Extraordinary Retribution (12 page)

Because I’m fighting with Miguel, again. Because I’m seeing him in her words.
Lopez felt slapped with the reality of their situation, the dim room suddenly real again, Sara Houston real, their loss all too real. The battles of his youth receded into a fog of past hurts.

“Sara, I—”

“Shut it.” She wiped her eyes almost violently and stood up, her arms folded across her chest. Her hair surrounded her face like halo of yellow, extending down to the freckled skin of her arms. “I’m tired of bottling this up. I don’t care if you’re a priest and he’s your brother.”

“Sara, you don’t have to—” he stammered, sensing the direction of her conversation.

“I was in love with your brother, Francisco,” she announced firmly. Lopez made no response, and the room was silent for a moment. Her voiced softened. “And he loved me, as much as he allowed himself to.”

Lopez lowered his head. He didn’t know if he was up for more confessions. He was tired.
Please, no more transferal of sin
.

“A deadly sin, I’m afraid, with married Miguel. Isn’t coveting a sin, priest?”

“Sara, look, that’s not fair. Judgment is not mine, God knows. I don’t judge you.”

“Save it. I knew he had a family. Had he let himself stray, I would have been there, with open arms.” She looked down toward the floor. Without warning, her downcast head snapped up, and she practically yelled. “Do you know what he’d been through?” The tears were back, filling her eyes, acting as distorting lenses magnifying her blue irises. “No, none of you did, because he had been taught to be
strong
for the
family
. For the
community
. Your football star. Soldier. Hero. Did you ever ask him if he was okay, Francisco? Did you?”

Lopez felt ashamed. Her words burned within him. His brother had come back from war. Many soldiers he had counseled never got their lives together after they returned. They turned to alcohol. Their marriages collapsed. They couldn’t hold jobs. They slept with their guns, committed crimes, committed suicide. Miguel had come back with them. What nightmares did he struggle with? Lopez knew he had not reached out to his brother. He’d been too damn busy protecting his own ego from their disagreements. He sat down on the far bed.
My ethos?
How could he love his enemies when he couldn’t even care enough about his own brother to ask?

“No, you know you didn’t. Don’t take it too hard; nobody else did, either. He
saw
things in war, Francisco. And they didn’t just bounce off him like linebackers. He
saw
things,
did
things in CIA that ate at him. No one knew. No one did so much as ask.” She tossed her hair back defiantly. “Not even his wife. He tried to talk to her, but he never got far. She ran from it. She didn’t want to see anything except the hero she had married. But I
did
ask, Francisco, because I could see in his eyes what no one else seemed to—
pain
. I was the only one who held his heart, even if only for a little while.”

Her face was pained, but her posture was erect and strong. “He would not have left his family for me. I knew that. He knew I knew that. He made that clear; he was fair. But I loved him, Francisco, and I’ve missed him terribly since he left the Agency.” She stared a moment at Lopez. He didn’t know what to say.

“Ah, fuck it.” She walked briskly over to the counter and picked up her mobile, punching in several numbers. There was a moment of stillness as she waited for someone to pick up.

“Counterproliferation Division? Yes, Fred Simon, please. Extension 3378.”

“What are you doing?” Lopez rasped out, hardly able to speak.

“Calling in a favor. A former division chief. He lives nearby.”

“Why are you calling him?”

“Because we’ve hit a wall. I know there’s something there, but they’ve buried it. We need help.” Her attention returned to the phone. “Yes, I’ll hold.”

Lopez approached her hesitantly. “You still want me around for this?”

Her shoulders slumped. “My God, Francisco, of course. Show some backbone!” She walked over and grabbed him by the hair of his beard. His eyes opened in shock. “You’d better not bail on me! You’re ivory tower material, damn ridiculous, but we share one thing: we both loved Miguel. I can see it in you. In your face when you talk about him, in your eyes.” She paused, a sad expression on her face as she stared at him. “It’s weird. You have his eyes—those dark, haunting Aztec eyes. And more of him inside you than you want to admit. Basically, that’s your main flaw.”

“What flaw?” Lopez felt disoriented.

Houston turned from him and spoke into the phone again. “All right, please take a message. No, I don’t want to use his voice mail. He never checks it. Tell him Sara Houston called. He knows my number. Tell him that it’s highest priority—
urgent
. Yes, that’s right. Thanks.” She hung up.

“Your problem, Francisco, is that you are trying too hard to be something you aren’t. Just like Miguel was.” She pursed her lips. “It doesn’t matter right now. If we’re going to get through this, you’ll have to figure that part of it out. Meanwhile, now that I have this confession off my chest, my head is cleared. I know what I have to do.”

She walked over to her bag and pulled out a large handgun. Lopez stood upright, a surge of anxiety running through his body at the site of the weapon. The agent pulled off the safety, checked the magazine, sighted the weapon through the window, and spoke coldly.

“We’ve got business to take care of. I want these killers. And we’re going to find them.”

20

F
red Simon walked into the IMO branch of his division. After the requisite ID checks, he was ushered to an office with a senior information management specialist. He didn’t fool himself that these bookkeepers had any special training that warranted such fancy bureaucratic titles. He mainly thought of them as a glorified records department with experienced librarians. But at least they still remembered who he was after many years and had not assigned him some rookie at a cubicle. The specialist extended his hand.

“I’m Robert Conway, Agent Simon. How can I be of service?”

Simon shook his hand, and they both sat down across from each other over Conway’s desk, the record agent’s face partially hidden behind his computer monitor.

“I need information on several agents from the Darst division over at the Counterterrorism Center.”

“Why not contact CTC directly?” asked Conway.

“It’d be out of my way, and all the databases are under the new system umbrella, anyway, so I thought I’d save myself the trouble.” He smiled innocently and hoped that would do it.

Sara Houston had sounded paranoid, talking about a cover-up in her division and the deaths of numerous agents. He usually trusted her judgment, but he had to admit that this sounded far-fetched. On the other hand, the CTC was one of the more shadowy divisions at the CIA, and rumors swirled around the place. The CTC had put into practice many extreme methods after 9/11, which had led to a near revolt in the CIA over agency ethics.

For Simon, the pain still felt fresh. The executive branch had spent eight years turning the CIA into a parody of itself.
It takes so little time to destroy, and so long to build.
They had dismantled the careful information vetting systems established over decades in favor of their “stove-piping” approach: where low-level information was no longer filtered through layers of analysis to ascertain its quality but could percolate straight to the top. It was part of that administration’s paranoia and distrust of the intelligence community. What it got them was egg all over their faces, phantom WMDs, and a decade-long war that had nothing to do with 9/11. Of course, the CIA was the scapegoat.

“Understandable,” smiled Conway right back. “Which agents?”

“Three in particular: Miguel Lopez, John Fuller, and Gerald Stone.”

Keys clacked as Conway entered data into the computer. Simon slipped back into his memories as the IMO searched the system records.

He fully blamed the former vice president for the disasters—the true force of personality over those eight long years. He had almost single-handedly hacked apart the US intelligence community and then rebuilt it toward the darker purposes he had in mind. Many of Simon’s colleagues had left the agency demoralized. High-level conflicts between national security administrators, even the secretary of state, had raged over the VP’s actions and the directions he was moving the US counterterrorism programs. The madman had created a CIA assassination program that reported only to him, that ran independent of any congressional or judicial oversight! He was the main architect, achieving the abandonment of the Geneva Conventions by the United States, strong-arming a vacillating president and CIA administration into the use of torture, by sheer force of personality overruling objections in the Cabinet.

What was left was a tattered and disorganized agency, one Simon and a few of the old guard were trying to piece together again—with the sole exception of the CTC. It was not disorganized. It was not in tatters. It seemed to function as an Agency unto itself, even now. Simon knew better than to go there directly.

“Just a second,” said Conway. “OK, here they are.” He looked over from his monitor at Simon. “These three are recently deceased?”

“Yes,” said Simon. “That’s partly why I’m here. I wanted to correlate their assignments with some data I have in order to determine if there’s a pattern in the deaths.”

“A pattern? You mean targeted kills?”

This one wasn’t an idiot. “Possibly with such a pattern.”

The records specialist looked troubled. He returned his attention to the screen. The clacking continued. Simon watched the man’s face transform from concern to a perplexed scowl.

“Agent Simon, I’m afraid I may not be able to help you with this.”

Simon’s stomach dropped.
Is he part of this?
“Why is that?”

Conway shook his head, continuing to type. “It’s just—no matter how I try, I’m locked out of the system when I try to access any of the mission reports on these agents.”

Simon breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s okay. It’s likely a security clearance issue.”

“I don’t know,” he said, looking confused. “I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’ve never seen the system behave this way before. Normally, if it were a clearance issue, it would let me know, especially so it would be clear what was required.”

Simon leaned forward. “And this doesn’t flag it as security?”

“No. It doesn’t flag it as anything. I’m just booted out of the system whenever I type in my credentials.”

“It might just be an issue with the implementation. I’ve got pretty high access—comes from having run this division a decade or so ago. Why don’t you use my clearance codes.”

“Sir, I don’t think I’m allowed to—”

“Just let me sit back there and enter the information.” Simon tried to appear calm, even as adrenaline rushed through his veins. Whatever he had said a moment ago to the man, this was
not
normal. Now he really wanted to see those files. But Conway was right—it was against protocol for him to enter the clearances directly. In fact, access in this manner would be against protocol altogether. He had to be careful not to spook him, or he’d lose this opportunity.

“Yes, well, okay then. I’m interested to see what happens now,” said the records agent standing to the side of the chair.

Curiosity killed the cat
, thought Simon as he rose and walked around the desk, sitting in the vacated seat in front of the computer. He scanned his entry card and entered his security code. There was a pause, and then the screen disappeared, reloading the main menu.

“Exact same thing that happened to me,” said Conway.

“I’m locked out of these files?”

“Looks like it, Agent Simon. I would’ve thought someone at your level would have access.”

That makes two of us
. Simon thought back to the strange phone call from Houston. Suddenly, she didn’t seem so paranoid.
What are you boys hiding at CTC?

“There must be some software bug. Conway, what do you think my options are now?”

“I don’t know, sir. I think the best bet is to go to CTC itself.”

Like hell.
The last thing he wanted to do now was telegraph that he was looking into this. “And if that doesn’t work?”

“There’s the more centralized records division. Maybe there is something quirky about the data sharing.” The man didn’t look like he believed in that hypothesis very much.

Simon nodded and stood up. “You’re probably right. Thanks. I’ll look into these options. You’ve been a great help. I’m sure it’s just a glitch.”

Several miles away, an office was dark except for a small desk lamp and the glow of a computer screen. An alert tone beeped, and a red icon with an exclamation point flashed in the middle of the monitor. From the shadows on the side, an arm reached out and moved the mouse pointer over the icon and clicked. A window opened on the screen enclosing a video transmission. A man’s face appeared.

“Director Darst?”

“Speaking. You realize that you are contacting me on a trigger alert.”

“Yes,” said the man, swallowing.

“And that this alert is only to be triggered under certain very specific conditions.”

“Yes, sir,” he continued, his tone slightly more confident. “Those conditions have been met. Several attempts were made to access restricted files at CTC.”

“Continue.”

“They occurred today at 5:30pm from the Counterproliferation Records terminals. One access was a top-level security clearance.”

“Whose?”

“Former director Fred Simon.” The face on the screen appeared very concerned.

“And was this access granted?”

“No. No, sir! As instructed, only Angler Security codes apply to these files. But, sir, I’m not sure this is standard—”

“That will do,” cut in the voice sharply. “You have properly followed instructions. Your reassignment will begin immediately tomorrow.”