Chris Mooney - World Without End

"All those years we were searching for the mole and that fuck was right under my nose, selling us all out."

"So you knew we had a mole."

"What we knew was that for the past ten years, a man we called Hijack was selling out some of our top agents. The problem is McFadden didn't have any abnormalities in his background. McFadden's a die-hard Catholic. Has four kids, went to church every Sunday, didn't have any marital problems, didn't drink or gamble or have any additional source of income. He passed all the five-year background checks. He knew how to play the game. When it came to tradecraft, McFadden was a pro."

"Then why did he sell us out?"

"We'll never know."

"Not talking?"

"He's dead."

Conway felt his heartbeat surge.

"He went to sleep last night and never woke up," Bouchard said.

"Poisoned, probably. We're looking into it. As for why he sold us out, it's going to be one of the great mysteries of life."

If Bouchard was lying, he was a great actor. Still, Conway heeded Pasha's words and studied the man.

"Why would Angel Eyes take over Delburn?" Conway asked.

"It doesn't fit his MO."

"Simple. It's our base of operations. Once inside, he would be able to locate all of our surveillance and Hazard Teams, would be able to overhear any conversation. He took what he needed and then started wiping us out." Bouchard looked at the CD gripped in Con-way's hand and said, "What's on it?"

"Dixon's torture session. Angel Eyes thinks Dixon knows the decryption code."

"He does."

"It doesn't work. The code's been changed. Without the decryption code, the suit is worthless."

"Unless Angel Eyes can hack his way past it."

"Unlikely."

"Nice work, Stephen. Because of you, the suit is safe."

"I didn't encrypt the software. It was Randy."

"So you don't know the decryption code?"

"I don't remember much from the lab. A tile fell on my forehead and cracked my skull open. After that, it's all one big blur."

"Do you remember what happened that day?"

"Most of it."

"Tell me."

Conway did, in great detail, including his conversation with Rombardo Conway told the man everything except his early-morning meeting with Pasha. Thirty minutes later, when he had finished talking, Bouchard was quiet. The wind had picked up and moved around them, and the air was noticeably cooler.

"Keith Harring and his men never made it out of the airport," Bouchard said.

"The person who called you was an imposter. Angel Eyes used Harring's name to lure you inside the lab. Steve, do you think Dix was in on it?"

"No. Up in the plane, he was scared to death. It wasn't an act."

"Angel Eyes must have been monitoring us all this time. That's the only way he could know about Harring the only way he could stay ahead of us. Jesus Christ. I can't believe how smoothly he pulled this off."

"Why didn't you contact me once you got to Delburn?"

"I tried calling you from the car and couldn't get through. When I got back to Delburn, the majority of the communications equipment had been destroyed. I couldn't call you. Angel Eyes also took the tape backups. He raided the place, Steve, and destroyed everyone and everything there. I drove to Praxis but by the time I got there Angel Eyes was long gone."

Conway said, "I take it Rombardo didn't relay my message."

"No, he didn't."

"So he's one of us."

"He's our liaison inside the Austin police." Bouchard stared out at some point below the cliff. He seemed focused on a thought.

"I can't lock onto the suit's emergency transponder."

"Why?"

"To activate the transponder, the suit needs to be on, and you can't turn it on unless you access the computer system on the wrist unit. But if you had the decryption code, you would be able to turn on the computer and activate the transponder."

"I don't know the code," Conway said.

"Randy must have told you something in the lab."

"He was dying. He wasn't making any sense."

"Tell me."

"Randy said the words mittens and cat food."

"Randy owned a cat, right?"

"The girl he met down here, she sometimes kept it at his apartment.

This evil black thing called Lissy. Scratched the hell out of everyone and everything." Conway handed Bouchard the CD.

"They've already chopped off two of Dixon's fingers. If we don't find him soon, they're won't be much left."

"When Angel Eyes figures out that Dixon doesn't know the decryption code, he'll target the person who does."

"Randy's dead."

"Which means you're next in line."

Bouchard considered a private question. He studied the ground for a moment, and when he looked up, his eyes seemed clouded.

"Stephen, when I got back to Delburn, the communications system was destroyed. Fortunately, the system mails an encrypted copy of each call to an offsite office. When you were at the lab, you said you made a final call to Delburn."

"That's right. I told you what I said."

"Yes, you did. My question is, do you know who answered the phone?"

"It was loud. There were explosions, I couldn't hear, but it was a man's voice. I thought I was… I thought I was going to die so I told the team member what I knew."

"But did you recognize the voice on the other end?"

Conway thought about it.

"No. For a brief second, I thought I had called a friend of mine, John Riley."

"You did."

For a moment Conway was too stunned to speak.

Then he saw the tightening in Bouchard's eyes, felt the way the air seemed to grow colder. Conway felt his stomach tighten as Bouchard took in a deep breath and formed his next choice of words.

"John Riley," Bouchard said.

"What's wrong?"

"He's dead, Stephen. Angel Eyes killed him."

Shock mushroomed from deep in Conway's stomach and then spread across his skin, making it tingle. It's a mistake, a voice reassured him.

John Riley has nothing to do with the CIA or Angel Eyes, Bouchard's got it wrong.

Conway met Bouchard's sad gaze and an icy vapor filled his heart.

"I'm sorry, Stephen. It's true."

Bouchard went to put his hand on Conway's shoulder but he had pulled away and turned into the wind. He wasn't going to let his emotions get him, not here in front of his boss. Pull it together, man.

"How did he die?" Conway asked, his mind filling with the images from Dixon's torture video.

"That's not important."

"Tell me."

Conway could hear Bouchard shift his weight, the man's shoes crunching under the rocks as he moved closer and then stopped.

"Cocaine laced with rat poison," Bouchard said.

"I'm not going to lie to you, Stephen. It was an awful way to go."

Conway placed his hands on his hips and looked down at the brightly lit boats the size of bath toys moving across the water. Then he closed his eyes and saw a pitch-black sky. How he wanted to be swallowed inside that void, to feel nothing. Old memories of Riley, events he hadn't thought about in years, all of them came to him in a rush. He couldn't shut them off. Odd how the mind loved to betray you at your most vulnerable moments.

"I remember an interesting story from your personal file," Bouchard said, his voice closer now, directly behind him.

"That foster family that took you in, the Merrills, their eldest son, Todd, almost beat you to death that day he supposedly caught you helping yourself to the mother's jewelry. The mother came home just in time and had you rushed to the hospital. The police found the pearl necklace inside your jeans pocket and sent you back to St. Anthony's.

You were thirteen."

Conway opened his eyes and stared at the water.

"Three years, and during that time you picked up weight lifting and trained in kenpo karate, focusing on it with such intensity that it frightened your teachers and counselors back at the boy's home. You told them you were channeling your anger, but what you were really doing was compartmentalizing it, using it to prepare yourself for your showdown with Todd Merrill. You thought about him day and night. Then, one summer night when you knew he was alone, you went up to his house.