From the Ashes (17 page)

“I don’t know, Professor, but I do know that it’s something I—,” Jon glanced at Mara, who gave him a nod, “—that
we
have to do. For Michael, for his memory and legacy, for all the other people who’ve died over the years and for those who can still be saved.”

Dr. Leinhart smiled softly despite the tightness he felt in his chest. “My God. You really are Michael’s brother, aren’t you?”

“Yes sir.”

“He would be proud of you, Jon. I’m sure he would. He talked about you all the time, you know.”

Jon took a deep breath, and the professor picked up on his sign of discomfort.

“Sorry, I... I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable. I hope I didn’t—”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Jon answered, giving Mara a thankful glance in response to the hand she had placed gently on his arm. “It’s hard, but I’m fine, really.”

“So when are you two planning on embarking on your little expedition?” the professor asked.

“This afternoon,” Mara answered before Jon could.

“So soon?”

“No time like the present,” Mara chimed more cheerily than might have been appropriate.

“I’m on break from Oxford,” Jon explained, “and Mara’s got bereavement time from her job. Dad’s somewhere in the Amazon, miles away from the nearest electrical grid or cell phone tower, so the funeral’s on hold until they can track him down, and it’d be great if we could clear this whole thing up for Michael by then. If this wasn’t suicide, which I think all three of us can agree that it couldn’t have been, then we want to set the story right by the time his eulogy is delivered.”

Dr. Leinhart nodded. “Good point...”

“Plus, Jon has a ton of frequent flyer miles,” Mara added. “Forty-five minutes and we’re in NYC.”

The professor raised his eyebrows. “Wow. You guys are serious.” The pair nodded at him, a cool confidence carved into their faces. “All right, I’ll tell you what; let’s swap cell numbers. That way we can stay in touch while you’re in Manhattan. You find anything, let me know, and I’ll try to work on it from this end. And I’ll let you know about anything I can dig up.”

“Professor—” Mara started to plead.

“No, no. I want to. It’s the least I can do.”

“Okay.” She smiled gratefully. “Thanks.”

Jon handed Professor Leinhart a prepaid cell phone, one of three they’d paid for in cash earlier that morning. “Untraceable. Just in case. Our numbers are already in there.”

The professor nodded slowly, his eyes growing worried as he seemed to be realizing the gravity of what was happening.

Jon started to stand up. “Well, I think we’ve probably taken up enough of your time this morning. Mara and I have some packing to do.”

The professor blinked, then stood in turn. “Any time, Jon. Mara,” he said as he shook each of their hands. “Just please, watch your backs out there.”

Langley, Virginia

Enrique tried not to let the worry he felt show on his face. He sat patiently in the chair across from Greer’s desk, conscious of the heavy tension around them, waiting for his boss to speak. Greer, reading through a sheaf of papers on his desk, seemed animated – but reservedly so, as though he’d just found out a secret that he was aching to tell someone, but couldn’t yet. Finally, he sat back in his chair and interlaced his fingers across his stomach.

“I was on the fence about something, Ramirez. Your run-in with the younger Rickner brother yesterday has helped me make up my mind.” Greer sniffed to himself. “So, I suppose, thanks are in order.”

How could he have known? Ramirez was going to resolve the issue himself. He had an opportunity to do so this morning, but Greer had insisted on his being back at HQ. So he’d missed his shot. And now Greer knew.

The shock of the revelation must have registered on Ramirez’s face, for Greer continued, “Yes, I know about the incident. The young man was predictable enough to attempt to file a police report. Nothing for them to follow up on, of course. You did your job quite well in that regard. However, the incident report was logged by the Washington Metro PD yesterday, and our boys in Recon picked it up on the channels.” Greer shook his head. “I thought there were no secrets here, Ramirez.”

Ramirez got his breathing under control. “Sir, I had every intention of taking care of it myself. I didn’t want to involve the Division with this little... annoyance.”

Greer smiled to himself. “I’m sure you didn’t. But why would this be your job rather than the Division’s? Don’t you think an incident like this would necessarily concern the Division?”

Ramirez realized he could take two different tacks here. One would be apologetic and conciliatory. But Greer knew him well enough to see right through the lie that that would be. He settled on the second course of action.

“Sir, I believed – and truth be told still do believe – that I can do as good a job cleaning up my own messes as the Division could. Small and cohesive though we are, multiple people working on a single project can lead to miscommunication, disagreements, the loss of critical time and resources. And something like this didn’t go through the normal sequence of departments. Recon didn’t discover the target. I – a field agent – did. I created the incident. And so, especially considering that I have the most at stake in seeing that the Rickner brother is eliminated, I decided-”

“What do you have at stake?” Greer interrupted, his face still unreadable.

Ramirez blinked. “I’m sorry?”

“You said that you have the most at stake in making sure the Rickner brother is eliminated. What, exactly, were you referring to?”

“Well, the Division’s integrity for one. Preserving the mission-”

“No!” Greer interrupted again. “That’s what we all have at stake. What do
you
have at stake? Don’t second-guess yourself; just answer. Now.”

“Pride,” Ramirez blurted. “My pride, sir. For my skills, for the mission, and for our country.”

Greer smiled broadly. “Thank you for your candor, Ramirez. I’m removing you from field duty effective immediately.”

Ramirez felt his stomach plummet through the floor. His throat seized up, but eventually he was able to croak out, “Why?”

“Because, my dear boy, of how very much you do take pride in your work. Because of your relentless dedication to the Division.”

Ramirez felt the room begin to tilt on its axis. He was being punished because of his pride and dedication to the mission? It made no sense at all.

Again seeming to read his agent’s mind, Greer continued. “No, you’re not being punished here.” He paused and looked down at the desk. He brought a fist to his lips and swallowed deeply. “You’re being promoted.”

Ramirez couldn’t believe what he was hearing. The hierarchical structure of the Division was completely flat. Three tiny sections – Recon, Elimination, and Extra-Division Affairs – all presided over by a single Director: Harrison Greer. Unless Greer was changing the very structure of the Division, the only thing he could possibly mean was...

“Yes,” Greer said, “I’m stepping down as Director. You, Ramirez, will be my replacement.”

“But, why?”

“Why am I stepping down or why did I choose you?”

“Both,” Ramirez said.

“I’m not going to stroke your ego any more than I already have in answering your second question. You’re simply the best man for the job. As for the first question, I’m afraid my father’s killer has come for me as well.”

Ramirez blanched. “Cancer.”

Greer nodded. “The same. I feel fine, but apparently it’s progressed to the stage where there’s not a thing the doctors can do about it. I’m going to step down before things get bad, but before I can do that, there’s some unfinished business I need to take care of. To wit, the Dossiers.”

Ramirez involuntarily blew a short burst of air from his nostrils. “Sir, no disrespect intended, but how do you intend to find them? We’ve been trying for decades, but to no avail.”

Greer bared his teeth in a malicious grin. “Not like this we haven’t.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Greer went over the details of his plan with Ramirez, including his rationale for pulling him out of the field even before he could take over the Directorship. Ramirez hung on his every word. He realized it was the most ingenious, most terrifying plan he’d ever heard. If it worked.

And that, Ramirez feared, was a big if.

***

Halfway down the hallway, Wayne Wilkins encountered fellow agent Enrique Ramirez, stalking his way toward him, shaking his head at the floor. Wayne’s stoic expression, the one he had built up over years and years of walling up his true thoughts and feelings, and barricading out everything and everyone else, was shaken by the glare Ramirez gave him as he passed him. The look – one that seemed to say, “don’t screw this up, rookie, or I’m coming after you” – jarred him. Wayne had been with the Division only six months, and almost all of that in training. Their paths had rarely crossed, and no interaction of any note had ever transpired between the two. The look of contempt on Ramirez’s face seemed both unmerited and foreboding. Strange.

So much for first impressions,
Wayne thought ruefully as he reached Greer’s office door. He rapped sharply on the door, twice.

“Come!” boomed the voice from within.

Wayne opened the door and entered the office.

“Ah, Wilkins...” Greer stood to greet Wayne with a strong bone-crushing handshake. “Please, sit, sit.”

Wayne did as he was instructed, still surprised by the greeting Greer offered. The seeming geniality and warm handshake from a superior officer was a far cry from the business-only saluting that he was used to from his military days. Yet despite the familial treatment, Wilkins never could get the memory of their first face-to-face meeting out of his head. Dressed in his old colonel’s combat uniform from his Army days – albeit with a different name tape – Greer had been right there deceiving his compatriots so convincingly that Wayne himself had almost been taken in. Greer was the one who had arranged the whole thing beforehand; he planned it, called in the attack, and orchestrated the follow-up that resulted in an official death certificate for Sergeant Wayne Stephen Wilkins. The point of the whole darned exercise. But a man who lied that convincingly, a man who had led his countrymen to their fiery deaths with a smile on his face – for however noble a purpose... could he truly be trusted?

That August morning would forever be burned into his mind. The waiting – as he listened to Price, Sedaris, and Jenkins chatter excitedly about the vacation they would never get to take – was almost as bad as the actual attack on his fellow soldiers, his... yes, they
had
been his friends. Or at least the closest to friendship he had had in these past years. But the guilt, the guilt he lived with daily, the image of the billowing smoke, the deafening explosions, the roaring flames, the haunting death knell screams of his friends. All his fault. All his fault. That was worse than the waiting and the actual event put together. And it never, ever ended.

“Wilkins?”

“Sorry, sir. Mind drifted a bit.”

“Mind that it doesn’t, Wilkins. This is a top priority assignment and we can’t afford any mistakes.” He fixed Wayne with a look.
“Any,”
he reiterated. “This assignment is perhaps the most important one we’ve embarked on since the creation of the Division. It can finally root out and destroy the Achilles’ heel that has threatened us for so long.”

“The Dossiers, sir?”

Greer smiled. “Good, so you were paying attention in training. I know you were trained for Elimination, not the Recon teams searching, among other things, for leads on the Dossiers, but, well, let’s just say this mission is a bit unorthodox. There isn’t really a department here or a training program for something like this, so we have to think outside the box. Are you ready to think outside the box, Wilkins?”

Wayne tried to figure out where Greer was going with this, but it was all he could do just to follow along. “Yes sir.”

“Good man. As you know, I’ve been the director here since Clinton was in office, and I’ve had the privilege of having some of the best operatives in the country working under me. That’s given me what I like to think is a pretty decent take on operatives and their capabilities. Are you following me?”

Wayne nodded.

Greer nodded once in response and continued. “I’ve been watching you. In Iraq with your unit, in training with us. It is my opinion that you are an ideal candidate for this mission. Are you up to undertaking a mission that might be a little unusual in its methods, but immeasurable in its rewards?”

“I think so, sir.”

“You
think
so?”

“Yes sir, I am up to it,” Wayne revised.

“Excellent.” Greer walked back around to his desk, pulled open a drawer, and removed a file.
Operation Anglerfish
was written on an orange label on the tab. He opened the folder on the desk, shuffled through the contents and spread them out before him. Computer printouts containing educated conjecture and speculation about a government conspiracy, mentioning the NSDAP, top American politicians and businessmen from the early 1930s, Roger Blumhurst’s suicide, and something called Operation Phoenix, the name “M. Rickner” appearing next to the page number at the top of each sheet, filled most of the file. Greer laid hands on one page and placed it at the top of the pile. It was not a computer printout, but rather a photocopy of a police incident report. The person instigating the investigation: Jonathan Allan Rickner. The name of one of the other involved parties in the investigation: Mara Christine Ellison. Both names were circled several times in red ink from Greer’s pen.

Greer spread his hands over the papers and leaned across the desk toward Wayne.

“Okay, here’s how my little plan is going to work...”

***

In his black sedan outside Division headquarters, the engine running, heater on full-blast, Dvorak’s
Symphony in G Major
playing on the stereo, Enrique Ramirez sat, mulling.

What Greer had devised was brilliant. It was indeed the best chance the Division had had in half a century to once and for all smash the last real threat to the public charade they’d enshrined in history. Without the Dossiers, anything anyone said tried to say was mere conjecture. Perhaps the government would even shut down the Division – no, the government only got larger, never willingly paring itself down. And besides, the few people in Washington who knew of their purpose would hardly risk closing down the only tangible safeguard to that unspeakable truth from so many years ago. But retrieving and destroying the Dossiers would certainly allow Ramirez and everyone at the Division a little more peace of mind.