Authors: Stephen England
Langley, Virginia
Sometimes the most frustrating thing about betrayal was that you never knew the
why
of it. Or at least it made no sense. Carol Chambers brushed her blonde hair out of her eyes and clicked once more through the open windows on her workstation monitor. Nothing.
That’s the way she had always felt about her father. Perhaps finding the answer to the
why
was the reason she had joined the Agency.
It couldn’t have been anything else. Her degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology notwithstanding, she was a hacker pure and simple, and while the CIA was at least a semi-legal use for her talents, she knew corporations that would have paid better.
“Still no money trail?”
Carol Chambers looked up from her workstation in the operations center. “Still nothing, Ron. There’s no evidence that Tehran ever paid him a dime.”
Ron Carter nodded, a sober look on his dark face. The African-American was in charge of NCS Field Support and Analysis, and one of the best photo-analysts Langley had ever seen.
“I think we had a true believer there.”
“And to think we thought he was one of us.” Carol let out a long sigh. The story of Hamid Zakiri was quite possibly the biggest intelligence fiasco in CIA history.
Born in Iraq, or so they’d been led to believe, he had come to the US as a child following Operation Desert Storm. Joining the US Army at the age of nineteen, he’d made it into the Special Forces, the legendary “Green Berets”.
Zakiri had been awarded the Bronze Star for gallantry in Afghanistan, along with a Purple Heart for a leg wound received in Tikrit, Iraq. And that was where he had come to the attention of the CIA.
Six years in the Army, nearly another ten in the Clandestine Service. They’d trusted him. Even now, over two months following his betrayal, it was hard to believe that he had been an Iranian sleeper agent.
The files on the operation were sealed. Only those who had been a part of it knew the full truth. Those he had betrayed.
The world had been on the brink of war. A biological attack on the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, engineered by the regime of Iranian president Mahmoud F’Azel Shirazi and carried out by elements of Hezbollah. A well-coordinated plan to implicate the state of Israel in the attack, and bring about her destruction.
The CIA had positioned a strike team to stop the release of the plague bacteria, but they hadn’t had any way of knowing that they were about to be stabbed in the back by one of their own.
And in the end, the attack had been foiled, but at a terrible cost. Another star placed on the wall, for fallen officer Davood Sarami. Killed by a fellow Muslim.
Carter was speaking again. “We’re re-tasking,” he said, placing a thumb drive on her desk. “Sergei Ivanovich Korsakov.”
“Former
Spetsnaz
, right?” Carol asked, refocusing her thoughts. “Seems like he’s been on our radar before.”
“Go to the head of the class. He has. Following his discharge from the Russian military in 2000, he’s become a bit of a gun-for-hire, with close ties to the Russian mob and a half dozen other equally unsavory entities in Eastern Europe. Implicated in the assassination of the finance minister of Ukraine three years ago, he’s been out of sight since.”
“Until he showed up in Philly two days ago.”
The analyst nodded. “I’m putting you and Danny in charge of running this. The DCIA
has set up a teleconference at 0800, at which we’ll brief Haskel and the G-men on what we know. Make sure it’s something.”
“Isn’t it the FBI’s area of responsibility anyway?” Carol asked, allowing herself a smile of amusement at Carter’s reference. Bureau director Eric Haskel was far from popular at Langley.
“That’s right. We wrap it up like a big fat Christmas present and hand it to them. Just make sure it’s nice and maybe the gods of bureaucracy future will smile upon us.”
6:31 A.M.
“When did you first meet Hamid Zakiri?”
“In 2004,” Harry replied, his tone curt. “In Tikrit.”
Ellsworth shook his head. “I mean the
first
time, when he recruited you. Or was it the other way around? You were responsible for his infiltration of the Clandestine Service—what did you get in return? Money?”
Anger flashed in Harry’s eyes, simmering there below the surface. Another outburst wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “He saved my life in Iraq. I believed he was a patriot—I believed he was one of us.”
The inspector general continued as though he hadn’t even spoken. “Isn’t that why you killed him? Better that one should die than both of you spend the rest of your days behind bars?”
“
Enough!
” Harry rose to his feet, slamming both hands down on the table and leaning in toward Ellsworth. The world seemed to close in on the two of them and he could almost smell the fear like liquor on the bureaucrat’s breath. The sensation was heady, almost intoxicating. He could have snapped the man’s neck in a trice, and they both knew it. Nothing could have saved him.
“You don’t know what it’s like out there, out beyond these walls,” he whispered, a menacing edge to his voice. “Out where a mistake means death, not a bureaucratic slap on the wrist. There is nothing and no one out there you can trust. No one except your team. And then you can’t always trust them.”
Hands on his arms, guiding him firmly back into his seat. Security guards, he realized gradually, gazing across at a shaken Ellsworth. It might have been enough, but it wasn’t going to stop here. Maybe it never would…
6:35 A.M.
Virginia
The man rubbed his hands together, the heater of the aging Toyota Corolla barely keeping away the chill. It was almost time, he thought, glancing down at the Glock in the pocket of the door. They had assured him that it was clean, that there was no way the gun could be traced back to him.
He glanced across the parking lot, watching as a Virginia state trooper walked out of the convenience store, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand as he headed back to his patrol car.
Jack-booted thug
, the man thought, watching the gun on the trooper’s hip. Their time would come soon enough…when America would rise.
“He’s on the road,” a voice in his ear informed him, and he reached nervously up to turn down the volume of his Bluetooth. As if the police would be able to hear him.
Meeting this man…had given him purpose. Direction. For years, he had watched in helpless frustration as the globalists met, planned, stealing his newfound country away from him. Bold in the certainty of their victory, the corporations—the banksters. Jews scheming in the dark corners of world.
And then he had come into his life…a man like none he had ever known. And all he needed was
his
help.
If you want to fight with a serpent, you put out its eyes
, the man had said, his voice full of knowledge. Confidence.
And who serves as the eyes of the New World Order? The NSA, the CIA—the men who run them. Men like David Lay.
“I’m moving,” he whispered into his earpiece, his mouth suddenly dry as he put the sedan into drive. “
Sic semper tyrannus
.”
So always to tyrants.
There was a moment’s pause before his friend’s voice came over the line—the voice of reassurance that had guided him down this path. “In liberty, my brother.”
6:38 A.M.
Along I-495
Near Tyson’s Corner, Virginia
“What is
that
supposed to mean?”
The driver allowed himself a smile, glancing out the tinted windows of the Dodge Durango at the passing traffic. The vehicle was pulled over on the shoulder of the interstate—a worn t-shirt flapping in the cold winter wind between the window and the door signaling that the vehicle was abandoned—perhaps out of gas or suffering mechanical problems.
Or, just waiting… which was more to the point of it.
“Just something they say, Pavel,” the driver replied, catching his partner’s eye in the rear-view mirror. Seven weeks of planning, all of it leading up to this day. Less time than he would have liked…but recruiting the American had turned out to be the easy part of it.
Useful idiot
.
Consumed by his fantasies of a coming New World Order, of being liberty’s hero, he had never guessed how he was being played. That he was, in fact, nothing more than a pawn in a much larger game.
Or that he would be dead within the next twenty minutes.
6:39 A.M.
Virginia
“They’re reporting a two-vehicle accident on the primary route,” Ramirez remarked. “Apparently somebody was tail-gating and skid on the ice. Idiot commuters.”
A smile crossed Lay’s face. The snow wasn’t bad, but folks in Virginia weren’t used to it. He had spent his childhood in Vermont, and learned to drive up there. Now
that
was snow. “We’re taking the alternate, then?”
The SEAL nodded. “It’s a bit longer, but they’re liable to be backed up with the accident. And we’ve not used it for two days, so we should be good.”
Always security-conscious, the DCIA mused. That was Ramirez. There had been a time he would have dismissed it. Not now.
Behind them, the Toyota merged with traffic two cars back. “I have them,” the man announced, speaking into the wireless headset of his cellphone. He pulled the Glock out of the pocket of the door, laying the polymer handgun across his lap with sweaty fingers. Cursing his fear. “They are proceeding along Route Three, the same one they used two days ago. What do you want me to do?”
“Just maintain a following position,” came the calm voice. “I’ll talk you through this. You’re going to be fine.”
6:43 A.M.
An apartment
Manassas, Virginia
A blurred image of himself in the mirror was the first thing Thomas Parker saw of the morning. He felt suddenly dizzy and threw out a hand, steadying himself against the edge of the sink.
A wave of nausea nearly overcame him and he coughed, feeling sick. Very sick. He reached for the faucet, turning on the cold water, splashing it over his hands and face. His aching head.
It might have been easier if he’d actually been sick. Knowing the headache and nausea were a direct result of too much alcohol the previous evening didn’t help his mood any.
One way or the other, he was going to have to sober up or he was going to be late. The CIA didn’t know about the drinking problem he’d developed, and he planned to keep it that way. He was on a strike team, after all. Mistakes weren’t tolerated. Mistakes killed.
His gaze drifted toward the sticky note on the mirror, the phone number written there. The number of Harry’s pastor. Nichols, his team lead, knew about the problem, and
that
was his solution.
Thomas snorted. Yeah, some solution. An avowed agnostic for all of his adult life, he saw no reason to change his mind now. Certainly the betrayal of Hamid Zakiri had done nothing but deepen his cynicism. And his drinking.
They’d shared this apartment, he and Hamid, a way to keep down the cost of living in suburban Virginia. It had been for Hamid’s benefit, not his own. He’d been the manager of a Fortune 500 tech company in the years before 9/11, and his money was invested wisely.
About the only thing he’d done wisely.
“Thomas?” Her voice sounded shriller this morning. He looked into the mirror to see a brunette standing in the bathroom door, her hair a mess and wearing one of his shirts.
She’d looked better when he was drunk too, he realized sourly. He couldn’t remember her name, nor much of anything else from the previous evening, in fact. The Agency would have a cow if they knew.
With their jealous watch over security clearances, the CIA took a dimmer view of one-night stands than most parents. Make that parents with a multi-million-dollar surveillance budget and you have the picture.
He turned back to the sink, trying to block her voice from his head. He was going to be late for work…
6:51 A.M.
Virginia
“Target is closing, approximately five hundred meters now. Are you ready?”
They spy on us, we spy on them
, the man had said.
They target us
…
we target them.
It was true, what Jones had always warned about the shadow government. The tyrants in Washington had been killing people for years…now was
their
time.
The driver of the Toyota nodded nervously, covering his fear with a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah—I can do this.”
“Then be quiet and focus,” came the calm reply. “ I’ll guide you in. Three hundred meters.”