Harbinger

by S L Shelton

  “And you came up with?”

  “She’s clean… Everything checks out like it always has,” Burgess replied. “But Scott and Nick seem to think she’s dirty.”

  John suppressed a smile.

  “What?” Burgess asked.

  John shook his head. “You know as much as those two are at each other’s throats, they’ve got a strange ability to infect one another’s thought process,” he said leaning back on his elbows.

  “Well, they’ve now infected Ray Parson too,” Burgess said, drawing a concerned frown from John. “He doesn’t want her back at the Farm once they’re back up and running.”

  John shook his head. “Penny’s clean,” he said. “I’d stake my life on it.”

  Burgess shot him a questioning glare. “That’s an awful big vote of confidence.”

  John nodded. “That’s how sure I am,” he replied. “As much of a boy scout as Gaines and Wolfe are, they’re nothing compared to Penny—she’s the poster child for the patriotic orphan operator.”

  “She’s good at what she does,” Burgess said, thoughtfully nodding his agreement.

  “She’s also a straight shooter,” John added. “If she did anything to make Nick or Scott question that, I can guarantee it wasn’t about betrayal…it’s not in her genes.”

  Burgess looked up, measuring John’s statement against what he knew about her. He squinted for a moment before nodding.

  “Okay,” he said quietly after a few beats of reflection. “But what do we do with her?”

  John raised his eyebrows and shrugged. “Put her with the section,” John said as if it were a passing thought. “I can promise you the analysts will work better with her than with Nick.”

  “Should I send Nick back out into the field?” Burgess asked, startled by the suggestion.

  John shook his head. “No…he needs to be in charge until I get back.” He looked Burgess in the eye. “But while Nick is perfect operationally, he sucks with people…and analysts need to be stroked, not beaten.”

  Burgess nodded in agreement with John’s assessment. “And you’re comfortable with the idea of her having access to everything in the section?”

  John nodded without hesitation. “Whatever it is that has Nick and Scott spooked about her, it will be resolved when they see her operate. She won’t let them down.”

  Burgess set his jaw to the side, thinking about the suggestion. After a few moments, he nodded. “It’s your section…as long as you say you’re coming back,” Burgess said finally. “And you’ve never let me down on choosing a team.”

  John smiled. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I don’t know how to do anything else at this point.”

  Burgess patted John on the leg before realizing he wouldn’t feel it. “I’ll get it moving,” he said. “But seriously…take your time getting back. Your desk will be there waiting for you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” John said with real gratitude in his eyes. Though it was always hard to be sure with spies.

  “Take care,” Burgess said as he rose to leave.

  “You too, sir,” John replied.

  As Burgess walked out of the gym, he began to feel much more at ease. Besides, he thought, who better to judge John’s section than John?

  **

  JOHN TEMPLE watched the Director leave before motioning for his therapist.

  “Are you in pain?” Pam asked. “You ready to go back to your room?”

  John shook his head. “In a minute. Can I borrow your phone for a second?”

  “Sure,” she said before pulling it out of her pocket and handing it to him. “I’ll be over here when you’re ready.”

  John nodded and then dialed a number. Penny Rhodes picked up on the second ring.

  “Rhodes,” she answered.

  “It’s me,” he said quietly.

  “John!” she said with genuine joy in her voice. “How are you? Have you gotten a—”

  “Hush and listen,” he snapped before taking a deep breath to calm himself. “The director just visited me.”

  “What—?”

  “I don’t know what you’ve done to raise suspicions with Nick, but he and Scott are leaning on Burgess to press you out,” he said.

  “John, I have been very—”

  “Listen,” he snapped again. “I’ve created an opening for you in the section… Burgess is on board with it, but if it’s going to stick, you need to get Scott and Nick on board too.”

  There was silence at the other end of the call.

  “Do you understand?” John asked.

  “How are you?” she asked after a few more beats.

  John breathed out; his outburst began to seem overly harsh. “The doc says I can be out of here in a couple of weeks,” he replied more softly. “The only thing that won’t heal is the spinal injury itself… I’m stuck with that reality.”

  “I’m so sorry, John,” Penny said. “If there is anything…”

  The silence left behind as her sentence trailed off became uncomfortable after a few seconds.

  “It is what it is,” John said finally. “I just wish I’d been able to burn that giant down with the house.”

  “We’ll sort him out,” Penny said reassuringly. “Until then… Well, you know doctors have been wrong before.”

  John chuckled. “Thanks for the optimism,” he said softly and then took a deep breath. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too,” she replied just as softly. “Take care and I’ll be out to see you when I can.”

  “No,” John replied. “We can’t risk it.”

  “You let me worry about that,” she said reassuringly. “And thanks for massaging the Director for me… I won’t let you down.”

  “I know you won’t,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t put a stop to the conjecture the night Scott went off base.”

  “You couldn’t very well have ignored the breach in protocol without raising suspicions. It’s not your fault. You did what you had to.”

  “Still.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I’ll make the director, Nick, and Scott see what an asset I am to the section.”

  “Good,” John said as a smile settled on his face.

  “Take care, John.”

  “You too, Penny.”

  When he ended the call, he stared at the phone for a second before scrolling to the call log and deleting the entry for his conversation. When he looked up, he saw Pam staring at him with an expectant look. He nodded, prompting her to bring his wheelchair over.

  “You ready to go back?” she asked as she wheeled it over.

  “Yeah,” he replied, sad. “And a dose of morphine.”

  Pam nodded as she helped him up into the chair. “I’ll get them to bring it before your dinner comes.”

  “Thanks,” he said, grunting as he dropped into the seat.

  As she wheeled him back to his room, he shifted uncomfortably, a spike of pain traveling up his spine. It made him feel trapped and helpless about the things going on with the section.

  Goddamn it, Scott, do not make this even harder on me.

  **

  9:45 p.m.—New York City, Spryte Tower

  HEINRICH BRAUN rubbed his tired eyes with his thumb and forefinger as he leaned away from his computer monitor. The video logs, gathered from hundreds of sources, spooled across Braun’s screen. Images of small private jets, indexed by city, flashed before his eyes one at a time. His efforts were redundant as security personnel had viewed the images over the past seven days already. But William Spryte was in near meltdown with anger over the loss of both Gaines and Wolfe. All they had to go on was a report that a CIA Gulfstream jet had left Andrews with a fake destination log entry. The tail number had been given to Braun’s office shortly after its departure, but it had never arrived in Iceland, the recorded destination.

  He cracked his neck to the side, staring blankly at the video feeds. After several moments of watching without seeing anything of note, he stopped the video playba
ck and clicked open his security oversight program. Listed there were some several hundred automated and manual updates that fed directly to Braun as head of security for Spryte Industries.

  He quickly scrolled through several screens of data, pausing only a few times when something caught his interest: The Secretary of State had accessed the situation room twice during the day, her ID one that was flagged for Braun’s attention. Two members of the Joint Chiefs had requisitioned use of a helicopter for a trip to Mount Weather. A Deputy Director of Homeland Security had dispatched half a dozen Baynebridge officers to the ADMAX high security prison in Florence, Colorado. Each bit of data was harvested from various Spryte Industry security contracts with the government and then covertly directed to Braun. His secret window into the government had provided value to him and Spryte Industries over the years.

  He cracked his neck once more before wiping his eyes and sitting back in his chair.

  “Where are you, Mr. Wolfe?” he asked himself quietly, his thick, East German accent folding the W in Wolfe into a soft V.

  He was about to close his report screen when an item caught his attention. A new entry had appeared on the TravTech server, in a directory that hadn’t been used in weeks. It was a single entry…a file approximately fifty megabytes in size. He opened the back door algorithm to the secure server and double clicked on the entry.

  <>

  Braun blinked in agitation and then clicked the file entry again with the same result.

  <>

  He inhaled deeply through his nose and pulled up the log on the entry. That computer nerd associate of Wolfe’s, Story Carson, had uploaded it. Storc, Braun remembered.

  He turned his head sideways as if a different perspective might reveal something new. After a moment he pursed his lips together before picking up the phone and dialing.

  It rang once before being answered.

  “Electronic Forensics Division,” a tired voice answered.

  “I want you to pull our source video for any airports suitable for Gulfstream landing in Calais, France,” Braun said slowly as if sharing an idea precisely as it occurred. “Work outwards from there, even if you have to duplicate the cities we’ve already viewed. Expand the timeline if you have to.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Braun,” the man replied crisply.

  “If you come up with anything, don’t wait to deliver the results,” Braun said tiredly as he stood. “Call me immediately. The service will find me if I’m not at my desk.”

  “Yes, sir,” he replied.

  Braun ended the call without another word and then opened his office door. His driver and bodyguard, Patrick, jolted to attention from the chair he had been occupying.

  “Should I get the car, sir?” Patrick asked hopefully.

  Braun nodded. “We can go down together,” he replied. “I might fall asleep if I sit another minute.”

  Patrick chuckled politely as they walked toward the door. Just as the glass and chrome of the executive floor reception area came into view, the overhead speakers cracked to life.

  “Heinrich…in my office. Now,” came the angry voice of William Spryte.

  Braun stopped just short of the door and dropped his chin to his chest. Patrick stood watching the old, former Stasi spook, waiting for instructions.

  After a moment, Braun looked up at Patrick. “Go start the car and wait for me out front… This won’t take a moment.”

  “Yes, sir,” Patrick replied before turning and exiting the reception area, headed for the elevators.

  Braun turned and walked with purpose toward Spryte’s office…not for any real sense of decorum, but because he knew Spryte would be watching him approach in the security monitors. When he arrived at Spryte’s outer office, he straightened his suit and knocked ceremoniously.

  “Come in, for Christ’s sake,” Spryte yelled from the other side.

  Braun entered and stood rigidly at attention—a habit from his days with the secret police in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall. “Yes, sir,” he said stiffly.

  Spryte stood next to the bar in the outer office with his back to Braun. “The little rebellion that’s taking place within the CIA isn’t abating,” said Spryte as he finished pouring scotch into two tumblers. “I need to hear that my plan to remedy that situation is progressing.”

  He handed Braun one of the drinks. “It is, sir,” Braun replied. “The scheduling opportunity has presented itself—the G8 Foreign Ministers and Intelligence heads will be meeting in Switzerland. I already have Mr. Harbinger taking steps for execution.”

  Spryte nodded and then took a sip of his drink before turning his back again.

  “The sooner we can create a vacancy in those positions, the sooner we can get our own people in place,” Spryte said. “Then all the fuss about who’s on whose side will be moot. They’ll all be on our side.”

  A sudden desire to reach into his breast pocket and extract the straight razor struck Braun. He hated that Spryte had insisted on this brash move. Secrecy had allowed Combine to flourish for nearly seventy years. Spryte’s overt plan threatened to expose the whole organization before their power was fully consolidated.

  Brash, Braun thought again. One smooth motion is all it would take to open the arteries on both sides of your throat. Then Combine could install a more levelheaded executive officer.

  Braun became dizzy with the notion of standing over Spryte’s twitching body, watching surprise, rage, and fear dance across his face. He felt a subtle stirring in his groin before Spryte turned abruptly, almost as if he had sensed the treason in his lieutenant’s mind.

  “Are we certain Mr. Harbinger is up to the task?” Spryte asked after staring into Braun’s stony expression for several beats. “He’s failed us several times in the past few months.”

  “Despite his recent setbacks, Harbinger is the only asset we’ve ever relied on with near-perfect results,” Braun replied in a cool and even tone. “The failure at the CIA training facility had much less to do with him than it did with our own internal resources and the genetically enhanced asset provided by Emrick at the Defense Intelligence Agency.”

  Spryte continued to eye Braun for a moment as if trying to mentally peel back the skin from his face to see what might lay behind it. “Your asset was killed as well as I recall,” Spryte said with a wry smile before downing the remainder of his scotch.

  Though agitation surged in Braun at the reminder of the loss of his asset and one-time plaything, Eric the Joiner as his classmates at the Farm had called him, Braun revealed nothing in his expression. “Correct, sir,” Braun replied.

  “Someone you trained?” Spryte asked, turning his back to refill his drink.

  The desire to lurch forward and slice Spryte’s throat began to rise again.

  “Yes, sir,” Braun replied in the same even tone.

  Spryte turned to face Braun. After a moment’s pause, he set the drink down on his secretary’s unoccupied desk and stepped closer, stopping within inches of Braun’s face. “I’m not completely convinced you are the reliable asset you used to be,” Spryte whispered, grinning but speaking with threatening venom.

  “I serve at your pleasure, sir,” Braun replied just as evenly as before, but his hand twitched at his side, imagining the razor grasped within.

  A red flush began to fill Spryte’s face as he clearly expected some sort of apology. His hand lashed out, striking Braun sharply across his cheek. Braun stood without moving…without so much as blinking his eyes.

  Spryte stood and stared at Braun a few seconds longer before taking his drink from the desk and walking back to his office. “That’s all, Braun.”

  “Yes, sir,” Braun replied. He turned and left.

  As he walked, his anger grew. With each step he took away from Spryte’s office, he regretted not slitting the man’s throat. By the time he reached the car, he was nearly in a state of rage.

  Patrick hurried out of the car and opened the back door fo
r his boss. As Braun began to get in, he realized he was still holding the tumbler of scotch that Spryte had poured for him. He turned and faced the front of Spryte Tower, almost as if confused by what his next course of action should be. After a moment, he threw the tumbler at one of the massive concrete columns at the entrance.

  He blinked his rage away for several beats before turning and getting into the car as if nothing had happened. “Home, Patrick,” Braun said calmly.

  “Yes sir,” Patrick replied quietly before closing the door and then getting behind the wheel.

  Soon, you arrogant Lackaffe, Braun consoled himself. Very soon indeed.

  two

  Thursday, January 27th

  12:15 a.m.—Langley, Virginia, CIA Headquarters

  RUTH ASHFORD clenched her jaw, knowing what was coming next. The other five analysts in the research section had already turned back to their work and were pretending they couldn’t hear the rising conflict.

  “I’ve verified all the background checks on Joiner,” she said, referring to the dead mole who’d tried to kill Scott Wolfe a week earlier—Eric “the Joiner” Hicks.

  Nick Horiatis was back from whatever black site they’d used to “question” the turncoat CIA instructor, Greg Bailey, and now he was hovering over her and the other analysts. All of them had been working nearly around the clock for days since the attack on the Farm. Nick acted as if they had all just come back from a three-day weekend.

  “And?” Nick asked.

  Ruth’s eyebrows shot up in a condescending expression and shrugged. “And…uh, they’re verified?” she replied, letting her redundant response imply the stupidity of Nick’s question.

  “Well obviously, that’s not the case,” Nick said with a sneering grin. “I might be wrong, and you can correct me if I am, but typically, when someone has thorough Agency background, personality, and associations checks, they don’t start their CIA careers as a mole unless something has been falsified or missed.”

  “The checks are all verified. No dead ends, no breaks in service, no fake references, no fake family members,” Ruth replied, the desperation in her voice growing with each new supporting detail. “Eric Hicks was the ideal CIA candidate.”