Case:Black - 5. Chapter 5

CIA Headquarters

Feb. 1. 1993

Senior Agent Scott McGrath sat in the auditorium as the new Director droned on about his new agenda. There was a brand new President in the White House with a brand new agenda. The buzz word on the Hill was “Peace Dividend” and no one wanted to hear about left over Cold War nightmares.

The United States had been very helpful to the Russians spending billions of dollars to mothball old reactors, destroy chemical and biological weapons and decommission ICBMs. Much of that spending was black and congress balked at it. It wasn’t very popular to be spending so much on Russia when all fifty states representative were there in Washington to collect a slice of the pork for their own districts.

McGrath listened to the new Deputy Director of Intelligence drone on for an hour about his new agenda but ten minutes into the speech, he knew that the Pandora project was as dead as disco.

Some three years ago, McGrath had been assigned to a Code Word project called Pandora. When he saw what was in the file, it shook him to his core. When it first appeared it was a very big deal. Networks of agents in Pakistan and Afghanistan were reactivated, millions were spent on bribes and absolutely nothing was accomplished. The Pakistanis tried to float the idea that a mysterious helicopter went down in the Hindu Kush but it couldn’t be verified. No bodies were found but some old charred wreckage was produced.

Another lead was a satellite photo of several Russian MI-25 Hinds at Pakistani bases but they were written off to defectors. This got McGrath’s attention but he could never uncover any connections between the Bonderenko/Yolko defections. Pakistan was the hottest lead but none of their friends on the ground there seemed to know anything about it.

A search for mysterious rich Russian immigrants quickly became larger than the task force could handle. Russians were leaving the motherland at such a prodigious rate that McGrath’s deputy had wondered if the last one out would turn out the lights.

So far the Pandora task group had made exactly zero progress and the new administration wasn’t going to carry it.

In fact the document shutting down the code worded program was in his inbox when he returned to his desk. As was his own RIF (Reduction in Force) notification.

After seven years, McGrath would be looking for a new job. That didn’t bother him. He knew that the FBI, despite the inter-agency rivalry, would give him a spot in a second. But knowing the Pandora organism was still out there and unaccounted for would give him many sleepless nights.