Dark Secret (DARC Ops Book 1) (14 page)

I
t wasn't so much
the bullets or the bombs, but how well you could deal with mind-numbing boredom. The tedium of waiting. Sometimes for hours, and often for nothing. It was a silent killer, the type of waiting that could make any soldier comfortable and soft. All it took was a few hours of desert wind and bleating goats and nothing else. The void would eventually fill with the need for comfort and sleep. Breathing would slow, eyelids got heavy. Ears stopped listening for Arabic.

When was the last time he fell asleep on duty? Was it Mogadishu? On the beach?

Not the safest place for a cat nap, but it happened, the grogginess coming on just after the sun dipped below a skyline of bombed-out buildings. It might have been the waves, a natural sedative, plus memories of home wafting from the open campfires beneath sizzling piles of lobster. Relief finally came in the distant glow of ships, their lantern lights bobbing in rough seas as they approached the shore. It was something to keep him awake, an opportunity to carry out his mission of observing potential pirates and their potentially deadly goods.

But the excitement didn’t last. The pirate fleet turned out to be a few humble fishing trawlers. He watched as the kids came streaming down the beach to unload the boats, each of them barefoot and coming away with a swordfish draped over their shoulder. They would have eventually tripped over Jackson had he not been sleeping under a stack of busted-up rowboats. And had he not fallen asleep, he would have noticed the adults who showed up after the kids for a cache of AK-47s. He'd find out the hard way, several days later, about the different type of prized catch that had been stored beneath the swordfish.

Still, that night's might have been the best sleep he'd ever had on the job, until a few hours later when the storm surge had come frothing into his face. Or until the D.C. cop knocked on his window.

Three hard knocks.

“Excuse me, sir. Welfare check.”

Jackson stirred awake.

“Welfare check, sir. You okay in there?” asked the cop through Jackson's half-open driver side window.

“Uh, yeah.” The words came sputtering out slowly and half-slurred as Jackson's eyes squinted into focus. “Yeah. Yes, Officer. I just fell asleep.”

“Have you consumed any drugs or alcohol tonight, sir?”

“No, I just, uh... I just fell asleep.”

“You can't sleep in your vehicle, sir.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Jackson, looking around his car to make sure he had nothing "interesting" lying about. “It wasn't like I was planning on it.”

“Planning on what, sir?”

He was smart enough not to have an open Beretta for a passenger. But a cop didn’t need much. Just him sleeping was probably enough for probable cause.

“Hey,” the officer said firmly. “What are you looking for?”

“My license and registration.”

“Well, stop. I'm not asking for it.”

“Okay,” said Jackson, leaning back in his seat. He looked out the window and saw the cop's hand at his holster. “Relax, it's all good,” he told the cop.

“I am relaxed, sir. Very relaxed. Can you just keep your hands on the wheel there?”

Jackson complied.

“Thank you, sir.”

“No problem.”

“I just wanted to remind you that non-parking activities are prohibited in the District of Columbia. Okay?”

“Okay,” said Jackson.

The officer lowered his head to the window, probably sniffing for booze or weed, or doughnuts. He then seemed to delight in asking Jackson if he'd had any car trouble, if he was having a medical emergency, if he needed directions. Dumb questions from a dumb grin. Jackson could have straightened the whole thing out in a similarly prickish fashion. If he really wanted to, he could've asked for a supervisor who'd promptly tell the traffic cop to take a hike. He could've really embarrassed the kid.

But Jackson had his own embarrassment to worry about, like falling asleep on a surveillance run. The lowest, most rookie move in the whole business. He'd rather stay anonymous about that. Stay quiet and drive away from his sleepy parking spot across from the Watergate Hotel with a "warning."

“Yeah, I'm leaving right now,” Jackson said on his call to Matthias a minute later. “Langhorne's not coming out and I've got too much shit to do.”

In actuality, Jackson had no clue where Langhorne was, or when he left, or if he even left at all. Either way, the trail was officially cold, the surveillance useless. It evaporated his plan to complete the whole day's cycle, from the senator's morning commute to his rush-hour return—including all the things in between, like an unscheduled meeting at the Watergate. And if Jackson's security contact there hadn’t been on vacation, he would’ve had closer access to whatever it was that brought Langhorne to the infamous hotel. The change in scenery might have even kept him awake. It was exhausting, the way he dwelled on missed opportunities with Langhorne, and his missteps with Mira, the latter keeping him up at night all on its own.

“So what about that follow-up with Jaheem?”

“Yeah,” said Matthias.

“Yeah? Is he staying sober out there?”

“To the best of my knowledge.”

Jackson gunned his car up a freeway ramp, heading north to his own gated community, to his suburban McMansion, and maybe going straight to bed when he got there. “So what's the story?” he asked.

“It's General Diop. He's suspicious of elements in his own government colluding with some big shots in the gold mining industry, using gold money to buy off politicians and to obtain weapons.”

“Weapons like LK-491s?”

“He didn’t say anything about that,” said Matthias. “But I mean... put two and two together and you get LK-491s landing at Kilaguni next week. Al-Shabaab is marching a group of refugees down there to collect them. And then they'll cross into Tanzania to wage a proxy war against the government, all on the behalf of the opposition party, Chadema. That's Jaheem's story, anyway.”

It was a believable story. All the bases covered. All the main figures and motives were connected and independently corroborated. “But why did Diop drop out of contact with me?” asked Jackson.

“I don't know. Fear?”

“There's got to be more to it than that. East African generals don't scare very easily.”

“Jaheem's trying to meet with him,” said Matthias. “So I'll keep you updated.”

“Very good. Now, another thing...” Jackson's scrubbed his speed by twenty miles per hour at the first beeps of his proprietary radar detector. Sometimes having ridiculous sums of money to invest in R&D came in handy. No need for a second police encounter in the same afternoon. “Remember what I said about watching Mira?” he asked while merging into the slow lane. “Well, you're on. Start on it tonight and for the foreseeable future. You've got her trackers, apartment password, everything you need. And look out for a black Honda Civic while you're at it.”

“Roger that,” Matthias replied, and then disconnected.

R
oad-weary and spent
, Jackson pulled into his driveway just after nightfall. He expected to feel relieved, but the foreboding darkness of his house was cause for worry. Why weren’t the lights on? He'd set up automatic timers to give the impression of an occupied house for when he stayed in D.C. And he had an array of motion-sensor lights that could be tripped on by a single wind-blown leaf. But nothing seemed to be working, including a garage door that failed to respond to his in-car remote.

He cut the engine and drew his Beretta from a torso holster beneath his suit jacket. Its black barrel glinted from the light of the car's instrument panel as Jackson clicked off the safety, his fingers disengaging the switch without hesitation or thought, an act of sheer muscle memory. It was all routine, the gun having become an automatic extension of his body many years ago. Jackson held its cool textured grip with the same sureness as a civilian working a TV remote. He cocked the weapon as if flipping channels. And then he stepped out of his car.

Jackson spent as little time as possible out in the open, hunched over a drawn gun and hustling low towards a row of trees. He waited for a moment behind a large oak, long enough to check for any sounds or movements from the house. It was a tactic he used when approaching and infiltrating an enemy compound. Building-clearing. Close quarters combat. He never expected to use it on his own house in the sleepy suburban paradise of Montgomery Mills. But alas, there he was, sneaking quickly to the side of his garage, unlocking the door and entering with a flashlight fixed to his gun. He should start carrying night vision goggles in his car.

Two corners. Clear.

Spaces between cars. Clear.

Rafters. Clear.

Four corners. Clear.

Car interiors. Clear.

Hiding spots under workbench, drafting table, pile of road bikes and surfboards—all clear.

Breaker box interior... A tripped fuse.

Jackson flipped the main power breaker from the middle to the off position with a loud clunking sound. Then he clunked it over to the on position. And on came the lights.

And then his cell rang.

“Hey, Annica,” he said, entering his now-lit home from the garage. His security system had still been engaged and so he tossed his car keys into a bowl of loose bullets and then headed towards the kitchen. A stiff drink was in order.

“So when am I getting a piece of your girl?” she asked.

Jackson was wondering the same thing, thinking back to the parking garage, the site of the world's saddest case of blue balls. “You could've had an interview today,” he said as he creaked open the door to his liquor cabinet. “She was available to the press from ten to eleven.”

“I was busy.”

“That's too bad. What if she's busy for the rest of the week? Or what if something happens to her and she can't talk?”

“What?”

“Yeah. You're blowing your biggest story.” Jackson unscrewed a twelve year old whiskey bottle and poured its caramel contents over ice in a rocks glass.

“What's your deal, Jack?”

“No deal. Just looking out for your story.” He stopped pouring after four fingers, setting the bottle down loudly on a white marble counter.

“You sound extra bitchy today,” Annica said as he raised the glass to his lips. “So you wanted me to interview her about this in front of everyone? And at the fucking senate building?”

“You could have had a one-on-one, off site.”

“Can I have one this week?”

He took another sip.

“You want me to beg for it?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I do.”

There was a pause from Annica. Jackson moved to another room, to a leather sofa, crawling onto it and stretching out.

“What are you doing right now?” she asked, no longer sounding like a Washington Post reporter.

“Just sitting here.”

“Sitting where?”

“My house.”

“Where in your house?”

Jackson stared into his drink, jiggling the ice around. “Remember that black leather sofa? I moved it downstairs.”

“I remember it,” she said.

Jackson said nothing. He took a long sip, thinking of old times, considering.

“You still want me to beg for it?” she asked.

Jackson was starting to feel the warmth of the alcohol take over. The pleasant, sedating heaviness gathering at the back of his mind. He sat up and put his drink down on a coffee table full of 'men's magazines' that he'd never read. “No,” he said, his hand cradling his forehead. What the fuck was he doing?

“No? So you want me to just ask for an interview like a normal, professional journalist?”

He felt himself backing away from the precipice, his thoughts growing more dull and tired with each passing second. He switched off the table lamp next to him and the room went dark. “Can you do Tuesday afternoon?”

“So what's going on with you?” she asked.

“Nothing. What do you mean?”

“Do you like her?”

“No.”

“I don't believe you.”

“You know I can't I don't get involved like that, messing around with my associates.”

“Really?” She laughed quietly. “So I was the only one?”

He reached for his drink. “Yeah.”

“The special one, huh?”

He drank until the bare ice rattled and smacked against his lips.

H
e finally called
.

“Hi, sweetie. You feeling better?”

All Mira could formulate was, “Uh, yeah. Much better.”

Her father's voice came through the car's speakers. “Good. Just in time. My flight's just about ready to board out of Tokyo. I've got some business in San Francisco for the next two days so I'm hoping the jet lag clears up for D.C.” The car filled with his wheezing laughter. “I don't know what it is... I must be getting older or something.”

Like most interactions with her father, this one was bittersweet, the current conversation supplying both a sense of relief and an added stressor. His calming influence was welcomed. But could she really invite him into the hornet's nest that her life had become?

In the end it wouldn’t matter. If he got the slightest hint that she might be in some sort of trouble he’d only be there faster. Better to keep quiet and keep her father from worrying about her any more than he usually did.

“Well, I can't wait,” Mira said, turning onto a rain-soaked Connecticut Avenue.

Could she warn him? How the hell could she warn him? And about what exactly?

“Yes, I want to see you in person,” he said. “To make sure you're telling me the truth.”

“What truth?”

“That you're supposedly happy and healthy.”

“Of course it's the truth,” she said, hating herself even as the words left her mouth. A happy and healthy person would've done much better than that. She tried again, scrounging up every ounce of zen and serotonin from within her frightened and withered shell of a mind. “Dad, I'm working my dream job, right in the heart of Washington. The senator loves me. I have the best Dad in the world, and he's coming to see me soon. So what's the problem?”

“That's what I'd like to know.”

Mira eyed a potential parking space. “Hmm,” she said under her breath, slowing down the car.

“Exactly. You virtually cut off all contact with me in the last two weeks. I know what that means.”

She signaled, came to a stop, asked, “What does it mean?” and then skillfully backed into a parallel parking spot.

“Mira, it's a simple formula.”

She cut her engine, the power draining away from her car and matching her own lifeless mood.

“Don't worry,” he said. “I'll fix you up.”

She believed him.

“FroYo. Maybe some opera.”

“Some opera?” Mira chuckled. “Since when do you like opera?”

“Well, it's for you,” he said.

“Since when do
I
like opera?”

“We'll both like it,” he said before a brief pause. “Or not. But at least we'll hate it together. It'll be good for us. I was actually invited to some Kabuki theater when I was in Osaka. Now
that
was very, very impressive.”

Mira searched the bottoms of cup-holders for some surprise meter money. “It's too bad you won't be here a day earlier. You'll miss the Embassy Row Ball.”

“Yeah,” he said disinterestedly. “I've been to that enough times.”

“Not with me you haven’t.”

“Oh. Yes, that
would
be interesting. Too bad, indeed. Which embassy?”

“Tanzania,” she said while counting quarters.

“Tanzania... Why Tanzania?”

“Because I can translate Swahili. I guess the ambassador wants me to work the room a little bit.”

“That's great,” he said. “Good for you, Mira.”

“And because banda likikushinda, jenga kibanda.”

He laughed. “I think I remember that one... Is that about the shack and the palace? If you can't build a palace?”

“If you can't build a hut...”

“Build a shack. Right. ” He laughed again. “Well, it sounds like fun.”

“Yeah, hopefully.” Mira wondered what the chances were of something catastrophic happening to her at the embassy. Could there really be some nefarious plot to trap her inside the belly of the beast?

“Anyway, I just wanted to check in,” said her father, suddenly sounding distracted. Mira could hear a Japanese announcement in the background, a boarding call for United Airlines 872. “I'll see you the day after the Ball, okay? And then you can fill me in on everything.”

How much she'd fill him in on depended on what was uncovered at the Ball. Hopefully, they'd enjoy a relatively quiet, if not blissfully naive, weekend together.

“Sounds good,” Mira said as she looked up through her windshield to the top floors of the DARC Ops building. She and her father shared an “I love you” before Mira ended her call and stepped out into the rain.

T
he receptionist had offered
her tea or coffee, but Mira's aggravation didn’t need any additional kindling. The dumpster fire had enough oily rags. She wanted to see Jackson and find out what the hell was going on with the case.

“Of course, of course,” said the girl. “I'll let him know immediately.”

She was in a rush to get things over with here today. These visits to Jackson's headquarters were becoming increasingly difficult to hide. And they were also taking a mental toll, an escalating paranoia with each eighteen floor elevator trip to the high security compound which masqueraded as an his personal office. Window dressing, like the piles of golf magazines, a sweet little receptionist, and the randomly hung clichéd motivation posters, screamed out a certain devious inauthenticity to even the most casual of waiting room patrons. A carefully concocted attempt at conveying normalcy. Hey, look at us, we're just your run of the mill law firm. Our associates don't actually
kill
people or anything.

Mira waited impatiently as the young lady behind the desk worked the phone. The call ended with her quietly saying, “Of course,” and her hanging up before smiling professionally at Mira. She was a wonderfully gifted smiler. “He's ready for you. Would you like me to show you the way?”

No. She knew it well enough.

The door at the end of the hall was wide open. The preview offered a glimpse of Jackson in his usual spot, on his throne at a large cherry wood desk, his hands pressed together so that his fingers met in a steeple. It didn’t take long for him to notice Mira, his eyes abandoning a conversation with a blonde woman and darting up over her shoulder to watch Mira's falsely confident stroll.

“Mira! Wonderful.”

“Hi, Mira,” came the low voice of the blonde woman who now faced the doorway. She wore annoyingly bright red lipstick, her hair pulled back tight, almost militantly so.

“This is Annica,” said Jackson.

Mira nodded politely.

“She's a seasoned journalist at the
Washington Post
, and a good friend to us here at DARC Ops.”

Good friends, indeed. The way her legs, those long toned legs of hers, stretched out from her short skirt, the extra open button of her blouse, her sophisticated stripper aura... Every aspect of her attractiveness threatened and inflamed little bits of Mira's ego, the hot embers burning up her insides. It made her question for the thousandth time why the fuck she’d pushed Jackson away in the parking lot.

He was smiling.“Please, have a seat.”

It was amazing, Jackson acting like nothing happened. It was the first time they’d seen each other since she’d pushed him away. It must have been part of his military training, compartmentalizing emotions. The loose calm over his face. The control in his voice. Even his posture at his desk held a stone cold alpha veneer. It made her feel hollow.

“I can't wait to hear your story,” Annica said through a slightly infuriating grin.

Was she really the best he could come up with? Couldn’t Jackson find someone who'd take her seriously? This Annica person seemed more fitted for the camera than printed word. A trashy weather girl maybe. Someone to hang around sporting events with a microphone and a smile plastered on for the drunks of football stadiums.

“Jackson and I went through the gist of it,” she said. “And he filled me in on your, uh... On the sensitivity of the whole thing. Sensitivity? Well you know what I mean.” She giggled and rolled her eyes at herself.

Mira checked Jackson's reaction. A complacent smile.

“Anyway,” Annica continued. “I just want to give you my personal assurance that this is strictly confidential, and until you OK my final draft, it stays between the three of us.. Okay? Does that sound fair?”

Mira checked Jackson again. “I guess so?”

“It's a reciprocal relationship,” he said.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mira saw Annica's blonde head nodding to Jackson, her legs uncrossing, and then crossing the opposite way as she sat back into her chair.

“Built on trust, like a partnership,” he said. “We've done it plenty of times before.”

“Absolutely,” said Annica. “We go way back. Don't worry.”

Jackson cleared his throat. “So, we'll get your story out there to start shaping public opinion. Because the first thing Langhorne will do, if he can even do anything, is come out swinging through the media. Just like what we're doing here, only through the
Post's
competitors. It'll be an information war.”

Annica seemed to try on a sympathetic look. “It might get ugly.”

“I don't care,” said Mira. “I've got nothing to hide.”

“Good,” said Jackson. “More importantly, it'll be a safeguard for you. The more people that know about your story, and the more attention you get, the harder it will be for them to target you.”

“Target me? Like...try to kill me?” Mira saw Annica glance at Jackson, waiting for his response.

“That won't happen.” His voice was calm and cool. Detached, almost.

“You sure?”

“It protects you from any kind of targeting. Character assassination, let's say.”

She knew he was lying, that there was a real possibility of her getting snuffed out, shot through a pop-bottle silencer and then left to bleed out in a dumpster somewhere. But what the hell was he supposed to say in response to her question?

“We won't let that happen, Mira,” said Jackson, for once sounding like the man she'd come to know. Her protector. His voice filled the room with such a firm timbre, that she suddenly felt silly for worrying about his detachment from her case—and more importantly, from her.

And then it was gone again and Jackson returned to his business persona. “Okay. So let's get started?”

Annica chuckled quietly as she took out a notepad and audio recorder from her purse. Mira wasn't sure what was so funny.

“So thanks again for doing this,” said Annica, sounding as phony as ever.

“No problem.”

The interview began with what Annica called "background questions," which seemed more like a needless probing for details about Mira's childhood. Like an uninvited therapist, she raced into the raw wounds of Mira's parents' faltering marriage, as well as her sometimes tenuous relationship with her mostly-absent father. And for good measure, she threw in questions about Mira's dead mother. All this while Jackson paced around the room like an orbiting satellite.

And then she asked about Mira's political leanings, which were decidedly neutral because she enjoyed working in Washington. And even if they weren’t, Annica and her newspaper would be the last to know.

What else? Her dating history? Wonderful.

“So just to be clear,” said Annica. “And it's off the record, too, by the way...”

It was difficult for Mira to believe that.

“Just to be clear, um...” Annica was tapping a pen on her bare knee. “There's nothing at all going on with you and any of the senator's employees, right?”

Mira wondered if unrequited love counted. Nah, Chuck wasn’t worth mentioning. Especially not in front of Jackson.

“And what about you and the senator?” Annica asked nonchalantly.

Mira couldn’t hold back the daggers in her eyes. She aimed them right through Annica's skull, to Jackson who stood in the corner of the room. How dare he stay so silent...

“Sorry, I know,” said Annica. “I know it sucks. But it's very, um... It's extremely relevant to the story. And I need to vet your credentials and motivations. My boss would kill me if I just—”

“What do you think they are?” asked Mira.

“Excuse me?” Her pen had stopped its tapping. “Your motivations?”

“Yes.”

“I think...” She trailed off, looking over to Jackson. But Jackson's orbit was too distant, on the dark side of the moon and he was unavailable for comment or for saving his slutty little reporter friend.

Mira kept her eyes on Annica. “Why do you think I'm doing this?”

“I think you're trying to do the right thing, Mira.”

“Which is...?”

Annica paused for a moment. She sighed and then clicked off the recorder. “It's an incredibly difficult thing. You're risking it all, and I appreciate that. And I think the country will, too. I really do.” She went silent again, joining Jackson who was still unavailable for comment.

“What's
your
motivation?” Mira asked her interviewer.

“The truth,” she said. “And right now that means that I help you.
We
help you. Jackson and I.”

Jackson had walked back to his desk, a strange look forming on his face. “Excuse me, girls. Can I break in here for a moment?”

“Sure,” said Annica. She sounded relieved.

“Sorry,” he said, looking at his computer screen. “I just realized I have a quick appointment I need to attend. Over the phone. And I need to be in my office. I'm sorry.”

“No, it's no problem,” said Annica. “Don't even worry about it.”

“I won't be long. Twenty minutes.” Jackson pulled his wallet from his back pocket and fished out some cash. “Get some lunch. On me.” He tried handing Mira a twenty.

She couldn’t tell if the gesture was sweet or insulting. Either way, she didn’t want his money. “No, thanks,” she said quietly.

Annica, on the other hand, snatched up the money like a tween daughter getting her weekly allowance. “Thanks, Jack,” she said with a smile. And then she turned to Mira. “Don't worry. It's easier once you get to know him, and when you know how much he makes.”

The transaction seemed disturbingly routine. How much money had he given her over the years? And why?

Mira listened as Jackson followed Annica to the door, uttering a few more niceties and apologies. Behind her was the sound of Jackson shutting the office door with a heavy click, and then his footsteps across the room towards her. “What’s the matter?” he asked.