The Assassin. Andrew Britton
difficult to gauge his reaction over the static-filled line. If appearances were any indication, though, Kealey was having trouble with the revelation that Vanderveen had finally resurfaced, after almost a year of not knowing whether the man was dead or alive.
Crossing the last few feet of cement, Kealey shook Harper’s extended hand and offered something approaching a smile.
“Good to see you, John. I didn’t expect to be met by a man of your stature.”
“A lot’s been happening. I thought I would fill you in on the ride.”
Kealey nodded to the vehicle. “I guess your driver is cleared for it.”
“He’s cleared as high as you are.”
“Sounds good.” Kealey opened the rear doors and tossed his pack into the cargo area, then made his way to the backseat. Harper went to the passenger side and climbed in front, as was his habit. Once both doors were shut, the driver put the truck into gear.
Harper handed Kealey a carryout cup of steaming black coffee over the back of the seat. “I thought you could use this,” he said.
“Thanks. I didn’t get any sleep on the plane.”
“I can tell. You look like shit.”
“I’m aware of that,” was the wry response. “I need a shower.”
“And a haircut,” Harper noted. “You’ll get all of that soon enough. I’ve got you set up at the Hotel Washington.”
Kealey raised an eyebrow, and Harper caught the gesture. “Yeah, I know. Admittedly, it’s much nicer than what you’d usually get, but I pulled some strings for you. After six months in the desert, I thought you could use some dependable air-conditioning and a comfortable bed. Oh, and Kharmai’s there as well. She’s already checked in.”
“Naomi,” Kealey said in a flat voice. “What’s she doing here?”
“We brought her back to work on al-Umari’s finances, among other things. It’s been less than twenty-four hours, but she’s already managed to dig up some interesting information. I’ll let her brief you herself.”
“Is that where we’re going? The hotel?”
Harper nodded without turning around, then changed tack. “Anyway, here’s where we stand. As soon as you called in, we started running the names you got from Kassem. Two of them, unfortunately, belong to the recently deceased. Interestingly enough, both men were killed during the same raid on the Syrian border.”
A skeptical expression came over the younger man’s face. “I suppose that came from—”
“No.” The DDO had anticipated the response. “That came from the Pentagon, not the Iraqis. It’s been confirmed.”
Kealey leaned back in his seat and rubbed a hand over his eyes. He couldn’t believe he’d wasted all that time for nothing, but Harper had only accounted for two…. “What about the third?”
“Well, that’s the thing. The third man on your list, Anthony Mason, is located here.”
“Here as in the U.S.?”
“Here as in Washington.”
Kealey leaned forward in his seat, suddenly interested. “Well, that’s great. Have we picked him up?”
“No. As soon as the name went into the system, bells started ringing in Landrieu’s office at the NCTC.”
Kealey grimaced involuntarily. He harbored a strong dislike for Patrick Landrieu, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, and the feeling was decidedly mutual. They’d had a run-in the previous year, but for Kealey, a petty disagreement was not the issue. He was far more concerned by the fact that the other man had managed to keep his job after a series of major terrorist attacks in the nation’s capital.
“The problem,” Harper continued, “is that we’re not the only ones with an interest in Mason. For the last three months, he’s been the subject of a joint investigation being run by the Bureau and the ATF. That’s how we knew his location.”
“You’re kidding me.” Kealey thought back to what Kassem had told him. “They want him for arms trafficking?”
“Something to that effect. I didn’t get the full picture, but here’s the interesting part. The Bureau’s stepped up their surveillance over the past week, and they already have a warrant.”
“When are they going in?”
“Today.”
Kealey stared at the other man in disbelief. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
Harper shook his head grimly. “I’m afraid not.”
“They’re doing it today? That’s not interesting, John. That’s…disastrous.” And also far too coincidental, he didn’t say. “If they’re forced to shoot him, we’ll be shit out of luck.”
“I realize that, but it’s out of our hands. When the senior FBI rep at Tyson’s Corner heard we were sniffing around, he told Landrieu in no uncertain terms that this was a very large, very expensive Bureau op, and that any interference would not be tolerated. So Landrieu, of course, made the call to Langley. Andrews nearly handed me my ass when he heard…We’re already in hot water for that little stunt you pulled in Fallujah. The heat isn’t just coming down from the White House, either. The Pentagon was distinctly unhappy with the way you misled Owen. According to the director, the last thing we can afford to do is interfere with a DOJ investigation on domestic soil. That’s a direct quote, by the way.”
“That fucker Landrieu.” Kealey couldn’t restrain his anger. “The guy spent twenty years in the Agency, and he still stabs us in the back every chance he gets.”
“I hear you, but like I said, it’s out of our hands. We just have to hope that the Bureau brings Mason in alive, and that, at some point, we get an opportunity to talk to him.”
Kealey sat back in his seat and sipped the coffee, thinking about it. Of the three names Kassem had given him, Mason was the one he really wanted to talk to. The men who’d been killed on the Syrian border were Iraqi nationals, but Mason held American citizenship. Setting up secure lines of communication between Iraq and the United States would have been extremely difficult, which made it a good bet that Mason was involved at a much higher level.
And that brought him to something else. It was something that he’d tried to push out of his mind for the last twenty-four hours, but with this development, he could no longer ignore Will Vanderveen’s return to the ranks of the living. Vanderveen had joined the U.S. Army under false pretenses and had posed successfully as an American for years. Both Mason and Vanderveen had ties to Iraq, the latter man through Rashid al-Umari. Kealey knew it was entirely possible that the two men were connected by more than just circumstance.
He made a decision. “John, forget the hotel. I want to go out to the site.”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to whoever’s running things. At the very least, they’ll be able to tell us more about Mason than we can get on paper. Moreover, we might be able to convey how important it is that they take him alive. I mean, you said Brenneman wanted answers. You’d be surprised at what happens when you drop the president’s name.”
Harper considered the request at length. “Okay,” he finally said. “As it happens, I talked to one of the lead investigators in McLean this morning.”
This made sense to the younger man; McLean was just another reference to the NCTC, which was staffed by members of fourteen different government agencies, including the FBI and the CIA. It was one of the very few places where information was collated and disseminated within the U.S. intelligence community, though Kealey had never bought into the rhetoric. Based on what he had seen, the NCTC was no more effective than its predecessor, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, at minimizing interagency competition