She didn’t have friends, at least not in the conventional sense.
She rarely dated.
Didn’t enjoy meeting new people.
Three more knocks came at the front door, insistent, crisp raps from determined knuckles that suggested almost a military precision.
Tracie sighed and took one more sip of her coffee. Then she moved to the door. Peered through the peephole and blinked in surprise.
She stepped back and pulled the door open and launched herself into the arms of the man standing on the other side. He held her and squeezed, lifting her small body off the ground and twirling her a full three hundred sixty degrees before setting her down again.
When he did, she smiled up at him and said, “What are you doing here, Dad?”
“A man can’t pay his only child a visit?”
“Of course he can, but you’re so busy and I’m hardly ever here, and I—” She stepped out of his embrace and gazed up at him suspiciously. “How did you know I would be here?”
“Jeez, you’re not going to invite me in before giving me the third degree? Where does a guy have to go to get a cup of coffee in this neighborhood?”
“Come on in, Dad. I’d love to share a cup of coffee with you.” She ushered him inside and closed the door and led him into the kitchen. Her tiny table offered only enough room for two diners, and her father eased into the space without the half-empty cup in front of it as Tracie busied herself selecting a clean mug and pouring his coffee.
She placed it on the table in front of him and stood, hands on her hips. “And don’t think you were successful in distracting me from the fact you didn’t answer my question. How did you know I’d be here? How did you know I’d even be in the country?”
He winked at her. “I work at the Pentagon, remember? I have my sources.”
She slipped into her chair and sipped her own coffee before answering. “You’ll forgive me if I tell you I’m still skeptical.”
“You don’t think a two-star general has sources?”
“That’s not what I mean when I claim skepticism.”
“Okay, then what?”
“I’ve been in and out of the country before, between missions—”
“And even during,” he interrupted with a grin.
Tracie glared. “No comment. You know the CIA doesn’t operate inside the borders of the United States.”
“Noted. But I just wanted to reinforce my point about sources. I try to keep an eye on my little girl. To the extent possible, anyway.”
“Dad, I’m twenty-eight. I’m hardly your little girl anymore.”
“Sweetheart, you’ll still be my little girl when you’re fifty-eight, if I’m lucky enough to have a pulse by then. You’ll be my little girl when you’re eighty-eight. You’ll always be my little girl. That will never change.”
“You’re sweet. And I appreciate the thought, especially today.”
Her father gazed at her over the rim of his coffee mug. “Something you need to talk about?”
She shrugged. “I can’t. At least, not with any degree of specificity.”
“I can appreciate that. But it’s obvious something’s bothering you.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. You look like hell.”
“Gee, Dad, thanks for the sensitivity. I feel a lot better now.”
He grinned. “Happy to help.”
“Back to my original point,” Tracie said. “I’m skeptical that you showed up outside my front door completely at random, simply because you wanted to visit me, not that I don’t appreciate the gesture.”
This time her father laughed out loud. “I’d almost forgotten how relentless you can be when you set your sights on something.”
“I don’t know how you could forget. I learned it from you.”
“Touché. But it just so happens you’re right. This visit, as wonderful as it is to see you and as overdue as it may be, is not strictly social and it’s not random.”
“Okayyyy…”
“I received an interesting phone call late yesterday afternoon.”
“Obviously I was the subject of your call.”
“Correct,” her father said, and took another sip of his coffee.
“Care to fill me in on who made this call?” Tracie said. “Or would you rather just sit there drinking my coffee and making cryptic comments?”
“That’s a tough decision. You really are fun to tease. Always have been.”
“Have I ever mentioned that part of my training at The Farm involved mastering multiple ways to kill another human being using only my bare hands?”
Her father laughed again and Tracie realized with some surprise that she was suddenly as happy as she could remember being in a very long time, even after all the turmoil of her Moscow assignment and her time with Marshall. She loved her mother very much, but had always been a Daddy’s Girl. Some of her favorite memories from growing up were afternoons spent fishing with her dad, or tossing a baseball or football in the back yard, or going for long walks and talking about nothing and everything.
He cleared his throat and said, “The call came from your boss.”
Tracie sat back. “Excuse me?” That was literally the last thing she’d expected him to say.
“I said your boss called me. You know, Aaron Stallings.”
“Yeah, Dad, I know who my boss is. I just don’t understand the connection. Why would a guy you’ve never met call you to talk about me?”
“Who says I’ve never met him?”
“So you know him?”
“I’ve worked at the Pentagon a long time, honey, and as you well know, Stallings has been in his position at the agency since…well…forever. So, yes, our paths have crossed on occasion.”
Tracie was silent as she absorbed her father’s words. It occurred to her with the suddenness of a lightning strike that she shouldn’t be surprised by this revelation. But for some reason she’d never considered the possibility of her dad and Stallings having any kind of relationship, even a cursory one.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” her father said, amused.
“I guess I just never pictured Aaron Stallings talking to people like a regular person.”
“You mean, rather than screaming and yelling and trying to intimidate them?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Well,” he said. “Talking to Aaron is not exactly like talking to a normal human being, but he can’t get away with abusing me like I know he abuses his employees.”
“One of whom is me.” She began to get a sense for where the conversation was going, and her anger began to rise.
“Yes. One of whom is you.”
“So it’s not enough that he treats me like dirt at work. Now he wants to involve my father in his manipulation?”
“Listen, honey. Stallings couldn’t get into specifics, obviously, but he told me he knows he went too far with this last assignment. He wanted me to pass along his apologies and tell you he regrets not fully informing you about the full nature of that assignment.”
Tracie recalled diving to the pavement of a shabby D.C. apartment complex in a desperate attempt to avoid a Soviet assassin’s sniper fire and barked, “Oh, really? Is his phone broken? He didn’t have the guts to talk to me himself, he had to get my own dad to do his dirty work?”
She flashed an angry look at her father, who returned her gaze calmly. “How long have you worked for Aaron Stallings?” he asked quietly.
“Since I got hired, obviously. So coming up on eight years. Although I spent most of that time working with a different handler.”
“So you’ve known him personally for…”
“Almost a year,” she said, still miffed.
“That’s long enough to get a handle on the man’s personality, yes?”
She snorted. “More than long enough.”
“Okay. So, in all the time you’ve known Stallings, have you ever heard him apologize to anyone, for anything?�
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She spit an angry laugh. “Never. I don’t think he’s capable of the introspection required.”
“I’m not sure you’re giving the man quite enough credit,” he said quietly. “But that’s neither here nor there. What matters is that you need to consider the significance of his actions.”
“Meaning what?”
“Don’t you think it means something that he would pick up the phone and call me, a man with whom he has only the most peripheral of relationships?”
“I suppose,” she admitted grudgingly. “What’s your point, exactly?”
“My point is he said you may have quit your job yesterday. He isn’t quite sure. Did you quit your job yesterday, Tracie?”
“I’m not so sure, either.” She mumbled her answer while staring into her now-mostly-empty coffee mug.
“The next question is obvious: how can you be unsure whether you quit a job or not? But since I watched you grow up, and got to see your fiery side firsthand for years, I’m not going to ask the obvious question. I can well imagine you getting angry and saying things that could be interpreted in a number of different ways.”
“Can you please tell me what you’re getting at, Dad?”
“I’m getting at this: if you did quit, he’d like you to reconsider.”
“I don’t know if I can do that.”
“Because of the way he treated you.”
“Yes. I’m used to him yelling and bullying. I can deal with that. He doesn’t intimidate me at all. But he crossed a line with my last assignment.” So did I, she wanted to add, when I gunned down an unarmed old man, but bit back the words.
She felt the intensity of her father’s stare. After a moment he said, “Let me ask you a question. When you went to work at the CIA, did you do it because you were anxious to work for Aaron Stallings?”
Tracie laughed. “Of course not. I was only barely aware of who he was when I started at the agency.”
“Then why let him affect you to such an extent that you’re willing to give up the career to which you’ve dedicated your entire adult life? Why give him that much power over you?”
“You don’t understand, Dad.”
“Then educate me.”
“Stallings intentionally put me in harm’s way, without so much as the courtesy of a warning. Because of him, I could—and probably should—have been killed.”
Her father sipped his coffee, clearly trying to decide how to respond. When he did, he surprised her. “I’ve never been prouder of you than I was the day you were hired to begin training as an operational asset for the Central Intelligence Agency.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’ve also never been more terrified than I was that day, and than I’ve been every single day since. To know you’re risking your life taking on the most dangerous assignments inside the most dangerous countries on earth, with little or no backup, is something no parent would ever want for his child. But do you know why I’ve never tried to talk you out of your decision?”
Tracie’s father’s eyes were moist as she looked into them. She shook her head.
“Because I know what it means to have a passion for serving your country. You chose to do it in a different way than me, but I understand.”
“What are you getting at?”
“I’m getting at this: I would love nothing more than for you to decide you’ve had enough of getting shot at in foreign lands. But when I look into your eyes, I don’t see a young woman who has had enough. I see someone who remains dedicated to her calling. That being the case, I think it would be a mistake to give it all up in a fit of anger at your boss.”
“But you don’t know what Stallings did.”
“I don’t think you’re being completely honest with yourself, sweetheart.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me.”
“I heard you, I just don’t understand what the hell you mean.”
“I don’t think you’re angry at Stallings for the reason you claim to be.”
Tracie’s temper flared. “I told you, you don’t underst—”
“Let me finish. You say your boss sent you out on an assignment without adequate warning. Fair enough. But you’ve been the beneficiary of years of the finest training this country has to offer, training that has equipped you as well as is humanly possible to do your job. I refuse to believe for one second that you go out on any assignment without being fully prepared for whatever might happen. You didn’t need a specific warning from Stallings any more than you’ve ever needed one.”
It was Tracie’s turn to sit back in her chair in rapt consideration. She admired her father more than anyone she’d ever met and put plenty of stock in his opinion on any subject. He was not a man to speak rashly or without due consideration.
He was making a lot of sense.
He was right.
“I think what you’re really upset about,” he continued, “is Stallings’ manipulation. I think you’re hurt by it and more than a little insulted that he would treat you in such a callous manner.”
“You’re damn right I am. There’s no question about that.”
“But here’s the question you need to ask yourself, Trace. Do you really want to give up your career, and the thing that gets you out of bed every day, because your boss insulted you or treated you poorly? Particularly when you’re well aware that’s his nature. Aaron Stallings is a manipulative bastard. Everybody knows it, and it’s that very personality trait that has made him so successful as head of the world’s foremost intelligence-gathering organization.”
Tracie lifted her coffee cup absently and brought it to her lips before realizing it was empty. She grinned and placed it on the kitchen table with a thud. “How did you get so smart, anyway?”
“Not smart,” he said. “Just experienced. And more than anything I want what’s best for my baby girl.”
“I love you,” she said.
“Likewise. And your sneaky, manipulative boss asked me to pass along a second message.”
“There’s more?”
“Yep. He’d like to see you in McLean tomorrow morning.”
“How did he know you’d be able to…? Ah, never mind.”
Her father laughed. “Now, what do I have to do to get more coffee?”
3
January 29, 1988
10:00 a.m.
Ipatiev Military Research Facility
Mezhgorye, Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic
Dr. Vladimir Protasov squinted against the insufficient lighting as he prepared to crack the skull of his latest subject. Why the hell the KGB could not provide proper illumination inside his lab Vlad could not understand, but he had been in charge of this project for well over a year and had requisitioned lighting upgrades through official channels at least a half-dozen times.
Every one of his requests had gone unanswered.
He sighed softly. A prominent Russian parapsychologist and surgeon, Vlad had been recruited out of Novosibirsk University eighteen months ago, lured away from the comforts of academia by the promise of well-funded state sponsored research. He’d reluctantly accepted the KGB’s job offer, not knowing what the consequences of turning it down might be but not wanting to find out, either.
He had left his family behind and been transported to this secret facility plunked down in the middle of the Ural Mountains, isolated and lonely. Opportunities to speak to his wife and children by telephone were rare, and even the tiny village located next to the base remained, for the most part, off limits.
Not that there was much to do in town, anyway.
He staved off the loneliness as best he could by throwing himself fully into the project for which he’d been recruited. Progress came incrementally when it came at all, but Vlad persisted. One of the benefits of working for the KGB was the opportunity to study the many classified scholarly texts and research papers he’d never seen while teaching at university. The research w
ent back decades, some as far as the 1880s.
And if the grand breakthrough he longed for had thus far remained elusive, Vlad had played the academic game long enough to know it was best not to keep the home office apprised of every bump in the road. The less Lubyanka knew of his problems the better, so every status report emphasized only the positive.
Even when Vlad had to think long and hard to identify any progress at all, when test subject after test subject fell victim to the unsanitary conditions within the lab and died, or when Vlad’s surgical technique proved too amateurish for the rigors of brain surgery and the subjects died, he still forced himself to remain relentlessly upbeat when communicating with his project supervisor, KGB Colonel Vasiliy Kopalev.
The job was difficult and often grim, but as long as he kept his mind occupied, Vlad was able to remain focused at work. It was a different story away from the lab, though, especially at night when he so often found himself tossing and turning in sweat-soaked sheets, unable to sleep.
During those times the ghosts of dead test subjects came to call.
Because many lives had been lost to the quest for progress.
Vlad understood the critical nature of his project in a theoretical sense, understood that human subject testing constituted a key element in completing the project successfully, understood even that lives would have to be sacrificed for him to stand any chance of bringing the project to fruition and getting the hell out of this dank, depressing prison.
He understood all of that, but understanding it didn’t make keeping the ghosts away any easier.
Vlad blinked and shook his head and forced himself out of his cycle of self-recrimination. He returned his attention to the test subject currently lying stretched out atop a stainless steel surgical table. The subject was a man, and the man was immobilized thanks to dozens of straps securing his entire body to the table.
Still, the subject tracked Vlad’s every movement with frightened eyes.
The man had found his way to the Ipatiev Research Facility, Vlad assumed, in much the same manner as the great majority of his test subjects: he’d been rounded up in one of the semi-regular sweeps of homeless vagrants conducted in Moscow, Stalingrad, Leningrad and other large Russian cities. This of course meant the man likely suffered from some form of mental illness as well as, in all probability, drug addiction or alcoholism. Or all of the above.
Tracie Tanner Thrillers Box Set Page 123