Chapter Two – The Sanction
"You deal with this mess, Chip!" CIA Director Jacob Dench shouted in his sterile Langley office. "Corban Dowler is your mess! Clean it up!"
"Jake, it's not that simple." Deputy Director William "Chip" Buchanen crossed his legs while he sat in front of Dench's broad mahogany desk. He wondered why such a powerful man had such uncomfortable chairs for his guests. But then he realized he already knew the answer: Dench liked to watch people squirm in discomfort, as well as under his intimidation. "We're talking about Corban here, not some newbie. He knows every trick in the book because he wrote the book. Whatever move you and I respond with here—it'll be one he already knows. We have protocols. Corban will write new ones for himself."
"Yeah, but you suspected he'd changed. That's why we tested him with that London contract in the first place. What was the mole's name?"
"Kenneth Whitlock. A nobody."
"Right. You already knew Corban had lost his edge. Now it's been confirmed. So you're the one to get him, or find someone who can. Where are your loyalties, Chip?"
Chip bowed his head and tried to think strategically. Corban was his friend, or had been, but refusing to kill Whitlock potentially changed everything. The warrant for Corban's death had been signed and a body disposal team was probably on standby.
"I suggest we recall him, Jake, but first recall the H-T team we already dispatched. He'll know we sent hunter-tracers after him."
"Like you said: it's protocol. Let's keep up appearances until we can figure out his play." The director shrugged. "Why recall the team? A traitor is on the run. We know he's a traitor because he's running. You were right to have observers on Whitlock to see if Corban would falter. Maybe Corban's loyalties are with the North Koreans, too."
"That's not the problem. I told you, he has new religious convictions. I say we recall him and re-task him to another branch, something without wet work. He doesn't want to be sanctioned for those types of jobs anymore."
"How can we re-task a man we can't trust?" Dench slammed his fist on his desktop calendar. "No, you take him out, Chip! Do it as quietly as you can, before Corban can set up his defenses. We don't want a defector on our hands."
"And that brings up some risk calculations our boys did." Chip sighed. "If Corban does turn on us—"
"He's already turned!"
"I mean, if Corban responds aggressively with an actual offensive because of our pursuit of him, he could literally dismantle the Agency."
"No single man is that powerful. We have safeguards."
"Maybe intelligence safeguards, but what about the Endgame Protocol?"
"It's a myth, Chip; a story to make newbie agents dream. There's no such thing as an Endgame Protocol. We'd know it if Corban or anyone else had a network of spy contacts powerful enough to take us on—or to defend him from the full wrath of the United States government."
"But this is Corban Dowler." Chip chuckled and rubbed his jaw, wishing he was sitting in the director's chair and he was giving Dench orders. "He's been in the shadows for thirty years. Who are we to say he doesn't have resources off the grid? After all, he did design our disinformation database."
Dench rose from his chair and walked around his desk, his eyes never leaving Chip's face. Chip flinched when the director reached toward him. Though Chip was in better shape than Dench, he still didn't want to grapple with his superior in his own office.
Instead, Dench plucked the files from under Chip's arm, then sat on the edge of his desk.
"I assume you brought these for some reason." The man scanned through the six files. "Consider me advised otherwise, but I'm sanctioning Corban's end. I'm hardly in the mood for arguing, Chip, but I do trust you. After all, I'm trusting you with my daughter's search, aren't I? Any word on Kimberly?"
"Nothing conclusive. I'm sorry."
"What are the rumors then? We have people in India. They have to know something! Two weeks without contact, Chip. This is my daughter we're talking about!"
"Rumors. Your daughter was helping low-caste people in Haridwar on the Ganges River. You know her work was making enemies. Sharing freedom in Jesus to Dalits isn't popular."
"So is she dead or alive, Chip? Come on!"
"Kidnapped, it seems. If they had dumped her body, it would've surfaced by now, since she's a Westerner."
Dench shook his head.
"Sharing Jesus. My own daughter." He cursed. "I swear, she and Corban are plotting against me! Corban finds religion and my own daughter can't stop spreading it."
"This is our top priority in India, Jake. I'll let you know the minute we have any hard facts. Our best Far East agents are on it."
"Alright. Let's get back to Corban." Dench tossed five files onto his desk, but kept the sixth one. "You've classified the guy in this file higher than the others. Why? Who's Nace Scanlon?"
"An MI6 spook, practically off the books." Chip smiled. If he was going after Corban, so be it. He would enjoy the chase. "If anyone can catch Corban, Nace Scanlon can. His codename is Pyvox. Corban knows we're coming after him, so we'll send something he can't see coming: poison."
"Poison? How's that?"
"Scanlon was a biochemist before he was trained at Britain's Fort Monckton. They say this creep has shatter-proof vials of sodium pentothal and halothane up his sleeves. He designed a formula for dieldrin and released it to the Asian black market. The pesticide can be absorbed through the skin, simple contact, and thirty minutes later, after a violent seizure—death."
"Yeah, but does Corban know him? This . . . Scanlon?"
"Not as far as we can tell. He might know of him, but Scanlon is an expert at disguises as well. He's trained at subterfuge, and he can track a bit-stream through a binary blizzard, or however they track people on the Internet nowadays."
"Who cares?" Dench laughed. "Let the techies do their thing, as long as we get Corban. Okay, send Scanlon after him. The Brits won't mind us using one of their own, seeing as we didn't take care of their Whitlock problem. They enjoy cleaning up our messes. Makes them feel superior."
"I'll get a message off to them."
"And Chip? Get another unrelated European team on this right away, too, besides the H-T team we already dispatched. Corban might expect one frontal assault, but I want a layered pursuit. I want Corban Dowler taken care of within the week!"
*~*