The Dark Tetrad: A Kori Briggs Novel

By A.P. Rawls

SHE'S FUN. She's smart. She's gorgeous...

...Oh, and she's a real badass when she needs to be. She's Kori Briggs, super spy, and if you haven't spent any time with her yet, what the heck are you waiting for??

• Language: English
• Publisher: Upper West Side Press, LLC
• Release date: Aug 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781737261315

A.P. Rawls

AP Rawls is an award-winning ghostwriter who has authored over forty books for a wide-ranging clientele of some of the most fascinating people on earth. Semi-retired from ghostwriting, Rawls is now focused on the Kori Briggs series of suspense spy novels. Sign up for updates on the Kori Briggs series (and receive a free gift!) at https: //koribriggs.com/connect/.

Book preview

1

Mr. President?

Yes, come in, Randall. The president waved his chief of staff Randall Crawford into the Oval Office. What’s wrong? You’ve got that look on your face. You know I don’t care for that look.

Sorry, Mr. President. But I’m afraid I have some unsettling news.

The president, a sturdy man with a high forehead and dark, thinning hair, raised his eyebrows. Unsettling? Randall, you know I never like to hear that word.

Of course not, sir.

The president especially didn’t want, or need, anything unsettling now. So far, it had been a fairly lazy summer and he’d been enjoying the relative quiet. Midway into his second term, his poll numbers were high, the world seemed at least temporarily stable, and Congress was in recess. The following week, he was scheduled for a weeklong retreat to his vacation home in the Poconos. For being the most powerful person in the world, his plate was surprisingly light just now.

Well? Out with it, Randall.

Apparently, we have a situation in Russia, Mr. President. Our man Blake, in Moscow, is on a secure line for you, sir.

The president saw the blinking light on his phone and reached for it. Crawford knew that Blake was one of the few operatives in the world with clearance to call the president directly. Most every other agent had to go through proper channels, relaying intelligence to officers above their paygrade. Anything POTUS needed to know was typically funneled through to the agency director who would report it to the president. But Blake was in a unique position. After thirty years in Russia, with a network of former KGB agents and current high-level Russian military officers at his disposal, he had intelligence nobody could touch. To the president, he was the second-most valuable intelligence agent he knew.

The president picked up the phone, placed his hand over the receiver and gave Crawford a look that said, I’ve got it, thanks. You can leave now. Crawford knew the look. He’d seen it many times before. He bowed his head slightly and left the room.

Blake, what’s going on over there? What he wanted to say was, Please don’t jeopardize my trip to the Poconos.

Hello, Mr. President. Sorry to bother you, sir.

It’s all right. What’s the situation?

Well, I’ve been given a little disconcerting news, replied Blake, whose first name the president could never remember. And it comes straight from my top source.

Kovalev?

Yes, sir.

Good to know that son of a bitch is still out there. He might be getting a little long in the tooth, but he still works hard, doesn’t he?

Yes, sir.

So what’s our favorite ex-KGB agent have to say for himself?

Well, it seems, sir, as if there’s been a bit of a theft.

Theft? What kind of theft?

In Bayanovka, sir.

Bayanovka . . . Bayanovka . . . the president said thoughtfully. I’ve heard that name.

Yes, sir, it’s a small town in the Ural mountains. It’s where about twenty tons of enriched uranium left over from the Soviet days are warehoused.

Yes, Bayanovka, of course. I remember being briefed about that place during my first term. It’s their main nuclear repository, if I’m not mistaken. Good Lord, what are you saying? The uranium?

About a hundred pounds of it, sir. Gone.

Clerical error. It’s happened before, as I recall. Their methods of record-keeping aren’t exactly top-notch. In some respects, they’re still working with twentieth-century technology. A week from now they’ll tell us they did another inventory and all is right with the world.

Not this time, Mr. President. There was a clear break-in. Alarms were disabled. So were video cams. This was a professional job.

From the inside?

That’s my initial instinct. Obviously, it was someone who knew the grounds well. But the fact is, it’s just too early to speculate. We don’t know if it was an individual, a group, somebody with terrorist ties . . . we just don’t know. Naturally, as always, the Russians are being pretty tight-lipped.

Of course. Like those bastards would ever admit to anything. Thank God for Kovalev. If he still worked for their government, they’d shoot him dead for leaking this to us. They might anyway.

If they could ever find him, sir. Which, of course, they won’t.

No, of course not. Listen, Blake, what can a hundred pounds of uranium do?

It’s sufficient for a single bomb, sir. Enough, I would say, to take out a ten-mile radius of wherever it’s detonated. But of course, the radiation from the bomb would affect a much larger area, covering a swath roughly the size of, say, Baltimore. I would suggest that we put Homeland on high alert.

Of course. What did you tell Crawford?

Just that there was a serious problem in Russia. Just enough to get him to put me immediately through to you.

Okay, good. He’ll remain on a need-to-know basis. So will everybody else around here. I’ll talk to Homeland personally. Nobody needs to know what you’re up to over there, Blake. Everyone thinks you’re with the CIA, after all. In the meantime, what’s being done over there?

Kovalev promised to get back with me once their investigation yields some more clues as to the thief or thieves. I’ll hear more later today and then we’ll be able to make some better-informed decisions.

Okay, Blake. I’ll be waiting. The president hung up, spun his chair around, and gazed out of the Oval Office windows. Damn the luck. It looked like the Poconos would have to wait. The first lady would be disappointed, that was certain. And that would be the best case. The worst case? Who knew? But enough uranium to take out a major city, stolen and in God-knows-whose hands was downright frightening.

He spun his chair back around, picked up the phone again, and called for Crawford. Get Cooper and Foster in here. ASAP!

Darren Cooper and James Foster were the top intelligence officers assigned to the White House. Crawford and everyone else in the executive department assumed they were secret service. They weren’t. Not anymore than Blake was CIA. Cooper and Foster and Blake all belonged to an executive intelligence agency so secretive that its existence was unknown to both the Secret Service and the CIA. And to the FBI, for that matter. Rampart had been set up during the Kennedy administration during the height of the Cold War when double agents were not uncommon and even long-time intelligence officers could not necessarily be trusted. Payoffs were huge and loyalties were often compromised. It was determined that a higher echelon of agents was needed, a kind of super-group, but a small, tight-knit one. At any given time, there were no more than eighteen or twenty members. There was no red tape, no time-wasting levels of approval to climb through. Rampart could turn on a dime, its agents ready at a moment’s notice to deploy anywhere in the world.

The Cold War ended, but the need for Rampart hadn’t. The world was no less dangerous, and in many respects, more so. And so Rampart continued, most of its agents more or less hiding in plain sight. Nobody questioned Blake’s affiliation, or lack thereof, with the CIA. He had all the credentials, just as Cooper and Foster had all the credentials of secret service agents. Such was the level of muddling bureaucracy that the agents’ status of employment was simply taken for granted by everyone. They even drew their paychecks from their ostensible employers. The fact is, however, the agents of Rampart answered to no one but the president.

Now, sitting in the White House Oval Office, Cooper and Foster were being grilled by him.

How long do we have, gentlemen? he asked them. How long does it take before somebody can make a working bomb out of a hundred pounds of uranium?

A few weeks, at least, answered Cooper. And even then, they’d really have to know what they were doing. Cooper was lean but muscular, and with short, dark hair. Foster looked the same and the president often had trouble differentiating them. To him, they were interchangeable. If there were a way to tell them apart, it was probably Cooper’s wire-rimmed glasses. Still, the president never trusted his memory and was careful never to call either one by his name, preferring to ask questions to both and look from one to the other until one of them answered.

Okay, the president said, with a slight sigh of relief. We’re not in imminent danger. We have a little breathing room. Good. Next question: how could they deliver such a bomb? If it’s a terrorist cell or even a rogue state, they wouldn’t have the capability of launching it, would they?

That’s correct, Mr. President, said Foster. But they wouldn’t necessarily need to.

No? How else would they hit a target?

Overlord, said Cooper and Foster in unison.

Say again?

Overlord, sir, said Cooper. It’s a scenario we’ve modeled quite thoroughly.

Operation Overlord, explained Foster, was the code name given to the Normandy invasion on D-Day, Mr. President. The amphibious assault on the German-held French coast.

Yes, thank you for the history lesson. I’m aware.

Of course, sir. Well, anyway, the Overlord scenario, as we call it, involves an amphibious assault on the United States by terrorists. Of course, they can’t storm our beaches with thousands of men from troopships and landing crafts all supported by battleships and aerial bombardment.

But they wouldn’t need to, said Cooper. The fact is, all they’d need is a single boat.

A single boat with a homemade nuclear bomb on board, said the president, thoughtfully.

Yes, sir. A single boat with a homemade nuclear bomb. It could even be a small pleasure craft. And you wouldn’t have to land it.

All you’d need, said Foster, would be to sail such a boat into New York Harbor. Or underneath the Golden Gate Bridge.

Or into Chesapeake Bay and up the Potomac, added Cooper.

The president frowned. I get the point. How prepared are our ports for such a scenario?

Not prepared enough, I’m afraid, said Cooper. US Customs does what it can. So do the respective port authorities and, of course, there’s the Coast Guard. Vessels are checked once they dock. Inventories and cargoes are routinely inspected, but you can’t realistically catch everything. Billions of pounds of cargo come into this country every day.

As far as nuclear material, Foster added, radiation detectors are in place, but if you carried the uranium within a lead container, it probably wouldn’t set them off. Even a hundred pounds.

And if a boat doesn’t need to dock . . . said the president.

Yes, sir. A small boat could slip in unnoticed, said Cooper.

And of course that’s just the ports, sir, said Foster. Someone could conceivably fly it in, although our air defenses are a little better at spotting unidentified aircraft that approach our borders. But, again, the sheer numbers . . .

How is the uranium activated? asked the president. How, in other words, does one make a bomb out of it?

Well, that’s the thing, sir, said Cooper. The uranium itself isn’t enough. What you need to do is build two small containers or canisters, each housing half the uranium. Then you slam the canisters together. This compresses the uranium and creates what’s called a supercritical mass. A nuclear chain reaction ensues. That’s essentially how the bomb would work.

But the slamming of the two canisters really needs to be hard, added Foster. You more or less need to fire one at the other. So you need to rig up something like a small cannon to propel one canister at the other, achieving enough velocity to basically fuse the two together and start the reaction.

Right, said Cooper. And you need a detonating device to activate the cannon. So you need a small second bomb as well. That would be easy enough because all you’d really need for that is gunpowder. But all of this takes time, which is why it’s safe to assume we have a few weeks.

But what if all of that has already been built? the president asked. In anticipation of acquiring the uranium?

Well, that’s possible, said Foster. But unlikely. The hard part is getting the uranium. Why go to the trouble of building the structure for a nuclear bomb unless you know for sure that you have the actual nuclear material? You might even give yourself away if someone gets wind of what you’re constructing. You start shopping around for lead and gunpowder and someone’s liable to take notice.

Yes, I see what you’re saying.

The other part of the equation, Mr. President, added Cooper, is that to successfully pull it off, you’d need someone who really knows his way around uranium, especially how to handle it. You could irradiate yourself if you’re not careful. When it gets right down to it, it’s a pretty specialized discipline. Anyone can make the detonator bomb, but the nuclear part is another thing entirely.

So there are a lot of hurdles, said Foster, which alleviated the president’s concern, but only slightly. He knew intuitively that this was the kind of crisis that could make or break a presidential legacy. Foster continued, Now, naturally, sir, our Overlord model is based on US security, but a small uranium bomb, depending on its owner, can be at least as much of a threat to France, England, or any number of countries.

Including Israel, Cooper added. Maybe especially Israel.

Depending on its owner, repeated the president. That’s what we need to know. That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? So how do we find that out?

Sir, I’d suggest that Russian inefficiencies might work to our advantage, said Foster.

Explain.

The thieves are probably counting on the fact that a hundred pounds of uranium out of twenty tons won’t be missed, at least not right away. After all, Bayanovka has been known for its inventory inaccuracies.

I said the same thing to Blake.

"The thieves might think they have more time than they do. We know the Russians won’t leak anything. This would be a tremendous black eye for them on the world stage. If the thieves believe they’ve gotten away with it, they may not feel the need to be as careful with their next steps. Surely, they’d have no idea that we know about the break-in."

And so they won’t be as inclined to be looking over their shoulder, added Cooper.

Maybe they’ll get sloppy, said Foster. Make a mistake. Give themselves away. Interestingly, eighty-two percent of crimes are thwarted in just this way.

The president frowned. Clearly, he wasn’t interested in statistics of other crimes.

Cooper jumped in. There’s another thing working in our favor, sir. Say what you will about the Russians, but putting their uranium storage in the middle of their country—in the mountains, no less—is at least one smart thing they did. Kazakhstan is about a thousand miles away from Bayanovka, and that would be the closest border.

And the Barents Sea to the north is even farther away, added Foster. That would be the closest water escape. Either way, it’s a long ways to lug a hundred pounds of nuclear material.

The phone buzzed.

Mr. President, came the voice of Crawford, Blake is back on the line, sir.

Put him through. Blake? I’ve got Cooper and Foster here with me. What have you got?

Well, sir, nothing definitive. But Kovalev is telling me the theft has all the earmarks of an Alfawda raid.

The president grimaced. Of course. Alfawda! Damn. Well, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. Those terrorist bastards are making al-Qaeda and ISIS look like boy scouts. What’s it going to take to be sure?

I’m going to Bayanovka tonight, sir. I’ll be meeting with Kovalev. Of course, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service is on the case, but Kovalev will already know everything they know. I’ll rendezvous with Kovalev and get a full briefing and report back to you, sir.

No matter what time of day or night, Blake, said the president. Contact me the moment you have news.

Yes, sir.

Hanging up the phone, the president turned again to Cooper and Foster. We need to be ready to mobilize. We need to be prepared to take whatever action might be necessary and we need to be ready to go immediately. We need the best field person we’ve got to be on top of this, to be ready to go wherever the need dictates.

Rampart agents Darren Cooper and James Foster knew who the president meant before he even said it out loud. We need the girl, the president declared. Then he pounded the desk to emphasize the sense of urgency. Bring me the girl!

2

Do you have to leave so early? Ronald Strickland watched as his girlfriend rose from the bed and moved toward the bathroom, her taut, naked figure silhouetted against the early morning light from the window. At least he thought she was his girlfriend. They’d been seeing each other for a few weeks now. This would mark just the second night they’d slept together. Ronald assumed the lovemaking signaled a commitment, but there was something about Kori that gave him pause. She was, well, it was hard to describe. Distant, he supposed was the right word, even during sex. Just what kind of relationship did they have, anyway?

Ronald wished he knew, but the only thing he could be sure of was that he was falling for her. Hard. There was something about her, something mysterious, something alluring. He wanted more emotionally from her, but he sensed that this was the kind of woman from whom one didn’t make demands.

You know they’re expecting me first thing, Kori said. I have to give a report on the quarterly sales numbers. All part of the job, you know.

Yes, I know, I know. You said so last night. But couldn’t we spend just a little more time in bed together? Just another half hour. Fifteen minutes? I feel well-rested and . . . ready to go, if you catch my drift.

Kori smiled and walked over to Ronald’s side of the bed and kissed him on the forehead, her long, straight black hair cascading down her shoulders. I have no doubt, she said, but it wouldn’t look good for the East Coast VP of sales to be late. I have responsibilities. People are counting on me. Plus, I have to stop by my place to shower and change. Then she turned and slipped into the bathroom.

Call me later? Ronald called after her, but the door was closed and he imagined she didn’t hear him. She soon came out dressed, and stopped once more to give Ronald another peck on the forehead before turning for the front door. See ya, she said.

Call me later?

Busy day, she said over her shoulder, but I’ll try. I really will.

Then she was gone and Ronald lay there naked under the sheets wondering when he’d hear from her again.

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Outside Ronald’s apartment building, Kori Briggs stepped into her Tesla Model S and headed for I-395, stopping at a coffee shop for her morning cup—black, no sugar, and—why not?—one of those blueberry scones. The interstate took her to Army Navy Drive, then to South Eads Street to her high-rise condominium. From her fourteenth floor balcony overlooking the Potomac, she could see the Washington Monument. But Kori didn’t spend much time on her balcony gazing out across the Potomac. Her work afforded her precious little time. She didn’t really have time for Ronald, either, if she were to be honest about it. But a girl needs her distractions. Nobody would ever confuse Ronald with Albert Einstein, but he was not without his charms. Every now and again, he’d say something that would make her laugh. Plus, there was that well-toned body of his. Those upper arms, those broad shoulders. He kept himself in shape, she’d say that much for him. And the dark brown puppy dog eyes were hard to look away from.

After a quick shower, Kori changed into her black Burberry suit with one-button blazer and a crisp but simple white blouse unbuttoned halfway down. Then it was back in the Tesla for the drive to the office on L Street. Along the way, she called her mother. Joan Briggs, sixty-four, lived twenty minutes away in Alexandria, with Baxter, her Jack Russell terrier. Her husband, Kori’s father, had left when Kori was three. Kori had only a vague memory of him. She seemed to recall a day when he’d punched a hole in the living room wall with his massive fist. It might have been her very first memory. He had a volatile temper, Joan would later tell Kori. And a habit of straying to other women, spending nights away from home, sometimes whole weekends. Then one day, he didn’t come home at all. Joan had never remarried. There were no other children and although Joan had a small circle of friends, Kori often felt as though she was all Joan had in the world, with the exception of Baxter.

Hi, Mom.

Hi, honey. Whatcha doing?

I’m just on my way to work. Wanted to check on you and say hey. What’s new?

Well, that stupid Mr. Schiller next door has reported Baxter to the homeowner’s association again. I could just wring that man’s neck.

Mom, I told you, you can’t just let Baxter run loose.

But I only let him out in the backyard.

Which would be fine, Mom, if your backyard was fenced in. But it’s not. Have you looked into the idea of an electric dog collar, like I suggested? That way you don’t even have to build a fence.

That just seems so cruel.

It’s not, Mom. Once he gets a shock for leaving the backyard, he won’t do it again.

Hmm . . . I don’t know.

Well, what did he do this time, anyway?

Well, that’s just it. Nothing! Although Mr. Schiller seems to think he dug up some flowers in his flowerbed out front. But that doesn’t sound like Baxter at all!

"Mom, that sounds exactly like Baxter." The two talked