Jackpot

41

Millie was at the Macau Business Aviation Center saying goodbye to Quentin when she got a call from her mystery man. Despite their banter, he really wasn’t a mystery to her, but she didn’t let anyone know how much she was aware of his background. She’d been working in the president’s national security office when she’d met the man for the first time. He’d called himself Fred Walker, and though she’d known right away that the name was fake, she hadn’t asked any questions.

Fred Walker had wanted her to go undercover to help him with a mission for the president. It had turned out to be pretty exciting, even if she hadn’t realized how much she craved the excitement at the time. She received credit for killing a terrorist, though in truth that had been accomplished by her mysterious colleague. But her new reputation for keeping cool in the line of fire got her moved over to the CIA director’s office, where Fred Walker came calling again. By that time, she’d found her unrealized desire for adventure and an outlet for her natural curiosity. She wasn’t going to let Fred Walker go unchecked a second time. She still didn’t know his real name, but she knew his main identity was as movie producer Billy Barnett, and she had suspicions that he also occasionally used the alias of Mark Weldon to do stunt work and character acting.

From working with Lance, she’d also managed to deduce that Fred/Billy/Mark had once been one of the most wanted men in the country. He’d done something terrible and then redeemed himself by doing something equally terrible, but for the right team this time.

Now he was calling her to ask another favor. She looked forward to one day calling in all of his favors, but for the time being she listened to his quick burst of conversation before he hung up. It only took her a few seconds to come up with a way to help her mystery man, and to let Arrow know she was on to him. Two birds with one stone.

Arrow answered her call after the first ring. Millie smiled to herself. He could complain about her all he wanted, but he knew she still held some pull with Lance, who was the key to the whole operation succeeding.

“I know you’re going to Hong Kong early, but there’s someone here in jail in Macau who could be an asset to you if you can get him out.”

Arrow’s frustration was almost palpable, even over the phone. He had decidedly not told her about his upcoming trip. “I find it hard to believe you’ve had enough time away from questioning by your agency to spy on me,” he said.

“I’m in intelligence. It’s my job to absorb as much information as possible from as many different sources and about as many different people as I can.”

“Your time is wasted if you’re spying on your friends rather than enemies.”

“This man is a known troublemaker. He’s the one I’m spying on. I don’t trust him, and I don’t believe his presence here — at this exact time — is a coincidence.”

“You think he’s here to kill Li Feng?”

“Maybe. I’d really like to find out, but he won’t talk to me.” Millie put a tone of frustration into her voice to imply that Billy Barnett wouldn’t deal with a young woman like her. Totally untrue, but Arrow had no way of knowing that, and would interpret the situation according to his own biases.

“I’m starting to like this guy already. What’s his name?”

Millie paused as dramatically as possible before she said, “Billy Barnett.”

Arrow tried not to choke when the girl from the CIA asked him to bail Billy Barnett out of jail. His first thought was to find someone in the jail he could bribe to kill the meddlesome producer, but that would expend almost all of the political capital he’d built up in the region. He didn’t want to waste it on some lowlife producer.

But this lowlife producer had shown a knack for violent problem solving. Arrow wondered if it wouldn’t be a good idea to try to get Billy Barnett on his side. In the worst case, Barnett turned down an alliance, and Arrow could kill him and pin it on Sonny Ma. Or even better, if Billy Barnett was already known to the CIA, Arrow could get rid of Li Feng and frame Barnett. The mess with Sonny Ma had blown up out of proportion. Li Feng had become more trouble than her testimony was worth.

Arrow called his secret weapon in Hong Kong to say that he would be running late and to continue planning their next move until he arrived. Then he went to the Macau public safety building to bail Billy Barnett out of jail.