“Get that started,” Tom said. “I’ll text Torres, tell her to return here as soon as she can.”
Hammerton nodded, looked Tom over, then said, “You should get yourself ready. In another twelve hours it should be safe for you to sleep for a bit. It’s obvious you need it. You look like shite, Tom. I mean, if I’m not going to tell you, who will?”
“Thanks,” Tom said.
“Seriously, you look like you’re going to fall over.”
Tom shrugged, said the only thing he could. “Ain’t we a pair.”
Tom barely looked at his reflection in the bathroom mirror before unplugging the charged electric clippers and going to work.
There was no reason to doubt Hammerton’s observation, and there was no need to confirm it, either.
Tom knew better than anyone that he was in trouble—concussed, beyond exhausted, shot at countless times, struck twice.
Fourteen hours had passed since he’d left Cahill and Sandy in Canaan.
A part of him wanted to do the math, figure out how long it had been since he’d last slept, but it seemed beyond him at the moment, and in a way he was grateful for that.
He could think ahead, and that was what mattered.
Ten minutes later, his long hair and beard were gone. What remained was a quarter-inch burr.
The electric razor took care of removing that.
In the mirror now was a man he did not immediately recognize—a man with his face but a bald head and no beard or even stubble.
As he was leaving the bathroom, he checked his burner phone for a reply text from Torres, but none had come in.
He found Hammerton on the main floor. The door to the basement was locked, and Hammerton was looking at his phone as well.
There was an expression on the man’s face that Tom had never before seen.
A look of both concern and confusion.
“What’s up?” Tom said.
“I just got a text from Grunn.” He turned the phone and showed the screen to Tom.
The message was comprised of two words that were familiar to Tom.
SEND TOM
Tom held out his hand, and Hammerton handed him the phone.
After keying in a one-word reply message with his thumbs—LOCATION—Tom sent it off.
Hammerton asked, “What’s going on?”
Before Tom could respond, the phone in his hand buzzed.
He stared at the reply text.
Thirty-Six
It would take a little over an hour to reach their destination.
The two tolls that they had to pass through were under video surveillance, so as a precaution Tom tipped the bill of his cap low and kept his head down till Hammerton’s vehicle was well clear.
Neither man spoke the entire journey, Tom opting to relax—every second he conserved energy was a second that he was healing.
And preparing for what awaited him.
Exiting I-95, they broke their silence, Tom instructing Hammerton what turns to make.
Within a minute they had navigated the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut, to the old cab company’s garage.
The gate was open, as was one of the bay doors of the garage.
Parked in the small lot was a black Jeep Cherokee. If anyone was inside the vehicle, its heavily tinted windows concealed them.
Rickerson, still in his barn coat, was waiting by the open gate.
Hammerton steered through, and Rickerson swung the gate closed behind him.
Tom told Hammerton not to pull into the waiting bay. Stopping the vehicle outside it, Hammerton killed the motor. He and Tom exited slowly, their jackets open.
From behind them, Rickerson said, “They’re in the office.”
Tom looked back and saw that Rickerson was on the street side of the gate. He nodded once at Tom, then walked to a utility van parked at the curb, got in, and drove away.
Hammerton and Tom glanced at each other before stepping through the open garage door.
The two bays were empty and unlit. The only light was coming from the small office to their left. Tom and Hammerton looked toward the open door.
No one was visible until Grunn appeared in the doorway.
Something about the expression on her face kept Tom standing where he was.
Tom was about to speak when a figure joined Grunn in the doorway. Hammerton, his right hand placed on the grip of his holstered SIG P229, moved to position himself between the figure and Tom.
Before Hammerton had fully covered him, Tom touched his shoulder, stopping him.
Tom looked at the figure, and the figure looked at him.
“C’mon in,” the Colonel said. “We’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and not a lot of time.”
Tom recognized that the expression on Grunn’s face was regret.
A look of consternation must have been visible on his own, because the Colonel said, “Don’t worry, Tom, she didn’t betray you. And it had to be done this way. C’mon in and we’ll talk.”
Neither Tom nor Hammerton moved.
The Colonel smiled. “I’m afraid that’s an order, son.”
Tom started toward the room, Hammerton close behind him.
Grunn and the Colonel stepped back as Tom approached the door.
Reaching it, Tom glanced around the room, expecting to see armed guards within—either dressed in suits or clad in some degree of operator gear.
What he saw instead was a single person, whose presence only deepened his confusion and concern.
Standing in the office, dressed in her four-pocket motorcycle jacket, was Slattery.
On the desk beside her was a tablet. She picked it up and said, “Hello, Tom.”
Tom simply looked at her.
The Colonel said to Grunn, “Would you excuse us?” Glancing at Hammerton, he added, “You, too, John.”
Grunn started for the door. Hammerton didn’t move until Tom looked at him and nodded. They closed the door behind them.
“You’ve already met Slattery,” the Colonel said to Tom.
“I have. She works for Raveis.”
“She does, Tom, but what Raveis doesn’t know is she really works for me.”
Stepping forward, Slattery offered her hand to Tom.
He eventually reached out and took it. Her grip was firm, the handshake brisk but friendly.
“I actually go by Angela,” Slattery said. “It’s good to see you again.”
Tom said to the Colonel, “What the hell is going on?”
The Colonel smiled warmly, but then again, he had always treated Tom respectfully, showing a fondness for him that bordered on parental pride.
Tonight maybe even more so.
“We’ll bring you up to date,” the Colonel said. “And we’ll figure out together what to do from there.”
“I’ll need some questions answered first,” Tom said.
Thirty-Seven
“How did you find Grunn?” Tom said.
“The tech she approached for assistance alerted his handler, and his handler contacted me,” the Colonel said. “The tech stalled her until Slattery and my people could get there.”
“Why did the tech alert you?”
“The metadata on the files Grunn wanted recovered indicated that they were among hundreds of files that had been stolen from us—stolen and then wiped from our mainframe and backup systems.”
“By Smith.”
“The man you know as Smith, yes.”
“What’s his real name?”
“I made a promise that I’d never reveal his identity, and it’s a promise I intend to keep. I’m sure you can appreciate that. What I can tell you is that Smith served as a Green Beret, specialized in communications. He was a computer whiz long before any of us had computers, which is why Raveis and I approached him when we left the government for the private sector. He quickly proved himself invaluable and became a full partner. We agreed to bury his past and create a new identity for him when he joined on with us.”
“Why?”
“He said it was to protect the one person he had left.”
“What did that mean?”
“I didn’t pry.” The Colonel shrugged. “It didn’t matter.”
“Does Raveis know his true identity?”
“Yes.”
Tom thought about that, then said, “If your tech got into the metadata, that means the files were recovered, correct?”
Slattery answered. “Yes.”
Tom faced her. “How?”
“The rounds went through the battery, missed the drive entirely.”
Tom looked down at the tablet in her hands. “You have the videos there?”
“Yes.”
“I want to see them.”
“You will,” the Colonel said. “If that’s what you want. But I have a few questions of my own I’d like answered first.”
Tom didn’t give the Colonel a chance to ask. “Why the two-word text from Grunn? The whole ‘Send Tom’ thing. That was the same text Carrington had Grunn send to the cell she’d left behind.”
“We thought it best, in case Raveis was monitoring her phone or yours. If he was, I wanted him to think it was Carrington reaching out to you again. It’s vital that he doesn’t know I’m onto him.”
Tom thought to ask why that was so important, but there were more pressing questions on his mind at the moment.
“How long have you been carrying out foreign operations on behalf of unelected officials?” he said.
The Colonel glanced at Slattery before looking back at Tom. He smiled. Though he’d been visibly caught off guard by the question, there was no mistaking that he was impressed—impressed that Tom not only had come to possess this knowledge but also had no problem confronting his superior with it.
“It seems Smith has told you a lot.”
It suited Tom that the Colonel had made this assumption, so he made no effort to correct the error.
“How long?” Tom repeated.
“The attempted assassination of your father—the attack that killed your mother and sister instead—was the incident that first sent us in that direction.”
“Explain that.”
“A kill squad had come after one of our operatives—attacked him on US soil, in his home. It was a matter of chance—a last-minute business trip—that was the only reason your father wasn’t there that night. We saw the writing on the wall, Raveis and Smith and I. We recognized the message the Benefactor was sending, that there wasn’t anywhere he couldn’t go, anyone he couldn’t reach. That there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do to win the war we were engaged in. It was clear to us that we had a new enemy on our hands, that he was as vicious as he was smart, and with significant resources at his disposal. But our partners inside the government didn’t see the same threat we saw.”
“Your father’s murder changed that,” Slattery said.
The Colonel continued. “I had been told the same thing you’ve been told, Tom. The same thing Raveis told all of us. That your father acted alone, used his skills to track down the Algerian and his team. Raveis sold this story, said your father—his friend—was out of his mind with grief, had been driven by a desire for vengeance to do what law enforcement couldn’t. More than that, your father wanted to look each of those killers in the face before he killed them.”
Slattery said, “In reality, your father was sent on a suicide op by Raveis.”
“In the two years between the attack on your home and your father’s murder,” the Colonel said, “we tried to alert our colleagues in the government to just how dangerous the Benefactor was. But it wasn’t just the threat that he represented. We wanted them to know what he was.”
“And what was that?”
Slattery answered. “The mercenary to end all mercenaries. The Benefactor doesn’t fight for country or God. He doesn’t even have an ideology. That’s not to say he isn’t political, because one thing we do know about him is that he’s as Nazi as they come. His techniques are Nazi based, he studied at the feet of Nazis. But, really, he just wants the world in a constant state of chaos, because as long as one group wants to kill another group, he stands to profit. Arms sales and soldiers for hire when there are wars, and specialized assassins to tip the balance when those wars become intractable. That’s not just his business, that’s his purpose.”
The Colonel interjected. “In a strange way, we are still fighting the Second World War. You’re a student of history; no doubt you’ve heard the name Otto Skorzeny.”
Tom nodded. “SS Lieutenant Colonel. Led the raid that freed Mussolini from an Italian prison in ’43. Historians call him Hitler’s favorite commando.”
“The Mussolini raid was just one of many. Skorzeny was captured after the war but escaped, thanks to the unit of guerrilla fighters known as Werwolves—a unit he created and trained. Skorzeny ended up in Egypt in ’52, served as a military adviser for President Nassar. Name a key player in terrorism during the past seventy-five years—Amin Al Husseni, Arafat, Saddam Hussein—they learned everything they knew from Skorzeny. By the end of his life, Skorzeny was in Argentina, where he served as an adviser to Juan Perón. He was even Eva Perón’s personal bodyguard.”
Slattery said, “Perón’s atrocities against his own people are as well known as his Nazi sympathies.”
“Here’s another name for you, Tom,” the Colonel said. “Walter Rauff.”
“The inventor of the mobile gas chamber,” Tom said.
Slattery nodded. “An ardent Nazi to the end. In the ’70s he ran the DINA, Pinochet’s secret police force in Chile. Nearly eight hundred detainment camps were scattered all over the country, practically one outside every town. Mini concentration camps where dissidents were taken to be tortured, killed, and buried in mass graves. Stripped of their names and issued a number upon arrival, never to be seen again, alive or dead. ‘The Disappeared,’ they were called. Survivors of the torture rooms report seeing two flags prominently displayed on the walls—the Chilean flag and the Nazi flag.”
“The list goes on,” the Colonel said. “Name a dictator or a mufti in the second half of the twentieth century, and one of Hitler’s high-ranking henchmen had at some point served and advised him. There were dozens of escaped Nazis in Egypt alone, some with assumed names, others living right out in the open. The Middle East, South America—they were viper nests of Nazi war criminals.”
“And these men weren’t reenacting Nazi programs for their new employers,” Slattery said. “They were extending them. The Nazi belief of state-sanctioned murder has continued unabated since 1945. And the Benefactor is the heir apparent.”
The Colonel asked, “What’s the definition of modern terrorism?”
“Small, autonomous cells that operate in isolation,” Tom said. “No central command, so no upward trail to follow. Independent, self-reliant, self-funding, self-promoting.”
“Otherwise known as the Skorzeny Syndrome. Modern terrorism was born in Nazi Germany and spread like a virus to the rest of the world.” The Colonel paused before continuing. “Faced with this—with these enemies, these tactics, this cancer that can’t ever be killed—how far is too far? How far would you go to fight such evil?”
Since that question was clearly rhetorical, Tom didn’t answer. Instead, he focused on the conclusion—the only conclusion—he could reach.
“It took my father’s murder to wake up your partners in our government.”
The Colonel nodded. “The attack on your home was an attack on the United States, and yet that wasn’t enough to convince them. So Raveis grew frustrated and acted on his own. It’s clear to me now that he believed that the slaughter of a US citizen while seeking justice for his murdered family—the slaughter of a distinguished operative, one of their own—would provide the tipping point he needed to persuade our partners to act. And by ‘act’ I mean give us what we needed to fight the threat we were facing. Not just the funds but the green light to set up the organization within the organization.”
Th
e Colonel paused again. “Raveis sacrificed your father. He manipulated him to go after the Algerian. He helped him track the Algerian down and set up the meeting. He had Smith set up the surveillance cameras, told Smith to sit back and let your father die. Then he convinced Smith to conceal from me the true nature of those events. After his cancer diagnosis, Smith found God and went into hiding, but not without tipping me off first. We struck a deal and made a plan of our own. Smith would let Carrington find him, and together he and Carrington would bring you out into the open so you could be provided with the truth, which is what Raveis has feared all along.”
“Feared why?”
“If you found out what he had done to your father, you would come after him yourself. All these years we kept our eye on you because we believed that the Benefactor saw you as a threat. But it turns out that he wasn’t alone. Raveis saw you as a threat as well.”
“But Raveis could have had me killed countless times in the past twenty years.”
Slattery said, “Sam Raveis was never one to waste an asset, even an asset as potentially dangerous to him as you. If he could keep the truth from you, then he’d have nothing to worry about. More important, he could use you in our pursuit of the Benefactor.”
The Colonel added, “And now that you know what really happened to your father, Raveis wants you dead.”
Tom’s mind was struggling with everything he’d been told. It was as if processing information was some kind of heavy lifting.
Finally, he said, “The team that came after me at the storage facility was sent by Raveis.”
“Yes. An outside crew, so there’d be no trail back to him.”
“How did they know I’d be there?”
“It’s likely that Smith’s close-protection agent, Manning, was loyal to Raveis. Overseeing the training of all our people gives Raveis a distinct advantage. He not only has access to them but also knows everything about them. He could have recruited Manning by labeling you a traitor who was conspiring with other traitors. Or he simply could have coerced Manning into betraying Smith by threatening Manning’s loved ones.”
The Shadow Agent Page 22