by J. B. Turner
It was true, he was going to run, but he was going to keep that under his hat for a few more months.
Crichton felt good as they touched down. He was escorted to a waiting car by the military attaché working out of the American Consulate in Edinburgh.
“Good journey, sir?”
“Very good, thank you.”
They were driven in a three-car convoy through winding country roads until they came to an isolated country estate.
“This is the place, sir,” the military attaché said. “Remember, if you make a call, it’ll almost certainly be getting routed through GCHQ.”
Crichton smiled. “I thought as much.”
The car pulled up at the gatehouse for detailed checks to be carried out. Radios crackled to life. “American delegation at gatehouse, sir.”
Eventually, they were ushered through and driven down a mile-long road until they came to a sprawling Gothic mansion, partially concealed by huge oaks and towering pine trees.
Crichton got out of the car and smiled at the military attaché in the back. “You not coming in?”
The man shook his head. “Got work to do. Have a good conference, Senator. I’ll arrange for your bags to be sent up to your room.”
Crichton shut the door as a young woman came down the steps and introduced herself as a British Foreign Office press officer. She showed him to his room, where he showered and changed into a fresh suit.
He headed downstairs for a series of informal meet and greets with other delegates at the secret conference. State Department officials, Pentagon analysts, neocon think tank directors, GCHQ intelligence experts, British MI6 spooks. It was an Atlantic Alliance “meeting of minds.” Britain and the US. He raised a few wry smiles when he talked about the explosive growth of the military-industrial complex since the end of the Second World War. Far from making the world a safer place, it was making the world more dangerous, Crichton and those on the libertarian wing of the Republican Party believed. He could see in the faces of those with vested interests in defending multibillion-dollar budgets that his view was strictly in the minority.
To a man and woman, everyone he spoke to believed America shouldn’t “settle for isolationism” but instead try to “encourage and spread democracy” throughout the world. Diplomatic language for military intervention across the globe, he thought.
Crichton listened patiently and occasionally tried to lighten the mood with some self-deprecating remarks about how his fondness for isolationism could probably be blamed on him having an overbearing mother. A few forced smiles greeted his jokes. He sensed it was going to be a very long week.
After dinner with an MI5 officer, a State Department number cruncher, and a geostrategist from a British think tank, he enjoyed a nightcap of a stiff malt whisky before he retired to his room.
He switched on his TV as waves of tiredness washed over him.
He turned on his cell phone and it rang almost immediately. It was his aide Jessica Friel. “Brad, can we talk?”
Crichton stifled a yawn. “Hey . . . what’s happening? I’m just ready to call it a night.”
“Productive day?”
“It’s like banging my head against a wall. Special interest groups. Very frustrating.”
“Sounds pretty much like Washington.”
“Speaking of which, what’s going on there?”
Friel sighed.
“You OK? You sound a bit frazzled.”
“I am.”
“What’s going on?”
“Brad, I’ve had literally a dozen calls today from one guy. He writes for a libertarian magazine, but he’s pretty out there.”
“What’s he calling about?”
“That’s just the thing. He wants to talk to you. He’s wondering why no one’s answering your emails. He’s a real pest. He’s even called me at home. You believe that?”
“Called you at home?”
“Kinda creepy, huh?”
“Maybe I should talk to him to get him off your case.”
“Forget it. He’ll be like a barnacle. You’ll never shake him. I say we let it go.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I miss you.”
Crichton closed his eyes and sighed. He couldn’t believe that he’d been fooling around with his goddamn aide. She was beautiful, smart, and very clever. Her conversation was peppered with talk of international relations, political gossip, and strategic thinking. His wife, by contrast, was a homemaker who usually talked of what she had been cooking or who she’d had lunch with. He liked spending time with Jessica. He had hired her after she had done a two-month stint interning for his team the previous summer. He wondered why he had fallen for her so hard. It was true his marriage had been rocky for a couple of years. He had grown increasingly distant from his wife. She was always griping about his time spent away from her. She said she felt lonely. The harsh reality was he felt lonely too. He was working sixteen-hour days as he climbed the political ladder at an astonishing rate. His days were spent in meetings. Meeting donors. Constituents. Lunching with fellow politicians. Journalists. Briefing papers on intelligence to soak up.
He missed his sons badly. He only saw them at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and their annual two-week August sojourn in the Hamptons. He rationalized that the fresh voice and input of a beautiful young woman in such circumstances would almost inevitably lead him to stray.
Crichton didn’t feel good about it. But he did enjoy his moments with Jessica. He couldn’t be sure if anyone other than the two of them had any inkling. But he also knew his political ambitions would end if it got out. The conservative Christians would desert him in droves. Perhaps the libertarians would stick around. But he knew that, realistically, the extramarital relationship and a successful political career were mutually exclusive.
“It’s good to hear your voice,” he said. “And I appreciate the update. Now, if it’s all right with you, I need to get some rest.”
“I meant to ask, how’s the weather?”
“Surprisingly, for Scotland, pretty benign.”
“Don’t get used to it. I’ve been looking at the forecast. You better buckle up. Storm’s about to hit.”
Ten
Six days out
Nathan Stone was enjoying the cold rain on his skin as he stood in the middle of an enclosed outside courtyard and smoked a cigarette. He felt the water run down his back. All the old feelings had returned. The compulsion to kill had been switched on and activated.
He was ready.
The door behind him opened and Stone turned around. He saw a man in his late fifties approach him. He had a military bearing, raincoat collar turned up.
The man walked up to Stone and smiled. “Helluva day.”
Stone thought the man’s voice sounded familiar. He looked familiar. But Stone couldn’t place him.
“How you feeling?”
“I’m good.”
The man nodded, wiping the rain from his eyes. “Nathan, you remember me?”
“Sir?”
“Take a good look.”
Stone stared at the man. It slowly dawned on him that it was the same handler who had overseen his recuperation and transformation at the Saudi hospital. “Brigadier?”
He nodded. “Welcome back. How you feeling?”
“Ready to go.”
“You are now officially on active duty, Stone. Do you understand what that means, soldier?”
Stone closed his eyes as the rain washed over his face. “It means I kill to order.”
“Good. The specific orders will come from me and me alone.”
“You mind me asking why you’ve picked me for this after all this time?”
“First, I think you’re ready. You’re a proven killer. Second, you’re great in wild terrains. Proved yourself in such environments. Besides, you were the only candidate who met all the criteria regarding tactical mountain operations, field-craft training for mountains and nighttime mountain operations.”
St
one nodded.
“You rose to the top of the six-week Special Forces Senior Mountaineering Course that I supervised too. So you’re a perfect candidate for us.”
“Colorado was nice.”
“Colorado was nice. Though it wasn’t so nice for Leroy.”
“Mad Dog?”
“That’s right. Didn’t you have to cut the rope when he was hanging on the high ledge?”
Stone nodded. “It was twisted around his fucking neck. No other option.”
“Got himself so tangled up in the ropes he was going blue in the face.”
“Broke both his fucking ankles. Poor bastard.”
The man smiled at the memory. “He lived. Any more questions?”
Stone shook his head.
The man cocked his head. “Let’s head indoors. It’s getting a bit wild out here.”
Stone grinned. “I like it.”
“Thought you would.”
They headed in out of the rain and dried off in a warm, windowless room.
The man shook the rain out of his hair and sat down.
Stone pulled up a seat opposite. “This isn’t America, is it?”
The man smiled. “What makes you say that?”
“The rain tastes different. Cleaner. Way wilder, the weather. Like Seattle. Except crazier.”
The man stared long and hard at Stone. “We’re both a long way from home, Nathan.”
“How long?”
“The Outer Hebrides, off the northwest coast of Scotland.”
Stone took a few moments for the information to sink in. “You kidding me?”
The man shook his head. “This is a secure facility. Isolated. Perfect. OK, down to business.”
Stone pulled the packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and tapped one. He lit it up and nodded. “I’m listening.”
“You’ve seen a picture of the target. We want a tragic accident. Do you understand?”
“When do we begin?”
The man smiled. “You’ll be picked up from your room at 0400 hours. I want you to rest up for the remainder of today.”
“Cover?”
“You’re an American student named Tom McMasters doing a PhD in politics and international relations at the University of Edinburgh. Your hobbies are hill walking, bird-watching, jogging, stuff like that. A full background brief is waiting for you back in your quarters. Got any questions?”
Stone leaned back in his seat and smiled. “Feels good to be back.”
“Good to have you back, soldier.”
Inside his office within the facility, Brigadier Jack Sands locked the door behind him. He noticed a slight tremor in his hand. He longed for a stiff drink after speaking face-to-face with Stone. He had been his handler for the better part of a decade. Now Stone had been brought back to life. His face was different. But the menacing presence was still there.
He slumped in the seat behind his desk as his gaze fell on the case file photos in front of him. Photos of Nathan Stone as a boy. Then a mug shot of the juvenile delinquent on the Lower East Side more than twenty years ago. ID photos from his time in the army. Then a blank-eyed Stone drinking a beer at The Farm: Camp Peary, used by the CIA and Special Forces.
Stone had fit the profile they were looking for. He could compartmentalize and detach himself from a target’s humanity. He could switch to kill mode more or less at will. And he was deeply dangerous.
He had come to the attention of Langley after field reports from Iraq showed him to be a fearless soldier, heading up a unit that took care of insurgents. Stone was reported by his superiors for unlawful deaths and killings. His bloody thirst for revenge against the Sunnis was too much for some, but the CIA immediately saw his potential.
Nathan Stone had felt right at home within the confines of the barbed-wire-topped chain-link fence that surrounded Camp Peary. He had been reborn. He was trained by the finest CIA operatives. Stone learned to bug phones, use dead drops, read detailed maps, and put suspects under surveillance undetected.
He was also trained in advanced killing methods. How to poison, how to administer untraceable drugs to induce a heart attack, how to garrote. Stone learned it all.
Brigadier Sands had been in charge of Camp Peary when Stone arrived. He knew all the operatives by their first names.
He knew Stone better than anyone. On the surface he appeared pleasant. Talkative. Intelligent. Thoughtful. Cogent. But in his eyes there was a terrible sadness. A smile rarely crossed his lips, as if the humanity had already been driven out of him. He seemed detached.
He didn’t socialize as well as the other recruits. Sands liked that about him. It reminded him of himself as a younger man. Stone was a loner. And the CIA didn’t try to fit a square peg into a round hole.
Sands became his sole handler. He directed Stone. He made sure his sister was looked after. He oversaw Stone’s transition to lone-wolf assassin. They could deny his existence. He had left the army. He was a drifter. That was the cover story at any rate.
He was the only one who had contact with Stone.
He made sure Stone had whatever he wanted. He didn’t interfere in his life. If Sands needed a person neutralized, he just made a call. Or sent a coded message to Stone’s motel.
Sands protected his asset like a lion protects his pride. Like a father protects his son. His prodigy was fearsome. Stone did everything that was asked of him. He worked in the shadows, unhindered.
It had all nearly unraveled during a failed assassination attempt. Stone was in the back seat of a car being driven by a journalist he was about to kill. Unexpectedly, the woman, Deborah Jones, carried out a suicidal maneuver, driving the car straight into the Florida Everglades. She struggled free and escaped death. But Stone was trapped in the back seat and was found lifeless in the car after it was fully submerged underwater. He was dragged out of the water several minutes later by a passerby. It was reported in the press that he had died. But that was a lie.
On the way to the hospital, Stone was intercepted and taken away overseas, first to Dubai, then Saudi Arabia, for treatment from the finest plastic surgeons.
The recovery was slow. The months dragged into years.
Sands flashed back to Nathan’s long therapy and recuperation. He remembered how Nathan had become close to a therapist from Colorado named Meg. She talked softly to him. She listened. He was happy in her presence. Sands could see that. He watched through the glass at the therapy sessions. Stone talked of how he felt as if a cloud were slowly lifting while he chatted with her. She talked of clean air. The Rockies. Aspen. She talked of nice things. Blue skies. Stone felt at peace.
Sands could see that his fearsome prodigy was imagining a new future. A future free of Sands. Free of the past. Free of his ghosts. A new future without killing. Without darkness. He contemplated what to do for days. He felt conflicted. But he realized he was just being sentimental.
The world he inhabited was not sentimental. It was bleak. Endless. Without pity. That was the way it was. That was the way it had to be.
Nathan Stone was an asset. Sands wasn’t prepared for the investment—the vast investment, millions of dollars—to be squandered and cast aside. The therapist was released early from her contract. And she left. Without saying goodbye. New therapists were brought in. They began to reinforce the ghosts in Stone’s head. He talked of his emptiness when Meg was gone. And anger. Rage. The darkness had begun to seep back into his soul. Day by day.
Stone was still the same inside. A cold-blooded killer. Only this time he had a new face. A new identity.
Sands was one of only a handful of people who knew Stone was still alive. He had taken him under his wing. He saw his potential. He also saw flashes of himself as a young man. The untrusting, uncertain eyes. Similar background. Dirt-poor. Brutalized by a sadistic father. Mentally scarred. Pent-up fury. He could see it all in Nathan Stone. He knew he had his secrets. His sister was still in a mental institution after killing their abusive, insane father. She thought her brothe
r was dead too.
When Sands was approached to work for the Commission, he was the one who had insisted that Stone be part of the setup. The others agreed and paid the huge medical bills running into the millions.
Sands knew from the facility’s psychologist that Stone had night terrors. Infrared cameras in his room showed him talking to imaginary people in the dead of night.
The psychologist believed it was memories of his sister, his childhood, and his father’s death that still haunted him.
Sands leaned back in his seat and stared out the rain-streaked windows over the bleak cliffs to the stormy gray seas of the North Atlantic. Then he turned to look again at the photos of Nathan Stone as a boy . . . and felt nothing but sadness.
Eleven
Jeff Patterson was sitting in a corner booth of a diner. He checked his watch again. It was 11:07 a.m. And his source was seriously late. More than an hour late.
He’d already eaten a burger and fries, washed down with a coffee, and was ready to call it a day.
A waitress brushed past him and smiled. “Can I get you anything else, honey?”
Patterson pulled on his backpack. “I’m good, thanks.”
“You have a nice day, honey.”
Patterson headed out of the diner into the steam-bath air of DC. He pulled out his cell phone and punched in his source’s unlisted number. It rang. And rang. And rang. But no one answered. Not even a voice mail. “Fuck.”
His source was usually so reliable.
His mind wandered as he headed down Eighteenth Street NW due south, a straightforward twenty-minute walk to his home. He thought again of the secret program he believed was operational. An assassination program. Shit. How crazy was that? He felt sick. He was an American. A patriot. He thought of his options. He wondered if he should just go to the police. And tell them what? They would laugh. Maybe arrest him for stealing classified information. Set bail for a ridiculous amount. He might be able to crowd-fund to get a good attorney to defend him. Shit.
The more he thought of what he had learned, the more concerned he got. It seemed so outrageous. A plan to assassinate influential men and women who spoke out about the relentless growth of the shadow state. The people who raised their voices about the way the country was headed. More and more interference in family life. Stratospheric levels of military as well as public spending. America was $20 trillion in debt. Foreign wars and economic intervention in the markets had propelled the country to the edge, leaving it teetering on the brink.