by Vince Flynn
Sanchez was still talking, but Kennedy was only half listening. She had the ominous feeling that someone out there, or more likely an organization, had gone to great lengths to cripple the Clandestine Service. Too many seemingly random things were beginning to pile up—far too many to be a coincidence. Wilson would be easy enough to play. The man had an infatuation with himself, and by extension a need to validate himself, by tearing down those who were not part of the Counterintelligence Division. Unfortunately the CIA was the perfect target for him. And Wilson had a reputation for tenacity. He would dig until he got what he wanted, and he wouldn’t play fair. Kennedy decided then and there that she was going to need to get proactive.
CHAPTER 32
KENNEDY asked Sanchez if Wilson had gotten in to see Rapp, and if so, what he wanted. Sanchez retold the events in her colorful, clipped military diction and made it very clear that she wasn’t going to let that clown get anywhere near any of her patients. Mr. Cox was safe, Sanchez assured Kennedy. Kennedy wondered if she should suggest placing a guard outside Rapp’s door, but thought better of it. Sanchez was likely to take that as an indictment that she couldn’t do her job. A better angle was to bring Sanchez into her confidence.
Asking her for a word in private, Kennedy followed Sanchez down the hall about twenty feet and then said, “I need to be very careful about what I say, since this is all very classified material, but I get the sense I can trust you.”
Sanchez nodded as if to say “you’re damn right.”
“Mr. Cox is one of my top covert operatives. He was working on something very sensitive. Another one of my people has gone missing and we need to find him ASAP. I think Mr. Cox might have some information that could help us, but unfortunately his memory is very spotty at the moment.”
Sanchez nodded. “Doctors told me they don’t expect that to last. Every day he’ll remember more and more.”
Kennedy smiled, “And when he does, I need someone there. With your permission I would like to have one of my people at his bedside.”
“Twenty-four-seven.” Sanchez frowned. It was obvious she didn’t like the sound of this.
“If at any point you think someone is misbehaving, by all means you can throw them off your floor, but I can assure you, Command Master Sergeant, like you, I run a tight ship. My people will be as quiet as church mice.”
After considerable thought, Sanchez relented. Kennedy thanked her for all of her help and handed her a card. “That’s my mobile number. I always have it. If you need me for anything, please call. And if that man from the FBI shows up again, please call. I will have him dealt with.”
When Sanchez was gone, Kennedy turned to her assistant. “Eugene, please get Samuel Hargrave on the line and tell him it is extremely urgent.”
Paranoia was part of her business. Sometimes it was a big part and other times not so much. As discomfiting as it was, you were a fool to ignore it. The key was to make sure it didn’t paralyze you. After nearly three decades in the intelligence business Kennedy had learned to recognize the natural rhythms of the job. The pace, usually glacial, was often interrupted by moments of extreme action—like right now. This one felt different, though. It was too orchestrated.
Her mentor, Thomas Stansfield, had taught her to think in broad strategic terms—like a battlefield commander. Your flanks must always be protected and your center must be anchored with reinforcements. Supplies needed to be secured from raids and scouts needed to be deployed as aggressively as possible to discern the strength and position of the enemy.
The problem right now was that Kennedy was flying blind. Someone was maneuvering against her and she had no idea who they were or what their next move would be. Rickman, Hubbard, the attack on Rapp, and now Wilson showing up: She had an unnerving suspicion that they were all part of a concerted effort to weaken her Clandestine Service. She and her people could draw up a list of who would benefit most from this type of action, but it would only be a list. Kennedy wanted something more concrete, and she thought she knew where to start.
“Mike,” Kennedy said to Nash. She motioned for him to follow her, and the two walked to the far corner of the lobby. “Where is Marcus?”
“Virginia, as far as I know.” Nash thought about their extremely quirky computer hacker. Despite all of the protocols they put in place, the man could be unnervingly difficult to track down.
“Find him and bring in your best people. I want to know what Joel Wilson is up to.”
Nash’s face turned pensive. “Are you sure this is a good idea? If anything goes wrong . . .” Nash shuddered at the thought of the FBI finding out they were spying on them.
Kennedy remained stoic. Nash was one of her top people, but he was increasingly becoming the type of person who was followed by dark storm clouds. In other words, he spent too much time worrying about the downside of everything. This had been Rapp’s chief complaint of late. “Mike,” Kennedy said in a firm tone, “we’re flying blind, and it looks like someone has launched an operation aimed at crippling the Clandestine Service. Sitting around is not an option. Get your people spun up. In two hours I want to hear how you are going to penetrate Joel Wilson’s group, and I want to start seeing results in the next twenty-four hours.”
“What about Hargrave? He’s Wilson’s boss. You two have a good relationship. Maybe he can tell us what’s going on.”
Kennedy exhaled sharply and gave Nash a look that said her patience was gone. “Do you honestly think that I haven’t already thought of that?”
“No . . . I just . . . I’m trying to make sure we don’t make a mistake we’ll regret.”
Kennedy had heard enough. “Mitch is laid up and I don’t know when I’m going to get him back, and Stan has just been told he has a few months to live. You’re the next guy on my bench. I need you to execute for me, not question my orders.”
Nash didn’t like being shut down like this and his face showed it.
The fact that he couldn’t simply suck it up and follow an order was the breaking point for Kennedy. “Forget it,” she said, “I’ll find someone else to handle it.” Not waiting for a response, she left him in the corner and motioned for Scott Coleman to follow her.
She repeated the orders to Coleman, who received them without protest. After Kennedy was done explaining what she wanted, Coleman had a better idea.
“The guy’s right here . . . on base. I’ll put him under surveillance starting now and see what I can find out.”
“And call Marcus.”
“First thing I’ll do. Anything else?”
Kennedy thought about it for a second while she looked back down the hall at Mike Nash, who seemed to be pouting. For the first time, she understood Hurley and Rapp’s recent frustrations with the man. When this was over, she was going to have to reassess his role moving forward. Turning back to Coleman she said, “That’s all for now. Let me know the second you find anything.”
CHAPTER 33
THE image of a bloodied and battered Joe Rickman was all over the Internet. Thanks to an alert analyst in the CIA’s Ops Center, Kennedy was spared having to learn the information from Al Jazeera. The analyst who was working the night shift was surfing her way through a series of hard-core jihadist websites when she stumbled across the video. Ten minutes later she had a voice match on Rickman and the alert went out. For reasons Kennedy could never quite understand, Bagram and Kabul were eight hours and thirty minutes ahead of D.C., not eight hours or nine hours. The thirty minutes threw her off, so when Eugene told her that it was 10:13 in D.C. it took her a second to run the calculation—it was 6:43 a.m. in Bagram.
Eugene handed Kennedy the secure phone and she sat up in bed.
“It’s Brad,” he informed her.
Kennedy rubbed the sleep from her eyes and said, “I’m here, Brad, what’s up?”
“Irene, it’s not good.”
Kennedy was billeted in one of the base’s VIP trailers. She motioned for Eugene to turn on the TV. “I’m listening.”
Kennedy felt a lump in her throat as she assumed the worst. “Is he alive?”
“Barely. His face is unrecognizable. We had to do a voice analysis to make sure it was him.”
“But you’re sure it’s him?”
“One hundred percent.”
Kennedy heard the stress in her deputy director’s voice. Brad Stofer had been in his new job for just eight months, but he had been at Langley for twenty-six years. He was a pro, and if he was bothered by what he had seen, it meant it wasn’t good. Kennedy also knew that voiceprints rarely came back with a 100 percent match. She feared the worst. “Describe it to me.”
“It’s four minutes and thirty-seven seconds long. It’s heavily edited. His arms are tied above his head. Looks like he’s hanging from the ceiling. They were smart enough to cover the walls with sheets. Two men handle the interrogation. It starts out with a lot of head slaps and then they bring out the rubber hoses. He’s a bloody mess by the end of it.” There was a long pause and then Stofer added, “It’s fucking horrible.”
Kennedy started to think about what Rickman was going through, and then she got a grip on her emotions. Now was not the time to lose it. “What does he say?”
“The audio isn’t great, but our people say they can clean it up. We should have a good copy in the next thirty minutes. I’ll get it to you as soon as it’s ready.”
“Brad,” Kennedy said in a slightly impatient voice, “how bad is the damage?”
“Bad . . . some names are thrown around.”
“Which ones?”
“Five of our people in Afghanistan . . . the two cabinet members, the general, the head of intel, and the president.”
The Afghanistan assets were the least of her concerns. The accusations were already out there. The people expected it. “What else?”
“He mentions how much we’re paying them, and we’re pretty sure he names the bank in Switzerland where we keep their money for them. We’ll know more when the audio gets cleaned up.”
“What else?” She knew there had to be more.
“He mentions Nawaz.”
“Gillani.”
“Yep.”
Kennedy thought of the Pakistani foreign minister who had been their best window in the decision-making process of their hot-and-cold ally. Trying to pull him out would be impossible. “Does he know?”
“Yes. He’s going to sit it out. I think he’s betting on indefinite house arrest.”
Kennedy wasn’t so sure, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. “What else?”
“There’s a spot on the tape where it sounds like he says ‘Sitting Bull.’ ”
Kennedy threw off the covers and stood. Sitting Bull was the code name for their highly placed mole in Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. “Does he say anything other than the name?”
“No. He blurts it out in the middle of one of the beatings.”
“Send me the current version. I need to see this for myself.”
“It’s on its way. What do you want to do about Sitting Bull?”
Kennedy was holding a fistful of her hair. She had on a modest pair of gray pajama pants with a matching long-sleeved top. Eugene was in a pair of boxers and a T-shirt. He wasn’t doing any good standing there, so she covered the phone and said, “Wake everybody up. Get the coffee going and tell them we have a meeting in twenty minutes.” She watched Eugene leave and looked at Al Jazeera on the TV. So far there was nothing, but that wouldn’t last. A CIA Clandestine Service operative being tortured was their bread and butter. “Give me a second,” she told Stofer.
The damage assessment in the immediate aftermath of Rickman’s abduction hadn’t come anywhere near Sitting Bull. “Get our people to take a fresh look at this. I want to know how in the hell Rick even knew about Sitting Bull. As far as I know, he wasn’t read in on him. Get his handlers in tonight and find out if one of them happened to casually mention it to Rick, and if no one fesses up, hook ’em all up and polly them.”
“So we leave him where he is?”
“I need to think about that.” Sitting Bull was their best source in the Russian government by a long shot. She needed to be certain before she gave the order to bring him in. “Put an extraction team on standby. Find out if he has any reason to travel in the next twenty-four hours. If we can meet him on neutral ground we can have a sit-down and he can decide, but I don’t want anyone telling him until we know for certain. Am I clear?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
“Those are the major points. He mentions Hubbard and Sickles and a few other people, but other than Hubbard everyone is secure.”
“All right.” Kennedy let out a huge sigh as she tried to digest the scope of the problem. “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll call you back.” Kennedy ended the call and turned on her laptop. She used the bathroom and brushed her teeth while she waited for the encrypted file to download. When she came back out, she sat on the edge of the bed and hit Play. Her job required a good deal of detachment, but there was no way to remain detached from this. She winced with each blow, felt Rickman’s pain, wanted to scream along with him, but knew she had to keep it together. By the end of the tape she was on the verge of throwing the laptop against the wall. Instead, she bit her fist and let loose a silent scream. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she closed the laptop and went back into the bathroom to collect herself. In a matter of minutes she would be watching this in a room with as many as eight of her people. She needed to keep it together. Emotions would only cloud her judgment. She was going to have to make some very difficult decisions, and her people needed to see that they were coming from a spy boss, not some blubbering mother.
CHAPTER 34
CAL Patterson was about to shit a brick. He’d busted his ass at Holy Cross, playing football and graduating with honors and an accounting degree. Three years later he had a law degree from the University of Virginia and a job with the FBI. He’d made all the right moves. Done everything his uncle had told him to do. His uncle had put in thirty-five years with the FBI and Patterson idolized him. During Patterson’s first two years he worked seventy-hour weeks and volunteered for everything that was dangled in front of him and then some. His bosses loved him and he was rewarded with an assignment to the Counterintelligence Division. Even his uncle was impressed.
Now after just twenty-nine days in his new job, his entire career was hanging in the lurch. Patterson was all screwed up from the time change and couldn’t sleep, so he rose early, put on his workout gear, and headed to the base’s fitness center. Patterson was pleased to find out that the facility was nicer than anything the Bureau had. He was in the middle of a five-mile run on the treadmill when he saw the screen on his phone light up with the words Private Number. Patterson smacked the Pause button and yanked out his earbuds. Private Number usually meant Wilson or someone in their group.
“Hello,” he said, a little out of breath.
“Special Agent Patterson.”
“Speaking.”
“This is Executive Assistant Director Hargrave. Would you like to tell me just where in the hell Agent Wilson is?”
“Ah . . . I assume he’s sleeping, sir.” Patterson knew exactly who Hargrave was, as he had just brought Wilson by his house before they left for Afghanistan.
“Any idea why he’s not answering his phone?”
“Probably because he’s sleeping, sir.” Patterson regretted the answer immediately.
“Agent Patterson, who do you work for?”
“The FBI, sir.”
“That’s correct, and who does Special Agent Wilson work for?”
“The FBI, sir.”
“That’s correct. We don’t turn our phones off . . . ever. Do you understand me, young man?”
“I do, sir.”
“Do you like your job?”
“Ahhhh . . . yes, I do, sir. Very much, sir.”
“Well, let me giv
e you a little advice. If you want to keep working for the FBI, you are going to follow my instructions to the letter. Do you know where Agent Wilson is right now?”
“I think he’s in his quarters, sir.”
“And where are you?”
“I’m at the gym.”
“Well, you are going to go wake his insubordinate ass up and you are going to call me back and put him on the phone. Have I made myself clear?”
Patterson stepped off the treadmill. “Crystal clear, sir.”
“If I don’t hear back from you in ten minutes, your career is over.”
“Sir?”
“What?”
“I need your number.”
“I’ll text it to you. Call me back in ten minutes.”
Patterson was about to respond but the line went dead. He noted the time on his watch and stuffed his phone and his earbuds in the zippered pockets of his running shorts. He grabbed his sweatshirt and started running. The trailer where Wilson was sleeping was only two minutes from where he was, but Patterson wasn’t about to take any chances. It was getting light outside as he broke into a near sprint.
People were already out doing their morning PT, and Patterson got more than a few strange looks as he blew down the street as if he was running for his life, which he basically was. There was a moment of near panic when he couldn’t locate the specific trailer. They all looked alike. On his second try he found the right place and as he burst through the door he found one of his fellow agents drinking coffee and staring at his iPad.
“Where’s Wilson?”
The agent pointed with his coffee mug toward the back of the trailer. “Sleeping.”
Patterson pulled out his phone and was relieved to see the text from Hargrave. He tapped the number as he moved down the hallway, passing the smaller bedrooms on his left and right. He was tempted to knock on the door, but when he heard Hargrave answer, he decided not to stop. He flung the door open and marched right to the bedside. Wilson looked up, dazed and confused by the light spilling in from the hallway.