by Bentley, Don
“At this point, what different does it make?” Beverly said. “Over the last four years, you’ve made it perfectly clear that you haven’t been terribly interested in what I’ve had to say. Why should that change now?”
The President’s brown features turned burgundy. “Beverly, I thought you were better than this. Truly. You’re going to submit your resignation, and I’m going to make a few calls. By the time I’m done, no one in this town will admit to even knowing you. You might be able to run for city council, but your career in national politics is over.”
Peter had seen the President like this only once before. When he reached this level of anger, he took the scorched-earth approach. Last time, Peter had needed the better part of three days to bring his friend in for a landing. The irony this time was that, while the President’s anger was more than justified, Peter couldn’t let Jorge go thermonuclear. As much as he hated to admit it, for the next four days, Peter needed Beverly.
“Mr. President,” Peter said, jumping in before Beverly could answer, “I know that you’re angry, but let’s not be rash. Now that we’ve outlined our differences, I’m certain that Director Castle will be willing to adopt the administration’s Syria policy.”
Beverly’s answering laugh echoed across the room. “What could possibly make you think that?” Beverly said, her lips curving into something between a smile and a sneer.
“This,” Peter said. He opened the black leather folder in front of him, withdrew a single piece of paper, and slid it into Beverly’s manicured fingers. The paper was a printout of an e-mail Charles had forwarded him just before the meeting with the Joint Chiefs.
True to his word, Charles had handled Beverly.
“What is it?” Beverly said, reflexively taking the document.
The question was delivered with a haughtiness befitting a queen, but Peter could detect a hint of unease. The thing about breaking the law was that you never knew when your actions might come back to bite you, or how big a chunk of your ass you’d lose when they did.
In Beverly’s case, it was a sizable chunk indeed.
“Give it a read,” Peter said, relishing the moment.
Beverly’s gaze snapped from his face to the President’s and back again. Then she dropped her eyes to the single-page document and began to read.
For his part, the President observed the unfolding drama in silence, and Peter exhaled a deep breath. He’d purposely not shown the document to the President beforehand, banking on the probability that he’d be able to trick Beverly into revealing her true colors, and his plan had worked.
Peter watched with rabid fascination as Beverly made her way through the e-mail, and he could tell the moment she arrived at the damning paragraph. She sucked in a breath, and her eyes widened. Then she reread the document as her shaking fingers absently smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her skirt.
Peter had to give Beverly credit. A lesser politician would have needed the document’s significance laid out in painstaking detail, but she had grasped its importance at once. It was a pity the woman couldn’t see past her own damnable ambition. She could have been a tremendous asset. Now she was just another liability.
“Do I have your attention?” Peter said.
Though he didn’t possess the President’s interpersonal skills, Peter understood with every fiber of his being the art of political maneuvering. Early in his career, he’d learned the value of extending grace to a vanquished opponent. Judging by her reaction, Beverly was now vanquished.
The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency swallowed twice and then nodded, apparently not trusting her voice to reply.
“Good,” Peter said, “because this is what we’re going to do.”
TWELVE
SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
So, that’s it,” Frodo said, his digitally encrypted image staring back at me from the secure VTC mounted on the bulkhead. The Gulfstream’s conference room was small but well-appointed. I could get used to traveling on private jets. Sitting back in the leather chair, I tried to process what he’d told me in light of everything that had happened in the last hour.
After hanging up with Frodo, I’d floored the rental the entire way to Andrews Air Force Base. The normally twenty-five-minute trip had taken less than fifteen, and my rush didn’t stop at the air base’s gate. The airman standing guard had hopped into my car’s passenger seat and guided me onto the flight line toward an already idling jet. I’d left my keys with the airman, bounded up the stairs, and dropped onto an overstuffed couch. By the time I’d fastened my seat belt, we were already airborne, the Gulfstream’s nose turning east as we shot out over the Atlantic at just under the speed of sound.
We’d still been rocketing toward our cruising altitude when the plainclothes flight attendant had directed me to the aft conference room and secured the walnut-veneer door behind me. Apparently, whatever Frodo had to say was for my ears only.
After hearing the first two sentences, I understood why. Terrorists in possession of a new chemical weapon had been bad enough, but Frodo’s update took bad to a whole new level.
“So we’re sure the paramilitary officer is still alive?” I said, wishing that the fifteen thousand pounds of thrust generated by the two Rolls-Royce engines could propel me across the ocean even faster. Somewhere, a clock was ticking, and a man’s life hung in the balance.
Frodo shook his head. “We’re not sure of anything. The Agency team leader swears that Shaw’s dead. He checked for a pulse before small-arms fire forced him away from the body. Then again, what would you expect him to say?”
I didn’t answer. The scenario was almost too horrible to consider, a nightmare that haunted every member of the special operations community.
The CIA paramilitary team had been ambushed while exiting the execution chamber, and four operators had been killed in the chaos. The remaining team members had recovered three of the bodies, but the fourth, John Shaw’s, had been too far inside the kill zone. With mortar rounds detonating all around Shaw, and the Black Hawk helicopter set to extract them already drawing fire, the team leader had made the heartbreaking decision to leave the fourth operator where he’d fallen. John Shaw was dead. End of story.
Except he wasn’t, or at least that was what Einstein claimed. Shaw had been wounded by an exploding mortar. He was severely concussed but still alive.
But not for much longer.
“Any confirmation on Einstein’s reporting?” I said.
Frodo shook his head. “Not directly. Video has popped up of the jihadis torturing Shaw, and his ear was given to a Syrian asset, but nothing links Shaw’s captors to the terrorists building the chem weapon. Nothing but Einstein.”
“You believe him?” I said.
Frodo shrugged. “The jihadi websites are sparking like a live wire, and Internet chatter is off the charts. Something about a big event timed to happen just before the polls open on Tuesday.”
“Which somewhat corroborates Einstein’s reporting that the terrorists intend to livestream Shaw’s execution.”
“Correct,” Frodo said.
“So, what now?” I said.
“The President’s Syria directive still stands. The CIA has theater control over all operations, including any rescue attempts.”
“Your old contemporaries must be going batshit.”
Frodo nodded. “There’s a JSOC theater quick reaction force already established in-country. Notionally, the operators fall under Agency control, but you know as well as I do, JSOC doesn’t like to share. In any case, Einstein is our sole piece of intelligence on both the chem weapon and Shaw. So far, he’s sticking to his guns. He works with you or no one.”
“I really don’t like that son of a bitch,” I said, thinking about my one and only meeting with the arrogant weapons scientist. “We should have taken him out when we had the chance, DIA Director be dam
ned.”
“I hear you, but it is what it is. Why do you think he’s holding out for you?”
I’d been asking myself the same question and had yet to arrive at a satisfactory answer. In some ways, Einstein’s refusal to work with another handler made sense. He knew me, and in times of trouble, it was human nature to reach toward the familiar. But at the same time, a drowning man will grasp at anything to stay afloat, and this made me wonder whether Einstein was in fact drowning.
“I don’t like it, Matty,” Frodo said, when I didn’t answer. “This whole thing is too convenient by half. What are the odds that our scientist experiences a change of heart just when we need him the most? Not only that, but he’s poised to give us exactly what we want—knowledge of the weapons program and Shaw’s location. Doesn’t seem very likely.”
“True, but he’s still got us by the balls. If Shaw’s still alive, we have to bring him home.”
“I agree, but this time, I’m not watching your back. Einstein is a low-life shit bag who sells death to the highest bidder. You might be on the side of the angels, but if he smells a better deal selling you to the jihadis, he’ll do it.”
“Yep,” I said, “so we need to up the stakes.”
“How?”
“By making it personal. Here’s what I’m thinking.”
As usual, it didn’t take Frodo long to see where I was headed. Within three or four sentences, he’d grasped my plan. Within five, he was making suggestions. After he signed off ten minutes later, I knew that, while my best friend wasn’t heading to Syria with me, he’d still be doing his damnedest to watch my back, even from six thousand miles away. But as I lay back in the recliner and tried to sleep, I couldn’t help but wonder whether that would be enough.
During our last op, Frodo had been sitting less than a foot away, and our collective luck had still run out.
* * *
—
That was the day the tremors had begun. I’d been sweating my balls off in the passenger seat of a Range Rover, navigating as Frodo drove. As usual, Frodo realized something was out of sorts before I did.
“You okay?” Frodo said, swinging the SUV left around a slower-moving moped. He clipped the bike’s rear tire as we roared past, sending the moped wobbling toward the sidewalk. The driver shook his fist, but Frodo didn’t even acknowledge him. In Syria, rubbing was racing.
“What do you mean?” I said, glancing from the map spread across my lap to a device about the size of a deck of cards in the Range Rover’s cup holder. A quarter-sized LED, set in the center of the device’s hardened plastic shell, pulsed with accusing crimson flashes.
“Your hand’s shaking.”
“Probably just a spasm,” I said, opening and closing my fist as I traced our route across the laminated map with a gloved finger. “We’re gonna cross a hardball in about eight hundred meters. After that, turn left at the next major intersection. Eight minutes.”
“Roger,” Frodo said, now edging to the right around a rusted pickup truck belching noxious smoke.
The Range Rover’s knobby tires crested a section of crumbling concrete that passed for a curb before Frodo guided the wheel left, bringing our vehicle back onto the street seconds before he would have clipped a series of roadside stands.
After six months in-country, Frodo drove like a native. Actually, he drove better than a native. Unlike the rest of the vehicles in the safe house’s extensive motor pool, Frodo’s Range Rover didn’t have crushed fenders or scraped side panels.
We made a hell of a team—Frodo drove, I navigated, and together, we ran and recruited a string of Syrian agents who provided information on the ongoing civil war. But this time I was terrified that not even Frodo’s inspired driving would be enough. The LED had been blinking for the better part of forty minutes, and that was thirty minutes too long.
Like the device itself, the purpose behind the uninspiring hunk of plastic was simple. When I’d first recruited Fazil, he’d been conflicted. Like most Syrians, he’d been horrified by the civil war’s endless violence. From the west, Assad and his henchmen were annihilating whole towns under the guise of keeping the peace. From the east, hordes of foreign fighters flying the black ISIS flag were imposing their own interpretation of sharia law and executing all who disagreed with their apocalypse-tinged theology.
Fazil lived in Aleppo, the geopolitical crossroads between the two armies. He’d been only too happy to provide intelligence on ISIS activities, but as much as he wanted to help bring an end to the catastrophic violence, he also worried about his wife and toddler. I sympathized and offered to relocate his family, but his wife had refused. She was determined to remain with her husband.
So we’d compromised. Though a good thirty minutes away from our safe house by vehicle, Fazil’s apartment was less than a ten-minute flight. Like many Middle Eastern residences’, the building’s roof was used as a communal gathering place after the blazing sun gave way to the coolness of night. Frodo and I had each conducted an assessment of the roof’s structural integrity and arrived at the same conclusion—the flat space was perfect for an ad hoc helicopter landing zone.
With this in mind, I’d presented Fazil with the solution to his problem in the form of a satellite beacon concealed within a coffeepot. If my asset ever feared for his life or family, he need only press a recessed button on the pot and hide in the reinforced safe room we’d constructed out of his toddler’s bedroom.
While Fazil and his family stayed safely barricaded away from the threat, his activated beacon would send a coded signal streaking to the sky. There, a geosynchronous satellite would amplify the signal before transmitting it back to earth. When the stream of ones and zeros reached my receiver, the device’s onboard microcontroller would activate the LED, telling me that my asset was in trouble.
Simple.
Except when it wasn’t.
I’d given Fazil the beacon while sitting in his kitchen drinking chai. His wife had been moving around the kitchen, preparing a snack while holding his precious little girl, Abir, in her arms. The toddler had played peekaboo with me over her mother’s shoulder, flashing me gummy grins just before ducking out of sight.
After handing Fazil the modified coffeepot, I’d given him my word that if he ever had reason to activate the device, I’d be on his roof with the cavalry in ten minutes. But now, when he needed me most, I wasn’t living up to my end of the bargain. The ten-minute mark had come and gone, leaving me with an unshakable sense of dread.
“How long you had those tremors?” Frodo asked, accelerating again. The road widened, and Frodo seemed determined to take advantage of the straightaway. In Syria, speed was one of the many weapons we employed against insurgent ambushes, and our vehicles were appropriately modified. But sometimes, even the raw power of the V-8 engine growling beneath the Range Rover’s hood wasn’t enough to flee the ever-present threat of death. Especially when the desert winds themselves carried microscopic killers.
“I don’t know,” I said as the spasm progressed from my fist to my forearm. “Never noticed it before. Turn left in four hundred meters. We’ll be at Fazil’s place in five.”
“It’s not your fault,” Frodo said, taking his eyes from the road and looking at me.
“The hell it isn’t,” I said. “I gave him my word we’d come. My word.”
“You can’t predict Assad launching a chemical attack.”
“We’re in the intelligence business, Frodo. Predicting chemical attacks is what we do.”
My eyes tracked the road as my hands found the M4 rifle wedged between my seat and the passenger door. At this point, I wasn’t sure who I wanted to shoot first. Assad had struck the civilian population of Aleppo with yet another weapon of mass destruction, but it was Charles Sinclair Robinson IV, the CIA Chief of Base and senior ranking person at the safe house, who I wanted to kill.
Charles had refused
to authorize the launch of the two Agency helicopters in response to Fazil’s beacon. He’d justified his decision by saying that he didn’t want the men flying into a contaminated zone, but I had a feeling his motivation stemmed more from a healthy sense of self-preservation than from concern for the Agency hitters and pilots.
One of the CIA’s more harebrained intelligence assessments was that Assad might use chemical weapons in conjunction with a lightning conventional offensive to take Aleppo before the fanatical ISIS jihadis could beat him to the punch. Since our little safe house sat squarely in Assad’s projected path, I thought that old Charles wanted to keep the Agency shooters and helicopters close in case his fight-or-flight scenario became a reality.
Hell, Charles might even be right, but at this point, right or wrong didn’t matter. What mattered was that I’d promised a man that if he called, I’d come within ten minutes, and I hadn’t.
Desperate to focus on anything but the monstrous clock ticking in my head, I stared at a passing grove of trees as the wind gathered the litter lining the side of the road into a trash-filled dust devil. The cyclonic action formed a natural street cleaner, sending the scraps of paper fluttering into the underbrush.
Thirty minutes ago, air currents had carried unspeakable death into countless homes nestled along Aleppo’s once peaceful thoroughfares. Maybe even into my asset’s home. Now the same breezes cleared refuse from the city’s dirty streets.
Wind was a fickle thing.
Just past the grove, on Frodo’s side of the truck, a single piece of paper flapped in the errant breeze, fluttering where dirt met the concrete road. But this bit of paper didn’t take to the air like the rest of the trash. Instead, it danced on the sidewalk, gyrating in time with the breeze, as if staked to the ground.
“IED!” I screamed. My distracted brain had finally made the connection between the gusting wind and the stationary paper. It was the aiming point for a concealed IED, and this was the moment of truth. Frodo could do one of two things: slam on the brakes, or stomp on the gas. Either choice could be right, and either choice could be wrong. In that split second, the sum of my existence rested on a fifty-fifty chance. Gas or brakes. Heads or tails. Live or die.