People…were so easy to deceive, he thought — perhaps because it was easier for them to believe a lie that confirmed their beliefs than a truth that contradicted them.
Tell them what they want to hear.
It was the secret of any good recruitment. He looked over at his partner. “Good enough, don’t you think, tovarisch?” Comrade.
A nod, and he reached forward, a gloved hand closing around the ignition key. One target down.
One to go.
Chapter 2
The interrogation had been going on for just under an hour and a half when Harry’s tactical satellite phone went off, buzzing loudly against the table inches from his hand.
“Ignore it,” came Ellsworth’s peremptory command, annoyance at the interruption in his voice.
Harry ignored him with a smile, palming the TACSAT and flipping it open. “Nichols here.”
It wasn’t a social call and the smile faded from Harry’s face as he listened. Finally, “All right, boss. I’ll be with you in five.”
Returning the phone to the pocket of his jeans, he rose, roughly tearing off the electrodes taped to his arms, while the inspector general watched, speechless.
“We’re done here.”
At that, Ellsworth seemed to find his voice, springing up from his seat like a jack-in-the-box. “I should say we are not! Sit down, Nichols.”
Harry turned, coolly looking the bureaucrat in the eye. “We’re declaring Code MAGI — there’s been an attempt on the life of the DCIA. I’ll have security escort you back to your office, sir.”
“Wait — what’s going on?” Ellsworth demanded, but Harry didn’t answer. Grabbing his shirt from the rack by the door, he moved to the security panel and tapped in the code he had watched Ellsworth enter earlier in the morning.
And then he was out, in the corridor, buttoning his shirt as he headed for the stairs. Crisis mode…
The morning was cool, a chill breeze blowing as he walked out into the desert, stealing glances at the horizon as if he awaited the coming of the sun.
Jack Richards pulled his Stetson down over his forehead, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his overcoat. He’d been colder. The big man could still remember the mountains of Afghanistan, the intense cold. The snow. He’d been in the Corps then, Marine Force Recon. A demolitions specialist.
“Thanks for coming,” the man at his side remarked, and he turned to look down into the face of his half-brother. “I wasn’t sure you were going to.”
Jack, or “Tex” as most of his friends called him, acknowledged the comment with a silent nod. He wasn’t given to talking any more than necessary.
And he nearly hadn’t come, but there were ties that were stronger than blood. “How did Manny die?” he asked, looking down at the fresh-dug grave, the small veterans marker bearing the name Emmanuel Gutierrez stabbed into the earth just above the mound marking the grave of a lifelong friend, a man who had once been closer to Richards than most of his own family.
“His patrol went missing in Big Bend three weeks ago. He and one other agent — their bodies were finally found on the 8th. Shot dead. They’re investigating…but everyone’s money is on the cartels.”
Summers on the reservation…Richards thought, his coal-black eyes gazing out across the desert. Remembering the long days, the games of football, Manny’s face shining bright as he reached into the air for a pass.
Golden days. Before he had moved to Texas in his mid-teens. Long before they both went off to war.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, kicking at the loose dirt with a booted foot. The funeral had been the day before, a gathering of family and friends, but he had been unavoidably detained. Business.
Richards was Mescalero only through his maternal grandfather, his half-brother the son of his mother and the full-blooded Apache she had married after his father’s death. Still, he had spent the best part of his teens on this very reservation. The best part…
“How much time do you have off?” came his half-brother’s voice, his eyes searching Tex’s face.
So many unspoken questions there…so much unsaid.
“Two days,” he replied, lifting his eyes from Manny’s grave to look out over the desert. Remembering a similar morning, from so long ago — his coming-of-age, a journey out into the desert to meet the spirit which would guide his life. What exactly he had encountered out there he would never know. What he did know is that he hadn’t found God until years later.
The distracting buzz of his satellite phone erupted from his pocket and he pulled the TACSAT out, glancing idly at the screen.
“I have to take this,” he whispered, placing a hand on his half-brother’s shoulder. The Texan stepped a few feet away and flipped it open. “Richards.”
From the first words, he knew. His vacation was over…
“What do you mean we don’t know?” Bernard Kranemeyer demanded, glaring across the conference table in Ron Carter’s direction.
Now in his early fifties, the Director of the Clandestine Service still had the commanding presence of the Delta Force sergeant major he had once been. Along with the voice. And the acerbic temperament. It was no accident that members of the clandestine community called him the “Dark Lord”.
Carter shook his head. “Highway Patrol was on the scene five minutes after the bomb went off. They found two bodies. The body of an unidentified Caucasian male in the sedan, and the body of Lay’s bodyguard, Peter Ramirez, in the driver’s seat of the SUV. The DCIA was nowhere to be found.”
“Any ID on the driver of the sedan?” Kranemeyer asked, a grimace of pain crossing his face as he reached beneath the table to rub a leg that was no longer there.
An improvised explosive device, or IED, had put an end to his military career one sunny day in Fallujah, Iraq, 2003. He’d been an old man by spec-ops standards even then, fighting off forcible retirement.
The explosion had killed the man beside him, his fellow sergeant, the genial Stan Sniadowski. Left Kranemeyer’s right leg a bloody, mangled mess below the knee. All the reconstructive surgery in the world couldn’t have saved it.
So, now he had a prosthesis and phantom pain. Occupational hazards. And he knew what bombs could do.
“Not yet,” Carter replied. “The Bureau has promised they’ll share everything with us.”
“They’d better,” Kranemeyer replied, a dangerous glint in his eyes. On the surface, he and the DCIA had shared little in common.
Lay was the politician, he the soldier. But over the years, the two men had developed a close friendship. And now he was gone. Or dead…
A metallic beep sounded and the door of the conference room opened to admit the figure of Harry Nichols.
“You’re late,” was Kranemeyer’s quiet comment. “What’s your status?”
“I’ve diverted a Gulfstream from Monterrey to New Mexico to pick Richards up,” Harry responded, making a reference to the CIA language school in California. He chose to ignore the sharp edge in the voice of the DCS. “Thomas is on his way in. Should be here in fifteen minutes.”