Unfaithful Servant

By Tom Casey

Brilliant, disgruntled CIA officer Jack Harris avenges the death of his military fiancé in a fast paced thriller. Jack’s clever technique applied to strategic targets in the U.S. is discovered by his childhood friend, FBI agent Frank Warren, who invokes a blood vow to learn why and wherefore. A compelling read with a surprise ending.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tom Casey
• Release date: Apr 4, 2010
• ISBN: 9780982595022

Tom Casey

Tom Casey is the Managing Principal for Discussion Partner Collaborative a Global Executive Advisory firm. This is his fourth book focused on Talent Readiness.

Book preview

PART ONE

We must understand Sisyphus as happy.

--Albert Camus

Prologue

The Boathouse Vow

Frank Warren and Jack Harris threw the baseball ball back and forth with the inconclusive lethargy of twelve-year-old boys. Old adequacies did not meet a growing non-specific need for action. They were bored, and impatient with their boredom.

I'm tired of this, said Jack.

We could ride bikes to Mamaroneck, Frank said.

They continued to throw the ball in languid rhythm, each toss a non-specific impulse.

What do you want to do?

I don't know.

We could ride bikes to the airport.

I don't want to ride bikes.

For both the ball glove seemed a talisman of childhood, and the bicycle too, caught as they were in that preadolescent ache of longing for larger things.

We could go over to my house.

And do nothing there?

Wait, Frank said. I've got an idea, a great idea.

What?

We can sail my boat.

Sail?

To an island, Calves Island, and spend the night.

Jack's interest grew.

I'll tell my parents I'm staying at your house, you tell yours that you're staying at mine, and we'll sail off and sleep out.

It was an obvious and wonderful idea, but not without logistical challenges. Frank had a Sunfish, a small boat two could maneuver. The sails and boats were put away each night and they would have to remove them somehow without drawing attention.

We'll meet at the beach, Frank said. If we get there before they lock up, we can put the sail under the hedge behind the boathouse.

They also lock the fence, said Jack. How are we going to get the boat?

We'll put it upside down on the top of the fence and lift it over. It's easy.

An hour later the boys met at the boathouse with sleeping bags and a waterproof full of equipment. High clouds in the west gave the agreeable impression of big sky. They took the sail out of storage and hid it under the hedge, along with their bags. Later, after the instructors left for the day, with two hours of daylight left, they got the boat out, and with sleeping bags lashed to the mast, set sail for Calves Island.

Tacking offshore, they sat only inches above the waves in a good breeze. Frank, reading the wind, held a reach to the east until he was able to able to sail directly for the island's beach, a small strip of sand visible against a wooded land mass. Jack dragged his fingers in the water as they went along, while in his mind they were adventurers, explorers, old salts on high seas, pirates.

They approached landfall.

Frank pulled up the centerboard and let the sheet out to luff the sail and slow their speed until the bow kissed the shore. Once on the beach, they dropped the sail and dragged the boat up from the shoreline to secure it. They had sailed for an hour and were giddy with the thrill of it. The air was mild and carried a scent of tar.

Let's camp over there, Jack said, pointing to a corner where the trees met the beach and made a sheltered pocket. Frank agreed. The sun was near to setting.

Frank organized their equipment against a large stump. We should scavenge some firewood before we lose the light, Jack said. The boys set out in different directions. They walked along the edge of the woods where driftwood lay among broken shells and small smooth stones. In a short while they had a stack of it. In the next en minutes they up their tent and made camp with a roaring fire.

Camp established, Jack put a couple of cans on a log nearby and took a slingshot out of his sleeping bag. It had a thick rubber band with a leather sling and a crude sight made from hanger wire. He attached the sight and picked up a round stone, pinched it in the sling, pulled hard, took aim, and let the stone fly. It hit the can dead on with such velocity it penetrated the metal. That's a stone, Jack said. For better accuracy I carry marbles.

That looked accurate to me.

Watch this. Marbles are better. He took aim and the marble flew with the mass and momentum of a small caliber weapon.

Let me try that, said Frank. He took the slingshot from Jack and tried it with a marble. It felt lethal and had phenomenal accuracy at short range. The boys took turns shooting at cans, which jumped when hit as if tin could feel keen pain.

The sun set.

For a long while high clouds in the west glowed red, and then pink, and finally gray as daylight died and nighttime came. The boys sat around the fire with only the lapping of small waves to break the silence. The flames were bright yellow and jumped and danced like little emissaries from the sun. The wood occasionally popped, sending a shower of sparks into the curls of rising smoke.

We're having an adventure, sure enough, Jack said. And nobody knows we're here.

This is the first time I've gone anywhere with the boat.

Maybe you'll be a ship captain some day.

I don't want be a ship captain. I'm not sure what I want to do.

Jack thought for a moment. I want to be a spy.

A spy?

I'm not kidding.

Frank laughed, but he was impressed with the idea. I can see you as James Bond. Maybe they'll give you a license to kill.

Jack dismissed that notion with a wave of his hand. Nobody has a license to kill. It doesn't work that way.

How do you know how it works?

I don't.

Then how do you know you'd like it?

I want to travel.

Become a pilot.

I will if I want to. You just make a phone call to flight school and book a lesson. When you're old enough.

The practical simplicity of that made them both laugh. Life was ahead of them. At twelve, working for a living seemed infinitely far off. Frank threw a rock into the fire.

I'd like to see Rosemary Clifford with her clothes off. That comment took them into a different channel of inquiry altogether which led to much obscene imagery, bragging, lying and laughter.

Dusk settled. The wind had died and the Sound was calm. Stars overhead were exceptionally bright and a gibbous moon was rising on the southeastern horizon. The two sat silently, staring at the fire. The fire was warm, crackling, popping and smoking. They were cowboys on the range, or pirates on the sea, adventurers, free in a world of all possibilities.

It sounded like a scream, but faint enough to attribute to birds or other creatures, so neither one of them acknowledged it. And then it came again.

Did you hear that? Frank said.

Both times, said Jack.

It sounds like a woman's scream.

When it came a third time they jumped up.

I've got a flashlight for each of us, Frank said. He reached into his bag and got them. Jack took his slingshot.

Let's go.

Three main dirt paths led from the beach into the woods. One followed the western shoreline, the other the eastern. It seemed logical to go down the center trail and continue to listen.

Jack led, holding his flashlight, panning it left and right. The scent of salt and pine was strong. The woods were very dark.

They walked slowly. Some sound seemed to come from the left -- not a scream but a grunt, or if not a grunt a growl of discontent. Something. Jack held his finger up to signal a pause until they could determine direction. The boys stood motionless and silent, listening.

The sound came again.

It was a man's sound, a grunt of exertion, of labor or sex, a rhythmic grunting, energetic. Then it ceased. They moved toward where he thought the sound had come from in the woods, slightly to the left. Slowly and cautiously, they pressed forward.

A tiny path led off the main trail in the direction Jack indicated. They followed it. The grunting resumed. Frank turned off his flashlight and tapped Jack on the shoulder to do the same. They continued in darkness, feeling their way, listening for sounds. Neither boy was nervous. Adrenalin was pumping. Each felt intense curiosity.

And then they heard a scream again, loud and mortal, close by, a sound like something flashing in the dark --a scream of panic and resignation that dissolved into a whimper, then died into silence.

The boys looked at each other.

Jack put his hand on Frank's arm as a gesture to continue. They left the tiny trail, moving through the woods and brambles in the direction of what they had heard. They went on for some minutes slowly and silently. And then through the trees they saw a light. Curiosity made them bold. Going closer, they could make out the image of a camp.

A small lantern was burning. In the faint lantern light they could see the outline of a man moving back and forth nervously. There was a fire pit, flameless but smoking. The man seemed alone but he was talking in an animated fashion, muttering. He appeared to be acting out a dialogue of argument with himself. The argument escalated. He grew animated and pointed his finger into the shadows, muttering imprecations. His head moved back and forth. The boys watched. He waved his finger in an admonitory fashion as though denying an accusation from the darkness.

Suddenly, he snatched up a machete. He paused a moment as though in deliberation, then swung hard against a vine growing on the trunk of a tree next to him. He hit it a second time with great violence, a third time, and then shrunk back and sat down, slumping, rage turning to petition, petition to penitence. He wept, continuing to talk to himself.

This is seriously fucked up, Frank whispered. Jack held his hand up to signal silence.

Recovering, the man stood again. Once on his feet, his aspect changed. Rage took over. He picked up the machete and struck the vine again and again, swinging the blade with the mania of a dervish. Then he collapsed and began to weep, repeating a cycle of penitence and rage and penitence again. The man was not young, and that unnerved both Jack and Frank, who still associated age with wisdom.

They waited.

And then they saw her.

They could make out the body of a naked woman, tied to a tree with a rope. No, not a woman -- a girl. She was certainly dead; the man had stabbed her to death. They could see how her wrists were tightly bound in the lantern light. She had wounds all over her front and back. Her body was bloody and lifeless.

The man worked to undo the knots. She fell to the ground and he dragged her to the smoking fire pit.

We've got to get out of here, Frank whispered.

No, said Jack. Wait.

The man stood over the body of the dead girl as though meditating. He seemed for a moment indecisive. Then, as if overcoming resistance, he picked up the machete and began to strike at her limbs, as though the vines had been a rehearsal for this dismemberment, accomplished in seconds.

That was enough for Jack and Frank.

They turned and ran.

The rustle of their movement in the growth alerted the man to their presence. He froze, dropped his machete, grabbed a high-powered searchlight and shined it into the woods.

Running as fast as they could, the boys were slowed by the thick growth of trees and brambles. The man came after them. The light he was holding shone unevenly on the thick growth and it felt like a nightmare as they struggled to get away.

But the man moved quickly and silently, taking a narrow path that circled around the past boys to the wider trail, where he switched his light off and, listening, waited for them.

He could hear them moving.

Jack and Frank had only one thought: distance between themselves and the murder scene. They ran without thinking of the man, except as someone they had left behind. As they broke out to the trail and began to run, a bloodcurdling howl and sudden fierce light stopped them short: the man was right in front of them, visible as a dark outline behind the searchlight, bright as Last Judgment.

Jack, on instinct, charged around him. Frank tried to follow, but the man tripped him and jumped on him. As he wrestled with Frank, he lost his grip on the light, which fell and went out. It rolled to Jack's feet. Unable to see, Jack felt for it and got it. He found the switch and turned it on. The woods lit up again. The man was strangling Frank with insane exuberance.

Jack reached for his slingshot and got a marble from his pocket. Time slowed down. He loaded the shot and pulled the sling back, aimed, and screamed, HEY! The man looked up, and Jack let the marble fly.

It hit its mark with ferocious velocity, exploding into the man's left eye. He roared backward in agony. Jack pulled Frank out from under him. Then he smashed the searchlight and threw it down. They left the man writhing in darkness, and ran at top speed out of the woods to the beach.

The boys, rapidly and in stunned silence, broke down their camp, launched the boat and left the island under moonlight. They went wordlessly into the night on their fragile vessel in no wind. They seemed merely to float, to drift, unable to gain from what they had witnessed, as if the sordid event itself was dreaming them.

When they landed back at the mainland beach shortly after sunrise, they slowly and methodically took down the sail. They brought