by Ralph Kern
“But I was told—”
“Look, kid,” Wakefield said irritably. “I said not yet. You’re just going to have to trust me on this one. The politics of the situation are a hell of a lot more complicated than we envisaged. But you can help with that. I need to know a little more about the other projects.”
“How am I supposed to know?” the boy replied, his voice calm and measured. “Perhaps if we found the others, I could tell you more.”
Wakefield clenched his fist. This stubborn little jackass pissed him off as well as freaked him out, he was so focused. But he’d long since learned that threats, cajoling, or even frankly pleading got him nowhere. The kid’s first answer was invariably his only answer. But he had to try.
“We saw Mars. It looks as if they might have been successful there.”
The boy gave a slight smile. “Why is it you believe they were successful?”
“One of the guys on the Ignatius has observed it through a telescope.” Wakefield leaned forward. “I’ve seen it, kid. It’s blue and green. I don’t have to be in NASA to know that means something big has changed there.”
“That does indeed suggest success,” the boy agreed. “Fascinating. It was felt that project would have had the lowest odds of a desirable outcome.”
“I need to know anything you may know about it.”
“As I say, find the others, and maybe we can tell you more. Until then, I have said all I know about it.”
“Nothing else springs to mind?” Wakefield pressed.
“No more information is available.”
“Is that your only answer?”
The boy stood and walked to the window. Wakefield looked at him, hoping for a response. Yet in reality, he expected nothing from the brat. The child remained silent.
“Fine.” Wakefield stood. “If anything springs to mind—”
“It will not.”
“If anything springs to mind,” Wakefield repeated through gritted teeth. The little shit. “Let me know. And we’ll find the others soon. Promise.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” The boy continued to look out the window. “I am patient, but we must show progress.”
Chapter Thirteen – The Past
How the hell had he been spotted?
Grayson ran through the undergrowth. They had the best secure field radio equipment on the planet, it couldn’t be through a simple intercept. Branches whipped painfully against his face as he kept his forearms up to ward off the worst of it. He was about halfway back to Dillon’s lying-up point and the last thing he wanted to do was surprise his partner. Knowing how brutally efficient Dillon was, that could be a terminal mistake.
“Check, check, check.” A dull wash of static came over the radio as he continued running. Behind him came the bark of Rottweilers, increasing in tempo as they caught his scent. They were damn aggressive dogs, powerful and quick. But, according to Dillon when they’d done the recon on the club earlier in the day, not the best trackers. And they had a big flaw as security dogs—they were easily bribed. Reaching down, he fumbled in his pouch and pulled out a chunk of bloody steak, turned, and threw it as far as he could away from him. It was probably bullshit or an urban legend from his partner, but he was willing to give it a go.
“Check, check.” He pressed his finger to his ear.
“Receiving,” Dillon’s crackly voice responded.
“Coming in with company.” Grayson turned and continued running.
“Hot or cold?”
“Cold. Withdraw,” Grayson signaled his hope they could still get out of this without having to shoot some poor bastard. Or dog.
Grayson began angling away from where Dillon would even now be gathering himself up. Now he knew his partner was extracting, they could meet at the wall.
Picking up the pace, Grayson hit a dead sprint, one arm still up to fend off the branches. Before him, he heard the sound of traffic. As he reached the wall, he took a running jump and grabbed at the top. His legs began scrambling for purchase to drive himself up and over it. He felt himself slipping back down, his hands grating against the course stone.
A firm hand wrapped around his wrist and hauled him up and over. Dillon. He fell awkwardly down the other side of the wall and slammed into the ground with a grunt.
Shaking of his daze, he stood, surprising pedestrians who stared at the two strange men who had launched themselves over the wall and into their midst. Dillon thrust some wet wipes into his hands. Quickly, he scrubbed the camouflage paint off his face. He didn’t have to look beautiful, he just needed to look clean. He shrugged out of his reversible jacket and turned it inside out, putting the muddy outer layer inside.
“Looking beautiful,” Dillon said, thrusting a bottle of beer into his hands. They began sauntering casually down the sidewalk looking like a pair of revelers looking for their next bar.
An SUV screeched around the corner, filled with men, before accelerating down the street toward the position where they had come over the wall.
Grayson didn’t even look at them as they passed.
***
“How the fuck did they make me?” Grayson growled as he vigorously toweled his still-wet hair. He’d just gotten out of the safe house’s shower, after cleaning the mud off his body and plucking plant spines out of his flesh.
“I don’t know.” Bradley gestured at the satellite image. It was a screen capture of the lanai from one of the latest generation Keyhole Block V reconnaissance satellites. Despite the nighttime imaging, the satellite’s advanced processing capabilities had created red digital outlines of the players on the board. Grayson could see himself laid prone near the clubhouse, and ahead of him, the lanai on which the meeting had taken place. The nearest patrols were over two hundred yards away. “There were plenty of units out, but none near you.”
“Motion sensors? Drones? Thermal cameras?” Dillon asked.
“Please!” Grayson frowned at him, affronted. “There was nothing there. It’s a goddamn golf course, not Fort Knox. Their security was clearly brought-in talent.”
“Could have picked up the radio?”
“That wasn’t what sparked them off. Our radio net is hidden in the usual cell phone traffic of the whole damn island. But some kind of jammer had killed it where I was.”
“Right.” Dillon frowned. “You say the security was brought in. You think they’re private military contractors?”
“Yeah I’d say so.” Grayson tossed the towel into the corner. “They were quick and good when they sprang into action. The close-in security provided cover and pulled out their principles while the go-team they had ready in the clubhouse deployed. There was no panic or mixing of mission types, everyone knew what to do if they were bounced. I don’t think we’re looking at ex-Walmart security here.”
“Always nice to deal with professionals,” Dillon said without humor. “The question still remains how they managed to get the drop on you.”
“Yeah.” That was what was bothering Grayson. He mentally reviewed the situation. He’d been careful going in, inching his way forward, checking and rechecking for security measures. Surely if he was going to get made, it would have been when he’d tripped one. The meeting would never have happened. Instead, he’d been in position for a fair few minutes before he’d been sprang. “So the only people who knew I was there were us and the operations center at Langley?”
“One of us ain’t exactly CIA.” Dillon gazed at Bradley.
“No, but I am on your side,” Bradley cut back. “And besides, I brought you this mission in the first place. I’m not going blow it when I could have just, you know, not even bothered?”
“Fair point,” Grayson said. A thought had occurred. And not one he liked. “I was out of coms. What time did you get that Keyhole satellite tasking approved?”
“From the look of it, I got the tasking approved and the imagery feed sent through a few seconds before you were made.”
“Jesus,” Grayson muttered. It couldn’t be a
coincidence, could it?
“And the sat imagery comes through Langley operations center,” Bradley finished Grayson’s train of thought for him. “As soon as they got the satellite imagery, so did whoever tipped Wakefield off.”
“Shit,” Dillon muttered. “Someone at Langley is dirty.”
“It makes sense. Someone fed us bullshit instead of the ECHELON feed. That’s why we couldn’t get into Reynolds’s computer. And as for what just happened at the Carlton club...” Grayson let his voice trail off.
“Fine, so we let Millard know,” Dillon growled. “He can start applying the thumbscrews back at Langley. Goddamn, but I didn’t expect to be out in the cold in the fucking Caribbean.”
“You and me both, buddy.” Grayson agreed. “Meanwhile, what the hell is Conrad Wakefield doing here, and what does Elpis mean, and will someone tell me what an Osiris is?”
“Osiris is easy.” Bradley tapped away at the keyboard. “That’s Wakefield’s yacht.”
“And it’s here?” Grayson asked as Bradley span the laptop around. On it was a picture from Facebook of huge superyacht nestled in a pristine harbor, surrounded by its gorgeous but less impressive sister ships. Grayson gave a low whistle as he looked at it. The Osiris had a long, wedge-shaped hull. It was difficult to reconcile size, both seeming small and sleek, but when details such as a member of crew resolved themselves on deck, huge. Her white hull was a long, swooping shape. Frankly, it looked like something even a lottery winner would envy to Grayson’s eyes.
“Apparently not,” Bradley said. “She’s showing on here as being in Port Adriano, Mallorca.”
“That’s a hell of a way away,” Dillon said.
“Yeah, if we believe it’s there,” Grayson mused. “We’re getting a hell of a lot of bad intel through at the moment.”
The other two could only shrug. If they couldn’t even trust the reports they were getting through supposedly verified intelligence sources, then they sure as hell couldn’t trust a Facebook post.
“Okay, what about Elpis. What’s that? Another ship?” Grayson asked, then corrected himself as he remembered Wakefield’s phrasing. “No, they said it in a different context: ‘Elpis must not fail.’”
Bradley pursed her lips and shook her head. “Never heard of it but the context sounds like an operation name rather than something physical.”
She tapped away on her keyboard. “Google reckons that Elpis is the Greek goddess of hope?”
“Well that clears that up,” Dillon said dryly.
“Okay, fine. We need to generate a plan,” Grayson said. “We’re in the cold here and need to start warming up. We need to start getting some reliable information, and we need to set Millard on weeding through Langley in case there actually is someone dirty back there. There’s only one secure communications route we can trust which doesn’t go through the whole Ops room.”
“A hardline.” Dillon nodded in agreement.
“That’s right. As far as I’m aware, the only one in Nassau is at the embassy.”
***
“Good morning, sir. How can I can help you today?”
The guard was cheery, polite, and well turned out, other than the slight stain of sweat patches under his arms. The embassy was on Queen Street, running perpendicular from the crystalline blue sea and a stone’s throw away from a McDonald’s restaurant. Which had been fortuitous as they’d all been starving.
Grayson pulled out his CAC ID and handed it to the guard, who took it and theatrically held it up, glancing at Grayson’s face and back again. He took Dillon’s and repeated his check. “If you’d like to go through.”
With a buzz, the heavy metal gate ground open. They crossed the hot tarmac and entered the fiercely air-conditioned reception.
The only people who had authority to grant them access to the hardline was either the CIA head of station, or the ambassador. And seeing as Nassau didn’t warrant having much in the way of a company presence, those two roles were effectively one. That meant they were left waiting in the reception area of the embassy for the ambassador to deign to see them.
After thirty minutes, they heard the slap of feet on linoleum and a pleasant looking middle-aged lady appeared wearing a sarong and nothing on her feet. She thrust her hand out and they shook it in turn. “My apologies, I’ve been in a meeting. If you’d like to come with me?”
It took Grayson a moment to realize this was the ambassador herself, Margaret Monroe. She guided them toward her office.
“Take a seat, gentlemen.” She gestured at a cracked-leather settee. “I’m told you needed to speak to me urgently.” Her eyes darted left and right conspiratorially. “And your credentials suggested I should oblige.”
“That’s right, ma’am.” Grayson smiled despite himself. It was difficult not to like her; she had a hint of zaniness to her that wasn’t often found in government officials. Clearly, though, her idea of urgent had been tempered by a long posting on an island paradise. “We need access to your hardline.”
“Oh,” she said, beaming. “Exciting! Anything I need to know?”
“Well, we could tell you, but then we’d have to—” Dillon started before Grayson punched him lightly in the chest.
“What my colleague means to say, is no. Sadly not. Just every now and again we like to know that the link is working properly and we have to run a test call.”
“Ah, shame.” The ambassador looked deflated for a moment before brightening again. “You better come with me then.”
She stood again, leading them out onto the corridor, then using her ID card, buzzed through another door. “Here it is.”
She stood in the room, giving a theatrical flourish. Within, a single computer sat on a desk, next to it a rotary dial which looked like it had been part of a phone from the eighties. Grayson grimaced. Clearly, Nassau was pretty far down the upgrades list to bring it into the twenties.
“If you’d kindly excuse us, ma’am,” he said.
“Of course, of course,” she nodded, she gestured at a button next to the light switch. “You turn it on there.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Dillon said as he gently shooed the woman out of the room and slapped the button before rolling his eyes. The button activated a faraday cage. Even if the room was infested with bugs, no radio coms could get out. Grayson gave his cell phone a quick glance to ensure he was showing no reception on it. Sure enough, there were no bars on the display.
“Right, let’s do this.”
Grayson dialed the number he had memorized, which went straight through to the secure terminal on the other end the old-fashioned way, by direct cable between the embassy and Langley. In theory, this made it impervious to normal means of listening in beyond a wiretap, and the system carefully monitored for if that were to occur. There would be no radio coms traffic and no internet signal to intercept.
A bored looking man appeared on the screen. “Flower.”
“Tent,” Grayson responded, verifying he was who he said he was and he wasn’t under duress.
“Confirmed.”
“I need to speak to SAD Actual, confidential.”
“Standby.”
“Millard’s gonna shit when we tell him he has to open up an internal investigation.” Dillon reclined back in the hard-plastic chair, massaging his temple with his two fingers. “He’ll be up to his neck in paperwork for that.”
“It’s why he’s paid the big bucks,” Grayson retorted. “And not as much as he’ll shit if he finds something.”
Grayson drummed his fingers on the desk, waiting for his boss to appear. After a few minutes, Millard lowered himself into the chair. “Gentlemen.”
“Sir, please confirm confidential.”
“I can confirm, Karl.”
“Good,” Grayson glanced at his partner, who gave a light nod. “Sir, we’re making some progress on our investigation but—”
“But your meeting some confusing and unexpected intelligence gaps, right?”
Well, that was eas
ier than expected. “Yes, sir. We’ve had a few different issues. Each of them in isolation we could just shrug and say, ‘shit happens’, but all of them in combination suggest a pretty deep level of penetration at your end. Possibly into the ops center itself. We think you may have someone dirty back there.”
Millard nodded and pursed his lips, staring at the screen for a moment. “Yes, that tallies with what I’ve been seeing here for the last several months.”
Grayson darted a glance at his partner. Dillon audibly ground his teeth. He’s telling us this now? “Boss, that sounds pretty damn problematic.”
“No shit, Karl,” Millard replied plainly. “It started subtly, with the odd thing which just didn’t ring true. Strange anomalies in the intelligence network. Reports which don’t tally with what people are seeing on the ground. But now, it’s more like we’re seeing the brute force rewriting of information and intelligence.”
“Then it should be flagged, boss. Why the hell hasn’t an investigation happened? If it’s permeating as deeply as you’re suggesting, then—”
“Then what? We shut down the CIA?” Millard’s frustration was evident. “It ain’t going to happen.”
“We might need to, boss. If we can’t rely on our intel in the field, then we’re fucked.”
“I know, Karl. Look, I’ve taken my concerns to the secretary of defense and she’s listening to them, but she’s told me to investigate on the down low. She’s got it into her head it’s the Russians again, or the Chinese.”
The look on Millard’s face told Grayson how much he believed that. “But you don’t think so?”
“No, from what I can tell, this is all about protecting something, not attacking us. It’s about camouflaging, and we need to know what it’s covering up.”
“And you think it’s whatever Reynolds and Wakefield are involved with here?”
“Wakefield? As in?”
“As in Conrad Wakefield.” Grayson quickly and concisely filled Millard in on their activities of the last few days.