The Phoenix Encounter. Linda Castillo
himself behind his desk. Robert guessed him to be about sixty years of age, though he could pass for forty-five. He was bald on top but kept the rest of his gray hair cropped short. He was of medium height and slightly rumpled in appearance. Part soldier, part scientist, he was fit for his age and glowing with health. He would have been ordinary-looking if not for the sharp intelligence that burned like gemstones in his green eyes.
Robert took the adjacent chair and waited for the briefing to begin.
“How’s the leg?” Hatch asked, pulling a file from his drawer and setting it on the desk between them.
Robert shifted uncomfortably in the chair, wondering how the other man would react if he answered truthfully. “No problems.”
“You running?”
“Twice a week. Two miles.”
“Good. I like my agents in shape.” Hatch opened the file. “I need you to go to Rebelia.”
For a moment, Robert wasn’t sure he’d heard him right. Then the meaning behind the single word struck him like a rude slap. Dread curdled in his stomach. He stared at the older man, aware that his heart rate had spiked, that a cold sweat had broken out on the back of his neck.
“I know how you feel about Rebelia, Robert, but—”
“I don’t think you do—”
“Dr. Alex Morrow is still missing.” Hatch cut him off. “I want my operative back.”
Robert had never met Morrow, but he’d heard of his work as a environmental biologist within the ARIES network. The man was brilliant. A legend in a few circles. “I knew he was missing. I thought you’d send someone else.”
Hatch looked at him with those sharp green eyes. “You know Rebelia.”
Robert shifted uneasily in his chair, wishing he’d never heard of that godforsaken country, trying hard to control the pounding of his heart—and the bitterness at the back of his throat.
“I need you, Robert. You know Rebelia and her people better than any man in the division,” Hatch said. “You know the customs. The language, the regional dialects. You have contacts—”
“Hatch, with all due respect I haven’t been in the country for almost two years.”
“Save the excuses, Robert.” A hint of ice laced Hatch’s voice. “I’m not asking.”
Clamping his jaws together, Robert looked at his hands, then at Hatch. “Rebelia is still pretty volatile these days.”
“You can handle it.” Hatch’s eyes narrowed, sharpened. “Can’t you?”
After an interminable moment, Robert nodded. He could handle it. But he sure as hell didn’t like it. Not because of the civil war, but because of the ghosts.
“All right,” he said. “I’m in. What do you need?”
“Your mission is twofold. Your first priority is to set up a base of operations for what will be the third leg of the mission. While you’re there I want you to find out everything you can about Bruno DeBruzkya.”
The sweat on Robert’s neck turned to ice at the mention of DeBruzkya. He could feel the muscles bunching with tension. “You mean aside from his being a ruthless son of a bitch?”
“Intelligence tells us he’s been stealing gems.”
“I know about the gems.”
“Then I’ll recap what we know so far. We have substantial evidence telling us that he’s behind at least four heists. The Stedt Museum in London. The Legvold collection in Stockholm. A private collector in Frankfurt.”
“The Gala Summit.” Robert had been there as part of the surveillance team. He knew what had gone down. And he knew Hatch had nearly lost one of his agents. “Do you have any intelligence as to why he’s amassing gems.”
“Could be any number of things. Maybe he’s financing weapons. Maybe something worse. I want to know.”
Robert didn’t even want to think about what a sinister man like DeBruzkya could do with weapons of mass destruction.
Hatch frowned at him. “We need to know what he’s up to. The gems are secondary, but some information would be nice at this point.”
Robert’s nerves coiled a notch tighter. He stared at Hatch, wondering if the other man knew how much he hated DeBruzkya. If Hatch knew Robert held the dictator responsible not only for an injury that had left him permanently maimed, but for the death of a woman he’d once loved more than life itself. He knew that wasn’t the most objective mind-set for a field agent about to embark on a deep-cover mission, but Robert never claimed to be a good agent.
“What’s my cover?” he asked.
Hatch handed him a slender manila folder with the name PHOENIX typed in bold letters on the tab. “Your papers are inside. French passport. Medical degree. You’re part of a team of medical doctors traveling to Rebelia from Paris to administer medical aid to sick and injured children. Your meeting point is in a small village outside Rajalla. It’s all there in the file in French. Your initial contact will meet you at a pub on the outskirts of the city and take you to your source, who will give you enough information on DeBruzkya for you to get started.”
Robert took the file and paged through it, seeing that, as usual, Samuel Hatch and his team had been very thorough. “I guess I’ll need to brush up on my French.”
“And your Rebelian dialects. All communication will be via the ARIES satellite. I’ve got new encoding set up. Your code name is PHOENIX.”
“When do I leave?”
Hatch glanced at his watch. “Two hours. I’ve got a jet waiting at Annapolis that will take you to La Guardia. From there you’ll take the Concorde to Paris then hop on the train to Rajalla.”
Robert slid the folder into his briefcase and rose. “All right.”
Hatch stood, regarding him with intelligent green eyes that invariably gave the impression he could read not only one’s body language but thoughts, as well. “Watch yourself.” He extended his hand. “You know what DeBruzkya is capable of.”
“I can handle DeBruzkya.” As he shook the other man’s hand, Robert knew the real question was whether or not he could handle the ghosts.
At eight the next evening Robert sat in a greasy booth in an obscure little pub called Ludwig’s and nursed a stein of watered-down beer. The pub was crowded with weekend revelers. The booze was cheap, the cigarette smoke was thick and talk was of the old days and revolution.
Robert sipped his beer, wishing he were anywhere but this dank little bar in a country he wished to God he’d never set foot in. He’d been in Rebelia less than two hours, and already she dominated his thoughts. The last hours they’d spent together, making love on the narrow bed in her room above the pub. The fight they’d had over her refusal to leave with him. The violence of her death. The black months that followed.
He knew thinking of her wasn’t going to do a damn thing for his frame of mind or his mission. But he’d never learned how to block thoughts of her. Damn it, of all the places Hatch could have shipped him to, why did it have to be this hellhole? It wasn’t like the world was lacking hellholes. Any one of a dozen or so would have done just fine.
Restless, he finished his beer and motioned for the bartender to bring another. He wasn’t enjoying it, but he didn’t have anything else to do until his contact arrived. He’d already set up base camp, renting a small apartment above a market in a seedy section of town, where he’d installed the tiny communications satellite dish and left a backup short wave radio per Hatch’s instructions. He knew he should keep a clear head, but for the first time in a long time, Robert didn’t want a clear head. Sometimes all that clarity made life a hell of a lot more difficult.
“Sir?”