A Brewing Storm

Concealing his emotions had always been something Storm did well. It was a necessity in his line of work. He would not give Jones the satisfaction of a reaction now. Or ever. Still, Jones had struck a blow. Storm and Clara had worked together. They’d been perfect partners on assignment-and in bed. She was part of the reason he’d decided to disappear. She was part of the reason he still wished that he were a ghost.

It was an ironic twist. Clara had been declared dead once, too. There was even a death certificate filed in Richmond that verified she had been killed. He’d believed it when Jones had first told him. He’d been crushed. She’d been ripped from his life, and for one of the first times in his memory, he’d grieved. He’d actually felt tremendous and overwhelming loss because of her death.

Then he’d discovered it was a lie. Jones had engineered it. Her death was for the good of the company. For the good of the country. But it had not been for his good. It had taken him a long time to accept that Clara had not died, that she had been somewhere breathing, eating, possibly making love with someone else, while he was grieving. Yet she had not contacted him. She’d let him believe that she had been killed. Why? Being dead seemed to be an occupational hazard when you worked for Jones. It was a professional requirement; only her death had cut him deep.

Storm wondered, Had his death caused the same reaction in her?

“Don’t worry,” Jones said. “Clara is out of country.”

“Do me a favor,” Storm said. “Don’t tell her I’m still alive. It’d make things. . complicated.”

Jones smirked, revealing rows of perfectly crowned teeth.

Did Jones have a heart? Or was he the ultimate Machiavellian company man? Ice-cold. Storm wasn’t sure, even after all of the years that he had worked from him.

“Whatever you want, Derrick,” Jones said, inhaling deeply.

“I want another promise from you,” Storm said. “When I’ve done whatever it is that you want, promise me that you’ll let me be dead again-this time forever.”

Jones leaned forward and stuck out his right hand to shake.

“You’ve got my word,” he said.

“My debt is paid?”

“In full. After this time, you’re done.” And then Jones added, “Besides, you’re getting too old, too soft for this.”

Storm returned his smile. “What’s so important that you called in Tangiers?”

“A kidnapping here in Washington, D.C.”

“You called in Tangiers because of a kidnapping?” Storm repeated in an incredulous voice.

“There’s more to it.”

With Jones there always was. His mind was already racing. He knew Jones would not be calling him out of his self-imposed retirement because of a kidnapping. It didn’t make sense. The CIA was not authorized to operate inside the borders of the United States. Kidnappings fell under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and although in public the CIA and the FBI always presented a united front, Storm knew there was an intense rivalry between them. That was putting it mildly. Jones despised the FBI’s current director, Roosevelt Jackson.

“Who’s been kidnapped?” Storm asked.

“The stepson of a U.S. senator,” Jones replied. “His name is Matthew Dull, and his stepfather is Senator Thurston Windslow from Texas.”

Thurston Windslow. The first player in the Kabuki play that was about to begin. Windslow was one of the most powerful senators on Capitol Hill and chair of the U.S. Select Committee on Intelligence-the oversight committee charged with keeping an eye on the CIA and Jedidiah Jones. No wonder Jones was interested. But there had to be other players and more to this than a kidnapping.

“Who kidnapped his stepson?” Storm asked.

Jones waved his cigar in his hand, dismissing the smoke around him and Storm’s inquiry in one move. “We’re on our way to Windslow’s office. He can fill you in. That way you will go into this fresh without any preconceived impressions.”

It was classic Jedidiah Jones. Storm had been here before. Jones liked his officers to assess situations on their own-to come up with their own opinions. He wanted to see what they would learn. He wanted to see if they might discover something that he might have missed. Jones would give them just enough to get them started and then feed them information if they needed it, when he felt they needed it, and only if he felt that they needed it. Jones played it close to his vest, and even when you had completed a job, you were never really sure of how it fit together with some grander plan. Only Jones understood the master plan. He operated in a world of smoke and mirrors where nothing was what it appeared and nothing could be taken at face value. Even those closest to him were never confident that they knew what Jones was orchestrating.

Storm said, “What about the FBI?”

Jones shrugged. “What about them? They’re on the case. The special agent in charge is a woman named April Showers.”

Another player enters the game.

“April Showers? Is that her real name?”

“Yes, it is. Her folks must have had a sense of humor. Or they were hippies from the sixties. Either way, she’ll be at the senator’s office when we get there.”

“And who am I supposed to be?”

“You’re a special advisor. You’re name is Steve Mason. That way Derrick Storm can remain dead.”

“And if something goes wrong, there’s no Steve Mason to be found.”

“Exactly,” said Jones.

“It seems like a lot of trouble-bringing me back and giving me a false identity-just for a kidnapping.”

Jones blew out a series of perfect smoke rings. “It’s sad really,” he said. “Smoke rings. With everyone banning smoking, it’s becoming a dying art.”

Chapter Three

Through the bullet-resistant windows of the black limousine, Storm saw the U.S. Capitol dome rising before them as they rode east on Constitution Avenue. It was an impressive sight, especially brightly floodlit at night.

The car passed the Russell Senate Office Building (SOB), which was the first of three ornate office buildings used by the nation’s one hundred elected U.S. senators. In a city obsessed with acronyms, Storm had always thought the shorthand SOB seemed a fitting description for where senators did their business.

The Dirksen SOB was next. Opened in 1958, it had been known for nearly two decades simply as SOB Number Two, until Congress decided to name it after the late Illinois Republican Senator Everett M. Dirksen, an orator so famous that he’d been awarded a Grammy for an album of his patriotic speeches called Gallant Men.

Senators loved naming buildings after their own.

When the limo stopped at the Dirksen SOB’s western entrance, the SPS security officer in the front seat jumped out and darted inside to alert the Capitol Hill Police officers on duty that two VIPs were arriving. Jones and Storm would not be delayed by security checks. There would be no walk-through metal detectors, no searching of briefcases and emptying of pockets. Instead, both men were quickly escorted to Senator Windslow’s office, where a secretary immediately led them into the senator’s inner chamber.

As with most other things on Capitol Hill, senate offices were doled out based on seniority and power. The bigger the office, the more important the senator. Windslow had been assigned the largest office in the Dirksen. His private domain had fifteen-foot-tall ceilings, ornate carved wooden bookcases, and thick carpet. Expensive brown leather sofas and overstuffed chairs faced an executive desk made of polished mahogany that had clearly not come from some General Services Administration warehouse. One wall was covered with framed photographs that showed the senator posing with foreign presidents and dignitaries. It was proof that Windslow relished his power and clearly enjoyed taxpayer-funded junkets to exotic locales. Another wall was decorated with the Texas state