Kill Switch

by James Phelan

  Any red flag there and you would be in for closer scrutiny, secondary screening. Walker could see the door to those rooms, clearly marked, as they shepherded him away. Referral to secondary screening could occur for concrete reasons, such as a watch-list match or discovery of contraband, because of random selection, or because the inspector suspects that something about the traveler is not right. Behavior, dress and demeanor also factor into an inspector’s decision . . .

  LAX is a major international airport, but Walker was in terminal six, Alaskan Air. Officials at US airports on average send about one in thirty foreign tourists and business travelers to secondary screening, although particular airports may impose higher percentages for certain groups. But he was traveling within the country, so he didn’t have to declare any purpose for flying, he didn’t have to pass any kind of immigration.

  He knew how to avoid suspicion and close scrutiny because he had helped craft that version of the CIA’s training manual on how to travel. He knew that and yet here he was . . .

  Part of him wondered how quickly word got filtered through systems about watch lists; the kind of list maintained by security services that can also include names of confirmed or suspected intelligence officers, as well as people under surveillance or suspicion by security agencies.

  Walker had been on such a watch list run by the Department of Homeland Security and Interpol until barely a month ago. A slight misunderstanding, it had eventually been ruled. He’d been on plenty of lists run by other nations, allies and others. The fact was, every nation on earth tried to keep tabs on each other’s spies. He’d spent more than a year on the US watch list, when he’d been forced to go off the grid and work solo to bring down corruption within the CIA, and it had forced him to avoid major transportation hubs and all legitimate airports.

  He had since been cleared, though, his records cleaned up by the White House. But maybe these guys hadn’t got word. Maybe their databases flagged watch-list people for a set period of time in case there was a stuff-up and a terrorist was let through. Better to err on the side of caution.

  So, while this shouldn’t be about his name ringing any alarm bells, he was prepared for that to be the case.

  Maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe they were getting a message to him, from Bill McCorkell, about the Alaska op.

  No. This was not a message from McCorkell—he’d use a plain-clothed FBI agent from the LA Field Office.

  This was something else.

  Random selection? Not with the intent these officers were showing.

  No. This was a problem.

  He had no time for problems, but there was little chance of evasion now that he’d passed security. A dash for an exit, triggering a fire alarm, blending in with the masses . . .

  No. He had to stay on mission. Which meant he had to bluff and lie his way out of whatever was coming.

  Walker knew it the second he saw the glance between the TSA officers. It was brief, but it was definitely a look. He now had a big problem. Because he was on no watch list, and he knew how to travel. He knew TSA procedures. There was no reason for them to take him to secondary screening.

  The ticket was booked via McCorkell’s office. The national security expert’s involvement would not raise concerns in internal travel within the United States.

  As he was led toward the secondary-screening rooms, Walker ran through what he had on him. A backpack. No firearms, nothing that triggered security, though he had to pass through the scanner twice but there was nothing unusual about that. His pack held a phone charger, two sets of clothes, toothbrush and shaving kit. No computer, nothing for them to spend hours pulling apart.

  His cell phone was near new, a pre-paid on which he could contact McCorkell, and be contacted. That’s all he’d planned to use it for. That’s who he’d need to call, once given the chance to make a phone call.

  The combination of procedures available in secondary screening, a stressful experience for any traveler, may pose a significant strain on an operational traveler’s ability to maintain cover . . . Not Walker. He could get out of anything these guys could dish out—but he couldn’t afford to miss the next flight, or the one after.

  This was a set-up. But to what end? Ordered by whom?

  Ahead of him was a corridor. White walls and ceiling, gray tiled floor.

  A TSA officer was before him, the other after. The one in front had Walker’s pack over his shoulder and still kept a hand on his Glock.

  They walked in silence, past the secondary-screening rooms. They then passed storage rooms and change rooms and doors and corridors that led to building services and plant rooms. Finally they got to a door that opened up to a staircase that led outside, onto the tarmac. A car was waiting; an airport-labeled Jeep.

  Walker was shoved into the back seat and pushed across. The taser man climbed in next to him and pulled a black sack over Walker’s head. His world went dark, but not just because of the material—the hypodermic needle that entered his neck had injected etorphine. He was out.

  4

  The hood was pulled off at the same time as a needle entered his arm.

  Walker blinked away darkness and sucked in air. He was seated, cuffed to a chair, his arms behind his back. His head rolled about as he looked around, his equilibrium slowly returning as the drugs wore off, vertigo being a side effect of the cocktail of barbiturates. As his head tilted to the side it felt heavy, like a hundred-pound kettle bell atop his neck; his brain couldn’t make sense of it and his neck muscles couldn’t fight it, it was pulling him down and down, round and around, but he didn’t fall over, he didn’t tip, because his chair was bolted to the floor. His eyes could not find focus. He blinked. Wondered how he got here, but the concept of here and there was too abstract. For now it was all about survival. Of regaining his faculties. Of fading into the now. He closed his eyes and let the spinning and tugging just happen. There was nothing he could do about that, but he focused. The question Where am I? could not be answered, not like this, not now. There was a precursor to that question, and he felt that the answer to it was within grasp, if he could just manage to focus.

  How did I get here . . .

  •

  Five past ten am Pacific Standard Time was five past one pm Eastern Standard Time.

  An executive secretary, a second lieutenant in the Air Force, rapped his knuckles on his boss’s door and entered. It was the first time he’d had to barge in quickly and to the point, and he didn’t relish it. He was the General’s fifth secretary in as many months. Her temper was legendary. But this couldn’t wait.

  “Ma’am, you’ve gotta watch,” the executive secretary said. He turned the TV on. “It’s on all news channels, live feed.”

  General Susan Christie, US Army, head of US Cyber Command, looked up from her laptop. Her hair was a neat crop of silver-flecked red, and she had the poise of someone who always worked hard to keep fit and capable.

  The television showed a man in an orange jumpsuit. The tagline was “Breaking news—live.”

  Christie said, “Where is this?”

  “No idea, ma’am.”

  “Who is it?” Christie asked. She leaned forward, watching, listening as her aide turned up the volume. “Have they identified him?”

  He said, “Just listen, ma’am.”

  5

  Through the fog of the drugs and vertigo, two things were now clear to Walker: he had been rendered some place, and it was some place from which he would not readily be liberated. Whatever was coming, it would be up to him to find a way out of it, at any cost. He closed his eyes and focused.

  More correctly, it was extraordinary rendition.

  Rendition meant he had been taken from one location to another. Extraordinary rendition was what happened when the CIA wanted you transferred to somewhere with fewer laws concerning how a prisoner could be treated. Syria and Egypt used to be popular spots. As an old Agency friend would often say, if you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria; if you want
them to disappear—permanently—you send them to Egypt.

  So, this rendition meant a couple of things. With each passing minute, Walker’s vertigo was abating. Some nausea remained around the edges but he’d never been one to give in to that, no matter the circumstance.

  Rendition. From LAX to here . . . by TSA officers.

  No, by guys posing as TSA officers.

  The cream of the TSA. Fit, strong, muscles bulging out clean pressed uniforms.

  CIA? Guys like those he used to train.

  Why? There was no reason. He was on the outer but on good terms with the Agency. They would take him back in a heartbeat, give him a choice of postings. He could be deputy director of operations if he wanted to, driving the operatives in the National Clandestine Service, the branch that did all the hands-on spy stuff.

  No. They were not CIA. Ex-CIA.

  Walker fought to keep his head steady, the vertigo tug drawing him to the left, as though his head were ten times its usual weight.

  Unless . . . they had been compromised. They may think they’re on a legitimate rendition. Or had their orders been compromised? Activated by their superior, but masked through someone else.

  Time on the outer had honed Walker’s cynicism toward what a country owed you when you had bled so much for it. He well knew to look at all the possibilities, to whittle them down to those most likely. He’d been burned by the Agency before. It was easy enough to get orders through to guys like these: compromise someone above them; use leverage—the kind of leverage that would tear a family apart, destroy lives—to get them to place the rendition order; get the guys down the chain to carry it out without question. Walker knew all about it because aside from being wary of it happening inside his old organization, he’d been on the other side. He’d used all kinds of leverage against foreign nationals to get the information deemed in the best interests of the United States.

  Okay. So, either two serving or two ex-CIA operatives had rendered him. They knew the protocols, the channels, the aircraft and crews to use to make sure that it stayed secret—the days of reporters and Congress being able to track aircraft IDs back to dummy CIA corporations were long gone, thanks to far too many stuff-ups—the downing of a CIA rendition aircraft in 2007 carrying seven tons of cocaine into Mexico had been the final nail in the coffin. Since then, total secrecy had been obtained. Agency aircraft now either ran counterfeit IDs on flight numbers or were entered into logs doctored after the fact.

  So, these two were either a legit op, or doing their own thing on the side for an extra pay check. A legit op he could talk his way out of, but guys in it for cash could only be stopped by brute force. And these operators were clearly ex-Special Forces, and when those guys encountered hand-to-hand combat, it was for keeps.

  Walker knew he’d need to wait until his faculties fully returned, and that he’d need to make the most of every tiny opportunity. Fight or flight. Waiting.

  The vertigo stopped. Walker opened his eyes. His world was steady. Color had returned. Sounds. Smells. Taste. Touch. He flexed his fingers, his arms. Felt the blood pumping in his heart. Listened to his rhythmic breathing. In and out. Calm. Steady. Ready.

  Go time.

  He looked around. The room was dark but for arrows of bright light spilling through gaps in boarded-up windows. His vision was still blurred. He couldn’t make out anyone in the room, but he felt a presence: the two guys were behind him.

  And they could see that he was now alert.

  That much was clear because the cuffs were undone. A knife was used to cut through two sets of cable ties.

  Walker let his arms drop to his sides and paused. The contact to his wrists was unexpected; it wasn’t the action of someone on a legit CIA op—they would have kept him secure until he was maneuvered into whatever position was next: interrogation, or water-boarding, or to a cell. He rubbed his wrists and settled a little in the chair, hands on his thighs. Relaxed his shoulders. Felt his resting heart-rate settle close to normal, maybe ten percent over.

  The vestibular system in his inner ear was still disrupted in its solution from the nerve agent buzzing through him, the antidote chasing it away, whispers of disturbance ghosting through him. His senses checked in with what he could take in. The room smelled damp. He felt beads of sweat running down his neck. It was warm, more humid than LA had been that morning. His watch was gone—he had no way of telling how long he’d been out. His shoes were gone too. And his belt, his phone and his wallet. He breathed through the last remnants of the sedative, and settled, feeling almost normal.

  Almost, but angry. Pissed. Furious. Not an ounce of fear—it was all blind fury.

  Walker looked up and to the side and, squinting against the gloom, raised a hand against a shaft of daylight. His eyes adjusted and focused as he scanned the room.

  Seated opposite, was a figure facing him, in the shadows. A few meters between them.

  Walker tried to make the person out.

  A man. Similar size to him. Sitting still. Watching. Waiting. He leaned forward, into the light. The sunlight cut across the man’s face.

  His father. David Walker.

  6

  “Walker’s gone.” The speaker was FBI Special Agent Fiona Somerville. Tough, professional, no-nonsense, a rising super-star in the Bureau. Bobbed blonde hair, short and compact, eyes alert and probing. The listener was her boss, Bill McCorkell. A veteran of national security, he headed a secret unit within the UN that looked into global hot spots no one else would touch. He was late sixties and in demand on think tanks and foreign-policy groups, but rather than the allure of prestige and good money, he’d decided to head up this new outfit at the UN. Officially they were called Special Rapporteurs, which was a cover. What he ran was an intelligence company known simply as Room 360, named after its office number in the United Nations office in Vienna, and its members were on loan from the world’s best intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. Several investigations were ongoing, and each month he briefed the permanent members of the Security Council on what they were up to. Zodiac was their current top priority.

  Fiona Somerville was the lead on the Zodiac case, now that her colleague, FBI Special Agent Andrew Hutchinson, was on medical leave to recuperate from injuries suffered in the line of duty. She had good reason to keep track of her freelance colleague Jed Walker.

  “He was at LAX, picked up his ticket, never arrived in Anchorage,” Somerville said. “And I checked with the airline—he didn’t board.”

  “So, he’s still in LA?”

  “Maybe.” She handed over her iPad. It showed a still image of Walker being apprehended by TSA staff.

  “That’s from LAX, half an hour before he was due to board,” she said.

  McCorkell looked at the shot. Two uniformed TSA officers had Walker by each arm and were escorting him. To where?

  “There’s no footage of him leaving,” Somerville said. “They escorted him down a hallway that led to staff areas and the tarmac. Then they took him down to the tarmac. Then they disappeared.”

  “How can that be?”

  “Inside help. He was made to disappear. The cameras outside terminal six were down, for five minutes. That was their window.”

  McCorkell looked back to the image. To Walker’s face.

  “He doesn’t seem concerned,” he said.

  “He wouldn’t,” Somerville said. “He’s trained not to.”

  “Right.”

  “I spoke to the head of TSA there. Showed them this shot.”

  “And?”

  “Those guys aren’t his,” she said. “He’s triple-checking, but they’re not showing up as TSA from any place.”

  “Best guess?”

  “Could be anyone.”

  “What’s your gut say?”

  “Okay, best case, they’re working for Walker’s father. Some kind of ex-specialists that he got to do a snatch and grab or escort.”

  “Sounds plausible . . .” McCorkell thought about the ramifications.
About Zodiac. About what was coming next. He knew David Walker was involved in Zodiac’s originating. And maybe more. Likely more. McCorkell didn’t like unknowns, and didn’t trust what he didn’t know for certain was legit. And Zodiac, with David Walker’s faked death, was on the nose. And what didn’t add up was on McCorkell’s problem list until he knew better. “What’s your worst case for Jed?”

  “Worst case is that they’re not from David—that Walker was intercepted at LAX and has been taken by the next terror cell.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Well, maybe no. I hope not. It’ll be David. He’s deceived us on this.”

  “You think he may have sold us out on what was next?” Somerville asked, reading her boss. “Why?”

  McCorkell nodded. “Think, no; of course he did. There was nothing happening in Alaska. He got that tip to us because he knew Walker would move there, fast. And we’d move assets.”

  “Want me to get Hutchinson in?”

  “No, not yet, let him recuperate or we’re going to burn him out.”

  Somerville nodded. McCorkell could tell that she was thinking about her fellow FBI agent, a good operator he’d met more than ten years ago and had been working alongside almost constantly since. Hutchinson was starting to show the signs of falling apart; after sustaining serious injuries in the New York Stock Exchange bombing, the event that had put Zodiac in motion, he’d gone straight onto the net terror cell before being sidelined by McCorkell. This will be a marathon, not a sprint, McCorkell told his troops in their tri-weekly briefings. Keep sharp. Keep fresh. Reach out if you need help. Hutchinson had pulled rank, being McCorkell’s 2IC, and powered through to work on the St. Louis situation—but it had proved too much. The fact was, Hutchinson would be a good mind to have around, even at the office, but McCorkell had seen many staffers burn out too fast and too soon by pushing the envelope.