Black Skies

by Leo J. Maloney

  “Secretary, Ms. Prince, down!”

  Lawson ran around the car, crouching down and moving erratically, hoping to avoid fire. He pulled Welch out of the car through the open door. The driver’s body tumbled out onto the tarmac. Lawson climbed in as a bullet sailed inches from his head, hitting the window on the passenger seat. The window cracked into a spiderweb pattern. Keeping his head low, he pulled the door shut and peeled off, passing through the thick smoke of the wreckage of the car ahead of him.

  “Need backup now!” he screamed into his comm.

  He turned the car around, back toward the airport, and saw the two military Jeeps converging on the door to the building. Men in Pakistani civilian garb stood in their seats, faces covered by handkerchiefs, killing their way onto the tarmac with a barrage of Kalashnikov fire. Lawson made a sharp right.

  “Hang in there, Mr. Secretary!”

  Turning parallel to the airport building, he saw another two Jeeps ahead of him, approaching fast. He made a 180-degree turn, and the car drew to a halt at the point of convergence of four enemy vehicles. And then he heard the whipping sound of the sniper’s bullet.

  He hardly felt the impact on his neck, but blood gushed out almost at once. He put his hand up, trying to stanch it, while reaching for his gun with the other. The blood seeped out around his fingers, a torrent that couldn’t be held back. He tried to talk to the Secretary, tell him to run, but a gurgling came out.

  The car shook and Lawson heard the awful sound of warping metal. With all his strength he turned to see two men in face masks reaching inside the car. There were two gun reports, still deafening despite Lawson’s fading senses. Nadine Prince clutched her abdomen as the bullet wounds stained her white blouse crimson.

  “Come in, Deadbolt,” said a voice on his comm, sounding so far away. “Report Status. Come in, Deadbolt, I repeat, come in.”

  The world darkened around him. The last thing he saw was Secretary Wolfe, hands tied and a burlap sack over his head, being manhandled into an enemy vehicle.

  Chapter 4

  May 27

  Ashburn, Virginia

  Philip Chapman opened his eyes to darkness with the first ring of his phone and picked up before the second so as not to wake Rose, his wife. He staggered to his feet and said in a hushed, groggy tone, “Chapman.”

  “You’re gonna need to come in, Buck,” said Cynthia Gillespie.

  “What’s new,” he grumbled, pulling on the white button-down shirt he’d laid out before he’d gone to bed. “What’s going on?”

  “Secretary of State’s been abducted in Islamabad.”

  “Jesus,” he said, missing a beat.

  “Lucky I was here, or it might have taken us hours before everyone on the team was notified.”

  “When are you not there?” he said. She was a confirmed workaholic, and would often stay at the office late into the night if she had caught on to any lead she thought might pan out. “I’ll be right in.” He pulled on his pants and leaned over Rose, kissing her forehead. The gesture was not without ambivalence. He still harbored anger from the screaming match they had the night before. He couldn’t even remember what about, although it had devolved into the usual—he spent too much time at a grinding, thankless job.

  He walked over to the crib, where baby Ella was sleeping. He touched his fingers to his lips and then to her head, and then ran his hand lightly over her wispy blond hair. She was growing. Soon it would be time for her to get her own bed, which meant her own room, which meant getting a new place.

  The thought of fitting that into their budget gave him a sinking sensation, but the emergency at hand overrode everything else. As he put on his suit jacket and walked down the narrow staircase, he went over a list of organizations that might possibly be responsible. Grabbing a PowerBar in the kitchen, he went into the garage and got into his gray Corolla beater, a ten-year-old car that he had kept for more than just sentimental reasons.

  As he pulled out onto the driveway, he took out his second cell phone, the one he’d been given for this very purpose, and dialed. The familiar voice picked up after three rings, level and deep, with no trace of drowsiness. “Smith here.” The sheer impersonality of the voice, its all-business tone, always left Chapman slightly unnerved.

  “Something’s happened,” said Chapman. He related the news to the man on the other line.

  “Is that all you know?” he asked.

  “Haven’t even been in yet,” said Chapman. “All I have is the bare outline. Thought I’d let you know right away. You’d better get your people on it.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Chapman,” said Smith. “Call me when you have more. I will let you know if anything turns up on our end.”

  Chapman hung up and put away the phone. Leaking Smith sensitive information had become routine, so much so that he barely even thought about what kind of betrayal that entailed. But he was convinced that Smith was on the side of the angels, at least to the extent that anyone could be in this sordid business. As far as Chapman could figure out, Smith worked for, or maybe ran, a clandestine intelligence outfit, something called Aegis. So far, sharing information with them had been fruitful, but like with any asset, he kept himself at a distance, wary of how they used what he gave them.

  Chapman consoled himself with the fact that he’d never taken a red cent from Smith, and never would, and then thought about Rose and Ella and felt terrible about it. He scrolled through the contacts on his phone as he made his way along the dark winding streets in the direction of CIA headquarters in Langley, wondering who he was going to call first. It was going to be a long day.

  Chapter 5

  May 27

  Boston

  Diana Bloch pulled into the parking spot next to the navy blue BMW 3 series—an older model, used but without a scratch on it. She had never seen it before, but then again, Smith hardly ever drove the same car for more than a week. The garage, which served a local mall, was sparsely occupied, which reduced chances of bystanders spotting them, but it was still full enough so that the two cars parked next to each other in the dark corner would not attract attention.

  The driver’s-side window of the BMW rolled down as her car came to a halt. At the wheel was he. The man with no name, no identity, who for his plain brown hair and blank face might as well have been an empty suit. Smith, he called himself. An alias, of course—although Bloch sometimes wondered whether it wouldn’t be the ultimate joke if that were his real name.

  “You’re late,” he said.

  “It’s six-thirty now,” she said.

  “If you arrive on time, you’re late.”

  Christ. She was not in the mood. She said, in a cool voice, “If you’re done being a prick, we can get to business. As I understand, there’s something a little more important than my punctuality that needs our attention.”

  “The Secretary of State—”

  “Kidnapped,” she cut him off. “I heard. My sources are not quite as incompetent as you might think.”

  “Well, then you should have told me immediately,” he said, in his stony, even voice.

  “I assumed that’s what this meeting was about, and it seemed redundant.”

  “Do not assume,” he said. “What do you make of it?”

  “What do you mean, what do I make of it? It’s a catastrophe, that’s what I make of it. It’s enough to put everything else on hold. It’s going to mean the mobilization of every intelligence operation between here and Islamabad. And if we don’t get him back alive, this might very well mean war against a nuclear power.”

  “Then we’d best try to avoid that, shouldn’t we?”

  “Yes, we’d best,” she grimaced.

  “Don’t be flip,” he said. “Lee Irwin Wolfe is a very important man.”

  “I know, Smith, he’s the goddamn Secretary of State.”

  “He’s more than that,” said Smith, leaving a pregnant pause that let Bloch know the significance of the statement.

  Bloch’s brow furrowed. �
��He’s . . .” Clarity dawned on her. “He’s involved in Aegis.”

  “The Secretary of State is operationally important to us,” said Smith. “That is the extent of what you need to know.”

  “Are you kidding me?” said Bloch. “What if his kidnapping is connected to his involvement in Aegis? If you want me to find him, you’re going to have to throw me a bone here, Smith.”

  “I’m sure that you will do fine with the extensive resources at your disposal.”

  She huffed through gritted teeth. “Fine. I’ve already called in the troops, and they should be coming in over the course of the morning. I haven’t told them anything yet, but it doesn’t matter. It’ll be all over the news within the hour.”

  “It’s a start,” he said.

  “I’ve sent Conley to Islamabad, too, although he’s going to have a hell of a time getting there, with the airport closed. And he’ll need credentials to access the scene.”

  “He’ll have them. I will send you the rendezvous information within the hour so that you can relay it to him. Is that acceptable to you, Ms. Bloch?”

  He didn’t stick around for her answer. His tone would have been enough to tell her the conversation was over even if he hadn’t rolled up his window and pulled out.

  Chapter 6

  May 27

  Quissett Conservation Area, Massachusetts

  Dan Morgan jogged up the hill, rifle slung on his back, boots sinking an inch into the soggy ground with every step, fresh, rain-washed air whipping his face. His right knee ached dully from an old injury that had never entirely healed. The woods around him were still, extending out, he knew, far past his line of sight limited by the foliage. Lots of places where she could be hiding, lots of directions to go in. But running wasn’t her style—it wasn’t fun enough for her.

  He would find her. They’d played this game before, and he knew the way she played. She would go for the high ground, stake a defensive position. She had given away her position the previous night by building a fire, though she’d had enough sense to leave before he got there. Maybe she even meant for him to see it. She was smart, so it was plausible. But he was sure that she would go up the ridge and lie in wait. He got a few hours’ sleep about a half-mile from the remains of her fire, and had awakened at the break of dawn to make his way up.

  It took him the better part of an hour to get up to the top. The air was getting stale, and he was sweating. The woods thinned out and gave way to rocky ground ahead, out into the bright, blinding sun. He lingered behind the tree line, taking his rifle into his hands, and scanned the scene. She would be in a place that was easy to defend, a strong position with good visibility. An outcropping ahead was bordered by a grove on the far side.

  Bingo. If she was up here, that’s where she would be.

  Morgan walked back into the woods fifty yards and circled around toward the outcropping, taking slow, deliberate steps, moving his upper body as little as possible and keeping his attention open to any sound or stirring. He reached the point at which the gap between the woods and the grove was only some ten yards. He crouched and examined the scene. Everything was quiet. He looked down. The ground had been disturbed by footsteps, and flecks of dried mud speckled the rocky ground ahead. She had been there, and not long before.

  He lay in wait for five minutes, and then ran across the open ground, hiding himself with his back flat against the trunk of a thick sycamore as soon as he reached the other side. He froze and listened again. Once he was satisfied that he hadn’t been spotted and that she wasn’t moving around him, he moved again.

  He crept around the edge of the outcropping, along a smooth boulder that was about half as big as his house. The ground here was drier, and loose twigs and a few dead leaves crunched lightly under his feet. He skulked on, focused like a predator listening for its prey, treading as lightly as he could so as not to alert her of his presence.

  He perked up at the crack of a breaking stick in the direction of a thicket of trees and bushes just ahead. A flash of camo moved through the foliage. He lunged forward, getting in position to flank the figure that he had glimpsed. When he reached a point where he could get a clear view into the thicket, he found her camo jacket there, tied to a long piece of twine hanging from a branch, swinging lazily from side to side. He had an instant of confusion as he looked at the jacket—one that proved fatal.

  “Toss your weapon and put your hands up,” he heard, a voice clear, commanding, and triumphant, coming from behind him. Exhaling, he complied, letting the rifle fall by his right foot with a muted clatter in the dirt.

  “Gotcha,” she said.

  He couldn’t help smiling. He turned and saw his daughter, Alex, grinning back at him, all brown-haired five-foot-three of her in a dirty moss-green T-shirt and holding up her paintball rifle, trained at his chest.

  “That you did,” he said, chuckling.

  “Do you give?” she said.

  “I—” but before he could finish, she had let loose two paint pellets, which hit him painfully in the rib cage. “Why, you little—” he said, with mock anger.

  “Don’t make me shoot you again,” she said, laughing. “You lost, old man.”

  He picked up his rifle. “So that makes it what, two to six?”

  “You’re just bitter that you lost!” she teased. “Although, to be fair, I did learn it all from you.”

  “I don’t remember teaching you that trick with the jacket,” he said as she used her pocket knife to saw through the twine that held it to the log.

  “But you did teach me to work with what I had. Not to mention misdirection, and using the environment to my advantage. It was all in your lessons.” The twine gave, and she draped the jacket on her back.

  “Look at you. Pretty soon you’ll be as good as any of the pros.”

  “Well, then, maybe—”

  “No,” Morgan said curtly. He knew what she wanted—that she wanted to join the army, the Navy SEALs, or worse—the CIA.

  “But Dad—”

  “No buts,” he cut her off. “That’s out of the question. Now how about you tell me how you got the idea to rig that trap?” She made like she was going to protest, but didn’t press the issue. The two of them climbed onto the tallest boulder of the outcropping, set their packs down, and ate jerky and granola bars while they exchanged their respective sides of the weekend’s game, each trying to determine where the other had been at any given time, and whether there had been any close calls.

  Afterward, father and daughter made the long trek back to the car together, talking animatedly as they went. Three hours later, when it was already past noon, they reached his Shelby GT 500, which was parked on the side of an old dirt road a couple of miles off the freeway. They were dead tired, and Morgan felt a satisfying ache in his muscles.

  Morgan unlocked the car and sat down in the driver’s seat. The first thing he did was to turn on his phone. There were about a dozen calls and half as many messages. His thoughts flashed to his wife, Jenny, but he didn’t have to get past the first to find out that it was another sort of emergency altogether. The message was from Diana Bloch, time-stamped six hours before. It said, “We have a code red. Get your ass to the office right now.”

  Chapter 7

  May 27

  Langley, Virgina

  Buck Chapman rubbed his temples as he pored over transcripts of recordings from the Secretary of State’s security team while at the same time listening to audio of preliminary eyewitness interviews obtained by Pakistani intelligence, but realized that his Urdu was not nearly up to the task. He called Cynthia Gillespie through the intercom. He saw her coming through the half-open blinds on the windows of his office. Behind her, the rest of the team was working, most at their computers, two putting pictures up on the corkboard. She walked in to find him grinding his teeth in frustration.

  “You look like hell,” she said. Chapman looked up from the sheet at her. She somehow looked the opposite of hell. Even though she had been in the of
fice for at least twelve hours now, she looked alert and composed. While he was pasty with bags under his eyes and unkempt hair from lack of sleep, her dark brown skin looked as healthy as if she’d just had breakfast after a long night’s sleep. Her black hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail, with not one hair out of place.

  “Thanks,” he said. He almost told her she looked beautiful, but held it in. She looked at him—she’d noticed his hesitation. “What can I do for you?” he added, and knew she had noted his haste in that, too.

  “You asked me to update you every thirty minutes,” she said with a smile.

  “Right, right.” He rubbed the rheum out of his eyes. “Can we talk while I get coffee?”

  “I could use some myself,” she said, motioning toward his office door.

  He stood up. “Can we get a translator to transcribe the eyewitness accounts?” he asked. He was about to walk out the door when he doubled back to grab the mug off his desk.

  “Agency translators are all backed up,” she said, following him out the door. “Although I’m sure those are on the to-do list.”

  “Can we get freelance?” he asked.

  “With security clearance?”

  “Why not?”

  They had a pot of coffee in the corner of the outer office, but Chapman was dismayed to discover that it was out.

  “I can check,” said Gillespie, taking notes on a small notepad. “You know, the first webcam was set up to monitor a coffee brewer, so that people would know whenever there was a fresh pot?”

  “You’d think that would come standard nowadays. You know, I’m not in the mood to wait. Vending machine?”

  “You got it.” They made for the outer hallway. “We might be able to push this through, but you get to go upstairs and ask Carr.”