Chapter Twenty Four
Michael Catone stepped out of the shower and grabbed a white towel from a folded pile, which sat on a stainless steel shelf, and dried himself. He then wiped the condensation from the mirrored door of the cabinet above the cistern and lathered his angular jaw with white shaving foam. Then, taking a safety razor from a holder on the sink, he closely shaved the stubble from his face. Director Blakely at Langley wanted to see him in her office; he wanted to look dapper.
Out on the freeway heading for Fairfax County he thought of his father, Adriano, a third generation Italian American. He had been a tough cop in Chicago all his life until he retired last year. Ironically, after facing death at the point of a gun or knife many times, he dropped dead of a brain haemorrhage. He had wanted Michael to be a doctor; nothing to do with law enforcement.
Michael applied to the CIA and was accepted. The last heated argument ended with them hugging, and Michael saying “I’ll make you proud of me papa.” That’s what he was still doing, two years on, he thought, as tears slid down his face.
He parked his black Mercury, checked his appearance in the rear view mirror and then walked toward the arched entrance of the CIA headquarters, his mind turning over what the meeting with Blakely was to be about.
Michael ran a hand through his thick, black hair and then straightened his green neck-tie before knocking on the varnished wooden door, which had National Clandestine Services Director in small gold letters on it.
“Come,” boomed a female voice.
A thin woman with short, red hair sat reading behind the only desk in the room. She raised her head, and said: “Ah, Catone. Sit down please.” She pointed to a seat in front of her desk and then closed the folder she was reading and took another from a drawer under the desk.
“Operation Dimensions,” she said putting the folder in front of Michael. “Study it, We think the officer involved has been somehow compromised and has been feeding us disinformation.”
Michael picked up the file as if it were infectious and looked at it.
Blakely stared at the young officer. “We need you to do a surveillance job and assess. Your travel details are in the file. Thank you!”
“Michael knew the meeting was over with the brusque ‘thank you’; he rose and left the room with the folder. He headed along the corridor until he came to an open area filled with desks. He sat at a desk second on the right and placed the folder down on top and stared at it for a while.
“Hi Michael,” said a tall man with cropped brown hair and a pockmarked face.
“George! What’s new?”
“Nothing much; I’m more of a contracts manager now. Gotta keep an eye on the green badgers.”
“Yeah well, I’m on for a bit of surveillance.”
Michael watched George Grey walk along the central aisle and sit at a desk next to a contractor. He had worked with George a few months previously. They were under cover with two other officers as Miami Bookmakers interested in getting into the illicit drugs trade. They were to infiltrate two Colombian Cartels and instigate a war between them.
Michael accompanied George to an initial meeting with one of the Cartels in a seedy Miami hotel where the merchandise was sampled and a working relationship set up.
The next step was a trip to Colombia and the Cartel’s base; a villa outside Bogotá.
Michael and the leader, Miguel Gordilla found common ground in the works of JRR Tolkien; Lord of the Rings being one of Michaels favourite books. He discovered the drug baron to be knowledgeable on literature and classical music, but violence was never faraway. A rival cartel member was executed around the back as they sat sipping brandy on the large veranda at the front of the house.
In the end, the two agents were lucky to escape with their lives after the other gang rumbled their colleagues and word spread.
After studying the file for a while Michael stood up, stretched and exhaled explosively. My God, he thought, a UFO from the Second World War, outer dimensions and neo-Nazi’s; I need a caffeine break!
He gazed out of the small kitchen window at the neat gardens as he waited for the kettle to boil. He had almost quit after the Colombian operation, but the thought of his father and the man’s fight against crime had shaken the self-pity from him.
Back at his desk he placed the coffee mug on a wicker mat by a small potted cactus took a deep breath and began a detailed study of the file. Half an hour later he stood up and stretched. He was to fly out to Los Angeles that evening and follow his subjects, who were flying out the next day.
The freeway back to his home in Hyattsville was blocked. He could see flashing blue lights ahead over the lines of metallic roofs. He switched on the radio and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to a Bob Marley song. The cars in the lane he was in moved, and he approached the cause of the hold-up: a blue BMW had smashed into the rear of a brown Oldsmobile. Firemen and Paramedics were extricating people from the wreckage.
God, thought Michael, one minute you’re driving along the road with all your personal thoughts, and the next minute you could be trapped in crumpled metal.
Back home he opened his canvas kit bag and placed clothes alongside the toiletry bag that remained there. He then phoned his mother and told her he would be away for a few days.
The Los Angeles flight took off on time and rose into the clear blue sky. Michael settled into his novel. Reading took his mind off the potential dangers ahead and engrossed him like a film could never do.
The next day he watched Johnny and Veronica stroll into the main T1 concourse of Los Angeles International Airport with the rest of the passengers who had just arrived from Washington. He followed them to the Hertz hire car desk and then left the building and went to Parking Lot B where he retrieved his hire car.
The traffic was heavy on Airport Boulevard. Michael pulled into a small bay from where he watched the Hertz courtesy buses enter the compound and drop clients off at their respective cars.
He saw Johnny and Veronica climb down from a bus and put their bags in a green Pontiac. Michael started his engine while keeping his eyes fixed on the pair as they entered the car
Eventually they left the car park, and Michael followed them onto Interstate 405 heading north. Then, staying a few cars back and thankful for the heavy Los Angeles traffic, he tailed them on Interstate 10. They passed through the heart of the city and on, through the sprawling suburbs.
He followed them through the heat of the Mojave Desert finally stopping in Blythe where he emailed his report. He spent an uncomfortable night in his car waiting for the pair to reappear the next morning from their motel.