Hidden Order: A Thriller (11 page)

When the door opened, he looked up from his desk and saw Lydia Ryan standing in his doorway. “So this is how it ends,” he said with a smile. “Well, at least they didn’t send a stranger. I don’t suppose it would make any difference if I offered you half the money, would it?”

Ryan shook her head and smiled back. “You should have disappeared when you had the chance, Bob.”

“And give up all of this?” he asked, sweeping his arms out and taking in his tiny office. “Not a chance.”

She laughed and they met in the center of the room, where he gave her a big hug. Once they were done saying hello, he offered her one of the chairs in front of his desk while he took the other. “What’s so top secret that we couldn’t discuss it over a secure phone? This isn’t about
that jackass Durkin again, is it? I told you, you should have shot him and dumped him in a shallow grave.”

“Technically, you said I should’ve dumped him in a quarry.”

McGee grinned. “Even better. No, wait. Shoot him, plant pocket litter on him from a gay bar, and then dump him. The Agency hates that kind of stuff and would never dig too deep. You’d get off scot-free.”

“Pocket litter, check. If and when I shoot him, I’ll remember that.”

“So what’s Durkin done now?”

Ryan took a deep breath. “I don’t know that he’s done anything.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“How much time do you have?”

McGee leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and made himself comfortable. “As much time as you need.”

 • • • 

After recounting everything to McGee, and sharing with him the materials Nafi Nasiri had given her in Frankfurt, she waited for her mentor to respond with something insightful that would help her figure out a way forward.

“What a friggin’ disaster,” he finally said.

“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to make some sort of suggestion about how we’re going to handle this.”

McGee sat forward in his chair. “
We?
Why is this suddenly my problem?”

“Damn it, Bob. I need your help. This is serious.”

“I’ll make it easy for you. I think your pal at Jordanian Intelligence is pulling your chain. There’s no way they’d play chicken with a potential terrorist attack. Not a chance in hell.”

“So you think he’s making it up?” said Ryan.

“I think everybody’s making things up.”

“You mean Durkin?”

McGee nodded. “Your destab team was top notch, but they broke the cardinal rule—they got caught.”

“But they all got canned.”

“No way,” he replied. “They may have been scrubbed from the rolls, but there’s no way Durkin let those guys go. They were too good. From what I heard, they had multiple reprimands. You were considered a by-the-book player and attaching you to that team was a last-ditch effort to rein them in. When things went south, they were shut down.” McGee made air quotes as he said the words
shut down
.

“But Durkin told me to my face that he has no idea what they’re up to or where they are.”

“C’mon, Ryan. Don’t be so naïve. He’s a spook, just like you. He’s paid to lie to people.”

McGee was right. “I don’t get it. We’re just supposed to ignore potentially actionable intel from the Jordanians?”

“How well do you know Nasiri?”

“Very well. He took a shoulder full of shrapnel for me. Probably saved my life,” she replied.

“And you trust him?”

“I wouldn’t be wasting my time, or yours, if I didn’t. Listen, I agree. I think holding back information on a terrorism plot is particularly bad form for an ally, but if our positions were reversed I’d do the exact same thing. In fact, I’d probably do more.”

McGee flipped slowly through the material again as he spoke. “If this is legitimate, it’s pretty damning, regardless of whether or not your old team is still working for Durkin. If it can be proven that the United States not only cooked up and carried out the Arab Spring, but is continuing to topple governments throughout the Middle East, that’s going to cause an international firestorm. It’ll sink this administration.”

“I don’t care about the political ramifications. What I care about is stopping a terrorist attack from being carried out on U.S. soil. We’re not going to get any help from the Jordanians without giving them something in return.”

“Why not take this to someone above Durkin?”

“You don’t think I already thought of that? What if I’m wrong? What if the Jordanians
are
playing me? I’ll look like a fool. Worse, I could end up looking like I cooked this whole thing up just to embarrass Durkin.”

McGee shook his head. “You can’t go tearing after this without some sort of approval. You have to get someone to sprinkle holy water on it.”

“And who’s going to do that?”

He tapped the folder against his knee as he ran the possibilities through his mind. “What if I could get you into the director’s office?”

Ryan laughed. “Who do you think I was contemplating going over Durkin’s head to? The DCI’s a tyrant. He hates when the chain of command isn’t followed. He’ll just kick it back to Durkin and pin a pink slip to my back with a knife.”

“I’m not talking about the Director of Central Intelligence. I’m talking about the other director—the DCI’s boss.”

“The Director of National Intelligence?”

McGee nodded.

“How do you have that kind of pull?” she asked.

“I’m an important guy.”

Ryan laughed again. “Yeah, right.”

“Your lack of faith aside, if I can make a meeting with the DNI happen, are you interested?”

“What makes you think he won’t kick it back to our director, who’ll then fire me for violating the chain of command?”

“Because I’ll protect you.”

“Protect me how?” asked Ryan.

“The DNI and I go back a long way and he owes me some favors. I’ll make sure you’ve got cover.”

“If you can guarantee cover, I’m in.”

As McGee leaned over his desk to reach for the phone, he shooed Ryan out of his office. “Give me twenty minutes.”

Nodding, she stepped out into the hall. Coming to see McGee had been the right thing to do. She had felt it even before walking into his office. The only problem was that walking
out
of his office, she was now feeling something else and it troubled her more than the prospect of being chewed out for violating the CIA chain of command, or even being fired.

She was gripped by the fear that no matter what strings her mentor might pull, it wouldn’t matter, because they were already too far behind to catch up.

W
ASHINGTON

D
ISTRICT OF
C
OLUMBIA

H
arvath pulled up in front of the chipped brick warehouse and checked the rusted numbers above the door against the address the Old Man had given him. He appeared to be at the right place.

Though he normally didn’t leave anything of value in his SUV, he did a quick visual sweep of the seats just to make sure. This neighborhood wasn’t exactly in the town’s garden district and the last thing he wanted to do was tempt some passing thug into a quick smash-and-grab.

Preparing to exit the vehicle, he adjusted his weapon. He was convinced that one of the biggest reasons D.C. was so dangerous was that its citizens weren’t allowed to defend themselves and legally carry firearms. The criminals knew this and took full advantage. A proponent of the belief that it was better to be judged by twelve than carried by six, Harvath always carried his .45-caliber H&K USP Compact in a custom Blackhawk “Check Six” holster placed securely behind his right hip, wherever he was. One of the few exceptions was that afternoon when he had gone straight from the airport to the Federal Reserve Building. As a rule, any weapons used overseas stayed overseas.

By and large, most of the rules Harvath lived by served him well. Some, though, were more difficult to reconcile with circumstances than others. His maxim that there was no such thing as a perfect crime was a prime example. Whether it was a terrorist attack, a kidnapping, or a murder, there were always clues to be found. But in the case of the kidnapped Fed candidates, the clues were proving to be extremely hard to find.

With some help from the Old Man, Harvath had turned his study into a makeshift war room and they officially launched their investigation. They began with what Harvath had hoped would be the easiest and quickest route to uncovering potential suspects—the Internet.

Though he didn’t know much about the Fed, he did know that their critics were fairly outspoken. Some of the better known ran the gamut from pundits to business leaders and members of Congress, while the lesser known were simply day-to-day citizens. He used every mix of search terms he could come up with. He began with a generic search for the “Sons of Liberty” and because of its historical relevance was gifted with over a million prospective returns.

He tried to narrow it down by adding the term “Federal Reserve” to the search and ended up with just over thirteen thousand possibilities. From there, he added the names of the kidnapped candidates and hit a digital wall. As best he could tell, none of the terms appeared together, at least not openly anywhere on the Web.

Stripping out the “Sons of Liberty” from his search, he entered the hostages’ names along with the term “Federal Reserve.” He even tried adding the Henry Hazlitt quote about today being the “tomorrow” that the bad economist told us to ignore. The results were a mixed bag and not very helpful. There wasn’t anyone, at least not on the open Internet, calling for any of the victims to be harmed, much less killed.

Harvath turned his attention to the police reports. He had been through Claire Marcourt’s file a hundred times. It felt like there was something missing, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it.

He read through the reports of the other kidnap victims, searching for some common thread, but the only thing he seemed to be able to come up with was that the kidnappings had been very well executed. They had all happened on the same night, but in different cities, which meant that
multiple teams had to have been used. That was a plus, as far as Harvath was concerned. The more people involved in any plot, the greater the chances were that one of them would screw up. The challenge, however, was allocating enough assets to a case in order to see the screw-up the moment it happened, jump on it, and leverage it to your advantage.

The Carlton Group, though, didn’t have many assets, much less extra ones they could move from project to project, as they’d been forced to let most of their people go. At the moment, Harvath was it, conducting the entire investigation himself out of his house, with his study acting as ground zero and the overflow spilling into the hall.

Even the Old Man was limited by how much time he could spare. He had spent a few hours with Harvath on the assignment before having to leave to deal with the fallout from the
Sienna Star
operation.

Though he didn’t come right out and say it, Carlton had also been troubled by Claire Marcourt’s murder. Harvath could see it in his face and by how much time he had spent with the file. He’d scanned all the contents onto his laptop and uploaded them onto a secure FTP site before walking outside to place a lengthy phone call. When he came back in and announced that he was leaving, he handed Harvath a slip of paper with the address for a warehouse and
WWII
written on it.

The initials stood for William Wise II. “He’s expecting you,” the Old Man had said on his way out the door.

“Expecting me for what? Who is he?”

“He used to work for the Agency, brilliant guy. Knows something about everything. I gave him the file. He might have some insight.”

Harvath tried to ask what kind of work Wise had done and what made him so special, but Carlton was in a hurry and gone before the conversation could go any further. He figured he’d learn soon enough.

Walking up to the front of the building, Harvath noticed several low-visibility security precautions. While they may have been in response to the neighborhood’s crime rate, Harvath suspected there might be another, much more realistic reason. Whoever this Bill Wise person was, he had some very dangerous enemies.