by HN Wake
The Mac Ambrose Starter Library
H.N. Wake
A Spy Came Home: A Mac Ambrose Novel
Ghosts in Macau: A Mac Ambrose Novella
Deceits of Borneo: A Mac Ambrose Novel
A Spy Came Home
Prologue
Four Weeks Before the Senate Vote
Three Weeks Before the Senate Vote
Two Weeks Before the Senate Vote
One Week Before the Senate Vote
Four Days Before the Senate Vote
Resolution
Ghosts in Macau
Deceits of Borneo
Part One: Backlighting
Part Two: Saturation
Part Three: Angle of Reflection
Part Four: Exposure
Part Five: Resolution
A Spy Came Home
H.N. Wake
PROLOGUE
Picasso followed Guernica with his series of Weeping Woman paintings in which the woman’s mourning continues, without end.
- Jonathan Jones, The Guardian, May 2000
For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.
- Virginia Woolf
Zurich, Switzerland
Zurich was the only city in the world that made her uneasy.
Near the mouth of the Limmat River, she looked across Lake Zurich at the church spires rising above wide promenades and grassy hills. Vacation homes dotted the foothills of snow-capped Alps. Out on the glistening cobalt water, white sails caught a crisp breeze. Somewhere in the medieval city, a trolley bell chimed.
This idyllic picture was discordant with her reality: hers was a world in which evil washed back and forth across continents.
She resented the Swiss their perfection and their isolationism. It was the potency of her resentment that made her uneasy.
Standing on the gravel path by the river’s bank, she sucked one last drag from her cigarette, crushed it out in the public ashtray, and turned toward the city. She limped slowly down Bahnhofstrasse, passing bright red umbrellas at an outdoor cafe and magenta flowers trimming the Savoy Hotel. Bankers in blue, pin-striped suits strode past. At the corner, she rested and watched two trolley cars cross in front of the stately, gray-stoned arch of the Credit Suisse headquarters on Paradeplatz.
She lumbered across the street toward the bank. In the lobby, she took quick note of the bird’s-eye security camera in the far corner, shuffled past, and settled into a chair at one of the customer service desks.
Looking up, a young banker saw a 70-year-old woman in an outdated green suit with white, bobbed hair and 1970s sunglasses. Her movements were slow, deliberate, almost heavy.
With stiff fingers, she took off the sunglasses to reveal a lined and well-lived face. She smiled hesitantly.
He smiled in return. “Bonjour. Commet ca va bien, Madame?”
“Tout marche bien. Merci.”
They continued in Swiss French.
He asked, “How may I help you, Madame?”
In a throaty, cracked voice she said, “I’ve come out today, only here, to pick up a package, my dear.” She slid a slip of paper across the shiny wooden desk with a handwritten sequence of numbers.
He stood. “Certainly. Just a moment.”
Within fifteen minutes, he returned carrying a letter-sized Credit Suisse envelope. “I have instructions only to check your ID, Madame Le Blanc.”
“Of course.” She carefully offered him a Swiss ID card for Madame Le Blanc, 357 Kilchberg Strasse, born 1/13/44.
He dutifully returned the ID and handed her the envelope. “Happy to be of service, Madame.”
She haltingly replaced her sunglasses and pushed herself out of the chair. “Have a good day, Sir.”
Arriving back at the lake, she unsealed the envelope and shook out a $1 million Credit Suisse cashier’s check. She slipped it into her pocket. She dropped the Madame Le Blanc ID into the empty envelope, crushed it, and nonchalantly dropped both into a trash bin.
Later that afternoon, an undisguised Mac Ambrose sat on a hard laminate bench in a sleek art gallery. She was dressed in a black cotton sweater, fitted jeans, and running shoes. A messy knot of auburn hair topped her head. She felt relaxed, at home in the quiet stillness, alone with her thoughts.
Across the barren, white gallery, the receptionist read a book at a spotless, white desk: her job was to look like she didn’t have a job. There was no movement on the cobblestone street beyond the gallery’s window.
In the tomblike space, Mac gazed at a brightly colored image of a woman whose features were fractured and incongruous. The stark portrait hanging on the white wall was one in a series entitled Weeping Woman that Pablo Picasso painted after completing his famous work about the Spanish Civil war. The series explored the theme of suffering through the image of crying women.
Mac reached into her courier bag and pulled out her cell phone. When she was sure the receptionist wasn’t looking, she snapped a photo of the Picasso and attached it to a new text message.
“I’m in if you are,” she wrote and sent.
As she walked out, she nodded to the receptionist and picked up a gallery business card.
At the corner, she pulled out a burner phone, turned it on, and dialed a US number from memory. Deep in the bowels of the CIA headquarters in Langley, a female operator answered. “Lunext Corporation.”
“This is Susan Anthony.”
“Go ahead.”
“Message for William Penn.” It was code. The message was for Staff Operations Officer (SOO) Frank Odom, her direct report in Langley. “I’ve got pen pals. I think in China.” This was code letting him know she was being followed by internet crawlers, most likely of Chinese origin. “I’m going on vacation for two weeks.” She was going offline for two weeks.
The operator said, “I’ll repeat your message. Susan Anthony has Chinese pen pals and will be taking a vacation for two weeks.”
“Great thanks.” Otherwise known as affirmative.
New York, NY
In the galley kitchen, Freda Browne pointed the remote at the cheap, flat screen television and smashed buttons in search of news. Out the small kitchen window, the sun rose over the East Village. A faint hum emanated off early morning traffic on FDR Drive.
Over her shoulder she shouted down the short hall. “M, that’s your 30 minute snooze. I need you out of bed. Don’t push me.”
She paused on a local news broadcast, sipping her low-fat, soy latte. It was the same drink she made every day after the gym.
On the television, the newscaster started a new segment. “A shooting on Wednesday in a local market has left one dead and another person wounded.” An image of an older Korean man flashed on the screen. “NYPD identified the gunman as Song Ho Kim, a former employee of the market. Kim opened fire in the late afternoon during a shopping lull, killing three people. The killer is being pursued by authorities.”
She re-read the lead article in the folded New York News laying on the counter. Above the fold, the title blared, “US Senate Considers New Gun Legislation.”
She stared blankly through the window for a long moment, then shook her head and turned her back on the news and the newspaper.
She pulsed a green protein shake in a beat-up blender, poured it into an out-sized glass, and marched down a photo-lined hallway, passing ten years of images of her grinning, wide-eyed daughter. A few of the photos showed them hugging. She banged once on her daughter’s door as she passed.
“M, I’m serious, we need to get to school. I’ve got a lot on today,” she barked.
Her cell phone beeped as she stepped into her sunflower blue bedroom. She read the message and opened the attachment, recognizing the
painting as a Picasso. It was of a woman’s face contorted in pain.
She quickly typed a reply. “Yes! Let’s do this!”
Striding into the bathroom, she stripped off her sweaty jog bra and t-shirt from a very tight body. She peeled yoga pants off muscled legs that were already burning from her morning workout. As she stepped into her white, tiled shower, she leaned her head back and yelled toward the ceiling. “M, I’m serious. Chop. Chop!”
Penny Navarro was leaning on the marble counter as the morning sun drifted across the far side of the New York NoHo loft apartment and warmed the diamond-tufted leather couch into a deeper shade of yellow. Next to her, a top-of-the-line coffee maker percolated. Next to the coffeemaker, a silent cell phone beckoned.
She picked up the cell phone, opened the photo for the fifth time, and stared at the image of the Picasso. She closed the image and slipped the phone into a robe pocket.
She poured a mug of coffee for herself with no milk, no sugar and a second mug with cream and sugar, then padded through the living room and into the first bedroom. Bending into the top bunk bed, she put her nose to her thirteen-year-old son’s head, breathed in deeply of his kinky hair, and planted a kiss.
She whispered, “Time to wake up, Pumpkin.”
He moaned and rolled toward the wall.
Leaning down into the bottom bunk, she repeated the kiss on her ten-year-old son’s head, noticing his hair had gone a day too long without shampoo.
“Morning, Sweets. Time to get up.”
She carried on down the long hall and into the cold, master bedroom. She set a coffee down on the far bedside table next to a framed photo of two young, black liberals on the steps of a college dorm; in the photo, a tall, confident Kenneth had his arm slung around the shoulders of a petite, self-effacing Penny. Her eyes stopped on the image of her younger self. Having weathered difficult pregnancies, aggressive bosses and grueling trials, she knew she was no longer that naive girl. She said, “Here’s your coffee. I’m hitting the shower. Can you help with the boys this morning? They need showers. I’ve got an early meeting.”
From under a tan duvet, her husband mumbled, “They don’t need me. They’ve got it covered. Penny, I was up super late writing. I need some sleep.”
She tamped down the frustration of a million similar moments; she had a far more pressing issue that required her focus. She turned without a word.
In the master bathroom, she started up the shower, pulled on a shower cap, and dropped her robe on the marble tiles. She heard the weight of the cell phone land on the floor. She stepped through the steam and under the showerhead, pressed her palms into her eyes, and turned into the pulsing waterfall.
Everything around her slowed.
The hot water hit the back of her hands, sluiced down her forearms, dripped off her elbows, and splashed, slightly cooler, onto the tops of her thighs. From a gap in the shower curtain, a draft of cold air slid up her spine. Goosebumps formed across her back. She concentrated on the sensations for a long moment.
In a burst of movement, her hands dropped, her eyes opened, and her chin lifted. Droplets bounced into her eyes. She quickly lathered, rinsed, and turned off the water.
Two minutes later, she wrapped her robe around her curves and pulled out the cell phone. She typed a reply, “Count me in.”
1
Arlington, VA
He was not a bored, uniformed cop drinking coffee in a donut shop, but in that moment, he realized ruefully that he resembled one.
Cal Bertrand, an even-tempered, 15-year veteran with the Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, chewed a dry cranberry scone and sipped a mediocre coffee while staring at the wall clock across the empty, open-plan fourth floor of a suburban business mall. His tall, angular body was relaxed at a desk that was surrounded by cardboard-box pyramids piled on standard-issue metal tables.
It was the start of the second week of the third month of a 6-month ‘close-out’ assignment for the ATF Mexican gun-running operation widely known as ‘Fast and Frenzied.’ ‘Close-out’ was a deceptively pleasant term for the interminable process of dotting millions of i’s and crossing millions of t’s on reams of paperwork destined for a warehouse, never to be seen again except maybe by an eager-beaver-criminal-justice-graduate-student who finessed the proper approvals out of the Bureau. Nobody wanted this particular operation revisited. Least of all Cal.
The minute hand on the clock ticked to 9:02 in the morning and the grey door opened on the far side of the desolate floor. The project accountant assigned by the Government Accounting Office - a thin man in his 30s with premature bifocals - shuffled to his desk near the door, switched on his computer, and settled in without a glance.
A dust moat floated by Cal, disturbed by the gust from the accountant’s entrance.
Cal took the last bite of the scone and decided against pulling out his cell phone to play a quick game of Sudoku. His latest obsession frustrated him; it was a regular reminder of his compulsive nature and it felt wasteful, mundane. That it was more interesting than his current assignment depressed him further.
Just as he took the last sip of his coffee, Cal’s inbox chimed with the arrival of a new email. His eyes snapped up over the cup’s rim to the computer screen. Emails had been few and far between the last several months.
He didn’t recognize the sender, [email protected]. That was unusual. The ATF normally had a very tight spam filter. He did recognize that the address was from a private email system with significant encryption used by folks who wanted to stay anonymous.
Curious, he gently set down his coffee.
The actual email message was blank. In the far right corner was an icon for an attachment. He clicked on the attachment and quickly scanned it. He recognized it as a Confidential State Department cable from the US Embassy in Pakistan to the office of the Secretary of State.
He returned to the top of the cable and read it more deliberately.
SUBJECT: BLUE LANTERN - ROUTINE POST-SHIPMENT END-USE CHECK ON LICENSE 88088
Origin: Embassy Islamabad/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD
Classification: CONFIDENTIAL
To: SECSTATE WASHDC
Date: 10 August 2012
REF: STATE 88088
1. Blue Lantern Coordinator Islamabad has confirmed with Office of Defense Cooperation the receipt of 696 M4s approved for import under License 88088 to the Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group (SSG.)
2. This shipment of 58 racks @ 12 weapons each was funded by the Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capability Fund.
3. In line with Blue Lantern review procedures, PolOff will confirm chain of custody, delivery and end use to SSG. Investigation has commenced.
- BRADLEY
This was a routine State Department cable similar to many Cal had seen before. The Blue Lantern program monitored the end-use of commercial arms sales under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations of the Arms Export Control Act. Housed in US Embassies, Blue Lantern coordinators verified that exported defense equipment was used in line with US government regulations and was not ending up in the wrong hands.
Cal read the cable for a third time. There was nothing particularly striking in its contents. A Political Officer named Bradley in the US Embassy/Pakistan had confirmed that the Pakistani Army’s Special Services had received just under 700 assault rifles. Bradley had planned to verify their arrival and proper use.
Cal picked up the phone and made a call.
A gruff voice answered, “Ben Atkins. ATF.”
“Hey Benji, it’s Cal Bertrand,” Cal said.
“Holy shit. Cal. How are you?”
“Yeah, alright, alright.”
“I saw your testimony on Fast and Frenzied. Wow. You either have gargantuan rocks or IQ amnesia. I’m not sure which.”
Cal grimaced and replied, “Yeah. Me neither. Probably just straight up stupidity. Hey, you’re still working Pakistan, right?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the low dow
n on the —” he read from the cable, “Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capability Fund?”
“What’s a Latin America guy doing asking about the PCCF?”
“Just curious. It came across my desk.”
Benji chuckled. “Really? It came across your desk? Out in purgatory? The PCCF pops up over in the ‘close out’ sarcophagus?”
Cal looked around the bleak office, waiting him out.
“What will the universe think up next?” Benji asked no one in particular. There was a pause down the phone line. “Actually, the less I know the better. Well, let’s see. It’s the 3 Billion --”
Cal sat up. “With a B?”
“Yeah, it’s the 3 Billion budget over five years. From 2009 to 2014. It’s for the Pakis to get the standard shit. It was a carrot for them to go fight the Islamist militants in their tribal area. You know - Pushtan.”
“So, how’s it going?”
“Mostly copters. Those Pakis love flying around. I can’t blame em. You ever been up in those mountains? Holy crap those are god forsaken. Nothing but scrub and mountains. A few goats. I mean, god-fore-saken.”
“They order the full budget every year?”
“Absolutely. Wouldn’t you if someone was giving you free military hardware?”
“What do you think about it? The PCCF? What’s your personal assessment?”
Benji considered this. “By and large it delivered. The Pakis bought our equipment. And they got some training. But the entire relationship with Pakistan hasn’t been smooth, as you know. Our issues with them are not exactly classified; the whole damn world knows those guys use and abuse us. So, what was intended as a PCCF carrot to get them in line basically turned into a spigot. They didn’t really change their attitude but we keep sending shit. I hear the White House has pushed to kill next year’s budget altogether.”