102 pages

English

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Je m'inscris

Favor Owed , livre ebook

Outskirts Press - Tom Lee

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Je m'inscris

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102 pages

English

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Informations
Extrait

Description

Ryan and Gunny are at it again. Amanda has called in her favor, and now the both of them are off to Budapest and a double cross. Ryan has been tasked with discrediting ANFA, a U.S. homegrown terror outfit. While at the same time finding information on a left-wing radical group inside the Hungarian government. Who will die this time?

Sujets

Policier & Thriller

Policier

Thriller

Fiction

Crime

Espionage

Thrillers

Informations

Publié par	Outskirts Press
Date de parution	26 juin 2023
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781977266118
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be repr oduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com

Outskirts Press and the “OP” logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The Ryan series by Tom Lee Back cover picture provided by J. Bodine

Nothing to Hide Hidden Agendas

Also by Tom Lee

There’s a Turtle on the Runway and other flying stories

1: THE CALL

2: PRIORITIZE

3: THE CLUE

4: A CONFERENCE

5: GEEKS

6: A VISIT

7: FAVOR DUE

8: LUNCH

9: THE BRIEFING

10: CUSTOMS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

11: FARKAS, BOBOS, GUNNY

12: THE ROOM

13: DECISION TIME

14: THE PICKUP

15: DEJA VU

16: THE MEET

17: CATE

18: SENOR FROG

19: THE DEATH

20: MY FAVORITE CELL

21: A TRAP SPRUNG

22: THE ENCOUNTER

23: INFORMATION

24: THE SETUP

25: SUNDAY

26: A FITTING

27: FINAL ACT

28: PAPPY

29: EMPATHY

THE CALL

Ryan ambled out of the bedroom enjoying the warmth of the brick floor on his bare feet as he made his way over to the kitchen to make hims elf an iced tea. At six in the morning with a brisk ten degrees Fahrenheit outside for the last few days, he was glad that his wife had the forethought to insist that th ey install heated floors. He had not slept well. Last night was his only slee pless night in the last five months. As he sat in his favorite chair sipping his tea, he gazed out the window at the snow blanketing the Taos Valley, pondering that implicat ion. After the last two years, the peace had been a pleasant change—last night being the lone exception. His wife was out of town RVing with her sister and brother-in-law, but in less than two months she would return. Then it would be his time to return to Corning and his bar, Scouties. He glanced over at the chair where Scout lay sleeping. His wife had gotten Scout for the kids ten or was it twelve years ago, he couldn’t remember. They had named her Scout. She was a wire haired terrier, may be fifteen pounds, white all over except for a black spot on her back that went down her right side. Her face was white with a little brown mixed in. A smile crossed his f ace as he turned his gaze back to the panoramic view of the snow-covered valley. He waite d for the sunrise. In Taos, that was his favorite time of the day—the second, being the sunsets over the valley. As the sun began to rise over the Taos Mountain, the valle y lit up like a Christmas tree with the colors of the vegetation being highlighted by t he sun’s rays. The same occurred in his living room as the sun illuminated the various art pieces hanging on the walls and sitting on the furniture. With the beauty of the mo ment holding his attention, a dark thought entered his mind. Setting his tea down he rose, heading for the kitchen counter and his phone. As he reached for it, it began ringi ng. Picking it up, he already knew who it was. “Hello Gunny.” “No John, it’s Amanda.” He glanced at the phone – this was trouble. She was not on her private line. He could sense some tension in the pause. “I take it y ou’re calling your favor in?” “Well…” Amanda said. “Well… get on with it. What do I have to do?” He ha d hoped Amanda would not call in the favor for at least a year, but he couldn’t c omplain. What she had done to help him and Cate was worth any favor she was going to ask. All those months ago when Cate’s ex had showed up and beaten her, in a fit of rage h e had nearly killed the man. He’d been arrested and charged with attempted murder, un til Ms. Amanda Kirkpact had stepped in. With her political weight in Washington she had the charges dropped. The ex was sent back to Florida for parole violation in addition to violating the restraining order Cate had filed against him. Now this was the favor he figured she was calling in. At least she was still using his alias of John Warn er. He guessed she wanted to keep him under wraps from her company…. “Listen, I think I’d better let Gunny explain. Hang on, I’ll put you on speaker.” “John, can you hear me?” Gunny asked. “Yes, who else is there?” Ryan started to get a bad feeling. He was on speaker, not a good omen. “Just Amanda and me in her office, but you know pho nes,” replied Gunny. “Oh crap!” Ryan pulled his phone from his ear and w ent into the settings application on the phone. In the application, he went to the pr ivacy function. He wanted to ensure that the location services was switched off. Seeing that it was, he let out a sigh of relief. “Okay Gunny, what’s up?”

“Well, a couple of things…” Gunny began. Amanda chimed in, “When are you headed back? I woul d like to talk with you then.” “Same time as always.” “Okay, that’ll dovetail nicely for me,” said Amanda . “If you two would just shut up for a minute! John… remember those guys you met in Vegas?” “Yes.” They had been from MI-6 British Intelligence . They’d returned Sidney Blum to him after they finished their interrogation. Ryan wondered what Gunny was getting at. “Well, their bosses called last week to pass on som e information they acquired. I took three days looking at the information and it’s accurate to a fault.” Ryan remained silent as he walked over to his desk, pulling open the top left hand drawer. He pulled out the 9mm pistol, checking to s ee that it was fully loaded. “John….” “I’m here Amanda.” He was now walking around the ho use looking out the windows to see if there were any footprints in the freshly fallen snow. The sun was rising, beginning to put on its display of the valley outsi de his windows. He ended back in his kitchen after his visual survey. “Keep going Gunny. I’ve been outed haven’t I?” Ryan cursed himself. He should have never gotten involve d with Gunny in the first place. He knew when he did that this day would come. There wa s silence on the line, then he could hear some whispering. “Guys, if you don’t min d I’m the one on the hook here.” Gunny spoke, “John, you are on a big hook like in the TV showDeadliestCatch.” Amanda interjected, “John, I just want to assure yo u that this did not come from us. I want to convey to you that we are all in this.” Ryan said, “You’re telling me…,” but he was cut off. “Yes! Do you understand?” Amanda’s words were clipp ed and authoritarian. Ryan heard silence after Amanda’s statement. He tho ught for a minute, then it hit him. They had a leak in their organization. How els e would the DTG terrorist organization have known about John Warner? Only Gun ny, Amanda, and her boss Sean O’Malley knew about him. “Got it. You have any thing else?” “Not from our end,” said Gunny. “Okay. I’ll talk with you later. For now though I h ave a few things to work on.” Ryan hung up. He was not too nervous about what they’d j ust told him. If the leak was in their agency, then they did not know his whereabouts. Gun ny along with Amanda had assured him that they had put nothing down as to wh ere he lived or where he went. As a matter of fact the only place the two of them had a location for him was in Corning, New York. Neither of them knew that his home was lo cated in the mountains of northern New Mexico near the town of Taos, which co uld only mean that someone had accessed the file on the Gjoni incident. That incid ent had taken place in Albania. So who accessed the file, a file that was secured in t he bowels of CIA headquarters? A yip brought him out of his thoughts. Looking down, ther e was Scout standing at his feet. Now with his second tea of the day in hand, he said , “Come on Scout. Let’s go upstairs and sort this out.”

PRIORITIZE

“Well… that went over like a lead balloon,” Amanda said as she stood up from behind her desk. “Gunny, I have to say you are probably on e of the best spy hunters I have ever met.” “But…,” replied Gunny. “But geez, can you stop bringing me trouble like th is?” Gunny was sitting in one of her office chairs leani ng slightly forward with his hands folded together on his knees. “Sorry ma’am, but it wasn’t me--It was as I said, the MI-6 boys. They felt they owed us one for bringing Sidne y Blum to justice over the killing of their agents.” “I know.” She waved her one hand over her head as s he picked up the folder lying on her desk with the other hand. As Amanda stood th ere, she perused the three sheets of paper inside the folder, flipping back and forth through the sheets in silence. Closing the folder she then tossed it at Gunny. “You’re a h undred percent sure the leak is on our side?” “Yes ma’am. I wish I wasn’t.” She pondered the implications as she began pacing a round her office. Gunny remained seated with the folder now in his hands. S he stopped facing the closed door to her office. “Well, I’m pretty sure it’s not you, but if it is I’m in big trouble. Sean can’t be the source of the leak. The Director of the CIA would be a real coup if he was. Besides you vetted him so he’s out.” She turned fro m facing the door to stare at Gunny. “You know it could be me.” “Yes ma’am,” was all he said. “Well, I didn’t expect that answer!” She walked ove r, retrieving the folder from Gunny’s hand. “You done with this?” He just nodded. Walking around her desk, she dropped the document t hrough the shredder that sat next to her desk. “Gunny, you didn’t want that back did you?” The doc ument was a copy of the original. One of her personal rules was not to leav e copies of classified documents laying around. If she had no further use for a docu ment she always destroyed it, or returned it to the originator. “No, that was your copy,” replied Gunny. She knew how astute Gunny was. She also knew that u ntil he could prove otherwise he would consider her a possibility for leaking Rya n’s alias – John Warner. That was going to throw a wrench into her plans for Ryan. “G ive me a time frame when you will feel certain it is not me.” She saw him smirk as he stood up to leave. He stepped towards the door. As he opened the door to start for his office several floors down. “Twenty-four hours, ma’am.” “Alright, well, let me know. We have to move forwar d on this. And stop calling me ma’am. When we’re behind closed doors, it’s Amanda.” “Yes ma’am,” Gunny said over his shoulder as he hea ded down the hallway. Amada slammed the door behind Gunny, he could be so annoying. She was more annoyed that her agency had a leak. That was brough t to their attention by MI-6 after an intelligence operation against a terrorist organ ization working in South Africa captured one of the up and coming leaders of the DT G terrorist organization along with some zip files. Someone or something had been infil trated into her organization. That person or thing was working for the Venezuelan Inte lligence Agency, SEBIN. On top of

that, according to the Brits, there was an active t eam looking for Ryan. Someone was out to kill Ryan. Had someone somehow discovered th at he was responsible for the exposure of the intelligence operations that SEBIN had been running in El Rito, New Mexico? She pondered that for a minute. Maybe someo ne had tipped off SEBIN. She retrieved her coffee cup from her desk. This was re ally a problem for their counter-intelligence people, but MI-6 had made it very spec ific that they were only giving their acquired information to Gunny. Gunny had told her t hat MI-6 considered it a favor owed, so had only provided him with the information . They left it up to Gunny to disseminate what information he felt was relevant. She now had three problems that needed to be resolved. One, where was the leak? The El Rito listening post had been nothing but a phone call from Ryan, alerting her about the foreign oper ation in El Rito. Along with the call, information had been delivered to her by one of Rya n’s longtime friends. As far as anyone knew, she was the one that had discovered th e operation while she was in the process of breaking up the Yuanita young guns terro rist cell located in Fredericksburg, Virginia. That group had been planning to blow up d ams across the U.S. If the leak was not from El Rito, then it had to be Albania but how? Two, she needed Ryan in Europe. The intelligence re ports coming out of Hungary painted an increasingly disturbing picture of the f ormation of an ultra-left wing political party that appeared to be backed by the Hungarian I ntelligence Service. She knew that if this was true then the fragile democracy of Hung ary could be in jeopardy. She needed to know definitively what direction this pol itical party was headed. Was it really left wing? Maybe it was right wing, or just plain r adicalization. In her mind it didn’t matter; all options meant it was bad news for U.S. political interest. She decided that before she went to Sean to ask for official permiss ion to investigate and if possibly, intervene. She needed a clear picture of what was h appening. That was where Ryan came into the picture. She knew when she made that step of talking with Se an it would have to be explained to the Senate Intelligence Committee, and that for sure would let the cat out of the bag. The inability of those people to keep t heir mouths shut frustrated her to no end. Ryan, though, was the perfect choice for her p lan. He was not part of the agency. No one but Gunny and her knew about him. The list w ent on as she ticked off in her head the skill set Ryan had. She planned to use Gun ny along with Ryan the same way they had worked together when they tracked down who was exposing covert operations to the Washington Post. And three… She stood up and began pacing. An active team looking for Ryan. How was she going to handle that? Her mind swirled arou nd this problem of an assassination team after Ryan. Why? How? Who? She k new that could all be figured out soon, but still. It was the WHEN that bothered her. She had to have all this wrapped up before she made her official request to Sean. “Afternoon ma’am.” Startled out of her thoughts she replied, “Morning. ” She stopped, then looked around. She was in the hallway outside her office. She glanced at her watch, it showed 3:30 in the afternoon. Where had all the time gone? “Excuse me?” The young lady that had greeted her stopped and tur ned toward Amanda. “Yes ma’am.” “This may seem odd, but how long have I been in thi s hallway?” The look on the young lady’s face showed that she was questioning A manda’s inquiry. “Just a few minutes,” came her reply. “Thank you. I’ve been up and down this hallway all day and it’s all beginning to blend together.” Amanda hoped that sounded reasonable to the young employee. By the look on the employee’s face, it showed that she indeed t ook it as a normal comment. The young lady smiled, then continued on her way. Amand a returned to her office. She’d spent the entire day thinking on her current issues . She needed to push some

paperwork or both her current issues and the un-end ing paperwork that came through her office door was going to bury her. She was star ting to question her decision to accept the job of Director of Covert Operations aft er Sean accepted the position as Director of the CIA. Ever since she had stepped into the job Sean had be en after her to name her replacement as Assistant Director. She’d spent a mo nth looking through resumes, but had not found someone she thought could do the job that needed to be done. As she sat at her desk going through a six-inch stack of p apers requiring her attention, her mind drifted again. Snapping out of her doldrums sh e finished the last of the paperwork, then looked at her watch. Her watch showed that it was past 7:00 p.m. She sighed; she needed a glass of wine, she needed to relax. Remind ing herself that it was Friday night, she decided tomorrow she would head off to the driv ing range to hit some golf balls. Smashing something appealed to her right now. She t idied up her office, locking up classified reports as needed, then headed for her c ar and home. On Saturday, as planned, she went to the driving ra nge and spent two hours smacking golf balls as hard as she could. After tha t she met one of her girlfriends for lunch on the outside patio of her favorite restaura nt in Woodbridge, Virginia. In the afternoon she went over to the FBI Academy located at Quantico. She spent two hours shooting there, first on the range and then in the shoot house. On Sunday, she had a private session with her Sense i at his Dojo. She worked out with him on her Shaolin Kempo martial art skills. S he felt she had been getting rusty. After three hours she felt satisfied that she had h oned her skills to a satisfactory level.