Muir's Gambit by Michael Frost Beckner

Author:Michael Frost Beckner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Montrose Station Press LLC
Published: 2022-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

21

THE IN ONE DOOR, BATMAN out the back wasn’t real—I’m sure they caught a shower and downed a drink, mapped out basic tradecraft constructs in between rides—but it was better than one of Muir’s pointless digressions. I displayed some good humor I felt expected of me, letting him jump in and motor his unmarked, unarmored, but comfortably armed sedan straight to a World War Two steel-reinforced concrete bunker built into a hillside by Royal Engineers that housed CIA Intercept & Relay Station, Cyprus. It bristled with antennae and connected to a giant mushroom field of NSA-installed satellite dishes and the geodesic radar pods that control them. More of Muir’s desert-boot, bowling-shirt paramilitaries seconded from the Army patrolled the double-razor-wire fence with automatic weapons and razor-mouthed dogs.

“We were cleared—outer guardhouse, inner gate—exited our ride, and ushered inside. Ever been to NORAD?”

“No,” I said. “You’ve seen to it I’ve been nowhere.”

“Not true. Sent you a bottle of champagne to the Hilton Hawaiian Village a few years back for your honeymoon. Most people remember their honeymoon.”

“Sent, knowing that I don’t drink.”

I looked at the glass he’d moved from reach. My mouth tasted empty without it.

“Whatever. Seen that kids’ movie WarGames? They got to film outside NORAD.”

Wait him out… wait him out…

“Same kinda blast door. Just itty-bitty in Cyprus—like Chief of Station Burt Wilton, who welcomed us with warm and pompous Napoleon-complexioned arrogance.

“‘I’m glad Langley came to its senses and sent me some field hands,’ he said.

“Charlie March gave me a broad smile and I smiled back a perfect copy, indicating to my mentor unified displeasure with the comment. Field hands—I mean, are you fricking serious?

“Wilton interpreted our grinning as calculated. He required subservience to his personal superiority and professional authority. If he’d been a firefly, his little butt would’ve been glowing. But poor Burtie Wilton. He was about to splat in a luminescent smear on the windshield of Charlie March’s mean disregard.

“Wilton continued, sternly now, ‘What I am not glad about is to be meeting the two of you at this location. Not glad at all.’

“The room he led us to was filled with all kinds of high-tech listening and recording devices, covering the entire spectrum of cutting-edge electronic intelligence gathering.”

Muir pistol-pointed at my recorder, drilling it with a single invisible bullet.

“CIA listeners and SIGINT analysts manned the equipment banks like a bunch of gals at Bloomingdale’s switchboard.

“Charlie March said, ‘Just like to know who and what I’m working for before I go out and get foreigners to betray their countries over it.’

“‘He’s old-fashioned that way,’ I chirped.

“‘Well, I don’t like it. You two are supposed to be undercover. Coming out here was an entirely unnecessary risk.’

“Charlie March startled both of us with a ‘wrong answer’ buzzer noise.

“‘What letter you put after your name on the roster, COS?’ I asked—COS, for Chief of Station.

“‘I have a PhD from MIT, if that’s what you are asking.’

“I told him, ‘Save the alphabet soup for lunch. Intelligence or Operations: your directorate?’

“COS Wilton made it obvious he was shocked by my— ‘junior’s’—attitude.

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