High Treason Read online

  “Indeed,” I whispered as I swished my scotch unconsciously. Why would Apollo take such extreme measures?

  Then I understood.

  “It’s all about the money,” I muttered. Apollo worked for Washington the way the old British East India Company serviced the Crown—it was difficult to know who served whom. “Perhaps Washington finally grew savvy to Apollo’s game and threatened to pull significant contracts.”

  “It would threaten Apollo’s existence,” said Ari, crossing his arms and legs with unease.

  “A desperate Apollo would take radical steps to ensure solvency.”

  Ari nodded deep in thought. “But here’s what I don’t get; Why doesn’t Apollo just get a new ten-digit retainer from Moscow, Beijing, the Fortune 500, or the global 0.1 percent? That’s what mercenaries do: auction their loyalty.”

  It hurt to hear him say it, but it was often the truth. I knew ex-SEALs who once draped themselves in the American flag and now work for China in Africa. However, I only took missions that were in the U.S.’s interest and not the company’s bottom line. Or at least so I thought; Winters lied to me about that, too, in Ukraine.

  “I don’t think so because Apollo needs the U.S. as its super-client. Think about it. No other rich country has more security needs than the U.S., and that’s what Apollo sells: security in an insecure world. Apollo must keep America as a client, at all costs.”

  “Even if it means holding the government hostage to terrorism?” said Ari, again shaking his head in disbelief. “How does that work, exactly?”

  “Isn’t it obvious? Apollo assassinates POTUS or the VP, frames terrorists, the nation panics, and it guarantees another quarter century of lucrative counterterrorism contracts for Apollo. More attacks will follow until the company gets what it wants.”

  “Disgusting but plausible. Even likely. Washington created a real Frankenstein in Apollo, the result of outsourcing too much wet work to the private sector,” said Ari, nose upturned as if he had just smelled something disgusting. “What are you going to do now?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, slumping into the couch. The more I thought about it, the less I liked.

  “Locke, let it go. You did your best, but everyone thinks you’re crazy. You’re like Noah and the flood. It’s not your fight anymore, and Apollo will not get away with it. The CIA, FBI—everyone—will figure it out, and when they do, they will end Apollo.” Ari leaned in and whispered: “Trust me.”

  But Ari was wrong. He didn’t know Apollo like I did. Few did, and especially not the CIA or FBI. Apollo easily manipulates them for more contracts.

  “Let it go,” coaxed Ari.

  No, I can’t, I thought. I knew that I should not have cared, but I did. Both the U.S. and Apollo had left me for dead. If I wasn’t a corpse, they would both finish the job because I knew too much and was deemed a renegade.

  “You’ve done all you can do,” said Ari in a gentle voice. But I knew that was wrong, too. There was still one more thing I could do, but I shuddered at the idea. Still, I am a patriot, I thought, and I always was. Perhaps I got lost along the way, but I never forfeited my soul. I never worked for an enemy of America. My grandfather, who was shot and left for dead at the Battle of the Bulge, always told me as a young boy: “Tom, you will serve. No matter what you do in life, you will serve your country in uniform.” And so I did. I found other ways to serve too, leading me to Apollo. Not everyone there was a mercenary.

  “Let it go,” soothed Ari, sensing my mounting rage. The American people had no idea what was about to slam them. Worse, the government did not comprehend the insider threat. Eventually they would, as Ari insisted, but too late. By then, the nation would be panicked, and Apollo could dictate terms to make the “terrorist attacks” stop. It was racketeering. Extortion. A shakedown.

  “You’ve done everything you can,” continued Ari.

  “No, I have not.”

  “Tom . . .”

  “There is exactly one more thing I can do.”

  Ari’s tone switched from calming to commanding. “Locke, don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Only I can stop Apollo. I’m the only one who could get to the bottom of this quickly and put the fire out before it got worse. And it will get worse.”

  Ari let out a loud sigh of anxiety.

  “We must all take a side, Ari. You know that most of all.” It is the one rule that binds all warriors, no matter what allegiance, and affords honor in the killing of enemies. Ari nodded grimly.

  “Then you’re going to need this,” he said after a moment and walked to the closet. After rummaging around the top shelf, he pulled down a black ballistic case. “I was saving it for your birthday.”

  “I didn’t think you knew my birthday,” I joked.

  “I don’t,” he said with a smile, handing me the case. It was heavy. I popped open the two latches and lifted the lid.

  “They’re beautiful,” I said, and they were. Nestled in gray sponge-foam were two Heckler & Koch Mark 23 handguns with screw-on sound suppressors, laser aiming modules, and four extra magazines, fully loaded. The Mark 23 was the pistol of choice for U.S. Special Operations Forces, which listed it officially as: Offensive Handgun Weapons System—Special Operations Peculiar. Peculiar was a euphemism for “assassin’s tool.” But what made it particularly lethal was its stopping power. It shot a .45-caliber slug that blew holes in targets that dinky nine-millimeter rounds would only dent.

  “I was saving them to mark your six-month anniversary with my couch,” said Ari with a smirk.

  “So thoughtful,” I said deadpan while pulling out the Mark 23s. I held one in each hand. They felt good.

  “You’re going to need them.”

  “Screw Apollo,” I uttered in agreement.

  “Find evidence. Then people will listen to you,” counseled Ari. “And then the government will shut down Apollo for good.”

  “Apollo must be stopped,” I agreed. And only I can stop it. If not me, then who? The world was blind, and no one knew Apollo’s moves better than me, given my background. More important, I had surprise. They thought me dead or, worse, drunk in some shithole country.

  Fuck them all, I thought as I downed the last of my scotch and reached for my satellite phone.

  Chapter 6

  That night a black Chevy Suburban sat alone near the edge of a runway. Commercial airliners flew less than fifty feet overhead as they touched down at Washington National Airport, but they took no notice of the Suburban, camouflaged in the moonless night. A narrow channel of water separated the airport’s main landing strip from the small parking lot on Gravelly Point. A few disused picnic tables and rows of approach lights were the only things on this spit of land, which was invisible from nearby roads despite its centrality.

  Across the river was Washington, a small city surrounded by heaps of suburbs and traffic. However, the heart of the city was beautiful, especially at night. The Capitol Dome shimmered in the distance, and the obelisk of the Washington Monument was lit up in glory. Lights from surrounding monuments, bridges, and highways reflected off the Potomac River, giving a Monet-esque impression of the nation’s capital.

  Another black Suburban crept down the single access road with its lights off. The driver was careful not to tap the brakes and give away their position. The Suburban glided into a spot ten feet from the first Suburban and bounced gently off the parking bumper.

  Men in dark suits leapt out of both vehicles and opened opposing passenger doors. At first nothing happened. Then an older man stepped out of the first SUV, his loafered foot gingerly making contact with the asphalt. The darkness obscured his features as he walked the few paces to the other vehicle and climbed inside. All doors shut.

  Five minutes passed. Multiple jets roared overhead. The river continued to twinkle with city lights. Then the dark-suited men jumped out of the vehicles and opened up the opposing passenger doors again. The older man gently returned to his vehicle. Doors closed. Both black Suburbans drove
into the night, traveling in opposite directions.

  Chapter 7

  The next morning, the FBI headquarters was buzzing. The J. Edgar Hoover Building was a brutalist concoction of office building meets underpass. Today, the place was angry. The terrorist attack had occurred two miles from headquarters, a galling fact.

  Lin had shared her theory about Russia’s responsibility for the terrorist attack with a few senior colleagues. Their response was universal. First, it was laughter. Then it was: “The Russians wouldn’t dare.” Followed by: “You’re a junior analyst. Watch and learn.” Ending with: “Stay out of trouble.”

  She wanted to strangle them.

  Maybe they’re right, she thought, leaning back in her desk chair and closing her eyes. She had learned to be humble about most things since her demotion to the desk.

  “Tough day at work?” joked Jason, at the desk next to her. He was her age, and had been that kid in high school who was All-American everything. Unlike Lin, he saw working at FBI headquarters as an opportunity, and he had ambition. Working a desk did not bother him. Only the boss had his own office; the rest of her division worked in an open bay. Management claimed it was for improved ‘situational awareness’ during collaborative investigations, but Lin was convinced it was to ruin everyone’s personal life. Open offices are an eavesdropper’s paradise.

  “Jason, not now,” she said, eyes shut and rubbing her temples. Jason had been hitting on her for six months, and it was getting old. He was a nice guy, but it would never happen. She often wondered how such a talented detective could be so oblivious.

  “They got me chasing smugglers,” he whispered, followed by a pirate “Yaaaaargh!!”

  “Great, Jason,” she said flatly.

  “What do you call a terrorist who swallowed dynamite? Abominable,” he chuckled.

  “Jason. Shut up.”

  “I’m following a hot lead right now,” he continued. “I might even get out of the office on this one.”

  The room’s air smelled stale, and the windows were sealed. It was like working in a submarine with natural light. Lin got up and stretched. Her long, black hair spilled onto the floor as she touched her toes. Stretching always helped clear her mind. People in the office were used to it and took no notice of her occasional tai chi movements.

  “. . . turns out you can still smuggle just about anything in a container ship . . .”

  Lin dialed him out and let her thoughts find her happy place. She learned the technique in army survival training as a way of withstanding torture. Occasionally, the FBI got slots in the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape, or SERE, School at Fort Bragg. It was three days of hell, but she fought for the opportunity to prove to the boys that she was tough.

  “. . . did you know there’s a whole community of implosion watchers? There are hundreds of videos on the internet. I’m surprised no one got the bridge on video . . .”

  Concentrate, she thought, and Jason’s voice faded away. She was back at her father’s second-story martial arts studio on Geary Boulevard in San Francisco. It smelled of sweat and rubber mats. The steady drone of large standing fans was punctuated by someone yelling “Aye!” followed by the slam of another’s body on the mats.

  She was nine but already the equivalent of a black belt, and she trained with kids twice her age and weight. She won because she was faster and more clever, taking down opponents with grace rather than brutality. Those who underestimated her because of her size and sex lay at her feet, rubbing aching body parts.

  “Those too stupid to learn are made to feel!” she would declare to her victims. It was something her father told his students. Her mother died young and she had no siblings. The rest of the family remained in China, making her father the only family she had. In between practice sets, they would study the Tao Te Ching and consult the I Ching together. He taught her that power without judgment is tyranny, and that was why she joined the FBI: to stop tyrants. Why couldn’t he see that?

  “. . . Antwerp . . . Newark . . .”

  One night, when she was twelve, a homeless man in the Tenderloin jumped her, demanding her money and virginity. With a rapid-knife hand strike, she crushed his larynx and then threw him hard into a wall. Lin still remembered the distinctive smack of his skull hitting the brick. The creep lay motionless in the alley as she walked away. Maybe he was dead; she didn’t care. One less scumbag, she thought then and now.

  “. . . Russian mob . . .”

  Lin’s happy place was sucked back into the Hoover Building.

  “Wait, what?” she said.

  “Haven’t you been listening, Jen? Sometimes I think your mind wanders when we talk,” said Jason.

  So-o-o-o oblivious, she thought. “Just repeat what you said.”

  “The Newark field office got an anonymous tip last night from a dock worker. Said he felt it his patriotic duty after the bridge attack.”

  “What was the tip?”

  “Something about a container ship last week from Antwerp with an unregistered container being offloaded before the ship went through Customs.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked.

  “Dunno. Also, most people smuggle things inside containers, and not the whole container itself.”

  “Weird. Why would anyone do that? It seems a lot harder.”

  “It is, and that’s the big mystery. It’s why they called HQ this morning for backup.”

  Lin sat down and thought about the anonymous tip. New York City was her old hunting ground, but the quarry didn’t leave much of a trail. “A ghost container isn’t a lot to go on.”

  “If it was easy, it wouldn’t be an FBI case,” said Jason absentmindedly as he worked.

  “What about the Russian mob?”

  “The informant said the bratva did it.” Bratva meant “brotherhood” in Russian and referred to mobsters.

  “Anything else?” said Lin, sitting upright.

  “He said it happened once before, sometime last year, but didn’t say more. That’s all we have, and now the Russian Organized Crime Task Force is working the case.”

  Lin looked sullen. It was her old unit.

  “Don’t worry, Jen. If there’s a Russia angle, they will find it. But so far, they’re rolling snake eyes.”

  “They must be desperate if they’re turning to you,” she joked, but her humor failed and Jason grimaced at the swipe. “No offense. But seriously, Jason, you don’t even speak Russian. I spent two years on that task force. I know the players, the lay of the land, the threat. I should be doing this, not you.” Her expression turned to anger. “Why didn’t Mr. Prick assign me to the case?”

  “Mr. Prick” was what she called their boss, a spasmatic jerk and one of the biggest in the building. She was sentenced to his division as punishment for blowing the New York sting operation. At least that was what he told her, with a disturbing measure of pride. Things went downhill from there, mostly because he was a bully and she always stood up to them.

  “You know why,” said Jason, turning back to his computer screen. “Anyway, I think Newark is a dead end.”

  “Why do you say that?” she said, surprised.

  “Because they can’t find the mystery container, and don’t even know if it exists. All they have is an anonymous guy’s tip. Even if true, there’s probably no link to radical Islamic terrorists. It’s not the mafia’s style.” Jason sighed and looked up. “Also, Manhattan is being deluged with new counterterrorism leads by the hour and there’s a shortage of agents. I think the ADIC will shut down the ghost container investigation before lunch.” The assistant director in charge, whose acronym was pronounced “ay-dick,” ran the show.

  Lin frowned, but it made sense. Yet something gnawed at her. Tips like this were not random and the FBI knew it, which was why they were investigating. The informant was probably from a rival mafia with credible knowledge, or was trying to set up their competitor. Either way, smuggling in an entire container was new and alarming.

  Wh
o would do that? Why? Lin twirled a pen between her fingers. Because the sender did not want the mafia knowing what was inside the container. Only a few “senders” had that kind of power over the Russian mafia. It didn’t smell like organized crime; it stank of the Federal Security Service, or FSB, the KGB’s successor. It would explain how five tons of extremely regulated explosives were sourced. The container would also be an expedient way to smuggle in the expertise needed to conduct the assassination plot.

  Lin smiled. It was starting to make sense, except for one glaring fact: the FSB did not work with radical Islamic terrorists. If the anonymous tip was accurate, then there were only two conclusions. First, the mystery container was simply crime related: drugs, weapons, or women. This was the prevailing theory, according to Jason.

  Or, thought Lin, the container is linked to the bridge attack, as the informant implies. If true, it led to dark places. The Russian mob worked only for itself and occasionally the Kremlin. The mob has no reason to kill the American president or VP because it would rain down agents upon them, putting them out of business. But Moscow has reasons, she thought. Many.

  She looked around and saw everyone was hustling: working the phones, tapping away at keyboards, waiting over a printer, or huddled in impromptu meetings. No one is thinking. They’re just working, thought Lin. An hour ago, her boss stood on a desk and told the team it was an “all hands on deck” moment, and “we need to catch these terrorists before they strike again.”

  Maybe they’re wrong? she mused. What if it wasn’t terrorists but someone framing them? Terrorists were too crude to orchestrate such a sophisticated attack, but not the Kremlin. Making it look like a terrorist attack would be the perfect decoy to dodge America’s law enforcement and divert the FBI’s attention, as the true bad guys staged their next attack. The FBI was like a bull to the cape when it came to counterterrorism, and all the bad guys had to do was act the matador. And the FBI is falling for it, she thought, involuntarily crossing her arms and legs. We’re charging the cape.