The Shadow List

by Todd Moss

  Live weapons on a platform filled with explosive oil and gas was an outrageous safety risk. But so, too, was sitting out here alone and unarmed. The oil company had dissuaded the Nigerian navy from patrolling too close to the facility for fear of stray fire or an accident. Friendly fire from the local security forces was an even bigger risk than pirates. But not today.

  “Safe room lockdown in twenty seconds. . . .”

  Jerry kept moving. He had to make it to the secure room where he and the rest of the crew could sit and wait it out. They had drilled for emergencies dozens of times and he knew exactly where he was going. He turned a corner and could now see the reinforced steel door.

  “Safe room lockdown in ten seconds. . . .”

  Jerry pushed his way in. He exhaled deeply. He was safe. It looked like everyone was there. Once the lockdown was complete, there was no way for the pirates to get inside. The security door would seal and they would all live.

  “Five, four, three . . .”

  The entire operation was designed to run remotely in just such a situation. The company could shut down production and call the authorities, and the sixty-four men on board would survive in the secure rooms until the pirates were killed, paid off, or just gave up. They could last for days in the bunker if necessary. Then a jarring thought hit Jerry: unless this was resolved quickly, he’d miss his flight home tomorrow.

  “Two, one . . . executing lockdown.”

  Jerry cursed to himself at the thought of being stuck there, in that box with all these men, while the airplane, his fucking airplane, flew back home to America. How would he explain it to his girls? Would they even believe him if he tried to blame . . . pirates?

  Then Jerry had an even more frightening realization. Where was the lockdown confirmation? Where was the security officer instructing them what to do next? What the heck was going on?

  That’s when the shooting erupted again.

  7

  CIA HEADQUARTERS, LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

  MONDAY, 3:56 P.M. EST

  Have you got OCD?”

  “What are you saying?” Sunday responded, without bothering to turn around.

  “Obsessive compulsive disorder. OCD. Is that what you’ve got, S-Man?”

  “Go away, Glen,” Sunday huffed at his colleague, who was always hanging around his cubicle.

  “There’s really no other way to explain it, Sunday. Every desk here in Africa Issue is a mess. I mean, mine is a total shithole. Every single one. Except yours.”

  Sunday waved Glen away and narrowed his eyes on his classified computer screen. He’d spent most of the day creating a database of every attack on oil facilities over the past ten years. It was part of a project he was working on for Jessica Ryker, the head of the covert Purple Cell. No one at his day job as an analyst at the Africa Issue office—not Glen, not even his office director—knew the truth about his special assignments.

  “But, no, not Sunday,” Glen continued. “Your little cube here is just perfect. Not a piece of paper out of place. No dust, no crumbs. I’ll bet you’ve even lined up all the pencils in your drawer, haven’t you? It’s all just so . . . spiffy.”

  “No one says ‘spiffy’ anymore, Glen,” Sunday said deadpan, his eyes focused on the first item on the list:

  Kuwait, small arms attack, 6 dead, suspected terrorist

  “You think that it’s true what they say about the analysts?” Glen kept talking. “That we take on the characteristics of our regions? You know, that the analysts working East Asia become hyperefficient. The Latin Americans are laid-back, you know, ‘Mañana, man.’ And those up in Western Europe are a bunch of uptight snobs?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Sunday mumbled.

  “We hate those pricks,” Glen said.

  Sunday ignored his colleague and continued reading:

  Venezuela, small cell raid, 2 kidnapped, confirmed criminal

  Algeria, large-scale assault, 17 dead, confirmed terrorist al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb

  South China Sea, small cell raid, 4 dead, suspected criminal

  Nigeria, small cell raid, 16 kidnapped, suspected criminal

  Turkey, pipeline sabotage, confirmed terrorist

  Equatorial Guinea, small cell raid, 2 kidnapped, suspected criminal

  “Maybe that’s why Africa Issue is so lovable and chaotic,” Glen said. “We’re becoming like the countries we follow. Kinda like how people start to look like their pets. You know what I’m talkin’ about, S-Man?”

  “No,” Sunday said. He was searching for some pattern in the attacks. Oil rigs had been targeted by criminals and competing governments ever since the first oil well. But lately the number of such incidents had spiked. NSA had passed on a series of top secret SIGINT hits that suggested Russian gangs were now specifically targeting foreign oil facilities. Jessica asked Sunday to follow the data, to see where it led. He was already working on African petroleum forecasts for a report going up to the Director of National Intelligence, the very top of the U.S. intel pyramid. It provided a perfect cover for this latest Purple Cell assignment.

  “I don’t have a dog,” Glen said. “But if I’m right, and we’re all becoming like our target countries, then how do we explain you? Why are you such an immaculate neat freak living here among us slobs?”

  “I don’t know, Glen.”

  “You don’t fit in, Sunday. That’s what I’m saying.”

  “Maybe there’s a flaw in your theory. Something fatal.”

  “OCD. That’s the only way I can explain it. I’m sorry to tell you this. You’ve obviously got a disorder, Sunday.”

  “Are you sure I’m the one with the disorder, Glen?”

  “Come on!” Glen chortled. “That’s the best you can do, S-Man? Your desk looks like it fell out of an Ikea catalog and you’re Nigerian.”

  “I’m American,” Sunday corrected. “How many times must I tell you? I grew up in LA.”

  “Well, you know what I mean. Your family is Nigerian. Haven’t you ever been to Lagos? I mean, good Lord. It’s total chaos, five, ten, maybe twenty million people all crammed together on those islands. People living under bridges, on floating platforms. No one even knows how big that city really is.”

  Sunday spun around and locked eyes with Glen. “My father is from a small village up north. Kano State. Then he worked in the Delta in the south. My mother is from Zamfara. My grandparents still live there. None of my family has ever lived in Lagos. Most of them are now in southern California.”

  “What’s your point, Sunday?” Glen shrugged innocently.

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Sunday shooed away his colleague and spun back to his computer. “Now, go away. I have work to do.”

  He shifted his eyes to his unclassified computer and opened up a database of Russian oil companies and their investments around the world.

  “Whatcha working on?” Glen asked.

  “Even if I was allowed to tell you, I wouldn’t,” Sunday said.

  “Well, finish up quick. Arvind, Blessing, and a few of the others are heading down to the Blarney Stone for burgers and beers. You should come. You could obviously use a break. And Lucy’s gonna be there.”

  Just then a news item flashed on Sunday’s screen:

  Nigerian Mega Millennium oil facility overrun, multiple casualties reported.

  “I think I’m going to be here late.”

  8

  GEORGETOWN, WASHINGTON, D.C.

  MONDAY, 6:44 P.M. EST

  Jessica admired her husband’s profile as he stood at the kitchen sink, finishing the dishes. Judd wasn’t traditionally handsome. His nose was a little crooked and his hair was usually a mess. Tonight his faded jeans hung too low on his hips and his T-shirt advertising Long Beach Island, New Jersey, was so wrinkled it looked like it had been rolled into a ball.

  But wat
ching Judd merrily scrub their children’s plastic soup bowls, she felt bone-deep attraction. It was the same feeling she’d gotten when she first met Judd twelve years ago. Before the three proposals that changed everything.

  —

  Judd and Jessica had both been graduate students working for Professor BJ van Hollen in the very far north of Mali, deep in the Sahara Desert. Neither knew it at the time, but BJ had specifically selected each of them. He was their matchmaker. The professor was confident they would work well as a team on the Haverford Foundation’s clean water research project, but BJ’s motivations at the time had been on behalf of neither science nor Cupid. He was, Jessica now knew, recruiting for the Central Intelligence Agency. That was Jessica’s first proposal, long planned by BJ van Hollen, perfectly executed by the professor, and accepted without hesitation.

  The second proposal had taken more time. From the moment Jessica stepped out of the Land Rover that day in Kidal and seen the scruffy brown-haired boy from Vermont with the uneven smile, she knew he was the one.

  Judd didn’t stand a chance. A tall, slender beauty, her sultry dark-brown eyes, her mocha-colored skin against a pure white blouse, the kickass black boots. An angel in the desert. The searing heat and desolation of the landscape only made her all the more alluring. All the more irresistible. Jessica knew that any man would notice her under such conditions.

  Van Hollen knew it, too. That was one of the reasons he had engineered for his two brightest students, his most promising recruits, to meet on an extreme expedition in the rolling dunes of the Sahara. It was just such an encounter that he was certain would create tight bonds and lifelong loyalty. Shared hardship was the best recruitment tool, and it was especially powerful when paired with raw sexual attraction. It was almost too easy.

  Yet BJ couldn’t predict then that one of his favorite targets would accept the offer, while the other would veer in another direction, away from government service, choosing instead the genteel seclusion of academic life. And the professor certainly couldn’t have known that animal attraction would become true love.

  After that first trip to West Africa, Judd courted Jessica long-distance for months. Then one day he showed up in Madison, Wisconsin, where she was completing a doctorate in arid climate agronomy. Judd had no idea what he was doing. But when graduation arrived, so, too, had Jessica’s second proposal.

  Judd got down on one knee, presenting a silver Tuareg ring smuggled back from West Africa, and asked her to marry him. He’d been offered a plum tenure-track assistant professorship at Amherst College in Massachusetts, with housing and a generous research budget. He promised to help her find a job at one of the many colleges nearby or perhaps consulting for a charity planting trees in the driest parts of Africa. Judd’s offer was to settle in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains together, to build their careers, eventually to raise a family.

  This proposal was a tougher decision for Jessica. Yes, she loved him. Yes, she wanted to marry Judd. Yes, she wanted children. But rural Massachusetts? What about her job? What about her commitment to BJ van Hollen? What about the CIA? Jessica had already made plans to move to northern Virginia to begin her training in the Clandestine Service. She had already signed the paperwork, already been assigned a start date at the Farm, already chosen a career of espionage.

  The wise professor had foreseen this dilemma and was ready with a solution: Do both. BJ advised Jessica to accept Judd’s marriage proposal and move to Amherst, and the CIA would arrange a part-time agronomy position with the Haverford Foundation. It was a perfect civilian cover for traveling around the world while stealing information for the United States government. It was ideal. It was also a perfect commitment to a double life. A life of secrecy. A life of lies.

  The third proposal that had created Jessica Ryker had been hers to offer. Early in her career, she’d been assigned to a Red Cell, a special analytical intelligence unit that solved problems by thinking like the enemy. A Red Cell operated by gathering all new people, starting fresh, and working in isolation, outside of the regular bureaucracy. She loved it. But as a rookie case officer, Jessica saw much of the same groupthink and dysfunction in the Clandestine Service. She shared her observations with BJ van Hollen and pitched him on a new type of isolated operational model. BJ took the idea straight to the CIA’s Deputy Director. Purple Cell was born.

  The only problem was . . . Massachusetts. How to run a new off-grid supersecret CIA cell from the Berkshires? And how to maintain her cover without destroying her marriage?

  That’s when BJ van Hollen, just weeks before his death, had one last match to make. The professor arranged for Judd to be invited to share his research at the State Department and quietly pulled strings to encourage the creation of an experimental new office at State for crisis response. That was the origin of S/CRU, and Judd jumped at the opportunity—with a subtle push from Jessica. It was almost too easy.

  Standing in the kitchen of their home in Georgetown, admiring her husband, Jessica knew that BJ had been right all along. Everything had come together. Husband, two beautiful young sons, fulfilling careers, bright prospects, most of all the deep-down warmth and comforting tingles of true inner happiness. Judd had learned that Jessica was more than an agronomist, that she had a second unspoken career, and that she’d been secretly helping him. But he didn’t know everything. They had agreed to a set of rules to keep their marriage and their work apart. So far, it was working. All was well in the Ryker home.

  If only the lies could be kept at bay.

  —

  Jessica cleared her throat.

  “Hey, sweets.” Judd closed the refrigerator and spun around. The fridge door was covered in photos of their young boys at the beach, scribbled crayon drawings, and the season schedule for the Boston Red Sox. “All done here. Kids asleep?”

  “Two boys down,” she said, and flashed a double thumbs-up. “You could go back in and read it one more time.”

  “Where the Wild Things Are?” he asked, with a faux grimace.

  “Every night this month.”

  “I can’t read that book again,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

  “You’ll regret it, Judd. They’re growing up fast.”

  “I don’t know how these kids can listen to the same old story every single night,” Judd said, cracking the top off a bottle of beer.

  “Familiarity gives children comfort,” Jessica said. She snatched the beer with a cheeky smile, took a healthy drink, and set the bottle on the counter.

  “I guess so.”

  She moved closer to him and slipped her arms around his waist.

  He gave her a gentle kiss.

  “Knowing what comes next helps to clear their minds,” she said, closing her eyes and kissing him back.

  “Clear minds, deep sleep,” he mumbled.

  “That’s right. And not just for the kids.”

  “Okay,” he said, taking a slight step back.

  “I take comfort when I know what’s coming next. I sleep better, too.”

  “Where are you going with this, Jess?”

  “Nowhere,” she kissed him again. “So . . . what are you working?”

  He let out a forced chuckle. “The office?”

  “Judd, you know the deal. Our work-life balance depends on it.”

  “The Ryker rules of engagement,” he said, grabbing the beer bottle. “Avoid, assist, admit. I know the rules.”

  “I know you hate it. But they’re for our own good,” she said. “It’s the only way our family is going to be able to keep a slice of normality. To maintain trust. We have to make sure we don’t get caught on the same thing.”

  “Again, you mean.”

  Jessica frowned. “Yes. Again. We can’t get entangled. That’s why we have the rules of engagement.”

  “I get it, I get it,” he said. “We avoid working on the same problem. On the
same countries. We assist each other where we can. And if those fail, then we just have to admit it. I was there when we made the rules, remember?”

  “So that’s why I’m asking, Judd. I want to stay out of your hair and maybe even help you.” She shrugged. “So, what are you working on?”

  “I was creating a new contingency strategy for the South China Sea. A sort of diplomatic Red Cell, just in case things get hot.”

  “A diplomatic Red Cell?”

  “That’s what Parker wanted. New ideas outside the usual bureaucratic box.”

  “You said ‘was’?”

  “Pushed to the back burner. Just this morning,” Judd sighed. “Friend of some congressman got lost in London, so Landon Parker asked me to look into it. That’s what I’m working on now.”

  “You got pulled off the South China Sea, something that could lead to World War Three, for . . . a missing person?”

  “Nuts, huh?” Judd shook his head. “I was embarrassed to even tell you about it.”

  “You can tell me anything, sweets,” she said.

  Judd shrugged.

  “Maybe he’s someone important?” Jessica offered. “Maybe he’s really a VIP?”

  “Or maybe he’s just some punk with a rich uncle who got drunk and fell in the Thames.”

  “But then why would Parker give it to you, Judd? Why pull you off something substantial to do something trivial? That doesn’t add up. What do you know about him?”

  “The missing guy works for some hedge fund in New York. Parker says his bosses think he may have been caught up in an advance fee scam.”

  “A 419?”

  “Yeah. Parker says he wants me involved because he thinks I know—wait for it . . . Nigeria.”

  “Niger, Nigeria, Namibia.” Jessica arched her eyebrows. “Narnia.”

  “Right,” Judd laughed.

  “Maybe I can help you,” Jessica said, trying to keep a straight face. “Most of those hustles aren’t even run out of Nigeria anymore.”

  “That’s what Isabella at DOJ says, too.”