Operations Center 2, CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
Sonya Tong gasped as the footage from the helicopter overhead suddenly showed the parking garage erupt in a fireball, flames and smoke billowing out of the openings in the second floor. She spun toward Randy Child. “Get local fire and ambulance, now!” Child made the call as Tong activated her comm. “Echo Leader, this is Control, do you copy?”
Nothing.
“This is Control to anyone on Echo team. Do you copy?”
Again nothing.
She turned to Child. “Are we getting any type of signal?”
He nodded. “They’re all receiving, but no one is transmitting.”
She turned back as she watched the footage change, the chopper dropping to the second story. “Control to pilot, do you see anything?”
“Negative. Let me reposition, I can’t see anything through the smoke.”
The angle changed as he moved back toward the front of the building. His light turned on and sliced through the darkness of the garage, the lights on the level all out, the smoke beginning to thin.
“There!” She stepped toward the display, pointing at something on the garage floor. It could just be a piece of debris, but it was big enough to be a body.
It sat up.
“Echo Team, this is Control, can anyone hear me?”
“Control, Echo Leader. Stand by.”
Tong’s heart slammed as sweat trickled down her back, her eyes filling with tears. She had never sent a team on a mission in her life, and she had no clue how she would react if one of them were now dead because of orders she had given.
I wish Chris were here. He’d know what to do.
“Control, Echo Leader. We’re shaken and stirred, but we’re all okay.”
Cheers erupted from those in the operations center and Tong wiped away the tears threatening to pour down her face.
“You’ll want to send a forensics team here, Control, but I don’t think they’re going to find much.”
“Copy that, Echo Leader. I assume no sign of our agent?”
There was a pause. “Negative, Control, let’s just pray she wasn’t still in there, over.”
Chris Leroux cleared security and rushed toward the elevators that would take him to the operations center his team was in. As he rounded the corner, Randy Child flagged him down.
“Hey there, I’m supposed to take you directly to the Chief’s office.”
Leroux nodded, skipping the elevators and heading deeper into the complex. “What’s the latest?”
“Nothing good. The second vehicle was booby trapped—nearly took out our team.”
Leroux’s heart skipped a beat. “Are they okay?”
“Yeah, bumps and bruises, but they’ll be fine.”
Leroux was afraid to ask the next question. “We’re sure Sherrie—I mean Agent White—wasn’t in it?”
Child glanced back at him, and Leroux could see the empathy in the young man’s eyes, the first time he could recall him ever expressing an adult emotion. “No. A forensic team is on the way, but our Rapid Response Team says it looks like the vehicle was empty. No evidence of remains, or the crate that we think was used to take her out of your apartment.”
Leroux breathed a sigh of relief as they passed through another set of security doors. “Any word on Lee Fang?”
Another headshake. “Nothing beyond that she’s still missing. The police cordon around the hospital where the chopper landed got there too late. We’re going through footage now, but even if we find anything, she’ll be long gone.”
“Hey, buddy!” Leroux spun to see Dylan Kane jogging down the hall to join them. Kane gave him a thumping hug, Leroux returning it awkwardly.
“I-I’m sorry about Fang.”
“And I’m sorry about Sherrie.”
“Sirs?” Child held out a hand, urging them forward, Director Morrison apparently having given him orders to deliver them quickly. Kane put a hand on Leroux’s back, gently propelling him forward as he walked beside him. The touch was at once uncomfortable and comforting. He wasn’t a touchy-feely person, though Sherrie had mostly cured him of that, at least when it came to her. Having a guy touch him in this manner was something he was yet to become accustomed to, and he wasn’t sure if he ever would. His family had never been a hugging family, he had never played team sports, and his experiences in a locker room had always been ones of awkwardness and humiliation as the jocks teased those who didn’t perform well during gym class.
He remembered once in high school when there was a points competition, a dozen different exercises set up, each worth various points, that you were supposed to do a circuit of, and the pair that earned the most points, won. He and another awkward kid named Sean paired up and quickly ran down the rules. Each exercise had to be done at least once, but nothing said you couldn’t do another exercise over and over. Sit ups were worth two points each, and could be done rapidly. He and Sean quickly did the circuit, then just did sit ups for the rest of the class.
They won.
And the jocks were pissed.
He and Sean had used their superior intellect to find the weakness in the strength and endurance challenge, designed by a jock—the teacher—and won.
Handily.
It wasn’t worth it.
The teasing and insults lasted for days, the pain of the names that were never supposed to hurt, lasted for years. He glanced over at Kane, his best friend from high school, the man—boy—who had protected him for his sophomore and junior years, who had made those years at least bearable, and found himself suddenly yearning for those simpler days.
But it was foolish to do so.
He had put over ten years between him and high school, enough time for much of the horrible experiences to fade away, replaced by the past couple of years of an incredible life with Sherrie, success at work, and the respect of his peers. He was looked up to now, by team members both younger and older than him, by his supervisors and fellow analyst supervisors far more senior than him, and by agents like Kane, or Delta operators like Bravo Team. He spoke with confidence now when dealing with situations that could mean life or death, though he still quaked on the inside at times.
And much of this newfound confidence was because of Kane’s faith in him, of his friend’s efforts in getting Sherrie back into his life, and of Director Morrison taking a chance on him.
“You okay?”
He glanced at Kane. “Not really.”
“I hear ya. Let’s get our women back, then kill these bastards once and for all.”
The Director’s aide saw them approach and lifted her phone, whispering for a moment before hanging up. “Go right in, gentlemen.”
Child opened the door and Kane gently pushed Leroux through.
“Chris!” Sonya Tong erupted from her chair, racing toward him and hugging him hard, her head buried in his chest. “Thank God you’re okay!” She let go of him, stepping back quickly, staring at the floor as she clasped her hands in front of her. “Umm, sorry. I shouldn’t—” She sighed, then snapped her mouth shut, returning to her chair.
Kane grinned at Leroux, his eyebrows climbing suggestively, Tong clearly crushing on her boss.
“It’s okay. I’m lucky to be alive, I guess.”
Morrison, sitting behind his desk, motioned toward two empty chairs. “Thanks, Randy.”
Child nodded and left the room, closing the door behind him.
“Glad to see you’re okay, Chris, but I don’t think luck had anything to do with it.”
Leroux’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“You two were targeted, not your better halves. If they were the targets, then you two would most likely be dead. Especially you, Dylan, since you took out so many of them. They want you two alive, with leverage over you.”
Kane frowned. “Fang and Sherrie.”
“Exactly. They know you two won’t do anything to risk their lives.”
Kane growled. “So there’s no doubt it’s the Assembly?”
“We heard the recording. One of the team that took Agent White was heard saying, ‘The Assembly is eternal.’ That’s not a coincidence. Nobody knows about the Assembly, and that’s the only link you two have beyond high school. They’re up to something, and they don’t want you two involved, and by extension, the CIA.”
Leroux frowned, hating to say what needed saying. “We can’t let this influence the CIA’s reaction.”
Morrison smiled. “And it won’t, trust me. As heartless as it sounds, two lives are not going to stop us from confronting the Assembly.”
Kane grunted. “Just give me the nod, and I’ll find them myself.”
Morrison delivered. “Consider yourself unleashed.”
Kane’s knuckles whitened as he gripped the arms of his chair, as if containing himself, forcing himself to remain in the room rather than sprint for the door to begin a killing spree until he found the woman he loved. “Do we know what they’re up to?”
Morrison shook his head. “No, but there is a nationwide incident occurring right now.”
Leroux leaned forward, his eyes widening. “What?”
“All 9-1-1 systems across the country are being flooded with fake calls, overwhelming the systems. There isn’t a major city that hasn’t been affected.”
Leroux’s eyes narrowed. “Why the hell would they do that? How could disrupting the 9-1-1 system possibly help them?”
Morrison shrugged. “No idea.” He leaned forward in his chair. “That’s what I want you and your team to find out.”
Leroux caught Tong staring at him. She looked away, her cheeks flushed. “What are our parameters?”
Morrison leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
“We have some intel that we’re not allowed to legally use. Can we use it now?”
Morrison’s fingers steepled in front of his face, the tips bouncing off his chin as he pursed his lips. “I think it’s time we eliminated this problem once and for all. When we’re done, this won’t see the inside of a courtroom. Find the Assembly, find out what they’re up to, and feed the intel to Dylan.” He turned to Kane. “And you do what you do best.”