The American rk-1

by Andrew Britton

  Harper was still talking. “Since this is all going public anyway, the president has given us free rein to track Vanderveen down. His name is already on the list of Most Wanted Terrorists, and we’ve gotten his face to passport control at every major airport in Western Europe, as well as Africa and Australia. He inadvertently helped us out with that… The picture on the Nichols’s driver’s license is probably less than two years old, which makes it much more recent than the army shots we were working with before. We’ve sent those updates to Interpol as well.”

  “Vanderveen’s been tied to Iran and Al-Qaeda,” Ryan reminded them. “He has access to money, so he’s not exactly obliged to fly commercially. They might have arranged for a charter months ago, probably to some dinky little airfield out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “You think he’s gone, Kealey?” asked the DCI.

  “It would make sense, sir. If he stays here, he’s opening himself up to the biggest manhunt in the history of U.S. law enforcement. Besides, you know as well as I do that if he gets to Iran, we’re pretty much screwed. We have no assets there to speak of, unless something’s changed in the last twelve months.”

  Harper sighed heavily. “Nothing’s changed.” He thought about it, then said, “He failed, though. If he’s on his way back to Tehran, he probably won’t be getting a very warm reception.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Ryan said. “But I wouldn’t count on it.”

  The meeting adjourned five minutes later. Kealey and Harper walked side by side down the hall, neither finding much to say, each lost in his own private thoughts.

  Harper, just to break the silence, said, “You’ll be getting a medal, you know. Naomi, too. Probably something pretty.”

  Ryan shrugged halfheartedly but didn’t smile. “I don’t really care about that.” He glanced over at the other man quickly. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. It’s just that I really don’t care. Besides, it’s not like I can show it to anyone anyway.”

  Harper laughed a little at the way he had phrased it as they approached the elevators. “Not this time, Ryan. This is one of our few public accomplishments, our day in the sun. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.”

  Kealey didn’t respond right away, once again lost in his own little world. Finally, he said, “You can mail it to me, John. I’m going home. Tonight.”

  Harper found himself nodding in agreement. “Landrieu won’t be happy,” he observed. “He’s already pissed that you came here instead of getting debriefed back at Tyson’s Corner.”

  “Fuck him,” Ryan said. “ Fuck him. He fought you on that ID thing, and I really needed it. I was ten seconds behind Vanderveen when those guys from HRT drew down on me. I don’t have anything against them… They were just doing their job. If I could have shown them something, though, we might have been able to catch up to him. Hell, I know we would have been able to.”

  “He’s probably done, anyway,” Harper observed, steering the conversation back to the TTIC director. “Brenneman threw a lot of the blame for the senator’s death and the Kennedy-Warren at Landrieu, and a lot of it’s sticking.” He hesitated, then said, “I really did fight him on that, you know. He was going to shut you down the whole way, Ryan. I had to compromise.”

  “I’m not blaming you, John. I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just sick of people like Landrieu. There’s a thousand like him in Washington, and they all seem to hold the most dangerous jobs.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Harper said, and realized that he meant it. As the elevator doors opened on the first floor, they stepped out onto the clean white marble, and he turned to give the younger man some last-minute advice. “Get back to Katie, Ryan. I’ll handle the fallout over your speedy departure. You did a hell of a thing today, so think about taking some of the credit for it, okay? And don’t worry about Vanderveen. He’ll turn up sooner or later.”

  “I still want that bastard, John.” Ryan hated to break his promise to Katie, would dread trying to explain it to her, but the words had come out unexpectedly, and he knew that he meant them. “I want back in. Officially, I mean.”

  Harper smiled. It was what he had wanted to hear. “We’ll talk about it in a few days. Until then, get some rest and go see your girl.”

  “If I can even catch a flight,” Ryan said, with more than a little frustration. “That storm passed us, but I heard it’s headed north pretty fast. By the time I get to Dulles, they might have the airports-”

  He stopped when he saw that the other man’s smile had turned into a big grin. Harper shook his head, handing Ryan a card with a number on the back. “Got your cell phone?” he asked. Ryan nodded. “Call that number when you’re ready to go. I’m the DDO, Ryan. Sometimes you forget that.”

  Kealey was about to ask what he meant by that cryptic remark, but instead just reached out to shake the other man’s hand. “Thanks, John. I’ll see you Monday.”

  “Have a safe trip. I’ll meet you at the main gate when you get back. Call it 9:00 AM.” Harper was looking over Ryan’s shoulder. “I think someone else wants to have a word with you.”

  Ryan turned to see Naomi Kharmai standing a few feet away, wearing a nice smile and looking good in a white pantsuit that contrasted well with her caramel-colored skin. She tilted her head and said, “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”

  They sat across from each other in the dismal cafeteria, which was mostly empty at this late hour. Awkward silence at first, as Ryan left his coffee untouched, and Kharmai rolled a mug of tea between her shapely hands.

  “Just gonna run out on a girl, huh?”

  He looked up. She was smiling, maybe a little bit sadly. “I’ll be back next week, Naomi. You’ll get tired of me in no time.”

  “I thought you wanted out. I thought you were out.”

  “I can’t leave. Not while he’s still out there.”

  She thought about that, was about to say something, then decided against it. “Are you going into the CTC?”

  “That’s where you work, right?” She nodded. “Then no.”

  She scowled as the grin spread over his face. “Seriously.”

  He shrugged. “Probably. That’s where I’ll have the most access to resources, so, yeah, I think so.”

  She smiled, and they both fell silent. Finally, just to make conversation, Ryan said, “They’re giving us medals, you know. Pretty ones.”

  She shrugged, and what followed kind of surprised him. “That’s not so important to me. I don’t know why… I always thought it would be.”

  He read in her eyes that it wasn’t an act. She meant the words, and that surprised him even more. “Harper likes you, Naomi. You got noticed on this, so take what they give you and smile for the cameras, okay?” She looked up to see if he was making fun, but his face was completely sober. “I’m not trying to be arrogant, but I don’t need this job, and I don’t really want it all that much either. It’s more time away from Katie, because she’s back at school in the spring and won’t be able to come down here with me.”

  He paused to take his first and only sip of coffee, then said, “You, on the other hand, have the goods, Naomi. You could go high here… You couldn’t be DCI, because of the nationality thing, but just about everything below that is open to you. I mean, you could definitely head up the CTC. To get there, though, you’re going to have to fake it once in a while. You don’t care about the medal… This is one of those times. It’s in your best interest to play it up a little bit, believe me.”

  She took the advice for what it was worth, flattered by the compliment, wishing that he hadn’t brought up the other woman. I want you to come home with me! she wanted to scream, and it must have been all over her face, because his words were followed by a long, awkward silence.

  Eventually, though, she decided to spare him. It was clear that he wanted to go, and making him suffer wouldn’t change his mind. “Well, I guess I’ll see you Monday,” she said.

  They both stood up. “I guess so.” Then t
hey were looking at each other for a long moment, Naomi waiting, hoping that maybe he’d lean in and…

  It didn’t happen. Instead, he just reached out to lightly touch her arm. Then he turned and walked out of the cafeteria.

  She looked after him for a long moment, a number of expressions mixing on her face. When he passed through the doors and disappeared from view, she sat down to finish her tea, and tried not to think about it.

  When Ryan called the number that Harper had given him, he was reminded for the first time in a long time just how much sway the man really had. It was easy to forget, because there was nothing flashy about the deputy director’s personal lifestyle; although he lived in a nice house and dressed well, he took his wife to the same resort in Colorado every year, and drove a six-year-old Explorer with 100,000 miles on the odometer.

  When it came to his position at Langley, though, Harper had the power to move mountains. Five minutes after placing the call, Ryan was met at the main gate by a dark-suited man who, after introducing himself as George, showed him to a glistening black Mercedes with tinted windows. Judging from the way it hunkered down over its wheels, the aggressive-looking sedan was also fitted with armor plating in the door panels and engine compartment.

  George opened the rear door, but Ryan shook his head and climbed into the front. He didn’t want to get too used to this kind of treatment, and wondered for a moment if Harper had gone through the trouble as a favor, or to intentionally remind him of some of the perks to be found at Langley. Ryan smiled when he decided that the occasional chauffeured ride in an armored Mercedes didn’t really compensate for the government salary because, after all, it was the salary that determined your actual living conditions. Maybe not for him, but certainly for most government employees.

  He was forced to reevaluate that assessment, however, when they squealed onto the runway at Dulles International. He couldn’t believe they had been cleared onto the tarmac, and was even more surprised when he realized that he would be returning to Maine on one of the Company’s Gulfstream executive jets.

  He turned to his driver and said, with a hint of a smile, “You must get a kick out of driving this car, George. You have a hell of a job.”

  The other man, burly and stoic throughout the whole trip, couldn’t help but crack a smile of his own. “That I do, sir,” he said. “That I do.”

  It wasn’t long before the G-V had reached its cruising altitude of 41,000 feet, and they were streaking north at a little over 561 miles per hour. Ryan knew he should kick back and enjoy the ride, and he did, at first, but being all alone almost 8 miles up soon became a little unnerving.

  When he noticed that the cockpit was shielded by only a privacy curtain, he drifted up there to reassure himself that someone was actually flying the aircraft. Both men seemed to welcome the company, and it turned out that Steve Kearns, the pilot, had been flying jets for the Agency for almost seventeen years.

  “Where was the last place you flew to?” Ryan asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

  Kearns grinned imperceptibly. “Can’t tell you that.”

  “Where are we going now?” He honestly didn’t know.

  “Can’t tell you that either.”

  The grin spread, but Reynolds, the navigator, laughed and said, “Portland International Jetport, sir.”

  That was good news to Ryan. Portland was much closer to Cape Elizabeth than Bangor was, which was where he usually flew in and out of.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t shut down the runway,” he observed. “That place isn’t really built to handle traffic in this kind of weather.”

  Reynolds nodded in agreement. “That’s true. Of course, we’re more than 10,000 feet over the worst of it right now. Things are getting pretty messy on the ground, though. Half the state is out of power, and they had to kick in the generators at PWM. The storm is pushing out a little bit due to the Canadian jet stream, but it’s still pounding the east side of the state. We’ll be okay, though the landing might be a handful. Hey, Kearns, you do know how to land, right?”

  The pilot shrugged. “I tried it on Microsoft Simulator ’98 once,” he said, smiling broadly. Ryan noticed that Kearns was one of those people incapable of keeping a straight face when telling a joke. “It didn’t work out too well.”

  Reynolds, surveying something on his myriad screens, looked up and said, “Well, I hope you learn fast. We’re about ten minutes out.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Ryan said, a little shocked. “We just took off.”

  The pilot smiled. “Welcome to the wonderful world of corporate travel.”

  The landing, as Reynolds had predicted, wasn’t fun at all, even though Ryan had tightly strapped himself into one of the soft leather seats just aft of the cockpit. He got up on shaky legs after they rolled to a stop, poking his head up front to thank his couriers. Kearns looked a little pale, but both men acknowledged his words, which were difficult to hear over the pounding rain on the fuselage.

  “Did you guys hear anything about my transportation on the ground?” Ryan yelled over the roar.

  Kearns said, “You’re going to Cape Elizabeth, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s only about twenty miles,” the pilot said. He was grinning again, and the color had returned to his face with the landing out of the way. “That isn’t much of a walk. I have an umbrella if you need it.”

  Reynolds shook his head with a rueful smile and turned from his console to face Ryan. “You need to find Andreno in the security office, on the second level. He has a key for you. I guess you have the car for the weekend, but it’s due back at Langley on Monday.”

  “Andreno?”

  “That’s all I know.” The navigator shrugged. “How many can there be?”

  Ryan realized he was right. “Yeah, it’s not that big of an airport. Or jetport. Whatever.” Reaching in to shake their hands: “Thanks, guys.”

  “Not a problem. Drive safe.”

  The jetway had already been extended to the outer door with a resounding metal-on-metal clank. Reynolds came back to open the door from the inside, and then Ryan was in the elevated tunnel, nodding his appreciation to the jetway operators before moving forward to the bustling terminal.

  The open space was filled with stranded passengers, and Ryan reminded himself once again to thank Harper for cutting what would have been a severe headache out of his trip. Navigating his way through the occupied seats in the terminal, he quickly found the cramped office and asked for Andreno, who turned out to be the chief of airport security.

  “Yeah, I got your key right here,” the heavy man said with a grunt. “Mercedes… nice.”

  Accepting the key and some verbal directions, Ryan left the office and headed for the underground parking garage. The car that was waiting for him was very similar to the one in which he had ridden to Dulles. Sliding onto the cool black leather, he grinned like a little boy when he turned the key and the engine purred to life.

  Soon he was leaving the parking garage, the sound of the powerful engine ripping off the concrete walls like thunder, mixing with the hollow boom of the rain outside. With the wipers going full blast, he accelerated down International Parkway, the bright lights of the Mercedes cutting a swath through the dark swirls of rain, then turned left on Johnson Avenue before reaching I-95 South a few minutes later.

  As he drove, he couldn’t help but think about the upcoming argument with Katie. She would probably be furious that he was going back on his word, but he knew that he had to track down Vanderveen once and for all. It was an argument that she couldn’t win; he was going back to the Agency either way, but there were a couple of things that might make it easier for her. He had gotten her the ring, after all, and maybe he could dangle the use of his BMW in front of her to keep the argument as short as possible. He knew she loved that car almost as much as she hated her Corolla.

  Ryan had been thinking about that, too. At the risk of spoiling her, he knew that she had her
eyes on a new Volkswagen SUV… Shit, he couldn’t remember the name. Tureg, or Tourag, maybe… something like that. It was pretty big, though, and solidly built, which was all he cared about. Katie was not very skilled behind the wheel, and while he teased her constantly about it, he secretly agonized over her frequent trips to and from Orono. He remembered how excited she’d been after seeing the latest model in the parking lot at the grocery store…

  Why not? he thought. It would be worth it just for the look on her face. Tomorrow, a Saturday, would be a good day for that. He’d slip away in the afternoon and go see the dealer in Augusta. He wondered if she would notice if he had a roll cage installed…

  The random thoughts began to fade as he left the highway in favor of the narrow side roads running along the coast. Harder going here, as the towering trees carried over the road and blocked out some of the rain, but also some of the light, which wasn’t all that much to begin with. The road was covered in fallen branches, too; some were almost as big as small trees, so that he had to brake a few times and swerve sharply once, which rattled him almost as much as the bumpy landing had back in Portland.

  The house came up fast on the left, the steep roof showing up now and then through the evergreens from a distance. He was pleased to see lights in the windows, which meant that Katie was there and they still had power.

  Ryan was glad she was home, and it took him a few seconds to realize how relieved he actually was. She had nearly broken his heart by walking out on him at the hotel, and they hadn’t spoken in the few days since that incident. He’d had a good idea how she felt, though, and had decided that the best thing was to give her some space. Surely it would have blown over by now. All he cared about was seeing her. He had wanted to call to let her know he was on the way, but she liked surprises, and he liked surprising her. The Volkswagen would top them all, he thought with a grin. Again he was reminded of his idea for a sunset ceremony on the Mediterranean. Lots of plans…