by Vince Flynn
Ferris grabbed the dog and pulled her onto his lap. He scratched her neck while saying, “I heard today didn’t go so well.”
Wilson tugged at his jacket. “It was a complete fucking disaster.”
“Must you be so vulgar?”
“You have to be shitting me. You expect me to believe that you don’t swear when you’re angry?”
Ferris shook his head in a slow, disapproving manner. “There was a time, but I’ve learned it does no good.”
“Well, you have a day like I had today and then you can fucking lecture me about swearing.” Wilson looked out the window at the passing brownstones. “Do you know exactly how bad it was?”
“I don’t have any details other than the fact that you’ve been placed on administrative leave.”
“Do you know what that means?”
“It typically means that you continue to get paid while an independent panel decides if you’ve committed enough wrongdoing to be fired.”
“Maybe in your normal government job, but not at the FBI. Administrative leave is a mark so black you can kiss your entire career good-bye.”
“That’s one way to look at it.”
“It’s the only way to look at it. Three of my direct bosses were in that meeting, and in their eyes I’m done.”
“Well, they’re not the only people who matter in this town.”
Wilson balled his fists in frustration. “You don’t get it. They’ve already determined that this bullshit with the Swiss banker is an attempt by a hostile foreign intelligence agency to
destabilize the CIA.”
“I don’t believe that,” Ferris scoffed.
“They sounded pretty convinced, and to really make sure I understood they brought Kennedy into the meeting. Do you know what she did?”
“No.”
“She pulled out a copy of my national security nondisclosure document and threw it in my face. Told me if I so much as talked to anyone about any of this she’d make sure I went to jail.”
“She’s bluffing. They’re all bluffing because they’re scared.”
“And Miller doesn’t get scared. He’s been running the FBI for four years, and he might be a lot of things, but a shrinking violet is not one of them. If he thought this stuff on Rapp and Rickman was legit, he would go after them until they were behind bars. He’s seen something. Somebody showed him something that convinced him all of this information is bullshit.”
“Probably falsified by Kennedy. She’s not afraid to operate that way. How do you think she holds on to power?”
A thought slapped Wilson in the face and he turned to Ferris and asked, “Where did you get your information about Rapp and Rickman?”
“From a very well-placed source.”
“Sure you did. Who’s the source?”
“I don’t like your tone,” Ferris said with a steely stare.
A crazy laugh rumbled up from Wilson’s bowels. “That’s the best you can do? You get me all worked up and I jump on this for you and now my career is in the toilet and the best you can do is tell me you don’t like my tone? Well, fuck you very much, Senator.”
The senator’s face flushed with anger. He was clearly not used to anyone speaking to him in this way, let alone a public servant. “Joe, I can help you, but you need to trust me and you need to keep your calm. Good God, man! I thought you were a professional. This is the first quarter of this little game and you’re acting like it’s over.”
“Well, from where I’m sitting, it pretty much is over.”
“It is not, and get hold of yourself.” Ferris tossed the dog back onto Wilson’s lap. “I have yet to hold a single hearing. When I do, Kennedy is going to have to answer a lot of questions and you will be my star witness. She will regret the day she threw that document in your face.”
Wilson wrestled with the dog. “How can you be so sure?”
“As I’ve told you, I have my sources. You need to trust me.”
Wilson shook his head. “You’re going to have to do better than that. I’m the one drowning here, while you’re sitting on the lido deck sucking down some fruity drink. I need some reassurances. Part of my review is going to be a lot of questions about how I was pointed in this direction… questions that will eventually lead to you. At this point, you want me to play ball I need some confidence that I will be proven right.”
Ferris rubbed his index finger along his lips while he thought about it. After a few seconds he said, “I cannot tell you who my source is, but he is a very high-ranking government official of one our staunchest allies. Someone of impeccable character.”
“Will this person testify if called on?”
“God, no. Don’t be a fool. That’s not how this works.”
“So I’m the only person who’s putting his career on the line? This other person gets to make accusations and play it safe?”
“Don’t be naive. This person would lose everything. He brought the information to me as a favor.”
“That’s not going to do me any good.” Wilson was feeling more and more isolated. Rapp and Rickman and who knew how many other scumbags, and that bitch Kennedy, were all guilty as hell, but Ferris and this mystery informant weren’t exactly exuding courage. “This is bullshit.”
“Joel, I feel bad for you.” Ferris recognized that he was in danger of losing Wilson. The same characteristics that had made him the right man to sic on Langley were now isolating him from Ferris. “But you need to hang in there. Very soon I will be in a position to put a great deal of pressure on Ms. Kennedy. Until then, though, I need you to do something.”
“Why does it always involve me doing something for you? When are you going to do something for me?”
Ferris had had enough. He stared angrily at Wilson and said, “You need to snap out of it, buddy. You’re acting like a baby. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. This is Washington. It’s a tough place. What did you expect… that people like Kennedy and Rapp would quake at the sight of your badge and roll over?”
“No,” Wilson said defensively.
“Then get your head in the game. I told you, this is early days and you are on the team that is going to win, and when we do, Director Miller and an awful lot of other people are going to have to kiss your ass and apologize.”
Wilson liked the sound of that. “Okay, okay. What is it that you need me to do next?”
“You’ve heard of Darren Sickles?”
“CIA station chief, Kabul… I just met him.”
“Well, apparently he’s been recalled and Kennedy and Rapp are making his life miserable.”
“And why should I care?”
“Because, apparently, Mr. Rapp made certain threats against Mr. Sickles’s life.”
Wilson was suspicious. “Where did you hear this?”
“Arianna Vinter from the State Department.”
“I met her as well.”
“Well, you should interview her. She said that Mr. Rapp was extremely threatening.”
A scowl washed over Wilson’s face. “Stuff like that is not easy to prove in court.”
“I’m not talking about court. I’m talking about a public hearing on Capitol Hill, in my committee room with cameras and lots of press. You need to stop thinking like an agent all the time. We need to crucify Rapp in public. Paint a picture of an out-of-control sociopath who threatens, lies, and cheats to get what he wants. Once we do that, your legal case will fall into place.”
Two blocks away Scott Coleman was sitting in the back of a black Honda Odyssey minivan. The bug had been easy to plant. A cable company uniform and a few dog treats were all it took. The little pooch was not a guard dog. Even so, Coleman laced the treats with a mild sedative, parked the van in the alley, dropped the treats over the fence, and pretended to check the cable lines. After five minutes he entered the backyard and greeted the dog with a few more treats of the nonmedicated variety. He dropped to a knee, and while petting the dog, fixed the bug to the collar.
A quick sound ch
eck with the men in the van verified that it was working. Coleman and his men then left the area, knowing that Wilson was at FBI headquarters. When Wilson left the building shortly after noon, a second team followed him home and was able to listen in on the bug. Nothing of real interest was reported other than the fact that the team thought they heard Wilson crying at one point. Having lost men in battle, Coleman had no respect for a man who cried over his own fuckups.
As the former SEAL listened to the dialogue between the senator and Wilson, he nodded with the confidence that he was going to be able to give Kennedy some actionable intelligence. If the senator was in fact getting his intel from a foreign intelligence asset, he had recklessly placed himself in a very precarious position. On top of that, they now had his game plan. The man wanted to hold public hearings.
Coleman transferred the audio file of the conversation onto his smartphone and then placed it in an email marked Urgent and sent it to Kennedy. He then asked the driver to pull over.
“Guys,” Coleman said to his two men, “stay with them and email me any updates.”
“Where are you going?” the wiry tech asked him.
“Zurich. Keep sending me stuff. I should be back in a few days.” Coleman closed the door and jogged off in the direction of his car.
Chapter 50
Islamabad, Pakistan
Nadeem Ashan had endured difficulties before but none of them compared to what he was now going through. In the middle of dinner last night there had been a knock on the door. He had feared such an event all day, ever since a second video of Joe Rickman had been released. In it he had clearly implied that Ashan was an American agent. Ashan knew he needed to confront the lies, so he had gone directly to the director general’s office to state his innocence and to offer his assistance in any way that would help disprove what was an obvious attempt at disinformation. Ashan could tell by Taj’s tepid response that this was not a problem that would go away easily.
The rest of the day was businesslike. His counterparts both stopped by his office to lend their support. Durrani was confident that the accusations would be proven baseless. Lieutenant General Mahmud Nassir, the deputy director of the Internal Wing, offered his apologies that an investigation was necessary. Ashan and Nassir had never had a warm relationship, so the Chilly meeting did not seem out of character.
At the sound of the knock, Ashan’s heart sank. His wife had already spent much of the night crying, as she was friends with the foreign secretary’s wife and had seen how he was dragged from his house. It was not a big leap to think that the same thing could happen to her husband. When he opened the door he was not surprised to see Lieutenant General Nassir, but he was surprised to see his friend Durrani.
Before Nassir could speak, Durrani stepped forward and said, “I’m here to make sure you are treated with the respect that you deserve.”
Nassir remained as impassive as ever and motioned for his men to proceed. Ashan and his wife were put in separate rooms, and fortunately, Durrani went with Ashan’s wife to comfort her, as she was not prepared for a lengthy interrogation. Three men plus Nassir accompanied Ashan into his study and proceeded to interrogate him for six straight hours. Despite being asked multiple times to not smoke in his house, the men ignored him. Ashan made a mental note that when this was all over he would make sure these three were punished for their brazen disrespect of his rank. Nassir, on the other hand, was hopeless.
If it weren’t for Durrani, Ashan would have been a mess worrying about his wife. Shortly after ten o’clock his friend informed him that his wife had been allowed to go to bed. Ashan felt a bit of relief that they were being civilized with her, but that relief was short-lived. Durrani then informed him that Ashan’s son and daughter had both been picked up for questioning. His son was a doctor in Karachi and his daughter an engineer in Islamabad. His son would be fine, but his daughter was an extremely attractive young woman, and the ISI was not known for its restraint.
Ashan looked daggers at Nassir and said, “I am innocent of these charges, and will be cleared. If my daughter or son are harmed in any way, I will make sure that your children experience the same degradation.”
The threat probably had a fifty-fifty chance of working on its own, but then Durrani made sure it stuck. After unleashing a string of obscenities, he screamed a more vivid account of what he would do to Nassir’s children and then threw a few threats at his three men for good measure. Of the three deputy generals, Ashan was by far the most civilized and Durrani was the least. Fearless in his attacks against Pakistan’s enemies, he had a reputation for being ruthless that was wellknown by the men of the Internal Wing.
Nassir promptly excused himself so he could go in the other room and make it very clear to his men that he would execute anyone who did not treat Ashan’s children with absolute respect. A little less than an hour later, Nassir and his men called it a night. After Durrani’s graphic description of how he would have each of them sodomized, repeatedly, the men seemed to have lost their zeal.
Ashan thanked his friend profusely for his support. Durrani stated that if things were reversed, he knew that Ashan would do the same for him. Ashan went to bed wondering if that was true. He held his wife and nervously waited for his children to call. His daughter called first and wanted to know what was going on. He told her it was all a misunderstanding and was keenly aware that the conversation was being recorded. It took almost two and a half hours for his son to call, and neither Ashan nor his wife slept while they waited. Finally, after reassuring his son that everything would be fine, Ashan fell asleep with his wife in his arms at four-twenty in the morning.
Two hours later he woke, shaved, and dressed for work. When he left the house he noted the cordon of military vehicles and wondered if he would be allowed to leave. An Army colonel approached and informed him that he would be escorting him to ISI headquarters. Ashan was gripped with an ominous feeling as he climbed into the back of the unfamiliar vehicle. In Pakistan it was a national pastime to assassinate government officials in their cars.
The drive to the office was fortunately uneventful, but the morning was not. Ashan arrived to find out that all three of his secretaries and two of his deputies had been arrested during the night. His office was crawling with Internal Wing types who were pilfering confidential files. This was more than the intelligence professional could take. He left immediately for the director general’s office. Three assistants tried to stop him from entering, but Ashan pushed past. He opened the door to find Director General Taj and Durrani and Nassir. The look on Durrani’s face was not comforting.
“What’s wrong?” Ashan asked.
“Please sit.” Taj pointed to a spot on the couch next to Durrani.
Ashan remained standing. “There are men in my office. Men who are looking at classified files.”
“I am aware of that. You need to sit.” Taj pointed at the couch with his cigarette.
“Those men are not cleared to see those files,” Ashan said as he sat. “It is a major breach of protocol.” He looked at the other three men for some sign that they understood the enormity of the problem.
Taj looked at Nassir and gave him a sign to proceed. Nassir opened a gold file and held up a sheaf of documents. “Do you recognize these?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Give them to him so he can read them,” Taj ordered.
Ashan took the pages and felt his world slipping from him. He had never seen these pages before, but he was smart enough to recognize what they were. “These are not mine.”
“Then why did my men find them taped to the underside of one of your desk drawers last night?” Nassir asked.
“They are not mine. How do I know that your men didn’t put them there?”
Nassir looked to Taj and shook his head in disappointment.
“Director General, you have to believe me. I am not a spy for the Americans, or anyone else, and that is not my Swiss bank account. I have never seen
those documents.”
“But you do have a Swiss bank account?” Nassir asked.
Durrani intervened before Ashan could answer the question. “Who doesn’t have a Swiss bank account? Let’s cut through all the crap. We are all intelligence professionals. Every single one of us has at least one Swiss bank account. Those sheets mean nothing.”
“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Taj announced. “The Swiss bank account we can handle. As Akhtar said, once you rise to this level, Swiss bank accounts are part of the job. But the American clandestine officer saying that you are a CIA agent… that is something that is not easy to undo, even if it is a lie.”
“It is a lie!” Ashan protested vehemently. “I am not a CIA agent.” Looking from face to face Ashan realized that none of them believed him. Even Durrani wouldn’t look at him. “Akhtar, surely you don’t believe that I would sink so low?”
“You’re a better man than the three of us, and I think this all a complete fabrication, but,” Durrani said, looking angrily at Taj, “I have no say in the matter, and apparently we aren’t going to take the time to find the truth.”
It didn’t sink in at first. Ashan looked at Taj with confusion. “What is he saying?”
Taj leaned forward and stabbed out his cigarette. “The president called me just before you arrived. I’m sorry, there’s no other way to say this. He wants you sacked.”
The words drifted over him as Ashan attempted to process the finality of it all. His jaw hung loose and he asked, “Just like that.. after more than thirty years of honorable service?”
“This is bigger than you… it’s bigger than us… it’s bigger than the ISI. It’s my hope that you will be proven guiltless of all charges, but the president wants action now. We need to look strong. We cannot afford to look like America’s puppet.”
“At least let him step down on his own,” Durrani said. “Let him make a statement. We could even spin it in our favor. He could say that for the sake of clarity he is going to step down. And then he can say something about an American plot to interfere with the sovereignty of Pakistan.”
