The Ares Decision

39

Brandon wouldn’t have wanted all this fuss, but as his friend I’m really happy to see it,” the man said, shifting uncomfortably behind the lectern.

Dave Collen tuned him out, unable to remember his name and completely uninterested in what he had to say.

The small auditorium was jammed with people, and he scanned the faces, wondering how many had actually known Brandon Gazenga and how many had come out of curiosity and the promise of free pastries. There were a few expressions of real emotion, but most of the people just looked on with grave detachment.

“I’m sure everyone here knows what a talented analyst Brandon was, but with the way the agency works, a lot of people never had the time to find out what a great guy he was,” the man continued, his throat constricting with sadness. “I had the privilege of working closely with him for the past few years…”

Collen continued surveying the crowd, still not finding what he was looking for.

The ramifications of having to kill Gazenga so soon were still evolving, but how he had died made matters even worse. Who would have thought he’d wait until he was suffocating on his filthy carpet to grow a backbone? After admitting to contacting Russell, he’d finally fessed up to the time and place of their meeting, and Collen had lived up to his end of the bargain, holding out the phony antidote.

He’d expected Gazenga to snatch the bottle and shake the useless pills desperately into his mouth. Instead, he accepted them calmly, slowly swallowing them and then letting his head settle to the floor. Collen hadn’t left until the analyst’s gaze became fixed and unseeing.

They’d sent their team to the rendezvous point, but it quickly became clear that Gazenga had known he was a dead man and lied. The tracker they’d put on Russell’s car showed her heading into Pennsylvania — something they discovered too late to set up another ambush.

Collen perked up when the door at the rear of the room opened and Randi Russell slipped through. He nudged Larry Drake and gave a nearly imperceptible nod. It wasn’t proof that she’d known Gazenga was the one who slipped her a note, but it was a strong indication. She was hardly the type to show up to a memorial — particularly one for a person she didn’t know.

“When am I going to see a final?” the DCI whispered, referring to the revised plan for Russell’s elimination.

“Soon. We have a few more details to work out. She’s living alone in a friend’s cabin while she’s stateside. It couldn’t be more perfect for us — no security system, no neighbors for miles, and only one lightly traveled rural road in.”

“Then why isn’t it done?”

“The contractor I want to use is difficult to contact in a way that doesn’t leave a trail.”

“No mistakes, Dave. Do you understand me? We can’t afford any more.”

Collen nodded, wondering if it was an overly optimistic assessment of the situation. He’d completed an exhaustive survey of Gazenga’s computer use, uncovering his carefully hidden search for someone to help him, but otherwise coming up empty. Russell appeared to be similarly clean.

Just because he hadn’t found anything, though, didn’t mean there was nothing to find. Most likely, Gazenga had been telling the truth when he said that he’d given Russell only a time and place. But it was far from certain.

Finally, the loss of their eyes in Uganda had been a disaster. They were left tracking Smith with marginal satellite images and a single unreliable man on the ground. As of an hour ago, they could pinpoint the team’s location with only a thirty-mile margin of error.

The fact that they couldn’t afford another mistake was certain. The question was whether they’d already made too many.

Randi Russell slid along the wall, joining in on the subdued laughter as the speaker told a story about a rafting trip he’d taken with Gazenga. She finally stopped at a table and lifted the tinfoil on one of the plates lined up on it.

Doughnuts.

She pulled one out and began gnawing at its edge as she made her way to an unoccupied corner of the room. The size of the crowd made her wonder how many people would show up on the day her own luck inevitably ran out. Living a life doing things that couldn’t be talked about in countries most people couldn’t find on a map hadn’t left her with a particularly large circle of friends. And the few she did have tended to be a little skittish about showing their faces or admitting they knew her.

No, there would be no brightly lit, pastry-fueled eulogies celebrating her life and service. She’d have to settle for a few toasts by anonymous men and women sitting in dusty third world bars scattered across the globe. And truthfully, she’d have it no other way.

The speaker wrapped up his story and indicated to his right. “Director Drake had the privilege of knowing Brandon personally and wanted to say a few words, so I’ll shut up now. Are you ready, sir?”

Randi watched Drake stride to the lectern amid respectful applause. This seemed to confirm the rumor that Gazenga was working on something high-level. What it was, though, she still had no idea. His focus was on central Africa, and there was nothing she could find going on there that couldn’t be explained by the continent’s normal state of barely controlled chaos.

Of course, the digging she’d done had been fairly superficial thus far. The fact that he’d died of a perfectly credible accident so soon after passing her that note suggested two possibilities. One, he should clean out his fridge more often. Or, two, someone very slick and very powerful had wanted him dead. Assuming the latter was true, it had made sense to be as discrete as possible.

Unfortunately, there was only so much you could learn from the shadows. There was still no response to the message she’d left Jon, and all she’d been able to determine was that he was on leave from his job at Fort Detrick. Why he’d requested the leave or what he was doing with it was still a mystery.

She had a friend at TSA checking into whether or not he’d taken a commercial flight anywhere, but the answer was taking longer than she felt comfortable with. If Jon was in trouble, she needed to find him and bail his stupid ass out.

So there she was, making an appearance at Brandon Gazenga’s wake. It’d be interesting to see who noticed.