The Socotra Incident Read Free Page B

the card between her thumb and forefinger. Her leaving the army for the CIA, the months of field craft training, evenings spent learning Russian with one-on-one tutors and the promise of making a real difference in the war on terror had all seemed like a brilliant idea up until this moment. Climbing onto the chartered plane that had taken her from Fort Campbell to the war in Iraq had been a great deal easier than getting out of this car.
    The lock on her door popped up and down several times, ruining her reverie.
    “Sorry,” she said. She got out and straightened her suit.
    The elevator was empty; the control panel had three buttons: open , close , and emergency . She slipped the key card into a slot over the buttons and waited. The BMW pulled away as the doors closed, taking her carry-on with it.
    The elevator didn’t display floors as it went up or even offer Muzak to calm her nerves.
    She felt the elevator come to a stop, and the doors opened to reveal a pentagon-shaped desk protruding into a clear Plexiglas wall. A large frosted logo of a steamship for Eisen Meer Logistics took up most of the wall to her right, over the only door past the wall.
    A Teutonic woman with close-cropped blonde hair smiled at her from behind the Plexiglas. A speaker in the wall, like she was a bank teller and not a receptionist for the weirdest company this side of the twilight zone, clicked to life.
    “Hello, Ms. Garrow. One moment while I inform Shannon that you’ve arrived,” said the receptionist. There was no hint of any European accent in her voice.
    Natalie stepped from the elevator and crossed her hands over her waist. This was the right place, at least.
    A man in his mid-twenties arrived seconds later, the bulge of a sidearm under his suit coat. He put his hand on the door and pushed it open as a buzzer sounded. He motioned down the hall with a nod.
    Not ones for chitchat , she thought.
    Natalie followed him past offices with glass walls. One office held a mess of computers in various states of disrepair. Another had a huge screen that took up almost the entire wall; dots of light marked all the world’s major shipping lanes. Three men huddled together in another office. One noticed her and clapped his hands twice; the glass wall went opaque in an instant.
    She followed her guide around a corner and stopped with him at an oaken door, the antique nature of the door at odds with the ultramodern office.
    Her guide opened the door, and Natalie went inside.
    The office had deep carpets; a Persian rug of exquisite detail lay under a massive desk that barely allowed passage around it. Computer screens glowed behind a high-backed ostrich-skin swivel chair. The occupant was turned away from Natalie; a phone line ran from a receiver around the chair.
    “I swear to God, Marco, if you don’t have that shipment in Naples by this time tomorrow, I will pop your nuts in a vice and use your falsetto voice as my new ringtone!” said a woman’s voice from the chair. “Oh, you can have it delivered on time? That’s what I thought. Don’t make me call you back.”
    The chair swung around. The woman’s features told of mixed Asian and Caucasian heritage; a few strands of gray hair ran from her brow into long black hair with subtle waves. She wore a white blouse and had a gold-and-diamond necklace that must have cost more than Natalie had ever made during her entire four years in the army.
    The strangest thing about the woman was that Natalie instantly recognized her.
    “Italians. It’s always ‘ demani demani’ but tomorrow never comes with these people.” The seated woman said.
    “I-I know you. You’re from USAID. Genevieve? Genevieve Delacriox?” Natalie asked.
    The woman rolled her eyes. “You don’t even bat an eye at Carlos who you’d seen in Iraq and was the man that picked up your bag. Or Mike, your diver, who snatched a detainee right from under your nose at a detention center in Iraq. But me you recognize right away. Call me