by James Hunt
“Don’t you?” Alexander rapped his knuckles on the door and gave him a wave. “Don’t stay too late. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
Grimes gave a nod, still looking at his computer screen. “Will do.” He knew Alexander was right. He had to sleep at some point; it was something his superiors had to point out to him as well. Work was like a drug for him, worse than any cocaine, alcohol, or heroin addiction. The longer the wick burned, the stronger he felt. He’d always been like that, even when he was a boy. There was a satisfaction in the long workday that he couldn’t find anywhere else.
The only side effect from his addiction that he had found so far was time. He never had enough of it, and he was always struggling to find a way to maximize what little he had left. Friends and family were frequently pushed aside, making room for advancing his career. Everything he planned, everything he did revolved around his job.
Grimes rubbed his eyes and pushed himself out of his chair. He placed his hand on the laptop’s screen, and just before he was about to close it, a notification popped. He sat back down and opened the file.
Like the other five matches he’d deemed worthy of investigating, this one seemed like it would fit the bill. High school diploma, low-profile factory job that required skilled use of hands, Chicago resident, and around the same age and size as the woman they were tracking. He jotted down the name next to the list of others. Sarah Hill.
The satellite HQ had finally gone through its last run-through, and Mack gave the thumbs-up to resume operations. The slightly smaller, cramped space was still a little musty, but the fact that they had agents returning to what they did best helped soothe the aching sores in Mack’s mind. At least a little.
The doubts and anger resurfaced when Mack returned to his office, where the mole still beckoned his attention. He slumped into his chair and searched through the reams of paper on his desk that had told him little more than that his field agents enjoyed spending well beyond their allotted budgets on missions.
Mack’s eyes kept darting over to a particular box in the corner of the office that he’d been putting off going through. If he found something that hinted at the mole in that box, then he and every other member of the GSF was in for a very, very rude awakening.
Finally, summoning the strength to shove the rest of the piles of paper aside, Mack dropped the corner box on the center of his desk and flung the lid to the floor. He pulled out the first document, which read “GSF Internal Financial Review Board.” Mack jotted down his notes, referencing dates, locations, dollar amounts, and account numbers.
The GSF Internal Financial Review Board was the agency’s bank, and it comprised members of the sponsors of the agency that kept them funded and functional. If there were a member or multiple members using GSF as their own personal weapon and resource for financial or political gain in countries around the world, then, per protocol, every single member of the GSF would be shut down.
Mack knew about the safety triggers in all the board’s review processes, along with the transparency he himself was a part of, but regardless of how he presented it, once you put the idea of a mole in the mind of espionage employees, it never ends well. Everyone that worked in the GSF didn’t have much else, and if the seed were planted that their world was a lie, then no amount of transparency would be able to bring them back. Trust issues were common problems among agents, especially field agents.
Mack combed through the hundreds of pages in the box, each new sheet of paper bringing a heightened sense of dread at what he might find. Then, with nothing out of place or odd, Mack would place the paper back in the box and be glad the stack of sheets was shrinking. The process dragged, and after a solid three-hour stretch, with the rest of the agency turning in for the night and nothing left but the skeleton crew, he reached for his mug of coffee and found it unpleasantly empty. “Grace! I need a fresh cup!”
A few seconds later, his secretary walked in with a pot of coffee and sloshed the black, molten liquid into his cup. “You know you can’t live off this stuff, right?”
Mack grabbed the mug out of her hand and gave a grimace. “I’ve been living off of it for the past fifty-five years. It’s kept me alive so far.”
“You’re not as young as you used to be,” Grace said, leaving and taking the pot with her. But she stopped at the door when Mack didn’t respond. He stared at a piece of paper, running his forefinger over the same line repeatedly, studying it, rereading it, making sure he wasn’t misinterpreting something. “Sir?”
Mack jumped from his seat and walked over to her. “I need you to look up this country code for me.” Grace took the paper from his hand and shook her head.
“I don’t need to. It’s New Zealand.”
Grace caught the sheet of paper as it drifted from Mack’s fingertips. His mind spun, and he felt his chest grow tight. He found the wall for support, and he saw Grace mouthing something, but all he concentrated on was breathing; everything else was just noise. Finally he managed to find his voice, noting the look of shock still on Grace’s face. “Get Sarah and Bryce here immediately.”
3
The moment Sarah’s phone rang on their drive to Milwaukee, she breathed a sigh of relief (which she made sure Mack couldn’t hear) over the sound of his voice. She needed something, anything, to get her mind off the funeral, off her family, off her pain. And the fact that Mack said it was urgent only made it better.
“What was that about?” Bryce asked when the call had ended.
“Mack didn’t give the details, but he’s pissed about something.”
“I hope the transition to the satellite location went smoothly.”
“Yeah, what the hell’s up with that anyway?” Sarah asked, shifting in her seat and looking at Bryce, who had his hands at two and ten on the wheel, looking stiff as a board. “Why Milwaukee? It’s like Chicago’s unpopular cousin. The one that keeps hitting on you at family reunions.”
“GSF wanted to keep things in close proximity. In the event of a breach, it was most likely that whatever person or persons committed the breach would be hunted down by the remaining agents. However, in the unlikely event that some of the enemies of GSF remained at large, the agency felt the easiest place to hide was close to the original location, a ‘hide in plain sight’ type of deal. And Milwaukee happens to be a very popular city.”
“You always drive like that?” Sarah motioned to Bryce’s hands and posture, mimicking him. “You look like you have a stick up your ass that’s so long that it’s keeping your back rigid enough to be a level.”
Bryce adjusted his grip on the steering wheel and shifted in his seat. “Good posture is nothing to make light of. I spend most of my day at a desk, so it’s important that I don’t slouch. I don’t want to need a walker when I’m fifty.”
“What happened to the Bryce who peeled out of HQ in Chicago when we were under fire from Demps’s goons?”
“Look around! We’re not under fire. There’s no reason for me to even do that.”
Sarah pulled the pistol from the inside of her upper thigh, where it had been concealed under her dress. “We can change that.”
“I knew we should have taken separate cars.”
The rest of the drive consisted of Sarah bugging Bryce to the point of his threatening to turn around, but the two arrived in Milwaukee without any physical harm done to either of them, although Sarah wasn’t sure how much more emotional berating Bryce could take.
The sun was just coming up when they rode the elevator down to HQ and were greeted by a very tired, very irritated, very caffeinated Mack. “What in the Sam Hell took you so long? Did you walk here?”
Before Sarah could respond, he turned on his heel and marched toward his office. Sarah did her best to look focused on the back of Mack’s head on the walk through the floor. The last thing she wanted right now was a bunch of people consoling her about the funeral.
“Shut the door,” Mack said after Sarah and Bryce walked in. “This doesn’t leave t
he office, you understand me?”
“Like, the words we’re about to speak?” Sarah asked. “Or everything inside the office, including us, because I just drank like a gallon of lemonade on the way here, and I’m most definitely going to have to pee soon.”
“I know who the mole is,” Mack said.
The news was enough of a shock to keep even Sarah’s mouth shut. Both Bryce and Sarah instinctively moved forward. Mack snatched a piece of paper off his desk and handed it to Bryce. Sarah edged over to get a better look, and before she had a chance to read it, Bryce almost collapsed to the floor. “Oh my god.”
“It’s deep,” Mack said.
“What’s deep?” Sarah asked, looking over the paper then snatching it out of Bryce’s hand. “This? This is the crap you make me fill out every time I go on a mission.”
“That is a GSF expense report that all members of the agency are required to fill out and is used as a tax write off for the agency’s cover corporation,” Mack said.
“It’s how we get our funding,” Bryce said.
“Wait, we’re a company?” Sarah asked. “I thought we were just funded by some philanthropic billionaire who wants to do good in the world. Like the speaker box in Charlie’s Angels.”
“The company is just a front,” Mack answered. “Our financial board that funds our operations is made up of some very wealthy individuals who would prefer certain political factions not know about their philanthropic deeds. When I was approached by them, I was told that I would have sole control of who and what our missions were and to ensure that it didn’t coincide with any personal vendettas the review board had.”
Bryce pointed to the paper in Sarah’s hand. “The review board is in charge of making sure all the expense accounts are in order and that nothing is being handled inappropriately. Checks and balances.”
“That expense report is from two years ago and involves a lot of construction material,” Mack said. “The volume of equipment outlined there is enough to build a compound.”
“Where?” Sarah asked.
“New Zealand.”
The words came out flat and deadpan, but they stung Sarah’s ears nonetheless. “You knew they were building something in New Zealand and you didn’t try and see what it was?” Sarah flung the paper back at Mack.
“I did know what it was. I also know that it was cancelled,” Mack answered. “That paper was filed the year after the construction had already been completed, so I didn’t know about it until I started going through the old financials last night.”
“None of this is digital?” Bryce asked, looking around at the piles of paper.
“No,” Mack said. “Everything’s done the old-fashioned way. You can’t hack a filing cabinet.”
“No, but you can steal one,” Sarah replied. “Who is it?”
“The financial board is a committee of twelve men, all of whom have detailed knowledge of our operations, at least from a financial standpoint. I checked to see if any of them had ties to Tuck Investments, and one did own a substantial share of the company.”
“Why wasn’t it caught?” Bryce asked. “We would have run a background check on everyone, including the agency.”
“The account was under a fake name, but I had Johnny check on the withdrawals to see if there were any slip-ups, and he found one, a substantial amount sent over to his personal account.”
Sarah edged closer to Mack, her knuckles cracking from the pressured squeeze on her hand. This was what she needed, her starting point, something to sink her teeth into. “Who is it, Mack?”
“Branston Clark.”
Sarah already had one foot out the door and a hand on her 1911s before Mack finished the sentence. She loaded up on some gear and headed to the helicopter pad on top of the building that housed their new digs. The CEO of the financial holdings group that inhabited the skyscraper was constantly coming and going, so the sight of a chopper wasn’t anything to bat an eyelash at.
During the whole flight to the location, Sarah kept her grip on the pistols. It felt like forever since she had held them and even longer since she had used them. They were oddly heavy, almost foreign, when she first picked them up, but she continued to hold them until the familiarity returned, which took all of about sixty seconds.
“All right,” Bryce said. “The chopper’s gonna drop you off two miles from Branston’s estate.”
“Estate?” Sarah asked. “Jesus, how much money does this guy have?”
“What do you think an estate is?”
“It’s the name of the place where the guy lives that I’m going to beat the shit out of.” Sarah ejected a magazine, checking the rounds, then slammed it back in.
“No,” Bryce said. “That is not what an estate is.”
The chopper touched down, and Sarah jumped out, keeping her head ducked low as the chopper quickly disappeared back into the sky.
“We’ll keep the bird in the air for you until it’s time for the extraction,” Bryce said.
“Shouldn’t take too long.” Sarah fell into a light jog as she made her way through the open fields of northern Illinois. In the distance, she could see other sprawling estates with large gates and enormous mansions. “How many people you think live in those things?”
“According to the heat signatures, there are ten people in the house to your left, twelve people in the house to your back, and eight in the house to your right.”
“And what about Clark?”
“He has twenty-five.”
“Any bets on how many of those are guards?”
“I really don’t feel like throwing my money away today.”
Much like the neighbors, Clark had his own stone-wall fences surrounding the fifteen-room, three-story brick mansion. The lawn was well kept, and a smaller building, which looked like the size your middle-class family of four would live in, was the garage. Sarah snuck a peek in one of the windows and found a cluster of Porsches, Ferraris, and Bentleys. “They even have my color.”
“I have movement on the other side of the garage,” Bryce said. “Two men, armed with assault rifles, loaded down with Kevlar, heading your way.”
“Time to start the show.” Sarah unsheathed her knife, gripping the hard rubber handle and drumming her fingers along the side. She crouched low at the corner of the garage, listening to the thump of the footsteps grow louder until she saw the tip of the first boot.
Sarah jumped up from her crouched position, ramming the tip of the blade under the chin of the guard closest to her, then spun around, slamming her elbow into the nose of the second guard. When she pulled the knife from under the first guard’s chin, a waterfall of blood cascaded down, and the man reached for the pistol at his side, which Sarah kicked out of his hand while bringing the knife into the side of the second guard’s neck before he recovered from the elbow to the face. A stream of blood ejected from the guard’s neck as she removed the blade then shoved it into the throat of the first guard to finish the job. The sequence took less than four seconds, and neither of the guards had time to radio any of their comrades. Sarah wiped the blade on the leg of one of the guards’ pants and picked up his assault rifle. She dragged the bodies behind the garage and peeped back into the window at the cherry-red Ferrari. “I’ll be back for you later.”
“Three other guards are making their way around the back of the perimeter,” Bryce said. “You have about four minutes before they see the bloodstains and notice that their buddies are missing.”
Just before Sarah had her foot past the side of the garage, she stopped and grabbed the radio off one of the dead guards’ ears. She popped it into the ear opposite her GSF uplink so she could hear both sides of the party.
The gravel that outlined the driveway crunched under Sarah’s boots as she made her way toward the side of the house. The radio was quiet as far as chatter went. Whoever this Clark character was didn’t think it was important to have a better rotation of security. Arrogant. The house had a security system installed that mo
nitored any break-ins, but Sarah had Bryce and a satellite. She waited outside the door for Bryce to work his magic, keeping an eye out for any sentries. “Hey, I just wanted to let you know we’ve got plenty of time. No rush.”
“I don’t need the sarcasm,” Bryce replied. “I’m just getting used to the new setup. I haven’t worked from another desk in a very long time.”
The guard radio in Sarah’s ear crackled, and she brought the barrel of the rifle up to the walled ledge above her. “Open the door, Bryce. Now.”
“Almost in.”
“That’s what she said.” The voices in the guard radio grew louder, and Sarah kept her eye on the wall, knowing that any minute, there would be two men turning the back corner and spotting her in plain sight. “Bryce?”
“Got it!”
Sarah turned the handle, slipped inside, and closed the door behind her just as the guards stepped around the corner. Bryce let out a sigh of relief. “Nothing like cutting it close.”
Sarah made her way down the hallway slowly. Massive portraits lined the walls; beautiful chandeliers hung from the ceiling. The shelves and tables were adorned with polished vases and silver plates gleaming under the sparkle of the lights. The rugs beneath her feet were decorated with intricate stitching of flowers and trees. “Damn, I’ve got to get the name of this guy’s maid.”
“Heat signature shows there are ten people inside the house. Four are spread out, and there are six people in a room on the second floor,” Bryce said.
“Then that’s where our boy is.” The carpet muffled Sarah’s footsteps as she moved swiftly down the hall, still wielding the rifle in her hands and Bryce giving her the heads-up on anyone getting close. So far, everyone she snuck past looked like a servant, but she was betting the second floor would offer a little more excitement.
A curving staircase guided Sarah to the second floor, where she heard voices down the hall talking to one another in a group. The guard radio in Sarah’s ear burst with chatter, breaking the silence of the house and interrupting the card game down the hall. “I think they found the bodies.”