Authors: Stephen England
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
So familiar. He could remember the last time he had walked these halls. Could remember a time when he had never expected to return.
The elevator doors opened in front of Harry, a bureaucrat emerging from within. They might have been the same age, but he looked much, much younger.
He looked up from the folder in his hands, into Harry’s eyes—looking away almost as quickly. As if frightened by something he had seen in their depths.
Harry moved into the now-empty elevator as if in a trance, leaning back against the side of the elevator as h
e pressed the button for the seventh floor. The Agency’s inner sanctum.
David Lay hadn’t returned to the CIA…at least not yet. Word had it that the President-elect had asked him to stay on—that he would be back as soon as his wounds had healed.
Wounds
. He had seen the director two weeks earlier…at Carol’s funeral. Felt Lay’s eyes on his face as he approached her open casket—the look of reproach more painful than an open accusation.
The feeling that his own heart was being ripped open. The knowledge that he had failed—and lost so much that was dear in the failure. So much of his dreams. She had looked so…
perfect
lying there. Almost as if she might awaken at any moment.
That wasn’t happening. He’d stood there after everyone had left, the cold Virginia wind whipping at his coat—watching as her casket was lowered into the ground. Watching in silence as they began to fill the grave, each shovelful of earth driving a spike deeper into his heart.
Avenging her death was all that was left to him. He had no idea what he would do after that, no idea where he would go—except back into the field. Back out into the night.
The DCIA’s secretary was behind her desk as he approached. She didn’t smile. It seemed as if no one had smiled since the Christmas Eve attacks.
“The director has been expecting you. Go on in.”
The director?
Of course
, Harry thought, feeling himself react at the words.
He opened the door and stepped inside, unsurprised to see Kranemeyer’s form behind the desk. His boss had been tapped as the acting DCIA until Lay’s return.
The TV was on in the office, tuned to CNN and broadcasting the presidential inauguration. “I, Richard Norton, do solemnly swear…”
He found his eyes straying to the screen as the oath of office was repeated. “…to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Kranemeyer snorted, reaching for his remote and the “mute.” “They all say that…politicians and their words. We’ll see if this one means it.”
“I’ve heard intel to indicate that we’ve located Tarik Abdul Muhammad,” Harry interjected, watching as a strange look passed across Kranemeyer’s face. “Is this credible?”
A long pause. “It is…we’ve confirmed both his arrival in London a week ago and his current presence in Leicester. The Security Services have not been able to account for
how
he arrived in-country—nor have we been able to confirm how he got out of the States.”
“How soon do we launch?”
“Have a seat, Harry,” Kranemeyer sighed, gesturing with his hand. “The short version is that we don’t. The Brits won’t sign off on a rendition.”
That didn’t make sense. Harry could feel the anger rising within him, his hand beginning to tremble. “
Why
?”
“We have no evidence, they say. Nothing that definitively places Tarik at the scene of the terrorist attacks. Nothing that would stand up in court.”
“When have they ever demanded that level of proof? We’re allies—and we were attacked.”
Kranemeyer got up from behind his desk, limping around the front as if his prosthesis was paining him. “The ‘special relationship’ is a thing of the past, Harry. A different time…perhaps more importantly, a different England. In 2010, there were eight Muslim MPs in the House of Commons. Now? There’s twenty-seven, and they’ve become increasingly Islamist in their ideology. A Gitmo detainee like Tarik Abdul Muhammad is a hero to their constituents, and if 10 Downing Street ordered him taken, there would be blood spilled in Trafalgar Square.”
In the battle between fanaticism and apathy, the fanatics were winning. As ever. It was a sickening feeling. “So what are you telling me?”
“We wait…and watch. Our request to dispatch an Agency team to liaison with the Security Services in establishing surveillance on Tarik has been approved.”
“How soon do I leave?”
Kranemeyer’s eyes locked with his and he could see a note of sadness written there. “You don’t, Harry. I don’t know the best way to say this…but you’re on your way out.”
No
. Not like this—not with all he had yet to do. “You’re firing me?”
“I’d prefer not to. Which is why I’m asking for your resignation instead.”
He felt frozen in place…caught in the middle of a nightmare. Wanting to ask why, but fearing the answer too much to speak.
“It has nothing to do with your photo being released to the public,” Kranemeyer went on. “The image we used was old and grainy—deliberately so. And it has nothing to do with the murder of Pyotr Andropov…it took work, but we were able to bring down the veil of ‘national security’ over that investigation. Easy enough to do in light of his connections to the Vegas attacks.”
“Then what?”
The DCS paused. “Do you really want to go down this road, Harry? I think we both know where it leads.”
It felt like it was all slipping from between his fingers, but he found he couldn’t stop himself.
Losing control
. “Just give me one good reason why you’re doing this?”
“One?” Fire flashed in Kranemeyer’s coal-black eyes. “I could give half a dozen, all of them equally valid. You’ve been out in the field too long, Harry—and the strain is starting to show. I have video of you executing a downed suicide bomber in the Bellagio. Point-blank, single round to the forehead. A man we could have interrogated if your emotions hadn’t gotten the best of you.”
He closed his eyes against the accusation, remembering that moment. The feeling of justice as he’d brought the Colt up, iron sights framing his target’s face. The fear, the desperation in the young jihadist’s eyes. “It was justified.”
“It wasn’t, and we both know it,” Kranemeyer retorted, not giving him an inch. “We walk on the edge of a knife out here—a razor-thin line between light and darkness. And you’ve crossed that line. Emotion has no place in our business.”
The worst of it was knowing he was right. And not being able to do anything about it.
“
I have to get out. Leave all of it in the past. All the death. All the killing
.”
But that had been
before
…before his dreams had found themselves in ashes.
“Please, just let me take the team to Britain. Let me be there when they finally take down Tarik Abdul Muhammad. Then I’m done, my resignation will be on your desk.” He’d never begged for anything before in his life, but nothing had ever seemed this important. The anger crept back into his voice, a dangerous presence. “I’ve served my country for fifteen years, fifteen long years out there in the night—for God’s sake, you
owe
me this, Barney!”
The fire was gone from Kranemeyer’s eyes, replaced by an unmeasurable sadness. “I’m sorry, Harry, but I can’t. And I think you understand why. Parker will go to Britain to liaise with Five. As for you…I need your resignation by the end of the week. Clean out your desk—turn over your access cards. And then leave. Put all of this behind you.”
It felt like he was falling off a cliff—sliding into the abyss beneath.
No way back
.
Kranemeyer looked over into Harry’s face as he rose from the chair, the emotion seeming to leave him as he did. “You’ve been one of our best, Harry. It’s been an honor to serve with you these years…I only regret that it had to end this way.”
“The regrets…are mine.” There was something there in those steel-blue eyes. Something dangerous.
“Of course, you understand what it’s like to leave the Agency. You’re no longer an employee of the federal government, but that doesn’t mean they lose interest in you. Any overseas travel in the next thirteen years…will have to be approved by this office, with a full copy of your itinerary submitted for review.”
“I understand.”
“Then good luck,” Kranemeyer said, extending his hand. Harry looked at him for a long moment, then turned away without accepting it.
Another moment, and he was gone.
The DCS limped back to his desk, sighing heavily as he sank down into the chair. It couldn’t have been helped.
And the war went on.
A thin line between light and darkness
, Kranemeyer thought. A line he himself had crossed, the image of Haskel’s face floating before his mind.
Justified
?
“Carter,” he asked, picking up the phone. “Has our intel on the Antonov An-12 been verified?”
“As far as we can—from tracking down what parts could be identified and cross-referencing it against available databases and sat imagery, we believe the purchaser to have been Prince Yusuf ibn Talib al-Harbi, a member of the Saudi royal family.”
The Saudi royal family, Kranemeyer thought. It wasn’t as significant as it sounded…there were literally thousands of princes in the House of Saud, all of them living fat off oil money. American oil money.
Driving their fast cars, enjoying their whores—and atoning to Allah for their sins by waging jihad on the West. “What do we have on him?”
“He’s twenty-eight, still single, a graduate of Harvard with a master’s degree in law. As far as terrorism goes…Avi ben Shoham has confirmed that he’s been on Mossad’s radar for several years.”
“Work it up,” Kranemeyer ordered, glancing back at the TV. At the continuing inauguration. “And get it to my desk. I’ll be asking that President Norton issue a finding.”
War without end…
11:35 A.M. Central Time
An elementary school
Fargo, North Dakota
She had called off from school, claiming that she was coming down with the flu. She found her hands trembling as she watched the television, and wondered if it might not have been the truth.
Alicia Workman watched as the new President of the United States rolled down Pennsylvania Avenue in his armored limousine. Previous presidents had always walked—at least part of the way, but the Secret Service had overruled, citing security reasons in light of the Vegas attacks.
Would he be any better? Any more honorable than the last man to occupy the office?
Somehow she doubted it, but it didn’t really matter. She wouldn’t be around to see it.
She glanced up, her eyes flickering around the living room of her small apartment. Each wall festooned with computer print-outs, newspaper clippings. Photos. Tracking Roger Hancock’s every movement, recording it—as if for posterity.
And in the midst of the chaotic disorder, a single picture held to the wall by a red thumbtack. A face smiling back at her, as though enshrined.
The face of her beautiful sister.
She bit her lip, staring into those eyes—the tears beginning to fall. As they always did.
I haven’t forgotten you, Mary
, Alicia found herself whispering. Nor had she forgotten the promise she made.
He was vulnerable now.
7:49 P.M. Eastern Time
Washington, D.C.
There weren’t many payphones in the city anymore. Fewer still that hadn’t been stripped by vandals. That still worked. Everyone had a cellphone these days…and yet a few still remained, relics of a time gone by.
Harry reached up, the cold air biting into his bare cheeks as he fed quarters into the phone.
He felt nothing—ignoring the wind, the snow falling from the sky above him.
One more quarter, and the phone began to ring. One, two, three…four rings, until he found himself fearing that it wouldn’t be answered.
It was on the fifth ring that a familiar voice came on the line. The voice of a woman.
“Rhoda,” he began slowly, hesitantly even. There was no road back from this. “I need your help.”
9:07 P.M. Pacific Time, March 11
th
The Roosevelt Hotel
Hollywood, California
“Did you see it coming, Mr. President?” The use of his title was welcome, even if the question was not.
Roger Hancock glanced around at the opulence of the famous Blossom Ballroom, home of the original Academy Awards—taking a sip of his brandy before replying to the
New York Times
reporter. His first appearance in public society since leaving office…and these were the questions he received?
“No,” he replied, honestly enough. Of course he hadn’t seen Coftey’s betrayal coming—or the reversal from the Chief Justice. “Now get lost.”
You didn’t tell a member of the press to get lost—he knew that from his years in office. But it felt good, the brandy in his hand doing his talking for him. And he no longer really cared.
He spied a young woman through the mingling crowd, auburn hair cascading over her bare shoulders, above the border of her blue gown. Late twenties, maybe? It looked as if she were alone, a glass of punch in her hand as she surveyed the crowd.
Worth cultivating, Hancock thought, beginning to move toward her…his Secret Service detail following him through the crowd—on the alert. All two of them, he thought…the loss of stature befitting an “ex”-President. Young agents.
Alicia Workman could feel his gaze on her even before she turned, his eyes crawling over her skin. Was this the way he had looked at Mary? Her sister had always been aware of the effect she had on men—had been comfortable with it.
Bold and beautiful.
Even getting into this event had been difficult, had taken most of what she had in savings. Didn’t matter. She wouldn’t need it again—not after tonight.
She felt her hands moisten with sweat, lifting the cocktail glass to her lips as she turned to face him.
A handsome face greeted her, a smooth, cruel smile tugging at his lips. The smile of a man who didn’t know what it was to be denied. “I hate to see such a beautiful woman standing alone.”
She returned his smile and he put a gentle hand on her waist as the music began to play above them. “May I have this dance?”
“Of course,” she responded, setting her empty glass on the table behind them, smiling up into his eyes as he led her out onto the floor, moving against him.
Knowing even as she did so that it was their last evening on earth. For both of them.
11:09 P.M.
“We can’t let you do this, sir,” the lead agent announced, stepping between Hancock and the door of the hotel room.
“You really should see the view from the window of my room.”
His intentions had been obvious, the intoxication visible in his eyes as he had twirled her around on the dance floor of the Roosevelt.
And it had led them up to the penthouse, until finally his Secret Service agents had stopped them.
He lowered his voice as if to spare them both embarrassment, but Alicia heard every word. “Going into a hotel room with a woman you just met…it’s too big of a security risk. At least let us search her.”
The hunting knife taped to her inner thigh felt suddenly cold against her skin, sending a chill through her body. Perhaps she had been a fool for thinking that she could avenge her sister’s death. Perhaps this was where it would all end.
Hancock swore, shooting her a warning look as he moved between her and his detail. “Go on inside, Alicia—and wait for me,” he smiled, handing her his keycard.
“I’m not having this again,” she heard him exclaim as the door closed behind her. “Two women this month you’ve scared off trying to feel them up.
Enough
. You cleared all the guests, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir, but—”
“There is no
but
. I’m going to enjoy this evening—and you’re going to stand outside this door. Or I will see that you go back to Chicago or wherever you came from and spend your days ticketing double-parked cars.”
Alicia took a deep breath, struggling to keep her hands from trembling as the conversation continued without. Only moments left now.
She turned on the soft light beside the bed, settling gently on the sheets as she tugged at the hem of her dress. She still didn’t know exactly why she had chosen to leave the Bersa at home—was it some fancy that she would be escaping from this? Or was it just that a knife was so much more personal…for a vengeance that couldn’t have been more so.
The thought struck her that it might be safer to remove the knife—to shove it under the satin pillow at the head of the bed…but before she could move, the door opened, Hancock’s form framed in the doorway.
“Everything’s taken care of, darling,” the former president smiled, hanging his jacket on the back of the doorknob. He moved closer, bending down to kiss her as he unbuttoned his shirt.
His breath smelled of alcohol, his hands working clumsily with the buttons. Had Mary seen him like this…or had she been blinded? Falling headlong in love with a man who cared nothing for her. A man who had
caused
her death.
He leaned back, easing his arms out of the shirt—a look of arrogance on his face as he gazed down at her. The look of a man who had always gotten what he wanted. Every vote, every deal. Every woman in his bed.
No
.
No more. Something snapped within her, something long ago dead. Something that had gone to the grave with her sister.
Pain.
A blind, unseeing rage. Her hand flickered under the edge of her dress, ripping the tape away from her thigh—the knife coming away. Naked steel glittering in her hand.
The arrogant look in Hancock’s eyes fled, replaced by sudden fear—struggling suddenly to free his arms from the sleeves of his dress shirt.
Too late
. A wild, unearthly cry escaped her lips as she stabbed forward, the blade burying itself in his chest, blood blossoming around the hilt.
Pain
.
Fire.
This wasn’t happening. No. Hancock looked down at the knife hilt protruding from his chest, the room seeming to swirl around him as she jerked it free, a bloody blade flickering before his eyes before she plunged it into him again.
Fury
.
He looked down to see a dark red stain spreading across the front of his undershirt…a stain spreading ever wider with every beat of his heart.
No
.
He fell to his hands and knees, hearing himself scream, the blood trickling from between his fingers. Dimly, as if in a nightmare, he heard the locked door crash open—heard the shouts of his detail. He reached out, the polished wood of the nightstand beneath his hand, but he no longer possessed the strength to pull himself up.
As it had been in his dreams…
Dying
. Gunshots resounded through his fast-fading mind as he collapsed onto the carpet, on his side.
Gunshots
. One, two, three—another two almost together. He felt something fall beside him and opened his eyes to see the young woman lying there. His murderer.
Her eyes were open, glazing with pain and the coming of Death…but her lips were creased in a smile.
Strangely at peace. Strangely, irrationally, he found himself wanting more than anything else to ask
why
,
but he lacked even the strength to form the words. Dying to know.
6:27 P.M., Greenwich Time, March 12
th
A pub
Ramsgate, Great Britain
It was still early, the pub barely beginning to fill with its evening traffic.
Just a few couples enjoying their meals—a trio of college students watching a rugby game on the television above the bar.
And a man sitting by himself in the very back of the pub, facing the door. His sandwich sat untouched on his plate, an unopened bottle of spring water before him.
As if waiting for someone—but his face betrayed that assumption…empty blue eyes staring out from a worn, tired face. The face of a man who wasn’t waiting for anyone…anymore.
There were no surveillance cameras in the pub—he had made certain of that before entering. Just a place to get a quiet meal before moving on.
Alone and unarmed. It was an unusual feeling, Harry thought, looking down at the sandwich on his plate.
Out in the cold
.
The television changed suddenly, the voice of an announcer coming over the speakers.
“Reporting live from Los Angeles, California—we regret to inform our viewers that Roger Hancock, the former President of the United States, has succumbed to wounds received in a stabbing last night. Here with us is the mayor of Los Angeles to comment on the savage attack…”
The news brought him no satisfaction, but there seemed an irony in it all—perhaps even a
justice
, if there was any of that to be found in this fallen world.
He pulled a wallet from an inner pocket of his leather jacket, unfolding it on the table as he brushed his meal to the side.
The pictures
. A sad smile creased his lips as his eyes fell on the images of the two of them.
Together.
The ones Rhoda had taken of them that morning—it seemed so very long ago—a sprawling vista of the Blue Ridge Mountains stretched out behind them in one shot.
Places they had never been. Things they had never done.
Lies
…just like so much else in his life.
Perhaps the love he’d known for her was the only truth in it all.
Flame sprang from the tip of his lighter to the edge of the photographs, the paper curling away from the heat. Curling, blackening, ashes falling unbidden into the tray on the table below—fire searing the tips of his fingers as he held on, hardly daring to let go.
Her eyes staring back at him from the midst of the flames, burning themselves into his memory.
Haunting
.
A tear ran down his cheek, and he let it fall, unheeding. Uncaring. Watching as the last traces of those precious memories were consumed.
The mobile phone beneath his hand pulsed with an incoming text and he slid it open, revealing a single word on the screen.
Yes
.
He knew where this road ended—a casket on a flight back across the Atlantic…if he was that lucky. Time to dance with the devil.
He didn’t send a reply, replacing the phone within his jacket as he rose—leaving his meal abandoned beside a tray of smoldering embers as he walked from the pub.
The ashes of his past.
A mist was rolling in off the cold North Sea, obscuring the masts of the fishing vessels moored in the Royal Harbour, an icy rain lashing at his body as he walked on…into the night.
No turning back.
The End