And passengers since had proven time and again they wouldn’t tolerate any nonsense. From passengers and crew leaping over seats and attacking would-be terrorists, to rushing forward with fire extinguishers and holding them down until they could be bound, passengers the world over had proven they weren’t going to sit idly by while planes were hijacked and flown into buildings.
United 93 had been the only plane to truly realize what was happening that day, and they heroically stood up and fought back, forcing the plane into the ground, sacrificing themselves rather than let more innocent Americans die while they sat cowering in their seats.
They were the first in this conflict to die fighting back, and when they rolled, it signaled a permanent shift that changed hijacking forever.
Passengers now knew they were going to die anyway, so they were willing to fight back.
What had Air Marshals, at a tremendous expense, actually accomplished over the years since 9/11? They had arrested drunks, uncooperative passengers, terrorists that had already been or would have been subdued by the passengers, and ass-grabbing louts.
And how many planes had been commandeered?
Zero.
Yet we still have to take off our shoes, can’t bring a bottle of water on a plane, and for a while, had to be leered at by underpaid workers in a booth with access to naked photos of us.
Thankfully in Canada he didn’t need to take his shoes off unless travelling back to the US, but the freedom once enjoyed by both sides of what was once the longest undefended border in the world, had been curtailed dramatically. Now it took a passport to cross the border, even on foot, whereas before it was as simple as flashing your drivers license and a smile.
Why?
Because some politicians and a surprising number of the American public thought some if not all the 9/11 hijackers entered the US through Canada, when the reality was that not a single hijacker crossed the Canadian border. They all had proper documentation, and entered legally, through countries other than Canada.
Yet the border was being closed up, affecting trade and tourism, and wasting billions of dollars because the government and private industry had successfully stirred up the fears of the populace, convincing them that if they didn’t spend billions on homeland defense, planes would be flying into buildings on a weekly basis, and terrorists would be streaming across the Canadian border with bombs in their shoes and underwear, screaming Allahu Akbar while chugging maple syrup and cursing Canadian bacon.
It was an understandable overreaction at the time, but now, in the time tempered retrospect that should be allowed, it was a ridiculous waste of money.
Cleared through security, Kane flashed one last smile at the security personnel, then headed for his gate. He popped a ball cap on his head, then sat, legs out, arms crossed, and pretended to sleep.
His Air Canada flight left in one hour, then he’d be in China by tomorrow. Then all he had to do was cross the North Korean border.
Piece of cake.
Guest Quarters, CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Chris woke up with a groan. His entire body ached, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever feel quite the same again. The floor of an SUV was not where you wanted to be when it was jerking from side to side, its driver alternating between flooring it and hammering on the brakes. He was sure he had some cracked ribs, and if not cracked, then definitely bruised.
He felt something on this back and turned his head to find Sherrie draped across him. He remembered her rubbing his back gently as he fell asleep, and at some point through the night she must have climbed into the narrow bed with him.
It felt wonderful.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had woken to have a woman cuddled beside him. It made him feel like a man, virile and desired. Something stirred, and he suddenly remembered where they were. He tried to will it away, but the more he thought of something else, the more the sensations of her touch consumed him. Her breath on his neck, her arm across his back, her chest against his side, her leg over his.
Within minutes he was in the danger zone, wide awake, with nowhere to go. If he moved, she’d wake up, and all would be revealed. If he didn’t, he risked getting an inopportune visitor who would wake them both, and the embarrassment would be extended beyond Sherrie.
He decided standing up with a flag pole in front of Director Morrison was not an option.
He gently rolled himself away from Sherrie, exposing his front to her. She moaned. And she was beautiful. Carefully moving his leg, he successfully freed it and was just about to escape her arm when her eyes fluttered open. She looked at him and smiled, then looked down the bed.
“Is that for me?”
Chris felt his face burn and despite his aching muscles, executed a move worthy of an Olympic gymnast, almost cartwheeling over her and off the bed, facing him and little Chris away from Sherrie.
“Umm, I’ve got to pee.”
“Uh huh.”
She didn’t sound convinced.
Nor upset.
He glanced back at her and she had a grin that just made her look even more gorgeous and him even more ‘uncomfortable’. He raced for the bathroom, grabbing a suitcase he recognized as his.
He looked in the mirror and dropped his chin to his chest with a sigh. He was the very definition of a lobster. His face and ears burned the same color as those crimson crustaceans he loved so much, and with his eyes directed down, he could see the cause all too clearly.
He smacked it.
Don’t make me hurt you!
There was a knock at the door.
“Can I come in?”
“No!” he yelped, panic setting in.
He heard giggling receding back toward the bed.
And he smiled, then began to laugh at the ridiculous situation.
He looked in the mirror and saw the happiness on his face, a happiness he hadn’t seen in a long time.
Am I falling in love, for real this time?
He had of course heard of relationships forged under fire, and that was certainly what had been happening to him and Sherrie. And his rational side still had his doubts as to whether or not she was still playing him as part of her job, but his irrational side, his heart, longed for her touch, her laugh, her breath on his skin. She was everything he had never known he had wanted. Beautiful, sure, but that was never really his criteria for a relationship, that merely attracted the initial glance. For him he had never really known what he wanted besides a companion. He had assumed someone quiet like him, someone to curl up on the couch and watch Firefly reruns, cursing the network for cancelling it, someone to get excited about there being more Star Wars movies on the close horizon, and to wait in line to see a new Star Trek movie.
Then to make slow, passionate love to when they got home, still running on their own warp speed of adrenaline.
But Sherrie wasn’t any of that, at least he thought she wasn’t. She was exciting, active, playful, and probably green chick wild in bed. Christ, she’s an agent! His heart sank. He knew it could never be, but he wanted it to be so badly.
He turned on the shower, stripped out of his clothes, and stepped inside, his arms against the wall, his head lowered under the strong stream of hot water. He ignored the heat as he soaked his head, trying to forget the love of his life on the other side of the door.
The door to the shower suddenly popped open and he felt a cool draft. He stood up straight, looking behind him to see Sherrie, naked, step inside. She closed the door behind him, and he found he couldn’t tear his eyes off her. The stream from the shower, only partially blocked by his back, sprayed over his shoulder, and her skin quickly became a glistening feast, her breasts slowly swaying as she took the final step toward him, reaching up and pulling his head down toward her.
Her lips were on fire, and within moments he found his arms around her waist, pulling her to him, grinding against her as they lost themselves in the passion of the moment. It was something he knew shouldn’t be happenin
g, couldn’t be happening, but he didn’t care anymore. For a moment he felt he was taking a page out of the Dylan Kane operations manual, but he pushed the thought aside as he looked into her eyes.
Eyes that at least suggested to his inexperienced self that she too had genuine feelings for him.
He closed his eyes and kissed her again, his hands exploring the wonderland being offered to him.
God, I hope the Director doesn’t show up.
CIA Headquarters, Langley, Virginia
Chris was having a hard time focusing on his work. He kept thinking of the shower, then the bathroom floor, then the toilet, then the countertop, then the bed, the bed, the bed…
He had lost count of how many times they had made love through the night. Five or six? It was amazing, spectacular, incredible. At least it was for him. Suddenly he became insecure. What if she hadn’t liked it? What if he hadn’t been any good?
He glanced over at her desk and found her staring at him with a smile on her face.
Okay, maybe I was fine?
He replayed her moans and cries in his mind.
Damned fine.
His chest swelled in manly self-satisfaction, and he refocused, sifting through the new set of Echelon intercepts, as well as other sources the public would shudder at, as he tried to build the mountain of evidence the Director had told him he needed if he were going to confront the Secretary of Defense.
And he was finding it. The link to Brad Finch, the founder and CEO of BlackTide, was unmistakable, but in reading the intercepts, he couldn’t find anything truly incriminating beyond what he had already found, the reference to the military transport, and even that had been a casual mention. There was nothing there that suggested the Secretary had known what it was being used for.
He pulled up the next intercept, an encrypted email exchange between the Secretary and Finch, only the subject line decrypted. RE: Project Persistent Vigilance.
It rang a bell. Something he had seen before. He quickly ran a search algorithm and a few minutes later was looking at an email exchange captured between Brad Finch when he was in Mali last week, and one of his senior executives, a retired colonel named Atticus Tucker. He hadn’t paid it any mind as he was focusing on communications between the Secretary and BlackTide, not internal communications that might reference the Secretary. That was planned for later in his analysis.
But it was the subject line that tweaked, and sure enough, matched perfectly.
Would they be so stupid?
He opened the email, and began to read, a smile spreading across his face as the forwarded, unencrypted exchange was laid out before him.
Hands squeezed his shoulders and he moaned in pleasure as his eyes closed and his head tilted back to rest on her stomach. He looked into the eyes he loved as they gazed down on him, her smile warming his heart in a way it had never been before.
“You’ve got something, don’t you?”
He nodded then pointed at the screen.
“Forget ‘something’. I’ve got it.”
Office of the Secretary of Defense, The Pentagon, Washington, DC
“Leif! How are you? Your people said it was urgent,” said Secretary of Defense Bill Erickson, extending his hand as Morrison stepped into the office. Morrison shook the hand, feeling as if he should wipe the taint off as soon as he let go. Erickson pointed at a chair in front of his desk as he sat in his own high back leather chair. “Have a seat. Can I get you anything?”
Morrison had debated sitting as he walked down the hallway toward Erickson’s office. It would be more dramatic for him to stand, to try and put Erickson on the defensive, but had decided against the theatrics. The file he held in his hand was all he needed. He took the seat, and made himself comfortable, as he was about to make the man he had worked closely with for almost four years very uncomfortable.
He placed the file on the desk, but kept a finger on it, indicating Erickson wasn’t supposed to take it.
“You are aware of what happened last night?”
“You mean the attempt on one of your analysts and the incursion into your airspace? Of course, I was phoned at home as soon as we received word.”
“Are you aware of why this attempt was made?”
Erickson shook his head, leaning back in his chair. “None. At least I haven’t been briefed on anything since this morning’s Threat Assessment.”
“Would you be surprised to find out that BlackTide was involved?”
Erickson folded his arms across his chest, then quickly placed them on the arms of his chair again. “BlackTide? Are you sure?”
Morrison nodded. “Absolutely. And do you know what it was related to?”
Erickson’s arms folded again, but this time remained in place. “Why do you keep asking me things you know I don’t know about?”
Morrison pushed the file across the desk slightly, leaving his finger in place.
“Because I know you know full well about them.” Erickson’s mouth opened to protest, but Morrison continued. “Three scientists were abducted last week, along with the wives and children of the two married scientists. They were working on a project involving nanotechnology for DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Top secret. Very top secret, in fact. Do you know where they were transported to?”
Erickson shook his head, his demeanor clearly that of someone who was now uncomfortable, his cheeks slightly flushed, a couple of beads of sweat breaking out on his brow, his knuckles white from the death grip they now had on the arms of his chair.
“North Korea.”
A burst of air exploded from Erickson. “I don’t know why you’re telling me all this. What is it you want from me?”
Morrison ignored him.
“And are you aware of how they were transported there?”
Again Erickson shook his head.
Morrison’s eyebrows inched up in mock surprise. “Really? Are you sure? You see, I’m surprised by that, since you’re the one who requested the military transport that was used for part of their journey.”
Erickson blanched, all color draining from his face.
“Wh-what?”
“You’re the one who authorized the plane, and made sure it was off the books.”
“I-I did no such thing.” Erickson sucked in a deep breath, regaining some color. “This is all garbage. If you had any evidence, I’d be under arrest right now, and since I’m not—” He held up his hands and shrugged.
Morrison flicked the file, finally removing his finger.
“In that file is the decrypted copy of an email exchange between you and Brad Finch, CEO of BlackTide.”
Erickson snatched the file off the table and flipped it open, scanning the first page, then flipping through the rest.
“How—”
“Did I get my hands on your encrypted exchange discussing treasonous actions against our country? Your moron partner in this crime, while out of the country, forwarded the unencrypted version to his point man on the project. That was intercepted by Echelon. The rest was just knowing to look for it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I want to know everything.”
Erickson shook his head. “They’ll kill me.”
“You’re dead already. It’s just a matter of by whom. This is treason. I’m guessing death penalty, especially if this country has to go to war to clean up your mess. But then, I guess that’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
Erickson’s shoulders sunk, his head dropping. And Morrison knew he was about to get the truth, the man’s spirit broken. Erickson raised his head and looked at Morrison, anguish written all over his face.
“First, let me say this. What I did, I did for my country.”
“Of course. I know you’re a patriot. I don’t think you even got any money out of this deal.”
Erickson eagerly shook his head. “No! No, I didn’t. It was never about the money for me. It was about saving our country.”
“And how was thi
s supposed to save our country?”
“We’re in a recession. We’re still in a recession, no matter the bullshit numbers that we feed the public each month. That’s a smoke screen. Our deficit is structural, we can’t get out of it. Our debt can never be paid back, and our manufacturing base is shot because everything’s been farmed out to China.” Erickson leaned forward in his chair, beginning to believe his own bluster, perhaps hoping he could convince Morrison to come on side. “What got us out of the Great Depression?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “War! World War Two saved our economy, and made us the super power we are today, or at least were until the Great Recession. Now we’re a shadow of our former self, and China threatens to eclipse us in a decade.
“But what if we went to war with China? It would solve everything. If we could trigger a war, a war they would start, or at least could be blamed for, then we could cancel the securities they’ve purchased, wiping a significant portion of our debt off the books. That would save us a huge amount of interest each year, reducing our deficit. But if we went to war with China, we couldn’t exactly buy goods from them, and neither could our allies. We would almost immediately collapse their economy, and we would reestablish a manufacturing base here in America. Millions of jobs would be created because of the war, even just a short war, and then we would transition those people and factories into manufacturing the goods we would no longer be buying from our enemy.
“China would be crippled, no longer a threat, America’s economic might would be restored, the Great Recession would be over, and the increased tax base would be able to eliminate our deficit, and then we could reduce our already trimmed debt. All we needed was to get them involved in a war, against us.”
Rogue Operator Page 20