The Dead Drop by James M. Roth

Author:James M. Roth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2023-06-30T16:57:09+00:00

CHAPTER 23

Endgame Plans

It’s Tuesday morning, and Oliver Tempest has made a determined effort to return to his old self.

During DRTC courses, he is consumed with work. Operational exercises on the streets are run day and night, seven days a week, with Tempest putting in nearly as many hours as his students. His staff considers him a control freak, reluctant to delegate authority even to his deputies. He occasionally attempts to rein in these impulses, but also believes his success in resurrecting the elite status of the Denied Region Training Center is a direct result of his micromanagement. Instilling tradecraft skills in operations officers preparing to handle the CIA’s most valuable assets under the eyes of the world’s most formidable counterintelligence services requires the high standards and attention to detail on which Tempest insists.

But in recent weeks he has been distracted at work, exhibiting anxiety and an uncharacteristic lack of self-control. His appearance has become gaunt and weary. He has pushed tasks onto others that he normally takes responsibility for, himself. Tempest knows as well as anyone that a spy must take care not to exhibit behavior revealing that he is living a double life, serving his own country by day and a foreign government by night. The operations officers on his staff, trained to study human behavior, couldn’t have helped but notice the changes in his management approach and physical condition, signs of preoccupation with matters outside the office. Perhaps his colleagues would chalk it up to his disappointment after yielding to pressure from the CIA leadership to stay on with DRTC for another year. But he can’t count on such presumption. Tempest consequently resolved to get some rest and reestablish the managerial style to which his staff is accustomed. With another week to go before the kickoff of the next training course and Peggy with her parents in Boston, he had enjoyed a rare weekend off to refresh and contemplate.

Invigorated, Tempest had started the work week yesterday with a Monday morning planning meeting for the upcoming DRTC course, a follow-up to the session that went so poorly the previous Thursday, just before Stowe Akron’s visit. He is pleased with the results, confident his colleagues see him as absorbed in his work and firmly in control. With the staff busy since the meeting carrying out preparations for the course, he’d been able to keep all day today free of appointments. The SVR is expecting a dead drop from him tonight, and he has needed the extra time to assemble its contents.

Having learned from Akron that Malcolm Edwards won’t begin meeting directly with Russian GRU asset “Alex” in Belgrade for a couple of weeks, Tempest must buy time by providing in tonight’s dead drop something of intelligence value that will keep Colonel Yuriy Medvedev and his SVR colleagues satisfied temporarily. Perhaps something of counterintelligence significance related to Russian interests in the Balkans, but not tied directly to Belgrade or “Alex.” He recalls seeing weeks earlier an electronic message from CIA headquarters sounding the alarm on increased Russian intelligence activities in the Balkans region.

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