The Spy Devils by Joe Goldberg (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕

morning to meet them for a meeting to discuss that very topic.”

“Focus. Everything has to come together, and soon.”

“It will.”

She turned her body on the couch to look at the darkness of the outside world. The room was night-time quiet. The sounds of the outside filled the inside. The wind rushing through the trees. The faint sound of water in the distance. The occasional cricket.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Chapel said, his voice breaking the silence with a layer of compassion.

“What?”

“You know what. You have a tactical weapon that you use as an instrument to execute on broad, long-term, strategic initiatives that may come in conflict with another strategic, operational consideration. Bridger, as you know, can be unpredictable and—” he pointed to her phone on the nightstand “—as he just showed, disobedient. He can cause this all to come tumbling down, and that will not benefit either of us.”

“You are thinking too much like a strategic consultant. Bridger will do the right thing. I programmed him that way.”

“Maybe, but there is a cost. Bridger is a wild card. I said that when you decided to bring him into this.” Chapel caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the window behind May. He ran his fingers through his hair like a comb. “You don’t have complete control of this anymore. Things are moving and you can’t guarantee he will move in the direction you want.”

“Shut up, Danny, and I can guarantee things will move in the right direction. I am his mother.”

She picked up her phone and sent another text to Bridger.

It went unanswered.

34

The Bank of Viktor Bondar

Kyiv, Ukraine

Two murmuring women passed by, shaking their scarf-covered heads, as Li Chu examined the burn spots on the road. The spots looked like two massive birthmarks on the skin of the street.

Two days earlier, Li Chu, under the alias Yi Wang, a journalist for the Xinhua News Agency, checked into the Dnipro Hotel—a middle-of-the-pack, older hotel where a traveling Chinese businessman could reside without suspicion. Li Chu had never been to Kyiv, and his first impression was he hated it. It was old. Dim. Brown. Gray. Cramped. There may be a nightlife, he had read about it on Travelocity, but he wouldn’t see it.

He was not there for that. He had one purpose in mind.

“There is a package for you, Mr. Wang,” the Dnipro Hotel front desk manager said.

Li Chu did not open the DHL envelope until he arrived in his room. Inside was a note from Chen:

Here are safe house locations, where you may find weapons, computers, maps, money, and cars. Also, the most recent intelligence on the situation. Attached is the list of names and contacts of your new team. You are reminded that you must avoid contact with anyone in the Chinese delegation in the country.

The package contained limited intelligence—a few news articles about the American’s death had been translated into Mandarin. There was a brief MSS assessment of an oligarch named Viktor Bondar. There were a bio and photo of his daughter Ira, who helped run his empire. A shorter biography of his less accomplished son Oleksandr. There was a cryptic reference to a secret employee named Pavlo, a technical person, who might know about the device.

In a few hours, Li Chu planned to leave the hotel and check into another, where Chen could not locate him. He would visit a safe house and take the weapons, communication equipment, clothes, and any other gear he would need. Li Chu would trash his phone and spend the day collecting a bag of burner phones. When he rendezvoused with the new team—men he didn’t know, or care to know—he would pass them the phones, weapons, and his instructions.

Do what I say. Do it correctly. Do not talk to Chen.

Chen was not the reason he had agreed to travel to the depressing browns and grays of Ukraine. It wasn’t for some mystery case. It wasn’t for the corrupt Standing Committee. It certainly wasn’t for China.

Li Chu was there to kill Bridger.

Li Chu tossed the file on his bed. He reached unconsciously to his right hip looking for a weapon that was not there. He would get it tomorrow when he visited the safe house for supplies.

He rarely wasted his time watching television, but at the moment, he felt he needed a distraction. The set was modern—a mid-sized Japanese flat screen—and it worked.

Li Chu instantly recognized the female’s face. He grabbed the folder to confirm it. Ira Bondar. She was talking in a steady, forceful voice to another woman who was asking her questions.

He did not speak Ukrainian, but he liked what he saw—willpower and determination in her face and mannerisms. The characteristics of a person who got what she wanted. He knew what they looked like. He saw the same traits every time he looked into a mirror.

Now he knew for certain his path to completing the mission. It ran right through Ira Bondar.

The TV program looked like it was being broadcast live—or he hoped it was. He copied down the channel and network name and rushed to a taxi stand outside the hotel. It was a dreary night, but he didn’t notice.

He communicated in broken English with the driver on where he wanted to go. When the taxi arrived outside the broadcast studios of 1+1 TV Channel ten minutes later, Li Chu stayed in the car watching the building's front entrance. To his annoyance, the driver liked to make small talk.

The weather is normal for this time of year. 1+1 was very popular. The Television Service of News program was on now. He had to drive to feed his wife and six children.

Li Chu let the driver rattle on as he scanned the darkened streets, hoping he was lucky and that she would come out this door. He was lucky. She came out forty minutes later. A car pulled up. She got in the back.

“Follow them,” he told his chatty driver.

The driver was good at