by Mark Henshaw
And then William Fallon had sent the mother of his boy off to die and covered it up.
Hadfield mailed the parcel the next day and did not bother to look back at the mailbox. It carried his letter and one of the compartmented reports.
He had entered Langley that morning by the Old Headquarters Building entrance. He had walked to the Agency seal on the floor, then stopped. He had turned left. The Agency’s motto was there, chiseled in marble.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free—John 8:32
Matthew Hadfield had found the truth. William Fallon would not sacrifice another person to his ambition. And all those who might have become victims of Samantha Todd Hadfield’s killer would be free.
• • •
It had taken Barron’s approval to release the medical and other sealed files for both Hadfield and Todd. Kyra held up a note from a doctor at the INOVA Fairfax Women and Children’s Hospital.
Aric Hadfield has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia (AML). The recommended protocol will require five rounds of chemotherapy of one month each. Average life expectancy of AML patients across all age groups is 40 percent at five years post-diagnosis . . .
“So Aric, Hadfield’s son . . . Samantha Todd was his mother,” Kyra concluded.
“She must’ve gone back to using her maiden name after the divorce,” Rhodes observed. “And he always told us her name was Elizabeth . . . never mentioned ‘Samantha’ once. He had to know we’d find that out eventually, and sooner rather than later.” He smacked the file against the table. “Why do you people list the personal information in the back of the file?”
Neither officer spoke for a minute. Kyra finally broke the silence. “Maybe her boy’s death explains why she went back out into the field. Then she disappeared and Hadfield had lost both of the people he loved most in short order.”
“And thanks to Fallon, he could focus all of his anger on one person,” Rhodes added. “But why would he wait years to target Fallon?” Rhodes asked.
“I don’t know,” Kyra admitted.
“We still need evidence. All of this is still just theory.”
Kyra thought about that for a moment. “Maybe Hadfield will give it to us.”
Fallon frowned. “What’re you thinking?”
CIA Operations Center
“I need to talk to you,” Kyra said, her voice low. It was bad form to speak in a normal tone here unless some disaster was in the making.
Hadfield looked up, surprised to see the woman over his shoulder. He pointed at the door. She nodded. He stood and followed her out into the very small foyer created by the wall separating the entry ramp that led up into the room.
“The director asked me to let you know about the status of our investigation into Adina Salem, just so you can relax. You’ll be seeing a cable on all of this pretty soon, but he wanted you to hear it first. You remember when Special Agent Rhodes asked you about William Fallon?”
“Yeah. Still don’t know who that is.”
“I know,” Kyra assured him. “When the Bureau grabbed Salem, one of the intel reports she was carrying gave us a lead on the Haifa bomb, but it was written by a case officer who went missing in Iraq a few years ago, near the Iranian border. Fallon was her boss, so Rhodes thought he might be our mole. That’s why he was trying to see if you might have been connected with Fallon. Anyway, I went to Iran . . . Kish Island, to run down the lead and see what I could find out about our missing officer. I found her and the source of the dirty bomb. Director Barron wanted you to know that it was your lead on Salem that led us to it. He thought you might take some pride in that.”
“Where did the dirty bomb come from?” Hadfield asked.
“Some missing Russian RTGs, sold to Iran by some soldiers looking to boost their pay. A lot of that’s gone on since the Cold War ended.”
“What about the missing officer?”
“An organized crime group from Iran took her. She died in Evin Prison a few years ago. I don’t know exactly when,” she said. She thought there was no harm in telling him that much. “The Iranian government buried her on the grounds of our old embassy. It was Fallon’s fault, all of it. He broke rules and she paid for it.”
“Is anything going to happen to him?”
“Nothing soon. The Bureau’s still watching him, and if the director moves against him it could blow the investigation. Even if he could, the Department of Justice would be the agency that prosecutes him, and they’ll never move on him for Todd if they think they’ve got an espionage indictment coming down the road. So my guess is that he gets a pass on Samantha Todd. Maybe they’ll add that charge to the indictment if they arrest him for passing intel to Mossad, but even if that happens, it’ll be years. You know how slow the Bureau is on counterintelligence cases.”
Hadfield stared at her, no expression on his face. “Okay,” he said. “Was there anything else?”
“No, except that I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Rhodes bothering you anymore.” Hadfield answered her nothing, just nodded. “Have a good morning,” Kyra said.
“Yeah, you too.” He held the door open for her. Kyra walked out into the hallway and the man closed the Ops Center door behind.
Kyra walked into her office. Rhodes was already there, sitting in the guest chair. “I talked to him. I violated need-to-know six ways from Sunday, but I talked to him.”
“He didn’t say anything incriminating, I assume?”
“No. And that wasn’t the point anyway,” she replied. “Let’s see what he does next.”
• • •
He did nothing extraordinary for a week. Hadfield left home every night to go to headquarters and returned midmorning the following day to eat and sleep before rising after dark to clean up and leave again. He worked the weekend, took Monday and Tuesday off, and then started his week again. He watched movies on his laptop, talked to no one on his cell phone, and posted Facebook messages that the Bureau scrutinized for any hidden meanings. There were theories but nothing anyone could prove.
Hadfield emerged from his house at the usual hour. The rain was heavy, but he didn’t bother with an umbrella. His car was parked on the street, leaving him to walk down the inclined driveway, which was slick with rainwater. He climbed into his car, started the engine, turned around in the cul-de-sac, and drove out to the main road.
“He’s moving,” Fuller said into his radio.
The analyst drove to the first major intersection and then deviated from his usual course, taking a left instead of a right. “That’s different,” Fuller observed.
“Stay on him,” Rhodes ordered.
Hadfield drove west instead of east toward headquarters. “He’s not going to work,” one of the junior agents observed.
“Then where’s he going?” Rhodes asked.
Kyra set her iPad down on the counter, a map on the screen. She watched the blue dot move for several minutes, then zoomed out on the map, moved it around with her finger. “He could be going to Banshee Reeks.”
Rhodes stared at the map. The Woods Road that led to the nature preserve was coming up. Hadfield turned left onto it. “Fuller, go lights out.” The second in command hefted his radio and began giving orders. The van turned onto the road behind the analyst, following his car at a distance.
He stopped at the entrance to the park. “Now we’re talking,” Fuller said. He slowed the van to a stop. The dark and the rain had cut the visibility to less than a hundred yards and they could not see their target. He almost certainly could not see them.
Then, for a moment, he appeared in the headlights of his own vehicle, walking to the gate with a tool in his hand. He vanished for less than a minute, then reappeared, climbing back into his car, which pulled forward.
“Give him some space,” Rhodes ordered. “Maybe we can catch him making a drop.”
Kyra shook her head. “No, this is something else,” she said. “He’d have to be an idiot to use a compromised drop sit
e twice . . . and even if he is that stupid, Mossad isn’t.”
“You think he’s here to meet Fallon?” Fuller asked.
“Can’t think of another reason.” Rhodes picked up the radio. “All units, stand by.” He nodded at Fuller. “Let’s see what he is doing.” The van crept forward.
They reached the entrance. The gate was open, the chain cut. Hadfield’s taillights had disappeared in the dark. “We’ve been down this road before,” Fuller noted. “It’s the only way in and out, unless he wants to try Salem’s run across the field. He wouldn’t get far. This rain’s probably turned it into a mud pit.”
Rhodes nodded again and the van started into the woods. He eased the vehicle forward, barely faster than they could have run on foot.
“The drop site was just up there,” Rhodes told Kyra after several minutes. He pointed at a small brick building. “That was the outbuilding we saw on the drone cam. Salem grabbed the package from somewhere behind.”
“There’s his car,” Fuller said, slowing the vehicle. The car was barely visible in the dark, catching only the faintest light visible in the downpour.
“Is he in it?” Rhodes asked. He turned to the technician in the back.
The man stared at his monitor. “Infrared says no.”
“Is he in the trees?” Rhodes moved toward the back and stared at the screen. The technician shook his head. “Where did he go?”
Kyra stared off into the dark and then down at the map on the iPad in her lap. “He’s not here to meet Fallon,” she told Rhodes. “That’s not why he’s here at all.”
“Then why is he here?”
“He’s going to Fallon’s house.” She grabbed the handle to the door, pushed it open, and began to run into the woods.
“Wait!” Rhodes yelled. He turned to Fuller. “Go!”
Fuller put the van in reverse and mashed the accelerator. The van sped backward. He cranked the wheel hard over and the vehicle turned. The rear tires slid off the asphalt road onto the grass. Fuller slammed the shifter down and pushed hard on the gas pedal again. The wheels spun on the wet foliage. The man cursed, stopped, then tried again. The van sat still.
Rhodes grabbed the radio. “All units, converge on Fallon’s residence.” He grabbed the technician by the jacket. “Outside, with me. Time to push.”
• • •
Hadfield emerged from the woods into the subdivision and reached the sidewalk. He felt inside his waistband for the Glock 17. The magazine carried a full load of 9mm rounds, though he would only need the first one. He’d gone off the drug the day before to erode that barrier, but he still had more of it in his system than he’d expected.
He hefted the gun. There was a round in the chamber. The Glock felt very heavy in his hand, like he could hardly lift it. It should have been easy, shouldn’t it? Just place the weapon to his head or in his mouth, pull the trigger, and then the world would go dark.
Someone would find him in the morning, maybe Fallon, maybe one of his neighbors. The police would search his body and find the envelope, with the note, the marriage certificate, and the thumb drive holding Samantha Todd’s archive. Then they would have to act. The Bureau would finally arrest Fallon and Hadfield would be beyond their reach.
Fallon’s house was just down the hill at the corner.
Kyra ran along the edge of the woods as fast as she dared on the wet ground, her course set for the lights of the subdivision ahead. She slipped, landed on her hands, pushed herself up and kept running. The closest streetlamp was maybe a hundred yards away now.
She reached the development and found the sidewalk. She looked around, found the nearest crossroads and ran for it, pulling a small Taclight from her pocket. She read the street names, then closed her eyes and stared at the map in her mind that she’d copied into her thoughts from the iPad. Then she turned and began to run again.
Hadfield stood in front of the house. Fallon’s home was enormous, the kind of mass-produced suburban mansion that Hadfield knew he could never afford now. The lights were on inside and he could see into the building. He could see the fine furniture that Fallon owned, the enormous hardwood dining table in one room, the bookshelves filled with leather volumes meant to be admired by visitors, not read by their owner.
The rage welled up inside him, as fierce as it had that first day when he had gone back to work . . . when he’d learned how completely everyone had forgotten about him and Sam and Aric.
He hefted the Glock again.
Kyra reached the next crossroads, read the names, compared them to the image in her mind, then turned left and ran, praying she was remembering the map right.
Fallon set the beer bottle on the nightstand, his fourth in the last hour, and changed the channel for the tenth time in as many seconds. Two hundred fifty channels and at least that many Blu-ray discs on the shelf and nothing appealed to him, courtesy of the alcohol and boredom. He cursed Barron’s name privately again. He thought about calling Mackie Staunton or Sally Ramseur to ask what they could tell him, but decided against it. Even with four beers in his system, he could still tell a good impulse from a bad one. The FBI was probably tapping his phones—
The knock on the front door was sharp and loud. Fallon looked up from the television to the door, then to the window. He saw the rain coming down in waves through the streetlights.
He got up and walked down the winding staircase to the front door. He unlocked the deadbolt and began to open—
The door slammed inward, the wood smashing his nose, cracking the bone and knocking him to the floor. His vision blurred now, he looked up and saw only the barrel of a Glock pointed at his eyes.
Hadfield held the pistol at Fallon’s face and stared at him for long seconds. His hands were steady. Two bullets then, one for Fallon, one for himself.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, held it, then released it. It was just a matter of will now—
“Who are you?” Fallon asked, open fear in his voice. Hadfield opened his eyes and looked down at the man.
“What do you care?”
“Who are you?” he asked again.
“You killed Sam.”
Fallon recoiled. “No! I didn’t mean for her—for that—”
“Shut up,” Hadfield ordered, his voice quiet. “Just shut up.”
Fallon’s mind raced, searching for some bit of information that might save him. “Are you . . .” He couldn’t remember the name. “Are you Sam’s husband?”
Fallon pushed the gun forward, his finger tightening on the trigger. “I was—”
“Matt!” He turned his head until he could see the open door.
Kyra Stryker stood there, in the rain.
He stared at the woman. How could she be here? He’d only decided an hour before—
He understood. “Rhodes is with you,” he said.
“He—” she started.
Rhodes appeared on the porch out of the dark, his own service weapon drawn and raised. “Put the weapon down!”
Kyra stepped between him and Hadfield. “Rhodes, don’t—”
“Move!” Rhodes yelled. “Put the weapon down!” he repeated.
Kyra raised a hand toward him. “Wait,” she said quietly. “Wait.” She turned back to Hadfield. “We know about you and Sam . . . who she was to you. I’m so sorry about Aric.”
Hadfield said nothing for a long time. Finally, he broke the silence, still looking down at Fallon. “He killed her.”
“We know about Fallon, too,” Kyra told him. “You have proof of what he did, don’t you? That he sent her out on an unauthorized op?”
Hadfield saw three more men appear from the darkness behind Rhodes, weapons raised, all pointed at him through the doorway. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters to them.”
“Your life matters,” she countered. “You’ve just been hurt in ways we don’t understand. But you’re a good man.”
“I was. I’m not.”
“You are. You have a chance to prove it to yourself, ri
ght now.”
Hadfield considered that. “They won’t do anything to him—”
“You can’t run. If you don’t put your gun down, they’ll kill. It’s the only way for you to live . . . and I want you to live,” Kyra explained, her voice quiet.
“Do you?”
Kyra nodded. “Please.”
Hadfield stared at her . . . and then she saw him begin to shake. His arm went weak and fell to his side, the Glock pointing at the floor. He held out his other hand, a small thumb drive in his palm. Kyra raised her hands, stepped forward slowly, and put her hand on the gun. He didn’t resist her. She took the weapon and the memory stick from him and stepped back and offered them to Rhodes, who took them from her hand.
Hadfield’s body shuddered, and then he came apart. He fell onto his knees and for the first time since his son had died, Matthew Hadfield cried. Kyra knelt down, reached out, and held the man as the long-caged agony of years came out all at once.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
William G. Truesdale Adult Detention Center
Alexandria, Virginia
The list of terrorists and traitors that had been detained here before trial in the US District Court was a long one. The FBI preferred to keep those charged with crimes against national security close to home. Having grown up in the shadow of Jefferson’s Monticello and Madison’s Montpelier, Kyra usually appreciated good architecture, but the style of building here was of a disturbing kind.
It reminded her of Evin Prison, she realized. It was far smaller and much cleaner, more sterile, almost antiseptic, but it was a prison just the same. There was a common spirit between the two places, an atmosphere devoid of hope.
And yet Hadfield exuded none of that. The man sat in his wooden chair, calm, his hands folded on the table. The room was bright, the light artificial and harsh. There was no other furniture but Kyra’s own chair, and no windows. She had been surprised for a moment that there was no two-way mirror, but she supposed that the video camera in the corner fulfilled that requirement these days. The sheriff’s office that ran the facility would be taping their session, of course, and the Bureau would review it all later to see what it could use in court. The Department of Justice prosecutor had wanted to do the interrogation himself, but Hadfield had made a conversation with Kyra a prerequisite for his cooperation. The DOJ lawyer had resisted, even threatened him, and Hadfield had countered with a threat to go through with a trial and then grant the interview to someone else after he was settled in whatever prison the Department of Corrections chose for him. The government didn’t want that. The case involved classified information and dead agents and official misbehavior, so the prosecutor had finally given in to the demand. Still, he had stuffed a list of questions into Kyra’s hand on her way into the room.
