Termination Orders

by Leo J. Maloney

  And yet here he was again, being escorted through security by Plante himself. He first walked through a bulky metal arch much thicker than any metal detector. He hadn’t been asked to remove anything from his pockets. They then took digital prints of all his fingers, a head shot, and scanned his retinas.

  “What, you’re not going to ask me to take off my clothes?” he said sarcastically.

  “No need,” said Plante, pointing at the scanner he had just passed. “That machine has already revealed everything and more. If you were trying to sneak in here with a bomb up your ass, we’d know. Hell, if you were trying to sneak in here with a straight pin up there, we’d know.”

  Morgan signed a pile of nondisclosure agreements and was issued a visitor ID and admitted into the building. Plante escorted him down a long, sparse, antiseptic hallway, where he passed busy, professional-looking people who had that familiar intensity of CIA employees. Plante stopped in front of a door and swiped his employee ID through the key-card reader. The door unlocked with a buzz and a click, and Plante led him into a small conference room.

  “I’m going to have to leave you here for a few minutes, Cobra. I’ll trust you to behave.” Plante walked out, and the door clicked shut behind him. Morgan figured he might as well sit down. He took the chair opposite the door and looked around the room. At the far end was a chalkboard-size computer screen. The table was sleek and functional, the chairs comfortable enough. Behind him, the metallic-blue windows offered a view of the woods that separated the Agency headquarters from the Potomac.

  It was an unremarkable room, especially after he’d seen what they had deeper in this building. Behind layers and layers of security, people rushed past one another in hallways abuzz with activity, briefing rooms that had the latest technology, bunkers and safe rooms that could hide the entire staff in case of emergency, a thousand operations going on at any given moment. And then there was the Ops Center, the nerve center of the whole facility, with more monitors than NASA’s Mission Control, with live feeds from every surveillance satellite available. There was far more here than met the eye, beyond this sleepy office environment.

  Morgan had been in the room for a few minutes when the door clicked and swung open again. But instead of Plante, the person who came in was a stocky, baby-faced, freckled man with light red hair who didn’t look a day over eighteen, even though Morgan knew he must be at least thirty by now. His name was Grant Lowry, a computer prodigy who worked as an analyst for the Clandestine Service.

  “Hiya, Cobra.”

  As a rule, CIA employees kept to themselves. Apart from getting a beer now and then with members of their work group, they did not fraternize, and the Agency liked it that way. There was nothing like a company holiday party to leak sensitive information. As a Black Operative, Morgan had even less contact with the people who worked at headquarters. In fact, Plante was practically the only one with whom he’d ever had any sustained contact. People who do what he did don’t exactly like to advertise their identities to anyone, even within the Agency. But Lowry had consistently run support and intel for Morgan on missions. The two men had formed an unlikely bond, and Morgan was pleased to see his grinning mug again.

  He exchanged a warm handshake with Lowry and then sat across from him at the table. “Hi, Grant. I didn’t know you were working on this op.”

  “Hey, Cobra, you know that kind of talk is off-limits. But I’m not here on official business. I heard you were in the building, and I thought I’d drop in and say hello.”

  “I thought the CIA was good at keeping secrets,” Morgan said with a smirk. He sat back in his chair, resting his arms on the table.

  “Nothing’s a secret if it’s on a computer,” said Lowry, with a devilish look on his face. “You just have to know how to ask.”

  “I swear, people put far too much trust in machines.”

  “Machines just do what you tell them, Cobra. It’s people you have to watch out for.” Grant gave a light-hearted chuckle. “So how’ve you been, old man?”

  “Old man? I’m three years older than you.” Morgan looked at him with mock anger.

  “And retired,” said Lowry.

  “I was enjoying my ‘retirement.’ You?”

  “Ah, you know, same old,” said Lowry, half reclining in his chair. “Thinking of leaving the life behind me—maybe start my own consulting agency.”

  “No shit?”

  “It’s what all the cool kids are doing. Plus, it’s hardly any fun anymore. This whole gig has been a little too stressful since 9/11.” He sighed. “It was always difficult to tell friends from enemies, but lately, things have been ridiculous. And then there’s this McKay character.”

  “The senator? I thought her whole business was corporate regulation.”

  “Oh, she’s a busy little bee. She’s heading up the Senate Committee on Intelligence.” Lowry looked around, leaned forward, and lowered his voice, as if he was worried people might be listening. In this place, he was probably right. “She’s taking a real hands-on approach, and apparently she’s taken a special interest in the CIA. She’s been around to tour the facilities a few times. Seems like she’s planning a major review of operations—some transparency and accountability business. Gonna rattle some cages and all-around raise hell around here, from what I heard.”

  Morgan raised an eyebrow. “Can she do that?”

  “If she gathers enough support. Not,” he said, lowering his voice again, “that I’m exactly happy with the management here. Or, should I say, the micromanagement.”

  Morgan could sympathize. Nobody really got promoted in the CIA because they were competent, at least not those above a certain rank. The higher-ups, the career bureaucrats, were there because they were masters at the game of politics. That, or because someone even higher up the ladder had decided they could be controlled. That made the bosses almost invariably grade-A assholes, even though, by all accounts, the current head of the NCS, Jeffrey Boyle, was an exception. Morgan had worked with him in the field in the old days, and fieldwork formed a bond of trust that wasn’t easily broken.

  “So what about Kline getting to be number two at the NCS?” Morgan asked, grimacing.

  “Oh, plenty of us called foul, but Boyle swears by him. If you ask me, Kline plays the game well and knows how to keep the bigwigs happy. He’s even got a lot of us underlings legitimately on his side.”

  “Yeah. From what I understand, Plante is one of them.”

  “Hey, who knows? Maybe the guy has qualities that the rest of us are missing. At least I can vouch that he’s not a total incompetent.” Morgan looked at him doubtfully, and Grant shrugged. “So what exactly is it that brought you here?”

  “Cougar,” he said simply.

  “Ah, so you heard. My condolences, Cobra. He was one of the best.” Lowry smiled wanly, looking down. “You know, maybe you should’ve stuck around. We could use more men like you around here. Don’t you ever miss it?”

  Morgan grinned. “Do you even have to ask? Of course I miss it. I loved it. And it mattered, too, Grant. There’s not much I can do now that’s as important as what I did here. And all I can think of ever since I heard about Cougar is that, if I had been around, he might not be dead now.”

  “Or you might be dead, yourself.”

  Morgan looked at him ruefully.

  “Well, why not come back?” Lowry said, changing the subject.

  “Because it wouldn’t be long until I remembered what made me leave in the first place. And in any case, I made a commitment to my family, and I intend to keep it.”

  Someone outside swiped an ID card and opened the door. Harold Kline walked in, wearing a stiff black suit. He was a slight man with a thin hooked nose and thin lips that hid tiny sharp teeth. In tow was Plante, carrying a slim folder marked CLASSIFIED.

  “Lowry,” said Kline, curtly.

  “Just leaving, boss,” he said, getting up and slipping past the two men and out the door.

  “Code Name Cobra,” Klin
e said perfunctorily, with affected formality. “I hope you had a pleasant flight down.” He held out his hand, but Morgan just glowered at him. “Very well,” he said. “Let’s get right to it, shall we?” He sat down opposite Morgan, and Plante took the adjacent chair. “Let him have it, Eric, would you?”

  Plante took a single sheet of paper from the folder and handed it to Morgan. “This is a copy of the last communication we received from Cougar. The original is still in Afghanistan. We had experts on the ground analyze the paper, and there was no secret message on the paper itself, apart from what’s plainly written. Can you make any sense of it?”

  Morgan took the sheet and looked at it. It read:

  For Cobra’s eyes only.

  A fruit vendor in Kabul once said to me, “Afghanistan is always the same; it is only the invaders who change.” “Well, you know what they say,” I replied, “variety is the spice of life.”I am pleased to report blue skies over Kandahar and hope that things are the same stateside. It reminds me of the days I would tear down the highway in that GTO to make it in time for the daily ritual—remember, in Stoney? The.re is no such happiness to be f.ound here. Still, people persist. Let it never be said that the Afghans are not a resilient people.

  Yours truly,

  Cougar

  It had obviously been hastily written, with no pretension of having a surface meaning. Conley must have been pressed for time.

  “Well?” asked Kline impatiently.

  “Looks to me like he’s having fun at summer camp.”

  “Very funny,” said Kline dryly. “I think that’s very funny. Don’t you, Plante? Listen, Cobra, did you come down here to waste our time?”

  “No, you brought me here to waste mine,” said Morgan, with a touch of anger, sitting up in his chair. “You can’t give me this without any context and expect me to tell you what it means.”

  “So you’re telling me what?” said Kline.

  “I need to know the facts on the ground,” said Morgan. “If you keep me in the dark, you can’t expect me to be able to read, can you?”

  “So you want to hear sensitive details about a classified operation because you need context?” said Kline.

  He was trying to sound incredulous because he wanted to weaken his opponent’s position, Morgan knew. And so he parried.

  “It looks like the idea is getting through your thick skull.”

  “What it looks like,” said Kline, on the offense again, “is that you don’t know a goddamn thing, and you’re bullshitting me for some reason. What it looks like is that you want to pretend you’re still a spook. You get a nice little tour of headquarters, and you think you’re working for us again?”

  “I think you want something from me, and you want it bad enough that you sent Plante right to my doorstep to fetch me.” Plante looked at him, increasingly uncomfortable with the verbal sparring that was unfolding in the room. Morgan kept a firm stare on Kline. “So are you going to fill me in, or aren’t you?”

  “You have my answer,” said Kline curtly.

  “Then we’re done here.” Morgan got up.

  “I suppose we are,” said Kline, getting up as well. “Mr. Plante, please escort Cobra out of the secure area.”

  Kline walked out, and Plante held the door open for Morgan. When they were walking side by side, Plante spoke.

  “I know he can be a prick. But decoding this message could be far more important than your spat with Kline.” Morgan continued to walk, half ignoring Plante. “I know I have no right to. But I’m asking you to be the bigger man here.”

  “So you’re playing good cop to Kline’s anal-retentive, shit-for-brains cop?” said Morgan.

  “I’m playing the handler who doesn’t want to see Cougar’s work fall to pieces,” said Plante, frustrated. He exhaled, and his voice became unusually earnest. “There’s no strategy here, Cobra. I’m not trying to manipulate you. He was your friend, and my friend, too. He died for this assignment. And you know he didn’t take assignments unless he knew they were good and worthwhile.” Plante looked at him. “He was like you that way.”

  “Well,” said Morgan, feeling a twinge of guilt, “there’s nothing I can say. I can’t tell you what it means unless I know what I’m looking for. And if Kline wants to deny me that in order to prove his own superiority, then there’s nothing I can do.”

  They walked into the elevator in silence. Plante’s phone rang, and he flipped it open. Morgan heard the voice on the other end but too faintly for him to understand the words. Plante responded, “Still in the building, sir. Yes, sir. Right now? Understood.” He flipped his phone shut and said to Morgan, “Looks like Kline had a change of heart.”

  “Is he going to give me what I want?”

  “No. Not himself, at least. He wants me to send you up to see Boyle.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The office of the Director of the National Clandestine Service was decorated with the austerity of a military man. It was not large, and it was sparsely furnished. There was a desk, sturdy and plain, which had Boyle sit with his back to a wall rather than the windows—an arrangement born, Morgan knew, of the die-hard instinct never to turn your back on anything. The wood-paneled walls were unadorned except for one dominating artifact: an American flag, frayed and singed, whose thirty-four stars, set in a circle, revealed that it had been flown in the Civil War.

  Jeffrey Boyle himself had started his career as a Marine, and Morgan liked to joke that he had never really gotten over it. Boyle’s discipline was legendary. He was known to be up every day at 4:00 A.M. for a five-mile run. He worked tirelessly, pausing only for a single, sparse daily meal. On the days that he left the office at all, it was usually after midnight.

  His character showed through in his figure, and age, Morgan noticed as the man rose to greet him, had done little to diminish him in any way. Even though he was nearing sixty, he was still a remarkably powerful man. He wore a crisp black suit, matching his stern, focused expression, that did nothing to hide his broad shoulders and the muscles underneath.

  “Dan Morgan,” he said, with practiced levity. “Or should I say, Cobra? I had to see it to believe it.” He was a serious man, and even though he had none of Kline’s stiff fussiness, joking still seemed unnatural on him.

  “I could say the same about you, sitting behind that desk,” Morgan said, as he shook Boyle’s hand. “Who did you have to sleep with to get this job?”

  Boyle laughed heartily. “I like to think that it’s a different set of talents that brought me here.”

  They sat.

  “And you’ve definitely come a long way, haven’t you?” said Morgan. “I’m surprised you ever got out of the field. They used to say that you’d still be nailing bad guys even if you had to do it from a wheelchair, hooked to a respirator.”

  Boyle smiled. “I did love the work. But I’ve discovered that there’s a lot of good to be done from behind a desk. If you stick with this work long enough, you start to realize that leading and managing isn’t a privilege. It’s a duty. Because if you don’t, somebody else will. And what I also realized is that you can’t trust anyone else to do the right thing.”

  Morgan had to agree. At the same time, he saw a grim ruthlessness in the man that put him off. But it was gone as suddenly as it had come.

  “Can I offer you a drink?” Boyle said. “I have some whiskey in the cabinet.”

  “I don’t drink,” he replied.

  “Of course, how could I forget? I don’t, either, of course. Sound body, sound mind, and all that. But the politicians who frequent this office don’t usually share my philosophy about alcohol.”

  “Not much else, either, I would think,” said Morgan.

  Boyle thought for a moment, then said, “Yes, that’s true, much of the time.”

  “It makes me wonder how you manage to put up with it, Boyle. Politicians. That whole world of backstabbing and double-crossing, all done with a perfect smile plastered across their faces. At least spies are up front ab
out being liars.”

  “You have to play the game,” said Boyle, matter-of-factly. “That’s the price you pay for influence, Morgan.”

  “You mean power.”

  “Someone needs to have it. Who would you rather it be?”

  Morgan didn’t respond. The two men stared at each other for a few interminable seconds.

  “In any case,” said Boyle, breaking the silence, “we should discuss the reason you’re here in the first place. Kline tells me you’ve been making trouble for him.”

  “If you’d asked me, I would have said it’s the other way around.”

  “You would, of course, say that,” said Boyle. “Well, he wants me to lock you up until you cooperate.”

  Morgan laughed. “I’d like to see him try to do it himself.”

  “I’m sure you understand,” said Boyle, ignoring Morgan’s interjection, “we’re not in the habit of sharing the kind of information you want with just anyone. And I’ll be honest. I don’t like the idea of bringing you in on this. It’s unusual and exposes things that are strictly confidential. But I’m going to do something that’s not often done in this business.” He pulled out a pen and laid out a printed form on his desk, which he began filling in. “I am going to trust you. You’re an honorable man, and I know that you have the best interest of this country in mind.” He signed the form and held it out for Morgan. “Are you going to make me regret this, Morgan?”

  “My country has always come first,” said Morgan, with heartfelt conviction. “That’s as true today as it was when I first joined up.”

  “I’m going out on a limb for you here,” said Boyle.

  “And I’m grateful for that,” Morgan said. “You’re doing the right thing.”

  Back in the conference room where they had met earlier, Kline sat down across from Morgan for the second time that day, but this time he looked like he was ruminating on something mildly bitter. “Evidently, Director Boyle disagrees with my assessment of this situation. Eric, please brief Cobra on Operation Pashtun Sickle.”