Mission Critical
Hanley drew a Glock 23 pistol from inside his coat. Held it up. “Standard issue. Nothing fancy. A gun a guy like you might happen to get hold of somehow.”
“We’re friends, Matt.”
“Which makes it harder, no question, but it also makes me more pissed off at you, so in some sense I guess it will make it easier. I’d let you know after . . . but . . .”
“Suicide? You actually think anyone will believe I shot myself?”
Hanley shrugged. “Your people staged Renfro’s body. I saw right through it. I think I’ve got the skills to make it look like it was death by your own hand. Let’s find out.”
“You’re fucking crazy, Matt. You’re worse than the last guy in your position. All your off-book shooters blasting their way across the first world. Washington, London, Paris, Hong Kong. It’s fucking nuts, man.”
Matt knelt down next to Wheeler. “I don’t do a damn thing the director doesn’t let me do.”
“Tell that shit to someone else. I was Ops before I was Support, you remember, don’t you? The director doesn’t have a clue what you’re up to. He just told you he didn’t want to know, so you’ve taken that as carte blanche to do whatever the fuck you want to do.”
Hanley moved closer to Wheeler now, his face inches from the seated and bound man. “Well, I gotta tell you, Marty. I know that’s not true because I do a whole lot of shit I don’t want to do.” He lifted the gun in his left hand. “But this . . . this I very much want to do.”
Hanley shoved the barrel of the gun up under Wheeler’s chin.
“Fuck you!” Wheeler shouted.
The gun went click and Wheeler screamed falsetto.
Slowly Hanley stood back up and holstered his weapon. Tears filled Wheeler’s eyes now, but through them he was able to see his old friend look at someone or something behind Wheeler’s chair.
Addressing the person who was obviously now standing there, Hanley spoke slowly, emphatically. “To within an inch of his life. You copy?”
The bearded asset who’d been squatting in front of Wheeler minutes before responded, demonstrating that he had not, in fact, left the room. “Solid copy, sir.”
Deputy Director of Operations Matt Hanley walked past the assistant deputy director of Support without another word or glance, and then the asset appeared. He’d put on a pair of contractor gloves, and he turned to face the man strapped to the chair.
“Matt! God, Matt! No! Please no!”
Hanley shut the door on the way out, but this did little to drown out the screams.
* * *
• • •
Zoya Zakharova awoke with the loud click of the lock being disengaged from the heavy wooden door to her cell.
She rubbed her eyes, and they cleared to reveal her father standing in the doorway. She sat up while he grabbed a chair and walked over to her with it. Behind him he left the door open. She could see no one out in the hall. It was a show, she was certain, a means to convey to her that she was not a prisoner here, although she didn’t believe that for an instant.
“My darling Zoyushka. How are they treating you?”
“Don’t call me that.”
Zakharov frowned. “I understand why you are angry. I have taken your liberty, just like your friends in America did.” He looked around the little room. “Was it much like this over there?”
“It was better.”
He acted like he didn’t hear her. “I imagine it was very much like this. And then they would have subjected you to the daily debriefings. They took away your clocks, they came at all hours at first to confuse you, to catch you off guard, to destroy your daily rhythm. And then . . . when you gave them things they wanted and needed, they gave you more little prizes. What was it you wanted from them? Some exercise? You are looking very fit. Yes . . . I’m sure they let you work out to your heart’s content. Some information? Certainly. You asked to see the file on my death, and they rewarded you by showing it to you.”
Zoya said nothing.
“It’s the standard playbook, all intelligence agencies do it.”
Now Zoya said, “Do they? Please, Papa, tell me more about what it’s like to work for an intelligence agency, because your dumb daughter would have no idea about any of that.”
Zakharov smiled; Zoya thought she saw a flash of pride on his face, but he hid it well with his words. “Of course you do. I am just emphasizing the fact that you were played by the Americans.”
“Then why am I here? No one sent me. If they had, do you think they would have left me alone to be kidnapped by you?”
“You were not alone. Your friend who assisted you two nights ago. The one they tell me Jon beat into a bloody pulp. Are you telling me he wasn’t sent along with you to find me?”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling you. He was over here pursuing something that happened to a CIA jet in the UK; I don’t know the specifics, but I’m sure you do. His investigation led him to Terry Cassidy’s office. I was there at the same time.”
“And he just spontaneously decided to save you and then team up with some stranger?”
Zoya bit her lip, then glanced away. “He . . . he and I . . . we know one another.”
Zakharov eyed his daughter. “Well . . . that is interesting. My little girl is in a relationship with a CIA officer.”
“He’s not a CIA officer, and we are not in a relationship.”
Zakharov leaned back in his chair. “Zoya, we were a family of chameleons. You, me, even Feo, though his real love was the sciences. But your mother . . . she was the best.”
Zoya nodded. “Yes. She was.”
“We could change ourselves, adapt to different places, languages, cultures. Fit into different legends. We could make ourselves what we needed to be in order to help the Rodina. But ideas, beliefs. I never changed these. Feo and your mother never switched sides.
“So help me understand what happened to you.”
Zoya responded with, “What are you doing here? I’ve put together on my own that you are working with both the Kremlin and the Solntsevskaya Bratva; you’ve been conducting targeted killings, mostly to support the aims of Russian oligarchs, Siloviki. Uncle Vladi is helping you with money, because the Kremlin has anointed him a billionaire, and they would have only done this for operational purposes.
“So, what is it all about?”
“It’s about supporting my country.”
“Interesting. I thought it was about revenge.”