The Hidden Vector: A Spy Thriller

by Mathew Snyder

  “Evening, Paul. You doing all right?” A rabble of restaurant voices bubbled under Harley’s drawl.

  “We need to meet. Tonight.”

  “Sounds urgent. What’s got you all shaken up? I hear from Suzanne there was a little trouble yesterday. I was hoping you’d stay home and take some time for yourself.”

  “No, it’s not about that. It’s that top priority we discussed. It can’t wait.”

  “All right then. I’ve got something for you myself. There’s a place over here in Georgetown called Montrose Park. I take the dog for a walk there from time to time. As good a spot as any.”

  Harley picked the place a little too quickly for it to be mere convenience. He lived in Georgetown, so the park was familiar ground for him. It would be a public place, but out of the way and probably dark. If Harley wanted him dead, the place didn’t matter much. His knowledge of Harley’s involvement was his only leverage.

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” he said.

  “Make it two,” Harley replied. “I’ll see you then.”

  ◆◆◆

  Paul drove over the Key Bridge into Georgetown where the waterfront lights stood tall on the still Potomac. The city came alive there at night in the trendy clubs and invitation-only cocktail parties. Janey had dragged him to a few of those over the years in the same streets he drove down now. He had no cause or desire to return, and yet there he was driving the narrow lanes where the row houses and old brick mansions closed in on an endless parade of parked cars that claimed space for the lucky. People strolled in groups on the sidewalk so close he could hear their mundane conversations as he drove by.

  He found his own luck at an open spot along R Street near the hedges of Montrose Park. Under his dark pullover, he wore an old neck wallet. It was a tourist’s trick to protect passports. Janey bought the thing on their second trip to Rome. He didn’t have any use for it until now. He knew how to avoid the pickpockets whose tricks weren’t so different across the continents. Now it held Janey’s iPhone flat against his sternum. He tapped Kay’s number and spoke into it, then patted down the tiny bulge in his shirt.

  On the floor of the back seat behind him lay the shotgun and a box of buckshot shells. He had covered both with a dusty blanket from the garage—one Jacob had used at summer camps years ago. The gun was a last resort, but now he regretted ever bringing it along. The phone would be enough. He could leave no room for regret now.

  The summer night air hung perfect and still. An older couple walked ahead of him holding hands while the old man whistled, but the drone of cicadas drowned out his tune. The sound hummed above Paul’s head like a warning not to enter the darker foliage and open grass of the park. He strode down the brick sidewalk to the open path at the park’s entrance and let the couple on the sidewalk carry on their stroll.

  The park appeared empty. In the corners of his vision he watched for movement as his eyes adjusted to the dark. He wandered past an old tennis court worn past repair with cracks of moss pushing up through the dark asphalt. He followed the smell of grass deeper into the park. Harley lurked somewhere in the shadowy grays ahead waiting for him. He walked like he did in his dreams. He was alone but steady and unhindered by the small voice in his mind that warned him of his demise. He floated along, his head swimming like a drunk’s, carried by his determination to hear Harley admit his part.

  Ahead he saw a flash of lighter gray. A dog paced in a quarter circle, leashed to a figure standing still under an oak’s branches. He recognized Harley standing in the dark waiting for him. Harley still wore a sport jacket without a tie and a white shirt that reflected the scant light down his heavy torso like the pallor of a mushroom.

  “Hey there, Paul. Hell of a nice night, isn’t it?”

  “Harley.” He nodded while his eyes scanned the park beyond the path where they stood.

  “This here’s Cicero. Not exactly a killer attack dog. Are you, boy?”

  The dog snorted and brushed its body along Harley’s leg. He reached down his heavy hand and scratched behind the mottled dog’s ears.

  “You got a dog?” Harley asked. “Cicero’s what they call an American Staffordshire terrier. You should get yourself one. It’d do you some good. Keep you company.”

  “Very loyal. So I hear.”

  “Nothing more so,” Harley replied. He stood and nodded to the eastern side of the park. “Let’s walk a little.”

  They strolled farther into the park. Cicero trotted between them, claws clacking on the blacktop path.

  “I don’t know that I should tell you this right now, but I got word today Ethan Pierce may be involved in all this,” Harley said.

  “Not possible.”

  “Are you so sure about that? Looks like he may have staged his disappearance. We’ve got some bits of video and now a credible threat on his ex-wife. The whole god damn thing’s a mess. We’ve got a good officer in the hospital. An old friend of yours, I hear. Walt Russell. We should at least consider the possibility that Pierce is involved.”

  “No. Not a chance. I put him on that assignment myself. It’s a smokescreen.”

  “Suzanne isn’t so sure about that.”

  “Then she’s wrong, for Christ’s sake. Pierce is the only reason this mess isn’t worse.”

  “Look, it’s been a long week. Things on the ground have changed. I’m just saying keep your mind open to the idea. Like I mentioned, maybe I shouldn’t have told you just now.”

  Paul shook his head in disgust. Harley didn’t believe it any more than he did, but no one else would know it. He had to get Harley to reveal himself before Pierce became a scapegoat.

  “Now, let’s talk about what you have for me.” Harley said after they’d walked a few yards more.

  “I found one of them.”

  “One of what now?”

  “Someone inside the Agency. One of the drivers who killed Janey.”

  “I’ll be damned. You’re sure? You’re accusing a man of murder here. One of our own.”

  Yes, one of our own, Paul thought. He wondered if Harley even considered his role and the hypocrisy of his smug Southern charm. Harley believed himself untouchable, peering down from some unassailable height in his climb to power. Paul realized Harley saw it all as the justified means to an end. He began to understand why Harley had sold his soul.

  “I’m very aware what it means. I’m sure,” he said.

  “Have you gone to the police? What about the Bureau?”

  Paul thought he heard a hint of anxiety in Harley’s voice. His pitch raised a minuscule amount, like the changing speed of the cicadas chirping in the cooling air. Harley would protect himself at every turn, and Paul had to be ahead of him to witness it.

  “No, I’m talking to you first,” Paul said. “As much as I want justice, there’s more at stake here. There are others. If I want real justice, I’m going to get all of them.”

  Including you, he thought.

  “Well I appreciate that. Could mean the difference in cleaning up this mess once and for all. It’s a good damn thing you came to me first. I can give you all the access you need to identify everyone involved. Now, just who are we talking about here?”

  “Do you know David Caspari?”

  “Can’t say that rings any bells for me. He’s your suspect?”

  Paul hummed assent. He almost admired Harley’s response. Not a trace of hesitation betrayed his reaction. Paul knew he lied, of course. He had the photo to prove it. Paul took his mendacity as confirmation of Harley’s role as handler for the traitors who killed his wife. But he needed more. He needed Harley to say it.

  They stopped at the edge of the park where the ground eased into an old city graveyard. Gravestones hovered like ghosts in the faint light. Cicero sniffed the ground between them.

  “You used to train recruits at the Farm,” Paul said. “What was that, about eight years ago?”

  Harley shrugged. “Give or take. Why do you ask?”

  “Just that I thought there w
as some chance you ran into him. You had to see a lot of our officers go through the program. Must be a good way to learn names and faces. I looked up his file earlier today. He actually went through the program about that same time. You don’t remember him?”

  “Afraid not. Caspari? That what you said his name was? He must not have trained with me.”

  “I guess not. What about Brian Crowley? He trained at the same time as Caspari. You didn’t seem too familiar with him the other night.”

  “No. He’s involved too? Looks like your hunch was right about him after all. They may have trained together.”

  “It looks that way. A coincidence like that made me curious. That’s intelligence work. That’s all it ever is. One coincidence after another until you can see the shape of things.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re driving at,” Harley said. He shifted his stance while they stood side by side overlooking the rise and fall of the cemetery hills that folded down out of sight. Harley let Cicero’s lead drop on the ground while he fiddled with his pocket.

  “Maria Hessler. You remember her. She trained with them, too. It’s all connected. The three of them and more. I can tell you what they had in common, but you already know. I found an old photograph of you, Harley. Looks like you knew them after all.”

  Harley turned to face Paul.

  “That’s a hell of an accusation. Just who do you think you are?”

  “I’m the guy who hounded after more than you really wanted. You thought you could control all this, didn’t you? Christ, Harley, people are dead. You killed my wife, you son of a bitch.”

  “Not me. Never me.” Harley raised a compact semiautomatic and pointed the gun’s long suppressor at Paul’s heart. “But maybe they should have killed you instead.”

  “So why didn’t you? Why her, Harley? Janey had nothing to do with this. You killed an innocent woman for nothing.”

  “Turn around,” Harley said. With his free hand, he searched Paul’s pockets and ran his meaty hand down his body from arm pits to ankles. He took Paul’s phone and tossed it into the graveyard. Cicero started at the sound of it in the grass and barked once at the spot where it landed. Harley hushed the dog with a kick.

  “They didn’t kill her for nothing. Look at you. Master and commander of everything halfway around the world. But take away your comfy little home life and you fall apart. I hate to see it come to this. Truly I do. If you would have just done what I told you, we wouldn’t be here right now, would we?”

  “I’m right where I need to be,” Paul said.

  Paul raised his head and turned slowly toward Harley. His eyes locked on Harley’s face. The shadows crawled into the crevices of his eyes and jowls, and Paul saw the age and wear deeper than before. His lips quivered and Paul sensed weakness. Whether doubt or regret, he couldn’t say.

  “I thought you were smarter than this, Harley. Did you think I’d meet you out here, knowing what I know, without a plan? Without some insurance? You honestly think I give a damn whether you pull that trigger?”

  Harley raised the barrel to Paul’s forehead. “You’re bluffing.”

  Paul’s eyes narrowed. He felt no sense of fear, no pulse pounding rush. It was a feeling unlike anger, unlike any he had a name for. He wanted Harley to face an anguish worthy of his misdeeds. He wanted it more than he desired life, and he would fulfill that wish alive or dead. He already had fulfilled it.

  Paul moved his hand toward his chest. Harley’s fist tightened. The pistol’s tip shook, moving in nervous circles at his forehead. Paul tapped the slight bulge at his chest.

  “They’ve heard every word.”

  Harley’s face fell. The shadows fell longer on his open mouth and sagging eyelids. He lowered the pistol.

  “I’m a dead man,” Harley said with a whisper.

  Harley looked at the gun in his hand as though realizing for the first moment what he held, like an infernal revelation of his self-constructed torment.

  Paul had nothing more to say. He turned and walked away, awaiting the bullet to strike him at any moment. He crossed a walkway and continued on toward the streetlights far away when the shot came. His body jerked, startled by the sound. He felt no pain. He waited for a second shot to take his life, but nothing followed the echo of the first loud report. The shot came from farther away, from someone else—a rifle’s report unmuted by a suppressor that shook the night. And then nothing. Scorpio had taken care of its own failures. He wondered if it was Caspari or Crowley who pulled that trigger. Or was it someone else? Why didn’t they shoot me? But there was no one to answer for him.

  He turned back toward the darkness and saw Cicero trotting toward him, his leash trailing behind without a master.

  Chapter 23: Killing Stroke

  MSC Aria, The Black Sea

  4:50 p.m., Sunday, June 23

  From the air Ethan watched the Aria cut against the waves with a great arcing tail of white wake on the sea. The massive ship curled westward toward the afternoon sun on a course the crew no longer steered. The ship’s second officer had established contact with the helicopter’s pilots and explained she had lost control of the ship’s helm.

  As they flew two hundred miles over the Black Sea, he had heard the officer’s voice in his headset. She had no idea what was happening or why. She knew that just hours before the ship strayed uncontrollably in aimless circles, her captain had fallen ill.

  To her, these two misfortunes had no connection. It was the kind of bad luck that gave her a chance to prove her mettle to the cruise line bosses. He admired her calm, though he could hear the frustration grow as she snapped orders at the bridge crew. Things would only worsen for her because she didn’t yet see the common thread that hung at her neck like a garrote wire. She faced a planned malevolence. Once she realized what was happening she could only minimize the damage.

  He wondered again about Scorpio’s plan. If the captain had already succumbed to the virus, then there were others. Korkolis had chosen the ship to spite him. He called it an experiment, though the idea of that seemed to Ethan as petty as it was insane. Please let her be okay, he thought. The updates he heard over the radio suggested that she wasn’t.

  The Sea Hawk helicopter circled the massive ship that towered over the waterline like a white palace. Wade sat across the helicopter’s cabin from him, next to one of the two Navy corpsmen that flew with them. He occupied the harness seat hanging from the cabin ceiling like a man born into it. In the seat he was both at ease and ready for action with hard grimace partially concealed by the Oakleys that hugged his temples.

  Ethan had him to thank for getting them both this far, though they’d lost valuable time coordinating between Langley and the captain of the USS Vella Gulf. In the morning something changed, and somehow Wade convinced Suzanne Tasker that he needed Ethan to assist. They had boarded the Sea Hawk to contain the situation. But Wade knew why he was there. He had to find Sarah.

  With a nod from one of the corpsmen, Wade pulled on a thick pair of leather gloves.

  “You ready for this?” Wade asked.

  “I don’t really have a choice,” he said.

  “It’s like we talked about. Control descent with your feet. Don’t let yourself go too fast, or your hands will burn like a bitch and a half.”

  Ethan nodded.

  “And don’t let go.”

  The crewman opened the door, and the roar of the rotors slicing overhead drowned out all sound. They dropped the heavy ropes to the deck below, and with a tap on his helmet, Wade descended.

  Ethan stood and watched him descend. He held fast to the harness overhead. His muscles ached. Every movement sent stiff pain through his sides and his legs. He saw Wade clear the zone and wave at the cruise ship crew waiting on a lower deck.

  The chopper crewman signaled for him to descend. He gripped the braided ropes and swung out into the open air. He felt nothing below and kicked his legs frantically. The downdraft spun him around, and he felt like he’d fallen free of the ro
pe. The rope became a blur in his hands. Heat surged through the rugged gloves like a warming oven. He hit the hard deck out of breath and fell in an awkward roll.

  The corpsmen followed, and the Sea Hawk ascended away from the ship.

  “That was damned ugly,” Wade shouted over the thunderous noise from above. He picked Ethan up and patted his shoulder, then pulled him toward a stairway where a ship’s officer greeted them both with a salute.

  “Are you the officer in charge?” Ethan asked the woman saluting.

  “Second Officer Lucia Ranieri,” she said.

  He recognized her Italian accent from the radio. She met him in height, and her face was as calm as her voice. She wore an orange jacket over her white uniform with her hat tucked under one arm.

  “The first officer is with engineering trying to restore the helm. Is this all of you?” she said.

  “There are more on the way. But the helm is the least of your problems right now. How many are sick?”

  The question confused her, and her dark eyebrows closed together in frustration.

  “I don’t understand.” She held a hand to halt Wade as he dropped gear on the deck and checked his weapon. “Are the firearms necessary? We don’t normally allow that. You’ll frighten the passengers.”

  “I don’t think you do understand, lady,” Wade said.

  “Ma’am, please. The outbreak is extremely serious. This is no ordinary illness,” Ethan said.

  “What do you mean? How do you even know that?”

  “Because you’re facing a biological weapon attack.”

  Her once serene face fell into a pained look. Her eyes danced from him to Wade to the ship decks beyond where passengers lounged, many watching the spectacle of the helicopter drop.

  “How many are sick?” he said.

  “Around twenty, I think.”

  Kamran had said the virus didn’t spread easily, but Scorpio had managed it in two days. More would contract the disease from the twenty alone. More still would become infected if they didn’t find how Scorpio brought it on board.