III

III

The office was white, with a cone of dim-but-just-bright-enough-to-not-be-called-dim light gently glowing onto everything in it. It was bigger than most of the offices in the CIA headquarters. Maybe even bigger than the late director's. To both of my sides were wood chairs, both sporting black pleather cushions on their seats and backs. To my back, about seven feet away, was a door which, like all office doors, had a large pane of frosted glass just above its center and a silver hook handle for its doorknob. Two burly men, bigger than me, were standing at both its sides. Black suits. Earpieces. No doubt they were armed. And finally, to my front was a desk. Black, large, and ordinary. My unloaded USP, its magazine, and my badge case sat atop it. But what set this desk apart from every other desk in the world, was that this one had a short, heavyset man behind it, his face red with anger, his bare head covered with sweat, and his mouth yelling his heart out at me. My boss, Special Agent David Eitel.
"That was the Goddamned director of the CIA!" he yelled. "How in the living hell did you let him die, Wolfram?"
"I was on break, sir," I replied.
"I couldn't possibly give less of a damn," he snapped back. "Bristow is still dead, and I'm short one agent!"
"Rookie," I corrected. "Short one rookie. She hadn't been in the ENIGMA sector for three days."
"And you've been here for three years! God, you were our best agent!"
I raised an eyebrow at that.
"Were?" I said. "I still am."
"No, you're not. You've been suspended pending an inquiry. Only reason you're still in this Goddamned building in the first place."
"What?"
"You've been suspected of treachery towards a United States government defense agency."
"All because I failed to stop an assassin?" I said, raising my voice.
"No," Eitel said, raising his own. "I've been digging up some things about you. It's been an ongoing investigation about you. I've got your entire past in a portfolio in my desk. You, Wolfram, have been suspected of murdering Special Agent Drake Kolger, among seven other agents, during a massacre in Moscow, in the spring of '88. Wanna tell me why?"
"From what I hear, he and those seven agents were all terrorists," I said. "Each of which were conspiring to kill Mikhail Gorbachev and ignite a war between Russia and the U.S."
"Really?" Eitel said, his face showing a look of surprise. "Do you have any proof of this?"
I sighed and went silent. Looked at the ground. Kolger was my proof. But Eitel wasn't crazy enough to try and get a statement from a corpse he couldn't find. I knew that all too well.
"I thought not," he said, wiping his brow. "I'm gonna ask you right here and now: are you conspiring against the CIA and the U.S. government?"
"No. What reason do I have to?"
"What reason do you have not to?"
"Every. The biggest of which is that it could get me killed."
He scoffed at me.
"Joining ENIGMA, every day could get you killed," he said. "Take him out of here. Get him to the interrogation room; I'm not done with him by a long shot."

The two agents behind me had stepped forward and had turned me around to face the door. One stepped in front of me, made me walk forward, and the other one got behind me and held my arms behind my back. In a single-file line, we all walked out of Eitel's office into a hallway that shared the very same blue glow that the office had. Only, it was brighter. On the way to the elevator, we passed by several of my colleagues. They were curious as to what was going on. Some of them even asked me why I looked like I was going to the Virginia State Penitentiary. I gave them no answer. After all, a guy like me wouldn't go to a state penitentiary. I'd go right to a maximum security prison, full of military police that'd be proud to keep me inside. It's too risky to leave me anywhere else.
The three of us had reached the elevator leading down to the sub-basement level. That was where the interrogation rooms were. We'd entered single file, but we ended up spread out, the two suits to my sides grabbing an elbow, each. I eyed them both. They were about an inch taller than me, and I could see their muscles rippling from under their suits. I didn't have any plans to get within ten yards of that interrogation room. I'm not a guy that likes to be questioned by authority.
I quickly stuck my right foot behind the left leg of the guy on my right. He didn't notice. I kicked my shin up, to the back of his knee, swift and hard. He knelt, bringing me down with him from my elbow. I kicked him with the same leg to the back of his skull. His arm slipped from mine and I turned to my left and punched the suit on that side in the throat. He stumbled back and grabbed his neck with the hand he was using to hold my arm. Then he looked up and saw me standing in front of him. He let go of his neck and swung his right arm in a punch at me. I blocked it and batted it out of the way, only to block the left hook that he swung immediately after. I grabbed it just after the block, kicking him in the stomach. He bent forward as I twisted the arm inward, stepping to his left. Yanked him forward and got behind him as I twisted his arm up his back. Used my right hand to reach into his jacket and steal his firearm. His was a Bernardelli P-One compact, chambered in nine-millimeter. I shoved it into my hip holster and kicked him in the back of his knee. As he knelt, I brought my right elbow down hard on his neck. He went down like a tree and made the elevator box shake a little. Then I took his three spare magazines and shoved them into my hip holster's mag holders.
I stepped over his body to the elevator's floor panel and pressed the emergency stop button. Then I pressed the button marked "B1". As the elevator started moving, I walked over to the elevator roof's hatch and pushed it open. Then I climbed up it and let the darkness of the elevator shaft swallow me. The only light in here was from the open elevator hatch, and the shaft's closed doors on each level. It didn't take long for the elevator to slow to a stop as it reached the first basement. Just in front of me was the shaft door leading to the lobby. I pulled it open barehanded and walked through it. Made my way out of the building.

--