McLean VA.
02.45am EDT
Clayton Webb walked into the Directors outer office, announcing his arrival to the bored looking night secretary behind the desk.
"He'll see you now Agent Webb, go right in."
She said, plastering a fake smile on her overly made-up face.
"Thankyou."
Clay walked through the thick wooden door and into the Director's office, behind the large desk on the other side of the room, Tim Fawkes spoke quietly but firmly into the handset of his phone.
"I don't care how many people we have to put on this, I want it taken care of?we can't afford to have him running around Sydney. Not so close to the Olympics."
He leaned his head back against the high back leather chair.
"Who's your best profiler...fine...get her on it immediately and keep me updated."
He placed the phone in its cradle and turned to Clay.
"Where am I headed this time?" Clay asked with a rueful smile.
Tim Fawkes looked at the young Agent sitting in front of him and smiled.
"I've heard Sydney is lovely this time of year!" He said, running his hand over his bald spot.
"What's the problem?"
"Thorpe." Tim said watching Clay closely for his reaction.
Clay's eyes snapped up to meet Tim's.
"I thought Thorpe had been taken care of?"
"So did we, apparently he escaped from prison and has been raising hell in Sydney."
"How many agents have we lost?" Clay asked.
"Three already, all of them stationed in Sydney...2 of them were deep cover assignments and I'll be damned if I know how he found them."
"You want me to go down there and help out?"
Tim nodded as he tried to gauge Clay's state of mind.
"You've come up against Thorpe before and bested him, we need someone that knows the way he thinks...when this came up I was pretty sure you'd want to be involved."
Clay nodded, Tim was right he did want to be involved.
Clay and another Agent Georgina Metcalfe had put Jack Thorpe behind bars 4 years ago after he brutally murdered seven field agents who tried to put a stop to his drug & weapons smuggling racquet with a Cuban militant group.
Thorpe was the toughest adversary Clay had ever come up against in his time in the CIA, and it now looked like he was going to have to do it all over again.
"When can I leave?" Clay asked as he stood up and walked to the windows, staring out at the still sleeping world
Tim breathed a sigh of relief.
"You're booked on a flight into Kingsford Smith from Dulles at 04.00, I'll have a pack made up with all the information you'll need waiting on the plane. Our Sydney office has a profiler working on the case at the moment, apparently she's very good, you might want to liase with her first and see what background she can give you about the current killings."
Clay nodded and pulled his coat on.
"I better go pack, anything else I'll need?"
Tim shook his head and Clay nodded and left his office.
Tim leaned back in his chair and ran his hand over his eyes.
"Luck Clay, you're gonna need a whole lot of it." He said softly.
14 Hours Later
Kingsford Smith International Airport
Sydney, Australia
Clay walked through the security check with little more than a wave of his badge and collected his suitcase from the luggage carousel.
He had slept little on the flight over, something he knew he would pay for later when the jetlag caught up with him.
Hailing a taxi from the rank outside the terminal he made his way to his hotel.
CIA Branch Office
George Street
Sydney
Georgina Metcalfe stared at the morgue photo's spread out before her and gave a frustrated sigh.
Her investigation was going nowhere fast and her superiors were putting pressure on her for results.
She looked again at the pictures of the dead agents, several of whom she had counted amongst her friends, and shook her head.
For all intents and purposes the man that committed these crimes seemed to be going out of his way to show them exactly how many 'styles' he could kill in.
Each murder had been meticulously planned and carried out with frightening precision.
She knew there was a common thread amongst the victims, but as far as she could tell the only thing these three people had in common was their work for the CIA, but why had just these three been singled out?
She knew was missing a giant piece of a very elaborate puzzle, she only wished she could figure out what it was.
"George?"
Her partner Daniel Troy poked his head around the corner of her office a smile on his good looking face. "You planning on coming to this meeting?"
"What meeting?" She asked with a weary look.
"Meeting the new guy, just in from the states. The Director sent him down here especially for this case."
"I'll meet him later, I wanna keep working on this..."
Daniel walked into the room and stood behind her chair putting his hands on her shoulders.
"What time did you get in here this morning?" He asked as he began to massage the kinks out of her neck.
"About 7am I think, itmight have been earlier."
"And have you have any coffee this morning Ms Metcalfe?" He said grinning behind her back.
"No... but I can't just leave...."
"Yes you can, come to this meeting, meet the new guy have some coffee and then come back and lock yourself away til 3pm."
He said logically.
Georgina leaned her head back and looked at her partner, who's blue eyes sparkled beneath dark brows.
"I hate it when you assert your logic like that,it annoys ..."
"The hell out you,yeah you keep telling me George. Now get over to that meeting room now!" He said grinning.
George heaved a sigh and stood up, pulling on her jacket over the short sleeved top she wore.
Buttoning the suit she walked across the office chatting to her partner about her total lack of theory on the killer.
"So you still can't find motive?" Daniel asked as he handed her a steaming cup of coffee.
"Nothing concrete. I mean, this man has all the markings of a serial killer, yet none the abject behavioural problems you would normally associate with a serial killer...."
Her voice trailed off as she entered the meeting room.
Clayton Webb sat at the meeting room table, reviewing the current file on Jack Thorpe.
He picked up the cup of coffee and took another sip of the strong brew, letting it course its way down his throat.
The door to the meeting room opened and the Jason Allenby Director of Operations for the Sydney office walked into the room, settling himself down in the chair furthest from Clay and regarding the younger man with a suspicious look.
"Problem?" Clay asked without looking up from his file.
"How long are you here for?" Allenby asked.
"Until Thorpe is found and taken care of, so depending on the co-operation of your people, I could be here a long time or no time at all!" Clay said looking up and locking stares with the older man.
Allenby broke from the stare first, nodding towards the door.
"They're here."
Georgina opened the door to the meeting room and walked in, setting her papers down on the long table she nodded at Allenby in greeting, then turned her gaze to the man at the end of the table.
Clay froze as his green eyes locked with a pair of equally startled blue ones.