The Harbinger of Change

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  Matt thought about that. “And, of course, your plan to step on that plane and disappear went out the window the minute you plunged your knife into Dr. Cooper?”

  “Yes.”

  If what she was saying was true, then Matt realized he had just hit the “opposite lottery.” In this lottery, he didn’t win anything, and in fact, he got the opposite of winning; he lost everything. He had always been convinced he was slightly cursed with bad luck, but this astronomical happenstance was proof positive.

  “So what Agency did those two guys work for?”

  “I don’t know,” Vera said. “It could have been DHS or CIA or just two cops. I have no idea, because they didn’t identify themselves when they grabbed me.”

  Matt understood now why the authorities thought he was suspicious in this, and it wasn’t looking good for him. He looked like Harvey Dent of Batman—Two-Face.

  Improbably, he really was caught up in a legitimate conspiracy, and that reality was hitting him hard now. Inexplicably, he really did have a new boss right now, even if he had never met him. Not only that, if he cooperated with these people, then a totally new life path was going to open up, and it is one that he never could have seen coming in a million years: that of a criminal.

  Seriously, if someone sat me down yesterday and asked me to come up with a situation that described my worst nightmare, I would have never been so cruel to myself as to think this up. Not only am I now a criminal, I’m a traitor to boot! No man, this is all too much! He doubted this could really be happening, but the inability to make sudden decisions or grasp new realities was never among his shortcomings.

  “Okay,” Matt said, “I’ll help you get out of the country, and I’ll have to trust you to keep your word, because it doesn’t look like you or I have any other choice.”

  Matt sat back and stared out the window from the back seat, where he remained in the shadows, since the authorities were looking for two people. His head had been spinning; both from the information he had just received and from the drug he had been forced to inhale, but it was done spinning now. What these people couldn’t have known about him was that his intuitive instincts were as good as anyone’s on the planet.

  Although he had flunked out of the Sheriff’s Academy, Matt’s ability to create a coherent action plan in the midst of chaos matched the abilities of any trained agent in his position. In the threat assessment department, he was top-notch. His current assessment was not good for himself. His assessment for himself was that he was not going home. He had no illusions that these people would not hesitate to kill him the second he was in their grasp. So his final determination was that he would become an agent for his country by self-induction.

  To do that, he would have to convince this girl somehow that he should not be killed, because if his plan went anywhere near right, he would probably only get one chance for martyrdom. He now doubted her statement of, “They have us ensnared.” Although he didn’t understand Spanish, he did understand inflection, and the kind she was using on the phone was not the inflection of someone who was subjugated. She was one of them, not ensnared at all. That meant she wasn’t perfect either, because letting that information slip was a mistake.

  He reflected on the things he had learned from the work of the Masters, from Tolstoy, Dumas, and of course, Sun Tzu. Matt thought of the most apt lessons. A few of the most prominent came to mind. “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” “Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.” “All warfare is based on deception.”

  These people, his abductors, thought they had a Lee Harvey Oswald here, but what they were going to have was a mad saboteur, if Matt could just get the opportunity. In his movie mind, Bruce Willis’ character John McClane from Die Hard popped in. He would strike back for his country because she was lying about more than just her status with these people.

  When he pressed her about this not being used against the U.S., her denial was emphatic. Whoever had trained her had forgotten to eliminate emphatic denial as a critical part of her training as emphatic denial was a sure sign of deception. So was the fact that she looked slightly to the right when she lied. Yes, this girl was definitely trained by someone smart, but she was no spook. So what the hell is she in all this? Well, one thing is for sure, I’ve enlisted myself into the employ of my government, and in the fashion of fanatics all over the world, I am going to show these assholes how much damage one man, who is willing to sacrifice himself, can do—if I get the chance.

  * * *

  James had known that there were over thirteen hundred named chess openings, and he had never seen this kid’s moves before. His play had been very unorthodox, as had he. It had gotten James thinking that he was more like the ugly duckling than the sheep. James could imagine the swan eventually arising, but for the time being, this Pablo Manuel was still a transitional teenager. Tall, thin, and wiry, he had soft features on his face. His nose, lips, and ears were all in proportion to his head, and no feature was out of place, but James could tell he was one of those people who did not look anything like they would as an adult.

  James watched as hands that were as soft as a nun’s made the next move. As Pablo had been moving, James had focused on his eyes. Now there it was, the kid’s exceptional attribute, his eyes. Oh man, the eyes on this kid were something else. The way they darted, the way they computed. They might be plain old brown, but there was nothing else ordinary about this kid’s eyes. The way he looked through you when he spoke and the way he started his chess game were quite unbelievable.

  James had thought he would have some fun and use the “King’s Indian Defense,” but he had quickly found out that that was a mistake, and that if he weren’t careful, the game could have been headed toward stalemate. What the hell? There is no way this kid played that first game himself? Or was there?

  * * *

  Beck came in sans his sport coat, dress shirt, and tie. He wore just a t-shirt and dress pants—pants with numerous wet spots still from the spot cleaning. “Well?” he growled.

  Sarah Berkman was a techno geek for the Farm. The Agency had tried to use her for fieldwork, but she had not been able to handle the stress. In fieldwork one must be a good actor, and unfortunately for her, she wasn’t. Her biggest weakness was that she was unable to conceal her emotions in a way that field agents must do. At 5'7" and 175 pounds, she was perfect for the field. She had that soccer mom look; a look that would have led very few even a chance to guessing her true identity.

  Field failures aside, she was such an asset that the Agency quickly found a niche for her. Her work in the field of lie detection and investigation was becoming legendary, and she was Ken Beck’s ace in the hole on many fronts.

  “She’s not hiding anything Ken. Sorry. From everything I can see, she’s just as stunned as everyone else, and I doubt she knows anything consciously. Her husband seems to have led a successful double life, and now she’s been thrown into this out of the blue. Sorry, but that’s my initial assessment.”

  Beck sat down and looked at the monitor of the woman crying into her pillow and said, “Great, now what?”

  Ken Beck put his head in his hands and started to think. Okay, we know they went over the San Mateo Bridge, because the cameras caught them, but why?

  Then he had an idea. It just popped into his head. Why didn’t he think of it before? He was going to follow this on his own. Rogers was an okay guy, but Beck had worked his way up through the ranks. He was an actual field agent, not some appointed figurehead. He called Sarah over.

  “I’ve got an idea.” Sarah knew this man, and when he said he had an idea, if someone knew what was good for them, they placed all bets on him. If not, then they’d better hope he never found out that bet wasn’t placed.

  Sarah somehow inherently knew this about Ken from the day she had met him as a Field Agent. She inherently knew to always have his back, and she was right, but it came with a personal price, one that was known only to her. Aside from that, every singl
e person who had ever burned this guy had had their careers sent to the Dark Ages. Somehow the Old Man loved Ken from the get-go, and his career had been on the fast track ever since.

  Sarah also knew something else, that the CIA doctrine sometimes called for sadistic, unbelievable behavior in the name of God and Country, and Ken Beck loved to live in that world. Actually, she feared that he loved it a little too much, and often wondered about his boundaries. But if she were to choose someone to go after these people, it would be Ken Beck all the way. She listened to his instructions, took notes, and got into gear making it happen.

  Within minutes, he was driving to Sacramento with a team of six people in three cars to follow his hunch. Beck always drove himself, except on official visits. Ken was in the lead car going over the very bridge that Matt Hurst’s Mustang had just hours before. It was a slim chance, he thought, but it was better than sitting around and getting barfed on.

  * * *

  James had sat back and stared at the board. He had lost, not stalemated. He’d had to check the kid several times when they were playing, just to make sure he hadn’t been wearing a wire. He hadn’t. James had thought he detected a smarmy grin on both of them earlier, and now he understood why. He had been staring at the next World Champion! James said, “Nice game, but I really can’t believe it.”

  “Why?” said Pablo. “Because I’m nothing but a kid in your eyes?”

  “No,“ James said, “Because I’m one of the best players in the world, even if you’ve never heard of me before. One of my colleagues is a Grandmaster, and he cannot get past stalemate with me.“

  Lebuff interrupted with, “Are you trying to tell us you’re a Grandmaster?”

  “Yes,” was James’s reply, “that and a lot more . . .”

  * * *

  As the car descended into the Tahoe Basin, Matt was trying not to be awed. He wasn’t in the mood for being awed, but damn it, when he saw that view, it just took his breath away. The moon was going to be full, and it was already showing in the distant sky. Lake Tahoe really was one of the wonders of the world, and the descent down Highway 50 offered the best view of the entire basin one could get without climbing up a mountain.

  He really loved nature, and it occurred to him that this might be the last time he made this drive. Jan loved Tahoe. She loved it so much in fact, that they got married here. It took about forty days for her to figure out she was pregnant, but once she did, Matt had to give his roommate and high school friend a thirty-day notice to move from their shared apartment. If he wanted to see sunlight again, Jan instructed him that they’d better be wearing wedding bands when they broke this news to her dad. Man was she ever right—he would have killed me on the spot. Will I ever see Jan again? Suddenly it hit him what she must be going through.

  * * *

  Field Agent Pete Brody was calling Beck as he drove over the San Mateo Bridge heading east.

  “What have you got, Pete?” Ken asked.

  “Homeland went through the house with a fine tooth, nothing concrete. No foreign link, but I called with other news, our kind of news.” Pete was one of Beck’s underlings, and he was a very smart boy. “We might have a better situation than you think, Assistant Director, but we need to get Callahan in here right away.”

  “Okay Pete, I’ll get that done, and then I want a detailed report. But succinctly, why do you think we need that from Ray?”

  “Unless I’m wrong, Chief, I know a patriot when I see one, and this guy’s no goof either—not some security guard, low mentality type. No, Assistant Director. He looks like he’s self-taught in a lot of things, could be he was studying our tactics because he was aiming to join some agency in the future. I can’t put my finger on it, but Ray will.

  “It can easily look like this guy is home-sprung and is going to wreak some serious mayhem out there, and that’s the way the Homeland guys are spinning it, but I don’t think so. Part of my team is going through his former bedroom at his parent’s house, and this guy is Johnny All-American. There is not a single anti-American indicator in his entire past. In fact, he is very social and well connected within his community.

  “That hardly fits the profile we had established from past cases. My assessment is that our bad guys randomly grabbed this Hurst guy. By sheer happenstance, they grabbed the wrong guy, and at the very least, a guy you wouldn’t want against you if you let your guard down. I just need Ray Callahan to confirm, Chief, and then I will file my report.”

  “You’ll wait until we can file that report together, Pete,” Ken replied. “First of all, we have to be very careful going against the grain here. Second, this is not going to be a by-the-numbers case, I can just feel it, so I need you outside the box. Do you understand?”

  Pete Brody knew Ken Beck as well as anyone on the planet, and that familiarity was limited to knowing his title, his ability, and the fact when he told you this was off the record, you already forgot the conversation.

  They hung up. With a quick call, Ken Beck had Ray Callahan en route within minutes. They had already had him out to assess both scenes at Conceptual—fortuitously, he had been on the West Coast training personnel, as had Sarah. This was a lucky break, as they were both usually in D.C. As soon as this case broke, Ken had him poring over Nancy Chavez’s profile immediately. Unfortunately, the data on Hurst wasn’t so readily available because he was in the private sector.

  Ken drifted into reminiscing about his progression in the CIA, starting with Ray Callahan. Ray Callahan was a Farm legend. If one wanted to be in the CIA, and actually made it to Camp Peary for training, then that person would have to get by Ray Callahan at some point. Ken Beck was no exception.

  Ray Callahan had never liked him. Ken knew this because the Old Man had told him so, just so that he never trusted Ray too much. Ray had thought he was brilliant, but had also viewed him as a person with a hidden agenda. Ray had always felt that a potentially psychotic personality lurked inside Ken Beck, and he was not shy to report it to Bob Thompson.

  That had been his big mistake. It had been innocent enough. They had been going over test scores, and Beck’s consistently high scores had drawn notice. Instead of commenting on the positive, Ray had let the boss know that this one cadet was possibly a sociopath, that in his humble opinion, this individual wanted power so badly that he might be willing to do anything to get it.

  Ray could have not known that the traits he was describing were exactly what his boss was looking for. Super motivated, super ruthless, and never nice about anything—the antithesis of Bob. Regardless of Ken’s ability, or Bob’s commitment to cover his chosen man, Ray had tried to pull Beck’s rug out more than once, especially after the Iraq fiasco, but the Old Man had always saved him.

  For all his grandstanding with the whole “legendary calmness in the storm” thing, Bob Thompson loved that his Assistant Director was just the opposite. He had purposely fast-tracked Ken’s career, believing that his balance would discourage complacency.

  Beck’s lucky break had been that Bob Thompson was very worried about the greatest potential shortcoming in his management style, which was that he could miss the time to be stalwart. Thompson knew that with Ken Beck, the moment wouldn’t be missed.

  So, the Old Man had overridden Ray time after time, and Ken had gotten results, time after time. Regardless, Ray Callahan was the only person who had dared go against him, because he was the only person more untouchable than Ken was in the eyes of the Old Man. So often it had been a Mexican standoff, but most of the time, he had gotten what he wanted.

  Yet Ray was a man whom everyone tapped into if they wanted to succeed, and that was the thorn that Ken Beck got to stick into Ray Callahan, time and time again. He included Ray on his hardest cases, and almost always went with Ray’s analysis, since it was usually spot on. So in essence, Ray Callahan helped the man he hated get promoted. It was quite the catch-22.

  The rumor mill had Callahan secretly running the show for years, and if Pete Brody was right, then Ken h
ad finally caught a break, a break that they would keep to themselves at CIA. Ray was not authorized to share information with other agencies, which meant that they could share Pete’s assessment with Ray and all he could do was help. It was a very trying situation for Ray Callahan, and a very soothing one for Ken Beck. Anytime he could cause another human being suffering or angst, then that was a good day for him indeed.

  Ken also knew that a prior interagency situation had caused Ray to have no inclination to help DHS, so that shouldn’t be a problem anyway. He had learned more than once not to go against a DHS assessment unless he was ready have every corner of his body checked with a dental pick. Those boys were the government’s face to the public, and they beat the drums according to their own needs, but rarely ever in actual pursuit of the truth. That was Ken’s job, and a lot of other people behind the scenes just like him. He allowed himself a little smile. Maybe one break will lead to others—luck happens that way.

  * * *

  On the descent into the Tahoe Basin, one view was lost only to gain another. The place was so beautiful with lush rolling hills, covered with pines everywhere, and little roadside businesses selling Alpaca rugs and woodcarvings. They passed a wonderful looking golf course, which Matt knew mostly from memory from passing it all these years—although he could care less, since he hated golf.

  This part of South Lake Tahoe was less chaotic than the Nevada side, where all the casinos were located and ninety-five percent of the tourist population resided. Highway 50 was littered with little cottages, chalets, and motor inns that were overflow for skiing season and summer peaks, but were sparsely populated in the off season. Since this was May, the summer rush was not yet on.