“Plante,” Morgan insisted.
Plante sighed. “We let the locals handle it. He was buried in an unmarked grave in Kandahar. I’m sorry, Cobra. He deserved better, but he knew the risks. Just like you did, every time you went out on assignment. That’s just the nature of the mission.”
Morgan took a deep breath, trying to calm his rage at imagining his friend buried in some lost little mound of dirt, a mangled corpse mourned by no one. He tried to keep his mind on practical matters.
“What was he doing there?”
“You know I can’t tell you that,” said Plante.
“Fine,” said Morgan. “Then don’t. But I know you’re not here just to give me the bad news. What is it, then? Let’s hear what made the Agency suddenly remember that I exist.” Morgan scowled at him.
Plante returned a look that blended apology and commiseration. “We need your help.”
“I figured as much,” said Morgan acerbically. “I didn’t suppose this was a social call. I was looking for something a bit more specific.”
“It’s a sensitive matter that I’d rather not discuss here,” said Plante. Morgan shot him a look of incredulity, but he continued. “I’d like you to come with me down to Langley. There’s a helicopter about ten minutes away that can take us there, and if everything goes smoothly, I promise I’ll have you home in time for dinner.”
“I don’t have time for your bullshit, Plante. You’re here for my help, so as I see it, you’re not in any position to bargain.” Morgan leaned forward for emphasis. “Tell me what you need, or get out of my house.”
Plante was apologetic. “Come on, Cobra, be reasonable here. My hands are tied, and I need your help. I wish I could be straight with you, but the order came from above.”
“Then forget it.” Morgan got up and started for the door.
“Cobra . . .” said Plante, getting up as well.
Morgan stood face-to-face with the man and spoke in a low voice. “I mean it, Plante. I’m done with that life, done lying”—he looked around to make sure Alex wasn’t within earshot, and his voice sank to a rumbling whisper—“to my family. Done putting my life on the line for a bunch of spineless politicos and backstabbers.”
“If you won’t do it for me, do it for Cougar,” said Plante.
Morgan feinted a lunge at Plante, who flinched in response. “Don’t you dare! You have no right to use his memory to get me to do what you want.”
Plante seemed to make an effort to gloss over being intimidated and to assert himself, but his speech still had a slight tremble. “What about what he wanted, Cobra?” he asked. “Have you considered that?”
Morgan stepped back. “What are you talking about?”
Plante hesitated, looking down.
“Don’t pull this crap on me, Plante,” said Morgan. “You’re not getting anywhere with this cryptic bullshit.”
Plante considered that for a moment. “He sent us a last message before he died. I can tell you that much.”
“What did it say?”
Plante just stared back at him.
“That’s it, we’re done.”
“Stop!” Plante’s voice took on a new urgency. “Look, Cobra, truth is, we don’t know. It’s in some kind of code, a code that we’ve had little luck breaking. And we suspect we’re running out of time.”
“Why are you asking me about this? What makes you think I’ll do any better than the pros over at the Agency?”
“Because there is only one thing that’s perfectly clear.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“It’s addressed to you.”
Morgan faltered. “Come again?”
“‘For Cobra’s Eyes Only.’ That’s how it starts. In plain English. The rest of it seems to be in a kind of code, but the words don’t match up with any of ours. We can only conclude that it’s actually meant for you and that you’re the only one who can tell us what it means.”
Morgan frowned, deep in thought. He didn’t know what it could be about. There was a time in his life when coded messages from Cougar would have been business as usual. Just another day on the job. But that time was gone, long gone. Their interactions these days were limited to exchanging cards on Christmas and the occasional afternoon spent over beers, reminiscing about all the times they’d cheated death together. It was so implausible, all he could manage to say to Plante was an incredulous, “Why?”
“Your guess is as good as ours.”
He thought for a moment. Knowing Cougar, it had to be important. And in this line of work, important could mean urgent and life threatening. Suddenly, Morgan felt as if he had a mission again. He didn’t waste any time. “Do you have it?”
“Have what?”
“What do you think? The message. Do you have it?”
Plante seemed taken aback by Morgan’s sudden intensity. “Sorry, Cobra. I’m not authorized to take it out of headquarters.”
“You’re kidding me,” said Morgan. “What if it’s too late by the time we get there?”
“I’m sorry, I just don’t have the authority,” said Plante, shrugging.
“Then talk to someone who does have the damn authority!” Morgan exclaimed, exasperated.
“I already did. Kline said specifically—”
“Kline?” asked Morgan, his eyes narrowing. “You mean Harold Kline? What’s he got to do with it?”
Plante hesitated. “He’s Deputy Director of the Clandestine Service.”
“Boyle made that worthless, spineless little pencil pusher Deputy Director of the NCS?”
Plante stiffened and adopted an affected, professional tone. “Regardless of what you think of him, Cobra, that’s what he is. And that means he has final say, unless you want to personally take it up with the Director himself.”
Morgan leaned forward in his chair as if he was about to lunge at Plante. “Well, you can tell that asshole. . .” He was too beside himself to finish the sentence.
“Look, I know you’ve had your disagreements in the past. But he’s running the show now. This kind of thing has to go through him.”
“I get it. I know him. I know what all this bullshit is about. He wants me to come down there so I can kiss his ring, doesn’t he?” Morgan fell back angrily in his chair. “Wants to gloat and lord his new position and his fancy new office over me, and Cougar be damned—isn’t that it?”
Plante softened. “Look, Cobra, I wish I could help you. I really do. But I’ve been working under Kline for a while now. I frankly don’t believe that he’s purposely stonewalling this. My impression is that he just happens to believe fervently in protocol.”
“Well, screw him,” Morgan said, with incredulous impatience. “You need to do what’s right by Cougar.”
“Nothing I can do.”
“Then screw you, too. Let’s see what Boyle has to say about this shit.”
Plante sighed. “NCS Director Boyle is aware of the situation, and he gave Kline the authority in this matter. Calling him is only going to delay this even more. Cobra, this is the only way it’s going to happen. If you want to see the letter, you need to come down with me to headquarters.”
Morgan exhaled, barely containing his anger. He could easily be as stubborn as Plante. He could play this game. He did brinksmanship as well as—hell, probably better than—any of those clowns. But how long would it be until Kline caved in? These missions tended to be time-critical, and he knew that Kline would always privilege his own authority over everything else, good intentions or no.
“There was a time when you wouldn’t have put up with this bureaucratic bullshit,” he told Plante, knowing that, by saying that, he had, in effect, caved.
“Maybe I’ve come to realize that there’s a reason why we follow the chain of command,” said Plante.
“To hell with the chain of command.” Morgan exhaled, closing his eyes, letting his anger subside. “I’ll come. But not for them. For Cougar.”
“You’re doing the right thing, Cobra.”<
br />
“Yeah. That’s always been my weak spot.”
Morgan escorted Plante out of the office and to the front door.
“Look, Cobra . . .” Plante seemed newly contrite, his face full of heartfelt pain. “This—Cougar . . . It was a blow. He was my friend, too. I can only imagine what it must be like for you. Why don’t you take a few minutes? I’ll be right outside when you’re ready to go.”
Morgan assented tacitly, then closed the door and walked back to his office. He took down a picture of Peter and himself that hung on the wall next to his gun cabinet. Sinking into his chair, he looked at the framed photo, in which he still had a full mustache on an unlined face. Peter Conley towered next to him, wiry, with a high forehead and a prominent chin. Both were smiling widely. The picture had been taken just a few years after they graduated from their year of CIA training and began work in Black Ops. They were showing off new arm tattoos, corresponding to their code names: Conley’s a cougar, and Morgan’s a coiling cobra, ready to strike—deadly animals for deadly men.
He glanced at the eggs and bacon, still untouched on the plate, undoubtedly cold by now. He thought of Alex and couldn’t help remembering the night he had told Jenny he didn’t really make his money—or most of it, anyway—dealing in antique cars.
He told her all he could say without breaking his oath of secrecy. All those business trips to car auctions, celebrity auto shows, private collector negotiations, and fleet deals—most were covers for dangerous forays into foreign countries, and often into enemy territory, to protect American interests. They were full of excitement, yes, as well as deception and violence—he had cheated death again and again. He did it by being stronger, faster, smarter, and better prepared than the enemy—but he knew that others had been, too, and had not survived. He was good and he knew it, but he also knew he owed Lady Fortune his survival on more than one occasion.
Jenny had been a mess of emotions when he told her. She had been proud, yes, of his bravery and service to his country, but she was also livid that he had deceived her into living, unwittingly, under the constant threat of being widowed by a foreign bullet, a car bomb, or a cyanide capsule. Even worse was that little Alex, almost nine years old at the time, could lose her father. They had made a decision together that night:
Alex would not grow up fatherless. Morgan had called Plante in the morning and told him he was out for good. That was almost eight years ago.
Morgan looked down at the picture in his hand and wondered whether Conley would be alive at that moment if they had still been partners. As he brooded on their friendship and what could have been, Morgan heard the sound of Jenny’s car pulling into the driveway.
CHAPTER 4
“What do you mean, you have to go to DC?” demanded Jenny. After helping unload the groceries from the car and put them away, Morgan had pulled her into the bedroom, away from Alex, and told her that he had to go. The soft gentleness of her face became uneasy, and she pushed her short brown hair nervously behind her ears. She knew, of course, what was in DC.
“Plante is outside, waiting,” he said, not knowing where to begin.
“Plante? You mean your old supervisor?” she asked, bewildered. She walked over to the window and looked out.
“My old handler, yes.” He tried to project reassurance in his voice. Its effect was limited, at best.
“Dan, what’s going on? What does he want?”
“It’s Peter. Peter Conley was killed on a mission.”
“Oh, Dan, I’m so sorry,” she said, as her natural kindness asserted itself, and she took his hand in hers and held it tightly. “How are you?”
He looked at her stoically, but he knew he couldn’t hide his grief.
“Oh, Dan . . .” she said, embracing him. She pulled away and then asked, “Is there going to be a funeral?”
“No,” he said bitterly. “Apparently it was more convenient to have him buried over there.”
“Wait, I’m confused,” she said suspiciously. “I assumed. . . Why do you have to go to DC, then?”
“Something to do with his last mission. They say they need my help.”
She pulled away from him, opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it on a second thought. Then she finally said, “Help how?” Her sympathetic dark brown eyes took on a familiar steely glint that was the only thing that still had the power to intimidate him.
“It’s strictly paperwork, I promise. They want me to take a look at something. Some kind of coded message.”
“They’re the CIA,” she said sharply. “Don’t they have people who can take care of that there?”
Morgan wondered how he had ever managed to keep his life hidden away from her for so long. “It’s a special case, Jen. It’s got to be me.”
“Dan . . .” she said, half pleading, half admonishing.
“I have to do this, Jenny.”
“Do you remember what you told me back when Alex was a child?” she asked. “Do you remember what you promised?”
“Yeah,” he replied, with a pinch of contrition. “I said that I was done. Out. And I meant it.” He moved in closer and put his arms around her. “I’m coming in only as a special consultant. This could be important, and I might be the only one who can help them. Believe me, I would not be going if that weren’t the case.”
She backed up slightly and raised an eyebrow. “No running around in a war zone?”
“No,” he said firmly.
“No gunfights? No flying halfway around the world to put your life at risk?”
“No and no. They show me a printout, I tell them what it means, and I’m out of there. That’s all.”
She sighed and looked away. “I know you’re upset about Peter. I am, too. But that won’t make me forget your promise.”
“I know,” he said. “I didn’t expect it to.”
“Did you ask Alex to the game already?” she asked. He nodded.
“Have you told her?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said.
“She’ll play it cool, but she really craves your company, you know. She will be disappointed.”
“I know,” he said, and he kissed his wife tenderly. “Look, Jenny, I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t perfectly safe. And if everything goes smoothly, I’m out of there in less than twenty-four hours.” Even if Plante were done with him by evening, Morgan had his own questions. “I’ll be back in time for the game with Alex. No harm, no foul.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
He didn’t have a chance to answer before they heard light footsteps approaching from the hall. The door, which had been ajar, opened, and Alex walked in breezily.
“Oh, hey, Mom,” she said, pointedly avoiding eye contact with Morgan. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m off to meet my friends in a few minutes.” And then, reading their body language, she asked, “What’s going on?”
“Your Dad has to go out of town.”
“Oh. Is this about that auction?”
“It’s just for a day or so, “said Morgan. “It’s happening in Virginia. I wasn’t planning on going, but an important client, the man who was just here—he wants me to be there to bid on a Duesenberg, and, well, long story short, I need to fly down today.”
“Are you going to be back for the game?” she asked, with affected nonchalance.
“Are you kidding? I’ll be back before you know it. I wouldn’t miss it for anything.”
“Yeah. I mean, no pressure, Dad,” she said, and he thought he saw the trace of a smile playing at the corners of her lips.
CHAPTER 5
“I hope that there is no one waiting for you tonight,” said Faqeer to Zalmay as he maneuvered the truck around another crater in the highway. The right front tire rolled off the edge of the road, and the entire truck groaned and teetered dangerously as the back wheel followed suit. Faqeer was obviously not new at this, so Zalmay did his best not to imagine the truck tipping over onto its side.
Zalmay had hitched a ride wi
th Faqeer at the bazaar not far from where he last saw Cougar and the bullet-pocked jeep. Faqeer’s rig was what the Americans called a jingle truck, with beads and baubles hanging off the sides and with every surface painted with ornate designs. Faqeer, a Pashtun man in his late thirties with a trim black beard and a beret-style pakol, had been mostly silent at first, but he became more relaxed, even gregarious, after Zalmay answered his probing questions regarding his attitude toward the Americans.
Faqeer was as pro-American as they came—uncommon among the Pashtun, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan to which the great majority of the Taliban belonged—but Faqeer had little to thank the Taliban for and much reason to be grateful to the Coalition forces. He had started his fruit business almost entirely thanks to their nation-building efforts and strategies to wean local farmers off growing poppies, from enlisting the support of fruit producers in the Kandahar province to the renovation of Highway 1, through which he brought all his produce to the capital.
He had a particularly soft spot for the military, even though their presence at checkpoints all along the road caused significant delays. Highway 1 was plagued by attacks, and the craters in the asphalt provided an all-too-clear reminder: Taliban militia prowled that span of the highway, ambushing all kinds of passing vehicles. The sight of troops was always a relief: a guarantee, if only partial, of safe passage.
Zalmay had heard about the dangers of this highway, yet even though he hadn’t been on it in years, the peril was obvious at a mere glance. It wasn’t only the blackened asphalt and mortar holes; looking out the window, he saw the bullet-ridden carcasses of cars and trucks on the edge of the road, now monuments to travelers who were not as fortunate as they had been—so far, at least.
If he had taken Cougar’s jeep, Zalmay could have made it to the capital by noon. The fact that they were in a truck capable of carrying a few tons of weapons and explosives meant that they were stopped at every checkpoint and had to wait behind a line of similar trucks for inspection, even though Faqeer’s truck was, at the moment, mostly empty—it being much too early for harvest season. What should have been a six-hour journey was taking all day, and it was now getting dangerously close to sundown.
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