The Gargoyle Trilogy

Chapter 3

CIA Headquarters

CIA HeadquartersLangley, Virginia

Langley, VirginiaThe Next Day

The Next DayMorgan arrived at CIA headquarters early to beat the horrible morning traffic in and around the D.C. area. He wore dark grey dress slacks, a light grey button-down dress shirt with a scarlet and grey regimental-style stripped tie. He also sported an Omega Seamaster 300-meter diver’s watch on his left wrist. A sharp, tailored navy-blue blazer with two distinct lapel pins rounded out his attire. The first was a gold pin showing a ship’s bow over two crossed swords, the emblem of a United States Navy Surface Warfare Officer. The second was silver, showing a patrol boat over a crossed cutlass and flintlock pistol, the emblem of the U.S. Navy’s Special Warfare Craft Crewman community. Two miniature versions of the pins he wore on his Navy uniform representing two of the three warfare specialties Morgan had mastered. He was currently working on his third.

Morgan walked, or as his ex-wife Julie used to say, swaggered, along the seventh-floor hallway and into General Bailey’s outer office. His eyes widened as he first saw the attractive, brown-eyed brunette sitting behind the secretary’s desk.

“Good morning. I have an appointment to see the Director Bailey.”

“Name please?” the raven-haired young woman asked as she stared at her computer screen.

“Morgan, James Morgan. My friends call me Bob,” Morgan offered his hand.

The secretary looked up, smiled, and shook Morgan’s out stretched hand and replied, “Colleen Biggins and my friends call me Colleen. Director Bailey is finishing a teleconference, but he’ll see you shortly.”

“A pleasure Colleen and thank you.”

Morgan began to wander around the office, stealing a glance now and then at Ms. Biggins, who bore a very strong resemblance to the singer Shania Twain.

Director Bailey’s outer office held many souvenirs from his time in the service. One item in particular caught Morgan’s one good eye. It was a framed, green t-shirt with a distinctive logo at the upper right, a numeral two pierced by a Marine K-Bar combat knife. A small plaque mounted to the bottom of the frame read:

To Colonel Ronald Baily, USMC,

To Colonel Ronald Baily, USMC,Commanding Officer, 2nd Regimental Combat Team,

Commanding Officer, 2nd Regimental Combat Team,Task Force TARAWA,

Task Force TARAWA,Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003

Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003Morgan recognized the unit’s name. He had taken some of those Marines up the Euphrates River during the drive towards Baghdad.

He then wandered over to a series of photographs showing the Director during various times in his Marine Corps career. The pictures showed him from his time as a young second lieutenant and platoon commander to his retirement ceremony at the rank of lieutenant general.

While looking at a display of several dozen challenge coins over on a sideboard, the door to General Bailey’s inner office opened and the Deputy Director stuck his head out.

“Commander Morgan, come on in,” the General said.

Morgan enter the Deputy Director’s office and found himself facing the tall, athletic, African American former Marine. As the pair walked further into the office, Morgan shook the General’s offered hand.

“Please, James, take a seat.”

“Thank you, sir, but I go by Bob.”

“Bob?”

“Yes, sir, middle name. My late father was James, and I went by Bob in order to know which one of us my late mother was yelling at.”

“Ah, very good. Now for the business at hand, I heard great things about your recovery of those North Korean nuclear triggers. Well done.”

“The North Koreans should have used a ship with a better name. Didn’t they watch Star Trek?”

Star Trek“You’d think,” replied General Bailey. “The head of the Special Activities Center had some issues with how the mission proceeded. He seemed concerned that your physical condition led to a team member’s injury, and he doesn’t want you back in SAC.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Malcom Stone and I never got along very well.”

“How so?”

“Well before he joined the agency, he was my first Commanding Officer on the Winston S. Churchill, and he slept with my now ex-wife.”

Winston S. Churchill,“What!?”

“Yes, sir. Julie was a cousin by marriage of my leading petty officer, and I met her at a divisional party early in my tour. We hit it off well, and we married a few months later. She met Captain Stone during a ship’s Christmas party, and feeling command-at-sea made him more handsome and more charming, he proceeded to seduce her. The whole thing ruined my marriage, his marriage, and almost ended Stone’s Navy career. Only his patrons in the Navy kept him from being court-martialed, and since he had already been selected for promotion to Captain, he put on his new rank, but had to retire way earlier than he planned. Since then, he’s had a bit of grudge against me.”

“Holy crap! That’s terrible! I’ve always felt Stone is a bit of an arrogant ass, but damn.” The General continued, “Well, never mind him, but I need your maritime analysis acumen.” The General handed Morgan a file folder covered with several colorful classification markings.

“We received a request from our French colleagues in the DGSE,” the General continued. “The counter-insurgency operations against Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin and other Islamic extremists in Mali are not going as well as expected. Two days ago, the Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin attacked headquarters of the French Foreign Legion in Mali inflicting heavy casualties. Drone and satellite imagery showed the insurgents using weapons much heavier, and more expensive, than an insurgent group should have. Self-propelled artillery, armored infantry fighting vehicles, and the like. The DGSE are at a loss as to where these are coming from, and they have requested our assistance.”

“Where do I come in, sir? Last I looked, Mali is land locked, not exactly a big maritime player.”

“The nature of these weapons and the fact they are manufactured by countries all over the world, China, Russia, the European Union, and even the US, suggests they have to be arriving by sea. These are not the type of things one can smuggle in the back of a Toyota Hilux pick-up truck, and we have all the potential air supply routes covered. I need you to start digging around the financials and ship tracking data to find out where these things are coming from and, more importantly, who’s bankrolling the whole thing.”

“Yes, sir. Anything else?”

“Not right now. We will discuss further action once you figure this out.”

Morgan rose up from his seat and turned towards the office door.

“Oh Bob, one more thing.”

“Sir?”

“Your call sign, Gargoyle?”

“From then-Commodore Allard, my C.O. while I served on the Amphibious Squadron Eight staff. He was a previous A-6 and F/A-18 pilot, so he assigned everyone on his staff a call sign. Mine came from the brand of sunglasses I wore at the time, and it stuck.”

“Marty Allard?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sounds like something Mallard would come up with. I like it. Carry on.”

“Yes, sir.”

Morgan entered the outer office and saw Colleen hard at work.

“I hope to be seeing more of you in the weeks to come.”

“Same here, but I do have one request.”

“Oh?”

“Could you please smile?”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, you’re smirking in all the pictures of you in your file, and, if you don’t mind me saying, a man as handsome as you are should do more than smirk.”

“Actually, I never smile. It scares people, especially small children.”

“Scares people?”

Morgan looked Colleen right in the eyes and drew his lips into a smile revealing his abnormally large canine teeth making him look, in a word, malevolent. This, plus the cold, narrow look in his one remaining eye made Colleen gasp.

“Oh, my! You’re right. That is frightening.”

“That’s why I smirk. Much friendlier don’t you think? Good day, Colleen.” Morgan tilted his head and smirked.

“Good day, Bob.” Colleen replied with gleam in her lovely brown eyes.