Agent of Influence: A Thriller (39 page)

              Malcolm flung open the screen door of his walkout basement and hurled the tennis ball into his massive backyard as far as he could. His seventy-five pound golden retriever tore out of the house without hesitation and went bounding across the yard to retrieve his favorite toy.  The CIA Director’s estate sat in one of the few wooded areas left in Arlington, Virginia. His house was a good half-mile away from his closest neighbor.  His right arm winced in pain. It was foolish to throw the toy as far as he did, but the violent motion did relieve a little stress, if only for the briefest moment. The shoulder injury was compliments of a Sudanese soldier during one of Malcolm’s infiltrations into Northern Africa. Although the soldier received a much worse injury, the mission went awry and was not a good memory for him. That failed mission many years earlier seemed pretty simple compared to the current problem.

  If Malcolm
were a drinker he would have gone straight for the bottle.  One of the many government attorneys who assisted the CIA had just left the house after a cantankerous discussion. Malcolm received the call from the Congressional Oversight Committee the day before. The days of media speculation were coming to an end, and now he was being summoned to Capitol Hill for a question and answer session regarding President Gray’s extracurricular investigation.  There were rumors running all over town that the CIA assisted the FBI during its investigation in Egypt a few months earlier, and Congress was eager to give the CIA an opportunity to clear its name.

At least that was what the Senator from
Illinois told him when he called Malcolm yesterday. Members of Congress rarely called him directly, and when they did, it meant only one thing. They felt they had a sure-fire case, and were eager to rub it in Malcolm’s face while pretending to be fair-minded. Malcolm, however, knew better. Their investigation had always been fraught with danger, and now, just as President Gray feared, it appeared to be blowing up in their collective faces. His honey colored golden retriever came to a screeching halt next to him and deposited the slimy ball at his feet, oblivious to his master’s contemplations.

After
twenty years of service to his country it all appeared to be coming to an end. The last chapter of his career was going to be a rough one, and it may be the final straw that would end his own marriage, as well. It was already on very shaky ground. A job that required him to trust no one, and keep quiet about his successes did not mesh well with the vows of matrimony. When Malcolm combined this with his wife’s personality, which was suspicious by nature, the combination proved toxic. Maria was currently visiting her parents in Arizona for an extended stay. This was for the best.

The last few weeks provided constant speculat
ion about everything Malcolm had done for the past few months. His speeches, statements to the press, and travels were all receiving the full cavity body search that could only be delivered by an alerted press corps. What was anathema to the ordinary person was unbearable torture for a man like Malcolm, who spent most of his career before becoming CIA Director as an invisible agent, making his way through the labyrinth of terrorist networks in North Africa and the Middle East.

             
Sammy sat down beside him, sensing the uneasiness of his master and trying to provide whatever comfort he could. Malcolm reached down, patted the dog on the head, and kicked the tennis ball over to him so he could continue licking it.  The lawyer suggested coming clean about the operation. He suggested that Malcolm should claim it was the President’s idea, and hang him out to dry along with the covert agent who went off the reservation. It would be the perfect way to make nice with Congress, and line himself up for a lucrative book deal after he resigned. Malcolm refused to even consider it. The President was an honorable man. He made hard choices, and stuck with them despite the fact that they were now unpopular.

The twenty-hour news cycle, which provided the CIA with a lot of free information, was a double-edged sword
. It equated what was popular with what was the right thing to do.  At that moment, Malcolm decided to plead the Fifth Amendment on every question. He would not allow the media or Congress to turn this into a spectacle like the Church Committee from the 1970s. That committee decimated the CIA’s ability to do its job, and Malcolm would not allow it to happen again. If the only way to avoid another airing of the CIA’s dirty laundry was for him to fall on his own sword, then that was the way it would be. 

He was really looking forward to the anger this would incite from his interrogators
. Plus, there was one other reason for hope. Brett McMichael had not called him yet to provide him an update on Sean Hill’s trip to Egypt. There was still a slim chance that something might change over the next few days if either Sean or Anna discovered new information at the last second. Now that the game was exposed they were all in danger of going to jail. On the other hand, opening the investigation to daylight was sure to make Zachariah Hardin and Aman Kazim a little nervous. If there was some sort of nefarious plot underway, they were much more likely to make a mistake now that the media was about to focus on a story other than Zach’s search to fill his cabinet positions.

             
Malcolm stepped back into the house, leaving Sammy to gnaw away at the mushy tennis ball. The central alarm chirped as he shut the door. He walked up to the main floor to grab a bottle of water. As he took a sip his cell phone vibrated in his pocket
.
It was a text message instructing him to answer phone number eight. Anna was about to call him. Before the mission he purchased several special cell phones about which only Anna knew. Each one was to be used only once and then disposed of.  They had already used four of them over the last several months.

Dashing into the master bedroom
, he punched in the numbers for the combination on the safe and pulled out the phone. It began ringing a few seconds later. He listened intently as Anna gave him the rundown on what they had discovered. He wished her luck and hung up the phone, not wanting to know any more until they returned. They were about to make a trip to Louisville, KY and needed his assistance. He would have the secret CIA plane gassed up and ready to go.  It was a glimmer of hope and it strengthened his resolve. He was really looking forward to dishing out the silent treatment to the Congressional Committee. He was not sure who despised silence more, Congress or his wife. He then dropped the phone on the floor and smashed it with his right foot.

              Solomon stood near the top of the enormous pine tree, completely invisible to anyone except a trained expert. He was a good half-mile from the military airbase, his car parked just off the side of the road on a hilltop. There was a jack and a spare tire lying beside the vehicle to give a false impression in case someone meandered off the road far enough to find the vehicle. He peered through a pair of French made Ugo Day & Night goggles. Straps secured the multi-functional goggles to his head, and allowed him to keep both hands free to balance himself near the top of the tree. A third lens protruded from the middle of the goggles, making him look like a Cyclops.

Solomon focused on the military C-130 cargo plane as it approached th
e runway. He had been sitting precariously in the tree for two hours, and had seen no other landings. He glanced at his watch. It was five after three. This must be it. The plane touched down safely on the tarmac that was protected by barbed wire and electrified fencing. The military preferred privacy. He could see a few guards scattered amongst the outskirts of the perimeter, meandering aimlessly. They would be easy targets if he had been after them. He slid the goggles up on top of his forehead and began cautiously descending the tree via the same route he ascended it. His original idea would have to be scrapped. The intense security detail at the airport posed too much of a risk. Solomon hurried back to the car and cleaned the area to make sure he left no traces he had been there.

Twenty minutes later he watched as the unmarked government vehicle pulled out of the secure airport and onto the open roa
d. He gently pressed his foot on the accelerator, pushing the silver Mercury Sable out of the convenience store parking lot, and falling in behind them. He followed from a safe distance. They merged onto the freeway and Solomon followed suit. He was now within a few car lengths of the gold Ford Taurus, which seemed to be the U.S. government vehicle of choice. His target was moving along at a few miles above the posted speed limit on I-95 South in northern Virginia. Solomon had carefully chosen his rental vehicle for this mission. The area was teeming with government bureaucrats, and the ones who survived Washington D.C. long enough to attain a free car all seemed to drive either a Taurus, Sable, or some other standard American four door sedan. Solomon wanted to be sure that he blended in to his environment, just in case the driver of the other vehicle was being a little more alert than the average employee of Uncle Sam. 

He took a quick glance through his binoculars.  The idiots were not even driving in a vehicle with tinted windows. There were two men in
the back seat. One was bald, and the other one was so tall that his head appeared to touch the top of the roof.  The brief description that Aman provided him via a text message was enough for him to positively identify his targets. The orders were clear. Aman wanted everyone in the car dead.

Solomon eased off the gas pedal and switched into the slow lane just to be cautious. There was no need to get an
y closer. They would have to merge into the right lane once they arrived at their exit. Only then would he make his move.  He double-checked the MP5K sub-machine gun lying on the passenger seat. The safety/fire selector switch was turned to the bottom setting. The weapon was set for full automatic fire. He patted his pocket and felt the reassuring bulge of his airplane ticket. A round trip flight to Belize leaving in two hours would have him on it. He had every intention of only completing the first leg of his journey.

             
Twenty-five nervous minutes later the vehicle he was tracking finally moved into the right lane, switching on its turn signal to indicate its intention to get off at the next exit. Solomon’s gloved hands gripped the steering wheel, and he slowed down in unison with the vehicle. The highway sign announced that the Central Intelligence Agency was located off the next exit.  Solomon chuckled to himself. The Americans really did not take their security seriously anymore. He doubted they had advertised the location of their secret agencies on street signs during World War II.  The agency was just another government bureaucracy now. He would have to make his move quickly. He knew the CIA building was less than sixty minutes away once they exited the freeway, and he needed to act before they were within eyesight of the complex. There were too many cameras once they were within sight. His quarry slowed their speed even more. The exit was now just a few hundred feet away.

Solomon accelerated forward so no one could cut in
between their two cars. As they merged onto the exit ramp the traffic light at the intersection turned yellow. It was the stroke of luck he was hoping for, and he pulled the MP5K closer to him and laid it across his stomach. He reached underneath the visor and grabbed the ski mask he had stashed away and pulled it over his face. The Ford Taurus rolled gently to a stop, and he could clearly see the two occupants in the backseat. They appeared to be in a heated conversation.  Solomon slammed the gas pedal down, accelerated forward, and swerved his vehicle in front of them, blocking their path.

***

              Sean Hill’s exhausted body could not take much more. The long flight back across the Atlantic in a stripped down C-130 Starlifter was miserable. The seating arrangements consisted of two tiny cots that could barely accommodate an average-sized person, much less his own tall figure. Now this idiot CIA officer wanted to blow the lid on their investigation. Colin’s claim that he was not getting any phone reception on the plane appeared to be a hoax. The shouting match started as soon as they set foot on American soil, and continued unabated their entire journey. 

             
“Fuck it. I’m not going to waste my breath with you anymore,” Sean said. He stared out the front windshield as the driver gently rolled the vehicle to a stop at the end of the exit. He let out a guttural growl. He closed his eyes and wished for the pounding in his head to go away.  The gunning of an engine percolated his senses for the briefest moment. Then the screeching sound of tires abruptly opened his eyes. His drained mind registered the car blocking their path, and exhaustion turned instantly to survival mode as the black clad figure in a ski mask threw open the door. The MP5K sub-machine in the assailant’s two-handed grip began spitting a stream of bullets in their direction. 

In the back of his mind, Sean realized
that during the last thirty minutes he disobeyed every instinct ever burned into his psyche by his superiors.  His hand instinctively reached into his sport coat in a last-ditch attempt to rescue himself from his own grotesque failure. The self-critique ended in a rain of bullets tearing into his chest until his vital organs were shredded from the excessive barrage. Colin and the driver both met the same fate.

***

  Solomon continued firing away until the weapon clicked to a stop, and the spent magazine dropped to the ground and clattered on the asphalt. He tossed the weapon into the stretch of tall grass that ran alongside the street. He had no intention of being caught, but if he was pulled over it was better not to have an empty automatic weapon in the passenger seat beside you. He jumped back into his car, tearing through the red light and crossing the intersection as stunned onlookers gawked at the carnage. He tore up the ramp and back onto the freeway in a mad dash to freedom.