Authors: Stephen England
“No.”
A long sigh came from the other end of the phone. “I’ve been covering for you, Thomas. But this has gotta be a two-way street.
If you’re not willing to get your act together, I’ll have to talk with Kranemeyer.”
Not that
. “No,” Thomas managed, fighting against the flash of anger that surged to the fore at his friend’s words. “Don’t do that. I’ve told you, Harry, I just need a little more time. You understand that, don’t you?”
“What I understand right now is we have a crisis on our hands and one of my best men is stewed. Now, I’ll see you here inside of thirty minutes, and you
will
be sober. Tex is flying in from New Mexico and I want us fully operational by the time he gets here. Am I coming through?”
“Loud and clear, boss.”
7:33 A.M.
NCS Operations Center
Langley, Virginia
Harry put the phone back in his pocket and sighed wearily, glaring across the op-center at the blank wall.
He had never attempted to impose his own Christian faith on the members of his team. It just wasn’t him. The way he looked at it, what they did in their private lives was their own business, just so long as it didn’t affect the job. And now it was.
And he didn’t have time to deal with it. Not today. Not with all hell breaking loose. Reaching down, he pressed the button on the side of his workstation terminal, listening as the computer booted up.
It had been a few weeks since he had logged into the Agency system, what with Ellsworth’s investigation breaking into everyone’s work routine. It would take some time to get up to speed.
Unfortunately, that was time he no longer had. Because Lay was gone.
The screen came on, and Harry typed in his access codes, watching impatiently as the terminal sped through the authentication process. He and Lay had a long history, a working relationship that went back to Harry’s first days as an operator.
Back then, Lay had been in his closing days as Station Chief Tel Aviv, and Harry entered his territory running an op for what was then called the Directorate of Operations.
He’d struck Harry as a man of principle back then, a hard man—but fair. Unafraid.
Their relationship had grown distant over the years, as Lay climbed the ladder and won the political appointment of DCIA.
How he had done that, Harry had no idea, but to all appearances, he had kept his integrity. Maybe that was what had gotten him killed.
7:35 A.M.
The roof of the CIA HQ Building
He heard them well before he saw them, three helicopters swirling in from the south. Anyone laying in ambush would have as well.
Kranemeyer zipped up his jacket and shoved his hands into his pockets, sheltering them from the raw December wind.
Snipers from the Special Activities Division were posted across the roof, their slate-gray ghillie suits melding into the concrete. For most of them, it was the first time they’d ever unslung their weapons on American soil.
The H-76 Sikorsky pulled into a hover and settled down toward the helipad, the twin Apache gunships remaining above, providing cover.
He cast a critical glance in their direction, taking in the pintle-mounted 30mm chain gun under the chin of each helicopter. God help the man who got caught in their crossfire.
The Sikorsky came to rest on the roof, and Kranemeyer strode forward before the rotors had even stopped turning.
A short man in a business suit emerged from the side door of the helicopter, his jacket flapping wildly in the downwash of the rotor blades. A pair of bodyguards with drawn weapons flanked him as he moved to meet the DCS.
Michael Shapiro.
“Any problems on the way in, sir?” Kranemeyer asked as he moved in close, yelling to make himself heard over the noise of helicopter engines. Despite his personal dislike for Shapiro, the man was in command now, and they had a crisis to deal with.
“No, no,” the Deputy Director responded with an effort. His face had taken on a slightly greenish cast. “I hate flying. All those evasive maneuvers…”
Kranemeyer ignored the comment as the men moved toward the utility door. “My team has contingency plans drawn up and on your desk. They will need your approval for implementation.”
“Contingency plans?” Shapiro wheezed, still getting his breath.
“A list of operations that need to be shut down ASAP. Assets in need of extraction. It’ll take a lot of resources to get them all out, but we owe these people.”
Shapiro stopped short and stared at the DCS with a look of bewilderment. “Whatever are you talking about?”
“As calloused as it sounds,” Kranemeyer responded, a hard look in his eyes as he returned the stare, “it would be a lot better for all of us if we knew that Lay was dead.”
“
What
?”
The DCS held up a hand. “As long as he’s alive out there, potentially in the hands of terrorists, we have to assume that every operation, every asset of which he had detailed knowledge, is compromised. For sale to the highest bidder. It’s a list longer than my arm.”
“My God, you don’t think he would betray us, do you? You don’t know David…”
“All due respect, sir,” Kranemeyer growled, moving in close enough to Shapiro that his bodyguards reacted, “but you’ve never been in the field. Any man can be broken, given enough time and resources. And that’s the assumption we have to act on.”
7:41 A.M.
NCS Operations Center
To say that the CIA dossier on Korsakov was incomplete would have been an understatement of epic proportions. There were massive holes in their knowledge, gaps in the file. No one seemed to know what he had been doing in the interval between his discharge from the Russian army in 2000 and the assassination of Mayor Anton Suvorov in 2002.
One thing seemed certain. During those two years, Korsakov had become a trusted member of the
mafiya
.
An annoying
beep
alerted Harry to an incoming e-mail and he scrolled through the windows, expecting to see an update from Tex or Carter. Unfortunately, ignoring messages wasn’t an option on this morning.
It was his private e-mail, he noted with a growing sense of disquiet. Not too many people had that one, and still fewer used it.
The subject line read, “CRITIC”. . .and the sender’s address, well, it was a jumble of letters—the provider itself a free e-mail service originating from somewhere in the Czech Republic.
The body of the e-mail was as terse as the header, his eyes narrowing as he scanned over the text.
Parking garage, sub-level. Fifth column. Freefall
.
It was the last word that caught his attention.
Freefall
. Not one word, not really. Two. A codephrase from long ago.
And he knew in that moment who the sender was, knew all that the message portended.
They had been betrayed—again…
7:49 A.M.
CIA Headquarters Complex
The name on his identification badge read
Alex Hall
. The employee of one of the dozens of private contractors brought in by the CIA to perform maintenance, he had spent the last five days re-wiring lights in the parking garage beneath the headquarters building.
He allowed a tight smile to creep onto his face as he neared the final checkpoint. Like so much of security all over the world, they weren’t nearly as concerned with the people leaving as the people trying to get
in
. Beyond a physical search of his person and vehicle—as of all the outside contractors—he had experienced no trouble.
“Leaving early?” the guard asked as he handed over his identification. No personal interest there, no smile. Just a cold, searching question.
Hall nodded, taking a hand off the steering wheel to cover a weary yawn. “Spent a long night replacing circuitry. Soon the lights in the underground garage will actually come on when you want them to.”
The guard nodded and handed back his badge, motioning for the gate to be raised.
He tapped the gas and the car accelerated gently down the access road, heading out toward the main highway. Home free.
The cell phone in his pocket buzzed and he reached for it with one hand. “Hello.”
“Aleksandr,” a familiar voice began, “is the package in place in the garage?”
“Yes.”
“
Spasiba bolshoi
,” the voice responded. Thank you very much. “I will see you shortly,
tovarisch.
”
The call ended as Aleksandr turned out onto the main highway and he rolled down the driver’s side window, carefully throwing the prepaid cellphone out onto the asphalt.
Within seconds, it was crushed by the wheel of a passing car.
7:53 A.M.
The underground parking garage
CIA Headquarters
Betrayed
. And once more, it had claimed the life of a friend. Harry glanced up into the ever-watchful eye of the security camera as the elevator doors opened, revealing darkness beyond. Contractors, all of them carefully vetted by the FBI, had been at work rewiring the lights for weeks. Apparently their work wasn’t done, just yet. At least not on this level.
The underground parking garage was one of the Agency’s better-kept secrets, constructed under the New Headquarters Building in the years following 9/11.
They weren’t the only ones with spy sats—not anymore.
Fifth column
. A pair of words loaded with double entendre. Moving among the cars, he made his way forward…silently counting off the concrete support columns as he moved.
Three…four. And then column five—a dark corner maybe ten feet from the nearest light—well away from the closest security camera, the concrete damp with moisture beneath his fingers as he dropped down on one knee.
Nothing
. For a moment, he thought he had misinterpreted the message—that perhaps it was another column, another level of the garage. Or perhaps not a real column at all. If he had been wrong…they were running out of time.
Free Fall
.
And then his groping fingers closed around a small waterproof pouch, pulling it toward him. The pouch contained a small cellphone, prepaid, most likely—and he leaned back against the wheel of the nearest car as he held it up, powering it on. It was his means of contact. Had to be.
Nothing was saved in the contacts. No numbers to be redialed under “missed calls”, no way to get a signal underground if there had been. The phone seemed to be perfectly clean—a burner, clearly. But for
what
? Lay had been dead for almost an hour. If he didn’t move quickly.
And there it was, under a data folder…a small .mp3 file of recorded audio. Selecting the file brought up a password screen and he tapped
Free Fall
into the box, watching as it opened. He glanced around the garage once more, marking the position of the nearest camera as he raised the phone to his ear.
“Harry,” a man’s voice began.
So familiar
. David Lay. “If you’re listening to this, I’m most likely dead—my enemies have made their move. And I’ve lost the battle. I’ve known it was coming, just always thought I could stay ahead. Foolish, maybe, but I have no regrets. It was the only way—for the sake of the country. A couple years back, none of this would have mattered, and I never would’ve dreamed of bringing you into this. That was before Carol walked back into my life.”
A pause and the iron voice faltered, trembling ever so slightly. “She’s all I have left, and I swore to never fail her again. They will try to reach her as well—there is no way for them to be sure of what she knows.
The Agency will move to protect her after I’m gone, but none of that will matter. There’s evil in high places at Langley, and no one is safe. Take her, Harry, take her and run—far and fast. Go dark. Trust no one. Remember the Moscow Rules, Harry. Anyone could be under the control of the enemy.”
Anyone
. Elevator doors began to open in the distance, back from where he had come. A threat?
“As for what has brought me to this place…that needs to end here. With me. With knowledge comes dangers.”
It was a bureaucrat, one of the hundreds of drones that populated the headquarters building—a briefcase in his hand as he moved toward his car. Harry held his breath, sheltering the phone’s speaker with his hand as the man passed. “I can trust you to do this, Harry. I know you. I know what you’ll do.
Vaya con Dios
.”
Go with God.
And then there was silence. Harry closed the phone, cold, hard resolution coming over his face.
He had his orders. That they came from a dead man made not one wit of difference.
It was time to carry them out…