Act of Vengeance

by Michael Jecks

  His suggestion was approved and the meeting was wound up. The men rose and gathered up their notepads and pens, but Amiss remained in his seat.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen. Mister Stilson, would you mind waiting with me for a short while?’ Amiss said.

  ‘That’s fine, sir.’

  Amiss rose as Tullman and the others walked from the room, and then looked at Stilson.

  ‘Do you think that there are any precautions I should take?’

  ‘I believe you ought to be safe enough. The Brit surprised me in Vegas, and managed to speak to Sumner before I could remove him. Still, if it were not for the FBI agent, I would have got to him, I think.’

  ‘I am concerned. I have been told that the FBI operative is on his way back here. He may be here already. Why would he be coming to Virginia?’

  ‘You want me to see if I can remove him too?’

  ‘I think that it could be a sensible precaution. Perhaps this time you will use more competent men than those you delegated in Vegas?’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  ‘But first, watch him. If he has returned, I would like to know whether he has any news of this Brit. After all, he was staking out Sorensen’s house when the Brit was inside.’

  ‘That was my inference.’

  ‘OK. Watch him. I’ll have him under covert surveillance too, and we’ll see if we get anything.’

  *

  09.52 Langley; 14.52 London

  Jack felt a great deal better that morning as he checked through his bag and counted the remains of the money he had taken from Orme’s safe. There was over three thousand dollars left, and he set them down on his motel bed. Frank had dropped him off here the night before, at a motel out near the Maryland/Virginia border. At the time, Jack had been so exhausted after the last days of running and danger that he had been almost incapable of noting the details. Frank ran inside the reception area, and then walked Jack to one of the motel rooms after checking him in. It was a great relief to Jack to be left in a clean room with a bed. As soon as he had stripped and showered, he lay down and fell asleep.

  He woke to find that men had broken into his room. Someone was behind him, and he was being held down while Danny Lewin set a cushion over his legs and then slowly brought out a pistol, held it over the cushion, and fired, all the while smiling with a sympathetic expression fitted to his face. Jack writhed as he felt the bullet crash into the bones of his knee, and he screamed out loud, but there was nothing he could do to move Lewin, and Lewin shook his head sadly as the agony from his smashed kneecap flared and throbbed, and the blood seeped out to soak the mattress. Lewin moved the gun to Jack’s other knee, and Jack tried to plead with him to stop, but something stopped him from being able to speak. The report of the pistol was so loud that Jack sprang up, throwing off the man who was holding him down, and Lewin disappeared. Jack’s knees were constrained by the bedclothes, which had wrapped themselves about his knees, and his mind cleared as he remembered where he was.

  It was with a pounding heart that he rolled free of the sheets and sat on the edge of the bed, and rested his head in his hands. The nightmare had been so vivid that he scarcely dared look at his knees in case he would see the holes in them. But there was nothing. It was only a dream.

  After Rand dropped him here, he had told Jack to be ready this morning. He would come back as soon as he could. For now, Jack must prepare.

  He took the .380 and stripped and cleaned it again, checking that the link mechanism was secure, that the feed ramp was clean and polished, and the ejector was not clogged, before putting it all back together again. There was only one magazine left – he had emptied the first when he rescued Frank and Debbie outside Sorensen’s house. He would have to buy some more. Best locate a gun shop for some oil and ammunition, he thought.

  He split his clothes into two piles. One shirt and a spare pair of socks went into his backpack. He stuffed the pistol into it, wrapped in a second shirt, then put his book in on top. He split up the money. Some went into the front pockets of his trousers, five hundred he crammed into his wallet, which he zipped up in his inside jacket pocket, and the remainder went into the backpack. He didn’t want to lose any of it.

  As he was finishing, there was a knock at his door. He squinted through the security peephole to see Frank and Debbie standing outside.

  ‘Morning, Jack,’ Frank said.

  Jack stood aside for them. Debbie looked about her as she walked in with a sneer as though she had nothing but contempt for Jack and his predicament.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ Frank said, as he took his seat on a chair.

  ‘I want to find out what has happened and who’s trying to get me killed,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘What we think doesn’t seem to matter, now, does it?’ Debbie said caustically. ‘If we mattered, you’d be in a safe location in Seattle with twenty-four hour guards from the FBI and Frank wouldn’t be risking his badge to help you over here.’

  ‘I don’t want to get him into trouble,’ Jack said. ‘This isn’t his fight. It’s mine.’

  Frank shrugged.

  ‘Since they tried to shoot me and Debbie, I reckon it’s our fight too,’ he said.

  Debbie shook her head.

  ‘You two are determined to get yourselves killed.’

  Jack ignored her.

  ‘I have to find out all I can about this guy Amiss.’

  ‘Here’s a picture,’ Frank said, passing him a manila envelope.

  Jack opened it to see pictures of a man in uniform, smiling, in front of a building flying the US flag. Under that was a photo of Amiss sternly saluting, dressed in drab olive. A third had him in what could have been Vietnam, in his shirtsleeves.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Jack asked pointing to a picture of Amiss with a taller, slimmer officer. He was smiling, and had curiously unemotional eyes even for a photo.

  ‘That was him in Grenada, with a guy called Peachfield. They ran the interrogation centre there, after the invasion.’

  The next showed Amiss older, in a dark suit standing next to a lean man with a square face, both shaking hands.

  ‘That’s him with the head of the CIA after the Contra enquiries. They tried to get him to testify against various folks, but he refused absolutely,’ Frank said.

  ‘Where was this?’

  Frank took the picture and gazed at it for a moment.

  ‘Don’t know. It looks like a church, doesn’t it?’

  Debbie tutted and took the picture.

  ‘It’s Saint David’s out at West McLean.’

  ‘Never seen it,’ Frank said.

  ‘I used to go to the Baptist church up the road from there,’ Debbie said.

  ‘What about this picture?’ Jack asked, waving a picture of Amiss with another man. Prominent behind them was the tall spike of the Washington Monument.

  ‘That guy is second in charge of the NSA. He’s called Tullman,’ Frank said.

  ‘Why have the photo there?’

  ‘It’s the centre of our government,’ Frank said. ‘Maybe they had meetings with senators that day and met up for a photoshoot after? You often have politicians and soldiers wanting to have their pictures taken with the country’s greatest landmarks in the background.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Jack said.

  *

  10.31 Langley; 15.31 London

  Roy Sandford had been in the office for almost three hours when the call came through, and he immediately left his screen and hurried along the corridor to Amiss’s room. Once again, the room was dark compared with the corridor, and Amiss stared at him at the door as though wondering why Roy had come. Then the door’s lock clicked and he was inside.

  ‘Sir?’

  He saw that the deputy director’s assistant Stilson was in the room, standing at the back, resting his backside on a sideboard, but then his eyes went back to the deputy.

  ‘I have been most impressed with you, Roy. Your commitment in the last wee
k or so has been good, and it’s been noticed.’

  Amiss motioned him in and Sandford entered, letting the door shut quietly behind him. At a gesture he realised, to his surprise, he was required to sit. He took the seat nearest the desk and sat upright. The only time he’d heard of people being called in here were the times when they’d been given a ball-roasting, and a prickly sweat broke out over his body as he waited for the inevitable sneering rebukes. The first words must have been nothing more than a softening up.

  ‘Yes, Roy. I have been impressed. Tell me,’ Amiss said, pulling a file from a drawer, ‘you were at MIT, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And since joining us you’ve had no regrets?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Many would think that sitting on the Echelon liaison desk would be galling. You have been there some while.’

  ‘Sir, I like it. I think I’m good at communications surveillance.’

  ‘That is what I like, Roy.’ Amiss turned a page and studied two pages side-by-side. ‘And I like the quick work you made in Seattle, arranging for the software to turn on the British spy’s telephone.’

  ‘I’m afraid I didn’t get him, though,’ Sandford admitted.

  ‘We shall. With the help of agents like you, we shall,’ Amiss said. He stood and walked around his desk, sitting in the armchair beside Sandford. ‘But the best agents need to be closer in the loop.’

  ‘Sir?’

  Amiss leaned forward.

  ‘Do you love your country?’

  ‘Of course, sir.’

  ‘Is there any loyalty superior to that love?’

  Roy licked his lips, unsure of how to respond.

  ‘Sir, I…’ And then inspiration struck. He remembered all the comments about Amiss’s crucifix behind his desk, and he squashed the urge to glance at it with only a supreme effort. ‘Only my duty to God, sir.’

  ‘That,’ Amiss said, glancing over his shoulder to Stilson, ‘is a good answer, Roy.’

  Stilson rose and left the room without speaking, and when the door had clicked shut behind him, Amiss continued.

  ‘You see, the nation is at great risk. We all know the dangers of terrorism. But terrorism is nothing. It’s a sop to the collective spirit of the country. What, so a bunch of guerrillas could get to New York and shoot a hundred people? Two hundred? Three? So what? They’ll get killed and we’ll have three hundred more Americans born in under an hour. The actual impact would be negligible. But the fact that we tell the citizens about it, that means they feel involved. They keep alert to the threat. That is not the real danger, though.’

  He shook his head. ‘The real danger, Roy, is the danger from rogue states with nukes. If Pakistan becomes more determined to follow the route of Muslim fanaticism, it would be alarming; but we already have the risk of nukes from North Korea, from Iran, and from any other disaffected little states with Russian know-how. We are living in an age of enormous power and danger, Roy. At any time, any of these states could decide to launch attacks. Just think: if someone managed to get some nukes into the US, one in, say, New York, one in LA, one in Washington. Not megaton bombs – just dirty bombs that would blow and pollute hundreds or thousands of square miles. That would be a real threat. The worst threat.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It is why some of us in the intelligence community grew alarmed at the risks when our new president arrived. It was obvious that he was an appeaser, Roy, and a risk to our security. He wanted to stop finding our enemies and bringing them to book. He ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay and other facilities. Some of us felt he was wrong to do that. So we organised ourselves to do what our consciences told us.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘We came together, Roy, to protect our great country. Roy, I would like to ask you: would you join us?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It means commitment, Roy. It means agreeing never to divulge what you have learned. It means absolute sincerity with us at all times – immediate, unswerving obedience; devotion, even. Do you think you can hold to that kind of a bargain, Roy?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Some people would say this was a bargain with the devil, you know, sealing a deal like this. You have to be absolutely convinced in your own mind, before God, that you are prepared to adhere to our strict rules. You see, it’s not with the devil that you’re sealing this pact: it’s with God. God and your country.’

  *

  14.21 Quantico; 19.21 London

  Debbie watched as Frank came through the doors at the local office and fell into step beside him as he strode across the blacktop towards the car park.

  ‘And?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t know what the fuck’s going on,’ Rand said. ‘I just had a call from Houlican telling me that unless I can pull Jack down by close of play today, he’s going to have Jack’s face spread over every available site in the US. He’ll personally upload Jack’s mugshot to the FBI’s Most Wanted pages.’

  ‘So you didn’t tell him we’re working with him,’ Debbie said. She looked up at him. ‘Frank, look, I don’t know how you feel about this, but I feel pretty lonely.’

  ‘How can you feel like that when there’s him and me to look after you?’

  ‘Funny. Very funny. But there were two guys tried to kill us. This isn’t a game, Frank. I’d be a whole lot happier if I knew the rest of the Bureau was behind me. Just now, I’m feeling like I have a bullseye target on my back saying, “Aim here, guys”, and it’s not making me happy.’

  ‘I know that feeling,’ Frank said.

  They had reached his car, and he opened the door.

  ‘I mean, if they are still serious about getting us, how about a bomb in the car?’

  ‘They wouldn’t,’ Frank said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s too damn messy. Especially here, in the main car park of an FBI office, Debbie.’

  ‘Pretty obvious to try to shoot us in a Vegas suburb.’

  Frank eyed her. Then he crouched down and looked carefully all over the underside of the car, checking the wheel arches, reaching round behind the tyres to ensure there was nothing inside the wheels. It took him fifteen minutes to ensure the vehicle was safe, and then he grabbed some Kleenex and wiped his hands.

  ‘Happy?’

  She was already in the passenger seat. But he noticed that she reached beneath her to make sure that there was nothing under the chair.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Because you were here all the time. You’d have seen someone getting to the car.’

  ‘I know. But I’m getting kind of paranoid,’ she admitted without looking at him. ‘I don’t like this.’

  ‘Look,’ he said, as he sat down and pushed the ignition home. ‘They tried to kill us in Vegas, yeah, but now we’re aware of them. OK?’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because I have three friends with us now.’

  ‘Who?’

  Frank glanced at her.

  ‘I spent a lot of time trying to get on with the FBI, you know?’

  ‘You’ve done well, Frank.’

  ‘But I flunked one set of tests – twice. Both times down here.’

  She frowned.

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘I wanted to be on the Hostage Rescue Team. And both times I blew it,’ he said harshly. ‘But I’m not alone,’ he added defensively. ‘There’s, what, eleven hundred men and women in the FBI, right? And only two hundred have ever made it to the HRT.’

  ‘It’s the hardest course we got,’ she said.

  ‘The start was the “Yellow Brick Road”, he reminisced as he drove from Quantico’s car park. ‘It’s a bitch, too. Full packs, with guns, and we had to run seven and a half miles after it. The obstacle part had all those things you like when you’re a new recruit: ropes, jumps, climbs, the lot. I succeeded there. But next there was the Quigley. That was a real bitch. Climbing log ladders that just kept on going up, sitting with ou
r legs over a four-storey drop, swimming through a sewer…’

  ‘A sewer?’

  ‘A sewer,’ he said, and a corner of his mouth lifted at the memory. ‘But the part I failed, twice, was the one after that lot. We were given blacked-out gas masks and shoved into the underground heating ducts in Quantico. Had to get from one end to the other. And I tell you, Debbie, I’ve never liked small spaces. I tried it twice, but couldn’t do it.’

  ‘Well, that’s not something you have to do every day,’ she said, watching him now.

  ‘No. And it’s lucky. Because if I had to, I’d blow my head off rather than go down those ducts again,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that got to do with us here and now?’ she demanded.

  ‘We got three guys who’re going to help us. They’re all HRT, and friends of mine. If anyone can make sure our asses are covered, it’s these guys.’

  Sunday 25th September

  19.14 Langley; 00.14 London

  Jack was waiting when the call came through. He had packed and prepared after a visit to a local store, and now he had a pair of binoculars in his backpack, along with some energy bars and a sports bottle filled with water.

  He left the motel room and hesitated when he saw that there were three cars outside. Frank was in the front car, but behind him were two more with men clad in dark clothing with identical short haircuts.

  ‘Jack, it’s all right. Come on over.’

  Jack climbed into the seat behind Frank, nodding to the pale and uncommunicative Debbie.

  ‘I thought we were going to keep everything quiet?’ he said.

  ‘We were,’ Frank said. ‘But Debbie and I were nervous, so we’ve got friends of mine to watch our backs. They’re all instructors from Quantico. And they’re friends of mine.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘They’re about the best you’ll find in the world, Jack,’ Frank said. ‘And they’ll keep quiet. They just enjoy the buzz.’

  Jack mused over that as they drove on. There was a small bridge over a stream, and then they were into woods.