It was not yet dawn the next morning when Slaton’s phone chimed a text. The sound cut the silence like a klaxon—nothing to do with the volume, but because his phone was set to allow notifications from only one number on earth at that hour.
He rolled toward the nightstand.
Christine stirred behind him.
The two of them had avoided discussing it, but since seeing last night’s news they’d both been on edge. Marine One had crashed, the result of a terror attack, and President Elayne Cleveland was fighting for her life. That tragedy had taken place over a thousand miles from their ranch on the Idaho-Montana border. But it felt much closer.
By no design of his own, Slaton had become Elayne Cleveland’s off-the-books operator of choice. It was necessarily a loose arrangement between them, with the CIA acting as intermediary. No written employment contract. No 401K or medical plan. No regular schedule or planned vacations. Two months earlier, Slaton had been dispatched on a mission that took him from the Arctic to the Balkans, and then on to Israel, all in the name of tracking down an obscure organization that was launching strikes against America using high-tech weapons. In the end, Slaton helped to avert a shooting war with Russia by eliminating two commanders at the operational level. Yet the identities of those calling the shots, a group known as The Trident, remained a mystery.
Unavoidably, Slaton had gone to bed the previous night wondering if The Trident was behind this latest attack. According to news reports, verified by amateur video, drones had been used to take down Marine One. This wasn’t necessarily damning. Drones were increasingly common on the world’s battlefields. Iran had used them to attack Saudi oil fields, and sold them to Russia for use in Ukraine. Turkey had employed them in its Libyan and Syrian campaigns. Yet this attack had a different feel, something deep and menacing. A swarm of drones taking down the most highly protected individual on earth? That implied a very high level of sophistication.
The prospect of a summons from D.C. had been on Slaton’s mind since he’d heard the news. He switched on the bedside light and glanced at Christine. Saw the concern on her face. She, too, knew the settings on his phone.
He reached for the handset, but then paused before picking it up. “I could ignore it,” he said.
She closed her eyes and heaved out a sigh. “No, David, you can’t. Not if you want to be a man of your word … support and defend.”
Twenty minutes later, Slaton was on the back patio. Christine was inside and he heard the coffee pot gurgling. He had dressed hurriedly, wanting to take the impending call outside. He’d told Christine he preferred the brace of the morning chill. It did nothing to hide the truth. Being outside offered separation between his two lives.
As feared, the text had been from Anna Sorensen, head of the CIA’s Directorate of Operations. If Slaton was the president’s go-to operator, Sorensen and her Special Activities Center were wedged between them. She was the agency’s broker of dirty deeds, tasked to relay orders, assume blame, or do whatever was necessary to keep America safe. Her instructions had been simple enough: call right away using the special phone, a CIA-issued item Slaton kept in a gun safe in the basement.
Now, standing in the cool air of a breaking dawn, with the mountains clinging to moonlight, the phone felt like an anvil in his hand. Slaton had gotten many such call-ups in his years of clandestine work, yet in recent months the crosscurrents had become intolerable. Life as a Mossad assassin seemed simpler in comparison. Not easy, and certainly not safer, but simpler all the same. In those days missions rarely put anyone at risk except himself. Now he had a family, responsibilities, expectations.
Which led to no end of reservations.
Davy and Christine, another child on the way. That was his future. It gave him hope for change, a vision that he could be something other than an assassin. More than once the plan had seemed to be working, only to have some new dirtbag appear who needed eliminating. And Slaton, as the broken record went, was the only operator capable of pulling it off.
Is that where we are this morning? he wondered.
Ever so slowly, he raised the handset and initiated the call.
As the connection ran, he couldn’t take his eyes off the shadowed forest. Somewhere on the perimeter of the ten-acre property was the capable protection detail, supplied by the CIA, that kept constant watch over his family. At that moment, he was very glad to have them.
A series of authentication protocols ensued, and within a minute Sorensen picked up. “Hello, David.”
“Anna.”
“I need you here ASAP.”
And good morning to you too, he thought. Even by her businesslike standards, it was abrupt. Possibly troubling.
“Is this about what happened last night?” he asked.
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Why not? This is a secure CIA communication device, right?”
No reply.
“Okaaay … if it’s that urgent, should I assume you’re sending a plane?” This was their standing arrangement—when time was critical, the head of SAC/SOG had the CIA’s tiny air force at her beck and call.
“No, not this time. I’d like you to come commercial. Make your own arrangements, the way you did in Montevideo. But don’t bother with the walking. And do it today.”
Slaton had begun strolling the terrace, but her words brought him to a stop.
“And when I arrive?” he asked.
“Just make it happen, David … please. I’ll explain after you arrive at Dulles.”
He fully understood the underlying message—and he didn’t like it one bit. The CIA had been morphing for years; becoming less an intelligence-gathering agency, more a direct-action military branch. Spec Ops, drone strikes. War without rules. Of course, it wasn’t just America taking such liberties. It seemed like every nation on earth was racing down the same gray road, even if they had no idea where it was taking them.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll talk soon.”
Slaton ended the call.
There was time for only one cup of coffee, and Slaton downed it as he sat behind the family laptop working his flight reservation.
He was nearly done when he heard a shuffle of cotton behind him. Turning, he saw Davy, dressed in Pooh pajamas, standing behind him. He had come up the hallway silently—not anything he’d been taught, but some natural ability that Slaton feared was inherited.
“Where are you going, Daddy?”
The question took Slaton by surprise, but only for a moment. Davy was deciphering how the world worked at an astonishing rate. The airline’s logo was right there on the laptop screen.
“I have to go help someone,” David the father said to David the son.
“Who?”
“A friend was in an accident last night. She’s in the hospital.”
“What will you do for her?”
Slaton reached back and lifted his son into his lap. “I’m not sure exactly, but when a friend needs your help, you go.”
“Will you be gone long?”
“I hope not. But I promise to call every chance I get.”
“Okay, but…” his son’s voice trailed off. Then, suddenly, he slapped his father on the arm and squirmed to the ground. “You’re it!” he said, running down the hall.
Slaton smiled and took off in hot pursuit.
Twenty minutes later Slaton approached the front door, his small bag packed and in hand. He’d given Davy one last hug after the game of tag ended. Christine stood awkwardly beside him, as she had so many other times. Would it ever end? he wondered. The collision of his two roles? One part father, one part state-sponsored assassin. Could any two roles be more contradictory?
They passed through the door to the front porch.
“Please be careful,” she said once they were alone.
“Aren’t I always?”
She glared at him.
“Well, okay … point taken.” He put a hand on her belly. “Things are different now.”
“Are they?”
He looked out toward the horizon. “Maybe not out there. But for us, here … yes.”
Her expression didn’t soften.
He went closer and put a hand to her smooth cheek. “I’ll be fine. And you take care as well—I need you more than ever.”
“As the mother of our growing brood of children?”
“Yeah, that … and you’re the only one who knows all our passwords.”
It got a half smile.
He leaned in and they touched foreheads, held it for a long moment. Then he was gone.