Treaty Violation Read Online Free Page B

speed on the operation.”
    Nicholas nodded calmly, but the sight of Tyler’s files made his stomach cringe.
    “I’ll need you to attend a meeting there as well this afternoon. I don’t know whether K told you, but we terminated operation Delphi Justice, at least as far as the other agencies are concerned. No one knows you’re here to replace Tyler.”
    Nicholas and Dirk endured a prolonged silence.
    “I’ll start reading these.” Nicholas gestured to the boxes.
    “Unfortunately,” Dirk said, “I can only offer you Tyler’s office. I feel uneasy going in there myself; it’s the next one down to the left.” He started to leave the office but stopped. “Nick,” he added, “good to have you back.”
    “Thanks,” Nicholas said, suddenly conscious of the fact that he was in a position to help his career only because Tyler was dead. He observed a moment of silence before lifting the boxes and getting situated in Tyler’s old office. He was committed to studying every nuance of every word. What had Tyler done, thought, or observed? Who were his agents? What were their motivations for providing secrets? Had he found people willing to reveal secrets for ideological reasons, or did the almighty dollar sway them? What clues could he find about Tyler’s death that would help bring his murderer to justice?
    Nicholas found Tyler’s insights brilliant. More important, they were uniquely his. “Feigning interest in his perverse habits is the foundation for bending his will,” he’d written on one page. On another page, he described one agent as “corpulent, yet elusive.”
    Tyler’s agents ranged from a mid-level drug dealer, a private banker, to a third country diplomat. Of particular interest, he’d recruited Minister of Foreign Affairs Victor Hernandez, the father of his late fiancée, Helena Hernandez, to collect information on Panamanian political plans and intentions regarding the prospect of maintaining a U.S. military presence in Panama post- 1999 . The information Hernandez provided had been instrumental in setting the stage for operation Delphi Justice.
    While Nicholas contemplated the clues surrounding the death of Tyler, it occurred to him it seemed like only yesterday the two of them were eager young case officers starting their new careers.
    Their first stop was The Farm, the secret training base where they learned the arcane craft of espionage and the martial skills that would keep them alive in the field. The monastic seclusion hardened their bodies and minds and exposed their weaknesses, which they chiseled away day and night until they reached the smooth, rounded core of their essence. They were part of a team, a fortress of stones piled high defending their nation; and what unified them more than anything else was the feeling that destiny was leading them. Their next stop was the real world of espionage and covert action.
    Central America during the eighties was like the Wild West. Military dictators and insurgent guerrillas were regular items on the menu, not to mention civil wars, drug trafficking, and weapons proliferation. The U.S. was in the thick of every Machiavellian plot. While some American citizens protested the covert operations, the majority selectively ignored the dirty work being done by their government in defense of their freedoms. Many names were forgotten—the Contras, the Sandinistas, the FMLN, the death squads—but they were forever etched in the lexicon of U.S. covert action.
    Nicholas and Tyler were there, sometimes together, sometimes not. Ultimately, Tyler was a casualty of the Iran-Contra affair. Unfortunately, the generals and politicians had grabbed all the chairs before the music stopped, about the same time Nicholas quit the Directorate of Operations after the fiasco in El Salvador. Both were reassigned to Washington—Nicholas by choice, Tyler as a guest in purgatory.
    Nicholas had admired the way Tyler took things in stride and worked diligently to prove he