by Jeff Gunhus
“What was her last wish?” he said. “The last thing that meant something to her?”
“That you lie to us, too,” Mara said. “That if we lost her, we ought to lose you, too. Now that’s some real selfless shit right there.”
“You’re angry.”
“Hell yes, I’m angry. Aren’t you?”
“I was. For a long time. Then I imagined what her life must have been like. Always in fear of being caught. Thinking she’d put you and Lucy at risk. In the end, she had to choose between killing me and taking her own life. She chose to save me.”
“So you could be framed for her treason?”
They both knew the history. Immediately after Prague, the Kremlin announced nine CIA agents had been arrested in Moscow, publicly revealing internal Agency documents that proved their guilt. Moscow proposed an exchange in a communiqué that was leaked to the press. Nine CIA operatives for the return of their agent, Scott Roberts.
“I knew about the nine agents,” Scott said. “But the offer to exchange them for me was a master stroke. I never saw it coming. Neither did Hawthorn. It was an outrageous move, even for the resurgent post-Putin FSB. Through back channels we found out that the strategy was coming from outside the normal FSB chain of command. That was when we first understood Wendy had likely been part of Omega. Hawthorn begged me to let him testify about what had really happened on the bridge, but I couldn’t.”
“Why?” Mara asked, the exasperation making her sound and feel like a teenager again. “What loyalty did you owe to Mom at that point? Me and Lucy, we were alive. We’d just lost our mother and you let them take you away from us, too?”
“It wasn’t supposed to be for this long. My plan was to get the proof that exonerated me without having to reveal your mom’s role,” he said. “You asked what I owed her. Everything. I owed her everything. So I intended never to reveal her secret.”
“Then why now?”
“I’ve justified not telling you for too long. You’re in the middle of it now. Risking everything. You had to know.”
“Is that it?”
He shifted position again as if answering the question was physically painful for him. “And because maybe I was wrong,” he said. “Maybe you deserved to know from the beginning.”
“The nine agents died,” Mara said. “Because you stayed silent.”
“No, the Russians wanted them dead either way. Or Omega did. It didn’t matter which in the end. Leaking the whole thing discredited Townsend, especially when the people around him tried to cover it up. It essentially ended his presidency. The Russians won because they destabilized the West. Omega cut off my operation to expose them. Only there was one problem.”
“Hawthorn helped you escape,” Mara said, putting it all together.
“Yes, even with the fabricated evidence and the Russian request to exchange for me, he knew I wouldn’t betray my country. We created a plan to infiltrate Omega.”
“He went inside and you worked on the outside.”
“It’s taken longer than I imagined. Omega is better than any organization I’ve gone up against. Decentralized. Firewalls between operating units. No one breaking ranks. But we’re close.”
“And if you get them, would it have all been worth it?” she asked. “All the lies. How about the nine agents who were executed? Would their families think it was all worth it?”
“Your mom gave the Russians the evidence. Or she gave them to Omega, who gave it to the Russians. Not that it mattered in the end. If I’d blown the whistle on her, that wouldn’t have changed the fact that they were spies. They knew the risks.”
“But you let everyone believe . . . you let me and Lucy believe. . .”
“I let you believe your mother was innocent,” he whispered. “Your sister died knowing her mother was a good woman who loved her. I kept the promise I made to the love of my life.” He looked away, his eyes closed as if the pain of memory was too much to bear. “Maybe someday you’ll forgive me. I just hope your mother will, too.”
* * *
They exited the silo once it was dark. Most surveillance drones were equipped with infrared to track heat signatures, but unless the operator tracking them had special gear, the battery would have already drained by this time.
Mara waited by the truck while her dad went into the house. She was still reeling from the revelations over the last hour. She was glad to be out of the stifling claustrophobia of the silo, and wished that she could somehow leave behind what she learned while in there.
She couldn’t stop rifling through every memory of her mom, wondering what was real and what had just been part of her cover. Had it all been a lie? When she’d cared for her while she was sick? The long talks at night when her heart had been broken in high school by Mitch Gainer? The tour they’d taken together of colleges in the summer between her junior and senior year?
All of her favorite memories of her mom came rushing at her, the same ones she replayed in her mind whenever she missed her the most. Only now they felt diminished, cast in a shadow. False, counterfeit experiences designed to sell a long-term cover.
She didn’t want that to be true. She wanted to believe that that part of her mom’s life had been real. But wasn’t that foolish? How could she accept that for most of her life, her mom lived in deep cover, betraying her adopted country, burrowing deeper and deeper into the intelligence apparatus, but somehow believe her maternal instincts had won her over in the end and made her love her children? Maybe even love her husband?
No, it was just sentimentality. It was what she wanted to believe and she was just rationalizing the pain away.
One thing was for certain. If she thought she was messed up in the head before with parent issues, she’d reached a new level in the last couple of hours.
“You all right?” her dad asked. He had a new duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Judging from the apparent weight of it, there’d been no shortage of guns and equipment to choose from inside the house.
“No. You?”
“I’ve had years to think about this. Digest it. You’re hearing it for the first time.”
“So you’re all right?”
He threw the duffel in the back of the truck.
“Hell no,” he said. “But I’ve had time for scar tissue to build up all my broken parts.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have time for that.”
“You will. After we finish this.”
“And how do you suppose we do that?”
“Hawthorn’s drawing out the leader of Omega for a face-to-face. It’s going to happen in DC. And we’re going to be there.”
“We need to get Joey.”
“Once we capture or kill the leader, Hawthorn’s guys are ready to relocate Joey to a safe location.”
“Why not do it now? You said Hawthorn has his own men watching Joey. Men we can trust.”
“Omega might be watching the site. It’s how they operate. Multiple layers. Everyone wondering if they are being watched.”
“And how do you know all this? That secret hand language you and Hawthorn have?”
Her dad grinned. “He whispered it in my ear when he dragged me to the hut. Why do you have to make things all complicated?” He jumped in the truck, the wisecrack remark signaling the end of the emotional bonding. Back to the safer ground of sarcasm and being a smartass. It was fine with her.
Mara climbed into the passenger seat. “Are you all right to drive?”
“Sure. I got some good rest.”
“Didn’t realize rest was a cure to being old as shit.”
He fired up the engine. “There she is. Ms. Congeniality. Welcome back.”
They tore down the gravel drive, leaving behind the farmhouse, and headed east toward DC.
* * *
They were in Ohio when she called Jordi on a burner phone she picked up at the truck stop.
“What do you have?”
“Thank God.”
She put the phone on speaker. “Wha
t’s going on, Jordi? You okay?”
“Am I okay? You’re updated in the system as terminated. And in the kind of files I was looking at, that doesn’t mean you were caught stealing office supplies and asked to report to HR. I hear an echo. Am I on speaker?”
“Yes, my dad’s here. This is Jordi. Jordi, Scott Roberts.”
“Hello, Jordi.”
“Hello, sir. Up until a few hours ago I would have told you to piss off.”
“And now you called me ‘sir’ like I’m an old man. You must have read my date of birth in my file.”
“I saw more than that,” he said. “Townsend is one messed up mother-effer, but he can tell a hell of a story. This has bestseller all over it. I mean, it might get him killed, but it’ll make good copy.”
Scott cast her a sideways glance.
“I need you to focus, Jordi,” she said. “Short version. What’d you find?”
“Don’t you want to hear what it took to break the encryption? Mind-melting algorithms. Nonsequential diffusion. Real transcendental work.”
“Can we stipulate that it was absolutely brilliant and get into what you found?”
“Give me fucking brilliant and I’m good.”
“Done. You’re fucking brilliant.”
“Damn right I am.” He took a deep breath.
“The drive had some financial information on it. Offshore accounts. Dummy corporations. The usual low-grade super-wealthy bullshit. Less than ten mil. Kind of sad, actually.”
“What else?”
“His memoir. The first two hundred pages or so anyway. He’s more James Patterson than James Joyce, if you take my meaning. A lot of action packed into those pages, not a lot of time spent on scenery.”
“What does he say about Omega?” Scott said.
“Quite a bit, actually. But not what I think you want. He calls it the greatest existential threat to civilization since the Cold War. If you believe him, they have people positioned in every power center across the world, keeping tabs on things, pulling strings when it suits their interest.”
“Sounds like something the tinfoil hat crowd will love,” Scott said. “Don’t tell me he thinks it’s the Illuminati, or that he goes all anti-Semitic on us saying it’s a Zionist cabal.”
“No, what he describes is more practical. It crosses political and even religious lines. It’s all about the accumulation of power and control.”
“You just described all politics,” Mara said.
“Only these guys stretch across international borders, use whatever methods they want, and have zero accountability. Jordi, what does he give for proof?” Scott asked.
“Not much. He tells stories of meetings with shadowy power brokers, conduits to something he calls the Council with offers to bring him on the inside. That it was prior to his fall from grace. And he talks about your mom, Mara.” His voice trailed off.
“She was part of it,” Mara said. “I know.” She hated saying the words. For some reason it felt like a betrayal. She knew it was ridiculous, but that didn’t change the emotion she felt.
“He talks about you, too, Agent Roberts,” Jordi continued. “Did you really punch the president in the face in the Oval Office?” The respect in the man’s voice was evident.
“Mara recently punched the same guy,” her dad said. “He said she hit harder than I do.”
Jordi laughed into the phone loud enough that the speakers distorted the sound.
“What else, Jordi?” Mara said. “Specific names. Contacts.”
“No, and I know that’s what you want,” he said. “That’s why he says he’s writing this. That once the world knows Omega exists, they won’t be able to hide in the shadows any longer. Well, that and the book is bound to make a shit-ton of money. There are some smut-filled chapters about his affair with what’s-her-name. Like I said, bestseller.”
“Thanks, Jordi. Keep your head down. If this doesn’t go well for the two of us, then you release the manuscript.”
“To whom?”
“Everyone,” her dad said. “But do me a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Redact the sections about Wendy,” he said. “Mara knows, but there’s no reason the world needs to know what she did. Joey doesn’t need that.”
There was a long silence on the line. Finally, Jordi asked, “Mara?”
She looked over at her dad and saw his pleading eyes. Even with everything that’d happened, he still wanted to protect her. At first she couldn’t understand why, but then it struck home.
He still loved her.
“Do it, Jordi,” she said. “Release it wide if they get us. Keep her name out of it.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “But I have a better idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Just don’t let these bastards beat you.”
Mara looked at her dad. He had his game face on. “That’s plan A. If there’s a way, we’ll figure it out. I promise you that.”
CHAPTER 30
Marcus Ryker worried that he’d made a mistake. He wasn’t a man accustomed to self-doubt, so the feeling weighed on him as he drove his Lamborghini Veneno through the mountain roads above Salzburg.
Driving fast was one of the few things that cleared his mind. The Veneno’s zero to sixty in 2.9 seconds and its 221 miles per hour top speed fit that bill. The mountain roads, tree lined and perched on ravines that plunged hundreds of feet into darkness, gave him the challenge he needed. Enough to pull his mind away from the thousand voices clamoring in his head for attention.
But as he downshifted to take a hairpin turn, he lost control temporarily of the machine’s backend, fishtailing wide. Headlights greeted him on the other side of the curve along with a blaring horn from a delivery truck. He made an adjustment and slid the Lambo back toward the inside lane, missing the truck by inches. He supposed the truck driver might have also adjusted, maybe even overcompensated and lost control into the guardrail. Ryker didn’t know because he didn’t even bother to check the mirror to see.
As he drove, he thought through his recent successes. He’d brought the Omega Director into his orbit, a goal he’d set for himself nearly a year earlier. On top of that, he’d removed Sweena Mehta, the most vocal voice on the Council, the one most likely in his estimation to oppose his accelerated time line. Things were going exactly to plan.
Then why did he feel so wrong-footed?
He had answers to that question. One of the plaguing faults of genius was to always have multiple answers to every question. Even in the sciences he’d proven there were always solutions beyond the most likely, even beyond those long accepted as doctrine. It’d been the strength that had built his monumental fortune, making him one of the top ten wealthiest men in the world according to the various lists published every year. And those lists didn’t account for the significant resources he’d secreted away in caches around the world, the value of which exceeded his paper worth.
He knew what many of his fellow billionaires did not, those not on the Omega Council in any case. Soon, money would be meaningless. Ammunition, shelter, power generators, fuel. Those would be the hallmarks of wealth in the new world he planned to create. And he was ready for it. Which made his uneasiness that much more unnerving.
Clearly part of it came from his new relationship with the Director. Although he’d vetted her as thoroughly as humanly possible, she was still new to him. He’d carefully watched her rapid ascent in the organization, been impressed with her Machiavellian methods to push her predecessor aside, and enjoyed her ambitious attempt to generate intel on the Council members. She’d shown a deft hand at taking the reins at Omega, wielding the power with subtlety when it was called for, and ruthless violence when subtlety wouldn’t do.
What she’d done to the body of Sweena Mehta had been proof of that.
The Director was qualified, that wasn’t in question. And due to the decentralized command structure of Omega, she alone possessed control of far-flung corners of the Omeg
a enterprise. He needed her.
But he didn’t trust her.
Not completely anyway. Of course, there wasn’t a soul he trusted in absolute terms. He was too much of a student of human behavior to make that mistake. People were prone to be unreliable, irrational, and inconsistent. They had the unfortunate habit of acting completely against their own self-interests for the most foolish of reasons. The degraded state of the global environment was a clear testament to that.
Question: What kind of animal would destroy its own home?
Answer: The kind that mustn’t be left to its own devices.
None of the character traits possessed by human beings made for a good partner in the greatest scientific project in human history. But he knew he needed the help if he wanted to expedite his plan within the year, and the Director had exactly the resources he needed.
So why had he insisted on this last test of loyalty?
There it was. The root of his unease. He’d allowed his doubts about trusting the Director push him to demand she demonstrate that she could separate herself from her old emotional attachments. The new world he imagined went so much farther than the original Omega idea that he assumed there would be some deserters. He needed to test how people dealt with the sentimentality of patriotism and personal connections. When Hawthorn’s message had come in, he’d insisted the Director go to DC for the meeting and not come back to him until Townsend had been removed from the equation.
She’d agreed without complaint.
But now that she was gone, he realized the nagging self-doubt he felt was not whether she was willing to do the task assigned to her, but whether it was worth the risk. If she were killed or captured, he’d lose a valuable new asset. One that could even out him if interrogated long enough. He’d recover from the loss, but it would set his plan back a year or more.
All because he lacked trust.
He accelerated through the next turn, loving the feel of the machine’s power radiating through his hands. He slammed the gas pedal down and sank into the leather seat from the g-force. He felt his uneasiness melt away as the miles per hour ticked higher.
The Director would simply have to accomplish her task. If she couldn’t, then she would have proven to be a liability in the long term anyway. If she didn’t come back, he wouldn’t waste time looking in the rearview mirror.
