October's Ghost (6 page)

Like a coach looking for evidence of mistakes or missteps on the part of his team, Paredes watched for several minutes as mayhem erupted on the base below. Pilots, alerted by the blasts and the subsequent alarm, ran from their quarters to the flight line where they stood, bewildered, as they stared at their suddenly grounded aircraft. To the west of the planes a flash erupted from the base’s maintenance hangar, followed quickly by a bright orange fireball that did not subside. Fingers of orange licked out of the half-open door and the shattered windows as equipment vital to the operation of the aircraft was consumed by the inferno. A few minutes later, as the Hind pilots and crew scrambled to their ships and took to the sky, the final blow of the opening was struck.

Antonio lowered the glasses as obvious muzzle flashes erupted around and in the control tower. He turned to Colonel Ojeda, who stood in the same position as before, his eyes cast not upon the successful operation unfolding, but toward the sky almost straight up. “Sufficient for your government, Papa Tony?”

Paredes smiled, wishing in vain that the cameras a hundred miles up could see the look in the colonel’s eyes, for no further confirmation of the viability of this rebellion would be necessary. “Ample, Colonel. It is a fair fight now.”

Ojeda’s gaze came down upon the American’s satisfied face. At several other airfields across the country similar actions would be happening, effectively taking the Revolutionary Air Forces out of the fray. The skies would belong to no one. Still, it was a fact only of tactical convenience to the colonel. “Papa, I would fight this war with a stick, a stone, and the hate in my heart.” The expression on his face changed slightly, to something that seemed to perplex and slightly frighten the American. “It was fair when they had an air force. Now the battle is mine.”

Grandiose, some would label the claim, but they were not standing in the shadow of the man who, as lit from above by the bright, full moon, resembled the earthly embodiment of the grim reaper. Antonio Paredes was, and he pitied the enemy, for any foe of this man was at a disadvantage simply by nature of his allegiance.

Ojeda reached out and touched the American on the shoulder, leaving his hand there for a moment, conveying the gratitude that words would fumble over. Then he turned and went to his men, leaving Paredes to stand among the palms that towered like sheltering sentinels over him. Activity on the base was picking up, with more flashes, more sounds, and the beautiful scenes of confusion as soldiers loyal to the government struggled to comprehend what had happened and where the enemy had come from. Ten men, Antonio thought. And Ojeda has thirty thousand. He could only smile at the thought of what was still to come.

The liberation of Cuba had begun.

*  *  *

Deputy Director, Intelligence, Greg Drummond hated the hour. The sun was barely up when his CIA driver arrived at his suburban Virginia home, the crisp beauty of an autumn morning not yet fully realized. And it wouldn’t be for the man who headed the Agency’s Intelligence directorate. He had missed a slew of sunrises and sunsets in his eighteen years at Langley, half of those in the past six months, and he had begun to wonder if life was anything more than work marked at both ends by meals from the Agency’s mess.

The drive in took thirty minutes, a little more than usual because some knucklehead had tried a right-side pass on a big rig and ended up transforming his forty-thousand-dollar Beamer into a thirty-thousand-dollar Beamer with a ten-grand repair bill attached. Drummond was deposited in the VIP area of the CIA’s underground parking garage and took the VIP elevator directly to the seventh floor, the home of the VIPs. Being a VIP had its pluses.

“Greg, hurry up,” one of the minuses said as he saw the DDI step off the elevator.

“One minute, Anthony.” Drummond walked past Director of Central Intelligence Anthony Merriweather’s office, which, unfortunately, was but one from his, and checked the night dispatches on his desk. There was no reason to rush, despite the DCI’s urging. The DDI slid out of his overcoat and laid his soft leather case on the desk, which, to his chagrin, hadn’t magically swallowed the ponderous “to do” list, courtesy of his micromanager boss, that would pop up on his computer screen when he coded in for the day.

He let out a breath and tried to convince himself that this day would pass quickly and productively, then picked up the Significant Events summary prepared by the night desk and felt his hopes of a second earlier fade away.

“Damn,” he said softly, folding the single sheet in half and pulling the corresponding detail report that explained in depth the event of concern. He has to listen to this, Drummond thought, knowing that “has to” was a term that rarely applied to Merriweather. He was in the DCI’s office a minute later.

“We have SNAPSHOT stuff coming in,” Merriweather reported.

“Oh? This soon?” the DDI asked, only half-interested.

“Healy’s guy gave me an eyeball description of what he saw. Very impressive,” the DCI commented, tearing the sheet of his notes on the conversation from the legal pad and sliding it into the shredder atop his wastebasket.

“Christ, Anthony!” Drummond’s jaw would have dropped if he didn’t know the added emphasis would be wasted. “You should not be in direct contact with field officers when they are engaged in a mission. Especially this mission.”

Merriweather made his disagreement clear with a look. There was a fine line between security and paranoia. “It is a secure communication link, Greg.”

“Secure is a fantasy we all hope is true,” the DDI said. “We do not take risks with it when they are not necessary. Mike could have gotten the information.” Mike Healy, Drummond’s counterpart in Operations, ran the spooks in the field.

“Hmm.” The DCI wasn’t sure he wanted Healy being the point of contact on something as big as SNAPSHOT. Like Drummond, the DDO had a tendency to filter too much, Merriweather believed. “Well, it’s done now. We’ll have another KH-12 pass in an hour. After that we go to the President. He’ll want to see that everything is going as planned.”
And won’t DiContino be surprised that his Russia operation isn’t quite the most important thing going on
, he added to himself, knowing that the man sitting across from him would neither appreciate nor understand his opinion of the NSA. It was clear enough without words, he figured.

“Now that Cuba is free,” Drummond began, the sarcasm mild but undeniable, “we have to talk about CANDLE.”

“What about it?” Merriweather was impatient with his deputy’s seemingly endless search for a leak that he believed existed somewhere in the Intelligence Directorate. The days of James Jesus Angleton were long past, he reasoned, making the present search for a supposed leak reminiscent of the famed hunt for “K” by the former agency official. CANDLE was Drummond’s internal operation to locate the supposed exfiltration of information and plug it.

Drummond handed over the night summary and the detail report supporting the first item on it. Merriweather scanned it quickly, jotting down his own observations and giving it about as much attention as he had to his deputy’s suspicions from day one. It was
his
directorate, after all, and if there was a leak, which Merriweather doubted anyway, then it was
his
responsibility. He almost wished it were true so he could convince those diehards on the Hill that he needed new people for new times, not holdovers who were there just because of longevity in the position.

“So? The president of the Panamanian legislature changed his schedule for the day after tomorrow.” The DCI looked up. “Do we have a problem with that?”

Drummond told himself that all nightmares came to an end, and that he would soon wake from this one. “We had a damn complex surveillance set up on him, Anthony! He was supposed to meet with reps from the Peruvian drug cartels at location
X
. Now he suddenly changes to location
Y
, and we have no idea where that is.” The DDI let it hang there, wondering why his boss couldn’t see the seriousness of the implications.

“And?”

“Anthony, this is the third time we’ve had a meeting scheduled weeks in advance between Coseros and unsavories that was suddenly changed at the last minute. Not a week or two ahead, but
days
before the meet. That doesn’t give us enough time to find the new site and shift our assets. Someone is tipping him off.”

“I thought you checked your Latin-American section,” the DCI said.

“I have, but apparently not close enough,” Drummond admitted. “But beyond the fact that we have a leak—”

“Possibly,” Merriweather interjected, allowing it just for the sake of argument.

“All right, possibly have a leak. The important thing is to recognize who is benefiting from what is getting out.”

“Come on, Greg. Don’t beat that old horse anymore.”

Christ, is he blind?
“Coseros is a government official in Panama, and his ass has been saved from indictment because of these leaks, and he has been tunneling money to your CFS guys down in Miami. Their bank account is busting, Anthony!”

“Funneling? That is not what the Bureau found in its
three
separate investigations before this one.” The Agency, as it sometimes did, was assisting the FBI in an investigation that required some of its special abilities. “I believe the term they settled on was ‘contributions.’ As for your narco-corruption theory, you know damn well that money Coseros has given them doesn’t even begin to amount to what is in their accounts. The CFS has other supporters, Greg. Big ones.” Merriweather seemed suddenly disinterested in any further correction of his deputy’s off-the-mark position. “Besides all that, the Justice Department has found no compelling evidence to support an indictment of Coseros,” he pointed out correctly, ignoring the other connection his deputy was implying.

“Because every time we get close, someone tips him!” Drummond sat back, letting the frustration subside a bit. “And he is supporting the people you want to put into power in Cuba.”

“
I
do?” The DCI chuckled. “So you consider yourself not a part of this?”

Bad choice of words, Greg
. He’d learned that his boss was a master at catching misspeaks and using them to the fullest advantage. “Look, I want Castro out as bad as anyone. He’s one of the last of a dead breed. But we can’t overlook the connection between the Peruvian cartels and Coseros, and between Coseros and the Cuban Freedom Society.”

The DCI’s face went instantly red at the direct link the DDI was suggesting. “You are not to repeat that assertion outside of this room. Never! I will not tolerate even the hint of such linkage without irrefutable evidence to warrant it. Is that clear?”

“Have I yet?” Drummond responded with a challenge.

Merriweather ignored the question. “I will not jeopardize SNAPSHOT simply because you have doubts about the integrity of your directorate, and because you place fiction above fact in forming your opinions.”

“Anthony, I—”

“You will keep your unsubstantiated ideas to yourself until the time that you have something concrete to back them up. Is that very clear? A yes or no, please.”

What the hell was concrete? Drummond wondered. His job was supposed to involve speculation, and now his boss was telling him to reign in his brain? “Very clear.”

Merriweather was still flushed. He was not a man to calm from provocation or questioning easily. “Good.” He checked the time on the small desk clock left by his predecessor. “We have to be at the White House in a few hours. Be ready.”

And with that it was over. The DDI walked into the hallway, closing the door himself. It was still too early for the majority of Langley’s workers to have arrived, so he felt comfortable just standing in the hall. A better man had occupied the office he’d just left, until a microscopic, indiscriminate bug had taken its toll. Herb Landau just wouldn’t have run things this way, Drummond knew. He was sure of it, as sure as he was that the director’s cause célèbre was inherently flawed. Yet he could do nothing. The President had given it the nod, without even letting his closest advisers in on SNAPSHOT. That was an entirely different problem, but one the DDI saw as potentially more dangerous than having an autocrat at the helm of the Agency. His eyes searched the ceiling for a solution that was not there. He was certain where the problem was, however, and equally confident in his belief that things were going to get worse before they got better.

He would have been surprised, however, at just how much of an understatement his last thought had been.

*  *  *

The dacha of Gennadiy Konovalenko, president of the Russian Federation, was a hundred miles from the Russian capital, nestled along a river among a stand of firs that kept the expansive deck at the rear in a perpetual shade. The sunlight that did penetrate the canopy from the yellow globe low in the southern sky lit the rippling water below with sparkles and flashes, and cast a harsh, pale coloring upon the birds that flitted through the beams. The scene was in stark contrast to the dirty, dull pallor that was pervasive in the great cities of Mother Russia. All the brightly colored spires and fine statuary could not reverse a course of decay initiated almost eighty years earlier. It would take much longer to right the wrongs done the Russian people. Much longer to make the nation a reflection of its inherent beauty.

“We should have such a place in Red Square, eh?” the president suggested from his reclining wooden chair on the deck. It was reminiscent of the Adirondack style favored by the leisure-loving Americans and had actually been built with those in mind after the president’s return from a particularly enjoyable trip to the United States.

“Then what reason would we have to journey here?” Foreign Minister Igor Yakovlev responded with his own musing. He walked along the deck, sliding a gloved hand on the rough railing as he moved. The chill of the autumn afternoon caused a cloud of whitish mist to spurt from his mouth with each word and each breath. “And where would we hold court?”

The president laughed, his paunch shaking beneath the fur coat that took the bite out of the air but left his reddening nose unprotected. A man of only middle age, he was perhaps the most crucial leader his country—in whatever incarnation or by whatever name—had ever had. And “holding court,” as his trusted adviser called it, was but one tool he had developed to placate his critics. Bring them out here, to the dacha his father, a onetime member of the old Soviet Politburo, had built using prison labor imported from the east. Get them away from that dreadful place called Moscow, where power was the goal of all the players. Even he fell into that trap when the days in the Kremlin stretched to weeks, and weeks to months. But always there was his dacha, as modest as it was by Western standards. His escape. His domain.