“But he was involved so long ago. Surely that would have been changed, especially after he was pulled out.”
He went for the vodka on the credenza across the office. She didn’t see this often. “No,” he says as he pours. Judging by the amount, what he is about to say warrants it. He pours her one too, considerably smaller.
“These groups in particular were so deeply placed there could be no contact after insertion, except on activation. They are self-supporting, with specific targeting, and once activated, could not be recalled. Even if they expelled every single diplomat, they would remain. Look at the member profiles.” he says, handing her the glass. “These people are perhaps the best we produced, save Sasha. Dedicated, loyal. They gave up everything, family, friends, their country, even the service they loved. All were willing to give up their lives all for a mission they may never be called upon to do.”
“Delusional fanatics and sociopaths.” Elayna offers a different view. “But do you think that after all this time, living in American society, they would give that up?”
Kurtsin downs his drink with an ever-so-slight grimace. “They were screened with that very thought in mind, even Sasha. ”
“Of course, being he was one of them.”
“Yes and no. He was the handler, but not one of the team. He didn’t make the cut, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. If they were called up, an attack was imminent, and so would world war three.”
“So contact the current handler and have him refuse to relay any future orders to activate the team.”
“The handlers are SVR now, so that would mean involving the Defense Minister.”
“You don’t want him to know about this.”
“Smart girl, but perhaps too smart,” he thinks to himself. “It’s best this little burden falls only on our shoulders,” he says after downing a smaller glass and capping the bottle.
Elayna understands. Plausible deniability.
“Besides,” Kurtsin continues, “I think it highly unlikely that Sasha would betray this information, but this gives us an opportunity to clean the whole business up.”
Kurtsin returns to the couch and takes the stack of tapes and files from her. She notices the vodka has given him a rise. Shuffling through the files of the various teams, he selects one and hands it to her.
“This team. Last known addresses and all. I want you to find and terminate them. Yuri is sending you help.”
“An SVR man…?”
“A trusted friend.”
She looks at the pictures. The last update was over ten years ago, some of the photos even older. One in particular had her interested, but she didn’t let it show. Not her!
“Yuri knows when to use discretion.”
“Why didn’t you have Sasha Malekov terminated when he got recalled?”
“I have my reasons, and now I realize that mistake.” He reached over and brushed her dark bangs away from her blue eyes.
“Ewww!”
“Not a single one of them can fall into the hands of the Americans. Do this quickly and return quickly,” Kurtsin says. “It will ensure your future as my replacement, the first woman to head the Second Directorate. I’ve had enough of this.” His hand falls to her lap and slowly moves to her knee. He likes her in jeans.
“You’re asking too much.”
“Not from you. I know what you’re capable of.”
She smiles and gently removes his hand. “You have no idea.”
She stands up, leaving him on the couch. “It will be done,” she says, taking the file and walking away.
He calls after her. “Elayna…”
She stops and turns around.
“Sasha Malekov was my son,” Kurtsin confesses in a sigh.
Now she understands. For so many years Elayna had been in constant awe by the depth of his wisdom and unrelenting strength. Only now is the weakness revealed, foolish sentimentality. “How pathetic! I should have known better.”
Elayna has a lot of thinking to do. What else has he lied to her about, hidden from her, this man, the only person in whom she had complete trust? She feels betrayed, dirty. As she opens her office door, anger is replaced by a shudder of fear, remembering what someone had told her once.
“The less a potential adversary knows about you, the less they have to use against you.”
It was Kurtsin who told her that. All his trusting ways were now all bullshit, and now she knows too much, and knowing too much usually gets you killed.
“You old bastard!” she smiles. “I’ll fix your little red wagon!”
She gets her gun out of the wall safe and sliding a clip in place, chambers the first round. The temptation to kill him is hard to suppress and control. She’s always had a problem with control, but that’s why they considered her so dangerous and keep her so close. Kurtsin’s pet cheetah. “Not now,” She says to herself. “You deserve something better.”
Chapter 4
Oak Lane Apartments
The life of Ellen Washington isn’t an easy one, but it isn’t bad either. Whatever this life denies her, Ellen knows there’s a reason for it and that the answer will always be found with the Lord. Five days a week, sometimes six, she makes the trip out of the city to the fancy nursing home to make a living off the dying. One of the comforts she takes is that at least she has it better than most of her fellow riders, but always keeps that to herself; pride can be a hurtful thing.
Every morning the bus drops them off at the suburban malls, the hospitals and the like, and every night it would takes them back out. She’ll admit they’re like migrant workers, filling the jobs the better off don’t want, but it’s a living. It’s a decent wage, saving a good amount for her grandsons. She can easily afford a car, but the bus is just fine for her.
Being Saturday, she’s looking forward having tomorrow off, and services!
“They call it Sunday because that’s the Lord’s Day to shine,” she reminds herself with a smile, hoping that she’ll get her eldest grandson James to go with her this time. The younger one, Russ, always goes; he’s the good one, who takes after his father. James, however, requires prayer, thanks to that lost soul of a mother.
“May she rest quietly,” Ellen whispers.
Ellen hopes it isn’t too late for “Little James.” She’s confident that when his daddy finally came back home, he’d set him to the straight and narrow. A boy needs a man around.
“At least he has a father,” she says quietly. At sixteen Little James isn’t little any more, and even though he has a soft manner with his grandmother, outside he was developing a real bad reputation, and running with some shady characters. Ellen had heard down in the laundry room that his friends call him “Boo” on account of how scary he can be.
The automated voice announces her stop and Ellen says her goodbyes to the regulars. Thankfully, Ellen’s tidy garden apartment is not even a block away from the stop. They live in one of the city’s better neighborhoods, right on the boarder of an affluent suburban county. By next year she hoped to move them all across the street and to a better school district, although she likes the city charter school they attended.
She makes her way into her building, hoping that later they’d all go over to the strip mall, rent a movie, get a pizza. Since it looks like rain, she might even have a chance at getting James to stay in for once.
Right now all she wants to do is get out of her smelly whites and wash up.
Ellen doesn’t noticed the pale green Chevy Impala with government plates in the parking lot across from her building, nor the people inside waiting.
James hears his grandma come in, but can’t break from the game just yet. He is close to beating the level he’s been stuck on. Suddenly, a horrible scream erupts from the front room, more like the wail of a hurt animal that makes the hair on his neck stand up. As he rushes out, he sees his grandma sitting on the floor, looking up to the ceiling, hands on her face. Nellie her neighbor who had been
watching his brother is next to her, holding her tight and Russ next to them, wide-eyed in fear. Then he sees the Army people, three of them, hats in their hands.
When Ellen sees her oldest grandson, she screams again. Arms wide open, she begs him to come to her.
James nearly knocks her down. “Gran, what’s wrong?”
She strokes his face frantically, seeing her son’s face in her grandchild. “Your daddy, sweetie, he’s been killed over there.”
Stunned, he doesn’t hear the rest. It’s almost as if he’s gone deaf. The world becomes distant, drifting away.
“The good Lord has taken him from us, your daddy...MY SON!”
Ellen falls back into hysteria, seeing the anger begin to build in James’ eyes. He can take no more and bolts past the soldiers into the hallway and past the gathering nosy neighbors. They call after him, but he will not stop.
A cold rain has begun to fall, but he doesn’t notice. It is as if he’s being chased by an angry mob, running for dear life, full of fear. He runs until he can run no more. Eventually he staggers to a stop beneath an overpass, realizing the futility of trying to outrun himself. Boo scurries up the concrete wall to a shelf where the embankment meets the road, pulling his knees to his heaving chest. Below him, the misty rain adds a glow to the pavement as cars splash by. Exhausted, he begins to return to himself and the anger he holds for so many things. First, it was his mom, and now it’s his dad.
“They left me. How could they do that?”
He remembers the last time he saw his dad, standing in the hallway in his chocolate chips, ready to ship out.
“You the man now, Shorty. Keep things cool, keep an eye on your brother, and mind your grandma.” They leaned their heads together, forehead to forehead. “I love you, son. When I come back, I’ll be back for good. Cool?”
And then he was gone.
Later that night, James creeps back into the apartment, cold, wet, and tired. Taking a blanket out of the closet, and clutching his framed photograph of Sergeant James Washington, he slides into the bed next to his sleeping grandmother and little brother.
His father will be coming home soon, this time for good. He always did keep a promise.
Chapter 5
Warrington, PA
The Wilson family sits at a booth in the back of a busy Chinese restaurant. Kate prefers to be away from the door and never sits with her back to it. Outside, the weather has taken a nasty turn, the rain ushering in a cold front and a raw reminder that winter is on its way. It’s a perfect night for dinner and a movie. They have caught the early show, and now are catching the tail end of the dinner rush. It has become Michael’s impromptu celebration of Kate’s anniversary.
“So what’s everybody going to be on Halloween?” Michael asks while dipping a soup noodle into the hot mustard.
“I’m going as a lion tamer!” Robbie blurts excitedly.
Kate smiles. “He has this really clever idea. It’s going to be really cute,” she says proudly. “You know, you have to come up with something for Julie’s party.”
“You could be my lion, Dad,” suggests Robbie.
“No kids at this party, honey,” Kate tells him.
“I’ll think of something,” Michael says.
“It better not be I’ve got to work,” she says, flashing an angry eye at him.
“What about you?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“Mom’s just full of them these days,” Tom offers.
Kate gives him a “don’t even go there” look.
Michael sees his way out of the party plans so he takes it. “Really, how so?”
“I kind of got the jump on Sensei Justin during karate class.”
“Really?”
“Mom nearly took his head off. You’d better be careful, Dad.”
Michael pauses for a moment while sipping his tea. When he looks up, Kate is staring right at him. There is no smile and he gets a slight chill.
Tom goes on describing the scene at karate, and how she stunned them all with an incredible flying kick from a standing position that, if it had connected, would have put the big karate instructor out cold. But instead of pride, Kate hears a little anger in Tom’s voice, and is at a loss over why.
Michael’s cell chirps with a text message. A TV news director is never really off. The rest of the family frowns. He knows they’re pissed, but he has to call back. “Don’t worry, I’m not going in,” he reassures them as he gets up to make the call.
She waits a beat before asking Tom, “What’s with the attitude?”
“No attitude.” he says looking down at the duck sauce.
“Don’t lie to me.”
Tom considers carefully what he’s going to say next. “Can’t you just be a normal mom?”
Kate straightens with surprise, genuinely hurt. “What do you mean, honey?”
Tom continues to stir the duck sauce with a noodle. “You’re like always the center of everything.”
“I’m just being me. Do you think I’m crowding you or something?”
Tom thinks for a moment, “Yes, well, no. I mean, it seems to always be about you.”
Now it’s her turn to think and she quickly comes to a conclusion. “You know? You’re right. But I don’t do it on purpose,” she says. “I’m sorry, I promise I’ll be more sensitive to that, but you can’t be afraid tell me when I do it, okay?”
Still stirring the duck sauce, Tom agrees. “Okay.”
Michael returns, just as the food arrives.
“What’s wrong with the world now?” Kate sighs as Michael settles back down.
He quietly tells her as the guys tear into the food, “Another local guy got killed in action in Afghanistan, somebody from around here. It just crossed the wires.”
They both are quiet. The war is coming closer to home.
Chapter 6
Washington, DC
It is an unseasonably warm night, and everyone seems to be out on the streets of Georgetown. Mahmoud Barabi is just emerging from a pricy steakhouse after entertaining a group of his organization’s supporters. It has been a good night for him and the Free Iran Movement, one of the many exile groups working to overthrow the theocracy running the country. The FIM is one of the larger ones, whose members are sure to be influential in the new Iranian government and who will hopefully remember their friends. Those friends know him as Moody. It sounds less Arab, and some, behind his back, will say it fits his bipolar nature perfectly. He’s okay when he’s on his meds.
If Moody has a gift, it is his ability to lie, derived from having only a wisp of a conscience, thanks to his father the butcher. It’s the ready answer when friends ask him why he’s vegetarian, one of the few truths he tells. But what his friends don’t know about him is that he’s a double agent and working for the mullahs that rule Iran. A lot of people are in jail or in the grave back home thanks to him.
When he arrives at the P street town home rented for him by FIM, he sees a message waiting for him on his desktop.
You’ve been tagged in a video.
He goes to his Facebook page and follows the link to the video, posted by one of his many friends from home. He downloads the video and deletes the .mp4 label and opens it up. Although the NSA keeps a watchful eye on every form of communication coming and going, some get less scrutiny than others, especially those considered allies, like Moody. They prefer to focus on the bad guys. Now Moody opens the file. It looks like gobbledegook unless you know what you’re looking for. He does, and it makes him cringe. It’s encrypted.
“This can’t be good,” he thinks as he decodes the message.
He’s right.
In the name of Allah the merciful,
My brother, it is of the utmost importance to the revolution that you must follow my instructions. First, you must lose any surveillance that has been placed upon you immediately. Second, you must immediately identify and contact a man named Vany
a Ustinov. His address is believed to be at the Russian Embassy’s residence compound. He is a part of an operation against the Americans that must be accomplished at all costs. The next message will contain coded contact information that you must follow to the letter. You are then to extract the operational details of his mission, eliminate him and assure the completion of the task. An operative from home will arrive shortly to assist you. This is of the highest priority. Failure will not be tolerated and will be punished in the most extreme manner, from which I will be unable to protect you. It is time for you to earn your keep.
Hamdi
He reads the message three times. First he thinks it’s a joke, although he knows Hamdi has no sense of humor. Then it begins to set in, and he begins to panic. “This is madness!” His world has begun to crumble around him, all the prestige, all the elegance, the lifestyle and admiration that commanded. “And they want me to kill!” he says in astonishment. He has done it before, but he hated it, especially the blood.
“Why?” he asks the ceiling, thinking God or the accounting firm above him will have the answer.
The answer doesn’t come. All he knows is that something dark is coming his way.
Chapter 7
Woodcrest Road
“I’m sorry,” Michael says to Kate mournfully in the darkness of the bedroom. Their time alone together didn’t quite have the ending she had hoped for, nor did it have much of a start. He was restless, unable to get comfortable or fully aroused.
“It’s okay. It happens,” she says in a comforting way as she rubs his chest. “Though lately more often,” she thinks.
“Perhaps in the morning, get a good night’s sleep,” Kate tells him, pulling on her kimono.
“It’s the stress,” he tells her.
“I know just the thing,” she says while getting up. “How about some tea?”
Moose the cat awaits her outside the door and follows her to the kitchen. Kate puts on the teapot. She could just microwave the water, but she’s in no hurry to get back. The tea is for her anyway. He’ll be asleep.
“No resentments, Kate. How many times did you pass out before?”
“Plenty.”