Authors: Murray McDonald
Twenty-five years had passed since the worst day of Vincent’s life. The call had come into him at eleven pm. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs had been involved in a car crash, his friend James Fox was dead, killed instantly. James’ wife Myriam was hanging on but chances were slim to nil. Vincent had rushed to the hospital and found fifteen year old Sean Fox lost and helpless, staring at the door that led to his mom. Vincent took him by the shoulders and both walked in. Myriam’s eyes opened briefly and seeing her handsome son, she mouthed the words 'I love you’ and gave a look to Vincent that was the clearest message he had ever received. 'Look after my baby’. Myriam’s eyes closed and never reopened. She knew her son would be OK.
Each and every time he thought of that moment over the last three months, he had hated himself. Not going to Sean’s funeral would have haunted him for the rest of his life.
Vincent became Sean’s guardian and although they set off on a rocky footing - a recently orphaned teenager was no easy introduction to parenting - as time passed, they became more friends than parent and son. Sean was a chip off his father’s block, a natural athlete, intelligent and stubborn, a perfect candidate for WestPoint. The only setback was that Sean had no intention of following in his father’s footsteps. Sean wanted action. WestPoint was for desk jockeys, for guys who wanted to play soldiers. Sean wanted to be a soldier. After an extremely difficult year of frayed relations, an agreement was reached. Sean could go in as a grunt but only if he attended college first. Vincent was immovable on the point; an education was the least he could assure Sean’s parents.
With the war in the Gulf kicking off and the wall falling in Berlin, Sean chose to study the Middle East and Arabic. A champion in various sporting activities, he had his choice of universities with full scholarships and chose Harvard. It, he assured Vincent, had the best program for what he wanted to do. However, it was the only university in the country which did not offer Sean a scholarship. Sean’s junior American kick boxing crown, his quarterback of the year award and swimming titles were all meaningless, especially to Vincent’s bank account which was about to take a pummeling. Sean, it seemed, was going to teach Vincent a very expensive lesson. If he interfered, it would cost him and cost him dearly.
Sean graduated top of his class and had recruiters knocking at his door. Six figure starting salaries and offers to pay off all of his loans flooded in. Vincent fielded a number of the calls, although Sean was happy to leave them to the answering machine. He had only one plan. On the day of graduation, he walked out of the hall and straight into the nearest army recruiting station. From there, he became one of the most over qualified soldiers to walk through the doors. Despite numerous calls to convince him to enter WestPoint, from pretty much every member of the Chiefs of Staff, the son of WestPoint’s greatest ever graduate and youngest Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, entered basic training with an Option 40 contract for the Rangers. Sean sailed through basic training, airborne training and the Rangers Indoctrination Program. A tour of duty followed before he was finally installed in Ranger School. Sixty-one days later and proudly displaying his yellow and black Rangers tab, Sean posted his application for 1st SFOD-D, Delta Force.
Seeing Sean graduate from Ranger school was one of Vincent’s proudest moments. The young boy whom he had watched turn into a man was now a fully-fledged Special Forces warrior. The application to Delta was just another surprise that Sean had managed to pull out of the hat and six months later, Vincent was standing once again proudly at Sean’s passing out parade. This time most definitely his last, unless of course the army created a more elite fighting force which Vincent knew was impossible. Delta Force were the best.
As the decade drew to a close, Vincent began to look at retiring. The world had changed, the Soviet threat had given way to, as predicted by Sean and his degree choice, fundamentalist Islam. Having been involved in the intelligence world for over 40 years, it was time to hang up his boots and retire. On Friday 7th September 2001, Vincent Black, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Clandestine Services and one of her longest serving officers, retired. Sean surprised Vincent once again, announcing at his retirement party that although Vincent was leaving, his memory would live on within the Agency he held so dear. Particularly, as he, Sean, would be making sure nobody forgot Vincent Black as long as he was a member of the CIA, the Agency he would be joining the following week.
Vincent had tried many times to recruit Sean. His background, training and linguistic skills were perfect for the agency’s Middle Eastern section and Sean would have been a great asset to the team and would have been the perfect successor for himself. However, just as Sean had resisted West Point, he had also resisted the Agency, or at least as long as Vincent were there.
Vincent knew it wasn’t personal. Sean was his own man and had no intention of being in anyone’s shadow. At West Point, he would constantly have been rated against his father’s scores. Not reaching them would have been failure, beating them would have felt somehow disrespectful. Likewise, if he had joined the Agency while Vincent were there, he would have been questioned as to whether he deserved to be there, or was it just because Vincent Black had got him in.
The following week everything changed. The twin towers came down and Vincent, at the request of the President, was back at the CIA, heading up, again, its Clandestine Services division which Sean had just joined. With the twin towers still smoldering, Sean was in no position to change his mind and was preparing for his first tour in Afghanistan as the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban was launched in reprisal.
Ever since Vincent had been brought back into the CIA, he had been planning his exit. Sean Fox would be an excellent Director of CS but unfortunately Sean proved too valuable in the field and every time Vincent felt the time was right, another war would break out - Iraq, the surge in Afghanistan. Political upheaval in the Middle East. Sean was needed on the front line, not behind a desk. However, all those plans were dealt a fatal blow thanks to the Senior Senator from Oklahoma and his latest young squeeze. The squeeze was, unfortunately, a very ambitious investigative reporter who, on hearing the news of an undercover operation that would capture Al Qaeda’s number two, broke the story. Unfortunately, she broke it before the operation had actually launched. Unaware of the leak, Sean’s team launched the operation and barely managed to get out with three fatalities and a list of injuries that would mean only Sean and two others out of the ten members of the team would ever live a normal life.
Vincent had called for the senator’s head but he was a massive money generator for the President and so received nothing more than a slap on the wrist. Vincent vowed he’d bring the man down one day but Sean made his feelings very clear and no amount of persuasion would change his mind. He would never work for the 'fuckers’ again. After the six months of rehabilitation and witnessing the Senior Senator from Oklahoma being appointed Chairman of the Intelligence Oversight Committee, Sean left the CIA and government service. Watching Sean leave the office with a small cardboard box under his arm was, as Vincent recalled, one of the most distressing days of his life.
For the next fifteen months, they had little contact. Sean called irregularly to say hi but never said where he was or what he was doing. Vincent tried to keep track but Sean had so many different aliases and documents, it was a full time job to try and keep up with his whereabouts. Eventually, Vincent accepted the inevitable and moved on. Sean needed time to get over what had happened, if he ever would.
Vincent, for what seemed the nth time in his life, put his personal life on hold. He had a country to protect. He had nearly been married twice, the first coincided with the car crash and it seemed while Vincent was ready to step up and take on the responsibility of a grief stricken fifteen year old, his fun loving fiancée was not. However, as far as Sean knew, it just didn’t work out and was none the wiser as to why all of a sudden uncle Vincent’s girlfriend disappeared. He had far more important emotional issues to deal with. The second and more recent engagement was collateral damage from 9/11. With his retirement in tatters and back working 18-hour days, his fiancée, who was going to love and cherish him in to his old age, decided she couldn’t really do that if he wasn’t around. Over seventy, he had resigned himself to dying a bachelor, married to his country which he had loved, honored and obeyed with all his heart despite its indiscretions, for which it was always forgiven. Something Sean could not do.
The lowest point in his life had come three months ago. Sean’s death and the revelations of a secret life hidden from him had hit him harder than the death of James and Myriam, harder than the death of his own parents. It was true, burying a child was the hardest thing you could ever do. Burying one you suddenly didn’t recognize as your own was even harder.
Having Sean back had re-invigorated him. His bounce had come back, his reason for being was back. His life once again had purpose.
Vincent got up from his bed and checking his clock, pondered again over the Russian involvement. The moment Sean had mentioned it, it had triggered something. He racked his memory. At seventy, it was a little slower to respond than it used to be but if there were something there, it would come to him eventually. In the meantime, he picked up his phone, despite the late hour, and dialed an old friend, the former head of the CIA’s Moscow office who answered after three rings.
“Who the hell is calling me at this time of night?!” came the answer.
“Vincent Black!” responded Vincent, not bowing to the old spy’s aggressive tone.
“How in the hell are you, V?”
“Confused, Mike,” replied Vincent, cutting to the chase. “Any ideas why the Russians would be interested in Sean?”
“Sean, as in your Sean, as in killed three months ago Sean?” clarified Mike. He also wasn’t one to beat about the bush.
“Sort of, Sean arrived back today after a stint in Afghanistan.”
“So he’s not dead?”
“Apparently not but the science says he was the body parts we received three months ago.”
“What’s that got to do with the Russians?”
Vincent explained what he knew and listened to a very quiet line. Just as he thought Mike had hung up, he spoke.
“It can’t be…” said Mike pensively. “Vincent, I need to make some calls. I’ll call you back,” he added more firmly.
“Wait a minute,” said Vincent quickly. “What are you thinking?”
“Too early to say but if it is what I think it is, the cold war may not be over, it may have been a temporary thaw!” Mike’s voice was ice cold, adding an eerie relevance to his shocking conclusion.
Chapter 23
Pytor hung up on Borodin and grinned inanely at Alexa. “We’re off the hook!” he said, explaining his ridiculous grin.
“Thank God!” she breathed and relaxed. It was only after the call that she realized how tense she had been.
“I’ll call the Director and tell him we’re heading back to Washington. We do work for SVR after all!” offered Pyotr as he began to search for Deputy Director Beryutov’s number.
“I’ll leave you to it,” she offered cheerily with a wave and closed the door quietly behind her as she made her way back to her own room. With twelve hours until the next flight to Washington, she planned to spend as many of them as possible sleeping.
As Pyotr listened to the voice mail message, he checked his watch. It was almost 10 a.m. in Moscow. He redialed the office number and was immediately connected with Deputy Director Beryutov’s secretary.
“Science Division.”
“I’d like to speak with the Deputy Director, please.”
“Of course, may I ask who’s calling?”
“Pyotr Travkin.”
“And will she know what it is regarding?”
Travkin assumed he misheard the secretary’s use of the word 'she’ in reference to the Deputy Director.
“He will yes!”
“I’m sorry were you looking for former Director Beryutov?” asked the secretary.
“Former Director?”
“Yes I’m afraid there was a terrible accident this morning. He was killed in a car crash on the way to work,” she said with little emotion.
“On his way to work?” confirmed Pyotr.
“Yes,” a suspicion entered her tone, which hadn’t been there previously. “It’s terrible, we are all very shocked,” she added quickly realizing she had dropped her guard.
Pyotr had a list of questions he wanted to ask and check, including whether the secretary could have sounded any less caring. However, the less he got involved the better and the sooner he ended the call the better also.
“Please pass on my condolences,” offered Pyotr in an attempt to end the call.
“Of course,” she replied without any thought. “Shall I put you through to Deputy Director Borodin?” she added quickly.
“Borodin? As in GRU Borodin?” Pyotr almost choked as he spoke.
“No, as in Dr Helena Borodin,” she replied.
“Of course, there are lots of Borodins!” he replied, laughing off the ridiculousness of his question.
“I believe she is his niece!” she added matter of factly. “Will I connect you?”
Pyotr struggled to garner his thoughts. “Hmm, no it’s OK, it really wasn’t important and is no longer necessary,” he managed, despite himself.
The secretary having done her job gave him a clipped goodbye and ended the call.
Pytor slumped onto the bed as the repercussions of the call reverberated throughout his mind.
First things first though, they had to move. He packed his bag and made his way to Alexa’s room. It took almost a minute of hard knocking to wake her up. Eventually her door opened, a long white t-shirt managed just to cover the roundness of her very pert bottom, something Pyotr, under normal circumstances, would have paid far more attention to as he followed the half asleep figure back towards her bed.
“What do you want Pyotr? I really need to sleep,” she whined.
Pyotr didn’t sit or speak. Instead, he approached the window and pulled the curtain back slightly allowing him to check the parking lot below.