by Lisa Harris
“You don’t have to worry about—”
“—tell him you brought me here to Washington to talk to him.”
“No,” the Senator said, shaking his head. “I don’t want you to tell him we’ve had this conversation. I know my son well enough to know if he thinks you’ve talked to me, he won’t listen to your advice.”
“Well, then, how do you expect me to—”
“If you show up at his doorstep twenty-four hours from now, I assure you, he won’t ask you what you’re doing here.”
“Why not?”
He smiled.
It was an I-know-something-you-don’t-know type of smile.
“Douglas Carlton will be contacting you shortly about returning to Langley to participate in a Senate Intelligence Committee debriefing on Operation Invisible Target. Naturally, the debriefing will take place in a secure setting at the Agency’s headquarters building, and your identity will be protected at all times. I’m sure you’ve participated in such congressional debriefings before.”
At the Agency, such debriefings went by the acronym COIG, which stood for Congressional Oversight Intelligence Gathering. However, most Agency personnel referred to them as COGS since this type of debriefing was a “cog” in the wheel of the CIA’s ongoing operations.
“Yes, I’ve participated in such debriefings before. They’re usually scheduled when there’s been some sort of intelligence failure during an operation. That didn’t happen during Invisible Target.”
“No, but you’ve got to admit several things went wrong during that operation.”
“There’s never been a perfect operation, Senator. Something always goes wrong.”
He waved his hand at me dismissively. “I’m aware of that, but members of my committee need to hear from all the parties involved. We need to find out who was responsible for those failures and get insight into what went wrong so it won’t happen again.”
I suspected he felt that way because his son had been wounded during the operation, but I kept those thoughts to myself.
He continued, “I’m surprised you haven’t heard from anyone at the Agency about the COIG debriefing yet. I asked the DDO to set it up before I called you this morning, and when I spoke to him, I told him I wanted it done as soon as possible.”
I removed my phone from my pocket. “Now that you mentioned it, Senator, I haven’t checked my messages since I landed.”
I looked down at my message icon.
No red flags were showing.
“Yes, it looks like someone’s been trying to contact me.”
I slipped my phone back in my pocket. “I’ll call them back later.”
“You can call them right now. I need to be going.”
The Senator stood to his feet and offered me his hand. “Thank you, Titus. I appreciate your help.”
I shook his hand. “I’ll be honest with you, Senator. I don’t expect Ben to heed my advice regarding Kamila Hanim, especially if he’s really in love with her.”
“Sure, I understand that, but you’ll still speak to Ben, won’t you?”
“I’ll definitely have a talk with Ben if the DDO orders me to attend your congressional debriefing on Operation Invisible Target.”
“I assure you, you’ll be ordered to attend the debriefing. When I talked to the Deputy Director this morning, I told him I wanted everyone on the operational team to be available for questioning. No doubt that’s the message on your phone.”
“I suppose that means I’ll be seeing you at Langley in a few days.”
As the Senator headed for the door, he said, “That’s right, but don’t expect any special treatment from me at the debriefing.”
“Don’t worry, Senator,” I said, after the door closed behind him, “the last thing I expect from you is special treatment.”
Chapter Three
After Senator Mitchell left, I checked my phone again. No one had called or texted me since the last time I looked.
It didn’t surprise me the DDO hadn’t immediately followed the Senator’s instructions and set up a COIG debriefing on Operation Invisible Target.
I knew the DDO well enough to know he wasn’t inclined to take orders from anyone, especially from members of Congress. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t eventually schedule a debriefing on Operation Invisible Target.
However, I suspected he’d do it on his own timetable.
According to congressional rules, that was his prerogative.
It was also up to the DDO whether to honor the Senator’s request to have all members of the operational team present at the debriefing. He had a lot of leeway in that regard, especially when it came to covert operatives.
The DDO could always tell Senator Mitchell the operational team wasn’t available. He could say they were out of the country, involved in another operation, or he could make up a dozen other excuses.
Despite the Senator’s confidence I was about to be called back to headquarters, where I could use the opportunity to speak to Ben about his new girlfriend, he could be wrong about what was about to happen.
I was actually hoping that might be the case because I had absolutely no desire to interfere in Ben’s personal life.
I’d done that once before, and it had backfired on me.
Even though there might never be a debriefing on Invisible Target, I knew I had to let Carlton know I’d just had a meeting with Senator Mitchell at The Federalist Club.
As my operations officer, I owed him that.
Carlton and I had worked together for the past twenty years. While our relationship hadn’t been trouble-free, it had always been interesting.
Carlton himself was an interesting man—disciplined, fastidious, and obsessive—but also generous. When his operatives were between assignments, he often invited them to stay at his country home outside of Fairfax, Virginia. His late wife, Gladys, had called their estate The Meadows, and I’d been a guest there several times.
Along with being generous, Carlton tended to get involved in the personal lives of his operatives, including giving out marital advice and suggesting clothing choices.
It didn’t matter if Carlton was directing operations from the Ops Center at Langley or directing operations in country as a field operations officer, Carlton’s basic job was to handle people.
Thus, in CIA jargon, he was known as my Agency handler.
He handled me.
It wasn’t always an easy job.
Since it was late, I decided to wait until the next day to contact Carlton. My plans were to just drop in and see him at his office instead of calling him.
But, as I was leaving The Fairfield Room, my cell vibrated.
It was Carlton himself.
Ordinarily, if he initiated a call, he didn’t bother with a greeting.
It was no different this time.
“What I’m about to tell you isn’t urgent. In fact, it could have waited until tomorrow, but since I know how you like to make plans, I wanted to let you know you’ll need to come to Washington tomorrow.”
“Do you have an assignment for me?”
“No, I don’t have an assignment for you, not in the usual sense.”
“What sense then?”
“The Senate Intelligence Committee chairman, Elijah Mitchell, has asked the DDO to set up a classified debriefing session on Operation Invisible Target. He wants to hear from the whole operational team, and the Deputy Director has scheduled the debriefing for Wednesday morning. Your assignment is to be at Langley on Wednesday.”
“I won’t have a problem being at Langley by Wednesday morning. I’m already in Washington.”
He was quiet for a second or two.
“What are you doing here?”
“I guess you could say I was brought here under false pretenses. I received a call from Senator Mitchell about Ben. He made it sound like Ben was dying—at least that’s how I interpreted it—and he said I needed to fly back to Washington immediately. I hopped on a plane a few hours ago and
arrived here around ten.”
“Where are you right now?”
“I’m in The Fairfield Room at The Federalist Club.”
“I’m assuming you’re alone.”
“I’m alone. Senator Mitchell just left.”
“Did the Senator want to talk about the debriefing on Invisible Target?”
“No, he wanted to talk about Ben. He’s concerned about Ben’s romantic entanglements. He claims his love life has risen to the level of a national security crisis.”
For a few seconds there was silence on the other end of the line.
Then Carlton chuckled and said, “As much as I would prefer not to, I suppose I need to hear this.”
Once I gave Carlton the gist of my conversation with Senator Mitchell, I was surprised to hear him voice his own concerns about Ben.
“Senator Mitchell probably has a point. His son shouldn’t be involved with the daughter of Faraji Hanim, especially since the Imam’s in the news every day.”
“Does that mean you’ll have a talk with Ben when the DDO schedules the debriefing with the congressional committee?”
“The Senator didn’t ask me to have a talk with him; he asked you.”
“Ordered me is more like it.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t get crossways with the Senator, especially since he may be questioning you about Invisible Target.”
“I have a feeling he called the debriefing just to give me an excuse to see Ben and talk to him about his love life. I won’t be surprised if the Senator doesn’t even show up for the debriefing.”
“I don’t know about that, Titus. From what I can tell, the Senator is making a big deal about this. He specifically asked for the whole operational team to be present, so the DDO even had me fly Jennifer Sanders home from Baghdad.”
Jennifer Sanders, a Level 2 operative, was the director of the Comms Center at the American Embassy in Baghdad. During Invisible Target, she’d worked with our operational team to prevent an Iranian assassin from murdering a high-profile government official in Iraq.
I said, “I’m glad Jennifer will be there for the COIG session.”
“I agree. She’ll be able to field questions about the operation, and I’m sure her expertise will impress the members of the committee.”
“She’ll also be a good distraction for Ben. When they worked together in Baghdad, I got the feeling Ben was pretty impressed with her, and I’m not talking about just her intelligence expertise.”
Although I knew Carlton didn’t approve of his operatives being involved with each other during an ongoing operation, he didn’t comment on my remark. Instead, he asked me where I was staying, and when I gave him the name of my hotel, he told me I was welcome to stay out at The Meadows while I was in Washington.
“I may take you up on that offer, Douglas, but for tonight, I think I’ll just stay at the hotel. I need to spend some time figuring out the best way to approach Ben.”
“What’s there to figure out? Why don’t you just go talk to him and tell him it’s not a good idea for him to be seeing Kamila Hanim?”
“No, that won’t work with Ben. He needs to realize what the problem is for himself. Besides, the Senator already tried that approach, and Ben just blew him off.”
“Well, Ben and his father have a difficult relationship, so that doesn’t surprise me. On the other hand, if you confront him about his romantic issues, he’ll probably listen to you.”
If past experience was any indicator, that wasn’t true.
Carlton didn’t know that, though.
He didn’t know about the time I lost my temper with Ben in Costa Rica when I discovered he was romantically involved with one of his assets.
That confrontation hadn’t gone well.
“I have to disagree with you, Douglas. If I confront Ben, there’s a good chance he’ll lose his temper and accuse me of having a hidden agenda.”
“Since Ben reminds me of you—or rather how you used to be—then you could be right.”
“Am I hearing you correctly? Are you saying I’ve finally learned to control my temper?”
“More or less.”
“More? Less? Which is it?”
He let out an exaggerated sigh. “I believe your temper is more under control and less of a problem than it used to be.”
Carlton was right, but it was only because of what happened to me one night in Tehran.
Three years ago, I was sent to Tehran, Iran, on a solo operation, one that required me to remain in country for an extended period of time.
That mission was Operation Torchlight.
I had entered Iran as Hammid Salimi, the son of an Iranian watchmaker, an identity created for me by the Agency.
Supposedly, Hammid was in Iran to open up a market for Salimi watches, a line of very expensive Swiss timepieces.
However, according to the protocols of Operation Torchlight, I was there to identify any wealthy members of Iranian society who would be willing to help finance an overthrow of the oppressive Iranian regime and set up a new government.
I spent two years in Iran carrying out my deep-cover assignment.
If my network hadn’t been blown, I might have been there a lot longer, but due to a number of circumstances—none of which were in my control—my real identity was discovered by VEVAK, the Iranian secret police.
While I was trying to warn my assets they needed to go into hiding, I shattered one of my legs after jumping off a roof while being chased by a VEVAK agent.
I was rescued by a couple of Good Samaritans and taken to a safe house run by some Iranian Christians. This setup turned out to be a bit dicey at times because they were living under VEVAK’s watchful eye and were constantly being persecuted by government officials.
Nevertheless, they were the happiest, most joyful people I’d ever encountered, and after living with them for three months and hearing them read the Bible, pray, and talk passionately about their faith, I found myself longing to experience that same joy for myself.
The night before I was to make my escape from Iran, I did what they’d been urging me to do, and I became a follower of Jesus Christ.
I became a believer.
I believed I was a sinner—which wasn’t that hard for me to accept—and I believed Jesus paid for my sins when he was crucified on a wooden cross 2,000 years ago, and that he came back from the dead. That is, he was resurrected.
After making my commitment of faith that night, I experienced a sense of peace. It happened almost immediately, and in the months that followed, I began noticing other changes in my life as well, changes I wasn’t expecting, changes for the better.
One of those changes was a sense of guilt that came over me whenever I lost my temper, something that happened fairly often.
Although I found it a little easier to control my anger these days, I still hadn’t figured out when it was okay for me to lie about something, or to engage in a dozen other questionable practices I’d perfected after twenty years as a career CIA officer.
One day, I hoped to have all that figured out.
In the meantime, I was trying to read my Bible every day, and for the first time in my life, I was attending church services.
Admittedly, it didn’t happen that often since I was usually on an assignment, and my cover story seldom required me to be a churchgoer.
However, I’d been on leave for the past few weeks, so I’d been attending Nikki’s church with her and Eleanor. I always enjoyed the worship services, even though I struggled to understand everything.
Since Nikki became a believer when she was a teenager, she was able to answer most of my questions about the Bible.
I had a lot of them.
My family never went to church when I was growing up, so I had very little understanding of the Bible and church practices.
One day, when Nikki told me even the most mature Christians had difficulty with certain passages of Scripture, I felt a little better about the whole thing.
&nb
sp; Now, when I heard Carlton’s backhanded compliment that he didn’t consider me such a hothead these days, I found myself smiling.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Douglas. I agree with you. Ben definitely reminds me of myself sometimes. That’s the reason I plan to take a low-key approach to his relationship with Kamila Hanim when I see him tomorrow.”
“That’s all well and good, Titus, but in my experience, some people require a heavy-handed approach when it comes to pointing out the best way for them to handle their emotions.”
As Carlton hung up, I heard him laughing.
I had a pretty good idea why his statement amused him so much.
Chapter Four
tuesday, june 18
After breakfast at my hotel, I gave Nikki a call and told her about the conversation I had with Senator Mitchell.
She wasn’t too pleased when I told her I’d have to be at Langley for the next few days. When I heard the disappointment in her voice, I quickly changed the subject and asked her if she had requested time off so we could fly down to Barbados and stay at the Night & Day Resort in St. James.
We had recently acquired a villa in the resort, but we hadn’t seen the place yet. Carlton had given us the deed to the property as a wedding present—he’d inherited the villa from his father-in-law but never used it—so we were anxious to take Eleanor down there during her summer break from school.
“The earliest I can get away is August,” Nikki said. “Should I ask for the first two weeks in August off?”
“That sounds good. If I’m given an assignment in July, then I should be back in the States by August and be due for some time off then.”
“I’m not going to remind you that you’re supposed to be having time off right now.”
“The DDO doesn’t seem to have that information.”
