Recognition Factor

CHAPTER ONE

“Are you worried about the meeting?”

I gave Cynthia an incredulous look. “Me? You’re joking.”

I would have died rather than admit I was nervous, although my stomach felt hollow. This meeting was a big deal. The United States had sent representatives to Canberra from the FBI, the CIA, and Homeland Security. On our side, apart from ASIO people, there’d be personnel from the Federal Police and the super-secret Defense Intelligence Organization.

And I, Denise Cleever, was to be the center of attention. Why? Because I was the only Western intelligence agent who had seen the terrorist code-named Red Wolf and lived.

The fact that I alone might identify this elusive international terrorist who’d been tied to key political assassinations, devastating bombings, and the overthrow of certain third-world governments, gave me a certain notoriety in the intelligence community. The consensus at ASIO—the Australian Security Intelligence Organization—was that I probably wouldn’t recognize Red Wolf if I ran into him again. After all, I’d hardly seen him under optimum conditions. It had been at night and at the height of a tropical storm.

It was difficult to get comfortable on the polished wooden bench outside Meeting Room 4. I jiggled my feet, smoothed the skirt of my navy suit—I’d been given strict instructions to dress up for the occasion—and glanced at my watch. The hands had hardly moved. Perhaps it needed a new battery.

“Are you all right?” said Cynthia, my ASIO control, eyeing me narrowly. Her spiky hair seemed subdued, and her usually mobile face was tense and unsmiling. And more tellingly, her angular body was clad in an uncharacteristically plain, dark green dress.

I gave her my best confident smile. “Cynthia, I could hardly feel better.”

Her lips quirked at my deliberate use of her real name. For security reasons, Cynthia took a different pseudonym for each undercover assignment she directed. In all our briefing sessions together, I used whatever name she’d assigned herself, and she called me by my undercover moniker.

We’d first met after I moved into undercover work and she became my first, and so far only, control. I’d called in from the field to speak to a Livia, Cecily, Myra, Polly, Roderica…and each time Cynthia’s angular, uncommon self would be at the other end of the line.

Although I’d never admitted it to her, Cynthia’s voice had often been a warm comfort to me when I’d been in the field and had felt overwhelmed or apprehensive. Indeed, my qualms about the coming assignment sprang not only from the fact that I’d be in unfamiliar territory, but the knowledge I wouldn’t have Cynthia directing me. Instead, I’d have some American I’d never met.

“About my new control,” I said, “have you heard anything yet?”

Clearly exasperated, but also amused, she raised one circumflex eyebrow. “How many times have you asked me? A hundred? You’ll probably know before I do.”

We both looked up as the door to the meeting room opened. A middle-aged woman I’d never seen before poked her head out. “Five minutes,” she said in our general direction. In a perfunctory tone she added, “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

After the woman disappeared, I observed, “She wasn’t the slightest sorry. In fact, she seemed quite smug. Triumphant, even.”

Cynthia looked at me with a hint of impatience. “You’re going to be serious in there, I hope.”

“Positively somber. Grave, if you like.”

She gave me a half smile. “Sedate would be quite sufficient.”

“I promise not to make a single joke.”

“It’s no joking matter.” Abruptly, she was serious. “Denise, you don’t have to volunteer for this. There’s no compulsion and there’d be no recriminations if you backed out, even at this point.”

“I’m the only one who’d know him, face to face, aren’t I? Or do you think I won’t recognize Red Wolf when I see him?”

Cynthia shrugged. “I’m not worried about you recognizing the man. What concerns me is what happens afterwards.”

There was no answer to that. It concerned me too. In that one close encounter with the terrorist, I’d been outside in wet darkness, holding on for dear life while I peered into the lighted bridge of the catamaran. When a shout alerted him that there was an intruder on board, had there been enough reflected light for Red Wolf to see my features clearly?

Logic told me no—my fears whispered otherwise.

ASIO analysts had determined that a fleeting glimpse through rain-spattered glass on a vessel heaving in wild seas would only result in a blurred impression of a face. I was about to find out the hard way if they were correct.

I’d actually had two glimpses of the master terrorist. If I shut my eyes I could visualize the first. The little dock had been lashed by wind and rain. Its single light, set on a pole, had been vibrating with the unrelenting force of the breaking waves. Red Wolf was an indistinct figure striding along the wet boards, baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, the wind snatching at his clothing.

He’d struck me then as small and insignificant, although the captain of the waiting catamaran had shrunk back as if menaced. I remember how I’d squinted through the wet darkness to see the terrorist’s face without success. The best I could do was estimate his height and build, and commit to memory the way he walked and held his head.

My second view of him through the rain-streaked window of the catamaran’s bridge had shown me his face. He’d been almost shocking in his normality. Mr. Average, with nothing notable about him. I’d been so concentrated in mentally recording his facial characteristics that the gun clenched in my hand, the bucking vessel and the tumult of the storm had receded to the edge of my consciousness.

It seemed I’d been debriefed a thousand times since then, but the renditions of Red Wolf’s face, created both with computer facial identification programs and from sittings with police artists, had never quite captured the man I’d seen.

So often I’d gone over that one moment when I could have killed him—to save, by pulling a trigger, the lives of so many future victims—but I’d hesitated, and the opportunity was lost. Now it looked like I might have another chance.

The door to the meeting room opened again. “We’re ready for you now,” said the woman. Disconcertingly, she directed a toothy grin at me. “Come right on in.”

“Lamb to the slaughter,” I murmured to Cynthia. She didn’t smile.

* * *

The preliminaries had taken some time. I’d been ushered to a seat at one end of the huge, polished table. Conversation stopped as everyone looked in my direction. It had been uncomfortable to be the focus of such concentrated assessment, so I kept my face expressionless as I took a sip of water from a crystal glass. The woman who’d ushered us into the room appeared with coffee for me. I noticed the coffee cup was not the customary plebian mug, but fine bone china. Obviously no expense was spared at this level of international intelligence meetings. Our tax dollars at work.

Cynthia had gone to the opposite end to sit beside Bernard Byrd, ASIO bigwig. The Director was an overweight, gray man with a fleshy face and a pretentious manner. His pinstriped suit was rumpled and his tie askew. It would be easy for someone who didn’t know him to dismiss him as a pompous fool, but I knew he was anything but stupid. Underneath his exterior of infuriating mannerisms lurked a keen mind.

I nodded politely to each person as Byrd went around the table intoning names. There were ten men present, but only three women, excluding me and Cynthia. I’d been briefed on who would be present at the meeting, and I took special notice of Lawrence O’Donnell of Homeland Security. He had a square head set on a thick neck, a thin-lipped mouth and hooded eyes. As one of the American president’s confidants, he wielded great influence. An almost palpable aura of power surrounded him. His very presence indicated the importance being placed on this meeting by the Americans.

O’Donnell had a yes-man next to him, a rabbity guy named Flynn, who had not much chin and even less hair. He kept whispering to his boss. O’Donnell jerked his head once or twice in acknowledgement, but otherwise appeared to ignore whatever he was being told.

The majority of the people at the table regarded me with curiosity. I couldn’t imagine what they had to be curious about, as each had no doubt read the comprehensive dossier that outlined everything anyone needed to know about my life and career. One of the two FBI agents, a black woman named Leota Woolfe, smiled warmly, but on the whole the atmosphere in the room was solemn.

On my right was an FBI agent from Los Angeles called Maddie Parkes, who had a maddening sniff. Otherwise, she was quite prepossessing, having a neat body, sleek reddish hair and an interesting, slightly asymmetrical face.

“Sinus problems?” I said.

“Allergies.” She sniffed again for emphasis. “Martyr to allergies. You?”

“Allergy-free.”

“Lucky. I’ve got severe post-nasal drip.”

Several flippant replies tempted me, but aware that Cynthia was watching me with an admonishing air, I contented myself with saying, “Must be a trial.”

“You’ve no idea. And spring…” Maddie Parkes shook her head. “Fuhgeddaboutit!”

“Well, people…” Bernard Byrd hauled himself to his feet, taking off his reading specs as he did so. They remained dangling in one hand, and would, I knew from experience, be used to punctuate his discourse. Silence fell, except for a muffled snuffle from the woman beside me.

“Humph,” he began, looking around the table as though mentally marking an attendance list. “Now that we have Agent Cleever present, I believe we can get to the meat, the nub, the gist of the meeting.” Bernard Byrd had a sonorous, self-important voice, and I could see a hint of impatience on several faces.

“First, I hardly need remind you all of the necessity of total security regarding the matters before us today. Literally, without a modicum of exaggeration, a matter of life and death.” A meaningful pause to let this sink in, was followed by, “Second, I’m keenly aware that each one of us has been exhaustively briefed, but I believe it behooves me to provide a short summation of the exigent circumstances.”

I resisted rolling my eyes. Bernard Byrd loved words like behooves. It was not for nothing that in ASIO he was called Boring Bernie behind his back. At the last briefing where he’d addressed us on The New Face of Terrorism, he’d slipped in so many obscure words that there’d been rolling eyes galore.

No one in this gathering seemed impressed by ASIO’s VIP. Several people rustled papers, and Lawrence O’Donnell frowned heavily. Bernard Byrd was not discouraged, gesturing extravagantly with his specs as he said, “All the indications are, as intensive intelligence work on several continents has indicated, that the international terrorist, known to the world in general by the sobriquet Red Wolf—I might mention a suitably lycanthropic appellation for such a miscreant—will be in California, more particularly, Los Angeles, to coordinate some as yet unascertained terrorist operation. This man is not driven by principle, but by greed. At various times he’s numbered among his clients Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestine’s Hamas, the Kurdish PKK, the Tamil Tigers, various militia groups, the IRA, even individuals with some psychotic agenda to follow—”

“If I may…”

O’Donnell had put up a hand, obviously intending to interrupt the flow, but ASIO’s pride ploughed on. “As this terrorist has contrived with skill, not to mention a measure of good fortune, to remain faceless as far as Western intelligence organizations are concerned, it is of great import that”—he broke off to stab his specs in my general direction—“one of our agents has actually seen this man’s features, and lived to tell the tale.”

“Everyone here is aware of the situation,” said O’Donnell. “We’ve discussed the matter exhaustively, and I see no reason to rehash it yet again.” He had a hard voice to go with his hard persona. “Time is limited, and I intend to use it to put some questions to Ms. Cleever.”

Next to me, the FBI woman achieved a double sniff. I had a vision of myself slapping down a handful of tissues on the table in front of her and snapping, “For pity’s sake, blow your nose!” I refused to surrender to the impulse, looking down the table to catch Cynthia’s eye. It would be nice if she appreciated my reserve.

“Of course we can move on,” said Byrd, clearly put out by the interruption. With a grunt, he plopped his substantial body in his chair.

Cynthia was watching O’Donnell, so I turned my attention to him too. Flynn was busy murmuring in his ear, and this time O’Donnell responded with a nod, all the while appraising me with narrowed eyes. From his dour expression it appeared I didn’t measure up to his specifications for an intelligence agent. Perhaps it was the fact I was blonde and female. Or possibly his conservative religious sensibilities were affronted because I was gay. Or maybe he simply didn’t like Aussies.

Convinced that I was ready for anything the American might spring on me, I waited demurely, my hands folded on the table in front of me. And of course, when O’Donnell spoke, it was to ask a question I hadn’t anticipated.

“Would you be prepared,” he said, fixing me with a flat stare, “to sacrifice your own life if it meant you could kill Red Wolf?”

Henriette M.
This was a good read for a sunny or rainy afternoon: well-written, good plot, interesting main character.