Jack Coughlin - An Act of Treason

“Wait! How will I recognize you?”

“You won’t. But I have your picture right in front of me, and the latest driver’s license photo. I think I can pick you out of a crowd. I will be there in about an hour.”

“What’s your name?”

“Tysons Corner. One hour.” The call terminated.

L AUREN KEPT HER EYESmoving to the mirrors as she drove around Washington on busy Route 495, the Capital Beltway. She saw a lot of cars, vans, and trucks of every description but nothing that lingered as possible followers. Since the Silver Line of the Metro was still under construction and did not reach the expansive shopping complex, some sort of car would be required to keep her under surveillance. Or, she thought, a truck, a motorcycle, helicopter, airplane, or satellite. Getting paranoid, girl?

By the time she found a parking place, looked at guides to the many different stores and shops in the regional supermall, and hiked to the hamburger cookery, the hour was almost up. She went to the counter and ordered a cheeseburger, and was surprised at how all of the cooks and servers yelled at each other and even across the restaurant to call out orders. No microphones, just shouts. Combine that with the conversation of the customers, who also had to talk loudly in order to be heard over the bawling of the crew in the candy-striped shirts, and you had a place with the noise level of a small indoor football stadium. People who had put in orders and were waiting for the food stood around idly reading or just killing time. Lauren found a napkin and took a handful of peanuts from a bucket, then sat at a small table. She looked at her watch. An hour and five minutes had passed.

Her number was shouted, and she went to pick up the order. Another woman was sitting at the table, nibbling a peanut, when she returned. Jet black hair cut just below the collar, lithe, with piercing dark blue eyes. Tight black jeans and sneaks, and a dark, overlong Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt. “We spoke. Let’s go,” the woman said. “Dump the greaseburger on the way out or your hips will pay the price.”

Lauren left with the stranger, who casually guided her to the nearest exit in silence. A midsized motor home was at the curb, with its diesel engine purring. The sandy brown and cream paint scheme was faded and unwashed, and the right rear had a big dent; altogether, it was the epitome of a worn old road warrior needing some serious restoration work and better care. The woman opened the door, and they both climbed in. The vehicle was moving before the door was shut.

“Okay now, Agent Carson. Welcome aboard,” the stranger said. “I’m Major Sybelle Summers, the Trident ops officer. That big guy at the wheel is Master Gunny Dawkins, and this little geek with the Coke-bottle glasses is Lieutenant Commander Freedman, our intel chief. What’s going on?” Both of the men wore blue jeans, with loose shirts hanging over their beltlines.

Lauren wasted no time. She took one of the comfortable swivel seats and faced Summers. “We have to help Kyle.”

“We intend to,” replied Summers, with a smile that did not reach her eyes. “What do you have in mind?”

Lauren looked around at the traffic and realized the RV was doing a slow loop of the perimeter roads around the supermall. “Do you think we’re being followed? Can anyone overhear our conversation?”

“No, you’re not being followed, Agent Carson. Commander Freedman was in the burger joint when you arrived, I was watching from the security office, and our driver was roaming the area. Nothing suspicious. And no one is listening because we have jamming devices and shielding in this old buggy. Now talk to me, Lauren. Kyle Swanson is our buddy, part of our team. Tell us what we can do to help you.” Summers had decided to go the personal route, and it worked.

To Lauren Carson, Major Summers was both very competent and believable. Once she decided to trust them, the words came out in a rush: the Islamabad experience with Jim Hall and the Taliban politician, Kyle’s stern behavior in changing the entire mission on the spot to get the soldiers out, the unexpected catastrophic explosions, and then the start of the CIA inquisition and her two weeks of mandatory leave.

“A serious discrepancy has already turned up in their internal investigation. A covert bank account was cleaned out yesterday, five million dollars, based upon codes and commands known only to myself and Jim Hall. I didn’t do it, so that means that Jim did! The problem is it happened after Jim supposedly was killed. They have to blame somebody, and pointing the finger at a corpse doesn’t work. So they are leaving me to be the scapegoat.”

“The withdrawal came after the fact,” said Freedman, just to be sure of the point.

“Yes.” Lauren opened her purse. “Here’s the zinger. That was hardly the only covert account to which my old boss Jim Hall had access. He had worked for the Agency for many years, and I know of at least twenty others because he had my name on those, too. Jim never actually returned money to the general funds, and the Agency watchdogs knew it. It was already authorized and approved through proper channels, so if a couple of million was needed for some really off-the-books operation, Jim could supply it. Untraceable, with no questions asked.”

The RV continued its journey to nowhere. The parking lot at Tysons Corner could handle 165,000 vehicles, and traffic was always coming and going. Perfect civilian cover. Sybelle looked at Freedman. This CIA agent’s story, wrapped with their own timeline about how Swanson could not have been responsible for the explosions, seemed to jell. “We also think it was a setup. Your superior, Jim Hall, is feeding both you and Kyle to the wolves.”

A stricken look came across Lauren Carson’s face. “I’m going to be friggin’ executed,” she said. “I’m a loose end. Kyle is the only one I can really trust, because he knows Jim Hall even better than I do.” She unfolded a sheet of paper that listed the series of financial institutions and account numbers that she had culled from another computer workstation before leaving Langley. “I’ve got this information, but getting into those systems for confirmation and status reports is beyond my technical ability. The Agency has people who do just that kind of thing all the time.”

“So do we,” Summers told her. “Lizard, do your thing.”

Lieutenant Commander Freedman spread his fingers, like a concert pianist warming up, and ran both hands through his thick black hair. He opened the wooden cabinets along the left side of the RV and tossed out several bags of dry cereal. With the touch of what looked like a light switch, the plywood backing and single shelf folded forward to reveal a multiscreen computer center. Green dots of light indicated the power source was on. “Let me give it a try,” he said, adjusting a rolling chair into position.

ISLAMABAD

T HIS WAS AS BORINGas sketching. Kyle hated drawing-going into a target zone prior to a main assault and sketching everything around in complete detail in a little notebook. The observations would be molded into the other intel gathered by other means, and the attack would proceed. Drone airplanes and their sharp cameras had taken over a chunk of that overall task, but airplanes, by definition, stay in the air. Men on the ground bring a much different perspective. A pilot twiddling a joystick hundreds of miles away to guide a drone would never have the same outlook. It just took so much time, being completely hidden and still except for drawing and measuring things with lasers before you could go kill somebody. Some of the same techniques of waiting could be applied to enduring the passing time in a prison.