by Brad Thor
Business casual? Lunch? Mraz made it sound more like a social invitation than a debriefing. Harvath hopped in the shower, shaved, and then put on one of his dark Brooks Brothers suits with a white shirt and gold tie. He didn’t know what Mraz’s game was, but he wasn’t about to let the CIA dictate to him how to dress. He had half a mind to pack his own lunch, but decided against it. He’d been to Langley before and they had a relatively decent cafeteria. Buying him lunch was the least the CIA could do, especially as he was going to fill them in on all of the mistakes their “Special” Activities Staff had made over the past two days.
Even though he knew he’d never be allowed into the building with it, he brought along the H&K USP pistol he had been issued in Cairo. It was just another way to reiterate to Mraz that Harvath didn’t trust him or anyone working for him.
The last thing Harvath did before leaving his apartment was call Lawlor’s office regarding a protective detail for Meg. Neither Lawlor, nor his secretary were in, so Harvath left a message on his voice mail.
At precisely nine o’clock a navy blue Ford Crown Victoria pulled up in front of Harvath’s building. The driver didn’t have to bother ringing the bell. Scot knew the man would be right on time and he was already waiting for him. Normally, Harvath would have sat in the front seat and made conversation with whoever was driving, but this guy didn’t look like much of a talker, so Scot sat in back. As it turned out, he was right. The driver didn’t say a single thing during the entire drive to Langley.
The silence suited him just fine. It was a beautiful summer day, and Harvath sat back and watched the gently rolling countryside through the smoked windows of the car as they made their way northwest along the Potomac.
When they arrived at the main entrance of the sprawling CIA campus, the driver pulled into the employee lane. At the cinderblock checkpoint, black-clad, submachine-gun-toting operatives from the Office of Security Operations checked the driver’s identification and gave the entire vehicle the once-over. The Central Intelligence Agency was more vigilant about security now than ever before. For every security measure a visitor or employee of the CIA saw, there were hundreds more they didn’t. For instance, Harvath knew that unseen behind the bulletproof, tinted glass of the checkpoint house was a fully armed and armored tactical unit ready to meet any assault head-on.
They were outfitted with nothing but the best weapons, including .45 and .357 pistols with hollow-point Hydra-Shok bullets; H&K 21E fully automatic machine guns, effective out to half a mile; custom-made Robar .50-caliber sniper rifles capable of knocking out aircraft, vehicles, and even terrorists at well over a mile; M249 Squad Automatic Weapons, known as SAWs; M203 40-millimeter grenade launchers; as well as shoulder-fired antiaircraft and antitank missiles. There were also the concrete-and-steel bollards recessed just beneath the surface of each lane resting upon high-tensile industrial-strength coils that in a fraction of a second could be “popped” up in case a car tried to rush through the checkpoint and into the CIA’s compound.
Once cleared at the main entrance, the driver proceeded to the underground parking garage of the Old Headquarters Building, where he was again required to show his ID before being allowed to enter. The car rolled down the concrete ramp and once the driver had parked, he opened his door and motioned for Harvath to follow. They passed through a series of steel fire doors and emerged into a small service corridor and another security checkpoint. This time, Harvath was also asked to present identification and to sign in. Next, he was instructed to pass through a metal detector, which immediately went off.
Slowly and with a wide grin, Harvath unbuttoned his suit coat and drew it back to reveal the butt of his semiautomatic. “Just like my American Express card. I never leave home without it.” No one laughed.
Harvath carefully withdrew the weapon and handed it to the security guard, who ejected the magazine, cleared the chambered round, and handed the whole lot over to Harvath’s driver. In the next machine, an explosives “sniffer,” Harvath was required to stand still as small puffs of air were bounced against his clothes and returned to the machine for analysis.
“You guys get HBO on this?” asked Harvath
Again, none of the security staff said a word. Harvath figured they had probably had the same sense-of-humor-gland removal that Morrell’s people had had.
After Harvath had been handed his ID badge, the driver led him into a waiting elevator and punched the button for the sixth floor. “So this is it? We just zip right up in the elevator?” asked Harvath as the doors closed and the elevator began to rise. “No tour? What about the Berlin Wall Monument? Or the sculpture in the New Headquarters courtyard? You gotta promise me you’ll at least walk me through the directors’ portrait gallery on our way out. Okay? You promise?”
“Shut the fuck up,” replied the rather surly operative.
Finally, Harvath had gotten to him, and he smiled to himself.
When the doors of the elevator opened, they walked down a short hall and entered the CIA’s highly vaunted Counter Terrorist Center, known as the CTC. Predominantly windowless, the center was composed of groupings of hundreds upon hundreds of cubicles. Street signs proclaiming, “Osama bin Lane,” “Saddam Street,” and “Qadhafi Qourt” informed passersby what area of expertise they were entering. So the CIA did have a sense of humor after all.
Signs and placards were everywhere with pictures of the smoking World Trade Center on one side, a badly damaged Pentagon on the other, and in the middle a billowing American flag with the words “Let’s Roll.” Harvath knew that coffeepots percolated around the clock and dedicated CTC operatives often slept on mattresses laid out in the hallways. This was one of the key nerve centers in America’s war on terrorism, and it looked every bit the part. For a moment, Harvath almost felt guilty for razzing the always serious CIA, but then he changed his mind. Yes, they had a tough job to do, but so did he. People who took themselves too seriously not only were no fun, but could also be very dangerous.
The CTC had been established in 1986 by then-CIA-director William Casey. The idea was to bring together the Agency’s four directorates to address terrorism and to coordinate the Agency’s efforts with other law enforcement agencies. The CTC monitored the whereabouts of known terrorists around-the-world, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. Agents from the FBI, Department of Defense, the National Security Agency, and elsewhere were also stationed at the CTC. It was a warren of intelligence officers, psychiatrists, explosives experts, hostage negotiators, cultural, religious, and language experts—all of whom aided in the gathering and analyzing of intelligence and the running of covert operations both at home and abroad.
The center, though widely criticized for some of its dramatic misses, had had several significant hits. The CTC was responsible for linking the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, with Abu Nidal and several Libyan agents, for uncovering Saddam Hussein’s plot in 1993 to assassinate former president George Bush, and had continued to be extremely instrumental in assisting both domestic and foreign intelligence agencies in the arrests of countless terrorist operatives.
Harvath was shown to a small, perfectly soundproofed conference room off “IRA Avenue.” Inside, Frank Mraz and two other operatives were already waiting for him. The driver spoke quietly to Mraz as Harvath took a seat. An attractive young woman entered and placed a tray with two carafes of coffee, mugs, cream, and sugar down on the table. Once she and the driver had exited, Mraz called the meeting to order.
“Okay, Agent Harvath” he began, “let’s start from when you arrived on the ground in Cairo.”
“As long as this is going to be for the record,” replied Harvath, clearly and deliberately so that the operative who was transcribing the session, in addition to tape-recording it, could get everything right, “let’s start with when I received Rick Morrell’s less-than-adequate notice that we were going to Cairo in the first place.”
Mraz nodded his head, and so it went for the next s
everal hours until they broke for lunch. Harvath detailed his account of what had happened up to, during, and after the takedown of the hijacked airliner. He pulled no punches and presented a critical assessment of Morrell’s handling of the operation and its subsequent fallout. Though it was obvious that he didn’t personally care for the man, Harvath kept his remarks about Rick Morrell strictly professional.
When it was time for lunch, copies of the day’s menu were passed around the table, and Mraz placed their order over one of the conference room telephones. The men were given a brief chance to stretch their legs and use the rest rooms while they waited for the food to be delivered. The operative transcribing the session escorted Harvath to and from the men’s room. At first, Harvath believed it was because Mraz had ordered him to keep an eye on him, but it soon became apparent that the guy just wanted to hear more.
“We really don’t get a lot of opportunities to meet people engaged in actual takedowns,” said the man. “I’m honestly impressed with what you did.”
Not another one, thought Harvath to himself. If he kept bumping into half-decent CIA guys, he was going to have to rethink his opinion of the entire agency.
Once they had all finished lunch, the Q-and-A session continued, and Harvath was every bit as blunt as in the beginning. Mraz asked a lengthy set of questions about why Harvath did not seek out Morrell’s direction after the hospital bombing and why he didn’t return with Meg Cassidy to the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. He wanted to know about everything Harvath and Meg had discussed from the moment he helped her escape from the hospital to the moment the two of them parted at Chicago’s Meigs Field. Mraz then ordered dinner and had a series of questions about Harvath’s assignment in Hong Kong and how the assassin he had seen in Macau fit in with what he had seen and heard in Bern, Jerusalem, and Cairo.
It was well past ten o’clock in the evening by the time Mraz finally called the debriefing to a close, but not without informing Harvath that he might elect to bring him back at some point in the future for further questions if he saw fit. As long as it was at some point in the future, Harvath didn’t care. Right now, he was sick of answering questions. All he wanted to do was get home, have a beer, and hit the sack. Though he had had one night of semi-decent sleep, he was still on edge. After an intense operation, it often took a few days before he completely calmed down.
As they filed out of the room, Mraz reminded Harvath to keep his CIA-issued pager with him in case Morrell wanted to get ahold of him. Harvath knew that the beeper only served to keep up the pretense that Morrell and the CIA’s Directorate of Operations were cooperating with him, but he had made this point very clear in his debriefing and didn’t see the need to beat a dead horse. Besides, he was too tired.
Out in the hallway, Harvath was stopped by the operative who had been doing the transcribing. “On behalf of the CTC, I want you to have this,” said the man as he handed Harvath one of the center’s highly coveted lapel pins. It bore the image of a ski-masked terrorist angrily waving a rifle with a red line crossed through him. “It’s none of my business, but there are obviously some people within the Agency you don’t exactly care for. We’re an organization like any other, and it takes all kinds to make it work. I’m not trying to make excuses for anybody. As a matter of fact, from what I heard in there, we’re fortunate to have you working with us. Just remember that we’re all on the same side and all want the same thing. Some of us just have a different way of going about it.”
“That’s precisely what has been worrying me about this whole operation,” said Harvath as he shook the man’s hand and thanked him for his gift.
30
The following afternoon, Harvath arrived early at the White House for his meeting with the president and the director of the Secret Service. He wanted to reacquaint himself with the lay of the land. As he moved from office to office, there was no shortage of staffers and fellow Secret Service agents who were happy to see him. Harvath had always been well respected and popular around the White House, but after he had saved the lives of both President Rutledge and his daughter, Amanda, his reputation had taken on mythic proportions. Though he had made brief visits to the White House since the kidnapping ordeal, he had been largely unaccounted for as he continued his search for those involved. All but an enlightened few were under the impression that he had been on an extended leave of absence due to the injuries he had suffered rescuing the president. Harvath did nothing to dissuade his friends and coworkers from that opinion.
In the duty room, Harvath found the three people he was looking for. Sitting around one of the square Formica tables drinking coffee and enjoying their break were Agents Kate Palmer, Chris Longo, and Tom Hollenbeck. All three had been on active duty with Harvath when the president’s kidnapping had taken place and had been equally involved in the frantic search and rescue efforts for their fellow agents and the civilians trapped beneath the avalanche triggered by the kidnappers.
Hollenbeck was the first to see Harvath standing in the doorway. “Whoa!” he roared. “Would ya look at what the cat dragged in.” Both Palmer and Longo turned to see whom Hollenbeck was talking about.
Harvath walked up to the table and set down the biggest box of chocolates any of them had ever seen. “Good afternoon, lady and…”
“I think the word you’re looking for is gentlemen,” said Longo after Harvath’s pregnant pause.
“No. The word I am looking for is definitely not gentlemen,” he said as he put an affectionate hand on Kate Palmer’s shoulder. “Palmer, I brought these back from Switzerland for you. I remember what happened when you came back from Europe one time and left some chocolate in here.”
“Yeah, all of you pigs ate it,” said Palmer.
“Not me,” said Longo, who had already opened the box and was choosing his favorite pieces. “I hate chocolate.”
“What did I tell you, Scot? Never trust anyone who says they don’t like chocolate,” replied Palmer as she yanked the box away from Longo before he could remove any more pieces.
“You were all very helpful to me during the situation, and I thought the least I could do was bring something back for you from overseas.” “Situation” was how the staff around the White House quietly referred to President Rutledge’s kidnapping.
“Hey, you brought the president back safely and that’s the best thing any of us could have asked for,” said Hollenbeck.
“Though chocolate runs a close second,” offered Palmer as she began sorting through the box.
“Speaking of seconds,” continued Hollenbeck, who had been named interim director of White House Secret Service Operations. “When are you coming back to work? I’m starting to get tired of keeping your seat warm for you.”
“Don’t listen to him,” said Longo. “You could stay away for another six months and it wouldn’t bother him a bit. I think the power has gone right to his head.”
“There’s nothing worse than people who only feel bitterness and jealousy as their betters zip past them on the ladder of success,” replied Hollenbeck.
“See what I mean?” responded Longo. “And you know what? On top of it all, he’s become quite arrogant.”
“Arrogant? Me? Palmer, you’ve got to come to my defense here. Tell Harvath I am the same old Tom Hollenbeck you’ve always known and loved.”
“Well,” she began slowly, “loved is a pretty strong word.”
“Okay then, known,” he replied.
“Jeez, Tom—wait I’m sorry—Jeez, Mr. Interim Director—that is the way you told us all to address you, isn’t it?” she joked.
“I can’t believe this,” cried Hollenbeck. “Every time I turn around, another knife in the back!”
“Well, I’m glad nothing’s changed around here,” said Harvath as he joined his friends at their table.
They made small talk until it was time for Harvath’s meeting. When he got up to leave, Palmer asked, “So, what’s the deal? When are you coming back to work?”
He was as honest
with her as he could be and said, “Right now, I don’t know.”
They all shook hands and wished each other well as Harvath left to make his way to the situation room downstairs. It wasn’t unusual for President Rutledge to conduct his more sensitive meetings in this room. It was one of the few places in the entire building where he knew he wouldn’t be disturbed unless there was a dire emergency or matter of grave national consequence.
Though both of the Marines standing guard outside the situation room knew him, they still closely examined the credentials hanging from around Harvath’s neck. Even a facility as secure as the White House had decided that it could use a few improvements. Nothing was left to chance, and things were done strictly by the book. After waiting a few moments outside, Harvath was told he could enter. He heard a click and then the faint hiss of the situation room’s seal and door lock being released.
The first person to stand and greet him was President Jack Rutledge himself. “Scot, it’s good to see you,” said the president as he offered him his hand, which Harvath shook carefully. He was happy to see the president using it again. The kidnappers had cut off one of his fingers and sent it to the former vice president as a threat.
“It is good to see you too, Mr. President,” replied Harvath. “How is the hand?”
“So far so good. We’ll see how I do when pheasant season rolls around. That’ll be the real test.”
“You outshot so many of us last year, Mr. President, we were hoping you might take up a different sport. It’s embarrassing for a lot of the agents that you can shoot better than they can.”
“You weren’t embarrassed, though, were you, Scot?”
“No, sir.”
“And why was that?”
“Because I brought down three more birds than you did.”
“Ah, ah. Let’s tell the truth here. You only brought down two more than me. The third one, supposedly went down somewhere in the woods. As it was never found, you couldn’t rightfully count it, could you?”