Read [Thomas Caine #1] Tokyo Black for Free Online

second.
    He looked around and saw Lanky had managed to drag himself under the picnic table for shelter. He wasn’t moving, but Caine could tell he was still alive.
    That’s okay. One is enough. This time.
    As the crowd parted, he saw Narong, still standing by his table, still holding the rusty pair of pliers. The old man grinned, raising the old tool in a jaunty salute. Caine could just make out the small, white tooth in the pliers’ grip. His emaciated patient nodded and clapped his hands. Blood and saliva dripped from his mouth.
    That was the last thing Caine saw before the guards forced their way through the crowd and began pummeling him with their batons. He made no move to resist. He sank to the ground and let the blackness fall over him like a blanket, numbing the pain of their blows.
    When he fell unconscious, he was smiling.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Rebecca sighed and leaned back in her office chair. As she massaged her temples, the plastic clicking of computer keys filled the air. It sounded like the mocking chatter of a high-tech rodent.
    She returned her attention to the pile of dossiers spread before her. Assassins, mercenaries, disavowed agents … a grim cast of unsavory players covered her desk, a collage of dark, bloodstained history. Each sheet of paper detailed the secret career of a highly trained killer. These assets were used discreetly by the CIA, but never appeared in official agency records. They were independent contractors in the world of espionage.
    Across from her, Ethan’s fingers scurried over the keyboard of his custom PC rig. Twelve liquid-cooled processing cores sifted through mountains of data. Every now and then, a promising dossier filled his screen. These were printed and added to the ever-growing pile of paper on Rebecca’s desk. But each time she read them over, something wasn’t right, some element was missing. What Allan was asking for, the timeframe he had given her … only the perfect candidate would have any chance of success, and so far, that candidate was proving elusive.
    “Ethan, at the very least, I need someone who can speak Japanese, for God’s sake!”
    Her information specialist didn’t even look up from his keyboard as he printed up another batch of options. “Hasn’t exactly been a hotspot for us lately, you know? Speak Arabic, welcome aboard, pop the champagne. Speak Japanese? Enjoy your tentacle porn. Know what I’m saying?”
    She threw several useless dossiers in the trash.
    “Uh, aren’t you supposed to shred those?”
    “Let’s just burn the office down. It will be easier in the long run.”
    The problem, she thought, was that Ethan had it exactly right. For at least the last fifteen years, CIA asset recruitment had focused on the Middle East with a laser-like intensity. True, they had successfully infiltrated cells of Al-Qaeda and similar extremist groups. But the agency now found it difficult to rapidly mobilize elsewhere in the world.
    She stood up and stretched her arms above her head. “This operation is going to crash and burn. And Allan set me up to take the fall. The Extra Departmental Assets Group is bullshit…. This whole thing is a big red bullseye painted on my ass.”
    “My ass, too, boss.”
    A soft electronic chime sounded from Ethan’s computer. “Hold the phone … what do we have here?”
    Rebecca walked over to his desk, leaning over his shoulder. “What have you got?”
    “Curiouser and curiouser … I’ve been running traces on old aliases … you know, fake identities, backstopped covers that we provided. Sometimes these freelance players are so far removed from their original identities, it’s easier to track down the alias, right?”
    “Yeah, I get it. What’s so interesting about this one?”
    Ethan looked up over his shoulder. “Do you mind? Personal space.”
    Rebecca bit her lip and took a step back.
    “Okay, so if any official agency runs a check on one of these IDs, I get a flag here. And a fingerprint ID check was