Contingencies Read online

  CONTINGENCIES

  A Novel

  Nadine Dandorf

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Nadine Dandorf

  All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  ISBN 9781483581118

  ebook ISBN 9781483581125

  To my family: those I was born to and those I added along the way.

  Of all the forces that make for a better world, none is so powerful as hope.

  With hope, one can think, one can work, one can dream.

  If you have hope, you have everything.

  -- Unknown

  CONTINGENCIES

  Chapter 1

  Four years ago

  Adrian Reilly had been known for his unwavering patience when he was a Special Forces soldier, when the lives of his teammates mattered, when mission success was priority. That wasn’t today. Or yesterday. Not since being relieved of those duties and responsibilities by the man who was now twenty minutes late by Reilly’s internal clock. Being in full dress uniform only compounded his frustration as did waiting for a man who was as cold as the empty CIA office in which Reilly stood. He automatically snapped to attention when Associate Deputy Director of Operations Shaun McNeal finally appeared five minutes later without apology.

  “Thank you for coming,” McNeal said.

  “I had a choice? Sir.”

  “You made good time,” McNeal said, obviously dissecting his guest. “What were you doing in Ireland?”

  “Getting on with my life. Sir.”

  “With an undercover operative in the middle of her own assignment? Now there’s a solid future.”

  Reilly’s teeth were set as rigid as his body. It was none of their business what he did with his life. He was no longer an Army Special Forces soldier dedicated to God and country. The medals and ribbons on his coat represented heartbreak and scars, not bravery or excellence, but old habits are hard to break and he responded like an obedient child to the CIAs hostile call to report immediately. He clenched his fist to redirect the ache in his temple and released his jaw. Discharged or not, the expletives he wanted to shout could have him held for insubordination.

  McNeal tightened his mouth. “At ease, Staff Sergeant, I didn’t call you here for that.” He tossed the file in his hand on the desk.

  Reilly said nothing. Although his stare did not waiver, he clearly saw his name on the dossier. He was being studied.

  “You look to be in top shape,” McNeal noted. “Hair cut is appropriate, too.”

  “Your point,” Reilly said. The daily workout routine was as ingrained as breathing and the trauma of having his head shaved by his father when he was eight because his hair was too long had lasted a lifetime, regardless of any Army protocol.

  “Your country needs you again,” McNeal said. After a long, silent beat, he moved to close the door, then continued after rounding the desk. “Ok, let’s cut to the chase. Say I believe what you told the investigative panel.”

  “That so?” Reilly said not bothering to hide his indignation. His thoughts returned to the warm bed and the woman he had shared it with only twenty-four hours ago. He wondered what had possessed him to leave both. He had been honed to thrive in sudden and immediate changes, even chaos, but he was no longer required to follow orders. McNeal saw to that personally.

  “Things change,” McNeal said.

  “Things.” Reilly adjusted his attitude slightly when the director raised his brow. “Sir.”

  “New information has come to my attention.”

  Reilly’s purposeful silence caused the director to shift his stance. He didn’t know McNeal or how he operated, only that he had a reach long enough to stop an ongoing Military Article 32 hearing and give Reilly a choice: resign or be found guilty of dereliction of duty.

  Some choice.

  He was guilty only of being insane to think he could accuse a CIA deputy director of treason during an investigative hearing about his own failed mission and the deaths of two team members. Honorable men whose deaths profited a traitor hiding inside a patriotic suit and behind the title of public servant. He resigned and Associate Deputy Director for Counterintelligence Charlie O’Donnell got away with murder.

  What Reilly did know was that McNeal’s colleagues and subordinates considered him strong and committed; an unshakable pillar for the demands of a job performed in shadows. Shadows that, as a Special Forces soldier, Reilly lived and thrived in. Until he couldn’t.

  “What I am about to tell you, I have told no one,” McNeal said.

  Reilly moved his eyes to the director’s face. This can’t be good, he thought, then listened for almost an hour while McNeal spoke about secret missions and their failures. Each word was like a sharp spike climbing and embedding in Reilly’s spine. Each barb, hot and searing. A common denominator was at the root of each operation.

  “This is exactly what I was telling you twelve months ago,” Reilly declared. “Deputy Director O’Donnell is a traitor and a liar and the ultimate manipulator.”

  “I see that now.”

  “Yeah, well, what does that get me? Nothing. You need help? Get a skilled ops officer with unlimited access and resources. Someone on the inside. A retired soldier won’t cut it.”

  The director drew his head back slightly. “Humility? Didn’t expect that from you. I guess there’s a first for everything.”

  “What did you expect?” Reilly asked, his voice rising. “That I’d come running full of forgiveness? My brothers were coming back in body bags but no one wanted to connect the dots. No one on that panel gave even a passing glance at the proof that Sergeant Kelly and I had brought after our team had been set up and left for dead in that Bolivian jungle, except to blame us. Were we not devoted enough? Or maybe we just didn’t bleed enough. I gave this country my entire life, did everything she asked of me for seventeen years, but when I told you she needed protection, I was told I was incompetent and a liar and put out like yesterday’s garbage. Give me one good reason why I should believe you’ve changed your mind.” He breathed then added, “Sir.”

  McNeal dropped into his chair. “Because you are the only one I trust.”

  The director’s face took on a chalky appearance and Reilly hesitated. Even with three inches on the director, McNeal had been imposing and brash. Then and now. He had to be in order to be effective but that man had changed. His brown hair had started to silver and his suit seemed to hang just a bit from his shoulders. The authority and confidence so evident when they last met was gone and his light, narrow eyes were troubled.

  “Why?” Reilly asked. “You didn’t trust me a year ago.”

  The director exhaled and leaned forward. “What you don’t know is that your brother, Sergeant Kelly, is my nephew.”

  The gears in Reilly’s head shifted. New questions pounded his brain while others that had lingered for months were immediately answered. It was why Timmy Kelly was sent to Germany and on to a highly sensitive covert mission instead of being dismissed. Timmy was a medic and one of the best. Reilly had never held a grudge but this truth was comforting. Some of his anger ebbed. “You’re right, I didn’t know.”

  “No one did. Timmy wanted to earn his own way, without special consideration or treatment, but when you both presented your charges against the deputy director, I knew I had to do something.”

 
“Without tipping your hand,” Reilly said.

  McNeal nodded. “I made your dismissal contingencies myself because I needed time. I didn’t doubt your accusations. Timmy wouldn’t have risked his career and once I read your file, I knew you wouldn’t either. Not after what you both endured during that failed op in South America.”

  Reilly flinched at the memories that fourteen months later had not faded. He doubted they would. Their mission had been to retrieve Manuel Reyes, son of the leader of the Reyes cartel in Bolivia who was bringing the U.S. information about their internal workings, trade routes, government employees on their payroll and a boatload of cash. All of it had disappeared with Reyes’ mutilation, hours before Reilly and his team had entered Bolivian air space.

  The team had been set up and ambushed by a rival cartel, who could have only known about their arrival because they were working with O’Donnell. Matt Gallagher and Brock Green were slaughtered as they touched turf. Reilly had heard their final screams before being knocked out and dragged away. He would always hear them. Timmy survived unharmed and believing he was the lone survivor, disobeyed O’Donnell’s orders to return immediately. Instead, he had risked his life and career to find Reilly, or his body, and bring them all home.

  “Timmy saved my life,” Reilly said through the turn in his gut.

  “I needed time to sort it all out, especially after Daniel Tyler’s death, but this has taken so long and now…”

  Reilly swallowed. So, that was the reason for halting the inquiry. He had thought so but hadn’t been sure. He released the weight he’d been holding in his chest but there was a dark force in the room that hung from the corners on every molecule. It sucked the light, like fire inhaling oxygen, and left an ache for his old life and his old friends; for Timmy and the teammates he lost in South America, and for Hank Matsuo, his best friend since boot camp. He hadn’t had a partner since.

  “What’s happened?” Reilly asked. The unapologetic self-assuredness McNeal had when he entered the room had been replaced by something deeply disturbing.

  “Timmy’s dead.”

  Reilly’s heart seized. “How? Where?”

  “A car accident, in Germany, but I know…I know in my bones…he was murdered and that O’Donnell was behind it.”

  “Why?” Reilly asked.

  The director sighed. “The cause was DUI.”

  “You don’t get drunk on Diet Coke,” Reilly said as those gears shifted again. He threw a lasso around the heartache and loss, and wrapped it tight. He would draw from it as if it were redemptive fuel. Not for himself but for those who had died, including the man who first showed him the depth of Charlie O’Donnell’s evil, CIA Operations Officer Daniel Tyler. Used and betrayed by O’Donnell, Tyler had asked for Reilly’s help in taking down the deputy director, but worn and wounded by death and deceit, Reilly hesitated. Now, that interminable regret for not accepting Tyler’s offer taunted Reilly into action. If he had agreed sooner, they would all be alive.

  Reilly hated ifs. He’d been trained to identify every option, every possible remedy, to any situation presented. Those ifs needed to be pulverized to a fine dust. Power and confidence pulsed through every cell, pushing out the poor me attitude he’d been carrying for a year. They had called him cocky and arrogant his entire career. He called it unwavering dedication. Regardless, it returned with an uncontainable force, like a beast, ravenous from being fed with only guilt and remorse. He’d finally bring closure to his heartache on his own terms. To honor his brothers and his friends.

  “I’ll help where I can but I can’t give you any resources,” McNeal offered. “This isn’t sanctioned.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “You’ll need to rely on your instincts and gut – your training.”

  “I said not a problem.”

  The director smirked. “There’s the arrogance I was expecting.”

  Reilly remembered Daniel Tyler’s warning. People you love may get hurt…people you love may not be who you thought they were. “I won’t care who gets in the way either.”

  McNeal rose from his chair with an unwavering glare. “Honestly, I don’t care what you have to do, or who you have to use, as long as you bring O’Donnell and whomever he has working for or with him to their knees.” He grabbed Reilly’s offered hand. “And you report only to me.”

  Chapter 2

  Current day

  Reilly parked his black Ford F150 in the nearest lot facing the marina on the Maryland intercostal waterway. Four years of hunting on U.S. soil and around the globe, of digging for the tiniest piece of information, had come to this day, this moment. Excitement and relief vied for his attention but he ignored them like impatient children.

  Steady. Don’t trip now. You can breathe tomorrow.

  Four years. Too long by all accounts but with no back up, no partner, no direct internal resources from McNeal, it had been a long and frustrating road. He had warned McNeal that he was a soldier not an agent but in the end had made a promise. To McNeal, himself, and his dead comrades. Four years was longer than either he or the director expected but the lies were tied tight and there was more than one hand cinching those knots.

  Every contact and traitor that Reilly tried to pluck from O’Donnell’s maze of deceptions and treachery would dead end or disappear. He had tracked survivors of failed missions, handlers, ops officers and soldiers without success. McNeal fed him what he could but even he on occasion seemed to show his hand to someone on the traitor’s payroll and the target would vanish. O’Donnell had help, of that they were sure, but who that was remained dark and deep. Weeks had turned to months, months to years, until Reilly was able to find and brake a cowardly runner in O’Donnell’s grip.

  The naïve kid pointed Reilly to CIA communications expert Jack Anderson as the linchpin holding an invisible wheel of treason in place. A wheel that was controlled solely by O’Donnell. It was time to pull that pin and watch O’Donnell come apart.

  It had taken Reilly months of unending pressure before Anderson would admit his role and agree to cooperate. He claimed to have everything: names of double agents, traitors to their country, payments made, jobs in progress and those yet to be fulfilled. In the U.S. and abroad. Partners.

  In return, Anderson demanded protection and forgiveness and, with McNeal’s blessing, Reilly had made him that promise. Anderson wanted a new beginning and like the bright, cloudless day, it was a perfect day for one.

  Then what?

  Reilly had put his life on hold for this mission. He’d regain his name, his pride, but not his job. So what did that leave? He thought again to Daniel Tyler’s warning about who could be involved – that it might take time to unravel O’Donnell’s dark network – but this was longer than either Reilly or McNeal could have dreamed.

  Tomorrow’s decision. After you toast the men and women who don’t have one.

  Reilly grabbed his baseball hat, rolled the rim between his palms before putting it on his head, and jumped out. From the bed of the truck, he pulled a fishing pole and tackle box then scanned the area.

  The marina harbored a variety of crafts at both ends of the money spectrum. Anderson kept a small boat and was to follow his normal Wednesday routine. Only today instead of bluefish, he would find salvation. The delivery of a flash drive to Reilly was Anderson’s ticket out and O’Donnell’s and his henchmen’s long march to prison.

  Boats outnumbered people today but Reilly could see Anderson wiping the wheelhouse mechanicals. To a passerby, he appeared to be enjoying the weather when actually he was sweeping the area, too. He gave Reilly a head nod before inserting the key to start the engine.

  Reilly flinched and ducked when a sonic boom rocked the ground and tossed a half dozen boats like toys in a child’s bathtub. A fireball touched the sky, followed by the thick, acrid smoke of burning fuel, plastic and wood. He ran toward the scene, aware of what he would find. His stomach churned the closer he got.

  Ande
rson had been reduced to a charred mess. Reilly threw his hands up then flinched again as fiery debris fell on his shoulders and singed his t-shirt. He stamped out a small flame at his feet. Shock would have settled in if he had let it. Instead, his mind raced while he scanned the pier in search of anyone who might have witnessed, or caused, what happened. First left, then right, then north and south. There was no one.

  He ran back to the parking lot as he dialed 911 and spoke to an operator. He spotted Ops Officer Joe Morgan on the opposite pier as he hung up.

  Morgan was dressed for the hot July morning in nondescript shorts and shirt. An oversized fishing hat on his large head added the perfect camouflage to even a trained eye. He had hidden his wide, six-foot frame between two large vessels and was kneeling beside a bait bucket, laughing.

  Reilly sprinted toward him, adrenaline kicking every step. He knew Morgan or thought he did. Daniel Tyler’s words were never far from his thoughts. O’Donnell’s web was thick and twisted with more traitors than he would have ever guessed. He was wild but ready when Morgan pulled a fillet knife from the bucket and lunged.

  “You did this,” Reilly screamed as he deflected the attempts at his head and throat. Morgan was expertly trained, too and regardless of Reilly’s size or physical power had a weapon and plenty of power to slash and gouge without hesitation.

  “Well, look at that,” Morgan taunted as he blocked Reilly’s attempt to redirect his angle of attack. “Anderson had a pair of balls after all. Didn’t think he had it in him.”

  Reilly sidestepped his attacker, locked Morgan’s arm and threw his knee into the man’s stomach. Morgan lost his balance after Reilly smashed his elbow in the man’s face. “You’re on O’Donnell’s payroll, too, you son of a bitch.”

  Morgan recovered and came around again with a swipe at Reilly’s torso. “Haven’t you figured it out that there are more of us than there are of you?”