by Ben Coes
Flaherty turned onto the dirt driveway, knowing that his car, at that instant, set off a security system. The vehicle, and him specifically, were being photographed, scanned, and run against a database. Had he not been expected, one of the six gunmen who patrolled Bruner’s estate would soon be standing in the middle of the road, blocking his path, assault rifle targeted at him, while at least one other gunman flanked from left or right, ready to kill. Flaherty didn’t know precisely what would happen if someone uninvited made it past the first gunman, but he knew he wouldn’t make it to Bruner’s farmhouse—not in one piece, anyway.
Flaherty couldn’t see them, but they were there. Six trained operators, sworn to protect Bruner. In his many times visiting Bruner, Flaherty had seen one of them once, a chance reflection in the night, headlight hitting the glass of night optics off in a field. He knew who they were. Flaherty had vetted each man, knew their backgrounds almost as well as they did. Each man shared the same general Special Forces background. It was Flaherty’s job to go beyond that, however, and that was the art, for what they were doing was treason and he had to find those young, elite soldiers willing to commit it. Beyond his organizational brilliance, what Andrew Flaherty knew how to do was separate the patriots from the disaffected, the elite soldiers prepared to defend America at any cost and the young men who believed America had gone bad.
Once broken, a horse will never ride wild again. Once a man had committed to treason, there was no turning back. Most of them never had doubts. They were committed, as committed as they had once been to the United States of America, because they believed that they were fighting a second revolution. It was Flaherty’s job to carefully select them. It wasn’t the ones who were blindly loyal. It was the rebel, the naysayer, the one with a checkered, even violent incident in his past. Each man was, on some deep level, angry. Flaherty found them, but it was Bruner who quietly harnessed that anger and channeled it toward the days to come.
Two men in the nearly thirty-year history of the covert group known only as Order 6 had ever tried to run. Both were dead within hours, their bodies never found, their names, faces, and records purged. It was as if they never existed.
Flaherty parked in the driveway and grabbed a folder from the passenger seat.
Bruner met him at the front door. He was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans. He said nothing as he held the door open. Flaherty followed him to the den, where Bruner went to a small tray in the corner of the room, on top of which was a collection of bottles, glasses, and a silver ice bucket. Flaherty sat on one of the leather sofas. A fire was dying out though still warm, providing a lovely shade of crescent orange and the occasional crackle of sparks.
“I’m having a bourbon,” said Bruner as he poured himself a drink. “I believe I know what you’re going to say, which is, ‘No, thank you,’ but I’ll ask it anyway.”
“Yes,” said Flaherty. “Neat.”
Bruner stared at Flaherty for a few moments, arching one of his eyebrows. “Well, I guess this is important, isn’t it?”
He handed a drink to Flaherty, then sat down on the couch opposite him. He reached his glass out to Flaherty and clinked glasses.
Flaherty handed Bruner a folder.
It contained a series of photos. They all showed the same man. He was bald, tanned, and muscular. He was in his late thirties but still a remarkable physical specimen. The man was dead. In the middle of his chest, a knife handle stuck up into the air. Blood was everywhere.
“Marseille,” said Flaherty. “Two hours ago. Felix Jackson.”
Bruner remembered him. He was one of the first recruits. Bruner was there when they killed Jackson’s wife and son. Jackson never found out. But it served its purpose. Losing his family turned Jackson into an animal, devoid of feeling. Now he was dead.
“Romy is proving to be a worthy adversary,” said Bruner.
“She innovated,” said Flaherty as Bruner stared at the photos. “She marked him when he entered the station. When she understood what he was there for, she ran. It may have been luck, but she demonstrated adept skills.”
Bruner held up a photo. It was a close-up of the large kitchen knife jammed into the dead man’s chest.
“She killed a man not many people on the planet could kill,” he said. “She knows our plans. Romy knows precisely why Tim Lindsay died—she told him, and then we eliminated him. She endangers everything!”
He swung his arm out and struck a lamp, which smashed to the floor. Bruner’s face took on a reddish hue, his nostrils flaring in anger.
“There’s something else.” Flaherty tossed a sheet of paper onto the table between them. It was a black-and-white photo of a young man with short, dark hair. He had on a T-shirt. In his right hand, he held a carbine, which was aimed at the sky. Thick stripes of eye black ran beneath his eyes, which stared menacingly into the camera.
Bruner took another sip and looked at Flaherty.
“The man Kyrie framed for Lindsay’s murder,” said Flaherty.
“What about him?”
“His name is Dewey Andreas. Does that ring a bell, Charles?”
Bruner paused, contemplating the question. He took a sip from his glass, then slowly shook his head.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“It should. He was one of the first Deltas we targeted for recruitment. Kyrie was sent to bring him in.”
Flaherty extended a folder. It was formal-looking, light tan with diagonal green stripes, with a fanciful black ribbon for tying it closed, a green border around its edges. On one side, a small box in bright yellow read:
CATEGORY 4
EYES ONLY
Bruner shot Flaherty a look.
“I thought I was the only member of Special Operations Group in history to have a green-bordered file?” he said, taking the folder.
“So did I,” said Flaherty. “It was awarded to him in September after stopping the attack on the dormitory at Columbia.”
Bruner opened the file.
ANDREAS, DEWEY
ACCESS 14
Non-Official Cover
[Warning: Release of information illegal under Article(s) 239.A, 56-1.C, and FFR 42, Section 5]
CIT: United States of America
HOMES: Castine, ME
Washington, D.C. (current)
EDUCATION: Boston College
English B.A. 3.1 GPA
Varsity Football (captain)
MILTARY SERVICE: U.S. Army: enlistment Jun
U.S. Army Rangers, Fort Benning, GA
Graduate Winter School: Jan–Mar
RANK: 1 in class of 188
1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, aka Delta Force
CAREER (known):
• Lisbon, POR: Jan–Mar: (mission unknown)
• San Isidro de El General, COS: Oct-Jan: Anti-narcotic: NIC, COL, VEN
• London, ENG: Apr: Assassination (attempted) Subhi al-Tufayli/Hezbollah (mission failure)
• Munich, GER: Apr: Exfiltration Constantine Vargarin (wanted by GUR-RUS) (mission success)
• Buenos Aires, ARG: Sep–Dec: Anti-narcotic: ARG, COL, CHI, BOL
• Montreal, CAN: Jan: Assassination Constantine Vargarin (mission success)
• Lisbon, POR: Mar: Assassination Frances Vibohr (Siemens VIP suspect in sale of TS info to SAU) (mission success)
• Bali, IND: Aug: Assassination of Rumallah Khomeini (mission success)
• Jun 00–Dec 11: (nonmilitary) roles offshore oil & gas industry
Aberdeen, SCO
Edinburgh, SCO
Belfast, IRE
Cardiff, WAL
Valparaiso, CHI
Buenaventura, COL
• East Hampton, NY: Dec: Andreas kills Alexander Fortuna (sanction: believed to be unofficial)
• Washington, DC: Jan: U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and U.S. Congressional Medal of Honor
• Islamabad, PAK: Jun: Overthrow of Omar El-Khayab (sanction: assumed to be official JSOC/CIA)
<
br /> • Broumana, LEB: Jul: Assassination of Aswan Fortuna (sanction: believed to be unofficial)
• Mahdishahr, IRA: Oct 12: Infiltration/theft nuclear device (sanction: unknown)
ACTIVE FILE(s):
• VEVAK Tehran, IRA
05–08: (inactive: kill or capture)
12–pres: (active: kill or capture)
IRG Tehran, IRA: 12–pres: (active: capture)
• AL-MUQAWAMA/Hezbollah
Tehran, IRA: 98–01: (inactive: kill or capture)
Tehran, IRA: 11–pres: (active: kill or capture)
Damascus, SYR: 12–pres: (active: kill or capture)
• HAMAS
Gaza, ISR: 12–pres: (active: objective unknown)
• GRU
Moscow, RUS: 04: (inactive: capture)
MISC:
• Fort Bragg, NC: Wife (Holly) dies: Andreas charged with murder
• Arlington, VA: Discharged from 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, U.S. Army, and stripped of all honors
• Fort Bragg, NC: Acquittal on all charges
• Nov 12: Engagement to U.S. National Security Advisor Jessica Tanzer
Date of marriage: (unknown)
For the next ten minutes, Bruner read through the file without saying anything. When he was done, he put it down. For the first time, Bruner showed the slightest hint of sharpness in his eyes. He sat forward, locking eyes with Flaherty.
“Andreas was one of the recruits?”
“Yes,” said Flaherty. “He was Delta. He had a wife. Her name was Holly. As with the others, Kyrie killed her and made it appear to be a suicide. Andreas was to be the fourth member of the team.”
Bruner nodded. He remembered. It was one of the darkest secrets in the history of Order 6. Bruner insisted on single males only, unencumbered by personal attachments. If someone was promising, that individual’s family disappeared.
Andreas was deemed so potentially valuable that Bruner ordered that his wife be killed and staged to look like a suicide, freeing Andreas to join the unit. But Holly Andreas’s murder ended up being pointless. Andreas was arrested immediately and charged with the murder. After his acquittal, he fled the United States.
“Warn Kyrie,” said Bruner. “Right now Andreas has no idea what just happened. But he will. He’s going to scour the earth to find Romy. If he finds her before us, it’s over.”
55
BEIT-E RAHBARI (RESIDENCE OF THE SUPREME
LEADER OF IRAN)
TEHRAN
The visitor walked down the empty corridor, past armed gunmen who stood at attention every ten feet, compact submachine guns clutched in their arms, trained to the side. The floor was wood, but it appeared like glass, varnished to a beautiful golden hue and yet worn with years, and with history.
At the end of the hallway, behind a large door, the supreme leader of Iran, Ali Suleiman, lay asleep.
The visitor, Abu Paria, walked without a care for the noise his steel-toed boots caused. He was big, at least six-five, and needed to hold his arms slightly out to the side because of the size of his biceps. He wore a military uniform: tan khaki pants, a matching shirt adorned with rows of medals and other insignia on both sides, and atop his shoulder epaulets in gold and red, signifying the man’s accomplishment at age thirty-two, becoming the youngest general in Iranian history. Now, ten years later, he wore it not to project confidence. Paria had all the confidence he needed. As head of VEVAK, Iranian intelligence and military affairs, as well as the KUDS Force, an elite paramilitary division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Paria was a role model. He wore his old ribbons to say to a younger generation: you too can do this. Those young animals will see my chest of medals and will want to beat me. That is how we will become the strongest, most feared country in the Middle East.
Paria came to the door and nodded at one of the guards, telling him silently to open it. His hand lurched for the door, obeying the second most powerful man in Iran.
Paria stepped inside. The room wasn’t dark, but it was dimly lit. A fireplace gave off an orange-ish dome of light that reached the massive bed. A single lamp was on the table next to the bed. On the red sheets, an old man was sound asleep. He had a grayish beard and his skin was pockmarked.
Paria walked to the side of the bed and the sleeping imam. He paused for a few seconds, then reached out and placed his large paw of a hand on the tiny old man’s shoulder. Ever so gently, Paria shook his shoulder.
“Imam,” said Paria, shaking for several moments, until Suleiman opened his eyes.
It took Suleiman awhile to focus. He reached for the side table and found his eyeglasses and put them on.
“Who is it … at this hour…”
“Imam, it is Abu. I apologize for waking you, but it’s important.”
Suleiman sat up against the headboard, finally becoming alert.
“Abu,” he said, nodding. “What is it, son?”
“You said to disturb you if we ever were in a position to kill the man who stole the nuclear weapon,” said Paria.
“Andreas,” snarled Suleiman.
“Yes, Imam. Dewey Andreas, the American.”
Paria handed him the INTERPOL Red Notice. It was in Arabic. In the middle of the page was a head shot of Dewey.
Suleiman read the notice several times.
“What does it mean, Abu?”
“He’s on the run,” said Paria, his nostrils flaring. “The man who stole our nuclear weapon is on the run! He escaped from a French jail and is now trying to get out of the country. He’s in France. It’s our chance, Imam.”
A small grin crept across Suleiman’s lips.
“He’s a flushed bird,” he said. “Isn’t that the expression?”
“Yes, exactly. He’s exposed.”
“So what do you need from me?” asked Suleiman.
“I want your permission to move some people into France in order to kill Andreas. He won’t be flying. My guess is, he went south—Nice, Monaco, someplace where he can blend in. Perhaps Spain. He speaks Spanish. The important thing is, this could be our only chance.”
Suleiman was silent for several moments, looking away from Paria, deep in thought. Finally, he turned back to Paria.
“Capture him if you can. But kill him if you must, Abu.”
* * *
In a dark apartment across the wide boulevard from Beit-e Rahbari, a man with binoculars watched Paria’s vehicle depart from the Supreme Leader’s residence.
The apartment had been carefully selected. In addition to offering a view of the entrance to Beit-e Rahbari, with binoculars, the bedroom of the Supreme Leader was visible.
The man picked up his phone and dialed a long number.
“Perry,” came the voice. “Who is this?”
“Mack, it’s Abdullah,” whispered the man.
“Abdullah, is something wrong? What time is it there?”
Perry, the head of Special Operations Group, had recruited Abdullah in London, when Perry was London chief of station and Abdullah was a graduate student at the London School of Economics. Perry had met Abdullah playing tennis at the Hurlingham Club and they became friends. At some point, Perry trusted the young Iranian enough to confide in him and ultimately ask him to return to Tehran and become an asset for the United States. On the surface, Abdullah was a loyal Iranian subject who worked in the finance department of National Iranian Oil Company, the state oil monopoly. But beneath the surface, he hated the religious dictatorship in Iran and wanted to be one of the ones who someday helped take it down and bring democracy to Iran.
“A little before four in the morning,” said Abdullah. “Listen to me. Abu Paria arrived at Beit-e Rahbari thirty-six minutes ago. He left just now. Just after he arrived, the lights in Suleiman’s apartment went on.”
There was a long pause, and finally Perry spoke.
“The INTERPOL,” said Perry. “There’s no other explanation. Good work, Abbie.”
56
B
IRCH HILL FARM
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
Bill Polk was on his way to Calibrisi’s house when Perry’s call came through.
“The Iranian informant just called me,” he said. “Paria visited Suleiman a few minutes ago. Four in the morning Tehran time. Woke him up. I assume they got the Red Notice.”
“The Iranians are going to try and kill him,” said Polk. “Has Dewey made contact?”
“No.”
“And Borchardt—”
“—is ignoring the calls, or else we have a wrong number.”
“Okay. Let me speak with Hector. In the meantime, I want any assets in-theater alerted to the situation and briefed up,” said Polk. “We don’t know where Dewey went, so draw a wide perimeter. France, Spain, Italy, Germany, et cetera. Get them prepared to move if and when we find out where he is.”
“You got it.”
* * *
Polk was too tired to drive to Calibrisi’s home. He was senior enough at the Agency to be driven by a security team every day, but he liked to drive. This night, however, he felt an unusual, dark mood coming over him. He’d known Lindsay personally. Beyond that, Lowell Trappe had been a close friend; Polk had been a congressional staff member on the House Intelligence Committee when Trappe recommended him for a job at the CIA. Over the years, the two had become confidants. His drowning saddened Polk.
But the truth was, neither Lindsay’s murder nor Trappe’s drowning was really on Polk’s mind. All he could think about was Dewey.
They had a rough relationship. Technically, Dewey reported to him. But try and tell Dewey that. Dewey tolerated Polk; he spoke with Polk when Calibrisi wasn’t available. The thing is, it didn’t rankle Polk. If speaking directly with Calibrisi was what was necessary to have Dewey at Langley, it was a small price to pay.
Polk’s mind was swirling. Why had Dewey been set up to take the fall for killing Lindsay? Polk knew Dewey didn’t do it. What worried him wasn’t whether France would recapture him and lock him up. No, what bothered Polk was the simple fact that when things began to spiral out of control, and Dewey was involved, it was always a bad sign. Fortuna. Cloud. Tristan Nazir. Dewey was like fly paper; he attracted the worst situations. Now the Iranians were coming into the picture.
