Age of Blood

23

Alexis Billings sat in a chair outside the office of the deputy director for operations. Unlike the director, who was a political appointee and a very public member of cabinet, the deputy director of operations held the real power. Deputy Director McKinney was just such a man. A career CIA agent, he’d risen through the ranks as reports officer, desk officer, clandestine support agent, field agent, chief of station at half a dozen embassies. He knew the field. He knew the process. He knew the personnel. And most of all, he knew that someone in the agency had fucked up.

To what degree, Billings didn’t know. All she knew was that she’d received a call late last night from the agency representative to the Sissy, asking her to meet with the deputy director regarding some information the agency had in reference to the missing senator’s daughter. Her agency counterpart, Sarah Pinborough, also of Bryn Mawr, had ended the call with the words “They want to explain why they knew about the possibility of a threat but never let anyone know about it.”

All Billings had to do was let the senator know that the CIA had advance knowledge and didn’t do anything about it and he’d come down on the agency, the director, and their budget like a metric ton of bricks. Everyone knew it. Which was why she was sitting in Deputy Director McKinney’s waiting room at 5:45 A.M.

“The deputy director will see you now,” said the prim woman at the reception desk.

Billings stood, smiled a thanks, then strode to the executive door. It was opened before she got to it by an assistant, who beckoned her in.

“Ms. Billings,” the deputy director said, standing behind an impressive oak desk. The wood was burled like a tiger’s eye and glistened in the fluorescent light of the room. “Please come in.”

McKinney was unimpressive to look at. Middling height, slightly overweight, balding and with a weak chin, he might have been more at home as the night manager of a grocery store… which is what made him perfect for his job at the agency. Too many people had made assumptions about his appearance and his intellect and found themselves at a severe disadvantage because of it.

His suit was Savile Row, navy blue. He wore a Yale tie. He stepped out from behind his desk and offered a manicured hand. “So happy you could see me at such an early hour.”

“So glad to be seen,” she said curtly. “It’s my understanding you have something you wish to say.”

“Ready to get to the point, I see.” He gestured to the other man in the room. “May I introduce Mr. Christopher Golden. Mr. Golden directs our many special projects groups, including the one we’ve provided to directly support your special unit on Coronado.”

“Triple Six,” she said. “Your SPG has provided good service.” She saw no reason not to give credit where it was due.

Golden nodded, but didn’t say much. He didn’t even step forward to accept her proffered hand. Instead, he had a pained look in his eyes. Where Deputy Director McKinney glistened with refinement, Golden seemed a pale reflection. Although physically the men could have been cousins, Golden wore an old wool suit that had been dry-cleaned so many times the fused wool gleamed through. His nondescript tie was of an uncertain age and the collar of his white shirt had long ago broken down and lost form. The deputy director was a manager. Golden was an intellectual.

Billings pulled her hand back and smiled softly. Golden didn’t want at all to be here. She wondered if he wasn’t being offered as a sacrificial scapegoat. She’d be ready for it if that was going to be their strategy.

“Please, sit,” McKinney said. He waited for Billings to do so, and then he sat himself. “Would you like some coffee? I’ve taken the liberty of having some made.”

As if on cue, the door opened and the prim woman at the front desk came in carrying a silver service. She placed it on a table to the right of the desk that seemed positioned there for just that purpose; then she left.

Billings let McKinney pour a coffee for her and himself, then waited until both of them had a moment to taste their own. She knew the silence was an intimidation device. She was to fill it either with her own chatter, or by looking at the awards and decorations of a man who’d served the agency for more than thirty years. Presidential letters and congressional awards festooned walls among African spears and World War II Nazi memorabilia.

She gave the silence three minutes, then snapped it.

“I understand you have some information about the disappearance of Senator Withers’s daughter. I also understand that you’ve known about the possibility far longer than any of us.”

“To the point.” McKinney smiled, but it was more of a grimace.

“So tell me the story. Might as well start with ‘once upon a time,’ because if it doesn’t end with ‘and they lived happily ever after,’ someone is going to lose their job.” She glanced at Golden. “Maybe multiple someones.”

McKinney steepled his hands and leveled his gaze on her. Although he was the deputy director of operations for the CIA and she was merely a staffer for a senate committee, she held the power of the purse in her hands. Not that she could vote or sit in any of the meetings, but the senator counted on her for advice and had not taken it on only one previous occasion, much to his own chagrin.

“Once upon a time there was a cartel in Mexico who wanted to change the world,” McKinney began. “This is the beginning. Golden, please tell Ms. Billings the rest of the story.”.

Golden, who’d refrained from coffee, began to pace. Billings had to turn in her seat to watch him.

“So here’s what we know. Emily Withers has been under surveillance on five occasions by unknown members of Los Zetas. The last three of these occasions were during her previous visits to Cabo San Lucas.”

He paused here for Billings to take it in, then continued.

“On four of the occasions, we had agents conducting countersurveillance and providing overwatch for the senator’s daughter.”

“And on the fifth?” Billings asked.

“Our agent went missing.”

“When?”

“When what?” Golden asked.

“I asked you when you found out the agent went missing,” she said in a voice that could cut ice.

Golden exchanged a look with McKinney, who nodded, then stared out his fifth-floor window at the Potomac.

“Before Emily Withers arrived in Mexico.”

“And you didn’t send anyone else?”

Golden murmured something.

“What was that?” she asked.

“We didn’t think it was necessary.”

Billings turned toward McKinney and repeated the words. “‘We didn’t think it was necessary.’ I see.”

McKinney turned away from the window and back to her. “There’s something else.”

Billings smiled sweetly. “Isn’t there always?”

Golden sighed as he wrung his hands. Finally he spoke. “Through an electronic intercept of Zetas cartel data, then by sifting through millions of conversations and information pulls, we found reference to a program, not unlike that which Hitler pulled, partnering with the Thule Society and searching for powerful supernatural entities and weapons that would help them create their own ideal world order. It appears that the Zetas cartel, in an attempt to pull themselves out of the quagmire of cartel-on-cartel violence, has devised a plan to reinstate old Aztec rule, and with that, a return of the old gods.”

He let the words hang in the air for a few moments. To anyone else but the deputy director and the administrator, such an assertion might seem criminally negligent, if not insane. But they’d heard and seen enough to know that the threats posed by the universe toward freedom were not only those made by man.

“One more thing,” Golden said, shifting his gaze momentarily toward McKinney.

“Another one still?” Billings remarked.

Golden nodded. “You might remember the tattooed skin suits your men found first in San Francisco and then Imperial Beach. The man in Myanmar used the suits to channel the spirit of a Chinese demon. The nature of the suit, being made from the skin of many, plus the very nature of the tattoos, created a tool with which the man could wield the power of but not be killed by the creature he was trying to channel.”

“One of the suits went missing,” she said.

“We traced it to the Zetas.”

“You traced it to the Zetas,” Billings repeated in a monotone. She let it sink in for a moment, then asked, “Did you not make the connection between the suit and the Zetas’ desire to harness the old gods?”

Golden frowned and seemed put out to have to explain himself. “The two things weren’t connected,” he said tightly.

“Just like Emily Withers isn’t connected.”

Golden frowned and shook his head. “We see no connection at all.”

Billings glanced at McKinney before she spoke. “And how did you come to that determination? Magic 8-Ball? Rock-paper-scissors? The flip of a coin?”

The older man sputtered and fluttered his hands. He looked to his boss, but Billings had been right. The man was a sacrificial lamb.

“Answer her, Chris.”

The director of Special Projects Groups wanted nothing more than to not answer. It was clear that he believed that the whole process was beyond him. Still, he reluctantly answered. “There is no connection.”

Billings drilled in. “Are you telling me that no one in any of your special projects groups believed there might be a connection?”

“There were some,” he said with exasperation. “But that’s just coincidence. We’re working on pattern analysis that—”

“What was that you said?” Billings placed the saucer and coffee cup on the edge of the deputy director’s expensive desk. She held up a finger. “Did you say coincidence?”

McKinney’s expression became pained and he stared into the depths of the paperwork on his desk.

“Did you say coincidence?” she asked again. “Like when a man gets sniper training by the Soviets and then assassinates an American president? That kind of coincidence? Or like the coincidence where several groups of Arab-speaking flight students are learning how to take off but not how to land? That kind of coincidence?”

“Don’t you dare!” Golden said, his fists shaking. “That was the FBI—on both occasions.”

Billing stood. “Don’t you dare, Mr. Golden. Don’t pretend you didn’t have prior information regarding each of those events. Perhaps the FBI is as much a scapegoat as you are. Let me say this one time. When we discuss supernatural objects and the desire for someone to use something to become greater than they have any right to be, we do not use the word coincidence. One man’s coincidence is a Triple Six mission.”

She turned to McKinney and held her hands together in front of her as ladylike as she could. “This is what’s going to happen. The CIA is going to render every possible assistance necessary. Everything we need you will provide. Aircraft. Satellites. Assets. Recruited agents. Everything. You will send an SPG for direct support. Wherever the mission is, I want the SPG there on hand, regardless.”

Golden sputtered again, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the deputy director.

“Now,” she said. “Who will be my point of contact?”

“Chris, assign a POC for Ms. Billings.”

Golden’s outrage was obvious. After all, she’d stepped into his analytical universe and bitch-slapped him.

“Chris,” McKinney repeated himself. “Who is going to be Ms. Billings’s POC?”

“Jennifer Costello. Her team will be available to you. We’ll let her know she has all the assets at your disposal.”

“My team is heading into Alamos, Mexico. Do you have a safe house there? Assets? As in recruited agents?”

“We’re getting into some pretty sensitive operational activity, Ms. Billings.” McKinney delivered the statement with a smile.

She returned the smile. “I’ll let Senator Withers know you’ve decided not to provide what is necessary to save his daughter.”

His smile fell. “I see how this is.”

“We also want the freedom to move in Mexico. Please see that this is coordinated. Contact whomever you need to within the Mexican government. Cash in whatever chits you need.”

His smile fell even further.

“I have every confidence in you, Deputy Director. As does the senator. When he gets his daughter back safe and sound you’ll be one of the ones to whom he will demonstrate his goodwill. If things turn out to be unfortunate, well, then I’m sure he’ll make sure you’re taken care of as well. Thank you for your time.”

The trick to walking out of a room was to never look back, no matter how badly she wanted to see the looks on their faces. The only face she saw was that of the prim secretary, who gave her a look filled with secret approval.