Flash Points: A Kirk McGarvey Novel

by David Hagberg

  Kamal realized that except for the nearly full amusement park parking lot there were almost no cars or trucks, just people on foot, on bicycles or riding in horse-drawn carriages. The few motorized vehicles looked like maintenance and delivery vans, except for a pair of long black Caddy limousines parked in front of the main two-story office center.

  He’d called ahead when he was ten miles out, and Pastor Buddy himself appeared at the gaudy glass and crystal front entrance, the gigantic cross looming overhead.

  “Brother Watson, welcome to Paradise,” the pastor boomed, his arms outstretched as Kamal got out of his rental Impala.

  “This is more impressive than I thought it would be,” Kamal said, accepting the embrace as best he could.

  It would give him no end of pleasure to kill the bastard. Squeeze the man’s carotid arteries and watch as the lights in the idiot’s eyes went out. If the pastor was as good as he claimed to be he would realize that the end was near and he was finally going to the real paradise he’d always imagined.

  But then Kamal never believed in that crap, nor did he think that Holliday was a believer either—just a buffoon who knew how to take money from hopefuls.

  Holliday took his arm and led him inside, up an escalator to a broad, thickly carpeted corridor to his palatial office.

  No one was anywhere in sight, but a lot of people were talking in nearby offices. They sounded like snake oil salesmen and -women. Ten dollars per month for salvation.

  Crucifixes were everywhere, as were what appeared to be original paintings of the Madonna and baby Jesus.

  Broad floor-to-ceiling windows looked toward the church and beyond it to the amusement park. A huge, intricately hand-carved desk with a leather top dominated the room. A half-dozen chairs were grouped in front of it, for supplicants to meet with him.

  To the left a couch and two easy chairs faced a coffee table for more intimate meetings.

  To the right an open door looked in at a conference room with a long table that had seating for ten. Presumably his board of directors.

  Holliday sat them down in the easy chairs facing each other.

  “I can’t tell you how surprised and gratified I was when you called. But miracles happen every day. I know from personal experience. Daily personal experience.”

  Kamal took a check for $150,000 U.S. out of his pocket and laid it on the coffee table in front of the pastor.

  Holliday picked up the check, which was drawn on a Dubai bank. “Generous,” he said. “Very generous.”

  “Merely a down payment. More will arrive in the coming months.”

  “We will put this to good use.”

  “Of course there will be no further paper checks.”

  Holliday nodded. He took a business card and a golden pen from his pocket and jotted down a number. He passed the card across. “It’s a secure account in the Caymans, where money goes much further than here, if you catch my meaning.”

  “Perfectly,” Kamal said, pocketing the card. He now had an independent means of finance, and the amount he’d had to pay out was relatively small compared to the money he expected to take from the pastor’s Cayman account at the end.

  As a bonus it gave him an extra measure of independence from the Gang of Three, as he’d begun to think of his employees in Beijing.

  “Have you had dinner?”

  “Something on the road. But first I would like to see your church.”

  “My house of divine enlightenment.”

  Kamal couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “Yes, but they eat it up,” Holliday said. A shrewd look came over his face. “My people checked on you.”

  “As I did you.”

  “And?”

  “You’re a good investment.”

  “By all accounts you’re a savvy investor on the Bourse.”

  It was the French stock market. Thomas Watson was the British name Kamal had used over the past number of years as a licensed trader. He had a short list of clients, all of whom were in fact him.

  “Yes.”

  “What do you hope to gain by investing in me? Other than salvation.”

  “At this point you’re capitalized at fifty-seven million. Your ministry collections amount to five million per year, but your park’s admission price at fifty dollars is too low, and you’re losing money.”

  “We’re breaking even on our Heavenly Village.”

  “Point of sales including restaurant and concessions are making almost nothing, as are your tourist items.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Raise the park admissions in keeping with Disney, Busch and SeaWorld, raise your concessions and cut costs.”

  “Salaries.”

  “I could move a management team in here, and within a year you’ll be left holding the goose that laid the golden egg.”

  “In return?”

  “Ten percent of the gross.”

  “No.”

  “Ten percent only of the net increase.”

  “And what’s your investment?”

  “I’d pay for the management team and their on-site housing. Net cost to you will be zero.”

  “If you’re wrong, and there’s a loss, then what?”

  “If you noticed, my check was written out to you, personally.”

  “I did,” Holliday said.

  “As will the remainder of the one mil. If all else fails you can walk away with whatever you can salvage along with my golden parachute.”

  Holliday hesitated a moment, then grinned. “Are you a Budweiser man, or do you prefer something a little more exotic?”

  “Krug if you have it, or Cristal. But afterwards I want to see my quarters, and those of the people I’ll be sending to you. Just a couple of them at first, seeking salvation.”

  “Sinners seeking salvation,” Holliday said.

  “Exactly.”

  “They’ll be welcome.”

  SIXTEEN

  It was nearing five in the afternoon, and Otto was staring at the main flat-screen monitor in his office, which showed an ongoing summary of what his darlings were homing in on. The background color had been changing all day from a pale blue to now a lavender that was deepening by the hour.

  Blue was just above the radar, most of the time way behind what Otto’s estimation of the current threat level was, but lavender was getting into some serious territory.

  Estes, the Harvard PhD, had stopped by for fifteen minutes earlier, but he hadn’t come up with anything other than what he’d suggested at the meeting with Page and the others. And yet the man was possibly on to something, but Otto’s idea of a coup d’état here in the States was so monstrous it was almost beyond belief, yet Estes agreed.

  Louise had called a couple hours ago and asked if he would be home in time for dinner.

  “Six, honest injun,” he’d promised.

  “Good, then afterwards we’ll go over to see Mac.”

  His darlings had come up with a personnel list of the foreign directorates or clandestine services of each of the top fifteen intelligence agencies in the world. Some like Russia’s SVR, China’s MSS, and North Korea’s State Security Department were not friends of the U.S., and their lists of personnel were tightly held secrets. But others like Britain’s MI6, France’s DGSE and Germany’s BND were well known to the CIA.

  He had started with the chiefs earlier this afternoon, and had expanded the lists to the number two, three and four down the chains of command. By the time he’d hit the number three name, the color on his main screen had begun to turn lavender.

  And by four, which had just come up fifteen minutes ago, the color had deepened.

  “Open sesame,” he said.

  “Good afternoon, darling,” one of his programs responded.

  “Where is Dr. Estes at the moment?” he asked. “Is he still on campus?”

  “Yes, he is on campus. Currently he’s in a meeting with four DA personnel, including Mr. Pitken and three analysts. Do you wish their names?”
>
  Raymond Pitken was the assistant deputy director of the Directorate of Analysis and Intelligence.

  “That won’t be necessary. Where is the meeting taking place?”

  “Three-one-five in the NHB.” The New Headquarters Building. Next door, connected via a covered walkway on the fourth floor.

  “Thank you.”

  “Shall I announce that you are on the way?”

  Otto had to smile. He’d put a lot of his wife’s personality into the search program, and like Louise the machine often guessed his next move.

  “Yes, please do. And, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He phoned home, and Louise answered on the first ring.

  “How late will you be?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe an hour or two.”

  * * *

  Otto’s security pass did not work and Estes, his jacket off, tie loose, had to let him in. Whatever the office, large by campus standards, had been used for before, now it housed a circle of chairs in the middle surrounded by computer monitor stations, and three large interactive whiteboards.

  “Sorry about the extra security precaution, but it was Ms. Olson’s call.”

  Otto was impressed. Someone was actually using their brain and thinking outside of the box for a change. “Means you guys have probably come up with the same thing as I did.”

  “I sincerely hope not,” Estes said.

  They went to where Pitken and the three analysts were sitting around the circle. An extra chair had been pulled over for Otto, and he and Estes sat down. Meetings like this were called brainstorms, like cramming for a college exam. The notion was that no idea, no matter how far-fetched or impossible seeming, would be left off the table. Absolutely anything brought up would be given serious consideration.

  On the other side of the coin, it was the team’s duty to try its best to shoot down every idea, even the ones that made the most sense.

  “Welcome to the club,” Pitken said.

  He didn’t have to introduce Otto to the analysts—two of them older women, another just a kid in his midtwenties from Munich. Nor did they have to be introduced. They were the DA’s dream team. When they had a consensus everyone, including the DCI, listened.

  Estes carried some serious weight to have the team helping him.

  A list of thirteen of the fifteen intelligence agencies that Otto had come up with were written on one of the whiteboards. Lines with arrows connected most of them to each other.

  “You’re missing MI6 and the DGSE,” Otto said.

  “Neither of them are making any noise, official or unofficial,” Pitken said.

  He was such an ordinary-looking man he could have been anything from a school bus driver to a mailman—anything but the number two in the CIA’s intelligence and analytical directorate.

  “You haven’t dug deeply enough.”

  “Division chiefs and their number twos,” Estes said.

  “Try number threes and fours, mostly operational and logistics officers. The people directly in charge of the boots-on-the-ground personnel.”

  June Lowrey, one of the analysts, who looked like a grandmother with white hair and pince-nez glasses on a chain, shook her head. “They’d be spokesmen. Actual policy would have to come farther up the chain of command.”

  “Deniability, in case the shit goes south on them,” Otto said.

  Toni Jurist, the other woman on the team, smiled. “Just like us,” she said. “Once we get this figured out and take it upstairs we’ll be on the firing line.”

  “That’s why we get paid the big bucks,” Pitken said, and they all got a laugh. He was the highest-ranking officer here, and if things fell apart his would be the first head on the chopping block.

  “So I submit the reports under my name,” Estes said. “What are they going to do, take away my degrees?”

  Otto all of a sudden liked him. The man had balls for an academic. “Under my name too,” he said. “They try anything and I’ll crash the mainframe.” He waited a moment. “Not.”

  Pitken actually looked relieved. “Okay, Otto, what are we all talking about here? You came to us.”

  “Harold named it over in the DCI’s office. He called it a consortium to discredit President Weaver.”

  “I can understand Putin and his tribe, and nut cases like Kim Jong-un, going after the president,” Estes said. “He’s made himself a damned easy target with his twist on foreign policy. But we’ve come up with nothing from the Germans or anyone else.”

  “We’ve all but given up on possible assassination attempts,” Pitken said.

  “It’ll be worse than that,” Otto said.

  “Our intel ops could be hamstrung, or at least put in serious jeopardy if all of a sudden everyone stops cooperating with us. Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “If it were that easy they wouldn’t have tried to kill Mac.”

  Ludwig Mueller, the boy genius from Munich, sat forward all at once. “Tried?” he asked.

  “He’s not dead.”

  The others, including Pitken, were stunned.

  “Jesus,” someone said.

  “And that will not leave this room under any circumstances,” Otto warned. “I shit you not, if one of you guys even talks in your sleep, I’ll personally see to your destruction.”

  Pitken and everyone else held their silence for a long moment, until Otto spoke.

  “Let’s put our heads together to make sure that we’re all thinking the same thing.”

  “You’re talking about a coup d’état,” Estes said.

  “Yeah.”

  SEVENTEEN

  It was well after nine by the time Otto finished with Estes and the dream team and made it back to his office. His stomach was rumbling but his head was in much worse shape. In his entire career he’d never been up against this kind of a wall, nor did he think Mac or anyone else he knew had either.

  For the first time for as long as he could remember he was frightened.

  He phoned home, and as usual Louise answered on the first ring.

  “Do you want to give me the good news or the bad news?” she said. “Assuming there’s good news.”

  “I’m leaving for All Saints now,” Otto said, and his voice sounded shaky in his own ear.

  Louise was suddenly concerned. “You okay?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “I’ll call Pete and give the heads-up.”

  “Meet you there,” Otto said and he hung up.

  He stared at his main monitor for a long time. The lavender color had definitely deepened, now more purple than blue. And the thing is he had no idea what to do.

  * * *

  The hospital was quiet at this hour. McGarvey and one of the Company’s deep-cover agents who’d managed to get out from North Korea and all the way to Seoul before he’d collapsed from multiple gunshot wounds were the only patients.

  “Mr. M is doing well,” the security officer on the first floor said. “Your wife and Ms. Boylan are already upstairs.” He was dressed in scrubs to blend in, but he was a former Navy SEAL operator and very good at what he did.

  Otto started for the elevator but then turned back. “The guy who got out of badland, how’s he doing?”

  “The doc says he’ll do just fine, but he’s probably never going back into the field again. His days as an NOC are done.”

  An NOC was an agent who lived and worked in a foreign country with No Official Cover. Those people never visited a U.S. embassy, nor did they ever have any contacts with the CIA other than with their operational officer. Once they did come in out of the cold, for whatever reason, their careers as deep-cover agents were over.

  “What room is he in?”

  “Next door to Mr. M.”

  “Name?”

  “No idea what his cover name was, but his real name is Larry Kyung-won.”

  * * *

  Louise was in the third-floor waiting room down the hall from Mac and the other man when Otto g
ot upstairs. She had brought him a bag dinner.

  “Twinkies,” she said.

  They had been his favorite guilty pleasure for a long time. Now Louise only let him have them when she knew that he was upset and needed a boost. Otherwise the massive amounts of sugar and chemical preservatives were almost impossible to digest.

  “Later,” he said and he gave her a hug. “Is Pete with Mac?”

  “They’re waiting for you,” Louise said. She gave him a critical look. “Sure you’re okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Otto said. “Wait here for a mo, I want to talk to the NOC next door to Mac.”

  He didn’t wait for her to ask why, but went directly down to the wounded field officer’s room. The door was open, and light but no sound came from a television on the wall. He knocked on the door frame and the slight man in the bed looked up.

  “Holy shit, Mr. Rencke,” he said. His voice was weak, but held no hint of a Korean accent.

  “May I come in?”

  “Of course, even though I’m thinking you’re not here on a courtesy call.”

  Otto went in and stopped at the foot of the bed. “I want to ask you something about North Korea.”

  “Why I suddenly broke cover and got the hell out?” Kyung-won asked.

  “Something like that. But I want to know if you made a snap decision—someone was on your six? Or was it a long time coming before you decided to bail out?”

  The man’s complexion was olive, his eyes were dark and his thick hair was shaved at the sides. “It was no snap decision, and that was in my file.”

  “I haven’t seen your file. In fact I didn’t know that you were here until a couple of minutes ago.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “Why’d you cut and run?”

  “It was getting squirrely. The SSD guys were flooding Pyongyang—wall to wall. Random stops on the street for ID checks. Hit-and-run squads rousting entire apartment blocks, tossing every square millimeter. Damned near checking your shit before you had the time to flush.”

  “Looking for you?” Otto asked.

  “Looking for anyone.”

  “When did it start?”

  “End of November, beginning of December. Hard to nail down an exact date. But last month it got really intense, so I got out. Almost too late. By the time I got to Mundung-ni—that’s in the east on the DMZ about fifteen klicks from the Sea of Japan—half the DPRK Army was waiting.”