Free [Thomas Caine #1] Tokyo Black by Andrew Warren Page A

simple matter to connect the dots. Caine was a highly trained operative. He was a living, thinking weapon in the war against terror. A machine. And sometimes machines malfunctioned.
    Bernatto had been Caine’s handler at the time. His final analysis of the operation was that Caine had played the various parties, including the CIA, and gone rogue. He had killed Tyler and taken the guns and drugs for himself, to sell on the black market.
    In a follow-up report, Bernatto’s intel suggested that the Leopards had tracked Caine to Indonesia, and killed him in a retaliatory attack. General consensus around the CIA was, true or not, it was a tidy end to the story of a traitor. Caine was either dead, or soon would be. He had too many enemies to survive for long as an independent operator. He was no longer a concern.
    Rebecca remembered the night she had heard the news. The emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Sitting alone in her cold, silent DC apartment as she had sifted through the reports over and over. She had searched in vain for something, anything that could refute Bernatto’s claims. But she had arrived at the inescapable conclusion that the man she had fallen in love with, the man she had shared laugher and memories and even her body with … that man was a cypher.
    His past, his background, family, friends … all just shadows. She knew so little about him. She had never truly known Tom. And back then, she had thought she never would. He was gone. All she had left were a series of slim reports filled with damning accusations. Sketchy, fleeting glimpses of a stranger.
    Now here she was. Thailand. Japan. Caine.
    That look he’d given her, the anger and betrayal in his voice. That, she knew, was real.
    By the time she reached the air-conditioned lobby of her hotel, she had made a decision: she was going to use this operation to uncover the truth about Caine, Bernatto, and Operation Big Blind.
    On her way to the elevator, she noticed a man sitting in a lobby armchair, playing with his cellphone and reading a newspaper. She felt a ping in her subconscious. The man was young, late twenties, and white. Blond hair, blue eyes, chiseled features. He was wearing a Hawaiian print shirt, khaki pants, and work boots. The boots looked odd. She would have expected sandals or flip flops this close to the beach.
    She made a note to keep an eye out for him. Strange taste in footwear wasn’t enough to set off her mental alarms, but she would have to be careful moving forward. This mission was off book…. She had no back up, no support. And if Caine’s story was true, then Allan Bernatto was even more dangerous than she’d thought.
    As the steel elevator doors clamped shut, she realized that, if that was the case, she had stumbled upon a secret Bernatto needed to keep hidden … a secret he’d already sacrificed two CIA agents to protect.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Caine sat in front of the small pachinko machine and twisted a pink plastic wheel, feeling vaguely ridiculous. The machine was covered with pictures of kittens and ice creams cones, and emitted a nonstop cacophony of electronic chimes and sugary pop music.
    Earlier that morning, after a workout in the hotel gym and a traditional Japanese breakfast, he had made some phone calls to his old contacts. Yakuza bosses and lieutenants he had done business with, smuggling counterfeit jeans and purses through his operation in Thailand. Most seemed surprised to hear he was still alive. News of Lau’s takeover must have travelled fast.
    Like all criminals—himself included—they were a suspicious, paranoid bunch, and they all sounded vaguely uncomfortable to hear from him. The conversations were polite, but terse. Until they could figure out what exactly happened in Thailand, no one was going to give him what he wanted: a sit-down with Isato Yoshizawa. Isato was the oyabun, or leader, of the Yoshizawa clan, a powerful yakuza family based in Tokyo. They ran the local bukuto gambling trade in