Authors: Dale Brown
“It should. It’s Mark Stoner.”
Z
en felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach.
“Stoner?” he said finally. “
The
Mark Stoner?”
“Yes.”
“The CIA officer who worked with us.”
She nodded.
“He died,” said Zen.
“Maybe not.”
“The hell he didn’t. I was on that mission, Bree. I remember—my Flighthawks—I couldn’t get there in time. We weren’t supposed to cross the border. Stoner’s helicopter went into the swamp.”
“His body was never recovered,” she told him.
“There’s no way he could have lived. What? They rebuilt him?”
“Something like that, maybe. We don’t know.”
“Shit. No way.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too—it’s like science fiction. A crash like that—there were bodies recovered,” he said, remembering. “There were definitely bodies.”
“Not his.”
“You can’t rebuild a human being. Look at my legs. They’re still useless. All those experiments—”
“Those just didn’t work. Maybe the experiments with him did.”
“No.” Zen shook his head. He simply didn’t believe it.
“Who would have believed an airplane could fly by remote control twenty years ago?” Breanna asked.
“I would believe it.”
“That’s because you were working on the project. Science fiction becomes reality pretty quickly these days. Ready or not.”
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
“Does Danny know?” asked Zen. “Is he involved in the mission?”
“I’m not discussing operational details with you. I can’t.”
“Come on, Bree. Danny’s our friend. Stoner was a friend of his, too.”
“Mark saved my life,” blurted Breanna. “Don’t tell me about friends.”
“You didn’t tell Danny, did you?” said Zen calmly. “He doesn’t know.”
“Jeff, I’m sorry I said anything.” She sighed. “I will tell him if it’s important. When it’s important.”
God,
she screamed at herself inside.
Why did you say that?
“You have to tell him, Bree.” Zen wheeled around to look into her face. “You have to.”
“You just said it was science fiction. He probably won’t believe it either.”
“But you do.”
“Yes. I do.”
“You have evidence?”
They had what they thought was a partial DNA match, if the computer records were right. But they might not be. And there were other explanations—long shots, but maybe no more implausible than this.
Still, she was convinced.
“You don’t know what the situation is.”
“If what you’re saying is true, which I don’t know that I believe,” added Zen, “but let’s say, for argument’s sake, that it is. Let’s say it is Mark Stoner, somehow, resurrected from the grave or hospital bed, whatever. Then that’s his friend who’s hunting him down. Who’s probably going to kill him.” Zen rolled his wheelchair close to her. “Is that why Whiplash is involved? So Danny can see if it really is Stoner?”
“Jeff—”
“That’s why you sent him. Because you think Stoner will recognize him, and hesitate. Or come over to our side. Somehow.”
It was part of what they were thinking, at least at the beginning. But then new evidence had seemed to contradict the conclusion that it was Stoner. Breanna had decided not to tell Danny—it would only confuse and complicate the issue. When the time was right, when they had more evidence, then she would tell him about the possible DNA match, and the rest of the theories. For now, the job was simple—find out who these people were.
Whiplash was the best group for the job, with or without the old Dreamland connection.
“You have to tell him,” Zen said.
“I thought you didn’t believe it.”
“But you do,” he answered. “You have to be honest with him.”
“Don’t tell me what I have to do. You don’t know what the pressures are.”
“What does this have to do with pressure, Bree? This has to do with basic honesty.”
“Honesty? Honesty? What the hell are you talking about, honesty? You lie to people all the time.”
“I don’t lie.”
“You’re a politician. Tell me you don’t lie.”
I
t was the worst fight they’d had in years. The only fight they’d had in years. There’d been disagreements, debates maybe, but nothing approaching this. This was a nuclear explosion, a blowout so severe it left them both trembling.
Maybe it had been a long time coming. Maybe they were just due. Maybe at its heart, the fight had little to do with Mark Stoner and Danny and who should know what.
Maybe at its heart, Breanna was worried about him and didn’t want to lose him. And he . . .
He wasn’t sure what he was worried about. He knew he was angry, over a lot of things, none of which had anything to do with his wife, not really.
Losing his legs most of all. Even now, even after all these years without them. He wanted them. He wanted them so badly he would trade anything for them.
Not his daughter. Not his wife, not even tonight in his anger. But anything else.
Zen stayed in the living room while Breanna went to the bedroom. He went into the kitchen and got himself a beer, then sipped it slowly, thinking back to his days at Dreamland.
He didn’t believe it could possibly be true. It wasn’t the question of whether Stoner had survived. He’d seen worse crashes—hell, his own for starters.
But to be
rebuilt
?
Science fiction bullshit.
The phrase was familiar. Zen looked down at his legs, trying to place it.
Oh yeah, he thought, remembering. It was what the Air Force secretary had said the day he arrived at Dreamland to review the Flighthawk project.
The day of his accident, when one of the Flighthawks cut too close to his tail.
The Air Force secretary had said it with a smile on his face, laughing, really, shaking his hand before the flight.
Science fiction bullshit, that just happened to be true.
Kiev, Ukraine
“W
hy Moldova?” Danny asked.
“I have no idea if it means anything,” Nuri told him as they debriefed the break-in over the secure sat phone. “He was looking at a lot of sites there. We’ll have a better idea in the morning, when MY-PID finishes churning through all the data. I just thought it was a little unusual. Moldova is not exactly the garden spot of the world. It’s not on the beaten path, that’s for sure.”
“It’s not,” agreed Danny.
“The guy loves porn,” continued Nuri. “And he’s an animal—he started screwing on the couch while I was there. I swear, I was ten feet away. Maybe closer. If they’d seen me, they probably would have asked me to join in.”
Nuri’s mention of Moldova brought back painful memories for Danny. A decade and a half before, Dreamland Whiplash had run an operation in neighboring Romania, helping rout guerrillas who were trying to disrupt a pipeline project. In the process, they’d helped rescue the country from a coup.
But they’d lost a key member of the team and a friend, CIA officer Mark Stoner. Danny could still remember getting the news.
They talked for a while more, about whether Flash should stay with Nuri or come to Kiev, about how many more people they’d need, about when to contact the local authorities.
Danny couldn’t focus on any of it. He kept thinking about Stoner.
He’d lost a lot of friends in the early part of his career, in Bosnia, and then with Dreamland. Later on in the Gulf and Afghanistan. It had been a luxury the last few years, not having to worry about forming friendships that could end all too suddenly.
“I’ll talk to you after we get the info dump,” said Nuri. “Figure out the next move then. In the meantime, I’m going to bed. You good?”
“Good.”
“You OK, Colonel?”
“I’m here,” answered Danny.
“Maybe you ought to get some rest, too,” said Nuri. “You sound a little tired.”
Danny glanced at his watch. It was five in the morning; no way was he getting back to sleep.
“I’m good,” he told Nuri. “Talk to you soon.”
Washington, D.C.
B
reanna overslept, and by the time she woke, Zen had already left to take Teri to school and then go to work.
Her body felt raw from the fight, as if it had been physical. She took a shower, feeling drained of blood, even trembling a little. Coffee helped get her awake, but it only reinforced the jitteriness. She left for work without checking the news or looking at her version of the morning briefing. Her BlackBerry had a dozen messages, but none were from Zen, so she didn’t bother opening them.
Breanna generally split her days between the Pentagon and Room 4. Today she was scheduled to spend her time at the Pentagon, where, among other things, she was supposed to make sure arrangements for the Tigershark demonstration test flight were set. But she headed to the CIA campus instead, anxious for an in-depth update on the operation.
And considering, in the back of her mind, what to tell Danny about the Wolves.
To her great surprise, she found Reid in the bunker. Not only did he spend the bulk of his time in his office in the main building, he was famously known as a late riser, often grumbling about meetings that began before 10:00
A.M.
“Extra strong this morning,” Breanna told the automated coffee unit. “Very strong.”
“You saw the e-mail?” Reid asked her as the coffee began to brew.
“No. I just had an instinct that something was up.”
Reid was an old-school CIA hand, both figuratively and literally. Sometimes it seemed to Breanna that he had been with the Agency back when it was the OSS.
“MY-PID has arranged all of the data from the mobster’s computer,” said Reid. “There’s one possible lead through a bank account. And some interesting connections. Most of the information on the drives pertains to his business interests. The FBI will be interested. And there’s plenty more for the Italian antimafia commission.”
“Let’s have a look.”
“Here.”
Reid turned to the wall, then told the computer to display the data summary. Several windows of information appeared, long lists of files arranged in treelike fashion. A window on the left showed correspondence between Moreno and other members of his organization, translating them from Italian as well as decrypting them. They indicated that he was having some conflicts with upper level associates, or fellow mob bosses. There was personal animosity and friction as well. Based on what Nuri had observed, that was more than understandable.
The profile the information drew was of a man whose empire was slipping away from him. If they were in America, the authorities might even attempt to pressure him and get him to turn against the rest of the mob. But the Italians didn’t work that way.
“He does seem to be losing his grip,” said Reid. “Which is perhaps another reason he didn’t use his own people for the strike in Berlin. In any event, the matter that concerns us is here, a pair of transactions that switched money from a Naples bank to Egypt, then to Russia.”
“Does that say three million dollars?” asked Breanna.
“They don’t come cheap,” said Reid. “But he can afford it.”
“Have you traced the accounts?”
“They were opened and closed the same day. The Russian bank has a branch in Moldova.”
“Hmmm.”
“I thought you’d find that interesting. I have a list of transactions on the day the money hit the Russian account. We have five different accounts where we think the money went, but the transfers aren’t recorded as transfers. Someone withdrew the money, in theory as cash, then placed it into these accounts. If that happened. Most likely it was only on paper. And we’re guessing at the match-ups, because the amounts don’t match exactly. There’s about ten thousand dollars missing.”
“Pocket money.”
“Maybe. Or just diddling with the numbers to throw off programs designed to look for suspicious transactions.”
“But it was done in Moldova?”
“Likely. Again, this could all be manipulated,” admitted Reid. “The records. I don’t trust the Russian banking system. It’s always been full of holes.”
“Where is the bank?”
“In the capital, Chisinau. It has some dealings with other Russian banks in Tighina. Tighina is a provincial capital, near the area under dispute with Russia. Good-sized city, at least for Moldova. Those banks are pretty small and don’t seem to have been involved. There’s a big dispute between that region and the rest of Moldova; no other banks deal with them—or with the Russians.”
“Other links?”
“Already looking for them.”
“I have to tell Danny.”
“That would make sense. There are a few other loose ends. The FBI agent Nuri took with him wants to use some of the information we developed on Moreno for her own case against him.”
Breanna nodded. They had been counting on the FBI to do just that. Anyone watching would think that Moreno, not the Wolves, was the focus of the investigation.
“Nuri also found this information. Oddly.”
A list of websites relating to Moldova came up.
“Was he planning to go there?”
“That might be a possibility,” said Reid. “They’re all recent—just the other day.
After
the murder.”
“Trying to see where his money went?”
Reid shrugged.
“Maybe he’s dissatisfied with the job,” he said. “Or maybe he’s looking to provide a bonus.”
“Was the break-in discovered?”
“Apparently not. Nuri had to drug a dog, but he covered that up. In any event, the mobster has been using the computer quite prolifically since he got up a few hours ago.”
“Since we’re in their system, maybe we can watch and see what happens,” said Breanna.
“We think more and more alike with each passing day,” said Reid.
“Scary.”
“Very.”
B
reanna sat at her desk staring at an old photo of Mark Stoner for nearly a half hour before putting the call in to Danny.
Part of her hoped he wouldn’t pick up; she wanted to put off talking to him for as long as possible. The other part wanted to get past this as quickly as possible.
Danny answered on the first ring.
“Can you talk?” she asked.
“I’m at the hotel,” he told her. “It’s fine.”
“We have more information on the Wolves.” She heard her voice crack. “And I have—there’s something I didn’t give you earlier. Because—for a couple of reasons.”
“All right.”
Breanna took a deep breath.
“We think that the people involved with the Wolves have been altered—enhanced is the better word,” she said, correcting herself. She remembered her conversation with Zen the night before, how he had initially dismissed it all as science fiction nonsense. “It sounds incredible, but we think they’re the result of experiments—that their bodies have been genetically altered, with drugs and in some cases biomechanical devices.”
“They’re supermen?” said Danny.
“That would be an exaggeration. The sorts of enhancements we’re talking about, we think, would increase lung capacity, say, metabolic recovery rates. Strength might be increased through implants, bone replacements, or the exoskeleton devices, the things that you were involved in testing—”
“You mean the wing?” said Danny.
“Exactly.”
Dreamland had helped develop a device that allowed soldiers to literally fly across the battlefield. Called by various names—Rocketman was more popular than Wing, which was the Whiplash nickname—the gear was used by special operations troops for select missions. The research involved in constructing it had found a much wider application, affecting everything from parachutes to the jacks that helped ordies load bombs and missiles onto aircraft. A civilian company had used the technology to create one-man cranes and lifts, which it planned to introduce to the market in a few months.
“The truth is, we don’t have a lot of details,” continued Breanna. “We’re making guesses based on some eyewitness accounts which, as you know, aren’t always credible. But we have a video showing one of the Wolves moving with incredible speed while another puts his fist through the side of a car.”
“Wow.”
“The video is very sketchy. It’s some sort of laboratory piece. Very low resolution.”
“Not a sales brochure, huh?”
“Danny, this is serious. The sources are sensitive. Highest code word.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s something else. Something that affects us both.”
Breanna paused. Danny didn’t say anything, and the silence immediately struck her.
Does he know what I’m going to say? Has he somehow intuited it?
“I think—there’s some evidence,” she started, losing her steam, “that—one of the Wolves may be Mark Stoner.”
Danny still didn’t say anything.
“The— There’s a visual similarity in the video. I noticed it right away,” Breanna continued. “It’s eerie, if it’s a coincidence. It may be a coincidence. But . . .”
The phone line was so silent, Breanna almost wondered if she had lost the connection. But the computer would have told her if that was the case.
“The . . . there is other evidence,” she said. “I don’t know—it’s not conclusive, but here’s what it is. The killer on the assassination in China was drinking from a Coke bottle immediately before the murder. The Chinese gathered it and got a sample from it. They have saliva, and some drugs—he wasn’t drinking cola, it was some sort of maintenance drink we think, it had enzymes and amphetamine in it. In any event, the Chinese analysis of the DNA material has something like a seventy-three percent chance of matching Mark’s.”
The percentage had to do with the original sampling technique used in recording Stoner’s DNA in the 1990s, as well as the quality of the material the Chinese had collected and the process they used to analyze it. Breanna told Danny about the doubts some of the scientists had mentioned, and the arguments that placing an actual number on the odds of a direct match were difficult and misleading.
“Do you think it’s him?” asked Danny when she finished.
“I don’t know. I simply don’t know.”
“Wow.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I—I wasn’t—I’m not sure that it’s him.”
“It’s all right Bree. I understand.”
She could have kissed him right then. She would have, if he were there. He was taking the news a lot better than she had when she first heard about the possibility of Stoner being alive.
“The Moldova connection,” Danny prompted. “What do you make of that?”
“That may be important,” she said. “I mean—it is where Mark was shot down. On the other hand, it could be a coincidence. It is a good place if you’re looking to have some quiet banking transactions.”
“I think I ought to look into it.”
“So do I.”