Dark Vessel (COIL Book 4), page 2
Or could I? Checking my arrogance, I went to the back window that Mick Rhogtill had identified as an escape route. Whoever had made the attempt on my life wouldn't be so careless next time. I had to carefully sort this out or risk offering up my family or myself in the aftermath. The head of the snake had to be located and cut off, and that meant going into operational mode. It meant slipping into my most-practiced and subtle skills, wherein I was most comfortable, though I didn't intend to compromise my Christian standards.
Could it be done? Could I fight alone against the grand enemy I suspected, and win? I had to. And I had to do so quietly. At the first sign of an offensive by me, the trail could disappear, or my loved ones would be targeted. If the enemy discovered I was on to them, they'd panic. Panic meant unpredictable behavior. But I had too many resources to not cause someone panic, even the organization that I suspected for this mess.
Holding my ribs, I climbed out the window and onto the roof. Even if the enemy—and I had a possibility in mind—guessed I was alive, they'd expect me to come for them diplomatically, probably through old CIA channels, like retired Deputy Director William "Chip" Buchanen. Instead, I would do the unexpected. I'd do as I was trained to do, as a spy, as an infiltrator, as an inside man, as a ghost, as a mole. I could wear many masks.
Slowly, I climbed down the three flights of fire escape stairs to the garage. The keys were under the bumper of the silver Buick as Mick Rhogtill had said, and for just a moment, I froze before climbing into the car. My enemy could be anywhere, be anyone. Any car could contain a bomb. Any phone could be traced. Any person could be an assassin. With an infinite degree of possibilities, I was seemingly defenseless. Thus, I climbed into the driver's seat with a scoff at myself. The safest place to be was always in God's will, no matter the situation. Instead of praying for no more bombs, or perfect safety, I prayed right then that I'd be bold and wise enough to do whatever He directed me to do.
From Chelsea Avenue, I drove north on Broadway and looked up to my right when I reached Times Square. The COIL offices were up there, mostly just Chloe Azmaveth and caseworkers behind plated glass. With one phone call, they could summon any of nine COIL special ops teams—whichever weren't already deployed around the world. Their operative status knew no borders, much like my own authority even outside the CIA now. I'd built too many covers, recruited too many active agents, and retired too many exposed assets for the Agency to merely forget about me. Some of my aliases were still so important that I'd made minor concessions to accommodate Agency requests. The payoff was the liberty to run COIL unrestrained.
And that's where my mind journeyed as I drove through the Upper West Side. I still had no plan exactly. The driving helped me to think, and wherever I did end up, my winding route wouldn't lead back to my trusted Slovenian doctor in Chelsea.
Recently, a branch of Homeland Security had been initialized, called the Tactical anti-Terrorist Division, or the T.a.T.D. The TaTD had made a request to the Agency that a specific Middle Eastern alias be surrendered to them to use at whim and will. The alias was Muhammad ibn Affal, an Egyptian arms dealer. It was my alias and a cover I'd built during my Agency days, and continued to use for COIL. Through Muhammad ibn Affal, I'd gotten into Middle Eastern countries where no one else could go. I'd smuggled Bibles, collected intel, and saved lives. For men to know this and yet demand that I give them the alias—was a crime against Christ Himself. I couldn't hand over the cover.
To my knowledge, the TaTD hadn't known initially who was behind the Muhammad ibn Affal alias. When the first request had reached my eyes, I filed a counter-request, reminding the CIA that they still used the alias themselves periodically, through me, officially and unofficially, depending on the operation. The alias couldn't be shared. It could compromise the lives of hundreds that Muhammad ibn Affal had secured in the past. My negative response had alerted the TaTD of me, the holder of the alias.
The Agency had received one more communication from the TaTD after that, which they'd passed on to me. The TaTD director, four-star General Logan Forglade, was furious that his request had been denied. He vowed to pursue it until he was given full rights to it, as his own superiors assigned him to do. Resources were to be shared, he argued, and that alias was needed for purposes of national security.
I'd believed the general's request was important, but I hadn't considered his threat genuine, until recently. He now knew who owned the alias—me, a retired agent pushing sixty. Getting intel out of the Middle East was as urgent as ever, and a solid alias—over twenty-years-old—could make or break an operation. But my work now with COIL, regardless of my sideline with the CIA, took precedence over any war efforts the general intended to pursue through that identity.
Driving clockwise around Central Park, a plan took shape in my mind. The TaTD wouldn't expect a full-frontal infiltration into their offices. To them, I'd died in the car. They wouldn't know it wasn't me for another few days. DNA tests took time. And besides, they had my identification from the car—my car. The assumption would be that I had died. The younger agents now with the TaTD had never seen me. Even five years earlier when I was part of the Agency, I was usually deployed overseas. Mingling with interagency spooks wasn't my pastime. No one would know my face except those directly related to the bombing in the Bronx. That would be a very small number of people. Two or three, tops. I knew this because, in my darkest years, I'd been among that small number of people who knew and made such ultimate decisions.
Unless I was mistaken, the TaTD had left the front door open for me, and I was going in. My alias and the people it sheltered couldn't be abandoned!
*~*
Chapter 3
In south Harlem, I pulled the car to the curb and paid a street vendor for a newspaper. On page seven, there were three sentences about a car fire in the Bronx the night before. It said a gang had targeted the wrong vehicle by mistake and killed a New Yorker, name not released.
So it began. The spin-doctors—probably deployed by TaTD—were hard at work. They surely believed their mission had been successful. Thus, I confirmed that it was indeed a rogue division trying to kill me. If I didn't act responsibly and definitively, they would use my alias to the point that it would put families around the world in danger—and close doors no one else could open for years, if ever. Muhammad ibn Affal needed to be protected. But how?
I had one safe house in the city, and though I didn't want to visit my old haunts, I couldn't avoid East 72nd Street, the Upper East Side. It was an apartment in a nine-story building that faced the Queensboro Bridge. The apartment door lock, like the whole building, was digitalized, and I punched the code into the keypad. Besides me, only one other man knew the lock combination—Nathan Isaacson, one of my first operatives recruited into COIL. And since he was on an overseas mission in Zalzuna, I'd be undisturbed.
Without touching anything for a few minutes, I walked around on the wood floors of the spacious rooms. Was anything out of the ordinary here? Except for the dust, it was unchanged.
Nathan Isaacson's clothes were hanging in the bedroom. He was a taller man than me, but with a little needlework, I could make his pants work. After removing his things from the closet, I tapped the back wall, searching for a nearly indiscernible crease in the drywall. I pressed hard until a panel clicked, then I stooped low to crawl through a narrow passage.
The passage opened into a large bedroom, this one facing south. A small adjoining bathroom completed the hidden area. One wall was covered with COIL non-lethal weaponry. There were also two trunks of COIL and Agency gadgets, some of which I'd developed myself. The secret room could easily become my refuge for months, but I wouldn't use it yet, not unless I was forced to. It would be my fallback apartment, if I were too severely wounded to go elsewhere, or too exposed to live anywhere else. The armaments, however, were another matter. I needed equipment for what lay ahead.
From the first trunk, I filled a backpack with all the necessary items I imagined I'd possibly need. Tech and weapons. In New York City, I needed to remain incognito, so I didn't take any of the carbines or machine pistols off the wall. Two months earlier, I'd added a few cell phones to the second trunk. I took two of those now.
Closing up the hidden bedroom, I replaced all the closet items, with the exception of one suit, complete with black jacket, trousers, a polka dot tie, and a white shirt. The backpack of gear and clothes, along with a sleeping bag, a New Testament Bible, and twenty TV-dinners from the freezer, all fit into one duffel bag.
From 72nd Street, I drove five blocks south and parked in the underground parking lot of a failed office-building project—perfect for squatters but a good place for me to lay low. I shouldered the duffel bag and trudged up the stairs from the parking garage to the lobby, which was lit by one lamp at the desk.
Various failed building projects could be found in any big city, from San Francisco to New York City, but not all were completely abandoned. Many, like this one, were manned by a supervisor, hired by the owner, until investors helped to complete the construction. The supervisors often rented space to illegals, or the homeless, all subject to heartless eviction at any moment. But I was willing to take my chances.
An unshaved, dark-haired man in a stained tank top sat at the desk. What may have been a crimson uniform blazer that once represented his security status was now draped across his desk.
"I want to rent a room," I said loudly in my best Russian accent. Glancing about, I noticed a plain young woman enter the building through the street access. She carried an infant in one arm and a trash bag in the other. The trash bag, I guessed, contained her possessions. "How much for one room?"
"Last room. Twenty bucks a week." He scribbled on a notepad. "Apartment 1722. Pay first. I catch you on any other floor, I deal with you personally. Get it?"
Digging into my pocket, I pulled out the cash that Mick Rhogtill had left me. The woman elbowed me aside to push up to the desk.
"Not the last room, Wilbur!" she said. "You promised me!"
"Hey, cash is king, princess. He can pay now. You got twenty?"
The young woman, no older than twenty years, with pale skin and black, greasy hair, glared at me. The baby appeared to be sleeping, bundled in a cotton-white blanket—white enough for me to see that she cared more for her baby than for herself.
"I got half. I'll get you the rest tomorrow." She kneed the desk. "Come on, Wilbur! I can't sleep on the street again!"
"You've slept on the street before. None of the others have trouble raising money. The brat shouldn't stop you from raising money the usual way."
"We will share." I slammed my bill on the desk. This was the type of moment I'd prayed I would recognize. My enemies might be looking for a washed-up single man, but not a Russian grandfather with a girl and a baby. And regardless of my familiarity with strife and struggle, I was a family man, and actually preferred the company of others.
"Three in one room?" Wilbur had greed in his eyes. "Thirty dollars total. One week for the happy family."
The young mother took a step back, eyeing me cautiously.
"It is good," I said, my accent extra rich. "I am Russian."
That was something my COIL friend, Fost Ivanovich, would've said, had he been in my place—as if the mere fact that he was Russian meant he was honorable.
Instead of waiting for the young woman's refusal or the offer of her own hard-earned money, I slammed down another ten.
"Good! Apartment 1722!"
With my transaction complete, I went to the stairs. Seventeen flights? In my condition? As I was still gazing up at the zigzag structure where I-beams remained unpainted, the woman brushed past me and started up.
I contemplated taking my duffel bag contents up in intervals, but it wasn't wise in that environment. Squatters weren't known for protecting the rightful property of others. It was true I was stepping into a gray area where legal and illegal merged. However, I was a man who'd worked for the government in various capacities, accomplishing jobs by whatever means necessary. Where a solid line existed for some, a dotted line existed for me, and my conscience was clear. To protect others, remaining off the radar in this way was the best route for now.
By the fifth flight, I felt a couple stitches stretched to their max. Though I probably didn't look it that day, I was healthy. Just a few months earlier, I'd jogged with a full pack across a Sudanese desert to ensure that a refugee camp received their provisions.
"Are you having a heart attack?" the young woman's voice called from many flights above. "Do you want me to get someone for you?"
"No, no." I waved her on without looking up. "I am Russian!"
It took me an hour of stopping and starting to get to the seventeenth floor. One stitch did tear from my calf, but it was nothing a little Superglue wouldn't fix.
Entering apartment 1722, I found an actual living area and not an office suite at all. It had one room, divided by a counter to house a spacious kitchenette. The woman exited the bathroom as I leaned against the wall. She'd washed her face, making her pale skin now blushing-red.
"Water and plumbing, but no power," she said. Since I'd taken so long to arrive, she'd claimed one corner of the empty carpeted room closest to a sliding glass door that accessed a balcony. "We'll take this side, and you take that side."
"Yes, it is good." I closed the apartment door. It had no lock, but where the handle should've been, the woman had stuffed a rag into the hole to keep out peeping eyes.
After setting my bag on the floor against the opposite wall, I went to the tall glass door. There were no shades, but the runners along the ceiling would work well to hang a curtain or blanket. It was the fall season and was certain to grow dark early. Without power, we'd have only the lights of the city to light the room. I made a mental list of items we'd need to turn our apartment into a home, however briefly for me.
The baby started to cry, but the noise didn't bother me since I'd slept through detonating ordnance in war zones more times than I could remember. It was only three in the afternoon, but I was exhausted. Without unpacking, I used my camel coat as a pillow to lie on my back. I prayed for wisdom in how to proceed. Much had to be done for my living quarters, and much more to clear my name. For my own cover, I'd taken on two more lives, potentially placing them in more danger; but with me, they were probably safer than sleeping on the street.
Tonight, I decided, I'd begin to hunt. I fell asleep to the baby's cries, missing my own family.
*~*
Chapter 4
Gently, I pressed a black pair of bushy eyebrows over my brown ones. From the backpack of gear, I used quick-color gel to shape my hair in a one-inch spike. My goatee was already growing in thick and dark. Janice preferred me clean-shaven, but I figured she'd understand if I just showed up alive.
I furrowed my fake brows, creating a glare that even I didn't recognize in the apartment 1722 bathroom mirror. For many years, I'd admired God's faithful servants who faced death with courage. Socrates once philosophized that the afterlife was affirmed by the boldness with which men faced death in battle. Well, I believed in the afterlife, but I wasn't feeling too bold. In truth, I was questioning my tactics.
Chloe, as my right hand at COIL, had often criticized me for recklessly handling catastrophes all alone when she and others could burden some of the headaches. Was I just being stubborn?
A plan had formulated in my head to infiltrate the TaTD and get close to General Logan Forglade. It was an old scheme we'd used in East Berlin to infiltrate the Foreign Intelligence Service—a bold-faced bluff no one would expect, I hoped. Could it be done in Washington or New York? The new generation of clandestine personnel wouldn't remember our Cold War methods; they weren't even alive then. Those undocumented stunts could be my ticket.
Exiting the bathroom, I went to my duffel bag. The young woman hovered protectively over her sleeping child, and glared at me as if she were seeing a demon. My disguise was surely frightening her, but I couldn't risk sharing the truth with her. Instead, I set all of my frozen TV dinners on the floor between our two sides of the room.
"These will stay frozen while stacked," I said in my Russian accent. "Eat what you want. Stay away from my bag. You understand?"
She glanced at my duffel and nodded. I pocketed and sleeved various tools of my trade and walked to the door.
"I'll be back in the morning."
Seventeen flights later, I found the building lobby empty and Wilbur no longer at his post. Several misplaced hip-hop artists had been on the stairs, but they'd left me alone. The door to the garage locked behind me when I passed through. I paused to examine the lock. If I needed to get back inside during Wilbur's off-hours, I could manage it.
Instead of driving, I walked down First Avenue. I was in my element—nighttime with a disguise on my face. And best of all, no one knew I was alive.
At the end of an alley, I bought two more cell phones from a street vendor in a cheap suit. They were probably hot phones, but I needed them for whatever was to come.
In a twenty-four-hour Internet cafe, I logged into an Isle of Man bank account and dispersed enough funds around the world to start a new life if I had to. The money had been seized in years past during arrests or deaths on behalf of one government or another. Usually, such accounts were confiscated by the country of record, but some operations were too sensitive for the US to claim even one cent. Such accounts helped me finance COIL, and to give new lives to people who needed to flee from their pasts. One of those people was Mick Rhogtill. I prayed he'd looked in on my family. It would be unwise for the two of us to communicate further.
After visits to a dozen ATM machines, I had enough cash on me to conduct a little business. I took a taxi up to Harlem and started street shopping. Right on the street, I made my needs known, and it came to me, item by item, outside Marcus Garvey Park—a solar generator for five hundred dollars, two hundred feet of nylon rope for sixty dollars, candles, blankets, propane stove . . . By three o'clock in the morning, my pile of gear was laid out on a tarp at my feet. One hoodlum still lingered nearby. He'd been particularly resourceful in locating several items.
