First Assignment

By Christopher F. Falcone

A young, idealistic CIA agent is assigned his first big casecracking a gun ring in Bangkok, Thailand. FIRST ASSIGNMENT is an action-packed espionage thriller played out on the murky streets of one of the world's most exciting cities. Kyle Jordan is flanked by a solid partner, Robert Jackson, whom he initially misjudges; supervised by a hardened team leader, Roger Petty, whom he cannot stand but must respect; and coaxed deeper into head-spinning mayhem by his sole contact, Carla Kwon, an intriguing beauty who is everything but what she seems. FIRST ASSIGNMENT is a rich confluence of events and players brought about by a single directive: bring down one Lin Chu, the most legendary arms smuggler, and prolific killer, east of the Atlantic Ocean. The team is charged with the critical tasks of finding out where Chu is getting the weapons from, who he's selling to, and perhaps most importantly, how powerful are the weapons he's distributing?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jun 27, 2002
• ISBN: 9780595737024

Christopher F. Falcone

FIRST ASSIGNMENT is Mr. Falcone's first full-length novel, following up the young writer's numerous initial forays into fiction that include the short story "The Pick-up in Satan's Study Room" and the novella ACRID HEART. He is currently working on his second novel WAKE-UP CALL.

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Contents

C H A P T E R 1

C H A P T E R 2

C H A P T E R 3

C H A P T E R 4

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C H A P T E R 1 

Kyle waited silently in the chilly early November morning. He wore a black long-sleeved pullover underneath faded overalls. The wind from the Atlantic Ocean attached to him, whipping relentlessly through his low-cropped hair. The anxiety in his gut made him feel more awake and energized than he had since training simulations at The Farm, the Central Intelligence Agency’s training facility in the Virginia woods. But this was one hundred times more intense than any simulation. It was as ifhis entire body was charged with the energy of the lightning that flicked like a snake’s orange tongue through the somber pre-dawn sky. It was 5:13 a.m. and Kyle was about to engage in his first real mission as an operative for the CIA. As dawn forced itself upon the bluish-black night that was steadily losing its grip over Charleston, South Carolina, Kyle’s exhilaration was compounded by the eerie, almost alien, electric heat that lit up the cold, stubborn sky.

This experience made the time he scored four touchdowns versus Navy seem puny by comparison. It was his first assignment for the CIA since graduating the month before from a two-year training program, which had become interminable to Kyle towards the end. Most of his fellow graduates had received international assignment, foreign affairs being the CIA’s primary province—at least officially. But no agent could plan where he or she might be at a particular moment, their fate often determined by secret policies of secret governments and secret people. Secrecy was the watchword pounded into their heads throughout training in and around CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. It was more important than the keen intelligence of the trainees, world political events, even the training itself. In the clandestine world of the CIA, an agent was to follow secret orders secretly.

This particular morning, Kyle and four other agents were assigned to a weapons smuggling operation in the historic Southern town of Charleston. Apparently, someone was shipping guns into the U.S. via this relatively small port, hoping to camouflage their dealings as much as possible. Despite Kyle’s excitement, it was perceived by the Agency as a low-priority mission, which is why a rookie had been assigned to it. The higher-ups in intelligence seemed to think the operation might hold some degree of international import. Kyle didn’t really care about the fact that the mission was regarded as not hot. After two years of training and expectation, he was ready to go to work.

Kyle lurked in the darkness on the dock, lying prone behind two large trash cans and peering through infrared binoculars at a group of five workers as they unloaded boxes from the recently docked ship one-hundred yards away. He felt adrenaline pump through his tightly muscled body and his right hand shook, despite his mighty efforts to control it, as he gripped the sleek black minigun that he was about to employ live for the first time.

Kyle wasn’t nearly as big as had been at West Point. He was six feet tall and had slimmed down to 180 pounds. He had weighed around two-twenty in his college days, his duties as Army’s star tailback requiring such bulk. Kyle had been good, very good. He had been a decently sized and bruising runner but he lacked the inhuman speed required of a truly great NFL back. There were times when he had thought about putting on the extra twenty-five to thirty pounds it would take to play fullback, but he had packed as much bulk onto his relatively lithe frame as was possible without losing considerable speed and agility. His chances of playing in the NFL were finally ended when he suffered a knee ligament tear late in his senior season. He was certain to be drafted before his injury, but afterwards no team wanted to take a chance on damaged goods, especially a kid from Army, not exactly a football powerhouse.

He discovered his football bulk to be inefficient for the intelligence career on which he embarked soon after any lingering ruminations about professional football were smashed. He had lost 30-40 pounds and found his strength somewhat diminished, but not drastically. He was much more limber than he had been and his endurance had increased dramatically. Having lost much of the fat he had stored in his legs, chest, and belly, he felt his current weight to be much more natural. To say that Kyle was in good shape would have been a gross understatement. For the last six years, he had been preparing himself for moments like these by honing his body with weights and running. His face reflected his lean body. Tight skin accentuated high cheekbones and a broad jaw. His hair was light brown and closely cropped. His eyes were dark and intense.

Suddenly, Kyle felt a hot sensation in the deep pocket of his overalls. He reached inside and pulled out the videophone that was the heat’s source. He looked at the 3 x 3 screen. Displayed on it was a small diagram of the ship under surveillance. Underneath the diagram it read in small letters Class F. Not a very big ship, Kyle determined, tapping quickly into his database to check the facts. The diagram was a cross section of both levels of the ship. The diagrams were minute, but the graphics so tight, the lines so well defined, Kyle quickly had an adequate layout of the ship. Kyle wiped away the drizzle that had accumulated on the tiny screen. A red dot flashed indicating the storage area below deck: the target area.

Quickly, the text began to appear below the diagrams and the diagram of the ship disappeared above the screen:

Upon sensory signal, proceed to target area. Nullify all resistance.

Secure ship and target area.

Kyle flexed his bicep in anticipation. He reached into his other pocket and felt the cold steel of his government issued minigun, a miniature machine gun small enough to be concealed, but still capable of discharging automatic rounds. Nullify all obstacles. Evidently, the surveillance boys did not think the natives would go quietly. Based on his briefing, he was not surprised. Rarely did gun dealers choose to go quietly, the prospect of a long prison terms as unappealing as they are. Generally, they chose to violently resist federal agents, a fact Kyle remembered as he felt underneath his overalls for the bulletproof vest fastened over his black shirt.

Kyle made his way cautiously down the old wooden pier toward the dock. The wind from the ocean blew solidly against him as he rose slowly from his position behind the garbage cans. The light from impending dawn cast a dull bluish pitch over the dark horizon. Kyle crouched as he ran to another garbage can ahead of him, his figure barely discernable in the dark, a blustering rain now making him even more difficult to identify. Soon he had made it down the pier and hidden once again, this time behind a small dock house not thirty yards from where the boat was. Five men hurriedly unloaded boxes from the boat to the dock.

Kyle suddenly felt a light tap on the shoulder. Though he expected the tap, it still startled him. It was Petty, the agent in charge of the operation and his first assigned supervisor at the Agency. Kyle could make out the shadowy forms of the other three agents propped up against the dock house.

Petty gave the signal, and Kyle was sprinting toward the ship. His heart was pounding and anxiety churned his stomach. There was a good chance he would have to make his first kill. Out of the corner of his eye, Kyle saw a boat flying in from the ocean toward the docked craft. Water support recruited from the Coast Guard or the FBI, or maybe they were their own.

Kyle hit the dock first, minigun in hand. Federal agents! Drop everything! Now! Kyle barked the orders, laden with the anxiety and adrenaline pumping through his body, his gun trained expertly on the men. The five workers stopped unloading the boxes from the cargo hold onto the dock and looked at Kyle, dumbfounded. A couple of the workers held boxes in their hands as they stared at Kyle. Drop everything and put your hands up! Kyle screamed again. The men just stood there bewildered. He wondered where Petty and the others were. Suddenly he saw Petty and the rest of the team race by him and the dock workers and jump onto the boat. He could see that the water support team had reached the boat and was headed toward the target area.

Kyle kept his gun trained on the men despite his increasing confusion. Through the darkness, he began to make out the faces of the workers on the dock. They remained shocked and looked at Kyle as if he were Jesus Christ himself. Something was wrong. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go down.

Raise your goddamn hands over your heads! he screeched.

Kyle felt embarrassment burn in his face as he now made out the faces of the evil gun traffickers who stood before him, finally dropping their boxes and raising their hands. All five were Mexican and shoddily clad in dirty T-shirts, torn jeans and old boots—extremely underdressed for such a chilly morning. It was obvious from their expressions that they didn’t understand English and had only recently discerned Kyle’s commands. They had no clue what was going on. Probably the only reason they raised their hands was because some crazy gringo had a gun and was screaming at them. One of the workers was shaking so badly that he looked as if he might piss his pants.

Kyle couldn’t hear any sounds from below deck as he held the vicious migrant dockworkers at bay. He had been told to expect everyone on the ship to resist. This surely included anyone unloading the shipment. All elements are hostile, was how Petty had put it. Each minute seemed to pass like an hour as Kyle held up the pathetic-looking dockworkers, their drawn, confused brown faces becoming ever clearer to Kyle as dawn pushed the remnants of night from the sky. The chilly drizzle which dripped sporadically from above could not cool Kyle’s rising shame.

After about ten minutes, Petty and the other agents emerged from below deck. They escorted two white men in handcuffs from the ship to the dock. As they passed Kyle, Petty smirked at him and said softly as he passed, Thanks for the cover, rookie. Then he chuckled as the rest of the team headed up to the pier. It was all Kyle could do to restrain himself from turning and crushing the back of Petty’s skill with the butt of his gun.

C H A P T E R 2 

On the flight back to Langley, Kyle sat by himself in the back of the plane while the other agents sat up front talking and joking. It was early afternoon and an Air Force jet transported the small band of men north along the eastern seaboard. As they hurtled north through the air some thirty thousand feet above sea level, the blustery rain of the deep South gave way to a clearer, colder climate.

As he attempted to relax in his seat, Kyle barely considered the fact that he was separated from the others in the front of the plane. Kyle Jordan has been conditioned to ostracism, whether he invited it or not. Either way he kept his distance from groups, being used to having few, if any, friends. He and his mother and father had moved around a lot when he was young. His father was an up-and-coming officer, and the family went where his promotions took them. The promotions came suddenly and frequently as Thomas Tad Jordan scrambled his way up the military ladder.

Being jerked out of a town and a school every six months was normal for Kyle. As a result, he learned not to make many friends, knowing it would be fruitless. In one sense, Kyle had made himself an outcast, using circumstances as an excuse for his aloof personality. Yet, he was also cast out by others. He could be an intimidating person, often physically superior to the boys and men with whom he associated throughout his young life. But a bigger contributor to his ostracism was the fact that he was sullen and intense, unwilling and unable to soften enough to make those around him feel at ease. It seemed unnatural that a good-looking and athletic person like Kyle would be so quiet and misanthropic. He had a similar effect on women, who usually found themselves attracted to Kyle, then mistaking his intense demeanor for simple arrogance, shied away. Thus Kyle had spent most of his life alone, immersed in his own private world of reflection and fantasy.

As he relaxed and eased back into the seat, Kyle allowed the buzz of the jet to seep into him. He felt calm as he closed his eyes. With eyes shut and body relaxed, he felt sleep tempt him, but did not succumb. Instead, his thoughts drifted to his mother.

Karen Elaine Jordan was a quiet and intelligent woman, beautiful in her own natural way, her 5’ 10" frame lithe and elegant, her beautifully small and soft face almost always devoid of makeup. She had long brown hair and eyes the same color, so perfect that even the most uninterested passerby found it difficult not to look twice. Kyle could picture his mother studying in the quadrangle at Stanford in the spring. All the college boys passed by and gawked at her long legs, her knees bent toward the sky as she propped herself against a tree. Kyle imagined that she never noticed her admirers, too enthralled by Faust or a book of Joyce poems. Karen had told Kyle and his father over dinner one night that she had dated no one in college. Her beauty aside, Kyle almost believed her. None of those college boys would have been able to measure up to the writers she adored. She had been in love with literature since she was a little girl and then majored in it at Stanford. She was a stellar academic and received a fellowship to study for her doctorate at Harvard.

It was while attending Harvard that Karen Elaine Espy met Thomas Tad Jordan. While Karen and her friend Susan Meckler were browsing in a Cambridge bookstore three weekends before the dinner, Susan met a cadet from West Point in the history section. Despite her shyness, the young cadet convinced Susan to have coffee with him. He left with Susan’s phone number and called her the following Tuesday from West Point to ask her to an Army dinner the cadets were throwing at Mama Leone’s in Manhattan. Susan accepted the invitation though she had rarely dated. Unlike Kyle’s mother, Susan was not considered particularly attractive and had spent most of her time and energy in the library researching for her thesis. Susan was terrified of being around a large group of people she did not know on a date with someone she didn’t know much better. So she called Kyle’s mother and asked her to come too.

Kyle’s mother responded by saying she would feel funny showing up at the Mama Leone’s without a date. Susan said that the guy she was going with had someone lined up for her. After incessant begging and pleading on Susan’s part, the beautiful Karen Espy consented. Susan was her friend and she felt bad for her. The insensitive, shallow world of men had pushed Susan Meckler aside on more than one occasion as too plain to merit any attention whatsoever. And despite Susan’s obvious trepidation, Kyle’s mother could tell how excited she was. It was a rare opportunity for Susan, so the lovely Karen agreed to keep her company.

Kyle’s mother had told this story several times over family dinners, and each time Kyle got the feeling that other factors were at work. Based on subtle remarks from his father, Kyle suspected that his mother was involved in an affair with someone else at the time. His best guess was that it was one of her professors.

Regardless, Kyle’s mother went to dinner on a chilly October night in 1968 with another young officer by the name of Brett Calhoun. Officer Calhoun was the most arrogant buffoon Kyle’s mother had ever met. He must have been something, Kyle thought, since his mother had undoubtedly met more than her share of arrogant buffoons in her days at Harvard.

Soon after arriving at the overpriced Manhattan restaurant, Kyle’s mother tried to distance herself from her nightmare of a date, a difficult task since he was seated beside her throughout dinner. Meanwhile Susan Meckler and her date barely ate, so busy were they gazing at each other and fumbling with each other underneath the table. It was as Karen was grimacing at yet another of her date’s amazingly obnoxious Army cadet tales that she noticed him.

Kyle’s father, Thomas Tad Jordan, sat a few seats down and across the table from the lovely Karen Espy. He listened with listless eyes to another one of Calhoun’s moronic stories about some bar fight won against incredible odds as he languidly chewed his steak. Of the fifty Army cadets at the dinner, Karen noticed that he was the only one without a date seated next to him. She found this odd since he was an extremely good-looking man, one of the best-looking men in the room. He had closely cut black hair, a broad jaw, sharp features and intense blue eyes. His shoulders were broad and powerful as was his chest, which seemed about to burst