Chasing the Son (27 page)

Bad things happened in the dark.

Thus it required very judicious use of the pearls that were uncovered.

Nero had liked to tell Hannah, as he trained her, that the decision was based on being a very specific judge of the quality and the long-range importance of each potential decision. They were all pearls, but only the rare, ‘black pearls’, should be acted on. Often, it was as important what
wasn’t
acted on as what was. The events that were allowed to happen in order to keep up the mirage that networks and messages of foreign governments, corporations, organizations, etc. were secure.

Sometimes those events were horrible, but it was all for the greater good. A philosopher might argue the finer points of that, but Hannah and the handful like her in the world, lived in reality. And that ‘justice’ had a way of eventually catching up to evil and making it pay.

It also required a massive cover-up. Disinformation is as important as information. Documentaries are still being made and aired discussing the ‘code-breakers’ at Bletchley as if they’d really done an original thing, and not been handed a message that had already been decoded by Turing’s machine, the very first computer, and then recoded in an easier manner, one which
could
be broken by the human minds there.

Games within games.

Sometimes the blatant logic that people ignored surprised Hannah, who was very difficult to surprise. But it was simple: If the Turing machine had broken Enigma, then it broke
every
message, not just a magical handful. The magical handful were the ones the powers-that-be, Hannah’s predecessors wanted to be known.

The chilling fact that Nero had known, and Hannah now did, was that once Turing and the British broke the German Enigma and then the Americans broke the Japanese Purple, was that those at the very, very highest level, had known every single major operation planned by the other side.

Coventry was the rule, rather than the exception.

The secret had to be kept and wielded only on the very rarest of occasions.

Still, there were exceptions. Which was why Hannah looked beyond the Ultra Loop and checked the analysts’ reports. In this new world of the War on Terrorism, many enemies were not states but small groups; much more difficult to keep track of. And, of course, Hannah’s primary tasking was to watch over the United States own group of covert organizations, the number of which seemed to constantly be growing.

She had a lot going on besides Cardena’s problem in South Carolina. The covert world contained many strange and diverse units; all of which required some sort of policing. She had to put those out of her mind for the moment.

She accessed the keyboard on a shelf underneath her desktop. The computer screens were set in the desk, visible only to her via reflecting off of mirrors through the clear surface. To those on the other side it looked like nothing was on her desk. She constantly had data streaming on those screens. Nero had his folders, but she’d accepted she had to go digital. The key was that it was all one way. Data came into her office, but never out. And she stored no information, instead tapping into the NSA’s mainframe with unlimited access.

She also didn’t like to do email.

A buzzing noise interrupted her reading. She pulled open a drawer and stared at the phone inside with distaste. She hated talking on the phone as much as she disliked email, but there were some calls she had to take. If a person had this number, then it was such.

Hannah picked up the receiver. “Hannah.”

“Ms. Hannah.” The voice drooled southern charm so fake it grated on Hannah’s nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard.

“Senator. What a surprise to hear from you. Especially at this late hour.”

“We who serve our country,” Senator Gregory said, “are always on duty.”

There was a pause, into which Hannah suspected she was supposed to say something as pithy.

She didn’t.

“Now, Ms. Hannah,” Gregory began, “I understand you have an operative working down in my neck of the woods.”

“Which neck is that?” Hannah asked, having a fleeting vision of strangling the Senator’s scrawny neck.

“Down around Hilton Head,” Gregory said. “You have a woman yonder who is causing a bit of a ruckus. Seems she took a shot at my son. Makes it kind of personal, don’t ya think?”

“I doubt she shot at your son,” Hannah said.

“And why is that?”

“Because he’d be dead if she did and he is not, am I correct?”

“You are correct,” Gregory admitted. “But still. The propriety of it all. Really. There is nothing in that area that need concern you.”

Another pause, which Hannah once more refused to fill. She marveled at the simplicity of unraveling a lie: by calling her so late and telling her there was nothing, he was telling her there was indeed something.

Gregory’s voice lost a little bit of its charm. “Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Hannah said.

“Very good.”

The phone went dead.

* * *

They could see the
Fina
tied up to Chase’s floating (sort of) dock. It was dark and the lights along the 240-foot walkway were on, a single bulb every twenty feet or so giving out a feeble glow. Once more the difference between Chase’s abode and the houses on either side was apparent as the neighbors were brightly lit.

“Trying to scare off robbers?” Westland asked as they pulled up, noting the illumination.

“Trying to show everyone how much house they have,” Chase answered.

“Oh,” Westland. “That makes sense. Not.”

Riley drove his Zodiac to the inside of the dock, where he tied it off. He led the way up the gangplank to the walkway, with Chase, Westland and Dillon following.

They entered the back sliding doors, into the tree-filled living room, where Gator and Kono were waiting.

“What do you have?” Riley asked Gator without preamble.

Gator held up an iPad. “Got my friend to do the best he could with it. He said the pixies wasn’t the greatest.”

“Pixels,” Westland said.

“And?” Chase pressed.

Gator indicated that it was Kono’s turn to contribute.

The Gullah took the iPad. He tapped the screen, expanding the view of the window. “Here.”

The others gathered round, but could see nothing special.

“These lines,” Kono said and then they could see three thread-like lines crossing the blue sky above the green trees and dark water outside the window. “Power lines far back. If this is the Intracoastal, only a few places where lines like that. One is Hilton Head. Tybee Island another. Some also run north-south along coast. Maybe down by Savannah or the Golden Islands in Georgia. I’d have to run the coast to try and figure it out. Match lines to place.”

Chase looked out the window. “Can you do that in the dark?”

Kono nodded. “Night vision. We can run the coast.”

“What time is this meeting on Daufuskie?” Gator asked.

“Ten in the morning,” Westland said.

“Cutting it tight,” Riley said. “We not only have to find where Doc and Harry are being held, then we have to launch an op to rescue them before that meeting.”

“Someone still has a story to tell,” Chase said, indicating Westland. “Who is Sarah Briggs? What are we facing? We need to get a better understanding before running around in the dark searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack.”

“We thought she was dead,” Westland said. “She went on an op twelve years ago. HAHO infiltration into Russia.”

“What was the mission?” Riley asked.

Westland shook her head. “Still can’t talk about that. She was an assassin, all right? So it was wet work as they used to say in the old days. Her jump was clean, there was an open chute. And then nothing. No infil report. No initial entry report. And nothing from the Russians either.”

“Did she cut and run?” Riley asked.

A new voice entered the discussion. “She did not.”

Everyone turned and reacted with varying speed. Riley was the fastest, weapon at the ready, Chase not far behind. Gator and Kono also drew their pistols.

But Westland didn’t.

Sarah Briggs stood in the front doorway of Chase’s house, blood running down from a cut in her forehead, cradling one arm, and looking like hell.

“Hello Kate,” Sarah Briggs said. “It’s been a long time.”

She turned to face the others. “I was betrayed. Khan’d,” Sarah said. She took a step in. “Do you know what that is? Any of you? I’m not referring to damn
Star Trek
. I’m referring to Inayat Khan, the first woman to jump into Occupied France with a Jedburgh team during World War Two.”

Riley lowered his gun. The others shifted their gazes from her to him and Westland.

“What the fuck?” Gator asked, not lowering his weapon. “Thought we were going to kill her?”

Riley sighed and sat down on the trunk of the tree. “Let’s hear her story. I know what she’s referring to.”

“I didn’t know,” Westland said to Sarah. “I swear. I didn’t know.”

Sarah came further in. “Doesn’t matter whether you knew or not. You wouldn’t have had any choice. There was nothing you could do about it. Actually, the whole point is
none
of us know the truth when we work in the black world.” She looked around the living room. “We’re all played all the time. Don’t you get it? By those who
do
know. By those we’re supposed to trust. But they aren’t trustworthy. I’m not going to be played any more. No more.”

“Someone want to clue me in?” Chase asked. He looked at Riley and Westland. “What is she talking about?”

“She was betrayed,” Riley said. “I’m willing to bet that when she landed after her HAHO jump the Russians were waiting on her drop zone. Took her prisoner. Tortured her. Extracted what information they could. And believed it, since they got it under torture, except it didn’t occur to them that she’d been briefed on false intelligence and gave that up. That’s what happened to Inayat Khan. She was pumped full of false intelligence during her mission preparation, then sent into a Resistance network that her handlers knew had been compromised. She was betrayed. Picked up by the Gestapo. Tortured. Naturally, the Germans believed the intel she gave up. It never occurred to them that the ‘gentlemen’ English would knowingly give her up.”

“What happened to this Khan woman?” Gator asked.

Sarah answered. “After they got everything they could from her, they sent her to Dachau where she was shot in the back of the head and thrown into the crematorium.”

“How do you all know all this?” Gator asked Riley, the concept of books being rather foreign to him.

“When I arrived at my first Special Forces assignment,” Riley said, “the battalion commander gave me a book to read, titled
Bodyguard of Lies
. It’s about the covert war during World War Two. Her story was in it. Stuck with me because it always made me think twice every time I got a mission briefing. Wondering whether the mission was actually the mission or a cover for something else.”

“You can go crazy thinking like that,” Westland said.

“No shit,” Sarah said.

“You can end up dead not thinking like that,” Riley countered.

“I don’t care,” Gator said. “We said we’d kill her if we saw her again. Let’s do it.”

Sarah looked at Chase. “Preston is moving your son. And Doc Cleary. He’s got them now.”

“So the two of you have turned on each other,” Riley summed up the situation.

“So much for searching tonight,” Kono said.

“Why are you here?” Chase asked.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Sarah said. “Preston is crazy. I was in this just for the money. He’s in it for something else. Power.”

Dillon spoke up. “He’s killed three people that we know of. Jerrod and Merchant Fabrou. And Greer Jenrette.”

Sarah nodded. “And I suspect he’s going to use your son, Chase, to get you to kill Mrs. Jenrette. That way he’ll own all of Daufuskie.”

“Why do I think you were going to do the same when you were in cahoots with him?” Chase asked.

“And what did you do to Farrelli?” Riley demanded of Sarah.

“I killed him,” she admitted. “Just like you had Karralkov killed. He was a crook and a murderer. And what I was going to do doesn’t matter any more. The field has changed. I’m here to help.” She looked at Westland. “Unless of course you’re to Sanction me upon sight.”

“The final decision on a Sanction is always in the hands of the field agent,” Westland said.

“And what have you decided?” Sarah asked.

“I can wait until we see what happens tomorrow,” Westland said. She looked over at the men. “It can’t hurt to have another gun on our side.”

“Are you really on our side?” Riley asked Sarah. “I see no reason to trust you.”

“There are ten million reasons for you to trust me,” Sarah said. She reached inside her coat, Gator snapping up his pistol in reaction, and pulled out a thin leather satchel. “I still own Bloody Point. There’s no way Preston Gregory is going to pay me for it, but Mrs. Jenrette will.”

“And why do I think,” Chase said, “that you offered up my son to Mrs. Jenrette to fatten the deal?”

Sarah smiled. “You’re getting better at this, Horace.”

“We’re never going to trust you,” Chase said.

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Sarah said.

“Tell us what happened in Russia,” Westland said. “And tell us the truth.”

“What happened in Russia?” Sarah repeated. “I’d prefer not to go back there, even in words.”

“I’d prefer to shoot you,” Riley said. “I’m not sure we should believe your story. Either what happened twelve years ago or what happened today. You don’t have a very good track record with the truth.”

Sarah’s gazed blankly out the back windows at the dark night outside, the glow from the lights on the houses on either side impinging on the view of the Intracoastal.

“You have coverage out there, don’t you?” she said to Westland, surprising the others.

Westland nodded. “Yes.”

“So if you give the signal, I’m dead.”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Sarah said. “Since Preston has already moved your son,” she added, looking at Chase, “we have nothing else to do this fine night. I will tell you what happened. You decide whether to believe me or not.”