A Game for Assassins (The Redaction Chronicles Book 1) (43 page)

“I think we've found something,” said Wellings, recently returned from the Archives Section at Langley.

It was three days after Dempsey had returned from Miami and things were beginning to look bleak. He had the feeling that they were going around in circles. They needed a lucky break… and fast. “Okay, shoot – what you got for me?”

“How does an operation that never happened grab you? Operation KINO; a joint CIA and South Korean intelligence op from eight years ago. Its plan was to help infiltrate and then run a covert network in the North. According to what we have, it would have been run as a sabotage and insurrection task force in case the North decided to overrun the South.”

“Never heard of it,” shrugged Dempsey. “What happened to it?”

“Nothing, it never happened, that's what. The file says that it was an unacceptable risk and the project was killed dead before it went operational.”

Nothing new there then. If Dempsey had a buck for every time a feasible op had been spiked by the brass, he would be living the high life in the Bahamas.

Wellings continued. “Except this time all the operational planning was already in place. They had a field commander, assets in place, resources, you name it. Hell, the agents were virtually in the plane and ready to be parachuted in when it was cancelled. But that's not the most interesting point, not by a long shot. You want to know the name– sorry, the cover name, of the field controller involved in running it?”

Dempsey sat up straighter in his chair; suddenly the temperature in the room had risen by an alarming degree.

Wellings let him hang for a moment more. “The Field Commander's name was one Maurice Knight. Canadian businessman cover. Aged fifty and resident of Ontario.”

“Holy shit! You found him,” said Dempsey, punching the air and nearly spilling out of his chair.

Wellings was smiling. “It wasn't easy. Korean ops come under the Near East/South Asia Division, but for some reason, reasons I can now guess, the shelved op reports were hidden away in Void Liaison Operations.”

“So someone was trying to conceal a weak spot,” said Dempsey. While it wouldn't have been possible to totally destroy all evidence of an authenticated file, it certainly would have been possible to conceal it somewhere else. Somewhere where no one would think to look. Void Liaison Operations was the black hole of the CIA's filing system; the place where aborted operations went to decompose. “What made you look in those files? It was a one in a million chance surely?”

“It was simply a process of elimination. We'd looked everywhere else, and that was one of the few places left to cover. So you want to see who Mr. Maurice Knight was in real life?” said Wellings. He lifted up the file and presented it to Dempsey with all the flourish of a stage magician.

Dempsey pressed the file down with the flat of his palms and peered closely at the typewritten report. He scanned it and then breathed out a long slow breath. A moment of clarity hit him. All this time he was wrong! Higgins wasn't the prime operator, Higgins was the inside man, the feeder of information and the fixer of resources. He used CIA assets and logistics to further an illegal operation – an assassination operation – for his principal 'Mr. Maurice Knight'.

And Maurice Knight, according to the slip of paper that lay before him now, was the one time work name of former CIA officer Charles 'Chuck' Ferrera.

* * *

They were walking up the hill track, the stones and mud squelching beneath their feet.
Not a bad day for a hike in the Vermont countryside
, thought Dempsey. Crisp and clear. The kind of day he'd have enjoyed taking the dog for a half day walk on his vacation time.

“It's about a mile up ahead. The track rises steadily,” said Ralph Barr, Dempsey's guide, companion for the day and his latest informant in the search for the elusive Maurice Knight.

“Not a problem.” Dempsey had worn his old jungle boots, from his time in CBI. They were comfortable and asked nothing from him. In the jungles of Asia, he'd climbed and fought in all manner of hills and mountains, so a medium-sized hill in Vermont wasn't going to be too much of a challenge.

“So you've been picked to re-examine the murder of one of my old case officers. Jeez, I thought that investigation had been shelved years ago. Didn't someone already look at that and decide there wasn't enough information to carry on with it?” asked Barr.

Dempsey looked over at Barr. He was like a tough gnome; rambunctious, no nonsense and settled in his retirement. Despite all that, Dempsey knew he had a good reputation at the CIA for being one of the ablest desk officers in the Soviet Satellites Division. “Oh, you know the way it is. New DCI comes in and wants to straighten the whole place out on his first watch. Soldiers, like you and me, we just do as we're told.”

Barr grunted. “I suppose you've read up on the background to Black Orchestra?”

Dempsey nodded. He'd spent the past few days poring over everything in the files relating to the long term intelligence network that the CIA had worked so hard to maintain. He thought he had the gist of how it was run, what it had achieved and the theories of why it was blown. What he didn't have, was the information that never makes it into the files; the small details, the nuances and the hidden secrets.

“Then you know that as the network's Division Desk Officer, I had inherited a damned fine unit,” said Barr. “Great people, first class agents in Poland, superb support staff. I'd been attached to it when I first joined the Agency way back when, so after touring around behind the Iron Curtain I was thrilled when I was given command of Black Orchestra.”

They crunched along the path, Dempsey keeping a good pace, and Barr wheezing beside him. Barr caught his breath and continued. “The network had begun in 1946 with a bunch of former Nazi's and their informants. We'd turned them around and made them an offer; work for us or head for Nuremburg. Not surprisingly, they didn't fancy the thought of swinging from a rope. Over the next few years, the original agents made their way in the Polish government and ended up acting as informal spotters and recruiters. Consequently, we were able to recruit a whole new stable of agents. Within the space of a year or two, Black Orchestra had grown from a mom and pop operation to the equivalent of a multi-national. We had agents inside the local parliaments, the military forces, even some in the intelligence services. It was a good network, we ran it well and the team was committed.”

“And then it all went wrong. Why?” asked Dempsey.

Barr shrugged. “Well, that's the million-dollar question in cases like these, isn't it? Who fucked up? Was it a deeper KGB conspiracy or had we been played all along? My gut tells me that it was something simple. No great conspiracy, no convoluted counter-espionage operation aimed against us. No, someone didn't follow something simple like security or counter-surveillance protocols and the whole network suffered because someone hadn't marked a lamppost or checked his back. After that, you catch one agent, stick him in the interrogation cells and he starts to talk, then you catch another two, three, until eventually some lucky Polish counter-intelligence officer has suddenly got himself a whole Western spy network in the bag.”

They reached a fork in the path and headed to the right, rising further upwards. In the distance, Dempsey could see the sun glinting off the icy peaks of a mountain. It was beautiful.

“And the shooting in Warsaw Zoo, where did that fit into the whole thing?” asked Dempsey.

Barr frowned at that. “That's the most infuriating thing, Troy. By our calculations, the majority of Black Orchestra had been rolled up by then. The agents had gone silent and we were left pretty much blind. My guess is that the KGB wanted a real live Western intelligence officer to parade in front of the world. The people running the roll up of the network wanted to have their cake and eat it, all at the same time. Unfortunately for us, Dan paid the ultimate price.”

Dempsey picked up on the bitterness and sadness in Barr's voice.
Better to turn it around,
he thought, and bring the story onto the principal characters. “What was he like?”

“Who, Dan? Oh, Daniel was a great guy. Everybody loved him. Charming, courteous, good at his job, you couldn't not like him. When we heard that the network had been rolled up and Dan had been killed, well, it just took the wind out of me. I was angry at first, then bitter and finally the sadness took over. I cried. I don't mind admitting that. No one deserves to be shot down like an animal and then have his body incinerated.”

“Were there any clues as to who was behind the shooting?”

Barr shook his head. “Not much. It was a Polish security service operation to take down our network, but who the shooter was, we never knew. There were rumors of it being overseen by the KGB, but again, there was no concrete proof.”

They had reached the top of the hilly track and came to a gate with a 'Private Road' sign on it. Dempsey thought that the private road led into an enclave of trees. They were nearing their destination.

“Ah, here we are,” said Barr, as he unhooked the gate and escorted Dempsey through. They carried on walking through the shade of the evergreens.

“What about Dan's father, Charles – how did he take it?” asked Dempsey.

Barr grimaced, as if he'd experienced a taste of something bitter. “Do you know Chuck Ferrera?” he asked.

Dempsey shook his head. “Only by reputation, I never met the man.”

“Let me tell you, Chuck Ferrera was one of the best officers the CIA ever had. We both served in the OSS and then transferred over to the Agency after the war. Chuck was one hard son-of-a-bitch when the mood took him; definitely old school OSS. I had a meeting with him following the destruction of Black Orchestra. As the senior officer responsible for the operation, he had every right to talk to me and find out what had happened, didn't he? It's about a ten minute walk up that way,” said Barr, indicating a track over to his left.

“What did you tell him?”

“Not much, there wasn't a lot of info coming in at that time. Remember, it was only a matter of days after the shooting. Chuck walked into my office and sat down, Christ; I didn't even recognize him at first. I know the death of Daniel must have come as a shock, but he looked like a man ready for the grave himself. I talked to him, told him what we knew, but I'm not sure he was taking any of it in. You see, Dan was Chuck's world, he loved that boy like a father is
meant
to love a son; utterly and completely. But I think it was a bit more than that also.”

“How do you mean?”

“You see, Chuck brought Dan into the Agency. I won't say he pulled a few strings, because he didn't need to, Dan would have made it on his own under any circumstances. But I know that Chuck certainly pushed CIA and Dan Ferrera together. I'm guessing that the feeling of guilt was the thing that was eating Chuck. The next time I saw him was at the memorial for Dan at Langley. It was a nice service, obviously Chuck couldn't have a funeral because there wasn't a body, but we did the best we could for him. Everyone said nice things and the Director handed Chuck Dan's Intelligence Star. I think Chuck just wanted to get through the day. After that, I lost track of him for a while. Compassionate leave for a few months, I heard.”

“Did Chuck have family around him at this time?”

“I'm not sure, there was certainly no one close that I was aware of; distant cousins, perhaps. The person who Chuck relied on most was Dick Higgins. He was always close to hand.”

A shiver went down Dempsey's spine.
Don't react,
he told himself.
Don't let the outer shell crack.
“Why Higgins? Were they close?”

Barr looked at him as though he was a dumb hick. “Why sure, they were family through marriage. Chuck Ferrera married Dick Higgins sister, Theresa. They'd known each other for years, been in the OSS together before moving over to CIA. Dick Higgins was Daniel Ferrera's godfather.”

Dempsey analyzed the information quickly. Higgins was close to Chuck Ferrera, was godfather to Daniel Ferrera. If that wasn't motivation enough, then what was? Troy Dempsey had found what the old hand detectives would call an investigative chain of evidence.

“Of course, the problems for Chuck didn't go away. In fact, as soon as he returned to work, it just got worse. The drinking, not showing up for meetings, his appearance. Eventually, he got moved out of operations and shoved somewhere deep and dark where he wouldn't make a nuisance of himself; finance or something I heard,” said Barr.

The path had cleared and the mass of the forest was starting to thin out. Dempsey could see what looked like the start of a man-made gravel path up ahead, the type which would lead the walker up to the front porch of a lodge.

Barr dug in his walking stick and lifted his body forward. “The booze was the main problem for Chuck, can't blame him, especially after what he'd been through. But I think the straw that broke the camel's back was when he started petitioning the DCI for permission to implement his wacko scheme to send a covert action snatch team into Europe.”

“What?” Dempsey said, surprised by this information.
Well, that was new.

“Yeah, don't tell me you haven't heard any of this before. It was all around Langley, Chuck had become a bit of a joke at CIA,” said Barr.

“I've been pretty much away from Langley for the past few years, so the inside gossip has passed me by. Until I was appointed to this case, I very rarely got back to headquarters.”

“That's okay,” said Barr. “I'll tell you what I know, as long as it helps with your investigation. Don't want Langley to think I've been telling tales out of school.”

Dempsey had looked through the files containing Charles Ferrera, the shooting in Warsaw and the Black Orchestra network and none of them gave any hint of Ferrera's actions. The drinking and his shabby appearance sure, even his bust up with the Director, but of planning a covert op; nothing.

“He kept trying to get into the Director's office with this plan of his. I think the DCI humored him for a while, and then quickly grew tired. He wanted CIA to drop in a special unit with the express aim of identifying and snatching numerous Russian agents in Europe before whisking them off to a secure location, one of the forts that we use in Malta for prepping special operations, and submitting them to interrogation,” said Barr.