Jackpot

19

Millie rode in the back of the SUV while one of the other agents drove. They’d thrown the wreckage from the drone into the cargo area of the SUV for the CIA’s tech guys to examine at a covert warehouse near the pier. The drive to the warehouse only took about five minutes according to the clock on the dashboard, but to Millie it felt like a decade. By the time they pulled up to the warehouse, Millie’s tension and fear had been replaced by disgust and anger. She knew Arrow Donaldson was behind this. His file outlined a long history of intimidation tactics and punitive behavior. She knew he bankrupted innocent businessmen who got in his way, tied up all his opponents in endless legal battles, and engaged in public mudslinging against anybody who tried to fight back. But she’d never believed he could kill an innocent woman.

As she looked around the area surrounding the warehouse, Millie realized she’d probably made a mistake leaving the penthouse. She tried to convince herself that they’d been in danger, that the woman was only the first target and the rest of the team would have been next, but she knew that wasn’t the case. Once the drone was shot down, the danger had been eliminated.

As if on cue to confirm her suspicions that her move had been a bad one, another black SUV, with the look of a U.S. government vehicle, pulled into the lot. Two men in gray suits got out and came over to Millie. They both flashed badges that Millie recognized as CIA, but only one of them talked.

“I’m Agent Parks and this is Agent Malmon. We’re with the Agency’s Office of Inspector General.”

Millie’s stomach dropped, but she tried her best to keep the fear off her face as she held out her hand for Agent Parks to shake.

“Millie Martindale. I’m here at the request of Lance Cabot.”

“We’re aware of your assignment here. We operate independently and report to Director Cabot as well as to the ranking members of the congressional intelligence committees.”

“Thank you for the thorough explanation,” Millie said. “What can I help you with?”

She held out hope that this was just follow-up on the casino assignment and would be over with quickly. But that hope was dashed when Agent Parks frowned and stepped back from her.

“We’re here about the drone in your vehicle,” he said.

Her stomach sank almost to her feet this time. She continued trying to regulate her reactions and her emotions, but she had one big question and she didn’t realize until it was too late that she’d asked it out loud.

“How did you get here so quickly?”

“That’s an odd question to ask,” Agent Parks said.

“I just... Normally it seems like it takes forever to get anything done around here. You know?”

She thought that was a competent enough answer. Agent Parks went from looking at her skeptically to looking at her condescendingly. That she could deal with.

“We’re going to need to get into your vehicle and to talk to the other members of your team.”

“Sure. Of course. Whatever you need.”

As Agents Parks and Malmon left her to begin interviewing her colleagues, a white van pulled into the lot and a group of black-clad men and women emerged and began putting on gloves and pulling out bags of gear. An evidence collection team from the CIA. After efficient preparation, the group swarmed Millie’s SUV and pushed her agents into the waiting hands of Parks and Malmon. Millie wondered if there was a similar team combing through the penthouse they’d left behind. She marveled again at how this response team had been pulled together so quickly.

As she watched the OIG agents and the evidence team do their work, Millie was happy that no one seemed interested in her for the time being. She had one contact who couldn’t be controlled by anyone. She stepped back further out of view, and called a man most people in the Agency still thought was dead.

“You asked me about Macau earlier,” she said when he answered.

“I don’t work that way.”

“What way is that, might I ask?”

“I like mutually beneficial relationships.”

Millie stopped to think. If she involved this man, accepted help from him, there’d be a price to pay, and no turning back.

She didn’t like it at all, but Millie Martindale was out of options.

“A woman died.”

“Women die every day. Why should I care?”

“This one was pretending to be Li Feng.”

“Pretend I don’t know who that is.”

“Should I also pretend you don’t know who Arrow Donaldson is? Should I pretend you don’t know who Lance Cabot is?”

“We both know that’s ridiculous.”

“You called me, remember. And I assume you haven’t tried to break into the CIA database yet because I haven’t heard anything about it.”

“I’d be smarter than that.”

Millie sighed, realizing what he meant. “I’m guessing you called a certain basement in Washington, D.C., and found out everything you needed to know.”

“I’m very resourceful.”

Millie had had just about enough of the patronizing banter and it looked like her time to herself in the parking lot was drawing to a close. The evidence team was loading their gear back into their van, and Agents Parks and Malmon were starting to eye her every so often as they finished talking to her team.

“We’re both in Macau and you probably thought it was for separate reasons,” Millie said. “But I’d be willing to bet that we’re both here for the same reason and that it has something to do with Arrow Donaldson.”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds.

Then: “I’ll call you back in a few minutes and we’ll tell each other everything we know.”

He hung up before Millie could call him a liar.

Arrow Donaldson sat in the back of a dark sedan watching the chaos unfold in the parking lot of the warehouse complex, where the GPS tracer in the drone wreckage had led him. It had been a stroke of dumb luck that the CIA’s inspector general already had agents in Macau due to suspicions arising from their fishing expedition in his casino with Lance Cabot. But Arrow was not a man to just rely on dumb luck. He knew how to harness good fortune, to amplify it, and to manipulate it. His driver handed him a satellite phone.

“I’m watching it now, Senator. The timing was perfect. Yes. I know about that. The rest will take care of itself. Thank you.”

He handed the phone back to his driver. Then he said, “Take me to the bunker.”