Home > Time to Hunt (Pierce Hunt #3)

Time to Hunt (Pierce Hunt #3)
Author: Simon Gervais


PROLOGUE

Seventy-two hours ago . . .

Hotel Niles

Istanbul, Turkey

Charlie Henican woke abruptly, alarm bells going off in his head. He froze in the middle of a half-drawn breath and listened. Heavy footsteps were fast approaching. They were coming for him; of that he was sure. Somehow, someone had found out about him.

He dived for the loaded Glock hidden beneath the right-side pillow, but he was too late. They came in too hard. They came in too fast. They didn’t leave him any chance.

There were six of them, all in black battle dress uniforms. No insignia of any kind. They took control of the room quickly and professionally. These men were soldiers, not amateurs. One man cleared the small bathroom while another stayed outside the room to provide security. The four others took position around Henican’s bed, covering all angles. The men had automatic weapons, all pointed at him. Things weren’t looking good.

“Your hands. Slowly,” the leader said in nearly perfect English. “Don’t make a scene. We don’t want a mess. This is a family-owned hotel. I know one of the housekeepers.”

It would indeed be a shame for one of the housekeepers to have to mop his blood off the nice wooden floor. Since Henican’s arrival four nights prior, he had grown fond of the small hotel and its night staff, who always welcomed him back after his walks around the Grand Bazaar with apple tea and Turkish candies. Since dying in this room—as quaint and pretty as it was—wasn’t part of his plan, he unwrapped his fingers from around the Glock and slowly withdrew his hand from under the pillow. The soldier on his right pounced on him the instant his two hands were visible. Henican was rolled onto his stomach. A knee, backed by the soldier’s weight, dug into his spine, sending sharp jolts of pain up to his neck. The soldier shoved Henican’s hands against his back and looped flex cuffs tightly around his wrists.

Another soldier grabbed Henican’s Glock from under the pillow and removed the magazine before working the slide to eject the round already in the breech. Two soldiers gripped him by the elbows and lifted him up from the bed.

“Where are you taking me?” Henican asked as they led him outside the room. On both sides of the hallway, other guests, curious about the commotion, were starting to open their doors. Everything had happened so fast. Henican had been awake less than a minute.

“I want to speak to someone from the Canadian embassy,” Henican said. “Now!”

With lightning speed, the leader turned around and punched him in the stomach, just above his navel. Henican gasped. Had the two soldiers not supported him, he would have fallen to his knees.

“We know who you are, Mr. Henican,” the man hissed in his ear. “Despite what your passport says, you’re no Canadian. You’re an American assassin.”

 

 

CHAPTER ONE

Now

Nassau

New Providence, Commonwealth of the Bahamas

Dorothy Triggs closed her eyes. The night breeze coming through the open sunroof of the Lincoln Aviator soothed her. This late, there was almost no traffic, and they were making good time toward the airport. She allowed herself a few precious seconds of respite, letting her mind roam free, and imagined herself basking in the sun on a deserted white sandy beach.

It would have been nice to spend a few leisurely days in the Bahamas. Heck, even a few hours would be nice, she thought. But she couldn’t spare the time. Not now. Not with Charlie Henican missing his recent check-ins. As the deputy director of the Directorate of Operations—the clandestine arm of the Central Intelligence Agency—it was up to her to find a way to reestablish contact with Henican or, at the very least, find out what had happened to him.

Her first attempts had been met with frustration and grief. None of the agency’s contacts in the region had come up with any actionable intelligence on Henican’s whereabouts. Turkey was a complicated country whose allegiances switched almost weekly. The geopolitical situation was even more complex now that Turkish dependence on Russian gas and nuclear energy know-how was at an all-time high. The TurkStream—a natural gas pipeline originating in Russia that had cost more than €11 billion—was finally operational. And the Turkish president had threatened to shutter an American early-warning missile defense system at Incirlik Air Base. Triggs had openly questioned Turkey’s commitment to the Western alliance with President Joshua Reilly during their last meeting. Reilly had only partially agreed with her assessment and had explicitly forbidden her to run any covert operations in Turkey.

“Diplomatic relations with Turkey are dicey enough as they are, Dorothy,” Reilly had warned her. “Don’t you go over there without telling me first.”

By sending Charlie Henican to Turkey, she had disobeyed a direct order from her commander in chief. That wasn’t something she had done lightly, but to get to the Venezuelan narco-terrorist Jorge Ramirez, she’d been ready to shove a lot of chips to the middle of the table. Ramirez had been behind the distribution of a new, ultra-addictive synthetic amphetamine pill that had killed young American athletes and devastated countless families. As if that weren’t bad enough, Ramirez had recently acquired highly sensitive intelligence detrimental to the national security of the United States.

And to me, Triggs thought. What she had done and tolerated in order to oust the former Venezuelan president and replace him with Colonel Arteaga—someone the CIA had at least some degree of control over—wouldn’t be seen with a kind eye by the American public.

To keep congressional hearings at bay and safeguard all the progress they’d made in Venezuela, Ramirez had to be stopped. He had to be put down.

Permanently.

It was why she’d sent Henican to Turkey after Ramirez and why she was in the Bahamas now. To secure the help of Pierce Hunt. With him, she could offer the president complete deniability. If, God forbid, everything failed and Hunt was captured or killed, she could use the ex–DEA agent’s reckless past against him to distance herself, the president, and the United States government from anything that happened in Turkey.

“What do you think Hunt will do?”

Seated next to her in the back seat of the Aviator was her son, Max. He pecked on his laptop keys in his signature two-fingered way as he spoke.

“He has no choice,” Triggs replied. “He owes Henican too much. Don’t you agree?”

“I’m afraid so,” Max replied dryly.

Hunt, a former Army Ranger, was the ultimate operator. He didn’t need to be babysat, and he wasn’t in the game for the money—unlike most of her assets in Turkey. With his unfailing loyalty to his friends, Triggs knew he was the right man to go after Charlie Henican. The fact that Hunt had crossed paths with Jorge Ramirez before was also a major plus.

The problem was that Hunt technically worked for Tom Hauer, and the administrator of the DEA wasn’t known to share his resources. Hunt wasn’t a full-time DEA agent anymore, but he and his friend Simon Carter were valuable assets to hold in reserve, so Hauer kept them on retainer. They’d partnered with the CIA on an operation four months ago—the one that had led to Jorge Ramirez’s escape—but Hunt had nevertheless impressed Triggs and her colleagues.

It had been a gamble to take a day and fly unannounced to the Bahamas to meet with Hunt, but the meeting had gone as well as she could have hoped.

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