The Blowback Protocol: A Sam Jameson Thriller

by Emmerich, Lars

  Sam sat in stunned silence. The whole Doberman thing somehow had Agency stink on it. The CIA was using the jihadis’ financial network to move money around under the table. It meant that Homeland and CIA were actively working against each other at some level.

  If she’d had any lingering doubts about who might have been behind the break-in at her home, they were now erased. It also now seemed certain that Avery Martinson, the fat slimeball of a former CIA case officer who’d surprised her in Izmir with the surveillance picture of Brock, had been on an Agency errand.

  The question, again, was why? Why would the CIA try to intimidate a disgraced and suspended Homeland agent, already reeling from a tragic death that happened on her watch? She had been thoroughly out of the game, in no shape and of no mind to push further into the Doberman situation, which she now knew had been unfolding under CIA auspices. Why would CIA rope her back in?

  She thought of the roadside assault against the Libyan police officers that had allowed her to escape. She recalled the American accent she could have sworn she heard in one attacker’s voice as he yelled, “Allahu Akhbar.” Was that an Agency op, too? If so, what could their motive possibly have been? She sensed the beginnings of an insight, inchoate and foggy, tickling her brain. The thought was not yet mature enough for her to wrap words around it, but it felt huge and important just the same.

  She looked out the window. Kirksman’s flight plan from Europe to the US had taken the great-circle route, the shortest distance between two points on a sphere, which took them a long way north. The sea below them looked deathly cold. There was no land in sight. It deepened her sense of isolation and smallness.

  That was really the problem, wasn’t it? Isolation and smallness. The entire government seemed to be against her. The Justice Department had sought and won an indictment. Senator Oren Stanley had thrown his full weight into a trial-by-media campaign. Her bosses at Homeland had offered nothing in her defense. She had a few people on her side, but nobody who could move the needle in her favor. Wouldn’t it be terrific to turn the tables a bit?

  She chuckled at the absurdity of the thought. Nobody could ruin a person as thoroughly as the feds. She’d seen it a dozen times. There was really no defense against a well-executed federal onslaught. They rarely sentenced anyone to death but they could sure as hell make a person wish he was dead. Nobody was immune. Not even the system’s own members. Especially not insiders, and more so if they happened to cause public embarrassment of any sort.

  She looked across the aisle at Hayward. Exhaustion had overcome him, and his head lolled forward. She felt something for him, she realized. He was attractive, but it wasn’t that. Despite his current affiliations, despite his egregious mistakes, despite the wantonness that had seemed to characterize a good portion of his adult life, Sam admired his courage. You couldn’t argue that the man had stones. In the end, he had put himself on the line to do the right thing.

  It had a tragic quality to it, like there was only one way for the thing to play out and only the details were in question. How would they catch him? How would they kill him? Before or after they killed Joao and the girl?

  She shook her head. She wished she could help him, but she had problems of her own. She had no idea what lay ahead, but she knew it was going to require every bit of her courage and tenacity.

  An idea struck. It’s time to turn the tables. Time to put the feds on the defensive. She sat up straight in her seat, her mind whirring, thinking through the branches and sequels of the plan that was beginning to take shape. The grogginess and fatigue started to leave her. She sensed opportunity, but she also sensed danger. There was a tiny shred of optimism welling up, but it was wrapped in a thick layer of doubt and fear and worry.

  One simple idea: if people knew who Tariq Ezzat really was and what really happened in the park, the uproar would be deafening. She had a notion of how to get the word out, but it entailed quite a bit of risk. Would it work? She had no idea. But she knew it would be worth a try.

  She looked out the window. Newfoundland, that frigid slice of the Arctic stapled on a cosmic whim to North America, was visible in the distance. There wasn’t much time left. They would be landing in just a few short hours. Every minute suddenly counted.

  She unbuckled, nudged Hayward awake, and motioned for him to follow her to the cockpit.

  She was going to need a little help.

  45

  Sam felt the aircraft taxi to a stop on the business ramp at Reagan National. Her gut churned. The time for plotting and preparing was over. It was time to figure out if her gambit had any prayer of working.

  Kirksman opened the cabin door. A whoosh of humid winter air replaced the stale, stifling atmosphere of the cabin. Sam shivered. Equal parts nerves and temperature, she surmised, eyeing the door carefully. The next few minutes were critical.

  Part of the exorbitant fee Kirksman commanded was due to his ability to get his passengers through customs with minimum hassle. In Sam’s case, there could be no customs involvement whatsoever. She’d land in jail immediately. The customs presence on private airport ramps across the country was barely above token levels, so it wouldn’t have taken herculean effort to avoid a run-in. But it would only take a small stroke of bad luck to end Sam’s little adventure on the spot.

  Nobody came through the opened door. Sam, Hayward, and Kirksman exited the aircraft uneventfully, but the feeling of unease lingered in Sam’s stomach. She was home, but under the current circumstances it felt like the most dangerous place on the planet.

  She looked over at Hayward. His face was taut and his eyes scanned the ramp as they walked into the terminal building. He was a dead man walking, she feared, and the strain certainly showed.

  But he couldn’t disappear. Not yet anyway, because Sam needed him, and so did the Ferdinand-Xaviers. He had a critically important role to play. Nothing would work without him. She was dead in the water without his cooperation. With Hayward on her side in a single, small-yet-earth-shattering endeavor, however, things could be drastically different. She might have a fighting chance. Katrin Ferdinand-Xavier and her father might also have a chance at surviving their ordeal. The odds were still terrible, Sam thought, but at least this way they would be a little above zero.

  It had taken him a long time to come around to agreeing with her plan, but Hayward eventually acquiesced. He agreed they had to somehow draw the Agency out, to put the behemoth on the defensive; otherwise, the task was insurmountable and they could all be dead before dawn.

  They reached the door to the executive terminal. Sam’s heart pounded. Hayward looked as white as a sheet.

  They opened the door. The building was nearly deserted. A clerk stood behind a counter, which faced a long hallway with a half-dozen empty conference rooms on either side. Kirksman walked ahead, put on a megawatt smile, and began a steady stream of gibberish aimed at the clerk. After several clarifying questions and more hand gestures than a sign language convention, it was established that their party awaited them in one of the conference rooms down the hall.

  Sam felt a little sick to her stomach. She moved her hand to the pistol tucked into her belt, patted it for good luck, and felt a small bit of relief. But she knew beyond a doubt that if she needed her gun anytime soon, regardless of how the battle might turn out, she had already lost the war.

  As they had agreed, Kirksman stood watch. Sam and Hayward stopped at the conference room door and shared a look of somber resignation.

  Sam took a deep breath and turned the door handle.

  * * *

  In 1967, with half a million US soldiers traipsing around southeast Asian jungles and an average of 947 of them coming home in body bags every month, US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara commissioned a study of the United States’ involvement in Vietnam.

  The RAND Corporation won the task of preparing the report. In the process, they discovered the Johnson administration was guilty of lying to Congress and to the American public, and learned that th
e administration’s stated reasons for escalating the conflict were false and fabricated.

  Clearly, such a report would be toxic if it ever saw the light of day. It was therefore classified top secret and buried deep in the bowels of the Pentagon, forever to rot.

  But events didn’t quite play out as the Pentagon brass had envisioned. The facts of the report didn’t sit well with one man, a RAND analyst named Daniel Ellsberg who had worked on the report and considered himself a patriot. He loved his country and the flagrant, cynical dishonesty originating in the Oval Office sickened and disheartened him.

  Several years passed. Thirty-five thousand more Americans died. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians also died. Ellsberg’s unease turned to guilt. He knew a tremendous, terrible secret. The war had begun on false pretenses and was being run by dishonest, incompetent buffoons. Ellsberg knew that through his silence, he was complicit.

  One day in 1971, Ellsberg handed a copy of the RAND report to a New York Times reporter. The ensuing shit-storm was unimaginable. Ellsberg the patriot was labeled “the most dangerous man in the world.” He was prosecuted as a traitor under the Espionage Act of 1917. His life was turned upside down, and he was forced into hiding. He feared for his life.

  Richard Nixon’s Attorney General sued the Times to try to stop the story from running. Keeping secret the government’s brazen duplicity was, to Nixon’s way of thinking, more important than the fundamental democratic principle of a free press—more important, even, than the First Amendment of the Constitution.

  As the old bromide went, war’s first casualty was always the truth. It was also very nearly the last casualty of the Vietnam War, but a six-to-three vote by the US Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment right to a free press, and the story of the Vietnam lie hit newsstands. The Executive Branch was put back in its place. The American public learned the truth about the goon-like behavior of its presidents. The Vietnam War came to an ignominious end, as it seemed destined to do from the beginning.

  One man with more than his share of courage and an outsized conscience changed everything, gave the country a much-needed shove back in the right direction.

  Special Agent Sam Jameson didn’t fancy herself a Daniel Ellsberg. She didn’t think she was Edward Snowden or Bradley Manning either. But she thought the public might be interested to learn that CIA agents were operating on American soil, and innocent bystanders were dying as a result, which was why she was speaking to a Washington Times reporter named William Nichols.

  Nichols was seated at the conference room table in the private air terminal at Reagan, wearing a tweed jacket over a white button-down and twirling a pen atop a yellow legal pad. Years earlier, Nichols had broken a story about police brutality in the District and had earned a broken kneecap for his efforts. He still walked with a limp. Sam knew his work. She respected his objectivity and admired his balls—big brass ones—which was precisely what he would need if he was going to publish her story.

  Sam desperately hoped Nichols would publish her story, because if he didn’t, she was screwed. There were no two ways about it.

  “The spy with a conscience,” Nichols began, an air of journalistic drama in his voice. “I’ve been in the business a long time, but I must say this is a first.”

  Sam relaxed. Hayward relaxed. They took seats across from Nichols at the large table.

  “Hi, Bill,” Sam said. “Thank you for coming.”

  “I’ve interviewed presidents and CEOs,” Nichols said, “but I’ve never been summoned to an interview via a radio transmission from an airplane.”

  Sam smiled weakly. “I imagine it all sounded a little bit strident.”

  “Very cloak-and-dagger.”

  “We’re in an unusual situation.”

  “I gathered.” Nichols clicked his pen. His gaze alternated between Sam and Hayward. “This isn’t a standard whistleblower thing, is it?”

  Sam chuckled. “I don’t know what a standard whistleblower thing looks like.”

  Nichols nodded. “Let me put a finer point on it. I don’t owe the honor purely to your patriotic sense of duty, do I?”

  Sam shook her head. “Unfortunately, no.”

  “Which makes me your Hail Mary,” Nichols said. His face hardened a bit.

  Sam looked him in the eye for a long moment. “Something like that,” she said.

  A few seconds passed. Sam read indecision in Nichols’s face. Then he grimaced and shook his head. “This is a bad idea,” he said. “I don’t get involved with needy informants.” He gathered his things and moved his chair back.

  Sam reached across the table and put her hand on his arm. “Ten minutes,” she said. “That’s all I ask.”

  Nichols’s body language betrayed annoyance, but he didn’t leave. Maybe it was the curious journalist in him, Sam figured.

  “I’ll give you five,” he said, “which is five more than I should give you. A motivated source is another way to spell ‘liar.’”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Hayward said, speaking for the first time. “But our motivation doesn’t really change the facts.”

  Nichols snorted. “If I had a nickel,” he said. “You do understand that by now my due diligence is fairly brutal. And if you’re bullshitting me, I will find a way to make it hurt.”

  Sam smiled. “You’ll have to take a number,” she said. “It’s been a banner week for both of us.”

  “Sure,” Nichols said. He crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. “Four minutes left.”

  Sam led with the punch line: The daughter of Senator Oren Stanley’s chief of staff was shot in a playground in Washington, DC. The man who shot her was resisting arrest. He was both a criminal and a CIA agent.

  Nichols blinked twice, uncrossed his arms, and reached for his pen. “I’m listening,” he said.

  Sam described the Homeland op against the Doberman group, her suspicions regarding the terror financing angle, and the tragic sting operation against Tariq Ezzat that ended in the death of Sarah Beth McCulley, five-year-old daughter of Frank McCulley, longtime chief of staff to Senator Oren Stanley.

  Nichols was silent a long moment. “Some of this is obviously classified information,” he said. “You’ve put me in a hell of a predicament.”

  Sam laughed. “Please,” she said. “You live for stories like this. This is the biggest Big Brother story since Snowden. You’re already clearing a space for your Pulitzer.”

  This drew an affronted look from Nichols, but it was a ruse he couldn’t maintain. A smile broke through. Sam noted a conspiratorial quality to it. Her insides unknotted, because it seemed she had won him over.

  “Give me something bankable,” Nichols said, his expression all business again.

  Sam nodded. “I give you James Hayward, CIA agent.”

  Hayward started talking. Nichols kept writing.

  46

  Two hours later, they parted company. Nichols had two burner numbers written on his legal pad alongside a list of facts to verify and questions to answer. The burners belonged to Hayward and Sam. The questions were damned good ones. The answers would make for extremely interesting reading.

  Nichols left them with no guarantees, but Sam read people well enough to know he was hooked. There was a little bit of interpretation inherent in every observation, and Nichols’s slant seemed to be toward telling a good story. He would squint if he had to, Sam thought, but he was going to look at the facts in a favorable light. He liked seeing his byline on the front page. It was going to work out.

  Unless, of course, Hayward was lying. This wasn’t a possibility she could discard. Hayward needed the big, clamorous diversion even more than she did. He was an even more motivated storyteller than she was. If Hayward was spinning a yarn, Sam prayed it proved convincing enough for Nichols.

  Sam had the sense that Hayward would eventually need more leverage. The disk drive full of chemical formulas would take him only so far. The Agency would play him for it,
maybe even agree to exchange Katrin and Joao for it, maybe even agree to spare his life as part of the bargain. But as soon as they had the information, all bets would be off. She’d have wagered a sizable chunk of her sizable net worth that they planned to burn the whole thing to the ground. Hayward, the scientist, the girl, they would all be smoked. The stakes were too high. The story was too sensational and the blowback would be legendary. It would last years, maybe even decades. The Agency would never be the same, which made a scorched-earth solution seem more than reasonable.

  Unless, of course, Hayward could come up with more leverage.

  Enter Sam Jameson, Homeland pariah, Sam thought. The CIA already had her in their sights, for a reason that still wasn’t clear to her. They’d broken into her house, manipulated her security system, flexed muscle by showing her how vulnerable Brock was, even tucked away on some airbase in the godforsaken Middle East. Perhaps they’d be interested in finishing things.

  Perhaps Hayward could make them an offer. Her life for his.

  Thinking about this possibility made her want to part ways with Hayward as soon as possible, but that move would bring its own risks. She could have no influence over Hayward’s actions if she had no knowledge of them. So she decided to keep him close . . . for the time being.

  47

  The computer file folder was titled “SBM,” for Sarah Beth McCulley. It resided on a thumb drive that had been hand delivered to Artemis Grange by his limousine driver, who had retrieved it from a dead-drop location and had no idea what the drive contained or who it came from. Grange knew, of course, because he had paid handsomely for the freelance forensic computer investigator’s time, effort, tradecraft, and above all, discretion. Due diligence was never cheap, but it was always a worthwhile investment. For a reason he couldn’t yet put his finger on, Grange’s recent conversation with Worthington had left him with an uneasy feeling.