Meat for the Lion: Boone's File, #4

Chapter 1 - Something New

Auberon

Fairfax County, Virginia

The first evening of spring

I’m happy. It doesn’t sound like me, but it’s true. Rebecca Boone Bradley looked at the last line of the words which had only just flowed out of her fountain pen into her usually impeccable script. It was late at night in the Virginia countryside, and her treasured Tiffany lamp now served to illuminate a desk belonging to her—and her husband—rather than to one of the many hotels where she had resided for so long. Just down the hall of the Georgian brick’s second story, Terrence Bain Bradley slept in the master bedroom. When he first carried her across the threshold, he had named the estate Auberon. In French, it was the color of her hair.

Satisfied for the second time tonight, Boone was now energized rather than relaxed. Just the opposite effect I have on you, my lovely man, she mused. Recapping her pen, Boone set it back into place on the felt-lined molding inside her journal’s lockbox. Another inset waited where the book itself would return once its newly laid ink dried. Her entries of late were more sporadic. Lovemaking with Terry had replaced the heartfelt need to purge her emotions in poetry, and her prosaic additions were of a decidedly different tone from those transcribed earlier. And it’s because you are healthier now in so many ways, her introspective side realized.

Light from her lamp sparkled in the main stone of the ring he bought her shortly before Christmas, and she played the fire of the facets with a subtle movement of her wrist for a few seconds. The rock was part of the set, one they wasted no time picking out once Terry signed onto her proposal. Not a minute has been wasted since.

Again she had watched her life change, and this time it was like taking her first breath of air after emerging from deep water. I was in deep, all right … under far enough to drown myself and Terry with me.

Boone no longer felt the urge—it’s overcome, if not forgotten—to indulge in inebriation. She and Terrence had renewed commitments to their shared Christian beliefs under guidance from the grizzled Swiss Reformed patriarch of Geneva’s St. Pierre Cathedral. Their professions of faith had been the officiant's prerequisite to a ceremony on holy ground.

She prayed now without conscious forethought, and the act made her feel glad, rather than unworthy or guilt-ridden. So did the mementos of her dead friend Thibaut, his crucifix retired to its place in a shadow box on the living room wall with the photograph and tiny plaque honoring his memory. Likewise wholesome, her love for Terry could be embraced without the fear of exposure or disaster, formerly the prominent emotions evoked during most of their history together. What once was a vice was now a virtue. You’re his lawfully wedded wife now, and because of it, finally, all these things you feel for him are made legitimate.

Leaning back, Boone still lovingly regarded the ring on her finger. She felt as if its flame was a portal to the future, one no longer darkened by the necessary blackness of her past life. There’s more bright light there instead. A promise is ahead, waiting. I can feel it. I can see it in this diamond.

What the hell is this, Boone honey? Optimism? she murmured aloud, laughing. Yes, yes it is. She felt completely alive, reinvigorated with a renewed sense of confidence and hope. Her life in covert operations had slowly corroded her original outlook into a cynical pessimism, one leaving her a rusted shell of a soul barely able to support itself. There I was until I healed, through the grace of God. Boone luxuriated in the sensation whenever it reappeared.

It was not long before the act of daring to reclaim her gift, even in her thoughts, led to a momentary relapse. Briefly returning, her old, now unwelcome mind asked, Do you really think this will last?

"I will make it last," she swore in a whisper.

Boone eventually reached out and switched off the comforting glow of her desk lamp, the natural darkness of the late evening then flowing again through the upstairs of their home. Allowing time for her eyes to adjust, she rose slowly, wrapping the silk of her nightclothes around her petite, still-athletic frame. Back in the dark. Much like the prison to which you consigned yourself for almost half a life. Why did you do those things to yourself?

"Because I wanted to be like him," she confessed to the night. A life of adventure had beckoned a clear-thinking, so-very-young woman who was freshly graduated from the most challenging program she could find:  a PhD in Physiology earned at Saarbrücken and before her 23rd birthday, no less. Her father’s sort of life seemed like the next undertaking to pursue though she knew little about his actual duties in Army Intelligence. She was aware only of secrets, and adventure, and the way it fed his energy until he became the brightest light a young Rebecca Boone Hildebrandt could imagine. And so it was off to Vietnam to embrace a different type of learning. Her Southeast Asian course of study, in building upon her postgraduate education, had made her a human weapon. An implement forged to cover in blood. And afterward, that’s just what my mentors in the Foreign Service did.

"No, they didn’t do it. You did it," she accused herself, standing for judgment in the court of the darkened den. Her motives had been selfishness, padded in ego and armored in patriotism by those who could best use her arsenal of lethal talents. What I couldn’t imagine was the price of pain my life would inflict on me.

In living it, she had killed more times than she could remember or tally ... until idle conversation with her now dead friend Thibaut Marseille rekindled her faith. The lick of flame, nurtured by a chance encounter with a Chinese evangelist, burgeoned when she sought out the solace of validation from none other than Britteridge College’s luminary, Dr. Jon Anthony. Nothing today seemed to matter as much as the pursuit of a faithful life, one mindful of the designs of its Creator, whose Voice had finally slipped through the dissonance of her egotism. Yes, Boone. My Grace is sufficient for thee, it had said, and her life began to heal.

She made her way, slowly, carefully, and silently through the dark of the upstairs. This place was hers ... and his. To her husband’s amazement, the property had come debt-free. Her father’s investment advice found solid footing with her at an early age and coupled perfectly with the wealth of information to which she was privy in the intelligence field. The strategy she developed of latching onto rising financial instruments—once enough information became public to shield her from charges of insider trading—had paid off consistently through the previous decade. Boone remained as independent financially as she did in any other realm of her existence. And at the very least, my marriage finally got Daddy to stop his doting contributions after he gave me away.

Once the extent of her portfolio became clear, Terry's eyes had betrayed his astonishment. Boone watched the realization hit him that he had lost nothing in the manner of net worth in the split with his second wife, Janine. Except for missing another piece of his heart, Boone frowned, something I have to believe I can heal eventually as well.

Slipping back into their bedroom, her ears perceived he remained in the same deep sleep in which she left him. But then again, healing is different from rest, isn’t it, Boone honey? Terry Bradley’s wife stepped out of her silk and returned to a bareness matching his own, sliding under the sheets to join him once again. My marriage bed. Who ever thought I would live to see the day?

With her head on her sumptuous pillow and her hand on the flank of the man she loved, she indulged in the memory of her wedding day, now more than two months past. Her nuptials—the only ones she intended—were everything for which she had hoped. Wedding bells rang from the tower of an ancient, flower-decked cathedral, sounding in the thick air of a snowy Geneva evening. Her father’s arm guided her to her waiting man, delivering her to vows and a new life. Their honeymoon in France had allowed her to show Terry the length and breadth of the land she loved, sharing her favorite destinations while deep in the bliss of at last enjoying his honest and unfettered public companionship.

You were his woman, and then his bride, and now you are his wife. I can feel him breathing under my hand, but it doesn’t seem real even now. His household was ordered, and pursuing her goal of bearing his child now received Mrs. Bradley’s full physiological expertise. From her timing of their sexual encounters to matching her release to his, Boone strived to maximize his reproductive delivery to her own system, one still hungry to encounter the act of procreation. Hopefully, the last act of the reproductive cycle will be as stimulating as the first. Ooh-rah, as the Marine Corps says.

Boone sensed her own sleep approaching, a result of the feelings of safety and warmth that came from being this close to him. There are other benefits to being legally married, of course, ones that would play to our advantage in deposition. Let’s hope we never come to draw on those. For a moment Boone felt the weight of her remaining burdens, ones keeping her from embracing the absolute whole of the life now so strongly beckoning. They were her remaining obstacles to grasping the harmony she so badly desired. Those confessions I dare not make, as anything but absolution would follow.

Defiance, one of her conscious, core strengths, rose to overcome her brooding. She was determined to pursue her vision of the future. I will be the wife of a man weighed down by heavy responsibilities and worse professional demands. Organizing his household and pursuing the conception of his child needed to balance with her secondary professional responsibilities and her return to work awaiting in the morning. Yes, I will do it all, because I can.

Boone drifted toward sleep, willing away the business of her mind in favor of her dreams. It’s not a bad way to live, her night’s final waking thought silently whispered in her own husky, content tone.

Harry S. Truman Building

Washington, D.C.

The following morning

Though Thursday’s business would not officially open for fifteen minutes, it was as close to Friday as one’s week could get without being there. Boone, dressed well but conservatively in a businesslike, light brown pants suit and modest, white silk blouse, wore matching wedges rather than heels. Her new supervisor was the Bureau Chief of the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service Bureau of Staff Development, or DSS/BSD. As she knew before signing on, the man had been married before Boone was even born, and he was thoroughly immune to charm in any event. Not that I would dare deploy any feminine wiles. The poor man is more than a friend. He is nearly family now.

Gray-haired and paunchy, Theodore Fritz Schilling had already shed his jacket, loosened his tie and rolled up his sleeves. He arrived right before she did, just as on the previous three days of this, her first week in a new position. She saw him glance at the clock on the reception area's wall and grunt with approval as he laid a stack of signed forms on his admin assistant’s desk.

Never late, kid, are you? he greeted his newest Special Agent and Staff Development Specialist/Instructor.

Not if I can help it, sir, she affirmed with a grin.

He looked pleased though not entirely satisfied. Geez, Boone. We’re the only ones here. You can relax. I don’t think you’ll have a problem getting through probation.

Sorry, Fritz. Old habits die hard. The words escaped her lips before she realized her mistake, one compounded by her first. Rex went heavy on the honorifics. It reminds his father of a dead son, and I just made it worse. Boone sighed, biting her lip. Oh, I’m so sorry … please forgive me.

Fritz Schilling accepted the awkward moment and waved off her apology. Boone, forget it. Rex is gone. It’s getting better, slow and sure. It helps being proud of him. He leveled his eyes on hers to emphasize his sincerity. And it helps having you on board, believe it or not. Someone else who remembers my boy.

Nodding, Boone displayed the remainder of her sympathy with her eyes rather than her voice. Rex Schilling, the man who shared her first duty assignment back in the day and preceded her short tenure as Senior Case Officer for the Office of the Director of National intelligence, was missed by both of them. By me as a friend, and you as a father. I wish I could tell you I got the bastards who killed him.

Tough if no longer hard, Fritz appeared to Boone to have recovered his composure, just as she would expect from a man of his quality. She watched his eyes come back up, seeing that they had regained their former strength.

So … how are we treating you so far, Boone? he asked.

The question caught her somewhat by surprise as she had signed on to serve. Specifically, she was here to pass along the lessons of her experiences—those not classified out of existence—to junior agents and trainees. The majority of them would be tasked with the protection services afforded to Americans overseas and, once their resumes more closely matched her own, to visiting foreign diplomats here in the States. Fritz, you know I’m easy to please. All it takes is a complete lack of anomaly, and I’m fine. She grinned again to emphasize her facetious intent. Seriously, though, everything’s good. The other Seniors play nicely together, and the trainees listen. You’ve done well here.

Seeming satisfied at her assessment, Schilling turned to head back into his corner office. "We’ll do better with you here, Boone. Thanks for stepping up … or down, rather."

My pleasure, Mister Schilling, she said, turning for her own nearby office. And my salvation. Boone mused upon the rightness of her life at the moment. She was freed from the sense of duty, personal secrets and professional responsibilities which had kept her distant from the man she loved. And at long last her days to come seemed to hold promise for the life she sought:  one purged of the closely held misery, fear and guilt arising from her covert history. What I made myself was going to kill me. None of the othersiders I ran into in all those years of black ops could do what I was on track to do to myself.

Boone entered the safe zone of her simple, almost Spartan workspace and shed her coat, feeling simultaneously at work and at home. So much better. Now largely a teacher, the relief from her previous duties was almost palpable. Boone could think of only a single downside. I hope my ass doesn’t start to grow into these oversized office chairs.

Conference Room

Bureau of Staff Development

Ninety-three minutes later

"Aw, Fritz, you’ve got to be shitting us."

Raising an eyebrow at the off-the-cuff comment, Boone otherwise remained still. Luckily, she had only thought what one of the other Senior Special Agents—safely out of his probationary period by years—actually vocalized.

Schilling looked more amused than offended. This is the ways things are, boys and girls. The President of Russia himself and his very own security force, packing heat right here in River City.

"Are they legal?" another voice, this one feminine, piped up from another chair.

It’s legal if the President says it is, the Bureau Chief insisted. We’re to give the man every consideration as a visiting head of state, including the privilege of bringing his own private army right up to the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Schilling grinned. "Past the perimeter, the Secret Service takes over. And I don’t think even the Big Guy is going to be able to override their level of paranoia."

How are we supposed to interface with these guys? another Senior asked. Are they sending English speakers?

We got it covered, Schilling stated, glancing at his latest hireling. Am I right or what, Boone?

"Da, ja govorju po-Russki," she answered naturally. And my unfortunate language skills will make me the lead Security Specialist. Buttered bollocks in hell. Feeling less than thrilled, Boone ruminated on her visceral distrust of Russian politicos. Also troubling was her knowledge of this particular head of state’s likely complicity in the covert affair she had concluded barely three months previously. My God, is this visit part of the fallout? The collaborative effort had taken the former White House Senior Advisor Valka Gerard permanently off the government payroll. As well as erased her from the roster of creatures still privileged to consume planetary oxygen. Terry called the case closed. Now, I suppose, we can wait to find out whether a Level Zero item ever really ends.

Schilling tapped the projected map with his ancient wooden pointer, tracing the route of thoroughfares comprising their area of responsibility. We’ll have a full escort with intersection control all the way across town.

If the man didn’t insist on his own security, we could fly him in and solve every one of the problems you just handed us, sir, one of Boone's colleagues observed.

If only. Your suggested arrangement, however, would be a poor fit with the Russian mentality, particularly this one’s, Boone countered, shaking her head and lending what support she could to her boss. He trusts no one, as you’d expect from a former head of the KGB.

Spot on, Fritz concurred with approval. His glance affirmed for the others that there was no room for debate on the parameters of the mission. As little as any of us like it, the word came down to handle things this way. His next glance conveyed more sympathy. And I don’t have to tell any of you how the powers above don't believe in taking advice.

Dear God, isn’t that the truth. The meeting droned on, and Boone’s active mind started mapping out secondary and tertiary contingencies. Approaching the situation as a hostile, she thought through every line of attack possible on the visiting leader of the Russian Federation. As much as I hate him, the man’s not going to go down on my watch. Boone crossed her arms, a posture taken as much in determination as it was for emergently necessary self-comfort.

Chapter 2 - Russian Frost

The Kremlin

Moscow, Russian Federation

As a specimen, the President of the Federation was a powerfully built man. Moreover, the confidence resulting from his physical conditioning—largely acquired through an affinity for the distinctively Russian martial art of Sambo—carried over through the force of personality into his political posture. In the arena of governance, his effectiveness also could be every bit as lethal, just as the man now conducting his preparatory intelligence briefing knew.

Dmitry Gennadyevich Lyubov, the Director of the Federal Security Service or FSB, advanced his electronic presentation yet another frame. He continued to serve up the information—prepared by his staff for the occasion—in the most dispassionate and professional tones his training and nerve allowed. Seemingly unaffected by the continual warnings his active mind generated whenever he was in proximity to the Russian head of state, Lyubov as ever guarded against any sign of discomfort, hesitance, or weakness which a lapse of conscious control might allow.

The current frame featured a photograph—recent, as attested by its date stamp—of a tall, dark-haired man whose less-than-athletic body thickened at the hips. A rather expensive suit … whose rumpled appearance makes him look as if he is unused to maintaining his image in the public eye, the President observed.

And this is indeed the case, if our file on the man is accurate, Lyubov agreed. The head of FSB referred to the contents of the folder he had extracted from his travel case. This is the new Senior Advisor, Joseph Zachary Pacek, formerly the White House Chief of Staff and a long-time associate of the American President. Lyubov flipped to the next frame, another still shot from what obviously was the same series of photographs. He was also graduated from the Harvard Law School and, like many of his administration colleagues, afterward was active in politics in the state of Illinois. Another slide showed a head-and-shoulders shot juxtaposed with the smoother composition of Pacek’s official White House portrait.

The Russian President seemed unimpressed. They are a homogenous bunch, these White House staffers.

Nodding, Lyubov allowed himself a small, derisive snort of agreement. Philosophically, your counterpart in America can tolerate nothing less. Lyubov laid his documentation back into place on the President’s conference table. The members of his inner circle are, as a group, insular to the extreme … a trait, as you know, characteristic to the insecure. Lyubov could see his own President concurred. Contempt is no longer an emotion the man makes any effort to conceal.

Perhaps a sentiment not unwarranted, given the rate of attrition in his predecessors, was the head of state's characteristic, wry comment.

His predecessors—and likely your associates, Lyubov’s mind warned again. The Americans have a saying, Comrade President:  ‘Third time lucky.’ Perhaps Mister Pacek is counting on fortune as much as he is the dependence and essential vapidity of the man for whom he works.

Sighing, the Russian President said, "Incisive, tovarisch. And, if I may add, a completely accurate assessment."

We intend nothing less when you request a briefing, of course. Lyubov perceived a sense of resignation on the part of the man who was preparing for an infrequent yet official visit to the Oval Office.

"The man I go to meet is weak, Dmitry, the President's tone confirming his subordinate's intuition. He makes himself weaker still from his continual dependence on the support of others. The man’s hand indicated the smiling image of Pacek on the right half of the screen. This is a Senior Advisor? Who seeks the advice of a younger man?"

Perhaps one who desires only confirmation instead, Lyubov suggested with a twitch of his brow.

The proffered opinion registered as valid. Indeed. The President’s steely glare left the screen and focused on his Director of Federal Security. In such a case I should thank whoever engineered the man’s ascent, would you agree?

You will not react. You will not even catch a breath. We as Russians all owe the American people a debt of gratitude for their choices, Mister President, was the only response Lyubov allowed himself. He suspects … but then again, he must.

If the other man here in the President’s office of the Kremlin had truly ascertained Lyubov’s involvement in the events of the previous year, Lyubov knew he would not have survived to make today’s presentation. In tipping off the intelligence organs of the Americans, the Director's actions led to not only an interdiction of a planned transfer of missile defense technology from West to East, but also the loss of a highly placed asset vital to projecting influence on the direction of both United States and Estonian foreign policy. She had been the former Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, Valka Gerard, whose performance Joe Pacek now aspired to emulate.

From Lyubov's perspective, the most fortunate outcome was the balance of military power in the Northern Hemisphere in continued stability as a result of his Western contacts’ intervention. He knew, however, this would not have earned consideration from the President sufficient to preserve his life for an extra moment.

As it was, Lyubov could see his trained ability to don the impassivity of a covert operative had once again saved him. His President consulted his expensive watch, and such a gesture in this room carried only a singular meaning. It is over. I have survived again.

The man who led Russia rose. This is all good information, Dmitry. Your people are as well informed as ever. My secretary will be in touch after my return to arrange another appointment. Together, we will add to your knowledge base whatever additional observations I can glean from the dutiful experience.

Thank you, Comrade President. In our business, one can never know enough.

Indeed. The President’s eyes held him transfixed for another long second before the always-welcome dismissal issued. Until we meet again, Comrade Director.

Nodding, Lyubov killed the power to the overhead lamp of the presentation system. Shutting down the slide show’s software, he also retrieved the flash drive storing the day’s briefing. The Director gathered his files in a smooth motion, scooping them into his travel case, and extended his hand, which the President shook with vigor. Now I need only make a walk to the outer office, and then the halls to where my driver will have the car ready. Lyubov wished for an internal control as great as the visage he maintained on the outside. This is getting more difficult each time. Why?

Lyubov’s same introspective voice provided the answer to its own question. You know the reason. Each time it becomes more dangerous to deceive him. Dmitry's analytical side was in full cycle as he crossed the reception area to retrieve his coat from the President’s waiting assistant.

The business of late fall has never ended, though we have passed winter and begin the spring. He goes to America to continue a conspiracy destroyed through the weakness of intermediaries. He has trapped himself just as surely as have I. The Director of the FSB himself had no choice but to continue his chosen road. In so many ways, I can do nothing else and live with the results.

The Russian President’s schedule was tended as efficiently as always, the Prime Minister perceived. As was not unusual, the holder of the chief executive’s previous appointment—apparently not performing a service relevant to a Minister’s duties—was leaving just as Russia’s second-in-command arrived. We are all punctual, here. Timely and predictable, with the hours of the day regimented to a fault. The man at the head of the government, to whom the Minister was about to report, demanded nothing less. There was a moment only for the Prime Minister's perfunctory acknowledgment of the FSB Director. Comrade Lyubov—how does this fine, crisp morning find you? he greeted the man who traveled in the opposite direction across the spacious outer office.

I am well, comrade. I trust you are the same, Lyubov replied with a nod.

While returning the courtesy, the Minister adroitly maintained his momentum toward the still-open doors of the executive office. Their President was not an individual to keep waiting while one indulged in natter with underlings.

The man to whom the Prime Minister deferred—as did the remainder of the Russian Federation’s government—was on his feet in his office. He stared intently at the blank presentation screen not yet retracted into its niche in the ornate crown molding.

Vladimir, the Minister greeted his master with a more subservient nod than the version given to Lyubov only a moment ago.

With only a flick of his brow did the man respond, his head turning slightly, motioning to the doors. As directed, the visitor