The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller

by Mathew Snyder

  “What are you talking about? What happened?”

  “I don’t know, really. She was getting a ride with someone late Saturday night. The car hit a wall and she was killed.”

  “An accident then?” he stammered. It sounded impossible, now of all times.

  Russell gave him an incredulous look while he fidgeted with his crumpled pack of cigarettes to fetch another smoke. “Never met her, myself. I hear she was a remarkable woman.”

  “I did,” Ethan said. “I didn’t know her well, but she was very good to my wife and me. They invited us into their house a couple times for dinner.”

  Russell took a long drag on his newly lit cigarette. His eyes winced a little. “Ah, the famous Corso dinner parties. I would have liked to have seen one of those. You’re married?”

  Ethan took his time to respond as he thought of pleasant evenings that seemed nearer in time than they were. He could see Jane Corso smiling. He heard Sarah laughing as she put her hand on his thigh, relaxed for the first time since she came to the city.

  “I was. What about you?”

  Russell shook his head. Ethan observed a slight of smile crawl across his lips.

  “Not for lack of trying. A long time ago now. Life has a funny way of deciding what you’re good at. And what you’re not. Here I sit.”

  Russell’s smile flattened once again, and the silence held all of them. Ethan’s thoughts of Sarah remained. She came into his mind like an apparition. It was what Russell had said—that life decided what he was good at. Maybe life decided for her, too. He wanted it to be true. They had what they were good at together, and the remainder pulled them apart like water from the shore. He saw some solace in that. That’s what Russell had. The comfort of being good at something five thousand miles away from everything else. The ease of laying blame at the feet of time and chance. But it was a lie, and he knew it. He pitied Russell, but he found no peace in lies he told himself. He bore the blame, but there was no going back to her now.

  Everyone and everything around him were a teetering intersection of lies, like the ragged scaffolding outside the window. Sitting there inside the jumble he began to lose sense of things. There were the lies they told to operate, to stay alive, and there was the stack of lies they hammered at that had now pulled the weight down on Jane Corso. Her death was no accident. There was no sense to it, but there was human agency. Someone killed her.

  “What now? Without Paul, we can’t very well outrun them.” Russell said.

  Ethan’s hands tighten into fists at his side. He wanted to shout, but he kept it within himself, a growing thing that turned his stomach and spun around in his head.

  “We can’t wait,” he said. “You know we can’t. That’s what they want. Damn it, we’re not letting them do that to us. We go on without him.”

  Russell took the cigarette from the corner of his mouth. “Let’s get started then,” he said, his expression implacable.

  Tuesday came with no response from Langley. Word would come soon, though Ethan dreaded the call. Paul’s absence might spare him the futility of condolences over a secure line. He needed Paul back in the lead, guarding his back from angles he couldn’t cover in the field. Even more they needed a sign that Scorpio had responded to his reports. They had to be ready.

  He walked along the side streets toward Unirea Shopping Center near the city’s heart. Tucked behind the ostentatious building splashed with backlit logos he found what he sought—a large parking garage that spiraled up four floors. Despite its shabby exterior, the garage interior was newly finished. Bright lights reflected off the concrete floor. Newer model cars filled almost every space, and the midday shoppers paced around him on their way to the mall entrance. He noted cameras positioned above entrances, but they didn’t cover every corner and curve. Light security would help his plan, but he had to be careful about securing the right spot when the time came.

  He entered the mall and browsed the shops as he worked his way to the upper floors to return to the garage. At the top level the spaces were mostly vacant, and he wandered around feigning confusion and impatience while he memorized every pillar and sign. Gaps to the outside air narrowed. All but one faced the windowless walls of the surrounding buildings. With the right angles, he could avoid any field of fire they might position. In all, the place suited him, though the parade of shoppers could interrupt the meet.

  They spent two days running his gambit, rehearsing the shifts as each of them drove separate vehicles, trading tails of the oblivious shoppers Ethan chose for them. He picked random people leaving the fourth floor of the garage, then radioed to the team the details. Russell met them at the garage exit and trailed to the Strada Sfânta Vineri, where Tereza could intercept if they went west. Leo pointed his car east. Wade stayed on foot near the electric rail station where he could cover the train route.

  With each rehearsal they traded positions, leading each new unsuspecting target into a practiced game of track and evasion. Most were easy marks, but Ethan made everyone learn the bustling streets and the timing of traffic signals and electric rail. With so little he could control, he needed them ready for anything to track their target—with or without him.

  On their second run on Thursday, Ethan parked his car in the garage and chose an Audi parked nearby. He lingered, awaiting the Audi’s owner. A woman in tight jeans and heels returned to the car after a half hour. She teetered in the heels as two large and glossy shopping bags swayed at her sides. He radioed the team and set them in motion. In the seat next to him, his phone flickered.

  “Dodger, this is Hourglass,” a woman said. He didn’t recognize her voice. “I’m afraid I have some unfortunate news. Your supervisor is away on a family matter.”

  “So I heard. Took you a while,” he said.

  “Yes, well, it’s been a difficult week. I’m confident we’ve figured out a solution. You’ll be hearing from me for the time being. I’m fully briefed on your situation. How are you holding up? I understand you knew the family.”

  It was Suzanne Tasker, Paul’s boss. He knew her mainly by reputation. She’d risen to command like a diligent bureaucrat. Paul kept her out of his hair, and now he had to rely on her guidance. She was trying to build rapport with him. If this was the call he anticipated, she was a tainted messenger who lured him into a trap while he did the same with whoever sent the message. Whether or not she knew it, for now they were two adversaries dueling over the transom. He could not afford her consolation.

  “We’re wasting time,” he said.

  “I thought you’d want to know.”

  He didn’t respond. Out his windshield, the Audi’s reverse lights brightened the garage floor slightly as she backed out. He activated his radio to signal the team. He wanted to see how well they’d coordinate without him.

  “I’ve reviewed your newest reports, and I think we found something of interest. One of our assets in country indicates he has information on the kinds of lab equipment you specified in your reports this week.”

  That was the sign he’d waited for. Scorpio got the message.

  “What do you know about this asset?” he said.

  “I’m told he’s been useful in the past. He has contacts in organized crime in Bucharest.”

  “Contacts?”

  “Again, that’s what I’m told,” she said.

  “And he just happened to say he has a lead on HEPA filters? That’s convenient,” he said.

  “No, he did not specify. The agent is cautious, understandably. He wishes to meet. His handler positioned the deal as a payoff for intel on the syndicate he works for. That should put you at an advantage. You can conduct the meet and interview him. Encourage him to tell us what he knows.”

  “Then I’ll need more cash to close a deal with this guy. And I arrange the location.”

  “It’s unlikely he’ll agree to that.”

  “Then he won’t find the deal very beneficial all by himself.”

  “Very well.”

  “Ha
ve the ops officer arrange it. I’ll meet him in downtown Bucharest. At the Unirea Shopping Center garage, fourth floor. Tomorrow at 0800 hours. I’ll be in a silver Volkswagen. Message me to confirm and send me his file.”

  “That’s incredibly fast. Where are you now? We can arrange for more resources in place to better prepare. You’re going to need additional support.”

  “Just make the meet happen. We’ve got to keep this operation alive.”

  I’ve got to keep myself alive, he thought as he hung up. He had an obligation to keep the team he’d assembled safe as well. He took a risk in shutting down Suzanne like that, but he took a greater one in letting her in on his plan. Whoever they were, they could find him and Wade easily enough. He couldn’t give them enough time to disrupt everything.

  Through his radio earpiece he heard the team tail the blonde north to the edge of Old Town before he called them off. Without his input, they had traded positions twice and kept her in sight amid a late afternoon rush of cars. They were ready. He had spent the week focused to the point of trance on the plan. He simply pushed away the sorrow he felt about Jane’s death. He shoved off any notion that circulated in the back of his mind that he was somehow to blame.

  He left the Volkswagen parked in the ramp. The spot was ideal for the meet tomorrow with a clear view of the entrance ramp and an easy course to the exit. In the shopping center he strolled down to the lower floors. He passed a pretty girl with round and rosy cheeks who leaned over her perfume counter and smiled at him. She spoke a greeting to him he couldn’t decipher and held up a tiny bottle with a garish gold cap. He waved her off as he walked, but his focus finally broke. In front of him a sign read Arsis, and he entered the small store to buy a prepaid SIM card and a cheap mobile phone. The saleswoman babbled at him while he handed over a wad of lei for the phone. Her eyes widened at the bundle of cash he stowed back into his pocket.

  Outside amid the honking and thrum of the traffic he assembled the phone and dialed from memory his old phone mail service. The phone was a mistake and against every security protocol he knew. He couldn’t help himself from entering his passcode. She hadn’t left him a message in months. There was a new message. He heard her voice echoing back from three weeks ago.

  “Ethan. It’s me. It’s Sarah. You know that. I know it’s weird to call you now. I hope you’re doing okay.”

  Her voice faltered. He strained to hear her and pressed the phone closer to his ear.

  “Listen, I need to let you know something. I’m getting married. I know that’s not what you want to hear right now. I’m … I’m sorry I’m telling you like this. It’s just, I needed to tell you. Kerim and I are getting married this summer. I’m really happy now, Ethan. I want you to be happy for me, too. God, I just wanted to talk to you and know you’re okay. I know it sounds crazy after everything between us, but I’m going to miss you. And you deserved to know. So, I hope you’ll be okay. I know you will. Bye, Ethan.”

  As he walked back to meet the others, he listened to her message four more times.

  Chapter 15: Desperate Void

  Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania

  11:18 a.m., Thursday, June 20

  Paul sat atilt in a folding chair draped with crushed velvet. Beneath his feet was a carpet of artificial grass laid over the freshly dug and uneven earth. Janey lay locked away in a casket before him beneath a mound of brilliant red roses. He held one of them in his left hand, its color as deep and red as blood. His son Michael had pulled the rose free with tiny motions until its long stem was free and the bloom drooped under its own weight. Michael freed another and brought it to Janey’s sister, who sat next to him. She wept, but Paul had cried all his tears for today. With his other hand, Paul reached out to the lacquered walnut casket and felt its perfect smoothness under his fingertips.

  When his father had passed, his mother seemed lost to everyone around her. The loss had so absorbed her every thought that she walked in a foggy stupor able to focus only on the man who left her behind. So, it came as a great surprise to him that his attention now awakened. He remembered every sight and sound, every grieving face that pitied him. Amid their family and the friends standing in the unmowed grass nearby, he heard every sniffle and sigh. He glanced at the trees wagging in the summer breeze that carried the faint aroma of chocolate from the town’s factory. For all of these things, his mind became a chronicler.

  Perhaps this was his real punishment. That he would relive every sensation that filled the cavern in his head and echoed against the walls there as sharply as the vision of Janey’s face when she last held his hand in hers and said good night. For all the hurt, he held on to that and prayed a silent promise that he’d suffer through any pain and guilt to keep from forgetting her face.

  In the last four days he watched Michael transform—as though guided by Janey’s spirit—into the gracious family host. He’d become a rock for everyone’s crashing waves of tears. He had greeted the guests from his mother’s hometown in the entrance at St. Peters and embraced them smiling. Jacob took his mother’s death harder. Paul watched his elder son close up as the week progressed. Now Jacob wiped tears and heaved in the chair beside him as his no longer little brother wrapped an arm around him.

  What could he tell them? For them this was a tragic accident that killed two innocent women, their mom and her best friend. That they collided headlong into a road barrier became for his boys one of the meaningless tragedies of life. One that for them would shape how they saw the world, and how they would cope and someday tell their children. But he knew better. How could he conceal the truth from his own children? He had no choice. Maybe someday, for their sake he could explain this was a vicious move by enemies he couldn’t name. These enemies did it to punish him, he believed. To deter him without raising too much suspicion so that they could visit further evil on more innocents. For now, he contained the anger as simply another sensation he memorized in every detail. Soon he would have to shape and guide that in the direction of those who did this to his wife.

  Father Carson embraced him as the crowd returned to their cars along the narrow cemetery lane. “She’s in God’s hands now, Paul,” he said.

  Paul heard the words as abstraction, another echo to recall in his head. He had little sense of the sentiment or what it meant anymore. Beside her grave, he hugged his sons together. Their heads touched and he whispered to them.

  “She loved you boys more than anything.”

  Jacob sniffled and slapped him on the back.

  “I know, Pop,” Michael said.

  ◆◆◆

  By nightfall, Paul returned to an empty house. Janey’s friends had cleaned the place for him. They packed away every dirty dish and neatly tucked away each scrap of paper on her desk by the phone. They erased any sign he and the boys had spent the week eating pizza and casseroles or that he made funeral arrangements on the backs of envelopes. Now the kitchen was bare and dim. The weak bulb under the stove hood shed some light on the island counter where the friends left him a bittersweet note and a loaf of homemade bread. They had lost two best friends that night. Linda drove Janey home after the benefit, and now both were gone. The ladies grieved a great loss, but for him and his sons the loss felt limitless.

  He left the other lights off and felt his way around the counter to the liquor cabinet. There he stood and stared at the open cabinet lost in thought as the day repeated itself again and again in his mind. He lost track of time. A bottle of vodka stood taller than the other bottles that glinted in the low light. He weighed drinking himself to sleep against making some coffee to fuel the insomnia.

  A tap on the back door knocked him out of his stupor. He started at the sound and leaned to look out the kitchen window. A tall bulwark of a man stood on the back step. For a moment he thought to grab a kitchen knife, then shook off his irrationality. No doubt someone had come to check on him. It was too large to be one of the boys. He crept toward the door to take a look. Someone in a tie and dark coat. Who the hell w
ould come to the back door? He flicked on the back porch light and revealed Harley Gilchrist squinting at him. Paul unlocked and opened the door.

  “Christ, Harley, what are you doing here?”

  “I know it’s a hell of a time to bother you, Paul. Can I come in?”

  He opened the door and let Harley inside. The man’s girth filled the door frame, and Paul stepped back into the kitchen to give him room. He turned on the kitchen light and met the ruddy faced giant.

  “My sincerest sympathies to you, Paul. I didn’t know your wife, but I hear tell she was one of a kind.”

  Paul nodded a quiet thanks, but the puzzlement deepened on his face. Harley surveyed the kitchen, pausing at the hallways and the windows. He avoided these and settled himself against the counter.

  “Looks like you were fixing to have a drink,” Harley said. He pointed at the high open cabinet near his head.

  “I was until I thought better of it. I was about to make some coffee. Can I get you some?”

  “Coffee sounds just fine. Hold up, is that a bottle of Balvenie? A thirty year?”

  “Help yourself. It’s not my favorite. It was a gift from my father before he passed. That was his kind of thing.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. No, sir, I couldn’t. That’s some gift. Your old man had good taste. The coffee will do me just fine. I shouldn’t be drinking that stuff as it is.”

  Paul set water on the stove, then found the grinder and poured in enough of the aromatic beans for the both of them. Harley asked about the service. Somehow, Paul didn’t mind. Harley had no obligation to be there, and he found it oddly comfortable to detail the day as he prepared the coffee. Talk of the funeral put them both at ease as the water came to a boil. Strange as it was to have Harley visit, Paul appreciated that his interest seemed genuine. He knew Harley was a keen observer of details, of course, so he obliged the man. He did it more for himself. He told him about Michael’s eulogy and the long procession down Market Street where the old houses and empty porches with flags rolled out for summer saluted a hometown girl.