The Travelers

by Chris Pavone

  And also no electronic communications, not for anything meaningful. Because if what you are is a CIA cadre that operates outside the purview of the CIA, with a specific mandate of keeping secrets from the mainstream CIA, then you know that there’s no such thing as secure electronic communication. There is no level of encryption, no subterfuge, no misdirection, that cannot be hacked, no phone that cannot be tapped. The only way to ensure that your communications are not intercepted is to not communicate electronically. Hence the envelopes conveyed around the globe by ignorant couriers.

  So whoever is trying to infiltrate Travelers, and whatever it is they think they’re going to discover, they’re not. Not unless they find someone who knows the entire truth, and somehow manage to get it out of him.

  There are only a handful of such people. Malcolm and Gabriella are two of them. Two of the others occupy offices in Langley.

  And the fifth?

  Malcolm doesn’t know for certain where the fifth is. It’s possible that this is his orange house, and the fifth person is here, about to be abducted, tortured, sold off to the highest bidder. It’s possible that after three-quarters of a century of uninterrupted operation, the whole thing is about to come crashing down around Malcolm, in its wake sucking under not only the livelihoods but maybe the lives of hundreds of operatives and assets all over the world; Malcolm might very well be one of them.

  So no: retreat is not really an option.

  He creeps forward.

  —

  “Come on, Will. It’s finished, this little flight of yours.” Roger is spreading out his considerable bulk, feet planted wide, arms spread, making it clear that Will has no way forward. “No reason for anyone to get hurt here. And by anyone, I mean you. And by get hurt, I mean killed.”

  Will considers turning on his heel. He knows Elle is back there, but maybe he can dodge her? Or outmuscle her? Maybe not. She’s a trained CIA officer, with who knows what level of combat skills. She might be armed.

  But Roger doesn’t appear to be. He may be bigger and stronger, but Will has gotten the best of Roger before. Plus Will has been training, and what he has been training for is this, specifically: to take out a bigger man. In fact, to take out this exact bigger man.

  Will lunges forward, rears back his right arm, aiming for a jab at Roger’s jaw, which the big man deflects, replying with a jab of his own that glances off the side of Will’s head, stinging his ear, ouch.

  Will takes a step back, out of reach.

  Roger takes a step forward.

  Will tosses another noncommittal jab at Roger’s face, but again his punch is deflected.

  He tries again. Deflected again. As expected.

  Will has now set the table. He prepares himself for Roger’s inevitable counterpunch, and here it comes, a hook instead of a jab, more momentum, more force, more pain if it connects—

  But it won’t. This is a move Will was taught, has practiced, again and again and again. He drops to his left knee while sweeping his right leg around, catching Roger on one ankle and dislodging it quickly. Will forces the same leg to continue its sweeping arc through to Roger’s other ankle, Will now braced against the ground by his left elbow, kicking out his right leg with all his might, because he’s going to save his own life—or not—with the power of this kick. If he can take out Roger’s other ankle, the big man will come tumbling down, pitching toward the precipice—

  Roger is falling. Both his feet are in the air, his rear end headed down while his arms are up, no balance whatsoever, no way to regain it. He hits the ground. Will can see his body shudder with the impact. Much like when Will lost his own feet on that dewy lawn in Argentina, his skull hitting the earth, knocking him unconscious.

  Roger isn’t knocked out. But only half his body lands on the path, while the other half is unimpeded by anything solid, shifting Roger’s momentum outward, dragging his earthbound half along, sliding toward the cliff’s edge, the man’s arms scrambling, his fingers clawing, his eyes wide with terror, his mouth open in a swallowed scream.

  Will is on the ground, watching. He can save this man’s life, or he can allow him die. Or, rather: he can continue killing him.

  There’s no time to think about it, no time to consider what will happen if he pursues either choice, to weigh his options in any rational fashion. Is this a kill-or-be-killed situation?

  Instinct takes over: Will reaches out. He grabs Roger’s wrist, holds tight, keeps this man from falling to certain death, at least for the moment.

  “Pull him in.”

  Elle is standing on the path, ten feet away. She’s wielding an axe.

  “Pull him in, Will, or I swear to God, I’ll kill you.”

  Although it’s still raining, clouds have broken along the southwestern horizon, and the setting sun is skimming the ocean. Will squints into the glare to see the man’s face, pleading, his body half-hanging off the cliff, struggling to regain some degree of control over his destiny. He shifts his weight in a way that turns out to be unfavorable, and his wrist begins to slip through Will’s grasp.

  “Will!” Elle screams.

  He feels her footsteps coming, and the corner of his eye catches a flash of light glinting off the axe blade, and Will turns just in time to see another body flying into view, another man, leaping forward, arms extended—

  Elle sidesteps this other man while backhanding the axe across her body, ripping into the man’s leg as he crashes to the earth.

  Roger uses the opportunity of Will’s distraction to twist his torso, to fling his free arm in the direction of Will, seizing Will by the shirtsleeve, losing his balance even further, sinking lower, and even lower, and now his entire body is in the air, and he’s falling, and he’s pulling Will with him, off the edge of the cliff.

  Will is powerless to stop this, the momentum of a 240-pound man falling, attached to a 170-pound man kneeling. It’s just physics: irresistible, undefeatable.

  SNÆFELLSNES PENINSULA

  Malcolm hits solid earth with a jarring thud, skittering toward the edge of the cliff, blinding pain in his leg where the axe gouged his flesh.

  He sees Will tumbling off the cliff. Malcolm reaches out, takes hold of Will’s ankle with one hand. He brings his other hand around to grab Will’s calf, a two-handed grip, but Will is still slipping away, being pulled over the edge by that other man, and Malcolm squeezes his hands tighter, presses his legs into the dirt, trying to anchor himself in place, but—

  “Ahhhhhhhhh…”

  The noise trails off, then ends abruptly.

  His hands are empty. Will has slipped from his grasp.

  Malcolm scampers forward on his hands and knees, cranes his neck over the precipice. On the beach far below, a body is sprawled, both legs bent at an impossible-looking angle. But it’s only one dead body down there. And it’s not Will.

  Where’s Will?

  Will is hanging from the side of the cliff, both feet with toeholds on a narrow shelf of stone, one fist clenched around the root of a tenacious shrub that has managed to survive out here on the exposed face of the windswept, sea-battered bluff.

  Will is still alive. But perhaps not for long.

  The axe is lying in the dirt. Malcolm lunges for it, just inches beyond his reach. He slithers forward on his stomach, hyperextends his arm, almost there—

  But Elle arrives first. She steps on Malcolm’s hand.

  “Sorry, guys,” she says, picking up the weapon. She glances at Will, just a finger twitch away from free fall; he’s not much of a threat. She turns to Malcolm, lying on the path, bleeding from a gash in his leg, also not a serious concern. She peers over the edge, down at Roger, a jumble of crushed limbs. She’s the last man standing.

  “What do you want?” Malcolm asks, hoping to open some sort of negotiation here.

  “I want the names. All of them. And their locations.”

  “What names?”

  “Really? At this moment, Malcolm Somers, you want to patronize me?”

&nbs
p; She digs her heel into Malcolm’s knuckles, and he screams.

  “Please!” Will calls from below. “I’ll give you the files!”

  “Where are they?”

  “A thumb drive. In my pocket.”

  —

  Elle is pretty sure this is not true. She glances at Will, then over at Malcolm, who looks defeated, like a guy who realizes that he has just lost everything. But then again, this might be an act; she wouldn’t put it past him. Malcolm Somers is no moron. She has to continue to be vigilant.

  And not just vigilant right now, in this moment, but vigilant forever. Even if she kills these two men right here—especially if she kills them—this is never going to end, is it? It would’ve been one thing to kill Will, disposing of one disposable man, a pawn, nobody really gives a shit. But Somers is no pawn. Killing him would be serious business, with serious repercussions. She’d never be able to show her face again in the United States, nor anywhere with a CIA presence, which is basically everywhere, or might conceivably be everywhere, which is the same thing.

  A million dollars isn’t going to be enough, not nearly. But she has no doubt that she’ll be able to extract more. If she finds what her employer is looking for. If she doesn’t? That might be an unsolvable problem.

  “Help him up, Somers. But you two?” She hefts the axe. “Don’t make me kill you.”

  Malcolm uses both hands to pull Will’s wrist, yanking his friend back from the abyss. Elle can hear Will groan as his body scrapes up the rocky lip of the cliff, tearing the skin along his chest and stomach, his groin and thighs, one long abrasion.

  It looks like hard work, dragging up this sack of body. And Malcolm’s leg probably hurts like hell. These are two damaged animals. More dangerous than ever.

  —

  Will follows ten feet behind the limping Malcolm, who’s dragging his bloody leg. Will occasionally feels the point of the knife that Elle clutches in one hand, while the other wields the axe. She can do a lot of damage, very fast, with these two blades.

  A quarter-mile up the driveway, the road is silent. During the day, there were smatterings of tourists, in vans and buses and rental cars and campers, clusters of adventure-seekers headed to the park, the volcano, the glacier. But now, even if it’s not dark, it’s nighttime. They’re all alone.

  Will was dangled over the edge of the same cliff twice in one day, and both times was yanked back to safety, and brought to this house.

  Elle turns her head slowly around the room, taking in the furnishings, the sporting equipment, the front door, the open closet, dark in there. She peers inside, flips a light switch, and looks left, right. She grabs something, emerges. It’s a spool of fishing line.

  “Will, sit,” she says. “Somers, tie him up.”

  “Oh come on,” Will protests.

  “Sit the fuck down,” she says, brandishing her knife, “and shut the fuck up.”

  Malcolm starts to wrap Will’s arms and torso to the back of the chair.

  “Who lives here?”

  “A guy who calls himself Joe. I think he used to be CIA.”

  “It’s not Mongeleach?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know where Mongeleach is?”

  Will shakes his head.

  “Okay,” she says, when Will is bound up. “Now let’s have a look at that thumb drive. Somers? Get it.”

  Will searches for Malcolm’s eyes, but he doesn’t look up.

  “Malcolm,” Will says. “Mal. Front right pocket.”

  Malcolm looks up, nods. He digs around in there, fishes out the device, hands it over to Elle. This thumb drive contains worthless files, all their relevant info adulterated. The other drive, in Will’s back pocket, contains the untouched files.

  “Now you sit down.”

  Malcolm staggers into a chair, clutching his bleeding leg.

  “Where’s the computer?”

  “I doubt there is one,” Will says. “It’s not exactly the twenty-first century in here.”

  He can see Elle’s eyes searching the surfaces, covering all the territory. “Why didn’t you just give this to me in the first place? Why the fuck did I have to chase you to the ends of the earth?”

  “Because I don’t know what it is you’re trying to steal. And I don’t know who you work for. But I do know it isn’t the CIA.”

  “Oh yeah? How do you think you know that?”

  “That Mike guy, in the conference room? Mike in the cheap suit, civil-servant lifer?”

  “What about him?”

  “Mike wore a ten-thousand-dollar watch.”

  She digests this, and Will can see that he’s right. Mike was an impostor of a working-class agent. “Okay smart guy, so tell me who I do work for.”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  She stares at Will, then turns to Malcolm. “Somers, give me your car keys. Then get his.”

  Malcolm struggles to extract his keys, groaning at the exacerbation of his injury. Then he collects Will’s as well.

  “Now, Somers, your phone.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  Without any warning she punches him in the face, a powerful jab to the cheek.

  “Fuck!” Malcolm rubs his face. “It’s in the car.”

  She stares at him, then wraps the fishing line around one of his arms, one of his legs, binding him to the chair, but not torturing him.

  “Now I’m going to my car. Where I’ll get my computer, and verify this.” She holds up the thumb drive: the bank-account files with no names, no locations, nothing to ID the accounts’ owners besides country codes, which aren’t going to satisfy anyone.

  “First, is there anything you want to, um, clarify about this drive? Before I waste my time and effort, and exhaust my patience, and have to come back here disappointed, and slit your fucking throats?”

  She turns to Malcolm. His pants are ripped open, blood streaming down his leg, across his shoe, dripping onto the painted-wood floor. “Somers?” Elle has put down the axe, but she’s still holding the knife. “You want to tell me something?”

  Will can see that Malcolm is sweating, pale.

  Elle bends at the waist, leans toward Malcolm, knife in her right hand, just inches from his face. But it’s her left that suddenly does the damage, pressing on his wound, and Malcolm screams, and screams, and she continues to press for five seconds, a painful perpetuity.

  She removes her hand, stands up straight. Malcolm’s screaming subsides, replaced by hyperventilating. He’s in bad shape. This type of torture doesn’t take long. “Somers?”

  He stares at her.

  “Somers, you look like a man who wants to unburden himself.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “I’m wrong?” She looks at his leg. “Okay, we’ll try this again.” She reaches down—

  “No!” Will calls out from across the room. “Stop!”

  She looks over her shoulder. “Why?”

  “There are no names on that drive. No addresses. Nothing but account numbers.”

  “You lied to me? Will.” Tsk-tsk. “I’m disappointed.”

  Will looks over at Malcolm, who seems to be staring at a window, eyes open wide.

  “I guess the only question now is: Who should I kill first?”

  Malcolm says something, but too softly.

  “What’s that?” Elle asks.

  “I’ll tell you. Everything. I know. But please. Can you do something. About. My leg?”

  —

  Malcolm takes a slug from the glass of scotch. Elle rips his pant leg all the way open, and splashes on some of the booze as disinfectant. Malcolm digs his top teeth into his lower lip so hard he draws blood, but he doesn’t scream again. She wraps the wound in gauze, tape.

  “It’s a long story,” he says.

  “We have forever.” She refills his glass.

  “Okay.” Malcolm nods. “Benjamin Donaldson signed up for the Army right after Pearl Harbor.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me?
World War II?”

  “You want to know what’s going on? Or not?”

  She sighs. “Oh go ahead.” She sits.

  “In Europe, Benji was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services, and spent the war spying in France. He eventually discovered that no matter how good the intel, it was worse than useless if you couldn’t trust the messenger. And you could never trust any messenger completely. This is a truth Benji discovered via a literal stab in the back.

  “He survived—barely—and spent months lying in Walter Reed, wondering how he’d been betrayed, how it could’ve been avoided. He came to the conclusion that the only way to completely trust messengers was to make them unaware that they were messengers.”

  Will realizes that Elle had been right about all those PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL envelopes.

  “But the war was over. Truman was wary of a permanent spy institution, and he didn’t like the guy who’d run the OSS, Bill Donovan. He fired Donovan, disbanded the OSS, shut down bureaus in Asia and Europe, gutted the service. There had been twelve thousand intelligence personnel, now there were two thousand. Even Allen Dulles went back to a law firm in New York; Benji Donaldson got a magazine job.”

  Malcolm shifts his injured leg, elevates it onto a chair, grimaces.

  “Truman started a new service, but he put an amateur in charge, a supermarket tycoon. The postwar intel was bullshit—collected by amateurs, communicated insecurely, analyzed insufficiently. A fiasco.”

  Malcolm takes another drink. He’s beginning to look less awful.

  “One of the cofounders of the Agency, Frank Wisner, started having potlucks in Georgetown. Sundays, servants’ night off. The food wasn’t great, though I think Julia Child showed up, before she was much of a cook. There was a lot of liquor, a lot of far-fetched ideas. One floated by an ex-OSS guy who was now in the magazine business in New York.”

  “No way,” Will says. He’s been wondering where the hell this story was going, and now he sees.

  “Surprisingly, Benji’s harebrained scheme got traction.”

  Will can’t believe it.

  “Travelers was invented for two very different ops. One, propaganda: magazine articles for an American audience that glorified our allies, or that reinforced the narrative that America had saved the world from Hitler—and that the world was grateful. You know what I’m talking about, Will.”