A Dark Perfection

by James, Mark

She feels the guards chain her to a chair. They’ve never done that before.

  “Get out of here!” Jack yells.

  “Jack, what’s happening?”

  She has begun to use his first name.

  He slowly looks up, death in his eyes. “Don’t tell me you don’t know.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Stop lying to me! I’m the only one protecting you!”

  She’s never seen him angry, or even upset. It startles her.

  Her eyes well up, “I don’t know, what…”

  He leans across, as if the table is the only thing holding him up. “They’ve killed the president, assassinated him. It’s your people! You did it!”

  “No, no…”

  “Don’t you understand – there’s a nuclear device hidden somewhere in New York City. It’s on count down. We’ve searched the docks, the museums, transit lines, everywhere. Look at me, there’s no time!”

  She feels the trembling around her womb beginning to radiate outwards. Sometimes, she wakes with it. It then moves into her heart, tightening in her chest. She can never stop it. Always, it ends by washing out in her tears.

  “Jack, believe me. Please, you…”

  He cuts her off.

  “If that’s true, then help me, help us stop this senseless killing. You have the power to do this. Do you understand what’s happening? When New York is obliterated, what do you think my people will do? You have the power to stop it. Just you.”

  She stares down into the white of the table, her olive hands flat and pressed against it, as if holding to the face of a mountain.

  He sees her holding to that place inside, freezing herself. He moves on to the second phase.

  He slowly rises, feigning exhaustion. “Face it, you were used, talked into dying for something you don’t understand anymore. And your family was left alone. You left them. Imagine your mother searching for you. And, yes, eventually she’ll find the answer, find out what you did, in their name, in your family’s name. In God’s name! She’ll then have the rest of her life to live with your dishonor, eating her away until…until she can rejoin you in heaven and ask, why, why?”

  The resonation reaches her heart, a tremor of the soul. She feels her hands loosing their grip. On a ledge, she feels a free fall behind her.

  He leans over, a friend again. “You made the right decision once, in that theater. Do you remember, when God whispered in your ear? Make that choice again; for life, for us all. I need their names, the cell locations, your handlers. Aisha, the world is bigger than you or I.”

  Her head jerks up at the sound of her name.

  “You know my name…”

  “I’ve always known it. We know who you are, where you’re from, your family.”

  She flinches, “Are you threatening my family?”

  Sweat begins breaking out on her forehead. Her chest tightens. He uses her name again.

  “No, Aisha, we’re not like that.” It is his third lie this night, as he’s fully aware that the U.S. government will eventually reach her family if she doesn’t tell him.

  “Aisha, if we were like that, we could’ve done something to them at any time. But I need to be honest. If this nuclear device detonates, both of our worlds will become chaos. My people will want revenge. On everyone. I won’t be able to stop them.”

  “But you promised…”

  “Do you hear me, I can’t stop this. Only you can stop this horror. Only you.”

  “I never lied to you, Aisha,” he said, lying again.

  “In the beginning, our beginning, I told you, it was always up to you.”

  Redemption.

  And in that, he’d always told her the greater truth.

  He’s never touched her before and takes her hand. She looks up, searching his face. As with the oranges, he pushes the pencil towards her.

  She reaches for it, the warmness falling from her through her tears.

  The tears fall on the page as the pencil touches down. She starts to write.

  Suddenly, they hear angry shouts through the door. Then scuffling, bodies banging against the wall. Jack stands as the pencil hesitates.

  This isn’t part of his plan.

  The door heaves twice – someone, something, trying to break through. Abruptly, the frame explodes off the hinges and Mac falls into the room.

  He stands vacantly between them, stunned. Judging by the welt to his eye and his disheveled clothes, he seems to be in worse shape than Jack. Looking back through the door opening, they see bodies lumped together on the floor.

  “Mac, are you alright?”

  “It’s not me, Jack. I have to get you out of here – fast.”

  Jack squints.

  “Now, Jack! We don’t have time. I’ll tell you in the car. We have to get you somewhere safe.”

  Mac grabs him by the upper arm and starts towards the door.

  Jack doesn’t move. “What’s going on, Mac? Tell me.”

  Mac looks at his old friend.

  “There’s a hunt on, Jack, and no one knows that I’m even here.”

  14

  At sunrise, a blackened-out limousine became airborne as it dove through the Maryland countryside, cold fog resting motionless across the dried fields and swales in the road.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t have any bank accounts in Croatia. Whoever this is, Mac…Alright, again, so we can think it through.”

  “I know, Jack. I mean, why in God’s name would you stash assets in Croatia, of all places? Frankly, we don’t know where the money came from. But there’s no doubt, someone – and someone with means – has put a target on you. Keno too. And which makes absolutely no sense to me.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “In route. I called in favors from some of my old FBI colleagues. You recall Cal Stevens and John Fitzpatrick?”

  “Sure, you worked the Signori case with them. Aren’t they retired?”

  “Yeah, but not that long and, besides, they owe me a few. Both are good men. To be honest, they’re bored with golf-all-day. It didn’t take much convincing. Cal is driving Lani to the meet point. As you can guess, she’s more than a bit confused. You’ll have to explain it to her.”

  “That would be fine, Mac, if I understood it myself. Let’s do that run-through. Where did this start?”

  “Again, unknown. But I have some ideas and they all trace back to the GMA Director, Aimeric Lucien. Oh, excuse me, Viscount F. Aimeric Lucien. A big prick, but also a smart one. You know the French conglomerate, Lucien Chemical? He inherited it when his parents died about thirty years ago. French family all the way back, but Aimeric was born over here on one of his mom’s Martha’s Vineyard vacations. Hence, he has dual citizenship. He lives in the U.S. and gives gobs of money to the House Intelligence Committee Chairman. That’s how he became the GMA Director seven years ago after the Yucca Mountain attacks. The GMA has been sitting dormant – essentially, a shell organization – until the theater bombings. No one gave it much thought. The GMA Director position was akin to an ambassadorship; all hat, no cattle. That all changed when the theater bombings activated the GMA protocols. In theory, the GMA shouldn’t have the operational and political reach it currently employs, but they’re being protected by a number of powerful congressmen and some people over at CIA. Who we’re removing with rusty shears as we speak.”

  “So, the president knows?”

  “He does. And is very concerned.”

  “Hey, can’t he wave that famous wand? You know, the one that somehow gets his own backside out of every jam? You know, the watch-my-back talk and all?”

  “He hasn’t forgotten, Jack, trust me. But you and I both know this is a serious fucking mess. He has to be careful and remain objective, appear objective, or he could be pulled in. And if that happens, we’re all in trouble.”

  “And it’s your job to protect the presidency?”

  “Bottom line? Yes, at all costs. Last year, the Issen congressional hearings to
ok a shot at President Walker on the pipeline deal that went bad. They’re still out there, waiting. We have to be careful. He has to be careful. Can you imagine this country with VP Palmer pulling the levers?”

  “This GMA Director, the VP, you guys sure do let a lot of wolves into the hen house.”

  “Welcome to the gross vagaries of government, Jack. It’s a big, messy house. I guess I understand why you’ve always stayed clear of it, notwithstanding my annual efforts at bribing you to D.C. On the other hand, we just let you inside, didn’t we?”

  Jack offered a dark, stifled laugh.

  “Sorry, Jack, really. We’ll get this fixed, one way or another. I’ve brought in Rendel too, on the sly. He’s running the bank accounts. He says he’s never seen this encryption program before, but if anyone can track it down, Josh is the guy.”

  “This GMA Director, Lucien, how’s he involved?”

  “Alright, from the beginning. Yesterday, while you were setting up the Aisha interrogation drama, we received a notice from the FBI that they’d been tipped off – anonymously, of course – that you were on the take from what’s being called the Epsilon cell, an al-Badiya-rih splinter group that we think has relocated temporarily to Croatia after the Yemeni strikes. The Croatian cell’s exact whereabouts remain unknown, but the CIA has received informant information that funds were transferred from certain members of the Saudi royal family – highly suspicious transfers – and they believe this money is funding the Croatian cell. The monies – over ten million U.S. dollars – were originally transferred from The Central Bank of Beirut to the ten separate accounts spread out over three Croatian banks. Then, the money disappeared. That was last week. The computer forensic experts at the Bureau are still scratching their heads and the new Croatian government – the new fascist government, I must emphasize – is blocking all attempts to access the accounts remotely. As you know, after that suitcase nuke went off in Dubrovnik and the EU left them in the lurch, it has been a raw situation there. The country simply imploded; no tourism, no food…chaos.”

  “And the accounts?”

  “The $1.2 million that was found in your investment account in New York, those funds originated from the recently nationalized Grand Regency Bank of Croatia. Wired in one lump sum. The $250,000 in Keno’s Kauai account, the same.”

  “I still don’t get Lani on this,” Jack said, “There’s something we’re missing.”

  “I don’t understand her getting pulled in either. Detective Keno has no ties to Aisha and knows nothing about her. Aisha’s sequestration is air tight, we’re sure. And why? All because you two had a few drinks? Yeah, there’s something more going on. The problem is that we have to stay on target, solve your immediate problem first. I assume Lani’s role will then fall into place.”

  “What’s the evidence on Lucien?”

  “No tell-tale fingerprints, at least not yet. But circumstantially it looks like him. He possesses the means and motive.”

  “Hell, Mac, I don’t even know this guy. And he doesn’t have a hand in the Aisha sessions.”

  “That’s the problem, Jack. I’ve told you a few tidbits about some of the grumbling on the Aisha job – from the Hill, from the GMA through their DOD lackeys. But there’s been more. Frankly, I just didn’t want to bother you with the political crap. However, yesterday morning the GMA formally requested that the White House initiate a review of the interrogation process and – surprise! – made the recommendation that she be handed over to them, for, shall we say, harsher tactics. When the FBI informed the GMA last night about your accounts, they went into attack mode, accusing you of purposely stalling the interrogations in exchange for the Croatian payoff. Their theory is that you were stalling in order to give the Yemeni cell the time it needed to move operations to Croatia and then, assumedly, onto somewhere else. They’ve asked the House Intelligence Committee to categorize you as a terrorist collaborator. Pursuant to the revised Patriot Act, that makes you an enemy combatant. Our members on the committee leaked us information that the committee as a whole, now sequestered, will most likely issue subpoenas tomorrow afternoon. Pursuant to the Yucca Mountain Allegiance Act, it all remains secret and outside of the news, but it means that I have to keep you and Lani away from them until we can track down these accounts.”

  Mac looked over at his friend, a stark truth in his eyes. “But you’re a prosecutor, Jack, and no one knows better what these accounts mean.”

  “Sure, I’m already guilty.”

  “Right, so without rebuttal account information you’ll be at the whim of the GMA. The president wouldn’t be able to stop it. And they’re talking about renditioning Aisha to Morocco. On the other hand, you can still change your mind – stay here in D.C. and fight it out with the flesh-eating lawyers. Your call.”

  “Not a chance. You and I both know they’ll simply ram it through – all secret – pat themselves on the back and toss the key code. Then, they’ll shiv the president in the back. And somehow, I’ve pulled Lani into this. I have to figure this out. And I can’t do that from some rat hole in Morocco. I never thought I’d hear this coming from me, but we have to run. At least for now.”

  Jack looked up. “Tell me again, why the Maryland coast and not an NSA safe house?”

  “There are no safe houses on this one, Jack. We’re on our own. My grandmother passed away and left me the beach house, haven’t been there in years. Mothballed. The upside is no one knows about it. Or, if they do, I’ll have you out of there before they come around. I should have information on our next move by tomorrow morning.”

  A light in the rear cabin indicated a message from the NSA driver.

  “Yeah, Jimmy?”

  They could feel the car swing around and come to a stop. “We’re here, sir.”

  Through the black-tinted windows Jack hadn’t noticed where they were.

  They exited the car as the morning sun caught them. It rested halfway on the ocean horizon, pale yellow and large in the morning fog. If it’d been any other time, he would have walked down to the shore, rolled up his pants and forgotten about everything.

  They began walking towards the beach house, more like a cottage, and into the back yard. The porch fell off into low dunes and sea grasses and then onto the open sand. The surf was being pushed by gathering winds, a storm approaching.

  Mac paused.

  “One more thing, Jack. I didn’t say anything about it at first – we were still working through it – but whoever is behind all of this also transferred a nominal amount into your parents’ bank account.”

  Jack stiffened.

  “$60,366, to be exact, an odd figure. Now, stay steady. They took your folks into custody, only to the local sheriff – no jail, just the holding area. The president stopped it there. They were released a few hours ago.”

  Jack glared. “Are they alright?”

  “They’re fine. I talked to them myself and they’re all right. A bit confused, of course, but fine. They don’t know about you, it’s best that way. We told them it was a big screw up, that’s all. As you’d expect, they’ve been asking about you and I’ve been putting them off as much as possible. But pretty soon they’ll start to wonder. When we get you off shore, we’ll find some way for you to make a call. Lani’s dad too.”

  “You know, there’s something else that’s strange. The transfer into your folks’ account didn’t originate from Croatia. It was a transfer from a local insurance brokerage account, within the same small bank. It’s actually how we leveraged their release, saying it was just a coincidence. The bank can’t figure it out. They said it looks like an error, yet they can’t reproduce it with their computers. It almost looks like a joke, a taunt. And, old buddy, you know how I feel about random coincidences.”

  Jack stepped to the edge of the deck and stood with his hands on his hips, looking out at the crashing waves, spray whipped up by the winds.

  “Mac, when I get to this guy...”

  †

  “Mr. Director,�
� the president said, lowering his already deep voice so that his meaning was plain, “you need to understand the import of what I’m saying.”

  The Director of the GMA, Aimeric Lucien, considered his options. He’d already been successful in his first objective: angering the president.

  “Yes, Mr. President. In fact, I do understand – quite well, actually. It’s simply my responsibility to notify you of the GMA protocol legislation and its mandates…”

  “Screw your mandates,” the president growled. “Clear enough? Do you know where you and I are heading?”

  “Of course, Mr. President.”

  Upon his prior arranged cue, Lucien’s secretary entered and spoke the words he’d arranged with her, at the volume he’d directed.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. President, it seems we have an emergency here requiring my attention. It seems that, perhaps, our mutual problem will be resolved. At least on this end.”

  Lucien had no prospect of resolving his made up scenario; he simply wanted to plant a seed with the president that he was closer than he might think. Lucien sowed doubt whenever he could, like a fog that protected him.

  “Please, may I call you back later?”

  “No, Mr. Lucien, this conversation is concluded. I’ll be sending over those men for any documents you may, well, have misplaced. I expect a cordial reception.”

  Lucien smiled as the line went dead.

  Jessup sat up on the director’s jet-black leather sofa, having carefully listened in on the conversation. He removed his earpiece and disengaged the recorder.

  Lucien leaned back in his high-backed Italian chair. He’d bought it at the Gauges Foundation auction the week before and it smelled like the centuries. Across the steeple of his fingers, he considered his next move.

  “Mr. Jessup?” he said, always referring to his subordinates in the formal, “I will need a transcript of that conversation, immediately. Tell me, what was your impression?”

  Jessup sat up even straighter. The director never asked for his opinion on strategy, only on facts, logistics.

  “He sounded worried, sir.”