The revelation that Sean had been married was surprising. To discover he had been acting as a bodyguard to some two-bit hoodlum was too shocking to believe. However, the more he looked it into and checked, the more it appeared to be true. Nobody could deny the evidence. The body was that of Sean Fox. The DNA was checked and triple checked at Black’s insistence and proved it beyond doubt. Sean Fox, one of the CIA’s best, was dead, mutilated by scumbags unfit to tie his shoelaces.
In the three months since Sean’s death, not a day had gone by that Vincent Black had not thought of Sean and wished vengeance upon his killers. It was within his power. He could order a squad of men and equipment into Mexico but it would be his last act as Director of NCS. Black had been overlooked for promotion many times and for one simple reason, he was the best man for the job. He truly was a master and America could not afford an apprentice in a role so crucial. Above all, Black was a patriot and he could not and would not let his personal vengeance affect America’s ability to defend itself. Black was a modest man but he knew America needed him exactly where he was.
Black’s phone buzzed. He had left instructions not to disturb him.
“It better be important, Jane,” he threatened.
Jane ignored the threat. She had worked for him for every one of his fifteen years as Director. She knew the hard man exterior was only a façade. She also knew the death of Sean Fox was the reason for the mood and all the more reason she was ignoring the threat.
“I have an Agent Smith from New York on the line. I think you’ll want to talk to him.”
“What’s it …” he didn’t get a chance to finish asking. The line clicked, she had just connected him.
“Hi, is that NCS admin?”
“I think you’ve got the wrong line, who is this?”
“Agent James Smith, I’m part of the joint counter terrorism task force based in New York.”
“Hold on, I’ll put you back to my assistant.” Outwardly calm, inwardly seething, he reached for the button to transfer the call back to Jane.
“Wait a minute, will she be able to get me Sean Fox’s records?...”
Black’s finger hovered over the button. On hearing Sean’s name, it retracted immediately.
“…I feel I’m getting the run around here!” exclaimed Smith, frustration clear in his voice.
“Why?” he asked, not letting his hopes rise. Sean Fox was dead.
“We’ve got some guy, looks like a Taliban fighter, with Sean Fox’s passport, claiming to be him!”
“Where are you?”
“New York!” said Smith.
“You said that already, where in New York?” an impatient tone cut through Smith.
“Who is this?” demanded Smith.
“Director Vincent Black, now where are you?!!”
Smith, a long in the tooth CIA agent, was well aware of Vincent Black and who he was.
“Newark Airport, Sir,” he responded quickly, sitting a little straighter in his chair.
“I’ll be there shortly.” He hit the button that ended the call and was immediately reconnected to Jane.
“Get…”
She cut across him. After fifteen years, he didn’t need to ask, she pretty much read his mind most of the time.
“Car’s waiting, jet’s fueled and ready to go.”
Chapter 4
Sean woke up as the door opened. Vincent Black entered, took one look at Sean, saw through the hair and broke into a huge smile.
“I knew it! I fucking knew it!”
As Sean stood up to greet him, Black pushed past Sean’s outstretched hand and uncharacteristically embraced him. Had Sean been able to see behind him, Black was wiping a small tear from his eye.
“Are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on?” Sean pulled back from the embrace and looked at the inane grin on Black’s face.
“You’re not fucking dead is what’s going on!”
“Obviously!”
A knock at the door, followed by the appearance of Smith, interrupted the re-union.
“We have a problem.”
“My DNA checked out!” replied Sean stating the obvious, smiling at Black.
“Yes…”
Sean walked towards the door. He’d hung around long enough, his suite was waiting.
“Not so fast. As I said, we have a problem,” repeated Smith firmly.
Black looked at Smith, surprised at his forcefulness.
“So the guy that’s dead wasn’t me, not my problem, goodbye.” Sean opened the door, followed closely by Black.
“That’s the problem. It was you in the headlines. According to the DNA, you are definitely dead.”
Both Sean and Black stopped in their tracks and looked back at Smith. Sean had the door half open.
“Sorry?” asked Black, struggling to comprehend why the obvious error had not been resolved.
“The DNA from the murder victim matches that on your records and the sample you gave us today. Three separate techs have confirmed it.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Sean. “What’s the chance of a DNA match?
“One in six billion but I think a match with someone who looks like you and takes your identity would be around, oh, one in no fucking chance,” explained Smith succinctly.
Sean thought about what Smith had just said. It didn’t change anything. “Not my problem. I’m out of here!” He opened the door fully.
“Wait a minute,” said Black, turning back towards the small table, wanting to see the results for himself.
Sean was tired and frustrated. He wanted to get to his suite. The bath, steak and comfortable mattress were calling. But with Vincent Black sitting back down, he was left with little option.
“Just check the fingerprints,” offered Sean, taking a seat.
“Not that simple,” replied Black, fully aware of the dead Sean’s lack of digits, hands, arms, feet and legs for that matter. He passed the file that sat in front of Smith to Sean.
Sean opened and witnessed what somebody had done to him. He was immediately incensed. “Holy shit!”
“Not a pretty sight,” agreed Black.
“No,” agreed Sean. “But not just that,” he pointed to a mark on the side of the torso and lifted his shirt - the same mark.
Smith just looked from one to the other. “That’s seriously weird!”
Black looked at the mark and considered the evidence. “There are two options Sean. That’s you or there’s another, sorry, was, another Sean out there exactly like you. You must have had an identical twin.”
“For God’s sake V, you knew them better than me! My mother was desperate for kids and having me was difficult enough. She was desperate for more and trust me, if I had a brother, twin or not, my mother would have kept him.
“I know, I know, it just doesn’t make any sense!” replied Vincent staring at the evidence.
“Adopted?” offered Smith, trying the other most obvious explanation.
“Nope,” replied Vincent. “I was there just before Sean was born and she was definitely pregnant.
“A mix-up at the hospital and they switched the babies by accident?” grasped Smith, looking for a rational explanation.
“He’s the spitting image of his father,” replied Vincent shaking his head.
Sean considered the possibility. Perhaps but then he remembered. “Nope, I was tested after my parents’ crash. I was a perfect match for my mom if she needed a kidney.” Sean went quiet. Even after twenty-five years, the memory hit hard. His father had died instantly and his mother had died 48 hours after the crash. She had never woken up. He had never had the chance to say goodbye, to either of them.
Black noted the change in mood and moved on. “OK, so no siblings or mistakes at the hospital. Which brings us back to there’s something wrong with the evidence. There’s an error somewhere. We’re just missing it.”
“Simple. The wife. She’ll be able to sort it out,” suggested Sean.
“Whose wife?” asked
Smith.
“The dead guy’s!” said Sean. “You just need to go see her and she’ll clear it up for you.”
“Wait a minute,” suggested Black. “Exactly what has this got to do with the CIA?”
“Somebody’s impersonating one of our officers?” offered Smith, helpfully.
“He retired 18 months ago,” replied Black, disappointment heavy in his voice. Sean had been his rising star, his protégé, the son he never had and as far as Black had envisioned, his replacement as director of the NCS and potentially beyond. However, two years earlier, following a political cluster fuck, three of Sean’s colleagues had been killed after their mission was leaked by an over eager Senator. Sean himself only just survived and six months later, after a full recovery and serving his notice, he left the Agency, vowing never to work for 'Uncle Sam’ again.
Smith looked back at the passport and the date of birth, quickly calculating Sean’s age, ten years younger than him. “You retired at 38!”
“It’s complicated, politics, wanting me to ride a desk. Anyway, that’s all history. I’ve just made in a year what the government would’ve paid me in twenty!”
“Doing what?” asked Black, surprise barely hiding the suspicion at how such a sum could be earned legally.
“All legitimate, don’t worry V,” replied Sean, sensing the concern.
“So what now?” asked Black. He had always hoped Sean would come back. A couple of years’ break after twenty years’ service wasn’t a bad thing. Unbeknownst to Sean, his final termination had never been filed. As far as Black was concerned, before Sean had been reported killed, he had been on an extended career break.
“Florida. Gulf Coast. As clichéd as it sounds, a charter boat and a house on the beach.”
“I meant about this guy,” Black pointed to the photo of the corpse.
Sean had promised himself that it was over. For over twenty years he had put his life on the line for others. He had no family of his own, no roots and nowhere to call home. He wanted a family. He wanted a home. He wanted not to be used. For the last eighteen months, he had worked for himself. Tracking and saving two kidnapped execs from the hands of the Taliban had been exceedingly lucrative.
“It’s not my problem.” He pushed the photo towards Smith, indicating to whom he believed the problem belonged.
Smith lifted the photo and placed it back in the file. In full view of both of them, he closed the file and wrote 'stolen identity, case closed’ across the front.
“I’ll re-instate your passport and Social Security numbers. Be aware, it can take some time to filter through the system. So you should probably call your banks and insurance companies asap and let them know it was an error.”
Black stood up and looked at Sean and asked “Drink?” as he picked up the file and flicked through the rest of the contents.
“Definitely! Right after my date with a bath and a razor.”
“Excellent,” he replied, extracting another photo from the back of the file. “Imagine,” he pondered, showing Sean the photo. “If somehow he were your brother, this young boy would be your nephew!”
Sean looked at the photo of the young boy in his school uniform and if it hadn’t been for the Colonel Santos Benavides Elementary School logo on the boy’s sweater, he would have sworn it was a photo of himself. The likeness was impossible to deny.
Chapter 5
Twenty minutes, a shower, shave and hair trim later, a very different Sean Fox, the one resembling his passport photo, was boarding Vincent Black’s CIA gulfstream jet. The stewardess who earlier would have scowled at the Talibanesque Sean smiled warmly as he boarded.
“Still got it, I see,” chided Black. He had always been envious of Sean’s ability to attract the opposite sex.
Sean just shrugged. He didn’t really pay much attention. Black seemed to notice it far more than Sean.
Sean slumped into one of the seats and strapped himself in. The last place he wanted to be was on another airplane. He had spent the last two days travelling. All he had wanted was his hotel suite but Black had pulled the cute kid card.
As the plane took off, champagne was offered and accepted. Shortly after, the pilot announced their descent to Washington D.C.. A rather confused Sean turned to Black. “Washington? I thought they lived in Texas?”
“They do,” he said, nonchalantly looking straight ahead. 'I need to get back to the office, it’ll just be a quick stop to drop me off.”
“Whoa, wait a minute, you’re not coming?” asked Sean grabbing Black’s arm.
Black retrieved his arm. “I told you back at the airport, this is not a CIA matter.”
“Somebody’s been impersonating me! I was CIA!”
“Yes you were,” replied Black, the disappointed tone unhidden. “You’re on your own. The ride to Texas is a personal favor from me, nothing to do with the CIA.”
Sean had no issue with being on his own. He just didn’t know why he should be heading to Texas. He should have been going to Florida if anywhere.
Chapter 6
SVR Headquarters
Moscow
Deputy Director Mikhail Beryutov replaced the handset and wondered exactly why, as Head of the Science Department within Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, he would care. He had no idea. The name Sean Fox meant nothing to him and the fact that he had just been reported as arriving in the USA was even more perplexing. Why should he care? Certainly in the five years he had been in post, he had no dealings with a Sean Fox or America for that matter. He had assumed they had contacted the wrong office but the caller had been insistent. He had his orders and was to inform the Head of the Science Department as a matter of urgency and alert him to the news.
Exactly what the news was, other than an American had arrived back home, he had no clue. The fact that two agents were being sent to the location was even more surprising. Mikhail, in his five years, had never ordered any agents to do anything. He had teams of scientists that worked for him, not agents. He himself was a particle physicist by education, far removed from the previous incumbent, a KGB Colonel, old school political appointee who had held Mikhail’s post from before SVR’s transition from the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, over 20 years earlier.
Mikhail was a brilliant scientist and had not risen to his office through luck or by association but through genuine hard work and ability. An ability that came from a quizzical mind that never liked questions or situations to go unanswered. Mikhail picked up his phone and called the Director’s secretary, perhaps he would understand why Mikhail should care about Sean Fox. The secretary made a big deal of squeezing Mikhail in at short notice. She huffed at how busy the Director was and how inconvenient this request was. Eventually, a slot was made available, five minutes at 7 a.m. the following morning. Mikhail thanked the empty line, the secretary having hung up and already berating the next person who dared need her boss.
Mikhail dialed the number he had jotted down on his pad. The phone rang twice before it was answered.
“Hello?” answered a young American sounding woman with laughter in the background.
An American answering in English threw Mikhail somewhat. He responded in the only language he spoke, Russian.
“This is Mikhail Beryutov, Deputy Director SVR, to whom am I speaking?”
Mikhail could have sworn he heard the woman snap to attention.
“Aleksandra Demietriov, Sir,” came a clipped and respectful Russian response. The laughter had died instantly.
“Where are you, Ms Demietriov?”
“We have just picked up a car at San Antonio Airport and are on our way to Laredo, as per our orders, Sir.”
“Who gave you those orders?”
Mikhail wondered if the line had been cut as no answer was forthcoming. “Hello?” he prompted.
“Sorry, I’m confused Sir,” replied Aleksandra. “The orders are signed by Mikhail Beryutov, Deputy Director SVR. You, Sir.”
It was Mikhail’s turn to be lost for w
ords. Falsifying orders by a Deputy Director of the SVR required serious clout.
“What are your orders once you get in position?” asked Mikhail.
Agent Aleksandra Demietriov turned to her colleague, a far more experienced agent than herself. She covered the mouthpiece and filled in the gaps he had not heard from the conversation, namely the Deputy Director asking what his orders were. His response was instant. He took the phone from his younger colleague and disconnected the call. Agent Pyotr Travkin had worked in America for over 20 years for the SVR and another 10 before that for its predecessor, the KGB. The field trip with the attractive young newbie had taken on a new edge. Never, in his thirty years, had anything like that happened before, not even under Soviet rule. Deputy Directors did not call field agents and certainly never asked what orders the agents had received from them.
He pulled their car over and retrieved the file that had sent them across America at a moment’s notice. He read it again and checked the details more carefully. Everything was in order. Everything, of course, except for the signature or the phone call, one of which had to be false.
Alex’s phone rang again, the number simply said 'International’.
“What do I do, Pyotr?” asked Alex, holding the phone limply.
Pyotr took the phone from her and answered. “We will call you back at headquarters!” he barked into the phone, ignoring the alleged senior member of staff’s protestations.
Mikhail slammed the phone down after being rudely dismissed by the man on the line. Never in all his years had he been spoken to in such a manner. He was a Deputy Director of the SVR. As he reached to call again, his phone rang.
“Yes!” he barked.
“Deputy Director Beryutov?” asked the man who had just hung up on him.
“How dare you hang up on me!” exclaimed Mikhail, furious at Pyotr’s behavior.
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