The Devil's Playground Read online

was volunteering to bring him to a meeting, the aforementioned asset known in the CIA, 'Thesiger', was in his Georgetown home with his nine-month pregnant wife, Clara Martinez-Ashley, attempting to build a cot for their baby that was due any day.

  "Babe, you built hotels for a living," his wife said with a chuckle. "What's so hard about a cot?" She laughed at his attempt to construct it.

  "I had staff, darling," answered the Englishman in his typical deadpan voice, ignoring his wife's humor while trying to read the instructions.

  The ring tone of his BlackBerry on the table by Clara saved him from a further jesting. His wife of one year picked it up. Her face immediately turned serious.

  "It's the Director," she said referring to the man they both worked for as she handed him the phone.

  "Director," answered Rob Ashley.

  "Sorry to bother you, Rob," stated Ali Mansoor. "But I need you to come in right away," he said, not wasting any attempts at small talk.

  "No problem," answered Rob, "I will be about half an hour."

  "That's fine," answered Ali. "Oh, and wear a suit," he ordered before he clicked off.

  The look on Clara's face said it all. He smiled at her.

  "Go take a shower, I will finish this," she ordered with a sympathetic smile.

  He nodded. Marrying her was the best decision he had ever made in his life. Apart from the fact Clara was sexy as hell, with her exotic Latino looks and fiery temper she never complained about him disappearing at a moment's notice because, like him, she had been a covert Logistics Planning Officer with the Special Activities Division, so she knew through bitter experience what the job could do to relationships.

  They had first met in Adwalland, almost two years ago when she, two of her team members, plus his own control officer had been captured by a man he knew from his days working for the Sheikh, a man called Sir Thomas Litchfield.

  The Agency had sent Rob into the theatre in an attempt to cover up their involvement in the coup that almost brought two of the world's superpowers, Russia and the United States into conflict only to have his "false flag" cover and twelve years of work blown in an instant by a bodyguard of Litchfield.

  In what could only be described as an example of "Man plans, God laughs" the bodyguard turned out to be the very same courier of "Mossad", the Intelligence Service of the State of Israel, had used to delivered the explosives to him in Dubai for his first sanction for the Agency nearly eight years previously. With his NOC (non-official cover) blown, Langley had no choice but to bring him home, so to speak.

  Armed with his new nationality and a rather unique set of business skills they then immediately set him to work in his case officer's SAD team, whose sole function was to run covert and clandestine operations across the world that protected the natural resource interests of the United States of America.

  Despite a difficult and frosty beginning between the pair of them, something he had later found out from her had been a direct consequence of seeing him "tap" (the slang to describe the execution of a target twice in the head with gunshots) the handcuffed mercenaries the Agency had used in Adwalland, in front her in cold blood. Their trust and friendship had quickly grown into something else after an operation in Caracas just six months later when after several bottles of red wine on the plane, Rob had, out of the blue, confessed to her to how and why he had come to work for the Agency.

  Why he had done so, he still had no idea. He was just glad he did.

  The years of dealing and peddling in secrets and death came flooding out of him, if not his missions. Without saying, a word Clara had leaned across to him and kissed him on his cheek. The aloof cool manner that he had initially seen as a challenge was gone in an instant. By the time, the pair had returned back to the office everybody could see straight away that the body language between them had changed.

  With that bond in place it had taken merely weeks for that friendship to turn to romance, then marriage less than six months after that in front of their respective families at her parent's home in California. To Rob, his wife and their baby she was carrying were all the justification he now needed for all the decisions had been either forced or taken in his life. Without them, he would have never had met her. For the first time in his life he had no regrets.

  The journey took Rob just twelve minutes in the silver Porsche Cayenne Turbo S from the new townhouse he had just purchased for Clara and their family. In most circumstances, an Intelligence Officer earning just a hundred thousand dollars a year, driving a car like that and the purchasing of a house worth over seven million dollars would have immediately sent alarm bells ringing through the FBI and the internal security of the Agency. But Robin Ashley wasn't your usual run-of-the-mill asset. After twelve years working for the Sheikh of Dubai, it was declared fact within the Agency Human Resources department that fiscally he had done quite well out of the position. So as far as Rob was concerned he wasn't going to start pretending to be something he wasn't just because of a few eyebrows were raised out of what he perceived as petty jealously.

  The prissy forty-something lady from Human Resources was a case in point. The disapproving face when he had handed the woman a piece of paper with the amounts he had in his Swiss accounts as part the declaration process still tickled him although he hadn't admitted it to anybody, including his wife.

  "That is a considerable amount Mr. Ashley," the woman from HR had said with a little gulp and disapproving look when she saw the amounts. "You have to ensure it is all transferred it to a U.S. Bank," she instructed once she recovered. "Employees of the Agency aren't allowed to keep foreign bank accounts," she clarified for him.

  "No problem," he had replied with a smile. "I don't suppose you have a friendly banker I could use?" he asked.

  "No," was all the woman had said with a look of disgust.

  The truth was he didn't need the money the government paid him. The interest he earned alone on his investments paid him ten times his annual salary as a government employee, and nor did he need the money they had paid him as back pay when he finally picked up his U.S. Passport and had started work at Langley. Yet to Rob the salary he now earned was the most honest money he had ever made in life.

  When Clara told him she was pregnant, it had completely blown him away. Apart from the moment being the happiest day in his life, he saw the pending birth of his child as the perfect opportunity to do something different.

  "I am going to set up a Foundation," he had said to said to Clara over breakfast just a few weeks ago.

  "To do what, Honey?"

  "I don't know, Darling," he replied. "I will let our children decide when they are old enough," he answered.

  "Children!" Clara said with a raised eyebrow. She had been having a difficult time with this baby so he mentioning the possibility of another one wasn't exactly the smartest move he had ever made.

  "Child," he said with a sheepish smile in an attempt to disarm her. "I am going to have my salary paid into it," he told her with conviction.

  "That's sounds great, Honey," she had said with a small smile then a stroke of his face before going back to her cereal but not before shaking her head again over his children comment.

  Whenever Rob walked into the lobby of the George H.W. Bush Centre of Intelligence, a sense of pride always hit him. The reason was simple. It was because he believed he belonged to an elite group of shadow warriors whose sole role was protect the innocent and fight against tyranny.

  Today was no different.

  Walking past the CIA Memorial Wall and its 107 Black Stars, the grey Moroccan goat skinned Book Of Honor in its glass case containing the names of the officers who have lost their lives in service of their country, and over the marble floor with the richly colored CIA Seal that lay engraved into the floor as he made his way through the controlled entrances at the back of lobby, Rob found to his surprise that the Director and his case officer and immediate boss, Navjot Sidhu, were already waiting already for him.

  "This must b
e serious," Rob thought, as waiting for him the lobby meant the situation, whatever it was, it had to be an emergency, as it must have meant that his superiors had been notified the moment he passed through the front gates. Time was of the essence.

  "Sorry to drag you into the office," offered Navjot with a warm smile, knowing Rob was actually supposed to be on leave for a week.

  "Don't worry about it, you saved me from building a cot," answered Rob.

  "How is Clara?" enquired the Director with a lack of a smile.

  "Nearly there, Sir," answered Rob with a smile. The Director had a reputation for being useless at small talk, even though it was meant to be second nature for a field asset that the Director had once been, was legendary.

  "We're off to the Office," informed Navjot, using the term for the Director of the Central Agency's domain, changing the subject immediately back onto that of business.

  "The Headmasters Office," stated Rob, "I must be in trouble." He flashed his trademark smile.

  "Something like that," offered Ali, ignoring Rob's British sense of humor,

  The journey to the Director's office took the three men a matter of minutes, passing through the Director's Gallery with the portraits of the previous holders of the office as they walked. Once they reached the entrance to the self-contained private office of the Director, the three men presented their IDs to the two uniformed Protective