Agent of Influence: A Thriller (18 page)

The thought of a worst-case scenario regarding the Senator’s background caused Alan to approve the covert operation the CIA Director proposed. He was determined to defend his country to the last day. It was not politically correct, but he no longer cared.  He was already finished politically so the media could cause him no further harm. He set his drink down and tried to compose himself. The rehashing of his failures over the last several years did nothing to help his foul mood. The intercom on his desk interrupted his silent self-loathing.

              “Yes?” He asked in an annoyed tone.

“Your guests are here, Mr. President,” said the chipper voice of his always-friendly secretary.

              “Send them in,” he responded coldly. Allan immediately felt bad for snapping at her. She was an angel, and he would miss her greatly.

             
Bret McMichael and Malcolm Ray were ushered into the Oval Office. The door behind them closed with the help of an unknown pair of hands. They had no assistants tagging along, and Allan did not have any advisors in the room; even his always-present Chief of Staff would not supervise. Their meeting had been purposefully planned to be completely off the record.

It was early Sunday morning, the best time of the week to meet with the President and avoid media coverage. The major media networks were busy parsing through all the week’s news and interviewing whichever bi
gwig from the Senate or House of Representatives they could find to come into their studio. The Sunday talk show circuit was the time for the political players to shine, rebut the President, and if they were lucky, make a name for themselves with some quick wit.  The fact that Allan Gray was a lame duck only served as chum in the water. Most of the major senators and congressmen’s staff spent the previous week cashing in favors in an attempt to be on the air and get some face time in front of the nation before the President-Elect rode back into town on his white horse.

Ignoring the normal formalities, an upset Malcolm Ray immediately started in with the President. “Mr. President, I really prefer this discussion be held somewhere else.”

The President raised his hand in a hushing motion, setting his drink on the desk at the same time.

“Relax, Malcolm. I turned off the tape recorders myself. I want this kept quiet just as much as you.”

              “Sir, I don’t question your desire for secrecy, but there are still plenty of other rooms in this building with no recording devices.” Malcolm looked at the drink sitting on the table with disapproval. Approaching the age of fifty, Malcolm was one of the younger directors of the CIA, and he looked at the President almost like an older brother. Malcolm Ray was the first black director of the CIA. Allan’s predecessor appointed him to his current position, and after the change of administrations in January 2001 Malcolm was fully prepared to be thrown under the bus as the sacrificial lamb of the intelligence community.

The fact that he was not fired, but instead allowed to turn his agency loose for the first time in decades instilled in him a great loyalty to Allan Gray, and he placed more trust in him than any other politician in this town.  He just hoped the drink was not a sign that the man was cracking under the pressure of the past few months. Malcolm spent a lifetime studying his fellow man very carefully, and was normally able to pick up on the small signs that would foretell future problems. He had saved the CIA a lot of grief over the last few years by yanking a few operatives out of potentially disastrous situations by recognizing the warning signs.

              “Relax, Malcolm. This is my first and last one of the day. I know it’s a little early, but it’s the only time I can do it and not get lectured by my wife or one of my staff.”

             
Malcolm took the President at his word and dropped the issue. Allan Gray was many things that people in this town did not like, and one of those things was that he was a straight shooter and rarely minced words. He liked to burrow to the heart of the matter and deal quickly with the problem. This meeting would be no exception. 

“
So, how is our investigation going? Any more news from your people in the field?” The President asked.

             
“Yes, sir,” Bret McMichael spoke his first words of the meeting.

“Let’s have it. I want the full story now,” Allan demanded impatiently. “No more bull shitting around. We are weeks from the inauguration so there is no longer a need to protect me.” Both directors had only given Allan sporadic details over the last few months in order to try and inoculate him from any fallout when and if it were to occur.

Bret started to explain, “Mr. President, as we told you a few months ago, we did send someone out to Las Vegas to try and get close to Zach and see if they could find out anything. That person’s code name is Marilyn.”

The President’s eyebrows arched and his body stiffened in his chair. “So you did send a woman after him? I thought you were lying to me when you told me that!” He could not believe they were trying a simple game plan like dangling a woman as bait in front of him. As a senator, Zach had garnered a reputation around town.
Washington D.C. could be like a college campus when it came to the rumor mill, and while he preferred not to hear the gossip, someone was always passing information on to him in an attempt to win favor. “You just tried to hand him a beautiful woman and see if he would take the bait?”

             
“More or less, sir.” Bret replied.

“I’m
to assume this was an attractive F.B.I. agent? We all know the Senator’s rumored tastes.”

“She definitely meets his qualifications. But there was no one in the FBI who could even attempt to pull off this little stunt, so we took Malcolm’s advice,” Bret replied like an older brother blaming a broken heirloom on his younger sibling.

“What the hell are you saying, Bret?”

             
“Malcolm did more than just provide advice and consent. Marilyn is a CIA asset, sir.” Bret dropped the bombshell, and then waited for the reaming that would certainly follow.

The President watched the two of them closely as his mind whirled with all the problems this news created. The CIA was typically prohibited from operating on American soil. If there was one thing that launched Congress on to their high horse, it was domestic spying. Any other time, this piece of information would have led to a firing somewhere down the line, but he told them at the beginning to pull no punches. If they were willing to risk their careers for this operation, he only thought it fair to make sure they understood they had his full support.

“I’m assuming you felt this was your best option?” President Gray asked.

              “Absolutely, Mr. President,” Malcolm interjected.

“Now I kno
w why you didn’t inform me of your plans. Neither of you would be around very long if this leaked out.”

             
“Sir, I suggested this to Bret, and after examining all our options we both agreed it would be our best shot.” Malcolm continued his defense of the operation.

“Fuck, Malcolm! I realize my career is coming to an end, but you don’t have to come with me. Who is she?” The President rarely cursed, and the word came out of his mouth like an eight-year-old just discovering it for the first time.

              “One of our best field operatives, sir. She was stationed in the Middle East for the last few years. She was recalled to American soil specifically for this mission. Her father was an American diplomat in Egypt. He met her mother while overseas. She was born in Egypt and spent the first part of her life there until she came back to the U.S. with her father when she was sixteen.”

“Came back with her father? He didn’t marry her mother?” President Gray could be very old-fashioned about certain things.

              “They were married, but when she was fourteen her mother was caught in the middle of an attack by the Muslim Brotherhood. They assaulted some tourists near Luxor. Her mother was taken hostage with some of the tourists. She was assisting with tour guides to the pyramids and other attractions in the area. As far as the Muslim Brotherhood was concerned her mother was even worse of a traitor to Islam than the tourists. She was one of the first ones to be killed during the hostage standoff. A few years after that, Marilyn’s father was assassinated when he returned to Cairo.”

“Jesus Christ!” The President found himself swearing. “I think I can see where this leads to.”

              “Mr. President, she didn’t join the CIA simply for revenge. The attack opened her eyes to some of the horrors in this world. It certainly was a motivational tool for her as she went through college. Our talent spotters picked up on her when she was nineteen. She was the ideal candidate: American, mixed ancestry, spoke Arabic fluently, and grew up in the Middle East. We officially employed her right after she graduated, and she has since been involved in some of our most sensitive and successful operations run in that part of the world. She thinks on her feet better than any of our male operatives, and she has been able to spend the last several years in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Saudi Arabia undetected. That area is probably the most chauvinistic area in the world, and most of the men over there don’t even think twice about a woman being a danger to them.” Malcolm finished. He would not go into any more details. She was too valuable an asset.

             
The President caught one phrase that intrigued him, “What did you mean by ‘officially employed by the CIA,’ Malcolm?”

“She returned to
Egypt one summer with her father. Let’s just say we gave her a little assignment to see how she handled it, and she exceeded everyone’s expectations. Let’s drop the subject on her background now if you don’t mind, sir. The less you know about her the safer you’ll be.” A tiny smile appeared on Malcolm’s face. He rarely got to brag about his agents, it was one of the curses of the job. He reveled in the ability to tell the Commander in Chief something he did not know.

             
“Fine, let’s deal with the current situation then, since it appears she is presiding over her first possible screw up here,” President Gray said. His patience was evaporating with all the innuendo and lack of straight answers he was getting from his two directors. He turned back to Bret again. “So how did you get dragged into this, Bret?”             

“Malcolm came
to me with some information Marilyn had gleaned while in Cairo, concerning the Senator’s benefactor in Las Vegas.  It was sketchy, to say the least. Aman has been on our radar for years, mainly because he was such a unique factor in the Las Vegas mob scene. Other than that, he really didn’t seem to be any trouble. He looked to be your typical Americanized Arab, swimming in a pool of gambling money that his casinos poured in over the years. He’s probably the only Arab billionaire in the world who has not made his fortune off oil reserves. Apparently his only ties to Egypt were an occasional speech each year to an organization that helps him choose the kids who get to come over to the U.S. to study. Anyway, while she was in Cairo she learned that Aman was probably a member of the Brotherhood of the Caliphate.”

Malcolm cut in again
to provide some more background. “The Brotherhood was formed around or a little after WWII, sir. The CIA didn’t even become aware of its existence until the 1960s. By then it appeared to be dying out anyway, and to be honest, sir, compared to all the other groups in that area, these guys were really calm. We never heard of any attacks done in their name, and we thought all their members were deceased until Marilyn came across them a few years ago. She happened to catch a speech in Cairo by Aman in the late 1990s, and the Senator from Nevada was in the country as well on a photo op with some other senators promoting free elections throughout the world. She followed them to a restaurant where they ended up meeting with Aman and an old man who afterwards took them to some government buildings, apparently for some kind of tour. It all appeared to be on the up and up so she forgot about the encounter until early last year. She received a call from Sean Hill, one of Bret’s men, who was in the process of doing his background checks on the presidential candidates. He was having problems tracking down information on Zach’s childhood in Egypt. They were short of men in Cairo, and Marilyn was in a lull at the time so we loaned her to Sean. She was on foreign soil anyway so we didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Allan stared at both of them with a perplexed look, trying to soak in all the background information, and decipher w
hat was going on. “Please don’t tell me Zach is some sort of terrorist.”

             
“No, sir, but she discovered one piece of disturbing information regarding Aman and the older man. We couldn’t get the necessary proof we were looking for though, and since we were becoming so short on time, I came to Bret with a suggestion.”

“I had my reservations to say the least, sir, but the stakes were just too high, so I agreed to let her come back to the
U.S. and lay the trap. Since Sean did the background work on Zach I paired him together with Marilyn and let them plan the operation. She was the field agent, and he ran everything from here in Washington. Once it looked like the operation had gone sour, I sent him to Egypt as a last resort to follow up on her work. Sir, I have warned both you and Malcolm about the dangers of this operation. I think it may be time to pull the plug. Sean will certainly hit a dead end in Egypt, and if we go any further without absolute proof we could all be in jail.” Bret hoped President Gray was lying, and that the tape recorders were picking up his mea culpa.