The Courier: A Ryan Kealey Thriller
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“Since when did thin skin trump national security?” Kealey asked. “Mr. President, the Iranians sunk one of their own frigates to conceal what they found. Terrorists covered their trail in Morocco with bombs. We have evidence.”
“Three-quarters of the world couldn’t tell you where Morocco is,” Perry remarked. “They won’t care. All they’ll hear are indignant Saudis all puffed in their robes, international bankers rushing to the defense of Khalid al-Otaibi, and threatening financial sanctions—which the Russians and Chinese will rush to support, I should add—and our military put on trial for roughing up a man who has done so much good with his billions.”
“Including funding a terror group,” Kealey said.
“We can’t prove that!” Perry snapped.
“We probably could, if Kealey is right, but not in time,” Andrews said.
“There’s always the chance that if there is a terrorist onboard, he’ll trigger the bomb in a panic,” Clarke said. “Many of these suicide bombers do when cornered. We may even sink a Russian sub in the process.”
There was nervous laughter.
“That outcome makes us look bold and puts Moscow on our side,” Clarke went on. “There’s also the possibility the terrorist may lose his nerve and surrender. Almost twenty percent do that. Then we can take the device and show it to the world.”
“Khalid will claim we planted it there,” Perry said. “Mr. Kealey’s Iranian friend will back him and expose him and Ms. Jafari.”
“He did not know our names,” Rayhan snapped.
There was a brief silence. “Thank you, Ms. Jafari,” the President said.
“What if we force the seaplane down and have a team waiting to board her from underwater?” Clarke went on. “No one will know.”
“If it blows, we suffer one hundred percent casualties,” Breen pointed out.
“I realize that, Admiral,” Clarke replied tensely.
“We’ve got the flight plan,” Carlson interrupted. “After leaving the oilfield it landed briefly in the Algarve and continued flying southwest over the North Atlantic—destination the same as it’s been two times in the past eighteen months. Right here.”
The room went dead. Kealey couldn’t tell if they were gripped by contemplation or by a sudden stab of fear. He hoped it was the latter.
“Hold on,” Perry said. “We’ve got data coming from the NRO.”
The National Reconnaissance Office was the spy-eye-in-the-sky organization responsible for collecting and analyzing audio and visual data from all sources and from all vantage points. Someone must have requested surveillance of the seaplane.
There was barely audible chatter in the room, no more than a hum on the speakerphone. Presumably the President and his counselors formed their usual little pockets. Clarke and Breen huddled together, Andrews had turned to consult the analysts, Perry and Carlson were talking with the President. Ultimately, the President would have to make this call. Brenneman tended to be cautious, but he was a lame duck. That species was unpredictable. Either they had their eye on preserving an overall legacy or on finding something that would define them, that would serve as the centerpiece for a presidential library. Some of them actually had the well-being of the nation foremost. Kealey did not know which way this would go as the little cabals prepared to give him their strong, last advice. None of them had seemed interested in shooting the plane down, let alone eager. Kealey wasn’t sure he blamed them. All he was giving them was his impression of skimpy intelligence provided by an enemy of the state.
Kealey looked at his partner. He didn’t realize how bad he must look until he saw the distress in the young woman’s eyes. Her hand was on the table, some mud still under her manicured fingernails despite the shower. He squeezed her fingers lightly, wincing as his wrist rubbed against the towel. Rayhan winced, too, as though they were the unlikeliest of twins. He poked the mute button on the phone.
“Hey, at least neither of us was shot,” he said.
“Yet,” she joked, “you’re running up quite a phone bill.”
Kealey chuckled.
“What would you do if you were the President?” she asked.
“I was just wondering that myself,” he said. “You?”
“I like General Clarke’s plan. Force it down, get onboard.”
“Then deal with the red faces if we were wrong,” Kealey said, nodding. “I’d back that one, too. We could get a team over from the Sixth Fleet pretty quick, probably be over and done before the Iranian frigate or the Russians get there.”
Perry interrupted the chatter. Kealey killed the mute button.
“Analysis of the seaplane is Code Green,” he said. “Conversation from the cockpit normal. Airspeed trending a little fast against headwinds, but not significant. There is nothing overtly actionable.”
“Except Mr. Kealey’s report,” Clarke said. “That’s not going to show up in the NRO analysis.”
“And we deeply respect both Mr. Kealey and his report and his courage and that of his partner,” Carlson said. “But our policy, Mr. President, by charter and by deed, is to act on what we know or strongly suspect, not what we hear from an enemy.”
“There’s also the virus to consider,” Perry noted. “That came from inside, possibly from the very same people Mr. Kealey wants us to trust.”
“Or the Chinese,” Andrews said.
Kealey had no idea what they were talking about. “I’m a little at sea here,” he said. “All I know for certain is that over half a million lives are potentially at risk, including your own. Our policy has mutated and adapted during this administration. There’s a briefcase nuke out there and we need to stop it.”
“Thank you for your perspective,” the President said.
Kealey didn’t know if he was being told to shut up or if that was for everyone. He didn’t care. What came next was what mattered.
“We have time to deal with the takedown option,” the President went on. “In the next hour I want operational overviews for that operation and for a quarantine if we allow it to land in accordance with its flight plan. Questions?”
That was the end of the debate. At least a takedown was still on the table—which was different from a shoot-down. The aircraft was not going to be molested. Kealey waited until Clarke got back on. He was no longer on speaker.
“What virus?” Kealey asked.
“Something that spread through all the intelligence divisions, blinded us when we started looking for the plane,” Clarke said.
“Inside job?”
“Seems like it,” Clarke said.
“Like someone was watching the clock and knew when to punch it.”
“Do you have any idea who it is?”
“Not yet,” Clarke said, “and until we get the system up and running and forensics working on it, we won’t.”
Kealey wondered if that was a plant from Khalid—or the Iranians. “You said something yesterday, I think it was. About voices raised against us doing something. I’m a little foggy—do you remember what that was?”
“Yeah, whether the terrorist was headed to Algeria instead of Tangier,” Clarke said. “Most people said Tangier.”
“Who didn’t?”
“I can’t remember offhand . . . it’s been a long day for me, too. Are you saying they could be right?”
“No. I’m saying the top priority of any mole is to protect his position,” Kealey said. “You do that with disinformation to start. You only move to sabotage if you have to because your fingerprints will be traceable. You bolt as soon as it’s safe.”
“So—the algorithm is who backed a wrong horse or two on this, then left,” Clarke said. “Right. Should’ve seen that.”
“Not our priority yet,” Kealey said. “Finding him or her won’t lead us to the terrorist.”
“True.” Clarke took a moment to refocus. “How solid are you on this Iranian? And why didn’t you tell me about him?”
“Because I didn’t want you worrying about two th
ings,” Kealey said. “We had it covered.”
“Not as fully as you thought.”
“No,” Kealey agreed. “Do we ever?”
Clarke didn’t answer.
“Everything he did, everything he told us, convinced me—we both wanted the device out of the hands of the terrorist,” Kealey said.
“Everything he did led you into a trap.”
Now Kealey was silent. What could he say? That was true, too.
“I’m for the takedown,” Clarke said, “but I don’t know that we’re going to get it. I’ve been reading up on Khalid. He could choke hell out of banking and oil.”
“The perfect guy to paralyze us from acting. Like Osama, but without the narcissism.”
“That may be,” Clarke said. “But there are certain cats you let in before you try to bell them.”
“Except that you’re not dealing with Khalid. You’re dealing with a terrorist who has been on the run, on the go, and may pull the trigger the moment he is spooked.”
“Ryan, if you can think of anything else I’ll put it in front of the President,” Clarke said. “You’ve been on the run, on the go as well. You’ve got to understand why there’s skepticism here.”
“I understand completely,” Kealey said. “But if all you count on us for is our ability to infiltrate and kill, not our ability to analyze, why have boots on the ground at all?”
“You’re taking this too personally—”
“No, dammit. I’m scared, and I’m scared for a reason. It’s because I believe the guy whose eyes I was looking into. I know when I’m being played, General, give me that. This guy was serious. He did the same to me, sized me up before he showed me the picture of the aircraft with a time stamp I’ve seen on other images—Russian images. The police were closing in and he stopped to do that. Why? Why share intelligence that could compromise Iran’s relations with Moscow unless he meant for us to stop the damn plane?”
“I agree he meant for us to stop it,” Clarke said. “The leap of faith is why. You say one thing, everyone here says something else.”
“I was the only guy on-site.”
“Which is the only reason the takedown got any traction at all,” Clarke said. “Give them some credit for giving you credit. That wasn’t just lip service from the President. But look at the facts. Even assuming the Iranian was sincere, no one has proven that the device is on the plane. We thought it was on another aircraft—it wasn’t. We acted boldly, correctly, and we’ve got egg on our faces over that.”
“The plane’s headed toward D.C. Is there any event scheduled? One of Khalid’s charities?”
“We’re checking,” Clarke said. “Even if there isn’t, the bomb could still be somewhere in Tangier.”
“Suicide bombers don’t have a long attention span, General. You know that.”
“I do. Again, that’s why something other than ‘let it land’ is being discussed at all.”
Kealey sipped more water, poured a little in his hand and rubbed it into his face. He felt as if he were outside the flow of time, things moving in slow motion where he was, speeding in real time, increasingly out of reach, everywhere else. He had a strong urge to call his uncle and ask what he thought.
“Not to be an alarmist,” Kealey said, “but would you do me a favor?”
“Allison?”
“Yeah. Would you strongly suggest that she drop what she’s doing and drive up to see my uncle or something?”
“I can’t do that,” Clarke said. “They’re both here. He flew down last night at her request.
Kealey took a moment to process that. His first thought was fleeting but telling: Good. She’s not alone. He worried for them both before going back to his initial thought. “General, I think we should talk to him.”
“About what? The device? What can he tell us?”
“I don’t know,” Kealey said. “That’s why I think we should talk to him.”
“I’m going to be a little busy for the next few hours—”
“No,” Kealey said. “Conference him in. The three of us.”
“Ryan, the directors are ready to get back to work on this—”
“If we ever need fresh eyes, General, it’s now,” Kealey interrupted. “He has been in a situation like this, by himself, and he’s had six decades to think about whatever he thought then. Let’s use that perspective.”
Clarke exhaled. “Hang on. I’ll take this in the breakout room.”
The general was referring to the small office off the Executive Conference Room. That was usually reserved for one-on-ones with the President. Kealey didn’t think Brenneman would be feeling possessive right now.
Rayhan was sitting on the desk facing Kealey. Despite the dirt, despite the exhaustion, there was still a fire in her eyes. That gave Kealey strength and resolve. She was the next generation of U.S. intelligence. Part of his job was to show her the kind of determination he was fighting hard to muster. To show her to look at things from as many perspectives as he could think of. To keep going even if you didn’t know what was ahead.
“I’m calling him now,” Clarke said when he got back on. “I’ll plug him in as soon as he picks up.”
Perspective, not noise, Kealey thought. Not just new eyes but old eyes. Know or intuit what to use and what to leave on the table.
“Do you need anything?” Kealey asked Rayhan.
She smiled. “A magic lamp and three wishes?”
Kealey smiled back. “You grew up on those stories.”
“I was obsessed with the tales and folklore of young heroes and ruthless villains and naive caliphs whose kingdoms were at risk,” she said. “That was why I learned to read when I was still very young, so I could learn what the lush, beautiful paintings in the books were all about. That is one reason I went to work for America.”
“Because you saw in Iran that the stories weren’t just stories,” Kealey said.
“They were more than that,” Rayhan said. “Every day, King Shahryr would marry a virgin and then the next day put her to death to marry another. Scheherazade told stories to enthrall him and save her life. I did not want to be part of a society, part of a world, where women had to do that.”
Kealey was reminded, right then, about why fresh eyes were necessary. He was a man in America. There were some things that just would not have occurred to him.
“Ryan, are you there?” Clarke asked.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Let’s do this but make it quick,” the general told him.
MCLEAN, VIRGINIA
Largo and Allison had not bothered going back to August’s cubicle. They went to the commissary for coffee and a long, thoughtful sit-down. The commissary was empty as workers either tried to fix the broken systems or waited impatiently at their stations for them to come back online.
This was one of the reasons Allison had invited the older Kealey down. One reason analysis isn’t over and done in a few weeks is it takes time and maybe an additional trauma or two to open patients up, to get them out of their own way. For Largo, a strong, proven, once-reliable rope had suddenly and unexpectedly played out. She didn’t know if it had been cruel to let that happen, to leave him standing alone and naked like that. She did know that Largo was a man not just rooted to the past but in many ways stuck there. Profound, youthful events not just shaped us but also limited us in many ways. For the first time in nearly seventy years this man was in terra incognita. She hit the playbook.
“What are you feeling right now?” she asked.
“Lonely,” Largo replied, his chin on his chest, his coffee untouched. “God damned alone.”
“Like in France?”
“Christ, no,” he said. “God, no. I had an army behind me. Several, in fact. I had a nation behind me—a couple of those, too. I had a girl at home.” He stopped, looked up. “A woman. Sorry. But she was my girl till the end.”
“It’s all right, Largo.”
“She never minded,” he smiled tearfully.
“It isn’t the same,” he said. “The people I loved, the things I loved, all fell off the cliff ahead of me. Oh, that’s the nature of things. When you scratch at ninety years of age there isn’t going to be a whole lot of ‘the familiar’ around. But the things that are close to you tend to be things that came up behind you. You, Ryan—however much you care or learn to care it isn’t the same. This is a cold ledge. I don’t feel sorry for myself—I never have. I made it out of something that many of my friends and colleagues did not. Even when I was delivering milk and trying not to go on high alert with every unexpected noise, I never forgot to be grateful.”
“Survivor’s syndrome is natural.”
“That’s what they call it now, like shellshock became post-traumatic stress disorder and streetwalkers became sex workers. Pardon me again.”
“Not a problem.” She could see it in his eyes: he was back there, reliving the experience. Missing it.
“But I was happy to be alive and there was not a day that I didn’t thank God for giving us victory. The sacrifice had been necessary and it had been worth it. That was always my bottom line. What I just realized, though, is how my focus kept changing.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like those shots in movies where you move away from something but it gets closer,” Largo said. “I feel like the older I get, the more vivid my memories become. Not like they say it happens with dementia or Alzheimer’s or whatever that is called now, where you can’t remember what you ate for lunch but you remember a shell you picked up on the beach when you were five. I mean I held onto the past because I knew it. Back there”—he jerked his head in the direction of the Streaming Intelligence wing—“Back there, I felt like one of those spacewalkers whose tether just got cut.”
Allison was about to turn him toward the future, not the past, when Largo’s phone beeped. He didn’t seem to hear it so she reached over and answered it for him. It was General Clarke.