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

their colleagues that Dragon Fire members all spoke perfect English.

Bridger had morphed during the surveillance route from businessman to punk—blonde spiked hair, red-tinted glasses, jeans, a faded green “Free Ferris” t-shirt, and small fake tattoos on his forearms. Hell-raiser on the left. Mother on the right. He didn’t have to; he just liked to.

On closer inspection, Bridger knew Bai was not only a mountain compared to Peng, but he thoroughly wore the skin of the senior man in charge. Experienced. Bone tough. Peng was much younger. Green. It seemed to Bridger that Peng was just one step above bagger at the Piggly Wiggly grocery store.

A rookie. They are so short-handed they are using guys fresh out of the water.

During the year, his Spy Devils had captured, interrogated, and exposed nineteen of them. Twice in Hong Kong and Australia. Once each in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand. A blow to Chinese covert operations in the South China Sea area, and he hoped, a crippling blow to the Dragon Fire program.

Bridger helped them back into their seats and pulled a knee-high bamboo table toward them. On it was a platter of fresh melon and cookies. A pot of tea was warm and ready. Fans hummed in the background, forcing some movement in the dusty, damp air but did little to cool the confined space. A low-light video camera on a tripod pointed at them at an angle to their left. It was on.

“It is the thought that counts, right?” He poured some steaming tea into two small cups and held them out to the men. Neither reached out to take it. “No?” He set the cups down and nodded at Demon again.

The jolt sent the men to the floor. Bridger helped them to their chairs again. He took a piece of melon off the tray and ate it. He smiled a satisfying smile and licked his fingers.

“You ever heard of Major Sherwood Moran? The United States Marine who wrote a seminal paper on interrogation techniques based on his research during World War II?” Bridger looked at them for an answer. Glazed red eyes stared back. Then he picked up and ate another piece of melon.

“I’m trying to lose a few pounds.” He smiled a mischievous smile. “Never heard of him. No? Well, his analysis revealed that Japanese prisoners of war who were treated nicely by their interrogators—with respect and understanding—were much more successful than those who used physical threats and torture.”

Bridger picked up the tray.

“So, pals, would you like some cookies? Fruit?” Peng slowly raised his watering eyes to look at Bai, who only stared back with an unreceptive blotchy-red face. “No, again?” He set the tray down and slid the table to the side.

Come on, assholes. Take my offer. Have a cookie. Let’s be pals. You don’t want me to be your enemy.

“The immediate success using torture is the stuff of fiction novels and Hollywood movies. Hey, and it is better than letting Demon here pull your fingernails out with a rusty pair of pliers. Right?” Bridger laughed.

“No, it isn’t.” Demon’s voice was a low growl, like a dog ready to be unleashed.

A look of fear crossed Peng’s face, which he tried to hide when he saw Bai sitting as still as death.

“Listen, you have spent months away from home and family. So have we.”

Well, I don’t have much of a family, but maybe you do, Bridger thought.

“I respect you as members of the same intelligence profession. So, let’s get this over—then you can go home. We can go home. And we are all happy. What do you say?”

Bridger showed his white teeth through a sincere and friendly smile. He held it, then his chest rose and fell with a deep sigh.

Bridger knew he would “get his hands dirty,” spending a lifetime hunting and destroying foreign intel operations and international criminals. Hell, he knew that decision was made for him a long time ago.

His elevator descent from guiltless-saint level to guilty-devil level began in Honduras. Then came the human traffickers. The so-called warlords of insurgencies and civil wars. Arms dealers. Russian crime bosses. Ukrainian crime bosses. Russian SVR. Chinese Ministry of State Security. The list was endless. The work had been relentless.

Bridger looked at Demon, then he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a rusty pair of pliers. He waved them in front of Peng.

“We may have to do this the hard way.”

The right corner of Demon’s mouth twitched up and down like he was having a muscle spasm. It was as close to a smile as he ever got.

Li Chu, the leader of MSS Bureau X, the Dragon Fire, crouched in the tall grass fifty yards to the south side of the building.

So far, the trap to locate and kill the Spy Devils was working perfectly. The tracking signal gave away their location. After an excruciatingly long two-hour wait, the SUV finally reached its destination.

Even with his monocular, he couldn’t see a thing through the dirty window except that the light was on. Under trees to his right, at the end of the drive and near the door, was the Mitsubishi SUV.

Crouching low to his left was Fuhan, a new man fresh from the Ministry of State Security Academy in the Xiyuan area northwest of Beijing. All of the men with Li Chu about to assault the building were new graduates.

Bai was all he had left of his best men. Bai had been with Li Chu since the beginning of Bureau X. Now he was willing bait, held captive by the cursed Bridger and the Spy Devils inside the one-story white building.

Li Chu knew the resources he had were not optimal, but he had the element of surprise. Li Chu had one other weapon at his disposal—complete, unadulterated hatred.

New strands of duct tape were wrapped around the MSS men's chests, mummifying them to the back of their rickety metal chairs.

Bridger sat in a chair facing them. He expected Bai to hold up to the