Coercion (39 page)

Academic City still exists, although it no longer functions
as a think tank the way it did during Soviet times.  Back then it was full of privilege, but devoid of freedom.  Now the opposite is true.  The suburb village of Torsk is fictitious, although Europe boasts a number of churches that echo like the one described there, as does the US Capitol.

The KGB was abolished by Mikhail Gorbachev
on October 24, 1991.  At its peak, the Committee for State Security was estimated to have over 700,000 employees, making it the largest organization of its kind in world history.

The Politburo, having transferred its powers to the Parliament a year earlier, ceased to exist in August 1991.  On August 31, 1991 Mikhail
Sergeevitch Gorbachev resigned as General Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee.  On December 25, 1991, one year after this tale concludes and four days after the Soviet Union itself ceased to exist, Gorbachev resigned as President of the USSR.

Though Gorbachev was immensely popular abroad, his reforms cost him the support of the Russian people.  In effect, the people of Russia shot the messenger.  Although I am encouraged that the world community chose to honor his sacrifice with the Nobel Peace Prize and Time Magazine’s Man of the Decade award, and am pleased to know that history books give favorable mention of the Gorbachev name, I am disheartened to find that so very few politicians have the decency to choose what is right for tomorrow over what is popular today.  Surely, that too cannot go on forever.

Dear Reader,

Thank you for reading
Coercion
! They say writing novels is easy, you just sit in front of the keyboard until blood comes out of your forehead, every day, until you’re done. I know that reading them takes devotion too, and I sincerely thank you for yours.

If you have comments or suggestions, I welcome them. You will reach me and receive a reply at [email protected]

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Coercion
, your kind review on Amazon or elsewhere will help keep the blood flowing. amazon.com/author/tigner

Thanks again. All my best,

Please read on to enjoy the first three chapters of Tim Tigner’s second global thriller

BETRAYAL

Now widely available in Audiobook, eBook, and Paperback.

Special Agent Odysseus Carr looked up at the graying tiles of his boss’s ceiling and began counting to ten. He almost made it to three. “What do you mean, I can’t brief my men? They’re putting their lives at risk, commander. Big risk. These aren’t stone-throwers you’re asking us to kill. These are the guys who took out the World Trade Center.”

Commander Potchak stood. He was a head shorter than Odi but built like a fireplug, and every bit as tough. “What’s your point?”

Odi leaned forward and rested predatory palms on the edge of Potchak’s metal desk. “My point, sir, is that we’re giving up a crucial advantage if we don’t rehearse. I want to give my men every available advantage. They deserve no less.”

Potchak did not twitch or blink. He just stared back cold and hard for a couple seconds and then said, “If you’re not up to it, Agent Carr, I’ll give Echo Team to Waslager. He’s been itching to go international. You can sit this one out—in isolation of course.”

Odi wanted to leap over the desk, grab his boss by the ears and put a knee through his smug face, but he knew that would not help his team. Instead he bit back his frustration and tried to suck it up like a good soldier. “That won’t be necessary, sir.”

Potchak turned and spat a thick river of tobacco juice into his trashcan, making Odi forget his own frustration for a moment to pity Jose the janitor. “Good,” Potchak said. “Now, if you’ll take your head just a little bit farther out of your ass and break this task down, you’ll see that I’m not ordering you to give anything up. The physics of the assault are the same whether it’s Hogan’s Alley or I-fucking-ran. A building is a building. A grenade is a grenade. Considering that you used to be the Bureau’s top Explosive-Ordinance-Disposal pro, you should know that. All you need to rehearse effectively are models of the buildings and the lie of the land. Both are at your disposal, so I don’t want to hear any more whining.”

Odi felt his stomach quiver with a pluck of doubt. He moderated his tone and reminded himself that Potchak was usually a reasonable man. “May I ask why, sir? Why the unusual level of secrecy? Surely you don’t think anyone on my team has links to al-Qaeda?”

“Oh Jesus, Carr. I’d have thought you’d understand that by now. Have you learned nothing about the way things really work these past two years? Counterterrorism is not a military matter; it’s politics. By limiting foreknowledge to the mission leader and myself, some politician feels that he’s protecting either his source or his ass. Probably both. I don’t know who the source is, or even the politician for that matter, but I’m damn sure that whoever reconned that complex risked his ass to do it. So I’m not without sympathy.”

Fighting back the urge to tell his boss what he thought of that, Odi picked up the satellite map to busy his hands. The complex in question consisted of three old cinderblock buildings in Nowheresville Iran. It would take each of his two-man teams less than two minutes to run their building’s perimeter, firing modified M441 high explosive Rocket Propelled Grenades. In the dead of night, it probably would not matter that the complex was in Iran. The commander was right about that. But Potchak was making a big mistake. A bureaucrat’s mistake. The instant things deviated from plan—and things always deviated from plan—being in Iran would make all the difference. As a hardened field operative, Potchak knew that. This discrepancy bothered Odi, but he was not going to risk losing his team-leader slot over it. “What did this secret source say about sentries?”

Potchak spat again and then sat down, signaling a truce.

Odi followed suit.

“There are usually just two men armed with AKs. One guards the entrance to the central building; the other walks a perimeter patrol. You’ll have no problem taking them out with synchronized sniper shots. Use those shots as a starting gun, as your team’s cue to begin the assault runs.”

Odi nodded. “An eight-man team might make more sense than the standard seven. If you’ll loan me Johnson, he and I could do that synchronized sniping from polar perimeter positions and then provide cover while the teams make their assault runs.”

Potchak cracked a wry smile that warned Odi he would not like what came next. “You’ve got the right strategy, but the wrong man. You’re getting Waslager. He’ll be your second sniper … and your second in command.”

Odi felt resentment run down his spine like boiling oil, but he could not stand up and get in his boss’s face again. He had already played that card. He bit his tongue while taking a moment to analyze the situation. The core problem was that nobody on his team liked Waslager, or worse yet, trusted him. He was a self-serving loner and a politician. Odi knew that was exactly why the brass did like him. The question he should be asking, Odi realized, was: Why did they like Waslager on this mission?

He set that thought aside for later and latched onto a negotiation tactic. Since aggression was out, he would try to back-peddle. “On the other hand, if I wait to shoot until the path of the second guard passes the first, I could take them both out—probably with a single shot if I use high-velocity rounds. Then we would only need—”

“Forget it, Carr,” Potchak interrupted. “You’re getting Waslager.”

FBI Director Wiley Proffitt set his wineglass down a little too quickly. A drop of blood red wine sloshed out onto the virgin white tablecloth, spreading with ominous portent. He was more nervous than he realized. He picked the glass back up and took another sip before locking his lover’s gaze. “How would you like to be First Lady?”

“Of the United States?”

“Um hum.” He grinned, feeling better already and enjoying the confused look that danced across Cassi Carr’s amber eyes.

She instantly picked up on his mirth and mirrored it. “Does the Director of the FBI know something about Anna Beth Carver that the rest of us mortals have yet to learn?”

“Actually, it’s Aaron Dish,” he said deadpan.

She leaned toward him conspiratorially. “The First Lady is having an affair with the Vice President?”

Wiley shook his head. For six months he had kept his earthshaking secret, neither hinting at the future that awaited them nor alluding to his secret pact. It felt great to share the big news with Cassi at last. He decided to start with the background, give her excitement time to build. “Dish has a health condition. He won’t be joining Carver on the reelection ticket.”

“I see,”
Cassi said, clearly not believing him but apparently willing to play along. Her eyes twinkled. “So how does that make me First Lady?”

“It doesn’t,” he said, shaking his head as she feigned disappointment. “You’re going to have to wait five years for that. In the meantime, it makes you Second Lady—come a year from January anyway.”

Wiley saw a flash of confusion cross Cassi’s brow. She appeared unsure if he was being goofy or serious. “Dish really is sick? Carver really asked you to join him on the ticket?”

“Yes and no,” Wiley said. “Yes, Dish really is sick. And no, President Carver has not asked me to be his running mate—not yet. But he will.”

“Oh, and why is that?” She asked.

Wiley leaned forward so that his lips were an inch from Cassi’s ear. He paused there to inhale her sweet perfume before whispering the prophecy. She was wearing a new scent. “Because terrorism is going to top the American agenda.”

She pulled back, sobered by his words. Her parents, after all, had died on 9/11. “You really are expecting an attack?”

“I am. You know all those homeland-defense speeches I’ve been giving of
late …?”

She nodded.

“They weren’t just typical keep-’em-scared politics.”

Cassi took a moment to chew on that one. He watched the gears spinning frantically behind her worried brow. “Maybe at one level they weren’t” she finally said, thinking out loud. “But nonetheless, it is because of those speeches that you think Carver will put you on the ticket. They were what earned you the Antiterrorist Czar epithet.”

Wiley raised his wine glass in a toast. “To your deductive powers.”

Cassi returned the gesture, but he could see that her mind was still focused on working through the implications of his revelation. When she looked up at him wide eyed, he knew that the other shoe had dropped.

“I’ll be Second Lady?” She asked, her voice a choked whisper.

Wiley tried to smile but his lips would not move. He tried to nod but couldn’t. Panic gripped him like a cold iron glove. He could not move his head.

As he struggled, Cassi continued, blissfully unaware. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

Wiley realized that a cold hand was clamped over his mouth. He endured a second of complete disorientation and then he understood. His conversation with Cassi had been a dream. The intruder in their bed, and the icy palm clamped over his mouth, were real.

Wiley’s eyes bulged in horror as the dark shadow over him shifted in silence. A prickly lump filled his throat as a muscled arm drew back. Fully awake now, Wiley strained to pierce the darkness, searching for the glint of the knife that would complete the picture and end his life. All he saw was fuzzy shadows. Part of his mind latched onto the fact that Cassi was sleeping beside him. The need to warn and protect her surged within his chest, but the heavy quilt, the vice across his face, and the fear in his heart pinned him like Christ to the cross.

As he prepared to buck and lunge, the bedside lamp clicked on and Wiley recognized the intruder’s face. His tension drained. He should have guessed.

Wiley looked over at Cassi the instant the palm backed off of his mouth. She was sound asleep. At least she appeared to be …

“Halothane,” his visitor supplied, reading Wiley’s thoughts. “Like
chloroform only safer.”

“And more aromatic,” Wiley mumbled to himself, recalling the perfume in his dream. Slowly, he returned his gaze to the midnight caller and voiced the obvious question with his eyes.

Stuart’s answer was matter-of-fact. “We need to talk.”

Stuart Slider was the invisible man. Compact, sinewy, and average of face. Every time they met he struck Wiley as unexpectedly small. He also enjoyed the annoying ability to appear and disappear at will. Or so it often seemed. Wiley was beginning to detest that trait.

“What the devil are you doing here in the middle of the night?” Wiley asked. “Do you need another hole in your head?”

Wiley had been secretly working with Stuart for six months now, but this was the first time that Stuart had set foot on his Chesapeake island home. Or, Wiley reflected, at least it was the first time that he knew about.

“We need to talk,” Stuart repeated. “Unseen, uninterrupted, and alone.” He stood, canted his head toward the door, and said “Let’s go to your study. No sense giving Sleeping Beauty here bad dreams.” Without waiting for a reply, Stuart reached out and extinguished the bedside lamp.

Wiley followed obediently, more out of curiosity than any feeling of subservience. They walked down the plushly carpeted hall to the room at the end. The massive oak door to his soundproofed study was ajar. An eerie glow leaked out into the hall from the three-hundred-gallon aquarium within. The ghoulish atmosphere seemed to suit a halothane-assisted secret midnight rendezvous, so Wiley did not turn on the lights when they entered.

Sleepless fish cast darting shadows about the room as pale moonlight trickled in from the east. Wiley sought his favorite armchair, a black-leather recliner. As he sat he discovered a steaming Starbucks cup waiting on the end table beside his right arm. Unbelievable, he thought. Stuart had never been to his island home before, and yet there the cup was—a low-fat latte no doubt—just what he wanted, right where he wanted it.

Setting the creepiness factor aside, the latte was both a thoughtful and insightful gesture. Yet its primary effect was to fan Wiley’s flame. The invisible, unflappable Stuart Slider did not drink coffee or tea or cola. He did not smoke. He did not drink. Wiley was not entirely certain that he even slept. Yet he was always awake, alert, and controlled. What a bastard.

Wiley picked up the familiar cup, more irritated at himself for being weak than pleased to have his fix. It was still hot despite the trip from the mainland. Stuart must have planned even that detail in advance and packed a thermos. Meticulous and a bastard. Wiley took a sip, nodded a perfunctory thanks, and gave his guest a get-on-with-it look.

“Is it true what I’ve heard about this room?” Stuart asked.

Despite the latte, Wiley wanted to go back to bed. He wanted Stuart to get to the point and then get out. But he knew from experience that playing along would get him there faster than resisting. “What have you heard?”

“I heard that the Secret Service turned your study into a fortress because you refused to have the Proffitt family’s ancestral estate updated with the technology and security advances of the past hundred years.”

Wiley rolled his eyes. “For an organization whose purpose is to protect national icons, the Secret Service has surprisingly little respect for history or tradition. I’m glad that I only had to deal with them that one time. They call it a panic room. It was a compromise.” He reached out and picked up a large universal remote control off the coffee table. “Allow me to demonstrate. First I’ll type in the code to let the system know that this is not an emergency, and then …” He held the square red button down with his thumb. After three seconds of constant pressure the door to the study swung shut. Hidden bolts scraped into place as titanium louvers began to lower over the bulletproof windows with a motorized hum. “Now we’re safe from everything up to and including shoulder fired missiles.”

Stuart looked about the room. “You’ve even got a bar and a bathroom in your bunker. Not bad. What’s through that door?” He pointed to the corner.

“It’s just a closet.”

“What about the cavalry?”

“If I had not told the system that this was a test, then the Hostage Rescue Team would automatically be summoned from Quantico by a beacon hidden in the roof.” Wiley pressed and held the red square again. The lockdown procedure reversed.

Stuart nodded in appreciation and then assumed a contemplative expression.

In that dim light, with his black-clad form framed against the black-leather couch, he appeared as little more than an intense set of eyes. The sight made Wiley think of an alligator in a tar pit. An alligator in a tar pit, he repeated to himself. Now there was the very definition of a Beltway lobbyist.

“I’ve come with news,” Stuart said.

Wiley raised his eyebrows.

“I’ve resigned my job as executive director of the AADC to work full-time on your campaign. We decided that the time had come, now that things are under way.”

Wiley did not want to talk about the American Association of Defense Contractors or the things that were now under way. In fact he had specifically asked The Three Marks to keep him out of that loop. Thus far his only tactical contribution to things had been supplying them with a list of useful names. He hoped to keep it that way. Still, Wiley did not fail to notice that we did not include him. “That’s awfully generous of you. Did we agree to give you your old job back after the campaign?”

Wiley saw genuine emotion flash across Stuart’s face in response to his words. That was a first. Despite playing poker for decades to hone exactly that expertise, however, Wiley could not tell which emotion Stuart had shown. Was it disappointment … or anger?

“I won’t need my old job back after the campaign,” Stuart replied.

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Because, after the campaign you are going to be Vice President—and I am going to be your Chief of Staff.”

Stuart’s statement hit Wiley mid-sip and he choked, coughing and spraying latte over the front of his scarlet pajamas. Stuart did not bat an eye at his discomposure, and Wiley figured that the bastard probably had his timing planned. “Is that what you came here to tell me?” Wiley asked, mopping his chin with his sleeve. “Is that why you broke into my home in the middle of the night, drugged my girlfriend and dragged me out of bed—to talk about your career?”

“No.”

“No?”

Stuart shook his head.

Wiley felt his stomach drop.