Jack Coughlin - An Act of Treason

Hall did not want to really hurt Maggie; he just needed her dead. He smashed her head twice more with the heavy pan and, on the final blow, heard her skull crack. She was totally unconscious, dying from the brain and spinal injuries, and he knelt beside her for a moment to catch his breath. Not long-he had to get to work while the heart was still pumping; it was important. A lot of blood would spew out to help make the scene as gruesome as possible for investigators.

Standing up and taking three strides back to the breakfast bar in the kitchen, he silently put the heavy, bloodstained frying pan into the sink and lifted a long, sharp cutting knife from a wooden stand on the counter.

Then he worked methodically, pulling multiple deep wounds across major arteries. The thick purple blood fountained out and splashed the walls as well as the floor and his body. Slashing and disfiguring facial cuts were necessary, too, and he also sliced off the eyelids. Those enchanting brown eyes were staring up at the ceiling, seeing nothing. Changing to a cleaver, he chopped off her little finger. With a dishcloth dunked in her blood, he wrote on one of the white walls, following with a huge exclamation point: CIA SPY!

When the work was done, he went to the bathroom, closed the door, and took a scalding hot shower because he had been working out there naked except for an oversized gray sweatshirt he had found in her closet. The steam wrapped him comfortably, and he soaped and washed carefully, particularly under the nails and in every bodily crevice, shampooing twice.

Jim Hall dressed quickly. The frigid air-conditioning was to keep her body chilled and prevent quick decay, but damn it was cold. He laid the envelope addressed to the CIA station chief on the living room table, gave Sapphire a final rub, and left the apartment, locking the door behind him.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

W HITE H OUSE C HIEF OFStaff Bobby Patterson felt like he was juggling live hand grenades. Everything involved in the mess in Pakistan seemed to trail right back to his desk. President Russell, his friend of many years, had just chewed him out and threatened to fire him for using poor judgment and overstepping his authority. “Put a lid on this thing, Bobby,” the president had ordered.

Patterson summoned a Town Car to go out to the CIA and talk it over with Director Bart Geneen, whom he counted as an ally in the political battle. On the way there, Patterson remained silent, ignoring the monuments and lines of trees beyond the tinted windows as he considered options and political risks. If he did not exert strong control, things could spin even further out of hand, and that would mean his job. The black car wound smoothly off the Beltway and into the woods outside Langley, and once he was through the extraordinary security apparatus at the front gate, a sense of privacy and secrecy seemed to drift upon him like a silent blanket of snow. It felt good. The car proceeded along a shaded lane, past the parking lots and right up to the front entrance of shining glass and polished marble. He was met by an escort who gave him a VIP visitor’s clip-on tag, then led the way through the inner courtyard. Patterson, lost in his own puzzles, ignored the statue to the code-breakers of World War II, the famed Kryptos sculptured fountain that contained its own enigmatic 865-character cipher. The two men entered the holiest of holy places for secrecy; imbedded along one wall was a galaxy of bright stars, each representing a fallen operative. The stars bore no names, for the anonymity of the agents lived on beyond their lives, truly unsung heroes. If one’s name became known, enemy intelligence services would pounce on everyone who ever had anything to do with the exposed agent. These men and women carried their secrets beyond their graves.

Patterson’s confidence grew with every step. With all of the professionals on this big campus and the billions of dollars of support, he felt fresh wind pushing his sails. He had given the job to the right people. All things would be set right. His decision to let the CIA be the lead dog in investigating the devastating terrorist attack in Pakistan was a good one. The Agency could not afford to fail any more than Patterson.

Then, instead of going to the office of Director Geneen, the escort veered into a basement conference room, a drab place in which pastel colors did nothing to dispel its blandness. Underground at the CIA: How about this for security? Waiting for him was Mel Langdon, the director of operations, who motioned the chief of staff to a chair beside a worn oblong wood table that bore circular stains left by coffee cups and water glasses. A bulletin board and a white grease board were filled with documents and writing, and scraps of loose paper littered the dreary carpet. Work is done in this place , Patterson thought, and Langdon is the officer who handles the hard decisions.

“I hope you brought along your thinking cap, Mr. Patterson. We have a few problems.”

Bobby Patterson closed his eyes and sighed. Now what? “Where’s the director?”

“Unavailable.” Langdon’s response was curt and to the point. “Our principals should not be directly involved with this so they can maintain deniability. That’s why you and I are relegated to this room in the basement, a couple of high-level flunkies doing the devil’s deeds, far out of sight.”

Not meeting with the director came as a direct slap in the face for Patterson. Has word already leaked that I’m in trouble? Bobby Patterson shrugged his shoulders, adjusted his suit coat, and covered his embarrassment at the impolite response. “Let’s go from the top. What’s up?”

“Do you remember our shooter who was killed in the Pakistan strike? Jim Hall?”

Patterson did. “FBI identified the corpse, right?”

“No. They never actually saw the body. They worked from a print from a severed finger and DNA from bloodstains, all supplied by the Pakis, and came up with the positive identity.”

“Well? He’s dead. So what?”

“He’s not dead, and he’s gone rogue.” Patterson worked a panel of buttons, and a viewing screen unrolled from a hidden reel in the ceiling, the room lights dimmed, and a series of PowerPoint slides began. The butchered body of a woman in a pool of blood. The words CIA SPY! scrawled on a white wall above her.

“My God! Who is that?

“Her name is Margaret Dunston, and she was one of ours. She worked in Dubai for Baker Harris and Associates, a company that we set up to maintain surveillance and exert some control in the oil industry, and a pretty expensive piece of work with a lot of years of development invested. This is Jim Hall’s way of telling us that he has blown the entire Baker Harris show, a whole network.”

The pictures now changed to a dirt courtyard in some unidentified, barren place. Close-ups of the bruised and broken faces of two men standing against a wall, then the camera pulling back to show a line of other men facing them, holding AK-47s at the ready. The next picture was of the rifles being fired, and the last, the victims slumped over dead. “Two more of our agents, local talent this time, who had infiltrated the Taliban in the Northwest Frontier. Hall claims to have sold them out to an old friend of his, Muhammed Waleed.”

“The Taliban warlord in Waziristan?”

“The same,” said Langdon. “He left a letter at the scene of the murder of the woman in Dubai, confessing everything. He wants a deal.”

“We can’t deal with a man like that,” Patterson said. “He’s a terrorist himself!”

Langdon turned the lights back up and the gruesome pictures vanished, but the screen stayed down. “Like I said earlier, Bobby. We’re doing the devil’s deeds here today. We are backed into a corner and pretty much have to give him what he wants. The man is a walking encyclopedia of Agency secrets. He could cripple us.”