Christopher Reich - Rules of Betrayal

Until now, everything had been a rehearsal. Not just the past five days with Danni, but his entire life. The youth in conflict, the climbing to escape it, his redemption as a doctor, and his marriage to Emma, which was not a marriage at all but eight years of aiding and abetting a Russian-born, American-trained spook. All of it one long march, culminating in this moment. The birth of an operative.

“We believe Lord Balfour to be in possession of a nuclear weapon.”

Connor’s words hadn’t left his mind since he had heard them eight hours before. It was quite a step up from sorting through desk drawers to find a man’s name or searching dark closets for a few hand grenades. Before leaving he’d asked a hundred questions about why the government wasn’t pursuing this at a higher level, why Delta Force or the Navy SEALs weren’t going in instead of Jonathan, and why they didn’t just drop a bunker buster or a daisy cutter or whatever they called the bombs that obliterate everything within a mile of where they hit right smack on Balfour’s compound and be done with it. And Connor had answered firmly and with a rationale that Jonathan wholly understood: “Because we don’t have time.”

The surgeon had been called on to perform a lifesaving procedure on his nation’s behalf.

Jonathan ordered a last vodka. The stewardess, a stunning, dark-hued girl from Wales dressed in her tan Emirates uniform and red pillbox hat, bent at the knee to serve him, supplying him with a fresh dish of warm smokehouse almonds.

“Will you be staying in Dubai?” she asked.

“No,” said Jonathan. “I’m continuing on to Islamabad.”

“Pity.” She smiled, then returned to her duties.

No stewardess inquired if Frank Connor wanted a second glass of vodka or a dish of warm smokehouse almonds. Seated alone in the darkened cabin of a borrowed Lear, Connor stuffed the last of a Baby Ruth candy bar into his mouth and washed it down with the remnants of a Diet Coke. Below, the runway lights of Dulles International Airport lit a stripe across the black Virginia countryside. The time on the ground was two a.m.

By rights he should have been exhausted. He had been on the go for thirty-six hours and hadn’t slept more than four consecutive hours in two weeks. Instead he was wide awake, as jittery as a case officer running his first Joe. It wasn’t nerves, however, that made him rush down the stairs upon landing and hurry to his car without thanking the pilot. It was a growing sense of failed responsibility, a tardy realization that he had become too cynical, too jaded by half, and that he was endangering his Joe because of it.

Connor didn’t doubt his decision to put Ransom into Balfour’s household, ready or not. There was no other choice. The job needed to be done, and Ransom was the only asset available. Even now, he gave Ransom only a 20 percent chance of uncovering information leading to the location of the WMD Emma had brought down from the mountain and identifying Balfour’s mystery buyer. Twenty percent was betting odds in Connor’s game. Mostly, though, he chastised himself for having given up on his agent. Jonathan Ransom wasn’t dead yet. He deserved Connor’s best shot.

Connor slid into the front seat of his Volvo and steered the car onto the highway toward D.C. Traffic was light, and he immediately placed a call.

“Desk officer,” said the man at the NGA.

“I need Malloy. Tell him it’s Frank Connor on the horn.”

“Hold on a sec.”

Connor tapped the wheel, thinking how he might persuade Malloy to help him out. He knew full well that two favors were one too many. Still, if he could convince Malloy to position a bird on Balfour’s estate, he just might get a picture of the warhead as it was being transited from one location to another. And that picture would be all the evidence he needed to bring in the big boys. There would be no waiting around for approval from the secretary of defense or the boys in the Situation Room. This one would go operational ten minutes after it hit the commander’s desk at CENTCOM.

At last count, Pakistan possessed over seventy nuclear missiles, and the thought that one might somehow get into the wrong hands was ever-present in military planners’ minds. A rogue WMD on Pakistani territory was a scenario that had been gamed a hundred times over. It was a not-so-well-kept secret that a Delta Force rapid reaction team was stationed permanently at a Pakistani base in Rawalpindi, not thirty minutes from Balfour’s estate, to deal with such a scenario.

“Yeah, Mr. Connor, Malloy isn’t here. Can I help you?”

“He told me he was on shift tonight.”

“He was, but he didn’t show. Actually, he missed coming in yesterday, too. He must be pretty sick, because he didn’t phone in. Sure there isn’t anything I can help you with?”

“No,” said Connor. “Thanks anyway. It was a personal matter. I’ll try him at home.”

Connor yanked the car into the right lane and took the next exit, onto the George Washington Parkway. His night vision was poor and he was preoccupied with the job at hand. Neither condition excused him from missing the late-model sedan that had been following him at a safe but obvious distance since Dulles, which now mimicked his reckless maneuver.

Connor crossed the Potomac on Chain Bridge and drove along Canal Road, the spindly, bare limbs of the oak trees spreading a skeletal canopy above him. The sedan followed. Arriving in Malloy’s neighborhood, Connor found a place to park up the street from his home.

He approached the house with measured steps, hands digging into his trench coat. The lights were out, which he thought typical for the dead of night. He rang the bell and stepped away from the door. No one answered. He heard no voices, no steps moving around inside. After two minutes, he walked to the end of the block and cut through the alley running behind all the homes. Malloy’s car was parked in the space in back, along with a second car which Connor assumed belonged to his wife. A sturdy flight of steps led to the back porch. He tried the door and to his surprise found it unlocked. This was not typical for the dead of night. For a former Navy SEAL working in a classified position, it was downright unthinkable.

Connor kept his hand on the doorknob, listening for any sounds from within, but it was impossible to hear anything above the thumping of his heart. He tightened his fingers around the knob and pushed open the door. The smell hit him as soon as he stepped inside. He rushed to cover his mouth, steadying himself on the kitchen sink. It was a smell like nothing he’d known before, sour and rank and evil and altogether overpowering. He gazed out the kitchen window. Under the half-moon, the alley was as still as a grave.

“Malloy!” he called.

No answer.

Connor stepped tentatively toward the swinging door that led to the living room. He carried no weapon. There was normally little need, and he knew himself well enough to realize that he’d probably end up shooting himself instead of his assailant. The swinging door opened with a creak, and he passed through the living room. A can of soda was on the table next to a bowl of popcorn. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, wincing as the odor grew stronger.

“Malloy! It’s me, Frank Connor. You okay?”

The voice bounced off the walls, and Connor felt like a rube for talking. He paused before the bedroom and took a moment to fold his handkerchief properly and place it over his nose and mouth. On the count of three, he opened the door.

“Oh Christ,” he said as he caught sight of the two bodies and the smell hit him full on. He stared at the bodies for a second, maybe less, before his eyes began to water and he had to turn away. It was plenty long enough to see that it was Malloy and his wife, and that their chests had been carved open from sternum to pubis and their organs ripped out and flung on the floor. It was long enough to see the maggots writhing in the offal and to confirm what he’d known since he’d stepped into the house.