Killed in Action

by Michael Sloan

  “Did he contact The Company?”

  “No, he was afraid of repercussions because the NK mission was unsanctioned.”

  “A lot has happened at The Company since you were away. How did you get home?”

  “I took a Cathay Pacific flight to JFK, got in tonight. I went to your old apartment, found out you had moved out, and went to my place.”

  “Did you meet your new roommate?”

  “Oh, yeah. Very sweet, if you’re into Lolita. You might invest in some clothes for her. The T-shirt she was wearing to bed didn’t even cover her legs.”

  “You’ll get used it. Do you want me to move her?”

  “She’s fine there.”

  The silence gathered around them again.

  “What happened to Granny?”

  “He didn’t make it.”

  McCall nodded, but the pain was evident in his eyes. “I know you wouldn’t have left him there if there had been any chance of getting him out.”

  “There wasn’t. Is this a safe house?”

  “Only Control knows about it. It’s not on The Company’s books.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “We’ll let him tell us.”

  They took the elevator to the fourth floor and stopped outside a door with no number on it. McCall used another skeleton key to get inside. A short hall led into a main study. It was decorated with dark wood shelving, wood slats on the two windows overlooking Fiftieth Street, mahogany walls with a cathedral ceiling, a wet bar, a leather couch, and a desk. A laptop computer was on the desk. The only light came from a Tiffany lamp.

  Two people were in the room.

  Control looked exhausted. His hands had a slight tremor. Beside him, Dr. Bennett had just given him an injection and put away the syringe and snapped his doctor’s bag. He directed his attention only to McCall.

  “Your friend needs rest. I left him some diazepam, or Valium. He will have to get his own doctor to write him a prescription. He said there were bad people hunting for him, and perhaps for you as well, Mr. McCall, but I’ve done all I can. I have patients beneath the streets to attend to. I wish both of you well.”

  Dr. Bennett walked briskly to the door to the apartment and closed it behind him.

  Control looked at Kostmayer. His voice was hoarse and faint. “I was told you were in a North Korean prison camp.”

  “I pissed them off. They let me go.”

  “Was Granny on the mission?”

  “He didn’t make it.”

  Control nodded, as if the weight of Granny’s death weighed heavily on his shoulders. Kostmayer had never seen him like this before. McCall sat on the couch beside him. Kostmayer perched on the edge of the desk.

  “I have been on the track of a mole in The Company,” Control said. “He’s been there for a very long time. He was the man responsible for hiring Jovan Durković to take out Serena Johanssen in Yaroslavl at the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery. I didn’t have all of the intel at the time you quit, Robert. I didn’t get part of it until after you had killed Durković at the château outside Prague. But I was aware of some kind of a conspiracy at The Company that had far-reaching consequences. There was a Company executive who left some time ago. His name is Matthew Goddard. But there was a shake-up at The Company. I got a phone call to say Goddard was back.”

  Control paused, disoriented, looking around him as if he were surprised by his surroundings.

  “Did anyone else call you?” McCall asked.

  “Only my wife.”

  “Did you tell her the situation?”

  “I told Jenny to pack some things and get out of the house.”

  “The one in Arlington?”

  “Yes. She took Kerry and Megan with her. I gave her a number to call me in forty-eight hours.”

  “You should’ve given her my number,” McCall said.

  “You’re no longer with The Company. They’re not your concern. Nor am I. I had a lunch meeting at the Capital Grille. I stepped into a waiting Uber car on Pennsylvania Avenue, and they were waiting inside for me.”

  “Did you recognize them?”

  “No. Mercenaries, not Company men, hired assassins. They knew each other. They injected me with some kind of a sedative. That’s the last thing I remembered for a long time.”

  “How long?”

  “It must have been weeks. They kept me drugged.”

  “How did you get to the house in the Virginia countryside?”

  Control looked up. “How did you know where it was?”

  “A chance remark that your secretary, Emma Marshall, made. You were reminiscing about a house you’d visited when you were five or six.”

  “My parents used it as a summer place. We never sold it. I would go there sometimes off the radar when I wanted to get away. It had special childhood memories for me.”

  “Why would the kidnappers take you there?”

  “Because it was out of the way and isolated. No one knew about it. If Matthew Goddard was behind my kidnapping, he must have had some perverse satisfaction in taking me there. I lost track of all time. I heard nothing about The Company or what was going on in the world.” Control reached out for McCall’s wrist, holding him tightly. “No one else could have found me.”

  “Goddard made it tough. You weren’t just kidnapped. All traces of your identity were erased.”

  Control let McCall go. “What are you talking about?”

  “You were never at The Company offices in Virginia. You were never in the spy business. You never had a wife and children. Your friends were all gone. Matthew Goddard made sure that you had never existed.”

  Control stared at McCall in disbelief. “That isn’t possible.” Control’s voice was barely above a whisper.

  “There are no records about you at all. Brahms went through all of the databases.”

  “Does Brahms remember me?”

  “Sure, but he’s been out of The Company for years. I’m sure if Goddard thought he was a threat to exposing your identity, he would have had him killed.”

  “But there’s Jason Mazer … other Controls…”

  “Jason Mazer is resourceful and smart. I don’t know if they killed him or if he saw the writing on the wall and got out. No one at The Company knows you now. Matthew Goddard is in charge of the section.”

  “But what about Emma?” Control tried to assimilate this information. “She knows me about as well as anyone.”

  “They fired her and sent her home with a golden handshake. But they came for her in London. Probably the same rogue assassins. Just to make sure she didn’t mention your name to any of her family or friends. I got her out of London to stay with her mother.”

  “That must have gone over well,” Control murmured.

  “It was better than her lying in a Soho street with her throat cut. Go back to before you were grabbed.”

  “I realized I had stumbled upon some kind of a plot. It wasn’t just that Matthew Goddard was selling top-secret information to the Russians or the Chinese. It was a plot aimed at our country’s security. But before I could find out anything vital, they grabbed me.”

  “Goddard knew you were onto him,” McCall said. “Your name was mentioned by Jihadists in Syria fighting for ISIS.”

  “My name?”

  “That’s right. But this rogue cell in The Company made one mistake. There was someone else who knew you. At least, he knew your name.”

  “I’ve never known that myself,” Kostmayer said. “You’ve always been Control.”

  “My name is James Thurgood Cameron,” Control said softly.

  “I went into Syria to try and rescue an American Army captain named Josh Coleman,” McCall said. “He didn’t make it, but he whispered your name before he died.”

  “I don’t know him. What do I have to do with Captain Coleman?”

  “He was working on a secret list of names associated with the Taliban and the Jihadist Insurgents in Syria and Iraq. This rogue unit within The Company has been
protecting them. The Insurgents found Captain Coleman and myself in an abandoned airfield in Syria near the Turkish border. I believe Matthew Goddard had been liaising with them. That’s how the Insurgents had tracked our position.”

  “Why would Matthew Goddard be sending our enemies intel? What would he gain from such an act of treason?”

  “I’d say a great deal of money. Probably in the millions.”

  “This secret list of names that Captain Coleman had of Insurgent fighters. Have you turned their names over to the Pentagon?”

  “They’re American names,” McCall said quietly. He let that sink in.

  “Where is Goddard now?” Control asked. “Is he still heading The Company?”

  “Brahms called one of his old contacts there. Matthew Goddard has disappeared. Some kind of a covert mission. I’d say he’s gone to ground while this terror scenario is put into play.”

  “What terror scenario?”

  McCall took out the eight-by-ten pictures from his pocket and laid them on the desk. “Three brothers, they were probably fourteen or fifteen when these photos were taken. Captain Josh Coleman was the oldest. The second brother is Dr. Patrick Cross; he’s with Doctors Without Borders. The youngest brother is Bo Ellsworth, who works at a plant in Boerne, Texas.” McCall set a fourth picture down beside the other three. “This is a picture of Tom Coleman, Captain Coleman’s younger brother. I took it from his sister, Rebecca. Tom’s eighteen, going to NYU, also studying Arabic at the School of Islamic Studies at the Istanbul Sehir University. He’s a part of this conspiracy.”

  “What are you saying is going to happen?” asked Kostmayer.

  “I believe there are going to be three separate terrorist attacks on American soil.” McCall took out his iPhone and scrolled down. “I found a journal taped to the bottom dresser drawer in Tom Coleman’s Chelsea apartment. I took photographs of the pages. Copy them down.”

  Kostmayer picked up a yellow pad from the desk. Control was looking at the pages on McCall’s iPhone. “Most of it is in code.”

  “Weren’t you once a cryptographer?” Kostmayer asked.

  “It’s from the Greek word kryptos, meaning ‘hidden, secret,’” Control murmured. He sat at the desk and started writing down the coded pages from Tom Coleman’s journal.

  McCall picked up the picture of Tom Coleman and handed it to Kostmayer. “Tom’s sister told me he usually hangs out in a bar in Greenwich Village called the Peculier Pub. If he was going to drown his sorrows about his brother for appearance’ sake, it would be there.”

  Kostmayer followed McCall to the short hallway. Control looked up. He saw McCall drop something into Kostmayer’s hand. He pocketed the item and left.

  McCall walked back to the desk. “Can you break the code in Tom Coleman’s journal?”

  “I don’t know.”

  McCall shook him. “I need you to focus, James.” It felt strange calling Control by his real name. “I don’t know what these three brothers—Patrick Cross, Bo Ellsworth, and Tom Coleman—are going to do, but I know American lives are at stake.”

  “How much time do we have?”

  Control’s hands had stopped shaking. McCall let him go. “Probably not long.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Norman Rosemont stood in the street in a fine drizzle waiting for Jesse Driscoll. When Rosemont didn’t see him, he walked back into the Liberty Belle Hotel. Linda Hathaway was seated on a leather couch holding Mavis Weinberger’s palsied hands. Elliott sat beside them. Gemma was running around behind the couch carrying her Courage the Cowardly Dog. Miguel was sitting a little distance from them. Donald Hewitt was standing with Connie at the reception counter going through his wallet.

  Rosemont strode up. “Is there a problem here?” he snapped to Chloe, then caught himself. “I’m sorry, we’ve had a pretty rough night. Can I help?”

  Donald Hewitt looked embarrassed. “I’m afraid my credit card is maxed.”

  “It’s my fault,” Connie said. “I just got us tickets to see Wicked for the third time, and it took us over the top. I can cancel them.”

  Rosemont handed his Platinum Card to Chloe. “Put their reservation on my card.” He gestured to the Weinbergers, Linda Hathaway, Gemma, and Miguel Vásquez. “Put all of these folks on my card.”

  “Certainly, sir.” Chloe ran Rosemont’s AmEx card and handed it back to him. He moved over to the couch. “You can go up and register for yourself and Mavis, Elliott.”

  Elliott moved to the reception counter. Linda Hathaway shook her head. “I can’t stay in a hotel like this for even one night.”

  “It’s on me.”

  “That’s very generous, but where do we go tomorrow?”

  Without even thinking about it, Rosemont squeezed her shoulder. “You and Gemma can stay here for as long as you need to. All of you.”

  “That’s so kind,” Mavis said fondly. “Have you met our friend Mr. Rosemont, Linda? He’s probably a Democrat, but we don’t hold that against him.”

  Sam entered the lobby from the side entrance. A small bandage was on his nose and another on his forehead.

  Chloe immediately came around the reception counter. “What happened to you?” she demanded.

  “Got in a fight,” Sam said shortly.

  “At your age? You should be ashamed of yourself!”

  “I’m medicated up to the eyeballs. Give me a break!”

  Sam saw the apartment tenants in the lobby and strode away from Chloe, who sighed, “You’re going to give us all heart attacks!” But she went back behind the reception counter.

  Sam noted that Jesse Driscoll was moving through the lobby now. He spoke softly to Miguel Vásquez and propelled him over to the others.

  Elliott Weinberger came back from the reception counter at the same Sam arrived. “We’re all checked in.”

  “Sam, are you okay?” Rosemont asked.

  “I’m good. What’s the story at the building?”

  “All of the apartments have sustained severe smoke and water damage,” Jesse said. “But they’re all still standing. The fire department is going to contact me when we can go back to find what’s left of our stuff.”

  “You should register, Miguel,” Rosemont said gently.

  Jesse took Miguel over to the reception counter. Chloe greeted them with a smile.

  At the leather couches, Sam looked at the other tenants. “That fire wasn’t an accident. The apartment building was deliberately torched.”

  “That’s terrible,” Mavis Weinberger whispered.

  “Someone tried to kill me. He was in my apartment. I didn’t get a good look at him, but he was young, I know that.”

  “I was also attacked.” Linda Hathaway glanced around, but Gemma was racing around the lobby. “Better Gemma doesn’t hear this anyway. The intruder grabbed me as I was leaving my apartment and pushed me down the stairs.”

  “We found her at the bottom,” Connie Hewitt told Sam.

  “Must be the same guy. The police will want to question all of us. If it hadn’t been for Norman, I wouldn’t have got out of that fire trap. He carried me up to the roof.”

  “He’s a hero,” Linda said.

  Rosemont colored, trying to hide his embarrassment. “But why would someone try to kill you, Sam?”

  “I have enemies.”

  “From the hotel business?” Connie asked, suddenly intrigued.

  “I worked for an intelligence agency a long time ago.”

  “I knew it!” Connie exclaimed. “I knew you were a spy!”

  She sang a chorus from a Broadway show. ‘Hey, kid, failed your test? Dream girl unimpressed? Show her you’re the best. If you can shoot a president.’ Opening number, ‘Everybody’s Got the Right,’ in Assassins.”

  Jesse returned from the reception counter with Miguel. “Miguel is all set. I can stay at my aunt’s place in Brooklyn.”

  “I know what you all thought of me,” Miguel murmured. “You’ll be well rid of me.”

  “The building still
needs a super,” Rosemont said. “No one has fired you.”

  “As soon as the management company knows what has happened, I’ll be out on my ass. I know I let you all down. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll make some calls,” Rosemont offered.

  Sam was watching him carefully. The real estate tycoon met Sam’s gaze.

  “How can you do anything for us?” Linda asked him.

  “Because I owned the building. I was your landlord.”

  The statement was met with stunned silence.

  “I will see to it that rebuilding starts right away,” Rosemont assured them. “I’ve already phoned a construction outfit, who are going to meet me down on Tenth Street at eight a.m. tomorrow. You can all stay here at the Liberty Belle Hotel for as long as you want.” Rosemont looked at Sam. “If that’s okay?”

  “Fine by me.”

  Rosemont turned to Linda Hathaway, a little tentatively. “May I escort you to the reception counter to register, Linda?”

  “We’ll look after Gemma,” Connie Hewitt offered.

  Linda shook her head, as if she didn’t quite believe it. Then she got up and kissed Norman Rosemont on the cheek. They walked to the reception counter.

  Mavis looked at Sam accusingly. “Did you know Mr. Rosemont was our landlord?”

  “Of course he knew,” Connie said. “He’s been playing a trick on the man.”

  “What kind of a trick?”

  “In the circumstances, a pretty mean one,” Sam said quietly.

  * * *

  Kostmayer found the Peculier Pub on Bleecker Street just off Washington Square Park. It was packed with students sitting at long wooden tables and crowding around the bar. He immediately spotted Tom Coleman at one of the back booths sitting with a willowy blonde. Tom scooted out to bring them some more beer. Kostmayer moved to the bar and nudged Tom as he passed.

  “Sorry,” Kostmayer murmured. “Crowded tonight.”