Pushing Brilliance

by Tim Tigner

If inclined, he could slash through all the red tape surrounding my unusual arrival and brazen request. The identity verification. The credibility assessment. The escalation to a primary decision maker. If inclined.

  Knowing he’d have an appreciation for human intelligence hot from the field, I opened with, “I’ve got ears-only intel for Ambassador Jamison. Information of a hyper-critical nature.”

  Mac studied me in silence for a good three seconds. “What about my boss, the Moscow Station Chief?”

  I’d thought about that while Erik was dodging telephone wires on our flight in. “My information is diplomatically inflammatory and extremely sensitive. I think that should be Jamison’s call.”

  Mac waved off the Marines. “Come with me.”

  I followed him through an anonymous federal corridor to a room with a thick door, no windows, and a round table suitable for six. He motioned for me to take a seat, but remained standing by the door. This wasn’t the occasion to catch up or relive old times, so he remained silent.

  I spun a chair around so I could sit while facing him. “The other two, the Russian man and woman who arrived by ambulance. They’re on our side.”

  Mac acknowledged with a single nod. “They’re comfortable in another room. What about the pilot?”

  “I can’t say. He flew me here at the point of my gun. His boss was evil incarnate, but as far as I know Erik was just hired help.”

  “Good to know.”

  Ambassador Jamison entered, dressed in jeans and a Naval Academy sweatshirt. The job of US Ambassador to the Russian Federation was the pinnacle post in the diplomatic corps. It didn’t go to top contributors or friends of the president, like some island nations and minor European states. It was assigned based solely on merit. Jamison was nearing seventy, but word was that his mind was sharp as ever, and he looked amazingly fit.

  As Mac closed the door behind him, Jamison took a seat. He studied my frazzled face for a silent second before speaking. “Tell me, Mr. Achilles. What’s all the fuss about?”

  Chapter 120

  Two Vials

  JAMISON AND I rocketed across the Russian countryside in his ambassadorial limo, blue lights flashing on the roof, American flag flapping on the hood, sirens silent. They would have been superfluous. The ambassador had requested a police escort, and the mayor of Moscow had accommodated. With the US President in town, this was no time for petty power plays.

  We were sixty-five kilometers from the Kremlin when the limo roared through gates that armed guards closed behind us in haste. Sixty-six kilometers by the time we pulled up to the main entrance of President Korovin’s hunting dacha.

  I looked over at the ambassador. He appeared nervous. We’d spent one hour at the embassy debating tactics, and another perfecting the plan during the drive. Two hours wasn’t a lot, given the diplomatic minefield we’d be navigating. Maximizing the odds of President Silver surviving while minimizing the odds of instigating a war required a tightrope balancing act.

  I voiced a final word of encouragement. “Ninety-nine-point-eight percent is pretty good. Nothing’s ever a hundred.”

  He nodded, but his expression didn’t change. “Beyond that door, two rivals are having breakfast. Both have nuclear briefcases. I pray we’re right.”

  Stepping from the limo to the snap of an enormous presidential security service officer’s salute, I experienced a first. I cringed at the sight of an American flag.

  “Ambassador Jamison, Mister Achilles, if you’ll follow me please.” Without another word, the officer did an about-face and led us through double doors held open by silent soldiers. Our guides’ shoulders were so broad, I wondered if he’d have to twist to pass cleanly through a normal door. I wasn’t sure how nimble that made him, but his physique certainly was intimidating. To Korovin’s further credit, I’d never seen a better body shield.

  We paused in the vestibule, ostensibly for our guide to receive instructions through his earpiece, but almost certainly for us to be scanned. You couldn’t pat down diplomats without raising eyebrows, but you could secretly subject them to millimeter wave scans that produced detailed 3D images.

  The pause gave us a moment to look around.

  I’d never been to Naval Support Facility Thurmont, better known as Camp David, but I understood that the US President’s weekend retreat was essentially a compound of high-end log cabins and lodges. By contrast, the Russian President’s was more like the home of a German king. Marble floors, arched plaster ceilings ornament with gold filigree, and large oil paintings of men with muskets and dead animals.

  Satisfied, for one reason or another, Shoulders resumed walking. We wound our way to a dining room large enough to house an orchestra, and ornate enough to host a black-tie dinner. A left turn through an archway in the corner took us to a private dining room with a bay window that hinted at first light. Seated before it, dressed not in tuxedos but rather in hunting garb, were two of the world’s most famous faces.

  We stopped and waited to be acknowledged.

  President Silver put down his coffee cup and turned our way. “Good morning, Ambassador.”

  “Good morning, Mister President. President Korovin. Pardon the intrusion at this early hour. We understood that your plan was to be in the hunting blind at dawn, and we needed to catch you first.”

  “Well then, you’re just in time,” Silver said.

  “Mister Achilles needs a word in private, if you don’t mind, Mister President. This will only take a minute.”

  Silver turned back to Korovin. “If you’ll pardon me, Vladimir, apparently I need a minute.”

  Korovin inclined his head with no change of expression. “But of course.”

  Silver stood and Shoulders led us toward the back of the room while Ambassador Jamison remained with President Korovin. The guard paused beside a doorway and motioned for us to enter the sitting room beyond.

  We did.

  Shoulders shut the door behind us.

  Two hundred days had passed since my family had been murdered. Fifteen days since a dedicated master sergeant had broken me out of jail. Nine days since Katya and I had gone undercover at a dead man’s party. And four hours since I’d killed the man who was ultimately behind it all. Now I was twenty meters from the most powerful man in the world, and alone with his intended victim, the President of the United States.

  President Silver looked older than on TV, but somehow more charismatic and intelligent. His thick head of hair befit his surname, and his deep blue eyes had a magnetism I knew I’d never forget. “Please allow me to see if that’s a bathroom,” I said, heading for a door a few steps from the one we’d entered.

  It was.

  I flipped on the light.

  “If you’d come this way, Mister President.”

  While Silver complied, I turned on both faucets and motioned for him to close the door. To his credit, Silver went along without question. I supposed that handlers and security practices were among the many things to which presidents are forced to become accustomed.

  “I’m sure you’ve got one hell of a story for me, Mister Achilles?”

  I removed two vials of insect repellant from my breast pocket. “I do. While I relay it, would you kindly remove your clothes.”

  Chapter 121

  Epic Choices

  I STEPPED OFF the chartered jet into the balmy Santa Barbara air at eight o’clock, Tuesday morning.

  I was a full day late.

  My bail was forfeit.

  I couldn’t explain my tardiness. Not to Casey. Not to ADA Kilpatrick. Not to Judge Hallows. Long ago I’d sworn to keep my nation’s secrets — regardless of how inconvenient. I suppose I could have asked President Silver for a favor. But that would have felt like putting a price on what I’d done. Besides, I didn’t need the money — not now that I was done with legal fees.

  As I walked out of the courtroom later that morning, a free man on the broad marble steps with a beautiful woman by his side, I heard a familiar voice. “I owe y
ou an apology.”

  Katya and I turned to see a petite, ship-shape form approaching from a few paces behind. “Detective Flurry. How nice to see you where the sun is shining.”

  “I swallowed their bait,” she said. “Hook, line, and sinker. I’d hoped I was better than that.”

  “Neither of us had a clue what we were up against.”

  “But you figured it out.”

  “Not for six months. And even then, I had to go to extremes.”

  Flurry half smiled, then got down to business. “I know how they did it. But I don’t know why. Care to clue me in?”

  “Professional curiosity?”

  “You could call it that.”

  “They had a big secret to keep.” I turned back around, put my arm around Katya’s waist, and resumed walking down those broad marble steps.

  “What about Rita?” Katya asked. “Will she be going to jail?”

  “No. That would require a trial, and we can’t have that. She’s a victim of Brillyanc herself. She’ll live in fear for the rest of her life. That’s punishment enough for someone who didn’t know what she was really doing.”

  “You’re just being nice because she’s pretty.”

  Perhaps I was. Perhaps I was just sick of negativity.

  “Where to?” Katya asked, as we closed the doors of her Ford. Just two words, but a gigantic question. She knew it. I knew it. It had been hanging out there since that day she walked into the visitation room at the Santa Barbara County Jail. Now that those bars were forever behind me, a decision was finally due.

  “When I left government service a year and a month ago, it was because I was disillusioned with the bureaucratic process that’s baked in. I wanted to have right and wrong guide my life, not politicians. The question I couldn’t answer was what to do next. Politics is the way of the world, after all. Whether it’s the government or the private sector, if you have a boss, he’s going to be looking for personal gain.” I shook my head at the memory of my last boss and our final confrontation in his corner office at Langley.

  “I spent a year throwing myself against rock faces and wandering about the corners of Europe, trying to find an answer. Then I spent six months in jail, learning to count my blessings.”

  I turned to face Katya, whose attention was locked on me so intently that I felt I should remind her to breathe. “The last two weeks were the toughest of my life. They were also the most productive. We altered history, Katya. Together we saved hundreds if not thousands of lives. We rid the world of a scourge. Wielded justice where it was overdue. No bosses. No rules. Just you and me and boundless determination. That’s what I want to do. For the rest of my life.”

  Katya crossed her arms. “Like your namesake, the original Achilles. You’ve made the epic choice.”

  I said nothing.

  “But how? How do you — I don’t even know how to phrase it — identify the dirty work that needs doing? The Barsukovs and Vondreesens are hidden beneath cloaks and shadows. They’re few … and far between.”

  I took her hands. “I’m not so sure about few. But I fear you’re right regarding far-between.”

  Katya’s eyes darted back and forth between my face and our hands. “But I work at a University. I’m not free to wander about in search of adventure.”

  “I know. And it’s eating me up.”

  Chapter 122

  From Time to Time

  THE SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE of Senator Colleen Collins was elegant, but not grand. It befit a woman who was both distinguished and of-the-people. The sky-blue carpet she’d selected was appropriately uplifting, and it had the added benefit of bringing out her eyes, eyes that were smiling at me.

  She motioned me to a cream-colored armchair that looked great but was probably a bear to maintain. With that voice that should be singing jazz, she said, “Thank you for coming.”

  “It’s a pleasure, if an unexpected one. I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

  “Really? It was inevitable.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Allow me to enlighten you, Mister Achilles. Secrets are like walls. They have people on both sides. They try to keep you out, but once you’re in, you’re in. You’ve scaled a couple of tall walls of late. That puts you in rarefied air, with some pretty lofty company.”

  “A couple of walls?”

  “I chair the Senate Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Technologies, and in that role, I have regular contact with the National Security Committee. President Silver told me what you did.”

  I hadn’t told the president the full story there in the bathroom. Ambassador Jamison and I had agreed that it could be diplomatically dangerous to give Silver news of such a vile, personal attack right before he spent the morning with the man who had plotted his genetically engineered demise. Not while they were both just an arm’s reach from nuclear triggers. So I’d told him part of the truth. Enough to make him sufficiently worried about the dangers of insect bites to be extremely thorough in his bug spray application. “How is the president?”

  “He’s still pretty shaken. Theory is one thing, but having someone actually create a personalized smart bomb with your name on it is quite another.”

  “I can only imagine.”

  “It goes without saying that he’s deeply grateful for what you did. He told me he’s comforted to know that you’re out there.” She paused, her face fraught with emotion. “That wasn’t just a political bromide. He really meant it. He went on to explain that despite having a dozen forces out there working to protect him and our nation, from the Secret Service to the FBI to the United States Marines, there are still gaps. Gaps that no federal force could ever fill, because they’re too small, and we’re too big and bureaucratic.”

  She shrugged. “Of course he could never admit any of this publicly. Never even hint at it. But I could, I can, with you. Because you’re already on our side of the wall.”

  Climbing has its privileges.

  “Silver suggested that on occasion he might need a force of one. And that on such occasion, he might want to call on you, through me, to help out. He wanted to know if you’d be willing? As would I.”

  At that moment, I wished I had a shot of Brillyanc to help process the load Senator Collins had thrown at me. Not really, but that got me thinking. “How’s the cleanup going? The elimination of Brillyanc?”

  “Grigori Barsukov’s penchant for secrecy made that a relatively simple task. Very few people knew the formula, and we were able to identify and neutralize all of them — one way or another. Federal forces are excellent for that. We’ve also put flags in place that will alert the FDA if someone is purchasing the raw materials in suspicious proportions.”

  “What about the users?”

  “They’ve all been discreetly informed of their situation.” Collins paused, and I noted that she was playing nervously with the hem of her jacket. “I see by your eyes that you’re thinking about my situation. In short, I got lucky. Good genes and a California diet overflowing with antioxidants. Looks like I dodged a bullet. But of course I’ll be monitoring my mental health as regularly as my blood pressure. That will be a monthly reminder of how close we came to a dangerous fork in history’s path, not that I’ll need one. Every time I forget something for the rest of my life I’ll probably be holding my breath.”

  “And Daniels?”

  “The jury is still out on the VP. And by jury, I mean his medical advisors. He’ll be taking monthly tests as well. Meanwhile, he’s started playing one of those computer games specially designed to keep an aging brain sharp, and he’s dining on fruit and vegetable smoothies three times a day.”

  I wondered if there had been a heated debate in the White House Situation Room involving everyone from political strategists to constitutional scholars to medical and security advisors, or if the discussion had been limited to a quiet three-way between Silver, Daniels, and Collins in the president’s study.

  I was enjoying this backstage pass to history in the
making, and longed to know more, but didn’t press. That feeling gave me the only answer that really mattered.

  I wanted to spend more time behind the curtain.

  “So what do you think, Achilles? Can I call on you, from time to time, at the behest of a grateful president?”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Dear Reader,

  THANK YOU for reading Pushing Brilliance! They say writing novels is easy, you just sit in front of the keyboard until blood comes out of your forehead. I know that reading them takes devotion too, and I sincerely thank you for yours.

  If you have comments or suggestions, I welcome them. You will reach me and receive a personal reply at tim@timtigner.com.

  Authors rely on the kindness of strangers to thrive. If you enjoyed Pushing Brilliance, PLEASE leave a review on Amazon. Your kind words will help keep the blood flowing.

  Thanks again. All my best,

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  NOTES ON PUSHING BRILLIANCE

  In the last words of this novel, Achilles faces the toughest decision of his life. Does he follow his passion, or follow his heart? It’s eating him up. I didn’t answer it here because to do so would not have been genuine. Neither Achilles nor I can answer it until the dust settles and he sees what comes next.

  But I do know that Achilles and Katya will both be back in The Lies of Spies. Kindly check my website for updates, or better yet sign up for my New Release Newsletter, and get a free ebook as well as those details.

  If you’re skeptical about Achilles’ climbing feats, check out this free-solo compilation or this free-soloing climb. As for Achilles’ and Grigori’s lack of acrophobia, visit mustang-wanted.com. Mind-blowing.

  For more information on the threat faced by bioengineered weapons, read “Hacking the President’s DNA,” published in the November 2012 issue of The Atlantic.

  Brillyanc is a fictitious product, but the link between oxidative stress and cognitive function is well established. For more information, this Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology article, and this The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition article, are a good start.