Free Viper: A Thriller by Ross Sidor

Inspire’s trunk
and pointed with his thumb over his shoulder.
    The CIA officer placed the cases inside the trunk and
slammed it shut.
    He walked around the car to the driver side door.
    Avery lowered the window and looked up at man.
    “Shit, I recognize you. You’re one of Culler’s gunslingers
from GRS, aren’t you? What do they call you guys? Scorpions?”
    This CIA officer—mid thirties, Hispanic—didn’t know what
a contractor was doing here on his turf, without the input of the chief of
station, but he had a fair idea what the cases contained, and he expressed in
no uncertain terms to Avery the ardent displeasure of COS Panama that an op was
being run on his turf without his authorization. He informed Avery that he
could expect no further assistance from Panama station. He even went as far as
to insinuate that the COS just may take the matter up with the ambassador, who
likewise had not been briefed on a covert action in Panama.
    Avery thought the officer now berating him likely
never held a gun since his training at the Farm and had likely found it to be a
singularly distasteful, uncivilized experience.
    COS Panama probably spent his days reporting to the
ambassador and attending diplomatic cocktail receptions, and when he did allow
his officers to partake in the business of espionage, it was most likely to get
the dirt on some foreign business illegally dumping industrial waste or to
bribe politicians to vote yes on new anti-pollution legislation, or something
equally vital to US national security.
    After all, AMEMBASSY Panama proudly advertised its
LEED certification and the ambassador once emphasized that rainforest
conservation was one of his staff’s top priorities, following the president’s
declaration that it “was the mission of all US agencies to safeguard the
environment.”  That no doubt included CIA.
    The officer from Panama station was in mid-sentence
when Avery raised his window, shifted into reverse, and backed out of his spot.
He heard a hand slap against the trunk as he accelerated away toward the exit
ramp. In his rear view mirror, he saw the indignant CIA man holding his ground,
staring down the back end of the departing Inspire.
    Avery wouldn’t put it past the Agency man to take note
of the make and model and the license plate number, and pass it along to the local
police to run interference. He decided that his team would have to stick with
Aguilar’s and Castillo’s vehicles.
    Avery pulled over a dozen blocks away from the embassy,
after making certain he wasn’t being followed. He got out of the Inspire and
walked around to sweep the cases in the back with a small device provided by
Culler from the CIA’s Directorate of Science & Technology that was disguised
as an iPod. He found a GPS tracker in one of the cases, removed it, flicked it
away into the street, and got back behind the wheel.
    His next stop was the Holiday Inn, near the Panama
Canal, where a room was reserved in his cover name. There, he sat down and
opened the cases from the embassy, to make sure that he had everything he’d
requested and that the COS hadn’t further tried to shaft him.
    There were three Type III ballistics vests, encrypted
Motorola tactical radio units, a .45 caliber Glock 21, two SP-21 Barak 9mm
pistols, and a mini-Uzi submachine gun, plus spare ammunition and holsters. The
CIA station in Bogotá had delivered the gear in diplomatic lockboxes overnight
to the Panamanian embassy.
    When he disassembled the weapons and inspected the
parts carefully, Avery discovered a tiny firing pin had been removed from one
of the Baraks. Otherwise, everything else appeared in order, but he was still
seething, wondering if it was just a sloppy fuck-up on Bogotá’s end, sending
faulty gear, or if it was something more insidious on the part of Panama
station.
    He booted up his notebook computer and logged into Intelink
to see the update from Culler, who had tasked NSA with hacking into the Trump
Ocean Club’s