State Sanctioned Read online

  “Like a very satisfied man.”

  He gave the mirror a toothy smile. “I am gorgeous, aren’t I?”

  Fang struck a pose beside him. “A gorgeous couple?”

  He nodded. “Yup. I’m gorgeous, and you make us a couple.”

  She swatted him, a feigned hurt expression reflected in the mirror. “Careful, I might just cut you off.”

  “Why punish yourself?”

  She swatted him harder. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  He presented an ass cheek. “You know I love it when you spank me.”

  She growled, heading for the bedroom. “You have a one-track mind sometimes.”

  He struck a pose just for himself. “Is that wrong?”

  “Not unless we’ve got plans.”

  He double-checked himself then inhaled quickly at the sight of the love of his life as she stepped into the bathroom, a stylish yet casual outfit accentuating her fit frame. “My God you’re gorgeous.”

  She beamed a smile at him then gave him a peck on the cheek. “Thanks!” She checked her watch. “Let’s go, we’re going to be late.”

  Kane patted her bum as they left the confines of the bathroom. “It’s not like there’s going to be any traffic.” They stepped out of their apartment and into the hallway. “Want to squeeze in a quickie on the elevator?”

  She flipped him the bird.

  “Huh, I didn’t think that was a thing in China.”

  “I’m picking up new habits.” She motioned toward the stairwell. “Let’s take the stairs. I skipped my workout. Every bit counts.”

  “I wasn’t workout enough for you?”

  She winked at him. “Baby, you’ve seen me work out. What do you think?”

  He had to acknowledge her point, no matter how much it might bruise his ego. Her workouts were intense. Incredibly intense. Far beyond anything he ever did. It accounted for her stunning body, every muscle and sinew on display when she was at full tilt, yet not bulging so as to make him think he might have a short dude in the sack with him. “I invoke my Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.”

  She grinned then opened the door. He reached out and grabbed her arm, a voice echoing through the stairwell, a voice out of place.

  It was too business like.

  He pulled her back into the hallway then cautiously stepped forward, his ear cocked, listening for anything, though hearing nothing but his own breathing. He silently stepped to the rail and looked down, then jerked back at the sight of a man in a business suit standing two floors down.

  At Leroux’s landing.

  And it was someone he recognized.

  “What is it?” whispered Fang.

  “I think I might have figured out who sent that message.”

  7 |

  Leroux/White Residence, Fairfax Towers Falls Church, Virginia

  CIA Analyst Supervisor Chris Leroux sat on his couch, fidgeting, while his far-too-hot-for-him girlfriend, CIA Agent Sherrie White, sat comfortably beside him, smiling at their unexpected guest.

  His boss.

  Their boss.

  National Clandestine Service Chief for the CIA, Leif Morrison, a man who had never set foot here before tonight.

  And had said little since arriving only minutes ago.

  Leroux stared at his watch again. “I’m sure they’ll be here any moment, sir.”

  “I’m sure they will. I should have timed my arrival to take into account your friend’s propensity for being late when having access to a beautiful woman.”

  Sherrie laughed. “You definitely know your agents, sir.”

  Morrison nodded. “Just the good ones.”

  Leroux noticed Sherrie tense slightly. He put an arm over her shoulders and she leaned into him. “Kane is definitely the best.”

  Morrison continued to stare at them, as if sizing them up for some test. “I’ve been following your career, Agent, with interest.”

  Sherrie stiffened. “Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”

  “You’re up for promotion.”

  Leroux’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  She glanced up at him. “You’re surprised?”

  He shook his head. “No, but you hadn’t mentioned it.”

  “I didn’t want to jinx it.”

  There was a knock on the door, coded.

  “That’s Dylan.” Leroux leaped to his feet and answered the door. Kane and Fang stood there, Fang with a bottle of wine in her hand, Kane with a look that told Leroux his friend already knew they had an unexpected visitor, and that he knew exactly whom it was. “Umm, glad you could make it?”

  Fang gave him a hug and peck on the cheek, then headed deeper into the apartment as he and Kane exchanged a quick thumping hug.

  “Good to see you, buddy. Do you entertain the Chief often?”

  Leroux chuckled, closing the door and locking it. “We have a standing dinner date once a week. Didn’t you know?”

  Kane grinned, slapping him on the back before stepping into the living area where Fang and Morrison were shaking hands, Morrison playing a critical role in the asylum agreement between Fang and the United States government.

  “I’m pleased to see you’ve made a life for yourself here.”

  Fang bowed slightly. “Thanks to you.”

  Morrison returned to his chair, waving an arm at Leroux and Kane. “I think there are others more responsible than myself.”

  Kane took her hand and they occupied their usual position on the loveseat as Leroux returned to his perch beside Sherrie.

  Morrison leaned forward. “I won’t waste any more of your time than I have to, though I’m afraid your evening’s plans might need to be rescheduled should you heed my request.”

  Leroux’s eyes widened slightly. “Anything, sir.”

  Morrison smiled. “You might not be so quick to accept, once I tell you what I’m about to tell you.”

  Kane exchanged a glance with his friend. “And why’s that?”

  “Because what I’m about to tell you, I have never told a soul in over thirty years.”

  Everyone leaned forward in anticipation, Leroux drawing in a shaky breath. “You can trust us, sir.”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t trust each of you implicitly.”

  Fang rose. “Perhaps I should leave. You barely know—”

  Morrison raised a hand, cutting her off. “Miss Lee, if my agents trust you with their lives, agents I have the utmost faith in, then I too will trust you.” He raised a finger, cutting off anything else from being said as he stared at each of them. “But I will tell you this. If you remain in this room, you will be privy to information that could mean the death of all of us, unless we can stop what has already begun.”

  Leroux’s heart hammered and Sherrie’s fingernails dug into his leg.

  “If any of you want to leave now, please do so, with my blessing. No one will think any less of you, I assure you.”

  Kane flicked his wrist at the statement. “You know me, sir, I’ve never run away from a fight.”

  “Me neither,” said Sherrie.

  Fang sat back down. “I would relish any opportunity to help, sir.”

  All eyes turned to Leroux. “Umm, well, it is my apartment, so I can’t really leave, can I?”

  Morrison leaned forward, everyone’s attention firmly on him. His heart rate was up a few notches, and he wasn’t certain if there was any one thing to point to for the cause. Was he scared? A little. He was prepared to die for his country when he was a young man, but those days of being an agent out in the field were long behind him. Decades behind him.

  And now he had a family.

  Whoever was behind the poisoning in Salisbury hadn’t cared about collateral damage. If they were going to kill him, then fine, but he couldn’t risk his wife or children getting hurt, or worse, in the process.

  And he didn’t know who he could trust beyond those in this room.

  He started with a little levity to break the tension that gripped his audience. “This is
before your time, but there used to be a country called the Soviet Union.”

  Kane’s eyebrows shot up. “Really? Tell us more!” His voice was one of mock eagerness, and loud exhales and smiles suggested Morrison’s tactic had worked.

  “In 1988, there was the Moscow Summit. It was a rare meeting in Moscow between Soviet and American leaders, and marked a turning point in the Cold War that had been underway since shortly after the end of the Second World War. Within three years of this summit, the Soviet Union had collapsed, and the Cold War was over.”

  “Only to be replaced with a new one,” muttered Leroux.

  Morrison agreed. The current state of Russian-American affairs was bleak, with no end to the hostilities in sight, but that wasn’t his concern at the moment. “As a result, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved, their military was left to crumble, and their economy, already a basket case, teetered on the brink of collapse. In time, they turned things around, and are once again a threat to world peace. But in 1988, the Soviet Union was still very much a threat, very much a superpower, and very much divided over their future.” He regarded each of them as he paused. “So divided, that there was a plot to assassinate the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev.”

  Kane leaned back in his chair. “Why is this the first we’re hearing of it?”

  “Because officially, it never happened.”

  Leroux’s eyes narrowed. “Then how do you know about it?”

  Morrison sighed. “Because I was there.”

  Kane cursed. “What do you mean you were there? There as in you witnessed it, or there as in—”

  “I helped stop it.”

  Sherrie smiled. “Director Morrison, super spy!”

  Morrison shook his head. “Nope, super lucky. If it weren’t for another agent, I’d have died that day, on my first out of country assignment. Listen carefully, because this is all I know, despite my security clearance. I was on patrol with my assigned Soviet counterpart. He spotted someone, a former member of the KGB, who shouldn’t be within the secure zone. I tried to radio it in, but our frequency was jammed and hijacked, fake status reports being transmitted including one in my own voice. My Soviet counterpart went to seek guidance at the command post while I pursued the man. I discovered two dead agents inside a building that had been evacuated for a staged public appearance by the two leaders in Red Square. I went upstairs, engaged the assassin, and was stopped by a gun to my back by a third person.”

  Kane whistled. “How the hell did you get out of that?”

  “The man I was pursuing assumed this person was on his side, and proceeded to set up his sniper rifle to take the shot, when the third man asked what color suit the target was wearing.”

  “Powder blue,” whispered Leroux.

  Morrison’s eyebrows shot up. “How did you know that?”

  “I watched a video on YouTube about it recently. I can’t remember why, just one of those rabbit holes you sometimes go down.”

  “Well, you’re right. The answer was powder blue. And that’s where it got interesting.”

  Fang cleared her throat. “Umm, it’s not interesting yet?”

  Morrison smiled. “The agent who got the drop on me then said something like, ‘So Gorbachev is the target.’ He said it as if he hadn’t known. This was when the man I was pursuing realized something was wrong, and the third guy put two bullets into his back.”

  “So, he was American?” asked Leroux.

  “At the time, I wasn’t sure. He just told me to get the hell out of there, tell no one of what I had seen, and that neither of us was ever there.”

  “So, what did you do?”

  “I got my ass back outside, never found my Russian partner, and just kept my mouth shut. Nobody asked me anything, the summit ended, and I tried to forget what had, or hadn’t, happened.”

  Kane scratched his neck. “Umm, one question.”

  Morrison chuckled. “Just one?”

  Kane grunted. “Okay, one to start. Were we sharing frequencies with the Soviets?”

  Morrison smiled at the astute question. “No, we weren’t.”

  “So then, our frequency was not only jammed, not only hijacked with fake status reports, but also those facts were never mentioned?”

  “Exactly.” Morrison held up a finger. “Though, keep in mind, I was a junior agent, not even a rung on the ladder of the chain of command. I have to think there were some questions being asked after the fact, but with nothing having ‘happened’”—he delivered air quotes—“then I have to assume it was dropped.”

  Leroux took a sip of his Diet Dr. Pepper. “With your clearance level now, surely you could read the file.”

  Morrison nodded. “I could. And I did. And there’s nothing in it.”

  “Huh?”

  “Exactly. No mention of anything with our comms being interfered with beyond a single reference to the Soviets following most of the agreed upon protocols with several minor exceptions noted in an addendum that was on a corrupted floppy disk.”

  Leroux returned his glass to the table. “That suggests someone with a significant clearance level was behind this. At least the American side of it.”

  Morrison regarded him. “That’s an interesting way of putting it. Why do you think there are two sides?”

  Leroux flushed slightly, the poor young man still not brimming with the confidence someone of his skills should be, though significantly improved over the past couple of years, thanks in no small part to the beautiful agent sitting at his side whose heart he had somehow captured. “Well, isn’t it obvious? Your partner spotted an ex-KGB agent inside the secure zone, who then tried to kill Gorbachev. That means Soviet elements were involved at some level.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And our comms would have been secure, so any jamming or hijacking had to come from either our end or the Soviet end, but the fact there’s no mention in the report suggests a cover-up at a senior level, at least senior level on the ground. And that means someone on our side was involved.”

  “Again, agreed, though it could be as simple as someone covering up the discrepancies after the fact, since the Soviet Union collapsed regardless.” Morrison motioned to the four glasses on the table. “Can I get a drink?”

  Kane raised a finger. “Scotch?” he suggested with a hopeful smile.

  Morrison chuckled. “I think we’re going to all need clear heads for the foreseeable future. Just water is fine with me.”

  Leroux rose to get it when Sherrie patted his leg. “I’ll get it. Something tells me you’re going to be more involved than I am.” She left for the kitchen, Morrison smiling his thanks.

  “Now, here’s one little piece of critical information I wasn’t able to garner until I became Director.”

  Sherrie returned, handing him a glass of ice cold water. “I hope you like ice.”

  Morrison nodded, taking a sip, his throat parched. “Love it, thanks.” He put the glass down on a coaster that Leroux slid across the table. “I found out who saved my ass.”

  Kane’s head bobbed with a smile. “You found the third man.”

  “Yes. And you know him.”

  Kane’s eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”

  “I never got his name, but I could never forget that face. The first chance I got, I went through all the agent files from that time. He wasn’t on the official detail sent with Reagan, but he was an active agent assigned to the region.”

  Kane threw up his hands. “You’re killing me, boss. Who was it?”

  “Alex West.”

  Both Kane and Leroux fell back in their seats, their jaws dropping, while their other halves exchanged glances with each other. Sherrie asked first. “Who’s Alex West?”

  Kane and Leroux stared at the carpet.

  Fang’s mouth opened slightly, her eyes widening in recognition, and Morrison was about to question his top agent’s ability to keep his mouth shut. “Wasn’t he Batman?”

  Kane snorted and Morrison suppressed a smile a
s her boyfriend corrected her. “Umm, that was Adam West, hon. And how did you know that?”

  “He died recently.”

  Kane’s eyes shot wide. “He’s dead! When the hell did that happen?”

  “When you were on assignment, I guess.” She held up a hand. “I think we’re getting off topic. Who is Alex West?”

  Morrison turned to her . “If we’re going to figure out what’s going on, we’ll have to have no secrets between the five of us. Alex West was one of our top agents for years, and was nearing the end of his career in 1988.”

  She nodded at the silent parties. “And how do these two know an agent that old?”

  “The Gray Network.”

  Fang’s eyes shot wide as her chin dropped. “Huh? Is that a fifty-shades for seniors thing?”

  It was Morrison’s turn to snort, memories coming back of his wife reading the books in bed, the line thankfully drawn at not seeing the movies. “No, it’s not a septuagenarian sex club, it’s an unofficial network of retired personnel, mostly CIA and other Western agents and staffers, that keep an eye on things using contacts built up over decades that trust them, but not ‘us.’”

  Fang shook her head. “I had no idea.”

  “Most don’t.”

  She looked at Leroux. “How do you know about them?”

  “They approached me a few years ago with respect to those Russian nuclear suitcase bombs.”

  Kane took a drink. “And I met some of them in Germany, and we conducted an op in France.”

  Fang’s eyes widened. “They’re still doing ops?”

  Kane nodded emphatically. “It was actually quite impressive, frankly.”

  Morrison raised a hand, cutting everyone off. “Again, we’re getting off topic. Special Agent West was the man who stopped the assassination attempt that day, ordered me to keep my mouth shut, and obviously helped cover up whatever happened.”

  “Have you talked to him about it?” asked Sherrie.

  Morrison shook his head. “Just ask Dylan how difficult it was to see him in the first place.”

  Kane leaned back, putting his arm across the back of the loveseat. “He’s a hermit in the Black Forest, excellent security, with a propensity to shoot first and ask questions later. Nice guy. Still got a little lead in the pencil, I think.”