The Director of the National Clandestine Service sat at the far end of the room. He looked like an anemic vulture hunched over the table. A cigarette dangled from a mouth that was a hard gash in his weathered face. It was impossible to tell how old he was; decades of smoking had turned his skin into a roadmap of deep-set wrinkles, but he had been working for the Company since the Cold War. He was dressed in a somber gray pinstripe and a skinny black tie that had gone out of style when Elvis was at the top of the charts. His thinning hair was combed straight back and a pair of sharp blue eyes peered out from beneath a pair of bushy eyebrows.
“I’m sorry I’m late, sir,” Sam started.
He waved away her apology. His voice sounded like a knife on a sharpening stone. “Have a seat, Ms. Gunn.”
Sam took the chair across from Burke and caught his eye, hoping for support. All she got was a simple nod of recognition, nothing more.
Foster seated himself to the right of the Director, still wearing his peevish little grin. Two others were present; the Director’s secretary and a middle-aged man with dark hair and a twitchy eye, named Coughlin. He was a long-time Company man whose unfortunate facial tick excluded him from field work. Sam had seen him around but never been officially introduced.
Wizard brought out a bottle of pills and shook a pair into his palm. “I take these twice a day for my blood pressure,” he rasped. “The sawbones says my ticker is running on borrowed time.”
His secretary poured a glass of water from a pitcher.
Wizard tossed the pills in his mouth, swallowed, ignored the water, and chased the medication with a drag from his cigarette. Smoke shot from his nostrils. “Did we interrupt a workout, Ms. Gunn?”
“Yes, sir,” Sam said. “I mean… no, sir. I was just finishing up, sir.”
Wizard chuckled and went into a coughing fit. His secretary tried to make him drink water. He shook his head and wiped a tear from one eye. A file lay open on the table in front of him. He paged through the contents. “You went to Yale.”
Sam wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement. “That’s correct, sir.”
“I was a Yale man” he said. “Did you pledge?”
“Kappa Kappa Gamma, sir.”
Foster frowned, unhappy with the direction the conversation had taken. The vein in his forehead was in danger of bursting.
“I was Alpha Phi Alpha,” Wizard said. “That was long before you got there. Before schools turned into indoctrination centers. Used to be, universities encouraged kids to think for themselves. Now they’re socialist echo chambers.”
“If it’s any consolation, sir, I left with my faith in the free market system firmly intact.”
Every eye in the room turned to Sam. She wanted to shrink down into her seat and disappear. Foster actually snickered.
Wizard fixed her with those piercing blue eyes. The trace of a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. He nodded. “Good to know, Ms. Gunn.”
Foster’s nostrils flared. He looked like he had just swallowed a nasty bug.
Burke tried and failed to hide a grin.
Wizard continued flipping through her file. His bushy brows twitched as he read. “You graduated the Farm six months ago?”
“Yes, sir.”
He closed the file, leaned back, and said, “Tell me about your current operation, Ms. Gunn.”
From the corner of her eye, Burke gave a barely perceptible nod. She desperately wished she had showered, or at least taken a comb to her hair. She felt ridiculous and out of place in her workout clothes. She took a breath and let it out. “Sir, I’ve been posing as a Secret Service Agent assigned to Secretary of State Helen Rhodes.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
CAFEBRERÍA EL PENDULO is a two-story bookstore and café with the kind of lighting you would expect in a museum. Ivy crawled along the second floor banisters and a tree grew up right in the middle of the space. The strong aroma of rich coffee filled the air. Noble preferred dimly lit bookshops full of musty old tomes, but this one had a certain charm to it. They had scoped it out ahead of time. It was less than a mile from the construction site. He could still hear the wail of sirens. Alejandra was on a sofa in the History section. Noble collapsed next to her. The adrenaline was wearing off and his hands were starting to shake.
“You did good,” he said.
“Did we get them all?” she asked.
“Santiago got away.” He saw the disappointment in her eyes. “We just dealt a serious blow to Machado’s operation. We took out his top hitters and got away clean. He lost his money man and his best soldiers all in one day. He’s going to be feeling the pressure.”
A waitress appeared. Noble ordered two cups of coffee.
“Is it safe to be seen in public?” Alejandra asked. She had her hood up to hide her face.
“I doubt Machado has anyone watching the local bookshop,” he said.
The waitress returned with two artsy mugs of steaming coffee. Noble drained half of his in one long swallow. Hot liquid burned down his throat into his belly. He slouched deeper into the seat, sighed, and ran a hand over his eyes.
Alejandra took up her coffee in both hands and blew off the steam. She looked small and pathetic, swaddled in clothing three sizes too big with yellowing bandages on her face. A few patrons threw curious glances in their direction. She said, “What’s our next move?”
He told her about his brief conversation with the Wolf.
She nodded as he spoke. “The cartels own the hotel. The penthouse is neutral ground, a place where they meet to discuss business.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Once, during one of their meetings,” she told him. “It’s heavily guarded but less difficult to infiltrate than Machado’s compound.”
“Have you got the general layout?” he asked.
She inclined her head. “I could sketch a map. What are you thinking?”
A swarthy man with beady eyes watched them from the Philosophy section. When he took out a cellphone, Noble said, “I think we need to find some place else to be.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
THE WIZARD LEANED BACK in his chair, took a drag, and blew smoke at the ceiling. His eyes bore into Sam. She held his gaze.
“I wasn’t aware of any such operation,” he said.
Foster cleared his throat. “That’s because it was completely off the books. It was laid in and orchestrated by Burke to further his own personal political agenda. He used a recent graduate of the Farm in an unsanctioned operation designed to sabotage a presidential election. If that wasn’t bad enough, now he’s got his protégé, Jake Noble, running around Mexico waging a vigilante war against the cartels.”
“I have nothing to do with Jake Noble’s presence in Mexico,” Burke said.
“You met with him in Saint Petersburg.” Foster leaned forward like he was about to climb over the table at Burke.
“I went to see him.” Burke shrugged. “So what? He’s a friend. It doesn’t mean I divulged Company intel.”
Foster drummed the table top with a boney finger. “Lie all you want about Noble, you shanghaied a rookie officer into an unauthorized operation.”
Coughlin spoke up. “It’s true, sir. I checked with the head of the Secret Service. They have Ms. Gunn listed as Vanessa Klein. She’s been assigned to the Secretary of State’s detail for the last several weeks. The whole thing was arranged by an agent named Thomson, a confederate of Mr. Burke’s inside the Secret Service. They served together in the Army.”
Sam cut in, “I was not shanghaied, Director.”
Foster held up a hand. “Please, Ms. Gunn. You aren’t to blame. Burke has a long history of rule breaking. He used you for his own ends. Answer our questions honestly and you might make it out of this with your job intact.”
Sam turned her attention to the Director. “Sir, Helen Rhodes passed top secret information to enemies of the United States and used the Secret Service to plant false evidence against FBI Director Standish.”
>
Foster’s eyes bulged in their sockets. “Ms. Gunn, I am ordering you to stop talking!”
Burke raised his voice. “What’s the matter, Foster? Afraid she’ll kick over a rock and a few of your secrets will slither out?”
“You’re the only one trying to bury secrets,” Foster fired back. “Is that why you sent Noble to Mexico? Trying to keep your skeletons in the closet?”
Coughlin joined the fray. “We aren’t here to discuss Jacob Noble’s presence in Mexico City. There’s no evidence that Burke fed him intel on Company operations in Central America.”
“We are here to discuss a CIA officer laying in operations without authorization,” Foster said.
Wizard raised a hand and the room fell silent. It was like hitting mute on the television remote. He stabbed out his cigarette and said, “Clark, step into the hall and give yourself a few minutes to calm down.”
Foster sat there a moment, stunned, like the Director had just slapped him across the face. He came back to himself, stood up, and walked out.
When the door had shut behind him, Wizard turned to Burke. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
Burke’s eyes danced between the Wizard’s secretary and Coughlin.
“Playing this a little close to the vest, aren’t you?” The Director asked.
Burke inclined his head.
“Okay,” Wizard said. “I’ll play along. Everyone clear out.”
Sam rose along with the rest.
“Not you, Ms. Gunn,” Wizard said. He pointed at her chair.
She sat back down while the others filed out of the conference room. The door clomped shut with a heavy sound, like the lid closing on a casket. Sam was alone with Burke and the D/NCS.
Wizard looked at Burke. “What’s this all about, Matt?”
“A mole hunt.” Burke propped his elbows on the table and laced his fingers together. He told the Director everything he had told Sam. He finished by saying, “Rhodes has been trading top secret information to foreign powers in order to fill her own personal piggy bank.”
Wizard lit another cigarette. “Can you prove any of this?”
“I don’t have physical evidence.”
Wizard shook his head. “We don’t deal in politics, Matt. You know that. Our job is to collect intelligence, not dictate policy.”
“If I’m right,” Burke said, “and she becomes the president, our enemies will be the ones dictating policy. This country’s intelligence apparatus will be crippled. Every agent we have in the field will be at risk. You want to work for a president who owes favors to drug traffickers and terrorist regimes?”
“If you are wrong, you’ll go to jail,” Wizard said. “You trot this out into the light and Rhodes will muddy the waters until the voting public can’t tell the truth from all the boolsheet. She’ll dig up your past and turn this whole thing on its head. You’ll be the one on trial.”
Burke spread his hands. “I have to do something, Al. She’s guilty as hell and people died because of it. I can’t sit back and watch her sell out America to the highest bidder.” After a minute, he added, “Neither can you.”
Wizard leaned back and watched smoke rise in lazy curlicues. “You’re a good officer, Matt, and I trust your instincts. I’ve covered for you a lot over the years. Even put myself out on a limb a few times. But I’m not sure I can protect you this time. If this goes sideways, your career is over. You really want to risk your pension?”
Burke’s large black hands clenched. He took a deep breath, held it, let it out slow. “She willfully exposed a CIA officer to the head of a Mexican drug cartel. I have to draw the line somewhere.”
Wizard crushed out his cigarette. “Let me hear you say it.”
Burke said, “I stand by my actions, sir, and I’m prepared to face the consequences.”
Wizard turned his eyes on Sam. “Ms. Gunn, you made high marks all the way through training and you have the makings of a first-rate intelligence officer, so I’m going to give you a choice.”
Her stomach did a flip.
He jerked his head at the door. “You can stand up right now and walk out of here. I’ll personally clear you of any wrongdoing in this matter. You were a rookie following orders from a senior officer. No harm, no foul. Or, you can stay and face the fallout as a willing participant.”
Burke said, “Get outta here, Sam. No need for you to go down with me.”
Here was a chance to make a clean break of this mess. Everything in her said get up and run—don’t walk—to the door. It was the smart thing to do. But she’d never have a single night of guilt-free sleep for the rest of her life. The Secretary of State was selling out spies to further her own agenda. Sam couldn’t let that slide. She swallowed a knot in her throat. “Thank you, sir, but I’ll stay.”
He managed to look surprised without moving a single muscle in his face. His eyes just sort of twinkled. “Then you had better debrief me on your actions inside the Rhodes campaign.”
Sam gave a full account, telling him everything, including how she had planted evidence against Standish.
He stopped her several times to ask for clarification on a certain point, and had her repeat parts. When she finished, he said, “That was quick thinking, putting the files on his wife’s computer instead. I’ll bet the investigators never even bothered to check her laptop.”
“Thank you, sir,” Sam said.
“One question,” he said.
“Did Rhodes order you to plant evidence against Standish?”
“Sir?”
“Did Helen Rhodes personally tell you to plant the evidence on Standish’s laptop, or did Guy Taggart?”
It was several seconds before Sam could muster words. “It was Taggart.”
He smoothed one bushy white eyebrow with a nicotine-yellow fingertip. “See the problem that creates for us?”
Burke said, “Rhodes will claim Taggart was working on his own.”
Wizard nodded.
Sam raked a hand through her hair. “What about my recordings?”
Burke shook his head. “Everything points to Taggart. We need ironclad evidence that Rhodes can’t explain away. Torres had a paper trail, but he’s missing.”
“What about your man in Mexico?” Wizard asked. “Is he close to obtaining the missing files?”
“I’m not in contact with him,” Burke said. “Foster sent Hunt to run interference.”
Wizard leaned back in his seat. “I don’t want to see a traitor sitting in the oval office any more than you, but without those files, we’re dead in the water. If Noble manages to lay hands on actionable intel, something we could accidentally leak to the press, then we might be able to steer public opinion and avoid any direct involvement. At the very least, we can throw a public spotlight on Helen Rhodes’ criminal activities. That should turn public opinion against her and strong-arm Standish into filing charges, making her ineligible for president.”
“A lot could go wrong with that plan,” Sam said.
The Wizard took his time lighting up another cigarette. “Until we have something concrete, there is nothing more to discuss. Ms. Gunn, please ask the others to rejoin us.”
She went to the door, stuck her head out, and told them to come back. After they had taken their places, Wizard said, “The particulars of my discussion with Mr. Burke and Ms. Gunn will remain private for the time being. Before I can decide if there was any wrong doing on their part, I’ll need to collect more information. As of right now, I’m placing both on unpaid administrative leave.”
Ten minutes later, Sam was in the parking garage with Burke. Everything she had spent the last six months working toward was crashing down. Her mind was racing and getting nowhere fast. Sam bent over, put her hands on her knees and shook her head. “What are we going to do?”
Burke patted his pockets, found his keys and said, “I could use a drink.”
A hysterical laugh jerked out of her throat. “A drink would be good.”
Chapter Fifty-Seve
n
NOBLE RAPPED AN OPEN PALM against the back door of the Santa Ana Mission.
“This is your plan?” Alejandra asked, looking around the trash-strewn alley. “We barely escaped the first time.”
“They’ll never expect us to come back.” He pounded on the door some more and heard footsteps. The lock opened. Cordero peeked out. Both eyes were swollen purple slits and his nose was a fat red welt. He threw a quick glance over Noble’s shoulder at the empty alleyway. When he spoke, it sounded like he had a mouth full of cotton. “I didn’t expect to see either of you again.”
“We’re trying hard not to be seen,” Noble told him.
Cordero opened the door wide and stepped back. “Then you’d better come in before someone sees you.”
They gathered around a table in the kitchen, sipping a Spanish wine. Dinner was a loaf of stale bread and cheese. Cast iron skillets hung from a rack overhead. The air was hot and stuffy. The sharp stench of incense permeated everything, ruining Noble’s appetite. He asked, “What happened to you?”
“Machado’s men.” Cordero prodded gently at his bruised cheek. “Paid me a visit two nights ago.”
“Why didn’t you ask for police protection?” Alejandra said. “They would have put a patrol car out front.”
“Would it have made a difference?” Cordero asked. “Machado owns the police.”
“Not all of them,” Alejandra said.
“Did you tell them anything about me?” Noble said. “Or Diaz?”
Cordero shook his head. “Don’t worry. I told them the girl came seeking aid and it was my Christian duty to help. They didn’t believe me at first.” He pointed to his swollen face. “But I stuck to my story.”
“You’re lucky they didn’t kill you,” Noble said around a mouthful of stale bread.
Cordero shrugged.
“I’m sorry about the sister,” Noble said.
“Rosalita is with God now,” Cordero said, as if that settled the matter.
“Sure,” Noble said.
Cordero heard the doubt in his voice. “You don’t believe?”
“I’m not sure what I believe,” Noble admitted. He sipped his wine. “Someone—a friend—prayed for my mother once.”
Noble Vengeance (Jake Noble Series Book 2) Page 19
