Don't Order Dog: 1 (Jeri Halston Series)

by C. T. Wente

  In my first year of service I was a code-breaker. Almost everyone started out as a code breaker. But I had certain abilities that were quickly recognized, and over the next three years I was promoted steadily up the chain of command. Along the way, I came to realize the agency I admired so much was built largely on two unspoken principles – the first being that if the truth, once discovered, wasn’t advantageous, it could be altered. The second was an even more dangerous derivative of the first… the principle that enemies of the state were not defined by any moral rule, but simply by the report your superiors chose to write.” He gave her a wide smile. “For the few of us lucky enough to work there, it was, in almost every way, the perfect place to play God.”

  “But then something happened,” Chip continued, his expression turning serious. “One day I was given a new assignment. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a standard domestic infiltration assignment. A creep and sweep job as we called it back then. The target was a young journalist with the Washington Post. Of course, that wasn’t unusual either. Journalists were a common target for agencies like the NSA back then. They still are. In many ways they’re the private sector equivalent of government agents – they investigate problems, they thread together facts, and, of course, they have confidential sources.”

  “I didn’t think twice about the assignment before undertaking it. Nor was I surprised when, as was usually the case with reporters, the target came up clean. The only thing even remotely suspicious was a file full of financial statements I found in his apartment that showed large amounts of money inside coded client accounts. But when I had them analyzed by our financial specialists, they also came out clean. Several weeks of wire-taps, records reviews, background checks and even me personally shadowing the target, and nothing. And trust me… I knew what I was doing back then. If my target came out clean, the target was clean.”

  “So what did you do?” Jeri asked, watching him carefully. She slowly edged her way back towards her corner behind the counter.

  “I submitted my report,” Chip replied with a shrug as he stared at his drink. “And assumed that was the end of it. But it wasn’t. Two days later I was sitting in my office when a messenger clerk dropped a file on my desk from my supervisor. I read it and immediately realized it wasn’t intended for me, but for the Director of the NSA himself. You see, back then everything was encrypted, even the communication protocols for delivering files by the messenger clerks. Apparently the messenger had read the delivery protocol wrong and mistakenly sent the file back to me, its original author. But when I opened the file and examined it, it was obvious the report inside wasn’t mine. Someone had completely rewritten it. But in this version, my target wasn’t clean. In fact, in this new fictionalized report, my young Washington Post journalist was as dirty as they come.”

  Chip grabbed the bottle of scotch and refilled his glass.

  “Espionage, coercion, subterfuge… there were enough fabricated accusations in the report to convict him ten times over. And in case you weren’t aware, Jeri, agencies like the NSA effectively operate outside of the law. I knew once that damn document landed on the desk of the Director, my journalist was a dead man. Regardless of what three years in the agency had taught me, I just couldn’t live with that. So I made what you might call a career-altering decision. I placed a copy of my original report in the messenger’s file and destroyed the false version.” He stared solemnly at Jeri. “Then I walked out the front door of the agency to find the man I’d just risked my career saving.”

  “Who was he?” Jeri asked as she slipped onto her stool in the corner. She waited for Chip to look away before discreetly reaching into her bag hanging from the counter behind her.

  “His name was James H. Stone,” Chip replied as he picked up his glass and threw back another slug of scotch.

  “Wait… what?” Jeri replied, immediately recognizing the name that was written on her father’s book. “That doesn’t make any sense. That’s the name–”

  “The name of your father, Jeri,” Chip said calmly. “His original name at least.”

  Jeri froze and looked at him suspiciously. “You knew my father?”

  Chip nodded his head. “I did.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense. My father was an economist, not a reporter.”

  “I’m sorry to be the one telling you this Jeri, but your father had a life you and your mother were never told about,” Chip replied bluntly. “And for good reason. The night I walked out of the agency, I went straight to his apartment in Georgetown and knocked on his door. When your father unlocked the door I stormed in, pointed my gun at him and asked why the NSA wanted him killed. He looked at me calmly and said ‘I take it you’re not here to kill me.’ Then he walked into the kitchen and poured me a drink.” He paused and looked at the bottle of scotch sitting in front of him. “A nice scotch like this if I recall. Anyway… after that, your father and I had a long chat.”

  “What did you two talk about?” Jeri asked.

  “The truth.”

  “And what exactly is the truth, Chip?”

  Chip picked up the bottle and waved it at Jeri. “Care for a drink first?”

  Jeri looked at him for a moment before shrugging dejectedly. “Sure, why not.”

  She stood up from her stool, quickly hiding the item from her bag behind her apron as Chip refilled the glass. She moved slowly to his end of the counter, watching him warily before picking up the scotch and draining it in a single gulp. Chip watched her with a sympathetic smile.

  “I’m sorry… I know this is more than you were expecting to deal with today.”

  Jeri slapped the empty glass onto the bar and shook her head.

  “Continue your story.”

  “Oh yes… the truth,” Chip said, running his hand through his hair. “Your father was a brilliant man, Jeri. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who understood the way the world works as well as he did. When I first told him I was an NSA agent and revealed that I’d been assigned to keep him under surveillance for nearly a month, he wasn’t at all surprised by the agency’s interest in him. Nor was he surprised when I told him about the falsified intelligence file that accused him of being a spy.”

  “If you really knew my father, then you know he was a good man,” Jeri replied defensively. “So why would anyone want to destroy him?

  “That’s exactly what I asked him,” Chip replied as he refilled his glass of scotch. “And his answer changed my life.”

  A cellphone began ringing.

  “Excuse me for a moment.” Chip said as he abruptly pulled out his phone. “Are we ready?” he asked impatiently. A moment later he nodded his head. “Okay, tell him five more minutes. We’re going to have guests soon.” He clicked off the phone and dropped it back into his pocket.

  “Who was that?” Jeri asked nervously.

  “Max,” he replied calmly. “He’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “I’m guessing he won’t be alone.”

  Chip smiled. “Probably not.”

  Jeri stepped back from the counter. “Okay, Chip… enough. I need to know what the hell’s going on here. There’s a dead federal agent lying next to your chair, and you just told me you’ve spent the last year lying to me about who you really are.” She reached beneath her apron and pulled out the handgun she’d taken from the buried container. “I’m sorry, but lately I’ve lost trust in just about everyone – including you. So here’s the deal.” She raised the handgun and pointed it steadily at his chest. “You’ve got whatever time is left before that giant murdering muscle-head and whoever else walks through that door to finish your story and get to the truth. Or we’re going to have a very awkward situation to sort out.”

  Chip looked at the gun with a slight grin before continuing.

  “The night I confronted your father and asked him why the NSA wanted to destroy him, he gave me a very direct answer. He told me was wrapping up a corruption story he’d spent the better part of two years investigati
ng. A big corruption story. Your father was about to expose widespread misconduct within a large American investment firm that went all the way to the top – executives and board members alike – and, once published, would most likely prompt a full Federal investigation. But there was a complication. One of your father’s sources inside the firm revealed that the company was managing several large pension funds for the Federal Government, including agencies like the FBI and the NSA. We’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars. Now this by itself was entirely legal, but as your father’s inside source revealed, those funds were also getting special attention in the form of privileged information, which definitely was not legal. Of course, the people overseeing these pension funds on the government side knew all about this, but they weren’t going to say a thing. On the contrary; they were making far too much money to ruin the arrangement – or take any chances. When they found out your father was nosing around, they immediately got nervous. So they decided to find out just how much he knew.”

  “So they sent you after my father to find out,” Jeri said flatly, still pointing the gun at him.

  “That’s right,” Chip replied. “They asked my superiors at the NSA to put me on his trail, and I unknowingly confirmed everything they feared when I brought those coded financial statements in for analysis.” He shook his head in disgust. “After that, the two principles of the agency were immediately implemented. The truth, not being advantageous, was altered, and a new enemy of the state was created with a few adjustments to my report.”

  Jeri lowered the gun slightly as Chip looked up at her, his pale blue eyes suddenly focused in the dim light of the saloon.

  “Your father helped me realize a very unpleasant but necessary truth that night,” he continued, his voice now sharp and commanding. “A government is really no different than any other business, Jeri. It exists to serve a purpose, to fulfill its responsibilities, and to regulate itself in a way that is self-sustaining. In most ways a business is like any living organism. It has a natural urge to grow and become more complex. But as any good biology professor will tell you, as organisms grow and evolve their interests naturally tend to become more self-serving. Eventually this self-serving behavior determines its actions, even when those actions are in direct violation of their very reason for being.”

  Chip picked up the glass of scotch and slowly swirled it in his hand.

  “The NSA was going to kill your father because he was about to expose our government’s very nasty little self-serving secret. Your father didn’t want to die any more than I wanted to be a part of his killing, which meant our lives as we knew them were both over. I knew we probably had less than twenty-four hours before we were both deemed enemies of the state and hunted down by every agency in Washington.”

  “So what did you do?” Jeri asked. She realized the pistol was beginning to feel heavy and shifted it to her other hand.

  “You should always hold your gun in the hand you plan to shoot with,” Chip replied matter-of-factly. “You’ll have much better accuracy.”

  Jeri impatiently shifted the gun back to her other hand and pointed it at his chest. “Answer my question.”

  “We came up with a rather unique idea for getting unwanted attention off of both of us… and it worked. After that, your father and I decided to relocate someplace where no one would be looking for us. Flagstaff seemed as good a choice as any. I used my skills to create new identities for the two of us and we entered the university as graduate students. It didn’t take long for us to blend in and become forgettable. I studied archeology and eventually became a professor, and James Stone the reporter became James Halston the economist and writer. The rest, as they say, is history.”

  Jeri looked at him skeptically.

  “Okay, but even if you’re telling the truth, you still haven’t explained everything.” She pointed the pistol at the shrine of letters on the wall. “If you’re really just an old NSA agent turned archeologist, what are you doing with a letter-writing terrorist and that giant thug outside? And if my father was so worried about his identity, why did he publish a book under the name James Stone? And most importantly,” Jeri swung the pistol back at Chip. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

  Chip took another drink.

  “Well, we don’t have much time, so I’ll be brief. The truth is, Jeri, old habits die hard. A few years after settling into our new lives, your father and I were both getting a little bored. Your father missed being an investigative reporter, and I missed being an agent. So we both decided to get back into the game again... at least in some way. Your father decided to prepare for his master’s degree dissertation in macroeconomics by investigating the behaviors of large corporations.

  “He spent several years doing what he did best– interviewing sources inside of large multinational companies and learning everything about their inner workings. Your father was a genius at uncovering information and getting people to talk. Eventually all of that work culminated in the writing of his dissertation, and a year later he wrote Predictions in the New Business Ecology.” He smiled and shook his head. “Your father considered his book to be the conclusion and greatest achievement of his ‘former’ life, so he decided to publish it under the name James Stone. I have no doubts that his book would have been a bestseller too if he had printed more than a handful of copies. Luckily, I persuaded him not to do that.”

  “Why did you do that?” Jeri asked.

  “As I said, your father was brilliant. I don’t think even he realized how prophetic his book was when he first asked me to read it. But I did. I also knew it contained the kind of information that could be very useful in the right hands, and very dangerous in the wrong ones. So I convinced him there were better uses for it than sharing it with the world.”

  “Like what?”

  Chip looked back at her with a stoic face. “Like using it as the blueprint for a new kind of agency.”

  Jeri studied his expression, trying to interpret its meaning.

  “And what kind of an agency is that?”

  The old man’s lips curled into a smile. “My kind,” he said before throwing back the last of the scotch. He then pointed at his watch. “I’m afraid my time is up.”

  A bright shaft of sunlight suddenly stabbed the room as the front door of the saloon groaned open. Jeri turned and pointed the pistol at the door as a hooded man wearing dark sunglasses and a heavy winter jacket appeared in the entryway. He immediately stopped and raised his gloved hands. “It’s okay… I’m not armed.”

  Jeri looked at the man warily before waving him towards the bar. “Have a seat.”

  The man nodded and walked towards the bar. When he reached the body of Tom Coleman, he dropped to his knees and quickly stripped off his gloves before checking for vital signs.

  “He’s dead,” Jeri said flatly to the man as he disappeared from her view.

  “I’ll be the judge of that,” the man replied tersely.

  Chip turned on his bar stool and watched silently as the man worked, an odd look of admiration on his face. Jeri shook her head in frustration.

  “Chip, who the hell is–” A violent fit of coughing suddenly echoed through the saloon. Jeri leaned over the counter and stared incredulously at the body of Tom Coleman retching violently on the floor. Hovering over him, the man gently held his shoulder until the coughing subsided. He then produced a small syringe from his pocket and immediately stabbed it into Tom’s shoulder.

  “What are you giving him?” Jeri asked warily.

  “A mild sedative,” the man mumbled as he tucked the empty syringe back into his pocket. “It’ll keep him asleep and allow his throat to rest. Some things heal better when the mind isn’t in a state of panic.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  “Could I have a glass of water, please?” the man asked.

  Jeri lowered the pistol and quickly filled a glass with water before pushing it across the bar towards Chip. Chip handed it to the man.

&nb
sp; “Thank you,” he replied as he placed the glass on the floor next to Tom.

  “No… thank you,” Jeri replied, shaking her head. “I thought for sure he was dead.”

  “Yeah, well, you’d be amazed how many times I hear that one.” The man stood and faced Jeri, his handsome, friendly face stretched with a smile. He pulled back the hood of his jacket and ran a hand through his short, curly black hair before leaning against the counter. His dark eyes narrowed with amusement as they stared into hers. “But then, nothing is ever what is seems, is it?”

  Jeri stepped back from the counter, too stunned to speak. She immediately knew the face staring back at her. It was the same face that had been maddeningly hidden from view since the first letter and Polaroid photo arrived over two months ago. “It’s you,” she finally whispered, gazing at her Mysterious Joe’s Last Stand Guy in disbelief. “You’re here.”

  “That’s right… I’m here,” he replied, glancing curiously at Chip. “I just hope I’m not interrupting something.”

  “Not at all,” Chip replied, patting him affectionately on the shoulder. “We were just having a little chat. But where are my manners?” He turned and grinned at Jeri. “Jeri I’d like to finally introduce you to the handsome young man standing next to me. Jeri, this is Chilly. Chilly, this lovely young woman is of course Jeri.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Jeri.” Chilly said, reaching out his hand.

  Jeri stared back at the man’s outstretched hand barely an arm’s length away and smiled. “It’s nice to meet you too, Chilly,” she replied, slowly raising the pistol and pointing it at his chest.

  “Now have a seat.”

  56.

  “I hope I didn’t travel all this way just to get shot,” Chilly said calmly, glancing at the barrel of the pistol. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to field dress your own bullet wounds?”