Standing there lost in the beauty of the city, Chambers suddenly noticed how quiet it was in the room. The men had left him alone. He glanced to his right, where a large, sleek black metal desk stood, behind which official-looking certificates with government seals were mounted. He read “Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation” on one, and—
“Agent Payne.” A trim, tanned man with a full head of immaculately combed gray hair stood in the doorway, his face as hard and cold as the metal desk that stood across the room.
Chambers hesitated. “Excuse me?”
“You were a very difficult person to find.” The man held out his hand. “Welcome back.”
Chambers hesitantly accepted the offer and shook. “Welcome back? Have I been here before?”
His host looked confused. As he studied Chambers’ face, the door opened again, and two men dressed in dark suits stepped in. “I don’t think these men need an introduction, do they?”
Chambers looked at them and slowly extended his hand. “How do you do?”
One of the men took Chambers' hand and shook. “You can drop the cover now, Harper.”
Chambers glanced at the other man, who was looking him over with a discerning eye.
“How’ve you been?” the first man asked.
“Do I know you?”
The suited men looked over at the gray-haired man, who shrugged one of his shoulders.
“Obviously,” Chambers said, “I know you people. But I had a car accident and it’s kind of... clouded my mind. Not only don’t I recognize you, but I don’t even know who I am myself. You said my name was Harper? Is that my first or last name?”
The two men shared an uneasy glance.
“Your name is Harper Payne,” the tall man with black, slicked-back hair said. “I’m Special Agent Jonathan Waller, and this is Special Agent Scott Haviland.” With a nod of his head, Waller indicated his shorter, thicker-built colleague. “We’re with the FBI.”
“And I’m FBI Director Douglas Knox,” the gray-haired man said as he settled into his chair behind the large desk. He looked at Waller. “Why don’t you take Agent Payne to Admin One.”
“Maybe we should get him over to the naval hospital, get him looked at.”
“Debrief first,” Knox said, holding up an index finger. “Assess the situation. Then you can set him up for a full physical.”
“I’ll get the Scarponi file, meet you there,” Haviland said.
Waller nodded and led Chambers out of the room.
Administration One did not have a view of the Potomac. In fact, it did not have a view of anything: this ultramodern, utilitarian room had recessed lighting, state-of-the-art computerized projection equipment, and blue, high-backed ergonomic chairs lined up around an oval, polished wood conference table.
Upon entering the room, Waller motioned for Payne to sit. As he settled into the deep chair, the pain in his thigh caught him off guard. He pulled out the bottle of Excedrin and popped another tablet in his mouth. “Since you know who I am, maybe you can tell me how I ended up with a bullet in my leg.”
“Actually, I can. Two of our agents intercepted you at Denver International Airport. You were intent on maintaining your cover, and by the time they got you to National, you were adamant about not wanting to cooperate. Their orders were to bring you in—and mission failure was not an acceptable result—so they pursued you. Airport security joined in, and you apparently made a movement they thought looked like you were drawing a gun. So one of the less experienced security officers took a shot at you.”
“Obviously, I ended up giving them the slip.”
“Obviously.”
Payne looked around, taking in the trappings of the impressive conference room.
“I take it you don’t remember this building,” Waller said.
“I don’t remember much of anything.”
Waller sighed. “Well, let’s start with the basics. Your name’s Harper Ellis Payne. Born January seventh, 1959, Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Graduated from MIT and joined the army, where you did some time in covert ops before applying to the Academy in 1985. You graduated top of your class and had a very impressive career.”
“You’re talking like I’m not an agent anymore,” Payne said.
“You left the Bureau six years ago.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
Waller rubbed at the back of his neck. “No, you did something right.”
“I left the Bureau because I did something right?”
“You were given an undercover assignment. Deep cover. To infiltrate the operation of the assassin known as the Viper.”
“Deep cover?”
“No contact with family or friends. Reports to the Bureau were made very infrequently, and only when it was safe to do so. You had to live and breathe your undercover identity twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes it meant doing things that you felt were contrary to who you were as a person.”
“Like what?”
Waller hesitated, studied Payne’s face for a moment. He looked genuinely interested. There was no way the amnesia was an act, Waller concluded. “Why don’t we just leave it at that for now.”
“Did I kill someone, is that it?”
Waller nodded. “We all knew going in that there was a chance you’d have to prove your worth. Your allegiance. You were in a tough spot. It was an extremely difficult assignment. Normally, agents in deep cover find a way around participating in criminal activity, but in your case...it wasn’t a normal situation.” Waller waited for a reaction, but there was none. Payne was merely staring down at the table. “Look, I know this is a lot to absorb. You have to keep what I’m telling you in perspective—”
“How long was I undercover?”
Waller took the seat next to Payne. “As far as covert ops goes, it was an eternity. Almost two years.”
“Did it have anything to do with me leaving the Bureau?”
“That assassin I mentioned before, the Viper. Aka Hung Jin. Real name Anthony Scarponi. You testified against him.”
“Mafia?”
“Actually, he was a federal agent.” Waller chuckled. “I should emphasize
was.
You gave us an inside look at his operation like nothing we’d ever had. From what you told us, we were able to build cases against some of the people who put out the contracts on world leaders, business executives, wealthy individuals, foreign politicos, you name it. Before you went in, we didn’t have an ounce of evidence against these people.”
“So I worked with this guy?”
“He took you under his wing. He was very cautious of you initially, but over time you proved your worth to him. Once you gained his confidence, he put you in charge of staking out the target, providing all the background work he needed to make the hit a success.”
“But how does someone go from being a federal agent to a ruthless assassin?”
“I’m not sure how to answer that. Scarponi was a CIA operative stationed overseas. He did time in China and the Soviet bloc. We had a security breach in the eighties and the Agency lost a shitload of operatives. Most of them were killed. Some are still unaccounted for.”
“And Scarponi was one of them,” Payne said.
“Yes. We’ve never been able to find out what happened to him over there, but we finally located him operating out of China, and that’s when you were sent in. With your Special Forces training and covert ops experience, you were the best choice to go in. Even still, it wasn’t until he came to the U.S. to put a hit on someone that we were able to move on him. You were the key.”
“How so?”
“You were with him when Scarponi killed Vincent Foster, the deputy White House counsel who supposedly committed suicide by eating his gun. It was the only hit you witnessed. Scarponi was very careful to make sure you weren’t privy to any hard evidence that could implicate him in any of the hits. The people who hired him didn’t know who he was, and the information he gave you would’ve been circumstantial at best: you’d be able to testify he told you a person was a target, that he paid you to surveil them, but that’s it—you didn’t witness the actual hit. But as soon as the CIA fingered Scarponi as the Viper, the president got pressure from foreign leaders all over the world to bring him to trial. The Foster murder was the evidence we needed to put him away.”
Payne shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “And that’s where I came in.”
“You took the stand in pretty damning closed-court testimony. Scarponi was easily convicted and you went underground.”
“I don’t get it. If he was put away, why did I have to go into hiding?”
“Because he had an army of people just like you on his payroll. Highly skilled, fiercely loyal. We knew it’d only be a matter of time before he’d get word to them to take you out. Not that they needed an invitation. Rather than wait for some bad shit to go down, it was safer for you to take a new identity and disappear.”
The door opened and Haviland entered. He handed a file to Waller and leaned against the wall to Payne’s left. “How’s it going?” Haviland asked.
Waller’s eyes moved from Payne to his partner. “We’re getting there.” Waller looked back at Payne. “A week after Scarponi was found guilty, word was that a half-a-million-dollar contract had been placed on your head.”
“Normally, when an agent’s life is at risk,” Haviland said, “the matter’s handled internally. Their identities are changed and they’re transferred to a field office in another part of the country. We were in the process of getting the transfer paperwork together when a death threat came into the office where you were headed. You weren’t even there yet and Scarponi’s people already knew where you were going to be.” Haviland shook his head. “We figured we had a mole inside the Bureau.”
“It’d take years to figure out who it was,” Waller said, “if we could at all. But you still didn’t want any part of it. Because of your Special Forces training, you thought you could take care of yourself. While we were trying to convince you it was a losing battle, a car bomb nearly took you out. At that point, both the CIA and FBI directors agreed that you had to enter WITSEC,” he said, referring to the witness security program. “That’s the way it had to be, whether you liked it or not. Otherwise, you’d be endangering the lives of everyone in your vicinity at all times.”
“You went underground with a new identity furnished by the U.S. marshal,” Haviland added. “You had some plastic surgery and we never saw you again.”
“About a year later you apparently decided to leave the program, and the marshal lost contact with you.”
“How do you just ‘leave the program’?”
Waller shrugged. “You go underground, take on a new identity. It’s not as hard as you’d think. There’s a black market specializing in forged documents and fraudulent identities, you just have to know where to look. Once you’ve got new ID, you create a background for yourself. Schools that no longer exist, scattered around the country. Jobs with defunct companies. Things, dates, places, that can’t be verified. On paper it all looks perfectly legit. Last step is a move to another community, maybe even a new country. To those who knew you, you’ve basically just vanished.”
“For the marshal,” Haviland added, “it’s one less check they have to cut. One more file they can archive and forget about. A very high percentage of people end up leaving the program.”
“But if I already had a new identity, why would I abandon the program?”
“Could be that you thought your cover had become contaminated,” Waller said. “I don’t know. Once the marshal lost contact with you, they had no reason to look into it further. Until recently.”
“A situation’s come up and we need your help,” Haviland said. “Five months ago Scarponi’s attorney introduced newly discovered evidence and a witness to back it up. They’re saying that Scarponi was out of the country at the time of Foster’s death, and they have independent proof that it was a suicide. We know it’s all bullshit, but so far, the U.S. Attorney can’t refute it without you, without your testimony. Scarponi won a hearing before a federal judge and he was released from prison.”
“So you need me to testify.”
“The U.S. Attorney’s going to ask for a new trial, but it’s contingent upon our ability to secure you as a witness. If we can’t, Scarponi’s temporary get-out-of-jail-free card becomes permanent.”
Payne sat there, trying to make some sense of what he had just been told.
“What’s the matter, Harper?” Waller asked.
Payne shook his head. “How can I testify against this guy if I can’t even remember who I am?”
Waller looked at Haviland. “We don’t have a choice. We’ll work with you, make sure you’re thoroughly briefed—”
“Jon.” Haviland was shaking his head ever so slightly. “Are you sure?”
“You have a better idea? We shoot holes in this bullshit 'new evidence’ or Scarponi walks. He
walks.”
Waller turned to Payne. “Already the president has been getting serious heat. They don’t want some legal snafu to set this guy free in their countries. Given what you were able to do with infiltrating his network, I doubt we’ll ever be in such a strong position again.” Waller leaned back in his chair. “We’ve gotta give this a shot.”
Payne turned his gaze down to the floor, rubbed the back of his neck, and then shrugged. “I just don’t see how I can pull this off.”
Waller slammed a hand down on the conference table. “You’re missing the point, Harper: we don’t have a choice.”
“Look at it this way,” Haviland said softly. “You’ve come out of WITSEC. Right now, you’re extremely vulnerable. Scarponi knows you’re the only person in the universe who can get him thrown back in the slammer for life. Given what he does for a living, what do you think is the first thing he’s gonna do?”
“But he’s been out for five months, you said. And I’m still here.”
“It took us that long to find you,” Haviland said. “I’m sure he had the same problem. A lot of his contacts are overseas, it probably took him time to get his operation ramped up again.”
Waller rose from his chair and leaned on the conference table with both hands, looking down at Payne. “Bottom line. You help us, you help yourself. Once we’re done, we’ll put you back in witness protection. Get you some more plastic surgery, this time something a little more radical”—Waller looked him over— "and you’ll live a long and healthy life.”