Andrew Britton Bundle

by Andrew Britton

  She felt for him, of course, but she was also interested, leaning forward in her seat. “What has?”

  “The anger, the grief…all of it. Mostly it’s guilt. He put the hunt for Vanderveen ahead of her, and he thinks that’s what got her killed. He might even be right, but that’s not the point. He can’t let it go.”

  Harper set down his coffee and stared absently over the courtyard, remembering. “He came to me a month later, once his wounds were healed and the doctors gave him a relatively clean bill of health. He wanted to come back inside, and I made it happen. Four months in Afghanistan hunting the Taliban with Delta, then a short break, and the next six months in Iraq. I thought it would help him, that staying busy might keep his mind straight.”

  “And now?” she asked quietly. “Would you have done it the same way?”

  She had definitely crossed the line, but he didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he shrugged and shook his head. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter now, but I’ll tell you what I do know. He’s been taking risks ever since that night, and it’s only getting worse. After Ryan came back from Afghanistan, Special Operations Command made it clear to me that they didn’t want him back on their turf. Strangely enough, his time over there was hugely productive. Delta nabbed a number of key figures, guys who’d bribed their way into what they thought was a safe haven in Pakistan, but it was the way Kealey carried it off that had them worried. They said he was too reckless, not taking the proper precautions. Coming from those guys, that’s saying a lot.”

  Her next question came naturally, and while she was afraid of the answer, Naomi knew she would never find Harper this forthcoming again. She had to ask it.

  “Sir, is he…trying to get himself killed?”

  He seemed to take the question seriously. “Maybe. Maybe not…It’s difficult to tell. I think Vanderveen’s reappearance has given him something to latch on to, at least for the time being. The point is, if you follow him into this, you’ll be completely outside the Agency’s authority.”

  “Are you saying I have a choice?”

  He smiled but didn’t respond. Draining his cup, he stood and placed a hand on the table in front of her. “Whatever you decide, Naomi, I’ll do what I can for you. You’ve done some amazing work here, and for whatever it’s worth, I won’t forget that. I’ll be staying on for a while, so if you need a reference, be sure to come and see me. Don’t wait too long, though. I’ll be following you out the door soon enough.”

  “Thanks for the offer, sir. It means a lot to me.”

  He nodded and smiled again, then walked away. He was out of sight by the time Naomi saw what he had placed on the table: a business card of some kind.

  She turned it over and read the hastily scrawled note on the back. She recognized Ryan’s handwriting immediately.

  Runway at Upperville, 6:00 AM sharp. Bring your passport.

  CHAPTER 35

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  Night was descending over the city as Samantha Crane hurried along D Street, having just left her government car in a parking garage off Massachusetts Avenue. She checked her watch as she came up on 1st, swearing under her breath. She was flushed by the time she reached her destination, despite the slight chill in the air. It had taken her twenty infuriating minutes to find an open garage, which made her wish she’d taken a taxi or even walked. Crane was staying at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill, not more than five blocks to the west. She had almost set out on foot from the start, but in the end, she decided against it. She wasn’t foolish enough to think that her FBI credentials would make a difference if the worst was to happen, and being unarmed, she thought it best to avoid tempting fate. She rarely carried a gun off duty, and tonight was no exception.

  She smiled at the doorman and entered the restaurant, shivering involuntarily at the sudden temperature change. She didn’t have a coat to check, so she squeezed through the crowd to the bar. The dining area to the left was packed, but that was to be expected. Established in 1960, the Monocle had quickly become the place to be seen in the District, despite the rather indifferent food. A number of local celebrities could be seen on any given night, and since it was Saturday, more than a few were in attendance. Crane didn’t recognize most of them—she didn’t have much interest in politics—but a few familiar faces stood out. Senator Edward Kennedy was seated in the middle of the room, surrounded by a starry-eyed group of admirers, and someone who looked a lot like Dennis Hastert was sipping a drink at the bar, talking intently to a pair of older men in dark suits.

  As she approached, Crane caught sight of her aunt, Rachel Ford, who was sitting two stools down from the House Speaker, a glass of white wine at her right hand. As always, the young FBI agent felt a sudden surge of inadequacy. She’d always thought that Rachel—with her pale, flawless skin and fine-boned features—could have been the queen of some minor country. Her regal posture somehow made that ridiculous bar stool look like a throne, and her clothes—a brown cashmere cardigan over a silk blouse and tan gabardine slacks—fit her slender form to perfection. Just the sight of her made Crane feel like an overfed second-string cheerleader, despite the extra effort she’d put into her appearance. She reluctantly stepped up to the bar, where Ford caught her eye. The older woman got to her feet and gave her niece an affectionate hug. Stepping back, she offered a small, disapproving frown.

  “It’s lovely to see you, Samantha. I see you’re stunningly underdressed, as usual.”

  Crane looked down at her outfit, then shot a quick, appraising glance around the room. Her chinos were fine, as far as she could tell, but she’d worn a woolen sweater against the brisk night air, and suddenly, the choice didn’t seem that inspired. “Thanks, Aunt Rachel,” she said dryly. “It’s nice to see you, too.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sorry we couldn’t get together when you first got into town. I’ve been incredibly busy, of course, but so have you, and that’s no excuse. I still don’t understand why you didn’t stay at my place. You know I have plenty of room.”

  Crane shrugged uncomfortably. The truth was that her career had benefited from her aunt’s position, but she didn’t like to advertise the fact. A handful of other agents had also been brought into town to act in supporting roles in the Alexandria raid. Some had stayed on to supplement the forensic teams going through the warehouse, including a few techs from the New York office, where Crane was normally based. They were all staying at the Hyatt Regency, and her absence would have been noticed.

  Crane was trying to figure out how to explain this without causing offense, but the other woman saved her the trouble, turning instead to summon the bartender. She returned a moment later with a second glass of Chardonnay, which she handed to Crane.

  “Is it always like this?” the younger woman asked. “I mean, it’s still pretty early for a Saturday night.”

  Ford pointed up at the ceiling. “Somebody’s hosting an event for Hillary upstairs,” she whispered conspiratorially.

  “Hillary who? Not Clinton.”

  “Of course, darling.” Ford was mystified. “Who else?”

  “Hillary Clinton? Here? You can’t be serious.”

  “Of course I’m serious. She can’t exactly skip out on her own fund-raiser, can she?” Ford raised an eyebrow, taking in her niece’s amazed expression. “Try not to look so impressed, Sam. People are watching, and half the Senate will have stopped in before the night is out. You’re bound to see somebody more important than her.”

  Crane nodded and tried some of the wine. Something about the other woman seemed off, and then it became clear; she was getting tipsy. It should have been obvious from the start, but it was so out of character that Crane didn’t catch it right off the bat.

  Samantha Crane smiled to herself, feeling a weight lift; this was going to be easier than she’d thought. After days of gentle prodding over the phone, she was finally going to get the answers she needed.

  Rachel Ford was on a first-name basis with the maître d’, which made all the differe
nce. He found them a table in short order, and although it was far from the best in the house, it was a vast improvement over the cramped, standing-room-only space at the bar. Better yet, the small table was set apart from the others, so they could talk freely. They ordered crab cakes and grilled zucchini, and the wine continued to flow. It wasn’t long before the conversation turned to work, and Ford brought up the laptop. “You got it back today, didn’t you?”

  “We did. Our techs are working on rotating shifts for the next twenty-four hours, but I have the feeling you could save them a lot of trouble.”

  The other woman seemed to hesitate. “I only got the whole story today. The people in Operations were doing their best to keep me out of the loop, and they nearly succeeded.” Her voice turned hard. “I swear those people are all the same. You can take them out of the field and stick them in headquarters, but it doesn’t make a bit of difference—”

  “I agree,” Crane said quickly, not wanting to hear another lengthy exposition on the politics of Langley. “But you said you found out what was on the laptop?”

  “I did, but I can’t tell you a thing, sweetie. You’ll have to wait for the Bureau results. I’m already on thin ice with the director. He knows I told you we had it in the first place.”

  “What? How did he find out?”

  “It had to be Harper,” Ford said without thinking, her face tightening in anger. “That bastard has been doing his best to—”

  “Harper?” Crane pounced on it immediately. “That’s the same guy who showed up with Kealey in Alexandria. I called and told you about that after the raid, and you changed the subject, remember?” There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. “Aunt Rachel, who is he?”

  The other woman seemed to waver, but not for long. “He’s the DDO, Sam. He’s the man in charge of the operations directorate, and you can forget I told you that. It’s highly classified.”

  Crane nodded slowly, a satisfied smile spreading over her face. “I knew there was something about him. It didn’t make sense from the start. For one thing, Agency lawyers don’t show up at Bureau raids.”

  Ford nodded, her face twisting into a scowl. “He’s been trying to undermine my position for months. After a while it became too much, so I did a little digging of my own, just to see if I could get some leverage.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “Nothing.” Ford drained her glass and shook her head, barely suppressing an incredulous laugh. “The man is an asshole, but he’s amazingly clean.”

  “You just said he’s the head of the DO,” Crane protested. “That means years and years of fieldwork, right? Those guys are used to working outside the lines. He can’t be totally clean. There has to be something there. A marital infidelity, for example, or a questionable bank deposit…”

  “Nothing,” Ford repeated. “I looked at the money angle, of course. He owns a brownstone on General’s Row, and when I found out, I thought that must be it. I mean, a government employee can hardly afford a place like that, right? But as it turns out, the answer is simple: he did well in the stock market back in the eighties, then bought at the right time. He’s actually quite wealthy, though most of his money is tied up in the house.”

  “Interesting,” Crane murmured. “If he’s that rich, I wonder why he still shows up for the daily grind.”

  Her aunt was pouring the last of the wine. Setting the bottle back on the table, she said, “I don’t know, but he may need the equity sooner than he thought.” A little smile crossed her face. “As it stands, he’s on borrowed time at the Agency.”

  Crane perked up, sensing important information. “What do you mean?”

  In a self-satisfied tone, the other woman started to go over the day’s events, including the suspensions of Ryan Kealey and Naomi Kharmai, the latter of whom she described as a mid-level analyst in the CTC. She also explained Harper’s tenuous position as the head of the DO, but the story was missing one thing: the cause for the shake-up. Crane was listening absently, trying to figure it out. Then it hit her.

  “All of this wouldn’t have anything to do with the break-in at the German Embassy, would it?”

  Ford suddenly looked uncomfortable. She toyed with the stem of her wineglass for a moment, then looked up and said, “I heard you were trying to get assigned to the case. Is that true?”

  “It’s important, and there’s a lot of pressure to solve it quickly. Whoever gets it will—”

  “You don’t want it,” Ford said, cutting her off. The alcohol seemed to have temporarily lost its effect, as her tone was completely serious, and she looked worried. “Trust me, darling, it’s career suicide. That one will never be solved, and once you get your name on the paperwork, I won’t be able to get you out of it. When the case is still open a few months from now, the Bureau is going to start looking for a sacrificial lamb. Someone’s neck will be on the chopping block, and I don’t want it to be yours.”

  “You know something, don’t you?” Crane’s eyes opened wide, and she leaned forward in her seat, her voice taking on a demanding edge. “Come on, tell me the truth. Did the Agency have something to do with the break-in?”

  “Don’t ask me that, Sam.” Ford shot her a pleading look, then glanced around hurriedly, as if realizing for the first time that they weren’t alone. “Just stay out of it, okay? And you can keep that hurt look to yourself. It won’t get you anywhere.”

  “Aunt Rachel, I just—”

  “Samantha, stay out of it.”

  “Okay! God, I was only asking….”

  “Promise me.”

  “Fine.” Crane slumped back in her seat and looked away, folding her arms in frustration. “I promise.”

  Ford’s expression softened immediately. Reaching over, she placed a hand on the younger woman’s arm. “Darling, you have to trust me.” She hesitated, then went on. “I know I never told you this, but before your mother died, she made me promise that I would look out for you if anything happened to her. Believe me, that’s all I’m trying to do.”

  Crane lowered her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was brittle and barely audible. “She didn’t die, Aunt Rachel. Nothing happened to her. She killed herself. There’s a difference.”

  Ford cringed, instantly wishing she could take back the words. “I know, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Still, the point is the same. I gave her my word.”

  “If you want to look out for me, you can tell me what your people found on Mason’s computer.”

  Ford sighed in exasperation. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? Why does it matter, anyway?”

  “It matters because I don’t think the trail ended with Anthony Mason. He was working for somebody else, and I want to know who it was. His laptop is my best chance to figure it out.” Her eyes shined. “Don’t you see? Mason was dealing in some heavy stuff, so whoever he was working for must be huge. Getting that guy could make my career.”

  “Sam, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ford said, shaking her head sadly. “This goes way beyond Anthony Mason.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you know about the ties between Mason and Arshad Kassem, right?”

  The younger woman looked puzzled. “Of course, Harper told me about the Iraqi connection the morning of the raid in Alexandria. That guy Kealey mentioned it, too. It didn’t seem too solid to me, but what does that have to do with the laptop?”

  “I can’t really get into it. Suffice to say, you’d be amazed.”

  “Aunt Rachel, I’m on your side, remember?” Thinking quickly, Crane shifted forward and lowered her voice. “Think about what happened here. If the CIA had pushed its way into a Bureau operation and stolen evidence from a crime scene while you were on the oversight committee, would you have let it pass?”

  Ford shook her head slowly, obviously torn. “No.”

  “Well, in this case, it was my crime scene and your people doing the stealing. If Harrington hadn’t been there, I would have been
in charge, and it would have been my career in the toilet. Frankly, I think I deserve the truth.”

  Ford considered these words for a long time, but she couldn’t fault her niece’s logic. Finally, she nodded her agreement. “Okay, I’ll tell you everything.”

  Crane brightened immediately. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you—”

  “On one condition,” Ford clarified. “You keep it to yourself until your own people get a break on the laptop. Wait until they give you a name…It won’t take long.”

  “And what’s the name?”

  Ford hesitated one last time, but she had said too much to back out now. “Mason was being run by a man named Thomas Rühmann. He’s an Austrian arms broker living in Berlin, where he’s using the name Walter Schäuble. If your technicians are any good, they’ll get the Rühmann identity off the hard drive, but not the location. And there’s something else: I have it on good authority that Kealey is going after him.”

  The dam broke. Ford talked for twenty minutes, reiterating the initial link between Arshad Kassem and Anthony Mason. To this, she added everything the director had told her earlier—the same information Harper had done his best to keep from her. She went over the links between Rashid al-Umari and Will Vanderveen. She described their involvement in the bombing of the Babylon Hotel, and she mentioned the possibility of an Iranian connection. She went into al-Umari’s background, and she brought up the possibility that the most recent attack in Paris was somehow related. The only thing she left out was the Agency’s involuntary role in the embassy break-in. Crane appeared stunned by the scope of the conspiracy.

  “When did you find out that Vanderveen was still alive?” she asked when Ford was done. She didn’t need to ask who he was; a year earlier, the former U.S. soldier had been near the top of the FBI’s most wanted list.

  “Nearly two weeks ago.”

  “What! Why hasn’t it been circulated?”