The Exile

by Andrew Britton

  Sadowski looked startled. “How did you…?”

  The CIA station chief waved it away. “What else could it be? I was starting to think that your visitor might have taken it with him.”

  “He did,” Sadowski confirmed, sitting back in his seat. Now that the wall between them had melted, he seemed almost eager to talk. “Reynolds called down a few minutes beforehand and told me to give him the security disks and any backups, no questions asked.”

  “Is that all he took?”

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  “Did Reynolds say who the man was? Did he give a name?”

  “No. He just said that someone would be down for the disks. The guy showed up a few minutes later, and I handed them over. Then he said he wanted something to carry them in. He looked like he was in a hurry, and I didn’t want any problems with Reynolds, so I just emptied my ruck, stuck the disks in, and sent him on his way.”

  “But you didn’t give him the backups,” Holland pointed out. “Why not?”

  Sadowski shrugged. “It wasn’t a normal request. More importantly, it was against protocol. I didn’t like it, so I decided to cover my rear end, just in case. Believe me, when you join the Corps, CYA is one of the first things you learn about.”

  “And let me guess. The disks you have in that bag are just another set of copies.”

  The marine didn’t take the bait. “Actually, these are the backup disks themselves. Your call caught me off guard, sir…. I didn’t think to make any more.”

  “Right,” Holland said dryly. “That’s why it took you two hours to get back to me.”

  Sadowski opened his mouth to argue, but Holland held up a hand, cutting him off. “Relax, Sergeant. I’m not blaming you. I would have done the same thing in your position.”

  The marine nodded, clearly relieved to be off the hook. He seemed to have forgotten that Holland had no actual authority over him. Reaching down, he grabbed the bag at his feet and placed it square on the desk. Holland pulled it toward him and withdrew the contents. There were four disks in all, each in a clear plastic jewel case.

  “Why so many?” he asked. “How long was he here?”

  “Not long. Maybe half an hour or so, but those recordings cover every camera we have, including those with a view of the street. I figured you would want everything.”

  Holland looked up. “You knew from the start that you were going to give them to me?”

  “No,” Sadowski admitted. “When I talked to you earlier, I was still on the fence.” He didn’t bother to say what had changed his mind. Instead, he nodded toward the small stack of recordable disks. “What are you going to do with them, sir?”

  Holland had already thought this through. “First, you and I are going to go down to Post One. That’s the only place in the building that has a multiplexer, and I don’t want to have to flip from camera to camera, scene to scene. We’ll watch these together. You know this place better than anyone, and you might be able to spot anything out of the ordinary. I want your input.”

  “And then?”

  “That depends on whether or not I can identify him. Maybe seeing his face again will jog something loose. If I can pick him out, I’ll pass the name up the line, along with a detailed report. If I can’t…Well, we’ll just have to see. Either way, I’m going to send these recordings to Langley. They’ll run the video through the facial recognition software. Also, if the man’s name is anywhere on file, they’ll find it.”

  “But you’re sure—”

  “It’s in there somewhere,” Holland said, anticipating the question. As he stared at the small pile of disks, he knew they contained the information he had been seeking all day. It was strange to be that close and yet still not know. “He’s in there somewhere. I’ve never been more certain of anything. And once we find out who he is, we’ll have some answers.”

  CHAPTER 11

  PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA

  Jonathan Harper sat in the corner booth of the small bar and fought the temptation to stare at the door. He had ordered food, but he had no appetite. He had ordered a drink, but it remained untouched, as he did not want the alcohol to affect his judgment, to lower his guard. He had never been more conflicted.

  Part of him—a very big part—wanted the man he was waiting for to make an appearance, as that was the whole reason he had traveled 8,000 miles to the South African capital. Another part of him wanted to get up and leave before he was forced to confront his old friend, a term he used—at least these days—with more than a little uncertainty. He’d been wrestling with this inner conflict for the past seventy-two hours at the very least. Much of that time had been spent debating the pros and cons of traveling to Pretoria, but even now, with the decision made, he still wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing. His apprehension was only natural, he knew, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear, and the moment of truth was fast approaching.

  It had been almost a year since he had last seen Ryan Kealey, but he could remember their last meeting with crystal clarity, if only because of what it had led to. At Harper’s request, they had met at a restaurant in downtown Washington. It was three months after an operation in Pakistan that had ended with the recovery of a senior U.S. official and the death of Amari Saifi, an Algerian terrorist who, with the help of a former Pakistani general, had struck at the heart of the U.S. government.

  Brynn Fitzgerald, still acting secretary of state at the time, had been kidnapped after a bloody attack on her motorcade that left 18 people dead. One had been the head of her security detail. The other had been Lee Patterson, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and a college friend, who’d caught a bullet between her eyes.

  It had taken Kealey and his team four days to track Fitzgerald down, and then they had moved in to extract her, assisted by a team of 24 Special Forces soldiers and some heavy support from the air.

  The mission was successful, but Fitzgerald’s rescue had not been without serious cost. Kealey was gravely wounded in the rescue attempt, and a fellow operative, Naomi Kharmai, died as an indirect result of the operation. She was killed—or presumably killed, as her body was never recovered—by Javier Machado, a retired CIA case officer with extraordinary connections throughout Europe and Southeast Asia. Machado had offered to help Kealey find Fitzgerald in exchange for a favor, but when the favor had proved too costly, Kealey had improvised, and Kharmai had paid the ultimate price.

  Over the past couple of months Harper had realized that was still accruing unwanted interest. For he’d become increasingly convinced it was Patterson’s death that had sent Fitzgerald down the slippery slope of illogic into the place where fools like Stralen thrived.

  At any rate, once the smoke cleared, an in-depth investigation—headed by the FBI and supported behind the scenes by the CIA—was launched into Kharmai’s death, but not in time to bring any closure to the matter. The one person who might have been able to provide some meaningful answers, Machado, had already disappeared without a trace, abandoning his home in Spain, his wife, and his surviving daughter in the process. Kealey, after a lengthy convalescence, had disappeared in turn, and that was when the bodies began to pile up. An Arab fundamentalist in Paris, a money launderer in Antwerp, a smuggler in Karachi…It was the start of a series of killings that, over the course of the next several months, were to work their way across much of Machado’s former territory. Presumably, the trail ended with Machado himself, although his body—like that of Naomi Kharmai—was never recovered.

  This missing link did not affect the way Harper viewed the outcome. He knew Ryan Kealey better than anyone else, and there was no doubt in his mind that he had managed to track the Spaniard down. To the deputy director’s way of thinking, the absence of a body only served as additional proof that Kealey had managed to locate—and eliminate—his primary target. Harper had never been more certain of anything.

  He caught himself staring at the door again. Giving in to his jangling nerves, he lifted his scotch, drank half of it down, and tho
ught back to the last time he had seen the younger man. It was three months after Naomi’s death, a month before the killings began.

  Toward the end of October a private ceremony was held at the White House, the purpose of which was to posthumously award Naomi Kharmai the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civil award in the country. Kealey refused to attend the ceremony, though he reluctantly agreed to meet Harper in the city later that day. When he finally arrived at the agreed upon restaurant, more than an hour late, Harper was shocked by his appearance. The bullet that nearly killed him had stripped at least thirty pounds from his already lean frame, leaving him looking more like the walking dead than one of the country’s top counterterrorism agents. They ordered food, though Kealey left his meal untouched as Harper brought him up to speed on recent developments in the ongoing investigation.

  Javier Machado was still missing, but one of his associates had turned up in Paris, a Hezbollah lieutenant by the name of Yassir Rabbani. As Harper described the circumstances, he waited for the inevitable volley of questions, but Kealey simply sat there listening. Later Harper would recall that the only time he had really reacted was at the mention of Rabbani’s name, which he’d filed away with a slow, steady blink of his eyes. After another twenty minutes of awkward, one-sided conversation, they parted ways at the door.

  And that was it. The last time Harper had seen him. Less than a month later Rabbani was dead, soon to be followed by the smuggler, the money launderer, and eventually, Machado himself. The dominoes falling one by one by one…

  A gust of cold air brought Harper back to the present now. He looked up as the door was pulled open, but a young woman’s indignant shriek of feigned offense, followed by a burst of drunken laughter, quickly dispelled his interest. He took another sip of his scotch and tried to relax. It was an impossible task; there was too much to think about. Too much to anticipate. Harper knew that the younger man wasn’t happy with the way Naomi had been pulled into the previous assignment, and as an extension, he felt sure that Kealey blamed him, at least in part, for what had happened to her. Or for what he thought had happened to her, anyway.

  But not as much as he blamed himself. There could be no doubt of that. It was precisely as Harper had told Allison Dearborn. As long as Harper had known him, Ryan Kealey had made a habit of taking too much on his shoulders, including the welfare of the people he worked with. In Naomi’s case, the fact that they had been far more than coworkers served only to compound the guilt Kealey had felt in the wake of her death. At least, that had been Harper’s impression during their final hour or two in Washington. Now, more than a year later, Ryan Kealey was essentially a stranger to him, and the deputy director had to rely on Allison’s profile to guide him, if not tell him what to expect when the younger man finally showed up, assuming he even did.

  What was it Allison had said in her office?

  God forgive me if it borders on psychological manipulation. But you get him here to me, just get him here, and I’ll prepare you for your meeting with him. And then find a way to live with this bargain.

  Harper had made his promise, and thanks to Allison, he had come prepared. Sitting next to him were several folders filled with the evidence he’d acquired to support his case. Of far more importance were the two small photographs in his jacket pocket. There was nothing especially unusual about either shot, other than the status of their subjects, both of whom had played a pivotal role in recent events. But he was banking on the fact that they would push all the right psychological buttons.

  Another blast of cold air caused Harper to raise his head. This time it was the man he’d been waiting for. He watched with rising unease as Ryan Kealey entered the bar, his eyes moving over the scattered occupants, drifting from left to right. Finally, his gaze settled on Harper. When their eyes locked, the deputy director saw the one thing he had not been expecting—nothing at all. No expression of any kind. Kealey did not look surprised in the least to see him, but he didn’t seem pleased, either. His face was completely blank.

  At least, that was how it would appear to most people. After an initial moment of surprise, Jonathan Harper realized he’d simply needed a moment to reorient himself to Kealey’s ways and measure him within his distinct frame of reference. He had known him for nearly eleven years, and he could see through the neutral façade. Even from across the room, he could sense the bitter anger that resided beneath his calm exterior. It had been there the last time they had seen each other, but it had been there before that, too. Naomi Kharmai wasn’t the first person Kealey had lost to his line of work. There had been Katie Donovan before her. And even before that, the little girl in Bosnia.

  Kealey was still staring in his direction, clearly debating his next move. In that frozen moment Harper felt sure that he would simply turn and walk right out the door. Instead, he started across the room, and Harper breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Despite the assurances he’d given Director Andrews two months earlier, he had known it would not be easy to draw Kealey back into the fold. For this reason, he’d hoped that it wouldn’t be necessary, but recent events—not only in Sudan, but in Washington, D.C.—had forced his hand. Now that it was necessary, at least in his judgment, he knew that he couldn’t afford to fail, and everything would hinge on how he handled the next few minutes.

  He watched as the younger man approached. Instead of sliding into the opposite seat, though, Kealey stopped a few feet away and fixed him with a calm, steady gaze.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Harper did not immediately respond, even though he knew he was pushing his luck by ignoring the question. Instead, he took a moment to look the other man over. Kealey had replaced most of the weight he’d lost the previous year, but while his upper body was reasonably filled out, his face was still gaunt, suggesting that he’d packed on the pounds in a hurry. The lingering effects of the bullet he’d taken in Pakistan showed in the hard lines that creased his deeply tanned skin, as well as the dark shadows beneath his deep-set eyes. He had not shaven in several weeks, judging from the thick, uneven growth on the lower half of his face, and his lank black hair looked as if it hadn’t been trimmed in months.

  The man’s appearance did not inspire a great deal of confidence. It never had, for that matter, but Kealey seemed to have reached a new low in that department. Harper couldn’t help but feel that if he were to take away the black leather jacket, dark jeans, and Columbia hiking boots, Ryan Kealey, in his current state, would look more like a transient than the highly trained counterterrorist operative he actually was. Before flying into Pretoria, Harper’s primary concern had been whether or not he could talk the younger man into coming back. Now, faced with this less than encouraging picture, he was starting to wonder if he should even try.

  Harper shook it off, reminding himself of what Kealey had done the previous week. On the flight over, he had read a detailed account of the attack on Jacob Zuma’s motorcade in Johannesburg. The details of that report, if nothing else, assured him that Kealey had not lost a step in the last year, despite the lasting effects of his wounds. More than that, Harper reminded himself that the man standing before him had never failed to achieve his given objective, and perfect track records were hard to come by in their line of work. That the current situation had nothing to do with Kealey’s specialty didn’t concern the deputy director in the least. Kealey’s skills were not only unique but highly transferable, and Harper had no doubt that he would able to bring them to bear in the forthcoming weeks, assuming he accepted the task at hand.

  Still ignoring the pointed question, Harper appraised the younger man carefully, his face giving nothing away. “How have you been, Ryan? It’s been a long time.”

  “Not long enough,” Kealey replied. His flat tone seemed to indicate that Harper’s visit was nothing more than a mild inconvenience, easily remedied. “Why are you here, John? What do you want?”

  Harper sighed wearily and gestured at the opposite seat. “Sit down for a minute, will you
? I flew eight thousand miles to see you, Ryan…. It’s the least you can do.”

  Kealey stared at him a long while, impassive, then slid into the booth on the opposite side. Harper was momentarily surprised by the man’s ready compliance, but he quickly realized that the gesture meant nothing at all. Although it was warm inside the bar, Kealey hadn’t removed his jacket, and he hadn’t ordered a drink. There was nothing keeping him there but the history between them, and Harper knew that would take him only so far. He would have to get to the point quickly, or risk losing the man once and for all.

  “You don’t seem surprised to see me,” he said.

  “When my bodyguards disappeared this afternoon, I decided it could only be one of two things,” Kealey replied. “Either someone in the SAPS got the security pulled so they could get to me, or you were in town. I was hoping for the former.”

  Harper ignored the unsubtle jab. The “bodyguards” Kealey was referring to had been supplied through a directive issued by President Jacob Zuma himself. The orders had been handed down less than twenty-four hours after the failed assassination in Johannesburg. Since officers in the South African Police Service had been behind the attempt on Zuma’s life, the entire organization had been deemed compromised. With few options remaining, Kealey’s protective detail had been culled from the ranks of the South African Army. His personal security team consisted of four enlisted soldiers and one officer, an infantry captain, all of whom had been pulled from their regular duties at Special Forces headquarters in Pretoria.

  Despite the lengths to which Zuma had gone to protect Kealey in the wake of the incident, the American’s future in South Africa was far from assured. Harper had learned as much through a brief conversation with Zuma himself, which had been conducted by telephone earlier in the day. While the South African leader credited Kealey with saving his life, the fact remained that he had killed six police officers on a crowded street in broad daylight. That kind of bloodshed could not be covered up, and South Africa was a far cry from Iraq, where a similar incident might have been met with a slap on the wrist and a plane ticket home.