SAFE HAVENS: Shadow Masters (A Sean Havens Black Ops Novel Book 1)

by J. T. Patten

  Until next time, Sean Havens. If we get a next time.

  Draeger looked in the side mirror watching the canine roll broken in the road amid the gravel dust. He toyed with the radio buttons.

  How about a little music?

  Epilogue

  On a freezing sub-zero Sunday morning in Chicago, the winter winds gnawed at the old man’s hands as soon as he left the comfort of his transport’s warm interior. The streets were quiet. The wind swirled lingering snow on the concrete. The metal handle on his cane bit his frail fingers as he slowly shuffled up the sidewalk glazed with ice. His gnarled digit pressed the doorbell. Chimes gave way to loud aggressive woofing.

  “Oh my,” he responded to the loud bark and reached up to tuck his scarf deeper into his black cashmere overcoat. He pulled his Irish walking hat lower over his brow and shrugged his shoulders up so the scarf would cover his ears.

  The wooden door opened with the dog’s master holding its collar with a combination of balance and force.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  The old man gazed into the barking dogs eyes. He slowly reached towards the dog with the back of his hand extended.

  “Assez, assez,” the man said, commanding the dog to sit and tilting his head slightly while extending to his full height. The Burberry overcoat extended the size of the frail aged man’s shoulders some but not greatly. Nonetheless, the effect caused Cougar to lower her tail and head.

  “Ici. Oui.” She nuzzled up to his hand for a sniff and a lick. “That’s a nice girl. Yeah, you are the queen of the house aren’t you?”

  Puzzled at this elderly beast master, Havens regarded the old man’s translucent hand. Before the man opened his palm for Cougar to lick, Havens noticed a gem-adorned Yale graduation ring. Wrappings of yellow yarn now replaced what once was sized gold that met securely on a meatier youthful ring finger. It had been nearly twenty years since Sean Havens saw that ring. It was nearly 6o years since the ring was first put on the graduate’s hand.

  The old man looked up at Havens. A warm smile of clean dentures raised his red cheeks to meet pale blue eyes. Eyes that had once known a younger Havens. Eyes that had seen a lifetime of shadow wars.

  “Hello, Sean. It’s been quite a while. May I come in? It’s rather cool out this morning. Good for the lungs, but bad for my joints I am afraid. She’s a beautiful Belgian you have there. You should command her in French if you don’t already. I don’t suspect Flemish. Well, I suppose it depends on her youth. Never mind me.”

  “Jerry?”

  The old man gave a laugh.

  “I’m surprised you still remember me. I greatly hoped you would. I was quite realistic with myself that my appearance would not do much justice to your memory of me. Not that I was so young even then.”

  “I’d know you anywhere, Jerry.”

  The old man chuckled again.

  “OK, well enough of the pleasantries out here. Let’s step inside so my friends out here can read a magazine or something and I can die in my sleep instead of your entryway.”

  Havens looked up to see the two black Chevy Suburbans in the driveway and street.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Oh, I am afraid all that fanfare is for me, and I suspect for you as well. Land’s sake, I can hardly step down from my seat to the curb from those coaches. It’s nearly as big as my first apartment in Prague in there. My I haven’t thought of that place in quite some time.”

  Jerry walked in and propped his cane against the doorframe. Havens seated his CIA mentor at the kitchen table and offered something to drink.

  “Well normally this early I’d have an orange juice or a black coffee, Sean, but I am not sure my bladder can hold it for the ride. These men are going to drop me at my sister’s in Park Ridge for a bit after we talk for a few moments. I could be convinced to share a little taste of Scotch, if you would care to join me. Cuts the cold and good for conversation between friends,” Jerry said with a smile.

  Two glasses from the cupboard, two three-finger pours, and the two were toasting.

  “Your taste in scotch is improving, Sean. I very much like this brand. Dalwhinnie. The Brits like it. MI-6, SAS. Very good. I suppose you know that.”

  “I’ve gotten your cards over the years. Have to say, they always made me feel a bit closer to you without really ever hearing from you again.”

  “I’m glad. You were one of my finest. I’ve been proud.” Jerry sipped his Scotch and looked around in approval of the domicile. “I’m sorry about your family. I hear your daughter is improving.”

  Havens nodded. Clearly, Jerry had been informed and has always stayed informed. How was always a mystery, but it was not worth asking. It would be the least of this old spymaster’s capabilities. Moreover, the least of priorities if Jerry was coming out to reveal himself again after all these years.

  Jerry reached over the table and rested his hand on Sean’s. “Sean, a bit of a storm is coming. We have word that some of your old files about those recent attack plans have been loaded on the Internet through WikiLeaks and are being attributed to you.”

  “Jerry, I…”

  Jerry raised his hand. “Sean, you are not in trouble with us. There has been an investigation and it looks as though it points to some individuals in that outfit you were recently involved with. I looked into some of this as well, and found you know that Prescott Draeger. Those men, or Draeger, or some combination therein, tried to put much of the operational aspects on you. He’s a dangerous man, that Prescott Draeger.” Jerry reached into his breast pocket and retrieved a 3x5 note card. He scanned it and put it back in its former location.

  “Great, so is there a warrant out for me?”

  “Oh, no, Sean. That won’t happen.” Jerry patted his former protégé’s hand. “No, Sean, you see, you won’t exist anymore.”

  Sean pulled back his hand and loudly scooted back his chair startling a sleeping Cougar at his feet. “Why won’t I exist? What do you mean? What have you done to me now?”

  “Well, it’s like a witness protection, but our people think it is best if no one has access to your information.”

  “Why can’t they just clear it up? Why can’t it just go away? They know it’s all lies.”

  “Sure, Sean, we all do. But tell that to the world’s stage who thinks you planned a series of domestic terror attacks. Defense wanted to let it go and make you the scapegoat. There could be a way, but it would take some big favors.”

  “Unbelievable.”

  “Well, Sean, you need to believe it, accept it, and move on.”

  “How am I supposed to move on, leave everything behind, and start over like a fugitive?”

  “No, Sean, we will help you. You are one of us. We will take care of you. We will help you with your daughter’s recovery. You will have the power to change your names and access an account set up for you. It’s largely in your hands.”

  “Largely?” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Jerry, I have heard this all before. Same story, same we will protect you, your daughter, give you a job. I just lived through this. Barely lived through this. My wife is dead because of this type of care!”

  “Sean, your reaction is perfectly understandable. Unfortunately, you didn’t chose the life of an accountant or doctor. You are an intelligence professional, a clandestine asset. You are a hunter of men. While it was not my desire, you are now a killer. An effective one at that. If you want people to value you and pay for what you do, you either need to change your profession or embrace it and create assets, collect intelligence, and…well…kill. Forgive my bluntness.”

  “Jerry, why did they put you up to this? Who put you up to this? No offense, but you are still on the payroll? Don’t they have mandatory retirement?”

  “Sean, I was sent as a courtesy. I retired years back, but I still consult. With my knowledge of dialects and certain foreign places and people, I help these young computer kids that the Agency has hired to go in on those Internet jihadi chat rooms. I i
nstruct them on how they should speak, reply, and interpret the conversations going on or how they resonate with readers. They have a comfortable chair for me and it keeps me busy. Just a few hours a day, and I get to see old friends. They give me free coffee,” Jerry joked, trying to make the situation lighter. “My wife passed long ago, and I only had one child who travels around quite a bit. It’s better than staying home waiting for my time to come. By the way, do you remember Rick?”

  “How can I forget?” Havens exuded a sour look.

  “Sean, you were young. You indeed were being tested at the time. You were not in a web of subterfuge. That experience has helped you survive this long. It helps you to question and trust your instincts. Rick, as you can imagine, never left the business.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Sorry, I’m not trying to be a smart ass.”

  “Sean, Rick would like to work with you. You will need work. You will need flexibility. You will need someone who can trust you and that you can trust.”

  “How can I be sure I can trust him or anyone for that matter at this point?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  Havens gave thought to the question. He no longer thought he could trust anyone. Jerry, however, was more like a favorite uncle. Havens pictured some extravagant relative off traveling in faraway lands only to come back every ten years with gifts and stories for the kids. Unlike a fictitious uncle though, years had passed and Jerry never came back. Havens needed someone that he could blindly trust. He was too hollow inside to not have someone who could look out for him.

  “Yes, Jerry, I can trust you, but I am not working for you. I’d be working for Rick. That’s a different story.”

  “Same story. Rick is my son, Sean. Forgive the pun, but he will be your safe haven.”

  Havens put his head in his hands, trying to process the news. He knew he would need work. He knew his skills catered to only a few very select employers at this time. He still believed there was a need for a man like him, but he also needed to be with his daughter. He had lost so much for this country or maybe for his own aspirations and personal career goals.

  “What’s next? Maggie still needs to be in hospitals and therapy. Her mind is still repairing from the traumatic injury. Things are still broken in her thinking. She has to relearn how to walk. Her days are filled with speech and reading exercises. Shit, she still needs help eating, bathing, and dressing herself. In the coming weeks, they will have to do another cranioplasty since they left part of her skull fractured to get back in if there were more blood clots on her brain. Poor kid wears a hockey helmet 24/7. I’m putting the house up for sale. I have another banister up but think she would do better in a ranch and put special chairs and devices in the bathrooms for support.”

  Jerry listened attentively as a therapist would. He waited until Sean finished.

  “You and Rick can come up with the plan. He is driving out here in the next hour. He does a lot of his work through a cutout holding company, Donovan Black Holdings, that you would join. It will keep you off the books.”

  “Why does this all need to be done today? Now? I’ve gone from one nightmare to another and have yet to have a good sleep. I’m beat, Jerry. I just need some time to breathe.”

  Havens put his face in his hands again. His outstretched fingers pulled down across the contours of his face moving back up in prayer form over his mouth and nose. He closed his eyes and expelled the air from his lungs along with the stress of the past few months.

  Fine. I can do this. I went for months in the field with the same amount of sleep deprivation.

  Jerry was swirling the last remnants of Scotch in his glass.

  “That brings me to the second part of my trip. Prescott Draeger, or we assume it to be him. He certainly has the resources and capability from what I understand…”

  “Say it, Jerry. What’s going on? What next? He has a nuke aimed at my house? Screw it. Tell him to push the button.”

  “He has put out a rather extensive national and international hit on you tied to the release of your name and the attacks in the media. Evidently, Prescott Draeger has publicized a digital cash bounty through Bitcoin on the assassination market through Silk Road-type sites and anonymizing networks like Tor. You currently have one of the largest bounties as other users are donating Bitcoins to the pot. They are crowdsourcing funding for your death. The Secret Service and the FBI were unsuccessful at shutting it down the first time, and now, I am afraid, the anonymous network is that much more of a virtual apparition. From biker gangs to foreign assassins to someone looking to earn a rather lucrative fee, your life has just been put on the market. It will be very difficult for us to find Draeger and stop the momentum of this.”

  Havens felt numb with disbelief. “I suppose nothing anyone can do here either?”

  “Sean, he has us on our heels with this one. The authorities are more concerned about the killing market than they are you, but rest assured, they are looking for encryption exploits and other more technical approaches to shut this down. You will need to get your affairs in order immediately though. The notices came out yesterday. We have done the best we can with system denials of service and disruption of postings online, but there is not much power that we have against this type of crowdsourcing I am afraid.”

  “How can I stop it?” Clearly you aren’t going to stop it unless I agree to this.

  “I believe you know the answer to that. You and Rick will need to find Draeger and those involved.”

  “Those involved? Who else is involved?”

  “Draeger was somehow brought into this crazy Silver Star scheme, or shall I say placed. You see, once you moved away from some of our activities affiliated with the Agency, you worked dotted line against another one. Have you heard of the Lake? Perhaps the Pond?”

  “The old G-2 Cold War group affiliated with Senator McCarthy?”

  Jerry smiled like a proud parent.

  “Indeed. And they still exist. They have moved on from Communists to Extremists. They were among the best at using corporate surrogates, unsavory character assets, and rather foul means. Aside from OSS, in our current community, they set the bar for cutout work and commercial cover for status and action. You did work for them for a few years. We had our rivalry but shared resources. We shared you. Draeger has been with them for years, but I suspect now more formally. You were from the onset primarily with what our joint leaders called the Bay.”

  “I thought that is just what some people called the Agency in the ‘50s.”

  Jerry raised his eyebrows and sent a tight-lipped smile across to Havens. He said nothing. While there were Agencies, there were still small societies within those agencies. Closed to all but a select few.

  “Sean, Draeger has the reach and community anonymity of the Lake. Few know it exists aside from what is in the National Archives. Draeger may be on the run, but that will only play better to their hand. They love men like Draeger. We don’t know who their sources are. We don’t know where their safe houses are. We know very little. Rick has been involved with an Agency project as a bit of a national counterintelligence effort. Quite high level and discrete as you can imagine. You will be tasked to get our arms around the Lake. In some cases, where we know they have done harm to national security and national interests, we have authorities for extrajudicial…well…” Jerry sat up, shifting from a quiet and sly means of communication to one more befitting his image of himself. “As gentlemen here, let’s just say we can go clean their clocks. I must say, if I were a few years younger, I’d very much like to be a part of this.”

  While it sounded like the kind of activities that should only exist in the fictional pages of a Nelson DeMille novel, it made complete sense to Sean Havens. He had been behind more than his share of closed door secret operations. It would make sense that Draeger would play on such a team as this Lake or Pond.

  “Rick’s work, that you will now be part of, will help with your situation as well. I would say it means yo
u have two jobs. Well, three since your primary job is to protect yourself and, of course, that little girl of yours. I’d consider relatives too. Anyone with links to you is a trail that some may chase to get to you for their bounty reward.”

  “Cripes, Jerry. Where do I even start?”

  “For now, Sean. . . run.”

  Cougar raised her head abruptly. Her ears twitched in concentration. She ran to the entryway as Havens spun around the table grabbing his mentor.

  The rapport of automatic gunfire bursts outside erupted from the silent winter morning. The staccato salvo changed to a near constant barrage of ammunition, spewing the mixes of steel, Teflon, and lead that now raked the vehicles’ metal in the driveway up to the beloved artisan crafted door of Christina Havens.

  End

  Table of Contents

  SAFE HAVENS: SHADOW MASTERS

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Contents

  Prelude

  Part I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Part II

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29