The Porter Complication (Cari Porter Series Book 1) Read online

  “We don’t know.”

  “And? What else?”

  “We sent a three-man team to that location,” Myers replied.

  “And?”

  “She took all three of them out.”

  “Dead?”

  Myers shook his head. “No. But she gave them all a thumping. Knocked two of them out cold.”

  Stephenson, already unhappy before going into the room, looked even angrier now. He stared up at the dozens of TV and computer screens that lined the wall.

  “I wanna know where she’s been, where she’s at, and where she’s heading.”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out,” Myers answered.

  “What do you mean? Why don’t I have a file about that already?”

  “We don’t know where she’s been, other than when she went off our radar last week.”

  “So how’d we know she was in that motel room?” Stephenson asked.

  “Her tracking device suddenly came back online a few hours ago. We quickly assembled the closest available team to her location.”

  “Was anything found in her motel room?”

  “Not a thing,” Myers answered. “It was clean. Not a single piece of paper, luggage, clothing, nothing. Spotless.”

  “She’s traveling light. If we surprised her, then she didn’t have enough time to stash anything anywhere or take anything with her on the run.”

  “What’s that say to you?”

  “I’m not sure. Why didn’t she just kill them instead of disabling them?”

  “Maybe she couldn’t. I don’t think she had a gun on her.”

  “Why not?” Stephenson asked.

  “She took a gun from one of the agents after she knocked him out.”

  “That means she didn’t have one beforehand. Where did hers go?”

  “Must’ve lost it somewhere in the prior week.”

  “Really wouldn’t matter much,” Stephenson said. “They’re trained to kill in a hundred different ways, they don’t need a gun to kill.”

  “Maybe she figured three dead bodies would bring more heat down on her?”

  “She’s a CIA black ops agent on the run. Nothing would bring more heat on her than what she’s already doing.”

  “Yeah, I don’t know.”

  “So why are we not sure where she’s at or where she’s going?”

  “Her tracking device went out again.”

  Stephenson folded his arms and put a couple fingers over his mouth. “Damn.”

  Porter had traveled to South Africa three weeks ago to kill three high-ranking officials of a rebellious organization looking to overtake positions in the country’s government. Despite warnings to the South African government by the United States of an upcoming attack, it was dismissed as having no validity. Porter’s assignment was to kill the three men and make it look like they had been turned on by their own men. She had spent the first week scouting the rebel organization, trying to find the right time and place to finish her assignment. But the tracking chip that was embedded into the back of her shoulder, like it was all agents, had mysteriously stopped working a week ago. It was the first such incident in Dark Sky’s history that one of the devices had malfunctioned.

  Up until the point that the red dot indicating her position appeared back on one of their screens, they weren’t sure what happened to her. Even if she had died, her chip should have still been sending beacons to their computers. It would have remained stationary. Considering that they never had a problem with any other agent disappearing off the map in this manner, their unofficial working position was that she intentionally disabled the device and went off the grid.

  It was even worse that Porter was now in Johannesburg, which was not anywhere close to where she was supposed to be. Considering that Johannesburg was the largest city in South Africa, and one of the largest urban cities in the world, they could only assume she was trying to blend in.

  “The fact that she took out three of our guys indicates she’s not planning on coming back to us,” Stephenson said.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Find her and take her out. Get an additional team in there to help look for her.”

  “What if this is all part of her cover?”

  “We can’t take that chance. If agents are going to go off grid for a period, they have to clear it with us first so we can prepare, you know that.”

  “I would just hate for an agent to go down…”

  Stephenson didn’t even let him finish the sentence. They couldn’t approach this situation with the slightest degree of softness. An agent went off the rails, and it had to be dealt with accordingly. “We can’t risk being soft on this. We always knew this day would come eventually. It always does. It’s the organizations that don’t prepare for these moments that end up getting caught with their pants down. We’ll do what has to be done.”

  “Will do. What about the three targets she was supposed to hit?”

  Stephenson thought about it for a minute. “Hand it off to another agent who’s nearby. I want somebody else in there within the next twenty-four hours. They’re already behind the eight ball.”

  “What about the guys already there?”

  “Keep them on Porter. They’re close to her. I don’t want them to take their focus off her and risk losing her for good. She’s a loose end that we need to tie up. We can’t afford having her walking around knowing as much as she does.”

  “OK.”

  “You stay on this overnight,” Stephenson said. “Try to coordinate where you think she might go from here. I have to go home and get some sleep and do some more preparations for the deputy director meeting in the morning.”

  “Right, we’ll stay on it.”

  “Anything else happens, just send me a message. I’ll only respond if I want you to deviate from your present course from what you tell me.”

  “Will do. And if we find her and corner her again?”

  “Then you know what to do. What has to be done. I want her dead.”

  3

  Johannesburg, South Africa

  After getting a few hours of sleep in an alley between a couple of buildings, Porter found herself walking along the street, no clear destination in mind. Though she knew someone was coming for her, she still didn’t know who. What made it worse was that she didn’t know where to go, who to turn to, or whom she could trust. She’d just passed by a plumbing and electrical hardware business when a car came zooming along the street.

  Panicking that the car’s inhabitants were coming for her, Porter immediately started running full speed down the sidewalk. She took a few quick looks back to confirm that the car was still in pursuit. Much to her chagrin, she appeared to be correct. A shot rang out, whizzing past her and glancing off one of the concrete walls Porter was running in front of.

  With Porter running as fast and hard as she was, and the cars that lined the street, the occupants of the car weren’t able to get a clear shot at her. Porter finally was able to turn into an opening that seemed to be some type of manufacturing or trucking business. There were a couple of unmarked vans along with some regular cars parked, though there didn’t seem to be much in the way of activity.

  Porter immediately noticed a high chain-link fence along the back, blocking her exit on the other side. She quickly looked around and saw fire escape stairs to both sides of her. She took one more look behind her, hearing the screeching sound of the oncoming car. She sprinted to her right, finding the bottom of the steps, and started her climb up them. The tan-colored car came onto the property and stopped in the middle of the road, effectively blocking any cars from going in or out. Two armed men exited the vehicle and instantly spotted Porter going up the steps. As the two men hit the bottom of the steps, one of them motioned to the other to not continue.

  “I’ll follow her up this way. You see if there’s another way down on the other side so she can’t escape.”

  “You got it.”

  As one of th
e men ran around the building to check the other side, the remaining man started climbing the stairs. Porter had a good head start and was already at the fifth floor of the six-floor building. Once she got to the sixth, she found a door that was closed and locked. She took a quick look down and saw that the man was gaining ground on her. She quickly had to figure out an alternative path. She looked up, but there was no way to get to the roof from that spot. Taking another look down at the oncoming man, Porter looked at the door again, then at a window that was right next to it.

  Porter removed her gun from her pants and took a healthy swing at the window with it, smashing it into pieces. She climbed through the window and looked around, finding a room that looked like it was just used for storage. It was kind of messy and looked like it wasn’t used much, with boxes thrown around, sheets covering other objects, and dust and cobwebs lining the corners of the room.

  Porter ran over to the door, ready to run out, but then thought of a new plan. Considering she had no idea where she was going, if they kept this up, it was likely they’d catch up to her at some point. She had to put some more distance between them. That meant standing and fighting where practical. Where it was beneficial to do so and she had a tactical advantage. One of those times would seem to be now. She opened the door slightly to give the appearance that she ran out. She then looked around the room, seeing something near the window she just came through that seemed like it would do the trick. She rushed over to it, standing behind the six-foot object that was covered with a dirty white sheet, waiting for her pursuer to come through the window. She knew it wouldn’t be long.

  Only a minute later, Porter heard what sounded like someone scraping the edge of the window. She peeked around the object she was behind, only one of her eyes being visible, and saw the man coming through the window feet first. The man stood there for a second, also taking a look around the room to make sure his target wasn’t waiting for him. With his gun out and ready to use, he continued to stay put, listening intently to see if he could hear movement. Not hearing anything, he noticed the door was ajar and assumed that Porter had run out.

  As soon as the man took a few steps toward the door, Porter left the seclusion of her position to come up behind him. Part of her thought she should just let him go, and once he was out of the room, then she could scurry back down the fire escape. But in the end, she felt like she needed to take the guy out first to ensure a successful getaway.

  Porter had only taken a few steps toward the man when her presence was blown. She stepped on a few pieces of glass which crackled beneath her foot. The man heard the noise and instantly turned around, swinging his gun in front of him as he took aim at what he knew had to be his target. Porter reacted quickly, immediately swatting at the man’s wrist in a forceful manner, knocking the gun from his hand.

  The pair then engaged in hand-to-hand combat, each getting a couple of good shots in. The confrontation lasted for a couple of minutes, initially both on their feet, then rolling on the floor. They each tried to eliminate the other by applying chokeholds, submission moves, as well as body blows. Neither was gaining the upper hand. They eventually got back to their feet and continued their battle. Porter was finally able to block a couple of blows and countered with a few of her own to stun the man, then unleashed a furious assault of punches and kicks that could have landed her a UFC contract.

  With the man down and not getting up, Porter stumbled backwards, then dropped to a knee as she caught her breath. She got up, knowing she had to move. There was still another guy out there, and though she didn’t know quite where he was, she couldn’t stay there and wait for him to find her. She had a feeling that they split up in hopes of trapping her somewhere in between them, since only the one guy had followed her up the fire ladder. She doubted one of them stayed down below, since she could have escaped on the other side.

  Before leaving, though, she withdrew her gun and pointed it at the fallen man, ready to take him out permanently. Porter batted her eyes as she thought of what to do. She felt like she should pull the trigger and end the man’s life, but something was telling her not to. She didn’t know why—after all, the man was chasing her and likely was trying to do the same thing to her. But something inside her brain was telling her not to kill him. He wasn’t on the list. There were three people that she knew she had to kill, but he wasn’t one of them. But if she didn’t kill this guy now, there was a good probability she would have to deal with him again sooner or later. Probably sooner.

  After thinking it over for a few seconds, she sighed, then put her gun away. She wasn’t sure she was making the right call, but she decided to let the man live. A terrifying thought came over her that maybe they were chasing her because she’d done a terrible thing. Maybe she was a bad person. Maybe she’d committed some horrible crime. Maybe she wasn’t innocent. She’d hate to kill somebody that she later found out to really be innocent.

  Hoping that she was right about the men splitting up in different directions, and she wasn’t certain that she was, Porter hopped back through the open window, then made her way down the stairs. The entire way down she kept her eyes open in case the other man suddenly appeared. By the time her feet touched the concrete below the steps, she took another quick look around to make sure nobody was waiting for her, hiding behind a car, or lurking around a corner. There was no way out except the way she came in, so she’d have to put herself out there and be in the open if she wanted to leave. The chain fence in the back of the property looked too high to climb, and even if she could, she worried about being too much of a target by taking too long to get on the other side of it.

  Porter took another deep breath, knowing she had to make a choice, and she had to make it now. Each second she waited was a second closer they would get to finding her. She darted out from her location, running to a nearby car and ducking down, trying to make it as tough as possible to get a beat on her. After waiting for a few seconds without incident, she ran around the back of the car and toward the entrance area. She seemed to be in the clear as she passed the last car that was parked. She got to the corner of the building across from the one she just left and put her hand on the wall as she was about to turn. A shot rang out. Porter stumbled forward as she felt the bullet penetrate her body, her hand still on the wall until the pull of her body going forward made her relinquish whatever grip she had on it.

  The man that pulled the trigger looked on from inside the shattered window on the fifth floor. Porter had taken him down, but not out. He was temporarily stunned, but not bad enough to be out of the fight completely yet. He saw Porter fall forward onto the concrete sidewalk, though she was beyond the corner of the wall and now out of his view. He hurriedly climbed through the window to get down the steps to go check on her.

  As the man rushed down the steps, Porter had picked herself back up. It was a bullet through the back of her left shoulder. Knowing they were coming to check on her, she didn’t have time to worry about her injury. It hurt like hell, burned something awful, and she could feel the blood oozing down her skin and soaking her shirt. But she had to put it out of her mind. She couldn’t think about the pain now. She just had to move.

  Hurrying past the next couple of buildings, Porter then turned right, and hustled down past a few more businesses. She kept looking over her shoulder, knowing they were coming. She kept waiting for them to appear. Luckily, they hadn’t yet. But she knew they would. Porter then found a little alley behind a building and ran down it, coming across an unoccupied car. She pulled the handle on one of the doors, finding the vehicle unlocked. She hopped in the back seat and lay down on the floor, covering herself with a blanket that was there. She wasn’t sure how long she was going to stay there, but imagined she’d give it a while until she figured the men looking for her had moved on.

  The two men had rejoined each other for a short few minutes before splitting up one more time. They knew she had to be somewhere in the area. They looked in cars parked along the street, went in
side open businesses, and canvassed what seemed like the entire area, all with no luck. After about an hour of searching, the two men met up again near their car, which they had long since pulled out of that initial warehouse they found Porter at.

  “What now?” the shorter of the two men asked.

  “I don’t know,” the other man said, sighing as he looked around at their surroundings, hoping their target would just suddenly appear out of nowhere.

  “Doesn’t seem like she’s here anymore. Maybe she hopped in the back of a pickup or open truck or something and got out of here.”

  “I dunno, I feel like she’s still here.”

  “That’s just your pride talking since she kicked your ass back there.”

  “I know I hit her. That means she can’t be moving too good.”

  “Exactly. That’s why she probably left the area by now. There are no traces of blood along the street. If she were stumbling around the area, we would’ve picked something up by now. I’m telling you she flew the coop.”

  The taller and older man, who seemed to be in charge of the two, still wasn’t convinced. “Most people aren’t gonna pick up a strange woman who’s carrying a gun and bleeding.”

  “Not intentionally. Like I said, she found a parked pickup somewhere, jumped in the back and is just off to wherever the car takes her.” Sensing his words were falling on deaf ears, the shorter man sighed, not really wanting to keep looking for a woman he felt was long gone. But he was willing to submit to the more experienced man’s wishes if he preferred. “If you wanna keep looking, we can keep looking.”

  As much as he didn’t want to discontinue the search, the man knew when they were beat. “No, I’ll just call it in. We’ll pick up her trail again. We’ll see her again. I know it.”

  4

  Porter was only planning on staying in that car for an hour or so, then she’d move on. Not that she knew where she’d move on to, but she’d figure that out when she got to that point. As it turned out, she stayed in the car a lot longer than she intended. Somewhere along the line, she passed out from the pain of being shot.