The Shadow Agent Read online

  PRAISE FOR DANIEL JUDSON

  “Daniel Judson is so much more than a crime-fiction novelist. He’s a tattooed poet, a mad philosopher of the Apocalypse fascinated with exploring the darkest places in people’s souls.”

  —Chicago Tribune on The Water’s Edge

  “Shamus winner Judson once again successfully mines Long Island’s South Fork for glittering noir nuggets.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Violet Hour

  “A suspense masterpiece.”

  —Bookreporter.com on The Violet Hour

  “Judson hits you with a 25,000-volt stun gun in chapter one and doesn’t let up until the satisfying end.”

  —Alafair Burke, author of 212, on Voyeur

  “Judson is a thoroughly accomplished writer.”

  —Kirkus Reviews on Voyeur

  “A searing, brooding look at the bleak side of the Hamptons . . . an intense novel.”

  —South Florida Sun-Sentinel on The Darkest Place

  “Action packed. Loss and redemption rule in Shamus Award–winning Daniel Judson’s third novel, set in Southampton nights so cold that they could cool off a reader sizzling in this summer’s heat. It’s noir on ice.”

  —USA Today on The Darkest Place

  “This taut thriller is far from predictable, and its dark and mysterious plot suits Judson’s understated writing style.”

  —Publishers Weekly on The Poisoned Rose

  OTHER TITLES BY DANIEL JUDSON

  The Agent Series

  The Rogue Agent

  The Temporary Agent

  The Gin Palace Trilogy

  The Poisoned Rose

  The Bone Orchard

  The Gin Palace

  The Southampton Trilogy

  The Darkest Place

  The Water’s Edge

  Voyeur

  Stand-Alone Titles

  The Betrayer

  Avenged

  The Violet Hour

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Daniel Judson

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503959156

  ISBN-10: 1503959155

  Cover design by Rex Bonomelli

  in memory of my mother, Mary B. Judson

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  PART TWO

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  PART THREE

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  PART FOUR

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  PART FIVE

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  PART SIX

  Sixty-Two

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  “I’m done running,” Stella says. “And I’m done hiding. So let’s not fight it anymore. Raveis wants you, always has, so he’ll take me, too, if it means getting you. We’ll learn what he has to teach, because no matter what we do or where we hide, the Benefactor will find us. So let’s be ready for him when he does. Or better yet, let’s save him the trouble and find him first. We’ll bring them the Benefactor’s head, and then we’ll go somewhere and live our lives in peace. I’d rather die beside you than live without you. Maybe if we do this, we won’t have to do either.”

  Tom looks at her but says nothing.

  “So let’s call Raveis now because there isn’t a lot of time to waste. The Benefactor is out there, Tom, and you know it. He’s out there, and he wants us—all of us—dead.”

  It is six a.m. when the vehicles arrive—a convoy of black SUVs sent by the Colonel and driven and protected by men Raveis has recruited and trained.

  To Stella’s eye, each and every one of these heavily armed men possesses the zeal of a true follower.

  Hardened disciples of Sam Raveis, these men will not betray them.

  And may God have mercy on them if they try.

  By the time the vehicles depart again thirty minutes later, the Cahill estate on the eastern edge of Shelter Island is closed up. The SUV that Stella and Tom occupy is the last to leave the grounds.

  She watches through the rear window as the gates are closed by the guards who will remain behind as caretakers.

  The home that had once been full of life and light and healing is now silent and empty.

  Abandoned, like so many of the places in which Stella has lived over these past years.

  But what is behind them doesn’t matter.

  She tells herself this, believes it now more than ever.

  What does matter is who is beside her and who is around the two of them.

  Not just Raveis’s armed men but the four women in the other vehicles whom Tom calls his sisters-in-arms.

  Krista MacManus and Sarah Grunn and Valena Nakash and Sandy Montrose.

  Stella is among warriors, but more than that, she is herself one now.

  She is strong and will only get stronger.

  Nothing is the same, nor will it ever be again.

  Two days later, in an upper-floor room of a New York City hotel, Raveis lays out what it will mean for Tom and Stella to sign on.

  “I won’t train you together. As you know, I have multiple compounds, each set up to address a certain stage, so one of you will be at one while the other is at another. Tom will finish first, obviously, because of his military background, but also because of what he’s already done for us. There’s no point in teaching him what he clearly knows. I’m thinking it will be three months, tops, for him, and possibly double that for Stella. And once Tom completes his training, he’ll be put in the field immediately, which means I can’t guarantee the two of you will be assigned together, at least not at first. We can’t pull Tom off whatever he might be working on just so you two can have a reunio
n. Do you understand?”

  Tom and Stella tell him that they do.

  “Another thing you need to know up front is you won’t see each other until after Stella graduates. No weekends off, no running away for a day or two to meet somewhere and screw. And during your training, your communications will be limited.”

  Stella asks, “How limited?”

  “You’ll have to surrender all devices, no exceptions, but we set up an email account for each of you to use. You’ll have computer access for thirty minutes once a week.”

  “Why did you set up the accounts?”

  Tom answers for him. “So communications can be monitored.”

  Raveis nods. “Everything is read, incoming and outgoing.” He watches them before continuing. “It’s a major commitment for someone to make, signing up for this, but it’s also a costly investment for us. That’s why we generally recruit ex-military with an emphasis on former Special Forces. That way we have reason to expect that our candidates will make it through to the end.”

  “I can handle it,” Stella says.

  “If I doubted that, I wouldn’t be here.” Raveis looks at Tom. “If you haven’t already, I need you to fill her in on what she should expect.”

  “She knows,” Tom says.

  “And you’re okay with it? With what she’ll be subjected to. What will be done to her in the course of her training. My staff is currently all male, Tom. They won’t go easy on her. They wouldn’t be doing her any favors if they did.”

  “We both know what to expect.”

  “It’s not just the training. It’s the work.” He looks at Stella. “We’re a private-sector answer to the CIA’s Special Activities Division. We do what the government can’t legally do, and that sometimes means the blackest of black ops.”

  Stella says to him, “I know. I understand.”

  Nodding again, Raveis pauses as if to make up his mind. He is a man about whom Tom and Stella know little beyond that he works for the Colonel—a man about whom they know even less, including his actual name.

  A link in a chain, Sam Raveis, among other things, oversees the training of the candidates selected by his many recruiters, one of whom was Tom’s former commanding officer.

  For eight years, James Carrington was both a father figure and a commander to Tom. But this man, who Tom knows better than anyone—the man who led Tom during his years as a Seabee—can no longer be counted on, leaving the future Tom deeply craves in the hands of those who are barely more than shadows.

  If he had his way, he and Stella would be far from here, beholden to no one but each other, their survival the only cause they serve. But just as Tom is a means to the end that Raveis and the Colonel seek, those two men are the means to the end that Tom desires for Stella and himself.

  “There are contracts to go through and sign,” Raveis says. “But do me a favor and think about it for another twenty-four hours.”

  “We don’t need another twenty-four hours,” Stella says.

  Raveis looks at Tom.

  Tom nods. “We’re ready.”

  Raveis tells them that he will send some men to take them to the airport in the morning. Among them will be an attorney, and the necessary papers will be signed in the car en route.

  Then he wishes them luck and leaves.

  A moment passes before Tom and Stella do anything more than look at each other.

  They now have just eighteen hours together.

  Later that night, Tom watches from the bed as Stella emerges from the shower.

  The lights are off, and the only illumination is the glow of Midtown beyond the window.

  Stepping to the desk, Stella drops her robe and reaches for her clothes—jeans and T-shirt and cardigan, sports bra and boy shorts and socks.

  Next to the neatly piled clothing is her strand of pearls, which, along with her Kimber K6 .357 Magnum and several disposable smartphones, represents the extent of her personal belongings.

  Tom asks her to stop. Stella does and faces him.

  Her dark, long curls, uncombed and wet, frame her face. A year and a half of intense CrossFit training, all of it done alongside a much younger woman, has given her a body that is hard and lean.

  The same amount of years spent running a Vermont breakfast-and-lunch diner—up before dawn, done just prior to sunset, in bed and asleep by nine—has kept her skin pale.

  She smiles. “Is there something you need, sir?”

  “You know.”

  Her smile widens. She reaches for the pearls and puts them on, adjusting the long strand till the knot hangs between her breasts. Then she lets her arms drop to her sides.

  She was wearing those pearls the first time Tom saw her, when he decided on a whim to stop at a railcar diner in northwestern Connecticut.

  And she had those pearls on again the first night they’d spent together.

  He had warned Stella beforehand about the state of his flesh so as not to shock her. His torso bears the scars of war—a mix of fragment wounds and suture marks, all now healed, some faded but others not.

  The contrast of her exquisite beauty, augmented by the pearls against her bare skin, had only cast a harsher light on the markers of violence that had been left on him.

  If she had minded the sight of his scars, though, she’d hid it well.

  He looks at her now as if he will never see her again, which is true, because the world they are about to enter changes a person—Tom has seen it and has done all he can to avoid joining that world for that very reason.

  The Stella he will find when they are reunited will not be the Stella who is before him now, just as he will not be the man whose stare she is meeting.

  Learning all the ways to kill—among the many other skills Sam Raveis and his trainers will share—is not something from which any person returns unaltered.

  Stella says, “Shall I come back to bed?”

  “In a minute.”

  His fascination with her naked body has always pleased her. After all, at forty-six, she is eleven years older than he. Reading his expression, though, tells her that his watching her is different from his usual act of admiration.

  She takes a guess at what he is thinking.

  “We have to believe that we will be together again,” she says. “We can’t go into this doubting that.”

  “I know.”

  But Tom’s expression doesn’t change, nor does the way he is looking at her.

  A moment passes before Stella asks, “What else is on your mind?”

  “Raveis said our limited communications will be monitored and that he can’t guarantee when we’ll see each other once you’re done with your training. I’m thinking that we should have a way of getting a message through to each other, just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “We have to consider the possibility that the time will come when our interests no longer align with those of our employer. If that happens—either during our training or after—we’ll need a way to safely communicate.”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “First, we keep our emails brief. Spend five minutes on them, tops. We’ll use the rest of our allotted time for something else. Since they’ll likely be monitoring our internet usage as well, we’ll use that against them. We’ll need to hide in a well-established pattern of traffic whatever it is we want to say to each other when the time comes.”

  Stella thinks about that, then says, “Okay, Tom, tell me what you need me to do.”

  PART ONE

  One

  She watched as the old man grew nearer to death.

  For three weeks he had hung on, drifting in and out of consciousness, losing coherence with each day that passed, really just fading away from existence, breath by breath, before her eyes.

  She’d been aware of his stubbornness her entire life, had learned that very trait from him, among many other things.

  She was, after all, in countless ways him; at one point he’d been the only influence in h
er life.

  His stubbornness was all he had toward the end; his strength and will gone, it was the sheer inflexibility of his dark heart that kept him going.

  And that was what finally prompted her to act.

  She made a phone call, then left the small cottage and traveled twenty miles down the mountain to Bariloche, where she acquired what she needed from his doctor.

  As was the case with most residents of this remote Argentine city, the doctor was a German by birth who still spoke German and was likely not far from death himself, having arrived here in the same influx of European immigrants in the 1940s.

  Situated in the foothills of the Andes, Bariloche was akin to an Austrian ski resort; its deepwater lake, surrounded by snowcapped mountains, was more Alpine than South American.

  As she began the return trip up the treacherous mountain road, she hoped that in her absence the man who had raised her had passed. But upon her return to the cottage, she found that he was still living—still barely living—and so she had no choice but to follow through with her plan.

  Of all the kills she’d taken part in, none had been in the name of mercy, which meant this was new territory.

  But newness appealed to her, drove her in her personal life toward occasional recklessness—a counterbalance to the precision and precaution that her profession demanded.

  A month shy of fifty-five, she’d been killing since she was twenty, though she had taken part in several of her grandfather’s kills prior to coming of age and turning pro.

  She’d been fifteen when he initiated her apprenticeship, bringing her along when he journeyed to Mexico City to assassinate a general whose campaign against drug cartels had become too successful.

  A man traveling with his lovely and doting granddaughter had made for a good cover.

  There wasn’t a month that went by that she didn’t dream of that journey, reliving in vivid detail the night she had first observed the act of one person killing another.

  But she and her grandfather had drifted apart over the years. He hadn’t aged well, becoming sick and feeble of both body and mind, and her busy schedule had kept her on the move and unable to make it back to the cottage, which because of its seclusion wasn’t an easy journey.

  She knew, though, that the inconvenience was an excuse and that it had been her choice to pull away from him for the sole reason of sparing herself from having to witness the inevitable degradation of the man to whom she owed everything.