Travis Adams was the former Deputy Director and Director of the Counterterrorism Center of the NCS. He had been forced into retirement after an illegal arms trade scandal came to light, where US-made weapons ended up in the hands of terrorists. Justin had played a crucial role in Adams’s fall from grace.
It was McClain’s turn to go silent.
Justin saw Carrie waving at him. She had collected their suitcases and was walking toward him, pushing a luggage cart. Justin gestured at her to give him in a minute while he finished his phone call.
“Sir, you’re still there?” he said, turning around. Carrie was able to read lips, a technique she had perfected during years of training, before she joined the Canadian Army as an investigator. With that and interpreting facial expressions and body language, it would take Carrie five seconds to understand Justin’s conversation.
“Yes, I’m still here. I’m thinking about what you said. It’s not in the NCS’s best interest to bring up Adams’s affair. Not when they’re asking for a favor. They’ll have to bury the hatchet.”
“Hmmm, I’m not so sure, but we’ll give the NCS the benefit of the doubt. It’s been over two months since Adams’s sacking, so perhaps they have moved past him and old grievances.”
“Let’s hope so,” McClain said. His voice rang warmer, truthful. “We’re meeting with Ms. Margaret Moore and Mr. Aaron Podolsky. Moore is Adams’s replacement and Podolsky is the new Associate Deputy Director of Operations in the Counterintelligence Center.”
Justin nodded. New blood. Maybe a new approach. Friendlier.
“I’ve already pulled the files on both of them. I’ll give them to you tomorrow at our briefing,” McClain said.
“All right, sir.”
“That’s all. Enjoy the rest of the evening.”
“You too.”
Justin ended the call and turned around. Carrie was sitting on a bench near a coffee shop. The hall was almost empty. A single piece of unclaimed luggage was going around on the carousel.
“Bad news?” she asked when Justin got close to her.
“No. A work-related issue.”
Carrie paused, then pushed a wayward curl behind her left ear. Her auburn hair was flowing down her shoulders. “I’ve got some good… well, I don’t know if it’s good news.” A hint of sadness was visible in her moist, gray-blue eyes. Her voice was soft and insecure.
Justin sat on the bench next to her. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he said and looked into her eyes.
“I listened to a voicemail about the DNA test results of my father’s remains…”
“And?”
Carrie hesitated. “It’s… it’s a conclusive match. I’ve… I’ve found my father.”
Carrie’s father, a colonel in the Canadian Army, had disappeared during a covert mission in the late eighties in the Soviet Union. She joined the Army, in part, to learn about his fate, but for many years all her efforts had hit a dead end. Over the last few months, however, she had obtained classified information about her father’s gravesite, locating his remains somewhere in northern Grozny, Chechnya.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Justin spoke softly, unsure of whether those were the right words.
Carrie sighed. “Yes, it’s a relief. It’s supposed to be a relief. But I don’t feel any better.”
She reached over and fell into Justin’s arms for a tight embrace. “I feel… I feel so disappointed, Justin,” she said in a wavering voice. “I guess deep down, in a small part of me, I still held hopes he was alive, somewhere out there, and I would see him again. Alive, strong, tall, as I remember him. Now that hope is gone.”
Justin said nothing, since nothing he could say was going to console Carrie. He just held her in his strong arms, the only support he felt he could give her at that moment.
Carrie sniffled and took a moment to fight back tears. She sighed, then said, “I’ll be okay. I’ve got to tell my mom, arrange for the funeral, so many things.”
“Let me know how I can help,” Justin said. “You can count on me for anything you need.”
Carrie nodded. “I appreciate it. And I’ll take you up on the offer.”
“Anything you need. I’ll be there for you, Carrie.”
Chapter Seven
It had been quite a busy morning for Justin, even though he was back in Ottawa, and it was one of his non-operational days.
He woke up at 6:00 and went for his five-mile run along the Ottawa River. He had stuck to his rigid schedule of running every single day, provided he was not in an authorized or unauthorized covert operation. It was around twenty-five degrees, and small flakes of snow were his constant companions through the woods and parks. It was still dark, as the sun was not going to rise until almost half past seven, so Justin stayed mostly on the dimly-lit trails and paths. He came to a set of deer tracks on the freshly-fallen snow and kept his eyes open, but saw no bucks or does. On the way back, he came across a flock of magpies, their raucous cackling filling the cold air.
Justin rushed through a hasty breakfast with Anna — who was a nervous wreck because of a major presentation she was delivering that morning in a crucial stakeholders’ meeting. He tried to assure her she was going to do well, and the meeting would go without a glitch, but Anna was still anxious. They made plans to meet for a nice supper and try to unwind at the end of their busy day.
The briefing with Carrie and McClain on the authorized kill in Bosnia and Herzegovina went better than Justin had anticipated. True to his nature, McClain asked a million questions to clarify certain aspects of the operation rather than to criticize small details. He informed Justin and Carrie that the Bosnian police had combed the area around the scene and had discovered the sniper rifle and the machine guns used in the ambush. They had no fingerprints, and the investigation seemed to have stalled. The Bosnian police had sought the help of Interpol, but McClain was not expecting any breakthroughs. A couple of local gangs had claimed the hit as one carried out for revenge, to beef up their ruthless profiles and scare the competition. In a matter of days, the story would start to be forgotten and collect dust in the police archives as the understaffed department focused its attention on another investigation.
Justin spent the next hour reviewing the files on Moore and Podolsky and the operations they had overseen. Between the two of them, they had worked for the NCS for over half a century. Still, there was not much information in the files because of the secret nature of their positions and the clandestine profile of their organization.
The NCS was one of the four directorates of the CIA, and its objective was to collect HUMINT, human intelligence, through covert operations. To accomplish that mission, the NCS undertook a vast number of complicated missions, mostly in hostile territories, the deadliest terrorist-infested areas of the world. In the harshest of conditions, under a complete veil of secrecy, those missions were carried out by the toughest of the NCS field operatives.
Podolsky had gradually climbed through the ranks of the most secretive branch of the CIA, while Moore had made quite a considerable jump after Adams’s resignation. Her position as Deputy Director of the NCS placed her just below the Director, Mitch Flynn, who ran the NCS as a quasi-independent agency, following the sentiments of a powerful group of US senators who had his back. NCS operations officers and paramilitary operations officers infiltrated a country, collected the necessary intelligence by any and all means, neutralized anyone and everyone who may have caught a scent of their operation, and did not give a damn about the fallout, if there ever were any fallout.