Ghost Target (Ryan Drake) Read online

  But there was one message in the inbox that most definitely wasn’t a waste of time. There was no subject, but the sender was one J. Doe. Hardly an original name, but Drake knew what it meant. J. Doe wasn’t the kind of person to send ‘How are you?’ emails. If she contacted him, it was for a reason.

  Putting down his coffee, he opened the email.

  We need to talk. Can we meet?

  Drake frowned. As far as missives went, this one was about as short and to the point as it could be. Still, he knew the sender well enough by now to understand she wouldn’t give anything away over an unsecured email server. Whatever she had to tell him would be delivered face to face.

  The question was, what did she want?

  ‘Everything okay?’ McKnight asked, noticing his change in expression.

  ‘Hmm?’ he said, stirred from his thoughts. ‘Yeah, nothing I can’t handle.’

  ‘Sounds ominous.’

  ‘Try tedious.’

  Despite his evasive words, he knew he would have to send some kind of reply. For one thing, J. Doe wasn’t someone you ignored. For another, whatever she wanted to discuss would likely find its way to him sooner or later anyway. Better to meet it on his own terms.

  A moment later, he started typing.

  Marseille, tonight. Bar Mele, 8 p.m.

  If she wanted to be brief and blunt, he was happy to respond in kind.

  His simple missive complete, he sent it winging off through cyberspace to wherever the sender happened to be. Depending on the vagaries of server cross-links and how many budget Rolex watches were being touted that day, the message should take anywhere from ten seconds to two minutes to arrive.

  He had set the meeting for tonight partly because he wanted to get it over with, but mostly to gauge how badly she wanted to meet with him. If she agreed, it meant something serious was going down.

  Three minutes later, the reply came.

  I’ll be there. Don’t be late.

  Drake leaned back in his chair and took another sip of coffee. Well, that confirmed his theory at least. Whatever she wanted to discuss, it was important.

  It didn’t make him feel any better.

  Chapter 3

  Langley, Virginia – 30 April 1985

  ‘Morning, Tom,’ Marcus Cain said, striding down the corridor with a coffee in hand. ‘Ready to save the world?’

  It was barely 9 a.m., but he’d already managed to fit in a five-mile run through central DC before work. Rather than leaving him tired and worn out, the early morning exercise had served to focus his mind and body. He felt alert, energized, ready to take on anything.

  Tall, lean and ruggedly handsome, Marcus Cain cut a striking figure amongst the slumped shoulders and middle-aged beer guts that populated Langley. At just 30 years old, and bright and ambitious, he’d only recently been promoted to full case officer, giving him command over both field operatives and the authority to recruit his own intelligence sources. It was both an honour for a man of his age, and a challenge that he was determined to rise to.

  His colleague, Tom McBride, was clutching a set of sealed brown file folders that represented their combined workload for the day ahead. Instinctively he fell into step beside Cain to match his strides; no easy task when McBride was several inches shorter, ten years older and a good deal heavier. Still, he’d never have admitted to having difficulty keeping up.

  ‘You’re annoyingly cheerful today,’ he remarked with good natured mockery. ‘You get laid last night or something?’

  Cain gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Your jealousy smells worse than your aftershave, Tom. And that’s saying something.’

  ‘I like this aftershave.’

  ‘Someone has to, I guess,’ Cain acknowledged. ‘So hit me with it. What’s the good word?’

  ‘Latest intel reports from Afghanistan,’ McBride began, holding out the first folder. His expression said it all. The Soviets were winning, and the CIA-backed Mujahedeen were losing. Same old story.

  Cain accepted it reluctantly. ‘That good, huh?’

  ‘Worse. I’ll leave you to pick through the gory details later. The short version is that the Divisional heads want you to spin your usual bullshit. Full work-up and high-level summary, along with operational recommendations by tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Why? So they can ignore it like my last two reports?’ Cain asked, a measure of his good humour departing. ‘Maybe I should record it and play it on loop for them.’

  McBride smiled faintly. ‘This one’s different. There’s a briefing scheduled later this week with one William Carpenter; a colonel with army special operations. I don’t know many of the details yet, but a lot of heavy hitters will be there, and they’ve asked you to present your findings. Draw your own conclusions on that.’

  Even Cain was taken aback by this. Perhaps, just perhaps, his pleas for direct US involvement in Afghanistan hadn’t fallen on deaf ears after all. Of course, there was always a downside to stepping into the limelight. If you screwed up or failed to deliver after people had put their faith in you, it could land your career on the fast track to nowhere.

  Still, Cain wasn’t afraid to take risks. He hadn’t made it this far by playing safe. And if he could actually sell them on this plan and make it work, he could quickly find himself a rising star.

  ‘Well, shit. That just makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside,’ he said, tucking the briefing folders under his arm. He was just about to make a right and head to the relative quiet of his cubicle office when McBride called after him. ‘Oh, just one other thing.’

  Cain paused in his stride. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Something that came in from our colleagues in Norwegian Intelligence.’

  He feigned surprise. ‘There is such a thing?’

  ‘I’ll be sure to pass those remarks along,’ McBride chided him. ‘Anyway, bit of a curve ball, but it looks like they caught themselves a Soviet defector.’

  That was enough to pique his interest. ‘Military?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Government?’

  ‘Civilian. Nineteen years old. She presented herself to the Norwegians and requested asylum in the US.’

  Cain’s enthusiasm faded. ‘Then she wants the State Department, not the CIA,’ he decided, turning away, his mind already on the upcoming briefing.

  ‘Wait, here’s where it gets interesting. According to their debriefing, she hiked through a hundred miles of Arctic terrain to cross the border. Nearly died of exposure in the process.’

  ‘So she’s tough but dumb.’ If true, hers was an impressive feat of survival, though not terribly smart. There were far easier ways to defect. ‘Why should we care?’

  ‘Because she requested to work for us against the Soviets. Well, demanded would probably be more accurate. She said she was willing to do anything to work against them.’

  Cain wasn’t impressed. Normally intelligence agents were recruited through a careful process of trust building, training, bribery or, in some cases, coercion. They didn’t just show up on the Agency’s doorstep asking for a job.

  ‘Forget her,’ he advised, having made his assessment already. ‘She’s probably just some messed-up kid looking for attention.’

  ‘You’re not taking her seriously. Neither did the Norwegians. They had some junior analyst try to debrief her, but she saw right through it, refused to speak until they sent a case officer in.’

  Cain frowned. ‘She knew their chain of command?’

  ‘No, you don’t understand. She knew they were lying,’ McBride explained. ‘According to their debriefing document, they knowingly fed her false information on six different occasions, and she caught them out every time. For whatever reason, it seems she’s almost impossible to deceive.’

  Cain was tempted to laugh at the notion. He still didn’t believe it, but he had to admit he was intrigued. ‘So what do you want from me?’

  ‘You’re a case officer. Recruiting agents is your job,’ McBride reminded him. ‘Look, give her a quick ev
aluation. If you think there’s something we can use, we’ll put it through the usual channels. If not, we ditch her. Fair enough?’

  Cain glanced down the corridor to his office, where he knew he should be heading right now to prepare his briefing. And yet, the notion of meeting this mysterious young woman who had trekked through a hundred miles of ice and snow just for a chance to work for the Agency had kindled a spark of curiosity in him.

  ‘Fine,’ he conceded reluctantly. ‘Where are they holding her?’

  He would spare her five minutes before making his decision. After that, he would consider his duty done. He didn’t imagine he’d be seeing her again either way.

  * * *

  Langley, Virginia – 14 March 2010

  Removing his reading glasses, Marcus Cain closed his eyes and rubbed his temples, trying his best to ignore the headache that was pounding away inside his skull and focus on the briefing documents laid out before him. It was a silent, if painful reminder of the bottle of whisky he’d done his best to get through last night.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d finished up a day without a drink.

  Reaching into his desk drawer, he fished out a strip of aspirin, popped two in his mouth and washed them down with the tepid remains of his cup of coffee.

  The contents of his daily briefing certainly gave him no reason to feel better. Everywhere the Agency was fighting the War on Terror, they were losing. In Iraq and Syria, ISIS were on the move once more, regrouping their scattered forces for another major offensive. The pre-emptive drone strikes he’d ordered in Libya might have killed some of their commanders and dealt their cause a blow, but such attacks were only delaying the inevitable. Without American support, the fledgling Iraqi army wouldn’t stand, and after nine years of costly and fruitless warfare, neither Congress nor the public had the stomach to send troops in again.

  Things were even worse in Afghanistan, where a resurgent al-Qaeda was striking with increasing impunity from the lawless mountain regions that remained well outside government control. Afghan military forces barely had the manpower to hold the ground they already had, and their capabilities were diminishing as desertion and battlefield casualties took their toll.

  The Afghans weren’t the only ones taking casualties either. The suicide bombing at Camp Chapman three months ago had dealt the Agency a crippling blow from which it was still struggling to recover. With nine of their most capable and experienced personnel dead and another six severely injured, it had been their worst single loss of life in a quarter of a century.

  But the effects had gone far deeper than that. Every aspect of the Agency, from their procedures to their operational outlook to their leadership, had been under scrutiny since news of the blast had begun to filter through. Even the public had become aware of what had happened, the scope of the disaster simply too big to conceal, and as a result confidence in them was at an all-time low.

  The world’s most formidable and secretive organisation had been exposed to the world as fallible, vulnerable and desperate. And never had they been more needed.

  He glanced up from the depressing briefing documents as his door opened and an older man strode in without so much as knocking. Not many men could walk right into Marcus Cain’s office without warning or permission, but unfortunately CIA Director Robert Wallace was one of them.

  One of the new crop of top-level replacements that had arrived in the wake of Barack Obama’s march to the White House, Wallace’s appointment as director was unusual in that he hadn’t come from either a military or intelligence background. Instead the Agency had been lumbered with a serial politician; a man whose career had been based around drawn-out hearings, dusty subcommittees, small-minded party bickering. A man with little understanding of the work that went on at Langley.

  It was obvious that a man with a blank slate in the intelligence game had been chosen specifically to clean up the Agency’s image, which had been well and truly tarnished after eight years under the Bush administration. Some of his first acts as director had been to start official investigations into the enhanced interrogation techniques the Agency had been using successfully for years, to curtail funding for human intel and pump ever increasing resources into unmanned aircraft.

  Cain had never had much time for the man, and he was quite certain the feeling was mutual. And judging by the look on Wallace’s face as he approached, it wasn’t about to change today.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ he demanded, slapping down a copy of the Washington Post on Cain’s desk, open several pages from the front to expose a full-page article headlined: CIA in Crisis – Have They Already Lost Afghanistan?

  Cain leaned over, briefly surveying it. He’d read the article already, but he didn’t want Wallace to know that. ‘I’d say it’s a valid question, Bob.’

  Wallace shot him an angry glare. ‘This is no time for your smart-assed remarks, Marcus. Don’t you get it? We’re not just fighting a war in Afghanistan and Iraq; we’re fighting one right here in DC. And we’re losing all of them.’

  Cain leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing the Director. He’d barely been in the job a year, yet his hair was noticeably greyer now, his forehead already etched with deep frown lines. There was a reason most Directors only stuck around for a few years, and it wasn’t just for political reasons – the constant stress and pressure simply burned men out.

  Cain would be surprised if Wallace made it another year.

  ‘Then I guess it depends how you want to fight those wars,’ he said at length. ‘As a politician, or an intelligence operative. Because you can’t be both. Sooner or later you have to choose.’

  The not-so-subtle barb wasn’t lost on the Director. ‘Watch your tone, Marcus. My predecessor might have had a hard-on for you because of what you did in Afghanistan twenty years ago, but this is now, and I’m not him,’ he warned. ‘The President’s looking for results. He wants an exit strategy, and we can’t give him one as long as al-Qaeda are still in the fight. All we’ve got to show him are some new stars on the wall downstairs.’

  That remark was enough to make even Cain wince. The Wall of Remembrance in the building’s main lobby had a new star added each time a CIA employee was lost in the line of duty. There were a lot more of them now than there had been when Cain started his career.

  ‘What would you have us do?’

  Wallace jerked a finger at the newspaper on his desk. ‘Get our dicks out of our hands and take charge of this situation. You’re still in this job because you’re supposed to be our expert on all things Afghanistan, so find me a solution. Or I’ll find someone who will.’

  Cain’s eyes hardened then. He could feel the headache that had lingered with him all morning growing in intensity. Hidden from view, his hands curled into fists.

  ‘All right, Bob. I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion.

  Wallace’s weak jaw clenched as if he were biting back another scathing rebuke. Nonetheless, he turned to leave. ‘Keep the article. You might find it interesting,’ he called back over his shoulder.

  ‘This solution you’re looking for,’ Cain said just as he was opening the door. ‘You want me to find it as a politician, or an intelligence operative?’

  The Director hesitated a moment, his grip on the door tightening. Without saying another word, he walked out, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Cain sat there in silence for a few moments, pondering the exchange. Wallace was an asshole politician, more interested in embellishing his own reputation than making tangible intelligence gains, but he was still a powerful asshole. If it came to it, he could have Cain removed as Deputy Director.

  A position he’d sacrificed so much to attain.

  ‘Goddamn it,’ he mumbled, pushing himself away from his expensive desk and striding across his office to the windows overlooking the parkland that surrounded the Agency’s headquarters.

  It was a dark, sombre kind of day in Virginia, characteristic of this time o
f year. The sky overhead was a mass of slow-moving clouds, heavy with rain. Whatever possessed the founding fathers to build the nation’s capital in a fucking swamp, he’d never know.

  Staring out towards the distant spire of the Washington Monument, he caught a momentary glimpse of his reflection in the polished glass. It was the reflection of a man he wouldn’t have recognized a few years ago. An old man before his time, his face worn and lined by years of care and worry, his hair greying, his shoulders stooped and his eyes showing the pain that came from watching everything he’d worked so hard to build slowly crumbling.

  And to think he’d scoffed at Wallace for showing the stress of his job.

  It was time to act, he knew now. Not as a politician or an intelligence operative, but as a man worthy of the enemy they now faced.

  Turning away from the brooding sky, he crossed the office to his desk phone and dialled a number he’d been using more often than he would have liked lately. The line clicked and buzzed a few times as the phone’s encryption software worked to establish a secure satellite connection, then it started ringing.

  It didn’t take long for the recipient to answer. ‘Station Chief.’

  ‘Quinn, it’s Marcus.’

  Hayden Quinn was his station chief at the US embassy in Pakistan, overseeing all Agency operations in the country. A competent enough man that Cain had believed ideal for leading the hunt for al-Qaeda’s most senior leadership. But competence meant little without results, and after nearly a year in the position Cain was starting to doubt the wisdom of his choice.

  ‘Give me good news,’ Cain prompted, wasting no time on greetings.

  There was a pause, which told him pretty much what he needed to know. ‘I’m afraid the Pakistanis aren’t playing ball, sir,’ Quinn said at last, his trepidation obvious. ‘They claim they’re already extending us their fullest cooperation. Usual BS, but they’re stonewalling us. We can’t get in.’