The Wolves

by Alex Berenson

  —

  AT FIRST Wells thought the knock on his apartment door was a mistake. Only Evan knew where he was staying, and as Evan had pointed out at the gym that afternoon, it was Friday. The kid’s sufferance of Wells didn’t extend to weekend nights.

  Wells looked up from Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell’s dispatches from the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, as brilliant as everything else Orwell wrote. “Yes?”

  “Pops?”

  At the door, Evan had a liquored gleam in his eyes and his phone in his hand. “Check it out.”

  The phone’s browser was open to an article about Aaron Duberman. Fortune magazine. “He’s opening a new casino in Macao. Says he’s going to preside over a day of celebration.”

  Wells skimmed the article: world’s tallest casino-hotel, $4 billion investment, et cetera . . .

  “How’d you see this so fast?” The article was less than an hour old.

  “I have a Google Alert for him.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Because I want to know what he’s up to. Obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  “He’s trolling you with this, John. Trying to get under your skin. You know that, right?”

  “More likely he’s just seeing what he can get away with.” But Wells wondered if his son was right, if Duberman’s move was directed at him personally.

  Evan plopped on Wells’s couch, twisted open a beer. “You never told me what happened at the end.”

  “You never asked.”

  “I am now.”

  Wells told him everything, those manic last days, how he and Shafer and Duto found Rand Witwans and delivered him to Washington. How the President convinced Wells and Shafer to let him take care of Duberman, a promise that he apparently didn’t plan to keep.

  “You should tell somebody,” Evan said, when Wells was done. “The New York Times.”

  “Making the President resign. I can’t do it.”

  “He was going to start a war.”

  “Duberman fooled him, too.”

  “But he doesn’t care. The President of the United States looked you in the eye and lied.”

  Wells could only laugh. The bigger the stakes, the bigger the lies.

  “What?”

  “Sometimes I forget how young you are.”

  “Duberman is sticking your face in it, too, and you don’t care. He wanted to have you killed, he tried to get us to invade another country—”

  “I thought you believed in the law, Evan.”

  “The law has nothing to do with this. This is power.”

  There they were, the words that Wells had run from for three months. The words he knew were true. “You do understand I could easily get killed going after him.”

  “You didn’t last time.” Evan spoke with foolish confidence. Another reminder of his youth.

  “I was lucky last time.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Because you don’t know what you’re talking about.

  “Good.” Evan stood. “You’re going to kill Duberman, and I’m going to get laid.”

  “You do that, my boy.” Wells followed his son to the door. “One favor. Take real classes, stuff that challenges you—”

  “Of course—”

  “No. Listen.” Wells felt his anger at his son’s too-easy assurance leaking out. “Your team, it’s a gravy train. Not a lot of people on this campus are going to talk back to you. But try to remember how lucky you are. Don’t be an asshole.”

  Evan’s head jerked like Wells had slapped him. Wells wondered if he’d pushed too far. Then Evan stopped, turned. “Could be I had that coming. Can I ask you something, John?”

  Wells knew this was the question he didn’t want to hear.

  “This morning, I wanted to know about the agency, how you joined, you got all squirrely, you didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “That’s years away. And what if you go pro?” Wells filibustering now.

  “One white spot-up shooter makes the NBA a year, and it’s not gonna be me. Point is—”

  Evan paused, and Wells saw that he feared asking the question as much as Wells feared hearing it. Why? Because Evan feared Wells would judge him too weak and say no? Or because he wasn’t sure he wanted to join and feared Wells would say yes?

  “Point is, would you want me to go your way?”

  “Yes.” The word escaped before Wells could stop himself. “I would.”

  3

  SAN DIEGO

  In the morning, Wells called Shafer. “Ellis.”

  “He is risen.”

  “Funny.”

  “I didn’t know you’d take my advice so seriously.” Though Shafer’s unsurprised tone suggested otherwise. “Where you been?”

  “Hanging out with Evan. Before that, some of the country’s finest bus terminals.”

  “Fun times.”

  “Beats D.C.”

  “What doesn’t?”

  “We should have known he wouldn’t do anything.”

  “I think we did.”

  “I’m going to Hong Kong.”

  “No doubt they’ll roll out the red carpet. Planning on telling our fearless leader?”

  “No.”

  “He’ll find out, anyway.”

  “Good,” Wells said. “He wants to invite me back to the Oval Office for another chat, tell me I’m messing up his plan for world peace, great.”

  But Wells didn’t think the President would try to stop him from going after Duberman. At this point, the White House couldn’t be sure who might talk if Wells vanished or died. Plus the President had practically invited Wells to freelance by failing to deal with Duberman himself. Wells wondered if the President was cynical enough to hope that Wells would take the bait and get himself killed in the attempt.

  “This is where you tell me I’m making a mistake, right, Ellis?”

  “No. You’ve given him enough time. I’m just wondering if you have any idea how you get to our friend once you’re there?”

  “Not yet. You?”

  “Not a one. Never stopped us before.”

  The us made Wells smile. “How’s Vinny?”

  “Last time I saw him, happier than a pig eating crackers.”

  A pig eating crackers? A classic Shaferism, an expression that sounded vaguely down-home, but in fact existed nowhere outside Shafer’s mind. Wells never knew whether Shafer meant them as homage or parody.

  “You know they basically gave him back the agency,” Shafer went on.

  “Even riding the bus, I figured that much out.”

  —

  TWENTY-SEVEN DAYS after his failed deadline, the President had fired Hebley and his top aides. He made the announcement late Friday afternoon, when governments and companies dumped bad news, with Duto beside him.

  We now know the CIA misunderstood Iran’s intentions and perhaps even its ability to produce highly enriched uranium. I do not blame General Hebley alone for these mistakes, but they highlight a need for a new direction at Langley. However, I do not want to cripple our intelligence agencies at a time when America faces serious threats. As the agency’s former director, Senator Duto is uniquely positioned to help me fix this crisis. The President nodded to Duto, implicitly acknowledging him as an equal. The senator believes the CIA’s new director should be familiar with its strengths and weaknesses, rather than another outsider. After careful consideration, I have agreed.

  After a bit more throat-clearing, the President named a seventeen-year agency veteran named Peter Ludlow as acting DCI. Ludlow had been section head of the Directorate of Operations for East Asia, overseeing intel-gathering and covert ops against China and North Korea. He was a favorite of Duto’s, and his promotion proved Duto’s power.

  —


  “YOU KNOW LUDLOW?” Wells said now.

  “Some. He’s smart, but I hear he’s nervous about this. Getting jumped about five steps. He’ll be in no hurry to prove he’s his own man.”

  Duto once again proving his canniness, choosing someone who would depend on him. “How is it there these days, Ellis?”

  “Weird even by the usual standards. Everybody knows something, but nobody knows the whole story. The people who do are afraid to talk. They’re worried about blowback, maybe Congress gets serious, starts papering the place.” Paper meaning “subpoenas.” “Plus nobody is sure how long Ludlow will last, what deal the President and Vinny made. Mostly, people are keeping their heads down, waiting to see how it shakes out.”

  “What about you?”

  “What about me? People tiptoeing around me, asking sideways questions.” Shafer laughed hollowly. “When I needed them three months ago, they were hiding under their desks. I’m not doing anybody any favors. Mostly, I’m spending my time on cleanup. Seeing whether Duberman had any connections here that we didn’t find before. Answer seems to be no. Which we can both agree is good news. Also, I checked everything we have on him. Less than I would have hoped. I think we stayed away because he donated all that money to the President, we didn’t want to get involved. But I did find satellite shots of that mansion of his in Hong Kong. Two years ago, he put a mantrap inside the perimeter wall. In case you were planning on paying a visit.”

  “Hard target.”

  “Ron Jeremy hard. I’ll send you the pictures. It’s way up near the top of Victoria Peak.”

  “How nice for him.”

  “You won’t want to hear this, but you should call Duto. Tell him to make Ludlow help you out over there. You’re gonna need it.”

  Shafer was right. Wells didn’t want to call Duto. “He’s not going to help.” If Wells killed Duberman, Duto would lose his best leverage over the President.

  “Don’t be so sure. Maybe he thinks he’s squeezed the White House for all he can. Now he figures he gets the real story public, looks like a hero for stopping the war. Plus when it comes to Vinny, never discount sheer perversity as a motive. Especially when he’s running good.”

  Shafer was right on that score, too. “So that’s it?”

  “Yep. How’s Evan?”

  Wells hesitated. “He was talking about signing up.”

  “Family business. He ask your advice?”

  Wells let the question hang.

  “Whatever you told him, remember, ultimately he has to decide for himself, John.”

  “If something happened—”

  “Something happens to all of us.”

  “You think that’s profound, but it doesn’t even qualify as glib.”

  “I only mean you aren’t responsible.”

  Wells hung up, angry now with Shafer and himself for mentioning Evan. He pushed the thought aside, called Duto.

  “Senator.”

  “John Wells. Miss me?”

  “Like herpes. Campaign’s going well, I see.”

  “We can always use volunteers. Interested?”

  Wells was sick of this joust already. “Why is our friend still alive, Vinny?”

  “Blame me for anything, but not that. Not my choice. As you know.”

  “Tell me the agency’s watching him, at least.”

  “Watching, yes. I can tell you he spends most of his time in his mansion, but he’s helicoptered to his casinos in Macao a few times. Always with passengers.”

  “Smart man. How about in Macao?”

  “Far as we can tell, he stays inside his casino complex. Which is huge.”

  Far as we can tell. What Duto was really saying was that the CIA hadn’t put anyone on the ground to watch Duberman, much less tried to turn anyone in his inner circle or bugged his offices or mansion. It was sticking to zero-risk satellite and drone surveillance.

  “And before you ask, no finding,” Duto said.

  —

  A FINDING was a legal excuse for murder. As an American citizen, Duberman had Constitutional protections giving him the right to due process, including a trial. If the United States wanted to ignore those rights and assassinate him, the President had to sign a special order, officially called a “memorandum of notification” but generally referred to as a “finding.”

  Findings were controversial. But Presidents had used them before, notably in the case of Anwar al-Awlaki. Al-Awlaki was a Yemeni-American cleric with ties to al-Qaeda. In 2010, the Justice Department issued a secret forty-one-page opinion that the government could legally kill him. The opinion said his role in al-Qaeda made his assassination legal as part of the broader American war against the group. With the legal opinion protecting him, President Obama signed a finding. A year later, a Predator drone blew up his car with a Hellfire missile.

  “Al-Awlaki doesn’t cover it?” Wells said.

  “No.” Duto explained that the White House counsel, without naming Duberman, had asked the Justice Department if it could apply the al-Awlaki opinion against an American citizen who wasn’t a member of al-Qaeda. Justice turned him down, saying the President needed a fresh opinion.

  But Duberman’s case had little in common with al-Awlaki’s, and not just because of Duberman’s wealth. He had never been charged or even publicly identified as a suspect in any crime. He had never called for terrorist attacks on the United States. He lived in Hong Kong rather than the Arabian Desert. The United States could easily ask Hong Kong to extradite him. Even the most eager-to-please lawyer at Justice would have a hard time explaining why he ought to be assassinated instead of arrested and sent home for a trial.

  Of course, the President could still sign a finding on his own, without the opinion from Justice backing him up. “He won’t do it himself?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. Too risky.”

  The President had boxed himself, Wells saw. He feared public blowback too much to prosecute Duberman legally. But he feared his own legal liability too much to order a killing. “And there’s no way around it?” Wells knew the answer before he asked. Nods and whispers wouldn’t do. Without a presidential order, the CIA wouldn’t target an American citizen, especially not Aaron Duberman.

  “I think he’d rather have Duberman alive and scared than dead, anyway.”

  “Tell the truth, Vinny”—Wells was conscious of the absurdity of the words even as he spoke them—“you like him alive, too. This way you can beat up the President with him anytime.”

  “I don’t care. You want him, have at him.”

  Wells heard it now, a tiny slur in Duto’s voice. Wells had seen Duto’s liquor collection, hundreds of bottles of small-batch bourbon and single-malt scotch. It was past noon on the East Coast, and for the first time, Wells wondered if Duto was a weekend alcoholic, hiding his thirst as pretension. I’m not drunk. It was a taste test. Eight kinds of bourbon, see? Drink suited Duto’s personality. It would drop his inhibitions without touching the meanness at his core.

  Or maybe Duto just loved the idea of having a ringside seat as Wells battled Duberman. Wells choked out four unpleasant words: “I need a favor.”

  “Do tell.”

  “I’m going to Hong Kong. Promise me the agency won’t get in the way.”

  “That’s a question for the DCI.”

  Duto playing games, pretending he wasn’t running Ludlow.

  “Keep jerking me around, maybe I’ll broadside the honey wagon. Take it all public.”

  “I care why?”

  “Might make people wonder how come you didn’t tell anyone three months ago.”

  “I seriously doubt that’ll be the first question that comes up. Nonetheless. Don’t get huffy. You really want this? You haven’t had enough of this guy?”

  Wells let the question hang until Duto sighed.

  “Fine. I�
�ll tell Ludlow.”

  “COS HK will play ball?” Chief of station, Hong Kong. Technically, the station in Hong Kong should have been called a base. By long-standing tradition, the CIA had only one station in every country, usually in the capital, Beijing in the case of the People’s Republic. But because Hong Kong had been a British territory independent of China before 1987, its CIA outpost had historically been called a station. The title had survived the handover.

  “Of course. Garry Wright’s his name. Used to work for Ludlow. Matter of fact, maybe we can go one better. Under the circumstances, the station can’t offer active help. Personnel, I mean. But technical support, yes.”

  For a change, Wells wouldn’t have to sneak his gear through customs, or buy a pistol in a parking lot. “You’d do that for me, Vinny?”

  “You’re welcome. Give me some time to make the calls.”

  “A day.”

  “You wasted three months on vacation, now you’re in a rush?”

  —

  WELLS TOLD HIMSELF he hadn’t wasted three months. He’d spent time with Evan. He’d healed physically and mentally. He’d given the President a chance to keep his word.

  Now recess was over.

  Wells brewed himself a pot of coffee, sat with his laptop, reading everything he could about Duberman, looking over the photos Shafer had sent of Duberman’s mansion on Victoria Peak, checking maps of Hong Kong and Macao. No doubt Shafer had done the same work in Langley, but Shafer wouldn’t be on the ground. Wells wanted to think the situation through for himself.

  He read, made notes, read some more. Wells had met Duberman once, at his mansion in Tel Aviv. He knew firsthand that Duberman had superb security, former Israeli soldiers and Mossad operatives. In Hong Kong, he lived in what was basically a castle. The photos showed a mansion high on Victoria Peak, the 1,800-foot mountain that was the highest point on Hong Kong Island. The Peak rose almost straight out of Hong Kong’s harbor. A concrete-and-steel maze of apartment towers, skyscrapers, and boulevards covered its lower half. Then the sprawl ended. The top half of the Peak was steep, forested, and surprisingly undeveloped. Only a few dozen astronomically expensive homes and apartment buildings lined its narrow roads.