Sudden exited the Government SUV and walked into the nondescript and slightly battered NISMF building. A security guard checked his identification and then waved him to a bank of elevators. No armed Marines. No retina scans or fingerprint pads.
“No need to get paranoid,” Nigel Buss had explained when Sudden came on board. “We just needed some inexpensive digs. Besides, the fact that we’re here insures that no one takes us seriously. Who in their right mind would look for us in Philadelphia?”
In the elevator Sudden pressed the button for the basement. As it creaked downward, memories flooded back, as they always did when he was at the Navy yard. He had taken his preliminary C.I.A. physical in another building not far from this one. It had been a close call. After four years in the military, his combat wounds healed, he was in peak shape and was stunned when the Navy corpsman who administered the grueling battery of exams and tests told him about a problem. There was a small anomaly in Sudden’s left hip. It appeared on the scans as a slightly dark area around the hip joint socket. When the Government docs saw it, the corpsman warned, they’d probably delve deeper.
Sudden knew what the anomaly was. When he was five years old, he had developed a limp. His parents were terrified, but tests soon ruled out cancer, MS and other horrible afflictions. The doctors soon settled on childhood Perthes, a non-hereditary, non-contagious disease of unknown origin that affects children randomly. As Sudden subsequently learned, it was first described – independently – by three doctors in the same year, 1910. Their names were Legg, Calve and Perthes. He was glad that the disease was named after the good Dr. Perthes, who must have gotten into the medical journal first. Legg’s Disease or Calves Disease sounded like something that might afflict a barnyard animal.
Perthes presents itself as a temporary loss of the blood supply to the hip joint at the top of a child’s femur. Part or all of the area of the femoral head, which is the “ball” that fits into the hip socket, literally dies. The dead bone becomes mushy and can easily become permanently disfigured as it rubs against the socket. Strangely enough, the death of the femoral ball is temporary. Blood flow is eventually restored naturally and the area heals itself. But considerable and irreparable damage can occur before that happens. Successful treatment to avoid lifetime crippling involves keeping the ball from mashing into the hip socket, no small accomplishment in an active five-year-old. Sudden wore a hip-to-ankle brace on his left leg for four years. When the brace finally came off, the leg was an inch shorter. It took almost another year before it was strong enough for Sudden to resume normal boyhood activities. But eventually both his legs wound up the same length and he grew into a sturdy six-footer who excelled at both baseball and basketball.
The hip had healed so well that the “anomaly” was missed during his initial military induction physicals, a fact he occasionally regretted when under fire and surrounded by Taliban nutcases in the mountains of Afghanistan. But he knew that if the C.I.A. sawbones found out he had childhood Perthes disease he’d never be accepted into their elite anti-terrorism program, no matter how impressive his combat record was and how many medals he’d won. It was ridiculous. His bullet wounds were OK, but a childhood illness wasn’t. He would be damned before he let a long-healed hip socket keep him out of the C.I.A.
Fortunately, Sudden suspected he had an ally in the young corpsman, who stretched the rules to tell him about the scans. He leveled with the medic, pointing out that if his hips were sound enough to help him outrun a camel, they were damn well good enough for anything the pantywaist spooks wanted him to do. When the kid found out that he and Sudden had been in the same Afghan province together, though in different outfits, the incriminating visual of the damaged hip never made it into the final package of scans given to the agency doctors.
Navy guys looked out for each other.
CHAPTER 14 – NIGEL BUSS
After leaving the elevator, Sudden walked down a hallway and entered a small executive suite. The sign on the door identified the organization within as the Base Unified Resource Yard (BURY). A little Nigel Buss humor. Other than cheap office space, the unit was located in Philadelphia because no one at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, wanted anything to do with Nigel’s little brainchild, at least officially. The only reason the C.I.A. bigwigs in Washington looked the other way was the fact that Buss and his team produced some incredible domestic intelligence; an information goldmine that the C.I.A. was legally not allowed to accumulate – and rarely was able to pry out of the F.B.I. even under the new post-911 rules about inter-service collaboration.
The woman sitting at the desk outside Buss’s inner sanctum looked up and smiled. Her silver hair was perfectly coifed and she was wearing a smart white blouse with frilly lace collar. Around her neck was a small gold locket on a silver chain. She looked like a kindly grandmother. Sadly, Sudden knew, Rita Carman was a widow who would never have grandchildren; her only child, a daughter, having died in college. Sudden knew that the girl’s photo was in the locket. Now Rita was truly married to the C.I.A., which had provided her with a reason to go on living – and the Glock that always sat in a drawer near her knees. She could shoot the eyes out of a potato.
“You look particularly fetching today, Rita. Is that a new hairdo?”
Buss’s administrative assistant looked up at Sudden with an expression that split the difference between exasperation and affection. Rita was an attractive woman with a fine bone structure. All the male field operatives in the unit agreed that she would have been something to see – and pursue – in her prime. They were all crazy about her, and she devolved her remaining maternal instincts to them.
“You say the same thing every time you see me, Cole. I sometimes wonder about your powers of observation, which I would think have to be acute, given your profession. But it just so happens that you are right this time. But I’m not sure I like it. I mean the hairdo.”
“I think it looks great. We should post a guard at the door. You’re going to attract randy sailors.”
“You’re being redundant, and absurd.” But she smiled. “How is your little romance going? Sylvia, isn’t it? The book lady?”
There wasn’t much that got by Rita Carman, in or out of the office.
“Fine and dandy. She’s coming up to help me edit this weekend.”
“Still dangling your participle?”
Sudden laughed as Rita hooked a thumb at the door to Buss’s office.
“You can go right in, handsome.”
“Thanks, Rita.” Sudden scanned the doorway. “What happened to the buzzer and the red light over his door?”
Another field agent had told Sudden about it and speculated that their boss had finally gone around the bend.
Rita sighed.
“That wasn’t Nigel’s idea. Some idiot auditor at Langley with too much time on his hands came through here and thought it appropriate. Not that we’re fooling anyone. But, really!”
Sudden loved to see Rita worked up. She reminded him of his fifth-grade teacher when he brought a whoopee cushion to class.
“Someone from Langley was here? Was he lost?”
Rita laughed.
“He obviously never got the memo. Was only around a day before we sent him packing. But before he left he even gave us a jar of mothballs. It stunk up the place. I actually began to miss the smell of cinnamon. I think the guy was an Annapolis grad. A real hard charger. Nigel ditched the jar, and the buzzer, too. The damn thing never worked right, anyway.”
“Nigel’s become a real rebel. First water boarding, now buzzers. There’s hope for him, yet.”
At the mention of the torture, Rita’s mouth turned down.
“Oh, God, Cole. Please don’t bring that up. He’s in a good mood.”
The water boarding had been a miscommunication. Four years earlier a mole at Langley had fingered Sudden as a turncoat in an effort to distract investigators from his own treason. Buss had no choice but to follow up and su
spend Sudden. He took him to a safe house in Maryland and turned him over to some agency “specialists.” Only later did he find out what they did to Sudden. After the truth came out and Sudden was cleared, Nigel refused to follow procedure in security breaches. He repeatedly apologized to Sudden.
“If you ever turn, Cole,” Nigel had promised, “I’ll shoot you myself before I let those bastards have you.”
“That’s very kind of you, Nige. But don’t get your knickers in a twist. It wasn’t that bad. They let up after I told them you were a pedophile.”
Now, when Sudden walked into the inner office, Buss was at his desk, head buried in paperwork. He looked up, smiled and waved at a seat, then went back to reading.
“Be with you in a minute, Cole. Want Rita to get you coffee?”
Sudden knew about Rita’s coffee. On the whole, he preferred water boarding.
“No thanks. Your real name isn’t really Nigel Buss, is it?”
Sudden used the same line every time he saw the man. Buss gave him the finger without looking up. A few minutes later he shoved the paper aside.
“Fuck it. I’ll do it later. Expense vouchers.”
“I thought you were supposed to be in a good mood.”
“I was until I got that voucher.” He pointed to one on top of the pile. “Guy in Sandland wants his team to be reimbursed for condoms. Says they keep their barrels clean.”
“It works, Nige. You put it over the barrel and it prevents water and sand from getting in. I’ve used them myself on occasion.”
“Did you ever order two hundred goddamn rubbers? We’re talking about a five-man deep-cover insert team.”
Sudden laughed.
“I’d guess he’s talking about another kind of barrel. Hey, give the guy a break. I just hope he’s not so far embedded that his boys have gone native and are humping camels.”
Buss leaned back in his swivel chair and put his hands behind his neck. He was a big man, almost bald, with the air of an academic and the beginnings of the paunch that comes with desk work. But Sudden knew he’d been a hell of a field agent. A legend.
“How’d it go in Florida, Cole?”
“Quick and easy,” Sudden said.
“Boudreau ask you how you were going to find Tucci?”
“No, but he did threaten to dump me in the Mississippi if I didn’t deliver.”
“Well, he must be happy now. Did he want to know how you even knew about Tucci?”
“Of course. I told him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I also told him his next stupid question sent me out the door.”
“Sounds to me like you really hit it off.”
“He threatened to kill me. I told him I’d shoot him in the ear. We settled on a price. The coffee was excellent. Typical mob breakfast.”
Buss smiled.
“Been there, done that. How’s the writing going?”
“I’ve got enough plots to last me a lifetime.”
“I bet you do. Listen, the techies are waiting to debrief you. That should keep you busy all afternoon. I told Rita to make reservations for us at Le Bec Fin tonight. The plane will be back to Philly around 9 to pick you up. Damn pencil pushers only let me have use of one when nobody else wants it. Suit you?”
“Well, it’s not Bookbinders,” Sudden smiled, referring to the famous 170-year-old Philadelphia seafood restaurant that had recently gone bankrupt, a favorite of both of theirs. “But I guess it will do.”
“At $160 prix fixe I would hope so.”
Sudden knew that Buss’s penuriousness didn’t apply to his own people. But he couldn’t resist a comment.
“That could buy a lot of condoms.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
CHAPTER 15 – PILLOW TALK
The techies down the hall were busy breaking into a French Army database and asked if Sudden could just hang out for a half hour. There was fresh coffee and boxes of Cinnekakes in the kitchen. It wasn’t Rita’s brew, so Sudden grabbed a cup. He looked around. Peeling paint. Worn carpeting. Furniture straight from the local Goodwill. Official funding for the operation was so minimal that, other than salaries, computers and basic office supplies, the unit was basically self-supporting.
Each field operative usually handled two, maybe three, unique assignments a year that netted, in total, about a half million dollars, about half of which came from the extra “spoils of war” confiscated from targets. That provided roughly $2 million over and above the salaries everyone drew. The fees and spoils went into the office account. It was a nice hunk of change, a needed bulwark against the usual bureaucratic nonsense all mangers in a large agency dealt with.
Of course, there were minor inconveniences in converting stolen property to ready cash. Usually twice-stolen property, since much of the ill-gotten gains were ill-gotten to begin with. Fencing hot jewelry was difficult. Buss couldn’t assume the confiscated currency hadn’t been marked or the serial numbers recorded somewhere. Rarely, some of it was even counterfeit, although considering that the previous owner had been eliminated made him feel churlish about complaining.
Once the legitimacy of the cash was ascertained, it was laundered through various casinos, a few thousand dollars at a time. It was a lot easier to do than in the past. The unit was no longer limited to using Atlantic City and Vegas, thanks to Indian tribes that Natty Bumpo never heard of, and bankrupt states that approved casinos everywhere but in convents. Even the fake bills weren’t wasted. The best of them also went into the house account, for strategic use later.
Ironically, Buss occasionally even turned a profit, an accomplishment that might be unique to the Government, but one that couldn’t be bragged about, even in election years. But when extra cash was available, Nigel Buss was known to lend it out to old friends in the agency who were also suffering under budget constraints. But he didn’t like to be played for a sucker, which was why the order for 200 condoms steamed him.
There were currently only 11 people in the unit: Buss, Rita, four computer technicians, the driver of Buss’s SUV (a former field agent nearing retirement) and four field operatives, of which Sudden was now senior. The field agents came and went, mostly for assignments or debriefings, such as Sudden’s this day. One of the agents was a woman, a cold-eyed beauty new to the team who worked out of Los Angeles. Her name was Rebecca Soul and she was former Mossad, reputedly one of the Israeli intelligence agency’s superstars. Sudden had only met her once but knew her work was excellent. Attracted by her flair and sexiness, and air of suppressed menace, he’d even asked her out. The C.I.A. discouraged office romances, but Buss, who had a few steamy liaisons in his day, could care less about Agency protocol. Besides, he knew that his little band of iconoclasts would ignore any rules they didn’t like. In the event, Soul told Sudden she was a lesbian who only slept with men she planned to kill. He then asked her if he would survive a friendly collegial dinner.
“Only if you pay,” she had replied with an icy smile.
They had a very nice time, and even took in a Bourne movie afterwards.
Killing, of course, was the team’s primary job. After being relegated to a desk job, Nigel Buss had put his Rhodes Scholar’s brain to work. He soon realized that the C.I.A. was missing a wonderful opportunity to gather domestic intelligence from some of the sharpest and most-ruthless citizens in the land: members of the various mobs that thrived on the free-enterprise system and the total lack of gun laws. The mobs – Italian, Russian, Ukrainian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Native American, Irish, Hispanic, African-American and new ones popping up seemingly every day – controlled activities in many cities, including ports, and knew just about everything that was worth knowing.
In the patriotic fervor following 9/11, many mob bosses had voluntarily provided information, mainly to the F.B.I., on terrorists. They even instructed their soldiers to keep an eye out for suspicious people at airports, docks and other sensitive locations. But the fervor had died down in the years since the attacks, especially since the Government continued
to prosecute the mobs. But Buss realized that there was still plenty of information to be gathered, and not just about terrorists. Mobsters had their fingers in a lot of pies. For one thing, they owned scores of politicians. Most of them were in the U.S., but some abroad.
But the crime lords now had to be motivated. And what motivation, other than greed, worked best. Revenge. Every crime family had turncoats who sold out their families. Sometimes for money; most often to escape prosecution. After ratting out their colleagues, often sending them to prison, they usually were placed in either a Federal or state witness protection program. And as long as they followed the rules of the program, they were generally safe. Hollywood lore to the contrary, the various mobs did not have the resources to find people who were relocated far from their homes with new identities, new Social Security cards, new driver’s licenses.
But the C.I.A. did. It had long ago cracked the computers, Federal and state, where the lists of the people in witness protection were kept. Agency computer hackers, among the best in the world, did so just for the hell of it, to see if it could be done. As practice, really, for breaking into the computers of other spy agencies, foreign and domestic.
And, like so many Government bureaucracies, after obtaining the information the C.I.A. couldn’t figure what to do with it. After all, the lists contained only names, with current aliases and addresses. There was no indication of why the people were in hiding. That information was easily attainable, but why bother? The tech nerds who had cracked the security firewalls of the other agencies gave the files the sardonic “I.B.U.” (Interesting But Useless) label and moved on to other challenges. There was something like 2,000 such files swishing around in the C.I.A.’s I.B.U. database.
TWO SUDDEN!: A Pair of Cole Sudden C.I.A. Thrillers Page 6