Tainted Asset: A Travis Bishop Thriller Read online

  TAINTED ASSET

  KJ KALIS

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2022 KJ Kalis

  eISBN 978-1-955990-18-9

  ISBN 978-1-955990-19-6

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved, no part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise including technology to be yet released), without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of the book.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published by:

  BDM, LLC

  ALSO BY K.J. KALIS:

  The Kat Beckman Thriller Series:

  The Cure

  Fourteen Days

  Burned

  The Blackout

  The Bloody Canvas

  Sauk Valley Killer

  * * *

  The Emily Tizzano Vigilante Justice Thriller Series:

  Twelve Years Gone

  Lakeview Vendetta

  Victim 14

  * * *

  The Jess Montgomery Thrillers

  The Trident Conspiracy

  The Patriarch Code

  Never Call Home

  * * *

  The Detective Morgan Foster Vigilante Justice Thriller Series

  West End Justice

  Blister

  Deep Deceit

  * * *

  The Travis Bishop Thrillers

  The Moscow Brief

  Threat Rising

  Tainted Asset

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Epilogue

  A Note from the Author

  Try these other books by KJ Kalis…

  1

  Travis kicked at a stray rock with the toe of his boot. He walked slowly between the outbuildings where his horses were being housed for the National Reining Horse Association Derby at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds. It was nearly two o’clock in the morning on a balmy night in June. After a long day of showing, every bone in his body ached, a headache collecting itself at the back of his skull, ready to pounce.

  A single light suspended from the top of a weathered telephone pole cast a yellow shadow over the edges of the buildings as he walked, the humidity of early summer in the Midwest carrying the smell of freshly cut grass, the sweet smell of oats laced with molasses used to feed the horses, muted by the acrid tinge of manure hanging in the air. Toads that had been croaking as he made his way between the buildings stopped, hearing the footfalls of a creature much bigger than they were, their noises starting again in his wake when they were sure he was gone. Off in the distance, he heard the call of a single owl, the haunting echo drifting off in the air. Travis glanced over his shoulder, staring at the shadows, wondering what other kinds of animals might be living in the fields behind the fairgrounds.

  He and his assistant, Ellie, had been at the Oklahoma City Fairgrounds for nearly a week. It’d been a long trip, longer than most of the ones they made with the group of reining horses they had in training at Bishop Performance Horses. The trip to Oklahoma City itself had been relatively straightforward. After packing up the gooseneck trailer with all of the feed, tack, and equipment they’d need for a week, they’d gotten the horses loaded with little fanfare, all of them except for Joker. The spooky gelding felt the need to balk a couple of times before finally realizing all of his stable mates were already in the trailer and waiting for him.

  The four-hundred-mile drive straight up I-35 into Oklahoma City was uneventful. They stopped every few hours to check the horses and get food and stretch their legs, finally arriving late in the afternoon after more than six hours on the road. By the time they got the horses unloaded, bedded down, fed, and watered, it was nearly dinner time.

  And now, nearly a week later, the show was almost over.

  By show standards, it had been a good one. Travis's horses had performed well, he and Ellie taking turns riding. Travis earned a spot in the finals for the pro division, and Ellie earned her own spot in the non-pro class. Two of the owners had flown out to see their horses compete as well, Georgeann and George Stevens, who owned Travis’s favorite black gelding, Gambler, and the Hawkins family, who owned both Joker and Smokey. Travis had spent the better part of the week dodging them as well as a handful of women who had figured out he was single, attracted to his tall, dark good looks. They went so far as to follow him to the bar in the main arena one night when he just wanted to sit down and have a regular meal, rather than eating everything out of a takeout bag Ellie had bought for him. He ended up getting that meal to-go, too.

  It was Travis’s turn to stay at the barn that night, but he was having trouble getting to sleep with the constant chatter of teenagers traveling in packs, walking through the aisles, and nothing better to do as they avoided their parents. Traveling with hundreds of thousands of dollars of equine athletes and equipment meant that someone had to be watching them constantly. Travis and Ellie had been taking turns sleeping in the extra stall they’d rented at the fairgrounds, the other one heading back to the hotel just outside the fairgrounds proper, for a hot shower and soft bed.

  It wasn’t that Travis minded staying at the barn. Sleeping on a makeshift bed of hay bales was significantly more comfortable than many of the places he’d been forced to sleep outdoors during his time with Delta Force in the Middle East. It was the constant barrage of people talking and asking him questions, the drone of the announcers calling the classes and the winners that went on day by day, that was wearing thin. Travis was used to a much quieter existence.

  But it was only for a few days. Or at least that’s what Travis kept trying to tell himself.

  There was only one full day left at the Derby, Travis realized as he walked between the long, dark buildings. Just one. He pulled off his baseball cap and ran his fingers through a crop of thick, dark hair. He’d taken a late night walk over the last few days, wandering to the back of the fairgrounds where nothing was happening, getting away from the constant thrum of voices and conversations and people coming up to him asking him questions. At the back of the fairgrounds, all was quiet. The only noise was the sound of his boots grinding on the gravel between the buildings and the animals and birds that lived nearby. The barns at the back of the fairgrounds were dark, dairy barns that were unused for the time being. All of that would change when the state fair kicked off, but by then Travis would be long gone.

  Travis continued walking, staring at the ground, his hands shoved in his pockets when he heard a sound to his left, gravel crunching underneath boots. He stopped, listening. His stomach tightened. He narrowed his eyes in the darkness, listening, pulling his hands out of the pockets of his jeans.

  Thirty feet ahead, a black silhouette emerged out of the shadows from the side of the barn as though someone had been watching for him. He licked his lips, waiting, as he glanced down at the ground. Without thinking, he grabbed a large stone gripping it tightly. If someone wanted trouble, he’d give it to them. He didn’t have his gun with him, but he didn’t need it. A chunk of rock would have the same effect in a pinch.

  Travis narrowed his eyes as the figure made its way toward him, “Travis?” a
female voice whispered.

  Trying to make out the figure in the darkness, Travis didn’t say anything, gripping the stone harder. “Travis? It’s me, Catherine.”

  Travis blinked. He’d only heard that voice one other time. It was at The Sour Lemon in Austin, a restaurant that served as a hub for intelligence officers who were looking for some camaraderie and dealmaking over burgers and bourbon. There were restaurants and hotels like it all over the world. The Sour Lemon was the version near his home base of Burton, Texas. “Catherine?”

  As the woman approached him, he saw her glance over her shoulder and then she grabbed his arm, pushing him toward the edge of one of the buildings, deeper into the shadows. It was so dark he could barely make out her face. Travis licked his lips, “What are you doing here?”

  The glow from the single light at the other end of the building gave him barely enough light to make out her features. “I’d be happy to tell you, but could you please drop the stone first?” she whispered in a thick British accent.

  “Sure.”

  The rock hit the ground with a dull thud, landing on a clump of grass. Travis looked at Catherine. The voice and the eyes were the same, but the face wasn’t. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a red shirt, a leather belt wound around her waist, and a light jacket on over her shoulders. Her thick blonde hair was braided around the back of her head, the tail of it hanging over her shoulder as if she was just one of the other riders at the show.

  But she wasn’t.

  The last time Travis had seen Catherine, she was sixty years old with gray hair and wrinkles.

  “What’s going on? You look different. Are you in trouble?”

  Catherine chuckled, a throaty, raspy laugh coming from deep inside of her, “You think I look different?”

  “You could say that,” Travis whispered.

  “When I met you the first time,” she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper, “I was in disguise for another operation. Didn’t take the time to take it off when I intercepted you at the bar. You didn’t actually think all of those amazing special effects were created in Hollywood, did you?”

  Travis shook his head, “Can’t say I’ve ever stopped to think about it. Been a little busy with other things.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Catherine glanced over her shoulder and then nudged Travis out of the shadows. “Let’s walk. I need to talk to you.”

  Travis followed Catherine away from the edge of the building and back in the direction he’d come, toward the abandoned sections of the fairgrounds, far from prying eyes and other people. As they walked, the sound of the night creatures got louder, toads, crickets, and the occasional rustling of an unnamed critter in the grass. The only other noise was the sound of the gravel crunching under their boots, echoing off the sides of the buildings as they passed. Travis glanced at Catherine. She was exactly as he remembered from the single meeting they’d had when he was a brand-new agent for the CIA. She’d intercepted him at The Sour Lemon, passing on an assignment from his division chief even though she wasn’t CIA. It was a test. Luckily, one he passed.

  Travis glanced at her. Catherine was small, feisty. If he had to guess, based on her reflexes, she was probably better with a knife than she was with a gun. She was wily, with a big personality, a quick tongue, and an even faster mind. He could tell she was the kind of agent that had been in and out of some tough scrapes but had managed to get away by the skin of her teeth. He bet there were scars on her body and mind, some that he could see and some others that he probably couldn’t. But, that was the life of work for the CIA, or in Catherine’s case, MI6, the CIA’s British equivalent.

  “I’m guessing this isn’t a social call,” Travis said, glancing down at the dark ground and shoving his hands in his pockets again as Catherine walked next to him. “Can’t say I was expecting to have a visit from one of my former colleagues this late at night or this far out in the country.”

  “Believe me, I wasn’t planning on it either,” Catherine said.

  Quiet descended between the two of them for a moment. Travis furrowed his eyebrows as he glanced at her. It was as if Catherine had something to tell him that she knew he didn’t want to hear. He scratched the underside of his jaw, feeling the rough stubble of a long day. “Listen, Catherine. It’s nice to see you and all, but you know as well as I do this is no coincidence. How about if we cut to the chase and save both of us some time?”

  He could see her smile in the darkness, the glow from the stars and the moon above enough to light the basic features of her face, “You’re exactly as I remember you, Travis Bishop,” she looked up at him. “Direct and to the point. You would’ve made a good MI6 agent.”

  “Except for the fact that I’m an American.”

  “Well, we all have our shortcomings,” she chuckled. They walked for another few feet before she cleared her throat, “You’re right. I’m sure my appearance here has been a bit of a surprise. You probably thought you’d never see me again.”

  Travis chuckled, “Honestly? If someone had asked me I would’ve told them you were dead.”

  “Dead?”

  “Because you were so old.”

  Catherine elbowed him, “Very funny.” Her face became still, as though the reality of what she was about to say was weighing heavy on her. Travis frowned, “What is it? Are you okay? Are you in danger?”

  Catherine turned and looked at him, putting a hand on his arm, “I’m fine. Look, Travis, there’s no easy way to say this.” She glanced over her shoulder in both directions before continuing, “I’m here as a courtesy. I heard something that you need to know.”

  A knot formed in Travis’s gut. Catherine’s demeanor and the tone of her voice told him that whatever it was it was serious. “Spit it out, Catherine. Enough with the dodging. What’s going on?”

  “The CIA wants you dead.”

  2

  “The CIA wants me dead?” Travis pressed his lips together. “What are you talking about? I’ve been out for more than five years. What could they want with me?”

  “I don’t know.” She shoved her hands into her pockets. “As soon as I heard, I grabbed the next flight from London. I know we only met that one time, but it just doesn’t seem fair for you not to know.”

  Travis’s mind was reeling. Was Catherine being serious? Was this some joke that someone had put her up to? Nothing made sense. “I don’t understand. How is this possible?”

  Catherine sighed, “I don’t know. The Director of MI6, his name is Archie Elliott. He pulled me into his office yesterday and told me he’d gotten a communiqué from one of our sources linked to the CIA, not actually from them, that a kill order had been put out on one of their own. When he told me it was you, I knew I had to do something. I felt like I owed you for taking care of that little errand years ago.”

  “Does he know you’re here?”

  Catherine nodded, “He’s the only one.”

  Part of Travis wanted to ask Catherine how she’d found him, but the question itself was ridiculous. She worked for one of the most powerful spy agencies in the world. MI6 had as long of a history as the CIA did, if not longer. The two agencies had worked together through multiple world wars and had ended political skirmishes across the globe, all in the name of helping to advance peace and Western ideals as best they could, and preventing disaster where they couldn’t.