The Invisible

by Andrew Britton

“Yeah. Chavis wants us there for the meeting, which means that the president wants us there. It’s set for three this afternoon.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “We’ll ride together,” Andrews said. “We need to prepare for the worst.”

  “Which is?” Harper asked. He had a good idea of what “the worst”

  entailed, but he wanted to hear the other man’s thoughts on the matter.

  “The worst,” Andrews remarked glumly, “is that they’re holding something back to catch Brenneman on his heels. The worst is that Kealey and Pétain never made it to the airport. The worst is that the Spanish have them in custody, even as we speak.”

  “Christ,” Harper murmured. He hadn’t thought of that; in his mind, the worst possible scenario was that the Spanish had made a positive ID on one of the operatives who’d taken part in Madrid.

  “You think that’s possible?”

  Andrews shrugged. “I doubt it. I don’t think they would sit on that kind of development for twelve minutes, let alone twelve hours. At the same time, we have to be ready. They know something . . . That’s the main thing. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone to these lengths to get an audience with the president.”

  “Okay,” Harper said, drawing up a list in his mind of steps that had to be taken. He was already thinking about deniability. “I’ll start putting together a list of plausible scenarios and our possible response to each. We already have protocols in place, but with something of this magnitude . . .”

  “I know,” Andrews said, his tone despondent. “We’ve got six dead civilians in Madrid, John, along with Kamil Ghafour, whom we just happened to inquire about a week before his death. We can’t afford to be tied to this. We’ll let the ambassador say his piece, but we need to be ready for anything.”

  “It all depends on what they have. If the footage is less than conclusive, we might be able to wiggle out of it.”

  “But if it is conclusive . . .”

  Harper nodded his understanding. Andrews didn’t have to finish his sentence, because his meaning was clear. Whatever else happened, the incident would not touch the president. Stan Chavis would make sure of that. But that was long term, and Harper pushed the thought away, choosing instead to focus on the immediate situation. The upcoming meeting would not be pretty. All hell was about to break loose regardless, but if the Spanish had incontrovertible evidence that the CIA had played a role in the Madrid bombing and the death of Kamil Ghafour, then the fallout would stain the Agency for years to come. They simply couldn’t allow the truth to come to light.

  “See what you can do, John,” Andrews said. Harper took his cue and stood, just as the DCI’s phone began to ring. “Find us a way out. If one of your people was caught on video, you know what has to happen. As for the meeting with Vázquez, Diane will call you when it’s time to leave.”

  Harper nodded and left the room. On his way through the anteroom, Diane Neal, the DCI’s long-standing secretary, said good-bye and lifted a hand in a little wave, but Harper was oblivious. As he walked the short distance back to his own office, his legs felt heavy, a weight settling onto his shoulders. His head was spinning with the possible consequences of what he had just heard. Although the Spanish ambassador’s precise agenda remained a mystery, Harper knew that he wouldn’t have sought the meeting with Brenneman without the express approval of his government. In other words, the Spanish government clearly had some kind of damaging evidence on its hands, and that could only mean one thing: at least one of the people involved in Madrid was facing a very long vacation in a nonextradition country, immediately preceded by complete separation from the Central Intelligence Agency.

  The truth was staring him right in the face, and as much as he wanted to, Harper couldn’t ignore it. Somebody’s career was about to come to a very decisive end, and if the Agency couldn’t sidestep the Spanish government’s allegations, then Harper—along with most, if not all, of the senior staff—would be following that unfortunate person right out the door.

  CHAPTER 33

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  The cool, still air inside the Oval Office was laced with nervous tension, despite the warm light seeping in through the colonnade windows that overlooked the South Lawn. It might have been a perfect summer day for everyone else in Washington, Harper thought bleakly, but not for the people in the president’s inner sanctum. He could feel the tension, which was almost tangible, and he could see it in the faces of the three other men in the room. Brenneman and Andrews were seated on the other side of a low-lying coffee table, deep in quiet discussion, while Lawrence Hayden, the head of European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, stood to one side of the president’s desk, muttering into the phone he was holding. Stan Chavis, who had stepped out a few minutes earlier to handle a minor emergency, had suggested Hayden’s presence. Harper did not particularly care for the abrupt, socially challenged chief of staff, but on this point, he happened to think the man was right. Hayden, a twenty-year veteran of the Foreign Service, had served as the U.S. ambassador to Spain from 2004 to 2007, his last foreign posting before he’d been tapped to head up the European bureau at State. During his brief stint as ambassador, he’d forged close relationships with a number of high-ranking Spanish officials, including José Zapatero, the current prime minister. Given the volatile subject matter of the upcoming meeting with the Spanish ambassador, Hayden was the perfect person to help deflect the forthcoming accusations, as well as to help minimize the fallout when the meeting was over, if it became clear that damage control was needed. Harper still had no idea what evidence the Spanish government had in its possession, and the possibility Andrews had brought up earlier in the afternoon was still weighing on him heavily. He had yet to hear from Kealey or Pétain. As far as he knew, they could be anywhere, including a Spanish jail. He doubted it somehow; it seemed likely that news of their arrest would have reached Langley through the American embassy in Madrid, but until he knew for sure they had made it to Pakistan, he could not rule anything out. His last communication with Paul Owen had been forty-five minutes earlier, and the news had not been positive: The surveillance just wasn’t yielding anything useful. After ending that disappointing call, Harper had received the summons from the DCI’s office, informing him that the car was ready to depart for the White House.

  He and Andrews had spent the thirty-minute ride brainstorming and strategizing. They’d agreed on a variety of possible responses, but it was too early to settle on one in particular. It all depended on the severity of the charges that were levied against the Agency, as well as the quality of the evidence that was going to be presented. Clearly, the ambassador would have to show cause for requesting the meeting in the first place, so they were going to see at least a few of the cards the Spanish were holding, but Harper knew that Vázquez might hold something back, just to see if he could catch them in a lie. He had warned Andrews of this possibility, and Andrews, in turn, had warned the president.

  Brenneman had not taken the news well. He had demanded to know why they had learned nothing useful about the extent of the evidence, and he’d wanted to know how the team in Madrid could have been caught on tape to begin with. Unfortunately, Harper had nothing to contribute in that regard; in fact, he had been wondering the same thing. Before Kealey and Kharmai had landed in Spain, Pétain’s team had performed an extensive canvas of the area in which they would be operating. They had looked at the hotel they were staying in, as well as the construction site on Calle de San Leonardo de Dios and everything in between. They’d checked for traffic cameras, police kiosks, and surveillance cameras positioned outside the neighboring stores. They’d noted the areas of coverage provided by the cameras inside the hotel lobby, and they’d mapped out the best ways to avoid them while moving through the building. In short, they had covered every angle to the best of their ability, but somehow, somewhere, they had missed something crucial, and in a few minutes’ time, Harper was going to find out what they had overlooked. At that mo
ment, Hayden replaced the receiver in its cradle with slightly more force than necessary, then exhaled heavily. Brenneman and Andrews paused in their conversation, and both men cast an expectant look at the assistant secretary of state.

  “James has no idea what’s going on,” he reported wearily. Edward James was the U.S. ambassador to Spain. He’d taken over the job in the fall of 2007, shortly after Hayden had been promoted and brought back to Washington, and he had yet to make an impression. “He can’t get in to see anyone at the Congressional Palace, and the foreign minister isn’t taking his calls. Essentially, he’s been frozen out for the past eight hours.”

  “What does that mean?” Brenneman asked, looking from Andrews to Hayden for an explanation.

  The assistant secretary let out a short sigh, one hand massaging his bearded chin. “Basically, sir, it’s not good. It means that whatever they have is pretty much set in stone. It’s nothing we’re going to be able to deny . . . If they weren’t sure, they’d be probing for more, just as we are. They’re going to try to catch us off guard.”

  “So what do you recommend?” Brenneman asked.

  Hayden grimaced and shook his head. “I hate to say it, sir, but it sounds like they’ve got the goods. I recommend we shift our focus to limiting the impact of our involvement, as opposed to denying it outright, which will only draw more attention to the situation. Maybe we can get the Spanish to hush it up in exchange for some kind of perk. Our trade agreements are up for review in a few months, so maybe we can get something moving in that direction.”

  Brenneman nodded slowly as he mulled over the assistant secretary of state’s advice. Then he shifted his gaze to the DCI, who was already shaking his head emphatically. “What do you think, Bob?”

  “Sir, I’m afraid I have to disagree.” Andrews nodded respectfully in Hayden’s direction. “I’m sorry, Larry, but I don’t think we can afford to admit to this. I mean, we’re talking about six dead civilians here. If we accept the blame, we’ll be looking at a diplomatic catastrophe. It’ll be worse than the incident in China.”

  The room fell silent for a moment. Andrews didn’t need to reference a specific time or place, because they all knew what he was referring to. Everyone in the room recalled that prolonged diplomatic battle, which had begun when a U.S. Navy EP-3E collided with a Chinese fighter jet over the island province of Hainan in 2001. The surveillance plane managed to land safely on Hainan, but the Chinese pilot was killed in the midair collision. A serious diplomatic spat had ensued as the State Department began to negotiate quietly for the return of the plane and its crew of 24. Eleven tense days passed before the crew was released from Chinese custody, and the plane itself was not returned for three months. When it was finally returned, it was dismantled and flown back on a cargo plane, even though inspectors had deemed it capable of flight. The reason for this was simple: the Chinese government, in an effort to save face following the release of the U.S. crew, had decided that the plane could not be allowed to leave under its own power, as that would have been seen around the world as a national humiliation and a clear victory for the U.S. government.

  However, that incident, as bad as it was at the time, had eventually blown over. The situation they were facing now was far more serious. Six Spanish nationals were dead, and they had not been killed in an accident. Furthermore, the U.S. government had been forced to admit its culpability when the EP-3E had gone down in China, but so far, Brenneman’s administration had remained mute with respect to the bombing in Madrid and the death of Kamil Ghafour. Worse still, the CIA was involved, which would automatically guarantee a prolonged media blitz if the truth came out. The severity of the situation could not be overstated. If the Spanish had incontrovertible proof of what had really happened, bilateral ties between the U.S. and Spain wouldn’t just be damaged. They might well be severed entirely, and everyone in the room knew that could not be allowed to happen. The president, having taken a moment to consider the director’s words, looked over at Harper. “John? What are your thoughts?”

  Harper cleared his throat gently. “Sir, I agree with Director Andrews. It doesn’t matter if they have pictures of our people walking into Langley. They can have all the proof in the world that we played a role in Madrid, but we can’t admit to it. We just can’t afford to.”

  Brenneman nodded slowly. “I agree,” he said at length. “At this point, I don’t think we can risk admitting that we were responsible. That said, I want to hear what Vázquez has to say. Maybe they don’t—”

  The president was cut off by a tap at the door. A few seconds later, Stan Chavis entered the room. “Ambassador Vázquez has just arrived,” he informed them gravely. Brenneman got to his feet, the other men following suit. Taking a second to straighten his tie, the president nodded to Chavis and said, “Show him in, Stan, and ask Claire to hold my calls for the next twenty minutes. Let’s get this over with.”

  Harper had never met Miguel Ruiz Vázquez, the Spanish ambassador to the United States, but he had heard the name, and he’d read through a brief biography on the ride in from Langley. At sixty-two, Vázquez was a diplomat whose career had spanned forty years, which, in a country like Spain, was an achievement all by itself. He had survived the brutal regime of Francisco Franco, then the political restructuring that came about with the restoration of the kingdom in 1978 under King Juan Carlos I. During that time he had risen steadily through the ranks of the Foreign Ministry, holding senior-level posts in Brazil, Greece, and Luxembourg, where he learned to speak reasonable French. Over the course of his foreign service, he had also managed to earn advanced degrees in law and management from the Autonomous University of Madrid. The second degree, in particular, had served him well in Washington, where he presided over a staff of 170 at the Spanish embassy on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a short distance from the White House itself. The main thing that stuck out in Harper’s mind, though, was the ambassador’s reputation, which was that of a shrewd political operator. This wasn’t surprising in a man who’d accomplished as much as Vázquez had, but nevertheless, it was a worrying fact. At the very least, it meant he would not be easily intimidated. If he had the evidence to support his government’s claims, he would not hesitate to deliver a very forthright message to the president, regardless of his surroundings.

  This fact was weighing heavily on Harper’s mind as Claire Bouchard, the president’s secretary, showed Vázquez into the room. Everyone was standing as the ambassador crossed the presidential rug and accepted Brenneman’s proffered hand.

  “Miguel, it’s good to see you again,” Brenneman said, with a warm, apparently genuine smile. Harper had always been impressed by the man’s courteous nature, which rarely seemed to slip. He had always wondered if it was real or just a façade, but now, recalling the president’s words of just a few minutes earlier, he could see just how skilled an actor David Brenneman actually was. He was greeting the Spanish official like an old friend, even as he was preparing to lie right to his face.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” Vázquez replied, bobbing his head politely, “and thank you for taking the time to see me. I realize this is a difficult time for you and your country. I understand that the leaders of my country have already contacted you to express their concern and outrage over the abduction of Secretary Fitzgerald in Pakistan, but please allow me to convey my personal condolences. My family and I are praying for her safe recovery, as are the people of Spain.”

  The president accepted the expected words with a slight inclination of his head, then grasped the other man’s hand in both of his own. “Thank you, Mr. Ambassador. I appreciate that, and I’m grateful for your support and that of your government. It means a great deal, not only to me, but to everyone here.”

  Releasing the other man’s hand, Brenneman began making the introductions. Vázquez cordially shook each man’s hand, his face revealing nothing at all. When Harper’s turn came, the deputy director thought he saw something flash across the ambassador’s face, an expression that fe
ll somewhere between distaste and contempt, but given the situation and their surroundings, Harper had no choice but to let it slide.

  Gesturing to the numerous chairs in front of his desk, Brenneman invited them all to sit. The president took the seat closest to his desk, on the south side of the room. Vázquez sat to his immediate right, and Lawrence Hayden took the next seat down. Andrews, Harper, and Chavis picked out chairs on the other side of the coffee table, the chief of staff selecting the seat closest to the president. As they were settling in, a Navy steward entered the room with coffee, cream, and sugar on a silver tray. He left the tray on the table, along with cups for everyone present. Then he left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

  For a moment, no one spoke as Stan Chavis began pouring the coffee. Then the ambassador turned to Brenneman. As he did so, he placed both hands on top of the file he was holding in his lap.

  “Mr. President,” he began cordially, “I believe you know why my government requested this meeting.”

  “Actually,” Hayden said quickly, trying to shift Vázquez’s attention away from the president, “the reason for this meeting has not been made entirely clear, Mr. Ambassador. As you can probably guess, we tried to contact certain people through the usual diplomatic channels in an effort to learn more, but we’ve had a difficult time accessing certain members of your government over the past eight hours. Perhaps you could tell us why this is the case.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t speak to that,” Vázquez replied mildly, one hand lightly tapping the top of the file. “Unfortunately, I’m somewhat out of the loop myself. I’m sure you understand that things have been very hectic over the past couple of days.”

  No one believed that for a second, but the unwritten rules of diplomacy did not allow them to question the statement. An uncomfortable silence fell over the room, and then Vázquez continued, aiming his words once more at the president.