Blowback (26 page)

Vanessa opened her eyes
to find she was reclining inside the dimly lit cream-colored cabin of a Gulfstream IV, one of a fleet belonging to the British government. Outside the porthole windows, the jet raced across pale dawn skies over a bank of soot-gray clouds.

“Apparently you needed sleep.”

Vanessa looked toward the deep, female voice to see Alexandra Hall seated across from her in a beige leather VIP chair. “Madame Director.” She began to pull her body up to a seated position and almost instantly a steward appeared in the aisle to adjust her bed back to a chair. “Thanks,” Vanessa murmured, stifling a yawn and pressing her fingers deep into the buttery soft leather.

“An upgrade from travel in a C-17, isn't it?” Hall smiled, the skin around her eyes creasing, her mouth turning up slightly higher on the left side.

“How long was I out?” Vanessa asked, looking uneasily at her watch—but her wrist was bare.

“Forty-five minutes, give or take.” The director of MI5 glanced at her wristwatch. “At the hospital I believe they stored your personal items safely in a pouch, and that's probably in your carry-on. It's 0500 hours, and we'll begin the approach to D.C. within minutes.”

“It's Saturday—the twenty-seventh—”

“Going on two in the afternoon in Iran,” Hall said. “Operation Ghost Hunt is under way so I suggest you enjoy a good cup of coffee while you still have time.” Her focus shifted to the aisle behind Vanessa.

Turning, Vanessa nodded gratefully at a second steward, who offered her very hot coffee in a porcelain mug. “Thanks,” Vanessa said, taking her first sip. As the steward served tea from a translucent bone china pot to Alexandra Hall, Vanessa took a moment to gaze around the jet's interior. She and the director occupied the back cabin, and a bank of three monitors were set between windows on the other side of the aisle, one tuned to BBC news—where they were packaging yesterday's Portobello Road shooting as a domestic dispute—and one other to CNN, where a well-known political correspondent told her story from in front of the U.S. Capitol. The volume down, Vanessa read the choppy thread of closed-captioned narrative: “. . . with mounting tensions and pressure from conservatives to take military action against Iran—not a new story, Wolf, but one to watch . . .”

Satisfied she hadn't missed any breaking news while she slept, Vanessa pivoted now, the seat spinning with her, to see into the middle cabin. Two men and one very serious-looking woman, all in black suits, occupied three of the four seats. Chris was seated on a couch, propped against several pillows, staring intently at the screen of his laptop. Last night, while they were being patched up at the hospital, he'd found the heart and the moment to ease a small bit of her misery around Khoury. “David knows about this,” he told her quietly. “We got word to him that you're safe.” She didn't have to ask her next question, because Chris kept going. “He wants you to know that, considering the circumstances, he's all right.” Vanessa didn't dare ask for more information, and, anyway, she didn't believe Chris knew anything more than he'd shared. “Thanks,” she said, touching his left arm lightly.

Now, illuminated by the first light through the G4's windows, he had his jacket off, and the hospital bandage protecting the wound in his right shoulder made him look asymmetrical. Hard to believe that it had been only fourteen hours since she'd shot the Chechen. Instinctively, Vanessa's fingers slid up her arm to her rebandaged biceps, and she sucked in a breath in reaction to the sting of pain.
We make a pair,
she thought, and, as if he heard her words, he glanced up, tipping his head in a quizzical nod.

She raised her eyebrows and puffed out her cheeks, more than ready for an update on Operation Ghost Hunt, but he wagged one index finger and shook his head. She took a breath and told herself they would be on the ground soon, in gear, and catching up on the operation's latest developments. The thought of returning to Headquarters triggered a montage of images, most of them disturbing: her last encounter with Khoury, the resulting confrontation with Chris, the session with the OMD psychologist. Dr. Wright, with her sanctimonious insight—
It's not your job to save the world alone, Vanessa
. Now Vanessa's mouth pulled taut as she caught the vivid image of the Chechen lying dead in the rain.
Not the whole world, no . . . but I can do my best to keep a small part of it safer.

“Your military has begun tracking an unidentified jet flying in Iranian airspace,” Alexandra Hall said.

And Vanessa jerked around in her seat abruptly. “For how long—where is it now?”

“Flying over southern Iran.” Hall took a sip of tea.

Vanessa frowned in sudden frustration. “
Where
in southern Iran—that's an area of about three hundred thousand square miles.”

“Southeastern Iran.”

“Bhoot?” Vanessa's spine stiffened. “Heading toward the facility?”

Hall arched her brows. “In the past thirty minutes, our SAT analysts have isolated what appears to be a rudimentary airfield roughly one hundred fifty kilometers due west of the facility. Other sources are leading us to believe retired Iranian general Abbas Nazemi may be on his way there, traveling by land.”

“Shit,” Vanessa murmured. “It's happening.” And just then she felt the first pull of the jet's descent.

“It may well be,” Hall said. “I'm sorry I can't stay and play—but I will be following events closely.”

Vanessa saw an expression of genuine if fleeting regret on Alexandra Hall's face, pushed away so quickly by her customary mask of fierce intelligence that Vanessa almost doubted she'd seen the deeper emotional layer.

“Seat belts, please,” a passing steward said. “We'll be landing shortly.”

Her thoughts racing now, Vanessa tightened her seat belt gingerly. When she looked up, she met Alexandra Hall's gaze and held it. She sensed Hall's curiosity, and she almost expected a question and yet the silence between them lengthened.

“You said you knew my father,” Vanessa said finally, surprising herself with the prompt.

“I said I worked with him.” Hall nodded. “He wasn't an easy man to know. But he was certainly one of the toughest SOBs I've ever met. Stubborn as hell and driven.”

Vanessa looked away from Hall to focus on the yellowy-gray clouds pressing against the windows. Butterflies took off in her belly—the shift in cabin pressure and the pre-mission jitters. She heard Hall's matter-of-fact words. “He was also one of the best officers I've come across.”

The plane dipped below the clouds, and sudden swaths of ocean, earth, and city seemed to press up toward the sky. Vanessa turned back to Alexandra Hall and began to speak quietly.

“If the mission fails somehow—if we don't get Bhoot or even if we do—I need to find out if there's a breach, a mole, and I need to deal with him or her.”

“Yes, you do.” Hall's mouth pursed, and her focus shifted to some point in the near distance. “I told you I owed your father a favor.” She refocused on Vanessa, and her brows pulled together, eyes narrowing. “It now seems I'm in your debt. Call on me when you need to.”

There was barely time
for the briefing in CPD's makeshift war room. The lead-up to Operation Ghost Hunt was over, and all teams were about to go live. They had one small window to review the impending operational sequence—even while they all knew anything could and might end up FUBAR.

From her perch on the edge of a cluttered conference table, Vanessa watched as Chris covered ground as quickly as possible. “The goals of this operation are twofold. Capture or kill the black-market nuclear arms dealer we call Bhoot. Disable the secret underground facility and set back any nuclear ambitions in the real world. After that we see what we have—gathering any and all intel in all the ways we know how. Operation Ghost Hunt is ambitious, and that's an understatement. There has already been intense pressure to proceed with military options. But we in the intelligence community know the real value is taking down Bhoot, preferably alive, at the same time we sabotage their ability to produce anything resembling a nuclear weapon at this facility. We clear on that?”

There were nods and general noises of agreement around the room.

Now Chris acknowledged one of the youngest and greenest imagery analysts, who stood a bit shakily. “We have confirmation the unidentified jet the military has been monitoring has landed at the closest thing resembling an airfield anywhere near the facility,” he said, speaking so quickly his words ran together. “We're tracking a convoy of SUVs, and they still appear to be heading for the airfield. Our guess, to pick up human cargo, as in a passenger.” As he sat down, he finished with: “We'll update as we know more.”

Vanessa felt her muscles contract from the tension. Would Bhoot really show? Would they get him
?

Chris looked to the back of the room, singling out a lanky, dark-haired man who Vanessa recognized from SAD, the CIA's version of special ops. He was so muscled, he barely seemed to fit in his chair, and he chewed gum at warp speed.

Eduardo, the muscled man, sat up straight, taking his cue. “The timing is tricky, and we're using two teams. Team one will be kill-capture, and their operational goal is to ambush and take down the convoy, contain collateral damage, and deal with whoever they find.” He shrugged, still working his gum. “Team two will be divert-disable. We're providing cover for team one at the same time we need to actually disable the facility.” He smiled, nodding. “So what we came up with is using carbon fibers to drape over the power lines. Done right, it would completely and permanently disrupt the electrical grid, cut the lights, cause havoc and confusion.”

“Do you have to get inside the physical facility?” Chris asked.

Eduardo shook his head. “Nope. That's the beauty. It's all done outside, to the power lines leading into the facility. And with any luck, it will look like an accident. Because the power goes down and by the time they look at the lines, the carbon fibers have blown away in the wind.”

“So the team goes in on the ground at dark?”

“Yep.” Eduardo nodded. “SAD team one is in place right now, about sixty klicks east of the target. On alert, ready to get the job done and then get to a safe house. Team two is even closer, about forty klicks away. We go in, we go out—like they don't know what or who hit them.”

“And we've been monitoring activity at the facility from our satellite and with a high-altitude observation drone,” Chris said. “They are definitely gearing up for something unusual and apparently big.”

“So that tracks with outside open-source chatter about Bhoot visiting the facility,” Sid said. Seated behind Vanessa, he leaned forward now and whispered in her ear, “Most of these guys have no clue what you did to the Chechen, but word leaks around.” He patted her awkwardly on her shoulder blade. “The way I hear it, you were fucking awesome.”

Vanessa glanced in his direction, but she didn't turn, and she saw Chris looking at the clock on the back wall. She shifted restlessly—her stomach turning with anxiety around the op and all that was at stake.
Time to get moving.

Sid stood, signaling his intention to speak with a low cough. “I've already let Chris and Vanessa know I have an asset who might be able to insert himself into the efforts to repair the facility after SAD's through messing with it. I can get with you for details later.”

Chris moved a few paces restlessly. “Obviously, if we can pull that off with your asset, it's golden. Zoe?”

Zoe nodded, uncharacteristically excited. “That's good, that's great, that will leave Iran's procurement network in place and it doesn't scare them off. We're getting really close to nabbing him.”

Vanessa glanced at the latest aerial recon photo as Layla gave the team a quick update: on the safe house, the translator's flight to Afghanistan to support the SAD teams, and the transfer of currency from Ankara Station. It was money they would need to pay sympathetic locals on their way out of Iran.

“Bottom line,” Chris said, “the clock is ticking. An asset gave his life to get this critical information to us, and he would not have been so persistent if he didn't think time was running out. And we all know how much the military boys will want to play with their guns.” He nodded several times for emphasis. “You have all shown remarkable skills at pulling this together. Thank you for your work so far. Now, let's go do it.”