THEY HAD TO PRACTICE not being conspiratorial, to seem like ordinary people having an ordinary lunch in a Parisian café on a drizzly day, which worked in their favor. Aside from themselves, there were only two patrons, a young couple, at a nearby umbrella-covered table.
Ibrahim had told them how to dress-like middle-class Frenchmen-and to do it all the time from now on. They all spoke French, and while all were Muslims, none of them attended mosque on a regular basis, doing their daily prayers at home, and definitely not attending the sermons of the more radical and assertive imams, all of whom were kept under regular observation by the various French police agencies.
In sticking to public places and chattering like normal people, they avoided conspiratorial meetings in small rooms that could be bugged by clever policemen. Open-air meetings were easy to observe but nearly impossible to record. And nearly every man in France had regular lunch mates. However large and well funded the French police were, they could not investigate everybody in this infidel country. With regular visibility came anonymity. Quite a few others had been caught or even killed by taking the other route. Especially in Israel, where the police agencies were notoriously efficient, largely because of the money they so liberally spread on the street. There were always those willing to take money for information, which was why he had to choose his people so carefully.
And so the meeting did not begin with religious incantations. They all knew them anyway. And they spoke exclusively in French, lest someone take note of a foreign language. Too many Westerners were learning what Arabic sounded like-and to them it always sounded conspiratorial. Their mission was to be invisible in plain sight. Fortunately, it wasn’t all that hard.
“So what is this mission?” Shasif Hadi asked.
“It’s an industrial facility,” Ibrahim answered. “For now that’s all you need to know. Once we’re on the ground, you’ll be fully briefed.”
“How many?” Ahmed asked. He was the youngest member of the team, clean-shaven with a well-groomed mustache.
“The goal isn’t casualties-at least not human casualties.”
“Then what?” This was Fa’ad. He was a Kuwaiti, tall and handsome.
“Again, you’ll know more when it becomes necessary.” He drew a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolded it on the table before them. It was a computer-printed map, altered with some image-editing software so all the place names were missing.
“The problem will be selecting the best point of entry,” Ibrahim said. “The facility is fairly well guarded, both within and along the perimeter. The explosive charges necessary will be trivial, small enough to carry in one backpack. The guards inspect the area twice daily, so timing will be critical.”
“If you’ll get me the explosive specifications, I can start planning,” Fa’ad said, pleased to have his education being used in Allah’s Holy Cause. The others thought him overly proud of his engineering degree from Cairo University.
Ibrahim nodded.
“What about the police and intelligence services there?” Hadi asked.
Ibrahim waved his hand dismissively. “Manageable.”
His casual tone belied his thoughts. He had a genuine fear of police investigators. They were like evil djinns in the way they could inspect a piece of evidence and turn all manner of magical information from it. You could never tell what they knew and how they could tie it all together. And his primary job was not to exist. No one was to know his name or his face. He traveled as anonymously as a desert breeze. The URC could stay alive only if it remained hidden. For his part, Ibrahim traveled on numerous unknown credit cards-cash, unfortunately, was no longer anonymous at all; the police feared those who used cash, and searched them out rigorously. He had enough passports in his home to satisfy a nation-state’s foreign ministry, each of them expensively procured and used only a few times before being burned to ashes. And he wondered if even this was precaution enough. It took only one person to betray him.
And the only people who could betray him were those whom he trusted absolutely. Thoughts like that turned over and over in his mind. He took a sip of coffee. He even worried about talking in his sleep on an aircraft during an overwater flight. That’s all it might take. It wasn’t death he feared-none of them feared that-but rather failure.
But were not the Holy Warriors of Allah those who did the hardest things, and would not his blessings be in proportion to his merit? To be remembered. To be respected by his compatriots. To strike a blow for the cause-even if he managed to do that without recognition, he would go to Allah with peace in his heart.
“We have final authorization?” Ahmed asked.
“Not yet. Soon, I expect, but not yet. When we separate here, we won’t see each other again until we’re in country.”
“How will we know?”
“I have an uncle in Riyadh. He’s planning on buying a new car. If my e-mail says it is a red car, we wait; if a green car, we move to the next stage. If so, five days after the e-mail we will meet in Caracas, as planned, then drive the rest of the way.”
Shasif Hadi smiled and shrugged. “Then let us all pray for green car.”
The office already had their name tags on the doors, Clark noticed. Both he and Chavez had medium-sized adjoining offices, with desks, swivel chairs, two visitor chairs each, and personal computers, complete with manuals on how to use them and how to access all manner of files.
For his part, Clark was quick to figure out his computer system. Inside of twenty minutes, rather to his amazement, he was surfing through the basement-bedrock-floor level of CIA’s Langley headquarters.
Ten minutes later: “Holy shit,” he breathed.
“Yeah,” Chavez said from the door. “What do you think?”
“This is a director-level compartment I just surfed into. Jesus, this lets me into damned near everything.”
Davis was back. “You’re both fast. The computer system gives you access to a lot of stuff. Not quite everything, just the major compartments. It’s all we need. Same thing with Fort Meade. We have a road into nearly all of their SigInt stuff. You have a lot of reading to catch up on. Keyword EMIR will let you into twenty-three compartments-all we have on that bird, including a damned good profile; at least we think so. It’s labeled AESOP.”
“Yeah, I see it here,” Clark replied.
“A guy named Pizniak, professor of psychiatry at Yale medical school. Read it over and see what you think. Anyway, if you need me, you know where my shop is. Don’t be afraid to come up and ask questions. The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask. Oh, by the way, Gerry’s personal secretary is Helen Connolly. She’s been with him for a long time. She is not-repeat not-cleared into what we do here. Gerry does his own drafting of reports and stuff, but mostly we do it verbally at his level of decision-making. By the way, John, he told me about your restructuring idea. Glad you said it; saved me from bringing it up.”
Clark chuckled. “Always happy to be the bad guy.”
Davis left, and they got back to work. Clark went first to the photos they had of the Emir, which weren’t many and were of poor quality. The eyes, he saw, were cold. Almost lifeless, like a shark’s eyes. No expression in them at all. Isn’t that interesting? Clark thought. Many said the Saudis were a humorless people-like Germans but without the sense of humor was the phrase a lot of people used-but that hadn’t been his experience there.
Clark had never met a bad Saudi. There were a few he knew well from his life in the CIA, people from whom he’d learned the language. They’d all been religious, part of the conservative Wahhabi branch of Sunni Islam. Not unlike Southern Baptists in the thoroughness of their devotion. That was fine with him. He’d been to a mosque once and watched the exercise of the religion, careful to stay inconspicuously in the back-it had been a language lesson, for the most part, but the sincerity of their religious beliefs was evident. He’d talked religion with his Saudi friends and found nothing the least bit objectionable in it. Saudis were hard to make as close friends, but a true Saudi friend would step in front of the bullet for you. Their religion’s rules on such things as hospitality were admirable indeed. And Islam prohibited racism, something Christianity had unfortunately left out.
Whether the Emir was a devout Muslim or not Clark didn’t know, but the man was no fool, that much AESOP made clear. He was patient by nature but also capable of being decisive in his decision-making. A rare combination, Clark thought, though he’d been that way himself on occasion. Patience was a hard virtue to acquire, all the more so for a true believer in whatever cause he might have chosen as his life mission.
His computer manual had a directory of the Agency’s in-house computer library, and he also had references from the keyword EMIR access point. So Clark started surfing. How much did Langley have on this mutt? What field officers had worked with him? What anecdotes did they write down? Did anyone have the key to this guy’s character?
Clark shook himself out of his reverie and checked his watch. An hour had gone by. “Time flies,” he muttered, and reached for the phone. When the other end picked up, Clark said, “Gerry, John. Got a minute? Tom, too, if he’s handy.”
He was in Hendley’s office two minutes later. Tom Davis, The Campus’s recruiter, walked in a minute later. “What’s up?”
“Got a candidate, maybe,” Clark said, then, before either of them could ask the obvious question, continued: “This came from Jack Ryan-Senior, that is.”
This got the attention of Hendley, who leaned forward in his chair, hands clasped on his desk blotter. “Go on.”
“Don’t ask me how, because I don’t know all the details, but there’s a Ranger, an old hand named Driscoll, who’s landed in some hot water. Rumor is, Kealty is looking to make an example of him.”
“Over what?”
“A mission in the Hindu Kush. Killed a handful of bad guys in a cave while they were sleeping. Kealty and his AG want to hang murder on Driscoll.”
“Good Christ,” Tom Davis muttered.
“You know this guy?” Hendley asked.
Clark nodded. “About ten years ago, just before Rainbow started, I had a little job in Somalia. Had a team of Rangers working overwatch for me. Driscoll was one of them. We’ve stayed in touch, had a beer now and again. Solid guy.”
“How far’s this thing with the AG gone?”
“The Army CID has it. Preliminary investigation.”
Hendley sighed and scratched his head. “What’s Jack say?”
“He told me for a reason. He knows I’m on board here.”
Hendley nodded. “First things first: If this is coming from the White House, Driscoll’s not getting out of this unscathed.”
“I’m sure he knows that.”
“Best case, he’s separated. Maybe keep his pension.”
“He knows that, too, I’m sure.”
“Where is he?”
“Brooke Army Medical down in San Antonio. He got a little souvenir in the shoulder during the exfil.”
“Serious?”
“Don’t know.”
“Okay, go have a chat with him. Feel him out.” Then to Davis: “Tom, in the meantime, get a jacket started on Driscoll. Full background and all that.”
“Right.”
Come on in,” Ben Margolin told Mary Pat. “Shut the door.”
Another day at NCTC. More intercept traffic, more leads that could be something big or nothing at all. The volume was overwhelming, and while this was nothing new to any of them, most were worried they were missing much more than they were catching. Better technology would help, but who knew how long it would take to get the new systems up and running. The Trailblazer fiasco had made the powers-that-be gun-shy of another failure, so they were beta testing the hell out of the thing. In the meantime, Mary Pat thought, she and the rest of the NCTC scrambled, trying to keep the dike plugged while looking for new cracks.
Mary Pat closed the door as instructed and took a seat across from Margolin’s desk. Outside, the operations center hummed with activity.
“They shit-canned our outreach idea,” Margolin said without preamble. “We won’t be using any of the Brits’ assets in Pakistan.”
“For God’s sake, why?”
“Above my pay grade, Mary Pat. I took it as far as I could, but no go. My best guess: Iraq.”
The same thought had occurred to Mary Pat just before her boss said the word. Up against pressure from its citizens, the UK had been steadily distancing itself, both in policy and in combat resource allocation, from the Iraq War. Rumor was, despite his conciliatory tone in public, President Kealty was furious with the Brits, who had, he felt, left his administration holding the bag. Without the UK’s even nominal support, any plan to withdraw U.S. troops would be slowed, if not jeopardized. Worse still, Britain’s arms-reach attitude had in turn emboldened the Iraqi government, whose calls for a U.S. departure had gone from polite but firm to strident and belligerent, a trend American citizens could not help but notice. First our closest ally, then the very people we’d shed blood to rescue. Having run his campaign on the promise to disentangle the United States from Iraq, Kealty was slipping in the polls, and some of the TV pundits had gone as far as accusing Kealty of stifling the withdrawal to put pressure on Congress, which had itself been wishy-washy on some of their new President’s pet projects.
The fact that their request to enlist the Brits in following the Peshawar-map angle was denied shouldn’t have surprised Mary Pat, a veteran of more intragovernment political squabbles than she could remember, but it did nonetheless. This damned cave was the best lead they’d had on the Emir in years. To see it slip through their fingers over what amounted to a presidential tantrum was infuriating. Of course, it didn’t help that their DCI, Scott Kilborn, was himself a weasel.
Mary Pat shook her head and sighed. “Too bad Driscoll lost his prisoners.”
“A little water inhalation tends to loosen the lips,” Margolin said.
A popular view, Mary Pat thought, but of little use in the real world. She was neither squeamish nor such a Pollyanna that she thought torture did not have its merit, but generally those techniques fell far short on producing reliable and verifiable information. More often than not, it was a waste of time. During and shortly after World War Two, MI6 and the OSS got more information from captured German generals with a game of Ping-Pong or checkers than they did with a pair of pliers or electrodes.
The “ticking bomb” scenario so casually batted about was a near myth. Most plots against the United States since 9/11 had been broken in their infancy, as the bad guys were recruiting, or moving money, or putting logistics into place. The image of a terrorist with his finger hovering over a button somewhere while the good guys tried to squeeze info from his compatriot was beyond rare, a Hollywood concoction, and bore about as much similarity to real-world intelligence work as James Bond did. In fact, there’d been only one instance of the “ticking bomb” during her entire career, and John Clark had settled that in a matter of minutes by breaking a few fingers and asking the right questions.
“Clichés are clichés for a reason,” Ed had told her once. “It’s because they’re usually so true, people overuse them.” As far as Mary Pat was concerned, when it came to interrogation, the cliché “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar” was dead right. Morality was only one facet in the pros-and-cons argument. What really mattered was effectiveness. You do what gets you the best results. Period.
“So,” she said to her boss, “back to square one?”
“No fucking way. That old friend across the pond you mentioned… Give him a call, have an informal chat.”
Mary Pat smiled but shook her head. “This is what they call a job killer, Ben.”
He shrugged. “You only live once.”
Melinda was pleasantly surprised to see him again. He’d taken her out for a drive to see “John” a week before. He had paid nicely and done nothing overtly kinky, and all that was fine with her, especially the money part.
This guy-well, he was properly turned out, or what passed for it here. It was unusual for her to appear in public this way. She was a call girl, not a streetwalker, but this hotel had a particularly fine dining room, and the maître d’ knew and liked her. A freebie took a girl a long way in her business, and truth be told, he was a decent chap, married, like so many of her clients, and therefore dependably nice. Well, almost dependably. You could never be sure, but men in his position, the ones who lived around here, generally knew what the rules were. And if that failed, she still had Little Mr. Colt in her purse.
Eye contact. A knowing smile. He was cute, this procurer. A very short beard, like something Errol Flynn might have worn in a pirate movie. But she wasn’t Olivia de Havilland. She was prettier, Melinda thought, not the least bit self-consciously. She worked hard to stay slim. Men liked women whose waists they could encompass with their hands. Especially the ones with nice tits overtop of them.
“Hello,” she said pleasantly. A smile that was merely friendly on its face, but the recipient knew that there was much more that came behind the smile.
“Good evening, Melinda. How are you this warm evening?”
“Just fine, thank you.” A little teeth with the smile.
“Are you busy this evening?”
“No, not at the moment.” More teeth. “I never did get your name.”
“Ernest,” he replied with a gentle smile. The man had a certain charm, but of the foreign sort, Melinda thought. Not European. Somewhere else. His English was okay, some accent… He’d learned English in a different place. That was it. Learned it well, and… and what? What was different about him? she wondered. She started cataloging him more fully. Slim, taller than she, lovely dark eyes, rather soulful. Soft hands. Not a construction worker. More a money type, this Ernest, which was surely not the name he’d been born with. His eyes were evaluating her. She was used to that. The How good is she in the sack? look. Well, he had reason to know she was pretty good. His boss had not complained, had even overpaid her. She was used to that. Yeah, she was that good. Melinda had lots of repeat customers, some of whom were known to her by their real names-or what they said were their real names. She had her own names for her regulars, frequently related to their dick size. Or color, in this case, she thought with a suppressed chuckle and a not-suppressed smile that Ernest might take for himself. That was something she did almost on instinct. In any case, she was already counting the money.
“Would you like to come with me?” he asked, almost shyly. Men knew by instinct-the smart ones anyway-that shyness is a major turn-on for all women.
“I’d like that.” And being demure worked just as well in the other direction. “To see your friend?”
“Perhaps.” His first mistake. Ernest would not be displeased to sample these goods himself. Filthy whore though she might be, she was a good lover, with much practice in her trade, and his drives were the same as those of most men. “Would you please come with me?”
“Surely.”
It was only a short drive, rather to Melinda’s surprise. A place right in town, an upscale condo with its own underground parking garage. “Ernest” got out of the car and gallantly opened the door for her. They walked to the elevator bank, and Ernest hit the button. She didn’t know the building, but the outside was distinctive enough to remember the image of it. So John had a place in town? More convenient for her, and for him? she wondered. Or maybe he remembered her fondly. That happened quite a lot in her experience.
“John” was standing at the entrance to the kitchen, holding a nice glass of white wine.
“Well, hello, John, what a pleasant surprise,” she said in greeting, with her best smile. It was a particularly good smile, sure to warm the cockles of a man’s heart, and the other cockles, too, or course. Then she walked over, kissing him sweetly before taking the offered glass. Then a tiny sip. “John, you have the best taste in wine. Italian?”
“Pinot grigio,” he confirmed.
“They do the best food, too.”
“Is your ancestry Italian?” John asked.
“Hungarian,” she admitted. “We do good pastry, but the Italians do the best veal in the world.” Another hello kiss. John was a little odd but a really good kisser. “How have you been?”
“Travel is such a problem for me,” he admitted, falsely at the moment.
“Where did you have to go?” Melinda asked.
“Paris.”
“Do you like the wine there?”
“Italian is better,” he replied, a little bored with the conversation. She wasn’t here for her talking ability. All women had that, but Melinda’s talents went to other areas. “You are nicely dressed,” he observed.
It comes off quickly enough, she didn’t say. She selected her business clothing with that in mind. Some men like their women nude, but a surprising number liked the partially clothed quickie: skirt hiked up, bent over a table or couch, bra on but tits out… John liked on-the-knees oral, too, something she didn’t mind as long as he didn’t get carried away. “Just something I threw together. So this is a nice apartment.”
“It is convenient. I like the view.”
Melinda took the opportunity to look out the plate-glass window. Okay, good. Now she knew exactly where she was. There were a lot of people on the street, insofar as they had streets here, ways to walk from one lavish hotel to another, for those too cheap to get a taxi. Not much in the way of sidewalks, though. You didn’t make money from the sidewalks. John just stayed back and looked at her.
“Melinda, you are a vision,” he said with a smile. It was a smile she was used to-the “wannafuckyou” smile. Polite on the surface, yearning underneath. A brief glance below John’s belt line confirmed her guess.
It was time to walk toward him for another kiss. Could have been worse.
“Mmm,” she murmured. Okay, time for business, John. His arms went around her. Rather strong arms, maybe to let her know that she was his property. Men were that way. Then, gently, he led her to the bedroom.
Wow, she thought. Whoever had decorated this room had been one who knew what the condo was for. Probably not his/ her first such commission, Melinda was sure, down to the cute little chair for her to disrobe on, by the window. At sunset it would have been fucking perfect, she thought. She sat down and first of all removed her Manolo Blahnik shoes. Pretty though they were, taking them off was more pleasant than putting them on. They were made for looking, not for walking, and she had cute, girly feet. Men always liked them. The wraparound top came off and was laid on the dressing table, and she stood. She never wore a bra while at work, which was fine with her. No sagging yet on her B+ (almost C) chest. Men always liked that. A moment later she was nude, and she walked to see John more closely.
“May I help?” she asked. Men always liked to have her undress them, especially if you threw in a little “do me” urgency.
“Yes, please,” John replied, with a dreamy smile. Wherever he came from, he wasn’t used to this sort of worship. Well, he paid top dollar to get it, which was one of the things she was good at. In a minute she saw the reason she remembered him. Red, a perfect moniker for him. Of course, she delivered a kiss.
And, of course, he reacted favorably to it. At what he paid, she wanted him to become a regular. She was thinking about a new car. A BMW, or maybe all the way to a Mercedes. He could help her with that. As with business, she liked to pay cash for things. Well, a certified check for the right car. An E-Class Benz, she was thinking. She liked the solidity of the German car. You felt safe in one of those. She liked feeling safe. She stood.
“John, is this all night? That costs more, two and a half.”
“So much?” he asked, with a smile.
“There’s an old saying: You get what you pay for.”
“Not tonight. I must be off later.”
You don’t overnight here? she wondered. Is this just your fuck pad? He must have a ton of money to throw around. This place must have set him back a million, maybe a million and a half. If he were a man who enjoyed sex that much, then she sure as hell wanted him to be a regular customer. Men never appreciated how women like her evaluated men, and in what depth. Men were such fools, Melinda thought, even the rich ones. Especially the rich ones. She watched him reach for an envelope. This he handed over.
As always, Melinda opened the envelope and counted the bills. It was important that men knew that this was a business transaction, even one delivered with the best simulated love that money could buy. Quite a few men had leaned toward wanting their relationship to be more than that. She had a supremely charming way of steering the conversation in other directions.
The envelope went into the Gucci purse, next to Little Mr. Colt with his mother-of-pearl handle. When she arose, it was with the best of smiles. The business part was over. Now love could begin.