Oracle's Diplomacy

by A. Claire Everward

  He leaned back on his car and lit a cigarette. Wretched habit, so rarely encountered nowadays, long prohibited. But here, no one would know. Except for whoever was watching him.

  And the man he was here to meet.

  As if on cue, a limo entered the warehouse from some obscure entrance he could not discern. He walked toward it, tossing the cigarette away and subconsciously straightening his tie.

  The bodyguard that came out of the front seat of the limo as it stopped before him made Mount Everest look like an anthill. He didn’t even dignify the leader with a look as he opened the back door of the car, and the man the leader was meeting got out. Slowly, confidently, as if he owned the world.

  Which, in a way, he did. The air of power and money sat on him naturally. As did the obvious expectation that he would be obeyed.

  The leader did. Always. Which was why he could almost convince himself he wasn’t worried.

  He did not speak. He would not speak unless given permission to do so, that was how the man who was approaching him required it. It was a rare honor, the man taking the time to meet him this way. It was also cause for concern. He did not do that unless something happened that was important enough to warrant his own special attention, and failure in such an instance was utterly unacceptable.

  Of course, the leader did not intend to fail.

  The man scrutinized him, his eyes boring into the darkest corners of his soul. He indicated for him to speak. The leader did, succinctly. That was how the man required it. When he finished, the man spoke briefly. He then returned to his car and left.

  So did the leader. He had his orders now.

  It was time to bring this to an end.

  As the black limo slid away into the dead of night, the man sitting inside it leaned back and turned to the side window, his eyes thoughtful.

  “Sir?” The young man who sat facing him spoke with reverence.

  “When this is over, kill him. Kill them all. I want them to be a dead end.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Vice Admiral Frank Scholes shook his head. In the news broadcasts from Bosnia, tires burned near the government building, thousands of angry protesters standing beside them, chanting and throwing the occasional Molotov cocktail or rocks at the police who were trying to keep them back with little success. The equally unfortunate Srpskan prime minister’s office had long since been ransacked by a raging crowd, smoke coming out of the windows, police officers helplessly scattered. As for the prime minister, who had enraged the people now trampling through his office by trying to reason with them, futilely trying to explain what was really going on, he had been whisked away to the safety of the Federal Police Administration building two blocks away.

  “Doesn’t anyone there stop to think about the coincidence of just two incidents, hours apart, one in each country, or the fact that the people who did this just happened to speak the languages they did, and so openly and carelessly?” Evans, sitting not far from Scholes in the conference room, said. “Don’t they get that these perpetrators were masquerading as the enemy? And what about how the Russian forces just happened to be prepared to move so fast? Or—” He gave up. It didn’t do any good to try to rationalize this mess.

  Scholes rubbed his eyes tiredly. He hadn’t had a chance to go home yet. No rest for his people, so no rest for him. His eyes returned to the mayhem on the screens. It was just the two of them here. Everyone else working the disputed region was either in the buzzing war room outside and in its Mission Command, or in the situation room in the Joint Europe Military Command or working the diplomacy side in the Joint Europe Civilian Command, where the IDSD Diplomacy professionals had also assembled. They were all working around the clock.

  “At least they’re keeping this inside their own borders,” he said. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  “So far the worst of it for us outside Europe were a couple of small demonstrations in front of US embassies against our alleged role in the Bosnia-Srpska mess, and mainly, as this one guy said to some reporter, against our insistence on standing beside the Internationals despite their betrayal and our intentionally hiding the development of technologies designed to drop airplanes with people in them out of the sky for whatever dreamed-up reasons these protesters choose to chant at a particular moment they see television cameras in front of their faces.” Evans huffed bitterly. “Our people are handling it well, though.”

  Scholes heard the tone. “You miss it? Being out there in the field?”

  Evans nodded. “Sometimes. Still trying to get used to being . . .”

  “The boss.”

  “Yeah. You’ve headed IDSD Missions for, what, five years now? You’re used to it.”

  “You’ll get there. Eventually you realize you save a lot of lives doing what we do. Someone has to run the response to situations like this.” He indicated the sporadic fires on the screens, in both countries. The sound was muted, but the images were all too clear.

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Evans said. The vice admiral was right. As much as he missed the hands-on part of the job, he had very capable people for that. He was needed for the orders no one else could give, for whatever came up that needed his authority to break through walls without delay. And here at IDSD was where he had to be now. The treaty had been the Internationals’ work, it was their jet that had been downed, their people killed, their ambassador taken. And it was their peacekeeping force that was under threat in the disputed region, their people worldwide who were taking the most heat. The alliance of their making that was at risk.

  And they had the lead role in the response to the situation. He also had to admit they had the best global intelligence. Before this happened, he had no idea about the extremist faction of Yahna, no one had. It was IDSD that had discovered their existence, had patiently tracked them, and had followed them without their knowing, all the while managing to keep it all under wraps. That was impressive, especially this day and age.

  At least it was a USFID agent who had made the crucial connection between them and the ambassador’s disappearance, he thought with satisfaction.

  “Right,” Scholes said, turning away from the troubling scenes. “We’re preparing for Pohnpei, our agent on location and his support team at IDSD Southern Territories have provided all the information needed for the raid and are standing by to advise. We’ll be ready to move as soon as the combined task team we’ve put on this are in position. As for Ambassador Sendor, we have our Special Mission Units currently in Europe and those available outside it preparing to move on command. And I spoke with Jeffries earlier, he got the Joint Europe Military Command to put more units alongside ours on standby in multiple other locations.” Since no one had any idea where the ambassador’s abductors had managed to move him to, the idea was to have as many special forces units as possible available in scattered locations, to reduce the distance to wherever he was found to be and get to him as quickly as possible. One man could easily be hidden, taken away and made to disappear, and in the time since his disappearance, the ambassador could be anywhere.

  Evans nodded. “Southern Territories has given us the names of everyone it has identified as being active members of the extremist faction who are not likely to be on the island during the raid. We’re aware there may be others we have no knowledge of, but we ourselves have already identified current Yahna members who have been making aggressive attempts to pressure some of our high-ranking officials to turn against the Internationals, and who have more recently tried to force them to unequivocally blame you for what happened to the ambassador. We’re working broadly here, we’ll be taking in as many of Yahna’s members and affiliates as we can, and we’re preparing to move on them not only here but through our peer agencies worldwide.” Knowing now, following the interrogation of ARPA’s director, that at least some of Yahna’s members were in fact part of the extremist faction, too, meant that, since the identities of the dual members were not all known, every possible Yahna member had to be apprehended
and questioned, to ensure that as few as possible extremists got away. “Until then we’re only watching them, we won’t risk them knowing we’re after them until we’re ready to take them all in. And we can’t make a mistake here, this also has to be done simultaneously with your raid on Pohnpei, to make sure they won’t get any warning that would allow them to order Sendor moved or killed.”

  “Killed, I’ll bet,” Scholes said. “They can’t risk him being found alive. That would not only allow us to refute Russia’s claims that we were responsible for his death, but would also enable him to talk, tell the world what really happened to him.”

  “And perhaps also provide clues about the identities of those who took him, and thus proof of their guilt. No, you’re right, if this extremist faction’s ultimate goal is to permanently scar trust in your—the Internationals’—motives, there’s no way it can allow Sendor to remain alive.” And so, to try to prevent the ambassador’s death and his captors’ escape, the arrests of Yahna’s members would begin as soon as the raid on the extremists in the Pohnpei mansion that served as their center and in their gated community on the island was underway.

  “Still,” Scholes said thoughtfully, “it’s not perfect. Southern Territories worries that its intelligence operation is being cut short too early here and that it hasn’t managed to get all of the identities of the extremist faction’s members, not even all of their nationalities, which would have at least provided some clues that might have helped us find them.”

  “Worse, there could be others like Bourne, in more or less prominent positions elsewhere in the world,” Evans added. “They infiltrated ARPA years ago, they could be anywhere. I guess we’re all going to live with that. You, us, everyone else in the alliance, none of us will be able to let our guard down while these people are out there working against us.’’

  “If they ever try to get back to action, revive their plans, we’ll stop them,” Scholes said, unhidden anger in his voice. “Eventually, they will all be found. And this raid on them, the fact that they were even discovered, should be enough to show them and others like them that no one can escape justice.”

  Evans frowned and looked at the muted scenes on the wall screens. “Of course, none of this solves the most critical problem remaining—Ambassador Sendor himself. Even if your raid and our arrests are successful, there’s still the risk that one of these extremists, someone we’ll miss, will find out about it and alert his captors. If this gets him killed—assuming he is, in fact, still alive—none of it would matter.”

  Scholes nodded his agreement, his own somber gaze on the scenes playing out half a world away. There was nothing else to do or say. The fact was that while everything was prepared, nothing could move forward.

  Once again, the key to it all was finding Ambassador George Sendor, and in time.

  Sendor hadn’t realized he had gotten used to his daily conversations with his captor until the door opened and someone else came in. Not his recent companion, nor the silent old man who brought him his meals and cleaned up after him, but a much younger man he hadn’t seen yet.

  “Is there anything you need?” the man had asked. He was of an origin Sendor could not immediately place, and his accent was heavy. Sendor tried asking him where the first captor was, but the man only repeated the question, his face impassive. Something about his demeanor was different. Ah, yes, Sendor thought. Of course. The first man, his original captor, far outranked this one. He was sure of it, had seen enough hierarchies in his life.

  He had declined, there was nothing else he needed, and the man had left without another word. Sendor had waited a beat, and had then made himself some tea.

  He stirred his tea now, the movement controlled, his mind concentrating on the teaspoon, on the whirl of the aromatic water. Suddenly realizing what he was doing, he let the teaspoon go with distaste, stepped away, and sat at the edge of the bed. How long had he been standing there, stirring the blasted tea? He stared at it. Thought about his assistant. The young man had always carried a small pack of Sendor’s favorite tea in his briefcase, always made sure the ambassador would be comfortable wherever he was. Sadness washed over Sendor. He was dead, wasn’t he, his loyal assistant? Were they all dead? Those who had taken him only needed him, he knew now. They would not bother with the others. Although, perhaps, since his assistant, the crew, and the security agents had all been unconscious when the jet landed, was it possible they had left them alive? Hope, he reminded himself. You must hope.

  But not knowing was difficult, preying on his nerves. He wondered how his family was. He had no doubt that they were being well taken care of, but they must be so worried. And the treaty, the people, all those who had trusted him, to whom he had given his word that he would be there for them, that he would do all it took to help them. He had no idea if . . .

  He sighed. That was the problem, wasn’t it? He simply had no idea.

  I must find a way to escape, the thought came to his mind. This cannot, will not, end this way.

  The war room was as busy as it had been when Donovan had left it. He wouldn’t have been surprised if anyone had told him he was the only one who had managed to go home since he was last here, and even he had only done so to shower and change, and to pick up a fresh set of clothes for Lara that she had asked Rosie to set out for her. He’d been eager to return not to USFID, where his investigation was no longer a priority, but here, where the events of the past days would culminate into a resolution, one way or another.

  He headed to Scholes’s office, to hear what was being done with the information he had gotten out of Bourne, but then slowed down near the conference room. The vice admiral was sitting inside, alone, staring at a screen. All the screens in the room showed the satellite feeds from the disputed region, except the one he was staring at. That one was dark.

  Donovan stood in the doorway, watching him. “Frank?”

  The huge man turned to him. Contemplated him for a long time. Finally, he let out a breath and motioned him in.

  Donovan joined him at the conference table and waited. Scholes leaned back and just sat there, his eyes on him. Troubled, tense. It’s as if now I’m that blank screen, Donovan thought. He wondered what it was like to have the world on his shoulders like the head of IDSD Missions did.

  He also wondered why the vice admiral called him in here.

  “You solved the car issue?” Scholes asked in an absentminded tone.

  “Yes. Quentin will send the approval request directly to you as soon as he finalizes the specs.”

  “Good, good.” Scholes nodded slightly, then continued to stare at Donovan. Struggling with himself, Donovan thought, alert now. An uneasy feeling was growing in the pit of his stomach, an instinct.

  A newly acquired instinct. This could only have something to do with one person they both had an interest in, albeit for very different reasons.

  “Can you stick around?” Scholes seemed to come to a decision. His gaze focused, although it was still full of thought.

  “Yes.”

  “Good, good.” Scholes nodded again, his eyes still resting thoughtfully on Donovan.

  Donovan waited.

  Scholes took in a deep breath and glanced at the door. No one was anywhere near. Still, he uttered a command, and the door closed.

  “I’ve asked Lara to do something she can’t do.” His eyes returned to Donovan.

  Donovan’s eyes narrowed, but he remained silent.

  “But she’ll try to, she’ll give it all she has. It’s her way. And if she fails it’ll crush her, given the consequences.”

  “But you don’t think she’ll fail.”

  “No, I don’t. She won’t allow it, there are too many lives at stake. I’m betting she’ll do whatever the hell she does in that mind of hers and succeed. She’ll push herself until she does.”

  Donovan had to keep from letting sudden anger erupt. He knew what the stakes here were. But he was the one who had held an exhausted Lara in his arms more than once the
se past weeks. “She nearly crashed, what, a week ago?” he said. “She was attacked, Frank. Injured. And still she came back here, and she pushed herself to get the job done, and she damn well nearly crashed. Right here, in your Mission Command. And she’s barely had any down time since. It simply doesn’t stop. You’re pushing her too hard.”

  “I know.” Scholes rubbed his face in frustration. “I know, but I have no choice. I need her, Donovan. We haven’t managed to find the ambassador, none of the intelligence agencies has made any progress and the search and rescue teams have no idea where to go next. And I’m under a lot of pressure to use Oracle. This is one of those cases where there simply is no one else who can do this, who can end this in time.” He got up, glanced at the screens showing the reason for the difficult decision he had had to make, then turned away from them and walked to the windows lining the back of the conference room and stared out, his hands in his pockets.

  Finally, he shook his head. “The night you were in New Mexico, Lara assisted in a situation where a group of peacekeepers on the former Syria-Jordan border were attacked, and several were taken. We needed to act quickly, and she found them, told us where they would be, and guided their rescue.”

  He chuckled mirthlessly. “What she did there, the fact that she could even do that is in itself incredible. Until now she has always locked on those she was guiding in whatever mission she was working, people she knew quite a bit about and could walk the mission through, with them as an anchor of sorts to the relevant time, place and situation. This, the peacekeepers, she’s never done before. Never.” He turned to Donovan. “What you said, what she did after she was attacked? That was the first time she’s ever done anything close to this, and even that was directly connected to her, she had something personal to lock on to.”

  By now Donovan knew enough to understand what Scholes was talking about. “So you want her to combine these two things, and, what, take it even further?” He thought about the situation. A man she didn’t know, who was being held, if he was even still alive, by people she had very little information about, somewhere, anywhere in the world. An impossible situation, with little if anything to go on. “And do it all as quickly as possible,” he completed his thoughts aloud. “Before Sendor is killed, before war starts, before Russia invades, before the situation is no longer reversible.”