Dark Secret (DARC Ops Book 1) (8 page)

She was surprisingly calm and methodical with her search, as if she'd actually been looking for this or that nondescript work-file. And she almost began to believe the lie, until a certain booming voice reminded her otherwise.

It finally caught up with her, the pounding heart, the profusely sweating armpits, fingers that could barely stay on a track-pad, and a dissociative out-of-body feeling that became vaguely terrifying.

Having neither the time or mental capacity to actually read anything, she hastily dragged and dropped the entire folder into her USB.

And then footsteps...

And breathing.

And Mira logging the fuck out.

“A bomb threat. A friggin bomb threat. Can you believe it?”

Mira spun around to see Chuck walking towards her with another man. He was black and middle-aged and in traditional East African garb – a long white shirt with gold and red embroidery atop baggy white pants. He was bald, but had curly tufts of white hair along his chin.

“They canceled the whole thing,” said Chuck as he approached her cubicle. “Drove three blocks and they turned us around.
This
guy was stranded.” He was pointing to the African.

“How do you do,” the African said to Mira, whose heart was still racing.

“This is Hanisi,” said Chuck. “He's an aide to the Tanzanian Embassy. Hanisi, Mira.”

Mira nodded politely, still not sure if she'd been hallucinating. The office had certainly looked different after her frenzied file copying, as if her vision was too sharp. The office seemed too clear. The light too harsh.

“Chuck says you speak Swahili,” Hanisi said with a warm smile. “This is true?”

“Uh, yeah,” she said, in no mood for Swahili. “A little bit. Sorta.”

“Sorta?” said Chuck. He looked at his friend and said, “Don't worry. I didn't bring you here for sorta.” He waited for his friend to laugh. “Go ahead and talk to her. She knows it.”

“I don't want to trouble you, Mira,” said Hanisi. He was very soft-spoken. “You know Chuck, he is... pushy.”

“Hakuna matata,” said Mira, slipping the USB stick into her purse.

“What?” said Chuck. “Hakuna matata?
I
know that one. Lion King, right?”

“Lion king?” asked Hanisi. “Who's the lion king?”

Mira smiled at the African. “Habari ya mchana, Hanisi.”

He smiled back and said, “Nimefurahi kukutana nawe.”

“Okay,” said Chuck. “I don't know those ones.”

Mira and the Tanzanian made some small talk while Chuck's eyes glazed over. Hanisi asked her how she learned Swahili, and why it sounded like Kimwani, a dialect of Zanzibar. He asked how often she'd have to translate Swahili for Langhorne. He was pleasant. But full of questions.

“Are you guys talking about Embassy Row yet?” asked Chuck who garnered an annoyed glance from Hanisi.

“No,” said Mira. “What about it?”

“The Embassy Row Ball,” said Hanisi. “Are you attending?”

It was a yearly gala hosted by the embassies along Massachusetts Avenue. In the past, she'd always dreamt of attending in a limousine and in a sleek black cocktail dress. But considering the recent events, it was the last thing Mira wanted to do. Besides, she was sick. Right? “I'm afraid not,” she said. “I'm actually going on sick leave.”

The Tanzanian aid looked disappointed.

“Ninaumwa,” said Mira.

“But maybe you'll feel healthy next week?” he asked. “The ball isn't until next week.”

“Well, then I'm going on vacation.”

Chuck laughed at his friend. “Don't worry, Hanisi. She shoots me down like this all the time. She's an expert at it.”

“What?” Hanisi looked confused.

“Well, weren’t you asking her to go?”

“Yes,” he said, turning back to Mira with a smile. “Yes, I was. If you're staying in town for your vacation, then you should attend. Definitely attend. We'll pay you.”

“Pay me for what?”

“For translating. Senator Langhorne says good things. Very good things about your translating. And we'll pay you well.”

“The senator will be there,” said Chuck, thinking he was sweetening the deal.

“That's right,” said Hanisi. “And so will I.”

The presence of Langhorne was an immediate
hell no
for Mira. But after taking a moment to think about the situation, and to get over the creepiness of Langhorne, the Embassy Row Ball appeared more and more a viable opportunity for intelligence gathering. And it would no doubt help Jackson. And maybe even impress him a little, the way she'd thrust herself right in the middle of the conflict and between its key players, show him she was serious. Sure, she could do a little translating between spying and eavesdropping.

“Okay,” said Mira. “You convinced me.”

“Wonderful.” Hanisi beamed.

Chuck cleared his throat and asked, “What about me? Can I come and get paid, too?”

“No, most definitely not,” said Hanisi. “Unless...” He turned to Mira. “Unless as a date?”

Mira made sure to avoid Chuck's hungry glare. She could almost feel it eating away at the side of her face. “Most definitely not,” she said.

“Oh vizuri.” Hanisi laughed. “You
can
bring a date, though. Anyone you wish.”

Mira smiled. “I'll keep that in mind.”

W
hen sitting became intolerable
, or when stuck in an intolerable conversation, Jackson would get up and start pacing around his office. Today he made slow circles around his desk while a silver pair of Chinese Baoding balls rotated in his hand, their soft melodious chimes playing background to an increasingly unpleasant speakerphone conversation about a Kenyan refugee camp, as well as the surprise phone call Jackson had received last night.

“What's the point of having you out there, Jaheem?”

After a slight pause, the British accent of his on-again off-again Kenyan contact projected into the office. “Come now, Jackson. Really?”

“Really. I thought you had my back.”

“Are you having a laugh? Of course I have your—”

“So where were you about Fofana? You totally slept on him.”

“I warned you about Fofana, mate.”

“Not lately you haven’t. I spent half the conversation trying to remember who the hell he was.” Jackson, rounding his desk to face the windows for the 34
^th
time, squinted at the morning glare off a neighboring building. “The point is, I should've heard about all this from you. Not through some aid for the Kenyan Chief of Defense.”

“I'm really quite sorry about that.”

“Are you spending too much time at the palace, or what?”

“Eh? How do you mean?”

“Having too much fun out there?”

“Fun?” Jaheem snickered. “Here? Not much fun to be had, I'm afraid.”

The guy was a liar. Straight-up. Another of Jackson's certainties about Jaheem was the man's obsession with what he called 'the finest African Queens'. He was constantly in trouble with them, one way or another, whether it was his latest scorned girlfriend or a disgruntled pimp.

“Come on, Jackson. You know me.”

To say the guy was a creep was an understatement. But in the underhand world of geopolitics, sometimes a creep was called for. Operatives like Jaheem were Jackson's constant reminder that it 'took all kinds'.

“I know you well enough to ask,” said Jackson, giving up on the Baoding balls and placing them into a small wooden box. He was no longer in the mood for practicing an ancient Chinese mediation. He just wanted to know what the hell was going on in Kenya.

“No, mate,” said Jaheem. “It's not like that.”

“You sure?”

“Jackson, you haven’t been around here lately.”

“You're right, I missed out on all the strip clubs. Care to fill me in?”

“You want to know about strip clubs?”

“Just tell me what's going on,” Jackson said as he flopped into his plush leather chair. He reclined back and placed two freshly-shined shoes on the desktop. “Why am I getting all these calls from Kenya?”

Jaheem explained how the actions of Al-Shabaab, the East African wing of Al-Qaeda, had been expelling hordes of innocent Somalis. Attempting to escape the suicide bombers, assassins, kidnappers, and open-water pirates, most of the Somali civilians found themselves trekking across the Kenyan border to nearby Dadaab—the largest refugee camp in the world. Or, as Jackson often thought of it, the world's largest terrorist breeding ground. With so many lost souls, so many people with no future packed densely into giant communal tents, the place was rife with terroristic indoctrination.

“What I can tell you, Jackson, is that they've definitely bolstered their recruitment campaign in Dadaab. And at the same time the government here can't wait to ship them all over East Africa.”

“The terrorist recruits?”

“Whoever. Terrorists, innocent refugees... Who can tell them apart?”

Jackson knew who'd end up with that unfortunate job. He'd actually witnessed others doing it, a thankless job that could only be performed once, the looking into the eyes of a blank-faced Iraqi teenager who wore a suspiciously over-sized jacket.

“And just like that, they're gone,” said Jaheem. “Who knows where. No one keeps records. So off they go joining off-shoots of Al-Shabaab in other countries, the whole thing proliferating into an organized network of terrorist cells. We'll have united factions in every country across the continent, all of it spilling out from that sodding terrorist nursery, Dadaab.”

Jackson, in critical need of caffeine, smiled gratefully at his receptionist, who pushed open his office door holding his 9:30 double espresso. He removed his feet from his desk, and then sat up to lean towards the phone. “And the government's freaking out because it makes them look bad?”

“They want to shut it down. They'd bloody hell love to. But then what about the refugees?”

Jackson nodded his thanks to the woman who'd just placed a little white cup and saucer on his desk. There was something so satisfying about the clinking of ceramics in the morning.

“It would be impossible. We're talking about a major humanitarian crisis. And a political nightmare.
That's
what would make them look bad.”

“So it's a catch-22?”

The receptionist handed Jackson a small, folded piece of paper.

“Maybe a catch-33,” said Jaheem. “If that's even a thing...”

“It's not.” Jackson unfolded her note.

Mira Swanson @ 9:30. Refer to Matthias?

Despite what his receptionist probably thought, and despite Jaheem's current international intrigue, he hadn’t forgotten about Mira. What he
had
forgotten was that both cases involved the same country.

Jackson looked at his receptionist and then pointed down to his desk.

Bring her in here.

Although he had promised otherwise, he hadn't really looked into her case. Sure, he'd scratched the surface. But there was only so much he could do with such an insane premise.

“Kenya's only option is to work with other countries,” Jaheem continued. “Slowly releasing refugees across East Africa like I said. Which brings about that whole other can of worms.”

“Or they could always bomb the camp and blame it on terrorists,” said Jackson. “Or manufacture some internal uprising.”

Jaheem chuckled quietly.

Jackson found nothing funny about it. “I really hope that's not why they're calling me.”

“Jackson, mate, I'm connected but I'm not
that
connected. Besides, that sounds more like the sort of shirt
our
countries dream up.”

“All right, all right...” Jackson breathed a long sigh as he spun his chair to the window. He gazed down at a busy Connecticut Avenue. An MPDC squad car, with its flashers on, straddled the middle lane as it needled through morning traffic. Jackson swung back around to the desk. “So can you tell me what they want with DARC Ops? They're trying to convince me to release a bunch of my men. Boots on the ground. But this Fofana guy... I dunno.”

“Fofana's a nobody.”

“Exactly. So why isn't the General calling me?”

“I don't know,” said Jaheem. “You want me to ask him next time I'm in the strip club?” Jaheem’s smoker's cackle filled Jackson's office.

“What I'd like, Jaheem, is for you to find out what they
really
need from us. It's been way too vague for my liking. If they just wanted mercenaries, well... they're in fucking
Africa
. Tell them to go out for a walk and just pick the first twenty-five they see.”

“No, no, no,” said Jaheem. “They're obviously looking for something more nuanced, not just some kid with a gun. They need mercs who can do intelligence.”

“They have those, too.”

“My hunch is that it's being kept on the down-low, like someone's looking for something they're not supposed to find.”

Jackson heard a quiet knock on his opened door. He looked up and saw Mira, standing alone. She looked smaller than Jackson remembered.

“...Which is probably why you're not hearing it directly from the General.”

She looked nervous.

“Probably scared to get too close. You know?”

“Yeah,” said Jackson.

Mira took a seat by the door, holding down the middle of her skirt as she crossed her legs. Did she wear a skirt last time?

“Remember, General Diop's the guy who keeps protecting whistle blowers,” said Jaheem. “He's not very well-liked over here.”

She looked cold. Jackson tried warming her up with a smile.

“And lately he's been ruffling some feathers about Dadaab. He's looking to get shot, to be honest.”

She almost flinched.

“No, no” Jackson said disapprovingly, trying to put Mira at ease. “Shot? Really?”

“Well yeah. Tall nail gets the hammer.”

Looking as uncomfortable as ever, Mira suddenly busied herself by searching through her bag.

“He's the only one who's concerned about oversight,” said Jaheem. “About reforming the camp. Everyone else just wants it to be a launch pad that sends refugees anywhere else but Kenya.”

Jaheem was definitely having too much fun in Nariobi. Too much pussy and not enough updates to Jackson about things like the rogue General Diop.

“He probably wants you to be part of his independent investigation,” said Jaheem. “You know the man, right?”

Jaheem was the one Jackson had been paying for that very purpose, so he could know people like General Diop. But Jackson’s mind was blank. Jaheem was either a waste of money, or Jackson had early onset Alzheimer's from all the depleted uranium he'd been exposed to on the battlefield.

“Jackson? You still there, mate?”

Alzheimer's aside, keeping track of the names of various generals and warlords was no easy task. And after a decade, their biographies had a habit of melding together into a big pool of mush. Maybe if he stopped staring at Mira's legs he'd remember.

“Yes, I remember him.” Jackson waved Mira over to a chair by his desk. “All right Jaheem, I gotta cut this short.” He leaned over to the phone cradle, readying to end the call. “Keep your ears open and call me in two days. And stay out of trouble.”

As Mira bent forward to sit at the chair nearest to his desk, Jackson caught a sudden pleasant whiff of hair products. Fresh, beachy, crisply ozonic.

“All right, I gotta go,” he said to the phone.

“Cheers, then.” the phone said back.

He ended the call and got right down to business with Mira.

“You look really nice today.”

She smirked.

“I mean it,” he said, pulling two seltzer waters from a mini fridge.

“No one ever told you about ending that sentence with 'today'?”

“What?”

“You should just say, 'you look really nice', and leave it at that. Adding 'today' means that I didn’t look so nice prior to 'today'.”

“No, I stand by what I said.” Jackson placed one of the bottles on a coaster in front of Mira. “You looked terrible the other day.” After watching her jaw drop, he added, “No offense.”

“What a fucking asshole,” said Mira, slowly working up a laugh. “You're right though. I did look terrible. So I guess I'm wrong on a technicality.”

“It's true, through.” Jackson rounded his desk and took a seat. “But you still looked a little nervous when you walked in here. Is everything okay at work? You didn't tell anyone there, right?”

She huffed. “Of course not.”

“And you made sure no one followed you here?”

He watched her eyes wander to the window. Poor girl.

“Hey, I'm just kidding.” Jackson woke up his computer and pulled up her file. “You don't have to start worrying about that kind of stuff until we really get started. Which, as I look here, uh... Which... Hmm... I'm not sure when we'll, uh...”

Out the corner of his eye, Jackson saw a dark, flat object land on his desk. It made the slapping sound of a book.

“What's this?”

“His memoir,” she said.

Christ... She didn’t expect him to actually read it, did she?

“He's got a whole chapter on Kenya.”

Kenya?

“Where he made all these hunting friends and political connections in the seventies. He also blabs on and on about his family lineage and their weapons business. It's a shitty read. But the Kenya connection is—”

“Interesting,” Jackson said, nodding as he looked at the cover. “Yes, it's definitely interesting.” He wondered how many ghostwriters had been fired before Langhorne gave up and settled on such a turd of a title as Triumphant Gamble.

“The hunting passages are just...” She shuddered. “They're utterly disgusting.”

“Oh yeah? He's no Hemingway, huh?”

“No. He's not even L. Ron. Hubbard.”

“Damn...” said Jackson, pretending to know L. Ron. Hubbard.

Mira might have seemed clueless about black ops, but she was otherwise one of the most intelligent, sophisticated—and attractive—clients he'd ever interviewed.

“So,” Jackson said, opening the cover and leafing through to the table of contents. “What are the main takeaways here? Did we crack the case?”

“Well no, I don't think we... No I'm not sure about that.”

Jackson wasn't sure about it, either. He checked the chapter titles, and... Yep, Kenya. Chapter six.

“I don't think anything in there exactly incriminates him.” She took an awkward sip of sparkling water, and then coughed and sniffled as if the bubbles went up her nose “But it's great for context.”

Fuck context. Jackson was looking for the smoking gun.

“I found some names,” she said, still sniffing, scrunching up her cute little face.

“His hunting buddies?”

“Yep. You wanna write them down, or...?”

Letting the book fall to his desk, Jackson reached to his office phone and quickly dialed a number. “Hey Dez. Name check.” And then he pointed to Mira – who didn’t say anything. “Go ahead, Mira.”

“Um... Floyd Tenenbaum?”

“Huh?” said Jackson. “Are you
asking
, or...?”

“Floyd Tenenbaum,” she said, this time with more conviction. “T-E-N-E-N-B-A-U-M”

“You get that, Dez?”

“I got that, Jack.”

Jackson smiled at Mira. “Okay, what else?”

They went through four more names before Jackson's mind began to wander. He wanted to smell her hair again. He wanted her to show up at his doorway.

“Ted Pratten... P-R-A-T-T-E-N.”

He wanted to see it all over again, the shape of her body, how she walked into his office. He wanted to watch her leave. He'd join her later, the two of them walking to her car in the parking garage. He knew a security camera dead spot where they could park, just real quick, where they could lean over the middle armrest, their foreheads touching, his hand starting at her knee...