Incitement

by David Graham

  Stepping out of the shower, he looked at his watch. The first item on his official schedule today was a typically boring meeting with Petersen and some of the other bureaucrats. The main item on the agenda dealt with the cost of external consultancy; specifically the contract firm which had been called in to eliminate wasteful expenditure. They had proceeded to run up a seven-figure bill with nothing to show for it other than proposals any clerical worker in the building could have made. He wondered yet again why he bothered to retain his position – most of his energy was spent on other projects, projects that mattered. After a quick calculation, he decided he had enough time to check for updates.

  He dressed quickly and left the house. Using a combination of taxis and Metrorail, he made his way via a roundabout route to the office he had let. Once there, he activated the speakerphone and punched in a number derived from a formula based on a fixed prefix and the current date. He waited for the call to be relayed through multiple routers until it got a ringing tone. Once it was answered and the current codes had been exchanged, he asked for news of recent contacts.

  “A routine status report from Buenos Aires, want me to give you a summary?” his operative asked.

  “No. Anything from Viper?”

  “Not since we last talked. Should I initiate contact?”

  He had expected to hear from Rodriguez by now, but the last thing he wanted was to feed the Mexican’s ego by running after him.

  “No, leave it for now.”

  He put the phone down and felt his irritation grow. Rodriguez had initially been difficult to work with. He had no understanding of procedures or schedules. Not that anything onerous was required; the demands were consistent with his lifestyle but at critical junctures he was expected to report. Junctures like this. If he was looking for ways to exercise his newfound power by ignoring deadlines, Hughes would have to put a quick end to it. A gentle reminder of his vulnerability was all that was required.

  He exited the elevator and walked down the corridor towards his office. When he got there, he was surprised to see his secretary standing nervously outside his door.

  “Morning, Margaret, everything okay?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr Hughes. Mr Petersen told me to ensure that you went down to see him immediately on arrival.”

  “Okay,” he replied, “let me get a cup of java and I’ll head straight down. Want anything from the coffee station?”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated, “but he was most insistent that I tell you to go see him before you did anything else.”

  Hughes could imagine the highly-strung Petersen getting worked up over some trivial administrative matter and taking it out on Margaret. “Okay, I’ll head down now. When I come back we’ll have that cup of coffee,” he reassured her.

  When he knocked on Petersen’s door his broad smile gave no hint of his annoyance. The bureaucrat was much easier to deal with if you did not try to meet him head-on. “Edward, did I get the meeting time wrong? I’d pencilled in eleven fifteen.”

  The bookish, bespectacled Petersen stood up and walked past him to close the door, looking even more grim than usual. “Tom, I hate to have to do this. The director called me at five this morning from London. He instructed me to tell you when you arrived that you’re to be suspended, effective immediately.” He did not meet Hughes’ gaze. “You’re to give me your security pass. There are two agents waiting outside to escort you home. They require access to your apartment so that they can conduct a search. They’ll need your agreement unless they secure a warrant, of course, but my recommendation would be to cooperate. You’re to volunteer any work-related material you may have there. I’m sorry.”

  Hughes was rocked to his core by Petersen’s announcement. There was nothing he was working on officially that could have resulted in this. Years of practising concealment of his true thoughts and feelings were all that prevented him betraying himself.

  “What else did he say?” he asked calmly.

  “Nothing, he wouldn’t talk about it. When I pressed him, he came down on me like a ton of bricks, basically instructed me to do what I was told and not ask questions.”

  Petersen opened the door again, clearly eager to get it over with. Hughes handed his pass to Petersen and walked outside in a daze. He wondered if the director had learnt of the Colombian strategy. It didn’t make sense. If he knew even part of what was involved, why was he not being detained?

  Later, Hughes watched from the window as the agents drove away. There had been no danger of them finding anything incriminating in the house. He paced around his study, trying to figure out what his next move should be. Something had been brought to the director’s attention to cause this sanction, but what? And who had been responsible? He needed to be careful of who he asked as someone could be monitoring him. The first option was to go through his official network. He knew enough people to hope one of them would speak to him off the record. He called a colleague whom he had helped on a number of occasions.

  “Glenn, Tom here.”

  “I’m sorry Tom, I can’t talk to you.”

  “Come on, I’m not asking you to do anything out of line. Petersen must have gotten his wires crossed. I just want to know what this misunderstanding is all about.”

  “We received a directive in the last hour stating that any interaction with you would result in a severe reprimand. I’m risking a lot just telling you that much, I’ve got to go.”

  “Glenn, come on, no one’s told me anything. I’ve just been given an inexplicable suspension. Surely, if I was in serious trouble, I wouldn’t have been left unaccompanied.”

  “Sorry, Tom, I’m hanging up now. I hope things work out.”

  The line went dead. When he tried calling him back he got an engaged signal. He went through half a dozen contacts, being hung up on each time he announced himself. Okay, he thought, no other option. Reaching for his raincoat, he headed out of the house.

  He walked for half an hour, ensuring he was not being followed. A couple of times he cut through crowded eateries just to make it more difficult for any unwanted company. When he was satisfied that he had done as much as he could, he went to a public phone in the lobby of one of the large hotels. Using his body to shield the number pad, with the same formula as he had used earlier that morning he derived a new number and dialled it in. The call went through its long sequence of routing, seeming to take even longer than normal before connecting. He listened to it ring, becoming more unsettled as the seconds dragged into minutes. Up to now, he had been confident that whatever the problem was it could be dealt with, but the unanswered ringing tone meant the situation had taken on a new significance. This was part of his network; the phone should have been manned twenty-four hours a day without fail. He hung up and started walking again, thinking about his next step. Subconsciously he performed standard anti-surveillance manoeuvres while his thoughts were concentrated on how he could find out what had happened. He bought a ticket at a Metrorail station. On the train he forced himself to calm down and tried to think of plausible explanations for why his call had not been answered. After a few minutes he gave up; there were none. Contingencies had been designed for every eventuality. Either the network had been breached or abandoned. He got off the train at Union Station and walked over to a row of telephones. Not bothering with his earlier procedure, he dialled a direct number, one he had memorised a long time ago but never before had occasion to use.

  “I’ve been expecting your call.”

  “What’s going on, William? Has the network been shut down?”

  “Yes and once we’re finished here, this number will be taken out of service too.”

  “What’s happening?” he asked, his anger building.

  “What do you think? You’ve been rumbled, you and the whole Colombian operation.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it? Then there’s no need to be having this conversation. Goodbye.”

  “No, wait. Wait.”

  “I
’m waiting.”

  “How?”

  “Some very annoyed people, on the Hill and elsewhere, found out everything, chapter and verse.”

  Hughes felt his chest constricting and struggled to breathe. The voice on the other end continued.

  “If it’s any comfort to you I’m fairly optimistic the imminent purge that’s on the way won’t be fatal. It’s useful knowing where the bodies are buried.”

  “So, there’s a chance we can walk away from this?”

  “No, my boy, I’m afraid you misunderstood. It will take everything we have for just a select few of us to survive. Lots of markers had to be cashed in and a lot of scrambling done. Please understand, the reason I’m telling you this is so that you’re quite clear of the consequences if anything were to cause this considerable sacrifice to have been in vain.”

  He despised the speaker but was incapable for the moment of any action against him. “That’s it then.”

  “A final word of advice. If I were you, I’d ditch any unwanted surveillance and start making relocation plans. It seems to me that you’ve been let roam free for a reason. It would be much easier for everyone if you just disappeared. You get to choose whether it’s on your terms or someone else’s. No doubt you’ve salted enough away in some grubby account to maintain a reasonable lifestyle in a far-flung locale. Goodbye Thomas.”

  Hughes could not believe it. All the time, effort and risk he had put in, only for it to finish like this. For a fleeting moment, the desolation he felt almost convinced him to throw himself off a bridge or in front of the traffic. Then he snapped out of it. The way he saw it there were only a few choices open to him. He could give up like a coward, he could waste valuable time trying to figure out what had gone wrong or he could choose to survive.

  He decided he was going to get out of this nightmare, get to somewhere safe and from there he was going to marshal his forces. This was not the time to dwell on how he had been abandoned, how the years of selfless service, sacrifices, had been discounted without a second thought. There would be a reckoning down the line. Anyone who thought he would meekly slip away, happy to survive with his skin, was mistaken.

  He returned to the Metrorail and caught the Red Line to Bethesda. From the station he flagged a cab and headed for a one-bedroom townhouse he maintained there under an assumed identity. He had three properties like this in Maryland and fifteen nationwide. They were particularly useful for storing sensitive information or to provide short-term accommodation for select people. He paid the driver, added a ten-dollar tip and asked him to wait. He went upstairs to the bedroom, pulled back a rug and removed a section of floorboard. He took out a small metal box, opened it and spread the contents on the floor. There were four sets of similar documentation each bundled with an elastic band. He chose one of the bundles and placed it in his coat. He then took out his wallet, removed all existing cards and identification and placed these with the three remaining bundles into the metal box, which he then replaced under the floor. He returned to the driver and asked him to head back to the Metrorail.

  – 320 –

  Incitement

  An hour and a half later the girl at the desk smiled at the handsome customer as she handed him his tickets. “There you go Mr McDermott, your ticket to New York. While you’re waiting for your flight to depart you’re welcome to use the executive lounge. Have a nice trip.”

  He smiled and thanked her.

  Forty-four hours later he eased back in his chair, trying to get some sleep on the transatlantic flight from Chicago to Frankfurt. Since leaving Washington he had been moving non-stop and was exhausted. He had done his best to make it difficult for anyone who might be looking for him, regardless of how extensive their operation. He had activated a number of agents still under his control to initiate domestic and international travel with aliases he was known to have used in the past. Additionally, he had used contacts not affiliated to the Agency in any way to create yet another new identity for him. Combined with the subtle changes he had made to his appearance, it should be enough to avoid detection. In his hand luggage, he had six more new sets of identification, which he would use on the subsequent legs of his journey.

  Finding that sleep eluded him, he considered what the longer term held. In a few months he would start rebuilding. There were resources, known only to him, which had no connection whatsoever to the Colombian operation. They functioned in isolation and only required the correct protocol to be activated. There were also a number of offshore accounts which, even individually, held substantial sums. When he had regrouped, priority would be given to figuring out what had gone wrong.

  Despite the frantic running of the past two days there had been time to reflect. While he still had so much to figure out, one thing was clear; underestimating Mesi had been a grave mistake. She had been the one variable unaccounted for and must have been responsible for the dramatic turn in events. Somehow, she had managed to first unearth his strategy and then prevent it. But he couldn’t figure out how, considering how little she had. She would have had to recruit support to bring about what she clearly had, but he had made sure she was marginalised so that the necessary support should have been impossible to rally. More practically, he was mystified as to how she could have set it all up so soon on the heels of the attempted ambush. None of these or the countless other questions which sprang to mind could be answered but he was confident that all he needed was time. Everyone who had contributed, either directly or by simply deserting him, would pay for everything he was suffering.

  That he could never return to the US under his true identity was what hurt most. Twenty-odd years ago he had left college as an idealistic young man, eager to serve his country. And serve it he had. He had shown promise and advanced rapidly. From very early on, he had gained an appreciation for how fragile his nation and its way of life was. He understood what it took to protect them. Stability was paramount and, to achieve it, people like him needed to exert control. He had not always liked what he was called to do; some of it had tested his resolve to the limit. But he had persevered, taken the hard path because that was what duty dictated.

  Colombia was the latest of a long line. It had not been an easy decision to authorise some of the strategies; the collateral damage was considerable but there had been no choice. They had needed to regain control of the situation there before it was too late. The drug economy was too powerful to eradicate, something the well-meaning optimists who had backed Plan Coca could just not understand. No matter how much they expended in terms of manpower or firepower, the resilient cartels would always bounce back. And while the distracting sideshow was being played out on that continent, escalations in production from other regions were being left virtually unchecked. The only viable choice was for them to seize control of the entire Latin American apparatus while it, crucially, still enjoyed market dominance. That would have enabled them to influence the global drug economy. Once they had achieved their objective, they would have ramped up production but maintained greater control over where the output went. They could have kept it out of decent neighbourhoods and schools, channelled it towards those destabilising elements within their own country. They could have put the vast revenues it brought to good use as well; his thoughts lately had been turning toward using Wallace’s template to sow division amongst the extremist groups who had become prominent in recent years.

  Wallace had come along at exactly the right time. Hughes had been refining other strategies, aimed at toppling Madrigal and taking over the territories, but none had looked especially promising. The Colombian had been too well positioned, too powerful, but what Wallace had proposed, if managed correctly, provided the solution. The most difficult part had been ensuring, with Brewer’s help and his own network throughout the Alliance, that Wallace was not too successful. On more than one occasion he had almost failed and the feud had looked like it would consume the protagonists whole. The anarchy which would have resulted if that had happened did not bear think
ing about. Despite the obstacles, everything had come together perfectly and only the formalities had remained.

  Catching himself, he refused to wallow in self-pity; instead, after ordering a whisky from one of the stewardesses, he turned his thoughts to how he would engineer his revenge.

  The concept was simple. Once a year the senior management selected people from all ranks of the organisation to accompany them on an excursion. The people could come from any of the disparate subsidiaries owned by the parent company but all of them had one thing in common: they had each excelled in their jobs during the previous twelve months. This was the company’s way of recognising their contribution and thanking them. The activity changed each year. Last year it had been hot-air ballooning, another it had been a two-day trek in the mountains of British Colombia. This year, the company had chartered five Beneteau 40.7 sailboats out of Boston. After some practical yacht instruction they spent three days, under the watchful eye of instructors, crewing the individual boats, often racing against each other. On the fourth day they returned to shore, exhilarated and exhausted.