The president looks up at the roomful of staff and cabinet members looking on. It’s obvious to everyone that Namdar has offered a way out of the present conflict. And it’s equally clear that the president is going to take it. “I agree that would be an appropriate way to signal an evolution of our relationship, Ayatollah.” He waits for a few seconds before adding, “Though obviously we could not contemplate any such step while your country is on a war footing with one of our closest allies.”
A long silence from the Iranian end of the line. Finally, the translator speaks up. “As you said, Mr. President, perhaps there has already been enough bloodshed.”
The president smiles and exhales. He releases a grip on the telephone that he hadn’t realized was so tight until this moment. “Our State Department will be in touch with your diplomats. Thank you, sir.” With that, he sets the receiver down, and the room explodes in applause.
* * *
The Learjet 85’s twin Pratt and Whitney PW307B engines spin up as the jet taxis down the runway. The plane’s lone passenger settles in for his transcontinental flight. As he watches the terminal of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport recede in the distance, he reflects on the events of the past two days. William Rykman is dead. Tyler Donovan and the other Overwatch personnel are being held in an FBI safe house in McLean, Virginia, according to his sources in the current administration. But he has no concern about exposure. Donovan and the others have no idea of his existence. That was a secret his partner, friend, and coconspirator William Rykman took to his grave. The only person who can offer any kind of meaningful operational intelligence is lying in the morgue at Georgetown University Hospital. The CIA and the president’s administration will handle containment for him. The existence of a rogue or shadow intelligence agency is a secret the government will go to extraordinary lengths to protect. This is particularly true given the delicate cease-fire the president recently negotiated with Iran.
This is not to say that the Overwatch hasn’t been dealt a crippling blow. Its infrastructure has been exposed and, along with it, a treasure trove of intelligence that highly trusted analysts within the CIA will be combing through for years. Then again, the discoveries they make will be reburied for fear of causing embarrassment. Fallout will be reduced to whispers in the corridors of power, past and present, as word reaches the president and his successors that they weren’t always as in control of world events as they’d thought. There will be questions and inquiries and threats of FBI investigations and congressional hearings, but it will all amount to nothing. As far as anyone knows, the Overwatch died with William Rykman. Sure, its operatives remain in place throughout the world, but apart from the men currently in federal custody, they are all freelancers. For all the operatives know, they work for a bank account.
He still has access to the levers of power that chart the course of the world. Without the Overwatch, he’ll just have to lean against those levers a bit harder. It’s not as though he isn’t willing to or doesn’t know how. But right now his primary concern is leaving America behind. As the East Coast becomes obscured by the clouds at thirty thousand feet and the steward brings him a glass of red wine, he thinks about how nice it is to be heading home.
* * *
Even paranoids have enemies, Alex thinks as he enters Gerald’s room. Gerald had been almost prescient in his anxiety, as if he’d known the situation Alex had dragged him into would end badly for him. But badly is relative. Getting shot in the shoulder is still preferable to being dead.
Barring some unexpected complication, Gerald will get discharged from the hospital today. He sits up in his bed as Alex comes in and looks genuinely happy to see his friend. Are they friends? Gerald hadn’t given it much thought until now, but he supposes that they are. What else do you call two people who have been through so much with and for each other? And isn’t paying a visit to a hospital room something friends do?
“How’s it going?” Alex asks. There’s a free chair on the side of the bed, but Alex remains standing.
“Shoulder’s stiff. Docs say it could be like that for a little while. Beats the alternative, though.”
“I’m thinking you owe me one hell of an ‘I told you so.’”
“Getting shot wasn’t what I was so worried about. To be honest with you, dude, if I’d known that was on the menu, I would’ve told you to go find yourself another computer jock.”
Alex smiles. “Fair enough.”
“FBI’s been by plenty. And CIA security,” Gerald says, changing the topic.
“I just got out of a marathon session of interrogations and interviews myself,” Alex says. “Otherwise, I would’ve been here sooner.”
“I expected them not to believe a friggin’ word I said, but they just took everything down, no trip to the funny farm.”
Alex thinks of Katherine McCallum. With luck, Gerald’s not the only person getting discharged from a hospital today. In the midst of all the questioning he’d undergone at the hands of the CIA and FBI, much of which took place with him strapped to a polygraph, he’d insisted they look into her situation and get her out of that mental hospital posthaste. The alternative, Alex had threatened, was Alex marching into open court with a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to get her released. Not unexpectedly, this had worked quite well.
“So what’s gonna happen now?” Gerald asks. “One of the docs here told me you got arrested for Leah’s, y’know…” His voice trails off. Unable to say murder.
“The FBI is getting into it since she’s a federal employee. Was,” Alex corrects himself. “But one of Rykman’s lackeys is cooperating, they tell me. He’s the one who put her…remains in the trunk of my car. His testimony should exonerate me.”
“What about the rest of this shit-burger? These guys were operating under the CIA’s nose. I mean this literally.”
“It was actually a few miles underground, away from Agency HQ. But I take your point.” Alex sighs, contemplating the long road that lies ahead for them. “We’ll both be enjoying a closed-door congressional hearing or two, I suspect. The administration is treading very carefully here. They need to put their arms around this, but at the same time, there are too many political and diplomatic ramifications if it all gets out in the open.”
Gerald’s head bobs in agreement. “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”
“Speaking of, you’ve still got your job at the CIA if you want it. In fact, they tell me that you’re gonna be getting the Intelligence Medal of Merit.” This is the CIA’s award for “the performance of especially meritorious service or for an act or achievement conspicuously above normal duties which has contributed significantly to the mission of the Agency.”
“I’m probably lucky to still have a job,” Gerald allows. “What about you?”
That’s a question Alex doesn’t know the answer to. “I’m supposed to sit down with Bryson tomorrow to discuss my options.”
Gerald shakes his head. “I thought he was in cahoots with Rykman. He had computer access to that Overwatch directory,” he reminds Alex.
“I told Security that. Apparently, Rykman co-opted the high-level access of a lot of people so nothing could get traced back to him.” Alex thinks primarily of Leah Doyle. Rykman used her security code to move the money from the black budget into Solstice. Leah said as much when Alex confronted her, but Alex had to admit that her suspicions had been correct.
“Okay, so if Bryson says he wants to take you back, you gonna do it?”
Alex turns to the window and remembers when Rykman invited him to join the Overwatch rather than destroy it. The choice had been between what was legal and what was right, and it made Alex aware of the gulf between law and justice. He wants to work to narrow that gap, to help the law do a better job of achieving justice. Can he still do that at the CIA? He isn’t sure.
For one thing, it’s hard to make career decisions while the rest of his life is in such upheaval. He’d returned home from his inquisition at the hands of t
he CIA and FBI to discover that Grace had efficiently boxed up all her belongings and moved out. She’d left behind a note full of explanations and apologies and regrets, but the words never coalesced into anything more than written static. It is so strange. Last week, Alex had a job and a fiancée. How quickly life turns.
Despite it all, he’s never felt more serene. This is a paradox it will take Alex months to unravel, but when he does, he’ll realize it hearkens back to that defining moment in the Overwatch Operations Center. His entire life has been spent in the emotional and professional shadow cast by his father. He believed the only way out of that darkness was to eclipse his father’s achievements. And in Rykman’s offer, he discovered a way to do that, to have access to power his father never had. When faced with it, he realized he didn’t need it after all. And the epiphany was like unlocking a thousand shackles. He could finally be his own man.
“Are you gonna come back to CIA or not?”
Alex turns away from the window and looks at Gerald. He smiles with a lightness of spirit Gerald hasn’t seen from him before.
And he shrugs.
* * *
FILTER COFFEEHOUSE AND ESPRESSO BAR
WASHINGTON, DC
9:00 A.M. EDT
A coffee place struck Alex as an odd choice for this not-quite reunion, but at least the venue is neutral ground. Sitting alone with his espresso, he thinks back upon the length and breadth of their relationship. He wonders what went so wrong and when. There was love once, and genuine affection. But relationships have a way of dying on the vine. Although Alex cast himself as the aggrieved party, he knows there’s really no one to blame. These things happen, and if there is any chance of reconciliation, the healing has to begin with letting go of the blame.
He feels the presence of someone else at the table and stands. “This is a nice place,” he allows. “Good idea.”
“Yeah, I like it,” comes the reply.
They sit down and for a moment neither is sure what to say. Alex swivels his small cup of espresso one rotation before venturing, “I’m glad we’re doing this. I want to fix things between us.”
“So am I. So do I.” A pause. “I’ve been thinking about it. A lot, in fact. I’m really sorry. This all started with me. I think I wasn’t—I think I didn’t rise to the challenges of the moment. I think I was weak.”
“Thanks. Seriously,” Alex says. “But I’ve been thinking about it too. And we shouldn’t do the blame thing. We should just, y’know, move forward.”
“I’d like that. I’d like that very much.” And for the first time since childhood, Alex sees his father smile.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a novel, particularly a first novel, takes a village. In writing this one, I am indebted to a veritable city. My thanks to them cannot be conveyed properly—and are presented here in chronological order of their assistance.
It all began with my then-manager, now sister-in-law, and sister-in-fact, Lisa Guggenheim (née Lisa Santos), who kicked this whole thing off when she called to tell me that “the CIA has a legal department,” knowing all the while that she was planting the seed for this novel. Her advice, feedback, and help throughout the development of the story were invaluable. Bottom line, there would be no Overwatch without Lisa.
Nor would Overwatch have taken the form of a novel had my friend and not-nearly-frequently-enough collaborator Michael Green not advised me to spend some unexpected free time between gigs on “something [you] wouldn’t ordinarily write.”
Lindsey Allen, Emily Silver, and Alisa Tager were the first people to read the manuscript in its zygote stage. Their thoughts were helpful, and their encouragement to keep going was critical.
Ian Tuttle was kind enough to provide me with a tour of CIA headquarters and to not have me arrested for loitering in my car for twenty minutes in the visitors lot afterwards, scribbling down all the information I had stored in my short-term memory. (No cell phones or cameras are permitted within Agency HQ.)
As she so often has on other projects, Louise Byer at Westlaw buttressed my atrophying legal research skills with relevant and useful case law.
Erin Malone, my book agent at WME, uttered the words every author longs to hear from their agent: “Yeah, I can sell this.” More important, however, she did.
Joshua Kendall, Wes Miller, Tracy Roe, Michael Noon, and Garrett McGrath at Little, Brown and Company were more than editors, they were educators, teaching me things about prose writing I’m embarrassed not to have known already.
My assistant, Grace DeVoll, served as a de facto additional editor. Her sharp eye and sharper pen helped take the manuscript to much loftier heights. She also kindly lent her name to Alex’s fiancée, taught me that there are two e’s in “fiancée,” and finally convinced me to use the Oxford comma. (Happy now, Grace?)
I’m breaking with chronological order to save a special thanks for last. Peter M. (he’s asked that I not use his real name) is a former nonofficial-cover officer for the CIA and wrote up extensive notes on the completed manuscript, providing much of the authenticity of the Agency and its inner workings. My artistic license is freshly laminated, however, and I have occasionally strayed from his good counsel, primarily in the service of getting Alex back into headquarters after having been fired.
About the Author
Marc Guggenheim practiced law at one of Boston’s most prestigious firms before leaving to pursue his dream of becoming a writer. In the past decade, he’s written for television (The Practice, Law & Order, Brothers & Sisters, Arrow), feature films (Green Lantern, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters), graphic novels (Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Flash), and video games (Call of Duty 3). He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, two daughters, a dog, a cat, and a turtle (which may or may not be alive at the time of this writing).
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Epigraph
PROLOGUE
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
About the Author
Newsletters
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2014 by LegalScribe Entertainment, Inc
Cover design by Julianna Lee
Cover photograph of man running by Getty Images/Comstock; White House by Orhan Cam/Shutterstock
Author photograph by Jennifer Wilson
Cover copyright © 2014 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permis
sion must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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First ebook edition: April 2014
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