“Outrageous!” said Gurd. “But that doesn’t do us a rat’s ass bit of good.”
“But I can still make the report available to you,” said Steve. “You could show it to the congressional leadership.”
“Forget it,” said Gurd. “If it had been on Focus, we might have had a chance, though I doubt it. Now it’s on The Onion. Big fucking deal. You don’t understand what’s happening here. People are terrified of Stokes. They’re like deer trapped in the headlights. They’re paralyzed by fear. They’re not going to move.”
Steve clicked off the call and slumped in the chair staring at his laptop. As he feared, this indeed had been a trip to the bottom. He’d sacrificed everything on a gamble that he could defeat the American president. And he’d lost.
But there was a bitter irony to all this: He’d taken the lead in the fight against Stokes because he felt he had nothing to lose: no relations, no wife, no children. But by undertaking this mission, he’d discovered he was not alone. He did have family. But he’d failed them too.
“So that’s it?” asked Charlie Doyle. He took one of several organizational charts from the wall, squeezed into a paper ball, and tossed it into the nearest waste basket. “Too bad it’s too late for me to turn pro,” he said.
“So what will you do?” asked Steve.
“Hell, I don’t know. Guess I’ll stay in London. The consulting business is good; lots of money, regular trips to Abu Dhabi and Qatar. The sheiks don’t seem to mind if I make my base here. Ride around in a red Ferrari. Got a great girl – really hot.” He stood and picked up his laptop. “In fact, now that it looks like we’re not going to be locked up here for the weekend, guess I’m free to join her in Cornwall. Her family’s got a farm there. I’ll go home, pick up the car, and I’m off.”
He shook hands with Steve and the others. “I’ll miss you guys,” he said, ducking his head as he entered the elevator, “but we’ll stay in touch.”
Steve stared as the elevator doors closed on the lanky figure. A good man, he thought, like Brian Hunt. Again that feeling of guilt as if he’d let the whole team down.
He had dinner with Ed and Dave Turecamo, the first meal they had in the formal dining room of the Belgravia mansion, with its Regency furniture and Venetian chandeliers. Edith Jones insisted on preparing a farewell banquet of sorts. “Something really English,” she said bringing in a platter of roast beef with Yorkshire pudding. Then came apple pie with a wedge of cheddar. There were also a couple of fine bottles of Chateau Talbot.
Despite half-hearted attempts to join in the conversation, Steve’s thoughts kept returning to the categorical menace of Stokes’s last tweet: “Death to Terrorists and Traitors. Hunt them all down. Every last one!” Would a vicious man with such a twisted outlook on the world – a dangerous psychotic – would he feel he’d settled the score by simply ensuring that their broadcast was never seen by the world?
No. Stokes would be like an enraged beast that’s been slightly wounded; rendered even more ferocious as a result. Some of the team were more at risk than others. Steve’s own identity and his new appearance were still secret. His face was not shown in Diamond’s report. As for Diamond, he was too well known, too high a profile for Stokes to make people believe that he was some kind of terrorist. Sarah was still in the U.S. presumably not in Stokes’s sights. Charlie had taken precautions to make sure he wasn’t tracked to 51 Belgrave Place, but what about now? They should talk about that. But Charlie had already left.
Action Memo:
Urgent, Urgent.
From: Jean Swanson
To: list.
Re: Charles Doyle Location.
Though we still have not found Penn and Diamond and their operation center in London, we have located one of the co-conspirators: Charles Doyle. A listening device placed by MI5 in Doyle’s residence in Notting Hill picked up a call from him to his girlfriend in Cornwall. He will be driving there tomorrow morning, leaving approximately 8:00 a.m.
Predators available at USAF bases at Croughton and Welford.
Await instructions for action.
Early the next afternoon, Ed dropped by Steve’s room in the mansion to say goodbye. Steve was watching CNN. They were both a bit hung over from the two bottles of Bordeaux the night before. Abruptly, Chris Pappas, CNN’s White House correspondent, cut in with a breaking story. The screen was filled with an image shot from far above of a sports car driving along a country road. The camera zoomed in and there were crosshairs on the car and occasional comments from the impassive, metallic voice of whoever was guiding the drone.
“This sensational footage,” said the breathless CNN reporter, “was just released by the White House. “These events happened within the last hour.”
“Target acquired,” said the lifeless voice, “Locked on target.” The crosshairs continued to follow the car as the lens zoomed in even further on the Ferrari and its driver. “And firing.”
There was a pause of a couple of seconds then the vehicle was engulfed in an enormous ball of flame. After a few more seconds, when the flame and smoke had cleared, there was nothing but charred black remains where the Ferrari and its driver had been.
The image dissolved to the face of President Walter Stokes in the White House Situation Room surrounded by somber members of his cabinet and his national security team. Stokes seemed mesmerized as the scene of destruction and death was rerun on the huge screen before him.
“Watch closely, folks,” he beamed. “This is how we deal with traitors. Watch closely. Wham! Now look. Nothing left of him. No-thing.”
Stokes turned to the camera: “The man just executed was, uh,” he paused and looked at a paper in his hands, “Charles Doyle. Until a few seconds ago, Doyle was a leading member of a secret, underground terrorist organization. We now know they are linked to the same lying agents who did the so-called investigation of Russian hacking before the elections. We also have new very solid evidence – very solid, very solid – that they are tied to ISIS. Their purpose is to destroy our democracy and our American way of life. We don’t know who all their members are yet. But our wonderful intelligence agencies are on their track. We will hunt them down and wipe them off the face of the globe.
“A further warning. They have sympathizers everywhere in the lying media. And in the very heart of our Congress – the very heart. Traitors who want to impeach me because of the courageous stand I am taking against terrorism and all those who want to destroy our beautiful democracy. I know loyal Americans won’t be taken in by their fabrications and lies. I will deal with those vipers as well, I promise you. All of them. I will do everything to defend the good people of our wonderful, wonderful country. God bless America.”
Steve was still staring in shock at the screen when he received an encrypted message on his laptop. It was from Sarah Levin. She still had a line into the CIA – an old colleague in the director’s office. “Stokes apparently has just called the director on the carpet. He’s outraged that the agency knew nothing about the preparation of the Focus broadcast. Also furious that they didn’t know you’re still alive and kicking. He’s just upped the ante. Wants the identities of everyone in Russia who was a CIA source for the hacking investigation.”
A knife twisted in Steve’s gut. The key CIA source was Maya Chertkova. Handing over her identity to Stokes was the equivalent of a death sentence. The American president would immediately relay the information to Kozlov, who’d have her shot as a traitor. Her children, including Steve’s son, would be confined in some bleak state-run orphanage, lost to Steve forever.