Shadows of War Read Online Free PDF Page B

coincidentally, about a yardstick taller than Malaysia’s Petronas Towers I and II. The tower’s foundation was considered a modern engineering marvel, due to the wet ground that characterized so much of the city.
    Mara glanced around as she joined the line to the escalators up to the skytrain. Bangkok was home to hundreds of spies from nearly every nation on earth, and it was not unusual for them to try to keep tabs on interesting Americans, whether they were known CIA officers or not. Two weeks before, Mara had been followed for several days, apparently by a Russian freelancer who bought her cover as a local sales rep for an American medical-equipment manufacturer and was trying to hunt up information for a Swiss firm. Either he’d lost interest or figured out who she really was; in any event, he’d disappeared without making an approach.
    She missed him, in a way. He’d added a little spice to her mornings. Things had been dull since she’d come back from Malaysia.
    The escalator moved swiftly. People stood only six or seven deep on the skytrain platform, a sign that there would be at least a five-minute wait for the next train. Mara wedged her way through the crowd, once again looking to make sure that she wasn’t being followed or observed.
    The CIA’s Thailand bureau, traditionally one of the agency’s biggest in Asia, had grown exponentially over the past four years, and with space at the embassy at a premium, many of the officers worked in one of the “outbuildings”—secure suites rented by the CIA nearby. Mara’s office was in a building two blocks from the embassy; the agency leased five whole floors, but the offices were located in only two. While security was tight—the elevators had been rigged so that they couldn’t stop at the floor at all, and the stairwells were guarded by armed men—the “annex” had a much looser atmosphere than the embassy. The jokes were bawdier, and the coffee was better.

    Or so the annex’s unofficial mayor claimed. He was in rare form when Mara arrived.
    â€œYou look just mah-valous,” Jesse DeBiase bellowed as she stepped out of the stairs. “Come taste some of the best joe this side of Seattle.”
    â€œI don’t think I can drink another cup today,” said Mara.
    â€œBut dah-link, you must. Think of your fans.”
    â€œAll right, Million Dollar Man. If it’ll make you happy.”
    DeBiase bowed. Just about everyone in the station called him Million Dollar Man, though most had no idea where he’d gotten the nickname. A few thought it was a reference to an op he’d run years before. In reality, he’d been awarded it decades before because his last name sounded the same as Ted DiBiase’s, a pro wrestler popular at the time. Why the CIA had ever hired a wrestling fan remained one of the agency’s most perplexing mysteries.
    DeBiase was one of the deputy station chiefs, in title the annex supervisor, though he claimed his authority barely entitled him to order stationery. Mara had no idea what the Million Dollar Man did beyond telling stories to his officemates; he had never given her an assignment nor mentioned any of his. The latter might not have been particularly surprising, except that the Million Dollar Man talked so much about everything that it was hard to imagine that he would be able to resist at least hinting, indirectly, about things he had done in the distant if not recent past. But DeBiase never talked shop that way, and never seemed to have any appointments that had even the vaguest possible connection to espionage, real or potential. He was either very old-school about keeping secrets, or an officer who’d spent his career being promoted sideways and had never had anything real to do.
    Probably the former, but you never could tell.
    Today’s topic was his upcoming hernia operation, as yet unscheduled, but planned for the first week or