Overwatch

by Marc Guggenheim

  As in any subway station, there is no means of summoning the next car or train. Alex wonders what his next move is. He glances down at his father’s cell phone, thinking this might be a good time to check in with Gerald. But the phone isn’t getting a signal here, wherever “here” is.

  Suddenly, an electric whine pierces the air. Alex jumps and turns in its direction. He looks to the track, and a lone subway car slides into view. But it doesn’t look like a subway car. Not exactly. It’s shorter in length and a little squatter. Its large windows reveal no passengers or rail man.

  The car comes to a stop. A pair of doors slide open with a pneumatic hiss. Like an invitation. He steps inside. At the edges of the doors are photoelectric triggers that Alex activates by passing through, prompting the doors to close. Alex grabs hold of one of the steel poles and the car surges forward.

  * * *

  “We have enough troops and personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan,” SecDef says, “and the Seventh Transportation Group has the necessary vehicles and equipment with it. Bottom line, we should be able to cobble together a modest invasion force.”

  “I’m not sure which I find more troubling, ‘cobble together’ or ‘modest.’” This draws a few small chuckles in the Situation Room, breaking some of the rock-solid tension. But the president is serious. He isn’t going to war on the cheap.

  “What I mean, Mr. President, is that if need be, we can assemble an invasion force on the order of what we went into Iraq with back in ’03.”

  “That doesn’t comfort me much,” the president retorts.

  “We still took the country, sir.”

  The president nods. “What about air options?”

  “We’ve got Carrier Strike Group Three in the Gulf right now. They’ve got Carrier Air Wing Nine with them and four strike fighter squadrons. They fly the F/A–Eighteen C Hornet and the F/A–Eighteen F Super Hornet.”

  “When can you get them up and flying?”

  “As soon as you give the order, sir.”

  “Mr. President,” the secretary of state chimes in, “something to consider: if we start flying fighter jets over Iran’s airspace, they’re going to view that as an extremely aggressive act.”

  “Not unlike the aggressive acts Iran is directing against Israel, one of our most important allies and our only ally in the region?” the chairman of the Joint Chiefs chimes in.

  “All I’m saying is, if our air force finds itself in an engagement with the IRIAF, this could very quickly—very quickly—escalate into a shooting war with Iran.”

  “A shooting war with Iran is what we’re looking at in the event that Iran goes through with its apparent plan to attack Israel. Maybe a few F/A-Eighteens in their airspace will make them think twice about their intentions.” The president takes a beat. “Start low-level reconnaissance flights along the Iraq-Iran border.”

  * * *

  “He just committed air assets,” Tyler Donovan reports less than a second later. “Sorties along the border.”

  Rykman nods, satisfied. He sees several paths to war now. With the U.S. military putting skin in the game, he knows inertia will do most of the work for him. All it takes is one shot for a cascade of military reaction and counterreaction to plunge the United States, Israel, and Iran into war. He knows most people would never understand the degree of satisfaction this gives him. Only a bloodthirsty sociopath, conventional wisdom says, would agitate for war. He doesn’t covet war for the sake of war. But he remembers when the U.S. embassy in Iran was overrun in 1979. He remembers the hostages who were taken, how impotent the crisis made America appear to its enemies. He remembers the assassinations of Israelis by Iran in 2012. He remembers the series of bombings that followed shortly thereafter in New Delhi, Tbilisi, and Bangkok. Most important, he knows better than almost anyone on the planet the extent of Iran’s passion to join the club of nuclear-weaponized nations. Iran is a terrorist country that has been allowed to exist for far too long. Rykman is an extremely intelligent man and knows more about geopolitical realities than most heads of state. But he could never fathom why his government chose to invade Iraq and Afghanistan and leave the much greater threat of Iran untouched.

  But that’s all going to change tonight. And it makes William Rykman smile.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  LOCATION UNKNOWN

  4:27 A.M. EDT

  THE SUBWAY car comes to a gentle stop and the automated doors swish open. On the other side of the doors, Alex finds another platform virtually identical to the one he just left. The only difference is the mouth of a long tunnel-like corridor opposite the platform. He walks toward it, checking his father’s phone again. Still no reception. He pockets the phone and ventures into the dark corridor. The only lighting comes from a line of fluorescents strung overhead. They illuminate the walls of rough-hewn rock, suggesting that this space was dug directly into the ground. Pipes run overhead parallel with the fluorescent lights, bolted directly to the rock face.

  As Alex moves deeper into the tunnel, he begins to hear faint sounds, the hum of electronics and the murmur of voices. He quickens his pace. The sound of his loafers on the floor abruptly changes from the soft thwap of shoe sole on rock to something less organic, more like a chime. He finds himself on a steel-mesh gangway, metal stairs descending on either side of him. The space the gangway looks down upon seems about the size of a small movie theater. In the center is a glass-enclosed conference room, complete with a polished walnut table and rolling Aeron office chairs. Built into the top of the conference table is a metal door—which, judging from the circular dial at its center, is some kind of safe.

  The area outside the conference room is ringed by bleeding-edge computer workstations, each equipped with a trio of flat-screen monitors aglow with information. Crew-cut men and a token pair of women, all in conservative business suits, manage their respective workstations. At the far end of the room is a massive screen whose display is currently divided into a series of video feeds: CNN’s broadcast, a cornucopia of satellite imagery, and, astonishingly, what looks like security camera footage of the White House Situation Room. Alex recognizes the president and the secretaries of defense and state. He recognizes the room itself from news photographs and, although it’s changed somewhat, from the time his father gave him a tour of the facility when he was eight.

  There’s a man standing in front of the huge screen. He’s facing away from Alex and he’s backlit by the video unfolding in front of him, but it’s obvious from his body language that he’s in charge.

  Alex is so focused on the surreal surroundings that it takes him a moment to register that his presence has gone undetected so far. He reaches inside his suit jacket for his father’s phone. With luck, he can snap off a few photos using the phone’s camera and then turn tail and go back from whence he came. He snaps off the first shot without incident, then works to operate the digital zoom to get a better glimpse of Mr. Big, but his view is obstructed by the conference room’s glass enclosure. Slowly, he maneuvers around the gangway for a better angle, taking care to minimize the noise of his footfalls. But with each step, the sound of his shoes on the metal appears to grow louder. He prays that the height and ambient noise from all the computer and video activity will cloak the sound of his movements.

  He aims the phone again at a more promising angle. Mr. Big accommodates him somewhat with a slight turn of the head, offering a three-quarter view that is better than nothing. Once Alex is properly zoomed in, what he sees makes complete sense.

  Director Rykman is in the center of all this.

  After all, the attempt on his life was made mere hours after Alex tried, and failed, to blow the whistle on Solstice in Rykman’s office.

  Alex takes the picture and considers taking another when he hears the click. The sound is unmistakable to anyone who watches movies or TV: the telltale shik-shak of a semiautomatic weapon being tromboned. Alex turns in the direction of the noise to see the man who was able to sneak up behind Alex while he was playin
g photographer. He has a Glock 19 in a two-handed grip and the gun is leveled directly at Alex’s head. The coldness in the man’s eyes confirms that he not only knows how to use the weapon but also will do so without hesitation before or remorse afterward. There’s a look on his face that strongly suggests Alex’s presence is the exact opposite of unexpected.

  * * *

  Rykman leads Alex into the conference room and closes the door. All the computer chatter and random noise from the outer room immediately disappear in the soundproof space. “Have a seat,” Rykman says. Alex doesn’t move. “Sit down,” Rykman orders again in a more commanding tone. Alex sits. Rykman paces. Slow. Methodical. “I’m afraid I can’t let you out of here at the moment, Mr. Garnett. We have a delicate operation under way.”

  “Orchestrating a war between the United States and Iran?”

  “All wars are orchestrated, Mr. Garnett. Have no illusions about that. Even our involvement in World War Two, considered history’s most noble war, came about because FDR suppressed the intel we had that the Japanese were about to attack Pearl Harbor in order to orchestrate our getting into the war.”

  “That conspiracy theory’s been debunked. But then, I didn’t come here to debate history with you, did I?”

  “Why did you come here, Alex? Do you mind if I call you Alex?”

  “You tried to kill me last night. Or have me killed, I guess is the more accurate way of putting it. Because I found out about Solstice.”

  Rykman shakes his head. “No. Because you were a rogue element in an equation I need to maintain strict control over. It was absolutely nothing personal. No one man’s life, including my own, isn’t expendable in this endeavor.”

  “Invading Iran.” Alex meets Rykman’s dead-eyed stare, reducing all his machinations to a pair of words, both of which drip with disapproving judgment.

  “I’m not going to debate policy with you, Alex. Suffice it to say, we should have invaded Iran in 1979 when they committed an act of war and took sixty-six innocent hostages. Don’t believe the rhetoric. I’m the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and I’m here to tell you that Iran has always been more dangerous than ten Iraqs or twenty Afghanistans.”

  “I’ve got no problem with us going into Iran,” Alex asserts. “And maybe I don’t even have a problem with assassinating Jahandar, even though we both know it’s illegal.” He pauses. “What I have a little bit of a problem with, however, are the murders of Jim Harling, Evelyn Moreno, Alan Miller, Brenda Zollitsch, and Leah Doyle. You’ve killed more Americans than Jahandar did.”

  Rykman’s eyes blaze. Alex can see he’s struck a nerve. “I told you,” Rykman says, almost snarling, “no one isn’t expendable. No one.” Then, as if to make the point, he turns and looks out of the conference room. Alex’s eyes follow and his heart skips a beat.

  He sees Gerald.

  The kid—and in this moment, he looks very much like a kid—is standing on the other side of the soundproof glass. He’s trembling. His eyes gleam with tears threatening to spill forth. A man in a dark suit with a military bearing to match his crew cut stands behind him. Gerald’s eyes find Alex’s and make a silent plea. Whatever they want you to do, whatever they want you to stop doing, please…please…just listen to them, do whatever it is they want.

  “Let him go,” Alex says through clenched teeth.

  Rykman just shakes his head. “Mr. Jankovick is my insurance policy.”

  “Against what?”

  “Against you.”

  “Let him go and I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

  “The book on you is that you’re a better negotiator than this.” Alex looks at Rykman, quizzical. “I let him go today, what, you think I can’t kill him tomorrow? Or maybe you were thinking I’d just give you my word?”

  “You could,” Alex allows. “But there’s no word you could give me that I could trust.”

  “Attaboy.”

  “I guess your only move here is to kill us both,” Alex says. To his own surprise, he’s not frightened. He’s not sure why—maybe it’s the fact that at least all the lies and uncertainties are gone—but he’s grateful for the inner calm. It gives him focus. With adrenaline blazing through him, the entire world seems sharper now.

  “I don’t want to kill you, Alex.”

  Alex shoots Rykman a dagger stare. “Really?” His voice drips with incredulity. “I guess it was someone else who tried to have me killed, then.”

  “You’ve shown me quite a bit of sack and ingenuity since then,” Rykman admits. “Moreover, our operation in Iran is much further along—and, therefore, in a much less vulnerable state—than it was in thirty-seven hours ago. Even if I were to let you walk out of here with my untrustworthy promise you won’t come to any harm, I doubt there’s much you could do to stop the wheels that are currently in motion.”

  Alex has to acknowledge the truth of that. Fortunately, his goals are a bit more humble than stopping an international military conflict. All his focus now is on bringing Rykman and the Overwatch to light. He wants to drag Rykman and his minions in front of the flashing cameras and omnipresent microphones of media scrutiny, senate subcommittees, and a marathon of criminal trials culminating in his lifetime imprisonment in a supermax control-unit federal prison. This much must be obvious, or maybe Rykman can just read it on his face. “And I don’t think prison is in my future either, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Rykman observes.

  “Well, I’m a licensed attorney. And you might find circumstances to be a little different once someone informs you of what the laws against murder, assassination, conspiracy, and treason are.”

  “William Donovan was a lawyer too. Did you know that?” Alex nods, unsure of Rykman’s point. He thinks of the statue of William “Wild Bill” Donovan in the lobby of the Old Headquarters Building, directly opposite the chiseled stars—currently 107—on the Memorial Wall featured in so many Hollywood movies. Donovan was considered the father of America’s intelligence-gathering agency. “President Roosevelt directed Donovan—who, in addition to being a lawyer, was an army colonel at the time—to draft a plan for a national intelligence service.”

  “What does this have to do with anything?” Alex snaps impatiently.

  “Everything” is Rykman’s answer. His voice is threatening and cold. “Donovan helped create the Office of Strategic Services, the OSS, which was a precursor to the CIA. Through Donovan, the OSS crippled Nazi Germany from the inside out, ran Operation Paperclip, kicked the Japanese out of Burma…” Rykman looks at Alex to make sure he understands the magnitude of Donovan’s and the OSS’s accomplishments. “The OSS not only made history, Alex. It changed it.” He shrugs. “But the price of success is envy. So the likes of General MacArthur and J. Edgar Hoover leveraged President Truman into signing Executive Order 9621.”

  Alex nods to indicate his understanding although he doesn’t know what Rykman’s point is. “The order dissolved the OSS. Liquidated it, essentially.”

  “But why would President Truman dissolve America’s first intelligence-gathering agency, particularly given its enormous success during World War Two?” With this, Rykman moves to the center of the conference table and bends to twist the combination dial for the safe embedded into the tabletop. After a few spins of the dial, the metal door pops open and Rykman reaches into the table’s depths and produces a single sheet of paper, yellowed with age. “Truman’s signing of Executive Order 9621 made sense out of his contemporaneous execution of another order—Executive Order 9621-X.” He holds up the weathered typewritten document, nearly seventy years old, and hands it to Alex.

  Alex scans the ancient presidential order, although by now he has a good idea as to what it states. As he reads, Rykman continues, “You’re looking at one of only two copies in existence. The other copy is entombed in the hollow cornerstone of the CIA’s Old Headquarters Building.”

  Alex finishes reading and sets the paper down. He glances up to find Rykman staring straight at him, looking as if he’s jus
t laid out a royal flush, aces high. “As you said, you’re a lawyer. You understand what 9621-X does, don’t you? You grasp its legal import?” Alex just nods. “It reconstitutes the OSS, resurrecting it, effectively, as the Overwatch.” Rykman takes the order and restores it to the safe. As he swings the door shut, he adds, “President Truman believed in an intelligence agency free of the kind of political and interagency territorial squabbles that led to the OSS’s public demise. He wanted an agency that could do what it needed to do, unfettered by congressional oversight, in the interests of the United States. Bottom line, Alex, everything the Overwatch has done, everything it’s doing right now…it’s all legal.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  BULLSHIT, ALEX thinks. Fortunately, he still retains enough self-control not to give that thought voice. His mind spins while he struggles with the one thing he wasn’t expecting. That the Overwatch and all its actions were illegal was the one thing, the only thing, Alex could count on. The law was always something he took for granted, a means to an end, a path to employment, yet in this case, it insidiously wormed its way into his thoughts as something more: the guiding principle, the constant star, navigating him through this entire mess. The law draws a bright line between right and wrong, and Alex had been sure he stood on the right side, looking heroically over the line at the Overwatch on the other side.

  But that was never true.

  The seconds drip by, molasseslike, seeming like minutes; minutes seeming like hours. If Rykman is telling the truth, then Alex is the traitor, the criminal, in this scenario. He looks over at Gerald, an unwitting pawn in the drama playing out. In that regard, the only difference between Gerald and Harling and the rest of them is that Gerald’s still alive. But probably not for very much longer.

  “What about murder?”