CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Nate
I watched my father as he poured himself a second Scotch, and shook my head when he gestured to pour one for me.
With a tumbler of amber liquid in hand he paced, took a swallow, and rubbed his free hand over his mouth.
He was so familiar, beloved, missed, but still, this Curtis was a stranger, and I wasn’t sure I could ever forgive him for what he’d done.
“There was an oversupply,” I stated.
“Yeah, Russia asked Saudi Arabia to cut production, and, of course, they refused, which lead to increased competition in global oil markets. The CIA decided to follow their usual playbook—to meddle and destabilize matters by arranging a false flag attack which they planned to blame on Russia.”
“You’re CIA?” I accused.
“No. I’m a freelance asset. I’ll work for whichever alphabet agency needs my skills. You know what my old job was, Newt, that wasn’t a lie. I was a petrochemicals engineer, a contractor, my employment history until then was straightforward, spotless.”
“Then how did you come to work for the CIA?”
“I was approached and offered a lot of money…money that could have gotten us clean out of debt. I agreed to do one job for them, just one.”
“Did mom know?”
“You gotta understand, we were drowning in bills. I didn’t tell your mom the whole story, just that I’d gotten a six-month contract in Saudi and it would leave us financially high and dry.
” I shook my head, shocked. As a self-absorbed teen I hadn’t realized our family had financial troubles.
Mom never told me that things had gotten so bad that dad risked his life for a quick payday.
“The CIA used their network to arrange a job for me at a refinery in Shaybah. I was supposed to be the inside man, and secretly report on supply. At the right time I was to let the CIA operative into the facility to disrupt the supply.”
“So, what happened? Why did you fake your death?”
Curtis paused in his pacing; he came over to sit at the far end of the couch. He knocked back the last of the Scotch. Then he stared into the distance as he spoke.
“I was a fool, son, in way over my head. I wasn’t told the plan, just my part in it.
When I got the signal, I met the operative and smuggled him into the facility in my trunk.
He was supposed to disrupt the supply, that’s all I knew.
I thought he’d mess with the electric cables, or damage tanks, maybe cause a leak.
But I discovered he’d bought an incendiary device in with him.
Into a god-damn oil refinery…it was madness, totally reckless.
I wasn’t told that he planned blow something up.
I’d never have gotten involved if I’d known what the whole plan was.
I tried to reason with him, stop him from planting the device, but he punched me in the face, and ran.
I tried to find him, but I lost him in the facility. ”
“So, what happened?” I prompted.
“I’m not sure, probably a mixture of things…
maybe the timer wasn’t long enough, or he chose a bad location for his device…
didn’t give himself a good escape route.
It doesn’t matter now. The bomb went off, caused a huge fireball.
I was saved by diving behind a Durasteel blast-resistant barrier.
I just got a few scrapes, and a little chest pain and wheezing from inhaling the hot, toxic air. ”
“Shit…that was a close call,”
“Yeah! The CIA operative didn’t stand a chance.
He was killed in the blast.” Curtis leaned forward to place the empty tumbler on the coffee table and winced as if he was in pain.
“I didn’t even know his name.” He spoke in a faraway voice, “I was the only one rostered to be in that section of the facility on a weekend. If I wasn’t dead and an unidentifiable body was at ground zero, I’d be in the cross-hairs.
Millions of dollars of damage was done and, knowing the Saudi’s, someone would pay.
I got to the breathing equipment and put it on.
I had cuts and scrapes and so I left my blood on my ID card and tossed it close to the fire.
Then I got out through a hole blown in the boundary fence before the fire trucks arrived.
” Curtis paused for a moment and turned to set his blue-eyed gaze on me, as if seeking something… comfort or forgiveness?
“How did you escape?” I asked.
Pain was still evident in his expression as he answered me.
“I made it to the apartment I was renting, grabbed my go-bag, and called my handler. He got me out of there. First to the United Arab Emirates where I was given medical care and a new identity, and then on to Japan. He booked me on a twenty-day cruise from Tokyo to Seattle. I was out of the loop when the CIA leaked fake Intel that showed Russia had carried out the terrorist attack and killed a US citizen.”
I was numb with disbelief. While we were grieving his death, my father was relaxing on a fucking cruise ship! “Hang on a second. Was it you? Did you take The Misfit from our mooring in Seattle?”
He held his hands up in surrender. “Yeah, guilty! It was the only part of my old life I could take with me. I sailed her to Hawaii, changed the name. That’s where I’ve been for most of the last twelve years.” I was flabbergasted. Erik and I honeymooned on Hawaii.
“I didn’t want to hurt you Nate, you gotta believe me.
I didn’t want to hurt anyone. But I was in too deep.
If I turned up alive on the US mainland and returned to my family, the Saudi’s and Russian’s would know that the body at the refinery wasn’t me, it was an inside job and the US lied to the Saudi’s about the cause of the explosion. We would all be in danger.”
“Did the CIA not offer to put us into protective custody? You could have sent us a sign…a letter, an anonymous email, anything to let us know you were okay.”
“During my exfiltration, my handler asked if I wanted my family with me…start a new life somewhere else. But I couldn’t risk it!
Think about it, Newt. You’d just graduated from Julliard…
you wanted an acting career. Your whole life plan would have been derailed because of my fuck up!
If I’d taken you all with me you couldn’t have become an actor with the level of fame you’ve got.
You were all better off,” Curtis insisted.
“NO, no…that wasn’t your decision to make,” I fisted my damp hair. “Did you think we were okay with losing you? That we’d get used to it? What the fuck dad!”
The silence between us was a solid wall, frigid, impenetrable.
I sat with my head in my hands, the feelings I’d hidden in a deep, dark place in my mind now free to twist like tendrils of brambles, pricking me with every breath, making me bleed.
All the anger, fear, loss, and longing made my eyes sting with tears.
I felt a familiar hand on my shoulder, and a squeeze. In a softer voice, my dad said,
“Look, I’m sorry son…so, so, sorry that I hurt you, hurt everyone, but I did what I thought was best at the time.
When you’re a parent you’ll understand…you do what you’ve gotta do to keep your family safe,” he said mournfully.
“I can’t change the past. I keep moving forward, and you’ve gotta do that too. ” It bugged me to realize he was right.
So many aspects of my life had gone up in flames in the last few weeks.
I’d been sleepwalking, denying uncomfortable realities.
This time away with Jack was supposed to turn the page.
I’d hoped to become a new man, sexually reawakened, freed from the shackles of my sexless marriage.
But there are some things we can’t change…
like our DNA. No matter how much pain I felt discovering my dad had lied, I needed to compartmentalize to get through this. I needed to focus on keeping Jack safe.
“I’ve put you in danger and I regret it. I hoped you wouldn’t realize what you had in your pocket and take the card with you when you left on your private jet…so they’d be out of everybody’s clutches.”
“What the hell did you give me?” I asked, my voice softer, resigned.
“The chips are called Téng hú, but I guess you know that by now. They’re a technological marvel, so small and light.
They’re made of Kazakium, a rare and expensive metal that has virtually magical properties.
In action, they cling to a GPU chip and increase the compute power like nothing I’ve seen before. ”
“How do you know about all this tech stuff? You were a petrochemicals engineer.”
“Petrochemicals are a part of all tech manufacturing processes. The CIA saw me as a valuable asset. I was sent to stay with a retired agent who lived on Maui. He trained me in basic tradecraft. I’ve been based in Hawaii living under the name Chris Hurst. I learned to code and hack.”
“How did you get involved with the Chinese?”
“I built up contacts using my cover, remote consulting for tech companies. Around a year ago the CIA heard chatter about the Téng hú chips…and their extraordinary capabilities. They brought me in for Operation: Indigo. The Chinese rarely employ outsiders, but I had specialist skills that were sought after by Huǒhuā Labs. I got a position in the facility in Shanghai, as part of the team developing lower-carbon manufacturing processes. After six months HR finally gave me security clearance to the top-secret development labs to be involved in process simulation. I witnessed testing of Téng hú chips. They truly are remarkable. The CIA wanted me to get at least one chip so that the US could reverse engineer and ensure we were on a level playing field with China. I got hold of a batch of ten, and hid them in the fake bank card. I was supposed to travel to Rome and pass them to my new CIA handler.”
“And why didn’t you do that?”
“Two things happened. First, Huǒhuā discovered the Téng hú was missing. The facility went into lockdown and western employees are the first to be questioned. I’d just finished my shift and managed to get out of there before the front gates closed.
I notified my handler that I needed immediate exfil.
He told me to head for Shanghai Pudong airport, he’d organize everything.
I had a go-bag in my car with money and a few passports.
On the way to the airport I checked my phone one last time before destroying it.
There was an email from the SODA network informing that my handler was corrupt. He’d organized a side deal.”
“The SODA network?”
“Secure Observation Data Alliance. They’re an anonymous intelligence community. I’ve passed Intel onto them before. They were returning the favour.
“Who was the deal with?”
“Oliver fucking Roux,” Curtis grimaced. “I saw photos of my handler and Roux meeting at his off-shore property, Royal Island in the Bahamas. There was also a decrypted email chain from his ORIGN server, stating what Roux wanted, and that the fee for the Téng hú chips was twenty million dollars in crypto when the handover was complete.”
I shuddered, “Oliver Roux? Jesus! I know him...he’s a friend of my husband.
The man’s a dick,” I said of the obnoxious multi-billionaire.
He and Erik moved in the same circles, and so he’d attended charity gala events I’d been at with my husband.
They’d had a weird relationship, they were friends who behaved like a pair of dogs circling one another, sniffing to decide who was top dog.
“What’s your CIA handler’s name?”
“He was a new guy; I’d never worked with him before, Kirk Rivera. We met just once before the mission.”
“Shit! He was in the room when I was interviewed by the FBI,” I informed. I knew that mofo wasn’t to be trusted.
My dad continued, “Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me.
He’s hasn’t delivered on his side of the deal and he’s in a lot of trouble.
Oliver Roux doesn’t accept failure. He wants the Téng hú, and he’ll do anything to get them.
SODA is very interested in him. Over the past ten years he’s infiltrated the US government through a host of defence contracts, lobbying and bribes.
He purchased huge areas of Kazakhstan in a region where the Chinese discovered the only Kazakium deposit in the world.
Do you have any idea what would happen if one man with an ego the size of the moon and endless funds got his hands on Téng hú and put them into production for military use?
Oliver Roux is a menace, a threat to all of us, no matter your politics,” my father insisted.
“Fuck!”
“Exactly, now you get what’s at stake here! With his version of Téng hú in production Oliver Roux would start a war with China, and I’m not being melodramatic when I say, whoever won would rule the world.”
My dad stood, and a little shakily, he walked toward the open French doors. It was roasting hot day outside, so maybe he needed fresh air? He turned back to me and winced before he continued.
“When I realized what Rivera had done there was no option but to burn my mission. I missed the hand-off, and travelled using a passport with another name. For weeks I’ve been in hiding in SODA safe-houses around Europe.
” I couldn’t help but admire what he’d done—how he’d put his life in danger yet again, but this time to save the world from a maniac.
“Paris…you called me in Paris?”
“Yeah, a couple of Chinese students found me at a SODA safe house, they interrogated me, contacted their Ministry of Security, but I escaped. The guy who tried to stab you…he was in a lot of trouble,” he informed. “Your Jack…he’s got fantastic reflexes. You keep him close, y’hear!”
I was a little irritated that my dad thought he had the right to tell me who I should date, but yeah, he was right. Jack belonged by my side.
“There are times in life where you’ve gotta take a stand for what’s right, son. I came to Berlin to find you. Newt, you’re my only hope, you’re the only one I can trust with this!”
****