blackness.
* * *
“A mole,” Krofft stared across his desk as Jonatha Midwood.
“Seems like very old times,” Jonatha said. “There hasn’t been a spanner in the works since Robert Hanssen in 2000.”
Krofft nodded. Jonatha Midwood was an analyst of his, one of a very special nature, who he had recruited himself. She was smart as a whip and twice as clever. She worked alone and apart. Almost no one within the Company knew of her existence, which was just the way Krofft wanted it.
“It used to be that ideology could motivate a mole,” she said now. “But not these days.”
Krofft pressed several buttons on his vast desk. Multiple LCD screens rose like ghosts from the tops of low cabinets placed along three walls. The fourth wall was entirely taken up by a complex electronic monitoring station, manned by four IT technicians.
“Ideology has gone the way of the corded phone and the fax machine,” she continued. “A forgotten, shadowed relic, a curio, nothing more.”
Krofft laced his fingers together as his hands lay in his lap. “So what are we left with?” His voice had assumed a professorial tone.
“Money.”
“Money, perhaps.” Krofft nodded. “But in Jack McClure’s case, I doubt it.”
Jonatha shrugged. “What else is there?”
“Love.”
The LCD screens were showing footage from Syria and Afghanistan, all of it unrelentingly loud, brutal, and bloody.
Jonatha tore her gaze away from bodies strewn along a rubble-encrusted street. “Love? Surely you’re joking!”
Krofft shook his head. “I’m deadly serious.”
“Share, if you please.”
Krofft smiled. He loved her occasional anachronistic phrases. “McClure is a formidable agent. He’s proved that time and again over the last several years while he was building up his bona fides with Dennis Paull and with homeland security in general, but he has a fatal weakness.”
Krofft swiveled around and signaled to one of the IT techs. At once, the war-torn images were wiped off the LCD screen directly in front of them, to be replaced by the face of a beautiful woman. Her thick, lustrous hair was pulled back in a ponytail, revealing a wide forehead and a widow’s peak. Her large, slightly uptilted eyes were a light brown with a scattering of reddish pinpoints, her lush lips sensual even without meaning to be.
“This fatal weakness has a name: Annika Dementieva.”
The image switched to a snowy scene in what was clearly Moscow. It showed Annika with Jack and an older man, who had the predatory eyes of a shark.
“She’s the granddaughter of the late, unlamented Dyadya Gourdjiev, the old man shown here,” Krofft continued. “A more devious, dangerous sonofabitch has never existed. It was a happy day for the United States when he was the victim of a hit-and-run in Rome last year.”
Jonatha contemplated the photo, her gaze roving from one figure to the next. “So McClure’s in love with the old man’s granddaughter. So what?”
“So,” Krofft said slowly, “it’s my belief that Annika Dementieva has taken control of her grandfather’s business interests.”
“Which are?”
For the first time, Krofft’s expression lost a semblance of its sharp edge. “Could be steel, oil, ore mining, arms trading, terrorist training. Might even be all of the above.”
Jonatha laughed softly. “You mean you don’t know what the old fucker did.” Not too many people could speak that way to the director of the CIA. She was one of the few.
“What we do know is that over the decades he was comrades with every powerful Russian official who occupied a Kremlin office,” Krofft said. “And if he wasn’t a friend of theirs, he was an enemy, which was too bad for them, because shortly thereafter, they disappeared, never to be heard from again. Suffice it to say that he dipped his beak into more pies than we can count, all of them stinking to high heaven.”
“Meaning?”
“We think he was supplying some of the top
* * *
“A mole,” Krofft stared across his desk as Jonatha Midwood.
“Seems like very old times,” Jonatha said. “There hasn’t been a spanner in the works since Robert Hanssen in 2000.”
Krofft nodded. Jonatha Midwood was an analyst of his, one of a very special nature, who he had recruited himself. She was smart as a whip and twice as clever. She worked alone and apart. Almost no one within the Company knew of her existence, which was just the way Krofft wanted it.
“It used to be that ideology could motivate a mole,” she said now. “But not these days.”
Krofft pressed several buttons on his vast desk. Multiple LCD screens rose like ghosts from the tops of low cabinets placed along three walls. The fourth wall was entirely taken up by a complex electronic monitoring station, manned by four IT technicians.
“Ideology has gone the way of the corded phone and the fax machine,” she continued. “A forgotten, shadowed relic, a curio, nothing more.”
Krofft laced his fingers together as his hands lay in his lap. “So what are we left with?” His voice had assumed a professorial tone.
“Money.”
“Money, perhaps.” Krofft nodded. “But in Jack McClure’s case, I doubt it.”
Jonatha shrugged. “What else is there?”
“Love.”
The LCD screens were showing footage from Syria and Afghanistan, all of it unrelentingly loud, brutal, and bloody.
Jonatha tore her gaze away from bodies strewn along a rubble-encrusted street. “Love? Surely you’re joking!”
Krofft shook his head. “I’m deadly serious.”
“Share, if you please.”
Krofft smiled. He loved her occasional anachronistic phrases. “McClure is a formidable agent. He’s proved that time and again over the last several years while he was building up his bona fides with Dennis Paull and with homeland security in general, but he has a fatal weakness.”
Krofft swiveled around and signaled to one of the IT techs. At once, the war-torn images were wiped off the LCD screen directly in front of them, to be replaced by the face of a beautiful woman. Her thick, lustrous hair was pulled back in a ponytail, revealing a wide forehead and a widow’s peak. Her large, slightly uptilted eyes were a light brown with a scattering of reddish pinpoints, her lush lips sensual even without meaning to be.
“This fatal weakness has a name: Annika Dementieva.”
The image switched to a snowy scene in what was clearly Moscow. It showed Annika with Jack and an older man, who had the predatory eyes of a shark.
“She’s the granddaughter of the late, unlamented Dyadya Gourdjiev, the old man shown here,” Krofft continued. “A more devious, dangerous sonofabitch has never existed. It was a happy day for the United States when he was the victim of a hit-and-run in Rome last year.”
Jonatha contemplated the photo, her gaze roving from one figure to the next. “So McClure’s in love with the old man’s granddaughter. So what?”
“So,” Krofft said slowly, “it’s my belief that Annika Dementieva has taken control of her grandfather’s business interests.”
“Which are?”
For the first time, Krofft’s expression lost a semblance of its sharp edge. “Could be steel, oil, ore mining, arms trading, terrorist training. Might even be all of the above.”
Jonatha laughed softly. “You mean you don’t know what the old fucker did.” Not too many people could speak that way to the director of the CIA. She was one of the few.
“What we do know is that over the decades he was comrades with every powerful Russian official who occupied a Kremlin office,” Krofft said. “And if he wasn’t a friend of theirs, he was an enemy, which was too bad for them, because shortly thereafter, they disappeared, never to be heard from again. Suffice it to say that he dipped his beak into more pies than we can count, all of them stinking to high heaven.”
“Meaning?”
“We think he was supplying some of the top
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