Read SAFE HAVENS: Shadow Masters (A Sean Havens Black Ops Novel Book 1) Online
Authors: J.T. Patten
SAFE HAVENS: Shadow Masters (A Sean Havens Black Ops Novel Book 1) (45 page)
“How can I forget?” Havens exuded a sour look.
“Sean, you were young. You indeed were being tested at the time. You were not in a web of subterfuge. That experience has helped you survive this long. It helps you to question and trust your instincts. Rick, as you can imagine, never left the business.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me? Sorry, I’m not trying to be a smart ass.”
“Sean, Rick would like to work with you. You will need work. You will need flexibility. You will need someone who can trust you and that you can trust.”
“How can I be sure I can trust him or anyone for that matter at this point?”
“Do you trust me?”
Havens gave thought to the question. He no longer thought he could trust anyone. Jerry, however, was more like a favorite uncle. Havens pictured some extravagant relative off traveling in faraway lands only to come back every ten years with gifts and stories for the kids. Unlike a fictitious uncle though, years had passed and Jerry never came back. Havens needed someone that he could blindly trust. He was too hollow inside to not have someone who could look out for him.
“Yes, Jerry, I can trust you, but I am not working for you. I’d be working for Rick. That’s a different story.”
“Same story. Rick is my son, Sean. Forgive the pun, but he will be your safe haven.”
Havens put his head in his hands, trying to process the news. He knew he would need work. He knew his skills catered to only a few very select employers at this time. He still believed there was a need for a man like him, but he also needed to be with his daughter. He had lost so much for this country or maybe for his own aspirations and personal career goals.
“What’s next? Maggie still needs to be in hospitals and therapy. Her mind is still repairing from the traumatic injury. Things are still broken in her thinking. She has to relearn how to walk. Her days are filled with speech and reading exercises. Shit, she still needs help eating, bathing, and dressing herself. In the coming weeks, they will have to do another cranioplasty since they left part of her skull fractured to get back in if there were more blood clots on her brain. Poor kid wears a hockey helmet 24/7. I’m putting the house up for sale. I have another banister up but think she would do better in a ranch and put special chairs and devices in the bathrooms for support.”
Jerry listened attentively as a therapist would. He waited until Sean finished.
“You and Rick can come up with the plan. He is driving out here in the next hour. He does a lot of his work through a cutout holding company, Donovan Black Holdings, that you would join. It will keep you off the books.”
“Why does this all need to be done today? Now? I’ve gone from one nightmare to another and have yet to have a good sleep. I’m beat, Jerry. I just need some time to breathe.”
Havens put his face in his hands again. His outstretched fingers pulled down across the contours of his face moving back up in prayer form over his mouth and nose. He closed his eyes and expelled the air from his lungs along with the stress of the past few months.
Fine. I can do this. I went for months in the field with the same amount of sleep deprivation.
Jerry was swirling the last remnants of Scotch in his glass.
“That brings me to the second part of my trip. Prescott Draeger, or we assume it to be him. He certainly has the resources and capability from what I understand…”
“Say it, Jerry. What’s going on? What next? He has a nuke aimed at my house? Screw it. Tell him to push the button.”
“He has put out a rather extensive national and international hit on you tied to the release of your name and the attacks in the media. Evidently, Prescott Draeger has publicized a digital cash bounty through Bitcoin on the assassination market through Silk Road-type sites and anonymizing networks like Tor. You currently have one of the largest bounties as other users are donating Bitcoins to the pot. They are crowdsourcing funding for your death. The Secret Service and the FBI were unsuccessful at shutting it down the first time, and now, I am afraid, the anonymous network is that much more of a virtual apparition. From biker gangs to foreign assassins to someone looking to earn a rather lucrative fee, your life has just been put on the market. It will be very difficult for us to find Draeger and stop the momentum of this.”
Havens felt numb with disbelief. “I suppose nothing anyone can do here either?”
“Sean, he has us on our heels with this one. The authorities are more concerned about the killing market than they are you, but rest assured, they are looking for encryption exploits and other more technical approaches to shut this down. You will need to get your affairs in order immediately though. The notices came out yesterday. We have done the best we can with system denials of service and disruption of postings online, but there is not much power that we have against this type of crowdsourcing I am afraid.”
“How can I stop it?”
Clearly you aren’t going to stop it unless I agree to this.
“I believe you know the answer to that. You and Rick will need to find Draeger and those involved.”
“Those involved? Who else is involved?”
“Draeger was somehow brought into this crazy Silver Star scheme, or shall I say placed. You see, once you moved away from some of our activities affiliated with the Agency, you worked dotted line against another one. Have you heard of the Lake? Perhaps the Pond?”
“The old G-2 Cold War group affiliated with Senator McCarthy?”
Jerry smiled like a proud parent.
“Indeed. And they still exist. They have moved on from Communists to Extremists. They were among the best at using corporate surrogates, unsavory character assets, and rather foul means. Aside from OSS, in our current community, they set the bar for cutout work and commercial cover for status and action. You did work for them for a few years. We had our rivalry but shared resources. We shared you. Draeger has been with them for years, but I suspect now more formally. You were from the onset primarily with what our joint leaders called the Bay.”
“I thought that is just what some people called the Agency in the ‘50s.”
Jerry raised his eyebrows and sent a tight-lipped smile across to Havens. He said nothing. While there were Agencies, there were still small societies within those agencies. Closed to all but a select few.
“Sean, Draeger has the reach and community anonymity of the Lake. Few know it exists aside from what is in the National Archives. Draeger may be on the run, but that will only play better to their hand. They love men like Draeger. We don’t know who their sources are. We don’t know where their safe houses are. We know very little. Rick has been involved with an Agency project as a bit of a national counterintelligence effort. Quite high level and discrete as you can imagine. You will be tasked to get our arms around the Lake. In some cases, where we know they have done harm to national security and national interests, we have authorities for extrajudicial…well…” Jerry sat up, shifting from a quiet and sly means of communication to one more befitting his image of himself. “As gentlemen here, let’s just say we can go clean their clocks. I must say, if I were a few years younger, I’d very much like to be a part of this.”
While it sounded like the kind of activities that should only exist in the fictional pages of a Nelson DeMille novel, it made complete sense to Sean Havens. He had been behind more than his share of closed door secret operations. It would make sense that Draeger would play on such a team as this Lake or Pond.
“Rick’s work, that you will now be part of, will help with your situation as well. I would say it means you have two jobs. Well, three since your primary job is to protect yourself and, of course, that little girl of yours. I’d consider relatives too. Anyone with links to you is a trail that some may chase to get to you for their bounty reward.”
“Cripes, Jerry. Where do I even start?”
“For now, Sean. . . run.”
Cougar raised her head abruptly. Her ears twitched in concentration. She ran to the entryway as Havens spun around the table grabbing his mentor.
The rapport of automatic gunfire bursts outside erupted from the silent winter morning. The staccato salvo changed to a near constant barrage of ammunition, spewing the mixes of steel, Teflon, and lead that now raked the vehicles’ metal in the driveway up to the beloved artisan crafted door of Christina Havens.
End
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73