Parallax View by Allan Leverone Read Free Book Online Page A

in some of the most dangerous locations in the world.
    Tracie had
performed missions in Asian and Middle Eastern countries where being female
meant you had no rights, possessed no intrinsic value other than what the men
around you were willing to bestow upon you. You could disappear without warning
at any time and for any reason, and no one would ever question why.
    The United States
government would be no help, either, as her missions were almost always off the
books and so highly sensitive that if she was captured, rather than fighting or
negotiating for her release, the government would deny her very presence in the
country, all the way up the official channels.
    This was the life
of a CIA Directorate of Operations agent. It was Tracie Tanner’s life, and a
career she had never once regretted undertaking. It was a solitary, often
lonely life, but as the daughter of a four-star U.S. Army general and a career
State Department diplomat, Tracie had been groomed for it. After graduating
Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, with a degree in linguistics,
Tracie had been recruited into the ranks of the CIA. She had trained for three
grueling years, initially at The Farm and then in the field, under a crusty old
badass veteran of a quarter-century of covert operations whose real name she
still did not know. Then she began working solo missions under her mentor and
direct supervisor at CIA, Winston Andrews. Despite her inability to share even
the broadest of details about her career with her parents, she knew they were
proud of her decision to devote her life to the cause of freedom and service to
her country.
    But right now, all
Tracie cared about was the steaming-hot water blasting out of the shower in the
small apartment. She washed the sweat and grime of the mission off every inch
of her body, then rinsed off and started again, scrubbing until she felt
completely refreshed, regenerated and ready to begin the second half—the easy
half—of the job. She would accompany Gorbachev’s letter to the White House,
bypassing all official and diplomatic channels before hand-delivering it to its
recipient, President Ronald Reagan.
    The mission would
end with an official debrief at Langley. Tracie hoped she might then be
fortunate enough to wrangle a few days off to visit her folks in suburban
Washington, but knew that was probably a pipe dream. Too many things were
happening in too many hot spots around the world for the agency to allow one of
their most valuable resources to hang out like a normal twenty-seven-year-old
single woman.
    In any event, the
rest of the trip should be a cake walk. Tracie calculated the length of the
flight and the time difference between West Germany and Washington, D.C. Eight
hours in the air, more or less, and a six-hour time difference meant they would
touch down at Andrews around 2:00 a.m. local time.
    The 11:00 p.m.
departure time was not exactly a typical flight schedule, but then Tracie had
long ago adjusted to the unusual hours the job entailed. After being advised of
the critical nature of the mission, the Air Force would have needed time to
prep an airplane and get a flight crew together.
    Tracie stepped
directly under the shower nozzle, rinsing shampoo from her luxurious mane of
red hair, enjoying the warmth of the water, always keeping one eye on the
innocent-looking envelope propped against the wall on top of the toilet tank
just outside the shower.
    Finally,
reluctantly, she twisted the faucets, sighing as the blast of water slowed to a
trickle and then disappeared entirely. She stepped from the shower, dried off
and dressed, and then quickly blow-dried her hair. With the extravagance of the
hot shower out of the way, she wandered the apartment, the time passing slowly
as she waited to leave Europe behind.
     
    ***
     
    May 30, 1987
    10:10 p.m.
    Ramstein Air Base, West Germany
    Tracie woke with a start and
checked her watch. She had drifted off to sleep, stretched out on a small