by Sean McFate
“Wolcott,” I scoffed, as my shadow fell over his table.
Wolcott lowered his Financial Times and squinted. He hadn’t even bothered to watch if anyone was coming. “Thomas Locke,” he said, as if I was expected, which of course I was. He gestured to the empty seat. He could tell I was angry. “I know you were hoping for someone else.”
“I thought he might want to apologize.”
Wolcott laughed. “Our friend doesn’t apologize or explain. You know that.” No names. Fine.
“He burned me, Wolcott.”
“I don’t think so.”
“He sabotaged the mission. He tried to have me killed.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wolcott said, “but I assure you, Thomas, whatever happened, it wasn’t personal.”
“Men died, Wolcott. My friend Miles. Your friend Greenlees . . .”
“I know. I am sorry.”
Sorry meant nothing, especially from an empty suit. I needed to talk with the man himself.
“Why are you here?”
“To close the loop,” Wolcott said. “To make sure we’re square.”
He really had a way with words. “We’re not square.”
“Don’t make this hard.”
My hands wanted to reach for my Berettas, holstered in the small of my back under my Tommy Bahama shirt and linen blazer, but I restrained myself. “You think this is hard? Sitting on the beach drinking . . . what? A cherry margarita?”
“It’s a Singapore Sling. You should try one.” Wolcott called the waiter. I glared at the young man, which wasn’t fair, he was just doing his job.
“Fine,” Wolcott huffed, turning to the waiter. “A piña colada for my friend.”
He drank. I’ve always had issues with multicolored drinks garnished with tiny umbrellas, but this one looked right in Wolcott’s chubby hand.
“I assume you’re not coming back,” he said between slurps.
“No.”
“Then take this as a severance package.” He slid the folded Financial Times across the table. Inside was a sealed envelope thick with cash. “Consider this your exit interview.”
There was an old joke at Apollo Outcomes: the exit interview was the funeral. I looked out at the water. It was strikingly blue. There were a few white sailboats bobbing on the swell.
“You going to the competition?”
Half of me wanted to hunt Winters down, figure this out, and deliver the kind of moral justice my job at Apollo had always promised, but rarely produced. The other half wanted to disappear.
“Tell him I’m going solo. Low-key. Starting a company with a couple of friends. Preventing genocide. Taking down tyrants. Disrupting the disrupters.” That was a Brad Winters phrase, from our time in management together. “Tell him not to worry about competition because this will only be missions worth killing and dying for.” I thought of Miles. We should have done this years ago, together. “Tell him Ukraine was the last time I work for someone I don’t trust.”
Wolcott let the trust issue slide. He was a corporate jockey, a company man, but he was sympathetic, I think. “Then you’re definitely going to need this,” he said, shoving the envelope of money closer.
I looked out at the harbor and thought, I like white boats. I used to make them out of scrap paper when I was a kid. Sometimes they’d float a few feet, before they sank.
“Did you see the article?”
He meant Alie’s article about Karpenko, “The George Washington of Ukraine.” Apparently, the oligarch was holed up somewhere in London, in a town house whose windows were two-way glass. Most of the article was standard hagiography, but part five was a detailed account of his family’s rescue and the “Russian aggression” in Kramatorsk, from the point of view of the client. It read like a New York Times puff piece on Navy SEALs, as if my team was all supermen, especially Miles. I appreciated that.
“Cut her some slack, Wolcott. Everything was true. And she didn’t include names, including Apollo Outcomes, and you know she could have. Our employment records can be found.”
“We killed it, anyway. That’s why it ended up on a website out of Amsterdam, with no office and no assets, instead of the Atlantic. We had it taken down, of course, but not before it had been copied into the ether a hundred times. It’s still causing us grief.”
Not enough, considering.
“But our litigators will find her.” He switched gears, but not artfully. “Have you had any contact? I hear you two used to be close.”
He knew I hadn’t. But did he know that was why my return flight was routed through Amsterdam? “No.”
“Did you hear about the CIA kid, the one that stumbled back from Kramatorsk?”
“No.”
“He got a tongue-lashing. Then he got a medal for bravery. He was promoted to Islamabad.”
My piña colada arrived, but I ignored it. Wolcott noisily sucked up the last of his Singapore Sling. He was sunburned on his nose and the back of his neck. Why was he even bothering to wear the hat?
“Am I free?” I asked. Boon and Wildman were waiting in Bosaso, and I needed to get back. For the sake of the local Somalis, of course. You don’t want Wildman haunting your bar district for long.
“We forgive you, if that’s what you mean. Assuming you forgive us.”
Nothing forgiven, Wolcott. Nothing forgotten. The loop wasn’t closed, and the circle wasn’t squared.
“Look, Thomas,” Wolcott said, leaning forward confidentially as another Singapore Sling appeared on his cocktail napkin. The Breezy Point Inn, the napkin said. “This isn’t right. I know that. But there’s nothing I can do. Men like Brad Winters . . . we spend a lot of time wondering about them. What are they doing? Why are they doing it? Why are they doing this to me? But the fact is, guys like Winters, they never think about guys like us.”
“He asked for me, Wolcott.”
“And you think you’re the only one? He asks for everyone, every now and then.”
Wolcott sat back. He looked out at the boats. He took a deep drink, like he was on a long weekend with the family at the Jersey Shore.
“You might be right, Locke,” he said finally. “You might be special. That might be why I’m here. He’s never sent me, he’s never sent anyone, like this before. Usually, it’s just adios, and a burn notice or a body bag. Sign the confidentiality agreement and get off my lawn. But for some reason, he cares about you.”
I took the money.
“Tell him I’m . . . disappointed.”
I almost said, Tell him I’ll see him soon. But why let him know I’m coming? Winters would understand my message, just as I understood his. He would know I wasn’t going to let this lie. And now I knew he wouldn’t, either. That was what made us different from men like Wolcott, I suppose, and the billion other middle managers slugging it out in an office every day.
“I have to go,” I said, standing up.
I left the bar and didn’t look back. What would be the point? I had a world to save, and two friends to meet in Ankara. And before that, a small bed in a small room in the Jordaan neighborhood of Amsterdam, and a single night, for now, when I knew it would be warm.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Jessica, my wife, whom I met while writing this book. I’m sorry I spent so many late nights laboring over these pages.
Thank you to my agent, Peter McGuigan and everyone at Foundry, including Emily Brown, Kirsten Neuhouse, and Richie Kern. And to all the great people at HarperCollins: my editor, David Highfill, Chloe Moffett, Mumtaz Mustafa, Kaitlin Harri, Danielle Bartlett, David Palmer, and Mark Steven Long. And, of course, my co-conspirator, Bret Witter. None of this would have happened without you guys.
This book is a result of what seems like a lifetime in combat, and I am grateful to all those who served with me and helped along the way, especially Gifford Miles, my platoon sergeant from the 82nd Airborne Division, who has always been a big brother to me.
Thanks as well to those who helped
me get it right. A CIA friend (you know who you are). Fred Kagan, a great muse of international intrigue. Henry Escher, a seasoned thriller reader, who showed me what good dialogue looks like. Elena Pokalova, my Russian/Ukrainian friend who helped with the slang and feel of the place. Deanne and Jim Lewis, Jay Parker, Corinne Bridges, Brett Duke, Elizabeth Butler, and Robert “the firewood guy,” who read my drafts with keen eyes.
Lastly, I wish to acknowledge all those professional warriors out there who serve in the complicated shadows of world politics. You will never be left behind or forgotten.
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
SHADOW WAR. Copyright © 2016 by Sean McFate and Bret Witter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
EPub Edition MAY 2016 ISBN 978-0-06-240372-8
ISBN 978-0-06-240370-4
16 17 18 19 20 OV/RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com