The Shadow Hunter (The Phoenix Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  The Russian had four inches and a hundred pounds on Tyson, the expatriate who was quickly getting used to life in central Siberia. That disparity alone would likely be enough to make the fight seem like a mismatch. But at 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds of rippling muscles, Tyson looked more like the bruiser than his less-toned opponent. Boris celebrated his victories by draining kegs and patting his ever-growing belly, also a stark contrast to Tyson, who preferred to slam a single shot of vodka before exiting a jubilant arena where the crowd drank early into the next morning to either celebrate their good fortune or forget their folly.

  Tyson spun to face Boris, who gestured with his index finger for his opponent to come closer. If this brawl had taken place on the street, Tyson would’ve taken a different approach. He would’ve gone for the knees first followed by a wicked throat punch. But that wasn’t what Peter Smirnov, the event organizer, wanted. “Maximize the pain on your opponent to earn an additional bonus,” Peter had said to the two men before the fight. Peter didn’t want a fight—he wanted a show. And if Tyson wanted that extra money, he knew he needed to comply.

  Tyson backed up, resulting in a chorus of boos from the crowd. That’s when a man in the crowd put both hands on Tyson’s back and shoved him toward Boris. Tyson leveraged the momentum into an unexpected burst toward Boris, who’d taken his eyes off Tyson for just a moment to soak in the adulation from an adoring crowd. By the time Boris could recover, it was too late.

  Tyson ducked at the last moment, sliding low and just to the right of the oversized Russian. When he reached down to swat at Tyson, Boris stumbled and fell face first onto the concrete. Tyson scrambled to his feet and delivered three kicks before the Russian could even push himself up. A furious flurry of kicks and punches ended the match prematurely for Peter’s liking. But the crowd didn’t seem to mind, chanting Eddie’s name. They didn’t waste any time before hoisting him onto their shoulders and parading him around the room. Even the people who’d bet on the loser seemed to enjoy watching the Russian seethe over suffering defeat.

  Tyson winked at Boris as he staggered to his feet.

  “You think this is funny?” Boris asked in English. “I know where you live.”

  Tyson signaled for the men to stop. A hush fell over the crowd.

  “What did you say to me?” Tyson asked again, this time cupping his hand around his ear.

  “I said, I know where you live,” Boris repeated before spitting in Tyson’s direction.

  “Good,” Tyson said. “I’d prefer to fight outside where I could take you down in a matter of seconds instead of putting on a show for the people.”

  Boris growled and then lunged at Tyson. The American didn’t flinch.

  “I’ll buy you a drink,” Tyson shouted over the crowd, which had begun singing about his victory.

  After a few trips around the room, Tyson was eased onto the ground. He sauntered up to the bar and ordered his customary shot.

  “Another fine fight,” said Ivan, the bartender. His surprising command of the English language made Tyson wonder if the man had been a spy in the U.S. in the past.

  “Spasibo,” Tyson said before throwing back the glass.

  The revelers crowding around Tyson all cheered before returning to their prior conversations. He went to the makeshift locker room in the back of the warehouse to collect his gym bag and coat. Just to the left of the door, a striking young woman adorned in a fur coat shot him a knowing glance.

  “Annika, how many times do I have to tell you no?” Tyson said.

  She opened her coat, revealing a sequined low-cut dress. “The real question,” she began in her clipped English, “is how many times will you deny this?”

  Tyson stopped and shrugged. “As many times as you ask.”

  He resumed his march into the locker room, which didn’t stop her from running after him.

  “I just don’t understand,” she continued. “Nobody’s ever resisted me like you do.”

  “I already told you, Annika, I’m spoken for.”

  “You Americans and your fidelity.”

  Tyson chuckled and shook his head. “How did you say that with a straight face?”

  “It’s not true, no?”

  “Hardly,” Tyson said. “Americans are virtuous in many ways, but when it comes to temptation such as this, we’re not known for putting up much of a resistance.”

  Annika leaned against the wall, easing her coat open again. “So what makes me so undesirable to you?”

  “I have a wife,” Tyson said. “I love her very much.”

  Annika slowly surveyed the room. “But she’s not here.”

  “Opportunity is never an excuse to break one’s vows.”

  “And when will she be joining you in the middle of Siberia?”

  “Never,” Tyson said.

  “And you never expect to leave?”

  “No.”

  Annika’s bottom lip protruded as her face fell. “Just tell me you think I’m ugly so I will leave you alone.”

  “If you want me to lie, I will,” Tyson said as he slid on his coat.

  “Just say it so I can go away in peace.”

  Tyson was more than ready for Annika to leave, but he held firm. “I don’t say things that aren’t true.”

  As she leaned against the wall, she slid to the floor before turning into a blubbering mess. “I wish you hated me.”

  “Good night, Annika,” Tyson said as he left her in tears.

  He made it halfway down the back corridor before three men stepped into Tyson’s path.

  Twisting his body so he could penetrate the shoulders of the two men, Tyson found neither of them were interested in moving.

  “We need to talk, Mr. Tyson,” one of the men said.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m in a bit of a hurry to get home.”

  Tyson tried again to get through the barrier they’d formed. He took a step back and tried to skirt them on the outside. But they shifted their feet, maintaining their imposing presence. Most of the time, he’d punch his way through, but he realized that these men were going nowhere—and they knew where he lived.

  “You’re not going anywhere until we’ve had a word with you,” one of the men said.

  Another man pushed open a nearby door and led them into a room. The cramped office was littered with a couple of broken desks and chairs that were no longer salvageable. A wooden bookshelf against the far wall was almost bare, save a few copies of Joseph Stalin’s Foundations of Leninism. One of the fluorescent lights in the back corner intermittently flickered.

  “Have a seat,” one of the men said, nodding at a bucket turned upside down on the floor.

  He pulled back the corner of his coat and revealed a holstered gun. Tyson understood that this was the international signal for “don’t even think about objecting unless you want to die.” He sat down and looked up at the men now spread out with their backs against the wall.

  “That was quite a performance you put on tonight,” the mustached man said as he ran his fingers through his hair. “You fight pretty good for a dead man.”

  “Dead or alive, that’s how I’ve always fought,” Tyson said with a shrug. “Now, what’s the meaning of this? I don’t suppose this is some strange FSB ritual.”

  The bald man stepped forward. “We need you to do us a favor.”

  Tyson eyed the man closely. “Are you asking or telling?”

  “Mr. Tyson, you are here merely as a guest of the Russian government,” baldie said. “We don’t ever ask for favors.”

  “I’ll be sure to remember that next time,” Tyson said. “So what do you want?”

  Mustache, who was sandwiched between baldie and mute man, stepped forward and asserted his position as the trio’s lead spokesman. “Mr. Tyson, we’ve been more than gracious hosts to you over the past three years, but we no longer see this as an equitable relationship.”

  “What do you mean?” Tyson asked.

  “You seem to be benefitting from this situation mor
e favorably than the Russian government,” mustache said. “And that’s not how we do things here. If it’s not equal, Russia deserves to get the extra benefit, not you.”

  “Especially not an American,” said the mute, who Tyson noted was now four eyes.

  Tyson shook his head. “Don’t get me wrong,” he began. “I’m very grateful for the opportunity to find refuge here. But I’ve given you plenty of information.”

  Mustache groaned and wagged his finger. “Information that we could’ve found out ourselves with little digging. We need more.”

  Tyson cringed inside, doing everything he could to resist the urge to show how he truly felt. Deep down, he despised the Russians and what they’d done to one of his former colleagues a decade earlier in Finland. They killed him when they discovered he was working for the CIA and dragged his body into the woods. Three years passed before some hunters stumbled upon what was left of his bones, picked clean by nature and time. Tyson would never give the Russians anything actionable, even though their refuge was the only thing keeping him alive.

  “What more do you need?” Tyson asked. “I’ve given you the names of all the agents I worked with.”

  “And they all work at Langley,” baldie said. “They’re untouchable for us. We need field agents.”

  Tyson shrugged. “My last partner is dead and everyone else I’ve worked with is either retired or left the agency.”

  “Perhaps you need to make another visit to the Yakutsk Prison to refresh your memory,” mustache said.

  Four eyes peered over the top of his glasses and leaned forward. “I believe you could use a little dental work.”

  “I wish I could help you more,” Tyson said. “But I’ve given the FSB everything I knew. If there was more, you’d be the first to get it. Besides, you need to relax and do less, not more.”

  “What do you mean?” mustache asked.

  “I mean, America is destroying itself from within,” Tyson said. “It doesn’t need your help.”

  Mustache clucked his tongue. “You Americans are always so arrogant, thinking you got here all by yourself, completely unaware of what’s really going on.”

  “Arrogance has nothing to do with it,” Tyson said. “Americans are completely capable of being manipulated and divided.”

  Baldie grinned. “We’re quite aware of this. Your rugged individualism can be as much of a liability as an asset. Take you, for example, Mr. Tyson. You’re here all by yourself. You have no friends. You have no life. You won’t even entertain the thought of some company.”

  “But I’m alive,” Tyson countered.

  “And what kind of life is this, living in the middle of Siberia?” mustached man asked. “There could be a better life for you in exchange for better information.”

  Tyson pursed his lips before responding. “I’ll tell you what. Give me a week to think about it, and I’ll try to come up with something better for you. Can you live with that?”

  Mustache smoothed his facial hair downward, pondering Tyson’s offer. “That sounds acceptable. But we will return in one week, expectant of much better intel or else there will be consequences, the kind I promise you don’t want. Are we clear?”

  Tyson nodded. He watched the men exit the room. When they were all gone, he exhaled.

  He’d bought himself another week. It wasn’t much, but he didn’t care. The FSB was going to extract its pound of flesh sooner or later. Tyson preferred that it be later.

  And if a week was all he could buy, it was better than nothing.

  CHAPTER 3

  CIA Headquarters

  Langley, Virginia

  ROBERT BESSERMAN STUDIED the report in front of him and considered how to proceed. Since he’d taken over the agency two years earlier at the request of President Franklin Norris, Besserman had only initiated pre-emptive strikes. The period of peace had been a welcome one after a tumultuous time between the presidencies of Conrad Michaels and Noah Young. Both of those administrations seemed to invite terrorist attacks. But that had all but disappeared under Norris’s watch, though Besserman wouldn’t have minded getting a little credit.

  However, in the preceding six months, something had shifted on the international terrorism scene. The organizations that had lain dormant during the majority of Norris’s tenure seemed to be stumbling out of hibernation, searching for a target to strike and destroy. Never had Besserman remembered receiving so much intel from his strategically placed agents all over the globe. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve thought it was a global conspiracy. But he was smart enough to know that unifying terrorist groups was akin to herding cats hyped up on catnip into a bathtub. It would never happen. Yet something was happening.

  Besserman checked his watch and gasped. The time was getting away from him and he was already five minutes late to a briefing he’d ordered. One of his best analysts, Craig McMurtry, had floated the idea that perhaps a coalition wasn’t being built but that maybe someone had decided to coalesce scores of terrorist groups by supplying them with funding. Besserman wanted to know more. To him, the idea sounded like chaos theory on hard drugs. And the idea of fighting back had given Besserman a couple of sleepless nights.

  Besserman hustled into his seat at the head of the table and set his briefcase in front of him. Everyone else was staring at the projector screen, trying to figure out how to adjust the color.

  “We’ve got a building full of the brightest minds in the country, yet not a damn one of you knows how to work the projector,” Besserman said.

  Several people seated at the table chuckled before looking at Besserman. He wasn’t laughing.

  “Let’s go,” Besserman said, gesturing for McMurtry to start. “If this is as serious as you’re making it out to be, we’re losing ground as we speak.”

  McMurtry didn’t need to be told twice. He started by giving a background report about the inactivity over the past few years and when the change was initiated. In one month, forty-five agents reported back that the cell where they were imbedded had come upon a windfall of financial help. It wasn’t out of the ordinary for three to five agents to share similar stories in a given timeframe. But even with the economy booming, forty-five was an alarming number.

  McMurtry explained that several of the terrorist cells with accounts they were monitoring through unofficial channels were all receiving the money from different banks all over the world. Not one infusion of cash could be tied to the same bank. And neither could a name or organization be put on any of the accounts that originated the transaction. At first glance, McMurtry believed that highly-skilled hackers were likely to be responsible. But a thorough investigation found his theory wanting.

  “So what’s your new theory?” Besserman asked.

  “I think this might be the work of a shadow organization,” McMurtry said.

  Besserman’s eyebrows shot upward. “One that has legacy accounts at all these banks? I find that scenario almost as unlikely as what we’re already dealing with.”

  “I agree, but just stay with me here,” McMurtry said. “I think it’s not as far-fetched as you might think.”

  Besserman sat up and leaned forward in his chair. “I’m listening.”

  “A little over a year and a half ago, there was a data breach at a bank in Zurich,” McMurtry said, flashing a graphic of a newspaper headline on the screen. “Two months after that, another breach at another bank in the Cayman Islands. Then every forty-five to sixty days for the next year, there were breaches, some of them so small that they didn’t even make major news. But someone was targeting banks. What information was stolen? According to digital forensics experts, nothing. Not a name. Not an account number. Not an email address. Not a phone number. Zilch. These hackers went through a lot of trouble, but never retrieved a single shred of information, according to the investigating companies.”

  “Then what were they after?” Besserman asked.

  “No, that’s the wrong question,” McMurtry said. “What did they really g
et? That’s what I want to know. Because these hackers weren’t just showing off, taking their skills on the equivalent of an internet joy ride. They found exactly what they were looking for.”

  “And how do you know that?” one of the women at the table asked.

  “I decided to investigate the company that handles these investigations,” McMurtry continued. “Trans Global Security—or TGS—was started by a Saudi prince, Prince Ahmed Salman, who’d gotten his hand slapped numerous times for hacking into various systems. About five years ago, he proclaimed himself cured and announced that he was putting his skills to good use. He quickly raised the capital to start a global company that hired some of the best digital forensics experts in the world. They opened offices in London, New York, Paris, Sydney, Johannesburg, and Frankfurt. Now, they are viewed as the experts, dwarfing their competition in both talent and capital.”

  “And TGS investigated all of these breaches?” Besserman asked.

  “TGS and their partners,” McMurtry affirmed. “What I found was that no matter who was called on to investigate the various breaches, ultimately TGS was the one handling the process. Many of the smaller firms didn’t have the bandwidth to launch a massive investigation.”

  “But TGS did?” another man asked.

  “Exactly,” McMurtry said. “Part of their visionary plan was to form partnerships with other similar businesses, seeing them as mutually beneficial as opposed to a competitor. And in this case, the smaller firms landed what was essentially a finder’s fee, while TGS did all the grunt work.”

  “Isn’t it usually the other way around?” another agent in the room asked.

  McMurtry nodded. “Yes, which is what made this business model so unique. But TGS has been doing this for a while, essentially building its reputation and hours inspecting hacks. They’ve become one of the most trusted names in their field.”

  “And it was all started by a Saudi prince,” Besserman said, shaking his head. “How did people not see this?”