[Thomas Caine #1] Tokyo Black (4 page)

He turned and walked off into the rain. Rebecca bit her lip, turning Allan’s words over in her mind. She mentally replayed the conversation word by word. It occurred to her that a promotion at the CIA could be a curse in disguise.

Maximum clearance and minimal oversight … just enough rope to hang herself.

After forty-eight hours in Bang Kwang central prison, Thomas Caine ranked it near the top of his list of god-forsaken hell holes. Eighty acres of stinking, sweat-stained concrete and metal surrounded him, and the air was thick with sewage and despair. He wasn’t sure which smelled worse. He knew he had seen worse…. He had suffered pain and captivity the likes of which most people could never imagine. But Bang Kwang, the legendary “Bangkok Hilton,” was a close second.

As he swatted a fly off his sweat-drenched forehead, he felt optimistic. True, conditions were bad, abysmal even. But in a place like this, a place of sickness, violence, corruption … how far away could death be? How long could he realistically expect to suffer before infection, or a cold metal blade in the dark, ended his horror for good?

He shook his head, trying to clear his mind.
You’ve survived worse. You didn’t give up then. You can’t give up now.

But why not?
he asked himself.

His gaze drifted across the courtyard. Men were everywhere, like bloated, lethargic vermin infesting a long dead corpse. Some talked in groups, smoking cigarettes they had bought off the guards with favors and contraband. Others played cards or flipped the pages of moldy, faded paperback novels.

Across the cement square, near a group of old picnic tables, a dozen or so prisoners lined up. An older man sat at the table with a worn leather satchel full of rusted tools. One by one, the men stepped up and opened their mouths, allowing the old man to peer in, examining their teeth.

As Caine had learned at mealtime the day before, the old man’s name was Narong. He had been a carpenter before murdering both his wife and her lover. He had set fire to a van they were using for one of their romantic trysts. He claimed not to know they were both inside it at the time. The trial didn’t go his way.

However, the fact that his cousin was an oral surgeon officially qualified him to act as the prison’s dental services provider. They even let him carry his old tools. Prisoners requesting dental care lined up at his table. They were responsible for acquiring their own cups of alcohol to sterilize Narong’s implements.

Caine looked away as Narong lowered a pair of pliers into a shivering, emaciated prisoner’s mouth. Screaming filled the air. It was not an unusual sound in Bang Kwang, and the guards paid no attention.

Caine felt a prickling on his neck. He once again scanned the yard, drinking in the details. He watched Narong tugging at his pliers, the grimace of pain on his patient’s face. The guards kept their backs to him and the other prisoners, studiously avoiding the horror show playing out behind them.
Why are they all looking away?

A man emerged from the pack of prisoners, his leg chains jangling with each step. In seconds, the man closed in, and Caine knew what the prickling was: the sixth sense of a killer, recognizing impending violence. He had been sent here to disappear. It only made sense Lau would send someone to finish the job.

Caine, like every other prisoner, wore irons and chains around his ankles. There was just enough play for him to step forward and balance on his rear leg. He brought his hands up in front of him, palms open.

The assassin blinked, surprised to see his target advancing instead of moving away. Only an inch or two shorter than Caine, muscles bulged beneath his prison rags. Caine swore at himself for not noticing him sooner.

A tattoo of a scorpion danced across the thick cords of his shoulder and neck. It was the symbol of a Chao Pho, a local gang of mixed Thai and Han Chinese ethnicities. They controlled organized crime in Thailand’s cities. Caine had a working relationship with the gangs, and he paid them a percentage when operating in their territory. But this was obviously not personal. Just business.

Scorpion made a rapid, twisting motion with his left ankle. The iron manacle clicked open and fell to the ground. Caine barely had time to register the movement before the big man pivoted on his left foot. Then, Scorpion launched his right leg into a powerful spinning heel kick.

Caine instinctively tried to execute a defensive kick. He raised his right foot, but then heard the clink of the chain surrounding his ankles pull taut. Cursing, he turned his body to the side, trying to pivot out of the way, but it was too late. Scorpion’s heel smashed into his chest.

Caine’s back slammed into the ground with a loud crack. Coughing and sputtering for air, he immediately assumed a defensive ground position. Covering his face, he rolled left and right, blocking blows where he could with his foot. The chain around his ankles made this almost impossible. He would have to get back on his feet if he hoped to survive.

To relax his spasming diaphragm, he took a deep breath. His instincts began to take over. Time seemed to slow down. He sensed the other prisoners circling them, cheering the fight on. They did not register as a threat, and his mind muted their bloodthirsty cries to a dull background roar. But the buzzing still tingled at the back of his neck…. There was another danger nearby.

Caine rolled to his left, towards one of the old battered picnic tables that dotted the courtyard. He allowed momentum to carry his body under the table. A blunt stick hit the dirt where his head had been a moment earlier. Another prisoner had joined the fight, this one tall but lanky and malnourished. After a few days on the prison diet, Caine could see why. The new attacker wielded a prison guard’s baton. He, too, had been freed from his leg irons. Lau must have paid the warden a pretty penny to arrange this hit.

Caine popped up on the other side of the table. He slid back into his defensive position: hands raised, legs apart, one foot farther back for balance. He stared down his attackers. His emerald eyes were calm, and he did not blink.

The two men split up, each moving around a different side of the table. Caine launched towards Lanky first, moving as fast as his leg chains would allow. He surprised his opponent with his reckless advance.

Lanky bellowed and raised his weapon over his head. As the baton swung down, Caine used his left arm to divert the force of the blow. He swung his right arm and landed a vicious punch on Lanky’s jaw. Before the stunned man could retreat, Caine grabbed his wrist and yanked him forward. He wrenched the baton from the man’s weakened grasp.

Stepping back, he swung the club up between Lanky’s legs. As the painful blow struck, he raised his elbow and dropped it with all his weight on the back of Lanky’s neck. The man hit the ground like a sack of flour.

Caine dropped to his knees beside him, slamming the baton into the small of his back. Lanky’s eyes popped, but instead of a scream, only a hissing breath escaped his lips. His fingers clawed at the dirt. He dragged himself away from Caine an inch at a time. Caine let him go. He stood up and focused his attention on Scorpion.

The big man charged towards him, his mouth open and rolling like a rabid animal. His meaty left fist launched forward in a punch. Caine stepped back, avoiding the powerful blow while rapping the man’s knuckles with his baton. The big man yelped and attempted a follow-up punch with his right hand. But the pain from Caine’s counterattack had thrown him off balance, and Caine dodged the clumsy strike with ease.

Scorpion shifted his weight, and Caine saw the signs of another left-right combo. He didn’t have to plot his next move. It was like listening to music. He simply knew which notes should finish the tune.

Sure enough, Scorpion launched forward again with his left fist. Caine whipped his left arm in front of him, knocking the blow wide and leaving his attacker open. Stepping forward, Caine slammed the baton into Scorpion’s gut. As the big man gasped and bent over, Caine clubbed him on the back of the neck and the giant crumpled to the ground.

 Caine hesitated for a second, staring at the now-defenseless inmate.
Get it done!
the voice in his head roared.
If you don’t make him an example, these guys will never stop coming.
He knew what to do, knew it was necessary. Still, he waited.

Scorpion groaned and began to pick himself up. Caine blinked, and the voice in his head took control. He straddled Scorpion’s head. With a quick jerk of his ankle, Caine wrapped the chain between his legs around his enemy’s neck.

Caine threw himself to the ground and pulled with his legs. Scorpion gasped as the chain grew taut around his bulging neck. He thrashed his body, struggling to loosen the chain. Caine threw all his weight into the stranglehold. Strong, fat fingers clawed at his ankles, but Caine grit his teeth and ignored the pain. After a few moments, the man stopped moving. Caine heard the death rattle leave his enemy’s throat, a last gasping wheeze.

Caine relaxed his legs and let go. He staggered to his feet and surveyed the crowd that had gathered around him.

The other prisoners were cheering. They exchanged money, cigarettes, and drugs as they paid off their bets on the fight. Judging by the amount of money changing hands, Caine guessed he had not been expected to win.

He looked down at Scorpion’s bloated corpse. He thought of how different a dead body looked from its living, breathing incarnation. After a person died, the stillness of death became like a new state of reality. The memories of it walking, talking, and living were like echoes, whispers in the wind that grew fainter with every passing second.

He looked around and saw Lanky had managed to drag himself under the picnic table for shelter. He wasn’t moving, but Caine could tell he was still alive.

That’s okay. One is enough. This time.

As the crowd parted, he saw Narong, still standing by his table, still holding the rusty pair of pliers. The old man grinned, raising the old tool in a jaunty salute. Caine could just make out the small, white tooth in the pliers’ grip. His emaciated patient nodded and clapped his hands. Blood and saliva dripped from his mouth.

That was the last thing Caine saw before the guards forced their way through the crowd and began pummeling him with their batons. He made no move to resist. He sank to the ground and let the blackness fall over him like a blanket, numbing the pain of their blows.

When he fell unconscious, he was smiling.

Rebecca sighed and leaned back in her office chair. As she massaged her temples, the plastic clicking of computer keys filled the air. It sounded like the mocking chatter of a high-tech rodent.

She returned her attention to the pile of dossiers spread before her. Assassins, mercenaries, disavowed agents … a grim cast of unsavory players covered her desk, a collage of dark, bloodstained history. Each sheet of paper detailed the secret career of a highly trained killer. These assets were used discreetly by the CIA, but never appeared in official agency records. They were independent contractors in the world of espionage.

Across from her, Ethan’s fingers scurried over the keyboard of his custom PC rig. Twelve liquid-cooled processing cores sifted through mountains of data. Every now and then, a promising dossier filled his screen. These were printed and added to the ever-growing pile of paper on Rebecca’s desk. But each time she read them over, something wasn’t right, some element was missing. What Allan was asking for, the timeframe he had given her … only the perfect candidate would have any chance of success, and so far, that candidate was proving elusive.

“Ethan, at the very least, I need someone who can speak Japanese, for God’s sake!”

Her information specialist didn’t even look up from his keyboard as he printed up another batch of options. “Hasn’t exactly been a hotspot for us lately, you know? Speak Arabic, welcome aboard, pop the champagne. Speak Japanese? Enjoy your tentacle porn. Know what I’m saying?”

She threw several useless dossiers in the trash.

“Uh, aren’t you supposed to shred those?”

“Let’s just burn the office down. It will be easier in the long run.”

The problem, she thought, was that Ethan had it exactly right. For at least the last fifteen years, CIA asset recruitment had focused on the Middle East with a laser-like intensity. True, they had successfully infiltrated cells of Al-Qaeda and similar extremist groups. But the agency now found it difficult to rapidly mobilize elsewhere in the world.

She stood up and stretched her arms above her head. “This operation is going to crash and burn. And Allan set me up to take the fall. The Extra Departmental Assets Group is bullshit…. This whole thing is a big red bullseye painted on my ass.”

“My ass, too, boss.”

A soft electronic chime sounded from Ethan’s computer. “Hold the phone … what do we have here?”

Rebecca walked over to his desk, leaning over his shoulder. “What have you got?”

“Curiouser and curiouser … I’ve been running traces on old aliases … you know, fake identities, backstopped covers that we provided. Sometimes these freelance players are so far removed from their original identities, it’s easier to track down the alias, right?”

“Yeah, I get it. What’s so interesting about this one?”

Ethan looked up over his shoulder. “Do you mind? Personal space.”

Rebecca bit her lip and took a step back.

“Okay, so if any official agency runs a check on one of these IDs, I get a flag here. And a fingerprint ID check was just submitted to Interpol by the Royal Thai Police for one Mark Waters.”

“Who the hell is Mark Waters?”

“That’s the point…. He’s no one. Mark Waters was a deep cover identity we created. And the fingerprints the Thai police have on file match ours, so we know it’s the same asset, but it’s not supposed to be active. Whoever was assigned this identity, he’s using it on his own now. And according to this file, he’s been arrested by the Thai police for smuggling, racketeering, and … looks like arms dealing.”

Rebecca grabbed a chair and sat down next to Ethan. The young man shifted uncomfortably, but she ignored him.