Collision

16

Vochek didn’t much like kids; but she could never forget the two dead boys.

She had first seen the small, crumpled bodies when she stepped into a bullet-blasted living room, six months ago, in Kabul, Afghanistan.

As she entered the ransacked house that awful gray morning, she had pulled tighter around her face the hijab she wore out of deference to tradition. The scarf masked the burnt smell of gunfire, and hid the trembling of her own mouth as she stood over the pitiful bodies. She reached to touch the children, but her fingers stopped just short of their dark mops of hair. One was nine, the other ten, both boys. If they had been American children their pajamas would have featured Scooby-Doo or Power Rangers or Spider-Man. But these two boys wore PJs with a repeating pattern of soccer balls, with rainbow arcs of speed drawn behind each ball to suggest a powerful and accurate kick.

They lay on their stomachs and she realized that they’d been shot in the back.

There was no sign of the children’s parents, people she knew, freelance translators who worked with the State Department. She knew them because she was here to help the Kabul government shape and refine its own version of Homeland Security. The boys’ father had called her an hour earlier, waking her from a deep sleep. I wonder, Ms. Vochek, if you could come by and talk to me and my wife. We have information of value. Time is critical.

“It’s two of your people,” the Afghan officer in charge of the scene said.

“My people.” She tore her gaze away from the children. “I don’t understand.”

“Yes. The killers. Two men from the State Department.”

“The people who killed these kids work for State?” Horror filled her voice.

“Yes. In the security division. They grabbed the parents, stuck them in a trunk after they shot the family. Wife is dead, husband is wounded. May not make it through the night.” The Afghan officer shrugged. “What is wrong with you people?”

She was placed in charge of the interrogation of the two State Department employees. The Afghan government fed the media a careful fiction, announcing that two unknown gunmen had attacked the family.

Vochek’s questioning of the two State Department employees showed yes, they worked for State-but they were taking orders from a secret group within State, operating in Kabul, as a private information network. This group was driven by its own agenda to spy on the insurgent Taliban. The group believed the parents knew of the locations of key Taliban figures. One of the two gunmen, trigger-happy, cut down the children as they fled from their parents’ attackers.

“Didn’t mean to,” one of the men told her. “We were just going to take the parents to force them to talk. The kids freaked. Ran. We couldn’t have them waking the neighbors”-as if gunfire wouldn’t shatter the quiet- “and I just shot them.” The man wept. “Because no one could know what we were doing. No one.”

The idea that a small rogue group could be operating independently, secretly, and illegally inside the vast maze of the government made her sick. Washington smothered the story; the two State Department employees, who worked in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, were sent back to the United States, charged with far less serious crimes. Vochek protested. She was told to forget the incident. And she had no idea what had happened to any other members of the rogue cadre inside State-if they had been charged, or dismissed, or told to proceed a bit more cautiously with their under-the-table work.

It was grossly unfair, and she complained about it in memo after memo to her supervisor.

The only response was a maddening silence, until Margaret Pritchard appeared in her office one afternoon.

Pritchard was in her late fifties, a carefully groomed woman with ash blond hair and slightly oversized eyeglasses. She introduced herself as being from a Homeland task force in Washington that Vochek had never heard of. She shut the door of Vochek’s office. “You don’t like the idea of these unapproved covert groups.”

“No, I don’t.”

“They offend you.” It was a dry observation. “I’ve read your memos and your e-mails. You certainly love your outraged adverbs.”

“I don’t love outrage, but it serves a purpose.”

Pritchard leaned forward. “Would you like to help me shut these groups down?”

“No, thank you.”

“Why not?”

“Because the government doesn’t want these dirty dogs shut down. They had their chance. I saw two men who killed a family get slapped on the wrist. I don’t want to participate in another charade.”

“Dirty dogs. I like that term. But this isn’t a charade. The administration wants these groups closed and ended but with no publicity, no acknowledgment that they ever existed. This is a problem that’s been building over time-too many agendas, not enough accountability, too much leeway given to produce intelligence and hard results. I’ve been put in charge of a team to find the illicit groups, gather evidence against them, build a strong case, and then gut them.” She leaned back, crossed her arms. “You and the rest of the team will have enormous latitude.”

“I haven’t said yes yet. How many groups are there?”

Margaret Pritchard shrugged. “I don’t know. Sometimes groups have formed then dissolved. I suspect there’s a very private CIA hidden inside the CIA. Establishing whether or not they exist will be our first job. We have our suspicions.” She reached into her briefcase, unfurled a long piece of paper. A web of colored lines connected circles; the circles overlapped the names of the agencies and the departments: CIA, FBI, NSA, Defense, State, Homeland.

“We suspect certain activities-assassinations, thefts, sabotage-were ordered by a cadre of people inside the government, contrary to our current foreign policies. They might produce good results but this isn’t how our government operates. We’re unsure where the groups are hiding inside the bureaucratic maze-where they get their money, their people, their resources.”

“You’re forming a secret group to find a secret group.” Vochek gave her a bitter laugh.

“It takes a thief.” Margaret Pritchard leaned back from the chart. “You’ll work out of the Houston office. I don’t want people in DC knowing what we’re doing. We’ll keep our numbers few, very low-profile, make heavy use of outside contractors so word doesn’t spread among the people we’re investigating.”

No good deed could bring back the Afghan boys in pajamas. But if there were no secret groups, then there were no rogue operations, there was accountability. She would have to keep her silence, for the sake of the government, but the rogues using government cover and resources to advance their own agendas would be gone.

She wanted to make the first mark for right in the ledger. She thought she had with Ben Forsberg.

She opened her eyes at the sound of the hospital door opening, and Margaret Pritchard stood at the foot of her bed. Vochek blinked against the early morning light hazing in from the window. “Not a word other than pleasantries. We’ll talk shortly.”

Vochek nodded.

“Your notoriously hard head seems to be undamaged.”

“I’m fine.” The attacker had left her with a bad knot.

“I took the liberty of bringing you some of your clothes from Houston.” Pritchard held up a bag. “Clearly I’m paying you too much.”

“Does my mom know I was hurt?”

“Not from me. That’s for you to tell her, Joanna.”

“Thank you.” Vochek went into the bathroom. She had showered earlier that morning-awake at four, restless. She opened the bag: two of her Chanel suits, summer-weight gray; two Armani suits; and silk blouses, shoes that matched, hosiery, underwear bought from a store. Clothes were her one vanity, but she had found it paid to look like she meant business. Pritchard was a thorough soul and she’d included in the bag basic makeup, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, and floss.

Vochek wished for a moment that her mother had half the initiative and poise of Margaret Pritchard. She would have to call Mom today, but better to wait until she was out of the hospital so she didn’t have to lie by default.

Vochek used the toiletries and dressed in her favorite suit. It felt like putting on armor; she was ready to go face the world again. She felt entirely herself again for the first time since Pilgrim’s gun smacked into her head.

“The hospital’s set you free,” Pritchard said. “Come on.”

They walked down in silence to a back exit of the hospital-away from any curious press-and a waiting Lincoln Town Car. Pritchard had a driver-cum-bodyguard, a powerfully built man who raised the bulletproof privacy partition as soon as the car pulled away from the curb.

The car left the hospital complex, drove past the interstate into east Austin. The morning traffic on the highways was spiraling toward dismal- she had read Austin had the worst congestion of any midsized city in the nation-and the driver stuck to side roads. “I’m sorry about Kidwell,” Pritchard said.

Vochek privately thought that Pritchard was probably closer to Kidwell than she was, but she said, “Thanks.”

“What exactly did you tell the police when they found you?”

“I stuck to the story Kidwell ordered me to tell if we ever ran into trouble.” Vochek looked out the window. They drove past brightly painted taquerias and Mexican bakeries, the lots full of commuters and workers grabbing breakfast and coffee. “That I work for Homeland Security on a classified project and cannot discuss my assignment. Repeat as needed.”

“The local police have come to Jesus,” Pritchard said. “It has been explained to them that the shootings bear on a highly secretive operation relating to national security. They’re keeping their mouths shut and responding to our requests for assistance. FBI has charge of the official investigation. They only know that yours and Kidwell’s work was classified and is not to be publicized. You will have to give them a statement later today, but I’ve already written it for you.” Pritchard handed her the morning edition of the Austin paper and she scanned the story.

A photo of Ben Forsberg stared back at her. The story described a brazen attack on an office rented by Homeland Security in downtown Austin. One agent slain, one survived, two contractor security guards assigned to the building killed. Three suspected attackers were dead. All three men were unidentified but, the paper suggested with a nod toward terror, were described as Arabic. This followed hours after two shootings downtown, one of a software programmer, the other of a man at a parking garage who remained unidentified but had a Canadian passport and fit the description of a known assassin from Northern Ireland. Forsberg, a local businessman, was missing; the paper darkly hinted that he might have information on the attackers-he was described as a person of interest to the police. A state official warned about terrorists bringing their fight to American soil. A spokesman at the Washington headquarters of Homeland Security had no immediate comment. Neither did the FBI.

“There’s no mention of the man who attacked me. Does everyone think the gunmen committed suicide?” Vochek couldn’t keep the acid out of her voice.

“Of course not,” Pritchard said. “This job is aging me faster than my teenagers. Tell me everything.”

Vochek did. Pritchard had the disconcerting habit of listening to detailed accounts with her eyes closed. When Vochek finished, Pritchard opened her eyes.

“This man was looking for a woman named Teach. Do you have any idea who she is?”

Vochek shook her head. “But I’m real interested in her.”

“Why?”

“Because he is.”

Pritchard leaned back against the leather. “A statement from Homeland’s going to be issued shortly. We have identified the three Arabs as being part of a new terrorist cell. They attacked the new Austin facility because of scant security.”

“Is that true?”

“Well, I’m told that there’s been increased cell phone chatter to make Homeland and FBI believe that terror organizations are trying to create more cells here. Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, a couple of small but ambitious groups like Sons of the Sword and Blood of Fire. The gunmen might be Lebanese but we don’t have confirmation yet.”

“So why say they’re terrorists until we’re sure?”

“Because we need the cover. Four more people died at a lake house near Austin. Three of them were Arabs as well. If we say it’s a terror cell, then we don’t have to explain in much more detail; the idea of hired guns from Lebanon attacking our office creates more questions, actually, than saying terrorists did it. Because here’s the next problem. This was the fourth corpse.” Pritchard slid a picture toward her. The young guy was bespectacled, skinny, with a bitter expression on his face, unhappy at having his picture taken.

“Who is he?”

“His name was David Shaw. He was a black hat hacker, suspected of breaking into a Department of Defense network. His hacker name was Big Barker. He was awaiting trial when he vanished a year ago.”

“How does he connect with the Arabs?”

“Other than lying dead with them on a floor, I’ve no idea.” Pritchard tented her fingers, put them against her lip.

Vochek tapped Ben’s picture on the paper. “I did not mention him to the police.”

“Ben Forsberg became a falling row of dominoes. The Austin police listened to Kidwell’s recording of Forsberg-the one left in the interrogation room. They know Kidwell suspected him of involvement in the Reynolds murder. Then when Forsberg’s name went out on the wire, the media searched on his name, hit accounts of his wife’s death. The press got ahold of him and he’s the only answer they’ve got.”

“So Ben’s their focal point.”

“Yes, and that’s fine with me.” Pritchard opened a laptop, tapped a few keys. A video began to play-two men running, one clearly injured. “Someone tried to kill your attacker and Ben Forsberg last night in a parking garage off Second Street. Bullet holes all along one wall, blood. We got a solid image of Mr. Nice Guy’s face from the security camera.” Pritchard tapped more keys; the photos blew up, focusing on the men’s faces. One was Ben Forsberg. The other was the big-shouldered man who’d hit her and locked her in the closet and inadvertently saved her life.

“Yes. That’s him.”

“We’ve had facial recognition programs running to see if we can find a match on him.” Pritchard tapped her fingertips together. “Kidwell, poor son of a bitch, he was much closer to striking gold than he knew.” She clicked on another file, conjured another photo on the screen.

In the picture, the man was a decade younger, had brown hair. His old jaw was more pointed and his nose was thicker, more hawkish then. He was plain, neither handsome nor ugly. A face that you wouldn’t remember. But the eyes-the blue eyes that watched her over the barrel of the gun-were the same. Intense. “I think it’s him. He’s had minor surgery, there on the nose and cheeks and chin. Who is he?”

“Randall Choate,” Pritchard said. “He was a top CIA assassin. He massively screwed up a CIA mission in Indonesia ten years ago, got caught. He was jailed near Samarinda, and then died in an escape attempt while crossing the Mahakam River. An Indonesian police captain testified he shot Choate four times in the back.”

“I thought corpses didn’t keep so well in humid climates.”

“The body was never recovered. Police assumed that it was swept down to the Makassar Strait and out to sea.”

“The police captain lied.”

“Clearly bribed,” Pritchard said. “Choate’s the key, Joanna, he’s the smoking gun.” An odd joy tinged Pritchard’s voice-driven by the scent of the prey close at hand, Vochek thought. “He’s been working for someone for ten years, and it’s not the CIA, it’s not any agency. We find him, maybe we find our first real unapproved group inside the government. Our first major success in bringing down the unauthorized, illegal dirty dogs.”

The big prize; this guy could be it. The key to the suspected private CIA, the biggest of the illicit groups. Shivers of anticipation, of fear, of resolve, traveled down Vochek’s spine.

She studied the man’s face. It held no weakness, but last night he had been weak; he should have killed her when he had the chance.

She would bring him down.

Margaret Pritchard closed her laptop. “Your work has never mattered more, Joanna. This is our best chance. I want to feel this group wriggling right under my thumb. Especially if Choate killed Kidwell.” She gave her a half smile. “I’m counting on you to give them to me.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She paused. “He could have killed me, he didn’t; why would he kill Kidwell?”

“Unknown. And we don’t know the relationship between Forsberg, Choate, and these Arabs. Make no assumptions. These people could have all been in league together. These alliances often fracture into bloodshed.”

“And what, Choate and these Arabs kill Kidwell and the contractors and then Choate kills the Arabs?” She shook her head.

“Well, we’ll only find out how they all connect by finding Choate and Forsberg.”

“My cell phone’s gone. I’m assuming that Choate took it and still has it.”

“So here’s a new one. Call them.” She handed Vochek a phone.

Vochek dialed her old number, said after her voice mail greeting, “I’d like my phone back. And to talk. Maybe we can help each other.” She gave her new number and hung up. “They may not turn the phone on so it can’t be traced. What now?”

“You say good-bye to me. I’ve got a private jet ready to take you to Dallas. Adam Reynolds tried to call this Delia Moon woman there four times yesterday, before he died. I’d like to know why. She was in no shape to answer questions when I called her; she didn’t know about Adam’s death. She went into hysterics. I warned her, rather sternly, she was not to speak with the press.” Pritchard glanced out the window; they were turning into the Austin airport, heading toward a section for private planes. “And I want to know if there’s any connection between Ben Forsberg and Nicky Lynch, other than that business card. If Forsberg is working with Choate, there has to be an earlier time in their lives where they intersect. And see what else you can learn about Ben’s life with his wife. She died in Hawaii, but they lived in Dallas. Anything else?”

“Yes. The security guards that died… they worked for Hector Global.”

Pritchard paused for the barest moment. “Yes.”

“Hector Global’s based in Dallas. I should stop by and extend my condolences.”

Pritchard shook her head. “Best to keep a distance. I’m getting massive grief for hiring contractors for security, but when you’re hunting dirty dogs in your own yard, they’re easier to trust.”

“Forsberg said Sam Hector was a major client of his. Hector might be able to give me some insight into Forsberg.”

Pritchard shook her head again. “Sam Hector’s going to be under a press microscope because his people were killed. I don’t want you showing up on his doorstep and creating more questions for the media. Stay out of sight. Focus on what I’ve asked you to do. Hector will provide us information if needed.”

“All right. I feel the need, though, to clear up a problem before you set me loose.” She crossed her arms. “I’m not Kidwell.”

“How so?”

“He was crossing lines with Forsberg. I don’t want to criticize the dead… but he was threatening Forsberg’s family, friends, with arrest. Threatened to destroy his career, get all his contracts canceled.”

“Threats can work wonders. We have a mandate, Joanna. Shut down all illicit covert operations. If I have to bend a few laws to catch the lawbreakers that we normally have little to no chance of catching otherwise, I’m not going to worry about it, and neither should you.” Pritchard put steel in her stare. “You wanted to come to work for me, Joanna, because you were tired of these people doing dirty work and not being held accountable. Don’t complain now.”

It wasn’t an argument she was going to win. “This Choate guy… what will he do to Ben?”

“Depends on how useful Forsberg is.” Pritchard shrugged. “Choate’s been rogue for ten years. I doubt that has inculcated loyalty in him. Forsberg could be dead real soon.” She put on her sunglasses. “Kidwell’s service will be in a few days. I’ll let you know the arrangements. Hopefully our dirty dogs will be brought to heel by then. And call your mom. Give her the new number. I doubt you want her chatting with a man like Choate.”

Pritchard’s small and secretive group of “dirty dog hunters” lay tucked in a back corner of the Homeland Security department. Given their low profile, they were not about to tip a hand by asking the CIA for Randall Choate’s file, if the man in the parking garage photo was the Agency’s not-so-dead former agent. But Pritchard’s worker bees had put together a rushed dossier for Vochek since the face match had been tentatively made, and she studied it in detail as the Homeland jet made the fast flight to Dallas.

Born Randall Thomas Barnes, thirty-six years ago in Little Rock, Arkansas. Randall was his mother’s maiden name, Thomas a grandfather’s name. Father died, drunk behind the wheel when young Randall was age two. Mother moved around taking a variety of secretarial jobs, from Arkansas to West Virginia and finally to Lafayette, Indiana, where her fortunes took a considerable leap upward when she got a job working as a secretary in the foreign languages department at Purdue University. One of the junior professors, Michael Choate, who specialized in Russian literature of the nineteenth century, took an interest in the young widow and her son. Randall soon acquired a stepfather, who eventually adopted him, encouraging the boy to apply his considerable intellect to school. His stepfather also taught him Russian from an early age. Randall double-majored in Russian and history at Purdue, graduating with honors. The file included a scattering of old photos of Randall from the Purdue student paper and yearbook.

Randall was a nondescript boy, pale, but with a strong body and those eyes of certainty, of intensity. In most of the photos, he was alone or standing off from the group. In one photo taken at an intramural football game, his teammates had arms around him; Randall Choate smiled like he’d rather go play the game all on his own. She recognized the smile-same as the one he’d given her after he’d knocked the baton from her hand, one of amused respect.

At the suggestion of a faculty colleague of his stepfather’s who had contacts at the Agency, Randall applied to the CIA and was accepted. And there the file ended, except for the note that he was reported killed while escaping prison in Indonesia four years later. The mission he’d supposedly botched remained classified and the busy bees at Homeland were working to glean more details without directly asking the Agency.

Personal details: His mother and stepfather still lived in Lafayette. His wife Kimberly, daughter Tamara, were all unaware of his status as an assassin. Wife had remarried five years ago, the new stepfather adopted Tamara. History repeating itself. Family told that he had been involved in drug smuggling in Indonesia, died during a prison escape. A nasty story for the disavowed. No evidence of contact of the family by Choate in the intervening years.

Vochek closed the file.

The CIA either knew that Choate was still alive, and his death a decade ago had been a cover story to pull a screwed-up agent out of jail, or they didn’t-in which case it would be easy to ascribe sinister motives as to why Choate faked his own demise.

The plane dipped into the northern stretches of urbanized prairie, and to Vochek’s surprise the runway appeared, stretching along a row of high-end houses, in a square formed by four busy thoroughfares, lined with shopping centers and restaurants.

“What airport is this?” she asked the pilot.

“Plano Air Ranch Park,” he said. “Private air park, with a runway right alongside the homes. Buy a house, get access to the runway, park your plane in your backyard. Got built before Dallas boomed this far. Homeland bought a house here a couple of years back. More private for our comings and goings than flying into Addison or DFW. Ms. Pritchard said you could stay at the house. I got a key for you, and we’ve got an extra car we keep there you can use.” He paused. “I’ve flown a few bad guys out from there, flown ’em to Mexico or the Caymans and I don’t know where they get shipped to after that.” He paused. “Sometimes them bad boys cry during the flight, knowing they don’t know where they’re going.”

“Uncertainty’s not a good feeling,” she said. The plane landed and the pilot drove the plane to the Homeland house, parked it under a covered hangar, and handed her a set of car and house keys.

“Holler at me whenever you’re ready to fly out your bad guy,” the pilot said. “I’m on call.”

“I won’t be bringing back a really bad guy,” she said. “I just have people to question.”

“The day is young.” The pilot smiled. “You never know what you’re gonna find.”