Black Ops Bundle: Volume One

by Allan Leverone

  “Whoever is behind this mess doesn’t care what happens then. Assassinating Reagan and starting World War Three will give those people inside the Kremlin plenty of time to consolidate their power and stockpile resources so that no matter who wins—and even if everyone loses, which seems likely—they are provided for. Plus, their precious Soviet empire remains intact that much longer, or at least has not fallen completely apart, which seems to be the most likely outcome the way things are going right now.”

  Shane stared out the windshield at the cars on I-95, metal boxes hurrying to unknown destinations. “But if Gorbachev is so opposed to this plan, why not just stop it from inside his government? He’s the man in charge, after all.”

  “Gorbachev’s skating on thin ice over there. He has instituted reforms that have outraged the hard-liners in the political structure, people who would like nothing better than to go back to the days of Khrushchev, or even Stalin. Gorbachev recognizes that he doesn’t have the muscle politically to take on these hard-liners directly, so instead he’s going through the back door. He couldn’t trust anyone within his government to deliver his message intact—he certainly couldn’t ask the KGB to do it—so he tried to do it clandestinely.”

  “Why not just go public with what he knows? That would stop the whole thing in its tracks.”

  “If he tried to do that, he’d be gone by the next day. He would either be arrested or killed. He would likely disappear in the middle of the night and never be heard from again. The Soviet political system is not like ours—there isn’t even the illusion of openness. The truth is considered an asset only when it advances the Communist cause. If Gorbachev went to the press with the details of this plan, even his supporters would consider him a traitor to his country. No,” she said slowly, thinking out loud, “this is really the only way he could have handled it, and he’s taking one hell of a big chance as it is.”

  “Okay, that’s it,” Shane said. “We’re hours away from the assassination of the president and the start of a war maybe no one will survive.” He eased down on the accelerator and the car surged forward. “We’ve got to get you to a phone. You have to call your superiors at CIA and tell them about this. Never mind Winston Andrews—call the CIA Director himself, if you have to.”

  “I can’t,” Tracie said simply, shaking her head.

  Shane pulled his foot off the gas and stared at Tracie in amazement. He ignored the honking of a car behind him. A middle-aged woman flipped him off as she pulled around the Granada, and he barely noticed. “What do you mean, you can’t? You have to!”

  “No,” she said. “I can’t. Nothing’s changed, Shane. I don’t know who can be trusted. I trusted Winston Andrews with my life, put it in his hands dozens of times, and it turns out he’s involved with the Soviets, apparently has been for years. I have no way of knowing who else in the power structure is compromised, and that includes Director Stallings. If I alert the wrong people, or even if I alert the right people but the wrong people get wind of it, the letter gets destroyed, you and I get neutralized, and the president of the United States gets assassinated.”

  “Everyone can’t be involved.”

  “Of course not. I’m sure only a small percentage are involved. But I can’t take the chance of the one person who is involved finding out. The stakes are just too high.”

  “Call the cops then. The Secret Service. Alert the media. We have to do something.”

  Tracie sighed. “I’d like nothing better. But do you have any idea how many ‘tips’ the authorities get every day about assassination plots against the president? Dozens, especially when he travels or makes public appearances. We won’t be taken seriously, Shane, trust me on this. We’ll be detained and the speech will go on as planned.”

  He stared at her, his stomach turning over slowly. The blueberry muffin he had eaten earlier felt like a ticking time bomb and his mouth tasted sour and acidic, like he might be about to puke. “What are we going to do, then?”

  “We continue to D.C. as planned. I have to interrogate Andrews, force him to give up the names of everyone involved in this thing. Once I have those names, I’ll know who’s clean. Then we pass along this damned letter.”

  Shane punched the gas and the Granada leapt forward again. They were still hours away from Washington and time was ticking. Something was still bothering him, though. “What if Andrews refuses to give up the information you need?”

  Tracie stared straight ahead, steely-eyed and determined. “He’ll talk.”

  36

  June 1, 1987

  4:20 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  Winston Andrews’ two-story townhouse was located in Georgetown, a couple of blocks northeast of the Potomac River and Virginia, a couple of blocks west of the D.C. political sprawl. Built of weathered red brick and covered in climbing ivy, the house looked lush and full and green in the summer.

  Tracie and Shane had been forced to pass the time in the New York City area waiting for the bank containing Tracie’s safe deposit box to open for business. At nine o’clock sharp, they had parked outside a squat concrete bank building, and the moment the manager had unlocked the front door, Tracie entered.

  Shane stayed with the car while Tracie carried in a cheap canvas backpack they had picked up at a roadside Five and Dime store. She returned fifteen minutes later with the pack bulging, then tossed it into the backseat where it landed with a metallic clank.

  “Don’t ask,” she said, and Shane didn’t ask.

  After that they had taken turns driving, following the interstate, pushing the speed limit as much as they dared. Getting stopped for speeding would be a problem, but arriving in Washington too late to prevent the assassination of the President of the United States would be a bigger problem. They stopped at a highway gas station just after noon, where they filled up the tank and bought a couple of cold burgers, then got right back on the road and ate in the car.

  Conversation was sporadic. Shane could see plainly that Tracie had been shaken to the core by her betrayal at the hands of Winston Andrews. It was eating at her, seemingly bothering her even more than the idea that the two of them were all that stood between the Soviet Union and the likely outbreak of World War Three. She chewed her lip and muttered to herself, shaking her head when she thought he wasn’t looking. “Can’t talk about it,” was all she would commit to when he tried to get her to open up.

  Shane thought he understood. The relationship between a field operative—Tracie refused to use the term “spy,” but to Shane it seemed appropriate—and her handler was of necessity extremely close, especially when clandestine operations were involved. She had told him back at the New Haven Arms while they relaxed in bed that often the handler was the only person alive besides the operative herself who possessed all the details of an operation, making the handler the only lifeline if the operative ran into problems in the field.

  So Tracie had placed an inordinate amount of trust—faith, really—in Winston Andrews. And he had turned out to be a traitor both to Tracie and to his country, accepting without question what he thought had been her execution in a dive motel by two KGB agents as the cost of doing business. Shane wondered what was going to happen when they arrived at Andrews’ townhouse. After having seen the results of her interaction with the two Russian spies back in New Haven, he guessed life would suddenly become exceedingly unpleasant for Andrews.

  The sun had lost its day-long battle with an overcast layer, and the slate-grey sky hung dour and menacing over the mid-Atlantic as they entered the D.C. metro area. Tracie was behind the wheel for this leg, and after exiting the highway, navigated the streets with practiced ease. Fifteen minutes later, she pulled to the curb in a quiet, leafy neighborhood, letting the Ford idle while she sat taking in the activity, of which there was little.

  “Which one is it?” Shane asked, and she pointed out Andrews’ home.

  “He lives alone?”

  She nodded wordlessly.

  “He won’t
be expecting you, so you should have the advantage of surprise,” he said.

  “That may or may not be true,” Tracie answered, the first time she had spoken more than a couple of words at a time in several hours. “It all depends upon the communication schedule he had set up with the Russians. If he expected them to check in between New Haven and here, say at the halfway point or something, he’ll obviously be aware by now that something’s gone wrong.”

  “How likely is that?”

  She shrugged. “No way of knowing. He wouldn’t have had that kind of arrangement with me, but then again, he and I worked together for a long time.” Her voice was hard-edged and bitter. “But with these guys, he may have wanted a more hands-on relationship.”

  She shrugged again. “Doesn’t really matter. Nothing we can do about it either way.”

  They sat for another moment. “What’s the plan?” Shane asked.

  “The plan? Reintroduce myself to my old friend and have a little heart to heart.”

  37

  June 1, 1987

  4:50 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  Tracie knew she needed to move now, but couldn’t shake her depression. She had been brooding for hours in the car, the weight of Andrews’ betrayal throbbing in her gut like a physical ailment. She liked to think of herself as a keen judge of character—staying alive often meant sniffing out the difference between sincerity and bullshit—and she had never viewed Andrews as anything but a patriot.

  It was like losing a parent. Hell, in some ways it was worse than losing a parent, because Winston Andrews’ deception had been so willful, so heartless so…complete. Death happened, it came for everyone eventually, and although the death of a loved one could bring pain, the actions of Winston Andrews had brought that and much more: the hurt of personal betrayal, and anger, and a confusion Tracie simply could not work past.

  She had signed on at CIA not out of any desire to put her life on the line. Not because she had an addiction to danger. Certainly not because she wanted to fly around the world nonstop for years on end, working in the biggest hellholes, putting out the biggest fires, always knowing that if things went sideways there would be no one to come to the rescue, always knowing if she were captured or killed she would be cast aside by her government, sacrificed on the altar of political expedience.

  No, she had signed on at CIA out of an abiding love for her country, a knowledge that despite our weaknesses and faults as Americans—we had them, of course we did, we would not be human if it were otherwise—we possessed the best system of government in the world, enjoyed freedoms unprecedented in human history.

  She had wanted to give something back, and fighting in the most significant philosophical conflict of the twentieth century—Democracy versus Communism, freedom versus repression—had seemed the best way to do that. She thought of herself as an “All-American girl” in the truest sense of the word.

  She had been a fool, she now realized.

  She had looked up to Winston Andrews as a mentor and a friend, had considered him a fighter for the cause of freedom, just as she was. And all the time she was traipsing around the world, crawling through mud puddles, freezing her toes and fingers inside substandard equipment, getting shot at and knifed, coaxing information out of unwilling subjects, taking lives, working nonstop with never a moment to enjoy life like a normal twenty-seven-year-old single woman, in all that time, Winston Andrews had been sitting here in Washington, playing both sides against the middle, sipping cognac and committing treason, making deals with Communists and traitors.

  And laughing at her.

  That was the worst part. He had to have been laughing his wrinkled old ass off at her. Little Miss Idealist, taking orders without question, doing as she was told, all in the cause of freedom and the advancement of American ideals. What a joke. He had played her for a fool and she had followed along blindly. Willingly.

  Tracie felt her eyes filling with tears and blinked them back. There was nothing she could do about her monumental stupidity now, and this wasn’t the time to worry about it, anyway. Winston Andrews had made a fool of her, but that had been his choice, not hers. She still believed in her country even if he didn’t, and the clock was still ticking down to the assassination of President Reagan, and it had fallen to her to stop it, not out of choice but necessity.

  How many others were involved? That was the question. If Winston Andrews had been co-opted, anyone could be. It was time to find out what Andrews knew, and Tracie had been watching the neighborhood long enough. Activity was minimal. No one had come or gone at Andrews’ townhouse, so he must have been working from home today, something he often did, and was probably alone.

  Tracie felt certain he wouldn’t have gone to Langley with Gorbachev’s letter out there unaccounted for.

  It was time to move.

  She turned to Shane in the passenger seat and saw him watching her closely. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice gentle.

  She thought about it for a moment before answering, and then said, “Yes, I am.” And she discovered she meant it. She took a moment to tell him how she intended to gain access to Andrews’ house and what she needed from him. Then she opened the door of the Granada and stepped into the muggy late-spring air.

  38

  June 1, 1987

  5:25 p.m.

  Washington, D.C.

  Shane walked up the front steps and pushed the buzzer. Whatever Winston Andrews’ faults, and it seemed there were plenty, being a lazy homeowner was not one of them. The grass around the flagstone walkway had been trimmed with military precision, and the home’s wooden shutters appeared freshly painted, the purity of their near-blinding whiteness providing a stark contrast to the tired-looking weathered grey of the shutters on the surrounding homes.

  Shane rang the bell and listened closely. Nothing. He waited maybe thirty seconds and pressed the buzzer again, worried that Andrews might not even be home. Tracie had been certain he would be. “He won’t go anywhere until he gets his hands on the letter he thinks is coming,” she had said, but Shane wasn’t so sure. Maybe he had found out somehow that the Russians had been taken down, or maybe he simply got cold feet and left town.

  He lifted his hand to buzz the house a third time when through the closed door came a muffled, “Yes? What is it?” Tracie had said he wouldn’t open the door, not even a crack, and she had been right. There was a peephole in the middle of the heavy oak door, eye height, and Shane pictured a suspicious old man peering through it, sizing him up.

  “Thank God you’re home,” Shane said, following Tracie’s instructions. “I wonder if I could use your phone. I’ve been bitten by a dog and I need medical attention.”

  “Bitten? Where? I don’t see any blood.”

  “It’s on my lower leg. See?” Shane turned around and pointed toward the porch floor. Tracie had said the fisheye lens in the door’s peephole would likely not show the floor clearly enough for Andrews to be sure whether Shane was really injured or not, and in any event, the point was not to convince him, but rather to keep him occupied long enough for her to do what she needed to do.

  “Please,” Shane said. “I feel queasy, like I’m gonna be sick. If you won’t let me in, could you please at least call an ambulance for me? The blood, it’s soaking into my shoe…” He sank to one knee and put his head down, like an athlete offering up a quick prayer before a game.

  There was a short pause, then the disembodied voice said, “All right. Stay where you are, I’ll be—”

  A second later the door swung open and Shane rose to his feet. A tall, deeply tanned white-haired man, trim but not skinny, faced him with a mixture of annoyance and resignation on his lined face. Tracie stood behind Andrews, backpack slung over one shoulder, barrel of her gun placed against the side of his skull.

  “You appear to have made a remarkable recovery,” the man said drily. “Please, why don’t you come in?”

  “Yeah. It’s a miracle,” Shane answered grimly
, brushing past the older man and into the house. He turned and closed the front door, suddenly gripped by a fast-building anger. This was the man who had wanted Tracie and him dead; this was the man who had betrayed his country. This was the man responsible for the deep despair in Tracie’s soul.

  The anger came out of nowhere, rising in him like a physical thing and making him want to strike out.

  “Easy,” Tracie muttered, and Shane realized he had wrapped both hands tightly into fists, holding them rigidly at his side.

  He blew out a breath forcefully. “Sorry about that. I don’t know where that came from,” he said, releasing his hands and shaking the tension out of them.

  “I do,” Tracie answered. “I feel the same way, believe me.”

  Shane smiled weakly and said, “Didn’t take you long to get in here.”

  “I told you it wouldn’t. All I needed was a minute or two’s worth of diversion to pick the lock on the back door. Nice job with that.”

  Andrews had been watching the exchange, an unreadable look on his face. “I’m unarmed,” he said, ignoring Shane and speaking to Tracie. “Any chance you can take that cannon out of my ear?”

  She lowered the gun to his ribs and then held it there with her right hand while patting Andrews down with her left. “One wrong move,” she said, “and I’ll blow your ass into next week. All I need is an excuse.”

  “Understood,” Andrews said. He seemed mostly unaffected by the threat. Shane thought the entire bizarre scene might be the strangest thing he had ever seen, and that was saying something, given the events of the last couple of days.

  “Where to?” Andrews asked.

  “Your office,” Tracie said, and the older man turned and walked through a luxuriously appointed dining room—Oriental rug covering gleaming hardwood floors, crystal chandelier hanging over a massive maple dining table, fieldstone fireplace in one corner, fully stocked bar in the other—and began climbing a set of stairs.