“He better hope he doesn’t end up in Siberia,” said one. “With an ass that pretty, he’s sure to be popular!”
The comedian roared in laughter at his own joke, the other joining in as the door at the bottom floor was pushed open. West waited for the door to close then burst into the stairwell, racing down the steps as fast as he dared, there still no light. He counted off the flights and as he neared the second floor he saw a light go on far above him.
They’re fixing the fuses!
Floor after floor turned on above him as he cleared the last few steps. Shoving the door open he stepped into the hallway off the lobby then made for the rear exit, tipping his hat at a staff member holding a candle and the door open for him. The lobby was suddenly flooded in light as West stepped out into the cold Moscow night, free of his tail.
Crossroads Center, Falls Church, Virginia
Present Day
Chris Leroux held Sherrie’s hand as she dragged him to the third shoe store in the past hour. He looked longingly at the benches occupied by men far older and far wiser than him, waiting for their wives while girl watching.
Right now I’d rather be a dirty old man.
He hated shopping. With a passion. His idea of a shopping spree was hopping on Amazon and buying half a dozen Blu-Rays, some songs off of iTunes and an Extravaganza pan pizza from dominos.com. He couldn’t remember the last time he had done that. Certainly not since Sherrie had entered his life.
Between her and his security detail he no longer had any privacy. When she was off on a mission, he missed her, but didn’t get his downtime since his detail was just outside, monitoring every delivery, doing God knows what with his privacy. They said they weren’t monitoring his communications, but working for the CIA made him paranoid, since he knew what his own employer was capable of.
But this evening he was tired. He was coming down from his Red Bull rush and just wanted to sleep. But Sherrie was energized, heading out on an op in the middle of the night, and needing a new pair of heels for an undercover part of the operation.
I wonder if she has to romance these guys?
He felt his stomach flip at the thought of her with another man, kissing him, touching him, making love to him. He shook his head, trying to rid it of the thought.
“What’s wrong?”
“Umm, nothing.”
“Bullshit. Something’s on your mind.”
“Just your op, I guess.”
“Uh huh.” She didn’t sound convinced. “It’s the heels, isn’t it?”
He looked away.
“Thought so.” She stopped, pulling him toward her. “I modified my profile after we got together.”
“What do you mean?”
“My profile no longer indicates I’m willing to have sex with a target.”
Leroux felt his heart race slightly, his stomach doing unknown things as his mind tried to process the fact that she had been willing to, and that now she wasn’t. His mind flashed back to that first night she had put the moves on him, testing him as an agent, he the mark.
So she would have went all the way?
Twitch.
He was happy she hadn’t, or rather he hadn’t, otherwise there was no way this current relationship could have happened. And now that he knew she had taken sex out of the spy equation, he had to admit it did make him feel better. Obviously the relationship was important to her, and she was a one man woman.
She put her hand on his cheek.
“You okay?”
He nodded, blushing slightly.
“I guess I’m just a little insecure,” he muttered, looking anywhere but at her.
She pulled him down a bit and planted a loving, soft kiss on him.
“That’s one of the many reasons I love you.” She pointed at a vacant bench across from the store. “Now, why don’t you wait there for me while I shop. I’m sure this is boring you to death.”
“No, it’s okay—”
“I’m a spy, trained to spot lies. Go sit.”
He smiled at her and followed her orders, sitting on one side of the bench, watching her disappear amongst thousands of shoes.
“I’ll never understand women’s obsession with shoes.”
Leroux nearly jumped, his head spinning toward the voice, finding an old man, probably seventies, sitting at the other end of the bench.
How the hell did he get there?
“Huh?”
“Women? Shoes? Obsession?” He motioned toward the store where Sherrie was, her head popping up, waving at Leroux.
The old man returned the wave.
“She’s beautiful.”
“Yeah,” murmured Leroux, not sure what to say.
“How’d you meet her?”
It wasn’t that Leroux was sure he didn’t want this conversation, it was the varying degrees of how sure he was that made his response difficult. He went for his traditional route.
Complete and utter capitulation.
“Work.”
“What kind of work?”
“Umm, government. Just a paper pusher.”
The man frowned, looking back at the store.
“There’s no way she’s a paper pusher.”
Leroux shrugged, not sure what to say.
“You need to work on your conversation skills, sonny. Increase the repertoire, practice in a mirror if you have to. You’ll get better at it the more you get out and expose yourself to the world.”
Who the hell are you?
He wanted to scream it, to demand it, but in reality he just wanted to shrink deeper into the rabbit hole that had become his life, escaping all the life he knew in the hopes he might find something better on the other side. Unfortunately he had wished that before, and realized that it always resulted in mixed blessings. His life now was completely different. He had a girlfriend who was way out of his league, but a life that was far more dangerous than it had ever been.
And old men asking him inappropriate questions and making even more inappropriate observations on his life.
“I guess you’re right,” he replied.
“Can I give you some advice?”
“I thought you just did.”
The man smiled, turning on the bench to face him a little more.
“See, you’re already getting better,” smiled the man. “Let me give you some more free advice.”
“What’s that?”
“Tell your security detail that sunglasses inside a mall while wearing suits is so blatantly obvious that if they were working the agency in my day, the commies would have picked them out in a heartbeat.”
Leroux’s stomach squelched, his bladder and sphincter loosening, thankfully having nothing to let loose. He grabbed the bench with both hands, squeezing hard as he tried to keep from fainting, the sudden drop in blood pressure almost overwhelming him.
“You okay, sonny?”
Leroux ignored the words, instead focusing on the voice. He closed his eyes, then opened them, staring at a black scrape from a shoe on the tile floor as his world regained focus.
“H-how—” He cut himself off, realizing he had just confirmed to the old man that he was right. Suddenly he had his focus back. He turned to the man. “Who the hell are you?”
“Now that’s the question you should have asked several minutes ago,” replied the man. “You are getting better at this.” He looked over at one of Leroux’s shadows. “Let’s just say I’m part of the Grey Network.”
“What’s that?”
The man chuckled, shaking his head.
“You can look that one up if you have to, but you’re a smart cookie from what I’ve been able to find out. You should be able to put two-and-two together.”
Leroux’s mind raced, suddenly realizing what the man meant. He was clearly an ex-spy, and his age meant he would have been long retired from the business. Grey as in grey hair?
“You mean a group of retired agents working together?”
The man pointed at him.
“Bingo, kid, you got it.” He leaned in. “Now you’re going to help me up, and I’m going to palm you a message that I don’t want you being surprised about. When you get home and out of sight of your detail, you’ll look at it, understood.”
Leroux nodded.
“Oh, and go ahead and show it to your pretty girl, since I know you will anyway.”
Leroux looked away.
“Now stand and help an old man up.”
Leroux stood and helped the man to his feet. The man shook his hand, a piece of paper in his palm. Leroux closed his hand around it, nodding and smiling as the old man thanked him, then shuffled off looking far more frail than the handshake Leroux had just received would suggest.
He shoved his hand in his pocket, depositing the paper as Sherrie exited the shop sporting a bag and a smile.
“All set?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Who was that old man you were talking to?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
Her eyes narrowed and he shook his head.
“I’ll explain when we get home.”
As they walked to their car, his detail now painfully obvious to him, he found he eyed every retiree with suspicion.
Just how big is this Grey Network?
Then a better question popped in his mind, one he wouldn’t be able to answer until he got home.
Was he a former agent with a message for me, or was he just some old man suffering from dementia?
Leroux picked up the pace slightly, eager to find out.
United States National Security Council Meeting
The Situation Room, The White House, Washington, D.C.
The President sat quietly, apparently contemplating what he had just heard. Morrison was impressed the Commander-in-Chief had managed to stop his jaw from dropping when told what Crimson Rush could be. They had all of course heard the rumors and accusations that the weapon existed, one Senator even displaying a mockup in outrage, but little attention had been paid. Certainly during the Cold War the weapon’s existence was highly classified on both sides, the West essentially dismissing it, quietly informing the Soviets that if any such weapon should exist, and were deployed, it would be considered an act of war.
And that had been the end of it.
Or so everyone had thought.
It was a relic of a bygone era, of no concern to anyone except those ranting for political points, and certainly was no threat.
But now it looked like the weapon was absolutely real, that it had been deployed, and was now about to be activated by parties unknown.
It was a needle in the proverbial haystack.
“Can we find it?” asked the President.
“The question is how many are there,” replied Lou Tenet. “Intelligence gathered after the collapse of the Soviet Union indicated perhaps over one thousand of these may have been built, and nearly as many deployed. If that’s the case, we could be looking at anywhere from none to a thousand located anywhere in the continental United States or any number of our allies.”
“We’ll need to notify NATO,” said Jack Hodges, the National Security Advisor.
“Again, can we find it or them?”
“I’m not optimistic, but finding even one could save thousands of lives. But that could merely be swatting a mosquito in the bayou—there’s a thousand more to replace it,” replied Tenet.
“We have to try,” said Hodges. “We can’t just let this happen, even if it’s just one. Americans were furious with 9/11 when we didn’t know anything concrete beforehand. Now we have this piece of intel, solid intel. If we don’t act, our heads will be on spits.”
The President cleared his throat and leaned forward.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” he said, pausing to ensure all attention was on him. “We are talking nothing less than our country, and our way of life. Should Crimson Rush be real, and should it have been deployed and continue to be functional, in small numbers or large, we risk complete and utter chaos should it be used. Millions could die in the initial strike, millions more in the aftermath.
“We face a dilemma. We can ignore this completely, and hope it is nothing. We can quietly look into it so as not to cause a panic, or we can publicly look into it in an active, massive search. This will mean troops on our streets, press headaches, economic turmoil, and hoarding as the public panics.
“I agree this cannot be ignored, but I am not willing to cause a very real panic that would be more devastating than the imagined threat. I need more intel before I can make a decision.”
Tenet looked several shades redder than usual.
Morrison leaned forward before the man said something he’d regret.
“We should begin to look at this from a Soviet mindset. They would have wanted to cause confusion, yes, but they weren’t out for mass civilian casualties. They would be targeting military and government installations, command and control, communications, power, distribution. Their goal would have been to affect our ability to fight back, to delay our response. If we think in those terms, I think we can at least begin searching military and government installations; quietly so as not to induce panic. This will at least give us a head start should it become necessary to expand our search.”
The President’s fingers steepled in front of him as his head slowly bobbed up and down, his eyes staring at the table in front of him.
He looked up at Morrison.
“Proceed.” He then pursed his lips. “And pick up this General Levkin for questioning. I want to know what the hell he gave our Chechen ‘rebel’.”
Morrison resisted the urge to pop his eyebrows up his forehead.
“As far as we know he’s still on Russian soil protected by a well-trained detail. We can’t exactly send our own Special Forces in.”
“Then call in a favor. Have the Russians pick him up.”
Morrison’s face didn’t reveal his opinion of that option.
“I’ll take care of it,” he replied, deciding the President didn’t need to know how many laws he might be about to break.
On Route to Leroux Residence
Fairfax Towers, Falls Church, Virginia
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
Sherrie frowned at Leroux. He was jumpy and he knew it. He had a note burning a hole in his pocket that he knew had to deal with Kane and the recent DEFCON 4 alert that barely made any news coverage. It was being attributed to North Korean sabre rattling and simply a routine response. Impressive stock footage was shown on the news channels, enough to convince an uninformed, trusting public.
But Leroux was convinced this was dealing with Crimson Rush. Especially after reading the lone report he had managed to find that suggested what it might be, the report itself dismissed at the time by the higher ups as having “insufficient intel to be reliable”.
Then why would they go to DEFCON 4?
“You can tell me,” said Sherrie, placing her hand on his leg and giving it a gentle squeeze. “Is it something I did?” She sounded almost regretful.
He stole a quick glance at her as they came to a stop at a light.
“No, nothing to do with you,” he said, giving her a slight smile. “I’ll explain when we get home, okay?”
She nodded but he could tell she wasn’t satisfied by the way she looked out the passenger side window.
Man, I suck at this!
Being a boyfriend was tough. A fulltime job he hadn’t realized was so much work. Single life was far easier, albeit lonelier and with few benefits that outweighed the positives of having Sherrie in his life. He reached over and fed his fingers into her hair, giving the back of her neck a squeeze, removing it as traffic started up.
“Trust me, there’s nothing wrong, not with us I mean. You’ll know everything in five minutes.”
She seemed to brighten slightly, instead turning the conversation to her new shoes and their schedule for the evening before she left on her op. He really liked
that she had scheduled over an hour for “downtime” which was their code for hitting the sheets, couch, floor, shower, kitchen counter, or whatever surface they happened to find themselves against.
Way better than being single.
He parked and they waited for the all clear from the security detail, two of them entering the apartment ahead of them to make sure everything was copasetic. His phone beeped with the all-clear message and they entered the apartment, ignoring the detail. Leroux wondered what his neighbors thought, but since he barely ever saw them, they may not have even noticed strange men entering and leaving his apartment at all hours just before he arrived home.
And every time he waited for the all-clear, he thought of how much danger they really were in, the tension building until that signal arrived, unnoticed held breaths released with a gasp, clenched fists with nails digging painfully into flesh, opened.
Today was made worse by the knowledge he had some sort of top secret message in his pocket from some old dude who might be crazy or part of the CIA secret agent retirees association. He closed the apartment door as Sherrie spun toward him, clearly desperate to know what had him so much on edge.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the piece of paper, folded in squares.
“What’s that?”
“Remember the old man on the bench?”
She nodded.
“He gave me this. Claimed he was a spy, part of something called the Grey Network.”
Sherrie’s eyes narrowed as if she thought the entire idea crazy.
“You’re sure he wasn’t just playing a joke on you?”
“He seemed to know who I was and what I did, and picked our detail out with no problem.”
This seemed to concern Sherrie as she motioned with her hand for him to open the paper.
“Let’s see what this is,” she said, her voice serious.
He unfolded the paper and placed it on the kitchen counter so they could both see.
“What is it?” asked Sherrie.
Cold Warriors (A Special Agent Dylan Kane Thriller, Book #3) Page 5