Syren's Song (4 page)

Ullapool, Scotland

Stark returned to the pub just as the last guests were leaving. Mack was cleaning up the bar and tables for the next day.

“Maggie in the kitchen, Mack?”

“Yep. Watch yerself, Connor,” Mack whispered. “She's been in a mood since she saw you earlier.”

Stark wanted to tell him to go home, that he would help Maggie close, but he had tried that—once. When Maggie found out, she made it clear that she ran the pub, and Connor had lost his license to walk into the kitchen or go behind the bar. Maggie, he sometimes thought, would have been a hell of a chief petty officer. He took a seat on a stool at the middle of the bar and eyed the wall of heroes behind it. Above the mirror were photos of Ullapool men who had gone off to war and never returned, beginning with the Boer War a century before and continuing through the two world wars, the Falkland Islands War, and right up to the Iraq war. They were the fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, fiancés, and boyfriends of Ullapool. Would his photo have been placed there had things ended differently in Yemen? He didn't think it was likely. He had not been raised in Ullapool—and he had been on duty in the U.S. Navy, not the Royal Navy.

“The new boys seem good. They're well behaved when they're here,” Mack said as he dried clean pilsner glasses.

“Glad to hear it, Mack,” Stark replied. He hired the best for Highland Maritime, unlike some of his competitors. Each was well vetted. Plus, an applicant had to know at least one person with the security firm to even get an interview. No one was a complete stranger.

The television was still on but the audio was off. The late evening Sky News report was broadcasting a story about some attacks in Sri Lanka.

“Can you turn on the volume, Mack?”

Mack complied, but the announcer was already halfway through the story. The same images were used in a loop. As best Stark could tell, Tamil Sea Tigers had sunk most of Sri Lanka's navy in a single day in the ports of Colombo, Galle, and Trincomalee. The anchor interviewed an analyst from a London think tank who called it one of the most significant and successfully coordinated maritime attacks in history. It was also a surprise. Sri Lankan forces had defeated the Tamil Tigers several years before, marking the end of the Sri Lankan civil war. No one had seen this coming.

Maggie walked through the swinging doors from the kitchen and caught Connor's eye—the one that still bore the mark of Gunny's work earlier in the day. “Go home, Mack, and kiss the little ones for me,” she said, then took the remote control and turned off the television.

“Aye, girl. See you in the morning. Connor.” He nodded. Stark nodded back.

Maggie's long red ponytail swung as she came around the bar and sat down next to Stark. “When are you going to stop trying to be a hero and let the young lads do the work?” It was less a question than an order.

“I need to train with them. I need to work with them. And I always have to be ready. Remember that surprise a few months ago at the dock?”

She didn't need to be reminded. Three Somalis had been sent to Ullapool to kill Connor, and while he had managed to take out two of them, the third might have succeeded had Maggie not arrived and made good use of a handy oar.

“Are you still leaving the day after tomorrow?”

“I have to,” he said. “I won't be gone long. The new boat has been fitting out in India, and I need to be there for the final work. The crew's been there for two months. I'll take Gunny and the new security team with me.”

“Why you?”

“Because I'm the one who bought the ship. And I know her better than anyone. I'll take her for a shakedown cruise, make sure everything works, and
as soon as we arrive in the Gulf of Aden I'll hand her off to our team there and come home. Three weeks at most.”

Maggie rose. Even without her high-heeled boots she was an imposing figure. She was tall for a woman—only a few inches shorter than Stark's six feet—and well built, but it was just as much her attitude as her size. Honest and forthright, she rarely backed down from an argument. That was one of the reasons he respected her. That was one of the reasons he loved her.

She went behind the bar, ostensibly to throw a damp towel into the laundry basket, but he knew it was to put the physical barrier of the bar between them.

“I don't need this,” she said. “Look at what happened last time—when those military people came and took you away to Yemen. You might have died.”

Maggie still didn't know the full story of what had happened there. She had overheard some of the Highland Maritime personnel mention the loss of the firm's ship
Kirkwall
with nearly all hands. But Connor had never told her about the firefight in Old Mar'ib or the subsequent battle when he found himself in command of a Navy cruiser facing down the forces of the man who wanted to seize control of Yemen. She hadn't asked, and he thought it best not to volunteer the information. She must have had some idea, though, because the wounds on his body, including a deep scar on his leg, were impossible to keep hidden.

“It's just a simple cruise,” he said patiently. “We leave India for Yemen. I'll have teams on board, including Gunny Willis, if anything comes up. And this is a really good ship. She's different from anything Highland Maritime has had so far.”

“Still. You shouldn't be doing this anymore,” she said, her gaze flicking up to the wall of dead heroes.

She had never told Stark about the photos. He had learned about them from Mack on his first night in Ullapool. One photo—that of a Royal Navy lieutenant killed when HMS
Coventry
sank at the Falklands—was of her father. Another photo—that of a Royal Marine killed in Iraq—was of her only brother. Like Maggie, they hadn't been people to back down from a fight. But they had died far from home. From now on she wanted to keep her family close. And Ullapool was where Connor should be if he wanted to be her family.

“I won't be gone long, Maggie. Really.”

“If your picture goes up on that wall, I'll kill you myself.”

Connor's lips quirked up in a half smile. He knew better than to point out that if his photo was on the wall, he was already dead.

Maggie took a long look at Connor, then bent over and unlocked a drawer. She pulled out a knife—more accurately, a
sgian dubh
, a traditional Scottish weapon. The antique scabbard was made of wood, leather, and silver. On the hilt was her family's clan crest, a thistle above a crossed sword and pen. The six-pronged ornament at the top of the hilt held a brownish-gray piece of quartz—a cairngorm.

“Then you'll take this,” she said. “For luck. Just in case.”

“Just in case what?”

“Just in case you face someone like Gunny Willis out there and you can't duck in time. And don't lose it,” she snapped.

He admired the
sgian dubh
for a few seconds, then returned it to its scabbard and slipped it down inside his right boot. For luck.

Singapore

He cursed the minor State Department bureaucrat who had forced him to travel coach from Washington, D.C.—and at the back of the plane, no less. A full eighteen hours huddled with the masses—trapped next to the snoring seatmate, the stench emanating from the restroom a few feet away, the sleepless child who kept kicking the back of his seat, the bland airline food and the wine that tasted as if it had been fermented in a barn. He hadn't drunk more than a sip from the glass when the child behind him had kicked the seat, jogging his elbow and spilling cheap wine on his impeccable slacks. The flight attendant was too busy responding to other complaining passengers to see him trying to ask for towels to dry himself. Unable to waken his seatmate, he sat like a baby in damp diapers for another hour until they landed.

Damien Golzari was decidedly unhappy. He skulked at the baggage carousel until his black bag appeared. Then he removed himself to the closest restroom, changed his trousers, and made his way to the taxi stand. Fortunately the line was short and he waited only a minute for his turn.

“What hotel?” the cab driver asked.

“None. Take me to the United States embassy,” Golzari replied without looking up as he texted his contact. It was only six-thirty in the morning, and the streets of Singapore were not yet crowded by rush hour traffic.

Golzari got out at the embassy gate and showed his badge to the Marine guard. As he was slipping the wallet back into his jacket pocket a stern-looking
woman with fair skin and auburn hair came through the embassy entrance. “Agent Kelly, I presume?”

“You presume correctly, Agent Golzari. Welcome to Singapore. Follow me.”

She took him inside and paused before a locked door, which she asked the secretary to unlock. Golzari set his bag down in the hallway and stepped into the nondescript office. Agent Kelly and the secretary followed him inside and waited silently as Golzari looked around.

“When was the last time he was in here?” Golzari asked.

“Two days ago. He left at ten a.m.,” the secretary replied.

Golzari sat in the chair and examined the desktop for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. A few pages of standard State Department bureaucratic forms were halfway completed. He ignored the stack in the man's in box. Those would have come in afterward. Golzari paused when his gaze landed on the family photos on the desk. One photo was of the man's wife and son. Golzari had never met the boy, but he remembered meeting the wife when she was pregnant.

“Did you know Special Agent Blake?” Agent Kelly asked.

Golzari reflected for a moment. “Yes. Yes, I did. We were classmates at Glynco.”

Agent Kelly immediately understood. Glynco, Georgia, was the location of FLETC—the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center.

Bill Blake had been a former police officer, just like Golzari. He was also one of the few classmates not to mock Golzari's slight British accent, the result of his early education in England.

“Do you need to go to the morgue?” Kelly asked.

“Has the autopsy been performed?”

“Yes. I have the full report here,” Kelly said, handing Golzari a packet. Golzari thumbed through the papers and the photos.

“Looks thorough,” Golzari observed. “I see no reason to go there. Would you concur?”

“Yeah. He was killed with two shots in the chest and one in the head. All at close range.”

“Anything found on the body?” Golzari asked. The young secretary gasped when Golzari coldly said “the body.” Holding a hand over her mouth she darted down the hall.

“Sorry, Agent Golzari. She's had a tough time since we found him. It's her first overseas assignment for the State Department, and Blake was her first boss,”
Kelly explained. “And to answer your question, there was nothing on him. Literally. Not even a shred of clothing. He had been killed and dumped naked near the zoo. The embassies got a report that a Caucasian male was found yesterday morning. That's when we found out who it was. I identified him.”

“Singapore has a lot of cameras. Did you check with the police?”

“Yes. He was dumped in a blind spot. No cameras.”

“So it was premeditated. The killers picked the spot because they knew they wouldn't be seen.” Golzari looked back down at the autopsy report. “And he was shot with a .45-caliber pistol. I presume no pistol was found nearby?”

“We did a sweep of the area. Nothing.”

“So we know how he died and where he was found. Now I just have to find out where he was killed and why. Do you think the secretary could pull herself together long enough to help me get access to his computer files?”

“Sure, I'll get her.”

Golzari wasn't expecting to find much. Bill Blake had expressed a distinct aversion to computers when they were at FLETC together, preferring telephone calls to e-mails and pens to keyboards. In that way Blake reminded him of another former associate of sorts, Connor Stark. The mercenary.

Golzari thumbed through a couple of small notepads filled with Blake's scribbles. The second to the last page had a few phone numbers—all from around Washington, D.C. On a whim he called the last number. It was late in the afternoon in the capital.

“HSI Fraud. Lowell.”

Homeland Security Investigations, Fraud Division. Well
, Golzari thought,
so I've reached someone in the bureaucracy
. “Yes, this is Diplomatic Security Special Agent Damien Golzari. I'm calling you from Singapore.”

“Singapore? I thought Blake was working this.”

“Not at the moment,” Golzari replied. “I was just looking for the paperwork on this and can't find much to go on.”

“Well,” the HSI agent explained, “it's pretty simple. A few days ago we were asked by the Office of Export Control at the Department of Commerce to check into a license for a research lab in Singapore. I talked to our Diplomatic Security liaison here and he gave me the e-mail for the RSO there—Blake—to check with the lab.”

“Why did Export Control want to know about it?”

“They said they approved the shipment of some lab equipment but they never got confirmation it arrived.”

“OK. Look, we've had problems with some files. Could you resend whatever you have about this lab to the RSO secretary here?”

“Sure thing, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow morning. I gave it to my secretary to secure, and she's already gone home for the day.”

“I understand.” Actually, he didn't. Golzari had never understood that cases could be solved and wars won despite small bureaucratic delays and the eight-hour workday. Golzari's workday had no end. Morning, noon, and through the night he was always on call, always on the move. That was one of the many reasons why his two brief marriages had failed early in his career. “In the meantime, Howell, is there any information you can recall that might be helpful here?”

“Ah, not much. I processed it real quickly. The only thing I remember is the name of the lab. Academic Solutions.”