I
watched her struggle with detached indifference. I said, “Make. The. Call,” and Jennifer slapped my arm, snapping me out of my destructive dance. The blackness retreated like a roach caught in the light. Embarrassed at my loss of control, I sat back, afraid to look Jennifer in the eye. Not wanting to feel her disgust. When I did, instead of revulsion, I saw compassion. In that moment, I knew I wouldn’t be helping her with Decoy’s death. She would be helping me.
She put her hand on my biceps and said, “Don’t.”
I nodded, wondering if she could feel the relief flooding through my veins. I leaned forward into my captive’s personal space, and in her eyes I recognized I’d lost. She knew I wasn’t going to hurt her. All of my leverage had vanished.
She looked at me with something akin to pity and said, “Okay. I
am
Israeli. Not Australian. You were correct.”
Amazed, I just stared at her. She said, “Give me the phone.”
I said, “Wait, what happened to the Australian cover? Why would you tell me that? After Jennifer just stopped me from hurting you? After you knew I wouldn’t go further?”
She looked at the wall, then came back to me. She exhaled and said, “Because I saw you with her.”
Confused, I said, “What’s that got to do with it?”
She said, “Everything. Give me the phone.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds, and I made my decision. I leaned in and untied her left wrist, affixing the cord to the pipe above her head. I knew allowing her to have one free hand was giving her an edge, but, given the odds, I figured she was a righty.
She patiently waited for me to finish, offering no resistance. When I was done, I sat down in front of her, holding the phone. She said, “What do you want me to say?”
Off-balance, I said, “Tell him your situation. If he’s an ally, as you say, he’ll be willing to come talk. I’ll give him the linkup plan.”
I gave her the cell phone, then said, “Before you call, no Hebrew. You talk in a language I can’t understand, and I’m smashing the phone.”
She nodded, and dialed. In English, I heard her telling him about the killing at the bazaar, giving up any pretense of being uninvolved. She described her predicament, then what I had told her about my men being attacked by a Russian. She listened for a little bit, then passed the phone to me.
The man on the other end said, “Who am I talking with?”
His voice was deep, the English unaccented, as if he came from the Midwest.
I said, “Not an Australian tourist, that’s for damn sure.”
“What do you want?”
“I want who killed my men. Plain and simple.”
“We had nothing to do with that.”
“Honestly, I don’t think you did, but I believe you know who was involved. And I want that information.”
“How do I know I’m not walking into a trap? That you’re not just setting me up to kill both me and Shoshana?”
Shoshana. Even sounds like a spy
. “Because if I were, Shoshana here would have given you the distress signal. But she did not.”
I heard only breathing for a second, then, “How do you know?”
Between the lines, he was asking if I had somehow managed to torture the distress signal out of Shoshana. Wondering if she had compromised his entire cell, laying bare much more than just Shoshana’s life. Probably questioning whether Shoshana was missing fingers and eyes.
I said, “I know because Shoshana is the one who came up with this idea. I know because I’m starting to like her. I know because this isn’t my first rodeo.”
“What do you mean, rodeo?”
I rolled my eyes and said, “Never mind. Do you want the linkup plan, or am I going to assume Shoshana here is extraneous dead weight? I understand you’re trying to track this phone, so give me an answer quickly. In another five seconds, I’m ditching it whether you’re coming in or not.”
I glanced at Shoshana and saw her suppressing a grin, which really pissed me off. He opted for the plan, so I gave it to him. When I was done, I hung up and said, “What’s so funny?”
“He doesn’t like being dictated to.”
Jennifer smiled and said, “Huh, neither does Pike.”
I shot her a dirty look and said, “Cut that shit out. We aren’t partners, and we aren’t friends. I’m not even sure we’re allies.” I squatted down and retied her loose left hand, saying, “She’s a detainee. Period.”
Now
I got the look of disgust. Jennifer turned without a word and left, executing the linkup with the boss. I remained behind, sitting on the bed and feeling Shoshana’s dark eyes on me. She said nothing for a while, then asked my name.
I didn’t see any reason to lie, since I was here under my true name anyway. I said, “Nephilim Logan. But you can call me Pike.”
She said, “Nephilim? As in Old Testament?”
“Yes, unfortunately. Which is why you can call me Pike.”
We sat in silence for a moment, then she tried again. “The Nephilim were angels that came to earth as giants. Great warriors.”
I said, “As far as I know, they came to my parents in a marijuana haze. The name’s given me nothing but grief. Like the boy named Sue.”
She looked at me quizzically, and once again, I said, “Never mind.”
She said, “Can I get you to untie me, as a gesture of goodwill?”
I said, “No.”
She’d started to reply when my phone rang. It was Kurt, surprising the hell out of me. I warned the captive not to try anything funny, then went out into the hallway. I wondered why he was contacting me directly instead of going through Knuckles, since he’d made such a stink about Knuckles being the team leader. The surprise ended when I was finally able to get a signal next to the hallway window. He wanted to get me under control.
“Sir, I can hear you now. Say again?”
“I said I got your SITREP. I’m sorry about Decoy, but we’ve got the thumb drive location. Well, not the pinpoint, but the general. The pinpoint will be coming in at any time, and we now have two priorities: protecting the Taskforce, which is what Knuckles is now engaged in, and getting that drive, which is what I want you to do.”
I said, “What about Decoy? What about the Russian assassins?”
“That’s not an Oversight Council priority right now. I’ve sent the location of the drive to your Grolier account. It’s not manpower intensive, but it is time sensitive. Go ahead and recce the area so when the pinpoint comes in you can execute immediately.”
I couldn’t believe he was treating Decoy’s death so lightly. I said, “Sir, someone’s killed our men. In cold blood. This isn’t like combat. It’s murder. I can’t let it go. I’m not going to do that. I have a person here who may know what’s going on.”
“Pike, no more operational acts. I understand how you feel, but it’s too risky to do anything under Grolier. We need to get Decoy home and patch any holes we have, not create more.”
When I didn’t answer, he said, “Remember what we talked about before? About how your company fits in to the Taskforce? You told me you would follow orders.”
Which is why he was speaking to me in person. He feared I’d tell Knuckles to pack sand as the team leader, so he called to give me a direct order. One I wasn’t going to obey.
I said, “Sir, we didn’t talk about this. They
killed
Decoy.”
I heard movement in the single stairwell, and a man reached the landing, followed by Jennifer. They entered the room, leaving the door open. He glanced at my captive tied to the sink, then put his eyes on me back in the hallway. He was dressed like a businessman, but the similarities ended with his clothes. He was furtive and predatory, like a jackal.
I heard a beep on the phone and Kurt cursed. He said, “Hold on. I got a priority call.”
The man squatted down and began to whisper to the detainee, keeping me in sight while he did so. Kurt came back on the line. “That was Palmer, national security advisor. I have to go to the White House.”
“The president?”
“I don’t know, but I’m out of time. Are we good? You’re on the thumb drive?”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get your thumb drive as ordered, but I’m also going to find the men who put the hit out on us.”
Exasperated, he said, “How? Pike, you’ve got no team. Knuckles, Brett, and Retro have stood down. They followed orders. You need to do the same. Let it go.”
The man stood up from the detainee and faced me, all hard edges and unspoken threats.
I said, “Maybe I have a new team.”
“New team? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Sir, I’m sorry. I’m going to find the organization that killed my friends. And I’m going to burn it down.”
B
ruce Tupper appeared so overwhelmed by what he was hearing that President Warren thought his head was going to explode. And Kurt hadn’t even shown up for the official briefing yet.
Bruce said, “How long has this been going on?”
President Warren said, “Since my first term. Long before I appointed you.”
He looked each man in the eye. “And all of you know about it? Why the hell wasn’t I told?”
“It’s not part of the official intelligence architecture. Not part of your portfolio.”
“Bullshit!” Bruce exclaimed. “That’s just semantics. You’ve got me getting skewered at one congressional oversight committee after another, proclaiming we follow the Constitution and United States code, and you have an entire organization doing exactly what the conspiracy theorists say. You’ve made me a fucking liar.”
President Warren said, “Okay, Bruce, okay. Calm down. The conspiracy theorists talk about an unchecked intelligence apparatus doing whatever it wants without oversight. This has oversight and doesn’t do anything without express approval from the very top. Meaning me, the men in this room, and about a dozen others. Now including you. You weren’t lying if you didn’t know.”
Bruce said, “Nobody will believe that. Nobody will believe that the director of national intelligence had no knowledge of such a large, intrusive organization.”
“I’m sorry, Bruce, but you understand how sensitive this is. You also understand ‘need to know.’ You had no need to know.”
Before Bruce could answer, the door to the Oval Office opened. President Warren said, “This is Colonel Kurt Hale. Commander of Project Prometheus, the organization we call the Taskforce.”
Bruce grimly shook his hand, not saying a word. Confused, reading the vibe from the DNI, Kurt clasped his hand, but said to the president, “Sir, I really need to talk to you. There are some issues that have evolved.”
President Warren said, “We’ll get to that, I’m sure. You brought the brief, correct?”
Kurt held up a laptop and said, “Yes, sir, but I’m not so sure now is the time—”
President Warren said, “Give him the read-on. Get done with that, and we’ll talk about any issues later.”
Kurt said, “Sir, I have some information I really need to brief. Right now. It can’t wait. Something that’s operationally critical, but it’s only for cleared personnel.”
President Warren said, “Kurt, I hear you. Give Bruce the read-on, then we’ll all be cleared.”
Kurt looked like he was about to say something else, then went from the president to the director of the CIA. Resigned, seeing no help, he opened a laptop and set it on the president’s desk.
The read-on began, as it always did, with a history of the Taskforce, discussing how the Cold War intelligence and Department of Defense architecture was causing risk to the nation after 9/11. Describing how all offensive options had been stalled because of bitter infighting between organizations or because the enormous labyrinth of laws and regulations prevented action, each new one grafted onto the skeleton of the old without thought to the repercussions.
Alexander Palmer saw Bruce roll his eyes and said, “What? You live through a different time than me?”
Bruce said, “Hey, I understand what he’s saying, but everything you’re talking about is exactly what I’m dealing with on a day-to-day basis. The repercussions and lack of trust. Patriot Act, NSA surveillance, secret prisons—all of it came about after 9/11, and now you’re telling me that wasn’t enough? We had to create something so outside the legislative process that it would be called a secret police in any country behind the Iron Curtain?”
Kurt Hale said, “Sir, I understand how you could think that just seeing the slide, but it’s not true. Your statement was my greatest fear when I helped build this thing. It’s not an American gestapo. It’s just a tool. A tool that’s selectively used when the traditional architecture fails.”
Bruce said, “It’s fucking secret police. I’ve seen enough of them in my time. I’m the one that worked through the Cold War. I’m the one who fought the assholes behind the Iron Curtain. Don’t try to sugarcoat the turd just because it’s American.”
President Warren said, “Bruce, you can’t look at the organizational structure and determine intent. All we did was basically hit a reset for the ’47 National Security Act. The Taskforce operates just like the CIA did when it was first created. Before all the smothering of legal restrictions.”
“You mean before our democracy found out the CIA was abusing its power and voted to rein it in. How often has the Taskforce operated in the United States?”
Kurt flipped to the next slide and said, “I was just getting there. As you can see by the charter the Taskforce operates under, it’s not allowed to work on United States soil.”
Bruce said, “That’s not what I asked. How often has it, in contravention to the charter?”
Kurt remained silent, looking toward the president. He said, “Okay, Bruce, you’ve made your point. It has conducted some limited operations on US soil, but always under close supervision of the Oversight Council.”
Bruce said, “And that’s how it starts. It’s never an inherently evil thing. It’s always for some greater good. Something that has to be done just this once. Until it becomes twice, then three times, then normal operating procedure. People in the organization end up believing they know better than the oversight.”
President Warren said, “Which is exactly why I’m reading you on. You won’t allow that to happen.”
Bruce said nothing for a moment, then said, “Sir, I can’t be a party to this. When it gets out—and it will get out—it will cause our entire intelligence apparatus to be eviscerated. And rightly so.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we need to disband the Taskforce.”
President Warren let that hang in the air for a moment, then said, “Right now, they’re the only ones with the capability to get your thumb drive. You want to pull them from that?”
Bruce looked to Kerry. “I thought you said you had CIA assets working the problem?”
Kerry said, “No, sir. I said I had assets, but not specifically CIA. The Taskforce is tailor-made for this type of mission.”
President Warren watched Bruce’s face grow red. He said, “Wait, Kerry is the one who demanded you be read on. Don’t go off on him.”
Bruce said, “Sir, I spent my entire life fighting against organizations like this. The Stasi, KGB, you name it. At the same time, we supported other evil fucks like the Shah’s Savak. I’ve seen what happens, and I don’t want to be a party to it.”
President Warren said, “Okay, let’s focus on one problem at a time. Kurt, skip to the chase. You passed the thumb drive mission, correct?”
“Yes, sir. They have the mission, but there’s been a problem. And it’s serious. We lost a Taskforce member.”
Kurt briefly described what had transpired, and Bruce became visibly agitated. He said, “It’s already falling apart.”
Kerry said, “Bruce, calm down. We’ve dealt with this in the past. Kurt, can you handle the casualties
and
get the thumb drive?”
“Yes. We’re already working that.”
Bruce said, “As soon as they get the thumb drive, they redeploy. They close up shop and come home.”
Kurt grimaced and said, “That may be a problem.”