Close beside the Spanish-style mansion used as a headquarters for the Quartet Directorate’s American station, a simple stone column rose at the center of an elegant, carefully maintained garden. Loosely modeled on those put up after the Second World War by veterans of the British Special Operations Executive to honor their fallen comrades, the pillar bore only an inscription— “They Gave Their Lives So That Others Might Live”—and a list of names. Two new ones had been engraved: Alain Ricard and Mark Stadler.
Now Nick Flynn, Laura Van Horn, and Gwen Park stood in a solemn line, facing Fox. They each held a glass of whiskey.
“We fight our battles in secret,” Fox said quietly to them. “Without acclaim. Without cheers. Without parades. And without public honors.” He looked somber. “What we accomplish is known to us alone. As are the losses we bear, painful though they are. This is our burden. And a heavy burden it is.”
Flynn nodded and saw the others doing the same.
“But we bear it nonetheless,” the older man continued gently. “Because the inscription this pillar carries is the truth. We risk our lives — and sometimes lose them — not for money or medals, but for the freedoms and lives of others, others we may never even know. We do it, because it must be done.” He raised his glass. “To fallen friends and comrades!”
“To fallen friends and comrades!” Flynn said firmly, echoed by Van Horn and Park.
With one quick motion, they all drained their glasses, to the very bottom, and then hurled them against the base of the pillar, where they shattered. The glittering fragments of other such final toasts, made over the course of many years and decades, gleamed in the sunlight there.
Later, sitting with Flynn and Van Horn on the tiled veranda that ran the length of Avalon House’s lakeside, Fox briefed them on the fallout thus far from their daring raid against the Gulf Venture. “To date,” he said dispassionately, “the news of an underwater nuclear blast in the middle of the Atlantic has been kept from the public and the press.”
Flynn nodded. That wasn’t surprising, in a way. Their battle occurred far outside the normal shipping and air traffic routes, so there were no witnesses to the massive explosion. “What about the sub the Russians lost?”
“Moscow has reported the apparent sinking of its converted ballistic missile submarine, the Podmoskovye,” Fox told him. He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “But they’re blaming the loss on a probable torpedo accident during the Northern Fleet’s most recent peacetime naval exercise.” He smiled thinly. “As part of the cover-up, Zhdanov has ordered a massive search and rescue operation in the Arctic waters off Russia’s northern coast… to ‘find Captain Nakhimov and his gallant sailors.’ Naturally, of course, their efforts haven’t succeeded in turning up any trace of the missing submarine.”
“Naturally,” Van Horn said with disgust.
Flynn leaned forward. “What about our own government?” he asked curiously. “They must know that a warhead went off.”
Fox nodded seriously. “They do. And the entire intelligence community and the whole of the defense and political establishments have been scrambling to try to figure out what just happened. Without any success… as yet.”
“Do they have any theories?” Flynn asked.
“A few,” Fox said with a wry smile. “The CIA’s upper echelons are apparently convinced that something must have gone wrong aboard the Gulf Venture—resulting in the premature detonation of the missile the Iranians were smuggling.” He steepled his hands. “In fact, my understanding is that Langley has decided to toot its own horn in administration circles by slyly suggesting one of its own covert operations was actually responsible for thwarting a major terrorist nuclear threat against the United States.”
Flynn and Van Horn stared at him in disbelief. “You’re kidding me,” Flynn growled. “We took all the risks. We suffered all the losses. So that the CIA’s pencil pushers and ass-kissers can claim all the credit? For preventing an attack they ignored from the very beginning?”
Fox nodded. “I told you the truth a few moments ago, when we honored Alain and Mark,” he reminded them quietly. “This is the darker side of our secret war. And it is one we must accept. Four can only be effective — and, in fact, only survive — so long as we operate entirely in the shadows, outside the public square and beyond the control of risk-averse government bureaucrats.”
With a sigh, Flynn pushed away his disgust and anger. For the moment, anyway. One of his mother’s favorite sayings was that life wasn’t fair. That obviously went triple for anything in the world of covert operations. He sighed. “Well, if we’re skipping the medal ceremony for this mission, I guess I’ll take some leave instead.”
“In the civilian world, we call it vacation,” Laura Van Horn reminded him dryly.
He grinned back at her. “Leave. Vacation. Time off. I don’t care what it’s called as long as it involves lots of doing nothing much. Preferably on a sunny beach… with tall, iced, strongly alcoholic drinks.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Got anywhere in particular in mind right now?”
“Somewhere in the Caribbean,” Flynn told her. “Probably Aruba. I had a hell of a lot of fun there a few years back, when I was a just a kid. I bet it’s even more fun as an adult.”
“An excellent choice,” Van Horn agreed. She looked speculative. “I’ve been meaning to take a break myself. Care for some company?”
Flynn’s grin widened. “I think I could be persuaded.”
Sitting across from them, Fox, they suddenly noticed, had a thoughtful look on his face. “You know, Aruba is only a few miles off the coast of Venezuela,” he commented, almost idly. “And lately, we’ve been hearing some very disturbing rumors coming out of Caracas. Rumors we should probably investigate. So perhaps you could handle that for—?”
“No,” Flynn told him bluntly.
With a smile, Fox turned to Van Horn. “Well, then, how about you, Laura?”
She smiled sweetly at him. “Nick here is a man of very few words, Br’er Fox,” she said. “Personally, I prefer to be a little more eloquent.”
“And?” Fox asked, curious.
“Hell, no,” Van Horn replied.
Acknowledgments
As always, many thanks to Patrick Larkin for his hard work, expertise, and talent.
About the Author
DALE BROWN is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books, from Flight of the Old Dog to, most recently, Arctic Storm Rising. A former U.S. Air Force captain, he can often be found flying his own plane in the skies of the United States.
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Also by Dale Brown
Arctic Storm Rising
Eagle Station
The Kremlin Strike
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Price of Duty
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