Authors: Leo J. Maloney

Termination Orders (14 page)

BOOK: Termination Orders

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C
HAPTER
20

M
organ arrived at the Philadelphia International Airport early the next morning. From Istanbul, he had hired a driver to take him to Thessaloniki through Bulgaria, and from there he took a commercial flight to the United States with a connection in Zurich under the third alias he’d used in the past two days. While at the airport, he bought two disposable prepaid cell phones—burner phones. The first he used to call home, Jenny’s cell phone, and then Alex’s. If he knew anything about how the CIA operated, they were by now tapping all of his family’s lines, and he had just effectively announced his location to everyone who was looking for him. But if there was a chance that Jenny and Alex were still at home, that meant they were in danger. He was only partly relieved when no one picked up at his house and both Jenny’s and Alex’s cells went straight to voice mail. He hoped they had gotten his message and were by now safely hidden away in his father’s tiny hunting cabin in Vermont, where Morgan had instructed Jenny to go, many years ago, in case something ever happened.

He dropped that phone into the open backpack of a teenaged traveler who was headed for the check-in counter. If they were going to track him, let them try. By the time they realized they had the wrong scent, he’d be long gone.

He looked up the address of a used car lot in the phone book and took the commuter rail into the city. Airport cabs were much too easy to trace. Once inside the city, Morgan switched to buses. He kept an eye out for tails and took the usual evasive precautions, getting on and off vehicles at the last minute and making frequent, unexpected turns.

About an hour and a half later, he arrived at the Mercado used car lot, where a man in a yellow jacket approached him and asked, “What can I do to get you to drive out of here in your new car today?”

Morgan grinned.

Half an hour later, he was driving away in a 1999 Sebring convertible. From there, he made a stop to pick up some supplies at a drugstore to replace his bandages. In the parked car, he laid out the fresh rolled-up bandages, surgical tape, and scissors on the passenger seat and carefully undid the older dressing. He examined the wound, which had been restitched by a doctor in Istanbul. Considering the circumstances, it was healing fine.

Once finished, he sat in the car and mulled over his next step. He had a visceral urge to go north to reunite with Jenny and Alex, who were alone, scared, and possibly in danger. All he wanted was to be there to protect them.

But things, of course, weren’t that simple. He couldn’t just forget what had happened in Kabul. He took out the little memory card he’d received from Zalmay and clutched it in his fist. He’d looked through the rest of the photos, and they just got more and more incriminating. Several featured T approaching the airplane and talking to a man that he recognized as Bacha Marwat. The last few showed T, still at the airfield, speaking to a man whom he did not recognize, with a face that reminded Morgan of a bulldog.

As far as Morgan was aware, he was now the last living person who knew about the Acevedo International conspiracy who wasn’t also in on it. Even if he chose to ignore the fact that Acevedo was funding the enemy and reported nothing to no one, he would still be too dangerous to them at large. Morgan could take his family and disappear, but how long could he stay vanished? How long until he slipped up and T or someone else came knocking? No, he couldn’t let this go. He needed to get answers, and the answers wouldn’t be up north.

He picked up the second phone and dialed. It was a shot in the dark, and like any shot in the dark, it could go terribly awry.

“Is this line secure?”

“Is this who I think it is?” asked Plante.

“Is this line secure?” he insisted.

“Hold on,” Plante said. Morgan heard a click, and a low hum came over the line. “It’s safe now. Cobra, you need to come back in. Where are you?”

“Isn’t that the million-dollar question?” he said bitterly.

“Why are you on the run? And why did you shoot up a zoo?”

“Will it help if I say I didn’t start it?”

Morgan could imagine Plante’s disapproving stare. “I hope for your sake there’s a good reason for this. And if there is, you need to get back here and explain before they send an operative to kill you.”

“It wouldn’t be the first in the past few days.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Someone was waiting for me in Kabul,” he said. “Someone knew I was coming. I met Conley’s asset, and they killed him. He left me with a memory card that would make a lot of very powerful men very uncomfortable.”

“Oh, God. What are you going to do?”

“Who knew, Plante? Who knew I was in Afghanistan?”

“I thought I was the only one.”

“Well, you weren’t. Someone sold me out. I bet it’s the same person who sold Cougar out. And I bet it’s someone inside the CIA.”

Plante went silent.

“Do you know something I don’t, Plante?” asked Morgan.

“I have . . . suspicions. Compromised agents and missions, signs of leaks . . . But getting ahold of any evidence has been like grasping at smoke. Nothing concrete, only suggestions and vague wisps of clues.”

“Does it have anything to do with Acevedo International?”

There was another long pause that said that the answer was yes. Plante said, “I have something to show you. When can you meet me?”

“How do I know you’re not setting me up?” said Morgan.

“You don’t know,” said Plante. “Honestly, there’s nothing I can say to prove it. You’re just going to have to trust me.”

“Trust is something I’m not exactly brimming with right now,” said Morgan. “But as I see it, I don’t have much of a choice. I can make it to DC by tonight.”

“Good. Then do it,” said Plante. “My house, nine o’clock. I have lots to show you. Maybe together we can get to the bottom of this.”

“And find the son-of-a-bitch who sold out Conley and me,” added Morgan. “There’s just one thing that I need to know right now, and God help you if you lie to me. Do you know where my wife and daughter are?”

“Kline sent two agents to bring them in, but they gave our men the slip. It looks like you taught them well, Cobra.”

Morgan couldn’t help smiling with pride as he hung up and removed the battery from the phone. He tossed it out the window and turned the key in the ignition. As he drove out of the city, he tried to focus on Plante and the possible connection between Acevedo and the CIA, but his heart was elsewhere, with his wife and daughter, wanting to protect them from all those who would harm them to get at him.

C
HAPTER
21

I
t was early afternoon, and Nickerson was sitting in his office, with his feet up on the desk, annotating a draft bill, when in stepped Roland Vinson, a burly, greasy man with bulbous, heavy-lidded eyes and back hair that crept down the back of his neck. Nickerson swung his feet to the ground and leaned forward in his chair.

“Sit down, Roland,” he said. “We need to discuss what to do about this Lamb situation.”

“What situation is that, sir?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t follow C-SPAN, Roland,” said Nickerson, pausing for a beat. Vinson looked at him blankly. Nickerson continued. “It seems that he decided to grow something that vaguely resembles a backbone and come out in favor of greater Intelligence oversight. This makes him rather, well, ungracious in light of our kindness toward him, does it not?”

“Must be losing your touch, boss.”

“Let’s call this a rare slip,” said Nickerson, with a hint of irritation.

“So now what? Do we nuke him?” asked Vinson.

“No. Send a copy of the photos just to his wife. Tell him next time it’s the
Washington Post
. Hopefully he’ll get the message.”

Vinson nodded. “Sir, there’s also the matter of this McKay woman. What are we going to do about her?”

“It will be taken care of,” said Nickerson tersely.

“Sir, she didn’t back down. We need to do something to—”

“I said it will be taken care of,” interrupted Nickerson. “
I
have taken care of it. I am well aware of the threat she represents. She is popular and inflexible. She can inspire other senators to do things against their best interests. Against
my
best interests. But I’m not concerned. She won’t be a problem for long.”

Vinson shifted in his chair. “And what, exactly, is your solution?”

“That’s for me to know, Roland, and you to find out—if and when it’s necessary. Are we done here?”

A scowl played for an instant on Vinson’s face, and then he said, getting up, “Yes. I’ll deal with this Lamb situation.”

“Good, good,” said Nickerson from his seat. “Be sure to keep me updated. And shut the door on your way out, will you?”

Nickerson barely had time to make himself comfortable when his intercom chirped. He picked up.

“Senator?” came a voice over the intercom.

“Yes, Greta?”

“Your three o’clock is here. A Vera Blackburn, an aide to Senator Weidman.”

He frowned. “Did she have an appointment?”

“It’s on the planner, sir.”

“All right, then.” He shrugged. “Send her in.” He placed the receiver back in the cradle, picked the draft bill up again, and put his feet on his desk, pretending to be engrossed in the document. He looked up nonchalantly as the door opened, and he nearly upset his chair when he saw who it was.

He knew her only from photographs, and they did not tell the whole story. She was tall and in her late thirties with slight wrinkles around her eyes but still a knockout in her sleek business outfit that was perhaps slightly too flattering for the part. Her walk was naturally seductive, a rhythmic gait that accentuated her sensuous curves. Hers was a striking, murderous beauty, with high cheekbones and sleek, light blond hair. But most of all, it was her eyes that were frightening, deep blue eyes that betrayed nothing but casual pitilessness, like that of a tiger regarding a baby antelope that had stumbled into its lair.

Natasha.
“Wh-what are you doing in my office?” he demanded, trying to be intimidating but not convincing even himself.

“Come now, Senator,” she responded, with honeyed undertones in her barely accented speech. “Surely you wouldn’t turn away the person who has been doing your dirty work.”

“How did you get in here?”

She shrugged. “The door. You
saw
me come in.” She ambled slowly around the office as if she owned it, touching this and that, running her hands along various surfaces. “You seem to think you’re a lot safer than you really are. Like a handful of fat, middle-aged security men will keep someone like me out of here. I barely even had to try.” She had made her way around the office and now stood in front of him. “Good thing I work for you, no?”

“You can’t be here,” he said through his clenched teeth. “What if you’re seen?”

“What of it?” she said, casually. “Do you think I care?
I
don’t exist.
I’m
not the most trusted politician in America. Isn’t that right,
Senator Nickerson
?” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. She looked up at a crucifix he had nailed to the wall. “Are you a religious man, Senator?” She was mocking him, with just a hint of a threat. “Or is that only a show for the voters?
Or
”—she grinned maliciously—“do you truly believe you will go to a better place when you die?”

“What are you, a reporter? How about we cut the small talk and you tell me why you’re here?”

“My, you are all business, aren’t you?” She gave him a cool smile. “Okay, then. I am here for two reasons,” she said. “First, I wanted to see your face when you saw me. Men like you, they do not face the truth of their actions. They sit in their fancy cars and big offices and let people like me do their dirty work. Well, here I am. The face of all your sins. And I must say, it gives me pleasure to see you squirm.”

“I’m glad you’re having fun,” he said, losing his patience. “But I’m not the one who failed to kill Cobra in Afghanistan. I’m not the one who let him escape with the goddamn photographs and I’m not the one who let the Agency spook take the goddamn pictures in the first place. So instead of coming in for this very pleasant meet-and-greet, maybe you should be out there trying to fix your own screwups.”

She eyed him menacingly; her tone became ice-cold. “Cobra was more slippery than I expected. I underestimated him. But that is a mistake that I will rectify soon.”

“You’d sure as hell better, or—“

“The second reason I am here,” she said, interrupting him, “is that I want you to know that our relationship is going to change. As of now, my fees are doubled, and you are no longer entitled to secrecy. You will tell me what I want to know when I want to know it. Do you understand?”

“You think you can come in here and tell me what to do?”

“The alternative is to come in here and slit your throat.” She pouted seductively. “Do we have an understanding, Senator Nickerson?”

“Yes,” he said, gritting his teeth. “We do.”

She chuckled. “Of course you say ‘yes.’ But you are a coward at heart, and like any coward, you will turn back on your word as soon as I walk out the door. But it is of no matter, because I will be enforcing our little agreement.”

He glowered at her.

“I want to know what your plan is. The master plan. What are you in for, Nickerson? What are you trying to accomplish here? And don’t give me that bullshit about doing important things away from government oversight. You don’t give a shit about improving humanity.”

“I guess you’re right about that,” he said, with a wry smile.

“What’s the endgame, Nickerson? What’s your angle? Money? Is that it?”

Nickerson laughed. “Money? My family already has
money
. Money buys you yachts and fancy cars. It buys you a house on Nantucket and the French Riviera. Hoarding money is the ambition of small people. Me, what I want is power.” He smiled. For a man who wore a mask nearly every minute of every day, it was liberating to speak freely. “What I want is power,” he repeated. “Real power. The power to do anything I want. The
capo di tutti capi.
Politicians, those Wall Street assholes, the President himself—they are all going to line up to kiss my hand.”

Natasha laughed.

“What?”

“Your delusions of grandeur,” she said, smirking. “Very amusing.”

“Trust me. You are small-time. You know nothing of real power. How to get it or how to wield it.”

“Perhaps.” She slinked closer to him. “And yet I could kill you right now. It wouldn’t even be difficult. And for all the power you say you have, there’s nothing at all you could do about it.”

He instinctively backed away from her, regarding her with the impotent fury of defeated pride. She stood there, her gorgeous face inches from him, her faint perfume smelling like death. She snapped her teeth at him, as if she was going to bite him. He flinched. She grinned.

“By the way,” she said, turning and stepping away from him, tracing her finger on his desk, “our mutual friend has already alerted me to my next assignment. I must say, you are a bold man, for a senator.”

He looked at her with wounded pride, but he knew how to take things in stride. “So you accept it?”

“Yes, I will do it.”

“And the Cobra situation?”

“He will be dead by morning.” As she turned to leave, she looked back at him over her shoulder. “You will be hearing from me, Senator.”

BOOK: Termination Orders

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