Fallout

3

Though Jackie had introduced her team — first names only — as soon as they’d regrouped at the safe house, Fisher was still in countersurveillance mode, so it took him a few minutes to stop thinking of them as dots on his mental clock face. Tail 6.1—the man who had for the final hour of the exercise stayed so doggedly on Fisher’s six — was named Frederick, and Tail 6.2.2—the arm-in-arm couple that had passed him right before his dash into the alley — were named Reginald and Judy. Most of the other eight faces were familiar, but a few were not, and Fisher absently wondered if he’d somehow missed them. As much as he hoped not, he knew the reality. For every rat you see, there’s…

“Okay, people, I think it’s safe to say Sam taught us a few tricks tonight. So, despite the sting to our egos, let’s raise a toast to our rabbit…”

As one, the group raised glasses of wine, beer, or hard liquor in a silent salute to Fisher. Fisher smiled, nodded, and raised his own bottle of Coors. The toast was heartfelt and the atmosphere easy, but for most of Fisher’s career he had worked alone, and so, like dozens of other surprises this turn in his career had given him, the camaraderie took some getting used to.

After Jackie had pulled up in the Johnson & Sons van and admitted defeat, she, Fisher, and the team had regrouped at a CIA safe house in Sausalito, across the bay from Angel Island State Park, for a postmortem of the exercise. Of those assembled, only Fisher and Jackie knew tonight’s exercise had been Fisher’s final exam before graduation.

Much of his training over the past three months had been familiar stuff — weapons, unarmed combat, covert communications, surveillance — so Fisher had had little trouble adapting his own background to the material. What had taken some time to get used to was that many of the tradecraft tricks were often done in broad daylight and under close surveillance. Passing someone a message in a darkened alley was one thing; doing so on a busy city street during noon rush hour with dozens of watchers studying your every move was an altogether different matter.

Still, Fisher was unsurprised to find that he was enjoying himself. The challenge of playing and winning the espionage chess game with only your wits and guile was intoxicating.

Tonight’s tour through San Francisco’s foggy streets had been the culmination of a weeklong “live fire” exercise designed to test his ability to slip into an unfamiliar city, establish and run a network of agents, and then cleanly ex-filtrate himself after securing “the key,” a crucial piece of information from a notional enemy ministry of defense. The final test had been straightforward if not easy: service a dead drop where one of his agents had placed “the key” and then transport it to his handler on the other side of town, all under the watchful eyes of Jackie’s secret police team.

Now friends again, the group sat at a round poker table under a cluster of pendant lights that cast soft halogen pools on the baize surface.

“So tell me this, Sam,” said Reginald. “That thing with the ladder on the roof… Did you bang it on the edge that last time just to make sure we heard it?” Fisher nodded, and Reginald grinned and shook his head. “Nice touch.”

“How about the apartment?” Judy asked, sipping a glass of Chardonnay. “Did you just spot it empty, or what?”

“Checked the newspaper ads two days ago.”

“Where?”

“During breakfast. The coffee shop on Sloan. The ad was brand-new, so it was a safe bet it hadn’t been rented yet.”

“But you didn’t circle anything, did you, you crafty bastard,” Jackie said. “We picked up that paper, checked it.”

“Hell, I don’t even carry a pen anymore.”

There were chuckles around the table. Fisher knew nothing about these people beyond their first names, but he assumed each of them worked as case officers in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations — the real-ife, boots-on-the-ground, secret-stealing, shadow-skulking operatives of film and book.

Each one, like Fisher, would know the rules of working and living as a professional paranoid. In this case, pens were often considered instruments of betrayal, something that can leave a trace of your presence or intentions or even passing interest. The CIA’s informal history, passed down from generation to generation of operatives, is full of stories of otherwise smart men and women who’d died from a case of ink poisoning. In this business, memorization and recall was not a luxury but rather a requisite for a long life.

Fisher said, “That homeless guy I paid off… Did you—”

“Rough him up?” said Jackie. “No. But Frederick did tug on his beard to see if it was a fake.”

More laughter.

“What I meant was, did you let him keep the hundred bucks?”

This brought more gales of laughter. When they subsided, Jackie said, “Yeah, yeah, we let him keep it. We’re not barbarians, Sam. The poor guy had peed his pants. I wasn’t going to rob him on top of it.”

The dissection of the exercise continued for another half hour until finally Jackie asked, “Any feedback from your side of things, Sam? How’d we do?”

Fisher shrugged, took a sip of his beer.

“Come on, man,” said Reginald. “Let’s hear it.”

Fisher glanced at Jackie, who gave him a nod.

“Okay. Frederick, you were on my six most of the night.”

“Right.”

“Almost flawless, but when you stopped at that shop window and made your fake call, you only punched four numbers — too few for a real number and too many for a speed dial. Reginald and Judy: Reginald, you never changed your shoes. Same pair of Nikes with the black scuff on the toe. Jackie, your command van: It’s a 2005 model. The day I first noticed you, I checked the Johnson & Sons fleet. None of them are newer than 2001, and all have painted logos — not magnetic.” Fisher paused for a moment, scratched his head. “That’s about it, I think.”

Collectively, the faces around the table were staring openmouthed at him. Finally, Jackie broke the silence: “Well, I guess we’re gonna call that a passing grade for you.”

“Come on, man, you noticed how many numbers I punched into my phone?” Frederick said.

Fisher shrugged.

“Seriously?”

Fisher nodded. “Seriously.”

As much as Fisher preferred being on his own, now that the program was coming to a close, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was going to miss this camaraderie.

The experimental three-month program that had brought Fisher here — a joint venture between the CIA’s Directorate of Operations and Third Echelon — had been code-named CROSSCUT and was designed to teach Third Echelon’s lone Splinter Cell operatives the ways of “open water” espionage tradecraft — in essence, to teach Fisher and others like him how to do what they do in broad daylight, without the benefit of shadows, stealthy tactical suits, and noise-suppressed weapons.

Fisher’s boss, Colonel Irving Lambert, had chosen Fisher as a guinea pig. If Fisher survived the program — which it seems he had — and then was able to put what he learned to work in the field — which was yet to be seen — Irving would send other Splinter Cells through the program.

Truth be told, Fisher didn’t need a real-world field test to tell him what he’d learned in CROSSCUT would be invaluable. He would always prefer to work alone, and he’d always prefer shadows to sunlight, but this business rarely conformed itself to one’s preferences. The world of covert operations was a roller-coaster ride of balance: chaos versus order; well-laid plans versus inevitable disasters, both large and small. Of course, whether or not Third Echelon continued to participate in CROSSCUT would be Lambert’s decision, but Fisher knew what his recommendation was going to be.

Jackie’s cell phone trilled. She flipped it open and walked a few steps away from the table. She listened for a few moments, then disconnected and said to Fisher, “Call home.”

Fisher turned around in his chair, retrieved his cell phone from his coat pocket, powered it on, then dialed. After two rings, a female voice answered, “Extension forty-two twelve.”

“It’s me,” Fisher replied. Though the woman who answered knew his voice, she followed protocol and paused a moment to let the voice-print analyzer confirm his identity. “Hold a moment, Sam,” said Anna Grimsdottir. “I’ve got the colonel for you.”

Lambert came on the line a few seconds later. “Sam, I’ve got a Gulfstream headed to the Coast Guard Air Station. Get on it and come home.”

“Miss me that much, Colonel?”

“No, I just got a message from the State Department. A man admitted to Johns Hopkins asked to see someone from the CIA. It’s Peter, Sam. He’s in a bad way. You need to get here.”

Fisher felt his heart flutter in his chest. Peter…

“I’m on my way.”