19

 

Langley, Virginia

 

Roger Brinkman’s entry to CIA headquarters to confer with Brian Novak brought a flood of memories from the years he had served there. By request, he’d accompanied the younger man back to the Washington, DC, area, overnighted in a hotel, and spent a busy morning on his cell phone. Now he kept his appointment to share information and coordinate plans.

Memories or no, Brinkman had no regrets on his decades-old decision to retire. He’d done his country much more good outside the agency than he’d been able to do inside. His temporary pass was waiting for him, and a security guard took him directly to Novak’s office.

Novak looked up as Brinkman entered. “You’re just in time, Roger. I should have a photo briefing in a minute or two. I guess you know I had the devil of a time getting you cleared for this.”

Brinkman smiled. “Our glorious bureaucracy at work. I have several things to tell you.”

Novak raised his eyebrows and Brinkman continued, “The bad news is that my men lost Erich Staab. They picked him up in Bush International Airport in Houston. He cleared customs and collected his baggage in Terminal D, took the airport’s underground tram to Terminal B, and caught a flight for Seattle via Chicago. Another team saw him out of Seattle-Tacoma Airport. He took a taxi but they lost him in traffic. We don’t know if he went south into Oregon, north into Canada, or east toward Spokane.”

Novak wrinkled his nose. “Well, at least you’ve narrowed the possibilities down to a few million square miles.”

“He travels on an American passport in his own name. I thought you might be able to get some information from the State Department.”

“Sure.” Novak waved at his cluttered desk. “I don’t have anything else to do. Any other helpful nuggets of information.”

Brinkman frowned. “Some nasty ones. You remember that Sledge sent Steve Spinner’s actual daughter home a day before he brought Kristin back? She had a reliable Colombian as escort, though he thought he was escorting Kristin. They walked in on Spinner while he was meeting with people whose descriptions match the people Sledge and Kristin saw at the factory—the dark-haired man and the other blond giant that they described. They overheard something they weren’t supposed to.”

Novak leaned forward in his chair but said nothing.

“According to the Colombian, Spinner told the dark-haired man not to sell to Arabs because a chemical attack on an American city might kill thousands, maybe millions. The dark-haired man replied, ‘And you might be among them? That’s your problem.’ Then he asked if Spinner thought Kim Jong-un and his generals wouldn’t use the stuff Spinner was sending to them against American troops. That’s when they realized Spinner’s daughter and the Colombian overheard the conversation. Spinner changed the subject.”

“That could be dangerous stuff to overhear.”

“The Colombian played stupid, but they still tried to take him out. This part isn’t very clear, but somehow he evaded them and reported to his father, who reported to me.”

“You have good contacts,” Novak said. “Anything else?”

Brinkman put on an innocent expression and looked at the ceiling. “Well, the customs people in New Orleans just happened to check out the ship Spinner hired to carry his food and medical supplies to North Korea. Funny name. It’s called the Preening Peacock. Its captain has a bad reputation but has never been indicted. The ship came up clean, of course. While the customs people were checking, someone happened to put a couple of GPS tracking devices on board....”

Novak grinned. “If I did that, they’d crucify me.”

Brinkman returned the grin. “Working outside the government does have certain advantages. If no one finds the tracking devices, we’ll know if the ship takes on more cargo somewhere en route to North Korea.”

Novak’s eyes narrowed. “So if that overheard conversation is correct, Spinner may be involved with the stuff already shipped out of that factory.”

A man entered carrying an armload of large papers, and Novak made the introductions. “Ralph, this is Roger Brinkman. He’s cleared for this operation only. Roger, this is Ralph Woodward, photo interpreter.”

With Woodward’s arms fully occupied with papers, they let a nod substitute for a handshake.

“Got something to interest you,” Woodward said.

He laid four enlarged satellite photographs on Novak’s desk. All were stamped with the words TOP SECRET and a code word indicating limited distribution. “There’s a building there, but we can’t tell what kind. The guerrillas’ camouflage is too good. We wouldn’t even have found it if you hadn’t told us where to look.”

He pointed his pencil at a large open area on the first photograph. “The airstrip was easy to find, but they’re a dime a dozen in Colombia. Nothing to distinguish this one from a hundred others.” He shifted to the next photo. “This is the woods about halfway down the south side of the strip. For the most part, it looks like any other woods.”

“Except what?” Novak asked.

Woodward moved his pencil. “The texture of this little rectangle of woods looks different. Bushes rather than grown trees, or maybe a patch planted later than the original growth around it.”

“Meaning?”

“Not much by itself.” The pencil moved to one corner of the rectangle. “But in this tiny gap in the foliage you can see something man-made. It looks like an iron grid-work column. And back at the opposite corner is the shadow of a similar structure.”

“Is that all?”

“Not quite.” Woodward laid out two more photographs, each covering a much larger area. “This was a routine shot taken a year ago.” With his pencil, he indicated a point near one edge of the picture. “This is the airstrip, and here beside it is the same rectangular plot. But it has been clear-cut in preparation for construction.”

He showed the next photo. “This is the same area a year before that. It shows the original woods, with the tone and texture consistent throughout.”

Novak looked up from the photos. “I think I know what it means, but I’d rather you tell me.”

“It means that within the last year someone put up some kind of building in the middle of the boondocks and wanted to hide it so badly he planted bushes or trees on top of it. As to what his purpose was, your guess is as good as mine.”

Novak gave a quick nod. “Thanks, Ralph, I’ll take it from here.”

When Woodward departed, Novak placed the satellite photos in a file folder. “I have two other reports in there,” he said to Brinkman. “One describes our debriefing of Sledge and the Halvorsen woman. The second contains her photographs, with a chemical weapons specialist’s analysis attached.” He grimaced. “It’s worded very cautiously, as you might expect. He says the victims’ wounds were probably caused by chemical weapons, type uncertain. Probably a blister agent, a non-persistent nerve gas, and possibly a third.” Here he paused and sniffed. “The third agent, if indeed there was one, must have caused the victims’ massive bleeding from body orifices. He did say that similar symptoms were reported inconclusively from Laos in the seventies and Afghanistan in the eighties.”

Brinkman laughed. “Typical bureaucracy.”

“I don’t have the luxury of being vague,” Novak said.

Brinkman knew the game. Novak had to draw a firm conclusion and make a definite recommendation. If he was wrong, his career would end in disgrace, a lot of good people would get hurt, and national security itself would suffer.

Novak’s worried expression grew deeper. “Thanks for your help on this, Roger. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to put all this together and brief the director.”

Brinkman found his escort waiting outside the door. As he departed, he thanked his stars for being free of governmental entanglements.

 

****

 

Houston, Texas

 

Sledge woke with unaccustomed euphoria on the morning after his return to Houston. On the previous afternoon his bank had confirmed that the rest of his four-hundred-thousand-dollar fee had been deposited, along with his not-inconsiderable out-of-pocket expenses. That didn’t make him like Spinner any better, but at least the man paid his debts. And Sledge had paid his self-imposed debt by dispatching the promised ten thousand for the wounded Mario. Separately, he sent a gratuitous five thousand to the faithful and indefatigable Javier.

That evening, Sledge treated himself to dinner at his favorite Italian restaurant. Afterwards, he relaxed at home with a good book and several CDs of soft music. And this time he didn’t walk into an ambush in his apartment.

The glorious feeling of his awakening continued through a hot shower and a breakfast of four scrambled eggs, six strips of bacon, and three pieces of toast washed down with orange juice and coffee. Remembering his candy-bar diet in the Andes made everything taste even better. And right now, it was good just to rest and be alive.

The rescue had gone unbelievably well, he reflected, thanks largely to Ramón Ramirez’s organization. Sledge made a thank-you call to the Colombian, who said Raúl had run into some trouble with Spinner’s bodyguards but had escaped unharmed. “He thinks it was most impolite for them to try to kill him,” Ramón said, “so he has remained in New Orleans to teach them some better manners.”

“I hope he doesn’t end up in jail,” Sledge said.

“I don’t think he will,” Ramón said. “When he wishes, he can be very invisible.”

They laughed together and hung up, and Sledge laughed again as he poured a third cup of coffee. He was alive, and he had a small fortune in the bank. Today was what every day should be for New Sledge.

He was still laughing when the doorbell rang.

Three unanswered rings usually discouraged salesmen who violated the apartment complex’s no-soliciting rule. But on the fourth ring Sledge decided to dismiss the salesman personally.

The door opened to reveal a middle-aged man who wore the insignia of a full colonel on his U.S. Army uniform and an impatient expression on his face. He was Colonel Lionel Burkhalter, the commanding officer of Sledge’s reserve unit.

Sledge found himself gaping. “Since when do we have drill on a weekday?”

“We don’t, but you do.” The colonel handed Sledge a packet of papers. “Someone in the Pentagon either likes you or hates you.” He stood there grinning as Sledge read the orders.

“But…” Sledge’s euphoria fizzled away like air out of a punctured football. “But that’s tomorrow.”

“Correct.” The colonel kept grinning. “And it’s tomorrow at Ft. Bragg, North Carolina. You’d better get on your bicycle.”

 

****

 

New Orleans, Louisiana

 

Palpable relief flowed through Kristin as she flew back to her job with Panorama Weekly in New York. She had spent the previous evening with her laptop, drafting a self-censored version of the Chozadolor massacre. Even with the part about chemical agents left out, it was shocking and powerful—everything she’d ever hoped for in a story.

She had slept uneasily, waking often in fear that Steve Spinner would prevent her departure. Fully awake at 5:00 AM, she packed and checked out. At the hotel desk she ordered a taxi to the Lake Pontchartrain lakefront but, once on board, she changed her destination to the airport. She might be fleeing from shadows, but she knew Spinner would make trouble when her story violated his personal taboos.

She’d deliberately not checked the flight schedule for fear of alerting Spinner to her plans. But luck favored her, and she boarded an eight o’clock flight to New York with one intermediate stop in Washington, DC. She didn’t mind the stop in Washington. The main thing was to get out of New Orleans before Spinner could stop her.

When the aircraft leveled out at cruising altitude, she revised her story on her laptop. It wasn’t enough that she had all the information right. She had to polish it until it looked professional. That meant practicing all she knew about getting the right words in the right places and paying attention to little things like transitions. By the time they landed at LaGuardia, she knew her story could compete with the best.

In the terminal, she phoned Panorama Weekly to say she was coming. Remarkably, her call was referred to the editor-in-chief, Victor DeRaud. He welcomed her with his usual booming voice and invited her to come directly to his office. That brought her first suspicion that something wasn’t right. DeRaud never invited junior journalists into his office. But she wouldn’t let herself worry about that. She had the story of a lifetime. It would sell itself.

Yet she did worry as she hailed a cab and rode downtown to the Panorama building. She couldn’t think of anything that might be wrong, yet she had the inescapable feeling that something was.

She paid and tipped the cabdriver and carried her luggage to the elevators. As always, the sudden ascent made her feel like she’d left her stomach on the ground floor. The familiar hallway of the thirty-fourth floor looked the same as it always had. Maybe her apprehension was baseless. In any case, it was good to be home.

In DeRaud’s office, the secretary told her to leave the luggage beside her desk. “Go right in,” she said. “They’re waiting for you.”

They? What on earth does that mean?

Carrying her laptop, Kristin opened the door and entered. She started to speak, then stopped.

DeRaud leaned forward with his forearms on his desk. Seated on either side were her immediate supervisor and the next editor above him.

She didn’t have to ask what the meeting was about.

The expression on their faces said her story was dead.