Hidden Order: A Thriller

by Brad Thor

  “I hope that wasn’t a bomb,” said Wise. “That’s the last thing Boston needs. We should check it out.”

  “No way,” replied McGee. “If it was a bomb, there could be a secondary waiting to go off as first responders get there. Besides, it’s not our problem.”

  “Give it time,” Ryan stated as they stood looking out the window. “You’d be surprised how fast problems metastasize when Tom Cushing is around.”

  “Speaking of Cushing,” Wise replied, “can we finalize everything now that we’re here?”

  After interrogating Samuel, Wise had contacted Reed Carlton, who showed up with two rather large men and a female operative named Sloane. Samuel had admitted that he had a second target—a former Swim Club doctor named Jim Gage. While Sloane and one of the men were dispatched to take Gage into protective custody, Wise warned Carlton about Samuel and provided detailed instructions for where and how he should be held. He then shared what they had learned from the interrogation.

  One of the most significant elements, but hardly the most surprising, was that Phil Durkin had held on to several covert programs after the Agency had ordered them shut down. He would go through the steps of firing everyone and closing up shop, but then he’d go back out and rehire the personnel he wanted while he shoved each operation further into the shadows, taking them all full black.

  Through some untraceable funding source, he had managed to keep everything afloat and operational. Those who didn’t know anything figured Durkin was providing plausible deniability for his superiors. No one knew exactly how many programs he was overseeing, but the whisper on the black-ops side was that he had cobbled together his own shadow agency.

  Bill Wise didn’t know how much of what Samuel shared was actual fact and how much was office gossip. Nevertheless, RUMINT, or rumor intelligence, was something any good operative was expected to be attuned to.

  Another significant piece of intelligence was that Ryan’s old team was still active and still being led by a man named Tom Cushing. Samuel admitted to having conducted a handful of operations for them.

  According to Samuel, Phil Durkin liked the way Cushing operated and had elevated his status in the black-ops community, feeding him more and more assignments and entrusting him with more and more responsibilities.

  Cushing, though, wasn’t Bill Wise’s concern, at least he hadn’t thought so until he asked Samuel if he knew anything about what was going on in Boston. That was when Ryan had stiffened.

  When the interrogation was complete, Wise had asked to speak to her privately. When he confronted her, Ryan admitted that she and McGee had traced Cushing, along with two other team members, there. Now that they had arrived in Boston, Wise wanted to know how they were going to nail them.

  Ryan stepped away from the window and pulled a large envelope from her bag. “We’re going to nail them with this.”

  Wise looked at her. “I don’t follow.”

  “You know the old line, how do you eat an elephant?”

  “One bite at a time.”

  “Correct,” Ryan replied. “One of the last bites of our elephant is going to be Phil Durkin. Before we get to Durkin, we have to go through Tom Cushing.”

  Wise interrupted her. “At this point, though, I want Cushing more than I do Durkin. If Cushing is behind these murders and he’s using a killer from Swim Club to do it, we need them stopped ASAP.”

  “As long as we take Cushing alive, that’s all I care about. I need answers out of him to take to the Jordanians.”

  “My team is going to want answers out of him, too,” said Wise, referring to Carlton, Harvath, and their client, the Federal Reserve. “I don’t think it’s an accident that our paths have crossed.”

  McGee chuckled as he turned away from the window. “It’s lucky for you that they did. If we hadn’t shown up, Samuel would be picking his teeth with your bones right about now.”

  “For which I am eternally grateful. Now, how are we going to handle Cushing?”

  “That’s where the banking records come in,” said Ryan as she walked over to the couch with her envelope and sat down. “I don’t know what it was like when you were there, but the CIA is terrible when it comes to funding their people in the field. They’re always months in arrears and it can really screw things up. You learn early on that robbing Peter to pay Paul is the only way to keep your sources funded. Some intel people have been forced into fronting their own personal money just to make sure things get paid on time and they don’t lose assets.”

  “So?”

  “So, this thinking gets pretty ingrained. Once you have a steady flow of funds, particularly if it comes through a front organization, there’s this kind of fuck the Agency mentality that surfaces. You never stick your hand in your own pocket again. In fact, you may even start putting your hand in the Agency’s pocket.

  “Cushing was very strict about stealing. It wasn’t allowed. Setting up hotel and airline mileage accounts, though, was considered an acceptable perk. The idea being that throughout the year, they could build up enough points with which to take personal trips in their off time.”

  “Assuming they travel under their real names.”

  Ryan smiled. “They do. And not only that, but two of Cushing’s team, Vaccaro and Stark, checked into their hotel here in Boston using their Hands for Peace corporate credit cards.”

  “What about Cushing himself?”

  “He’s there, too. Trust me. He’s just more compulsive about covering his trail.”

  “You were talking about eating the elephant one bite at a time. I assume that means you want to start with Vaccaro and Stark, then?”

  “Yup,” she said, holding up the envelope. “And you’re going to help.”

  CHAPTER 61

  The Renaissance Boston Waterfront Hotel was exactly the hotel Ryan would have expected her old team to pick. They always chose Marriott properties when they traveled, and one of their requirements was that the hotel have its own workout facility. If the property was just off a major thoroughfare that connected directly with the airport, that was another plus. Finally, if a city offered a higher-end experience like a Renaissance property, and it didn’t chafe their NGO cover status too badly, Cushing and company usually opted for it. Some things never changed. Never changing, no matter how skilled you might be, was a bad trait in the espionage game.

  With its large, aquatic-themed lobby, the Renaissance provided lots of good places from which to see, while not being seen. Ryan had already checked the bar, the restaurant, the hotel Starbucks, and the fitness center without any luck. It was now time to try their rooms.

  Picking up a house phone, she gave Vaccaro’s full name and asked to be connected to his room. There was no answer. She then asked to be connected to Stark. He answered on the second ring.

  “Good evening, Mr. Stark,” Ryan said. “This is Julie with guest services. An envelope was just dropped off for you. Would you like me to send it up, or should we hold it downstairs?”

  Before Stark could answer, she added, “And I see here in my files that we made a mistake when you checked in. You’re one of our most valued Marriott Rewards customers and should have received a much more significant welcome gift. I apologize for that. Can I have both brought up to your room for you?”

  Stark agreed, Ryan thanked him, and after hanging up the phone she flashed McGee the peace sign.

  Walking toward the bell stand, McGee cornered an older bellman standing nearby and asked to borrow a pen. He wrote Stark’s name across the front of the envelope and, producing a fifty-dollar bill, said, “I need to get this to my colleague’s room ASAP. He’s on a big conference call, so please don’t knock, just slide it under, okay?”

  “The last name is Stark?” the bellman asked.

  “That’s right,” McGee replied, and quickly changed the subject. “I’m already late for dinner with a new client. Where can I get a cab? Right out front here?”

  The man nodded and was pointing toward the front doo
rs, but McGee had already walked away. The bellman stepped behind the stand, checked his computer for the room number he needed, and then told his colleague he was going to make a delivery.

  With the envelope in hand, he strode over to the elevators, and after holding the doors open and waiting for a group to step out, he stepped in. The doors had almost shut when he heard a woman ask for the elevator to be held and a man’s hand reached in to stop the doors from closing all the way.

  The doors slid back to reveal a man who looked like Santa Claus carrying a gray duffle bag and a very attractive woman in her mid-thirties with a black rolling suitcase. “What floor do you need?” the bellman asked Ryan.

  “Nine, please,” said Wise.

  The bellman looked at him as if to say I was asking the lady first, when Ryan responded, “Seven, please.”

  The bellman, who had already punched seven for his delivery, smiled back at Ryan and then pushed the button for the ninth floor. “All set.”

  The man made polite hotel chitchat on the ride up and wished them both a nice stay as the doors opened on the seventh floor and he stood back to allow Ryan to exit first. As she did, she removed a cell phone Wise had given her and rolled her eyes.

  “It wouldn’t be a business trip for Mom if I didn’t get called six times before I got to the room,” she said.

  The bellman smiled and left her standing at the elevator bank, chastising a pair of imaginary children.

  She had already marked the location of the nearest stairwell in case the bellman forgot his instructions and knocked on Stark’s door and she needed to beat a hasty retreat.

  The bellman, though, did as he had been told. Ryan marked the location of the room and began walking in the other direction. Knowing how abundantly helpful bellmen can be, or any man for that reason when presented with an attractive woman, she kept up the intensity of her conversation in order to keep him from offering to help her find her room and get situated.

  The combination of body language and tone did the trick. The bellman returned to the elevators. Once she had heard the doors close and was sure that he had gone, she radioed McGee and Wise and told them which stairwell to meet her in.

  • • •

  “Now for the fun part,” Wise said as he fished the can of aerosolized pepper spray from his bag.

  McGee looked at it. The label said Guardian Protective Devices, and attached to the nozzle was a narrow piece of flexible, clear plastic tubing about eighteen inches long. “You’re like Felix the Cat with that bag. You got that bicycle I wanted for Christmas all those years ago, too?”

  “This is going to be better than Christmas. Just watch.”

  “We’re not going to get a flashover with that stuff, are we? I don’t want to light this guy Stark up like a Christmas tree unless we absolutely have to.”

  Wise shook his head. “This is the best stuff the military has ever fielded. Burns like a mother, but it’s not flammable.”

  “Whose idea was the hose? Yours?”

  “It was actually their idea. Believe it or not, the inspiration was hotels. Some asshole bangs on your door at three in the morning, you slip the hose under the door, spray this into the hallway, and suddenly it’s filled with pepper mist and a very inhospitable place to be. We, though, are going to do the opposite.”

  McGee smiled. “Smoke him out of his room into the hall. I like it.”

  Wise looked up at Ryan. “You good to go?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  The contents of the envelope would only keep Stark busy for so long. It was a page from the Wall Street Journal with three letters crossed out in pencil. Whether or not the team still used the same code, it didn’t matter. It would take Stark fifteen minutes at least to figure the message out and to check the online dead drop where further instructions would be waiting.

  It had been one of the team’s emergency protocols, intended to be used only when their primary and alternate codes had been compromised, and for that reason she had hoped it would work. The one thing that was for certain was that Stark would be in a hypervigilant state of alert. That’s why it was so important that Wise’s plan worked.

  Readying their gear, they gave everything one last quick check and stepped out of the stairwell. The coast was clear. They moved rapidly down the carpeted hallway and took their positions outside Stark’s door.

  When Ryan and McGee returned his thumbs up, Wise worked the tube underneath the door and then depressed the button, releasing the mist of pepper spray into the room.

  Stark started coughing in less than a minute. Within two minutes he had opened the window, which was when Wise pumped an even thicker mist into the room. Stark was really hacking now.

  They heard him tear a towel from the bar in the bathroom and begin running the water in the sink. Moments later, they noticed a shadow pass across the peephole. Even if the man could focus, he wouldn’t have seen anything in the hall. Wise, McGee, and Ryan were all crouching down, off to the sides, out of sight.

  Used covertly, pepper spray was very disorienting. If you weren’t standing in the middle of a riot or had someone aiming a can at you, its effects were very unsettling and hard to attribute. Your mucous membranes dumped, your eyes drained buckets of water, and your throat, lungs, and eyes burned like crazy.

  With the wet towel pressed against his face, Stark unlocked his door and leaned out to see what the hell was going on.

  That was when McGee nailed him with the Taser.

  CHAPTER 62

  The first person Harvath saw as he came to was Cordero’s partner. The man’s lips were moving but no sound was coming out. Harvath could hear what he thought was the rustle of the detective’s Boston PD nylon windbreaker. He soon realized that it was the rush of blood pounding in and out of his ears.

  As the detective’s voice became discernible, it was accompanied by a loud ringing.

  “Are you okay?” Sal yelled.

  The man might as well have been yelling across the Charles River. Harvath could barely make out what he was saying, but he got the gist of it. He nodded and waved him off as he sat up and looked for Cordero.

  It smelled like gasoline and burnt flesh. There were fires burning everywhere. The ground was littered with bodies and broken glass.

  Sal was about to leave him and Harvath reached out and grabbed his arm. “Is she okay?” he asked. “Where’s Lara?”

  A triage area had been set up near a row of ambulances. EMTs were working their way through the dead and wounded, assessing who needed immediate care, who needed immediate transport, and who was beyond being helped. Through his blurred vision, he could just make out Cordero, who was being examined.

  The male detective waved over one of the other EMTs, who gave Harvath a quick assessment and then helped him to his feet and walked him over to where Cordero was sitting.

  “Are you okay?” he asked as he was helped into a sitting position next to her.

  “Sir,” the EMT said to Harvath, “I need to ask you some questions.”

  “I’m fine. Go take care of everyone else.”

  “Sir, I understand you were unconscious. I’d like you to follow this light with your eyes.”

  Harvath took out his credentials. “I’m fine. Please go help someone else.”

  The EMT treating Cordero looked at his colleague and said, “I got this. Don’t worry.”

  The man nodded and went off to treat the next victim of the blast.

  Cordero looked over at Harvath. “You saved my life.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m alive. A little bit beaten up, but alive. You, though, look terrible.”

  Harvath reached up and touched his forehead. When he drew his fingers away, they were slick with blood.

  “I’m good,” Cordero said to the EMT. “Why don’t you see to my partner for a minute here.”

  Partner. It hurt his sides to laugh, but Harvath did anyway. “What the hell happened?” he said. It was a r
hetorical question.

  “Our guys have cross-trained with the Israeli police and military for years. We always wondered when we’d see our first suicide bomber. I guess we don’t need to wonder anymore.”

  Harvath looked at the EMT. “Do you have a pair of forceps by any chance?”

  The man looked at him askance for a moment and then removed a pair and handed them to him. He placed his hand gently on Cordero’s arm and had her tilt a little bit to her right. Using the forceps, he managed to extract a deformed metallic object from the wall behind her.

  “Ball bearing?” she asked.

  Harvath shook his head. “It looks like lead. I think it’s supposed to be a musket ball.”

  Cordero closed her eyes and shook her head. “How many dead?”

  “Ten? Twenty? I can’t tell. Whatever it is, there’s scores more wounded. Are you okay, though?”

  She looked at the EMT, who nodded and said, “She’s going to be fine.”

  Cordero then looked at Harvath. “All the macho bullshit aside, are you sure you’re okay?”

  Harvath looked at the EMT, who shrugged and said, “You got your lights turned out. You should let us transport you to the hospital so you can get a full workup.”

  “Not really a big fan of hospitals,” he replied.

  “You took a good blow to your head,” the EMT stated. “I’m not kidding. You really should let us take you in.”

  “Not going to happen.”

  “Sir, how many fingers am I holding up?”

  Harvath forced a smile and held up his fist. “Now how many fingers am I holding up?”

  Cordero shook her head.

  “It’s up to you,” the EMT said. “I can’t force you to go.”

  Harvath looked around. The devastation was amazing. “And here we were so sure it was going to be a sniper.”

  “We were half right,” she replied, picking up the forceps with the deformed lead ball. “How many of these things do you think were packed in that suicide vest? Hundreds? Thousands?”

  Harvath had no idea. “Almost done?” he asked the EMT.