Act of Betrayal

by Matthew Dunn

  Ash was glad of that. The last thing she needed was to come home and encounter other Agency officers who’d pry about where she’d been and why. Her solitude was sacrosanct, particularly after deployment in hellholes around the world or with people who’d slit her throat given half a chance.

  She was typically away for months and in one case two years. Her apartment, she’d long ago decided, was her safe place. When she’d had guns pointed at her, men gripping her throat, U.S. drones dropping precision missiles near her, and a shovel in her hand while she dug a shallow grave, she told herself that her apartment was her safe place.

  Ma and Pa hadn’t given her hope. Physical and mental abuse was rife in her family, and she bore a lot of the brunt of hostilities. Ma was a fiend when intoxicated with gin. Pa had been sober since he was twenty-four years old, but he lashed out when stressed. They were dysfunctional. They should never have gotten married and had kids. But she couldn’t forgive them for that. When you’re twelve and you haven’t been fed dinner by your ma and your father comes home and whips your ma because she’s drunk and irresponsible, love goes out the window.

  She was sure that was why she felt no fear. When all constructive love is stripped away, there is resigned calm. Nothing was worse than or even comparable to her childhood.

  She entered her apartment and locked the bolts behind her. Breathing deeply and with relief, she wondered about ordering pizza. First, she needed a shower. She moved through the tiny one-bedroom apartment and stripped off her clothes. It was her ritual: cleansing herself of her job.

  She placed her gun in the living room and stood under steaming water in her bathroom’s shower. Soaps, shampoo, and conditioner applied and rinsed, she wrapped herself in a white towel and reentered the living room.

  That’s when she sensed his presence.

  She flicked on the overhead light but it didn’t work.

  She dashed to a lamp and turned it on. The light worked and shone across the room, showing a shadow in the corner where a man was seated in her armchair. His upper body was in darkness.

  She picked up her gun and pointed it at the shadow. “Whoever you are, you picked the wrong house!”

  The shadow said nothing.

  “I’m an agent of the United States government. That means I can shoot you with zero worries about a trial.”

  Her voice was the only sound.

  “If you’re here to rob me, rape me, or kill me, know this: I’ll put a bullet in your head without hesitation.”

  “Try.” The man’s voice was calm, yet commanding.

  Ash hadn’t expected that response. She pointed her gun one foot away from the shadow and pulled the trigger. Click. A misfire. She tried again. Same thing happened.

  “Weapons are of no use with me.” The man’s voice was deep, yet beguiling. “They’re crass tools. I make it a habit to ensure they mean me no harm.”

  Urgently, Ash stripped the weapon. The firing pin was missing. “I didn’t aim at your head. Think about that.”

  “I already have.”

  “I don’t know who you are or why you’re here!” Ash tossed her useless gun to one side. “If I scream, the door will be kicked in within seconds.”

  “Because you think you have people nearby? Laughter and the sounds of dining can easily be placed on a recorder. Your neighbors are sleeping. They’ll wake in a few hours, alive but bruised.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Ash glanced at her phone.

  “The cable’s cut. Even if it wasn’t, it would take the cops at least three minutes to get here. And when they enter the door, it would be over for them.”

  Ash wondered about running to her kitchen and grabbing a knife. “You don’t scare me! You picked the wrong woman!”

  “I picked the right woman.” The shadow asked, “Why aren’t you scared?”

  Ash tightened the knot in her bath towel. “Because I deal with punks all the time. And I’ve survived all of their crap.”

  “Turn on the overhead light.”

  “I did. It doesn’t work. You’ve removed the bulb or tripped the switch.”

  “Try again.”

  Ash hesitated, then flicked the switch. The room was bathed in light.

  There were no longer any shadows.

  Ash stood stock-still. “You!”

  “You know me?”

  “Yes. Your face. I know you.”

  “My name?”

  Ash held her ground, wishing she had a backup weapon. “It’s a dead name.”

  He stood. “And you fear the dead?”

  “No.” Ash braced herself in case he attacked her. “We thought you were dead. We hoped you were dead. You should be dead.”

  He strode up to her and placed her gun’s firing pin in her hand. “You don’t need to fear me.”

  “I don’t fear you. But it stands to reason that I don’t want you, of all people, in my apartment.”

  He caressed her face. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

  “You kill people.” Her voice was cold. “You always kill.”

  “Not today.” The man towered over her. “Instead, I’m here to work with you. Say my name!”

  Ash spat, “You could just walk away from here. I don’t need to tell anyone about you.”

  “That comment undermines your intelligence. No way would you keep our little encounter to yourself. Who am I?!”

  “Go to hell.”

  “I’ve been there. And now I’m back in the land of the living.”

  She looked at his blue and green eyes and for a moment wondered what it must be like to look out of them and see the things he’d seen. “You don’t wish me harm?”

  He shook his head. “I’d have killed you in the shower if I’d wanted to.”

  For some reason, the thought of him observing her naked perturbed her more than death.

  He sensed that. “Don’t worry. Your dignity is intact. I’m a gentleman. I averted my gaze.”

  “You’re anything but a gentleman! But . . .” Was she seriously considering thanking him for not gawking at her naked body? “How did you get in here?”

  “I’ve infiltrated prisons, military bases, embassies, and other high-security facilities. This was child’s play. Get dressed.” He backed away and retook his seat. “I’ll wait.”

  “My bedroom’s out of your view. I could run.”

  “Yes, you could. And I wouldn’t pursue.”

  Her towel started to loosen. She grabbed the knot and held the garment firm.

  “For the sake of avoiding both of us blushing, I suggest you get into something more substantial.” The man was so still it was unsettling, his eyes fixed on hers. “Will you return to your living room? Or will you run?”

  Ash felt like she was entranced. “One is a dumb option. The other is astute.”

  “There is a third way. You’re a spy. Intrigue interests you.”

  “Yes, it does.” She recalled what Hessian Bell had said to her and now understood what he meant. He’d told her to do nothing because she didn’t need to do anything. He’d made her a tethered goat, knowing Fox’s murderer would come after her. Clever bastard, she thought. But should she trust the man in the room? Or turn and bolt? Or risk her life and stay to find out what was going on? She made a decision. “I’ll get dressed and return.”

  “That’s the right choice.”

  She hesitated, the hand holding the upper hem of her towel dropping to her side. “Your name . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Your name is Will Cochrane.”

  Chapter 13

  Eight miles south of D.C., the smells of dying rosemary and basil and the sight of bare flames from torches on Howard Kane’s rooftop apartment in Alexandria barely registered in his mind.

  For years, Kane had cultivated the rooftop to comprise troughs of manure-infused soil containing tomatoes, corn, beans, flowers, and chilies. But a frost was upon Alexandria and he had neither the inclination nor the expertise to extend the growing season. He always
harvested, then let the plants die in the first cold snap. Then he lit the flames atop the roof as if they were a symbolic farewell to life that had existed for only two seasons. And in spring he’d replant new shoots.

  Dark now, Kane watched nightlife twenty-one stories below him. Car horns honked as vehicles traveled slowly, headlights on full, a fine icy drizzle doing nothing to dampen the torches.

  The son of a highly skilled welder who married a breast surgeon, Kane was brother to two men and one woman: a merchant navy captain, a priest, and a doctor. The four children were naturally gifted, exceeding their parents’ intellects in leaps and bounds, though they lacked the physicality of their father and the precision of their mother. Kane was the brightest of them all, despite a cleft palate when he was young that his mother cut out, and being wrongly diagnosed as autistic by shrinks and a foot shorter than his father and brothers. He was loved by his parents and siblings because he could perform magic tricks and cook Lebanese meze.

  He recalled three years ago being in Haden’s Pentagon office. Fox and Sapper were with him.

  Haden had said, “I’ve called this meeting in strictest confidence. Nothing we speak about must leave this room. If anyone objects to that, exit now.”

  The room was silent.

  Haden proceeded. “Fox, tell them what you told me.”

  The CIA officer said, “One of my deep-cover officers has located the financier. He’s in Berlin and plans to travel to Munich with five million dollars. There, he’ll hand the cash over to a terror cell.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Sapper.

  Fox looked at Kane. “Are you sure you’re cleared for this discussion?”

  Haden interjected. “He’s my deputy. We don’t hide secrets from each other. Plus, I need his brain.”

  Fox had looked uncertain as he continued. “Officially, there is only one thing we can do. We notify the Germans and let them deal with the matter. But . . .”

  “But?” asked Kane.

  “But that means we lose control. The Germans will seek to enforce due process of law. There’s nothing illegal about couriering cash. They’d have to prove his purpose.”

  “We know his purpose!” snapped Sapper. “We’ve been trying to get this guy for years!”

  “We being America. Germany is a different jurisdiction. And it has a more liberal judiciary. Our suspicions and evidence will not carry much weight in their courts. There’s every possibility the financier will get off.”

  “That can’t happen!” Haden paced back and forth. “Otto Raeder is an anarchist for hire. He funds whichever terrorist group takes his fancy at any one time.” He pointed at Fox. “I remember the Agency’s assessment of his motivation—he’s a mischief maker, is what you said. He wants to see the world burn.”

  Fox nodded. “Tracking him has been the problem. This is the best lead we’ve had and our best opportunity to stop him once and for all. The intel says Raeder can’t make the cash-run for a few days, because the terror cell’s not yet assembled in Munich. Regardless, we have to move fast and make a decision now.”

  Haden stopped pacing and asked Sapper, “The likelihood of Capitol Hill authorizing a covert U.S. assault on Raeder on German soil?”

  “Zero.” The senator adjusted her chiffon scarf. “And if I take this to the Hill, this will be blown wide open. We’ll lose control and have to trust the Germans to get it right.”

  “And Germany will not hit first and ask questions later.” Fox was deep in thought. “Raeder is a German national. Most of the evidence we have on him has not been shared with the Germans. They’ll take this as a cold case. Bureaucracy will kick in. Raeder will at best be arrested or at worst vanish.”

  “Shit!” Haden started pacing again. He addressed Fox. “Why did you bring this to us? By all accounts, my spec op units can’t be involved.”

  The CIA officer replied, “Because we think the same.”

  Sapper laughed, making no effort to hide her sarcasm.

  Fox was unperturbed. “I didn’t say we liked each other. But if I wanted to have a conversation about Raeder without Congress, the White House, the Pentagon, and the CIA knowing, then this is the room I want to be in.”

  Haden frowned. “You haven’t told the CIA what you know?”

  Fox shook his head. “I brought this to you first. The Agency deep-cover officer—her name’s Kay; I’m not giving you her surname—has relocated to another assignment. That’s how it works. Her intel landed on my desk in CT.”

  Counterterrorism.

  “I sat on the data for a day. Now I’m here.”

  Haden glanced at Kane. “Thoughts?”

  Howard Kane looked around the room. Beautiful yet vicious Charlie Sapper. Untrustworthy Unwin Fox. Insane Colonel Haden. That’s how he thought of them right now. But that didn’t influence his thinking. Instead, he was focused on getting a solution to the problem of Otto Raeder. “You will not be the only person in CIA HQ who knows about the Raeder intel,” he said to Fox.

  “No. There are a handful of people who will have been privy to the information. But it’s off their desks. And now they’ve got a thousand other terrorists to worry about. Raeder’s my problem. They’ve forgotten about him and moved on.”

  “And your deep-cover officer, Kay?” Though only a few years younger than Fox, Kane wondered how the senior CIA officer felt being asked questions by a Pentagon staffer who was two grades beneath him. “You’re sure she’s out of the picture?”

  “She has to be. New identity. New mission. She gets intel, passes it on, goes dark again, moves to other assignments.”

  Kane was pulling the strands together. “So this room is where information is kept and decisions are made . . . or not.”

  Sapper, Fox, and Haden were silent as they watched him.

  “And we have three stark choices: inform the Germans about Raeder; do nothing; or do something.”

  Sapper raised an eyebrow. “Do something?”

  Kane didn’t know how far he should push this. Haden was staring at him like a creature that would strike him if he did the wrong thing. “The problem is Raeder. We don’t benefit from him, do we?”

  Fox laughed. “No, we don’t.”

  “His money kills lots of people, yes?”

  The CIA officer agreed. “A shit ton.”

  “He has financial resources that we can’t quantify, but let’s assume it’s many millions.”

  Fox said, “Hundreds. Maybe much more.”

  “So he’s virtually unstoppable.”

  “Virtually?” Haden was deliberately being antagonistic to his prodigy because Sapper and Fox were in the room, but he was intrigued to hear what Kane meant. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  Kane smiled. “The solution is obvious. We kill Raeder. And no one outside of this room need ever know.”

  “And how do we do that?” asked Sapper.

  Kane looked at Fox. “There’s one man who could do it. We both know who he is. My question to you is can he be activated?”

  Fox was silent for thirty seconds. “Yes. But only I can activate him. I act as cutout. He’s a friend of mine. I don’t want to give him any details other than those essential to the mission.”

  Kane agreed. “The less he knows the better. The four of us take what we know to our graves.” He looked at Haden. “Sir, I have a team of four ex–Green Berets at my disposal. They’re efficient and don’t ask questions. They can dispose of Raeder’s body. But I’m not a military man. Can you tell us how we kill Raeder?”

  The ex–Delta Force colonel replied, “Raeder needs to be put under surveillance for a few days. We watch for patterns of behavior. At some point he’ll do something out of the ordinary. That’ll be when he does his money run. We bring in Fox’s shooter. Your Green Berets can tail Raeder and provide the shooter with proof of ID. The shot needs to be outside Berlin, somewhere remote. Your team then grabs Raeder’s body and burns his car.”

  “That sounds watertight.�
� Fox looked at Sapper. “What do you think?”

  The senator shrugged. “How it’s done is not my area of expertise. What happens if things go wrong is. Just make sure he’s dead and there are no traces that lead to us.”

  “Then it’s agreed.” Haden was commanding as he said, “Mr. Kane, I’m relying on you to spot any flaws in my plan.”

  Kane was deep in thought. “Central to this job is minimizing information to any others involved. My assets are good. They will need to know that Raeder is the target, but at this stage I don’t want them to know this isn’t state sanctioned. I want them to mop up the mess, but I’d prefer they didn’t call the shot. That would make them complicit in murder. I trust them, but it’s always a numbers game. There are four of them. There’s always the danger one of them will talk. I can’t look you in the eye and say hand on heart that I can guarantee absolute secrecy. Therefore, I’d rather they didn’t call the shot.”

  Haden agreed. “I’ll do it. Beats hanging around here in a suit.”

  Kane was delighted with the colonel’s conclusion. “Plus you have the training to follow someone without him knowing you’re on his tail. It’s settled. Colonel Haden follows Raeder until the financier makes his cash-run. He tells the shooter to make the kill when there’s guaranteed proof of ID. My team grabs Raeder. The colonel makes sure my team covers up all traces of the kill. The shooter exits Germany. And no one but us on either side of the Pond will ever know what happened.”

  Under the command of General Stanley McChrystal during his tenure as head of the ultrasecret activities of Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq, Haden had been in charge of one of the task forces responsible for door-kicking missions. Based on CIA and JSOC intelligence, night after night he and his Delta, SEAL, and British SAS and SBS colleagues went out into urban and rural locales and hunted down insurgents. And though a senior officer, Haden made a point of always being on at least one of the daily missions. It gained him enormous respect from his men, though some of them wondered if it was bloodlust. Officers were on the ground to strategize and command from JSOC bases, not smash through entrances and shoot occupants.