Patriot

by M. A. Rothman

  “Simple,” Richards said. “Everything everyone else can’t.”

  “The Outfit was formed during the Revolutionary War,” Thompson explained. “Hence the name. It started with a group of British officers that weren’t, strictly speaking, loyal to the Crown, along with the members of the original Continental Congress. They saw the need for an organization that could do what they needed to do, but couldn’t just come out and do.”

  Connor raised an eyebrow. “Like?”

  “Like assassinate the king of England.”

  “I’m pretty sure the king of England was never assassinated,” Connor said.

  Thompson nodded. “Correct. The war ended before they got into position to pull it off. But it was in the works. At the time, it was believed that King George the Third was mentally ill. His son, George the Fourth, was old enough to take the throne, and he was a much gentler soul—a regular patron of the arts. Washington himself signed off on the operation. And that was just the beginning. After we’d won the war, the founding fathers knew they’d need to retain some backdoor abilities to effect these kinds of operations without involving Congress. They’d seen how much arguing went on about even the simplest issues, and they realized that if they ever needed to act quickly, they’d need to be able to get around that bureaucratic nonsense.”

  “So even back then, they wanted to get around red tape.”

  “Exactly,” Thompson said. “You’ve seen it. You’ve experienced it your entire career. The founders of the Outfit were true patriots. They wanted the best for everyone involved, but often the best is the enemy of the good. And often the good is bogged down by the weight of governing. We needed a way to act for the betterment of all.”

  “But this is DC. Everyone wants their hands in everything—they all want their say in decisions. You’re saying the Outfit can skip all that?”

  Richards, who’d been leading them around the outside of the cubicles, turned and smiled. “Pretty much. Our number one mandate is: if it’s actionable, we act. It’s as simple as that. We don’t need to build an airtight case for court, and we don’t need to convince politicians somewhere on some golf course that a particular target needs taking out. We just do.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me, but that sounds a bit like an anarchist’s wet dream,” Connor said. “What about when one of your people goes on a power trip? Or is just a sadistic bastard?”

  Thompson shook his head. “We’ve never had that kind of issue because we’re very particular about who we let in the fold. We know more about the people who step into our inner sanctum than their parents do. The only reason you’re here is because we’re convinced you’d be an asset—that you truly want to do the right thing by your country and its citizens. Our organization is mostly made of up former intel and military operators from both sides of the pond. Luckily for us, you’re both.”

  “Wait.” Connor slowed. “Across the pond? The British?”

  “Did you miss the whole part about us partnering with them to kill the king? The Outfit’s access to data is unmatched worldwide. There are no barriers, either domestic or international, that we can’t get around.”

  “Where do you get the money for all this?”

  “The founders were all men of some wealth, and they contributed a portion of their estates to the cause. Millions of dollars in 1770s money.”

  “Holy crap,” Connor said. “That’s got to be billions of dollars now.”

  Thompson shrugged. “Let’s just say that funding isn’t an issue, and we have absolutely no connection to the federal budget of either country.”

  Richards stopped halfway down the row of cubicles and motioned to the display screens hanging from the ceiling. “We have major operations running right now in Berlin, Moscow, Turkey, Iraq, China, you name it. Anywhere a threat to the stability of the world pops up, we go and shut it down.”

  “So you’re assassins?”

  Thompson winced. “Eh, no, not really. We try to avoid that whenever possible. Sometimes, though…”

  “We do what we have to do,” Richards said. “Everything’s black bag, strictly off the books, no records, no intelligence subcommittee meetings, nothing. We take orders directly from the Executive. And by Executive, I mean the President.”

  “Nothing’s that secret,” Connor said.

  “We are,” Richards said, his face devoid of humor.

  “Think about it,” Thompson said. “Have you ever heard of us? Ever heard of anything like this? Other than in a James Bond movie?”

  Connor hesitated, then chuckled. He couldn’t picture these men jumping out of airplanes or driving fast cars through the Italian countryside with a beautiful woman beside them. “No, no I haven’t.”

  “There you go. We’ve been operating in one form or another for the better part of two hundred and fifty years. Longer than the CIA. In fact, both the bureau and the agency were formed to be scapegoats for the Outfit. Somebody way back when realized that they’d sometimes need a legitimate funnel to get information to Congress. Kind of hard to tell a subcommittee that our unnamed super-secret agency got us intel. Seeing as we don’t even exist. We’re ghosts.”

  “More like the boogeyman,” Connor said. “Okay. I understand who you are. Sort of. But what do you want with me?”

  Richards opened a glass door leading into a conference room. “Let’s talk about that.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was an ordinary conference room: long table surrounded by chairs, a few flat-screen TVs on one wall, and thick glass on the opposite wall looking out on the main chamber. When Thompson shut the door behind them, it silenced all the noise coming from outside.

  “All right,” Connor said, his hand on the back of one of the chairs. “What’s this all about? I know you didn’t bring me here just to give me a tour and show me all your cool toys.”

  “Correct,” Thompson said. “We brought you here to offer you a job.”

  “I already have a job.”

  “A new one,” Richards said. “We want you to help us take down this terrorist cell.”

  Thompson took a seat at the head of the table. He swiped his hand over the table’s black mirrored surface, and a keyboard appeared. He typed in a couple of commands. The office windows turned opaque, then the TV screens blinked to life.

  Connor’s military service file appeared on one of the screens. It included his photograph from the day he completed the Special Forces Qualification Course, a list of his various medals and citations, and a record of every operation he’d ever been a part of.

  Connor stepped closer and scanned the list, stopping when he saw an entry for Operation Osprey, complete with dates. He pointed. “That operation was supposed to have been redacted from every official record.”

  “The key word there is official,” Thompson said. “Our records are a lot more complete.”

  “Apparently,” Connor agreed.

  On another screen was Connor’s CIA record, listing all the compartments he’d been cleared for and the investigations he’d been a part of. Additional panels showed emails, photographs, and files located on Connor’s secure work computer.

  “We’ve been following your investigation into Hakimi’s phone call and his activities in the East China Sea,” Thompson said.

  Connor turned away from the screens, crossing his arms. “How in the hell did you get past the firewalls and get access to the CIA’s secure computers?”

  Richards laughed. “The Outfit’s reach sometimes even scares me.”

  “All right,” Connor said. “You’ve got a neat place here, and that toilet trick is one I’ve never seen before, and you seem to know your way around classified records. But so what? You expect me to just up and leave the agency? Just like that?”

  Thompson leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Do you want to go back to your office at Langley? Slog through endless phone calls hoping for that one piece of actionable intel, only to be told you can’t act on it?”

/>   Richards chimed in. “Or perhaps you want us to call that reporter for you.”

  “You’re trying to do the right thing,” Thompson said. “You’re trying to do the work that could save millions of people’s lives. But you’re coming up against the same thing our organization was established to circumvent.”

  “Red tape,” Connor said.

  Thompson nodded. “Red tape. You’re out there trying to save our asses, and instead you get shut down by managerial decisions that are either based on budget considerations, or, as in this case, based on purely arbitrary crap. Am I right?”

  Connor wanted to argue, but found he couldn’t. “Pretty much.”

  “You developed a solid lead, based on actionable intelligence, which you followed up on in person to verify, and it was still shut down. And the whole international-domestic obstacle—frankly that’s one of the dumbest things this country’s ever done. Segmenting our intelligence services leads to incomplete investigations and fragmented intelligence due to piss-poor communication. You only need to look at one incident in recent history to prove that point.”

  “9/11,” Connor said.

  “That’s right.”

  “So where were you guys on that one?” Connor asked.

  Thompson rubbed his chin. “What can I say? Sometimes we miss too. By the time we tracked down all nineteen of them, the planes were already in the air and seconds away …”

  “Yeah, I get it.”

  “But that tragedy forced us to look at our procedures and change some things—namely real-time international transit surveillance. We’re now tied into about ninety percent of the world’s air transit system. We know who’s flying when and where and with whom. Facial recognition is coming online more slowly, but we have mobile units for that. And the delays aren’t due to bureaucracy, but to infrastructure. A lot of the systems needed to run what we do are simply more advanced than what’s available in a lot of places.”

  “Point is,” Richards said, “we’re in a much better position to act than anyone else in the world. And we don’t have to deal with any of the bureaucratic crap.”

  “So,” Connor said. “You already know everything I know. Why do you even need me? Why not just save the day yourselves?”

  “Because we could use your skills.” Thompson jabbed a finger at Connor. “You have language skills. You’re combat proven. And you want this, even if you don’t admit it quite yet. You want to investigate the mosques, ports, and what Hakimi found in the East China Sea, and for better or for worse, in your current position you’re not permitted to do any of that. The truth is, the management of the CIA, in cooperation with some high-level senators, is playing politics with our nation’s security. They’re concerned about the ‘optics’ of investigations that are specific to religions or nationalities, regardless of the intel. And to us, that’s unacceptable.”

  “I agree,” Connor said.

  “Our national security can’t be put on a litmus test of political correctness, nor can it be filtered through bias,” Thompson said. “We follow the evidence wherever it takes us. That’s what you’d like to do, right?”

  For the first time since leaving his office at Langley, Connor felt a surge of excitement. Regardless of how outlandish this entire situation appeared, the mysterious men in the overpriced black suits made a pretty good argument. Connor couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do more than track down Hakimi and nail him to the wall.

  “That’s right.”

  “Excellent.” Thompson tapped a key on the table’s mirrored surface, and the screens went dark. “You’re being transferred.”

  Connor uncrossed his arms. “Wait—transferred?”

  Richards grinned. “Demoted, actually. Don’t worry, your pay will remain the same, and once you’re committed and finish your first assignment, you’ll be tracking to a higher pay schedule. Your agency credit card will debit from a new account—one of ours.”

  Thompson keyed another command, and Connor’s CIA file reappeared, with his current assignment and position highlighted in red. A few more keystrokes changed his title from Counterintelligence Threat Analyst to Support Integration Officer, with ‘TEMP’ in small caps next to it.

  “It’s done. You’re now a deployed SIO,” Thompson said. “With a field position, under a section chief who doesn’t exist. As far as the agency is concerned, you’re being transferred to a classified remote posting. We’ll keep you posted there until you decide whether this”—he motioned around the office—“is what you want to do.”

  “I still don’t know exactly what this means,” Connor said.

  “It means you’ll be able to have a real effect on important things. You know, what you left Spec Ops for,” Richards said. “Saving lives. Protecting the country.”

  “But why me?” Connor asked. “I’m sure you have other operators with language skills. Most of us who’ve been in the sandbox have some Dari or Pashto or Arabic drilled into us.”

  Thompson pointed at him. “Because you were the one who followed up on the lead. The only one who pushed to get the intel.”

  “That could’ve been anyone. It just happened that the call was forwarded to my inbox and not someone else’s.”

  “You followed up,” Richards said. “You could’ve just let it go. Even after that dickhead Pennington told you to drop it, you didn’t. You kept going. Hell, you went to Japan on your own dime, for Christ’s sake.”

  “An unapproved move, I’d like to add,” Thompson said.

  “That was a dumb move,” Connor admitted. “Damn near got myself killed.”

  Straight-faced, Richards said, “But you didn’t.”

  Thompson laughed. “That was a pretty legit piece of work, though. You really took that asshole down hard.”

  Connor shrugged. “I didn’t have a choice. It was either kill him or he was going to kill me. And it got me nowhere. I didn’t get what I needed.”

  “You didn’t,” Thompson said, “but we did.” He tapped another key, and Connor’s file was replaced by a grid of video images. They were dark, but Connor immediately recognized them for what they were: the security camera footage from the salvage ship.

  “Holy crap.”

  The videos played, showing the same salvage operation from multiple angles. Connor stepped closer as the remains of the fighter jet were hauled across the gap between the two ships. One feed showed the bow of the second ship, and when lightning flashed, the letters painted on its side were clear as day.

  “Imperial Gift,” Connor read aloud.

  “It’s registered out of Taiwan,” Thompson said. “Departed twelve days ago, bound for San Francisco. I doubt it’ll land there, though.

  “How did you get this?” Connor asked, turning back to Thompson and pointing a thumb at the recording. “We couldn’t even get a FISA for this. Hell, I was turned down before I submitted the request.”

  Richards laughed. “A FISA? You’re still thinking like an agency lackey. We aren’t looking to put this guy behind bars. We don’t need to justify where we get the information from. We just take it.”

  “You hacked a foreign company’s computer system? That’s illegal.”

  “You’ve got to stop thinking in those terms,” Richard said. “Legal, illegal, that’s all gray area to us. We’re not going to prosecute anyone, and no one’s coming after us. We don’t have an internal affairs section looking to catch us up on a procedural complaint or upper management breathing down our necks about a pissed-off senator. We don’t have to abide by a policy manual or regulations thought up by a bureaucrat in an office somewhere who doesn’t otherwise know dick about what we do. We just do what’s necessary to get the job done, always keeping in mind that what we do must be for the greater good.”

  “It’s hard to believe you don’t fall under any kind of oversight at all,” Connor said. “It feels like I’ve been in the minors my whole life and have now just been called up to the big leagues.”

  “This isn’t the big
leagues, Connor,” Thompson said. “We’re in a league all our own.”

  “So, what—are we really like James Bond?”

  Richards smiled. “James Bond is a fictional character. We’re the real deal.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Okay, so now we go find the ship?” Connor asked. “It could be anywhere.”

  “Agreed. And there’s no telling whether or not they moved the bomb from that ship to another one,” Thompson said.

  “Which is probably what they did,” Richards added.

  “And they’ll almost certainly need to work on it off-ship,” Thompson said. “It’s been under salt water a really long time. That tends to mess with things made of metal. Our experts figure it’ll take at least a few days for someone to extract the fissionable material, rebuild the casing, and establish a working trigger. There aren’t an awful lot of nuclear scientists who would be willing to work on a project like this.”

  “That’s good for us,” Connor said. “If they’re bringing the nuke in through the ports, then at least the radiation detectors should let us know where. Those detectors will notice if someone’s hidden a nuke in a freight carrier, right?”

  Richards nodded. “That’s what they’re there for.”

  “The last information we had on Hakimi put him with an extremist group whose name translates to ‘Brilliant Dawn.’ Evidently it’s an offshoot of ISIS. Probably a splinter faction because regular ISIS was just too warm and fuzzy for our friend Hakimi. Instead of training military camps and focusing on roadside bombs in Afghanistan, they’ve been transitioning to establishing cells in the US. Some of them have been found stockpiling fairly conventional ingredients for IEDs—bringing Afghanistan to the US. And it’s almost certain they’ve managed to sneak in some folks that we don’t know about.”

  “What does that mean for us?” Connor asked.

  “It means we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “If it’s Stateside, shouldn’t we let the bureau know?”

  “Are you serious?” Richards said. “The FBI is even more bureaucracied up than the CIA, and with all the internal conflict they have going on right now, their credibility is shot. Not to mention their operational reach. If it’s not a corrupt politician or a masked bank robber in Kansas, they pretty much aren’t going to do anything at all.”