The Sparks Broker, page 25
part #2 of S.A.S.S. Series
They both knew there was only one Secret Assignment Security Specialist in the S.A.S.S. unit who had the unique qualifications for the mission he’d assigned: Captain Darcy Clark, and while Darcy had extraordinary skills, she did not come without significant, special challenges. Would Darcy willingly take on this mission? Could she take it on—willingly or not?
Sally’s stomach churned and knotted. Forget feeling confident. She’d gladly settle for having a clue. That she didn’t have one degree of certainty had her bypassing concern and plunging headlong into worry. Should she register a formal objection? She debated the pros and cons and then accepted the inevitable. She could object all she wanted. They’d just replace her and do it anyway. At least, she could offer as much protection to Darcy as humanly possible. That settled it.
She clenched her jaw, then worked it loose enough to speak. “Yes, sir,” Sally said, accepting the honcho’s edict. “We’ll expect Agent Kelly within the hour.”
“Fine.” His relieved sigh crackled through the phone, proving he wasn’t certain Sally would contradict her instincts and agree. “Keep me in the need-to-know loop,” the general said. “To be honest, I’ve got a bad feeling about this entire situation, and I don’t want to be blindsided—especially knowing Secretary Reynolds is going to be watching closely and reporting every move to Homeland Security and to the president.”
He had a bad feeling? She swallowed a grunt. This mission had all the makings of a disaster, and it’d be her hide and rank on the line, not his. When a mission failed, generals were rarely sacrificed. The fallout started downhill on the lower-ranking commander—that’s who got the axe—regardless of who issued the orders or voiced objections to them. Only after their sacrifice did the climb start up to the heavy brass. With the secretary and the president monitoring, the typical blame line of succession was etched in indelible ink. “Yes, sir.”
Sally hung up the phone and grumbled. “Typical. Just typical.” Secretary Reynolds clearly had dumped the mess in General Shaw’s lap, and he hadn’t missed a beat in dumping it in hers.
She swiveled her seat to a windowless wall and stared deeply into a garden mural, wishing for two seconds she could disappear in its foliage and just catch her breath.
You’re the S.A.S.S. commander, Sally. You wanted this job, remember? Competed toe-to-toe with Colonel Gray, the egotistical jerk, to get it. Well, these are the perks, hotshot. Handle them.
“Oh, shut up,” she told herself, kicking off the floor to turn her seat back to her desk. She placed a call to the unit’s medical officer, Dr. Vargus, and received his assurance that Darcy could handle the mission if she chose to do it—at least, physically. Emotionally? She’d require a lot of support.
That was Sally’s last path to shield Darcy from taking the lead on this mission. The good doctor had cleared her. Sally couldn’t object.
With a brick wall firmly in her path, she turned to details to minimize obstacles and picked up a memo from Darcy, who aggregated and assimilated Intelligence from all the reporting agencies, compiled it and then briefed the unit. Significant chatter had been intercepted on GRID—Group Resources for Individual Development—the terrorist group that was, by presidential edict, S.A.S.S.’s top priority and, by nature, its albatross. What were the body-doubling, black-market arms and technology thieving, murderous nightmare-inducing psychopaths up to now?
Darcy had penned a note on the margin. “Colonel, the pattern is intact and consistent. Brace. Kunz is gearing up for GRID’S next attack.”
Thomas Kunz, a German American-hater, ran his GRID organization with single-minded authority and had made it the world’s leading authority and broker of U.S. intelligence, technology, arms and personnel. His goal was to take the U.S. down by any and all means possible. Naturally, Kunz placed emphasis in his GRID attacks on economics.
For a take-down to be permanently effective, stripping the country of its wealth, resources, and military superiority had to be top priority. Money might be the root of all evil, but it was also the trunk of the tree. No country could repel or rebuild or fight evil without it.
So far, GRID and S.A.S.S. had butted heads and matched wits four times, and so far, the S.A.S.S. had been successful in thwarting Kunz’s attempts. Unfortunately, while important in the war between them, those battles had been deadly but the equivalent of surface clutter. A compound destroyed. A handful of captive hostages rescued. An attack thwarted. Critical surely, especially to those directly impacted, and Sally was grateful for every success. Yet the S.A.S.S. hadn’t by any measure destroyed Kunz’s operation, only hampered him short-term, which did nothing more than tick him off and harden his already titanium-strength resolve.
Sally depressed the intercom button on her phone. “Maggie?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Could you get Kate and Amanda to my office ASAP, please?”
“I’m on it, Colonel.”
“Thanks.” Sally again looked at the report. Katherine Kane and Amanda West had firsthand experience with GRID. Both had survived the up-close-and-personal encounters. But even after taking out four GRID compounds worldwide, believing Thomas Kunz had been killed three times and arrested and convicted and parked in Leavenworth once, the truth was, the S.A.S.S. hadn’t touched him. The men killed or arrested were Kunz’s body doubles, pre-positioned to fool the S.A.S.S. into believing they had gotten Kunz. And the S.A.S.S. had believed it—if only short-term.
Most worrisome to Sally and her entire unit was that they had no idea exactly how many more body doubles or compounds Kunz had in operation. Worse, they had only positively identified thirty of the suspected ninety body doubles Kunz had substituted in high-level government positions around the globe with access to classified information. He’d substituted medical and dental records, surgeries and X-rays and biometric scans, successfully undercutting all preventative security measures.
Equally bad if not worse, the real government employees were being held hostage by him—somewhere. Most likely, in multiple obscure locations, where they were kept alive and available should their doubles need information from them to maintain their covers.
To date, less than a dozen of those hostages had been rescued. And so sensitive, classified information continued to funnel out of top-secret locations and minds and into Thomas Kunz’s greedy hands, and the government employees he’d had body-doubled remained Kunz’s hostages.
That worried Sally most of all.
Kate and Amanda shuffled in; Amanda wearing a crisp blue-skirted uniform, and Kate in her habitual slacks, which told Sally that Kate’s laundry was done. Only if it wasn’t would she wear the skirt that required heels—which Kate, more at home in combat boots, considered to be a device created by men for the sole purpose of torturing women. “Sit down,” Sally said.
They took the seats opposite her desk, and Amanda hiked her chin. “Is this about Darcy’s memo on GRID, Colonel?”
From their expressions, both of her top-notch covert operatives were having a tough time swallowing the contents of the report. She couldn’t blame them. After their previous GRID encounters, neither could be eager for yet another confrontation. Amanda had been held captive for three months and Kate nearly had lost her life. “More or less.” Sally leaned back in her chair. “We’re getting a visitor in about half an hour.”
“A visitor?” Stunned, Kate grunted. “Here?”
Headquarters for S.A.S.S. did not welcome or tolerate visitors. “I know.” Sally held up a staying hand to halt their objections and hopefully settle their surprise. “It’s General Shaw’s runoff straight from Secretary Reynolds. Direct orders from both.”
Kate recoiled, clearly as uncomfortable and as baffled as Sally by the edict. “Not good.”
“Secretary Reynolds isn’t a fool, Kate.” Amanda looked over at her. “If he’s sending someone here, I’m certain he has good reason.”
“Whatever.” Kate grimaced. “But he’s at a desk in the Pentagon. It’s our lives and jobs he’s putting on the line, not his own, Amanda. You might want to remember that.”
“The Pentagon’s been hit,” Amanda countered. “We haven’t. You might want to remember that.”
“Excuse me,” Sally interjected, and then waited until she had their full attention before going on. “Foolish or wise, it’s happening. Accept it.”
Kate conceded the point with a nod.
Amanda smoothed back a long lock of dark hair. “So, what exactly is going on, Colonel?”
“It’s GRID, of course,” Kate answered, then swerved her gaze to Sally. “Isn’t it?”
“Naturally.” Sally cocked her head. “Intel suspects Thomas Kunz is planning to smuggle radioactive waste into the U.S. It also suspects he has a sleeper cell of GRID operatives already positioned somewhere within our borders who will use that radioactive waste in bombs targeting...” she paused to refer to her notes for the exact wording, “an undisclosed but significant, high-priority, densely populated site.” She looked back to them. “Perhaps more than one site.”
Amanda absorbed the news in silence. Her expression didn’t alter or reveal her reaction—excellent attributes in a covert operative.
Kate’s demeanor changed significantly. An explosives expert, she had wholly engaged, no longer challenging or defiant but homed in and intently focused. “The sparks broker Kunz is pulling his usual.”
“What usual?” Amanda asked.
“Wanting to inflict as much short- and long-term destruction as possible.”
“Yes, and what’s terrifying is that he’s really good at it,” Sally said, focusing on Amanda. To Kate, the information being shared was rudimentary. “Radioactive or ‘dirty’ bombs have a relatively small kill zone—a few city blocks, typically—but the long-term impact on health... Well, suffice it to say that the ramifications are significant.”
“How significant?” Amanda instinctively looked to Kate for deeper analysis. Explosives and weapons of mass destruction were her areas of expertise.
Kate frowned, but answered Amanda. “You have the kill zone, but the damage doesn’t stop there. Think of it like a wave that ripples outward from the explosion site, carrying with it health challenges like radiation burns, an increase of various types of cancer, severe birth defects.” Kate grimaced. “How far the ripple extends from the blast depends on the strength of the explosives used, of course, but with Kunz, it’s certain to be wicked. If he’s successful, and a bomb or bombs detonate, I expect we’ll see significant increases in health challenges for years.”
Amanda frowned. “So at the outer ripple rim of those impacted, it could take time for symptoms to appear.”
“I hate to say it, but it’s even worse than that.” Kate explained. “For every challenge we see, there’ll be a half dozen with tentacles to the event that we don’t. Challenges medical professionals will tag ‘etiology unknown’ until an apparent pattern forms and they recognize it.”
Sally’s skin crawled. How any terrorists could attack civilians like this and justify it as rational was beyond her. Sick psychos. “Intel considers July Fourth Kunz’s likely target date.”
“Independence Day. Hoping to make us dependent.” Amanda clenched her jaw and shifted on her seat. “Kunz started out a socialist but like most of them he kept right on going to communist. He does love to pop us on dates significant to Americans.”
“It’s a twofer,” Amanda interjected. “Attacking our institutions and citizens and our symbols of freedom.”
“Apparently,” Sally agreed. He’d done it twice already. “This time we have a kicker to keep things really interesting.”
“What kicker?” Kate asked.
“The man Secretary Reynolds is sending here is a U.S. customs agent named Benjamin Kelly. He’s a chief inspector and entomologist on the U.S.-Mexico border.”
“The visitor and GRID are connected?” Shock riddled Amanda’s tone, and she didn’t bother trying to hide it.
“Homeland Security thinks so,” Sally said, tapping her pen on her desk blotter. “If Agent Kelly’s story is as compelling as General Shaw claims, it’s going to require us to take drastic measures.”
Kate nodded. “What do you want us to do, Colonel?”
“There’s nothing you can do.” Sally wished there were. If there were something, then she wouldn’t feel this sense of impending doom.
“Me, then,” Amanda said, clearly assuming she’d be assigned to take the lead on the mission.
This would go over about as well as a lead balloon. “There’s nothing you can do either, Amanda—outside of support roles, which you’ll both have to do.”
“You said, drastic measures.” Kate recoiled for the second time and then let her head loll back. “Colonel, I know you’re not considering Maggie for this mission.”
“Not yet,” she admitted. “Maggie needs more training but, when the time comes, she’ll be an excellent field operative, Kate. Ease up on her.”
Ignoring the ease up, Kate did come to Maggie’s defense. “No doubt she will be, ma’am, but that time sure isn’t now. Not on this.”
Kate had little patience with new recruits to the unit, and Maggie had been with them less than three months. She showed infinite promise, but she hadn’t yet gotten past sticking strictly to the rules. In the S.A.S.S., that kind of rigidity tended to get operatives killed. Yet with time, risks and a few narrow-miss attempts on her life, Maggie would adjust. She had all the right stuff.
“No, not on this,” Sally said, agreeing with Kate. “It isn’t yet Maggie’s time. Not yet.”
“Then who?” Amanda asked. “Mark, or one of the other guys?”
Sally hedged, took the circuitous route. This news would be even less popular than assigning Maggie. “We need to insert an operative as a customs agent with Agent Kelly, on the border between Texas and Mexico—at the entry station at Los Casas.” Now came the hardest part of this entire disclosure. “I’m assigning Darcy.”
“Darcy? You can’t be serious.” Clearly distressed, Amanda stood up, her mouth drawn and tight. “Colonel, Darcy can’t do this mission. She can’t even stand being around other people. Since the fire, she’s been incapable of any kind of fieldwork, much less a mission of this magnitude.”
“Dr. Vargus disagrees. He says she can do it—if she will.”
“Can? Will?” An incredulous look landed on Kate’s face and stayed. “Good God, Colonel Drake, the woman lives like a monk to avoid hyper-stimulation attacks.” Kate shot out of her chair. “She can’t go to a shopping mall without getting knocked to her knees and you want her to do this mission? She works in a vault with old furniture and files because she can’t take being around us. You can’t throw her into the field at a busy border crossing.” Mutiny filled Kate’s eyes and a warning filled her voice. “She’ll lose it, Colonel.”
“Kate’s right, Colonel,” Amanda said, agreeing with her for the first time since they had entered the office. “Do this and the S.A.S.S. will fail on this mission. She’ll try—Darcy always gives a hundred percent—but she will fail. She just can’t handle it.”
“She will handle it, Amanda. She has to, she has no choice.” Sally stiffened, motioned to the chairs. “Sit down. Both of you.”
They were already sitting, but rebellion rippled off them in waves. Sally ignored it, because inside she was rebelling, too. Darcy was the only operative who could do what must be done to stop this attack. “Now, listen to me. I know Darcy’s challenges. I also know Dr. Vargus’s professional opinion on Darcy’s challenges. He’s a hundred percent certain she can learn to shield herself from the sensory input and avoid overload.”
“Not to dispute the good doctor or you, ma’am,” Kate said, her voice droll. “But this mission doesn’t sound safe enough for anyone to use it as a training ground to learn anything.”
“Do we ever have safe training grounds?” Sally countered.
“Valid point, Colonel,” Amanda said. “But Darcy would have better odds of success learning while on vacation or in some situation where she could control her exposure without consequences to others.”
“Uh-huh. Totally logical, Amanda, but also unrealistic.” Sally cocked her head. “Darcy’s had five years to do that and she hasn’t. Regardless, our backs are against the wall now. We have no choice, which gives Darcy no choice.” Knowing that grated Sally’s nerves raw. “The bottom line is that the S.A.S.S. needs her to stop Kunz from killing a lot of innocent Americans. The buck can’t go beyond there. So if Darcy has to face demons in unfavorable circumstances to make that happen, then she’s going to have to face them—and I expect both of you to help convince her she can.”
Kate had mutiny in her eye. “Permission to speak freely, Colonel.”
She had been speaking freely since entering the office. But she either didn’t realize it due to being upset, or she’d been holding her harshest opinions in check. Sally dared to hope it was the former. “Go ahead.”
“You’re coming across like these hyper-stimulation attacks are all in Darcy’s head, and they aren’t. She needs that self-imposed isolation to function and avoid the attacks. I’ve seen her have one. She suffers, Colonel. She gets little warning, can’t see clearly, loses control of her muscles—they totally lock down on her. I’ve watched her collapse and lay in a heap, unable to move so much as a finger. The whole time, she was in intense pain. This mission isn’t something she can just do anyway. That’s my point. You’re demanding more from her than she can give.”
“Kate is right, Colonel.” Amanda chimed in. “The head injury Darcy suffered in that fire wasn’t a walk in the park. She was in a coma for three weeks. Normal noise and activity are sheer torture for her.” Amanda chewed at her lip. “She’ll try, but she won’t last five minutes at a busy border station.”
“You two haven’t said anything I don’t already know,” Sally admitted. “Do you think I’ve been in a coma? Why do you think Darcy works alone in a vault? Why do you think I approved her waiver to live outside the twenty-five-mile radius to headquarters when we were stationed in DC? It’s a requirement for all of us, but I let her move to Rainbow Lake because she could be isolated and at peace there. As her commander, why do you think that I know I have this ace operative in her and yet I never assign her to missions in the field—and that’s not to diminish the value of what she does here. God knows, she’s saved our assets many times, piecing together seemingly unrelated bits of Intel. But Darcy was an ace in the field, and I could use her there. Yet I don’t. I haven’t since her injury.” Sally paused, but Amanda and Kate realized the questions she had asked were rhetorical and didn’t respond.
