Warning Order

Chapter Six

"Matt, can I see you for a minute?" Blake Kelley asked as he poked his head around the office door.

"Sure, Blake, come on in. We're just going over today's schedule. I’ve got a few extra minutes to spare before I meet with Rick. What's going on?"

Pete Bradley was sitting on the corner of the desk with an open notebook in his lap. Kelley acknowledged Bradley with a contemptuous nod. "Matt, are you aware that Stevens and Adler used the scrambler phone?"

"Sure. They probably called Admiral Torrinson confirming Lampson was safe. Why?" Wharton scratched his chin as he leaned back in his swivel chair.

Kelley placed the logbook on the desk, pointing to his notation. "I don't mean that time. They came back yesterday morning and asked to use it again."

Wharton's shoulders went back, as he straightened in the chair. "They call Torrinson?"

"That's what they said."

Bradley stood and walked toward the window, then turned back to Kelley as he picked a piece of lint from his new pinstriped blue suit. "What do you mean 'that's what they said'? You're supposed to keep your ears open."

"I know what I'm supposed to do, Pete!" Kelley lifted a pencil from behind his ear and pointed it at Wharton. "Look, they asked to go behind closed doors. George okayed it."

Wharton frowned, with his eyebrows knitting together, nearly becoming one strip of dark, thick hair. "So why wasn't this brought to my attention yesterday?"

"Believe me, Matt, I wanted to but George said it was all right and not to worry. It kept me awake most of the night. That's why I'm here."

Bradley stared at Kelley, thinking: You fuckin' weasel.

“Look, Blake,” Wharton, said, “why don't you get back to work. We'll check into this." Kelley left. Wharton swiveled his chair around slowly, completing a 360 degree circle. "Pete, we had Lampson shadowed, didn't we?"

Bradley nodded. "Cummings and Hastings. They were instructed to cover the lobby until this morning, then Hastings was to follow Lampson back here for his meeting with you."

"He's due in any time now," Wharton said under his breath. He went over to the credenza, rolling up his white shirt sleeves as he walked. He poured a fresh cup of coffee. "Why don't you give him a call?" Bradley was headed for the outer office when Wharton stopped him. "And check Tegel base ops and see if Navy turned in their orders." Wharton watched Bradley as he left, thinking that the attaché's close cropped haircut made it seem as though his head was covered by a permanent shadow.

As soon as the door closed, Wharton went over to the window, sipping the hot coffee. Something's going on here. He tried remembering everything he and Lampson had spoken about at the park, trying to recall anything significant. During that earlier meeting, his gut kept trying to tell him something. He was getting the feeling now that he should have listened. He never should have let Lampson out of his sight, but he weakened after knowing how much the agent had been through.

Wharton worried that the Agency was going to have his ass. Retirement was suddenly looking better and better. Maybe he’d better call…

The door burst open and Bradley rushed in. "Lampson doesn't answer. Hastings was going to check his room and the restaurant, then call you."

Wharton took a deep breath between clenched teeth, resisting an urge to throw the cup against the wall. "And what about Navy?"

"Never got on the flight."

"Christ!" He slammed the cup on the desk. A stream of black coffee shot upward, then splattered across the ink-stained blotter. The phone rang and he grabbed the receiver. "What!" he shouted. "Hastings? You'd better tell me you know where he is." He sank into the swivel chair, resting his elbows on the desk as he listened to the agent's report. "Get your ass back here!" Bradley thought the phone was going to split in half when Wharton slammed down the receiver. "They lost him. They fuckin' lost him!"

"But… how? Neither one of them reported seeing him anywhere near the lobby. That hotel's been covered since Lampson got there."

Wharton stood then leaned forward, resting on knuckles of balled up clenched fists. "Remember the storm last night? Well, according to Hastings, there was a sixty second loss of power in the hotel."

"Yeah, the storm must have… "

"No, Pete. Not the storm. I'll bet my ass it was Navy… Stevens more precisely." He straightened up, folded his arms across his chest, and with a cold stare said, "Let's see. We've got two Navy NIS officers and one snatched agent who still hasn't been thoroughly debriefed, and who's now missing. Can you add two and two, Pete?"

Bradley rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the perspiration, and tried hard to ignore Wharton's sarcasm. "But why the hell would NIS take Lampson?"

"I guess we'd better find that out, shouldn't we?"

"Where do you want to start?"

"Oh, for Christ's sake! Forget it! I'll get the answers myself," Wharton snapped as he headed for the office door. "You may as well go back to bed, Pete! You've been asleep for the last seven months, anyway."

Bradley jerked his head back, narrowly escaping from having his medically-altered nose battered by the slamming door. "You blew it, you asshole! Shit! Shit!"

While Wharton waited to call Torrinson, he had Cummings and Hastings search the hotel rooms of Lampson, Grant, and Adler. He told them to make general inquiries with the hotel staff, trying not to raise any suspicion. No one had seen the three, except the restaurant staff the morning before.

He got off his personal office elevator, walking briskly towards the crypto room door, his mind going a mile a minute as he mentally replayed the conversation he'd had with Bradley. He couldn’t believe the asshole made it through the diplomatic selection board. He made a mental note to contact Henry Parker at State and get Bradley out from under his shoes. "What a jerk!" he mumbled.

He nodded at Kelley and Canetti as he approached their desk. "I need the hot phone." He walked straight for the door as Canetti rolled his chair around and flashed an inquiring look toward Kelley as the bureau chief passed them.

Kelley asked, "Something hot, sir?"

"The buzzer! The buzzer!" Wharton impatiently demanded, snapping his fingers.

While he waited for the call to go through to Torrinson, he thought back to 1967 in Vietnam where he first met Lieutenant Commander Torrinson. Wharton had recruited him out of Camp Tien Shah in Da Nang to run some 'sneak and peek' ops for the CIA in Laos. The Teams were in Vietnam without an official mission statement. They were always open to running any operation they could get their hands on. Usually, it was some shit mission that no other SOF (Special Operations Force) would touch. A warning order would be written and given to the platoon that would carry it out.

Considering Torrinson's background, Wharton felt that a little camera work would introduce the young lieutenant commander to his world. He was right. Torrinson was hooked and it wasn't long before his career took on a new look — black.

The static stopped as he heard Torrinson's yeoman answer, "NIS. Admiral Torrinson's office. Petty Officer Phillips."

"Petty Officer, I need to talk with Admiral Torrinson. Tell him it’s Matt Wharton.”

A few seconds later, Torrinson answered the scrambler with a distinct smile in his voice. "Hey, Matt!"

"Admiral, how the hell are ya?"

"Can't complain," Torrinson responded. Already having a pretty good idea on the reason behind the call, he asked, "I have a feeling this is more than just a social call. Right?"

Getting right to the point, Wharton responded, "You might say that. What's the scoop on Captain Stevens and his buddy?"

Torrinson paused for a second and extracted the Tootsie Roll Pop from his cheek, his early morning sugar kick. "Who wants to know?" he laughed.

"Come on, Admiral, you've got a couple of your boys over here and it appears they have an agenda that I just might be interested in. Can you get me up to speed on it?"

"Not a problem, Matt, but on one condition. You've got to keep Bradley out of the loop. That guy has some friends at Defense who can't keep their mouths shut, especially to the Post reporters. That's not a problem, is it?"

"Understood, John, not a problem. As a matter of fact, I want to address that in just a moment. Am I in on this?"

"Affirmative.” The Admiral paused. “Got a few things to clean up in the East concerning Lampson. Now, what I need is a blank check from the black money bank from the boys in the basement for Grant and his partner. It seems the Company's 'professor' has some offspring roaming the back woods somewhere."

Wharton's eyebrows shot up. "He's got what? How many?"

"Two, Matt. Twin boys."

Wharton chuckled. "Busy little agent, isn't he?" Then he queried suspiciously, "Is there anything further I need to know about?"

"I've got a chemical problem I need to clean up at the lab level, as well as get Stevens and Adler over the wall and then back again."

"Okay. Let's see if I got this right: We've got kids, we've got a lab, we’ve got safe houses and 'do it' money to arrange. Right?"

Admiral Torrinson responded, "It's not that easy. There's also the little issue where I have to make sure that we save the Kremlin."

Wharton's jaw dropped. "Excuse me? You're gonna have to what? Never mind! Never mind! I don't want to know. What the hell am I talking about? Yes, I do. I'm a player! Wait a minute. I am in the loop, aren't I?"

"Of course you are. I couldn't do it without you. Hell, you know more about that area than any three agents, aside from Stevens, of course."

"I think I'm getting a hard-on! I like this one!"

Torrinson chuckled. "Can you do the money for me?"

Wharton shot back, "Is a fresh fucked fox in a forest fire hot?"

Torrinson nearly choked on his laughter from Wharton's retort. "I gotta remember that one! Just confirm in English, please."

"Of course you'll get your money. How much?"

As Torrinson composed himself, he filled Wharton in on Grant's request. Then he said, "I'm going to have Grant run the plan by you and leave it in your hands to fill in the blanks. Okay by you?"

"You bet your ass, John. Do you want me to run this as a black op?"

"You bet your ass. I'd better not hear a peep from anywhere in this crazy town of D.C."

"You've got it."

"By the way, are you still seeing Heidi?" Torrinson asked.

"Oh, yeah," Wharton answered.

"Give her my best," Torrinson said with sincerity.

Wharton realized this was all the information he'd get at this time. "Can I call you back, John?"

"No problem." Torrinson flipped open his schedule book, running his finger down the next day's events. "Twenty hundred hours tomorrow, my time."

"Roger that. Oh, by the way, can you get in touch with Henry Parker at State and ask him to shit in Bradley's mess kit?"

Torrinson broke into a hearty laugh and while nodding his head to the affirmative, said, "No problem. Do it as soon as we hang up. He's scheduled to be over with the SecDef this morning, briefing him on this op."

"Thanks, John. Give my best to the family."