Beloved enemy, p.5
Beloved Enemy, page 5
Slowly, he crouched down on his haunches, back to the door, and tried not to breathe.
FIVE
“HOW THE hell could this have happened?”
Kinkaid Marshall and G. Robert Krofft sat across from each other in a Dunkin’ Donuts on K Street NW, but neither of them cracked a smile at the thread-worn joke. It might seem odd for the directors of the DCS and the CIA to be taking their early breakfast at a fast-food shop, but they both knew that they would remain undetected and anonymous in the continuous foot traffic that headed in and out. Over coffee and powdered donuts, they discussed the president’s emergency briefing.
“A rotten apple happened,” Krofft said, with a dismissive air. “Dennis Paull and his security team were shot to death by that fucking snake Jack McClure.”
“Could Dennis have been so blind?”
Krofft broke open two packets of sugar and added the contents to his coffee. “Who the hell cares? What’s done is done.”
Marshall, listening to the reassuring background hum of human voices, cut his donut into four precise pieces with a white plastic knife. Every movement he made appeared precise and considered. “Well, we’ll find out soon enough when we have McClure in custody. There are going to be a lot of people who want a piece of him.”
“You’ve got it wrong, Kin. We don’t want McClure in custody, we want him dead. Containment is priority one. The quicker this sorry incident is put to bed the better.”
Marshall made a meditative sound in the back of his throat. The scent of warm sugar was as thick as the morning fog down by the water. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
The rest of the quarter vanished into Marshall’s mouth. “But what if you aren’t?”
Krofft, dunking his donut into his coffee, laughed harshly. “Don’t be absurd. Come on, we both saw the evidence. The case against McClure is open-and-shut. Let’s at least refrain from bullshitting each other.” He eyed Marshall. “Unless you have another agenda.”
“I’m simply trying to be thorough. I’d like to do some follow-up investigation on Dennis and McClure.”
Krofft’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because the two men were friends as well as colleagues.” Marshall peered at him.
“McClure was a mole. That was part of his job.”
“It would seem so.” Marshall looked thoughtful. Absently, he ate two quarters of his donut before he spoke again. “But Dennis’s murder has given me a weird feeling in my gut.”
The shop was awash in early morning customers now, all of them bleary-eyed and rushing to get their morning fix of caffeine and sugar before they set foot in their offices. No one paid them the slightest attention. Nevertheless, Krofft produced a small oval with a plastic shell that gleamed like polished metal and was just as hard. It looked like a beetle. He thumbed a tiny switch and a red LED light popped on. He pushed the electronic jammer across the table so that it sat midway between him and Marshall, protecting them both from eavesdroppers.
“That the latest doohickey from DARPA?” Marshall was referring to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
“A prototype. I like to stay one step ahead of everyone else.”
Marshall nodded. “So what’s really on your mind?”
“First Malone, now you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I saw Dickinson getting into Malone’s car and driving off. I don’t know what those two fucks are planning, but you can make book that it doesn’t include us.”
“On these shores, G.R., your hands are tied. Mine, too, for that matter.”
“I wish to God I had Malone’s car bugged.”
“You’d be the one to do it, too,” Marshall laughed dryly.
Krofft hunched forward. “Are you serious about that feeling in your gut?”
“Lookit, Dennis’s death set me to thinking. I mean, why now, at this particular moment? And then the answer came to me: Atlas.” The word was voiced in no more than a whisper.
“We are about to begin the operational phase of Atlas. He was the fucking architect of Atlas. We all signed off on it, but it was his idea. He built it from scratch.”
“And a brilliant plan it is,” Krofft said. “Ever since Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula arose in Yemen, we have kept an eye on the growing threat of domestic terrorism. But it wasn’t until the AQAP started actively recruiting disaffected Westerners to their cause on the Shumukh and Al-Fidaa jihadist forums, among others, that Paull really began to take action.”
Krofft unlocked his briefcase, pulled out a sheaf of papers, shuffling them until he found what he wanted. He cleared his throat, and read: “‘Corresponding with those who yearn for martyrdom operations and the brothers who are searching to execute an operation that would cause great damage to the enemies the goal now is to activate those brothers who reside in the land of the enemy … whether Jewish, Christian, or apostates as clearly individual jihad or the so-called lone wolf has become popular.’”
Krofft looked up. “The usual drivel, we thought, but Paull became alarmed.”
“Hence Atlas.”
Krofft nodded. “An operation to plant our own people, posing as disaffected Americans—Muslims or Christians wanting to convert—aligning themselves with AQAP’s jihadist aims.”
Marshall tapped a forefinger against his lower lip. “Do you think McClure knows about Atlas?”
Krofft frowned. “Atlas is a director-only operation. But because of their close friendship, I’d say it was probable.”
Marshall passed a hand across his eyes. “Fuck me. Stealing the Atlas field personnel list would be a disaster of epic proportions.”
“The list isn’t even complete,” Krofft said, “Just the first wave is about to be sent out.”
“Even that would compromise over a hundred specially trained operatives,” Marshall said.
“A perfect disaster.” Krofft nodded. “Okay, Kin. Much as my own gut tells me this is a waste of time, I have an idea how we can satisfy it. You and I are going to cook up three pieces of red-hot intel. We’re going to feed them, one each, to Malone, Rogers, and Dickinson, then sit back and see what happens. But I’m telling you nothing is going to happen. McClure was the leak. The faster we find him and air him out, the better.”
* * *
The crate settled with a small crash onto the flatbed, jolting the door open slightly. The Royal Bengal was momentarily illuminated in the sliver of light—it was larger even than Jack had first thought. Its left forepaw was extended to brace it against the jolting movement and its head was low, bobbing between its enormous shoulders. Its tongue came out, licked around its dark muzzle. Then the light winked out as Jack pulled the door closed.
The vehicle and the animal began to move at the same moment. Jack felt the vibration of the vehicle as it rolled over the tarmac. He could feel the presence of the tiger looming over him. He was, quite literally, between a rock and a hard place. If he escaped now he’d be right in the line of sight of the suits, who were undoubtedly on the lookout for him; but if he stayed where he was, he might become the tiger’s next meal. He knew that if the Royal Bengal decided to attack him he wouldn’t stand a chance against its jaws and raking talons.
Jack risked opening the door enough to see what was going on. At that moment, he heard voices raised in challenge and the vehicle ground to a stop. He saw the flap of a suit jacket, and then clearly one of the feds asking the driver what was in the crates.
By cracking the door a bit wider, he could make out the nose section of the InterGlobal plane. He was turned away from the tiger, but he felt its hot, panting breath, and he knew it had come halfway across the crate. And still it came on, its head lowered, its eyes glowing green.
Then he heard one of the suits say, “I don’t care about flight schedules, we need to check your cargo.”
That was his cue to leave. They’d see the lock off the crate door and be instantly on alert. Opening the door wider, he was about to leap out when he was brushed aside by the tiger’s immense body. He froze in shock to see its entire length stretched out as it bounded from its cage.
A frenzied shout from the driver brought Jack to his senses. Leaping from the flatbed, he sprinted around to the right of the vehicle. On the opposite side, the tiger was confronted by the two suits, one of whom had the presence of mind to pull his service pistol.
From behind him, Jack heard the driver screaming, “No, don’t shoot him! Don’t shoot!”
Jack, running full out, made the rolling ladder in seconds. Racing up it, he kicked it away with one leg as he stepped into the cockpit with the other. Then the navigator slammed the door shut behind him.
“We thought you weren’t going to make it,” the pilot said.
“What the hell was that?” the navigator said as he slid back into his seat.
“You don’t want to know,” Jack replied, as he buckled himself into the third seat.
The pilot was going through his last-minute checks. “We’re done loading, yes?”
“We’re good to go,” the navigator nodded.
The engines revved up as the pilot spoke to the tower. “Runway clear.”
Opening his window, the pilot had to yell at the member of the ground crew who was supposed to kick away the chocks but was mesmerized by the standoff between the men and the animal. Getting an all-clear wave, the pilot slammed his window shut and released the brakes.
The aircraft turned and began taxiing toward the head of the runway. The pilot brought them around until they were parallel, the plane came to a stop, then it commenced its run, its wheels propelling it faster and faster until it lifted off.
They were airborne.
Jack put his head back and closed his eyes, feeling the rush of adrenaline coursing through him. His heart was in his throat. The rank stench of the beast was still in his nostrils, the image of its lambent green eyes imprinted on the back of his eyelids, and he trembled with the sensation, both terrible and exhilarating, of the Royal Bengal brushing past him on its way to freedom—or death.
* * *
Dreaming, Jack fell through successive layers of deepening gloom, like a diver going deeper than ever before. As he fell into darkness, he saw below him glimmers of light. As he approached them, they became dazzling bursts, like flashbulbs going off.
And then he was within the winking galaxy of lights, illuminating shards of his recent past: the sudden death of his daughter, Emma; his acrimonious breakup with his wife; meeting Annika for the first time in a hotel bar in Moscow; saving her in a nearby alley as she was assaulted by two men; finding out that she was an agent, working for her grandfather; hooking up with her when their missions overlapped; meeting Dyadya Gourdjiev, her grandfather; discovering what a brilliant tactician he was …
The lights flashed, more scenes burst upon him in a conflagration that caused his heart to contract: Annika’s note, telling him how she had lied about everything, that, at her grandfather’s behest she had spent six months researching him before they had ever met, that the meeting had been planned, the assault in the Moscow back alley staged, that they could never see each other again. He was already in love with her by then, ready to shed his old life like a snake sheds its skin. But, despite what she had written, he had seen her again; they could not stay away from each other, and their love had burned ever brighter, fusing them together:
“Why? Why are you with me?” The tip of her tongue traced the outer whorls of his ear. “I am a Russian, and a murderer.”
“We’re all murderers.” His voice was thick with desire.
Her palms pressed against his shoulders as he pinned her to the wall. “You know that’s not true.”
“But it is. For us, killing is as much a part of life as eating or breathing.”
“Or making love.”
“No. Making love is entirely different.”
“How is it different? Tell me.”
“When we’re together, making love, we’re different. We’re better people.”
“Only for a time—the space of a breath.” She took his hands, placed them on her buttocks. “Or a sigh.” She sighed deeply, an ecstatic sound.
“Even that is enough.” He pulled the fullness of her hips to him. “My fear is that we’ll become like those before us. Living in the shadows, at the edges of society, gives us certain privileges, privileges that feed our egos, inflate them, until we believe that we’re beyond the law.”
“But, darling, we are beyond the law.”
“I don’t believe we are. These moments together, no matter how brief, prove to us that we can go on with this life we’ve chosen.” His hands sought her bare breasts. “Without them, there’s only a descent into a perpetual dark from which we’ll never return.”
She looked up at him. “Do you think we’re criminals, that we kill without remorse?”
“I hope not.”
“But you don’t know. You can’t because it’s unknowable.” She put her fingers across his lips. “We do what we have to do. There is no choice.”
Then the last, blinding flash overtook him, and he relived another searing moment, from a year ago, in a lavish villa outside Rome:
“I can’t go with you, Jack.”
“What are you talking about? Come on, Annika, the Syrian is coming.”
“I know he is, Jack. That’s why I have to stay.”
Anguish gripped him just as it had then. “I don’t—”
“Get out of here.” Annika shoved him toward the front door. “Now!”
“Annika—”
“Good-bye, Jack.”
At that moment, he got it, his reality collapsed like a house of cards, and his heart shattered. She wasn’t coming. She didn’t love him. Like her mysterious grandfather, she had aligned herself with the enemy. She had gone beyond the law, above it. It seemed incredible, and yet he was confronted by the truth.
He had fought with the Syrian, but in the end, outnumbered and already in mourning, he ran and had only escaped the villa through the inexplicable intervention of Annika’s half-brother, Radomil Batchuk.
The flashing ceased, the lights dimmed, and Jack’s dream slid away from him, falling faster than even he was, into the inky blackness.
* * *
“A mole,” Krofft stared across his desk as Jonatha Midwood.
“Seems like very old times,” Jonatha said. “There hasn’t been a spanner in the works since Robert Hanssen in 2000.”
Krofft nodded. Jonatha Midwood was an analyst of his, one of a very special nature, who he had recruited himself. She was smart as a whip and twice as clever. She worked alone and apart. Almost no one within the Company knew of her existence, which was just the way Krofft wanted it.
“It used to be that ideology could motivate a mole,” she said now. “But not these days.”
Krofft pressed several buttons on his vast desk. Multiple LCD screens rose like ghosts from the tops of low cabinets placed along three walls. The fourth wall was entirely taken up by a complex electronic monitoring station, manned by four IT technicians.
“Ideology has gone the way of the corded phone and the fax machine,” she continued. “A forgotten, shadowed relic, a curio, nothing more.”
Krofft laced his fingers together as his hands lay in his lap. “So what are we left with?” His voice had assumed a professorial tone.
“Money.”
“Money, perhaps.” Krofft nodded. “But in Jack McClure’s case, I doubt it.”
Jonatha shrugged. “What else is there?”
“Love.”
The LCD screens were showing footage from Syria and Afghanistan, all of it unrelentingly loud, brutal, and bloody.
Jonatha tore her gaze away from bodies strewn along a rubble-encrusted street. “Love? Surely you’re joking!”
Krofft shook his head. “I’m deadly serious.”
“Share, if you please.”
Krofft smiled. He loved her occasional anachronistic phrases. “McClure is a formidable agent. He’s proved that time and again over the last several years while he was building up his bona fides with Dennis Paull and with homeland security in general, but he has a fatal weakness.”
Krofft swiveled around and signaled to one of the IT techs. At once, the war-torn images were wiped off the LCD screen directly in front of them, to be replaced by the face of a beautiful woman. Her thick, lustrous hair was pulled back in a ponytail, revealing a wide forehead and a widow’s peak. Her large, slightly uptilted eyes were a light brown with a scattering of reddish pinpoints, her lush lips sensual even without meaning to be.
“This fatal weakness has a name: Annika Dementieva.”
The image switched to a snowy scene in what was clearly Moscow. It showed Annika with Jack and an older man, who had the predatory eyes of a shark.
“She’s the granddaughter of the late, unlamented Dyadya Gourdjiev, the old man shown here,” Krofft continued. “A more devious, dangerous sonofabitch has never existed. It was a happy day for the United States when he was the victim of a hit-and-run in Rome last year.”
Jonatha contemplated the photo, her gaze roving from one figure to the next. “So McClure’s in love with the old man’s granddaughter. So what?”
“So,” Krofft said slowly, “it’s my belief that Annika Dementieva has taken control of her grandfather’s business interests.”
“Which are?”
For the first time, Krofft’s expression lost a semblance of its sharp edge. “Could be steel, oil, ore mining, arms trading, terrorist training. Might even be all of the above.”
Jonatha laughed softly. “You mean you don’t know what the old fucker did.” Not too many people could speak that way to the director of the CIA. She was one of the few.
“What we do know is that over the decades he was comrades with every powerful Russian official who occupied a Kremlin office,” Krofft said. “And if he wasn’t a friend of theirs, he was an enemy, which was too bad for them, because shortly thereafter, they disappeared, never to be heard from again. Suffice it to say that he dipped his beak into more pies than we can count, all of them stinking to high heaven.”
