Overwatch

by Marc Guggenheim

  NINETEEN

  CIA, OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL

  3:30 A.M. EDT

  ALTHOUGH ALEX doesn’t think of himself as an atheist, he doesn’t really believe in God. If the question were put to him, he’d describe himself as someone who doesn’t often ponder the existence of an Almighty Being, let alone the subject of religion in general. But damn if Alex doesn’t find himself praying to a higher power now. He stares at General Counsel Arthur Bryson—a man who reports to the DCIA and the president of the United States—and the Central Intelligence Agency armed guard flanking him, and he prays that neither man notices the air vent above Bryson’s desk is hanging down a quarter of an inch. Gerald made it up and into the heating duct with a window of milliseconds before Bryson and the guard entered. Alex spent those milliseconds snatching Bryson’s cell phone off his desk. He’s waving it in the air now, trying to sound about a million times more casual than he feels. “I realized you forgot this,” he says, feeling a cold sweat dampen the back of his shirt collar.

  Bryson’s eyebrows rise with incredulity. “Really? That seems rather remarkable, given that we left together.”

  Alex forces a shrug. “Just had, y’know, one of those feelings.”

  “And how did you get back into my office?” Bryson asks, pinning Alex with a cross-examiner’s stare.

  “Just walked in. The door was unlocked.”

  “No, it wasn’t.” On this point, Bryson is adamant. “I remember closing the door. If not both, certainly at least one of them.”

  “I dunno,” Alex responds, trying to sound innocent and at ease, “the doors just opened.”

  “And you felt compelled to go get my cell phone.”

  “I thought you’d want it.”

  “Based on what? Perhaps I intended to leave it on my desk.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  Bryson wields the silence between them like a weapon. Alex can feel Bryson’s eyes probing him, attempting to see past Alex’s dishonesty. “I want this man arrested,” he says to the guard.

  Alex feels the temperature in the room dive fifty degrees and scrambles to defuse the situation. “I didn’t know retrieving a cell phone was a felony,” he says with as much good humor as he can muster.

  Bryson isn’t amused. “Breaking and entering is,” he shoots back. “Being in a restricted area is. Treason is.”

  “Treason? I was just getting you your phone.”

  Bryson’s lips curl into a half grin. Alex realizes a thousand witnesses have seen that exact look from Bryson right before he slips the knife in. The look practically screams Gotcha. Bryson points, as if showing a jury. “And why is my computer on, then?”

  Alex’s vision narrows. He feels the blood drain from his face, making it cold. The world spins off its axis for a few seconds as Alex tries to recover, like a boxer attempting to shake off a knockout haymaker. “Look, I think you’re blaming me for something I didn’t do.”

  “I want this man in handcuffs right now,” Bryson tells the guard.

  “This is all so ridiculous,” Alex protests, as if words can keep him from drowning.

  “Just take him into custody,” Bryson snaps.

  “He can’t.” The statement shoots from Alex’s mouth like a gunshot. He’s on autopilot now, drinking in a cocktail of instinct, adrenaline, and pure desperation. His argument spills out of him in a torrent. “He’s security, not law enforcement. And even if he were law enforcement, he’d need a reasonable suspicion to hold me, and he doesn’t have one. And even if he did, he’s CIA, and the Agency’s not chartered with any domestic authority. Bottom line, if you want me arrested, you’re going to have to get the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division to do it. I’m sure the number for CID is in your phone directory.”

  The guard turns to Bryson. From the look on the guard’s face, Alex can tell he believes everything Alex just said is true. Alex’s stomach unclenches slightly. He’s staved off execution. For now, at least. Bryson, for his part, swallows bile, tasting copper in the back of his throat.

  “You’re fired,” Bryson says.

  It takes Alex a second to realize that Bryson isn’t speaking to the guard. That was meant for him. Alex’s career at the CIA—perhaps his future as an attorney—is over.

  “Take his credentials,” Bryson instructs the guard. “Walk him out to his car. Watch said car drive off the premises. Do it now.”

  Alex feels the guard’s firm grip on his arm. A light tug pulls him from the office. Bryson’s dagger stare doesn’t waver until Alex is completely out of sight.

  * * *

  The guard releases Alex’s arm once they exit Bryson’s outer office. The man doesn’t say anything, but his deliberate passivity begs Alex not to make any personal appeals to him. I’m just a guy doing his job, the man’s face says. Don’t make this hard for me. Don’t bring me into this. Alex doesn’t. If there’s a higher court to appeal to, this guard doesn’t work for it.

  On the way out, they pass Leah’s office. Her door is shut and locked, but the sight of her name on the placard outside stirs something in Alex. Is it a good idea to make a personal plea to her? Leah could explain everything to Bryson—Solstice, the meeting with Rykman…A quick flash of inspiration as Alex realizes that the attempt on his life earlier tonight might buy him some kind of sympathetic review. He was in fear for his life. He didn’t know whom to trust. He wasn’t acting rationally…

  These thoughts shoot through Alex’s mind at the speed of comets. Alex once read a study that showed neurons continue to fire after a person attempts to remember something but fails. That’s why one can suddenly think of a name or a phrase hours after having given up on recalling the information.

  That’s what happens with Alex right now.

  And it hits him like a thunderclap.

  * * *

  The guard walks Alex out through the NHB exit, continuing their forced, silent march into the open air. “Thanks,” Alex says with a curt wave of his hand.

  But the green jacket keeps pace with Alex. “Sorry, but I’ve got to walk you as far as your car,” he explains. “I’ve got to watch it leave the premises.” Alex looks back at him. “Mr. Bryson’s orders.”

  Alex offers up a thin smile. “Get ready to walk, then.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I took a cab here. And since I can’t use my phone on Agency grounds, I figured I’d hoof it out to the highway and call for a ride from there.” Alex keeps his gaze level, searching the guard’s face for any sign his bluff has been detected. He has no desire to tell the green jacket of his fervent hope that Gerald sped away from CIA headquarters as fast as his Prius could take him.

  “I guess I’m walking you out to Dolly Madison Boulevard, then,” the guard says, relenting.

  Once they reach the main security gate and Dolly Madison Boulevard, aka Route 123, is in sight, the guard holds his hand out to Alex. But it isn’t for a handshake. “I need you to surrender your Agency credentials, sir.”

  Alex just nods. He digs in his pocket for his Agency badge. He wrestles the key to his desk off his key ring and deposits it and his badge in the outstretched palm.

  TWENTY

  LIMB TREE LANE, WOLF TRAP, VIRGINIA

  4:53 A.M. EDT

  LEAH DOYLE stirs against the warm body of the man lying next to her. He is sleeping soundly as she begins to wake. Her alarm is set for 5:00 a.m., but her sleep cycle is so finely calibrated that most mornings she gets up a few minutes ahead of it. This morning, however, it’s the ringing of the doorbell that rouses her.

  She sits up, wondering if she’s hearing things. Who could be at her door at five in the morning? She slips out of bed, pulling her terry-cloth robe over her naked form. Neither this nor the sound of the doorbell pull the man in her bed from his deep sleep. Leah experiences a twinge of envy; she wishes her slumbers could be that restful.

  Cinching her robe closed, she walks to the door of her modest, Colonial-style house. Wolf Trap, Virginia, is a quiet, well-
kept neighborhood. She’s lived here for seven years. Maybe it’s because she feels safe here, or maybe it’s because she’s still pretty damn tired, but she doesn’t bother to peek through the window to get a look at who’s outside before opening the door.

  “I need to talk to you,” Alex Garnett says. He looks as serious as a heart attack. “It’s important.”

  * * *

  Five minutes later, Leah meets Alex in her living room. She’s fully dressed—there was no way in hell she would have a conversation with one of her subordinates in a bathrobe—but by no means as polished as Alex is used to seeing her. He’s not surprised to find that she’s still attractive—if not more so—despite her lack of makeup and tousled morning hair.

  “Keep your voice low, please,” she says as they both sit. “My boyfriend’s still sleeping.”

  Alex tries to hide his surprise. It never occurred to him that Leah would have a boyfriend. Like most people, Alex assumed that she was married to her work.

  “So?” She stares at him, expectant. “What’s so important it couldn’t wait till we were in the office?”

  Alex doesn’t tell her he no longer works for the CIA. The circumstances of his firing aren’t why he’s here. “I need to talk to you about the money, the ninety million dollars that was wired into Jim Harling’s account.”

  “What about it?” Leah looks genuinely mystified.

  “It was used to fund the Solstice project. And Harling ended up dead.”

  Leah nods slowly. “That’s what you told Director Rykman.”

  Alex locks a stare on Leah. He waits a few seconds to make sure he has her absolute attention before saying, “You wired the money into Harling’s account.”

  “No, I didn’t. I can’t think of a single reason why I would.” She stares back at Alex with complete believability. “Can you?”

  “I did some checking and the wire transfer was authorized by someone at the Agency with Agency identification number four-five-eight-seven-nine-six-three.”

  “That’s my AIN.”

  “I know.”

  Now Leah is starting to get angry. “And how is it you know my number?”

  “You used it in front of me,” Alex answers. “You were on the phone with someone when I came in to talk to you about something just after I started with the OGC.”

  “Bullshit. I’m generally pretty vigilant about not throwing my AIN around in front of people, even fellow Agency personnel.”

  Alex spreads his hands. “Be that as it may…”

  “You’re tying me to the death of a case officer.” There is steel in her voice.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. All I’m doing is asking what Overwatch is.”

  “It’s a military term. It refers to a secondary military unit that observes the first, usually while executing fire-and-movement tactics. Why?”

  “I think you’re gonna find that this is the part where I’m the one asking the questions.”

  Alex feels the temperature in the room plummet as Leah sets her jaw. “Alex, you come to my home at five in the morning. You accuse me of God knows what, but whatever it is, it’s linked to the death of an active NOC officer. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to ask you to do it without the attitude.”

  “Who is K. McCallum?”

  Leah responds with a look of utter confusion, clearly thrown by both the non sequitur and the name itself. “What does she have to do with anything?”

  “So K. McCallum is a woman.”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is she?” Leah is silent. Alex’s voice finds an edge. “If you need a reason to tell me, it’s that you haven’t told me a single thing yet that convinces me I can trust you.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Who is she, Leah?”

  Leah shakes her head and spreads her hands, at a loss. “She used to work in Operations.”

  “What do you mean, used to?”

  “Kate…had some kind of breakdown,” Leah answers. “It was bad. Very bad. They had to institutionalize her. She’s spent the past three years at the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute. At least I think she’s still there. I’m sorry to say I don’t keep close tabs on her.”

  Alex’s eyes narrow. His mind races, trying to fit all the pieces together. Of the hundreds of directories on Bryson’s computer, the one marked Overwatch was the only one that contained remnants of Solstice. And McCallum’s name was the lone entry in the Solstice directory. There is not a single cell in his entire body that believes these are coincidences. “Did…what did you say her name was?”

  “Kate.”

  “Did Kate have any prior history of mental illness?”

  “I doubt it. The Agency doesn’t make a habit of employing mentally unstable personnel.” She fixes a look on Alex. “Though your behavior is making me question that.”

  Alex offers up a half smile. Guilty as charged. Then he stands. He’s gotten as much out of Leah as he’s likely to get. “Thanks. I’d better go.”

  “I’ll see you at the office.” She says it definitively, but it still comes out as a question.

  “I’ll see you at the office,” he answers, lying through his teeth. He doesn’t expect to set foot on the grounds of the Central Intelligence Agency ever again. “Sorry to bother you so early,” he says, making his way out.

  “And accuse me of murder?”

  Alex leaves without rebuttal.

  * * *

  Once Alex is gone, Leah rises to lock the door behind him. She’s not exactly sure why, but she’s far more unnerved by Alex’s visit—and more so by his questions—than she was comfortable letting on.

  “Who was that?” asks the voice behind her. It’s her boyfriend. She turns around to see him fully dressed, every thread and button in place, per usual. She wonders how much of her conversation with Alex he overheard.

  “Alex Garnett,” she answers, moving to him. “He’s trying to make connections.”

  “Between?”

  “Kate McCallum and this Solstice thing.”

  He nods his head slowly, saying nothing. Because Leah’s boyfriend, CIA director William Rykman, knows more about Solstice than Leah could possibly imagine.

  * * *

  HOTEL KOWSAR, TEHRAN

  1000 HRS. ZULU

  Sattar Namdar swallows bile, feeling the bitter taste of anger in the back of his throat. The supreme leader of Iran is also the commander in chief of its armed forces. That army is in the process of gearing up for a massive retaliatory strike against its greatest enemy, and rather than sitting at the side of his country’s minister of defense, Namdar is getting secondhand information from a junior intelligence officer. “The engineers believe they’ve increased the effective range of our Mersad system,” Rasoul reports.

  Namdar has heard of Mersad. Modeled after the U.S. Hawk surface-to-air missiles, the system previously had an effective range of a mere fifty miles, well short of the thousand plus miles needed to reach Israel. “That’s an improvement of several orders of magnitude,” Namdar observes with caution after Rasoul tells him the new range.

  Rasoul nods. “We’ve deliberately understated Mersad’s capabilities lest the Zionists use it as a pretext to launch a preemptive attack on the republic.”

  Namdar smiles at this. “So they’ve no idea of our intentions.” There’s no judgment in the statement. In fact, Namdar’s grin suggests he’s pleased with the idea of launching a sneak attack. After all, is that not why the army christened this missile system Mersad? In Farsi, it means “ambush.”

  * * *

  Alex navigates the road in his new rental car. He lost an hour walking to a street with enough traffic to offer a remote chance of catching a cab. Even finding an available one took an additional twenty minutes. Then he spent another ten having the cab take him to the closest rental-car outlet, an Enterprise. Although it meant using his credit card, he had to chance it; he had no choice. He needed a workable car, and he couldn’t risk contacting Gerald. S
o Alex gambled and used his American Express to secure temporary ownership of this six-month-old Nissan Sentra, and he’s headed south toward the Northern Virginia Mental Health Institute.

  * * *

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  7:15 A.M. EDT

  The president studies the faces of the men and women in the room. He doesn’t need to look at their grave expressions to know they’re about to deliver serious news. The assemblage of his secretary of defense, secretary of state, director of national intelligence, and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is enough. He takes comfort in the fact that if the news were truly devastating, they’d be having this briefing in the Situation Room rather than the Oval Office. With luck, this means there’s still time to forestall anything dire. “All right,” he says. “This group never convenes for anything good.”

  SecDef is first to speak. “It’s Iran, sir. We’re seeing an increase in its military’s op tempo. It appears as if they’re gearing up for something. Something major.”

  “And there’s no chance this is just a military exercise.” It’s not a question. The president already knows that this isn’t the case.

  “The Iranians aren’t bothering to disguise it as such,” the secretary of state says.

  “Obviously, this is a concern,” the director of national intelligence chimes in. “We’re getting some early traffic out of Tehran suggesting that the Iranians think the Israelis are to blame for Ayatollah Jahandar’s death.”

  “I thought he died of the flu,” the president of the United States says.

  “Swine flu, yes sir. There’s a pretty bad strain of it going around Iran right now. But there seems to be a suspicion on the Iranians’ part that this might have been some kind of biological attack.”

  At this, the president registers genuine surprise. “The Israelis would never be so crazy or so stupid.”

  “We agree,” the secretary of state confirms.

  “We’re still assembling data,” the director of national intelligence adds.

  “Assemble it faster,” the president orders. He turns to the secretary of state. “And remind Tehrani that it’s in his best interests not to lead his country into anything stupid.” The diplomat nods as the president thinks. “Who’s Jahandar’s replacement?”