Exile Endgame (Kamas Trilogy Book 4), page 1
EXILE ENDGAME
PRESTON FLEMING
Copyright © 2022 by Preston Fleming
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form of by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
PF Publishing
Salt Lake City, Utah
Publisher’s Note: This eBook is a work of fiction. Names characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9994418-7-9
For more information, go to www.PrestonFleming.com
EDITORIAL REVIEWS
“[T]he book has all the bureaucratic complexity of a Cold War spy novel, with an intense focus on trade relationships, rival factions, and government policies. [F]ans of the series will enjoy the book’s realpolitik take on dystopia. An intricate espionage thriller.” —KIRKUS REVIEWS
“EXILE ENDGAME succeeds wildly as a political thriller set in a time when the U.S.—if not the entire world—is at a dangerous tipping point.” —BESTTHRILLERS.COM
“A complex suspense novel that is sure to have readers on the edge of their seats. EXILE ENDGAME is perfect for those who love political thrillers and American dystopia fiction.” —PACIFIC BOOK REVIEW
“EXILE ENDGAME is written in a compelling and gripping way, so the reader can tell right from the first page that this book is going to be hard to put down. [The] book is part of a series that is quite unlike anything else I’ve read.” —SAN FRANCISCO BOOK REVIEW
“Fleming does a masterful job. [T]he complex story involves a huge cast of characters, [b]ut the individual exchanges will keep the reader quickly turning pages.” —BOOKLIFE by PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
CONTENTS
Chapter One: Washington
Chapter Two: Beirut
Chapter Three: Bristol
Chapter Four: Heathrow
Chapter Five: London
Chapter Six: Kreutzer
Chapter Seven: Quist
Chapter Eight: Geneva
Chapter Nine: Cao
Chapter Ten: Berlin
Chapter Eleven: Cannes
Chapter Twelve: Fury
Chapter Thirteen: Annabel
Chapter Fourteen: Basel
Chapter Fifteen: Lausanne
Chapter Sixteen: Amsterdam
Chapter Seventeen: Roll Up
Chapter Eighteen: Acapulco
Chapter Nineteen: Two Men
Chapter Twenty: Kuroda
Chapter Twenty-One: The Zuckerman Letter
Chapter Twenty-Two: Fury in Captivity
Chapter Twenty-Three: Fury’s End
Chapter Twenty-Four: Setback
Chapter Twenty-Five: Warnings
Chapter Twenty-Six: Decision
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Montreal
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Crossing
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Boston
Chapter Thirty: Arrest
Chapter Thirty-One: Missing
Chapter Thirty-Two: Waiting
Chapter Thirty-Three: Interrogation
Chapter Thirty-Four: Death Notice
Chapter Thirty-Five: Decline
Chapter Thirty-Six: Maria’s Return
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Finale
Epilogue
Author's Biographical Note
Books by Preston Fleming
About the Author
Notes
CHAPTER ONE: WASHINGTON
“Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.”
—Franz Kafka
SATURDAY, 25 MARCH 2034
A fleet of leaden clouds swept in from the northwest, scudding low over the office towers of suburban Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. The clouds, illuminated from below, sent stinging gusts of rain-drenched wind ahead. Thunder growled in the distance.
Victor Barbosa, chief of the Department of State Security’s (DSS) Exile Division, parked his aging electric sedan in a reserved spot close to the mirror-faced office building where the Department leased expansion space. The walk from the nearly empty parking lot to the building’s rear entrance was less than a hundred meters, but the wind soon turned Barbosa’s umbrella inside out and nearly blew off his hat, bringing a curse to his lips as he lowered his head to trace a path across the puddled blacktop.
Once indoors, he submitted to a security scan and the uniformed guard waved him through to the elevators. The deputy director’s office was on the seventh floor and Barbosa needed no help finding the way. When he arrived, the deputy director was seated behind his desk, speaking on a secure telephone, his massive black swivel chair facing a wall of windows where raindrops landed like handfuls of gravel.
Unlike the offices of many other high-ranking DSS officials, which displayed few personal objects that might open a window onto their owner’s character, the deputy director’s office was packed with memorabilia from his past postings as a mid-level CIA officer chasing Islamic terrorists across the Middle East. Tribal rugs covered the floor, framed Roberts and Bartlett engravings graced the walls, shelves were laden with Yemeni daggers, Egyptian statuettes, and Turkish coffee pots, while an intricate mashrabiya-style wooden screen lurked off to the side. Barbosa even spotted a half-dozen silver-framed family photos on the credenza behind the deputy director’s desk. The children looked young, most likely from a second marriage, which was par for the course among lifers in the CIA and DSS.
DSS Deputy Director Gerrit DeWaart looked up and gave his visitor a perfunctory wave to sit down in one of the chairs facing the desk. DeWaart, a long-faced, high-shouldered blade of a man, slouched in the thickly upholstered chair, rotating it slowly to left and right as he spoke. Of all the men Barbosa had worked for in the CIA and the DSS, DeWaart was by no means the worst. Barbosa had been thrown in with him on many operations, though he preferred to keep his distance. For despite DeWaart’s placid, almost austere manner, behind his well-trimmed goatee was the barren soul of a Beria, a Yezhov or a Yagoda. One false word, one errant slip under the wrong circumstances, and even Barbosa might be taken away and never heard from again.
DeWaart hung up the receiver on the redtop encrypted telephone and gazed at Barbosa across the massive walnut desk, his gray-green cat’s eyes looking satiated and cold.
“So what brings you out here on a Saturday night,” he began. “I’ve been stuck here all day. What’s your excuse?”
“I just heard from my deputy that Warren Linder has been arrested in Boston. Apparently, someone at headquarters gave the order to grab him. You may recall that, earlier this week, we finally succeeded in luring Linder back into the country. The operation took nearly three years to develop and has put the department in a position to control nearly the entire the émigré opposition. But Linder’s arrest puts that operation in jeopardy. If word gets out, our work could be set back for years.”
“I see,” the deputy director replied with an expression that gave away nothing. “So what do you want from me?”
Barbosa was not surprised to have the issue thrown back in his face and had a ready answer.
“I’d like to know who ordered Linder’s arrest and why I wasn’t informed. I’d also like the authority to release him back into the custody of the team running the operation. Which, by the way, you approved.”
The deputy director listened with a poker face.
“You want to know who ordered his arrest?” he answered, pausing for effect. “I did. The General Secretary called me and demanded Linder’s arrest after getting word that he was in country. If I’d let you block the arrest, you and I both would be a head shorter.”
Barbosa remained silent for a moment, choosing his words carefully.
“Might there be some way of persuading the General Secretary to reconsider? If we could arrange to free Linder by morning, I’m confident our people could come up with a cover story for what happened and avoid irreparable damage to the broader operation. But the longer we keep Linder behind bars, the greater the risk that he and his supporters will realize that everything we’ve been feeding them is a fiction.”
“I assume you’re talking about the League operation?”
“Yes, and all its spinoffs, which by now are legion,” Barbosa went on. “Listen, Linder met with the League’s Political Council in Boston earlier today and gave them his blessing. Which means we’ve succeeded in co-opting nearly all the top émigré opposition leaders. And don’t forget, the funds that the League brings in from the émigrés and their foreign state sponsors underwrites two-thirds of the Exile Division’s hard currency budget. So once Linder goes back to the U.K. and endorses the League publicly, we will have gained effective control over the entire overseas anti-Unionist movement. But if Linder doesn’t return, his people will smell a rat and the entire operation could unravel.”
“You don’t need to remind me what a success the League has been,” DeWaart grumbled. “I backed it from the start. But the General Secretary seems to harbor a personal grudge against Linder. The chances of getting him released are nil. The best you can hope for is to delay his execution long enough for us to interrogate him and perhaps craft an alternative narrative around his disappearance.”
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“So what will it be, Victor? Do you really want me to pick up the phone and give the General Secretary a call? You could be betting your career on it.”
“If the League goes down in flames, my career won’t be worth much, anyway. But this isn’t just about me, Gerrit. I have officers and agents out in the field whose lives could be at risk if we don’t find a way out of this. So, yes, I’ll risk it. Go ahead and call the bastard. I’ll take whatever I can get from him.”
DeWaart raised an eyebrow, either impressed by Barbosa’s courage or surprised by his recklessness, and picked up the red receiver to call. After being shunted from one White House functionary to another, he stiffened and motioned for Barbosa to be silent.
“Good evening, Mr. General Secretary. DeWaart here. You asked me to inform you when Warren Linder was in custody. I can report that he’s safely behind bars in Boston. But I also have in my office the division chief who ran the operation that brought Linder in. Frankly speaking, sir, he’s presented a solid case for releasing Linder back into the custody of our undercover officers and agents who arranged his visit. It’s your call, of course, sir, but may I put Victor Barbosa on speakerphone to offer his reasoning?”
When Unionist Party General Secretary Paul Twitchell agreed, DeWaart pushed the speakerphone button and Barbosa, in a few sentences, summarized the League operation and its current plight.
“So what exactly are you proposing?” Twitchell interrupted.
“Linder has been in custody for only a few hours,” Barbosa answered. “If we free him quickly, I believe we can salvage the overall operation by persuading him that the League used its influence to gain his release. If done well, such a move could enhance the League’s credibility with Linder and his people. But time is of the essence, sir. We’ll need to move quickly to keep the operation from falling apart.”
“Need I remind you, Mr. Barbosa, that your prisoner has already been convicted of treason, insurrection, seditious conspiracy, murder, and a long list of other crimes? And that he’s been sentenced to death not once, but twice? And, since his return to these shores, he’s met with insurrectionists and called for riots, sabotage, theft of state property and the assassination of state officials—including me! Can you understand why I find your request unacceptable? And, while we’re on the subject, could you tell me why I wasn’t I informed of your plans to bring Linder here in the first place?”
It took all of Barbosa’s resolve not to wither under this onslaught from the most powerful person in the ruling Unionist Party.
“The League is a sensitive compartmented counterintelligence activity that operates on a strict need-to-know basis, sir. Your National Security Advisor was briefed at every stage of the...”
“You mean to tell me, Mr. Barbosa,” Twitchell interrupted again, his voice like an ice cold bath, “that you, a senior State Security officer, would allow an implacable enemy of the state like Warren Linder to enter the country and call for my assassination, and then let him waltz back out? What if someone had acted on his madness?”
Barbosa opened his mouth to speak, but DeWaart held up his hand to silence him.
“Mr. General Secretary,” the deputy director intervened, “please accept our personal assurances that you were never at any risk from Linder’s presence here. Every single League operative who came into contact with him was under DSS control. Setting Linder free to return to the U.K. would remove any further risk to your person. But more than that, it would demonstrate to the émigrés that the League has far-reaching influence inside the U.S. and that they should put their resources at the League’s disposal. If so, for years to come the DSS would be in a position to control almost any plot that our overseas enemies might hatch against us.”
Barbosa and DeWaart exchanged hopeful glances as they awaited the General Secretary’s response. It came swiftly and was laced with menace.
“All right,” he replied slowly. “I’ve let you state your case. Now here is my decision: request denied. You are to hold Linder and carry out his death sentence immediately. Am I understood?”
Barbosa winced at the news. But he couldn’t let go easily, despite the risk of further aggravating the General Secretary.
“Certainly, sir. We will hold the prisoner per your order. However, with all due respect, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that vital national security interests are bound up with the League operation. While we can accept moving forward with Linder’s execution, we urge you to consider a delay to let us interrogate the prisoner and prepare a suitable cover story for his disappearance. This will allow us to wind down the League in an orderly manner and mitigate the risks facing our officers and agents in the field.”
The General Secretary let out an animal grunt.
“How long a delay?” he asked.
“Two or three weeks, I expect. Perhaps a bit longer.”
“I’ll give you a week. And I want Linder’s interrogation reports delivered daily to my National Security Advisor. Am I understood?”
Barbosa looked across the desk at DeWaart, who murmured assent.
When the call ended, Barbosa pounded his fist on the desk, his face a mask of rage.
“What he wants is impossible,” he snarled. “Linder’s disappearance will destroy the League and undo all our hard work over these past three years. Just when we’ve finally gained control over the émigrés, their trust in the League will collapse like a house of cards. Our agents will be exposed and from then on, we’ll be blind to the enemy’s intrigues.”
But to Barbosa’s surprise, DeWaart merely shrugged.
“Orders are orders, Victor. The League has had a good run. You and your men deserve praise for it. But no intelligence operation lasts forever. Take satisfaction in what you’ve accomplished and start winding it down. Now. If you can break Linder within a week and protect the League at the same time, so much the better. But a week isn’t very long when you’re up against a hard-bitten S.O.B. like Linder.”
A thin smile formed on the deputy director’s lips.
“After all,” he added, “Linder knows our tricks. He used to be one of us.”
CHAPTER TWO: BEIRUT
“The dogs are barking. That means we are on our way.”
—Don Quixote
FRIDAY, 26 SEPTEMBER 2031 (TWO AND A HALF YEARS EARLIER)
Warren Linder rose from the desk in his study, where he had been answering emails since dawn, and stepped through half-open French doors onto the veranda of his sixth-story apartment. To the north, he enjoyed a panoramic view of Beirut’s new container port, the city’s rebuilt commercial district, and the sparkling blue Mediterranean beyond. Along the veranda’s edge, potted gardenias, jasmine, and dwarf frangipani trees lent an intoxicating sweetness to the air.
Linder had gone to bed early the night before, after taking the dinner flight home from Geneva. The trip, made in part to raise money for the anti-Unionist Congress (AUC), an umbrella organization of prominent American émigrés, had been a disappointment. Leonard Fury, the organization’s founder, no longer commanded its members’ full support. Despite being a long-time Fury ally and personal friend, the time had come for Linder to distance himself. He’d left Geneva profoundly discouraged.
