one
Austin, Texas
Four shots rang out in quick succession, the retort thunderously loud even through my Peltor hearing protection. I detested indoor shooting ranges with their close confines and dingy interiors. Some jackass with a hand cannon always seemed to be in the lane next to mine, and today was no exception. Whatever. Shooting under crappy conditions was still shooting, and that beat the alternative.
Usually.
"What's he hitting?"
"Air," I said, eyeing the target adjacent to mine.
The crisp white paper overlaid with a bad-guy silhouette swung merrily beneath its metal hanger without a care in the world. I could see why. A scattering of holes graced the paper's edges, but the black target lines spiraling outward from the center were completely unbroken.
"You're kicking butt," I said, turning back to my own lane and the woman sharing it. "Put another couple pairs center mass, and we'll call it a day."
"Already?" the woman said. "You must have other plans. Or something."
As a matter of fact, I did have other plans.
Or something.
But I knew better than to take the bait.
"Less talking. More shooting."
I gave the instructions in my no-nonsense firearms-instructor's voice, and the woman responded accordingly. Settling into a shooter's stance, she adjusted her balance and extended a 9mm Glock away from her chest in a two-handed grip. Her hips shifted as she transferred weight to the balls of her feet. The movement was slight but noticeable.
At least to me.
Then again, I do love my wife's hips.
I reached forward, touching Laila's back. "Remember to square your shoulders," I said, fingertips pressing against her smooth, silky skin.
My wife was an exquisitely beautiful woman. With a Pakistani father and an Afghan mother, Laila was a melting pot of genes from one of the world's most ethnically diverse territories. Modern-day Afghanistan and Pakistan had hosted countless foreign conquerors, and Laila's appearance reflected the region's collective influence. Her dark complexion and waves of midnight hair framed emerald eyes that left me speechless.
This morning, she was wearing a simple white tank top paired with tight faded jeans and a ballcap embroidered with the Texas Gonzales flag. But there was nothing simple about the way the cream-colored shirt highlighted her almond skin or the thick black ponytail tumbling down her back. On a normal day, my wife was distracting.
Today, she was intoxicating.
"More coaching," Laila said. "Less touching."
She adjusted her stance again, snugging her hips against mine. Laila squeezed off a pair of shots before I could reply, but that didn't matter.
I'd lost the capacity for speech.
Laila followed up her first aimed pair with a second and then a third. The silhouette sported six new holes, all within the ten ring. The paper target was only five meters distant, but there was no doubt that Laila was getting the hang of this. I was a good coach, but she was a highly motivated student.
For good reason.
Her Glock's slide locked to the rear after the final shot. Laila ejected the spent magazine and placed it and the pistol on the tray in front of her. Just like she'd been taught.
"How'd I do?" Laila said, facing me.
I could tell by the way her green eyes sparkled that she already knew the answer. Even so, she'd more than earned a compliment or two. As her instructor, it was my job to give them.
"You did-"
The hand cannon erupted.
Again.
I jumped, and Laila shrieked.
A peal of male laughter greeted Laila's decidedly feminine exclamation, followed by an admonishment to grow a pair.
Charming.
"Just a sec," I said. "I've got to take care of something."
"Where are you going?" Laila said, grabbing my biceps.
"Only be a minute," I said, smiling the smile that had melted the hearts of interrogators the world over.
"Matthew," Laila said.
Her green eyes were no longer sparkling. They were shimmering. This was a very important distinction. Sparkling eyes meant a happy wife. Shimmering ones were akin to the buzzing of a rattlesnake's rattle.
"Quick chat with our neighbors," I said. "Nothing more."
"You're a spy," Laila said. "You lie for a living."
She had me there.
"But never to you," I said. "Besides, lying's only a small part of the job. I mostly build bridges of cultural understanding."
"Bridges to nowhere," Laila said.
Her tone was still less than pleased, but her eyes were no longer shimmering. Good. A pissed-off wife meant that my other plans were dead on arrival. On the other hand, a happy wife raised my chances of getting lucky a second time to at least fifty percent.
I'd toppled governments with less.
"Right back," I said.
This time my smile wasn't forced.
I'd been operational for the last six weeks and had just flown back into country the previous evening. We were at the shooting range this morning because Laila wanted to practice, but I had plans to help her out of her tank top once we got home. No way was I going to let a couple of redneck jackwads interfere.
Laila frowned, but she didn't ask me to stay.
Progress.
Sliding around the length of sheet metal dividing our lane from the hand cannon, I introduced myself to the gentlemen on the other side.
"Y'all need help?" I said, smiling my second-best smile.
My first-best smile was reserved for Laila.
And sometimes men who wanted to kill me.
My sudden appearance caught the shooters by surprise. They jumped at the sound of my voice. I thought that was funny.
They did not.
"Help with what?" the one on the left said.
He had the thick build of a former athlete whose frame now sported more fat than muscle. The smedium shirt he wore stretched Saran Wrap-tight across his pudgy chest jiggled as he spoke.
"Great question," I said, still grinning ear to ear. "From the looks of your target, you probably think I'm offering shooting pointers. I'm not. I'm just wondering if you need help with anatomy."
"Anatomy?"
This time the question came from the gentleman on the right. He looked as if he'd stepped from the pages of Soldier of Fortune magazine. Asolo boots, 5.11 pants, and a PFG shirt.
A regular tactical ninja.
"Yep," I said. "You geniuses just asked my wife to do something anatomically impossible. That means you're either idiots or rude. I'm hoping for idiots, because acting rude to my wife carries consequences. Or maybe this is all just a big misunderstanding and y'all want to apologize. What's it gonna be?"
The men sized me up before sharing a look. I understood. At six feet and one hundred eighty-five pounds, I wasn't physically insignificant. But neither was I Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 1980s Arnold Schwarzenegger, that is. Today's Arnold was still fit, but I could take him.
Probably.
In any case, I was sporting what Laila playfully termed my ragamuffin look. At least I hoped it was playful. My hair was long and my beard scruffy, but the Wrangler pearly-snap shirt I was wearing framed the wide shoulders and broad back of a person for whom physical fitness was more than just a passing fancy. Put that all together, and I don't know what you get. But whatever it was didn't seem to be enough to convince Beefcake and Mr. Ninja to back down.
"Who the hell are you?" Beefcake said, folding his arms across his chest.
Now we were getting somewhere.
"Great question," I said, my smile widening. "I'm-"
"Drake? Is there a Matt Drake here?"
The question came from behind me. I turned to see the man from the gun range's check-in counter holding open the door to the shooting lanes.
"I'm Drake," I said.
"Phone," the man said, "inside. Says he's your boss."
"I'm on vacation," I said.
"He said you'd say that. He also said to tell you that people who hunt terrorists don't take vacations. Pick up the phone or he'll send the FBI. Again. Sorry-his words."
"I'm coming," I said.
I waited a beat for the man to leave and the heavy soundproof door to close behind him. Then I turned back to Beefcake and Mr. Ninja.
"We're short on time, so I'll cut to the chase," I said. "Apologize to my wife, and we can all leave happy. Refuse, and I'll be forced to come find you after I finish putting another jihadi in the dirt. So what's it gonna be? Now or later?"
They chose now.
Bridges to nowhere, my ass.
two
Matthew? Is that you?"
"Yep," I said, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder as I packed my shooting gear into my range bag.
Even though our range time had been nearly complete before the interrupting phone call, Laila had been less than thrilled with our abrupt departure. She was now in the gun store attached to the range, expressing her annoyance in a manner designed to get my attention.
Shopping.
Shopping for a baby Glock to carry in her purse.
What a woman.
"Then use your man voice. I can barely hear you over this racket."
I paused in the middle of zipping the bag closed. The check-in guy had been kind, or terrified, enough to let me take the call in his office. The soundproofing in the door and walls rendered a silence absolute enough to hear my heartbeat.
"Where are you, Chief?" I said, dreading the answer.
"At a slam-poetry reading. At least, that's what the sign says. But none of it even rhymes. And don't get me started on the audience full of hipster jackasses. Cups of fufu coffee are the only thing slamming in this joint."
I could hear the disappointment in his voice even as I took a seat in the flimsy chair opposite the metal desk. Defense Intelligence Agency Branch Chief James Scott Glass, former Army Special Forces team sergeant and current night terror to jihadis everywhere, was attending a slam-poetry reading.
If this wasn't a sign of the apocalypse, I wasn't sure what was.
"Can you hear me now?" I said, shouting into the phone.
"No," James said. "Between the screaming from the stage and the yapping audience, I've been in firefights that were quieter. Wait one. QUIET."
The silence that greeted James's outburst made my soundproof room seem loud.
My boss certainly knew how to work a room.
"Speak, Matthew," James said, coming back on the line.
"Still here, Chief," I said.
I debated barking, but didn't. Mostly because I was an adult and whatever had James desperate enough to call me from a slam-poetry session probably wasn't a laughing matter. But also because even ten years into forced medical retirement, my boss was not a man to be trifled with.
"Good," James said. "I need you to come in. Now."
"I just landed last night. I haven't even been home for twelve hours. I'd remind you that I'm on vacation, but I suspect you're not familiar with the term. It's Sunday. Give me twenty-four hours with my wife, and I'll grab the direct to Washington Reagan tomorrow. I'll be in the office before lunch. The world's not gonna end today."
I thought it was a pretty good argument.
James didn't agree.
"You're not going to DC," James said. "Our embassy in Vienna had a walk-in."
Walk-in was slang for someone who came in off the street purporting to have information of interest to the US government. The vast majority of these folks were people hoping to trade something of minimal value for the ultimate prize-US citizenship. As such, walk-ins were normally relegated to the most junior CIA or DIA officer. But occasionally something of value did stroll in the door. If James was calling, I had to think the Vienna walk-in fell into this category.
"Can you give me any specifics?"
"Not over an open line. But I will say this-the walk-in asked for you. By name."
That was interesting, but not entirely unexpected. As an officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency, I ran and recruited assets the world over. While the goal of every recruitment was to snare an asset who produced meaningful intelligence for the duration of their career, this wasn't always the case. Sometimes an asset transitioned to a job without the requisite access. Sometimes they just stopped producing. When this happened, the asset was formally closed, but I always tried to part ways on good terms.
Every now and then, dormant assets found themselves in a position where they could again become useful. This was why I always provided mine with an email address and a phrase to employ if they needed to reestablish contact. These instructions didn't include plans to visit the American embassy, but the assets I ran were, by and large, intelligent men and women. If they believed that a crash meeting at the embassy was necessary, I wasn't going to second-guess them.
As embassies went, Vienna was one of the most crucial. Although the Cold War had ended more than thirty years ago, Vienna was still a city of spies. Its central European location made the Austrian capital a geographical crossroads between East and West. Vienna would be an ideal venue for a spy on the run to contact an old handler.
"Which of my aliases did the walk-in use?" I said.
"You're not listening, Matthew," James said. "He asked for you by name. Your true name."
I sucked in a breath, contemplating James's answer. Like any sane handler, I never operated under true name. If this man knew my identity, he merited my attention.
"What's his name?" I said.
"Wouldn't give one. Just a message. He said to tell you the Irishman was calling in a favor. Ring a bell?"
It did.
"I'm booking a ticket to Vienna," I said.
"No need. A Gulfstream's sitting on the tarmac at Austin-Bergstrom. Get moving."
three
Somewhere over the Atlantic
The fading orange light streaming through the cabin window caressed Laila's sleeping face with gentle fingers as we hurtled east. Though the converted futon in the Gulfstream's conference room comfortably fit two, half the bed was empty. My wife was curled against me, head pillowed in my lap, midnight hair spilling across my legs.
I wasn't complaining.
After hanging up with James, IÕd gone to tell Laila the bad news with more than a little trepidation. WeÕd both agreed that DIA, even with its long absences, was still the best place for me. For now. But to mitigate some of the strain the frequent separations placed on our marriage, IÕd worked out an arrangement with James. Laila and I could live in the city weÕd both come to love-Austin. In exchange, IÕd deploy when needed. But when I was home, I worked from Austin with the mutual understanding that this ÒworkÓ consisted mainly of being available should James need me.
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