OUTCAST Ops: The Poseidon Initiative

THIRTEEN

Stephen Shah had a wildcard to play. He’d cleared the longshot tactic with Tanner, who had told him he was greenlighting it only because it wouldn’t take much time to fail. As soon as it did, he was to get back to the university campus to provide external lab support there.

Shah knelt behind his rental car in the parking garage of his hotel. Each of the three OUTCAST operators were checked into separate hotels under assumed identities to avoid associations. He looked and listened to be sure he wouldn’t be witnessed for the next minute or so. He’d already cased out the positions of the security cameras and deliberately parked in a blind spot.

Shah slipped a license plate from his leather messenger bag and then pulled a multitool from his pocket and deployed its screwdriver. In about thirty seconds he had the Netherlands rental plate off and in his bag. Thirty more saw a diplomat plate affixed to his gray Peugeot 207. He put the tool away and dusted off the knees of his charcoal gray pants. Then he adjusted his tie and jacket in the window reflection and got into the car.

As he drove out of the garage and toward the U.S. embassy in The Hague, Shah hoped that his past experiences here would be sufficient to see this through. As a middle-Eastern specialist, most of his time abroad in the CIA had been spent there, but on occasion he did have reason to visit the Hague embassy over the decades, and he still had some contacts there. Today, though, he hoped he wouldn’t see any of them, with one exception. Even of those who were still there, he highly doubted they would remember him. It was simply his familiarity with operating protocols of U.S. embassies in foreign nations in general that he was banking on.

Shah pulled up to a light and waited, deep in thought. Were his plan to fail, he would surely be imprisoned on multiple charges and cross-jurisdictional violations. Tanner would likely find a way to get him out of it, but it would take a while.

But it wasn’t himself he was worried about. He’d seen the replays of that halftime show in Miami, and knowing that if he were able to delay another event like that by even just a few hours — maybe long enough for other options to work — any penalty he might pay personally would be well worth it. He’d already put in his time, lived a full life. The U.S. no longer trusted him, but he wanted to help the nation that had taken his family in when he was a young boy from a war-torn Iran and given him a future. Given him an education, jobs, a career. Given him a life. Sure, things changed gradually over the decades. He’d noticed some ugliness creeping into the lexicon that hadn’t been there when he’d first started (or was he just too young and starry-eyed to notice it, he’d asked himself on many a sleepless night), and eventually things had ended badly when he’d filed suit against the CIA for not being promoted due to his race.

Still, even after all that, he’d been welcomed by Tanner Wilson and OUTCAST. The group lacked the security and prestige of his former position, but in a way it allowed him to actually do more to combat threats to the United States. So America was still good to him. And he would do his utmost to be good to it.

Shah approached a dull-looking, gray cinderblock facade of five stories and instinctively checked his rear-views. No one seemed to be tailing him. Taking in the building, he smiled and shook his head. It really didn’t look much different from his last visit here about eight years ago, when he’d stopped by on the way home from the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia to share information on a budding jihadist organization he had been tracking, called ISIS.

Shah cleared the memories from his mind and mentally steeled himself as he drove up to the manned entrance. He had his fake CIA Special Agent badge, papers and falsified vehicle documentation at the ready. When he reached the guardhouse he rolled his window down and reached his hand out with the documents to the guard without smiling. The young man took the credentials, also without a smile, and studied them carefully, an M-16 slung over one shoulder and a handheld radio on his belt.

“How long will you be staying at the embassy?” He looked up at Shah.

“Just for tonight.” That was the truth.

“And how long in the Netherlands?”

Shah looked away from the guard, feigning boredom while he looked around at the embassy grounds. He was buying time to formulate a response. He hadn’t expected this question. He didn’t think he’d ever been asked it before. Were they onto him already?

“Also just for tonight.” That was not so much the truth. But it went along with his here-on-important-business-that-won’t-take-long story.

“One moment.” The guard retreated into the small guardhouse structure and typed something into a computer. Shah knew he was entering notes about this encounter into an electronic log. Then he turned back around and handed him his papers, wordlessly nodding him through.

Shah parked in the employee lot and carried his briefcase to the building entrance, also guarded. He flashed his credentials to the guard here as well, this time also submitting his briefcase to a search, which turned up nothing suspicious. Again he was nodded through.

Shah took the elevator to the fourth floor where he knew the highest levels of government decision-makers to be housed. While in the elevator he made certain the contents of his briefcase were still in the proper order after being rifled through by the guard. Satisfied, he relaxed and took a deep breath just before the chime rang announcing floor 4.

Shah proceeded down the hall past closed doors on either side until he reached the room number he sought. He paused there, steadying his nerves. Satisfied he was as calm as he could make himself, he knocked on the door. A female voice told him to come in and he opened it.

Inside was a bustling open space divided into cubicles. A receptionist sat at a low desk off to the left. She asked him how she may direct his visit. Shah gave her a name and she asked if he had an appointment.

“No, I’m afraid this is a matter of urgency which arose too quickly to make pre-arrangements. I have orders from the President of the United States of America to close this embassy.”

Shah lifted a piece of paper from his briefcase bearing the presidential seal and dangled it in front of her face.