Cold Shot (7 page)

“It’s still not a good idea.” He started for the door.

“Jon,” she called after him. He stopped and looked back at her over his shoulder. Cooke stood and walked over to him, put her hand on his arm to pull it away from the door. It took her another minute to figure out what to say, but he waited for her. “This is my decision,” she said finally.

“I’ll call you from Caracas.” Jon pulled away, opened the door, and walked out, closing the door behind him. It saved Cooke from having her secretary see her exhale a long, sad breath.

The Oval Office

The White House

Washington, D.C.

The president of the United States was far younger than his predecessor and not much older than Kathy Cooke herself. Rostow was just out of his forties, one of the boy presidents that the country liked to elect when it decided that vigor was a suitable substitute for experience. Cooke had known Harrison Stuart, been nominated to her current job by the older gentleman, and had come to like him during their infrequent meetings. He’d been a septuagenarian who exuded the calm of a man whose ambitions had all been realized. She had been as sorry as he was happy to see his term in office end. For once, she believed, one of the honest and wise men John Adams had prayed for had actually ruled under the White House roof.

Daniel Rostow felt like another animal entirely. He seemed to her like a man whose ambition could never be satisfied. The former governor of Oregon had been in the White House barely a year and his hunger for a legacy already was no secret at all. She’d watched him devour his intelligence briefings and she worried that he did so only because he was hoping each morning that the President’s Daily Brief would bring him the tidbit that would finally give him the opening to write his name into history.

Cooke opened the lock bag while Rostow watched. “I apologize for the sudden request for a meeting, Mr. President. I appreciate your willingness to carve out a few minutes.”

“Happy to do it,” Rostow said. Cooke didn’t believe it. The president’s daily schedule was carved out in five-minute increments so agreeing to this meeting meant three others with donors and political allies had been canceled.

“Just don’t let it become a habit.” Gerald Feldman sat in a chair next to the president. Feldman had run Rostow’s campaign two years before and then surprised the pundits by taking the national-security-adviser job instead of the chief-of-staff position everyone had predicted. The
Post
had openly questioned whether he wanted to be the next Kissinger.

“That depends on the world, sir, not on us.” Director of National Intelligence Cyrus Marshall sat to Kathy’s immediate right. The retired Navy admiral uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, anticipating the paperwork that his subordinate was about to dole out.

“Calm down, Gerry. This is the first time she’s done this since we got here,” Rostow said. “The world’s been quiet.” Cooke thought she heard a strain of disappointment in the man’s voice.

“I appreciate your patience, Mr. President,” Cooke said. “I promise, I don’t do this lightly.”

Rostow took the file that Cooke offered with duplicates going to the other men and he opened the folder. The picture of the Somali pirate sat on top. The briefing took five minutes and the president never looked up from the photograph, no emotion playing across his face.

“What’s your confidence that the
Markarid
is the right ship?” Feldman asked.

“Our confidence is high,” Cooke admitted. “The damage to the superstructure and the missing lifeboat are compelling.”

“What are you asking for?” Rostow asked.

“A presidential finding authorizing a covert action. I want to send an officer to Puerto Cabello to put eyes on the ship and determine the nature of her cargo, if possible.”

“Why not just use the satellites or a drone?”

“Can’t read a ship’s name on the hull from straight up,” Marshall told him.

Rostow let out an exasperated laugh. “Billions of dollars per satellite and they can’t read a vertical sign.”

“The laws of physics are a cruel mistress,” Feldman quipped.

“And the Venezuelans have a half-decent air-defense system, courtesy of the Russians and the Cubans, so sending out a surveillance flight would be problematic,” Marshall added. “There is a carrier battle group in the Caribbean at the moment and the Navy could detach a sub to ID the vessel, but she’d have to hustle and she’d be running in close proximity to all of the cargo ships running around Puerto Cabello. That would raise the chance of an accidental collision. Getting someone on site to give us a ground-level perspective would be cheaper and easier.”

“Cheap as long as they don’t get caught. You had some trouble with that in Caracas last year as I recall. What’s the risk?” Feldman asked.

“Low, we think. All of the dockyards in Venezuela are under government control, but Puerto Cabello is one of their largest so foreigners are a constant presence,” Cooke said. “We expect no contact with the target.”

“When will the
Markarid
dock?” Feldman asked.

“Imagery confirms that she’s on course to arrive tomorrow, late morning. She’ll enter the docks just before noon local time.”

“Then you’re wasting time, aren’t you?” Rostow chided her. “Gerry, draw up the paperwork. Have it on my desk by lunch. Kathy, when can your team be on the ground?”

“They’re ready to fly out today. I don’t think we can get a team on site before she docks, but we hope they can get there in time to observe the unloading.”

Rostow smiled, and Cooke wasn’t sure she liked it. “Good,” he said. “Give me daily updates after they arrive. Thanks for coming.”

•    •    •

Marshall led Cooke out to the secretary’s office and closed the door to the Oval Office behind him. “Well done.”

“Thank you,” Cooke replied. It was sincere. This director of national intelligence she liked. There were any number of people in this town for whom she could not say the same, including the two men in the office she’d just left. “I appreciate you supporting my request.”

“Unlike my predecessor, I think it’s important for CIA and the DNI to cooperate. From time to time, anyway.” The gentle joke made Cooke smile for the first time in hours.

Cooke nodded. “I guess you’ve heard the stories by now.”

“I got an earful from the Senate chairman when I was nominated,” Marshall admitted. “They’re afraid of you, you know.” He nodded toward the Oval Office door.

“Afraid of me?” She hadn’t heard that.

“Rostow’s not a fool, Feldman even less, even if he does tend to politicize intelligence. The Hill likes you and that’s never to be underestimated. But the truth is you took down the last director of national intelligence in a straight-up political knife fight . . . got Harry Stuart to fire his own appointee. That’s not to be underestimated either. So, yeah, they’re giving you some latitude.”

Cooke repressed a rueful smile. “Your predecessor was appointing political donors as CIA station chiefs. The one he installed in Caracas was talking too much to an asset who turned out to be working for the SEBIN. And then he sent a talented young lady on a mission that got her shot when she’d only been in the field for five months. That man was a fool that cost us our infrastructure down there and almost cost us a very good officer. Harry Stuart was just honest enough to call it for what it was.”

“And you risked your job to snuff him. Bold.”

“It helps to have a righteous cause.”

“So it does,” Marshall agreed. “That young lady . . . she’s still with us?”

“I’ve assigned her to this op,” Cooke said.

“Wanting to put her back on the horse?”

“She’s been back on the horse, sir,” Cooke replied. “She was the one who went into China last year and exfiltrated our prime asset after he was burned.”

“I remember that report . . . that was a good read,” Marshall said, honest respect in his voice. “Let me know when your team’s in place.”

“Yes, sir,” Cooke said.

Leesburg, Virginia

Kyra set her bag by the front door and checked the wall clock above the entry table. Less than two hours until the flight. Dulles Airport was twenty minutes away and the Greenway certainly wouldn’t be jammed at this hour unless someone was lying dead in the road. So long as the security lines weren’t backed up, she would make the plane without having to rush if she left now.

She knew the flight time by heart.
Caracas.
She’d tried to keep the old memories out of her thoughts and failed for the most part, and the old anxiety had been rising inside her stomach all morning. Kyra ran her hand across her left arm and felt the scar that ran along the triceps. It was no thin line. The bullet had ripped through the skin and muscle there, taking much of both with it as it had passed out the other side. She hadn’t even felt it at the moment. The adrenaline had been rushing through her, killing the pain then like the Vicodin had done for months after. Now it was a numb mass of scar tissue, visible from feet away whenever it was left uncovered. She always wore long shirts now, even in the humid Virginia summer. It was easier to explain that fashion choice away to her parents than to try excusing how she’d acquired that mutilation.

She had been trying to ignore the telephone on the entry table most of the evening as she packed her travel bag and secured the house. There was nothing left to do now, no good excuse for procrastinating about the call and the phone would not be denied any longer. Kyra picked up the receiver and dialed, hoping no one would pick up. She sat in silence while the call went through. She’d thought her mother would be home at this hour, but Kyra’s wish was granted as a voice-mail system told her to leave her message.

“Hi, Mom, it’s me,” she said. And like that, it was time to lie. “My boss asked me to take a trip overseas today. We’re having trouble with one of the software packages we’re developing. The bug is in some code written by a foreign contractor and they’re just not getting it fixed, so I have to go straighten things out. It’s a mess and we’re on a deadline. So I’m heading out for the airport and I’m not sure when I’ll be back.”

And the lie was done. Kyra hated it. Sarah Stryker was a kind soul who didn’t deserve to have her only child deceive her, and Kyra had been doing it for almost three years now.

She paused for a moment. She could almost hear her mother, as though the woman were on the phone speaking to her. The entire message didn’t have to be a lie, she thought, but now she would have to tell the truth and that would hurt the other woman more than the lie she’d already told. “I know you wanted me to come down for a visit and try talking to Dad again this weekend. I think it’s still too soon after what happened over Christmas . . . probably would just do more harm than good if I did come, but I won’t be around this weekend anyway. Thanks for trying to help. Maybe when I get back. I’ll call you in a few days. I love you. Bye.”

Kyra hung up the phone, rolled her bag out onto the front step, and closed the door behind her. She started to lock the dead bolt when she heard the phone on the entry table inside begin to ring. She stopped for a second, then finished locking the door, seized her luggage and walked down the stairs toward her truck, the phone calling behind her.

DAY THREE

Puerto Cabello

Carabobo, Venezuela

75 km west of Caracas

The
Markarid
sat unmoving under the stars, her engines finally cold. Elham had pushed the ship hard over the last day and Avila had arranged for the ship to jump the queue, allowing her to make up a few hours of the lost time and leave some angry captains anchored out in the Atlantic past their schedule times. They would have to wait. Their cargoes of machinery and foodstuffs were trivial.

Hossein Ahmadi stared up at the vessel, seeing her for the first time in weeks. He had seen her like this once before, when she had put to sea from the docks at Bandare ‘Abbas. She looked no different now but for the gash ripped into her island superstructure and the new paint on sections of the hull and tower. He cursed the Somali pirates again.

“That is quite the hole.” Ahmadi turned and saw Andrés Carreño approaching from behind. The director of the SEBIN walked ten feet ahead of the armed soldiers under his command. Carreño dressed like a businessman. The troops behind wore the usual tactical gear that made Special Forces of the world so hard for Ahmadi to distinguish one from another.

“An unfortunate incident in the Gulf of Aden,” Ahmadi admitted. He offered no other details.

“Pirates?” Carreño asked, pressing the matter.

“Yes,” Ahmadi said. A few times since that raid he’d wished that he’d put the gun to the Somalis personally.
But their leader received what he wanted in the end, now, didn’t he?
the Iranian thought. For that, he was pleased with himself. The manner of the man’s execution had entailed a certain irony.

“My apologies that your men had to remain aboard all day after docking. President Avila felt that it would be more secure to start the unloading process after dark.”

“Likely right,” Ahmadi admitted.

The ramp was in place and Ahmadi saw a man descending in the dark. He recognized Sargord Elham in the dirty light cast by the dockside lamps. The man was dressed not in his fatigues but in more casual clothes typical of a cargo ship’s crew.
Wise of him,
Ahmadi thought.

“Dr. Ahmadi,” Elham said, finally within earshot.

“Sargord. I received your report. My congratulations on your trip.”

“Thank you. I have nothing new to report in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Very good,” Ahmadi said. He turned to the Venezuelan at his side. “Director Carreño, I present Sargord Heidar Elham of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution. It was his unit that dealt with our . . . incident and safely delivered the vessel to your port.”

“Welcome to Venezuela, and my congratulations, Sargord,” Carreño said, offering the soldier his hand. “We have accommodations for your men at a secured location. Doubtless they’re anxious for some food and companionship?”

“That would be much appreciated,” Elham replied. “But we have four men who should receive medical attention. They fell ill after our intervention in the Gulf. They appear to have recovered, but given the circumstances a thorough physical is in order.”

“Not at a public hospital,” Ahmadi countered. “Director, I presume that you have doctors who can be trusted?”

“We do. I’ll have one join us at the facility after our arrival.”

“Our thanks. The pirates in the Gulf that the
sargord
skillfully dispatched managed to find the cargo before he could board. The casings were breached,” Ahmadi said. He looked to his countryman. “Were there any further problems with that?”

“No,” Elham replied. “But it was necessary to keep the forward hold sealed for the duration and we skipped some port calls to avoid any unplanned inspections.”

“Understandable,” Ahmadi assured him. “Someone will need to repair the containers before they can be unloaded. I regret, Señor Carreño, that your longshoremen would be the logical choice.”

The intelligence officer frowned at the declaration. “My men?”

“Of course,” Ahmadi said. “The
sargord
’s men are not engineers and the crew needs to be returned to Tehran immediately for debriefing and . . . isolation. They were not told of the cargo’s nature and we need to make sure they don’t endanger our operational security. We will need welders and other men with specialized tools and skills. We never expected any such need and so didn’t bring either the men or tools aboard.”

“You could have brought them on your flight,” Carreño observed.

“To do so would have invited more scrutiny,” Ahmadi countered.

Carreño grunted, then shook his head. “No, we have no cleared men with those skills here. And conditions below could be dangerous—”

“Then I suggest you resolve those problems quickly,” Ahmadi said, impatient.

Carreño bristled. “We are equals in this arrangement, not your subordinates. My men are no more expendable than yours.”

“Of course . . . but your men are here. The equipment is here. We are already behind schedule and you know that timing is everything in this enterprise. It would take several days at least to bring men and materials over from our country and every movement risks drawing unwanted attention. And besides, this will give your countrymen the honor of unloading perhaps the most important cargo to ever come to your shores. I’m sure Presidente Avila would agree with me.”

Carreño gritted his teeth and stepped closer to Ahmadi, anger drawn on his face. “This is not acceptable, Doctor,” the SEBIN director said.

“And yet the schedule and security requirements demand it,” Ahmadi replied calmly. “Please, feel free to call
el presidente
directly on this matter.” His attempt at a Spanish accent was horrid.

“I will speak to him,” Carreño said, his voice cold.

“I look forward to the conversation. But since you will doubtless need some hours to round up men and tools, I think we could at least begin unloading the legitimate cargo from the other holds if your people are ready,” Ahmadi offered.

“The head longshoreman has already been aboard,” Carreño said. He looked back toward the ship, not trying to hide his disgust. “He tells me it will take most of the night to clear a path to the forward hold anyway. The way your soldiers had to rearrange the containers on the deck to minimize anyone’s view of that”—he pointed toward the tarp hanging from the island—“will slow them down.”

“Then you will have the time you need to take care of the other arrangements.” Ahmadi smiled. “You see, Director? Everything will come off as needed and your efforts will be much appreciated when this is all over. Now, please have your men secure the vessel.” He looked to his fellow Iranian. “Sargord, please inform your men that their housing is being arranged, then join me at my car. We should discuss the voyage.”

Elham nodded, then turned and began to climb the boarding ramp. Ahmadi smiled at Carreño and walked toward his car. The Venezuelan stared at the
Markarid,
angry, and then waved at his men. A small team moved to the boarding ramp and followed Elham up. The remaining soldiers began to fan out across the dock.

Simón Bolívar International Airport

Maiquetía, Venezuela

“Si se opone la naturaleza, lucharemos contra ella y la haremos que nos obedezca.”

If nature opposes us, we will struggle against her and make her obey us.

Kyra had not understood why Simón Bolívar would make such a grandiose statement until she had seen the mountains here for the first time. Now, for the second time in her life, Kyra watched the Venezuelan coastal range erupt behind the Caracas beaches to her left as the Boeing 737-900 descended. This was a hard country from top to bottom, beautiful and brutal at the same time in so many places. With cliffs like those running across the northern border, it was little wonder the natives might feel that nature itself wasn’t a friend.

The flight had been long enough to be uncomfortable, more so for Kyra than for Jon. She’d made this flight once before and knew the travel time, but it seemed so much longer and shorter all at once. She could hardly remember leaving the country the first time. She’d been shot days before that plane ride and painkillers in high doses played with the memory.

The airport bordered the Atlantic and the Boeing flew low over the water, reaching the tarmac only a few seconds after finally going “feet dry.” Kyra and Jon deplaned and walked to customs where a Venezuelan military officer stood by the customs door leading into the airport proper, an AK-103 assault rifle in his hands suspended from a sling. Kyra tried not to stare, and instead turned her attention inward, curious about her own reaction to the sight. She had expected to feel anger. Instead, she felt numb.

The customs officer handed over her passport, offering no greeting, no
¡Bienvenidos a Venezuela!
which she wouldn’t have appreciated anyway. She hated this country now.

Jonathan passed through the line behind her, speaking surprisingly good Spanish—he’d never said anything about a facility with the language. She wondered if he spoke others and what other skills he’d failed to advertise.

The Agency’s Central Travel Office had arranged a car and the gas was cheap. She did the conversion in her head.
Twelve cents to the gallon.
Kyra’s international driver’s license was as fake as her passport, but that hardly mattered here. Venezuelan traffic laws were entirely theoretical. They existed but no one obeyed them and they were never enforced without some ulterior motive behind the traffic stop. The government had suspended a total of one driver’s license in the last ten years.

She didn’t need a map to find the embassy, which was another reason Jon was willing to give up the wheel. The Avenida La Armada led to a freeway, the Autopista Caracas–La Guaira, which curled through the ridges northwest of the city. Traffic was a mess; Kyra had expected nothing less and figured the drive would take the usual hour instead of the forty-five minutes she’d hoped for.

She took the off-ramp onto the Autopista Francisco Fajardo,
and saw the artificial Guaire River snaking under the elevated highway. The buildings, even the graffiti, looked suddenly familiar.

She had faced the double agent on the bank of that river right . . . there.

The rusty bridge where the man stood that night was still in place over the muddy water, the bushes that covered the raid teams were still a nasty tangle, unmanaged and uncut. The streetlight where she’d started to run was still standing. She wondered if it still worked.

Kyra was surprised at how calm she felt, no shakes, no racing heartbeat. She felt so . . . detached? That was the word. Detached from that moment, like she could look at it all clinically now. The alley she had turned down for cover seemed closer to the bridge now than it had in the dark . . . but she must have been shot before she made it that far.
Maybe there
? . . . at the dead-end space before the alley, where she’d knocked that first soldier onto his back—

“Eyes up,” Jonathan said. Kyra looked up and realized she was drifting left into the guardrail. She gently straightened out and veered back into the lane, no jerking of the wheel.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah.” She meant it, not that Jonathan would have known had she been lying. He was looking at her, intensely she realized, but reading personal cues was not his forte.

Kyra didn’t look in the rearview mirror. She’d seen the site. It held nothing for her.

•    •    •

The U.S. Embassy compound sat in the center-east of the capital city, built on a twenty-seven acre rise in the Colinas de Valle Arriba neighborhood, overlooking the Las Mercedes
shopping district a half mile below in the valley. The embassy itself was five stories, red granite with walls that caved in and out of the front at oblique angles like the architect had lost his ruler and resorted to a drafting triangle instead. Kyra had found it strange when she’d first seen it years ago, but had come to appreciate the design—

“That is the ugliest building I have ever seen,” Jonathan said. “And they put it on a hill.”

“It’s all hills here, Jon.”

“And the rum here must be excellent, judging by the architecture.”

“It is, actually,” Kyra admitted. She turned off the road to the parking lot in front of the building and began searching for a parking space. The cars were all American-made, a strange sight given the Fiats, Peugeots, Renaults, and Haimas they’d seen on the freeway.

“Had your share the last time you were here, did you?”

“The water isn’t always safe to drink,” Kyra told him.

“Convenient.”

“I thought so,” she agreed, smirking.

“So who’s the station chief now?” Jon asked.

“No idea,” Kyra replied. “I heard they cleaned house after Michael Rhead got pulled out last year.”

“Which brought you no small satisfaction, I’m sure.”

“I didn’t cry for him,” she said. She got out of the car and started walking for the front gate, where the Marine guards stood waiting to check their IDs. “Follow me,” she ordered.

Jonathan obeyed, which was a rare thing.

•    •    •

Like third-world warlords, station chiefs could be happy tyrants who ruled with a fist and a smile and made subordinates take on the most menial tasks. So Kyra was surprised when they were asked to wait at the embassy lobby so the station chief could come down from her office to escort them herself. They found a padded bench and spent the time staring at the walls.

They sat in place for ten minutes. Kyra was staring at President Rostow’s official photograph when she heard the footsteps on the tile floor. Then she felt her partner tense up in a way she’d never seen
.

“Hi, Jon,” Marisa Mills said.

•    •    •

Marisa Mills was a severe exception to the unwritten rule that chiefs of station were supposed to be nondescript. She was a tall woman with brown hair that fell to her shoulders and looks that probably drew slander about how she earned her assignments. Kyra watched Jon as pleasantries were stiffly exchanged and he seemed impervious to the woman’s charm, but social graces had never been his strong point.

Not impervious,
she concluded.
Active resistance.
No, that wasn’t right.