by Sean Parnell
He sat back and smiled at his own brutality and allowed the other party to be obsequious for a moment. Then . . .
“We have had a modicum of success, but we’re not terribly pleased with your level of information. There are still too many rough players on your board, which is decidedly unfair for the game. We’ve had one hit, and one dud, which are unacceptable odds.”
The other party must have been protesting, because Dmitry rolled his eyes at Kendo, while she simply smiled, smoked, and nodded encouragements. Dmitry returned to the call, and even his harsh Russian accent came through the voice changer this time.
“You will do exactly as I say, no less, and no more. We want another piece. You can make it a rook, and then I’ll let you know if I want a knight. Twenty-four hours is all you have. Are we clear?”
The other party must have acquiesced, because Dmitry popped a thumbs-up at his North Korean partner. She toyed with a silver teardrop pendant at her throat and seemed to shiver with pleasure.
“Good,” Dmitry snapped at the iPhone. “Dead drop the particulars in the usual way, and then you can go back to sleep. But not for long.”
With a flourish of fingers he tapped off the call, tore the voice-changing device from his throat, and twirled it up in the air. Then he reached for a bottle of Stoli on the desk and poured two tumblers, neat.
“I think it’s time to call in the girl again,” he said to Kendo.
“But isn’t she very expensive?”
“Well, she was perfect the first time. Then we sent in the Bear, and he wound up in a box. She’s worth the price. Just like you.”
Kendo got up from her leather perch, gripped the back of Dmitry’s caster chair, and rolled him back two feet from the desk. Then she slipped between him and the desk edge, sat on it, picked up her tumbler, and downed half the vodka. She squinted down at him and pulled up the front of her short black skirt with her long red fingernails. She wasn’t wearing any underwear.
“That’s why you’re the boss,” she said. “And I think you deserve dessert.”
Chapter 12
Washington, D.C.
White House Chief of Staff Ted Lansky’s pipe was empty. It had been that way for almost a decade, but he still had the thing jammed in his mouth most of the time, and there were days when he desperately missed the tobacco.
Lansky was “old school,” a rumpled former intelligence officer who’d been raised on landline telephones, gas-guzzling Chevrolets, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before they were banned from kindergartens. He’d spent most of his life at the CIA, where he’d begun his career fresh out of Langley’s basic clandestine officer training at Camp Peary, Virginia, aka the “Farm,” and had risen to chief of the Directorate of Operations.
Lansky had started smoking that pipe during his first overseas undercover assignment to Algiers in the mid-1980s. It was, at the time, no more than an affectation chosen to enhance his nonofficial cover as an ESL (English as a Second Language) instructor, but he’d discovered that it somehow diffused the stress of the game. Plus, it was also a perfect prop to play with and delay a response, when you were trying to save your own ass by coming up with the correct answer.
After a decade in the field, and having become completely hooked on British pipes and the finest of Dutch tobaccos, Lansky had returned to CIA headquarters to discover that smokers were now the bastard children of the Agency. The intel analyst “caves” no longer swirled with that melodramatic blue-gray cigarette mist and now smelled like restroom potpourri. God forbid you should try to light up even in one of the machine-tool-exhaust-filled R&D warehouses over at the Directorate of Science & Technology. If you wanted to smoke anything at all, from cigarettes to cigars or the occasional rare pipe, you were banned to a wooden bench outside in the Courtyard, where you could puff away while you stared at one of those weird octagonal fishponds bordered in cold concrete.
Lansky had endured it for another ten years, until he found himself one day trying to light his pipe while clutching an umbrella, in the midst of a wicked hailstorm, while his colleagues were inside at the commissary enjoying hot soup. So, he’d given it up. But he was still cranky about it.
And he was cranky today, as he sat at the head of a long polished mahogany conference table, inside the brand-new SCIF at the Program’s brand-new headquarters over on Q Street. Sure, it had been his idea to move Cutlass Main from the White House to some nondescript office complex in the capital, but not for the reason that most of the Program’s personnel assumed.
Yes, they’d lost an Alpha in Paris. The murder of Stalker Six was concerning, but you didn’t turn an entire aircraft carrier around in the midst of combat because a single sailor had gone overboard. Lansky had simply decided that having a Special Access Program ensconced in the White House—literally a few doors down from the Oval—was just too risky for his boss, newly seated President John Rockford. Lansky had worked for Rockford when the president still served as director of the CIA over at Langley, and in all of his government service, he’d never admired or respected anyone with such a degree of conviction or loyalty. It was the same way that Rockford, as vice president, had felt about President Denton Cole, until a stroke had removed Cole from his desk.
In Lansky’s mind, Rockford was still in a very tenuous position. Lansky didn’t much care for many of the administration personnel his boss had inherited from Cole, and he suspected that if any of them finally discovered this supersecret kinetic special operations program hunkered down right under their noses, a leak could destroy Rockford’s presidency and sully his entire storied career. It just wasn’t worth the risk.
In truth, Lansky felt guilty about issuing the move order, but that wasn’t something he would ever admit. He’d made a career of hard choices and had accrued a long roll call of enemies en route, but that was how things worked in Washington. He had big shoulders, both literally and figuratively, and he wasn’t afraid to use them.
“Why the hell am I holding an Alpha Flash, Mike?” Lansky was gripping a slim file folder with a diagonal red tape strip across the upper left corner that looked like a Miss America sash. His dry pipe stem was clenched in his teeth, which always made him sound like Humphrey Bogart.
“Because this is the second such incident in fourteen days, sir.” Mike Pitts was seated at Lansky’s close right, with Dalton Goodhill across from him on the left. “We didn’t issue one when we lost Stalker Six, but yesterday someone tried to take out Seven in the same location.”
“So it’s clearly a shitty neighborhood. Maybe you shouldn’t be in there.”
“It’s Paris, sir,” Pitts said. “And we’re talking about high-end areas, not the no-go zones.”
“Somebody’s targeting our Alphas,” Dalton Goodhill grumbled. Lansky looked at him sideways.
“Do I know you?”
“This is Dalton Goodhill, sir,” Pitts said by way of introduction. “He’s Stalker Seven’s new keeper, took over for Demo Cortez.”
“I assumed,” Lansky said, but then he squinted at Goodhill. “But I meant, do I know you.”
“You do, sir.” Goodhill dipped his bullet head. “Special Activities, but we met first time in the Mog.”
“Mogadishu . . .” Lansky rubbed his jaw, then grabbed his pipe bowl and jabbed the stem at Goodhill. “Hell yesss. I shoved a cash drop at you in a Blackhawk and you fast-roped out with it. Awful night, shitty weather, lots of ground fire.”
“That was the night, sir.” Goodhill didn’t smile.
“I figured you for dead on that op, but you delivered.”
“I figured me for that a couple of times too.”
“Big stones,” Lansky said by way of compliment, then he looked around the SCIF and frowned. Past the double-thick, lead-lined plexiglass walls he could see all the Program officers and support personnel scurrying around the main floor, still getting used to the new environment. “Mike, drop the friggin’ shades, will you? I feel like a clown fish in an aquarium.”
Pit
ts pressed a button on the conference table console and some very expensive miniblinds rolled down the transparent walls from the entire SCIF perimeter above. Lansky turned his attention back to the file.
“So, you had one hit on Six, which, from what I’m reading here, appears to have been a woman. Then, you send Seven over there to sniff the trail, and somebody goes after him as well. Do we have the details on that one yet?”
“Not yet, sir,” Pitts said. “But we will in a minute.”
“So, what am I doing here?” Lansky looked at his watch. It was a cheap quartz Timex. “Are you trying to tell me this all has something to do with the Italian Job?” Lansky was referring to the hit in Aleppo, which, like all Program missions, was titled so no one could possibly make a geographical connection.
“That’s the only explanation we have at the moment,” Pitts said.
“Oh, I get it now.” Lansky slapped the file on the table and sat back, rocking intently on the heavy springs of the new leather “king” chair. “The president green-lit that mission, so I’ve got to be read-on to any blowback, and he’s got to be back briefed. Is that right, Mike?”
“That’s how I see it, sir.”
“You friggin’ spook types are slimy,” Lansky sneered, knowing full well that he was one of those types, and always would be. It was in his bones.
The access door at the far end of the SCIF opened. The secure facility was slightly pressurized to enhance its cooling systems for the Seagate servers bolted beneath the carpeted concrete floor, and whenever the door opened, a white noise generator automatically kicked in to defeat any potential eavesdroppers outside the SCIF. Therefore, Eric Steele’s entrance was accompanied by an ominous hiss and a sound like ghost whispers.
He’d come straight over from Dulles, after infuriating delays in Paris and finally a nonstop during which he’d failed to sleep even a warrior’s wink, and instead had spent it thinking about his tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, his mother, Susan, who’d worked multiple jobs to support a fatherless family, the string of pet dogs he’d had who could never quite fill that void in his heart, his time and his missions with the Program, Meg Harden, then some more about Meg Harden, and finally whether or not Cutlass Main was getting to be like some Broadway show that had had a great run, but was in danger of losing its stars and about to go dark at last. Add to that the nagging suspicion that someone, or something, was worming its way into the Program like some Ebola virus, and he was in a foul frame of mind.
He was wearing his U.S. Navy G-1 jacket, which still had a few crusty bloodstains on the cuffs from the Russian monster’s arterial spray, even though it had been lying on the bed during their battle, and the bridge of his nose had a scabby split where his face had impacted with the B&B’s bathroom plexiglass. Steele quietly closed the door behind him, the hiss went away, and when he saw that the president’s chief of staff was in the SCIF he remained at something like attention.
“Welcome back, Steele,” Mike Pitts said.
“Gentlemen.” Steele nodded at Pitts and Goodhill, then at Lansky, and said, “Sir.”
“Have a seat, Stalker Seven,” said Lansky. Steele took the closest chair at the table’s end and Lansky waved the flash file. “Heard you had some trouble in Paris.”
“SOP for the job, sir,” Steele said.
“Give the man a quick and dirty AAR, Steele,” Dalton Goodhill growled. “He’s got more pressing stuff at 1600.” Goodhill meant the White House address on Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Roger.” Steele lasered Goodhill’s bulldog mug with his eyes, then turned his focus on Ted Lansky. “I went over there to dig up some intel on Stalker Six’s termination. Booked into his last known bunk location, got jumped by a Russian, size extra large, killed him, and called in a bleacher team.”
“What’s a bleacher team?” Lansky asked Pitts.
“Cleanup crew, sir,” Pitts said.
“Right. Go on,” Lansky said to Eric.
“After that I chatted with a local source.”
“Chatted with?” Goodhill said.
“Queried aggressively,” Steele said. “Got nothing. Then I hit the Louvre, talked to security and got a light lead on Six’s alleged killer. Basic description only.” He looked at Pitts. “Then you made me come back.”
Pitts ignored the complaint. “Why do you say ‘allegedly’?” he asked.
“Not convinced she acted alone, or was even the killer. Might have been nothing more than a lure.”
“Honey trap?” Lansky posed.
“Yes, sir. There are some rough girls in our business, but I haven’t met one yet who could take down Six.”
“Anything deeper?” Pitts asked. Steele noticed that Pitts was taking notes in a leather-bound logbook. It was a curious habit, since everyone else seemed to use smart pads or laptops, but it matched his marker and whiteboard quirk.
“Negative,” Steele lied. He wasn’t about to reveal the Russian’s blurt about Kuznetsov, not until Ralphy could tell him more, and certainly not in “mixed” company. He liked Lansky and had always had a good, albeit distant, working relationship with him, but Steele adhered religiously to compartmentalization.
“Is that all, Stalker Seven?” Lansky asked.
“Affirmative, sir,” Steele said, but he felt Goodhill staring at him as if he were a lying thief. No surprise, since Goodhill had spent his life around tight-lipped special operators. Lansky dropped the flash file on the table and got up. Pitts, Goodhill, and Steele all rose in respect.
“Well, gentlemen,” Lansky said. “I’m sure you’ll run this down to everyone’s satisfaction, and I’ll brief the president if he asks. In the meantime, enjoy your new digs. We cut you all a nice slice of the black budget pie for this.”
The three men murmured yessirs and thankyous as Lansky left. After the door closed, Pitts and Goodhill resumed their seats, but Steele remained standing. He was in no frame of mind for an interrogation, and they both sensed it.
“Get some rest, Eric,” Pitts said. “Then come back in and give me a full After Action Review for the file.”
“And don’t fucking leave anything out,” Goodhill snarled. “That was like a kid telling Daddy why he cracked up the family car.”
“You said make it short, Blade,” Steele fumed and they glared at each other.
“Boys, cut the mama drama,” Pitts warned. “This isn’t a team room at Bragg.” He pressed a button, and the miniblinds rolled back up into the ceiling, revealing the Program officers and support staff flitting about and hammering keyboards like stockbrokers on Wall Street.
“You and me, Steele, 2300 tonight,” Goodhill said, as if he were scheduling a back alley brawl.
“A pleasure,” Steele said.
But he was thinking that, until he was able to dig down deeper into the implications of some Russian killer targeting him for a quadruple hit that no living soul should have known he’d committed, his AAR wasn’t going to reveal much more than he’d already told Ted Lansky. He looked through the SCIF’s thick transparent walls and saw Meg emerging from the Keyhole tank to the left of the TOC’s huge flat screen, and realized that of all the officers, staff, and operators in the Program, there was only one person he still trusted.
And that person was dead.
Chapter 13
Arlington National Cemetery, Section 60
It was a beautiful day for a graveyard stroll.
A morning rain had washed the rolling hills that had once constituted the magnificent estate of General Robert E. Lee’s wife, Mary Custis, the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington, and the cemetery’s tall trees and manicured lawn glistened like emerald jewelry. The temperature was mild before the onslaught of Washington’s summer. A light breeze wafted off the Potomac, and across 624 acres of gardens of stone, tens of thousands of America’s armed forces veterans, including the likes of John F. Kennedy, Audie Murphy, General Daniel “Chappie” James, and Lee Marvin, slept a hero’s sleep.
One of those heroes was Eric S
teele’s former keeper, Bobby “Demo” Cortez, currently at rest in a southeast corner of Arlington reserved for those who’d fallen in the Global War on Terror, beginning in 2001. Section 60 was often called “the saddest acre in America” by much of the media, but Steele didn’t see it that way. Yes, the burials here were fresh, and many of the gravestones were decorated with cut flowers, children’s toys, photos of young loving couples, and tearstained notes, but Steele knew that the same sort of mourners’ icons and laments had taken place throughout Arlington during every period of warfare. Over the past century, the burial sections for World War II, Korea, and Vietnam had all been at one time the saddest acres. Section 60 was simply his generation’s turn.
Steele walked out of the trees, hands tucked in the pockets of his jeans, and headed straight for Demo’s marker. He had plenty of other fallen battle buddies in Section 60, but today he was here to see only Demo, and he knew they’d all understand. He wasn’t carrying flowers, though he’d thought about bringing half a dozen roses just to piss Demo off, but he’d settled on a Casa Blanca cigar instead. As he walked he pulled the smoke from his jacket pocket, stripped the wrapper, bit the tip off, and stuck the end in his mouth. He wasn’t going to smoke it, only soak it, because that’s what Demo always did, a habit sort of halfway between using chew and actually lighting up. Pretty disgusting, actually. The memory of Demo doing it made him smile.
That faded when he saw a young blond woman, twenty meters off to the right, sitting cross-legged on a baby blanket in front of one of the graves, rocking slowly and listening to something on a pair of earbuds. Then off to the left, fifty meters or so, he saw an old man sunk into a folding camp chair in front of another grave. He was bent forward, fingers entwined on his lap and talking softly, maybe to someone he had lost. Steele sighed and carried onward. He loved them all at Arlington, on both sides of the graves, and thought they were probably the best people in the country.
