by HN Wake
She liked his thinking. “Anything is possible.”
“Like an army of informants. If we can lift the curtain up, to see what the banks are funding, maybe we can get them to change their ways.”
“It’s definitely the future. Keeping the pressure on them and keeping them transparent—that’s the key.” She looked around the bar. “I can’t say I will be able to help you all the time, but I will certainly try.”
“Because of your other bosses?
She glanced sideways at him.
“I mean, your real bosses,” he said. “Wherever they may be, DC or whatever.”
She nodded.
He appeared concerned for her. “Are you sorted with all that now?”
She shrugged.
“The guy in the photo?” he asked. “Are you going to go find him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where he is?”
“I have a pretty good idea.” She twisted the champagne flute in her fingers.
He was watching her closely. “What are you going to say to him?”
“That he disappointed me. That his actions were beyond unethical.”
“Yeah, but in a weird way, his actions killed the Alghaba deal.”
And so much more, she thought. “True.”
“Maybe that’s what he intended.”
“I’m absolutely sure it’s not.” She was emphatic.
“I was just giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
“He doesn’t deserve it.”
“Mac?” He eyed her. “Do your bosses in DC know about me?”
“No.”
“Because I’m not at risk or anything? From them? They’re not coming after me, right?”
“You watch too many movies.”
“Azly? He’s okay, right?”
She was about to tell him that of course Azly wasn’t in danger. But she held her tongue. Everything she had known about the Agency and her role in it had been turned upside down in the last week. She didn’t trust herself to know the answer to that question. Her face took on a determined look. “I’ll make sure it’s okay. After tonight, I’ll make sure Azly is safe.”
“Thank you,” he said. “You’re not bad, Mac Ambrose. I initially wondered—”
She shot him a warning glance, tempered with a grin.
“—but I’ve come to realize, you’re alright.”
“I’m okay,” she said.
“The Tibetans say, ‘The highest art is the art of living an ordinary life in an extraordinary manner.’ I’m pretty sure you’re extraordinary.”
“I’m pretty ordinary. I’m pretty boring.” She set her glass down, ending the conversation. “It’s probably best to cut ties for now. I wouldn’t want anyone tracing this back to you.”
“Makes sense,” he agreed.
She stood.
Johnson said, “If you ever need me, I’m here.”
“You’re not bad either, Johnson Koh.”
“I bet you didn’t think that initially,” he said with a gleam in his eye.
She shook her head, laughed. “Take care of yourself.”
He raised his glass. “See you around.”
51
Hong Kong
Mac let herself into her dark, silent apartment. She kicked off her shoes, padded back into the bedroom, and put on jeans and a sweater.
In the kitchen, she opened the cabinet and pulled out the Kavalan Solist Vinho Barrique whiskey and a glass. The top twisted off the whiskey easily and she poured out a large amount on ice and added a splash of water.
She sat on the end of her couch and took the first sip. The dark liquid hit her throat and burned through her chest. Out onto Conduit Road there was no impressive skyline, no cloud-like view of the harbor.
She opened her laptop and lit a cigarette. The screen lit up with the picture of the Asian woman and young girl—the photo from Josh’s safe house. The two were sitting on a beach. It was a white, sandy beach with heavy waves breaking out on the far horizon. The craggy outcrops of a cliff sat in front of a soaring mountain range lushly covered in green jungle.
She zoomed on a spot on a wave, recognized a surfer catching a tunnel.
Her finger clicked over to another photo from Josh’s safe house. This one was a photo she had snapped quickly in the maid’s porch off the kitchen. Above the washing machine, attached to the ceiling, were two large, padded hooks set apart from each other by three feet. Now she knew: it was the perfect storage for a surfboard.
A missing surfboard. Josh had taken his surfboard. After Miri. After the op.
She did an internet search for Maluk. Images of a beach town popped up on her screen. Maluk Beach was an Indonesian town that sat idyllically along a white beach against a mountain range. She clicked on various perspectives of the same town and the mountains until she found the craggy outcrops.
Josh Halloway was off the grid in Maluk Beach.
She logged into the chat room and found that 89 had left a message. “To answer your question, it was Odom that fired the analyst.” Her heart stopped. “Also, I’ve found something I have come to believe you should know. I’m putting in separate encryption. Under the flower pot.” He had added a link to a separate web page and an intricate password.
Odom. Frank Odom.
The blood pumped in her ears as she clicked on the link to a website dominated by a photograph of a woman on a New York City corner. It was a black and white photo, from the sixties. On a stoop next to the woman was a flowerpot.
Mac clicked on the flowerpot and was prompted for a password. She typed it in. A file automatically downloaded to her laptop. On the site, the black and white photo disappeared.
She opened the file.
It was a State Department cable dated over two months earlier.
The air caught in her lungs. She read it slowly, carefully, taking in every word.
FM: AMCONSUL HONG KONG
TO: SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 8097
INFO:ODOM/CIA WASHDC
DATE:
CLASSIFICATION: S E C R E T
CLASSIFIED BY: Consul General HK
1. Summary: During private meeting Consul General of Hong Kong (H. Busby) and Regional CEO of Legion Bank (S. Fairbanks) received an update on Borneo situation. End Summary
2. Background: Palm oil is produced almost exclusively in Malaysia and Indonesia. This unusual concentration of production increases volatility in agricultural trade markets and vulnerability to shocks in financial markets. Malaysia is considered a USG critical node. Changes in Chinese domestic consumption that impact this critical node can cause financial system shocks.
3. Policy Agreement: For national security reasons, USG must ensure a) stability of Malaysian timber/palm industry and b) access by US banks to Malaysian timber/palm industry. Chinese banks cannot be allowed to invest in Malaysian timber/palm industry.
4. Meeting notes:
A) Consul General of Hong Kong (H. Busby) continued cooperation with Legion Bank (S. Fairbanks) to ensure continued support of Malaysian timber industry.
B) Received briefing from J. Halloway.
C) Alghaba is key Legion Bank client.
D) Alghaba has identified potential incursion from an activist in Miri.
E) Alghaba has threatened to take action against activist.
F) On behalf of Legion, J. Halloway will follow activist.
5. Additional considerations. A fail-safe plan should be put into place. The operation cannot fail.
6. Approved action: J. Halloway has confirmed approval from CIA WASHDC (F. Odom) to take all necessary action to ensure continued Alghaba production and Legion banking business.
7. Approved action: J. Halloway has confirmed approval from CIA WASHDC (F. Odom) to ensure a fail-safe plan is initiated. Fail-safe plan involves putting into play a second Agency operative (M. Ambrose.)
Her stomach turned to acid. Her temples thumped. In a daze she leaned back against the sofa.
The cable confirme
d her suspicion that Odom was involved: the bank and the Agency had worked closely together on the Alghaba deal. The cable also laid bare an item she had not considered: Frank Odom, Josh Halloway, and Stuart Fairbanks had used her as a fail-safe plan.
The blood in her veins slowed.
From the beginning, they had played her.
Cold, clammy tentacles snaked through her skin.
Stuart Fairbanks and Frank Odom had played her.
Her heart constricted, a vise in her chest.
Josh had played her.
Her extremities began to chill.
How could she not have seen this coming? What was wrong with her?
She closed the laptop, grasped the pack of cigarettes and the ashtray, and threw a cushion on the floor. Gingerly, she slid off the couch onto the hard, cold wood.
When she laid herself down, she did it tenderly, resting her head on the cushion.
Her mother’s voice whispered in the dark, soft and insidious against her ear. ‘Keep up, Mac, I don’t have time for your slowness today…You are less than we expected.’
The rain pelted the window as the eye of the typhoon passed over Hong Kong and the storm returned.
Part Five: Resolution
Maier isn’t invisible, except to us. She was looking at herself all along.
- Rose Lichter-Marck
52
Pentagon City, VA
They had agreed to meet in a chain restaurant in the Pentagon City mall. Joyce got there early and picked a booth by a window that opened up to the mall’s atrium. The red Naugahyde felt sticky against her bare legs.
She still felt dazed from the firing. She hadn’t figured out what she was going to do, only that she was going to have to do something. She stared out into the mall. She thought, how are people just walking around in a big ugly mall when there are terrorists out there gunning for us, when there are thousands of people like me trying to catch them, and I just got fired because I was digging into a lead? How is all this possible?
Isaac stepped in to the restaurant, saw her, and smiled a crooked, insecure but happy smile. She instantly felt better. The internal barometer spiked to a fifty-three percent.
She stood when he arrived and threw her arms around him. She felt instantly better. Maybe a sixty-seven percent.
Once they settled into the booth, she asked, “You okay getting away?”
“Yeah, but I should get back soonish. How are you doing?”
“I’m okay, kinda out of it. The world still seems a bit off kilter.”
He reached out and took her hand. “You’re going to be fine. You’re smart as a whip and young. This too will pass and soon enough you’ll land a job. This is DC. There are jobs for people like you all over. The Hill, think tanks. You’ll be fine.”
His speech made her feel better. “What did you find out?” she asked.
Isaac told her what he’d discovered. When he finished, he sat back, shaking his head. Their food arrived and they waited for the waiter to go away.
She summarized, “So let me get this straight. Josh Halloway and the Agency were working with Legion Bank to keep a client’s nefarious actions undercover.”
“Yes.”
“I mean how insane is that? The C-I-A is working in tandem with a big bank to keep the Chinese out of certain markets. That’s insane. Are they even allowed to do that?”
“I don’t know. But they’re doing it.”
She continued the story, “So then Halloway gets a two million dollar pay out from Legion and disappears with it. Sounds like his ticket out of the game.”
“Exactly.”
“And then Odom sends in whoever your deep throat is, this 42?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know 42 again?”
He smiled, “Funny enough, Halloway introduced me to him.”
“So 42—what’s his name?”
Isaac shook his head. “I actually don’t know who 42 is. Halloway introduced us using our code names.”
“Code names?” she asked incredulously.
“Yeah,” he laughed. “I’m 89. 42 is well, 42”
“That’s freaking hilarious. All spy shit.”
He nodded enthusiastically.
“Okay,” she continued. “So Odom sends 42 in to find Halloway. And now we think 42 has also put all this together. The connection between the bank, a palm oil client, and the CIA.”
Isaac kept nodding. “Yes. 42 knows it all now.”
“So, Frank Odom is now in the shit because Halloway has disappeared.” A smile crept across her face.
“Yes.”
She couldn’t help but feel vindicated. She looked at him sheepishly, “I can’t deny…that the image of Odom in the shits is sounding nice to me right about now.”
He grinned at her. “Totally.”
They both ate their fries with smug satisfaction.
“But now we don’t know what 42 is going to do,” she said.
“Correct.” He chomped a fry. “But I will tell you this. 42 ain’t no dummy.”
“Good. Good. I want 42 to deep-fry Odom.”
He looked up at her, his eyes a combination of deviousness and the bravado of a new crush. “Maybe we can help that.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying, maybe we can help put Odom deeper in the shit,” he said.
Ninety-one percent.
They chomped more fries, alternately looking at each other and gazing in the distance as they both brainstormed ways to screw Odom.
She quickly looked up. “I got it.”
He smiled broadly. “Tell me, Einstein.”
One hundred percent.
53
Langley, VA
CIA Director of Asia, Arnie Dunne glanced up with a grim look. It was a face that said ‘you are not in my good graces.’ Odom had seen it before and he knew what to do. He stepped in front of the big desk, held his hands together in front of his waist, and waited. It didn’t take long.
Dunne said, “I just got off the phone with Legion’s CEO in New York. It appears their people in Hong Kong have decided not to pursue the Alghaba deal.”
The air was sucked out of Odom’s chest.
“The conversation was cryptic but the upshot was that the tree huggers were coming after the bank. Some kind of concerted campaign. He actually used the word onslaught. They felt it wasn’t worth the risk to their reputation.”
Odom couldn’t speak.
“You can imagine what this will do to our strategy team. They’ll need to rethink the palm oil strategy immediately.” He shook his head to himself. “Goddammit. That’s two years of work down the toilet.” He looked up, anger flaring. “Can I assume that since I did not hear this from you this morning, you had no idea about this?”
Odom shook his head.
“Well, what a stroke of genius it was to embed an operative like Mac in with the bank. So glad to know that she keeps her handler abreast of critical, significant, worthy, invaluable, current news, eh?”
Odom began to speak but Dunne held up his hand.
“This is what I think,” Dunne ranted. “I think you cocked up on Halloway. I think you’ve lost him for good. He’s in the wind. I think you were so clumsy you pissed on Mac and made her angry. I think Mac knew about the activists’ campaign—she was out in the stinking jungle with them so she must have known something—and she decided not to tell you.”
Odom stared blankly. He could not refute this.
“Which is only salt in a wound that was splayed open to sunlight this morning.”
Odom startled. “Excuse me?”
Dunne stood and handed him a single piece of paper that appeared to have been folded in three, as if to fit in a letter sized envelope.
Odom read it quickly. It was the cable regarding the Hong Kong meeting between Josh Halloway, the Legion’s CEO Stuart Fairbanks, and Heath Busby. He swallowed with difficulty then looked up.
Dunne’s tone was low. “That was
in my mail slot at my fucking front door this morning when I let the dog out.”
Odom swallowed again. His brow dampened.
“I have been the director of this agency for five years now. That is longer than most directors. I have withstood scandals that have brought down weaker men than I. I have served two presidents. I am in the good favor of the current president. God is looking down on me. I am pained to say I have lost field operatives and their deaths weigh on me every day. I have been through a painful and expensive divorce. I have seen two sons off to college and one off to war.”
Odom swallowed.
“Until this morning, I could have said I have never been handed a Top Secret document outlining a top priority relationship that has remained tightly controlled and only known by a select few people in this building and in the rarified halls of Wall Street. Until this morning at exactly 6 a.m., I could have said that this top priority, top secret relationship was secret. But this morning, at exactly 6 a.m. when I let out my fucking dog, I could no longer say that relationship was secret any more.”
Odom swallowed again, blinked.
Dunns’s voice was rising. “Do you have any idea who would have had the balls to do such a thing? To have access to this cable at all? To have the nuts to print it out? To have the maniacally large cajones to then slip this copy through my fucking front door?”
The hand of Dunne’s secretary closed around the doorknob, and silently closed the office door.
Odom slowly shook his head.
Dunne’s voice lowered. “So you have no idea how this got out of this building and into my front door?”
Odom finally spoke. “No, sir. I have no idea.”
Dunne looked up at the ceiling, rubbed his bottom lip as if removing the spittle from a screaming bout. “Do you see whose name is the top addressee there—the name inside this Agency?”