Collusion

One

Two Years Earlier

The jihadist seemed to rise from the underworld. Crawling across the Cameroon terrain when he’d reached them before dawn. Navy SEAL Brett Garrett could see the color of his black eyes. Boko Haram. The missing twentieth fighter whom everyone except for Garrett had believed dead. He’d followed them from the bloodbath in his camp. Patiently waiting, watching them board the helicopter, waiting until liftoff, knowing it was his best chance to maximize deaths.

He shouldered his weapon at the same moment Garrett raised his rifle from his seat inside the open cargo door. Garrett fired and in that same instant saw the rocket-propelled grenade flying at the cockpit.

A bright yellow burst. Instant loss of hearing. Instant concussion. Instant confusion. The machine fell. Its shell smacking into the earth, throwing Garrett free but on fire.

Still conscious enough to roll over, over, and over again. What of the others? He didn’t know. He’d disobeyed a direct order. He was responsible for what was now happening. But he’d done it for the right reasons.

Hadn’t he? Surely, they would understand. He’d wanted to save the children.

Two

Current Day

A shrill alarm pierced the darkness. A hulking figure stepped outside the building into the minus-twelve-degree temperature cradling an unconscious woman in his arms. Roof floodlights illuminated the snow-covered grounds. Svetogorsk, Russia. A facility hidden outside the town in a dense forest.

The man trudged through a foot of snow toward a 1980s-era, rusty Lada parked alongside a half-dozen other tired Soviet-era vehicles. It was a twenty-yard trek to the car. The man almost made it halfway before a thin line of blood trickled down from under the protective mask covering his nose and mouth. His breathing became gasps. Two steps more before he fell to his knees still holding the listless woman. His wife.

He struggled to remain upright; he gazed forward at the parked Lada as if he were picturing himself reaching it. So close. His heart stopped. He fell, covering his wife’s corpse.

The alarm ended but the spotlights continued to shine, causing the snow to glisten. Twinkles of bright and faint ice diamonds.

Two figures. A man and a woman in hazmat suits. Like space travelers, they emerged from the building, following the man’s footsteps to where he and his wife were motionless. Disfigured snow angels.

With thick-gloved hands, the man leaned down. Inspecting the bodies.

“We must incinerate the corpses before we contact Moscow,” he said through a microphone to the woman with him.

“General Gromyko will be angry,” she replied.

“We cannot to be blamed!” the man snapped. “Accidents happen.”

“Accidents? This was no accident.”

“Don’t be a fool. Immediate cremation. For everyone’s protection.”

“They have a child,” she said. “Peter. A mute.”

“The boy is of no consequence to us. General Gromyko will deal with him.”

The woman stared down at the dead couple. “Her father holds a high position in the Foreign Ministry,” the woman said.

“Which is why we must burn these bodies quickly and report their deaths as an accident.”

The man stood, turned his back to her and the dead couple, and began making his way through the snow to the building. The woman hesitated, glanced over her shoulder to be sure he was not watching, and made the sign of the cross.

Her lips moved. A prayer for the dead.

Three

Two years earlier

Elsa Eriksson couldn’t sweat.

Dehydration. The body loses 10 percent of the water it takes in every day through sweat. That’s what the nursing instructors in Sweden had taught her.

Lying in the fetal position on the hard ground, she guessed it was at least a hundred degrees. She’d asked her kidnappers for water, but they wanted her weak, compliant—not dead. She was worthless to them dead. One bottle of water per day—sixteen fluid ounces—handed to her bound wrists for her to lift underneath the loosened black hood slipped over her head.

With her bare feet—they’d taken her shoes—she’d felt the bare ground beneath. Extending them out, she touched the mud walls of what she assumed was an African mud hut. She decided to stand and was met with a sucker punch to her abdomen. She fell back to the floor. Someone was guarding her.

She had no one to blame but herself.

The Nigerian army commander had told her not to leave the compound. Thirteen-foot-tall pieces of corrugated metal—each four feet wide—protected “New Banki City” in this northern province—although it was hardly a city by any definition. Cities had municipal services, order, normality. New Banki was a refugee camp.

Eriksson had been warned before leaving Sweden. Still, she was shocked when she’d first arrived three months ago. Trash-strewn dirt paths, bombed-out concrete buildings, flimsy tents. Inside the camp were children, women, and old men. No males of fighting age. They’d been herded sheeplike into trucks for transport to Nigerian army detention centers. Outside the enclosed compound, Boko Haram was in control. Islamic extremists. Kidnappers. Murderers. Rapists. Suicide bombers in training eager to claim their celestial virgins. She’d entered a human toilet bowl edged by IEDs—a cesspool of disease and death unlike anything she’d witnessed.

The Nigerian commander had confiscated all the medical supplies that she’d brought from her employer, a Swedish humanitarian NGO, and only after her repeated threats to report him to the Swiss and Americans had he returned less than a third of them, selling the rest on a thriving black market. Having a Swedish father and American mother gave her twice the diplomatic clout.

She had stuck out. A too-thin, unmarried, thirty-year-old Christian woman in an ocean of uprooted Muslims. The army soldiers took bets about how long she would stay.

The explosion had come at dusk. An IED tripped by one of two women who’d left the compound at dusk to gather firewood. One had returned staggering. Cuts, bruises, and totally confused. The Nigerian soldiers had smirked. They showed no interest in searching for the other woman.

Eriksson had gone out with a medical bag. A recent Christian convert, Abidemi, which translated to “girl born when father was away,” had accompanied her.

Eriksson, Abidemi, and Jesus wandered in the darkness. Outside the camp, they’d proven easy prey.

Now captive in a Boko Haram hut, Eriksson could hear Abidemi screaming nearby. Fourteen. Unlike the foreign NGO worker, Abidemi was not worth a ransom.

“Please, God, save us,” Eriksson whispered. “Please, send someone, Jesus, someone to save Abidemi and me.”

Four

Current Day

Yakov Prokofyevich Pavel glanced pensively from his upper-floor window at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia, one of Moscow’s seven landmark Stalinist skyscrapers. It was Nikita Khrushchev who’d recalled Stalin’s words: “We won the war… foreigners will come to Moscow, walk around, and there are no skyscrapers. If they compare Moscow to capitalist cities, it’s a moral blow to us.” Stalin had demanded his architects build them. Posturing for the world. Necessary after World War II, even more so now. Stalin had asked for forty stories, but twenty-seven was as high as they could reach in 1953. His builders’ limited skills were a national secret—like so many others. Heavy steel frames with concrete ceilings necessitated a slab foundation that was more than twenty-two feet thick. Even with it, twenty-seven floors was the max. Pavel was on the twenty-sixth with its premium views.

Pavel had been told earlier this morning that General Andre Gromyko was coming. He spotted the general’s jet-black Mercedes-Benz S600 Pullman limousine—a gift from the Russian president—as it turned into the ministry’s circular driveway. When Pavel was a party member, no high-ranking Communist would have risked driving a foreign luxury car. But that was before.

The seventy-two-year-old Pavel remembered the past, unlike the junior diplomats scampering around him. Before the end of the Soviet empire, President Vyachesian Leninovich Kalugin had been considered a mediocre KGB agent at best, not considered particularly bright and with little potential for advancement. How then had such a man seized control?

Like so many of his fellow Russians, Pavel had welcomed the end of the old Soviet Union but had been unprepared for what had followed. A drunk Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin had been swept into power only because of a single courageous act—standing on a Soviet tank defying the KGB’s 1991 aborted August coup. It had been Yeltsin who had first opened the corruption floodgates, permitting the looting of the country’s vast resources, giving birth to both the Russian mafia and money-grubbing oligarchs.

The Americans were not blameless. They had emasculated Russia, stripped it of its pride—declaring themselves the world’s only superpower—creating resentment. Looting Moscow became the new rule for the powerful.

Vyachesian Kalugin had seized the moment, tapped into the centuries of distrust. Fueling the bitterness, he’d taken advantage of a nationalistic wave, a need for restored pride. The old guard had badly underestimated him. The ambition. The ruthlessness behind the grin. His insatiable greed. A Russian Gordon Gekko with a gun. Not a literary symbolic wolf of Wall Street but a genuine wolf trained by the KGB. A bribe or a bullet. What man would refuse to kneel?

The Kremlin was now a kleptocracy. Western intelligence estimated Kalugin’s personal wealth at $80 billion, magically accumulated while being paid less than $200,000 per year on his government salary. Where were the cries of corruption? Where was the demand for an accounting? Critics were jailed or murdered. Others were fellow pigs feasting at the trough. Or, like Pavel, they remained silent.

President Kalugin had chosen a brutal lackey of limited intellect as his closest advisor. General Andre Gromyko’s military rank and chest filled with colorful medals were as fraudulent as his toothy smile and too-firm handshake.

A hurried knock on his office door snapped Pavel to attention. His secretary stepped in.

“The general and his aides have entered the lobby. Should I serve vodka or water with gas?”

“Vodka.” The one constant in Russia.

“Cookies?”

“You decide.”

A look of trepidation fled across her face. She was older and from a generation that remembered the dangers of the simplest, most innocent error. Pavel’s mother had once told him a story about when she had worked for Lavrently Pavlovich Beria, the brutal secret police chief and overseer of gulag labor camps. After the war, she’d been assigned to Beria’s secretarial typing pool. One day he’d entered and asked in his charming voice, “Girls, who typed a letter for me yesterday addressed to our party leader in St. Petersburg?” No one had raised a hand. Silence. “Come, girls,” Beria repeated softly, “I’ve lost my copy of the letter, and there is a small detail I need to recall.” A young typist stood and, when he asked, provided the missing detail.

Pavel’s mother had never forgotten what had happened next. Two men dragged the girl away. Beria’s mood had changed from pleasant to cruel. “You girls are to type letters. You must never read them.”

Brutality. Yet another constant. Another carryover from the past.

“Bring cookies,” Pavel said, moving from the window to his desk. He would not be standing to greet General Gromyko. A Beria still in diapers.

His secretary announced them. Gromyko paraded inside like a peacock with an attractive, much younger woman following him. Pavel glanced up from his desk. Neither offered a welcoming hand. Gromyko sat in a chair facing Pavel. The woman on a stool behind him.

“Yakov Prokofyevich, I’m sorry to report bad news,” the general announced, although his voice and facial expression registered no signs of sorrow. “Your daughter and son-in-law.”

Pavel’s jaw tightened.

“An unfortunate accident. Both are dead.”

Gromyko spoke with the empathy of a babushka dropping a hatchet across a chicken’s neck.

Pavel’s secretary entered with a silver tray that she placed on Pavel’s desk before excusing herself.

“When and where?” Pavel asked.

“They died serving our motherland. There is little else I can tell you. Both were chemists, were they not?”

His question was insulting.

“Honor graduates from MIPT, and both were working for you.”

“Ah yes, the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology,” Gromyko responded. He glanced at the unopened vodka and sugar cookies. Leaning forward from his chair, he helped himself to a cookie. “A decent school, I’ve heard. If I recall, you graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, our Russian Harvard.”

Pavel didn’t reply.

“And yet here I sit,” Gromyko continued, glancing around Pavel’s office. “Your superior—a simple former KGB officer who attended the St. Petersburg Mining University, but for only a brief period. I found school rather unchallenging.”

Again, Pavel remained stone-faced.

Dismissively tossing half the cookie back onto the silver serving tray, Gromyko licked crumbs from his fingers and said, “Shall I assume you had no communication with your daughter and your son-in-law?”

“I was told their work required secrecy,” Pavel said.

“Always the clever diplomat. Your reply does not answer my question. When was the last time you spoke to your daughter?”

“I have not been in communication with her since she and her husband began working for you.”

“Come now, you’re a widower. Your only family is your daughter, her husband, and your grandson—Peter, isn’t that correct?—and not a word from any of them in two years?”

“It is a price we willingly pay for the benefit of all, is it not?” Pavel said.

Gromyko let out a short sigh. “Again, the answer of a diplomat. Yakov Prokofyevich, both of us know rules can be bent, especially for someone such as you, a high-ranking, senior diplomat.”

Momentary mutual stares.

“General Gromyko,” Pavel said, “I assume you have made arrangements for my grandson to be brought to Moscow to live with me. When should I expect him?”

“Tomorrow. I will have a car bring him to your office.”

“And the remains?”

“Cremated. If you like, your grandson can bring them with him.”

Awkward silence.

“General Gromyko,” Pavel said, “is there more we need to discuss? I have a meeting, a matter of great urgency to the ministry, and I am late.”

“A meeting, but my dear Yakov Prokofyevich, you should be in mourning. Do you not wish to take a day off?”

His voice was taunting.

“The work of the state continues,” Pavel said.

“I will not think about leaving until after we have a toast in memory to your daughter and her husband. It is the only decent thing to do.”

He motioned to his female aide, who summoned Pavel’s much older secretary. The elderly woman opened the vodka with shaky fingers, pouring two shot glasses.

“Your girl here is like a frightened rabbit,” Gromyko noted. “I can send you a replacement, one of my prettier assistants, even this one. She would be a compliant and an eager companion now that you have lost your wife.”

Pavel glanced behind Gromyko at the young woman standing behind the general. Her face was blank, betraying nothing. Empty eyes.

“Thank you, General, but my secretary has served me well for many years.” Pavel nodded toward the door, and the older woman hurriedly excused herself.

“As you wish,” Gromyko said, raising a shot glass. “I am so sorry for the bird.”

Gromyko’s words were a reference to a 1960s Russian comedy The Caucasian Prisoner, a tale about a flock of birds headed south for the winter. One small, proud bird broke away and flew straight for the sun. It burned its wings and fell to the bottom of a deep gorge. In the story, the narrator said, “Let us drink to this: let not a single one of us ever break away from the collective, no matter how high he flies!” At that point, one of his friends had begun sobbing. “What is it, my friend?” his host had asked. The friend had said, “I’m so sorry for the bird!”

Old Soviet humor didn’t always travel well outside its borders, but among Russians, it was a well-known toast used to break tension. A poor choice, however, offered in memory of the dead.

Pavel drank his vodka.

“Yakov Prokofyevich,” Gromyko continued, “the days of the collective are gone, but the Kremlin remains a flock of birds soaring together. It still is dangerous for a single bird to break away from those leading the flock. To risk having their wings burnt. You are from the past. Your ways of thinking are from the past. This is no fault of your own. All men reach a point of uselessness in their lives. It is time for you to reap the rewards of your many years of service, especially now that your grandson will need your full attention. I have discussed this with our president, and we believe it would be best for you to consider retirement.”

“Does the president intend to fire me?”

“The president simply said—after the loss of your daughter and son-in-law—you might wish to retire. It was my recommendation to him.”

“Good day, General,” Pavel said, placing his shot glass on the serving tray.

“Good day, Yakov Prokofyevich, and please think about what I have just said.”

Five

Two Years Earlier

The specially outfitted Lockheed C-130 four-turboprop aircraft cruising above Africa had been made quieter than standard U.S. military planes. Inside, Petty Officer 3rd Class Richard Stone elbowed Chief Petty Officer Brett Garrett was seated next to him.

“My old man told a joke at the Pentagon the other night,” Stone said.

All fourteen of the Navy SEALs inside the C-130’s bowels were keenly aware that Stone’s father—Cormac Stone—was a U.S. senator from California. All could hear the younger Stone talking through their linked headsets.

“My father tells these generals that a new Army recruit lost his M-4, so the Pentagon charged him six hundred and fifty dollars to buy a new one. Then my father says, ‘That’s why in the Navy, the captain always goes down with the ship.’”

A few SEALs groaned.

“Hey, it’s an old joke,” Stone said, defensively, “and I know it sucked.”

“But every general laughed, didn’t they?” Garrett replied.

Stone nodded his head, “You bet they did.”

“Hey, Senator,” which was Stone’s nickname for obvious reasons, “here’s a joke for your old man to tell the next time he gives the brass a speech at the Pentagon.” It was Malcolm Moss, aka Sweet Tooth, a play on his M&M initials. “It’s about a Navy chief.”

Everyone looked at Garrett. “Go ahead,” he said.

Brett Garrett had made chief petty officer in fourteen years. That was normal. What wasn’t was his age. Thirty-two. That was young.

“You got ten guys clinging on to a rope dangling from a helo,” Sweet Tooth began.

“What kind of helo?” a fellow SEAL, nicknamed Bear, interrupted.

“What? It don’t matter what kind it was,” Sweet Tooth replied indignantly.

“’Course it does,” Bear responded. “If you got ten guys hanging on a rope from a helo, it sure as hell matters what sort of helo it was.”

“It’s a joke,” Sweet Tooth said. “Now shut up and let me tell it.”

“Go ahead, but it would matter.”

“Point taken,” Garrett said, ending their argument. “Go ahead. Finish your joke.”

“Okay, this rope—it’s bound to break unless someone lets go. The guy who lets go is going to fall and certainly die. So, these ten guys are holding on for their lives, and they begin arguing about who should be the one to drop off. Finally, the chief says he’ll do it because chiefs are used to doing everything for the Navy. They never see their families, work all those hours—all without getting nothing in return.”

“Suck up,” Bear said.

“Shut the hell up,” Sweet Tooth snapped. “Now, this chief decides to give a little farewell speech before he lets go. I mean, he’s earned the right to say his final words. He talks about his great love of country, the importance of sacrifice, and his complete devotion to his men, and when he finishes, why, the other nine guys hanging there, they are so moved, so emotional, they all begin clapping.”

Sweet Tooth broke out laughing. Even Garrett smiled.

“I don’t get it,” Bear said.

“The other nine started clapping, stupid,” Sweet Tooth explained. “That means they let go of the rope. Only the chief kept hanging on to it. That’s why the chief is a chief, and you’re just another E-4.”

“What kind of helo was it?” Bear asked, goading him.

“Enough,” Garrett said. “Get focused.”

Before he’d become a chief petty officer, Garrett’s nickname had been Hillbilly, a reference and insult to his Arkansas roots. He hated it, but no one picked their own nicknames during SEAL training. An instructor had tagged him when he’d been doing push-ups in the rain and mud in a courtyard called “the Grinder.”

Garrett didn’t particularly like having a U.S. senator’s son on his team—even though Richard Stone had never sought special treatment and Garrett wouldn’t have given him any. If anything, the opposite was true. Senator had assumed everyone knew. His father was constantly on the news. One of the country’s most outspoken liberals. That being the situation, Richard Stone—the SEAL—had talked openly about his dad from the start and had done everything to prove he wasn’t riding on his old man’s coattails. Did more than what was expected—and those expectations were already too high for most.

Garrett eyeballed his crew, silently checking their gear, searching each man’s face for tells. Was Senator different from the rest of them? Yes and no. Every SEAL had a personal reason for becoming one. Including Garrett. But this was Senator’s first mission. Being an overachiever in training was impressive. It might not carry over in combat, though.

Garrett pushed his worries from his head. Only four things mattered. His men needed to follow his orders. Each needed to complete his assigned task. Each needed to be willing to die for the man next to him. And all of them needed to trust Garrett. He was their chief. His job title didn’t include being their father, confessor, or shrink, even though he’d played all those roles at different times. It did require him to be one of them, yet not one of them. The “goat locker.” That’s what the Navy called it. He ate when they ate, drank when they drank, fought when they fought, died when they died. That’s what petty chiefs did. But Garrett was ultimately responsible for their lives.

“We’ve entered Cameroon airspace,” the pilot said. “Prepare for drop.”

Boko Haram had underestimated U.S. technology. The kidnappers had used Elsa Eriksson’s cell phone to call her boss in Sweden: $25 million ransom or body parts in the mail. The terrorist had switched off Eriksson’s cell phone, but not discarded it. A critical error. Boko Haram hadn’t been aware of “the Find,” a sophisticated NSA-enhanced satellite locator device capable of tracking a cell phone even after it has been switched off.

A surveillance drone had been dispatched. Photos of a permanent camp. Eight primitive mud huts. At least twenty male terrorists. Easy to count because of their morning prayers, all on their knees facing Mecca, Kalashnikovs next to prayer mats. Eriksson was in a hut designated by the CIA as Alpha-1. Jumping in three klicks away. That’s 3.1 miles of hiking at night. Garrett’s orders: snatch the Swedish-American humanitarian worker in the morning darkness. Limit full engagement. Cameroon’s northern leaders had elected to allow the terrorists to operate without much interference. Why rattle that cage? In and out.

Rescue operations were the only type of military assignment dependent on complete surprise. That’s what Garrett had read in a SEAL School training manual—Gazit, 1980, pages 118–22. Garrett wasn’t certain why that reference had stuck permanently in his head, but it had. If alerted, a terrorist could kill a hostage. It took only seconds to pull a trigger, detonate a bomb. Dealing with Boko Haram was dicier than most kidnappers. Jihadists had nothing to lose. That gave them an edge. Set off a suicide vest. Kill yourself and hostages. Virgins and eternal glory were assured.

The most difficult task Garrett faced was assuring his team they were invincible. It mattered. No one was going to die today. The slightest doubt jeopardized the mission and their fellow SEALs.

Focus. It was time. Out the door. Falling. Everyone landing, everyone assembling, everyone hurrying toward the Boko Haram camp where Elsa Eriksson was being held hostage.

Six

Current Day

A casual look backward at the chase car on Sikorsky Street caused U.S. ambassador Stanford Thorpe to pause before he slid into the leather seat of the embassy’s armored Cadillac.

Thorpe prided himself on remembering faces and names. A key to his successful diplomatic career.

“What the hell is that former Navy SEAL doing in my protection detail?” he demanded.

“Brett Garrett is a private contractor now,” John Harper, the U.S. chief of mission in Kiev, replied. “Where better to bury someone than in Ukraine?” He chuckled.

Thorpe wasn’t amused. “After that screwup in Cameroon, he’s toxic. Private contractor or not. Get rid of him.”

“He’s on a short leash.”

“It should be a noose.”

“Sending him home won’t be easy. An ex-Navy pal owns the company with the security contract.”

“You don’t get paid to do easy. Call Washington. Throw your weight around. I want Garrett on a plane out of here tomorrow.”

The three-car caravan entered Mykhaliv Square in central Kiev, arriving outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. By the time they stepped onto the sidewalk, Harper was on his cell phone ordering the regional security officer to keep Garrett and the other five private security guards outside with their vehicles. Only the two-person State Department protection detail assigned to Ambassador Thorpe would enter the building.

From the chase car passenger seat, Brett Garrett watched as invited dignitaries and news reporters quick-stepped into the six-story Ukraine Foreign Ministry with its five-Roman-column façade—a communist-era building commemorating the defeat of the Nazis in World War II. Now it was the communists who had fled.

Patience. He looked at the security guard in the driver’s seat next to him. Donald J. Marks. He was a habitual smoker. Give him a few more moments. He’ll leave the chase car.

“Screw this sitting here,” Marks said as if on cue. “I’m grabbing a smoke.”

Mental telepathy? No, Garrett understood addictions. As soon as Marks lit up outside, Garrett removed two thin rectangles from a prescription packet in his jacket. Both went under his tongue. Instant relief.

Inside the grand ballroom, Ambassador Thorpe greeted other diplomats as he walked to the portable stage raised some two feet above a white marble floor. John Harper settled into a reserved front-row seat to watch his boss. U.S. and Ukrainian flags were positioned at each corner of the raised platform. Thorpe’s two State Department bodyguards stood like bookends near the podium. Sunglasses worn indoors. Military haircuts. Flesh-colored earpieces. Jackets unbuttoned.

“I’m proud to announce that our two great nations have reached a new level of cooperation under the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences Program, which allows Ukrainian exporters and U.S. importers to take advantage of duty-free treatment for nearly four thousand products from Ukraine,” Ukraine’s foreign minister announced, officially starting the news conference.

From the stage, Thorpe half listened, scanning the crowd for a pleasing face, possibly a redhead this time, someone half his fifty-nine years, someone in awe of his position or perhaps seeking a special favor. Impeccably dressed and coiffed, he was ending his sixth year in Kiev, twice the average posting for a career diplomat and, in his mind, an obvious sign of his importance. No president or secretary of state would dare to dole out such a strategic ambassadorship as a political plum—not with the ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine against Russia-backed insurgents. No, Ambassador Stanford Thorpe was special. Educated at Groton, the private Episcopal preparatory boarding school that had graduated Franklin D. Roosevelt. On to Harvard College, the guaranteed entryway into the State Department. Ambassador Thorpe fit the decades-old stereotype of an anglophile statesman, and he was proud of it.

His comments today would be brief, delivered with measured enthusiasm, but with little actual meat that could bind him or the United States to any legal commitments beyond handshake promises. Then off to a leisurely lunch, hopefully with the twenty-something whom he’d just spotted seated in the second row, wearing a bit too much red lipstick and too short of a cheap wool skirt. Definitely Eastern European. Yes, he would mention her to John Harper. Have him extend a personal invitation to a private lunch with the ambassador. But only after Ukraine’s foreign minister finished publicly kissing up to the United States. Finally, Thorpe’s turn. He rose slowly. Dignified. Buttoned his jacket. Shook the Ukrainian minister’s hand while posing for obligatory photographs and finally stepped behind the oak podium.

“Good morning, my distinguished friends,” he said, smiling, glancing again at the redhead.

The main doors at the back of the rectangular ballroom flew open. Looking directly down the aisle between rows of seats, Thorpe saw it all. Three figures. Ski masks. Kalashnikovs. Their gun barrels aimed toward the stage.

With a burst rate of a hundred rounds per minute, the bullets slammed into the wooden podium and swept across the stage, hitting both Thorpe and Ukraine’s foreign minister.

Screams. Panic. A State Department bodyguard drew his Glock 19. The other, a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun from inside his jacket. In the mayhem, both aimed at the same attacker, leaving the other two free to continue shooting.

The assailants had assumed the bodyguards would be wearing bullet-resistant vests. Head shots for a kill. The exchange ended quickly. The State Department detail critically wounded one assailant, who collapsed at the rear of the room onto the polished floor. Both Americans fell where they stood. Chief of Mission Harper lunged from his seat, bravely intending to throw himself atop Ambassador Thorpe. Bullets struck his back, killing him before he could reach the platform.

One of the masked terrorists fired indiscriminately into the panicked crowd. Two hundred attendees fighting to exit through a single side exit. The other terrorist helped his wounded comrade stand.

Brett Garrett entered the grand ballroom at the same moment the three assailants were about to exit through an unmarked side door directly opposite him that had been overlooked by attendees trying to escape. The first attacker ducked through it out of sight while Garrett raised his SIG Sauer P226 pistol. People hurrying by him blocked his view. He shifted to his left, finding a momentary gap, and squeezed off two rounds. His first missed, striking the door’s molding near the two attackers. His second round hit the intruder helping his already wounded companion walk. Garrett’s bullet pierced the assailant’s right arm, forcing him to drop his buddy. He bolted through the open doorway to save himself. The attacker left behind was now motionless on the floor.

By now, Garrett’s fellow private security guards had joined him. Two dashed across the ballroom in pursuit of the fleeing shooters. Garrett hurried onto the stage.

Vanity had kept Ambassador Thorpe from wearing the bulky protective vests that the State Department had made available, but the seasoned diplomat was no fool. Before arriving in Kiev, he’d flown to South America for a private fitting by the famous “Armored Armani,” who hand-made bullet-resistant clothing for Latin American presidents and American entertainers, mostly gangster rappers. Thorpe had ordered a half-dozen suits, nearly indistinguishable from those tailored on London’s Savile Row. His protective wear had blocked several of the 7.62x39 mm rounds, but the fabric had not stopped all of them. Three had penetrated the protective weave. One was now next to his heart. The ambassador was conscious but bleeding out.

Garrett had been with wounded men who were dying. He understood what Ambassador Thorpe was thinking. Surprise mixed with shock and anger. This was not supposed to be happening, not to him.

Through pleading eyes, Ambassador Thorpe stared at Brett Garrett kneeling over him. His final sight of a man whom he’d wanted sent away.

“My jacket,” Thorpe whispered.

Garrett reached inside.

“No. Other side,” Thorpe cajoled, coughing up blood.

Garrett removed a computer flash drive.

“The president,” Thorpe said. “Promise me.”

“A password?” Garrett asked. “Is there a password?”

There was no response. Ambassador Stanford Thorpe was dead.

Seven

Valerie Mayberry stepped off the Washington & Old Dominion Trail, which once had been a railroad track. A 1960s urban planner had decided that converting the right of way into a walking, biking, and running course would be a better use. Fast-forward fifty years. Local municipalities were spending millions constructing an aboveground subway line less than a mile away. Why hadn’t bureaucrats thought ahead? They could have used the original train path for the subway line. Mayberry noticed such things.

Her ultralight running shoes left prints on the January-morning frost covering the swath of dried grass and weeds that separated the trail from the high-density Reston, Virginia, Town Center complex, some twenty-two miles east of Washington, D.C. Entering Explorer Street, she jogged by PassionFish—all one word—a Millennial hotspot eatery tucked among the mix of high-rise offices and condos.

Mayberry cared about history.

Some people heard music playing in their heads. A looping tune. Mayberry retained an unending tsunami of facts, most only found useful at trivia nights. Founded in 1964, Reston was the brainchild of Robert E. Simon Jr., who sold New York’s Carnegie Hall to afford his vision of an urban utopia on 6,750 acres of farmland. Without restrictions based on race or income, he plotted a city composed of cozy villages each with lower- and middle-class and higher-end homes built together. Promising on paper, but troubled in reality. The nature paths turned dangerous to walk after dusk. The less expensive neighborhoods had become more expensive. Poorer families had been pushed into neighboring Herndon. That village was named after a Virginia naval officer who went down with his ship during a hurricane off the coast of Cape Hatteras.

A photographic memory and Adderall. A combination of four salts of the two enantiomers of amphetamine, a nervous system stimulant of the phenethylamine class. It helped her focus—although taking brain-enhancing drugs was generally not something the Federal Bureau of Investigation looked on favorably.

Mayberry’s six-mile morning run had lifted her mood. Self-generated endorphins. She needed them. Each morning she awoke sad. Technically, it was called “persistent complex bereavement disorder,” although psychiatrists couldn’t agree whether it was a legitimate mental illness, stating only in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that it was “under study” for possible later inclusion. She called it missing Noah. He had accepted her ADHD. She had accepted his constant need to save the world, right wrongs, and fight injustices. Her pragmatism versus his idealism. They had been a good fit.

Pit-pat, pit-pat—the sound of her shoes hitting the sidewalk slowed to a walk as she entered the Midtown, Reston’s most exclusive condo building. Monthly HOA fees ran as high as many nearby house mortgages. Shiny ornate lobby. Valet parking. Doorman. Swimming pool. Owner’s gym. Big-screen-television party area. The works, including views of the Blue Ridge Mountains from her sixteenth-floor unit.

“Good morning, Mrs. Williams,” a perky recent community college grad with cascading blond hair and perfectly polished teeth chirped from behind the lobby’s front desk.

Williams had been Noah’s surname. She’d not legally changed hers from Mayberry after they’d married, but she was identified on the condo’s register of residents as Williams. It had made Noah happy and provided her with a thin veil of security if someone snooped into her professional life as an FBI agent. She still wore her wedding ring, although that had nothing to do with hiding her identity. There was something definite about taking it off—a final admission—that she wasn’t yet ready to make.

“Good morning, Summer,” Mayberry replied, silently wondering what kinds of parents name children after seasons.

Her cell phone rang while she was in the shower thinking of Noah.

Her wet feet hit the bathroom’s heated tile floor. “This is Valerie.”

It was her counterintelligence boss, Sally North.

An assassination. Kiev. Ambassador Thorpe dead.

“There’s a briefing at nine,” North explained. “The director will attend. Be on your best behavior. Think before you speak.”

Mayberry dressed quickly. A burgundy structured blazer over a long-sleeve white J.Crew blouse with horizontal stripes and Paige Denim ankle-peg skinny stretch jeans, set off with a chunky gold necklace and black Ralph Lauren short heels. Her mother had been a stickler for style. She died without owning a pair of sweatpants or an article with a sports logo.

The mirror reminded Mayberry of her condition. Down exactly 17.2 pounds since Noah’s death. An old copy of Ultimate Jogging magazine she’d read noted that world-class athletes weighed two pounds per inch. She was under that now, under what a five-foot, six-inch world-class runner should weigh. A dusting of makeup and downstairs to the underground parking garage to her silver Jaguar F-type R coupe; 550 horses. Zero to sixty in 3.9 seconds. The sound of the exhaust alone was worth its hundred-grand-plus price tag. Like cannon fire. A luxury she’d bought after Noah’s death. He would have disapproved.

When CIA traitor Aldrich Hazen Ames had been caught spying for the Russians, the agency had been heavily criticized because no one at Langley had asked how a CIA employee could afford to pay cash for what was then a fifty-thousand-dollar Jaguar coupe—equal to his annual salary. The only eyebrows that her Jaguar had raised were jealous ones. Everyone in the FBI knew she had a trust fund. Word of such things spread quickly.

It took an hour to reach FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. Congress had been arguing for decades about where to move the bureau. The 1975 building was crumbling. Fabric nets strung outside some upper floors had been installed to catch falling pieces. It had been an eyesore from the start. A gaping hole where a second floor should be. That was intentional to keep protestors from using ladders to break into the oddly shaped structure. An empty moat along one side. Again, designed to limit entry by demonstrators. It had been the late 1960s when the design was accepted. Rioting students. Vietnam. J. Edgar Hoover had been paranoid. No offices or windows on the street level. Instead, thick concrete support slabs. A courtyard. Rumor was Hoover had wanted spikes installed in the trees planted outside to keep them from being climbed.

Mayberry entered the director’s conference room ten minutes before 9:00 a.m. Breakfast snacks. A clear signal that FBI director Archibald Davidson—Mack to his friends—would be attending. She didn’t bother with any coffee, tea, or pastries.

She was the only woman present until Sally Norton entered precisely at nine accompanied by Davidson. He was old-school. Former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. A political appointee but he knew his stuff. Gruff. Spit and polish. A lifelong law-and-order type.

“We believe Ambassador Thorpe was the main target in Kiev,” North announced while nodding at a large monitor. Everyone’s eyes followed hers.

“When the shooting began, the television news crews filming the press conference ran for the exits,” she said. Smirks by some listening to her. “This video is from permanent security cameras mounted in the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry’s ceiling. Their government has asked for our forensic help.”

The monitor split into four screens, each a different vantage point. Ambassador Thorpe could be seen poised behind the podium on one screen while three intruders shown on another burst into the ballroom.

Mayberry’s eyes darted between images. Thorpe and Ukraine’s minister hit by gunfire. Chief of Mission John Harper and two State Department bodyguards falling dead. Scrambling attendees. More gunfire. Three assailants hurrying toward a side door. One assisting another. Clearly wounded. An armed man appearing on the opposite side of the ballroom. Two pistol shots. One miss. The other causing the attacker holding his buddy to drop the injured assailant on the floor. Two escape. More security guards arrive. One makes his way to the stage, kneels above Ambassador Thorpe. The camera showed his face. Wait. Mayberry recognized him. Brett Garrett. His photo had been on every television network newscast during a Senate inquiry into Cameroon. A botched mission. A senator’s son killed. Garrett was responsible. What was the former SEAL doing at a Ukraine press conference?

The monitors went dark.

Mayberry scanned her fellow agents in the briefing. Surely they had recognized Garrett, too. She had questions but remembered North’s warning. No one dared interrupt Sally North during a briefing—unless it was the director. They were there only to listen, not question or comment. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. George Orwell and federal protocol.

Stay focused. Don’t let your mind wander.

North continued: “The most logical suspects are Donetsk-based separatists being backed by the Kremlin. This has President Kalugin and General Gromyko’s fingerprints all over it, but, so far, no direct links. Our best clue is the left-behind shooter.”

Photos of a dead frozen face now appeared on the monitors. “INTERPOL identified him as a French national. Gabriel de Depardieu, whose address is a flat in Paris’s Latin Quarter. Neither our people nor the DGSE has any records about him. No known ties to Russia or the separatists. Nothing on Facebook or social media. The French are leading the deep probe since he was one of their own.”

A new face appeared. “French authorities have identified this American as someone of interest. Aysan Rivera, a twenty-six-year-old from Baltimore. Her name surfaced when the police were questioning Gabriel de Depardieu’s landlord. Rivera and De Depardieu shared the same apartment for about a year. She stopped coming there six months ago when the landlord began hassling them for more money because De Depardieu was only paying for one tenant. The landlord knew her name because Rivera occasionally received mail from her family at De Depardieu’s flat.”

Director Davidson grunted. “Ms. Rivera has no interest in being cooperative,” he said.

North continued, “Agents from our Baltimore field office paid her a visit. As soon as they mentioned Gabriel de Depardieu’s name, she handed them her father’s business card.”

Another photo appeared on the monitor. A distinguished-looking fifty-something male posing with a similarly aged, striking woman. Both dressed in black-tie evening wear. “Rivera’s father, Gregory Rivera, is an international lawyer and president of the American branch of a Turkish shipping company headquartered in Baltimore. His wife, Sirin Nadi Rivera, is the sister of the second-richest businessman in Turkey and a close friend of the Turkish president. Neither of them or any of their four children have criminal records. No ties to terrorists or Moscow.”

Director Davidson again jumped in. “Sirin Rivera called the Turkish ambassador after our agents showed up. The ambassador called the State Department and the White House to complain. Both called me. The Turkish ambassador is insisting we leave Aysan Rivera and her family alone. The family claims Rivera has not seen De Depardieu in the past six months. A mere college acquaintance.”

North continued: “Aysan Rivera reportedly met Gabriel de Depardieu at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. For those unfamiliar with the ENS, it is the highest-ranked university in France and ranked among the top fifty universities in the world. It’s within walking distance from Depardieu’s flat. Rivera graduated last spring with a degree in philosophy. Since returning to Baltimore, she’s lived in the Four Seasons condo building at Harbor East, overlooking Baltimore Harbor. Condos there sell for an average of a thousand dollars per square foot.”

A few under-the-breath but audible whews.

“To summarize,” Director Davidson said, “we have a twenty-six-year-old woman from an incredibly wealthy family with strong political connections. She has no history of criminal activity and neither she nor her family has any interest in being questioned about her dead French terrorist ‘acquaintance.’” He stood. “The family already has hired a team of Washington lawyers to prevent us from interviewing Aysan Rivera. I have a meeting with the attorney general. Sally will take the point on the agency’s role in the ongoing Kiev investigation.”

North spoke for a few minutes after Davidson was gone, then asked Mayberry to stay behind while everyone else left.

“Valerie, I want you to go after Aysan Rivera. Be discreet.”

“What’s that mean, exactly?”

“Undercover. Befriend her. You’re rich. She’s rich. You just happen to bump into her. Off the books. A convenient coincidence. Get her to talk about De Depardieu.”

“Rich families do background checks when someone suddenly pops up in their social circle, especially when their daughter is under suspicion of bedding a terrorist.”

“Your family is well known. You’re legit. You can walk the walk.”

Mayberry was quiet for a moment. “What was Brett Garrett doing in Kiev?”

“You recognized him.”

“Anyone who didn’t should be fired. Is Garrett working for the agency or was he there as an actual security guard?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” North said. “He’s scheduled to land here later today. See what you can get out of him about the Kiev shooting. Human intel is always better than security footage.”

Eight

With his right hand, Brett Garrett gently ran his fingers across his left side, moving downward under his armpit to his hip. Even through his plaid flannel shirt, he could feel the bumpy scars. Was there anything more painful than being burned? In the old days, medics had jabbed a shot of morphine into a wounded soldier. In 2011, the military began using a new wonder drug. “The lollipop.” Such an innocent name. Medically OTFC. An acronym for oral transmucosal fentanyl citrate, 400 micrograms on a white stick that indeed was a lollipop.

“The fentanyl lollipop offers our medics a faster way to ease the pain of a battlefield injury because the drug can be absorbed more rapidly through a lozenge in the mouth than from a needle injected into a muscle,” the Pentagon announced.

Apparently, no one had paid attention to its key ingredient: fentanyl. Only after the national opioid epidemic erupted had that drug become familiar to the public.

He turned uncomfortably in the narrow seat of the KLM Airbus A330 about to touch down at Dulles International Airport, west of downtown Washington, D.C. He’d never been afraid of dying. What was the phrase? Some run away, while others run forward. He’d not been afraid when Senator Cormac Stone had ordered him to appear before Congress for a predetermined public humiliation about Cameroon. But the intense, physical craving, the constant need for painkillers, that had broken him.

Garrett unbuckled his seat belt so he could reach into the front right pocket of his denim jeans while sitting and withdraw his prescription. Two thin pieces of film quickly tucked under the tongue. Not fentanyl. Suboxone. The bitch’s twin. The unintentional addict’s pharmacological best friend. Buprenorphine and naloxone. It was supposed to offer salvation for the opioid addiction created during his months of hospitalization at Walter Reed Medical Center for treatment of burns and bullet wounds. The bullet holes had healed, and so had the burned skin. But his need for powerful painkillers had lingered. Suboxone was his best shot at getting clean, but he was still weaning and privately unsure if the cravings would ever end. It had started with a medic sticking a cute lollipop into his mouth while being airlifted out of Cameroon.

Relief.

Garrett always traveled light. Everything he needed, with one exception, was inside the backpack stored in the aircraft’s overhead bin above him. His SIG Sauer P226 pistol was the exception. Most others had switched to Glock 19s, but the SIG had been a gift from Garrett’s Navy SEAL instructor, a master chief petty officer—the same one who had given him the hated nickname Hillbilly. It had been the instructor’s last SEAL class. Retirement. The SIG had been his combat weapon. Handed down with much respect. Garrett preferred a weapon that had already drawn blood. A buddy who flew military transport planes to Joint Air Base Andrews had promised to deliver it stateside. Garrett was traveling commercial. Too much hassle to explain it.

Garrett was coming home, but he didn’t think of it like that. More like returning to a base camp. He’d bought a one-bedroom condo in Rosslyn not far from a metro stop. Two suits, one black, one gray, both off-the-rack, hung in its closet. Five collared shirts—three whites, two light blue. One tie. Red. Running gear, several pairs of denim jeans, T-shirts, boxers, and military fatigues. No car, but he owned a Norton Commando Interpol motorcycle—made in 1975 by the Brits for police use only. He’d recovered it from a barn in Belgium and personally rebuilt it. His daddy had taught him about engines and motorcycles, just like his daddy had taught him about shooting.

The Norton helped him unwind. When Garrett couldn’t sleep, when the memories, second-guessing, and cravings became too much, he’d ride west at night along Highway 50 until he reached the right turn just outside Aldie, Virginia, onto the Snickersville Turnpike—although calling that winding bit of unmarked asphalt a turnpike was a grand embellishment. The two-way weaved through scenic Virginia hills that took travelers across a 180-plus-year-old stone bridge that enemies Robert E. Lee and “Fighting Joe” Hooker had both crossed at times. It wasn’t Civil War history that called him. In a vanishing countryside being overrun with subdivided tract houses, Snickersville was one of the last rural stretches still defined by waist-high stone walls and pastures. There were no stoplights. As he leaned into the curves, the Norton’s headlight would cast its beam only twenty yards into the curving blackness. Glowing eyes. A scampering raccoon. A fear-frozen deer. No time to react. No time for error. That was when the music started, as his favorite author, Hunter S. Thompson, had described it. The dance with fate. Pushing life to its edge. A patch of sand. A greasy spot. The slightest miscalculation. Catastrophe. Was he suicidal? No, it was a way for him to become completely focused. To drive out the distracting demons. The second-guessing that never ended. Some nights Garrett couldn’t say. Maybe it was suicidal. All he knew was he could sleep soundly after those late-night runs. He could momentarily forget the brown tabs now dissolving under his tongue and the dishonorable-discharge papers that he kept at the bottom of a foot locker in his condo closet.

Besides the Norton, Garrett’s other prized possessions were tools of his craft. A stainless-steel, nearly indestructible watch fitted on his wrist with a compass and altimeter and water resistant to a thousand feet. Behind a false closet wall in his condo, sixteen high-quality firearms, ranging from a modified M79 40 mm grenade launcher to a sniper’s Mark 12 Mod 0/1 Special Purpose Rifle to a semicompact polymer Jericho 941 semi-auto pistol—a gift from a Mossad officer. He also owned a Glock 19, just because.

“Coming home?” the woman next to him asked as the KLM’s wheels touched down on the Dulles runway. Garrett guessed she was eighty, with gray hair coiled tightly into a bun.

“No,” he replied in a kind voice. “I’m from Arkansas.” It wasn’t a lie, although he’d not lived in that state since graduating from high school. The DMV—shorthand for the District, Maryland, and Virginia metro area—was considered a stopover for many who lived there—even those who’d spent decades in Washington.

“Arkansas,” the woman repeated with a wrinkled smile. “I have a niece who lives in Fayetteville.”

“Tusk. The Big Red,” he replied.

A confused look.

“University of Arkansas. School mascots. Razorbacks.”

“Oh,” the woman replied, “no, my niece moved there. She graduated from Black Hills State up in South Dakota.”

“Then she’s a Yellow Jacket.”

“You certainly know your college mascots.”

Garrett’s father had been a high school baseball coach who’d dreamed of moving up to the college level from his Genoa High School team—the Dragons. East of Texarkana, off Highway 196. His old man had started grooming him as a pitcher as soon as Garrett was old enough to hold a baseball. Pressuring him, making him spend hours practicing, convinced his boy would make the pros. In high school, he’d held the record for an Arkansas high school kid throwing the fastest pitch ever—nearly a hundred miles per hour. His mother had been quiet, a librarian. Both killed when his inebriated father had plowed their car into a tree late one Friday night. Garrett was out with friends, having just graduated from high school. He’d not thrown a baseball since then. Nor had he gone back to Arkansas. Now he was an addict. Just like his old man.

“It was nice speaking to you,” the older passenger said as she maneuvered herself into the aisle to deplane.

Garrett spotted the four of them waiting in the terminal as soon as he exited the gangway. Who but federal agents could greet an international passenger prior to Customs and Immigration?

One was wearing a blue Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) shirt; two others wore coats and ties, and the lone woman a gray pantsuit. She flashed a U.S. State Department credential as he approached; the tallest man showed an FBI badge, the third simply said he was “Ted,” a tipoff that he was CIA. The TSA worker was merely an escort whose name was of no consequence.

“We’ve come for the flash drive,” Ted said, thrusting an open palm out like a neighborhood bully demanding another child’s Halloween candy. His curtness irked Garrett. As a SEAL, he’d learned to study faces, interpret voices, spot tells like tea leaves in the bottom of a cup read by a fortune-teller. Garrett looked at Ted and saw contempt in his eyes. Judgment. Cameroon. But more. Ted was selling wolf tickets, talking tough without the cojones to stand his mud. A desk jockey.

“Back off,” Garrett said. “Thorpe asked me to give it directly to the president.”

Ted smirked.

“We understand,” the State Department woman said, playing conciliatory. “That’s what you said in Kiev after you first reported receiving it and then refused to turn it over. But you are here now, and we’d like to have it.”

“Get real, Garrett,” Ted said. “The president isn’t going to meet someone like you. Now, hand it over.”

Maybe it was a lack of sleep. Maybe it was the Suboxone. But it probably was Ted’s attitude.

“I think I’ll hold on to it. You don’t look like the president,” Garrett said.

“Listen, smart-ass,” Ted replied. The blue veins in his neck were beginning to surface.

“Let’s not make a scene,” the woman interrupted in a hushed voice.

Garrett glanced around the gateway. His elderly seatmate had hesitated a few feet away and was watching, as were many of the passengers still walking off the flight. It would be only a few moments before someone pulled out a cell phone and began recording.

Garrett had never believed the president would meet him personally. Still, he didn’t like being treated as a mere errand boy, even if that was his only role. It wasn’t only his ego that had kept him from surrendering the flash drive in Kiev. The three attackers had escaped through an unmarked exit. Maybe they’d simply been lucky. Maybe they’d done due diligence. Or maybe someone had helped them. Gotten them inside early. Told them about the side exit.

“Mr. Garrett,” the State Department woman said quietly, “your promise will be kept. The White House sent us here and the president is appreciative, but this flash drive is now part of an international murder investigation, and the three of us have been delegated by our agencies to secure it on behalf of a joint federal task force.”

“That doesn’t include you,” Ted said.

“Then put it in writing,” Garrett replied. “Give me a receipt.”

“You’re joking, right?” Ted scoffed.

“Chain of custody,” Garrett replied. “Doesn’t need to be too detailed. For you, Ted, we can keep the words simple—‘One flash drive given by Ambassador Stanford Thorpe in Kiev to Brett Garrett who is now surrendering it to me, as an official of my respective agency with my personal guarantee that it will be delivered to the president of the United States.’ That will do nicely.”

“I’m not giving you any damn receipt,” Ted snarled.

“Mr. Garrett, I’m not entirely clear why you need a receipt,” the woman said.

“If what’s on this flash drive somehow leads to a congressional investigation, I want a paper trail. I’ve already had a target on my back once. In fact, let’s include something about how I have no knowledge of the flash drive’s contents.”

“We don’t know that though, do we?” the woman said. “You could have opened it.”

“You just asked me to trust you,” he replied. “I guess you’ll have to trust me now? Besides, it’s password protected.”

“Then you have looked at it,” Ted said. “Hand over the damn drive now.”

Garrett let his backpack slip from his fingers onto the carpet. His hands were freely hanging at his side. Ready.

“Gentlemen, none of this macho posturing is necessary,” the woman whispered. Reaching into her purse, she removed a notepad and began writing. She signed it and handed to the FBI agent to read. He signed it and passed it to the TSA officer who was standing next to him.

“Hey, man, I got no idea what this is about,” the TSA worker said. “They told me to escort you to the gate. I’m not signin’ nothin’.”

Garrett said, “I don’t need your signature.” He looked at Ted.

Ted ripped the paper from the TSA officer’s hand. “I’m not signing this, either.”

The woman started to say something, but Garrett cut her short. Plucking the paper from Ted, he said, “Ted, right?”

Garrett wrote: “Also present, Ted—CIA.” He then slowly folded the note and tucked it in his back pant pocket. “Two signatures should be enough.”

From his backpack, he removed the flash drive, ignored Ted, who was still standing in front of him, and gave it to the woman.

“Thank you,” she said. “You’ll need to be debriefed.”

“Later, after a warm shower,” Garrett said. “But not by Ted. I’m a civilian now. I might need to check with my lawyer to see if I can cooperate.”

Ted glared at him as the others turned to go. “You’re a national disgrace,” the CIA operative said.

Garrett watched Ted rejoin the others. Twenty minutes later, Garrett emerged from the airport’s terminal and spotted a black Mercedes-Benz GLS 550 SUV parked next to a sign that said NO STOPPING and NO LOITERING.

Thomas Jefferson Kim stepped out from behind its wheel.

“If you’re so damn important, why don’t you have a driver?” Garrett asked, tossing his backpack into the SUV’s rear and slipping into the front passenger’s seat.

“Don’t you start ragging me about my driving. It’s racist just because I’m Korean.”

“It’s got nothing to do with your ethnicity. It’s got everything to do with you almost getting me killed every time I ride with you.”

Kim grinned and pulled away from the curb directly in front of a car whose driver had to swerve.

“I sent you to Ukraine to keep you out of the public eye and what do you do?” Kim said, completely unaware of what had just happened. “Senator Stone called State this morning. You got any idea what my embassy contracts are worth?”

“What’d you expect?”

“There’s an old Korean expression—‘It is a world where people will cut off your nose and eat it if you close your eyes.’”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

“Then why didn’t you say it’s a dog-eat-dog world? And in this scenario, who’s the dog eating?”

“All subtlety is lost on you.”

Garrett was Kim’s employee, but they didn’t act like it. Their roles had been reversed when they first met in Asadabad, Afghanistan, near the eastern Pakistan border. Kim had been fresh meat, a computer geek sent by the Navy as part of a “reconstruction team.” Most Americans didn’t realize the Navy had people in-country. They thought they were only aboard ships. Kim’s job was winning the hearts and minds of a fledgling Afghan provincial government. Garrett’s job was killing Islamic jihadists. Both were good at what they did. Three months in, an ambush. IEDs. RPGs. Garrett dragged a wounded Kim to safety. His injuries were his ticket home. A Purple Heart. An honorable discharge. Within a year, he’d become Washington’s newest cybersecurity wunderkind. Gobbling up other Beltway bandits with juicy government contracts, expanding into the ex-military security guard business at embassies. U.S. Marines were there to destroy all classified information if under local attack. State had protective details assigned for each ambassador and top aides. But the first line of defense outside the embassy grounds was the host country—only, dialing 911 didn’t do much good in nations hostile to the U.S. That’s where Kim’s private ex-military force plugged the gap. Civilian warriors. Modern-day mercenaries. Recent world tensions had made that gap much wider and much more lucrative. At thirty-two, Kim had become a multimillionaire running a global company from his Tysons Corner sanctuary. Brett Garrett had taken a much different path after their stint together. After Cameroon, it had been Kim who’d rescued him when he’d become an untouchable.

“Senator Stone is a vengeful—” Kim cut short his own sentence as he smashed his palm against the SUV’s horn at a driver who’d cut him off.

Garrett chuckled. “Seriously. You need a driver.”

“Don’t be that guy. He cut me off.”

“Just saying, with all your money—and stop crying about Stone. You knew about him and me, but you hired me anyway.”

“It sucks to be you. My lawyers will deal with Stone and State. Kiev might actually be good for future business.”

Kim honked at another motorist, this one for moving too slow. He swerved around the car and let loose with a string of Korean words. The other driver raised his third finger.

“You’re not doing much to change ethnic stereotypes,” Garrett said.

“Time is money, and there’s a guest waiting in my office. FBI special agent Valerie Mayberry. My secretary told her to come at three o’clock, but she showed up at two.”

“Why? The bureau, agency, and State already greeted me at the gate.”

Kim shrugged. “She knew I was picking you up. Said she needed to speak privately to you. ASAP.”

“Did it ever cross your mind that I might not want to speak to her? ASAP?”

“Play nice. I’ve got contracts with the bureau, too. Besides, you are single and lonely and don’t have any friends except for me, and she’s attractive.”

“You’ve already met her? And you’re my boss, not my friend.”

“Looked her up. Twenty-eight, no Facebook page, no LinkedIn, actually little public on social media.”

“For a cyber expert, that’s pretty weak.”

“Which is my point. Someone’s cleaned up after her.”

“Undercover?”

“My guess.”

“Okay, let’s not drag this out. If you didn’t meet her and she’s not on Facebook and she’s working undercover, how do you know what she looks like?”

“A photo. She’s pungbuhan and a widow.”

“Wealthy.”

“Your Korean is getting better.”

“Neoui sumgyeol-i agchwiga nanda.”

Kim laughed and hit the steering wheel with his palm at Garrett’s bungled mispronunciation. “I believe you just told me my breath smelled bad.”

“Then my Korean is getting better. A widow?”

“A photo at her husband’s funeral posted by a friend.”

“That’s the photo? You saw a picture of a widow at a funeral, and you thought she looked hot? You need treatment.”

Kim chuckled. “Her husband was a magazine reporter who got himself killed in the White Mountains.”

“A real reporter or agency?”

“C’mon, you know CIA rules prohibit their employees from posing as reporters.”

Garrett grunted.

Kim said, “He was a legit journalist and an unlucky one. He talked his way onto a supply helo making a delivery in the mountains. Wrong day. Wrong flight. A green on blue. Afghan commando, who we’d trained, blew an entire Sea Knight to pieces with a vest. Unlucky bastard.”

“A Sea Knight?” Garrett said. “You sure. I thought we dumped them years ago.”

“I tell you about this reporter being blown to pieces, and you’re concerned about the helo? You’re the one who needs treatment.”

Kim drove his Mercedes onto State Route 7. A mile later, he entered a side street that dead-ended at an eleven-story steel-and-glass building bearing the letters IEC. Kim entered an underground parking garage protected by a steel door. His parking spot was marked: THOMAS JEFFERSON KIM, PRESIDENT, INTEL-EYE-CHECK.

“Delivered safe and sound,” Kim announced proudly. “You can apologize now about my driving.”

“Intel-Eye-Check is a really stupid name,” Garrett said, unbuckling his seat belt.

Nine

An office can say much about its occupant. From her seat on a chrome-rimmed white leather couch inside IEC president Thomas Jefferson Kim’s outer office, Valerie Mayberry gazed at the only piece of artwork hanging on the room’s bone-white walls. A 1932 Pablo Picasso painting. Le Rêve, French for “The Dream.” Why had Kim chosen it? If an original, it cost at least $60 million. Showing off? Insecure? Or could he simply like the painting? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

“The Picasso,” she said aloud to the two Korean women seated across from her behind matching chrome-and-glass desks. “A limited print?”

“No,” the one to Mayberry’s right answered. “My husband doesn’t buy imitations.”

“Your husband,” Mayberry replied and instantly thought about Noah. They could never have worked together. She was persnickety, left-brained. He was disorganized and said whatever thought popped into his head. She was nagged by worries. He didn’t fret about anything. They had filled the holes in each other’s personalities, creating a better-balanced person. At least most times.

Her mind continued to wander. Her decision to join the FBI had not pleased her parents, which made it more appealing to her. Earning money had never interested her, largely because she had never been without it. She had initially flirted with becoming a psychiatrist. However, the idea of listening to the worried well complain about not having friends, or their third marriage breakup, bored her. Dealing with schizophrenia was more of a neurological issue than a personality one. Forensic psychiatry held limited appeal. Most prisoners had the same cookie-cutter backgrounds—childhood trauma, drugs or alcohol addictions driving their criminal activity, or simply antisocial disorders such as narcissism mixed with a lack of empathy. Working in the spy-versus-spy game was much more challenging. It required understanding human behavior, trickery, and intellect. She enjoyed wandering in what poet T. S. Eliot described as a “wilderness of mirrors.” She’d studied the life of James Jesus Angleton, the legendary American spy hunter who’d overseen counterintelligence operations for twenty years during the Cold War. It had been Angleton who’d looked for hidden meanings in the KGB’s actions, suspecting everyone, always searching for that unidentified inside man, the double agent, the ultimate traitor. His paranoia had paralyzed the agency, ruined careers, and ultimately condemned him as a mole hunter who’d stared too long into the abyss and had been swallowed up by it.

Mayberry had read the complete Eliot stanza: “In a wilderness of mirrors / What will the spider do.” Yet another quote came to her. One from her favorite novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. John le Carré. “Counterintelligence people are like wolves chewing dry bones—you have to take away the bones and make them find new quarry….” Mayberry felt comfortable wandering in the mirrors, chewing on new bones.

She’d chewed every bone of Noah’s death to powder. “Recovery” was not a straight line, her therapist had said. Mayberry was stuck in anger.

She recognized Brett Garrett as soon as he entered with Thomas Jefferson Kim. Standing, she extended her hand. First to Kim, who was closest to her, and next to Garrett. She sized up Garrett knowing he was doing the exact same to her.

Garrett’s first impression: not so much beautiful as arresting. No high cheekbones, porcelain skin, or long, flowing locks. Garrett studied her eyes. Windows into the soul, right? He sensed melancholy, or was he projecting that onto her because Kim had mentioned she was a widow? No, it was there. He was good at reading people. Mayberry could hide the down-curve of her lips, conceal the sadness, but grief was a dogged antagonist.

When it came to assessing Garrett, Mayberry had the upper hand. She’d studied his FBI file, at least the pages available to her. She’d read about his Arkansas roots. His father’s alcoholism. How his parents had been killed when his father crashed their car while drunk. How Garrett had refused baseball scholarship offers. Choosing the United States Naval Academy. Multiple tours in Afghanistan. SEAL training. His last assignment: the CIA’s Special Activities Division, Special Operations Group—the most secretive special operations force in the country. No one made it to that level without being mentally and physically tough. It was difficult to separate SEALs from the movie stereotypes: married to work. More at ease playing flip-cup and bench-pressing with their bros than spending a night at a Kennedy Center performance or learning to discern the five characteristics of a fine pinot noir. Unable to commit to more than a one-night stand. Uncommunicative. Sentences in grunts. Obedient to orders. Love of country. Based on Garrett’s close-cropped military haircut, signs of a broken nose, and muscular build, he checked all the predictable boxes. Certainly, he was nothing like her Noah, who hadn’t been in a physical altercation since fourth grade, when he’d gotten his nose bloodied by a bully. Mayberry tried to look behind the Hollywood clichés. Like him, she was searching for clues. His face betrayed nothing. His background records showed that Cameroon had been a tipping point in his life. He’d been on a career fast track that had run off the rails in Africa. He’d had a fiancée, but after that, she’d left him. He’d begun seeing a psychiatrist and then had disappeared for several months. No one had known where he’d gone. And then he’d resurfaced, and Kim had hired him.

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Garrett,” Mayberry said, releasing his hand.

“Likewise,” he replied.

“Let’s take this conversation into my inner sanctum,” Kim suggested, leading them between the two secretaries’ desks toward a solid, stainless-steel door. Kim touched a biometric fingerprint door lock and stepped aside, allowing Mayberry to enter first.

Unlike the pristine, Spartan outer office, Kim’s “sanctum” was in disarray. Piles of papers stacked in rows on the royal blue carpet. Two golf bags. A dead plant. Books with yellow paper slips jutting from their pages. On the wall to their left were a dozen flat-screen monitors showing muted news channels. On their right was a massive floor-to-ceiling window made of specialty glass that was both bullet resistant and (through advanced technology that IEC had patented) impenetrable to outside snooping devices. Positioned behind Kim’s desk, which they were now facing, were photos of Kim with Washington dignitaries and entertainment celebrities. Three computer screens were positioned on his desk with yellow reminder sticky notes in English and Korean stuck along their edges. Two desk items caught Mayberry’s eye. The first was a Big Lebowski talking bobblehead doll. Actor Jeff Bridges molded in plastic. “I do mind. The Dude minds!” it declared in a recording of Bridges’s voice when Kim dropped his clasped hands onto his desktop, causing it to shake. Next to Kim’s ten-dollar re-creation of the Los Angeles slacker was what appeared to be a live hand grenade.

“Reminders,” he said, nodding at the grenade and plastic Dude.

“Of what?” she asked.

“The absurdity and fragility of life.”

Garrett showed a half smile. “He just likes his toys.”

Mayberry chose the only seat facing the desk without papers on it. Garrett shoved the papers from another chair.

“What brings you here, Agent Mayberry?” Kim asked.

Mayberry removed a photograph from her front-flap satchel.

“This is Gabriel de Depardieu. A Frenchman. Do either of you recognize him?”

Kim gave a shake of his head no.

“He’s the dead terrorist,” Garrett said. “The last time I saw him, he was prone on a marble floor in Kiev.”

“Did you ever see him before the terrorist attack? Loitering outside the foreign ministry—before the press conference? Entering the building?”

Garrett thought back to that morning. Waiting outside in the chase car for Don Marks to take his cigarette break, slipping the Suboxone tabs under his tongue. Was it possible he’d missed something?

“Mr. Garrett,” she said in a demanding voice. “Did you see anything suspicious?”

“Agent Mayberry, I did not see three men carrying Kalashnikovs walk into the ministry wearing black ski masks.”

Kim said, “The terrorists were probably already inside when Ambassador Thorpe arrived. Any lapse in security was on the Ukrainians’ part, not my people. They’re all ex-military. Highly trained and excellent at their jobs.”

“Then why didn’t you and the other private guards go into the building to help protect Ambassador Thorpe?” she asked.

Garrett didn’t like her tone. “We were told to remain in our cars. You’ll have to ask the RSO why—that’s shorthand for regional security officer.”

“I know what an RSO is,” she said.

He assumed that she did but had said it anyway.

“It might interest you to know the RSO told our agents in Kiev that Ambassador Thorpe didn’t want any IEC employees inside because of you. He was afraid someone in the media might recognize you.”

“Hold on,” Kim said. “Garrett isn’t to blame. If anything, he was a hero in Kiev.”

“Just being thorough and factual,” she said, staring at Garrett, waiting for him to react.

“If that’s what the RSO said, that’s what he said,” Garrett replied. “And if he said that, he is even more stupid than I suspected. If we had been inside, Ambassador Thorpe might still be alive.”

“When the shooting began,” she continued, “everyone inside panicked and began running toward a side exit—”

“No,” Garrett said, interrupting. “Not everyone ran toward the exit.”

She seemed confused.

“Ambassador Thorpe, Ukraine’s foreign minister, two State Department protective detail employees, and John Harper didn’t go anywhere because they were dead,” he said.

She frowned. “The three terrorists didn’t exit through the ballroom’s rear doors. Instead, they used an unmarked exit across the room from the side doors, isn’t that correct?”

“Mahogany,” Garrett said. “The entire interior wall was covered with mahogany panels. Post–World War Two construction. The only indication an exit door was there was its doorknob.”

“Which explains why the crowd didn’t run toward it,” she said. “Yet the terrorists knew about it. Moving on, neither you nor any of the other IEC private security guards were watching that exit, were you?”

“We arrived at the front of the ministry. From that vantage point, there was no visible gap between it and the buildings next to it. That door—the one the terrorists used—was located at the back of the ministry. It opened into a narrow walkway where trash cans were kept. None of us could have seen it.”

“But you would have seen it if your team had stationed someone at the back side of the ministry, rather than having everyone sit outside the front entrance.”

Addressing Kim, Mayberry said, “Isn’t it standard practice for IEC security guards to be aware and cover every possible entrance and exit when an ambassador enters a building overseas? Seems rather rudimentary.”

“Why are you trying to blame this on Garrett and my IEC guys?” Kim asked, clearly offended.

“I’m not blaming anyone. I’m simply trying to understand what happened. If Mr. Garrett and your people made mistakes, then we need to know what they were.”

“Your buddies at Dulles said I would be debriefed later,” Garrett said. “I’ve never been debriefed by a single FBI agent. You guys always travel in pairs. So why are you really here?”

Mayberry reached into her satchel and removed a photo of Aysan Rivera. “Did you ever see this woman in Kiev?”

Garrett studied Rivera’s enlarged passport photo.

“Who is she?” Kim asked.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“No, I never saw her there.”

She tucked the photo back into her bag.

“Are you certain the three assailants were men?” she asked. “Weren’t they all wearing ski masks?”

“I only saw two of them well,” he said. “I saw the dead one and the one I shot in the arm who dropped his buddy and fled. The third one had already exited when I entered the ballroom, so I can’t fully answer your question.”

“Mr. Garrett, let’s assume you were one of the terrorists. Would you have been the first out the door or would you have stayed behind and provided cover fire while your wounded buddy was being helped through it?”

“I’m not a terrorist.”

“I’m asking for your opinion.”

“I thought you wanted facts,” he replied.

She sighed. “Call it analysis, then.”

“Someone with professional military training, who hadn’t been wounded, would have provided cover fire. Unless his assignment was to be the first one out of the building to put down any security guards waiting for them.”

“There’s a third explanation,” Mayberry said. “If the first terrorist was a woman, she might be used to going through doors first.”

“Seems like a stretch,” he said. “You did ask for my opinion.”

“You don’t open doors for women?”

“Not when I’m shooting people.”

Kim joined their Q-and-A. “Can’t you tell from security tapes if one of the terrorists was smaller than the others?”

“Not all women are petite,” Mayberry said.

“Or tactful,” Garrett added.

Mayberry picked up her satchel. “Gentlemen, thank you for your time. Because this is an ongoing investigation, please keep our discussion private.”

Kim rose from behind his desk. “I didn’t hear nothing that was said.” He pushed an app on his watch, unlocking and opening his electronically controlled office door.

She started toward the door but stopped.

“Is there something else, Agent Mayberry?” Kim asked.

“‘I didn’t hear nothing?’ You used a double negative.”

“English is my second language,” Kim replied, smiling. “I prefer Korean.”

After she was gone, Garrett said, “You prefer Korean? What was that about?”

“Mayberry’s smart,” he replied.

“And where does that get her?” Garrett asked.

“Some people like that in a woman. Especially a hot one.”

Ten

The presidential limousine, aka “the Beast,” rode northeast from the White House en route to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Ambassador Stanford Thorpe’s funeral was today, three days after his assassination.

“Our best can’t open the flash drive,” CIA director Harold Harris said.

“Brett Garrett hasn’t a clue?” President Randle Fitzgerald asked.

“None.”

“Where’s Garrett now?”

“Cooling his heels in his Rosslyn condo.”

The president gazed through the heavily tinted passenger window. “I’ve never liked funerals.”

“No one does, sir.”

“Especially when one of the bastards attending either knows or was involved in murdering Thorpe. I’m talking about the Russians.”

“Knowing and proving, sir,” Harris replied.

The day was overcast, and the president had awakened in a foul mood. A murdered ambassador. It made him look weak. It made America look weak. The Brits might have bodies of former Russian spies poisoned by the Kremlin stacking up, but America was not Great Britain. He needed to put an end to this—now. Or another attack would happen.

He glanced forward as his motorcade entered the basilica’s manicured grounds. President Fitzgerald was Southern Baptist. He didn’t know much about the basilica or really care. He’d never bothered to tour it or learn it was the largest Catholic church in not just the United States but all North America, one of the ten largest churches in the world, and the tallest habitable building in Washington, D.C. Just the same, it was not the nation’s official “National House of Prayer,” an honor bestowed by Congress on its religious rival, the Washington National Cathedral, a neo-Gothic Presbyterian church where the funerals for most prominent national luminaries, including presidents, usually were held.

“Didn’t see Thorpe as Catholic,” Fitzgerald said as the motorcade stopped outside a side entrance.

“A bit hard to picture him as an altar boy,” Harris replied in a soft voice.

“Now, now, let’s not talk ill of the dead,” Fitzgerald said, chuckling.

The president was seated inside. Next to Thorpe’s only son and relatives. In chairs placed in front of the church’s permanent wooden pews. Closer to the altar. After a priest blessed the casket and sprinkled it with holy water, an organist began playing “O God, Our Help in Ages Past” and President Fitzgerald’s mind wandered. He thought about his own funeral, and who would attend it. Probably depended on how far he was from power when he passed. By the time the organist had finished, he had moved on. Russia. What could he do?

It became apparent that he would have plenty of time to ponder options. The full mass dragged on for two long hours, during which time the president nervously tapped his foot. He had work to do. Finally, a liturgist, under the watchful eyes of his eminence the archbishop of Washington, delivered a final send-off. “In peace let us take our brother to his place of rest.”

Thorpe’s son had requested privacy at the burial site—thankfully. No need for the president to go graveside. Outside, he shook hands with the son. Spoke obligatory words about how great Thorpe had been. How he had faithfully served his nation. Then back inside the church. By the time the hearse pulled away, a reception line had formed. Washington was returning to the now. Press flesh. Cut deals. Plot. Conduct the nation’s business. No matter how great the fallen, they were the past and pushed to the side.

Secret Service agents separated dignitaries from curiosity seekers at the reception doorway. Only foreign diplomats, members of Congress, other senior government officials, and lobbyists were allowed inside where the president was holding court.

President Fitzgerald was a big man. Once handsome, now with drooping jowls. Once an NFL quarterback. Twice MVP. Once in shape. No longer. Being a quarterback required quick decision making. He’d retained that ability. He was from an era when a handful of quarterbacks still called plays. They were team leaders. He was one of them. He wasn’t a follower. His football fame led to an easy election win, first into the House, next the Senate, representing the good people of New Hampshire. Finally, the White House. At age sixty-seven, he remained a dominating presence. A Washington reporter had compared the president’s blue eyes to the color of a calm mountain lake on a chilly winter morning and his temper to that of an angry charging bull wounded with banderillas. A bit too flowery, but Fitzgerald had loved it.

A State Department aide stood behind him at the reception, whispering names of foreign dignitaries approaching in the receiving line. He needed no reminder when he noticed Yakov Prokofyevich Pavel, Russia’s deputy minister of foreign affairs.

“Mr. President, I was there in Kiev,” Pavel said, shaking the president’s hand. “As a guest attending the news conference.”

“Clearly you weren’t a target,” Fitzgerald replied.

“Yes, I was most fortunate. My bodyguards shielded me, and we were seated close to the side exit. But enough about this horrible event.” Pavel leaned in close and whispered: “A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat. It’s the password to the flash drive.”

Fitzgerald said loudly, “Thank you.”

The Russian diplomat continued down the receiving line.

Back in “the Beast,” returning to the White House, President Fitzgerald and Director Harris analyzed what had happened.

“Yakov Pavel made a point of telling me that he had been in Kiev at the press conference,” Fitzgerald said. “Next, he told me a password for the flash drive.”

“The natural conclusion is that Pavel gave the flash drive to Ambassador Thorpe in Kiev before he was murdered and now Pavel wants you to open it.”

The flash drive, an IT expert named Oscar Lopez, and a new portable computer freshly removed from its box were waiting for them. Harris had ordered a new computer be brought to the White House. Its network connectivity had been disabled out of the box to prevent the building’s Wi-Fi from kicking in. He wasn’t going to risk inserting an unknown drive from the Russians into the White House’s system.

Fitzgerald and Harris watched as Lopez typed: “A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat.”

Incorrect password.

He repeated it without spaces.

Incorrect password.

He tried no capitals.

Incorrect password.

He tried with all capitals.

Incorrect password.

“Mr. President,” Lopez said, “this password doesn’t appear to be working.”

“Try it again.”

He did. It didn’t work.

“I know what I heard,” the president grumbled.

“It’s a phrase,” Harris said. “Probably from a movie or poem. Oscar, please use a computer with Internet access to do a search.”

Lopez left them to use a different computer before returning moments later.

“It’s from ‘The Gold Bug,’ a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. The story contains a cryptogram that Poe challenged readers to decipher.”

“A cryptogram,” Harris repeated. “Pavel used an old Poe cryptogram as a password. Clever.”

“In the book, the cryptogram contained the directions to a buried treasure hidden by Captain Kidd. I’ve copied all the information about ‘The Gold Bug’ off Wikipedia.” He showed them a sheet of paper. “Here’s the actual cryptogram that Poe’s readers had to decipher.”

Continuing, Lopez said, “If you decipher the first sentence of Poe’s cryptogram correctly, it reads: ‘A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat.’”

“That’s the exact phrase Pavel said!” President Fitzgerald exclaimed. “See if the cryptogram’s first line works.”

Lopez typed:

The flash drive opened, revealing a single file. “Only for the eyes of President Randle Fitzgerald” was marked on it.

“Great work, Oscar,” Harris said. “You can wait outside now.” Addressing the president, he added, “Do you want to open this file alone or should I stay here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You stay. Now let’s see what these Russian bastards are up to.”

He clicked on the file, and a video recording of Pavel appeared.

Eleven

Yakov Prokofyevich Pavel exited the Tupolev Tu-134 twin-engine jet aircraft minutes after it landed at Ostafyevo International Airport, on the southern outskirts of Moscow. The 1960s-era airplane was nicknamed “Crusty” when it first appeared in the West. An aeronautical insult because it was considered substandard. After a 2011 crash killed forty-seven, the Kremlin said all remaining Crusty planes would be grounded. Russia, being Russia, still used them, although they were generally assigned to transport lower-level government officials, not someone of Pavel’s status.

General Andre Borsovich Gromyko had arranged for the Tu-134 to carry Pavel to Washington, D.C., for Ambassador Thorpe’s funeral. It was an obvious slight. Pavel had been in line to become Russia’s foreign minister, but that was before Gromyko had targeted him. Gromyko was orchestrating a power takeover. Most of Pavel’s peers already had been forced out. Pavel had stubbornly stayed. He still had important connections, but for how long. The general was merely dancing on Russian president Vyachesian Kalugin’s strings.

Pavel had detested Kalugin since his arrival in Moscow from St. Petersburg. It was contempt at first sight. An uncouth personality. Extreme grandiosity. A Visigoth had become president and Pavel had watched it happen and, more important, understood why.

After the Soviet Union had been broken into fifteen separate countries, Russia had been viewed as a failed nation. Its people had been humbled. Kalugin had restored Russia’s pride. He’d reminded the Russian people that their country still was a world player, if for no other reason than it controlled large numbers of nuclear missiles. Kalugin was loved by the Russian people—not because of what he did—but because of his carefully crafted image as a strongman willing to thumb his nose at a seemingly all-powerful America.

The United States had foolishly underestimated Kalugin. Pavel had not. The seasoned diplomat had recognized that Kalugin posed a threat, not only to the West, but to the entire world. The president’s ultimate goal was the reunification of the old Soviet empire—and then, perhaps a bit more. Crimea had been his tiptoe into international waters. No one had stopped him.

A student of history, Pavel had seen a troubling similarity reemerging from the past. After World War I, Germany had been hit with punitive territorial, military, and economic penalties outlined in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. It had been stripped of 13 percent of its land, including territories with names that few today would recognize. France had reclaimed Alsace-Lorraine, Belgium had taken control of Eupen and Malmedy, Denmark had gobbled up Northern Schleswig, Poland had taken parts of West Prussia and Silesia, Czechoslovakia won the Hultschin District, and Lithuania had been awarded Memel, a small strip in East Prussia along the Baltic Sea. In total, one-tenth of Germany’s population, nearly seven million Germans living in 27,000 square miles, suddenly found themselves under what they considered foreign rule and reduced to second-class citizenship.

That land grabbing had left deep-rooted bitterness. Years later, when Adolf Hitler launched his first Nazi military attacks, he’d assured the West that he was only reacquiring what had been unfairly stripped from Germany after the first war. Many Germans in those forfeited regions welcomed the Third Reich’s arrival.

In Pavel’s eyes, Kalugin was adopting that same playbook. The old Communist Party loyalists were still alive in the former Soviet republics—waiting for reunification.

While the Americans had been preoccupied with Islamic terrorism and endless, unwinnable wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Russia had quietly reasserted its international power. Ukraine, Crimea, Syria. Iran. Chechnya. Even Turkey.

Russian president Kalugin understood that the trick to defeating America was not a suicidal nuclear war—but a strategy to destroy the United States from within. Undermine its core democratic principles. Destroy its moral bedrock. Divide its people. Fuel hatred and distrust. Spread fear. Cause enough havoc and its own citizens would eat themselves.

A car from the Foreign Ministry was waiting for Pavel on the airport’s tarmac. As he descended the portable stairs from the jet, he spotted his grandson, Peter, in the rear seat. Before Pavel’s shoes touched the ground, three vehicles suddenly appeared.

General Gromyko. The cars blocked Pavel’s ride. One of Gromyko’s goons directed Pavel to the general’s Mercedes-Benz, where Gromyko was smoking a Belomorkanal, an odd choice of cigarette given the general’s preference for Western products. However, Belomorkanal cigarettes didn’t have filters. Instead, each had a papirosa—a hollow cardboard tube at its base that served as a disposable cigarette holder—a sign of aristocracy and Russian pride in Gromyko’s eyes.

“Yakov Prokofyevich,” Gromyko said. “I’m ready to hear your report about the funeral.”

“It was an American funeral like all other American funerals,” Pavel replied. “I will be submitting my written account tomorrow when I return to my office.”

“Deputy Minister, I am here now.”

“Morale at our embassy is good. All details will be in my report tomorrow.”

“Was there mention of Kiev? Do the Americans suspect us?”

“The Americans always suspect us. There was nothing to concern you.”

“Do not presume to know what concerns me,” Gromyko replied, slightly raising his voice.

Pavel nodded toward the Tu-134 aircraft. “I was under the impression these airplanes had been discontinued, but it was quite capable and very comfortable. Thank you for arranging it for me.” A sarcastic comment slightly masked as a compliment.

Gromyko took a long drag. “Yakov Prokofyevich, what was said between you and the United States president after the funeral service? Your exact words.”

For a moment, Pavel wondered if the general knew about the flash drive and password. In those same seconds, he concluded it was impossible. He’d been too careful. Gromyko was fishing.

“Ah, yes, the funeral reception,” Pavel said. “I extended the appropriate regrets to the American president as instructed by our foreign minister.”

“Did he ask you about Kiev?”

“No. I mentioned it to him.”

“You mentioned it?” Gromyko repeated, clearly surprised.

“Yes, of course. I was instructed by the foreign minister to mention it. A slight provocation to help us learn the Americans’ thinking. Certainly, you were aware of the foreign minister’s order.”

Clearly, he wasn’t, which greatly pleased Pavel. He decided to taunt the general. “I presumed you had approved the script that I was instructed to say to the Americans.”

Gromyko quietly smashed out what was left of his cigarette in an armrest ashtray.

Pavel continued: “Since it appears you were not aware, General, let me elaborate. I was told to inform President Fitzgerald that I had been in attendance at the Kiev news conference when the shooting began. I was instructed to say that I had escaped unharmed. I was further told to listen carefully to the American president’s reaction.”

“And what was his reaction?”

“The American president’s exact words, which I will be putting in my report tomorrow for the foreign minister, were ‘Clearly you weren’t a target.’”

“Are you certain that was all the American president said?”

Pavel raised a bushy eyebrow and turned his head to the side in a gesture meant to express bewilderment. “General Gromyko, you asked what I said to the president and how he responded. I have reported exactly what he said.”

“Nothing more to your exchange when you were observed leaning in close to him shaking hands. Whispering.”

So, Gromyko’s spies had been watching. Pavel had anticipated it. Five junior diplomats had accompanied him to Washington. Which one had been the informant? Most likely, all of them.

“That whispering was when I said the words that the foreign minister had instructed me to say. I’m certain the foreign minister will provide you with the exact script that I was given to whisper. Now, if you do not have any other questions, I am tired and would like to return to my home.”

Gromyko studied the diplomat’s face, searching for some indication that he was holding back information. Pavel proved impossible to read. Lying was a well-regarded diplomatic skill, but all Russians raised during the Soviet period had become skilled at it. If there had been no bread in the stores, it was not because of failed crops; it was because of the Americans or the Jews, or some other explanation, even though everyone knew the truth. They simply were afraid to say it. Lies became like breathing, done effortlessly without thought. Telling the truth was what had been difficult.

Gromyko lit another Belomorkanal. “You don’t smoke, do you Yakov Prokofyevich?”

“I tried it as a child and didn’t prefer it.”

“Yakov Prokofyevich, have you given any more thought to our discussion about your retirement?”

“I prefer to continue serving our country. Those who retire become easily bored.”

“You are currently responsible for relations with European countries, European cooperation, interaction with the EU, NATO, and the Council of Europe,” Gromyko said. “It is the president’s wish that these tasks now be overseen by a different deputy minister who can better represent Russian interests abroad.”

“If this is what the president wishes—”

“I have just told you it is.”

“May I ask what my new responsibilities will be?”

“Still to be determined. Report to your office tomorrow, file a detailed report about your trip, and arrange to transfer your files to your replacement.”

“As you wish.”

Gromyko nodded toward Peter, whom the general could see waiting for Pavel. “Your grandson is deaf and dumb, is he not?”

“His diagnosis is selective mutism.”

“Selective mutism?”

“I’m not certain how my grandson’s medical condition is of concern to your duties.”

“Would you prefer I ask him?”

“It is a disorder in which a person who is normally capable of speech cannot speak in specific situations or to specific people. It usually coexists with shyness and social anxiety.”

“He can hear, and he can speak, but chooses not to,” Gromyko summarized. “What has he told you about his parents’ work and their deaths?”

“My grandson has not spoken to anyone for several years, including his own parents.”

“You cannot be certain of this, can you? Many teenagers are talkative, yet you wish for me to believe your grandson has said nothing about his parents’ laboratory work. Not a single question, nor has he shown the slightest curiosity about the accident that killed them. His parents worked in an important laboratory.”

“My grandson knows nothing,” Pavel said firmly. “He is under the care of our best doctors. You could speak to them about him. They believe the best course is to not pressure him, driving him deeper into his illness.”

“Yakov Prokofyevich,” Gromyko said, suddenly grinning. “You think me cruel when, in fact, my actions are done for the protection of Russia.” He retrieved a white box with a red ribbon tied around it. A small sticker: Крупской, one of Russia’s most famous chocolatiers. “I brought you candies for your grandson. You see, I am not as much a villain as you make me.”

“Thank you, General. This is most thoughtful.”

Gromyko playfully wagged a finger at Pavel. “There are only six candies in this box. They are of superior quality. I take no responsibility if you yourself become tempted, but they are for the child.”

Pavel watched Gromyko and his entourage depart. He kissed his grandson’s cheeks. The teen was lanky, rail thin, much like his father. His brown eyes reminded Pavel the most of his only daughter. “Dancing eyes” is what Pavel had called them when she was young. Always darting back and forth, absorbing every sight, wide when happy, narrow when cross, much more revealing than words.

“Chocolates,” Pavel said, holding up the white box.

Peter took the box.

“A gift from General Gromyko.”

The teen handed the box back to his grandfather.

Pavel nodded approvingly. “You know about him then. You know he was in charge of the laboratory where your parents died. Your parents talked about him, didn’t they? His cruelty.”

He looked into the boy’s eyes and tousled the teen’s hair.

“Yes, with your dancing eyes, you see more than most of us, don’t you? Good.”

Reaching forward, he dropped the box over the front seat next to the driver.

Twelve

Brett Garrett tugged the brim of his Washington Nationals baseball cap downward as he entered the Church of the Resurrection about two miles from his condo. Five steps down into a basement meeting room illuminated by rows of old fluorescent bulbs. Jacket collar turned up. Sunglasses even though it was evening. His attempt to conceal his face was nothing new to the two dozen gathered there. Most first-timers did it. A bearded man with a watermelon belly and dyed, thinning black hair said loudly, “My turn’s tonight. Let’s get started.” The few still pouring coffee at a side table settled into the metal folding chairs. Garrett slipped into one closest to the exit.

“My name is Ray and I am an addict,” the man said.

“Hello, Ray,” everyone but Garrett replied.

“My addiction cost me a good job, my friends, my wife, my kids, and caused me to do things I’d never thought I’d do. If you’re here tonight, you know what I’m saying.”

Ray began reading from a worn handbook. “Best to pray. Spiritual strength is usually accompanied by a sense of calm. More than most people, we need to remind ourselves that God is the real worker of miracles here. At best, we are but instruments of our Higher Power.”

Garrett thought about leaving, and thought about not leaving.

Ray continued: “Narcotics Anonymous is the spiritual moment that an addict discovers within themselves—the strength to stay clean one more day. When we share this with even one other addict, we activate the spirit of Narcotics Anonymous. This moment is what we share together in recovery and it is the heart of our program.”

Closing the text, Ray said: “Jail, yep been there. More than once. I think they kept a cell reserved just for me.”

A few knowing chuckles.

“Homeless, damn right. Waking up in my own vomit and waste. Yep. I’ve been spit on, called a bum. Lost all respect. But now, now I’m doing great. Five years clean. Every day’s a new challenge but also a new opportunity. You got to take them one day at a time, it helps. God is my North Star. I’ve even started dating a good woman.”

Spontaneous applause. Turning, he picked up a government pamphlet. “According to this, more than sixty thousand Americans are dying each year taking opioids.” He paused and scanned their faces. “The cravings crawl up inside you like that monster in that movie Alien. You need more and more to feel normal and then you need more to prevent withdrawal, and then the real kick in the ass happens. No matter how much you take, the depression is still there.”

Ray’s eyes began to glisten. “Look at us. We’re all good, decent Americans. None of us woke up one morning and said, ‘I want to become an addict.’ All of us have hated ourselves because of our own manipulative behaviors, lying, our irresponsibility. How can we allow a little chemical pill to ruin our lives? That’s why you are here. One day at a time. Helping each other. Seeking God’s help.”

During the next hour, others volunteered to speak. One discussed how she was struggling. She’d relapsed. Taken drugs. Blamed stress at home. The attendees sympathized and encouraged her. Another announced he was two years clean. Applause. Garrett slipped out just as the meeting was wrapping up. He wanted to avoid the closing circle that he’d seen on a YouTube video about NA—when everyone held hands and chanted “One More Day!” like football players pumping themselves up before a big game.

Rather than Uber, he walked. Medical-assisted treatment. His primary doctor had told him, “It’s your best shot to get off opioids. Buprenorphine and naloxone sublingual film tabs.” Had that doctor ever taken them? First came the vomiting, then constipation, inability to sleep, irritability. Even worse, he still felt the cravings.

The walk helped. He emptied his mind but when he reached the door of his condo, he snapped to attention. A real estate sales pamphlet that he’d tucked between the door and its frame was now lying on the hallway floor. A one-cent coin near it. He drew his SIG Sauer from under his jacket and tested the doorknob. Unlocked. Whoever had entered or whoever was still inside didn’t care that Garrett knew. He entered barrel first.

“An evening stroll?” a voice said.

“I should shoot you,” Garrett replied.

CIA director Harold Harris nodded at the gun still pointing at him. “If you’re not going to shoot, point that somewhere else.” He was sitting on Garrett’s gravel-gray, midcentury-modern sofa with honey walnut legs. It had been left behind by the former condo’s owner as part of an “all furniture included” sale.

“I’m trying to decide.”

“So much drama,” Harris said.

Garrett lowered his pistol.

“The penny trick,” Harris said, “a bit old-school isn’t it?”

He was referring to the leaflet and one-cent coin lying in the hallway. When Garrett had left his apartment, he’d inserted a penny inside the ten-page pamphlet before inserting it between the door and its frame. To a passerby, it looked like an ad left by a Realtor seeking business. It was actually a warning device. An intruder would need to remove the leaflet and then replace it to cover his tracks. But as soon as he tugged loose the pamphlet, gravity would cause the penny to slip from its pages. Even if the intruder noticed the penny drop, he would not know which pages it had been hidden between, tipping off Garrett.

“Jack unlocked the door,” Harris said. “You remember him.”

Jack Moore was Director Harris’s personal bodyguard and a former field operative who’d cut his teeth in Berlin back when there was still a wall there.

“He’s ancient.”

“He’s outside in the car. There was a time when you would have spotted him.”

Garrett sat down facing Harris. “Five minutes. I wouldn’t want to keep you and your artifact babysitter from your next B-and-E.”

Harris gazed at Garrett. “Still playing the victim.”

“Playing? I am a victim—your victim. You lied to Congress about Cameroon.”

“Have anything to drink around here?” Harris asked.

“Absolutely. You want a plate of sugar cookies, too?”

“Macallan neat.”

“I got Old Crow. Naw, since you appreciate the truth, I’ve got nothing but water.”

Harris let out a sigh.

“You got maybe two minutes left,” Garrett said.

“The president asked me to thank you for delivering the flash drive from Kiev.”

“He should have come himself. I would have served him Macallan.”

Harris seemed much older to Garrett than the last time they’d been together. A Senate hearing. The sixty-some-year-old director probably had makeup on, knowing the cameras would be there. Now he looked spent. Too many late nights working. Too much stress. Being the keeper of the nation’s secrets took a physical toll. Garrett tried to feel empathy but couldn’t.

There had always been uneasiness between them long before Cameroon. Garrett suspected Harris wanted it that way. They had little in common. Harold Harris was a lawyer by training and a Washington bureaucrat by choice. He’d never been out in the cold.

When Langley had first wooed Garrett, he’d been intimidated by Harris. The director had reminded him of an old Navajo woman operating a loom he’d seen in Window Rock as a teen on a rare family vacation. She’d expertly twisted multiple strains, creating a design only she knew. People were Harris’s threads. Expertly manipulated for the country’s good. Or so Garrett had thought. Not until he had been betrayed had he seen the Machiavellian pattern.

“I need you to go to Moscow for me,” Harris said.

For a moment, Garrett wondered if he was hallucinating. The medication. Some Freudian delusion.

“You what?”

“You in or out?”

“Just like that?” Garrett grunted. “The last time you asked, I lost my career, my reputation, and, oh yeah, nearly my life.”

Harris waved his hand. “Crying doesn’t become you.”

Garrett reconsidered shooting him.

“I’m offering you an opportunity to get back in the game,” Harris said. “Senator Stone’s hearing was inconvenient, but you aren’t homeless. Your buddy T. J. Kim hired you.”

“Inconvenient?” Garrett said slowly, letting the word linger. “You lied to Congress about me and you lied to me. You betrayed me. Because of you, I went to prison. Because of you, I have a dishonorable discharge. And his name is Thomas Jefferson Kim, not T.J.”

Harris shrugged. “Tell me, Garrett, how many Americans died in the bloodiest battle ever fought during a war?”

Garrett watched him, brows furrowed.

“Most people answer Gettysburg—when Americans on both sides died fighting each other. But it’s not the battle that claimed the most American lives. Nor was it the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two or D-Day, when our boys were slaughtered on the beaches.”

“I don’t need a history lesson from you,” Garrett said.

“The most Americans to die in a single battle was at Argonne Forest. World War One. More than twenty-six thousand Americans killed in that monthlong confrontation, another hundred thousand Americans wounded. Horrific carnage. But necessary.”

“Expendable?”

“Sometimes a leader makes choices that require people to die. Do you believe for a moment any one of those men wanted to die? They were sacrificed for a greater good. Just like you were.”

“What greater good? What did we get in return for sticking a knife in my back?”

“Senator Stone is a powerful man who’s been trying to restrict the agency’s powers for decades. Sometimes you feed an attacking dog. Besides, you weren’t worth the fight. You ultimately made a choice, a wrong one.”

“You promised to support my choice, to have my back. Get out.”

Harris stood to leave. “I misjudged you, Garrett. I believed you really cared about our country.”

“Guilt? You’re trying to shame me into working for you? Okay, what’s in Moscow that’s so important to our country?”

“I need you to bring out two packages.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?”

“To me, yes.”

“A potential asset and a teenager. The most important Russian asset to ever come over. You’re his best chance of getting out alive with the kid. I’m putting together a team.”

“What do I get out of all this?”

“Redemption. Isn’t that what you want, Garrett?”

“You’re the one in need of redemption.”

Harris half-smiled. “I’ve given up on that years ago. Look in the mirror. Who are you trying to fool, Garrett? Suboxone. Yes, I know. I know everything. The midnight runs on your rebuilt British motorcycle. The faces of those who died in Cameroon. They died because of you, not me. I’m offering you a chance.”

Garrett offered him an obscene gesture.

“The last refuge for someone who has no intelligent reply,” Harris said, mocking him. He took an envelope from his jacket pocket and tossed it at Garrett’s feet. “You want to hear more? Come tomorrow. Get back in the game. If not, sit here and feel sorry for yourself. Blame everyone. Everyone but yourself.”

Thirteen

Valerie Mayberry wasn’t certain what was happening. She was being loaned to the CIA for an indefinite period. Her boss, Sally North, had informed her when she arrived at work. FBI director Archibald Davidson had personally approved the detail. Moments later, Mayberry had received a telephone call. A woman’s voice. An address in rural Virginia. A time. “Don’t be late.”

Mayberry had worked with her CIA counterintelligence counterparts before and never once enjoyed it. There was a long history of bad blood between the agency and bureau. Some dated to when the FBI director had grabbed headlines bragging about how the bureau had caught CIA traitor Aldrich Ames. Seven years later, the agency had caught FBI Agent Robert Hanssen spying. A publicity punch here, a jab there.

A voice coming from her Jaguar’s GPS warned of an upcoming left turn as she drove northeast on Virginia Route 15. She spotted two black SUVs parked near a gravel road ahead before the GPS told her to turn.

“Driver’s license and FBI credentials please, Ms. Mayberry,” the CIA Protective Service officer said. Another used a mirror to sweep under her Jaguar. “Nice ride.” She pulled away in second gear to avoid spitting gravel back at them. A half mile later, she topped a slight rise and saw the main house. Mayberry was used to great wealth, but this countryside estate startled her.

From the darker color of its graying stone, Mayberry guessed the two-story Georgian Revival was the original before matching stone additions had been added on each side. Most likely the 1770s. The locals called them “telescope houses” because of the added wings. Off to the house’s right wing was a swimming pool as big as the community pools found in most suburbs. Off to its left was an equestrian arena with a grandstand and stables. The house, pool, and riding ring created a huge U from above with an ornate fountain anchored in its circular driveway.

Mayberry counted six vehicles parked there. Four matched the SUVs at the entrance. Obviously CIA. The next was an extended Cadillac sedan. Government issued. Armored. Someone important. Finally, a Mercedes-Benz SUV with a personalized tag: IEC BOSS.

Two officers were stationed outside the front door. They checked her ID again before letting her pass. An older man welcomed her inside.

“My name is Jack. May I please have your cell phone and any other electronic devices that you brought with you? Also, your personal weapon.” Another guard appeared and took them.

“Thank you,” Jack said. “Please, this way.”

The modest entryway had aged wood-plank flooring typical of the period, but when Jack slid open two walnut pocket doors to Mayberry’s right, she found herself entering an ornate ballroom with gold fixtures, a massive stone fireplace, and a highly polished black-and-white marble floor. The room was empty except for four chairs arranged in a circle. Thomas Jefferson Kim and Brett Garrett were seated in two of them.

“You’re the last to arrive,” Jack said.

Kim stood and chirped, “Good to see you again.”

Garrett nodded from his chair.

Mayberry sat next to Kim.

“Can I offer anyone water, coffee, tea?” Jack asked. “Unfortunately, the director is on a call and might be a while.”

“I’ll take a coffee,” Kim said. Garrett shook his head. “Oolong tea—black dragon—if you have it,” Mayberry said.

Jack fetched their drinks and left them. No small talk. Kim and Mayberry sipped from china cups. Garrett, arms folded across his chest, stared straight ahead. Fifteen minutes later, CIA director Harris entered along with Jack, offering neither an apology nor explanation.

“You will each need to sign the document Jack is distributing,” Harris said.

“Excuse me,” Kim said, “I generally don’t sign anything without running it by my lawyer.”

“Then you have a decision to make, don’t you? Sign it or leave knowing that your departure could impact IEC’s current and future government contracts.”

Jack said, “It’s a standard federal nondisclosure agreement. Pretty much boilerplate, with one exception that you will find on page seven, paragraph three.”

Garrett was the first to find it. Stripped of legalese, it stated the signatory would be charged with espionage, not treason, if he or she violated the NDA.

“Espionage is punishable by death,” Jack elaborated. “Treason isn’t.”

Mayberry signed. Kim grimaced and signed. Garrett glared at Harris and, with obvious reluctance, scribbled his name.

“Good,” Harris said, as Jack collected the paperwork and left the ballroom. “The flash drive that Mr. Garrett brought from Kiev contained a videotaped message from Yakov Prokofyevich Pavel, the current number three in charge at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He’s willing to defect along with his grandson if we meet his conditions.”

“Has anyone that high up ever defected?” Kim asked.

“No,” Harris said.

“What conditions?” Mayberry asked.

“First, we have to get him and his grandson out of Russia alive, which will not be easy. That will be your job, Mr. Garrett.” The three of them looked at Garrett, who didn’t react.

“Because of who he is, Pavel can’t simply go to an airport and purchase two tickets,” the director continued. “He and his grandson would need permission and only would be allowed to travel outside Russia with a security detail. The Kremlin also maintains an old Soviet custom—making high government officials leave one family member behind when they go overseas.”

Turning to Kim, Harris said, “We’ll need your company to transfer Mr. Garrett to the U.S. embassy in Moscow as an IEC employee—a security guard—to make this work.”

“No problem,” Kim said. “That is, if Garrett wants to go.”

“Why bother getting Pavel out?” Garrett asked. “If you have a flash drive of him offering to betray his country, just blackmail him in place, squeeze him dry. That’s more your style, isn’t it?”

“A bit shortsighted,” Harris replied. “Pavel isn’t stupid. He’s holding back—including information about a national threat that he says is imminent.”

“What kind of national threat?” Garrett asked.

“I’ll get to that.”

“How do you know this isn’t a Russian provocation?” Mayberry asked.

“First, it’s unlikely the Kremlin would risk sending us someone so high up as a dangle. He knows too many secrets. Second, Pavel’s told us the name of an American government official recruited by Russian intelligence two years ago. A mole—to prove his bona fides.”

“Pavel wants us to kill the rat before the rat can squeal on him in Moscow,” Garrett said.

“Who’s the mole?” Mayberry asked.

“Until he is arrested, that’s not a question I should be answering.”

“We just signed an NDA that says you will execute us if we repeat anything that’s said here,” Garrett replied sarcastically. “And you still don’t trust us? How do we know this mole won’t tell the Russians about the three of us?”

“He works at the NSA,” Harris said. “He’s not a threat to any of you. However, Pavel claims there is a second mole. Someone who can hurt you. There’s a breach. A traitor who appears able to read all of our message traffic between Langley and Moscow.”

Garrett grunted, unhappy.

“That’s why we’re meeting here,” said Kim.

“Exactly,” Harris replied. “It’s also why I’ve invited you to be part of the team. Your company, IEC, operates its own communication satellites.”

“Yes, three of them, and better, I might add, than the ones the government uses.”

Leapfrogging ahead, Mayberry said, “You want Kim to keep in contact with Garrett while he’s in Russia.”

“Yes,” Harris said. “No cable traffic. Also, only the four of us in this room and one additional person in Moscow will know about Pavel.”

“Wait,” Garrett said. “Who in Moscow?”

“Marcus Austin.”

Garrett knew him. They’d worked together in Morocco before Austin became Moscow chief of station.

“Did he sign an NDA?” Garrett asked. “And aren’t you forgetting your security team outside and Jack?”

“You, Mr. Kim, Agent Mayberry, Marcus Austin, and me,” Harris said firmly, “are the only ones besides President Fitzgerald who know about Pavel’s plea. I have not even told the president about how I intend to get Pavel out—about me bringing the three of you together. Despite your cynicism, this operation is being highly compartmentalized.”

“What about this imminent threat?” Mayberry said.

“Yes, it’s why you’re part of this team, Agent Mayberry. I assume you are familiar with Kamera?”

Of course she was. In 1921, Vladimir Lenin ordered scientists to create poisons that would be completely undetected for use in political assassinations. Their secret lab was called “Kamera,” which means “the Chamber” in Russian. Stalin tested poisons on Soviet prisoners, frequently dissidents, often causing excruciatingly painful deaths. The Kremlin assured the West in 1953 that the Chamber had been closed, but twenty-five years later, a Bulgarian defector named Georgi Markov was assassinated waiting at a London bus stop. A pellet containing the poison ricin was jabbed into Markov’s leg through a KGB designed umbrella tip. It was quite ingenious. The killer poked him while he was waiting for a bus. The ricin was inside a tiny steel pellet coated with wax. When Markov’s natural body temperature heated the wax, the poison entered his system. It took him days to die.

Twenty-eight years after Markov’s death, another Kremlin critic, Alexander Litvinenko, was poisoned in London with radioactive-laced tea. Russia only got a slap on the hand and that emboldened the Kremlin. Six years after Litvinenko, Russian whistle-blower Alexander Perepilichny was poisoned in London with a toxic substance made from a little-known Chinese flower, gelsemium.

“In March 2018, former Russian army officer Sergei Skripal, who’d been spying for the British, and his daughter Yulia were poisoned in England,” Harris reminded them. “They used Novichok, the deadliest nerve agent ever created—to date.”

Harris leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees while clasping his hands together. “By our count, more than thirty-eight prominent Russians have died under suspicious circumstances in recent years, many caused by exotic poisons.”

“Let me guess,” Garrett said. “Pavel told you Stalin’s so-called Kamera operations were never really shut down and now Kalugin is using them to kill his enemies.”

“It’s exactly what he said,” Harris acknowledged.

“Why has Pavel suddenly become so chatty? Why’s he suddenly so eager to jump ship?” Garrett asked.

“His grandson, Peter. The teenager’s parents were killed in Svetogorsk, Russia. Both were chemists working at a Kamera lab under the direct supervision of General Gromyko.” He paused and glanced at each of them separately before continuing. “Pavel said Gromyko has developed a poison that he plans to use here in the U.S. That’s the imminent threat.”

“He wouldn’t dare, would he?” Mayberry said.

“The Russians are growing more and more bold,” Harris said. “Using social media to sow discord and interfere in elections both here and in Europe. Poisoning defectors. And we suspect they were behind the terrorist attack in Kiev. They use shills, straw men, to protect themselves.”

“Who are they planning on poisoning in the U.S. and when?” Kim asked.

“Pavel knows but won’t say. We need to get him out within two weeks, he said, or it will be too late.”

“Russian defectors always hold their best card back,” Mayberry added. “Use it as leverage.”

“He could be bluffing,” Garrett said.

“It’s a risk we can’t take,” Harris answered. “The attack in Kiev was orchestrated by the Kremlin but was carried out by a European-based Antifa cell. We suspect they’ll do the same here.”

“Antifa?” Kim said. “Aren’t they the good guys—the ones who protest against white supremacists? Hate Nazis. Why would they be shills for the Kremlin?”

“I can answer that,” Mayberry said. “Radical Antifa members are predominantly far left and militant left. That’s a wide swath. Self-described anarchists, socialists, and communists—lots of communists. There have been efforts in Congress to label Antifa as domestic terrorists but they’ve failed because a majority of Antifa members are naïve college kids recruited under the guise that their members fight racism, sexism, and Nazis. They use hashtags like #PunchANazi. The political left sees Antifa members as vigilante heroes, but the movement is deeply rooted in anticapitalism and socialist/communist teachings.”

“You’re correct,” Harris said approvingly. “Its most radical members want to destroy our democratic and capitalistic system. During the 2017 presidential inauguration, anarchists dressed in black and wearing masks torched a limousine and vandalized four businesses in Washington, D.C. When a right-leaning commentator was scheduled to speak at UC Berkeley, Antifa protestors hurled Molotov cocktails into a campus building and attempted to light the student union on fire with people in it.”

“I’m not certain how we run an intelligence operation on the right part of Antifa,” Mayberry continued. “They’re pretty unstructured—just showing up at rallies mostly to attack the alt-right. It’s not like they hold weekly meetings.”

“We have evidence that Moscow financially supports several Antifa organizers who are paid to stir up dissent,” Harris said. “That’s not information generally known by the gullible students whom they enlist for rallies. Gerald de Depardieu was an Antifa recruiter in Paris before he turned terrorist gunman in Kiev. He recruited Asyan Rivera. She’s your in.”

An aha look washed across Mayberry’s face. “I get it. You need an FBI agent to do this because it’s illegal for the CIA to carry out covert actions on U.S. soil. And you know I’ve already been asked to befriend her. But this is more than getting close enough to answer a few questions. You want me to join Antifa, don’t you?”

“The bureau has done this sort of infiltration before,” Harris replied.

“COINTELPRO,” Mayberry replied, “and the bureau was heavily criticized. It infiltrated the Black Panthers, anti–Vietnam War protestors, and the American Indian Movement. Agents lost their jobs.”

“Be cautious, Agent Mayberry; the director here is good at having others take a fall for him.” Garrett’s voice said he was kidding, but his eyes were not.

Harris said, “COINTELPRO happened before Timothy McVeigh drove a truck bomb into Oklahoma City murdering a hundred and sixty-eight Americans in an act of domestic terrorism. Before he slaughtered fifteen children. The bureau monitors hate groups. Infiltrating radical leftists who believe in destroying capitalism and our government is no different from infiltrating a radical Islamic cell.”

“Asyan Rivera wasn’t in Europe when Kiev was attacked,” Mayberry noted. “She could be just another naïve recruit.”

“She came home six months before Ambassador Thorpe was murdered,” Harris said. “We aren’t sure why. Maybe De Depardieu actually loved her and wanted to protect her. Or maybe he sent her home to prepare for an attack here using Kamera-produced poison. If Garrett gets Pavel out, he’ll tell us who, where, and when. If not, you have less than two weeks to find out.”

Harris glanced at his watch. “If you need to get in touch with me, you can do it through Jack, but only tell him that we need to meet.” Harris stood but decided to give a rah-rah closing speech. “Each of you has a specific assignment. Your country is depending on you. I can’t stress that enough. We can’t have Russians using poisons to kill Americans on our soil.”

Harris exited. Jack reappeared to return the items that they had surrendered earlier.

“It would be best if you waited five minutes, until the director departs. Please stay in this room. This house is currently for sale. Better to not touch anything.”

The moment Kim saw Director Harris’s motorcade pulling away, he did a Google search to check the house’s price.

Garrett’s mind was elsewhere. “Left wing, right wing, chicken wing—it’s all the same thing to the bureau, isn’t that right, Mayberry?”