Free The Trade (A Hans Larsson Novel Book 2) by Chris Thrall

see it is this, Orion: with no clear evidence,
the most the police will do is knock on our friend Alvarez’s door and ask for a
cozy chat. At which point he’ll slam it in their face and immediately warn his
paymasters.”
    “But what about Arachne?” He referred to Karen by her call
sign. “Can’t she pull some strings?”
    “Hans, even as US ambassador she has little sway over the
way the locals do things. This isn’t Baghdad, you understand?”
    “Of course.”
    “In addition, this, errhum,‘trading’ business is
Cape Verde’s dirty little secret – hell, it’s half the world’s bloody secret.
You’ll be blocked every way you turn trying to get to the truth. We know from
our own intel this stuff goes all the way to undesirables in Washington.”
    “That figures.”
    “Besides our symp in immigration and one or two others, Carter
doesn’t have any influence in the territory.”
    “Carter,” or the name of any former US president, was a code
word Concern operatives used for the organization during unprotected
communications. “Symps” were useful individuals sympathetic to the cause.
    “While we’ve been speaking, I’ve run a sweep on this guy
Alvarez, and I can’t find any information linking him to a higher chain. He
doesn’t even have a bank account.”
    Hans smiled. Muttley could carry out a casual phone
conversation while tapping on a computer keyboard and conducting a call on
another line without you even realizing.
    “So unless you hear anything more from me by seven in the
morning your time, my advice is to liaise with Arachne to make a plan and pick
up the necessary toys and a get-out-of-jail-free card, then go around to this
guy’s house and beat the information out of him. Don’t hold back, Orion. You
have nothing to lose but a lot to gain. He’s a lowlife who can’t exactly go to
the police and report you roughing him up. Once you get what you need, I would
recommend buying him a lollipop to prevent him talking, you understand?”
    Hans did understand. “Lollipop” meant a termination.
    “Orion, be discreet, but if anything comes of it we’ll get
you and your good woman out of there.”
    “Thanks, M.”
    “And O.”
    “Sir?”
    “Give that bastard one from me.”

- 22 -
    P enny
awoke in bed alone feeling a pang of alarm. “Hans?”
    “Here,” came a shout from the living room.
    She pulled on a bathrobe, stepped into flip-flops and
entered the front room to find Hans, coffee in hand, staring at his notebook
computer.
    “I was worried.”
    “Sorry, Penny, I’ve been up a couple of hours getting some
work done.”
    Penny looked at her watch – 6:00 a.m., meaning Hans had less
than two hours’ sleep.
    “How’s the head?” he asked, kissing her on the cheek.
    “Nothing a double espresso won’t fix. What are you doing?” Joining
him on the couch, she peered at the official-looking data on the notebook’s
compact screen.
    “Checking the CIA database for anything on Alvarez.”
    “What! You’ve hacked into it?”
    “Not exactly hacked. The CIA uploads amended files every twenty-four
hours onto an external server to back up their database. By placing the
electronic equivalent of a filter in the upload process, we effectively take an
image stream of the data for our own use.”
    “How do you bypass their security protocol?”
    “We don’t. We’re not hacking into the system, just accessing
data from the inside, and bar a clever little box on a fiber-optic cable buried
under six feet of concrete in Langley, the tap’s impossible to uncover.”
    “Aren’t you worried about using the hotel’s Wi-Fi? I mean,
can’t people trace your movements?”
    “There’s ways to prevent it, like browser software and proxy
servers, but I’m not using the hotel’s Wi-Fi.” Hans held up his cell phone, connected
to the notebook by a cable. “I’m using my cell phone provider, Bluebird. It’s a
budget company that buys network downtime from Velafon and uses their