The Assassin (18 page)

No response. “Le Bouclard,” he repeated, “at—”

A rap on his window stopped him in mid-sentence. He froze, then lowered the phone in a casual movement and turned his head to the right, his stomach sinking. He had no weapon, no means of defense. His hands were useless in this confined space. If the Iraqis had grown tired of him, if they had lost faith in his abilities, it would all end here.

He lowered the window. The woman staring in at him was clutching a cell phone in one hand, the other pushed deep beneath the folds of her coat.

“Keep your hands where I can see them,” she said. He did as he was instructed, eyes riveted to the bump beneath her dark coat, calculating distance and opportunity. “Can you leave this car?”

“Yes.”

“Then get out and follow me.” She seemed to sense his thoughts. “You should not be concerned. We’re on the same side… I’m only taking the proper precautions.”

Relaxing slightly, Vanderveen nodded once. “Fair enough. Lead the way.”

“This could be a problem.”

“Could be,” Harper agreed.

They were seated in the director’s palatial office, the last light of day drifting through the west-facing windows. After leaving the chaotic scene on Duke Street, Harper had ordered his driver straight back to Langley as Kealey filled him in. Less than two minutes after clearing the turnstiles in the Old Headquarters Building, Harper had been called up to the seventh floor. While he’d fully expected this development, the urgent summons to the director’s office wasn’t made any more palatable by his foresight. To make matters worse, Rachel Ford was seated next to the DCI, her lips turned up in a smile of self-satisfaction. Their chairs faced his and were arranged in a distinctly confrontational manner.

“I just got a call from Harry Judd,” Andrews continued, shaking his head in semi-disbelief. “He was extremely pissed, John, and I didn’t get the impression he’s going to let it rest. According to him, you went behind his back to get access to the staging area, and then — and this is the part that really gets me — Kealey went into the building and engaged the subject? Is that right?”

The DDO frowned and said, “No, that’s not accurate. He never fired his weapon.”

“You’re sure?” Ford asked skeptically. “It doesn’t seem to me that you have much control over this man.”

“I’m sure,” Harper replied, an edge to his voice. “Kealey was the only person I saw who was even slightly concerned about taking Mason alive. He wouldn’t have fired unless it was absolutely necessary.”

“I hope to God you’re right,” Andrews said. “Where is he?”

“Getting cleaned up. He didn’t get a chance before he flew out.”

“And the laptop? What’s the story on that?”

“It’s hard to say. I turned it over to Science and Technology, but it could take a while. Mason probably deleted most of the relevant files. I’m not holding my breath.”

The DCI began tapping the end of a cheap ballpoint pen against the edge of his desk, lips pursed in thought. “I don’t see why we need to be involved in this,” he finally said. “We were tasked with identifying and tracking down the people who bombed the Babylon Hotel. We managed to do the first part in record time — without Kealey’s help, I might add.”

“Bob, we knew that Kassem was—”

“In fact,” Andrews said, raising his voice a little, “all he’s done is cause problems. That shit he pulled in Fallujah put us on shaky ground with the military, and now he’s interfered in a Bureau investigation on U.S. soil. How does any of this help us, John?”

Harper caught Ford nodding in agreement as he turned his gaze to the windows. Not for the first time, he was struck by the fleeting nature of gratitude. Nearly a year earlier, Ryan Kealey had saved at least 500 lives and possibly many more. Included in the list of potential casualties was at least one head of state — David Brenneman, the president of the United States. Now the Agency was ready to dump him for what would amount to a small embarrassment, and even that was an unlikely scenario. The failed raid on Duke Street was already beginning to generate serious fallout, and bringing charges against Kealey would only result in more press coverage, making matters worse. None of that would appeal to the Bureau’s leadership. They would be more likely to hold on to the chit for a time of real crisis, for a time when the Agency had dirt on something the Bureau would rather keep quiet. Such events were not as rare as the public perceived.

“Look, John,” the director continued, his voice dropping a notch. “You and Kealey go way back. I can understand that, and I know what he’s done for us. Believe me, I do. But things have changed, and right now, he’s doing more harm than good. Perhaps it would be best for everyone — including him — if he just stepped down. Christ knows he’s been through enough.”

Ford’s smug expression disappeared, and she turned toward Andrews in surprise. Clearly, she’d been expecting him to take a much harder line.

“I can’t ask him to do that.” The other man frowned, and Harper’s anger boiled over. “Jesus, did you ever think about what would have happened if Vanderveen had succeeded last year? What if he’d gotten all three — Brenneman, Chirac, and Berlusconi? How would that have reflected on us?”

“I hear you, but—”

“I know exactly how it would have played out, Bob. The dollars would have skyrocketed, but we wouldn’t have seen a dime. Everything would have gone to Homeland Security or the NCTC, and rightfully so. The oversight committees would have been screaming for blood.”
And you would have been out of a job
, Harper didn’t add.

He paused and looked away, trying to rein in his emotions. “Kealey is the only reason we managed to avoid all of that. He didn’t ask for a damn thing in return, except for a full-time place in the Agency. I’m not inclined to take that away from him because of a minor spat with the FBI, and I don’t give a shit about what they’re saying on al-Jazeera. The man deserves our support.”

“I don’t think you can discount the Bureau’s position that easily,” Ford began heatedly. “They have a right to—”

“No,” Andrews said, cutting her off. “John’s right on this.” Realizing she was on the losing end of this argument, Ford sat back in her chair and glared at her subordinate.

“Kealey does deserve our support,” the DCI continued. “Still, I think you know that something’s wrong with him, John. He wanted to stay busy after what happened last year. He wanted back in, and I signed off on it. Against my better judgment, I might add. Your recommendation had a lot to do with that.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“That’s debatable, but irrelevant. In any case, it boils down to a simple question. Is he operating at the necessary level?”

The DCI paused to let the rhetorical question sink in. Somewhere along the line, Harper reflected, Andrews had mastered the art of making his words — however inflammatory — seem reasonable. “You’ve known him a long time, John. What is it now? Seven years? Eight? I have a hard time believing he could have lasted that long in his current state.”

Harper pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded reluctantly, deciding it was best to defuse the situation. “I’ll talk to him.”

Temporarily satisfied, Andrews gave a little nod and exhaled slowly, as though relieved.

“And the laptop?” Harper asked.

Andrews waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll talk to Davidson myself to get the ball rolling, but I’d be surprised if it comes to anything. More importantly, I’d be very reluctant to let Kealey take the lead on any new information. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The DCI lifted his heavy frame out of the chair, ending the meeting with an abrupt handshake. Ford didn’t move from her seat. There was no Glenlivet on offer this time, Harper noted wryly as he stepped toward the door, and he definitely could have used the drink.

“She’s got it in for you in a big way.”

Kealey had used the time at Headquarters to shower and find some clean clothes. He’d also removed his thick beard. The result shaved years off his appearance, though it also revealed his hollowedout cheeks, a clear indication of the weight he’d lost in recent months. The Suburban they were riding in was currently mired in traffic, stuck on the Key Bridge. Harper had used the time to fill him in on what had gone down at the meeting.

“I don’t get it with this woman,” Kealey replied, a hint of anger coming through. “Where is she coming from?”

Harper shrugged. “Ford was confirmed while you were in the field. Her connections got her the job, but she’s an outsider. She has this idea that the operations directorate is slowly but steadily destroying the whole organization. She pounces on our every mistake. Unfortunately, now she seems to be focusing on you.”

“For what? I’ve never even met her, for Christ’s sake.”

“Come on, Ryan. You can only milk your previous successes for so long.” Harper paused and looked away. The words felt wrong, but they would help Kealey in the end. That was how he rationalized it; that was how he justified his callous tone. “That crap you pulled in Fallujah was completely against protocol, and what you did in Alexandria won’t help. By straying outside the lines, you’re just giving her what she needs to bring you down.”

The younger man flared. “I had to do something, John. If I hadn’t intervened, we would have lost our only lead. Hell, we probably still did. Doesn’t it all seem a little too convenient for you?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, it does. But that won’t work as an excuse if the Bureau decides to make it an issue.”

Kealey fell silent, knowing that the other man was right. He didn’t bring up the thing that bothered him most: the look he’d seen on Mason’s face just before Foster’s rounds punched into his chest. It had been a look of pure recognition, Kealey thought, but if he was right, it brought up an interesting question: who had Mason been looking at? If Foster really was nothing more than a gopher — and he was too young to be anything else — then it had to be Crane.

It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Perhaps she’d been involved in one of his prior arrests. Maybe Kealey had misinterpreted the look altogether. Still, it bothered him, as did the timing of the raid itself.

The traffic had started to clear. The driver merged onto US-29 North, then took a slight right onto K Street. From there, it was just a few minutes to Harper’s brownstone on Q Street, just off Dupont Circle. As the heavy truck pulled up to the curb, Harper gave instructions to his driver, pushed open the door, and stepped out. Then he turned back to Kealey. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Talk to Kharmai if you find time. And Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

“Try to keep your head down, okay? For one night, at least.”

Rachel Ford sat behind her rosewood desk, head down. Her elbows were propped on the polished surface, her fingers, with their short, functional nails, doing little spirals at her temples. The room was dark except for the weak light of a freestanding lamp in the corner. She had just taken a double dose of Maxalt and was anxiously waiting for the medication to kick in; hopefully, it would relieve what felt like the first pounding beats of an earth-shattering migraine. She was tired and annoyed, and sorry that she, of all people, appeared to be the only person on the seventh floor with any balls whatsoever. The director had caved under Harper’s intense defense of his protégé. She knew she should have expected it, but she was furious nonetheless. She winced as her head thumped, the pain drilling up from the base of her neck, and wondered what else she could do to convince Andrews that Ryan Kealey was nothing more than a hindrance to the Agency.

There was a time when she wouldn’t have interfered. During her two terms as the ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Ford, along with twenty of her peers, had been responsible for overseeing seventeen of the nation’s most visible entities, including the Departments of State and Defense, the National Security Agency, and, of course, the CIA. During her tenure, she had rarely been given the entire picture by the officials who were called to testify before her panel. She had pushed on occasion, when she thought it was necessary, but for the most part, she had cut those officials a great deal of slack. Because of her prominent position on the committee, her leniency had set the tone for many of those proceedings.

The reason for her latitude was simple; first and foremost, Rachel Ford considered herself to be a patriot, and as such, she regarded the various U.S. intelligence agencies as the nation’s first line of defense. Admittedly, it put her in an awkward position; personally, she wanted to give them the leeway needed to get the job done, but at the same time, she was responsible for setting and enforcing limits on what those agencies could and could not do. It was an unusual dilemma, but somehow, she had managed to balance her conflicting interests.

In recent months, however, her views had changed dramatically. Since her nomination to the second-highest post in the CIA, she had witnessed, with growing concern, the apathy and ineptitude of the Agency’s rank and file. She could almost understand the apathy; the CIA
was
by and large a bureaucracy, after all. On the lowest rungs of the ladder, even a certain degree of ineptitude was forgivable. What she could not abide was the astonishing lack of operational discipline in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.

In an effort to bring herself up to speed, she had pored over any document she could find that related to the Special Activities Division. Everything she read was a revelation; she had almost no previous knowledge of the group’s “activities.” During the course of her research, she was shocked to learn just how many hastily trained paramilitary specialists were given access to huge sums of government money, then turned loose in the field with little or no oversight. When these so-called “specialists” screwed up, which they seemed to do on a fairly regular basis, the Agency suffered on every level. Relations with other nations were frequently damaged, sometimes beyond repair, and while these incidents were never good, they were especially damning when it came time to submit the yearly secret budget to Congress. It was why she had suggested the removal of Arshad Kassem: not to protect Ryan Kealey, but rather, to insulate the Agency itself from further harm.