The Kill Button

by Tom Hron

Bending forward, she set her forearms on the table. “Then who killed Dewey Chambers?” she asked in a deliberate tone.

  The Frenchman paused and then gave a big shrug. “Specifically, we don’t know, but it was somebody in the intelligence community. Things have gotten really strange, especially since the last couple administrations reorganized the CIA to fight terrorism, rather than to just spy on Russia and China. I suppose the rats are running for cover…” He let his voice fade.

  Alexis saw that she still had him off-balance. “He was killed because he found out about the genetically modified leprosy, wasn’t he?” she asked.

  He paused and then nodded straight up and down. “Of course. Can you imagine the horror of that disease? That’s why we have to find those canisters and why we need your help.”

  Canisters? She let the Frenchman’s answer sink in. When they had first met, he’d said Chambers had trusted them, but they were missing something important. What was wrong with that picture? she wondered. Something was awfully screwy and she’d better watch what she said.

  “What’s the Black Dragon got to do with all of this?” she asked. A fuzzy high rushed through her because she’d thought of the perfect question, one that would throw him off from what she really knew.

  His eyes refocused for a moment. “You don’t know?…”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. There were two files where they shouldn’t have been. One went on and on about a Nazi named Josef Mengele and an ethnic bacterium he’d developed and the other described a German submarine named the Black Dragon. How the two are connected, I haven’t a clue.” She straightened herself and purposefully let out a noisy sigh. “It’s all ancient history, besides, so I don’t understand why you’d even care.”

  The Frenchman’s voice sharpened. “The files didn’t say anything about Mengele smuggling the disease out of Germany on the Black Dragon at the end of World War Two?”

  Now things were getting a lot clearer. She blinked and made him wait. “… no, nothing like that,” she answered at last. “Security gave me the polygraph test like you said and then started auditing my work. I had only a few minutes, so I must have missed something. Good grief, I wanted to get out of there.”

  Suspicion spider-webbed his face. “You didn’t see anything about the Dragon being sunk by a torpedo, something that gave you its location?”

  She gave him a cold stare. “No, and why are you asking? If Chambers didn’t give you that information, why would you think I could? I was never given access to any secret files.” Hoping to convince him further, she noisily sipped her coffee and pretended indignation.

  For a moment they sat quietly and measured each other, weighing what had been said. They supposedly needed each other but there was little common ground, leaving them with an adversarial relationship that neither liked. He held her in a dark stare and she reciprocated with a blank look. Finally, he broke the standoff with still another question.

  “You realize they’ve got you just where they want you? Now they have all the evidence they need, and they will arrest you for murder, among other things, when they catch you. You fell right into their hands?”

  Terror, regret, guilt—she took a deep breath and forced her emotions out of her mind. He’s manipulating me, she thought. “I had no choice,” she answered. “They were going to find out that I’d read those two files. Whoever had killed Chambers was going to kill me next, then probably make it look like suicide or something.”

  The Frenchman smiled grimly. “Sounds like you’ve done your homework, sweetheart. You’re playing with the pros.”

  “I’ve always read everything I could lay my hands on.” She gulped the last of her coffee and let her face grow circumspect. “But there’s never much out there, so I search the net, buy spy novels, and read the newspapers. Guess I’m a little obsessive-compulsive.” She then laughed and shook her head. “Why am I telling you this, you’re the secret agent.”

  “Let me help you.” said the Frenchman. “You can’t survive out there all by yourself. Come with me.”

  “No, I won’t do that. If you really want to help me, tell me about Reechi and SiddhArtha.”

  He shook his head. “Not unless you give me something.”

  She waited, since it was important to say just the right thing. “There was another file,” she began, “which must be the one that you want.” She then sat straight and crossed her arms.

  “Well, damn it, what was in it?”

  “Tell me about Reechi and SiddhArtha.”

  “Reechi has come out of the woodwork on us, the Basement of the White House to be precise, where Reagan’s Iran-Contra scandal got started, along with all the tricky stuff for the last million years. Anyway, it’s as deep as you can get in this business. We don’t know anything about him. SiddhArtha came out with him and it’s a cover name for something, at least that’s what we think.”

  “That’s it?” She wrinkled her face in disbelief. “You people are supposed to be the best.”

  “Sorry, but that’s all we know. Jesus, look at the short time we’ve had to work on this. We’re not miracle workers, you know.”

  She hesitated and made him wait once again. The information she had wasn’t any better, since everything was so surreptitious, or maybe suppositious was the right word.

  “The third file that I mentioned…” she began, “I never saw it. Chambers kept it in his desk and never let me read it, and he must have taken it upstairs to the bosses after I had left work that day. The polygraph and interviews, they simply wanted to see what I knew, so they must be afraid that I can hurt them.”

  His face paled and looked as if he were suddenly in pain. “They must know where the Black Dragon is—” The words had almost shot out of him.

  “I suppose,” she said. Then she leaned forward and looked straight at him. What was wrong with that scenario? she wondered.

  “Why didn’t Dewey Chambers tell you where the Black Dragon was if that’s the case?” she asked. “He didn’t trust you guys, did he?” She held her breath.

  Like a cornered man, he lifted his eyes. “I can’t answer because I wasn’t there that day. Maybe he thought we would protect you.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I don’t know. Like I told you, we haven’t had much time to work on this, but rest assured we’ll figure it out.” His face reclaimed its composure.

  Alexis nodded and waited. There was nothing more to ask and nothing more to say. She had gotten everything there was to get and meanwhile learned the Mossad probably had as many reasons to kill Dewey Chambers as anyone. With all her heart, she wished there was some place to turn and someone to help. The Mossad was too clever not to guess that she’d held back something, like an alternate way of finding the Black Dragon.

  The Frenchman scribbled something on a slip of paper and stood up, his face lopsided with worry. She saw that he’d written an 800 number on it when he handed the slip to her. She glanced at it and then tried giving it back to him.

  “Keep it,” he said as he stepped away from his chair.

  “I won’t use it.”

  “You’ll wish you had when the FBI grabs you.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Alexis, this isn’t a game. What do you think you’re going to do when you’re facing the death penalty for murder and violations of the Patriot Act?”

  “I’ll think of something.” She suddenly realized that she had become a major fugitive, and her stomach cramped.

  “Well, good luck.” He shook his head austerely, like an old priest.

  She didn’t bother answering and simply stared at her empty cup as though it could tell the future, and then noticed that he was gone. Oddly, she felt a sense of loss, like the death of an old friend. Now there would be no one to talk to and no way to break the isolation. She was on her own.

  A few minutes later, she walked out to her car. The afternoon sun had left the air smoggy and smelling of asphalt and gasoline. She le
t Tungsten drink the water she’d carried out for him and considered her next move. The Frenchman had looked stressed when she’d said the CIA was one jump ahead of him. Unwittingly, it seemed as though she had started an arm’s race of sorts, and how her part would play out, she could only guess. But first things first, she needed to ditch the Chevy. She set off for Old Town Manassas and the shops, galleries, and cafés filling the downtown. It was the best place to conceal herself while she put together a plan.

  Near Center Street she parked under an old oak tree spreading over a public lot, leaving the Chevy where it couldn’t be seen in the dark shadows of green. She got out and left Tungsten and her bag behind, to be picked up after dark, God willing, she thought. The air smelled of cinnamon and incense and murmured with tourists in the sidewalk cafés. Children laughed and their mothers made small talk along the storefronts. She walked from shop to shop, studying the oil paintings and watercolors, gently handling the pottery, and lightly touching the antiques with her fingers, but always, always with her eyes behind her, watching for a tail. One of two things had happened back at McDonald’s.

  The Mossad would never chance losing her, and because the Frenchman had temporarily taken himself out of play, either they had put another tail on her or planted a homer in her car. She suspected the latter but wanted to make sure of it. She kept doubling back, walking in the front doors and out of the back doors of the shops and then right back through again, watching for the same person, a turned head, an unaccountable glance that would give someone away. However, after two hours she was certain that no one was following her.

  She went back to her car and got Tungsten and her bag, then walked to the nearest restaurant and called a cab. In less than a minute a blue-and-white pulled up. She climbed in and held onto Tungsten, mostly because the driver had given her a grumpy look over his granny glasses, which were too small for his balding head. Take me to the airport, she said.

  Which side? he asked, taking off like a shot. She crossed her fingers and told him the jet side. Ten minutes later she found herself standing alongside a metal hangar and a ramp full of airplanes of every description: business jets, Cessnas and Pipers, and some she didn’t even recognize. Well, no matter, she told herself, she’d come to the right place. She started strolling through the parking lot, letting Tungsten prowl behind her. No one would think much about a young woman wandering between the cars with her cat, and besides, there was almost no one around, since it was after dark. She listened to the crickets, watched the lightning bugs, and let Tungsten hunt. Time was on her side.

  She found what she wanted on the far side of the parking lot—a dozen clunkers of every make and model, two with flat tires but the rest looking halfway decent, although it was hard to tell in the nighttime. All had been left there by people who used them for day trips whenever they flew in. She searched under the fenders, along the bumpers, and inside the tailpipes of several, breaking a fingernail in the process. On the sixth car she found what she wanted, a small metal box with a magnet on it. Wouldn’t you know, she mused, right on the devil’s number. The keys were inside. She laughed sadly at herself, since she had now added “car thief” to her repertoire.

  She opened the door and saw it was an ancient green Oldsmobile, a leviathan almost as long as a truck. She threw Tungsten and her bag in, looked around, and saw there wasn’t a soul in sight. Jumping in, she started the engine and listened to it whisper like the wind, or so she thought. She drove away from the airport and stopped at the main highway. They would guess she had gone north, so she turned south.

  CHAPTER 15

  SHAWKI’S DHOW

  Harry felt the hand over his mouth tighten until it hurt, then a forearm lock around his neck. He began to twist away.

  “It’s me, it’s me,” Shawki hissed. “Keep quiet, we must go away from here.”

  He froze, letting Shawki release his grip. Fright could kill a person, he thought, and he sensed that his heart had almost burst from being throttled so suddenly in the dark. His inner sanctum would never be the same.

  In the pitch-black Shawki pulled him down the passageway, leading him through a hatchway into what he thought must be the forward hold, smelling of sailcloth, hemp rope, and coal-tar caulking. The hatchway’s lock clicked shut behind them.

  “There is a hatch cover overhead,” whispered Shawki. “You must boost me up so I can unlock it.”

  Harry thanked his lucky stars that Shawki knew his dhow so well, since there was no light at all belowdecks. Then he felt himself being shoved into position.

  “Grab me below the knees and hold me up,” Shawki whispered once again. “Hurry, so we’re not trapped down here.”

  Crouching, he wrapped his arms around Shawki’s legs and lifted him, and then seconds later heard the rumble of the hatch cover rolling open. The night exploded in shouting and running feet. Apparently, three or four people had snuck aboard.

  “Let go, let go,” cried Shawki. “I must pull myself up.”

  Harry loosened his arms and saw Shawki’s shadow rise up, then roll onto the deck, leaving the hatch open to the moonlight. In the next instant there were sounds of a struggle, followed by a tremendous splash, as if two or three people had fallen overboard. Seconds later, the silhouette of a man darkened the hatch as if he were lying down and aiming something.

  Harry attacked, jumping as high as he could and grabbing hold of the man’s neck and hair and dropping back into the hold. A sharp blast, like a white-hot burst of air, scorched his face and arms. The attacker fell under him, crashing to the floor with their combined weight. Catlike, Harry balanced on top of him and knocked the man unconscious. Seconds after, he found the man was wearing night-glasses. He ripped them off, slipped them over his own eyes, then saw a Glock 17 with a silencer lying nearby. The bullet had barely missed him.

  He picked up the pistol, ran to the hatchway, then stopped. Was someone waiting to ambush him? Standing off to one side, he pushed the hatchway open and heard a silenced shot rip through its paneling, tearing away splinters of wood. Slamming the hatchway shut, he stepped back into the hold and jumped again, caught the deck with his right hand, and pulled himself up, helping with his gun hand as much as he could. When he was even with the opening, he pounded the deck with his free fist. Moments later, he saw the pilothouse door inch open.

  He fired twice, dropped into the hold again, ran soft-footed through the hatchway to the ladder leading to the pilothouse, and waited behind a bulkhead. When the gunman came back down looking for him, he jumped out and cold-cocked him with the Glock.

  Racing up on deck, he searched overboard for Shawki. The surface lay motionless in the green light of his night-vision glasses, as though it were an oily burial ground. How could Shawki hold his breath for so long? Then a few white bubbles floated up off starboard, followed by a frogman’s rubber-coated head. He dropped the Glock and jumped over the side, sinking the man with a bone-crushing kick.

  For several seconds he went down as well, losing the night glasses and fighting the pitch-black bubbles from jumping overboard. He no longer knew up from down, lost as he was in the coffin-black water. He let himself float, praying his buoyancy would save him. His first breath felt like life itself the moment he broke the surface.

  All at once he went down again, grabbed around the ankles by someone below him. He doubled over and fought for his life, his arms and legs tangled with another man’s limbs. Punching and kicking, he did everything possible to escape drowning. Then, just as suddenly, he was let go. This time he felt like he’d had all his breath knocked out when he surfaced.

  An angry voice startled him. “Harry, what are you doing? I might have drowned you.”

  “Shawki?”

  “For crying out loud, who else?”

  “One of them surfaced wearing a wet suit and I jumped in after him.”

  “All your splashing surprised me completely, and I lost the man I was fighting, then it took me a moment to realize I had grabbed the wrong person when
I pulled you under.”

  “How did you find me because I couldn’t see a thing?”

  “I’m half fish.” Shawki laughed softly. “Actually, I do it by sound, and it’s something you learn from experience.”

  “Where’s the boat?” Harry splashed a little, given that he was now tiring. “I knocked two of them unconscious back there, and it wouldn’t be good if they came to.”

  Shawki laughed softly again. “You’re a dangerous man, Harry, and your enemies will be furious when they learn you have two of their people. They will probably send the marines next time.”

  His enemies? Harry stopped treading water, almost sinking himself. He recovered and swam toward Shawki’s voice.

  “I thought they were trying to kill you.”

  “No, they were after you, not me, I think. Two of them threw me overboard to get me out of the way. They could have killed me if they had wanted, but I’m sure they were told not to. This has CIA written all over it.”

  Stunned, Harry stopped swimming. It did seem strange they had been wearing night-glasses and using Glocks with silencers, rather than the Kalashnikovs that terrorists usually preferred. Moreover, they had had Shawki dead in their sights when he’d rolled onto the deck, so why hadn’t they killed him? Almost surely, the CIA had been part of the Aurora project, and to make matters even worse, the long reach of the National Security Council was ubiquitous. It made sense that he had been the prime target.

  They got back on the dhow, relit the ship’s lantern, went below, dragged the man beside the ladder into the forward hold, and laid him alongside his companion. Shawki woke both with a bucket of bilge water, leaving them holding their heads and moaning. They started to come around, their glasslike stares accenting their dark faces, like cat’s-eyes on copper. Palestinians, Shawki explained, hired guns who worked for the Palestinian Authority by day and the CIA by night. He remarked that Langley probably had more terrorists on the payroll than the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade or the Hamas.

  “Is there any way to find out who sent them?” Harry asked.