The Mac Ambrose Series: 1-3 (Boxed Set)

by HN Wake

  “I’m not entirely certain…”

  “But?”

  “I’ve got some intel - I’m not sure it’s relevant.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “It turns out she was in Kabul unofficially last year.”

  Hawkinson’s eyebrows rose.

  “I had sent Mac to Kabul last year to do some exchange with our counterterrorism guys. There was a possible link with another op.”

  “Ok?”

  “Then, oddly, she went back two months later. Off the books. Unauthorized.”

  “When was that second trip?”

  “Six months ago. July.”

  Hawkinson’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. He pressed the intercom button on his phone. “Please pull the Scimitar folder.” He looked back at Odom. “What I’m about to tell you is ‘need to know’ only.” He waited for Odom to nod then said, “Last year a Blue Lantern investigation found some US guns - manufactured by a shop out of Kentucky - went missing from Pakistan. They were transported into Afghanistan.

  “Recently the ATF has discovered that the company had actually trafficked their own guns. A raid last week provided solid evidence. A cross-agency Task Force has been established.”

  “Did we know they had trafficked their own guns?”

  “No.”

  There was a knock on the office door and the secretary handed Hawkinson a Top Secret folder. He glanced at the file name and handed it to Odom.

  Hawkinson continued, “Here’s the coincidence. What only a very few people here and at State do know is that one of these missing Scimitar guns killed a US diplomat in Afghanistan. In July last year.”

  Shocked, Odom asked, “The ATF doesn’t know this gun killed one of ours?”

  Hawkinson shook his head.

  Odom summed up slowly and said, “ATF knows Scimitar ran their own guns. We didn’t. We know one of these missing Scimitar gun killed the diplomat. ATF doesn’t.”

  Hawkinson nodded.

  “Because we buried this report?” Odom asked, holding up the file.

  Hawkinson’s face was solid rock.

  Odom asked, “Are we going to tell them?”

  Hawkinson stared at him.

  Odom’s mouth opened, but Hawkinson cut him off, picking up the next subject. “The ATF claim they had an anonymous tipster on Scimitar’s involvement. That doesn’t sit well with me. Who is this secret tipster? Why now, a year later?” He walked around to his chair. “And just today, here you are in my office, folder in hand, telling me one of your operatives has been missing for the last three weeks and she also happened to have traveled to Kabul unofficially in July - the same time as the shooting incident. There are too many coincidences.”

  Odom concluded, “Mac may be involved.”

  Hawkinson’s response was curt. “Find your missing operative, Odom. Now.”

  30

  18 years ago - San Francisco, CA

  Sitting on a stoop in the upscale Dogpatch neighborhood of San Francisco, Mac watched the evening fog roll in over the bay, blocking out the weak sunlight. A motorcycle growled around a curve a few blocks away. A few minutes later, a helmeted rider on a 73 Norton Commando 850cc pulled up to the curb. The black visor turned to her for a long moment.

  The driver walked the purring motorcycle backward into the curb, turned off the ignition, and lifted off his helmet. His shoulders had filled in and his hair had grown longer, pulled back in a short ponytail.

  Joe said, “You’re late.”

  It had been four years.

  The third floor apartment had an expansive view of the bay. The modern, black leather furniture was sleek and Italian. Black and white prints hung on tall, grey walls.

  He set his helmet on a large, marble island in the open-plan kitchen, pulled out a stool for her, and set to work at a small cappuccino machine, grinding out two pungent espressos.

  He handed her a small cup. “I don’t want to know how you found me.”

  “You weren’t that hard to find, actually.” She sipped. “You look good.”

  He shrugged.

  “You look happy, healthy.”

  He shrugged again, watching her.

  She stared at him. “I don’t mean to intrude.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I always am.”

  “You never are.”

  She attempted to be nonchalant. “Especially if there’s someone, you know, special.”

  He finally grinned. “There’s not. Not right now.”

  He led her out to the deck and turned on an outdoor heater. Foghorns bleated from the bay. They sat close to each other on the patio sofa.

  She wrapped both hands around the coffee cup. “So you’ve got your own business.”

  “You did your homework.”

  “Not too many of you in San Francisco.”

  A seagull landed on the deck’s wall. Its black eyes watched them.

  “Yeah. It’s a small firm. We do design for aerospace and big engineering companies. They send us their requirements. We knock it out on software, CAD, stuff. Beats the hell out of having to work for another engineer. I’m hiring two more engineers next week. We’re busy. Almost too busy.”

  “I bet you make a good boss.”

  “I’m alright. I’m learning. The engineering and design aspects are the most interesting. The management and admin…not so much. And I had to get financing to start up. That wasn’t easy.”

  “You’re clearly doing well.” She indicated the apartment. “This is not too shabby.”

  He grinned.

  She smiled at him. “I like the hair.”

  “Keeps my edge obvious. I’d hate anyone to think I’m some dumb everyday 9 to 5 run-of-the-mill engineering dork.”

  She laughed.

  “So tell me. How were the tropics?”

  She had been assigned as an English teacher to a rural school near a river along a mountain in Java. The impoverished community had tended livestock.

  She had been happy, in the heat, with the kids greeting her every morning in singsong. “Good Morning, Ms. Mac.”

  God, the kids had been gorgeous, happy, and innocent.

  She had planted a lawn and a vegetable garden in her backyard and had meticulously weeded them into a cultured square against the sprawling jungle. The neighborhood children had shown up every day after school to run and tumble on the luscious grass. They would stop to hug her. The very little ones would worm their way into her lap; sometimes they fell asleep. They had trusted her instantly, implicitly.

  Half-way through her first year, she had learned the local mission priest - an older, Dutch Catholic missionary - was a monster, forcing himself on the women in the community. Many of them had gotten pregnant.

  There had been fair haired kids in the middle of Indonesia with Dutch names like Ernst and Annelein.

  She had approached her friend Donna. “Do people like Father?”

  “Enough.”

  “Do the women like Father?”

  Donna had shot her a warning look. “We don’t talk about that.”

  She had approached the local mayor. “Is Father well-respected here?”

  He had thrown her a warning look. “Father brings in money. Jakarta doesn’t. You are an outsider. You will stop asking such questions.”

  She had been trapped in a jungle version of the Island of Dr. Moreau. She had stayed out of commitment to the students. For a year and a half she had watched powers collude, abuse.

  In response, she had studied writings on authoritarian institutions, power dynamics, voices of the masses and the concepts of systemic, sweeping change and revolution.

  Their coffees were finished. He showed her the apartment.

  In the bedroom, she ran her fingers along his desk, smiling at the piles of quarters and dimes.

  “Don’t start on me.” He mock challenged.

  “Glad to see some things don’t change.”

  A shoebox was stuffed with stacked dollar bills. She ran
her fingernail along the side like a bank teller.

  “I’ve been fixing old motorcycles for friends. They pay me in cash. If I’d known you were coming, I would have put that away.”

  “Nah, it’s kinda sexy. You’ve gotta be the only non drug dealer that just has loads of cash lying around in shoeboxes.”

  She drifted into the bathroom. “You still got a crazy shower?”

  He followed. “Not anymore.”

  She jumped up backwards onto the edge of the sink and held her hands out to him. He stepped between her legs.

  Only their first kiss was gentle.

  Later, lying in bed, she explained how she had been after another year in the jungle - isolated, pent-up, enraged, saddened.

  A white American guy had shown up at a school sporting event. About 30 years old, he had been dressed in khakis and a button-down, had been sweating profusely, and had introduced himself as Felix. At first, she had figured him for a Mormon. But he had told her about his anthropology dissertation and said he’d return in a month.

  Every month for six months he had stepped off the bus in the small town center. The word would spread quickly. Eventually one of her students would quietly whisper, “That man is here for you in town, Missy Mac.”

  They had probably thought he was courting her in some odd, American tradition.

  She would get on her bike and peddle in to the lobby bar in the single hotel. They would drink beer and talk politics.

  A month shy of her two year Peace Corps graduation, Felix had told her who he really was. He had explained the Agency was interested in talking to her. Just talking. No obligation. Why not go hear them out? He had given her a one-way train ticket and the address of the Jakarta safe house.

  At first, they had talked of patriotism. But that hadn’t resonated with her. Her parents had protested the Vietnam War. Patriotism equaled protest in her mind. She had no interest in patriotism.

  So they had changed tactics. They had talked about protecting the US, protecting those she loved, protecting what they had built at home. She had pushed back explaining that’s what the military was for.

  Their tactics had changed. They had told her, “We need advocates committed to democracy, to free the world’s oppressed.” They had explained that her directed, targeted actions as part of the CIA would help millions through regime change. She, they had told her, could overthrow despots.

  She had thought of Donna, the innocent children in the jungle and their voiceless lives.

  Joe watched her.

  She looked up. “That made sense to me.”

  He held his breath.

  “I told them yes.”

  Naked, Joe rolled out of bed, grabbed cigarettes and an ashtray, walked silently into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

  She sat up, pulled the sheet around her chest and listened to the silence.

  Twenty minutes later, he stepped out in jeans and a t-shirt, his face hard. “Let’s go out.”

  The club was packed, heaving. He led her down into the VIP lounge where the bartender nodded at him and smiled at her, knowing she was special by the way Joe kept her close.

  Two hours later, the techno beat thumped louder. At a corner booth, Joe slammed down his drink, his anger peaking. “I think you’re wrong. I think this whole thing, this whole fucking thing is just wrong, wrong, wrong. You’re a lost idealist, not a fucking secret agent.”

  She spat, “You can’t tell me what to do.”

  “Somebody should. You’re chasing some ridiculous fantasy about changing the world. It’s insane.” He stabbed a finger to his forehead. “Insane.”

  “Fuck you, Joe.”

  She stared out across the packed club, slowing her breathing. “What if I can?”

  “Can what?”

  “Make some difference in the world?”

  “They’re just using you.”

  “Maybe we use each other. They use me to push their agenda. I use them to make a difference.”

  The anger slipped from him. He saw again the younger Mac taking a bad situation and turning it to her advantage, strong in the face of adversity, not because she wanted it but because she had to.

  She hadn’t noticed his changed demeanor. “I’m just fucking me, trying to find my way in the world.”

  His eyes were sad, knowing. “When they finish with you, they’ll spit you out.”

  “Yeah. OK. I don’t expect a lifetime commitment.”

  “So you’re pretty much righting the world’s wrongs - all on your own? All on your own.”

  She leaned close, the alcohol astringent on both her breath, and stared into his blurred, blue eyes. “Yes. Right now. Yes. Right now, I need to do this.”

  31

  New York, NY

  Colorful ‘Day of the Dead’ banners hung from the ceiling in the upscale Mexican restaurant in Alphabet City. In the background, a Mexican crooner was accompanied by banjos. The air was thick with cumin and garlic.

  Penny and Kenneth sat across the table from another couple with large sangria goblets and 15 half finished tapas plates between them.

  Janice gawked at Kenneth. “Leo DiCaprio?”

  He nodded vigorously. “Yeah, my agent said he’s interested.”

  Holding a sangria glass in both hands, Penny watched him.

  Janice said, “Oh my god.”

  Kenneth claimed, “He’d be perfect for the role.”

  Janice looked at Penny. “Wow, not bad!”

  Penny shrugged.

  “Not bad? That’s an understatement.” Kenneth gave Penny a sharp look.

  Janice asked, “So what happens next?”

  Penny sipped slowly.

  He said, “Now they pitch him and see what kind of input he wants. You know, how much I’ll be working with him on rewrites and what not.”

  “How long will it take to hear back?”

  Penny stared into the distance and mumbled, “If we hear back.”

  “My guess is a few weeks. I’ve also told them to approach Clooney although…well… he’s a bit old for the role…”

  Penny excused herself from the table and headed to the bathroom.

  Inside the quiet room, she locked the door. She stared at her image in the mirror. She’d just had her hair done; it was relaxed, shiny and straight. She reached into her purse, pulled out a nice lipstick and brought it to her lip.

  In that instant, Beyoncé - the Beyoncé from the “Survivor” video in camouflage with perfect hair and make up - was staring back at her in the Mexican restaurant mirror. Penny smiled at this new mirage. Beyoncé smiled back. Penny placed the waxy tip of the lipstick along the contour of her lip. In the mirror, Beyoncé placed her lipstick against her lips and timelessly stayed within the lines. Penny took out her powder compact, tapped the sponge, and patted her face. In the mirror, Beyoncé patted the powder sponge. Penny flipped her smooth hair off her shoulder and in the mirror, Beyoncé did the same flip. Penny winked. Beyoncé winked back.

  Then Beyoncé was gone.

  Penny stared back at her from the mirror.

  She dipped her hand into her handbag, searching. Her fingers closed around the burner phone.

  She typed a text. “Are you scared?”

  While she waited for Mac’s reply, she winked again in the mirror. The bravado was gone. A scared Penny winked back.

  The burner phone pinged. Mac had written, “Nah. Not yet.”

  Penny looked into the mirror and whispered, “I am.” She typed, “Ok.”

  Across town, Charlotte and Stacia made their way through a crowded bar. Up on stage a steam punk band belted loudly. Charlotte leaned over the bar and looked back questioningly.

  Stacia said, “A Stella. Thanks.”

  The bartender placed their drinks on the wide bar. Her beer glass had a round Stella logo.

  Charlotte asked, “Dude, where you been all week?”

  “My crazy lady-boss has me working on a series.”

  “On what?”

 
; “The SFG if you believe it.”

  “Yuck. Really?”

  “Yeah. There’s this legislation coming up that would ban assault weapons. We’re trying to do something in advance.”

  “Like a series?”

  Stacia nodded.

  “So are you like the lead reporter on the series?”

  “It’s looking that way.”

  “Dude, that’s hot!” Charlotte leaned over to the bartender and ordered two shots of Jägermeister.

  They held up their shots for a toast. Charlotte said, “Here’s to you getting byline my sistah!”

  The liquid burned down Stacia’s throat.

  Charlotte asked, “So how’s it going?”

  “They’re super dodgy and shadowy and shit. Different legal entities, websites, money coming in and going out all under secret. It’s some weird shit.”

  Charlotte was distracted by the lead singer leaning out from the stage, howling into the microphone. Stacia took a long swig from her glass of beer and set it on the bar. Her thumb absently rubbed the gold logo on the beer glass. Something niggled in her brain. She stared at the bassist’s fingers plucking strings, but the music sounded distant. She turned and stared at the logo on the beer glass.

  She quickly tapped Charlotte’s shoulder. “I’ll be right back, just gotta make a phone call.”

  In the alcove outside the bar’s door, she fished in her bag for her cell phone and dialed a number. She held the phone tight against her ear to block out the rain.

  Freda answered in a worn-out voice. “This better be good. It’s Friday night, my daughter is burning down the apartment, and I just can’t build it up for you right now.”

  “It’s all about their brand.”

  “What?”

  Stacia raised her voice. “If you don’t have a brand, you don’t have shit. I’m sitting here drinking a beer - a Stella - and I’m thinking to myself, this beer tastes like every other beer. So how does it get the huge following it does? I mean, does it deserve its very own glass in a bar? With a logo?”

  “Ok?”

  “Stella’s built a reputable brand. People trust it. Whether it’s trustworthy or not, Stella has convinced their audience that they’re making a superior beer for discerning beer drinkers. People trust the branding.”