Silent Threat

by Jeff Gunhus

  Mara decided to use the time and the forced proximity to get the rest of her answers.

  “I’m still pissed at you,” she said.

  “For not telling you about Hawthorn?” He spoke in a low voice, but more than a whisper. There’d been an unspoken acknowledgment that the drone outside, if there even was one, would probably be far enough away to permit them to speak.

  “That. And for everything else you aren’t telling me.”

  There were enough holes in the old silo that shafts of light crisscrossed the wide column of darkness, dust motes dancing in the air. Her dad leaned against the wall directly opposite from her, light hitting his chest and reflecting his face in a way that drew deep shadows, the way he used to hold a flashlight under his chin when he told her and Lucy scary bedtime stories.

  “Maybe I made some mistakes,” he said. “But always to protect you and Joey.”

  She remembered what he’d said outside. She’d been so angry that it was a little blurry, but it was there. “You were right. If you’d told me about Hawthorn, I would have made us go get Joey. I wouldn’t have been willing to wait.”

  He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “I know. But maybe we should have gone right away. We might have even gotten him out. Even if we had, you’d never have been able to stop running after that. Ever.”

  “Who are these people? Who are we fighting against?”

  “Omega. I heard the name once from someone I interrogated, right before he threw himself off a roof to keep from being captured. I don’t even know if that’s what they call themselves. It was either call them Omega or keep calling them those assholes.”

  “I guess either would work. Are they Russian?”

  “Yes. And Chinese. And North Korean. And Syrian. And American. Nationality means nothing to them. Power is all that matters.”

  “To what end?”

  “Jim and I have been trying to piece that together,” he said. The best we can tell, they’re some kind of doomsdayers. They believe the world is on a trajectory toward failure. Toward societal breakdown. Anarchy.”

  “Doesn’t take much to reach that conclusion. Just the nightly news.”

  “There’s a difference between thinking it might happen and being certain of it. Between thinking of ways to avoid the end of civilization, and seeking out ways to manufacture it.”

  “So they are destabilizers?” she asked. “Funding the anarchists at WTO meetings? That sort of thing?”

  “That’s amateur hour. These people, funded by some of the wealthiest families in the world, have infiltrated every level of government and institutions. They believe the apocalypse is inevitable. The only way to ensure they survive it is to control exactly how and when it happens.”

  The implications slowly sank in for Mara. “If an aircraft is going down, better to pick the spot for the crash landing than just fly it until it falls out of the sky.”

  “They’re not preparing for the end of the world in case it occurs,” he said. “They’re preparing for the end of the world because they’re going to be the ones that set it on fire.” He drew in a deep breath. “And your mom was part of it.”

  Mara felt her throat constrict. Her stomach turned over at the easy reference to her mom as traitor.

  “It’s time you tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me what happened the night she died.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Four years ago

  Prague was beautiful at any time of day, but sunset made it one of the world’s most perfect sights. Called the City of a Hundred Spires for good reason, the Gothic churches and baroque buildings of the Old Quarter created a spectacular silhouette as the sun descended behind Scott as he walked out onto the Charles Bridge.

  Getting to Prague had required him to cash in more than a dozen favors. After his run-in with Townsend in the Oval Office, he was put on administrative leave with his travel rights revoked. There were more than a few people who owed their lives to him, so there were allies more than willing to look the other way and ignore the flag on his file when he asked for a covert flight into the Czech Republic. He warned them that there might be hell to pay for helping him, but that hadn’t stopped any of them. They’d regret the decision later.

  The Charles Bridge was a fifteenth-century pedestrian bridge, a popular tourist attraction in the city, providing postcard-worthy views of the Vltava river, Old Town, and the other bridges connecting the two parts of the city. Scott had been there during the summer and walked the bridge with hundreds of people, enjoying the views and basking in the sun, but there were only a few other people on the bridge that evening. A light snow had fallen earlier in the day and then frozen in the frigid temperature that followed, keeping the bridge mostly empty. He assumed Wendy had known that would be the case. A public meeting place, but somewhere they wouldn’t be disturbed by too many people.

  After the Oval Office, Scott had first gone back to Langley and gone through Wendy’s file. He’d read it all. Then he’d called analysts he knew who had worked on the brief and quizzed them ruthlessly on their methods and conclusions. He’d given them scenario after scenario that might have explained the paper trail in front of him, but they refuted each in turn. By the end, he wasn’t willing to admit his wife was a traitor. But he accepted that she was involved in something he couldn’t explain.

  Just as he was trying to determine how to reach out to her, she called him on his cell.

  “Scott, it’s me.”

  He could tell immediately that something was wrong. He tried to answer, tried to play along as if he didn’t know anything of what he’d learned over the last twelve hours, but the words caught in his throat when he heard her voice.

  “I think you know why I’m calling,” she said.

  “I need to see you,” was all he could manage.

  “I can explain everything.”

  “I need to see you, Wendy. Tell me where and I’ll be there.”

  “Will you come alone?”

  “Yes.”

  There was a long pause. He could hear her breathing on the other end. He waited.

  “Do you promise?” she finally asked.

  “Yes.”

  She gave him the time and location for their meeting. When she was done there was silence, long enough that he was worried she was gone.

  “Wendy?”

  “I’m here.”

  Neither of them wanted to get off the phone, but neither of them knew what to say either.

  “Whatever this is, I can help you,” he said.

  “I wish that were true,” she whispered; then the line went dead.

  Now, on the bridge as the hour drew near for their meeting, his feet crunching through the icy crust on the thin layer of snow, he wondered if she would come. And what he would do if she didn’t.

  A few people were on the bridge, braving the cold weather for the beautiful sight of the last glow of the sunset reflecting off the Vltava. He scanned them for any sign of danger, but saw none. Their body language all seemed natural enough. Then again, someone well-trained could easily pull that off. He tried to ignore it. Even if there were agents on the bridge, he wouldn’t turn around.

  The time came for their meeting, and he looked up and down the length of the bridge, the row of life-sized statues of the saints turned into dark shadows. He began to worry that his fear had been warranted. Something had stopped her from coming.

  But then, on the far end of the bridge, he spotted a single person walking toward him. He knew immediately by her walk it was the person he’d spent the happiest years of his life with. He hoped with all he had that those years were not about to be proven to have all been a lie.

  * * *

  Wendy was wrapped in a heavy coat, snow boots, and a wool cap, walking slowly toward their meeting place, the statue of St. John of Nepomuk near the middle of the bridge. He’d considered whether her choice of meeting spot had been a message to him or just a point of convenience. Not only was he familiar with the story of St
. John, the saint of Bohemia, but she would have known he was aware of it.

  St. John of Nepomuk had been the head priest in the court of King Wenceslas in the fourteenth century. He was also the chief confessor of the queen. When the king demanded his priest divulge the secrets of the queen’s confession, he refused. Enraged, the king had the priest tortured and then thrown from the Charles Bridge, where he drowned in the Vltava.

  He and Wendy had both enjoyed learning about St. John the last time they had been in Prague together. They liked the story because their own lives in the CIA were ones where secrecy was valued above all else. The willingness to die to protect a secret was often at the heart of duty and responsibility for those in their line of work. He hoped that if there had been a message intended, it was their shared appreciation for keeping secrets, not the need to die to keep them.

  “I didn’t want this to happen,” she said, stopping three steps from him.

  He wanted to embrace her, but he sensed there were new rules in place. In an embrace, a knife could be thrust or a gun discharged without warning. They were on new ground here. He stepped closer and she retreated the same distance. The reaction tore into him.

  “Whatever you’ve gotten into, there’s a way out. Let me help.”

  She shook her head. Her lower lip trembled. “My handlers told me to marry you. But I would have anyway. That part was real. I want you to know that.”

  He bit the inside of his mouth, trying and failing to keep his emotions in check. He had a thousand questions to ask. The analysts at Langley had communiqués between Wendy and her Russian handlers going back ten years, but they were far from complete. The questions his superiors had were all who and how and what. He didn’t have a single question that didn’t start with the word why. But he didn’t want to ask them there. He just wanted to get away, just the two of them, somewhere he could protect her. And, eventually, find out why.

  “C’mon, let’s get out of the cold. Go sit somewhere and talk. It’s just me.”

  She wiped the tears from her cheek and took a shuddering breath. “I don’t want Lucy or Mara to know. No matter what happens. I don’t want them to know. Can you do that for me? Can you promise me that?”

  He didn’t like the way she sounded. He held out a hand to her. “Whatever they told you, we can fight it. It’s not stronger than we are.”

  “They’ll kill the girls,” she said.

  “I won’t let them.”

  Wendy pulled her hand out from her coat pocket. In it was a Beretta M9. “They’re watching. If I don’t kill you, they’ll kill the girls. They have people positioned near them right now.”

  Scott stared at the gun, thinking it had to be a play of light. Some shadow that just looked like a gun. But it wasn’t. One look at the pained expression on her face and he knew she meant to use it.

  “You don’t have to do this,” he said, dismissing the instinct to grab his own gun, to fire first as he rolled to the side. He’d be hit, but it would give him a chance for a nonfatal wound. His shot would hit its mark. But there was an instinct at work greater than his training. He could never hurt Wendy. Not ever.

  She was crying now, shuddering so that the gun shook in her hand. “We can’t both leave this bridge alive,” she said. “They made it clear. I have to kill you, or die trying. Otherwise our girls—”

  “We can protect them.”

  “No, we can’t,” she said. “You don’t know these people. You don’t know what they’re capable of doing. What I’m capable of doing.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. I do know you. You’re smart enough to know we can work this out.”

  “I gave them nine of our agents,” she said, meeting his eye as if daring him to judge her. “I gave them up to try to save you.”

  Scott opened his mouth to speak, but no words came. He blinked hard as if that might erase the nightmare he was in, but it made no difference. The woman he loved was still standing in front of him and admitting to sending nine men to their deaths.

  “But it didn’t make any difference. They want you gone. Dead or discredited to embarrass the U.S., doesn’t matter to them. I half expect they’re the ones who exposed me just so we’d end up on this bridge. You don’t understand who you’re dealing with here.”

  “No, they don’t understand what it’s like to deal with me. Come in. Help me set this right. It’s not too late.”

  Her eyes turned down, staring at the gun in her hands. “Only one of us can walk off this bridge. If we both leave here alive, our daughters will die, Scott. I couldn’t live with myself if that happened.”

  Scott spread his arms wide and stepped toward her. “If you think that’s the only way to save our girls, then go ahead.”

  She backed up until she was against the stone railing. “Stop.”

  But he didn’t stop. “Go ahead, shoot me if it’s the only way.”

  He closed the last few steps between them, pressing the gun against his chest. Then he pulled her into an embrace, feeling her sag into his arms.

  But then she whispered, “I didn’t say it was the only way. Please don’t tell the girls what I did. Not ever.”

  BANG!

  The gun went off between them. He felt heat and pressure on his chest and pushed backward, thinking he’d been shot.

  But he hadn’t.

  Wendy held the gun still, turned so that it was pointed at herself. A dark stain spread across her chest.

  He reached out for her, the most important thing in his life. He had barely touched her when another shot struck her in the shoulder, slamming into her with such force that she fell back against the stone rail, tipped over, and fell into the river below.

  Scott yelled and scrambled forward, first at the spot where she went over, then across the bridge to the downstream side.

  “Wendy!”

  “Get down!” a man shouted. “On the ground!”

  There was a man with a gun to his left. One of the tourists he’d spotted on the bridge earlier. Another closing in to his right. How had he missed them earlier as operatives?

  He ignored them and climbed up onto the railing to dive into the freezing, dark water below. It was all instinct. Jumping into the water would likely kill him, but losing Wendy was the same as dying. He felt like he was outside his body, witnessing the scene around him instead of living it. He refused to believe he’d lost her. Couldn’t believe. He had to jump to try to find her.

  Fierce pain exploded in his right leg as a Taser pumped thousands of volts into him. He tried to fight through it. Tried to get over the railing to save his wife. But he couldn’t.

  Strong arms pulled him off the railing and back onto the bridge. He struggled and shouted every obscenity in the world at them, but still they held him down.

  Then Jim Hawthorn was there to tell him it was all over. That they had to leave. That he was sorry about Wendy, and that he would do everything in his power to make sure that whoever was responsible paid the price.

  Scott didn’t respond at first. He was numb to the world, unable to process what had just happened. He replayed it over and over in his mind. The feel of her in his arms. The last words she’d whispered in his ear. The sound of the gun. The sight of her falling backward.

  When he finally spoke, he turned to Hawthorn and said the words he’d repeat over and over during the days of interrogations ahead of him. “I killed her, Jim. I didn’t have a choice. I killed her.”

  “No, I know what happened,” he said. “I saw it.”

  Scott grabbed his friend’s wrist and pulled him in close. His teeth bared like an animal as he spoke. “I killed her, you got that? I don’t care what you think you saw.”

  “But—”

  “I don’t need you to understand, I just need you to agree. Can you do that?”

  Hawthorn searched his face like he’d gone crazy. “Scott, why would you—”

  “You’ve got to trust me. I killed her, that’s the story.” Scott’s voice shook. He was right o
n the edge. “I’m begging you. I can explain why later, but I need this. Please, Jim. Just this one thing.”

  Hawthorn held up his hand. He would do it.

  “Thank you,” Scott said, barely able the get the words out.

  Hawthorn reached out and placed one hand on either side of Scott’s face, forcing their eyes to meet. “She loved you, you know,” he said. “Despite everything, I’m sure of it.”

  Scott lowered his head into his hands and cried like a child.

  CHAPTER 29

  Mara was glad the sun had softened over the last hour, making it hard to see her dad’s face in the silo’s dim light. She didn’t want to see his face, and she didn’t want him to see hers.

  She dragged the heels of both hands across her cheeks, sure the dust and grime of the silo was mixed in with the tears that had been streaming down her face.

  A mix of emotions churned inside. Her dad’s voice as he’d told her the story had almost been too much to bear. The pain of the loss was so raw that he’d had to stop for long stretches to compose himself before he could continue.

  Then she had to sort through how she felt about everything he’d told her. Her mother as a deep mole in the U.S. intelligence agency, a double agent. Told by her handlers to marry her father. That meant that her own birth had just been part of her cover.

  “Everything about her was a lie,” she said to the darkness.

  “That’s not true.”

  “Of course it was. How can you say that?”

  She heard movement on the other side of the silo and saw his shadow change position. “Because I’ve had longer to think about this. You’ll see it once you think about all the pieces.”

  Her sadness was fading, quickly replaced with anger. “She was a Russian spy. Of course all of it was a lie.”