An Act of Treason

by Jack Coughlin

  Swanson slumped in the chair, mentally swinging between despair and happiness. He looked at Riles and gave a grim smile. “Okay, sir. Better than a piano wire around the neck some night over here. Thanks.”

  Riles was on his feet. “I look forward to seeing you at the embassy tomorrow, Gunny. Get you cleaned up and some decent food and we can talk about this in more detail, with a temporary defense attorney present. Is there anything else I can do for you before I leave today?”

  Swanson actually let out a little laugh. “Actually, there is. Downstairs I have to pee and crap in a bucket. I sure would like a trip to the warden’s bathroom before you call them back. I can waddle over there and will leave the door open. Won’t take but a minute, and I’d like to wash out my eyes, too.”

  Riles started putting away the papers and strapping up his briefcase while Swanson made his slow way to the bathroom, closing the door slightly with his elbow. Moving to the toilet, he quickly scanned the small room, and when he finished urinating, he flushed and moved to the sink and turned on the water. A mirrored medicine cabinet was above it, and Kyle pulled it open and discovered a treasure chest of possibilities. He quickly grabbed a small roll of dental floss that he could keep in the palm of his hand and tucked a blue-handled plastic safety razor into the waistband of his trousers.

  31

  DUBAI

  UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

  J IM H ALL TOLD THE taxi driver that waited at the front door of the beachfront hotel to drive him to the Burj Dubai mall. He wanted to buy several pairs of comfortable gloves that would serve until he could have some hand-crafted to disguise his missing finger. The sharp pain of having it severed was only a memory, and he was already exercising as if the digit were still there. He settled back into the soft seat and let the strong air conditioner flow while he watched the passing landscape.

  So this is what is going to happen to the entire Middle East when the black gold runs out. Dubai was the second largest of the seven sheikdoms in the United Arab Emirates, but most of its oil wealth was controlled in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the federation. That had compromised the funds needed to pay for Dubai’s grandiose desires, so the city-state had concentrated instead on becoming an international trade and financial center, with the underpinning of real estate development, most of it through companies owned by the government. When the global banking and real estate markets utterly collapsed in the first decade of the twenty-first century, little Dubai was left with billions and billions of dollars’ worth of debt. It had taken years just to stabilize the economy, and even today apartment buildings, office complexes, avenues of private homes, and resort hotels stood unfinished in the desert sun.

  In addition, sticking up in the middle of the desolation like a toothpick in the dirt stood the world’s tallest tower, the Burj Dubai, 2,717 feet high. Somehow the billionaires and the state would not let the project fail, as if national survival were at stake. Soon enough, the one being built over in Saudi Arabia would make the Burj Dubai look small in comparison, but Hall did not care.

  The taxi let him off at one of the many entrances to the supermall attached to the tower, and Hall spent a couple of pleasant hours wandering around the shops. He found some gloves, watched the skaters gliding along the improbable giant indoor ice rink, visited the aquarium, and then drifted into the tower itself, stopping in the lavish lobby to read the long list of tenants. The energy consulting firm of Baker Harris & Associates occupied the entire seventh floor. It was a CIA front company that posed as a legitimate business, analyzing myriad amounts of energy data and production for clients while also trolling for intelligence nuggets for the Agency. Standing in the lobby, he dialed the business number on his cellular phone.

  “Baker Harris and Associates,” came the greeting in English, the universal language of business. “How may I help you?” The answer was bland, giving away nothing.

  “Connect me with Margaret Dunston’s office, please.”

  “One moment.” A pause, a click, and a ring.

  “Margaret Dunston’s office. This is Malia. May I help you?”

  “Hello, Malia. I’m Preston James, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. We’re putting together a story on the Dubai recovery efforts, and I wonder if Ms. Dunston might be able to give me a few minutes right now for an interview. I understand it is inconvenient and short notice, but I just happen to be in the tower and another interview canceled. Could you ask, please?”

  “Oh, Mr. James, I’m so sorry. She is just starting an important luncheon meeting, and the rest of the day is packed full. Her schedule is absolutely jammed. I know she will be sorry not to be interviewed for your story, so if you leave me your… Hello? Hello?”

  Jim Hall had hung up in her ear. All he had wanted was confirmation that covert CIA operative Maggie Dunston was in her office today. Which meant she would be returning home tonight. Where he would be waiting, just like in the old days.

  A few hours later, in the sluggish dead heat of the afternoon, Hall strolled into her exclusive apartment building and directly to the elevator. The doorman gave him no more than a glance of attention because he looked vaguely familiar and walked as if he belonged in this exclusive enclave of foreigners. In the elevator, he punched twelve and got off on the exact floor of her apartment, making no attempt to cover his approach. He wanted people to remember this visit. Her door was the third on the right along the carpeted corridor and made of shining oak, not more secure metal. He knocked, not expecting an answer because he was sure Maggie still lived alone. He already had the key he had stolen two years ago in his hand, and it fit perfectly. A quick turn and the lock opened and he was inside, with the door closed and locked. Silent but for the hum of the central air-conditioning.

  Margaret Dunston had been a project of his for years, starting when he was first assembling his plan of escaping the clutches of the CIA and getting rich. He had mentored her, courted and bedded her, made friends with her gray cat with the blue eyes, Sapphire, and stolen her apartment key.

  The place was dim because she kept the blinds and curtains closed to deflect the heat. He peeked through the window coverings and once again saw the impressive view, beautiful if you liked flat land. The Burj Dubai Tower could not be seen from this angle. He let the drapes fall closed again. If she happened to glance up on the way home, they would seem undisturbed.

  The furniture was expensive, and the apartment was well kept but not extremely neat. A big flat-screen television on a low black table dominated the main wall, and a built-in cabinet next to it contained a rack of home theater controls. A matched sofa and love seat combination faced it. Fashion magazines lay on a table, and there were plenty of CDs around, mostly light jazz. On the wall were a few pictures of her family back in California.

  He found Sapphire sitting in the hallway to his right, head cocked, staring, tail twitching and curious. She seemed to recognize him, and as he went farther into the apartment, she followed and got her ears scratched. Hall turned down the air conditioner as low as it would go. Maggie used a spare bedroom as her office, and Hall went to her desk, sat down, called up the word processing program on her computer, and wrote his confession, printing it out on the laserjet printer and folding it neatly into an envelope, which he licked and sealed. Again, he did not care about leaving fingerprints or DNA samples. The more the better.

  Then he went into the main bedroom. The queen-sized bed had not been made that morning, as if Maggie had been in a hurry. A few articles of clothing and a towel were in a pile outside the bathroom door. Jim Hall stripped off his own clothes and laid them neatly over a chair because this job was going to be messy. It was getting colder in the apartment by the time he adjusted the bedspread and settled in for a nap before she got home. Everything he needed was in the kitchen. Before he fell asleep, he felt Sapphire jump onto the bed and fold into a ball behind his knees, purring.

  * * *

  M AGGIE BREEZED IN THROUGH the front door just a few minutes before eight, lock
ed it, and stood still for a moment, shivering as the chill hit her. From his position beside the kitchen door, Jim Hall saw her plainly: medium height, with a good figure and a face constantly refreshed by makeup. Her hair was dark brown and cut long, swept back over her shoulders. Ah, Maggie, you’ve lost some weight, he thought. Good times.

  Sapphire was on the couch, awake and still, the eyes locked on Maggie, who smiled when she saw the cat. “Hey, girl. Cold in here,” she said and walked straight over to the digital thermostat on the wall. She leaned close to read it, and Hall materialized silently behind her, swinging the twelve-inch cast-iron frying pan down hard. It slammed just above her ear, and he drove a shoulder into her spine, smashing her into the wall, breaking her nose on the stiff plastic housing of the thermostat. She collapsed with a whimpering moan, her head feeling like it was exploding.

  Hall did not want to really hurt Maggie; he just needed her dead. He smashed her head twice more with the heavy pan and, on the final blow, heard her skull crack. She was totally unconscious, dying from the brain and spinal injuries, and he knelt beside her for a moment to catch his breath. Not long-he had to get to work while the heart was still pumping; it was important. A lot of blood would spew out to help make the scene as gruesome as possible for investigators.

  Standing up and taking three strides back to the breakfast bar in the kitchen, he silently put the heavy, bloodstained frying pan into the sink and lifted a long, sharp cutting knife from a wooden stand on the counter.

  Then he worked methodically, pulling multiple deep wounds across major arteries. The thick purple blood fountained out and splashed the walls as well as the floor and his body. Slashing and disfiguring facial cuts were necessary, too, and he also sliced off the eyelids. Those enchanting brown eyes were staring up at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Changing to a cleaver, he chopped off her little finger. With a dishcloth dunked in her blood, he wrote on one of the white walls, following with a huge exclamation point: CIA SPY!

  When the work was done, he went to the bathroom, closed the door, and took a scalding hot shower because he had been working out there naked except for an oversized gray sweatshirt he had found in her closet. The steam wrapped him comfortably, and he soaped and washed carefully, particularly under the nails and in every bodily crevice, shampooing twice.

  Jim Hall dressed quickly. The frigid air-conditioning was to keep her body chilled and prevent quick decay, but damn it was cold. He laid the envelope addressed to the CIA station chief on the living room table, gave Sapphire a final rub, and left the apartment, locking the door behind him.

  32

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  W HITE H OUSE C HIEF OF Staff Bobby Patterson felt like he was juggling live hand grenades. Everything involved in the mess in Pakistan seemed to trail right back to his desk. President Russell, his friend of many years, had just chewed him out and threatened to fire him for using poor judgment and overstepping his authority. “Put a lid on this thing, Bobby,” the president had ordered.

  Patterson summoned a Town Car to go out to the CIA and talk it over with Director Bart Geneen, whom he counted as an ally in the political battle. On the way there, Patterson remained silent, ignoring the monuments and lines of trees beyond the tinted windows as he considered options and political risks. If he did not exert strong control, things could spin even further out of hand, and that would mean his job. The black car wound smoothly off the Beltway and into the woods outside Langley, and once he was through the extraordinary security apparatus at the front gate, a sense of privacy and secrecy seemed to drift upon him like a silent blanket of snow. It felt good. The car proceeded along a shaded lane, past the parking lots and right up to the front entrance of shining glass and polished marble. He was met by an escort who gave him a VIP visitor’s clip-on tag, then led the way through the inner courtyard. Patterson, lost in his own puzzles, ignored the statue to the code-breakers of World War II, the famed Kryptos sculptured fountain that contained its own enigmatic 865-character cipher. The two men entered the holiest of holy places for secrecy; imbedded along one wall was a galaxy of bright stars, each representing a fallen operative. The stars bore no names, for the anonymity of the agents lived on beyond their lives, truly unsung heroes. If one’s name became known, enemy intelligence services would pounce on everyone who ever had anything to do with the exposed agent. These men and women carried their secrets beyond their graves.

  Patterson’s confidence grew with every step. With all of the professionals on this big campus and the billions of dollars of support, he felt fresh wind pushing his sails. He had given the job to the right people. All things would be set right. His decision to let the CIA be the lead dog in investigating the devastating terrorist attack in Pakistan was a good one. The Agency could not afford to fail any more than Patterson.

  Then, instead of going to the office of Director Geneen, the escort veered into a basement conference room, a drab place in which pastel colors did nothing to dispel its blandness. Underground at the CIA: How about this for security? Waiting for him was Mel Langdon, the director of operations, who motioned the chief of staff to a chair beside a worn oblong wood table that bore circular stains left by coffee cups and water glasses. A bulletin board and a white grease board were filled with documents and writing, and scraps of loose paper littered the dreary carpet. Work is done in this place, Patterson thought, and Langdon is the officer who handles the hard decisions.

  “I hope you brought along your thinking cap, Mr. Patterson. We have a few problems.”

  Bobby Patterson closed his eyes and sighed. Now what? “Where’s the director?”

  “Unavailable.” Langdon’s response was curt and to the point. “Our principals should not be directly involved with this so they can maintain deniability. That’s why you and I are relegated to this room in the basement, a couple of high-level flunkies doing the devil’s deeds, far out of sight.”

  Not meeting with the director came as a direct slap in the face for Patterson. Has word already leaked that I’m in trouble? Bobby Patterson shrugged his shoulders, adjusted his suit coat, and covered his embarrassment at the impolite response. “Let’s go from the top. What’s up?”

  “Do you remember our shooter who was killed in the Pakistan strike? Jim Hall?”

  Patterson did. “FBI identified the corpse, right?”

  “No. They never actually saw the body. They worked from a print from a severed finger and DNA from bloodstains, all supplied by the Pakis, and came up with the positive identity.”

  “Well? He’s dead. So what?”

  “He’s not dead, and he’s gone rogue.” Patterson worked a panel of buttons, and a viewing screen unrolled from a hidden reel in the ceiling, the room lights dimmed, and a series of PowerPoint slides began. The butchered body of a woman in a pool of blood. The words CIA SPY! scrawled on a white wall above her.

  “My God! Who is that?

  “Her name is Margaret Dunston, and she was one of ours. She worked in Dubai for Baker Harris and Associates, a company that we set up to maintain surveillance and exert some control in the oil industry, and a pretty expensive piece of work with a lot of years of development invested. This is Jim Hall’s way of telling us that he has blown the entire Baker Harris show, a whole network.”

  The pictures now changed to a dirt courtyard in some unidentified, barren place. Close-ups of the bruised and broken faces of two men standing against a wall, then the camera pulling back to show a line of other men facing them, holding AK-47s at the ready. The next picture was of the rifles being fired, and the last, the victims slumped over dead. “Two more of our agents, local talent this time, who had infiltrated the Taliban in the Northwest Frontier. Hall claims to have sold them out to an old friend of his, Muhammed Waleed.”

  “The Taliban warlord in Waziristan?”

  “The same,” said Langdon. “He left a letter at the scene of the murder of the woman in Dubai, confessing everything. He wants a deal.”

  “We can’t deal
with a man like that,” Patterson said. “He’s a terrorist himself!”

  Langdon turned the lights back up and the gruesome pictures vanished, but the screen stayed down. “Like I said earlier, Bobby. We’re doing the devil’s deeds here today. We are backed into a corner and pretty much have to give him what he wants. The man is a walking encyclopedia of Agency secrets. He could cripple us.”

  “Then what does he want? A pardon?”

  Langdon replied. “He wants very little. He has stolen a few million dollars from a covert account and plans to go find somewhere quiet to retire in leisure. We wipe that from the books. He instructs that we pay him off with another million dollars a year for the next ten years through covert channels. Petty cash. Mostly, he does not want to be looking over his shoulder for a CIA-paid hit squad. In return, Jim Hall proposes that if we leave him alone-just keep pretending that he really is dead-then he will leave us alone, and our other networks and agents remain operational and safe.”

  Patterson rubbed his hands together. “Are you willing to do that?”

  “It actually is a small price. Yes, we can send somebody out to get him in a few years, but it might be better just to cut him loose rather than take the chance of failure. My recommendation would be to back off and let him go. After all, as he mentions, he also supplied us with two patsies to take the fall for Pakistan. Jim Hall was a very thorough agent.”

  Bobby Patterson was absorbing the troubling information and admitted that it made a weird kind of sense. A rogue agent silenced and two people to blame for the Pakistan troubles. “What about those others?”

  “First, we have Agent Lauren Carson, who was Jim Hall’s assistant.” Mel Langdon worked his slide show again and a series of photos of a beautiful young woman walked across the screen. “She was under suspicion almost from the start, primarily for helping him steal the money, and now she has cut and run. We found evidence of her apparent guilt, so our top investigator is running a search for her and is confident that she will be in custody within a few hours. Once we have Carson, we take our own sweet time to convict her in a secret court, and send her to a secure prison within our private system. We impose a total press blackout on Carson, because the news vultures would love to run stories of the beauty queen spymistress. Unfortunately, she is also CIA, and we don’t want that connection known.” A final picture of the smiling woman lingered on the screen, then disappeared in a shower of pixels, just as the real Lauren Carson was about to do.