Special Access

by Mark A. Hewitt

  “Nice to see you, too, Ms. Kamal. What the hell are you doing in my house in the middle of the night?”

  “Connie told me you were almost killed on your last assignment and blamed me for blowing your cover. I came to tell you I had nothing to do with that, nor do I know anything about Rath.”

  “Remind me to take her off my Christmas card list. Wait a minute. Rath? What are you talking about?”

  “The Special Access Program you’re on. Something to do with flying airplanes.”

  Duncan paused, his mind suddenly clicking into high gear. Clicking the safety on the gun, he holstered it, removed the holster and gun, and set them on the coffee table. “How’d you hear about this Rath program?”

  “When I was leaving the office earlier today on my way to meet Connie for lunch, I overheard the DCI and another man. I think it was the Chief of Counterintelligence. They were almost laughing about the near-death of two pilots and destruction of their aircraft. The DCI said he’d approve shutting down Rath. He wanted the file closed and locked away.”

  “Are you telling me you aren’t read into this Rath program?”

  “Yes. That’s correct. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  Duncan saw for the first time that she was cool and collected, not her usual weeping self when their relationship crossed the line regarding her insecurities. He suddenly realized that the woman he loved from the moment he first saw her had grown from a weak, compliant Muslima who’d been dominated by her father and then her husband into a confident, independent woman who knew her own mind and wasn’t afraid of a challenge.

  He took her in his arms. “Well, Ms. Marwa Kamal, you’ve come a long way….”

  Nazy angrily pushed him away. “Never call me that again. My name is Nazy Cunningham. I left Marwa Kamal and her baggage behind when I realized that you freed me—completely—from Waleed, his family, and Islam.”

  “Then you forgive me for getting your divorce from Waleed?”

  “There’s nothing to forgive. You did what was right and had to be done. I was stupid to realize it at the time.”

  Duncan took her in his arms. “So, Ms. Cunningham, shall we make up for lost time?”

  Nazy kissed him. “Absolutely, Mr. Hunter. I suggest we turn off the lights and lock the house.”

  Hunter gazed into her sparkling emerald-green eyes. “I need you to wait one moment. I’ll be right back.”

  As he raced toward the kitchen, she felt confused. They had magically reconciled, and he was running off?

  Seconds later, he returned, his flying jacket bunched in one hand. Stopping before her, he smiled, and she returned it if for no other reason than they had cut the Gordian knot and were moving on to securing the house and walking down the hall to the master suite.

  Hunter became serious. His lips pressed into a thin line, and his breathing rate went up. She worried, as he reached into the pocket of his battered leather flight jacket.

  Taking a deep breath, he said, “I agree, but before we do so, I have something for you.”

  She looked at the battered Tiffany blue box Duncan took from a jacket pocket. He opened it and took out the ring box nestled inside, then he opened the ring box to reveal a blue-white, two-carat diamond solitaire set in platinum. “Ms. Cunningham, would you do me the honor of allowing me to change your name, yet again, from Cunningham to Hunter?”

  Nazy’s eyes widened. Taken aback, she began crying. “I take that as a ‘yes?’”

  Laughing through her tears, she said, “It’s most emphatically a ‘yes.’”

  Duncan, taking the ring from its nest, placed it on Nazy’s left hand. She jumped into his arms and kissed him passionately.

  When she let him go, he whispered, “Now, we should lock up and turn out the lights.”

  Nazy nodded and said breathlessly, “I’ll stay right here.” She admired the ring on her hand and gently shook her head.

  *

  Theresa and Carlos watched from the caretaker’s house as the lights in the ranch house went out, and the outside alarm signal turned red.

  Theresa turned toward her husband. “I think she made it up to him.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  1045 November 1, 2010

  Schweizer Aircraft Company

  Saul Ferrier supervised the offloading of the blue-and-white shipping container with a stylized Thunderbird crudely painted in the middle of the box. He couldn’t believe the condition of the 007.

  Hunter bent the frame and wings of the forty-year-old quiet airplane, and Schweizer engineers calculated the aircraft had probably been taken to its never-to-exceed limit. The G-meter indicated it experienced G forces equal to a one-quarter G away from both wings failing catastrophically, snapping off during the dive to safety.

  There days later, the CEO reviewed the data and repair costs and called Lynche. “With all the parts we have to manufacture, it might be cheaper to buy a new airplane.”

  “Uh, Saul, are you making any new YO-3s?”

  “Oh. Yeah, I see your point.” The tacit acknowledgment was that the 007 was several orders of magnitude better than the aircraft Schweizer produced for the CIA when Lynche was the Agency’s Chief of Air Branch.

  “What we really need to do is start saying, ‘No,’ to amazingly crazy shit. Trying to operate in Iran was probably in the felony stupid category. Duncan thought we could do it, but he insisted on the fuzz busters. They did exactly what he said, and he did the right thing to save our lives and the plane. We’ll fix it and call it a business expense.”

  “She can’t be replaced unless you were to find another one.”

  “DOD returned all the YO-3As they borrowed. Their owners were happy to have them back, and I doubt we’ll ever get another one from them. I don’t see them leasing one to us or even letting us buy one outright. Their owners know they make interesting air show aircraft, and those guys love reliving their low-level nighttime exploits during the war.”

  “You have to face facts. She’ll be out of action for months. Duncan broke her good. It’s unbelievable you two defeated a missile.”

  “I know, and I know we really need a spare. The only good news is the new director doesn’t have a lot of work for us. He has a different agenda. The last mission was overly dangerous, so I wonder sometimes how they knew we were coming.”

  Lynche had been thinking about how close he and Duncan came to being shot down. The JSOC commander was astounded that Iran fired on an aircraft over Afghanistan. He said, “That’s a first.”

  Lynche let the thought go. “I know Duncan’s working on it. He knows those guys better than I do.”

  “Let me know. We need the work. I’m afraid our days of building quiet airplanes are over.”

  “Say it isn’t so!”

  “Greg, we haven’t had a new order since 2006. It’s probably time to scrap the jigs and tools. I’ll see after we repair 007.”

  The two men nodded, stepping toward the white and red Skymaster on the ramp.

  “Let me know, Saul. I’ll talk with you later.”

  “Tell Duncan I said, ‘Howdy.’ How is the lad?”

  “Who knows? All I know is, he’s driving across America in a bus. He likes taking in the mountains and valleys during daylight hours and at ground level.”

  “Is he driving alone?”

  “I don’t think so. Connie assures me he has a companion.”

  “Ah. All’s well now?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  BOOK FIVE

  CHAP TER ONE

  0900 March 31, 2011

  CIA Headquarters Washington, DC

  The armored limousine passed through the main gate without stopping. Security guards in black SWAT uniforms, their H&K machine pistols at the ready and ear buds jammed into one ear, were alerted to the approaching vehicle carrying the Director of Central Intelligence. As the limo passed the checkpoint, high-definition cameras scanned the vehicle’s underside, instantly comparing the picture to previous images to dete
ct any change.

  By the time the rear bumper passed the first of the pop-up barriers, green lights embedded in several posts and on the computer in Radio Control flashed steadily, signaling the all-clear.

  Two minutes later, the DCI exited the limo in the underground garage, walking through double glass doors to the open private elevator for the nonstop ride to the seventh floor executive suite.

  He turned to the control panel, held up a blue card with his photo to the camera lens, and waited until a green light illuminated. The doors closed silently, signaling approval for the occupant to proceed to the selected floor and to hold on.

  Six seconds later, one of the fastest elevators at CIA stopped on the seventh floor. Another second later, the doors fully opened.

  Stepping into the hallway, the DCI approached his office door, which opened automatically. Hank, his longtime secretary and a former male model, held the door, and greeted him with an appropriate, “Good morning, Sir,” and followed the DCI into his inner sanctum. As Frank Carey removed his suit coat, Hank placed a steaming mug of coffee—sugar, cream, spoon, not stirred—on a leather coaster, took one look around the office, and departed, closing the door behind him.

  Carey slid his tall, corpulent frame into the dark-brown leather chair, gripped the spoon, and stirred while he read the left side of the dispatch board. It showed copies of all the dispatches from every embassy and office around the world received within the last twenty-four hours. No immediate actions were on top. Routine actions followed.

  After half an hour, he closed the cover of the dispatch board and lifted the right metal divider to find April’s calendar of events. He scanned through the proposed calendar for anything he didn’t want to commit to when he stopped at April 15. Hank indicated that was Tax Day in highlighted pink, as well as a Broken Lance Exercise in blue. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, and he was about to close the folder when his eyes returned to the Broken Lance Exercise entry.

  Even in deep thought, Carey was a shallow man. He wanted a trip to Dubai. It had been too long since his last adventure. The prince had two new toys for him to enjoy, but he needed to be in his office in Washington, DC. The president nagged him about his failed Muslim outreach initiative. The president didn’t want to discuss the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden unless the CIA had an “airtight case” with photographic evidence at a minimum. A positive DNA match was preferable.

  As a former ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Carey knew the American people wanted their pound of flesh with the capture of bin Laden, while the intelligence community wanted him for all the secrets in his head. KSM had spilled everything he knew under repeated sessions of simulated drowning procedures, called “waterboarding.”

  During the previous administration, American and European liberals screamed and railed against the enhanced interrogation techniques. They engaged in a collaborative effort to define waterboarding as torture, arguing that civilized countries didn’t torture prisoners. The controversial change in definition gave the political left more ammunition to manufacture crimes against the former Republican administration. Former DCIs were repeatedly excoriated by congressional Democrats and some moderate Republicans on the Agency’s use of the newly defined “torture.”

  One of the previous DCIs, a former Air Force intelligence officer, was often puzzled when liberals and their socialist, Marxist, communist, and fascist friends around the world sang the same song about waterboarding’s being torture.

  “What is it that has their little panties in a wad this time?” he asked.

  When a dispatch from the US embassy in Pakistan appearing on the morning message board referred to a previous dispatch of a certain “former British subject now attending a major US university,” but was “now a US citizen running for office,” it was considered either wrong or disinformation at best. The timing was infinitely curious. Someone in the Near East Division must have started a file of the “subject named individual.”

  When the former DCI took a rare trip downstairs to NE, he was stunned to learn there had been a file, and the referenced dispatch as the topmost document. At a glance, the author of the dispatch outlined the SNI “had met with a string of known imams, terrorists or facilitators.” The DCI tucked the file under his arm and never returned to the NE Division.

  The outgoing DCI surrendered several dozen “DCI Eyes-Only” files upon his departure. The new DCI was astounded that there had been a “DCI Eyes-Only” file on the new president in the DCI’s personal safe, but it was enormously, almost suspiciously, thin. What he found, however, was explosive. The new DCI saw the file as a ticket to greater success.

  The 0600 call from the President awoke the DCI’s young lover, who reached over to the other nightstand to silence the BlackBerry. A crotch in the DCI’s face and the unique ring tone startled him awake. Carey screamed, “Don’t touch that!”

  Carey answered the secure electronic device with, “Good morning, Mr. President.” A minute later, he terminated the call with, “Yes, Mr. President.”

  The President was shaking him down again. That time, it was for a million dollars to be sent to a bogus solar-energy company. For the last two years, the President ordered his cabinet members to do crazy, even zany, things. DOJ was to look the other way on voter intimidation or voter fraud issues. The Democratic President’s voting rights laws existed only to protect a special class of voters. The Department of Homeland Security was to look the other way on illegal immigration and to sue states trying to protect their borders. He sent a message to the Muslim world that the US was pro—Islamic by prosecuting CIA agents and military members who apparently violated a terrorist’s right to kill Americans.

  The Department of Energy was ordered to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on bogus solar or wind energy projects as investments in the green energy industry, which would require constant, massive government subsidies in order to operate.

  Carey didn’t like the view when he was forced into a box. He saw the President, like all closet socialists, couldn’t help himself when it came to abusing executive power.

  “He’s going to destroy this wonderful party, my friends, and me,” Carey muttered. “He won’t listen to reason, and he can’t quit the trajectory he’s on. Someone has to step up and do something.”

  Right before he tossed a metal binder into his out box, a thought occurred to him. He opened the dispatch board on his calendar and focused on the Broken Lance Exercise entry again. Then he caught himself staring blankly at his bookcase. He leaned back his head, moving the huge leather chair back, too, and raised his arms over his head with fingers intertwined.

  For ten minutes, his brain churned over the Broken Lance Exercise. Suddenly, he brought down his hands and sat upright, a devious expression on his face. “I think that just might work.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  1400 April 1, 2011

  Dulles International Airport Dulles, Virginia

  The millionaire, unmarried, liberal senator from New England was a surprise nomination from the President. Frank Carey spent a good part of his five-term career in the company of politicians and businessmen in the Middle East. His company provided a range of foodstuffs, primarily fruits and vegetables, for markets from Morocco to Pakistan. He made several fortunes with his partners in Saudi Arabia and Dubai. Prince Bashir inherited his oil fortune from his father and got into the business of providing goods and services for thousands of oil-field workers who clamored for fresh fruit, vegetables, and beef. Camels, goats, and chickens were plentiful in the kingdom, but beef was scarce until Senator Carey suggested the prince visit the King Ranch in Texas and check out the Santa Gertrudis brand, known the world over for their ability to adapt to harsh climates.

  Prince Bashir bought a starter herd of 2,500 of the cherry-red cattle and had them shipped to his 20,000-acre ranch in Saudi Arabia. A processing plant was built, and the Zebu brand of beef dominated the finer restaurants from Istanbul to Djibouti and everywhere i
n between, especially at canteens supporting the extraction of oil from 10,000 wells. The tip from Carey made Prince Bashir an international star on the cattle market. Attending cattle auctions around the world, he secured the finest Santa Gertrudis bulls from Texas, paying record prices every year. He reciprocated by facilitating exclusive contracts for Carey inside and outside the kingdom to feed the tens of thousands of oil-field workers in Africa and on the Saudi Peninsula. They shared a passion for making money supporting the gold that came from the ground, as well as a passion for sharing pretty young men and tight little boys. Bashir sent spies everywhere to find the best boys and men to satisfy the craving he and Carey shared for the pretty and undefiled.

  The former senator also used his position on several committees to make massive stock trades ahead of legislation, a practice that drew yawns in Congress but was considered insider trading with significant jail time if anyone else tried it. Carey shared those blockbuster changes in legislation with Bashir, enabling him to get ahead of the markets in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

  It was a marvelous relationship. The senator provided Bashir with information, and Bashir provided him with young men and boys. An ethics investigation into his relationship with his live-in lover, who was caught running male prostitutes out of the senator’s house in Washington, nearly derailed the setup. Worth nearly a billion dollars, Carey was able to buy his way out of trouble and escape scrutiny the same way a previous president escaped removal from office. Being impeached wasn’t removal, and the findings resulted in less than a slap on the wrist.

  The recent presidential nomination spelled trouble for the intelligence community, as the partisan liberal Democrat was approved by a single vote in the Senate. The new president began demanding outcomes at the CIA. More minorities needed to be hired, as well as more attorneys brought in to oversee the out-of-control Agency that provided poor intelligence for the run up to the invasion of Iraq.