Collusion Read online

  Besides the Norton, Garrett’s other prized possessions were tools of his craft. A stainless-steel, nearly indestructible watch fitted on his wrist with a compass and altimeter and water resistant to a thousand feet. Behind a false closet wall in his condo, sixteen high-quality firearms, ranging from a modified M79 40 mm grenade launcher to a sniper’s Mark 12 Mod 0/1 Special Purpose Rifle to a semicompact polymer Jericho 941 semi-auto pistol—a gift from a Mossad officer. He also owned a Glock 19, just because.

  “Coming home?” the woman next to him asked as the KLM’s wheels touched down on the Dulles runway. Garrett guessed she was eighty, with gray hair coiled tightly into a bun.

  “No,” he replied in a kind voice. “I’m from Arkansas.” It wasn’t a lie, although he’d not lived in that state since graduating from high school. The DMV—shorthand for the District, Maryland, and Virginia metro area—was considered a stopover for many who lived there—even those who’d spent decades in Washington.

  “Arkansas,” the woman repeated with a wrinkled smile. “I have a niece who lives in Fayetteville.”

  “Tusk. The Big Red,” he replied.

  A confused look.

  “University of Arkansas. School mascots. Razorbacks.”

  “Oh,” the woman replied, “no, my niece moved there. She graduated from Black Hills State up in South Dakota.”

  “Then she’s a Yellow Jacket.”

  “You certainly know your college mascots.”

  Garrett’s father had been a high school baseball coach who’d dreamed of moving up to the college level from his Genoa High School team—the Dragons. East of Texarkana, off Highway 196. His old man had started grooming him as a pitcher as soon as Garrett was old enough to hold a baseball. Pressuring him, making him spend hours practicing, convinced his boy would make the pros. In high school, he’d held the record for an Arkansas high school kid throwing the fastest pitch ever—nearly a hundred miles per hour. His mother had been quiet, a librarian. Both killed when his inebriated father had plowed their car into a tree late one Friday night. Garrett was out with friends, having just graduated from high school. He’d not thrown a baseball since then. Nor had he gone back to Arkansas. Now he was an addict. Just like his old man.

  “It was nice speaking to you,” the older passenger said as she maneuvered herself into the aisle to deplane.

  Garrett spotted the four of them waiting in the terminal as soon as he exited the gangway. Who but federal agents could greet an international passenger prior to Customs and Immigration?

  One was wearing a blue Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) shirt; two others wore coats and ties, and the lone woman a gray pantsuit. She flashed a U.S. State Department credential as he approached; the tallest man showed an FBI badge, the third simply said he was “Ted,” a tipoff that he was CIA. The TSA worker was merely an escort whose name was of no consequence.

  “We’ve come for the flash drive,” Ted said, thrusting an open palm out like a neighborhood bully demanding another child’s Halloween candy. His curtness irked Garrett. As a SEAL, he’d learned to study faces, interpret voices, spot tells like tea leaves in the bottom of a cup read by a fortune-teller. Garrett looked at Ted and saw contempt in his eyes. Judgment. Cameroon. But more. Ted was selling wolf tickets, talking tough without the cojones to stand his mud. A desk jockey.

  “Back off,” Garrett said. “Thorpe asked me to give it directly to the president.”

  Ted smirked.

  “We understand,” the State Department woman said, playing conciliatory. “That’s what you said in Kiev after you first reported receiving it and then refused to turn it over. But you are here now, and we’d like to have it.”

  “Get real, Garrett,” Ted said. “The president isn’t going to meet someone like you. Now, hand it over.”

  Maybe it was a lack of sleep. Maybe it was the Suboxone. But it probably was Ted’s attitude.

  “I think I’ll hold on to it. You don’t look like the president,” Garrett said.

  “Listen, smart-ass,” Ted replied. The blue veins in his neck were beginning to surface.

  “Let’s not make a scene,” the woman interrupted in a hushed voice.

  Garrett glanced around the gateway. His elderly seatmate had hesitated a few feet away and was watching, as were many of the passengers still walking off the flight. It would be only a few moments before someone pulled out a cell phone and began recording.

  Garrett had never believed the president would meet him personally. Still, he didn’t like being treated as a mere errand boy, even if that was his only role. It wasn’t only his ego that had kept him from surrendering the flash drive in Kiev. The three attackers had escaped through an unmarked exit. Maybe they’d simply been lucky. Maybe they’d done due diligence. Or maybe someone had helped them. Gotten them inside early. Told them about the side exit.

  “Mr. Garrett,” the State Department woman said quietly, “your promise will be kept. The White House sent us here and the president is appreciative, but this flash drive is now part of an international murder investigation, and the three of us have been delegated by our agencies to secure it on behalf of a joint federal task force.”

  “That doesn’t include you,” Ted said.

  “Then put it in writing,” Garrett replied. “Give me a receipt.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Ted scoffed.

  “Chain of custody,” Garrett replied. “Doesn’t need to be too detailed. For you, Ted, we can keep the words simple—‘One flash drive given by Ambassador Stanford Thorpe in Kiev to Brett Garrett who is now surrendering it to me, as an official of my respective agency with my personal guarantee that it will be delivered to the president of the United States.’ That will do nicely.”

  “I’m not giving you any damn receipt,” Ted snarled.

  “Mr. Garrett, I’m not entirely clear why you need a receipt,” the woman said.

  “If what’s on this flash drive somehow leads to a congressional investigation, I want a paper trail. I’ve already had a target on my back once. In fact, let’s include something about how I have no knowledge of the flash drive’s contents.”

  “We don’t know that though, do we?” the woman said. “You could have opened it.”

  “You just asked me to trust you,” he replied. “I guess you’ll have to trust me now? Besides, it’s password protected.”

  “Then you have looked at it,” Ted said. “Hand over the damn drive now.”

  Garrett let his backpack slip from his fingers onto the carpet. His hands were freely hanging at his side. Ready.

  “Gentlemen, none of this macho posturing is necessary,” the woman whispered. Reaching into her purse, she removed a notepad and began writing. She signed it and handed to the FBI agent to read. He signed it and passed it to the TSA officer who was standing next to him.

  “Hey, man, I got no idea what this is about,” the TSA worker said. “They told me to escort you to the gate. I’m not signin’ nothin’.”

  Garrett said, “I don’t need your signature.” He looked at Ted.

  Ted ripped the paper from the TSA officer’s hand. “I’m not signing this, either.”

  The woman started to say something, but Garrett cut her short. Plucking the paper from Ted, he said, “Ted, right?”

  Garrett wrote: “Also present, Ted—CIA.” He then slowly folded the note and tucked it in his back pant pocket. “Two signatures should be enough.”

  From his backpack, he removed the flash drive, ignored Ted, who was still standing in front of him, and gave it to the woman.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You’ll need to be debriefed.”

  “Later, after a warm shower,” Garrett said. “But not by Ted. I’m a civilian now. I might need to check with my lawyer to see if I can cooperate.”

  Ted glared at him as the others turned to go. “You’re a national disgrace,” the CIA operative said.

  Garrett watched Ted rejoin the others. Twenty minutes later, Garrett emerged fro
m the airport’s terminal and spotted a black Mercedes-Benz GLS 550 SUV parked next to a sign that said NO STOPPING and NO LOITERING.

  Thomas Jefferson Kim stepped out from behind its wheel.

  “If you’re so damn important, why don’t you have a driver?” Garrett asked, tossing his backpack into the SUV’s rear and slipping into the front passenger’s seat.

  “Don’t you start ragging me about my driving. It’s racist just because I’m Korean.”

  “It’s got nothing to do with your ethnicity. It’s got everything to do with you almost getting me killed every time I ride with you.”

  Kim grinned and pulled away from the curb directly in front of a car whose driver had to swerve.

  “I sent you to Ukraine to keep you out of the public eye and what do you do?” Kim said, completely unaware of what had just happened. “Senator Stone called State this morning. You got any idea what my embassy contracts are worth?”

  “What’d you expect?”

  “There’s an old Korean expression—‘It is a world where people will cut off your nose and eat it if you close your eyes.’”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It’s a dog-eat-dog world.”

  “Then why didn’t you say it’s a dog-eat-dog world? And in this scenario, who’s the dog eating?”

  “All subtlety is lost on you.”

  Garrett was Kim’s employee, but they didn’t act like it. Their roles had been reversed when they first met in Asadabad, Afghanistan, near the eastern Pakistan border. Kim had been fresh meat, a computer geek sent by the Navy as part of a “reconstruction team.” Most Americans didn’t realize the Navy had people in-country. They thought they were only aboard ships. Kim’s job was winning the hearts and minds of a fledgling Afghan provincial government. Garrett’s job was killing Islamic jihadists. Both were good at what they did. Three months in, an ambush. IEDs. RPGs. Garrett dragged a wounded Kim to safety. His injuries were his ticket home. A Purple Heart. An honorable discharge. Within a year, he’d become Washington’s newest cybersecurity wunderkind. Gobbling up other Beltway bandits with juicy government contracts, expanding into the ex-military security guard business at embassies. U.S. Marines were there to destroy all classified information if under local attack. State had protective details assigned for each ambassador and top aides. But the first line of defense outside the embassy grounds was the host country—only, dialing 911 didn’t do much good in nations hostile to the U.S. That’s where Kim’s private ex-military force plugged the gap. Civilian warriors. Modern-day mercenaries. Recent world tensions had made that gap much wider and much more lucrative. At thirty-two, Kim had become a multimillionaire running a global company from his Tysons Corner sanctuary. Brett Garrett had taken a much different path after their stint together. After Cameroon, it had been Kim who’d rescued him when he’d become an untouchable.

  “Senator Stone is a vengeful—” Kim cut short his own sentence as he smashed his palm against the SUV’s horn at a driver who’d cut him off.

  Garrett chuckled. “Seriously. You need a driver.”

  “Don’t be that guy. He cut me off.”

  “Just saying, with all your money—and stop crying about Stone. You knew about him and me, but you hired me anyway.”

  “It sucks to be you. My lawyers will deal with Stone and State. Kiev might actually be good for future business.”

  Kim honked at another motorist, this one for moving too slow. He swerved around the car and let loose with a string of Korean words. The other driver raised his third finger.

  “You’re not doing much to change ethnic stereotypes,” Garrett said.

  “Time is money, and there’s a guest waiting in my office. FBI special agent Valerie Mayberry. My secretary told her to come at three o’clock, but she showed up at two.”

  “Why? The bureau, agency, and State already greeted me at the gate.”

  Kim shrugged. “She knew I was picking you up. Said she needed to speak privately to you. ASAP.”

  “Did it ever cross your mind that I might not want to speak to her? ASAP?”

  “Play nice. I’ve got contracts with the bureau, too. Besides, you are single and lonely and don’t have any friends except for me, and she’s attractive.”

  “You’ve already met her? And you’re my boss, not my friend.”

  “Looked her up. Twenty-eight, no Facebook page, no LinkedIn, actually little public on social media.”

  “For a cyber expert, that’s pretty weak.”

  “Which is my point. Someone’s cleaned up after her.”

  “Undercover?”

  “My guess.”

  “Okay, let’s not drag this out. If you didn’t meet her and she’s not on Facebook and she’s working undercover, how do you know what she looks like?”

  “A photo. She’s pungbuhan and a widow.”

  “Wealthy.”

  “Your Korean is getting better.”

  “Neoui sumgyeol-i agchwiga nanda.”

  Kim laughed and hit the steering wheel with his palm at Garrett’s bungled mispronunciation. “I believe you just told me my breath smelled bad.”

  “Then my Korean is getting better. A widow?”

  “A photo at her husband’s funeral posted by a friend.”

  “That’s the photo? You saw a picture of a widow at a funeral, and you thought she looked hot? You need treatment.”

  Kim chuckled. “Her husband was a magazine reporter who got himself killed in the White Mountains.”

  “A real reporter or agency?”

  “C’mon, you know CIA rules prohibit their employees from posing as reporters.”

  Garrett grunted.

  Kim said, “He was a legit journalist and an unlucky one. He talked his way onto a supply helo making a delivery in the mountains. Wrong day. Wrong flight. A green on blue. Afghan commando, who we’d trained, blew an entire Sea Knight to pieces with a vest. Unlucky bastard.”

  “A Sea Knight?” Garrett said. “You sure. I thought we dumped them years ago.”

  “I tell you about this reporter being blown to pieces, and you’re concerned about the helo? You’re the one who needs treatment.”

  Kim drove his Mercedes onto State Route 7. A mile later, he entered a side street that dead-ended at an eleven-story steel-and-glass building bearing the letters IEC. Kim entered an underground parking garage protected by a steel door. His parking spot was marked: THOMAS JEFFERSON KIM, PRESIDENT, INTEL-EYE-CHECK.

  “Delivered safe and sound,” Kim announced proudly. “You can apologize now about my driving.”

  “Intel-Eye-Check is a really stupid name,” Garrett said, unbuckling his seat belt.

  Nine

  An office can say much about its occupant. From her seat on a chrome-rimmed white leather couch inside IEC president Thomas Jefferson Kim’s outer office, Valerie Mayberry gazed at the only piece of artwork hanging on the room’s bone-white walls. A 1932 Pablo Picasso painting. Le Rêve, French for “The Dream.” Why had Kim chosen it? If an original, it cost at least $60 million. Showing off? Insecure? Or could he simply like the painting? Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

  “The Picasso,” she said aloud to the two Korean women seated across from her behind matching chrome-and-glass desks. “A limited print?”

  “No,” the one to Mayberry’s right answered. “My husband doesn’t buy imitations.”

  “Your husband,” Mayberry replied and instantly thought about Noah. They could never have worked together. She was persnickety, left-brained. He was disorganized and said whatever thought popped into his head. She was nagged by worries. He didn’t fret about anything. They had filled the holes in each other’s personalities, creating a better-balanced person. At least most times.

  Her mind continued to wander. Her decision to join the FBI had not pleased her parents, which made it more appealing to her. Earning money had never interested her, largely because she had never been without it. She had initially flirted with becoming a psychiatrist. However, the
idea of listening to the worried well complain about not having friends, or their third marriage breakup, bored her. Dealing with schizophrenia was more of a neurological issue than a personality one. Forensic psychiatry held limited appeal. Most prisoners had the same cookie-cutter backgrounds—childhood trauma, drugs or alcohol addictions driving their criminal activity, or simply antisocial disorders such as narcissism mixed with a lack of empathy. Working in the spy-versus-spy game was much more challenging. It required understanding human behavior, trickery, and intellect. She enjoyed wandering in what poet T. S. Eliot described as a “wilderness of mirrors.” She’d studied the life of James Jesus Angleton, the legendary American spy hunter who’d overseen counterintelligence operations for twenty years during the Cold War. It had been Angleton who’d looked for hidden meanings in the KGB’s actions, suspecting everyone, always searching for that unidentified inside man, the double agent, the ultimate traitor. His paranoia had paralyzed the agency, ruined careers, and ultimately condemned him as a mole hunter who’d stared too long into the abyss and had been swallowed up by it.

  Mayberry had read the complete Eliot stanza: “In a wilderness of mirrors / What will the spider do.” Yet another quote came to her. One from her favorite novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. John le Carré. “Counterintelligence people are like wolves chewing dry bones—you have to take away the bones and make them find new quarry. . . .” Mayberry felt comfortable wandering in the mirrors, chewing on new bones.

  She’d chewed every bone of Noah’s death to powder. “Recovery” was not a straight line, her therapist had said. Mayberry was stuck in anger.

  She recognized Brett Garrett as soon as he entered with Thomas Jefferson Kim. Standing, she extended her hand. First to Kim, who was closest to her, and next to Garrett. She sized up Garrett knowing he was doing the exact same to her.

  Garrett’s first impression: not so much beautiful as arresting. No high cheekbones, porcelain skin, or long, flowing locks. Garrett studied her eyes. Windows into the soul, right? He sensed melancholy, or was he projecting that onto her because Kim had mentioned she was a widow? No, it was there. He was good at reading people. Mayberry could hide the down-curve of her lips, conceal the sadness, but grief was a dogged antagonist.