Final Strike--A Sean Falcone Novel Read online

  The window next to Falcone lowered and she leaned in. She was blue-eyed and did not cover her short blond hair with a cap. She aimed her handheld device at Falcone’s right eye, and, satisfied that his iris matched the image in her database, nodded to the driver. As soon as she entered the gatehouse and the two men stepped aside, the steel gate opened and the SUV rolled under a sign made with the words Freedom Land formed in twisted black metal. It reminded Falcone of those signs that greeted all who entered the Nazi concentration camps: Arbeit macht frei, Work Makes You Free.…

  The vehicle bounded down a rutted dirt road, a warning to visitors that life beyond the gate was not intended to be gentle. They turned into a long, tree-lined drive that passed between the brick gate posts and ended at the pebbly circular driveway of a perfectly restored plantation mansion. On the columned veranda waiting to greet him was Harold William Drexler, ramrod-straight in a pair of neatly pressed chinos, white shirt, red-and-blue striped tie, and a blue blazer. Drexler still looked every bit the stone-jawed military officer he had once been.

  * * *

  Harold William Drexler was little known outside the world of secret deeds and undeclared little wars. He had risen to the rank of U.S. Army Lieutenant General in that world only to fall after a scandal that was, as he put it, little bigger that a pimple on a gnat’s ass: A whistleblower claimed that Drexler had allowed his wife to travel with him aboard military aircraft when there was no official function that required her presence. A British prime minister once said, “A scandal may amount to a tempest in a teacup. But in politics, we sail in paper boats.”

  Drexler thought the charge was pure horseshit and was quoted as saying so (with four letters turned to dashes) in the New York Times. Recriminations followed, all petty in the scheme of things. This was a man who had gone toe-to-toe, mano a mano in a knife fight with Abu al Zakari, one of the most sadistic of terrorists in Western Africa, and had nearly cut him in half. But past heroics were irrelevant. His wife should not have been granted transportation on a military aircraft. Rules were rules, the hidebound Army declared.

  Drexler had said, “Fuck it. Take the stars and shove them where the sun don’t shine.” He retired rather than accept a public reprimand.

  On the day he retired he received several calls on his unlisted and encrypted cell phone from prominent officials of what President Eisenhower described as the military-industrial complex. The callers from the industrial axis of the complex did more than sympathize with Drexler. They put him on their boards, employed him as a consultant and an unregistered lobbyist, and finally financed his own entry into the complex via Global Special Services, a small private army.

  Drexler’s feats in special operations were legendary. While credited with a number of major combat operations against Al Qaeda, he operated in the shadows and back alleys of unconventional warfare. He was no moth drawn to the media’s tantalizing flame. In fact, he forbade all attempts to interview him, and his photograph never appeared on the cover of popular magazines. Those who lived in the cruel and violent world of counter-terrorism treated celebrityhood like an Ebola virus.

  Drexler had aged well since Falcone had first met him. His hair, always severely cut to reflect his military profession, had thinned, but not to the untrained eye. Although his waist was not as muscled as it once was, he looked every bit as menacing and in command as he did five years earlier when Falcone attended the ceremony marking his promotion to a three-star Army General.

  And here he was now, still in charge, still in command of a cadre of skilled operatives who, Falcone surmised, could kill upon a whispered signal. Drexler and his comrades no longer had anything to lose.

  Drexler hurriedly descended the stairs to greet Falcone. “Sean. Long time,” he said, embracing Falcone with a chest bump.

  “Five years at least, Drex,” Falcone said, embarrassed that he had never called to offer support to Drexler or to condemn the miserable way the Army had treated him.

  “You’ve been busy. A nuke in Savannah. And a mass murder at your law firm,” Drexler said.

  “Yeah. The gods seem to have it in for me.”

  “Gods?” Drexler said, pausing on the stairs, looking down at Falcone. “You think there’s more than one?”

  Falcone knew better than to trade barbs on religious matters with Drexler, a Christian fundamentalist. “I don’t think a lot about things these days,” Falcone said.

  “Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t have so many problems,” Drexler said, opening the broad white front door and motioning Falcone inside.

  “You’re probably right,” Falcone said, surprised when he instantly realized that his offhanded response veiled a deep feeling of discontent.

  Drexler led Falcone through the entrance hall and up the curving staircase to a wide landing and through the open door of what was obviously Drexler’s office. A fire was burning in a stone fireplace that stood nearly seven feet high. Falcone walked over to the fireplace and held out his hands.

  “Maybe not enough chill for a fire,” Drexler said. “But I like the sound. Besides, these bones need a little warmth.” It was Drexler’s way of confessing that after a career of absorbing physical pain, he suffered from arthritis.

  “Okay by me. And, by the way, I have a few more miles on you. So I understand what you’re saying.”

  Drexler went to his desk and motioned Falcone toward a chair between the fireplace and Drexler’s high-backed leather chair. On the wall behind his desk was a plaque bearing these words in the kind of pseudo–Old English lettering that Falcone connected with the Bible or outdoor church signs:

  The oath of office is an individual covenant with Almighty God, from which no man can be released by un-Constitutional actions, orders, or decisions.

  —MAJOR GENERAL EDWIN WALKER

  “You know, Sean. I have often seen people ‘looking askance’ in novels,” Drexler said, laughing. “I think that might be just what you’re doing right now.”

  “You’re damn right, Drex,” Falcone said, pointing to the plaque. “It does make me wonder—”

  “About me?” Drexler asked, still laughing. “Don’t worry. Many of my conservative clients—and those are most of my clients these days—feel comfortable in front of General Walker’s words. But I’d bet they really don’t know who the hell he is.”

  “President Kennedy fired him for insubordination,” Falcone said.

  “No, Sean. Kennedy formally admonished him after he told his troops how to vote and called Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman pinkos. No, Walker resigned. Like me.”

  “As I remember,” Falcone said, “Oswald took a shot at him once.”

  Drexler nodded and said, “Yeah. Sometimes even generals get shot at. Keeps them on their toes.” He leaned forward and abruptly changed the subject: “What’s up, Sean? Why are you here?”

  “Frank Carlton didn’t call you?”

  “Nope,” Drexler replied.

  “Well, what inspired him to give me your phone number?” Falcone asked. “And how did you get that code name ‘Chamberlain’?”

  “Sorry, Sean,” Drexler said, laughing again. “You know I can’t go into sources and methods.”

  So, Falcone thought, no fingerprints. A number to call, a visit to make. The rest is up to me. I’m walking into the deniability zone. He turned his eyes away from the plaque, looked out a window to a stand of trees silhouetted against a bright sky, and said, “I have not been given specific instructions, but I believe that I need your services to help me make an extraction.”

  Drexler put a finger to his lips and said, “We’ll get to your business at a better place than this office. No details yet.”

  “Okay,” Falcone said. “You’re the General. Tell me what you can about GSS.”

  “It’s a changing world out there, Sean,” Drexler said, shaking his head. “In the heavy days—Iraq, Afghanistan—we were getting contracts in the millions. Like State’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Instead of hiring their own secur
ity guys, they signed contracts and described us as ‘crisis analysts.’ Well, anyway, the U.S. started getting out of those nightmare places, and things started changing. Well, you know all that.”

  “I’m in what they call the private sector now, Drex,” Falcone replied. “I don’t know a hell of a lot of what’s really going on anymore.”

  “Well, that’s interesting, Sean. Very interesting. So you’re here as a private citizen?”

  “Yeah,” Falcone said. “That’s the deal.”

  Drexler looked uncomfortable as he handed Falcone a sheet of paper and said, “Sorry, Sean. But you have to sign this non-disclosure agreement. And I need your cell phone while you’re here.”

  Falcone handed over his cell phone and read the agreement, getting to the point with a lawyer’s eyes and translating two pages into a few words: Don’t tell anyone of your visit here. No notes, in writing or electronic.

  “That ‘don’t put the visit in your electronic calendar’ is new to me,” Falcone said.

  “It’s the damn Chinese hackers and the so-called cloud,” Drexler said. “Nobody has any privacy protection. Everything goes into the cloud and can be seen by any son of bitch with software he can pick up on the street. The non-disclosure order comes from my backers. They tell me how to run things.… safely.”

  “Well, whatever they’ve ordered, you seem to have done all right,” Falcone said with a broad sweep of his hands.

  “This place is rent-free,” Drexler said. “Owned by a conservationist who saved this plantation mansion from falling into ruin. He’s GSS’s biggest stakeholder, and he wanted the place occupied by a trustworthy tenant. I liked the mansion and its hundred acres even more. Privacy. And, when it was built in 1765 no one knew how to build mikes into brick walls.”

  “And you have an interesting neighbor if your boys need a workout. Where are your barracks?” Falcone asked.

  “Don’t need barracks. Most of my guys are temporary hires who sign mission-based contracts,” Drexler said, pausing before adding, “We make a point of being in the private sector. We do not have any relationship with Langley or anyone in the intelligence community.”

  “Okay by me. That’s what I want, too. Absolutely off-the-shelf.”

  “Right. Absolutely,” Drexler said.

  “But … it’s … expensive,” Falcone said. “And I’m not paying. Who is?”

  “No need for you to know, Sean. Sometimes GSS is philanthropic. Don’t worry. Okay?”

  “Okay. No more unnecessary questions,” Falcone said. He had learned long ago that sometimes there were situations with no questions and no answers, particularly about large amounts of money. He had to trust Drexler, just as Carlton had trusted him. And Drexler had his own need for deniability. So from now on, Falcone thought, we talk as if this is happening but not happening.

  Drexler pressed a button on his desk console. The door opened and a young woman—in her mid-twenties, Falcone guessed—stepped into the room. The men stood. She was wearing tailored gray slacks and a pale-green long-sleeved blouse. The young-but-professional look, Falcone thought.

  “My daughter, Annie,” Drexler said. She was as tall as her father and resembled him in a softer, subdued way. “She’ll take you to the library and find you a cup of coffee. Black, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll join you in a little while, and we’ll talk some more,” Drexler said, leaving the room.

  Annie Drexler lingered when she took Falcone to the library next to her father’s office. Falcone felt as if he were stepping into the eighteenth century. “It’s my favorite room,” Annie said. “Book, books, books. Those sliding ladders. Floor-to-ceiling windows. That big old globe with all those blanks for unknown places.” He recognized her voice from the Chamberlain instructions.

  She pointed to a chair next to a table with a ceramic lamp that looked old but was topped by a modern shade and contained a gleaming bulb. “Make yourself at home,” she said. “I’ll be right back with coffee.”

  Falcone walked around the room, looking at titles. He recognized many of the gold-embossed names; the newest one was Kipling. Magazines were neatly spread on a table in the center of the room. He picked up a recent copy of The Intelligencer: the Journal of U.S. Intelligence Studies, and headed for the chosen chair just as Annie returned with an old-fashioned white coffee mug. “See you in a few minutes … Chamberlain,” she said.

  26

  Thumbing through his second copy of The Intelligencer, Falcone had just come upon a John le Carré quote—the only real expression of a nation’s subconscious is its secret service—when Drexler’s daughter entered the library. The idea that he was part of America’s subconscious brought a smile to Falcone’s face.

  “What are you smiling at?” Annie asked, smiling herself. “The Intelligencer usually doesn’t have any funny things to say.”

  “Sometimes, Annie, laughing at the world is the only way to stay sane,” Falcone said, standing.

  “Dad says things like that sometimes,” she said wistfully. “Well, he asked me to escort you to the briefing room. Please follow me.”

  Annie led him down a short corridor with doors along each wall. She opened one, revealing a metal door behind it. She tapped six numbers on a keypad where a doorknob would ordinarily be and the door swung open.

  “A skiff,” Falcone said, using the acronym for “Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility.” She did not respond. The door swung closed behind them and recessed overhead lights came on as they entered. They were in what was basically a huge metal box.

  Falcone knew that the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies required that certain contractors entrusted with sensitive matters be obliged to work in skiffs containing special computers whose key strokes and other electronic emanations were also shielded from the outside world. The contracts laid out skiff specifications in great detail; no approved skiff, no contract. So, Falcone thought, Drexler is a government contractor. He’s getting paid from a black covert fund. He’s in the nation’s subconscious, too.

  Drexler sat at a metal table. Falcone recognized the design: The table’s legs were solid aluminum bars and its top was a solid aluminum slab. There was no place to accommodate eavesdropping bugs designed to slip into the recesses of conventional furniture. The chairs across the table from Drexler were similarly designed. Falcone sat directly in front of Drexler; Annie sat at Falcone’s right.

  “Welcome to my inner sanctum,” Drexler said. “I hope you have a good memory. We don’t take notes here. So, what brings you?”

  “I need an extraction,” Falcone replied.

  “Where?”

  “Moscow.”

  “A Russian?”

  “No. American.”

  “Snowden?”

  “No. I hope that bastard stays there forever.”

  “What do you need?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  Drexler raised his head to the metal ceiling for a few moments as if it held the answer. “Minimum, I figure four or five men. A getaway vehicle. And a Gulfstream G-550 to get him back to the U.S.”

  “Does a G-550 have enough legs?” Falcone asked.

  “Thirteen hours, maybe even fourteen, that should be enough,” Drexler answered.

  “And, I assume, you know how to get an untraceable G-550,” Falcone said.

  “Right,” Drexler said. He looked at the ceiling again and in a moment added: “You’ll need at least two guys who speak Russian. A top-notch driver. A technical guy—locks, turn off security cameras. That sort of thing. And two shooters—to create a diversion, if necessary.”

  “Shooters? In Russia? But—”

  “Don’t worry, Sean. They’ll just have Tasers.”

  “Fine,” Falcone said, looking relieved.

  Drexler smiled faintly and said, “Now then, who’s the extractee?”

  “Robert Wentworth Hamilton.”

  Drexler tapped the keyboard and an image of Hamilton app
eared on the monitor at the end of the table. “Here’s our boy, right?”

  “Right,” Falcone said, hiding his amazement. He thought he recognized in the background a drab wall of the FBI conference room where Falcone had been questioned about his temporary possession of a SpaceMine laptop that the FBI had linked to the law-firm shootings. He knew that Hamilton also had been questioned, and the FBI must have interviewed him in the same room.

  Falcone leaned forward and saw that Hamilton was at a highly polished table, which Falcone also remembered. And he could see another item dredged up from his memory: an aperture, presumably for a video camera, in the wall. At the corner of the image he could make out the edge of a yellow pad and a ruby pinky ring on someone’s left hand. Christo! Falcone thought, the nickname for Akis Christakos. Falcone knew that Christakos had gone with Hamilton for the FBI interview. And he knew that Christakos wore a pinky ring.

  “That’s an FBI photo,” Falcone said. “You got it from Carlton—maybe even from the FBI. This is a goddamn game. How much else do you know?”

  “Not much, Sean. All I know is that he’s there and wanted here. I honestly don’t know why he has to be extracted.”

  “Please, Drex, how can you say ‘honestly’? You’re obviously very well connected—and you’ve been briefed. Private citizen, my ass.”

  “It’s no game, Sean,” Annie said quietly, with a touch of anger. “Three days ago we were told we’d probably be hearing from you. And, from a source I can’t reveal, we received information that Hamilton is in the executive suite of the Hotel Baltschug Kempinski. I looked it up. The hotel is on the Moskva River, across from the Kremlin.”