Smoke and Mirrors Read online

  ‘Everything went okay in Indonesia?’ the CO enquired, and Archer nodded, not realising the boss had even known he’d been there. It had been a short job, just a month doing risk assessments and CP work for an aid agency, and he’d been back only a couple of days.

  ‘No problem, boss. Things are the same as ever over there.’

  The CO nodded again, not an emotion to be seen in his face. He liked to keep an eye on his troops, and also liked them to know it.

  ‘We have the annual Lawman exercise coming up, as you know,’ he said, ‘and you were earmarked for a role in it, like last year.’

  Archer said nothing, noting the use of the past tense ‘were.’ Lawman was an annual joint Army-Police CT exercise, and last year he had been stuck in a backroom role which he had hated.

  ‘However.’ The CO cleared his throat and turned towards Ingoe. ‘The RSM has something to discuss with you.’

  Archer shifted in his seat for a better angle towards Ingoe.

  ‘Do you know what I’ve been doing since I left the Group?’ Ingoe asked.

  Archer twitched his head. ‘I’ve heard a whisper.’

  ‘Of?’

  ‘That you were working for a government department on security issues.’

  Ingoe inclined his own head.

  ‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘Obviously everything that gets said in this room stays here. The boss has clearance, but nobody else here knows, or needs to know, anything. Right?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Ingoe paused before continuing, obviously selecting his words carefully.

  ‘I have been tasked to speak to you. I have a shortlist of people to speak to, and you are just one of them. The people on that list have all been selected by myself and one or two others with the relevant knowledge.’

  Archer waited, feeling a thrill run through his core.

  ‘I need to ask you two things.’ Ingoe held his gaze calmly. ‘Firstly, are you interested in a government role?’

  ‘It would depend on what it was,’ Archer replied carefully, ‘if it’s what I think it probably is, then yes.’

  ‘Okay.’ Ingoe considered that for a moment. ‘Secondly, if you were to take it, are you available immediately?’

  Archer rubbed his jaw.

  ‘I’m available now, but I do have work lined up in a couple of weeks. I may be going back to Jakarta.’

  Ingoe nodded again, looking away for a minute. Archer saw him make eye contact with the CO, who gave the tiniest incline of his head. Ingoe turned back to Archer.

  ‘It’s a field role suited to your skill set, based in Auckland but with an international flavour. It’s attached to the department I work for, but appears on no org chart anywhere. For all intents and purposes, it does not exist. Understand?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  The thrill got faster in Archer’s gut, and he squeezed his fists together.

  ‘If you were to take the role, you would be classed as a case officer, with Top Secret clearance. There would be various training requirements to meet, however the role would commence almost immediately with a task that needs urgent attention. Clear?’

  ‘Crystal.’

  Ingoe nodded slowly.

  ‘Interested?’

  Archer felt a smile break his lips.

  ‘Of course.’

  5

  The suite reeked of sweat, sex and methamphetamine smoke.

  Cody could feel the light burning through her eyelids and screwed her eyes shut harder, fighting consciousness for as long as she could.

  After a week in this room she was wrecked. She’d smoked more drugs and had more sex than she’d had in the previous month. The Arab dude, Chester or whatever the fuck he called himself, was a fucking demon. He was high most of the time and fucked anything with a heartbeat.

  Last night she’d done a 69er with Chanelle while he watched, and she wasn’t even a lesbo; Chanelle didn’t care, she was off her tits anyway.

  Fuck that chick could smoke a lot.

  After the 69er Chester had fucked each of them then let a couple of his bodyguards have a crack as well.

  Cody was sweet with that-one of the guards was kinda cute anyway, in a camel-jockey sorta way-so she’d blown him and let Chanelle have the ugly one.

  Today was her last day though, and she was looking forward to getting home. Home to her shitty apartment in Mt Eden and her shitty boyfriend pissing and moaning and wanting to know how much dick she’d had that wasn’t his own.

  You’d be counting that in metres, honey.

  Fucken Bad-Bad Leroy Brown-that was actually his name, thanks to wastoid parents-and his pansy-assed whingey little boy routine.

  Cody rolled on her side and opened her eyes properly. Chanelle was passed out on the other side of the king sized bed, naked as a jaybird and with her bleached hair all over the place. A tattoo of a snake slithered up her left leg from the ankle, wrapping itself around like a branch, and ended with a flickering tongue reaching for her pussy.

  Chester thought it was cool; Cody thought it was fucken stupid. Most of the girls from the agency had tattoos of some sort-it’s not the sort of industry that attracts prissy librarians, right?-and Cody was particularly proud of the pair of tumbling dice on her hip. It was a reminder of the first time a client had attacked her, when she was just a naive sixteen year old runaway selling her gash on K Rd. Every interaction was a roll of the dice. Sometimes luck went your way; sometimes it didn’t.

  As Cody’s focus came back and the meth haze started to clear from her head, she became aware of somebody else in the room. Her gaze shifted slightly and she saw Chester standing at the end of the bed, holding a cell phone up and smirking to himself as he filmed Chanelle’s unconscious form. He was naked too, and obviously aroused by whatever the fuck he was doing.

  What the fuck is he doing?

  She shifted her gaze again to Chanelle and took a moment to realise. The other girl was on her back, legs spread and arms splayed to the sides. Perching on her crotch was a full grown mouse, white and whiskery, slowly nibbling a chunk of cheese. It was facing towards the tattooed snake. From where Chester stood it would look like the snake was about to eat the mouse.

  Cody grimaced to herself and watched the mouse with fascination. It looked lethargic, like it was drugged or something. Probably was. Chester had a fucken medicine cabinet with him. More than once in the last week she’d woken up with someone fucking her, and she knew she hadn’t been that out of it. The other girls had said the same.

  He was one weird fucken dude.

  He must’ve sensed her looking because his head snapped around and his eyes darkened as he looked at her.

  ‘I wondered who would wake up first,’ he said, switching the phone off and tossing it onto a chair. He came towards her. ‘Just having a little fun, baby.’ He started to climb onto the bed at her feet. ‘Party time for you and me, baby. She can sleep a bit longer.’

  Cody pushed herself up into a sitting position and slid backwards a bit, giving him pause. ‘Party time’s over, baby. Today’s a new day.’ She rubbed her fingers together to indicate cash. ‘Time is money, honey. If you got the money...’

  ‘I pay you for today,’ he retorted. ‘Already done.’

  ‘No baby, you paid me up until this morning.’ She sensed him getting angry and tried a softer approach. ‘But we can deal again, it’s all good.’ She smiled now. ‘I’ll just go have a shower while you get some cash and then we’ll party, okay?’

  ‘No!’ Chester’s tone was angry now. ‘I wanna party; we party now.’

  ‘I need to freshen up, sweetie. We had a long night, remember?’

  ‘You freshen up when I tell you to freshen up, whore.’ Chester’s eyes were dark slits and he continued to move up the bed, over her legs now. ‘I pay you to fuck me, so you fuck me. I own you!’

  ‘Nobody owns me you fucken creep,’ Cody snarled, and instantly regretted it.

  Chester’s right hand shot out and belted her acr
oss the cheek, knocking her sideways onto the bed. He was on her in a flash, straddling her and jerking her head around by the hair. She tried to fight back but for a wiry guy he was very strong. He pinned her arms down with his knees and grabbed two handfuls of her hair.

  ‘You don’t talk to me like that, you filthy fucking whore,’ he shouted. He leaned down and spat in her face. ‘You make me sick to my stomach that I let you fuck me. Ungrateful whore!’

  He spat again then punched her in the face. Her left eye went numb and when she tried to move her head he punched it again, and again. After a couple more hits Cody couldn’t open her eye anymore, so he started on the other one, before leaning down and whispering in her ear.

  ‘I will teach you a fucking lesson, you feral whore. You will never speak to me again like this.’

  And while he did his business Cody tried to block it out, but all she could think of was the fucken mouse eating its cheese.

  6

  The building near the top of Queen Street was home to a couple of non-descript Government departments involved in trade and labour. On the first five floors standard Government employees came and went, working in standard Government offices for standard pay and conditions.

  Access from the sixth floor upwards was restricted to a select group of non-standard Government employees who did an exceptionally non-standard job.

  Every intelligence agency in the world utilised what were known as black ops agents, whether on the payroll or as contractors. These operatives carried out the tasks that nobody ever spoke openly about but that everybody knew somehow got done. The SAS had the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Wing for special jobs; this was blacker still.

  It was the sort of dirty work that kept the balance in favour of the puppet masters. Whether it was catching a diplomat el flagrante with a mistress or a whore, or organising for a foreign intelligence operative to be discovered at the airport with enough Class A drugs to guarantee a long stretch in maximum security, or recovering a wayward asset from a foreign power, there were certain people to do these certain tasks.

  Or even, from time to time, eliminating a foreign asset. Assassination and dirty tricks had been part of the intelligence world since the beginning of time, and anybody who thought that the modern world, with its heightened risks and terror threats, had banished such archaic practices to the annals of history was sorely misguided. If anything, the practices had become more common. The Cold War may have been over for more than 20 years, but the War on Terror was a whole new ballgame.

  And the rulebook had been re-written.

  Aside from the signals espionage facilities operated by the Government Communications Security Bureau New Zealand had never been a major player in the intelligence scene, but with the opening of borders had come more pressure from international partners to get involved.

  The Security Intelligence Service took most of the attention and did a good job of maintaining a bland public façade. Press releases were rare and vanilla by nature, and little was known about what they did. What was known gave the impression there was nothing worth knowing anyway.

  Part of this agency officially carried the fairly non-descript title of Division 5, and operated out of the eighth floor, which was protected by the highest level of security of any floor in the building.

  Its unofficial title was the Special Operations Division.

  Archer arrived there at 815am and upon stepping from the elevator he was put through a metal detector, an electronic fingerprint scanner, checked for recording and transmitting devices and eventually allowed to sign in. His photo was taken by one of three plain clothed heavies and a Visitor’s Pass was immediately issued.

  Ingoe was summonsed and came to meet him. He wore a non-descript black suit and a striped tie, and looked equally comfortable in this as he did in DPMs.

  ‘Thanks for coming in.’

  That was the extent of the small talk as they rode the elevator up two more flights. Ingoe had never been a talker and that suited Archer; he had to admit, he felt nervous about meeting the Director.

  The doors opened straight into a reception area which was lined with wooden panels and floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The shelves were full of what looked like legal tomes, and a large Persian rug adorned the polished floor in front of a PA’s desk.

  Behind the desk sat a trim middle-aged lady with glasses and short grey hair. She looked up from her screen and smiled. ‘Morning Jed. This must be Craig?’

  ‘It is. Craig, this is Trixie.’ Ingoe waited while they shook hands. ‘Trixie is the Director’s PA, and knows everything about everything in the department.’

  Trixie smiled warmly at him. ‘You’re such an old flirt, Jed,’ she scolded him, ‘but keep it up.’ She checked her screen. ‘Go on in, he’s aware you’re here.’

  Ingoe led the way to the large panelled door to the left. He knocked twice and opened it. They entered a spacious corner office with views through tinted windows over the city on two sides. The massive oak desk facing them was almost completely clear aside from a computer screen, a phone, a coffee cup on a coaster and folded copies of the morning’s Herald and Dominion.

  The man crossing the floor towards them was short and slightly chubby, maybe sixty, with iron grey hair and, Archer saw as he got closer, inquisitive blue eyes. He was sharply dressed in a dark pin-striped suit and a sombre blue tie. He looked like a lecturer or a doctor.

  Archer had no idea what his name was, and Ingoe had only referred to him as ‘the Director.’

  ‘Good morning, Jed.’

  ‘Morning, sir.’

  He shook Archer’s hand firmly. He didn’t smile, just met his gaze then stepped back and ran a quick appraising eye down the newcomer.

  ‘Welcome.’

  The Director went back behind his desk and Archer was waved to a chair across from him. Ingoe sat offline, making a triangle between the three of them with a clearly marked pecking order.

  ‘You’ve had something of a distinguished career, Captain Archer,’ the Director said, elbows on the arms of his chair and his eyes on Archer. ‘People with credibility speak well of you...in general.’

  Archer said nothing, just waited.

  ‘Ten years in the Regular Force, Jed’s old regiment Queen Alexandra’s Mounted Rifles, Intelligence and the Group. You have a bent for languages and speak reasonable Arabic, Bosnian and Tetum, along with a bit of French and Russian.’ The Director’s eyes gave nothing away. ‘Interesting mix.’

  Archer nodded and waited. He already knew all this.

  ‘It indicates to me a man with one eye on the past and one on the future. Is that right, Archer?’

  ‘The enemies of the past don’t just fade away,’ Archer replied. ‘If you forget the past you set yourself up to fail in the future.’

  ‘The first man you killed was a militia fighter in East Timor. It was in a contact near the border and you were blooded at close range.’

  Archer was surprised at the Director’s knowledge of the incident, but tried not to show it.

  ‘How did that feel?’

  He felt the Director’s gaze penetrating his head, and it made him uncomfortable. He was not used to being in the spotlight like this. He shrugged non-committally.

  ‘We were both doing our job. It wasn’t his day.’

  ‘Do you like killing?’

  Archer held the other man’s gaze evenly.

  ‘I do my job very well. If I had a problem with killing bad guys, I’d be in the wrong job.’

  The Director didn’t reply for several moments. Silence hung in the office. Finally, he turned his chair towards Ingoe and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘Anything, Jed?’

  Ingoe cleared his throat and sat up straighter.

  ‘No sir. As you know, I’ve worked with Craig before and I have no doubt of his suitability.’

  The Director nodded, contemplative now. He shifted back towards Archer and again his focus came across the desk.

  ‘I’d like
you to kidnap someone for me,’ he said.

  7

  The elevator trip down to the basement was slow and silent. Archer mulled over what he had been told, and what had been asked of him.

  It was to be an extraordinary rendition; the Government-sanctioned kidnapping of a foreign terror suspect for imprisonment and interrogation. It wasn’t the first time he’d been asked to snatch someone and it wasn’t the first time he’d accepted, but this time it seemed somehow different. Before it had been a part of being a Special Forces operator and almost seemed a bi-product of the actual job itself, but now it was the job.

  The Director had made it clear that if the snatch itself failed, the target was to be eliminated. He also made it clear that the Brits were watching closely and were getting constant updates.

  He’d now been employed as what basically amounted to a Government hitman. It wasn’t soldiering and it wasn’t quite spying. It was a murky grey land somewhere in the middle.

  Archer had no particular moral problem with the idea. At the end of the day, he reasoned, every soldier was paid to kill for their country. But even so the whole practice had the air of unsavouriness about it.

  He chided himself and discarded the thought. There was a job to be done. A bad man, a very bad man, needed to be dealt with. The sort of bad man who could only be effectively dealt with one way.

  ‘Sometimes there’s only one way,’ Ingoe said, as if reading his thoughts.

  Archer glanced at him and gave a self-conscious grin. The former Warrant Officer’s gaze was thoughtful.

  ‘Not having second thoughts?’

  ‘No mate.’ Archer gave a brief shake of the head. ‘No second thoughts.’

  Ingoe considered him for a moment as the lift came to a stop with a clunk and the doors opened.

  ‘Good,’ he said, ‘because I’ve got some toys for you.’

  They stepped into a workshop area lined with benches on one side and two full walls of shelving on the others. The smell of gun oil and leather hung in the air and Archer subconsciously inhaled deeply.