QUANTICO, VIRGINIA
Situated near the Naval Reserve flight line at Andrews Air Force Base, the two-story office building was designated as a ready-room during the Cold War, a staging area for emergency flight crews. It was a drill-and-wait assignment: the teams had nothing to do unless there was a nuclear attack on the nation’s capital. In that case, their job would have been to evacuate key officials to heavily fortified mountainside aeries.
Today, the ivory-colored building was little more than a relic of the Cold War. Behind the neat lawns and gardens, the once-important beige-colored building was used for storage of files that had not yet been scanned and the handful of personnel whose job was to know what was in those files. Walking into the lobby, Kealey felt as though he were slipping into a horror film populated with zombies. The military and civilian people working here were all quiet, slow, expressionless.
The chopper pilot had arranged for him to be met by an airman in a golf cart. Kealey and Rayhan were taken to a comfortable office, served coffee and sandwiches, and were told that their “party” was already en route.
Kealey was surprised when big Fletcher Clarke entered, dressed in his uniform, looking every inch a man waging a campaign.
When Kealey called from the helicopter to tell him about the portable nature of the nuclear device, Lt. Cmdr. Bobbitt had just copied Clarke with the findings of the team at Naval Space Command. Clarke told Kealey he’d brief him when he landed. Kealey hadn’t expected it to be in person.
The general entered the building with an aide, who remained outside the office while Clarke went in.
“Afraid of eavesdroppers?” Kealey asked.
“Way above their security clearance,” Clarke replied.
Right then, Kealey knew this was larger than even he’d anticipated. Rayhan watched with what struck Kealey as a look of cautious-bordering-on-fearful interest as Clarke sat at a gunmetal desk and opened a laptop.
“If you’re right about the suitcase bomb—and we believe you are—there are two places it could be,” Clarke said, bringing up an annotated map and getting right to the matter. “One is onboard a container ship that just headed into the Mediterranean. That’s the red line. We’ve got eyes on that from the air and sea right now. Those are the blue lines. The ship’s showing radiation, which means the package was onboard—but not that it still is.”
He brought up a chart. Rayhan looked at the numbers.
“If it’s onboard, it’s been resealed,” she said.
“Not very hot, right?” Clarke asked.
“No, sir.”
“That’s a kick in the head,” Clarke said. “The ship’s showing no outward signs of urgency, there are no suspicious communications—it’s doing everything you’d expect from a vessel that doesn’t want to call attention to itself. Naval Space Command believes the target is onboard. But—”
Clarke let the word hang there. He brought up a police bulletin from Rabat.
“We grabbed this write-up at our listening post in Melilla, a Spanish territory on the coast of Africa. It was sent by police car uplink to the dispatcher in Salé, Morocco. They were answering an alarm at a medical facility. A dentist’s office was broken into. Initially, they didn’t think anything had been stolen—there was no medicine missing, no money. Then two minutes later they filed a second report after noticing that the X-ray apron was missing.”
“What was their protocol after that?” Rayhan asked.
“Nothing to speak of,” Clarke told her. “We contacted our embassy in Rabat, our spooks were in the field, so we woke up Mostpha Bensami, INTERPOL Vice President for Africa, to ask. He said that without what he called ‘triangulated evidence,’ it would not be considered anything more than a routine theft. He said that rebel forces often use X-ray aprons as bulletproof vests.”
“Not the worst idea I’ve heard,” Kealey said.
“But that was not the reason it was taken,” Rayhan suggested.
“We don’t believe so,” Clarke went on. “That’s why I need you two to go over there. If the device is onboard the Iranian ship, we’ll get people onboard to find it. If not—”
Kealey was smiling and looking at Rayhan. She grinned back.
“What is it?” Clarke asked.
“She asked why I had her pack a bag,” Kealey said. “Did you bring a head scarf?”
“In case there was air-conditioning—but it will do.”
Clarke made a face. “You’ll have a lot of time to bond over that en route to Naval Station Rota, Spain. They’re holding a Baby Herc supply ship for you. I’ll take you over.”
“What kind of support are you giving me other than INTERPOL?” Kealey asked.
“Hell, I can’t even guarantee them completely,” Clarke said. “Apart from Bensami, we don’t know which side of the fence a lot of those boys play. Many of them are Muslims first, Moroccans second—and among those, we don’t know how many are radical.” He looked uncomfortably at Rayhan. “Sorry, Ms. Jafari. That’s just the way their loyalties fall.”
“I’m an American first and only, sir,” she replied.
“I know. That’s why I apologized. I didn’t want you to misunderstand.”
“Can you give me the APHID?” Kealey asked, trying to break this inevitable but uncomfortable talk.
“I’ve already told Valigorsky to prepare the transition.”
Rayhan gave Kealey an inquiring look. He ignored it.
Clarke handed the couple their passports, to which customs stamps from Morocco had been affixed by the DNI’s printing department. That was the end of the meeting. Clarke snapped the laptop shut and left, followed by his aide, Kealey, and Rayhan. They did not speak as they got into the golf cart that was to take them out to the airfield.
The C-27J Baby Herc was a stubby but sleek, gray two-prop aircraft with an overhead wing structure that didn’t seem sufficient to lift the thick fuselage. It was designed to deliver troops and supplies to airfields that were too short for its big brother, the C-130 Hercules. As such, the interior was constructed to be roomy—not comfortable. Especially not for a flight to Africa.
In addition to a pair of jeeps and crates of ordnance, the plane was carrying members of Congress who were headed to Egypt. Their scowls told Kealey how happy they were to be held up—though part of that was probably also due to the accommodations. The seats in the Baby Herc were literally red slings hanging from the curved, padded sides of the aircraft. Kealey selected a pair that hung between the two jeeps so they wouldn’t have to look at their travel companions. He helped Rayhan into her harness, which had loops for the arms—though no one used them unless there was turbulence. There were no windows here, not that it would have mattered since the slings faced in.
“Is this functional or comfortable?” Rayhan asked as she wriggled from side to side, then forward and back as if the seat were a swing.
“Definitely the former, very nominally the latter,” he said. “I think I’m gonna like these better than the C-130s, which had seats, if you can call them that.”
“Seats were worse?”
“They rattled. Constantly. You didn’t want to sit for a week after riding in one of those. Many of us
couldn’t
sit for a week.”
“Rattling I can handle,” she said. “I ride ATVs on the weekend. Hours at a time.”
“Oh? I wouldn’t have guessed you were an off-roader.”
“Why? Too petite?”
“No,” he said. “Too sane.”
She smiled. “I took it up because of a former boyfriend. I think he broke up with me because I was better at it.”
“Better or took more chances?”
“Actually, both. I liked playing chicken with him.”
“Well, at least you’ve got some measure of control there,” Kealey said. “These things—they’re like riding barrels over a waterfall . . . for hours. You got used to it in the air but when you land—that’s when the delayed reaction sets in. It’s like trying to walk after you’ve been running on a vibrating bed.”
“Something you’ve tried?”
“I only use metaphors when personal experience is attached,” Kealey told her as the hatch was closed. “It’s kind of a funny story. I turned one of those beds on in a motel in Istanbul. It had been a long day of staking out a Turk who was trying to sell arms to Syrian rebels. I wanted to help him, but he didn’t know that, so he hired someone to kill me. I figured
they’d
figure no one would pay to turn the bed on unless they were in it. I was watching from the closet. I pinned the guy easy enough but then spent the next fifteen, twenty minutes shaking all around as I interrogated him.”
“That’s a
funny
story?”
“It is, when I think back on it. Wasn’t, then. He put a nine-inch blade in the blanket and the knife was wobbling back and forth like some kind of baby toy.”
Rayhan was looking at Kealey—at his little smile, not his eyes. “You really enjoy this work—despite how it has treated you.”
“Enjoy? I don’t know. It’s all so seat-of-the-pants I think I’m afraid to pull out. You develop a feel for something that makes you responsible for it.”
“I’m confused.”
“There is no formula,” Kealey said as the propellers revved overhead. “That fact turns you into a control freak.” The cabin shook, and he had to raise his voice to be heard. “The intelligence services have written enough white papers about different scenarios to fill the Grand Canyon. But in all that, there are no magic bullets. Every situation is different. And the more that agents are trained to rely on them, the greater the danger to the country.”
“You’re saying we need loose cannons?”
“I prefer to call us vigilantes for the American way,” Kealey laughed.
“Speaking of assets, I know that Astrida Valigorsky is head of integrated intelligence services. What was that you asked for earlier—the APHID?”
Kealey smiled. “An asset.”
Rayhan waited for the rest. It didn’t come. Kealey did not strike her as the kind of man to play games or withhold information unless it was necessary. This was obviously beyond her security level. She let it drop. She studied Kealey. He seemed distracted. He snapped out of it when the four powerful turbines began to roar in turn.
“Is everything all right?” she asked. It was a fair question, she felt; her life was at risk, too.
“Missions, even impromptu ones like this, should have a little prep time,” he said. “There was a time when I’d spend the flight studying maps of the region, memorizing phone numbers of contacts.”
“Will you not?”
“I’ll make sure I know Rabat, but this is a highly fluid situation,” he said. “We could end up miles from there, and we don’t have time to learn the entire coastline up and down.” He wiggled his phone. “Electronics. Uplinks. We’re forced to rely on that now. Not like my Uncle Largo, eyeballing a target until it was part of his DNA.”
The two fell silent as the big plane taxied and rose with a roar that was far greater than its labored angle of ascent. The bank of the plane was more noticeable, as even the tightly lashed objects shifted and caused Rayhan to start. Once they were airborne, they found they were not as isolated as Kealey had hoped.
“Good evening,” said a slender, balding man. Kealey made him out to be about forty, from Philadelphia judging by his accent. The man gripped a free sling with his left hand while he offered his right. “Representative Tim Thomson from Pennsylvania.”
“I’m Ryan,” Kealey said, accepting his hand. “This is Rayhan.”
Thomson turned to her, smiled, offered his hand. “A pleasure.” There was something unctuous in just that word, even more so in his leering smile. But it was business before pleasure and he turned back to Kealey. “We’re with the House Committee on Homeland Security, Border and Maritime. I’ve seen you somewhere.”
“I’ve been around,” Kealey said.
“In what capacity?”
“All kinds.”
Thomson smiled back thinly. “Spooks.”
“And you haven’t even had your first swallow from the flask in your pocket,” Kealey said.
“Oh, we’re all friends here or we wouldn’t
be
here,” Thomson said. He put his hand up and leaned hard against the padded fuselage to keep from falling to one side or the other. “I admire you folks. You’re what we call ‘executors.’ You go out and do the things we all just talk about.” He regarded Rayhan. “That’s not the same as executioners. Though I guess sometimes you have to be that.”
Kealey looked at him. How did a man so tactless succeed in public office? Or maybe that was the trick: he disguised bullying as advocacy. “So, Congressman. Is there anything I can do for you other than suffer in near silence?”
The blow didn’t even graze the man. “No, Ryan. I just wanted to see if I could place you. I like to know what’s going on in our end of the business.” The congressman’s eyes shifted back to Rayhan. “Iranian?”
She replied, “American.”
“By birth?”
“By choice.”
He smiled. “Well done.” Thomson acted as though he were congratulating a competitive skater.
In less than a minute, Kealey had already grown to hate that practiced politician’s smile. He was surprised General Clarke, who met with them and testified before them regularly, had not already murdered one of these guys.
“Enjoy your flight,” the congressman said.
“The rest of it, we will,” Kealey said, smiling as though he had steel wool tucked in his cheeks.
Thomson looked at him, still smiling. “I wouldn’t push that too far, Ryan. I know people who can throw people like you to the wolves out there.”
“And how does that help the nation we both love and serve?” Kealey asked.
“My e-blasts do more to influence our future than anything you’ve ever achieved,” he replied.
Kealey wanted to say, “
I just saved New York
,” but this job was about results, not ego. He just flipped the man a dismissive salute to end the conversation.
Thomson walked unsteadily back to his sling. When he disappeared behind the jeep to the right, it was as though air had returned to the bay.