The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller

by Mathew Snyder

  Hector drained the last of his wine and examined the glass as he licked his moistened lips.

  “You asked why I do this,” Hector said as he held the glass. “A physician should address the source of infection. You agree? The means to combat a pathogen is to ensure it never enters the host. Here it is the same, though the scale is macroscopic rather than microscopic. You see, doctor? I admit the vanity of poetic symmetry. We will administer your virus to prevent the metastatic affliction of those who abuse their power. A difficult preparation for a simple objective.”

  “What could that possibly be?” Kamran said.

  Hector set the wine glass on the table before he answered. “Burn the village down.”

  “I will never help you do this.”

  “But you already have, doctor. Only details remain, which your laboratory companion can complete. Did you know she is my daughter? Of course not. She is more than capable, and she has helped me know something very important about you these many weeks.”

  “What do you think you know about me?”

  “Despite your pitiable attempts at defiance, I know you’re not willing to die.”

  Hector spoke the truth. They observed him more closely than he thought. The little black orbs in the lab watched as he worked. Were there more cameras in the room where he slept? Was it his daughter informing them all along? Let them watch, he thought. What could he do but play along, much as he had all his life? Hector was another revolution peddler who peered only at him, not within him where something had changed. They had changed him, though not as they believed. It was the same in Iran. Even in Russia. Yes, he feared his own death, though not at Hector’s hand. He would show them real defiance.

  Lost in thought, he felt a shiver on his neck. Hector raised his thick eyebrows at a man standing in the cafeteria’s open doorway. It was Andrei, who Kamran knew would have no trouble at all killing him. Kamran feared Andrei more than any of them. He wore a workman’s jumpsuit speckled with dust. His clenched his jaw like a trap and gave Hector a terse nod. Hector arranged his knife and fork at a precise angle on his plate and rose.

  “Please, eat your meal before it becomes too cold to enjoy,” Hector said.

  They left him alone in the cafeteria. Kamran hunched over the plate and stuffed bits of the fish into his mouth. The food had cooled, but the delicate flakes almost dissolved on his tongue. His glands watered at the citrus sting of it, and he chewed the last bites slowly to savor before gulping it down. He reached for the rest of his wine and knocked the glass over, spilling some on the tabletop and onto Hector’s leather folio.

  His hands shook as he dabbed the spilled wine with the cloth napkin. No one disturbed him. He glanced at the door, but there was nothing. He dabbed again, then peeled back the cover of the folio. The papers within were dry, to his relief. He cocked his head to spy at the contents within. A ledger of figures with notes in pen scrawled on the margins appeared atop a thicker booklet. The arcane figures of business meant nothing to him. He peeked at the booklet’s brilliant blue cover with a photograph of a cruise liner in the Mediterranean, surrounded by inset images of the Istanbul skyline and white terraces of the Greek coast. Pristine white letters covered the photos—Aria. He closed the book and wiped again at the droplets of wine that covered the folder and tabletop, hoping the sweet alcohol smell wouldn’t reveal his blunder and snooping.

  Hector returned alone with a wide-mouthed smile.

  “Wonderful news, Dr. Khorasani. We have a visitor. Someone I’d very much like you to meet. As I suggested earlier, I have a reward in mind for you and for our new guest as well. He comes to us from the American’s own CIA. Imagine them having great interest in you. I assure you he is very eager to meet. The gentleman’s name is Ethan Pierce, and you’ll have great deal in common with him soon.”

  Chapter 18: Hidden Message

  McLean, Virginia

  9:20 a.m., Friday, June 21

  Paul crawled along with the mid-morning traffic along I-66 before turning his Lincoln north to avoid the accident site where Janey died. The word accident played in his head, and he frowned. It was no accident. He knew that. He also knew he couldn’t sit at home any longer while they were out there. When he saw his own haggard face in the mirror that morning he stared at the face of an old man, wrinkled and worn down by his addiction to the work. The eyes staring back were the last remnants of his youth. Janey always said they were his best feature. He wondered how he had lost the youthful defiance that once kept him alive and alert in the field. God, I could use a cigarette, he thought.

  He left his car at the far end of the south parking lot where the rows of cars worked like a timepiece, filling hour by hour in the morning. As late as it was, he headed directly to the operations center where he waved his badge and almost fell into the locked door. He pushed again, but the door refused to budge. They had revoked access to his own team.

  “Damn it,” he muttered aloud to himself. He pounded on the door, but no one answered. Along the hall, the commotion drew the looks of analysts and admins passing by. He pounded louder.

  “Christ, people, open the damn door.”

  His mouth tightened and his forehead warmed as tiny beads of perspiration formed. How could they do this to me after what happened? He’d done nothing to deserve this treatment. This didn’t happen just for bereavement leave. Someone made this happen. He pounded again, louder than before.

  The door opened and a finely manicured hand appeared. Suzanne Tasker held the door open and stood in the door frame blocking his path. She wore a blouse buttoned at the neck that seemed to make her head balance upon her shoulders like a finely dressed mannequin.

  “Paul, please calm down. That isn’t unnecessary.”

  “Suzanne, what the hell is this?”

  “I can see you’re upset,” she said. “We thought this the best course of action considering what’s happened. I can only imagine what you’re going through, but we didn’t expect you today. Harley said he spoke with you.”

  “He did, but not about this.”

  “I see. Well, I can assure you I have everything well under control. I just spoke with your team. All operations are running smoothly.”

  Her eyelids fluttered as she spoke. He knew that she lied.

  “Like hell they are.”

  He swallowed the bile rising in his throat. He wanted to shout at her, tell her she was missing the obvious infiltration their new adversary had orchestrated. He wanted to scream and tell her they had killed his wife. She couldn’t imagine it. Instead the words caught in his throat in a reflex of self-preservation. Telling her anything informed the enemy that their gambit to discredit him had succeeded.

  She crossed her arms and held the door open with her foot. Behind her he saw his officers at their stations doing the work he should be directing. Kay Linh sat up at her desk. She had turned to watch the confrontation at the door in anxious glances that confirmed something grave had occurred. He couldn’t interpret much else from her expression. Her mouth stayed flat while her eyes darted between her dueling supervisors.

  “Paul, I’m sorry for this situation and for your loss,” Suzanne said. “But I must ask you to calm down. Please, don’t make this awkward. We have a great deal in play currently. Your access to the operations center is revoked only temporarily. Why don’t you just go home and take more time?”

  “Where’s Harley now?”

  “I’m sure he’s in meetings. I promise you, I will manage the situation until you’re ready to return.”

  He glared. Suzanne stood her ground, though he detected her slip toward frustration when she cleared her throat. She outranked him, but she knew nothing about Scorpio. He doubted Harley had updated her, which meant every decision she made played right into their hands at the most crucial time. Was it her all along? After what had happened, he couldn’t muster surprise at anyone in the building. It could be her.

  He glanced again inside the room and sighed. He caught Kay’s attention, a
nd for the slightest moment she gave him a nod. He’d almost forgotten what he told her Saturday night. Look for anything. Someone had checked the files, and Kay knew it. He took her nod as confirmation. She couldn’t debrief him without compromising herself. He had to find a way for her to share.

  “I’m going to hold you to that. I’ll be back. Don’t fuck up my ops,” he said.

  Suzanne seethed at his outburst, but she didn’t respond. She retreated into the room, letting the heavy door close. Paul stomped to the stairway door and headed to his office on the floor above.

  His breath came heavy from the climb, and his heart pounded as he unlocked his office door. Dull gray consumed the unlit room within save the indirect sunlight where motes of dust swirled in the quiet air. The window wasn’t much—a narrow pane that overlooked a corner of the courtyard outside. The view was just a mirror image of the old building across the way, but it afforded him a little natural light. He closed the door and scowled at the motion sensing light switch that ticked meekly as he entered. He would have preferred a darker room to think, but he left the light alone and sat at his desk.

  A banana he’d saved for a snack last week lay in a drab brown heap on a napkin to his left. He had the good sense to lock away the Scorpio Compact files he’d read late Saturday night, but other administrative papers sprawled across the desk in disheveled stacks or tucked out of the way beneath his computer monitor and away from the phone console.

  Behind the phone perched a brass picture frame. Janey’s smile arrested him from the photo, and he studied her face. Her head leaned on his shoulder. The wind had teased her blonde hair, and it fell across her lovely eyes. They had taken a sailing excursion on Chesapeake Bay that weekend. It was years ago now, and he could still smell the salty southern breeze.

  He loved that photo, but now it summoned up an agonizing pang of guilt. Janey, what am I doing here? He should have been with her that night, not here in this office. It didn’t matter what he thought was important then. She was gone, and here he was back at the same damn place trying to watch over the same damn people that didn’t need him as much as she needed him. As much as he needed her.

  His admin left a stack of mail at the center of the desk. He shoved the pile aside, but as he did the corner of a baby blue envelope slid from under the white papers and manila packets. He plucked the thing from the pile and examined it. A dainty script on the front read simply Paul. It was a woman’s handwriting, precise and elegantly penned in ball point. He’d already received several sympathy cards at the house, but this was the only one in his stack of office mail.

  While his computer booted, he turned the card in the light. Nothing it could say would trouble him as the old photograph had. Even so, something about its singular presence struck him. He slid a finger into the envelope and tore open the card. It bore an illustration of lilies painted in soft strokes. He put on his reading glasses and opened the card. Wishing you comfort and peace. He had read dozens of similar thoughts this week. The messages blurred into meaninglessness for him. Each bore the same pablum of comfort and prayer. This one had no written note, but a pair of names signed in the same delicate handwriting from the envelope appeared below the message. Kay Linh & David Caspari.

  Paul held the card closer and squinted at the fine script. He didn’t recognize Caspari’s name. Kay wasn’t dating anyone serious. She wasn’t dating at all, as far as he knew. His demands of her here at the agency were partly to blame. She pursued her work like he once did—like he still did, out of old habit. He wanted to tell her to stop and find someone and leave this all behind. But he knew she didn’t want that. He didn’t either at her age, but at least he had Janey at his side all along the way.

  He entered the name David Caspari into the Agency directory on his computer. They may have revoked clearance to view anything operational, but he was still a deputy director. David Caspari listed as Collections Management Officer under the Community HUMINT Coordination Center. He couldn’t find any connection Caspari had with Kay. She was sending him a message.

  He knew what it meant. Caspari had accessed the Scorpio files. He smirked at Kay’s cleverness and flair for the old fashioned. He wanted to admire the bleak humor of it all and the absurdity of staring at a hidden message in a sympathy card meant for him. But the laugh came at too great a cost. He tucked the card inside the envelope flap and slid it back under the pile of mail.

  He had to learn more about Caspari, like where he had operated and who he worked with. If he worked alone against the Agency, things would be easier. He couldn’t imagine anyone that clever after all that had happened. Two vehicles ran Janey and Linda into the concrete divider, not one. Was it him? He wondered as he stared at the gray face and dark eyes in the ID photo on his screen. If Caspari did it, he wasn’t alone. He doubted Suzanne was involved, but he couldn’t be certain. He had to tell Harley all of it, but he needed to be sure. He’d need his clearance reinstated, and that would take too much time with Suzanne prowling the gate for him.

  Time was exactly what Pierce needed most. Pierce was still in the field and faced the real danger. He knew that much from Suzanne’s confrontation earlier. Something had gone wrong. She was stubborn and headstrong, but not much of a card player. That meant Ethan was in trouble, but it also meant Scorpio hadn’t killed him yet. He no longer held any doubt about whether they would try. He couldn’t accept losing another officer.

  Why didn’t they kill me? Janey had nothing to do with it. It should have been me, he thought.

  He knew then his misery was a piece of their plan. Someone who knew him was involved. Someone knew how much she mattered to him and how ineffective he would become. The grief and guilt fell onto him like a physical thing, weighing him down in his chair. His despair provided Scorpio the delay they sought. They had kept him alive to avoid suspicion. It was the only explanation he could understand. There was a sinister logic in it—simplicity even. In avoiding suspicion, they spared him and tortured him all in one stroke. But he knew what they’d done. Harley knew it too.

  He closed Caspari’s file on his screen and leaned back in the chair, hands folded at his face. He peeked between his fingers at the photograph of Janey whose laughing eyes now pleaded with him. He wanted to make peace with her. He longed to tell her goodbye and hear from her that she understood. She said nothing. She never would again. The idea of that left him numb to all emotion save one. It wasn’t wrath. He couldn’t honor Janey with revenge. This was a need for justice in a complicated game that no longer had any rules. He would set this right, or the deep and desperate void within his heart would erase the last of his soul.

  There was no more he could do at his desk but snoop around networked files while these traitors watched and waited. They had tricked the Agency into abandoning him. Abandoning the Agency in turn was the only thing he could do to counter them.

  The idea made his stomach flutter. He wasn’t sure if he could do this alone. He thought again of Janey, then pulled open his bottom desk drawer and found an old leather shaving kit. The brown leather had cracked over the years. He kept the thing as a sentimental token of his days in the field. He might have some use for his old tools yet. They didn’t let him keep his old .45 revolver here in the building, but he wished he had it now. He’d given it to Jacob a few years ago as a kind of family heirloom in place of explaining what his old man really did.

  He tucked the leather kit and Kay’s sympathy card into his suit pocket and left his office, wondering if he would ever return.

  ◆◆◆

  Two hours later, Paul checked himself in his Lincoln’s visor mirror. He’d driven to a townhouse in Clarendon, the most plausible of three addresses he’d found for David Caspari in the area. He studied the address via a map on his phone, memorizing the block’s environs.

  He’d replaced his tie and coat with a brown button-down shirt he picked out at a uniform distributor an hour earlier. The short-sleeved shirt, which hung from his body at a size too large, had no l
ogo on the breast pocket, but at a glance, he appeared like any delivery man in a drab brown shirt and khaki slacks. He left the Lincoln and pulled on a black cap. The tufts of his graying hair stuck out from the sides above his ears. Under his arm he carried a long and narrow box and a clipboard he’d found in Janey’s office at home. He smirked knowing that part of her was still with him, just as she had walked at his side several times when they had met agents in Bogotá cafes years before. She delighted at playing spy, but he stopped all that once he learned she was pregnant with Jacob.

  He spent the two-block trek to the townhouse thinking through the difficult contingencies. He plotted his entry from the front and then again from the back lane. If anyone answered the door—maybe a roommate or a family member—he’d feign a mistaken address. He knew too little going in. This wasn’t like an operation he oversaw with eyes in the sky and weeks of planning. He reached for his phone and muted the ringer.

  At the door he knocked and waited. A little awning shaded him from the bright summer sun overhead. He heard empty silence within—no footsteps or television. He knocked again and looked around the neighborhood street. A woman jogged past. She glanced at him then trained her eyes back on the sidewalk with twin white cords plugged in her ears. His breath came shorter. Act like you belong here, he told himself. He tipped his hat as he watched her slender figure disappear from sight.

  Through a window he could see a portion of the carpeted floor and the shadowy gloom of an empty house. Now or never, he thought. In the old brown shaving kit he found a pair of needle-like tools, one with a hard bend and the other with a crooked tine. He hadn’t done this in years, and never with a newer lock like this. Breaking into the flats in Bogotá was child’s play by comparison.

  He checked the doorknob. It turned free in his hand. He’d have to pick the deadbolt. He inserted the tine and began to turn, feeling for the subtle shifts at his fingertips. Another car passed. He heard the rush of its tires on blacktop, but he kept his focus on the lock hoping they ignored him. He was almost inside. Just another careful turn.