Pursuit Of Honor

by Flynn Vince

  While Felt was the template, Adams was not going to be so foolish as to allow some reporter to make millions off his bravery while he retired on his meager federal pension. He would publish a scathing exposé of the CIA, its illegal programs, and the men who ran them. He had already picked out a title-A Quest for Justice. He would write it under the pen name Jefferson. No first name, just the last. Adams had told Kenny Urness that a CIA black ops agent had come to him and was asking for help. The fictional agent wanted to shop a tell-all manuscript that would expose the CIA and its myriad illegal programs. Urness would set up a blind trust to hold the millions the novel would make, and then when things finally settled down five or seven years from now, Adams would step forward as the brave man who had brought down the fascist wing of the American government.

  There would be uproar for sure, but Adams knew how to hide his tracks. He’d already purchased, with cash, a used laptop that would be destroyed once the book was finished. He’d even found a software program that would allow him to change his prose to avoid identification by writing experts. Polygraphs would be administered far and wide, but he would pass them as he always did. The lie detectors were useless against someone with his IQ. He’d had it all figured out, but despite all of the careful planning, he’d missed something.

  Adams fingered the empty glass sitting on the table and silently wished they would get him another drink. The vodka was starting to wear off and that was the last thing he needed right now. Staying calm was no easy thing when you knew a man like Mitch Rapp was loitering on the other side of a steel door, and you had no way of calling for help. Despite being caught off guard, Adams had already vowed that he would make Rapp pay. He would say what he needed to say to win his release, and then he would raise hell.

  No sane person would ever kill him. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. He was the inspector general of the CIA, for God’s sake. The media would dig. The Hill would demand answers. It would simply be too difficult to cover up. That’s what his highly rational brain kept telling him, but there was another voice in his head. One that was far less confident. One that had been warning him with increasing seriousness that Mitch Rapp was a man capable of extreme violence.

  Adams was again trying to reassure himself that all would be fine, despite his deep forebodings, when the door opened. He recognized the lined, worn face immediately, and notwithstanding the fact that he didn’t care much for the man, he felt a huge sense of relief that he was here. Regardless of their differences, Stan Hurley was an old family friend, a covert ops legend, and maybe the only man Rapp would listen to. Adams was confident he could get the old man to sympathize with him.

  “Uncle Stan,” Adams said in a hope-filled voice, “thank God you’re here.” He stood and moved forward, his arms open, ready to embrace one of the meanest cusses he’d ever known, but before he could get close enough, something hard poked him in the stomach. He froze.

  “Sit down,” Hurley ordered.

  Adams looked down to see the rubber tip of a cane pressed into his belly. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing… sit.” Hurley nudged him back and pointed at the chair.

  Adams slowly retreated and took his seat. “Uncle Stan, there’d better be a hell of a good explanation for this.”

  “Really?” Hurley said with skepticism. “I was about to say the same thing.”

  “This is crazy; I’m the inspector general of the CIA. I can’t be kidnapped in the middle of the night and interrogated like this.”

  “The fact that you’re sitting here is proof that you’re wrong on both counts.”

  Adams frowned and said, “This isn’t Prague circa 1968. Neither Mitch Rapp nor anyone at the CIA, for that matter, has any right to abduct me.”

  “I suppose from a purely legal standpoint you are correct.” Hurley’s admission gave Adams a shot of confidence. “You’re damn right I am. Everyone makes mistakes, but this one is a whopper.”

  “It sure is.”

  “Well,” Adams studied the face of his father’s best friend in a vain attempt to gauge his true intention, “as a favor to you… I’d be willing to look the other way on most of this, but I’m going to need some reassurances.”

  “Such as?”

  “For starters… Rapp and his band of goons need to promise that nothing like this will ever happen again.”

  Hurley gripped the back of the chair with his free hand. He didn’t say anything for a long moment. His mind flashed through a movie reel of Glen Adams’s life. He hadn’t put much thought into whether he liked the kid until he was in high school, and then only because his friend was worried that his boy didn’t quite get it. As Hurley looked at the younger Adams he thought how right his friend had been to worry.

  Hurley finally spoke. “And you think all of this is a mistake. You’re here through no fault of your own?”

  Adams knew this was where he needed to be careful. “I know you’ve been out for a while, so I don’t expect that you’ve kept up on everything that’s been going on, but let’s just say, Rapp stuck his nose into something that doesn’t concern him.”

  Hurley almost laughed, but managed to keep a straight face. “Really?” Hurley said as if he were intrigued. “Why don’t you enlighten me?”

  CHAPTER 10

  ADAMS ’S mind was moving at light speed trying to plot the correct course that would allow him to sucker this old codger into thinking Rapp had made a monumental mistake. He couldn’t remember the exact date, but as best he could recall Hurley had been out for at least fifteen years. There was no doubt he kept tabs on certain things, but most of his old sources would have dried up. The key, he decided, was to stay as vague as possible and keep things current.

  Adams averted his eyes and seemed to study the dented and scratched surface of the metal desk. “This thing I’m working on… I’m afraid I can’t talk about it.”

  Hurley looked at him with his bloodshot but shrewd eyes. “So if I call Director Kennedy right now, she’ll tell me you were on official CIA business?”

  Shaking his head, Adams replied, “She wasn’t involved in this.”

  “Tell me who to call then. Give me a name.” Hurley folded his arms across his chest as if he were settling in for a long wait.

  “Stan, you’re not read in on this.” Adams shifted in his chair. “Hell, you don’t work for Langley anymore. I can’t discuss this with you.”

  Hurley snorted. “I know more shit about our black ops than the president, so stop wasting my time and start answering my questions, or we’re going to test that little euphorian theory of yours.”

  “And what theory would that be?”

  “The one about torture… how you like to tell all your buddies in the press that it doesn’t work. That it’s nothing more than a recruiting tool for al Qaeda.”

  Adams looked dumbfounded. “Well, that’s true.”

  “And how in the hell would you know?” Hurley leaned over the chair. “Have you ever interrogated someone? Had to get rough with him to save lives?”

  “You know the answer to that. I’m the inspector general of the CIA.”

  “What about those twenty-three months you spent in the clandestine service that you like to brag about? A whole five of them in the field. And even then the only time you left the embassy compound was to play golf or try to get laid.”

  “I’m not going to relive all that with you,” Adams said with a forced smile. “Let’s just agree that there are two sides to every story.”

  “Yeah… like the truth and then the stuff that isn’t the truth. Like your little dinner date last night.”

  “What about it?”

  “According to Mitch you were in the process of committing treason.”

  “Mitch Rapp is a professional liar.”

  “It might be a good idea if you didn’t try to make this about Mitch. You either start answering me honestly, or I’m going to bring him in here, and you know as well as I do that he cares even less about
your feelings than I do.”

  “Fine… fine,” Adams said, backpedaling. “But there’s only so much I can say.”

  “What were you doing in New York last night?”

  “Having dinner with an old college friend.”

  “Discussing?”

  Adams hesitated. He had to be careful not to catch himself in a lie. “I respect you, Stan. I always have, so I’m going to say this as politely as I can. I don’t answer to you. I don’t answer to Mitch Rapp. I answer to the president and the oversight committees on the Hill. That’s it.”

  Hurley exhaled a sigh of frustration. “I don’t seem to be getting through to you.”

  “I feel the same way,” Adams said in disappointment. “I understand how difficult this business is, so I’m willing to look the other way this one time, but this offer is not going to last very long. I’m tired and I have a busy day of appointments. I’ll give Rapp one chance to let me walk out of here. And I mean right now. One chance.” Adams held up his index finger.

  Hurley started to laugh. “You don’t understand what’s going on, do you?”

  “I understand that in about two hours people are going to start wondering where I am, and once that happens it is going to be very hard for me to look the other way on this. So, for the last time, let me go and I’ll forget all this, but I tell you,” Adams’s face flushed with anger, “if Rapp so much as looks at me the wrong way, I will bury him.”

  Hurley wouldn’t have believed the man’s arrogance if he hadn’t been here to witness it. “I don’t think you’re going to be going anywhere for quite a while.”

  “I’d better,” Adams felt his heart begin to race, “because what little understanding I have is quickly wasting away.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Hurley said as if he were telling him his shoes were untied. “I tried my best to help you early in your career, but you really are one dumb son of a bitch.”

  Adams acted as if he’d been slapped in the face. “Uncle Stan, I have done nothing wrong. I am the one trying to do the right thing.”

  “If you think you’ve done nothing wrong, then I might as well shoot you in the head and get this over with.”

  Adams ’s mouth was agape. Here was a man he had known since birth-his father’s best friend, for Christ’s sake. Adams blurted out, “I’ve served my country. I don’t understand… I signed up just like you and Dad.”

  “Do yourself a favor and don’t start comparing your clandestine service career to your father’s.”

  “I…” Adams stammered, “I wasn’t about to go down with that ship of rats. They were the most corrupt bastards I’d ever met.”

  “Corrupt? You talking about our fine boys down in Bogotá back in the eighties?”

  “Of course I am. They should have all been thrown in jail.”

  Hurley considered slapping him, but he didn’t want to make this any more personal than it already was. “This is all my fault. The other instructors at the Farm wanted to wash your ass out, but I protected you. They knew you didn’t have what it would take, and I knew it, too, but I thought I owed it to your father, so I talked you up and let you graduate.” Shaking his head in self-loathing, he added, “It was one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”

  “Didn’t have what it would take?” Adams asked, some anger finally seeping into his voice. “You mean like a frontal lobotomy? You mean the ability to ignore every ethical standard I’d ever learned? Ignore everything Congress says about what I should or shouldn’t be doing?”

  “The problem with you, Glen, is that you always thought you were special, and the truth is you’re not. You were a dogshit operative. The only thing you were good for was wining and dining at the embassy parties. Anything that involved getting your hands dirty, you pissed and moaned like a little girl.”

  “By getting my hands dirty you mean breaking the law?”

  “You’re damn right I do. What in the hell do you think it is that the CIA is supposed to do? You think we’re supposed to obey everyone’s laws? Go ask the International Court and the U.N. and the fucking State Department for permission to find out which Colombian military officers are on the drug cartel’s payroll?”

  “Oh… I think you’re simplifying it a bit.”

  “You want me to simplify things? Here it is. You were a complete failure as an operative, you were a mediocre prosecutor who kissed all the right asses and managed to land an empty-suit job as the chief watchdog at the CIA where your entire mission is to get in the way of people who are actually trying to keep us safe. Is that simple enough for you?”

  “Get in the way!” Adams shouted. “You think things like the rule of law and the Constitution simply get in the way?”

  “No, but neither have I deluded myself into thinking that the men who wrote it ever intended for a second that it be used to protect our enemies.”

  “So guys like Mitch Rapp should be able to do whatever they’d like without any oversight? Kill whomever they deem a threat without answering to any higher authority?”

  “If I have to choose between Mitch and those menstruating partisan hacks on Capitol Hill, I’ll put my money on Mitch.”

  Adams, his fists clenched, stood and demanded, “Do you know why they hate us?”

  “Who?”

  “The terrorists? Who do you think? They hate us because of men like you and my father and Rapp and Nash and rest of you knuckle-dragging goons.”

  “Those goons,” Hurley said in a quiet angry voice, “have done more to protect this country than the entire House and Senate put together, and they’ve done it without an ounce of recognition or thanks from all the intellectually arrogant fucks like you.” Hurley stepped back and swung his cane around, smacking Adams in the elbow.

  Adams yelped and grabbed himself. “What in the hell is wrong with you?”

  “I was your only chance, you dumb ass. All I wanted was the slightest sign of remorse, and instead I got more of your pompous defiance.” He turned for the door.

  “Where are you going?” Adams asked in a voice that had suddenly lost its command.

  “To get the man you think so little of.”

  “Wait!” Adams said in a voice that finally betrayed a bit of fear.

  Hurley didn’t bother to turn around. “You blew it. Now you get to find out firsthand if torture works.”

  CHAPTER 11

  RAPP checked his watch. He had thirty minutes at the most and then he would have to hightail it up to Langley. He wasn’t worried about his alibi. Should the feds come knocking, he’d send them to Hurley, and as long as the tough bastard kept breathing, he’d tell them that Rapp had arrived shortly before seven the previous evening and stayed the night. As to what they’d discussed and done during the roughly twelve hours since, they could confidently tell the feds to pound sand. The agents might not like it, but the men and women of the clandestine service had good reason for being tight-lipped with them and the good ones knew it.

  What bothered Rapp was the fact that there were more important things for him to be dealing with-like trying to find the three terrorists who had vanished. They had launched a manhunt like nothing he’d witnessed in his nearly twenty years of service. Every law enforcement officer in the country was on high alert, and so far they’d only come up with thousands of false leads. Seven days postattack they finally started looking at different scenarios. At first they’d concentrated on the airports, the borders, and the big ports. The Navy had boarded and searched twenty vessels that were deemed suspicious. Not a single person had been able to explain to Rapp what intelligence had landed those ships in the suspicious category, but he’d learned enough over the years to not try to swim against the current. The Navy was simply doing what they were ordered, and those orders were coming from men and women who would rather look busy and earnest than get thoughtful.

  Now they’d moved on to the smaller marinas, airstrips, and remote border crossings. In Rapp’s opinion, and he’d voiced it rather loudly, this should have been
the area of focus from the beginning. The men who were behind the attacks had shown a discipline and level of sophistication that he was sure would lead them to be every bit as creative and careful in their escape. Despite all the hard-working and devoted individuals who work for it, the federal government is not a precise instrument. In the post-9/11 world the training was better, the equipment was superior, and the ability to share information in real time had improved dramatically, but the alphabet soup of government agencies had also grown. As only Washington could do, layer after layer of bureaucracy was added, all in the name of streamlining the federal government’s ability to prevent and respond to a terrorist attack.

  Rapp, and a handful of others, had predicted how the politicians would react. The very room he was standing in was proof that they had been right, and that they’d managed to stay one step ahead of the lemmings as they continued to do what they thought would be least offensive to the very men they were fighting. And now, on top of trying to find out where the terrorists were, he had to deal with this sideshow-this little drama with Glen Adams. It was adding undue stress to an already difficult situation. Rapp hadn’t liked it when Hurley asked him to bring Adams down to the lake house, but knowing the family history he conceded. Looking back on it now, Rapp wished he’d flown out over the Atlantic and dumped Adams out the rear luggage hatch of the G500 at about five thousand feet. It would have been a lot easier.

  Now Rapp and the others had to stand around and watch this painfully slow tragedy unfold in real time. Rapp had been through this enough times to know that once you decided a man had to be killed there was no sense putting it off. The hand-wringing and moral debate had to take place up front. In Adams ’s case, that meant before they even picked him up. Once that was done there was no turning back. You couldn’t undo the fact that they’d already broken a number of laws. Yet here Nash was making waves. No doubt it had something to do with the strain they’d been under lately, but even so, Rapp expected more from him.