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Gabriel
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Gabe had no sooner exited the building than Kyle Mancini stepped out of the shadows and joined him.
“Hey, Commander. Got a minute?”
Mancini looked like a man who had something on his mind and wasn’t sure about sharing. Gabe couldn’t help but wonder what that was, particularly since Mancini hadn’t brought anything up in the meeting. “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”
"Does the name Tenebris mean anything to you?”
The name didn’t ring a bell. It was unusual enough to believe it would have, had he heard it before. “Should it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Well, maybe you should fill me in and let me decide.”
Mancini nodded. They walked away from the building, and Fred trotted off toward the bushes to do his thing. It was after nine p.m., and the last hints of daylight were fading into deep hues of blue. Gabe kept an eye on Fred, waiting for Mancini to get to it. He sensed the guy wasn’t the type to impart information unless it was important.
“Kristikos has been a person of interest for a long time. His family’s been on the radar of every government agency since before Darius took the reins. Publicly, there’s not a lot of information, but privately, we’ve been compiling intel on him for years.”
Gabe nodded. Mancini wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. Government agencies kept files on everyone who was, would, or could potentially be a threat. It was how they used that information and what they chose to do about it that was more of an issue, in his opinion.
“Yeah, so?”
“So, I’ve been looking into some of those private files, and I’ve found references to a sleeper agent named Tenebris, one who is said to have been sent in to infiltrate Darius Kristikos’s inner circle years ago.”
Gabe’s interest piqued at the phrase “sleeper agent.” He hadn’t heard the name, but considering who Mancini worked for, he didn’t immediately discount the idea. The concept of sending someone in deep and dark was neither new nor surprising, especially with someone like Kristikos. Perhaps Gabe’s earlier efforts had been thwarted not because of “priorities,” but because they already had someone on the inside.
It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. Sleeper agents did exist. They operated below the usual radar and wormed themselves into the cracks and crevices of organizations to bring things down from the inside. The Soviets had them. Al-Qaeda had them. Every world power worth a good goddamn had them, including the US.
No one knew exactly how many, though. The job required a hell of a commitment, and in some cases, a life-long one, though realistically speaking, those lives didn’t last very long.
“CIA? NSA?”
Mancini shook his head. “No, and that’s what’s unusual. No agency has ever claimed Tenebris.”
Well, that wasn’t surprising. Acknowledgement meant exposure, and in the espionage game, exposure meant certain death. “Got any proof?
Another shake. “Nothing concrete, no.”
“Yet you believe it’s a possibility?” It was Gabe’s turn to shake his head. Secrecy aside, there was another reason to be skeptical. “Kristikos has been a threat for a long time, and he’s only continued to grow his unholy empire. Don’t you think if we—or anyone else—had an agent on the inside, we would have taken him down by now?”
A familiar rage burned within him at all the lives Darius Kristikos had ruined over the years. Fred returned and nuzzled his hand, a sign that he needed to dial it back a notch.
"Not necessarily," Mancini said carefully. "It depends on who Tenebris is and what his motivation is. He might be a rogue, or even the son of a rival. Men like Kristikos ruin a lot of lives, and that creates some bad karma. It wouldn’t be the first time someone went to extremes to avenge that kind of shit.”
Didn’t Gabe know it. However, there had to be a reason Mancini was telling him all this now. “Are you suggesting this mythical Tenebris is behind Kristikos's disappearance?"
"I'm not suggesting anything,” Mancini answered. “And before you ask, I don't have any solid evidence one way or the other, which is why I didn’t want to bring it up in front of the team. But you know as well as I do that at the heart of every legend is a kernel of truth, and something is going on at that estate. I can feel it. Something’s got Kristikos’s people spooked.”
Yeah, Gabe had picked up on that, too, but he’d chalked it up to fear of Darius. He knew from his own research that Kristikos made a point of cleaning house regularly. If there was even a shred of doubt about someone’s loyalty, Kristikos dealt with it swiftly and decisively, usually going after the betrayer’s family before the betrayer himself. Knowing Kristikos would make you watch as he destroyed your wife, kids, and parents was a powerful incentive for ensuring those who worked for him never gave him a reason to question their loyalty. He told Mancini as much.
“All the more reason to stay deep then, isn’t it?” Mancini asked quietly. “Anyway, I just wanted you to be aware.”
“Thanks. What’s your gut telling you?”
“That this goes a hell of a lot deeper than we think it does.” Mancini turned and went back into the building, leaving Gabe with even more to think about.