The Shadow Agent

by Daniel Judson

  “How exactly is a failed operation a betrayal?”

  “The failure to carry out your mission is a separate matter, Esa. It was a colossal failure, don’t get me wrong. And that will need to be addressed. What I am talking about right now are the actions you took prior to that.”

  “What actions?”

  The Benefactor raised his hand, and Karl approached him, reaching into his jacket and removing an envelope.

  Pulling out the contents of the envelope—a stack of five-by-seven photos—he placed them into his employer’s waiting hand.

  The Benefactor raised the first photo and held it up for Esa to see.

  It was a screen capture of surveillance footage taken by a camera that had been mounted high on the wall of her grandfather’s bedroom.

  Esa saw herself seated at his bedside, preparing the syringe of fentanyl.

  The Benefactor offered her the next photo from the stack.

  This one showed her injecting the fatal dose into her grandfather.

  “The murder itself is perhaps defensible, but the desecration is not.”

  He held up another photo, this one showing Esa in her grandfather’s secret study, an upended gasoline container in her hand.

  “He deserved a grave, and one with a monument to his incredible life, for the world we inherited from him and men and women like him.” He paused. “And on a personal note, I would have preferred that his cherished belongings had been preserved.”

  Esa said nothing.

  The next photo shown to her wasn’t a screen capture from surveillance footage but instead an actual photograph.

  In it was a hanged man.

  Esa looked at it long enough to recognize that the dead man was the doctor who had provided her with the drug.

  And around his neck—cutting deep into it—was a noose of thin wire.

  Esa locked eyes with the Benefactor.

  “A traitor’s death should never be an easy one,” he said. “Admiral Wilhelm Canaris was a traitor to his own cause. He played a role in the attempted assassination of his leader. Do you know how he died?”

  Esa nodded.

  “Tell me.”

  “He was hanged by piano wire, cut down when he lost consciousness, and revived. Then he was strung up and hanged all over again.”

  “And why was that done?”

  “So he would taste death twice.”

  “Your grandfather taught you well.” He gestured to the two thugs in nylon jackets. “You may be interested to know that our friends here currently hold the record. At their hands a traitor tasted death five times before the attempt at resuscitation failed. It’s a terrible thing, being hanged by wire. A noose of thick-enough rope, properly placed, compresses the carotid artery, cutting off the supply of oxygen to the brain and causing a loss of consciousness in seven seconds or so. A noose of wire, however, offers no such mercy. It is death by strangulation, which can take minutes. Meanwhile, your feet are flailing, and the wire is cutting into flesh and tendons, and your tongue protrudes from your mouth. It’s agony, and it’s ugly.”

  Esa scanned the placement of the men in the room, and her muscles tensed.

  The Benefactor smiled at that. “You have him in you,” he said. “Your grandfather. You have your father in you, too. I owe both men very much, and because of that you will be given a chance to make up for your lapse in judgment. A plan is in the works, and should it come to fruition, you will have another opportunity at your original target. Do you understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Speak, please.”

  “I do.”

  The Benefactor removed another photo, but this time he handed it to Esa. She took it and looked at it.

  “You live a rich life, Esa. I envy the freedom you enjoy.”

  The photo in Esa’s hand was of her and the McQueen twins in her hotel room.

  Captured by a hidden camera, it showed them engaged in a sexual act by the window.

  He handed her another photo, and then a third.

  Each one had been taken at different moments in their hour-long encounter.

  “I understand that you are a deeply troubled woman,” the Benefactor said. “And I understand why. As your grandfather’s only companion, you were saddled with a particular . . . burden, one that no child should have to bear. But the greater the man, the deeper his darkness, wouldn’t you agree? Your grandfather was a brutal man. He was brutal by nature and made even more so by the times he had been born into and lived through. The things that he did to you were an extension of that nature, I suspect. That’s the thing about brutality. Once one has acquired a taste for it, going without it is all but impossible. So I understand why you are the way you are. Why you use others for pleasure, then leave them behind. And I understand why you did what you did in Bariloche. Maybe it was mercy, maybe it wasn’t. If I were you, I’d want to kill my abuser, too. And I’d likely want to burn to ash everything that might one day remind me of him. But the man was like a father to me, Esa, and what son wouldn’t want to avenge his father’s murder?”

  Esa had never told a soul about her grandfather’s unwanted attention, which had begun when she was a teenager—well, had begun in earnest then.

  That the Benefactor knew this secret, closely guarded for decades, meant that he held a power over her that she could not allow.

  No man would have such power again.

  It was this realization, more even than the threats he had spoken of, that formed in her mind the conviction to see him dead, and sooner rather than later. The Benefactor stood, picked up the stool, and started back toward Karl and the other man, speaking as he walked.

  “You will kill your target this time. And there is a business arrangement I entered into decades ago that has become more trouble than it’s worth. You will take care of that as well at no extra cost to me. To ensure your success, you will be teaming up with our two friends.” He gestured toward the thugs. “Karl will command this operation. He will bring you up to speed once you’re underway.”

  The Benefactor returned the stool to its place directly beneath the wire noose.

  “Success will forgive your betrayal. The desecration is, I’m afraid, another problem for another time. A penalty of some kind should be paid, I think. We will come to our own arrangement, once your mission has been completed. But fail me again, Esa, and there is no place you can go where I won’t find you, nothing you can do to keep you from a traitor’s fate.”

  But his threats no longer mattered to her. She would see him dead.

  The Benefactor turned to Karl. “Our contact assures us that our window should open within the next twenty-four hours. Be ready.”

  Karl nodded.

  The Benefactor and the man he had called General started for the door, but it wasn’t until they had exited the room that Karl or the two thugs moved.

  Karl told them to take down the noose as he walked toward Esa.

  She was on her feet before he had closed half the distance.

  “I’ll need shoes,” she said.

  “You’ll be provided with everything you need. In the meantime, I have to prep you for travel. For obvious reasons, you can’t know where we are.”

  “Cover my eyes or my head.”

  “I’m afraid I have to insist,” Karl said.

  He nodded toward the room behind her.

  Esa glanced at the men working to disconnect the wire from the crossbeam before returning her eyes to the closet-size room.

  Karl instructed her to sit on the cot, then swung the backpack from his shoulder and knelt down. Reaching into the pack, he removed a small plastic carrying case, laid it on the cot beside Esa, and opened it.

  The case contained a clear glass vial and syringe.

  Karl prepared the syringe, looked through the door at the two men in the center of the room. Seeing that they were occupied with their task, he said to Esa in a quiet voice, “He’s going to kill you whether you succeed or not.”

  Esa said nothin
g.

  His voice still low, Karl added, “But his two animals get to have their fun with you first.”

  He took hold of her right upper arm with his left hand, turning it to expose the underside of her forearm.

  In his normal speaking voice he said, “You have good veins.”

  Karl found the same vein in her forearm as before and cleaned the area surrounding it with an antiseptic swab.

  His voice quiet again, he said, “I’ve made a deal. Money and safe passage. But I could use your help. And it’s clear to both of us now that you could use mine.”

  It took Esa a moment to speak. “What good am I if I’m unconscious?”

  “This is just something for the pain. You’ll have to convince Frick and Frack out there that you’ve been sedated. Can you do that?”

  Esa nodded.

  The dark-haired thug was on the top rung of a stepladder, a pair of wire cutters in his hand. His partner was standing beside the ladder, holding it steady.

  He looked at Karl and Esa through the open door.

  Karl eased the tip of the syringe into Esa’s arm and slid the plunger forward slowly.

  Esa waited until the blond thug looked away. “Tell me what you need me to do,” she said.

  Forty-Two

  Tom asked, “Do you know what it is the bodyguard wants?”

  “Money, a new identity, and a safe place to live.”

  “That’s all.”

  “What more would he need?”

  Tom didn’t answer. He looked around the room. “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  “No.”

  “Whose place is this?”

  “It belonged to my uncle and aunt. They raised me.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Dead,” Slattery said. “A plane crash while I was in college.”

  “Is this place in your name?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Their estate must have gone through probate. Is your name on the deed?”

  “A trust owns it. My uncle set it up. I can assure you, Tom, no one knows about this place, not the Colonel, not Raveis.”

  “Your father knows, though, right?”

  Slattery smiled, but it was the kind of gradual, perplexed smile that portends an uneasy denial.

  “What are you talking about?” she said.

  “You don’t seem to have a history, beyond your work as an investigator in DC. That’s what you did prior to your coming up here and working for Raveis, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a military brat, aren’t you? The people who raised you, they were military, moved around a lot.”

  “My uncle was an army officer, yes. But I don’t see—”

  “It isn’t an easy thing to completely bury a past and become someone new. Trust me, I know because I tried once.”

  Slattery paused for a long moment. Finally, she said, “How did you know?”

  “I was shown a photo of your mother and father at a Jerusalem café. You have your mother’s face, even more so back when you were younger.”

  Slattery glanced at the photos on the mantel, then looked back at Tom.

  “Hammerton,” she said.

  Tom didn’t confirm or deny that.

  “Is he British Intelligence?”

  “No,” Tom said. “He’s exactly what he has said he is. So you’re the only loved one Smith has left. That hospital bed in the other room, that’s waiting for him, right?”

  She nodded.

  “What’s Smith’s real name?”

  “Pintauro. Joseph Pintauro.”

  “And is Pintauro your real name?”

  “No. My real name is Sheehan. That’s what’s on my birth certificate, that’s who I was until after college. My mother and father hid my identity from the start, even from me. I didn’t know that the people who raised me weren’t my actual parents until after they died.” She paused. “Like you, a lot was kept from me by the people around me.”

  “Why did your mother and father do that?”

  “They were both operatives. There isn’t much room in that kind of life for a child.” She thought for a moment, then added, “If no one knew I was theirs, I’d never be put in harm’s way.” She shrugged. “Maybe they learned a lesson from what happened to your family.”

  Tom took a breath, let it out. “You said Angela was your first name. Is that Sheehan’s first name, too?”

  “No, Sheehan’s first name is Colleen.”

  “How did Angela Slattery come about?”

  “My father revealed himself after my aunt and uncle were killed. Creating Slattery was his idea. He obtained the documents necessary, got me my first job working for a senator he’d served with, so that solved the problem of there being no background to check. Every person who hired me after that did so based on Slattery’s track record, as well as the recommendation from the one powerful senator.”

  “You’ve been building your cover for ten years,” Tom said. “Your father has been grooming you for that long.”

  “Just like the Colonel has been grooming you since you enlisted in the navy.”

  “Your father got Raveis to hire you. That was part of his plan. So you could spy on him.”

  Slattery said, “Technically, the senator I was working for at the time recommended me to Raveis. Raveis needed an outside investigator, started asking his contacts in DC. It was the opportunity we’d been looking for.”

  “But the Colonel said you worked for him.”

  “That’s what the Colonel thinks. I was working for Raveis for a week when the Colonel approached me.”

  “He doesn’t know who you are.”

  “No.”

  “Why would your father keep that from him?”

  “Because at the time he didn’t know who he could trust. He had sacrificed so much to keep me safe up to that point, he wasn’t going to take unnecessary risks.”

  “And now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He didn’t know who to trust at the time. Does he now?”

  “All evidence points to Raveis as the shadow agent, doesn’t it?”

  “Every piece,” Tom said. “Is there any way you can contact Raveis? A back channel, a burner phone, a coded communication, anything?”

  “No. Why? You want to draw him into a trap? We’re supposed to sit tight, wait for the Colonel to find you a more secure location.”

  Tom said, “I just want to know all our options.”

  “Something’s on your mind.”

  Tom shook his head. “How will the Colonel contact you? I mean, if he can reach you, then he can also find out where you are, no?”

  “I have a burner phone that’s turned off. Twice a day I’ll drive to a random location five miles from here and turn the phone on and wait thirty minutes. If the Colonel doesn’t call during that window, I turn the phone off and remove the battery and drive back.” She paused. “Just like the system you and Carrington had in place back when you and Stella lived in Vermont.”

  Tom nodded. “You know a lot.”

  “It’s my job to.”

  “What time will you make the first drive?”

  “First thing in the morning.”

  “What time is it now?”

  “It’s almost midnight.”

  “And what about your father? Can you reach him if we need to?”

  “We have no contact at all.”

  “You must have some kind of plan to communicate.”

  “Not until this is over.”

  Tom considered what it must be like to discover one’s real father after the death of the man who had acted the part diligently—if those photos on the mantel were any indication.

  He considered, too, what it would be like to then have to table getting to know that newly found man because of a long game that had to play out first—only to learn that the time to reunite and reconcile once the job was finally done would be limited to months or weeks or maybe even days.
>
  The long list of people whose sense of duty had made it necessary for them to sacrifice time with a loved one had now increased by two.

  “I’m sorry your father is sick,” he said.

  Slattery said, “Me, too.” Then she glanced down at the tablet still in Tom’s hand. “I’ll take you and your friends to your rooms now, if you want. Is it safe for you to sleep yet?”

  “Almost.”

  “I’ll sit up with you until it is. We can talk.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Slattery looked again at the tablet. “I’ll be honest, Tom. I’m surprised my father included the surveillance video of your father’s murder. I don’t see why he would think you’d need to see that.”

  “My father died alone, surrounded by enemies,” Tom said. “I couldn’t be there then, but I can be his witness now. I owe him at least that.”

  The rooms were upstairs—Tom’s at the end of the hallway, Grunn’s before that, Hammerton’s across from hers.

  As they were heading to their separate quarters, Tom pulled Grunn aside and quietly told her that Krista was with Cahill, and that they and Stella were en route to an unknown but safe place.

  He wanted her to know that the prolonged separation she and Krista had been enduring on his behalf would be over, maybe even soon.

  There was little doubt in his mind that she was as eager to see the woman she loved as he was to see Stella.

  Moments later, in his room, Tom sat on the edge of the bed and powered up the tablet.

  The device wasn’t encrypted, so he didn’t need to enter a code.

  Right there on the display was the folder icon marked VIDEO.

  Tom opened it and selected the fourth of six files—where he had left off.

  Adjusting the volume till he could hear his father’s voice clearly, he once again watched the man he hadn’t seen in more than twenty years.