Dowler would be a problem for all of America. The President himself would send resources overseas to take care of Dowler. In the end, everyone would praise him, Jacob Dench, for how he had handled the Corban Dowler problem.

  So, Dowler didn't want to kill America's enemies? Then Dowler would become America's enemy number one—a hated murderer, a coward who poisoned random people in airports.

  Dench touched his cheek and admired the blood on his fingertips. No stitches. He wanted to remember this night through the remnant scar as the night he finalized Corban Dowler's demise!

  *~*

  Chapter Six – The Problem

  "You must bathe in the river, my friend. The positive energy could give you luck for the rest of your life."

  Corban acted like he was considering the Mumbaikar's words about bathing in India's Ganges River, but he had other things on his mind. Besides, he didn't believe in luck or positive energy from dirty water. The Hindu man moved on through the crowd—one man in a throng of millions—but Corban remained on the edge of the river.

  He'd arrived in Haridwar in northern India during the Kumbh Mela pilgrimage, the world's largest religious festival. Hindu believers stripped down to their underclothes and walked into the cold water. It was to be done before dawn, but now, two hours after dawn, the shoreline was indistinguishable through the brown bodies and excited visitors. On the sloped bank where Corban stood, he could see several hundred thousand people pressing shoulder to shoulder in or out of the filthy water, which swirled around temple towers, their very foundations built on the bed of the river.

  "You need to be high on Vishnu and gonja to get in that water," an Australian man's voice said. Corban turned to see a middle-aged man wearing a long-sleeved kurta. He'd arrived in a rickshaw, the runner panting heavily nearby. "I came as you asked."

  Corban didn't offer his hand. He wasn't sure if the press of bodies was actually dangerous or if they served as a safety net. Whoever was hunting him could already be in the city—maybe even posing as one of the local snake charmers, vendors, or Hindu gewgaws who worked the crowd.

  "Where's the girl?" While Corban continued to keep watch for an enemy, he glanced at the Australian agent, an ASIS specialist. Alan Doutrice wasn't an enemy, but he wasn't necessarily a friend, either. The man was more loyal to money than to country, and his connections to the underworld of India had been called upon more than a few times by Corban through the years. "One phone call, and the money is transferred."

  "It won't help you even if you do know where the girl is." Alan stepped out of the rickshaw. The rickshaw owner plodded off, squeezing through a wave of hermits who had apparently sworn off wearing clothing in exchange of wearing wreaths and garlands of marigolds. "I feel almost guilty for taking your money. Almost. The girl is safer than the gold in your Fort Knox."

  "A kidnapped American is hardly safe here!" Corban said through clenched teeth. "Just tell me what I need to know."

  "The girl is held in there—see the gray tower? The Sadhus holds court from there. His followers are countless. There are one hundred million Hindus attending Kumbh Mela in four cities in the next fifty-five days. She'll be impossible to recover."

  Using the height that the slope gave him to see over the throng, Corban stared at a thirty-foot tall round building, a walkway circling it six feet above the river surface. What looked like Christmas lights were strung in a tangle around its roof. The mass of humanity seemed to fill every inch of the water, but they gave wide berth to the tower.

  He took in these details before he noticed three men in blazers on the walkway. Though their guns weren't visible, he was sure they were armed, concealing them under their jackets. It seemed they were bodyguards.

  "Tell me about this Sadhus man."

  "A Sadhus is a holy man, not a name. But this one is known as the Sadhus. He controls more worshippers in this region than any other Sadhus. With a word, he can muster one thousand Hindus, or even a million. That's why it's impossible to get the girl out. The police won't even touch the Sadhus."

  "Let me worry about getting her out. It's just the three outside?" Corban didn't need to disguise his gaze. He was a face amongst a sea of faces. "How many inside?"

  "At least five, usually. I don't know for sure. You just called me two days ago. I don't know everything."

  "You've told me enough." Corban looked away from the river. A Caucasian face caught his eye, t
hen it was lost in the crowd. He recognized the face from the Paris airport. "You'd better leave. I've got it from here. If I need—"

  But Alan Doutrice was already gone, apparently trusting Corban to make the payment as agreed. One last time, Corban measured the dimensions of the Hindu tower where the girl was being held, then moved up the bank past all the chatting and crying Indians.

  He wasn't tall enough to see over all those around him, but if he could get high enough up the slope . . . As he weaved through the swarm of bodies, he took off his jacket and bent down to dip his hand into a puddle. Hoping it was mud, he dabbed some onto his face and into his hair. His features sufficiently altered for the moment, he turned and climbed the cement stairs built into the slope, until he could look down at the throng. It took mere seconds to spot the hunter-tracer team. They were light-skinned and fully clothed, so they stood out in the half-naked crowd of brown bodies. Two others looked familiar from Paris as well, but their attention was directed elsewhere. They had to be part of a hunter-tracer team, and that meant Corban's plans in India just became much more complicated.

  Members of the H-T team were separately converging on a tall muscled black man. Corban guessed he was over fifty. The tall man wore a tan suit without a tie, and carried a small bag, as if he'd recently arrived in town. He was definitely the baggage man from Paris, identified by the scar—a killer who apparently didn't realize he was about to be killed himself. The agents were moving like a pride of lions toward their prey. There was no question as to their intent towards the tall black man.

  The man who Chloe had said was a Brit stood in the very place Corban had been just ten minutes earlier, next to another rickshaw. For a hunter-tracer team—or possibly two teams—to be on Corban's trail so soon, he surmised they were government sponsored and not merely independent mercenary teams. Private assassins could be resourceful, but not as rapidly deployed as these.