The Patriot Paradox

by William Esmont

  Kurt made his way to the back of the pub, searching for the restrooms. He pissed, washed his hands, and splashed water on his face. Checking his reflection in the mirror, he traced his fingers along the bags under his eyes, not surprising considering he had been on the go for close to seventy-two hours. He splashed some more water on his face and then left the bathroom.

  As he made his way down the hall, he saw a woman standing near the front door. Her back was to him, and she appeared to be checking her watch. She hadn’t been there when he entered. Dressed in a black pencil skirt and white blouse, she had shoulder-length auburn hair and a tight athletic build. Kurt raised his eyebrows, intrigued. Amanda?

  He was almost to the woman when he felt a hand brush his elbow. “Kurt?” a female voice asked.

  Kurt turned. It was the woman from the picture in Mike’s study. He shot a glance at the woman near the door. She was hugging a man who had just entered the pub.

  Turning back to the woman who had spoken to him, the first thing he noticed was her eyes. They were deep pools of violet, drawing him in and locking his gaze to hers. He had never seen such a color before and wondered for a moment whether they were real, but then he recalled the picture. They were real. The next thing he noticed was her height. In the picture, standing beside Mike, she had appeared much shorter, but in person, she was at least five-foot-seven. She wore blue jeans, strappy, black open-toed shoes with a slight heel, and a blouse that showed off her toned arms.

  “Maybe,” he said, feigning confidence. There was a reason Kurt had gone into analysis at the CIA rather than operations. He had never been good at thinking on his feet, always coming up with the perfect witty response long after the moment had passed.

  “Come with me,” she implored, grabbing his hand.

  He had no choice but to follow as she dragged him down the hallway he had come through. She led him through the kitchen and into the alley that ran behind the pub. Parked just outside the door was a deep blue, almost black Mini Cooper club wagon. She pulled a set of keys from her pocket and remotely unlocked the doors. “Get in.”

  Kurt complied, not sure where this was headed.

  As soon as the doors closed, the woman put the car in gear. They rocketed down the alley and back into traffic; the tiny engine screamed as she pushed it to the red line before each shift.

  “You must be Amanda,” he said.

  “Uh huh. You look like your brother,” she responded, shooting him a quick sidelong glance as she darted through the slow-moving traffic. Kurt thought he looked nothing like Mike, and he had never heard the comparison before, but who was he to argue?

  She turned hard to the left, blowing a traffic signal and nearly flattening a lackadaisical pensioner. She pushed the car harder, leaving a wake of blaring horns behind them. Kurt held on for his life. He was beginning to wonder if getting in the car was the best decision he could have made.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  She didn’t respond, instead focusing on the road ahead.

  She made two more quick turns, and then, with a furtive glance in the rearview mirror, pulled over to the side. “Get out.”

  Kurt didn’t really feel he had a choice. He popped the door and climbed out. They had stopped at a small park that ran down to the bank of the Thames, and Amanda was striding toward the water’s edge, leaving him behind. She was heading for an ornate iron bench. He hurried to catch up, reaching her as she got to the bench. “Hold on!” he yelled, putting a hand on her elbow.

  She spun away and shot him a withering glare that bore through him like a violet laser. He yanked his hand back as if he had been shocked. “Don’t touch me,” she said in a low, threatening tone.

  He took a step back. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.

  “You tell me,” Amanda shot back. “You’re the one who called me.”

  “Huh?”

  “Don’t ‘huh’ me! Why are you here? What kind of shit has your brother gotten himself into this time?”

  She doesn’t know, Kurt realized with a start. She has no idea Mike is dead. The thought also crossed his mind that his brother and this woman had some sort of history, but he pushed it back. Later. “Mike’s dead,” he blurted.

  The transformation was instantaneous. It was as if she had been punched in the gut. All of the fire and bluster disappeared in an instant. She put her hand on the park bench behind her and sank down on it. “Dead? Mike?”

  “Yeah. A few days ago.” He watched her face. Her emotions appeared genuine. Just how are Mike and this woman connected?

  She stood and stepped close, taking up all of the space between them. Staring into his eyes, she asked, “Who killed him?” Her brief flash of grief was gone, replaced by seething anger.

  The question caught him off guard. The official cause of death was robbery, or more specifically, a carjacking gone wrong. That she assumed someone had killed Mike spoke volumes about her history with his brother. “I’ve got some ideas,” Kurt answered.

  “Let me guess. He told you to get in contact with me in case of his death.”

  He nodded slowly, caught off guard by the anger in her eyes. “How did you—”

  “That figures. I was always bailing his ass out of tight spots,” she said with a trace of melancholy. “Your brother—”

  “So you worked together?” he asked, interrupting.

  She looked away. “In a manner… it’s complicated.” He raised an eyebrow. “Let’s sit.”

  Settled on the bench beside him, Amanda remained silent for a moment, watching the sluggish river curl by. Kurt sensed she needed some time, that she was still getting used to the news.

  “How did it happen?” she asked, softer this time.

  He gave her the official version of Mike’s death, starting at the gas station and working his way up and through the funeral. He told her everything he knew, everything that is, except about the mysterious package. Talking through it seemed to make it more real. He had lived the aftermath, but somehow it had seemed, up to this point, like someone else’s tragedy.

  “So how did my name come up?” Her tone had shifted again, serious but no longer angry.

  “First, why don’t you tell me how you knew my brother,” Kurt demanded, setting his jaw. He was prepared to walk away, to catch a cab, and go back to his hotel if she wasn’t willing to give some information.

  Amanda seemed to look through him. “You work for the same agency as your—”

  “Worked,” he corrected.

  She cocked her head and focused her gaze. “Worked?”

  “It’s a long story.” That she knew where he had worked, that she seemed to know an awful lot about him while he knew nothing about her, was getting on his nerves.

  “Okay. Where was I? Your brother and I met a long time ago, in a different life.”

  He fidgeted on the bench and turned his head slightly to ensure they still had the park to themselves. They did, so he turned back to Amanda.

  “Your brother and I had the opportunity to… ah… work together on several occasions.”

  “So you’re agency?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer. He knew that meant no. Kurt was confused. His brother had been a CIA operative; he had been ever since he got out of college. Then it struck him; she worked for another government.

  “Who do you work for then?”

  Amanda gave him a thin smile in response. “That’s enough about me. How did you get my name?”

  He realized she wasn’t going divulge her employer, not yet, at least. He didn’t like the imbalance of information, but he no choice but to run with it and see where it led. He owed it to Mike. He pulled the memory card from his pocket and held it up between his index finger and thumb so she could see it.

  “And that is?”

  He swallowed. He could be handing classified information to an enemy agent for all he knew. “I’m not sure exactly, but from what I’ve seen, it contains classified CIA personnel files, docume
nts describing some pretty crazy war-gaming scenarios, a bunch of financial information, and last, but not least, a note saying I should find you, that you’d know what to do with it.”

  Amanda took the memory card and held it up, squinting. “Why didn’t you take it to the agency?”

  The question caught him off-guard, but the answer came surprisingly fast. “He was my brother. I trust him.”

  “You did the right thing.” She pulled a smart phone from her pocket, flipped it over, and ejected the memory card with her thumbnail.

  “Did I?” Kurt wasn’t sure.

  She paused with the card between her fingers and locked eyes with him. “Yes. You did.” She slid the memory card into the phone. He waited as she navigated through the files on the phone; her delicate fingers danced across the device, paused, and then danced some more. As he watched, her eyes grew wide.

  Finally, she looked back up at him. Her mouth was set in a grim line, and he thought she looked scared for the first time since he had met her.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “This,” she said, gesturing to the screen, “is crazy.”

  Kurt ran his fingers through his hair. “What do you mean? “

  “This group Mike was working for—they’re planning some sort of attack in Moscow, something big. What it is…? I can’t tell. “

  Kurt shook his head. “There’s no way! Mike wouldn’t get involved in something like that!”

  Amanda’s eyes bored into him, challenging him to provide some proof to the contrary. It all made sense, Kurt realized with a sinking feeling. He had been resisting the truth, afraid to submit to reality. All of his energy, his enthusiasm to catch Mike’s killers, drained away. He slumped on the bench. “So what now?” Amanda shrugged and fiddled with the phone.

  “We have to tell someone,” Kurt suggested, realizing how absurd the words were as they left his mouth.

  “I agree, but who? The CIA is out. Fucking spooks! You never know which side they’re playing for.” Amanda stared past him at the river. “The first thing we need to do is get the rest of these files decrypted. I’ve got a guy who can help.”

  Kurt perked up. “Can we trust him?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll deal with that when we get there.”

  Kurt swallowed hard, not comfortable with the idea. His internal moral compass screamed at him to run to the embassy and hand over the data, to make it someone else’s problem.

  However, that was impossible; His brother had died to get this information to him. Now Kurt knew for sure his killers were the same people he had trusted with his life.

  No. There has to be another way.

  Fourteen

  Mason watched Amanda’s Mini pull away from the park, then checked his phone, again. Two dots, representing the tracers on Kurt and Amanda’s phones, were moving in unison through central London, as Helen had said they would.

  He breathed a sigh of relief and vowed he wouldn’t be so sloppy next time. Losing his target was a rookie mistake, one that could jeopardize the entire operation.

  As the Mini vanished around a hedgerow, he decided it was time to check in with the mother ship to spread the good news. He stepped out of the taxi and started dialing.

  ~~~

  Helen’s phone rang, startling her.

  “It’s Mason,” she announced to Jack as she answered.

  “What’s up, Mason?” she asked. “I’ve got Jack with me. I’m putting you on speaker.”

  Jack held up a finger. “Hold on a second.” He closed Helen’s office door and took a seat on the edge of her desk. “Okay. Go ahead.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head, a habit Helen found highly annoying, yet was grateful for because it meant he was paying close attention.

  Helen switched the phone to speaker and then leaned back in her chair and hooked her heels on the railing underneath the desk.

  She heard Mason clear his throat before he said, “Vetter made contact with a woman, presumably Amanda Carter. They drove to a park on the Thames, where they spoke for about a half-hour. They just left, together.”

  Jack opened his eyes with a surprised look that mirrored her own.

  “Did you recognize her?” Jack asked.

  “No. I’ve never seen her before. I don’t think she’s from Langley.” Helen knew that it was still possible that she had been at Langley at one time. It was also possible that one of the other alphabet-soup intelligence agencies running operations around the world employed her. NSA, DIA, NRO, even the FBI. It was a long list, and the people within the organizations moved around the community like ghosts.

  “Damn...” Jack gazed at the map on her screen, but didn’t appear to be really seeing it. He scratched the stubble on his jaw, then tugged on his earlobe. “We’re watching them real-time from here,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

  “I figured—” A car roared by, blotting out Mason’s voice for a moment.

  “What was that Mason?” she asked. “We lost you for a second.”

  “Nothing.”

  Jack stood and pointed at the map. “I want to know where they’re going and who this woman is. And I want to know yesterday.”

  “We’ll get them,” Helen said with more optimism than she felt. She forced a weak smile.

  Jack looked at her with one eyebrow cocked. “Do you have anything else for Mason?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll talk to you soon, Mason.” He bent across Helen and severed the connection.

  Before she could suppress it, she yawned so hard her hearing fuzzed out for a second, and her vision faded to black. Embarrassed, she belatedly put her hand over her mouth.

  Jack surprised her by saying, “I’m heading back to my office to catch a little shut-eye. I suggest you do the same.”

  Shocked, she gaped up at him, then quickly recovered her composure. “Okay.” She felt like a zombie, so tired she couldn’t think straight. She was liable to get someone killed while operating in this state.

  “Keep your phone on,” Jack tossed out as he left her office. “Just in case.”

  Everything seemed to be on track; everything that is, except for Kurt Vetter and Amanda Carter. Helen didn’t like this. In her experience, the only time things were on track was right before they fell apart.

  It would have to do for now. Sleep beckoned.

  Fifteen

  Fish Coldwell took a drag from his Marlboro Red, sucking the remains of the cigarette down to the filter in one fierce pull. He held the smoke in for a second, savoring the burn in his lungs, and then pursed his lips and exhaled like a dragon. He flicked the dead butt from the balcony and watched as it tumbled end over end before exploding in a shower of sparks on the street far below.

  Rolling his head, he grimaced at the tightness deep in the muscles his neck, the chronic hint of pain that lurked just out of reach in the center of his back. I’m too old for this…

  Fish was on the ground when the wall fell, when Perestroika exploded across the Soviet Bloc, razing the walls of Communism to the ground. He had experienced firsthand the dismissal of his life’s work, the calculated indifference to the sacrifices he and others of his generation had made. It was for this reason he had joined up with Jack Carson—to finish the job for good.

  He knew deep in his gut that Russia could never be a free nation. From day one, the same players who had controlled the Soviet system had maneuvered themselves to take control in the new power vacuum. It was a classic case of ‘meet the new boss, same as the old boss.’ Starting in the early nineties, the Russian government had embarked on a privatization binge, shedding state businesses for pennies on the dollar. Then the mafia moved in, buying up all of the businesses and transforming them into transnational money machines. The Mafia knew the people wanted—no, needed—someone to tell them how to lead their lives.

  Then, around the dawn of the millennium, things really kicked into high gear. A new nationalistic movement em
erged. The Russian people were sick of poverty, sick to death of it, while the people in power longed for a return to the glory. From that point on, it was only a matter of time before the government reconstituted itself and reasserted control over the day-to-day aspects of life.

  Knowing the long-term implications for his country, Fish had watched all of this unfold from the sidelines. Some within the United States government had welcomed the return to a world with two superpowers. They pined for the good old days of the Cold War when America had a single enemy rather than the constant barrage of insurgencies in third-world hellholes. What they didn’t understand, and certainly didn’t appreciate, was that the world had changed. Russia was but one of many new superpowers. China, Pakistan, India, and countless other small countries had exploded onto the international stage during the long hibernation of the Russian bear, and they were far more nimble than Russia could ever hope to be. Compounding that, they had legitimate bones to pick with their neighbors.

  The problem, Fish had realized, was not Russia returning to superpower status. That was improbable. Russia had fallen too far and too fast to ever be more than a second-rate player. The real problem was that they had resources, including a sprawling nuclear arsenal, and in a bid for power, they could ally themselves with one of the new up-and-coming states and create something far more dangerous than the Soviet regime had ever been.

  When Fish had pitched his idea to Jack, he framed it as an academic thought exercise, the sort of discussion old warriors shared over a beer. His instincts had been spot-on. Jack was in the same position, had the same concerns. He was on board before Fish could even complete his sales pitch. Russia as a nation was far too dangerous to exist. Elimination was the only option, elimination on a grand scale. It was the only option.

  Fish pulled his smokes from his pocket and shook out another. He lit it with his dented titanium Zippo and turned to gaze upon the woman sprawled on his bed.