The Spy Devils by Joe Goldberg (top rated books of all time .TXT) 📕

phone, then removed the battery and SIM card. He tossed the phone out the window, then, after several blocks, he tossed the battery. He stuck the SIM back in his pocket.

They exchanged a nod and smile. The mission was a success. No problems. No witnesses. They had the case. The boss would be pleased. But they were wrong. They had failed to recover the small device from the pocket of the dead man they left in the burning car.

2

The Streets of Taipei

Taipei, Taiwan

“They’re chatting and looking around. Checking for surveillance,” Bridger announced in a calm voice.

He had been on operations like this so many times over the last half-decade his pulse never wavered. It was the waiting that distracted him, and the fact he allowed it to distract him, even briefly, distracted him even more. Patience is a virtue, says the proverbial phrase. Bridger tried to live by it—but he was willing to adapt to circumstances.

Bridger was ready. His team was ready. The mission was in motion and ready to drop like a sledgehammer on the assassins. He looked at his Shinola watch, which displayed, “it’s time to fuck with these guys.”

The sky was bright blue. The air was refreshing. The 7-Eleven smelled like mint air freshener and steaming hot noodles.

The ambush was set.

Bridger sat at a short counter by the windows of a 7-Eleven that provided a direct vantage point to observe the corner of Guangfu Road and Wenchang Street in central Taipei. Bridger was amazed at the quantity of 7-Elevens that dotted the Taipei metro landscape. Every block seemed to have at least one of the popular convenience stores. They were busy all the time, with lots of people standing around eating, reading papers, or just staring into space. This made them perfect locations for static surveillance.

Outside, his covert team, now known worldwide as the Spy Devils, surveilled and waited. His people controlled this area, and only they knew it. Soon, two more members from China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), Bureau X, code named Dragon Fire, would be well aware of the situation.

“Guud mawnin. I teenk we need ah cawplah yuuuuuge egg rolls, right?” Snake said in a bad accent mixed with a thick layer of his linguistically strange New York dialect. He was on a scooter, circling randomly through the nearby streets and neighborhoods. No pattern. No street traversed twice.

A few chuckles squawked in his ear.

“Snake. Concentrate,” Bridger said in a serious voice. “No mistakes.”

“Ruyz-ah-Roynah,” was Snake’s reply. More chuckles.

“Beast? Demon?” Bridger queried his men hiding in the garage around the corner from Bridger’s position.

“We’ve got the van covered,” Beast’s baritone voice reported.

“We were here all night, dumbass,” a rock-crusher voice crackled over the secure radio. It sounded older, more traveled than the others. “We ain’t sipping a latte. We’re still in this concrete shithole.”

“Remind you of home, Demon?” Snake asked.

“Fuck you.” It was Demon’s standard reply.

That reminded Bridger to issue the warning.

“Demon. Please, don’t kill them.”

“Fuck you.”

“Imp?” Bridger asked.

“No signals at all. We are clear.”

Imp, a twenty-something with bloodshot eyes behind thick tortoise shell-framed glasses, sat at a corner table near a window of a 7-Eleven two blocks away. He was looking at a series of colored boxes on his laptop screen. With modified commercial software and several micro antennas, Imp was able to monitor police and emergency communications. Another antenna scanned for static in the encrypted frequency bands. Imp made sure the two security cameras screwed to the ceiling of Bridger’s 7-Eleven were not functioning this morning.

The two MSS officers, which they had identified as Bai and Peng, were getting closer. Bridger read them like the receipt from last night’s noodle dinner.

Bai was just that—at least a foot taller than his colleague. Powerful, with a barrel chest and a confident demeanor. Large and in charge. The more senior intelligence officer. His partner, Peng, was the opposite. Unpretentious. Wimpy. A follower in every respect and not helped by the ill-fitting tan suit that hung off his body like melting skin.

They had yet to kill any of the Dragon Fire team. They did that themselves. Killing violated his Spy Devil Rule Number One: No killing unless there is no other option. Also, there was a small chance he would violate Spy Devils Team Rule Number Two: No mistakes.

Bridger hated mistakes. Treating any operation as routine would get them killed. He sniffed for anything that smelled of routine. Predictability was a death sentence in espionage. It was what she had taught him—year after year after year.

“They are coming in,” Bridger informed the team. He expected the assassins to make one last surveillance detection stop on the way to the garage—and they were.

As they approached, Bridger sipped his tea and read his paper. Three other morning loiterers were at the counter. For now, he was simply a businessman enjoying the morning.

Bridger had the kind of looks that allowed him to morph into invisibility. Even at thirty-nine-years-old, he was still Brad Pitt handsome. Five feet eleven. Toned, lean, muscular body. Sandy brownish hair that appeared to alter its tint with the sun, or the angle of his head. His eyes took on the nearest color. Hazel. Not brown. Not green. His complexion was just a permanent shade below a light summer tan. No moles, scars, dimples, or unusual features. His voice was neutral American Midwest, but accents of any kind were not an issue.

He was a clean canvas for disguise kits.

This morning, it was reddish curly hair with thin-rim glasses. An average blue business suit. White shirt. Solid blue tie. The blank jet-lagged stare of an ordinary forty-something American traveler staying in a congested area of Taipei’s business district. Boring. Common. Invisible.

Bridger took one glance in their direction. Their strides were a few inches too long and paced too quickly for the small space. Peng was glancing around too much. Bai’s neck muscles were tight. Their arms and hands were tense. Tension around their eyes. Their wiggling hands were unnatural. Their rate of breathing was too quick