The Asset (3 page)

Kennedy could relate. His father had lorded over his life for so long, it took estrangement and, ultimately, death for him to get clarification about his own dreams.

Kennedy had a Noah Kruz app on his phone and referred to it regularly for inspiration. That day, he selected
PICK ME UPS
and the app pushed him a quote:

There is no escape. Life has you in its clutches and you can either struggle in vain to free yourself, inviting the world's predatory forces to tear you to pieces, or you can allow yourself to be swallowed whole and join them in the hunt.

On that note, it was time to get to work.

As he walked in to train a crop of TSA agents, he was carrying a new sense of purpose in the form of a Homeland Security threat memo sent to all TSA chiefs three days prior. “Global intelligence sources”
were warning of a “large-scale, coordinated attack on an indeterminate number of US airports.” Kennedy had seen a lot of threat-level-orange bullshit issued by Homeland, usually when they needed free Fox News PR to get their bloated budget rubber-stamped before the holidays, but this was different. It wasn't just Homeland.
Global intelligence sources
was what made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

W
hen Kennedy got the memo,
he'd been in London so he hit up his college buddy Wes Bowman from the CIA to pick his brain. Wes came from a wealthy Boston family, which had pretty much disowned him when he refused to be a paper doll exec in their restaurant food service empire. Working at the CIA, and having to live on a middle-­class wage, had put some city miles on him. Even though they were the same age, Wes looked more like Kennedy's much older brother with his retreating hairline and box-cut Men's Wearhouse suit.

He was an IT geek servicing global field offices—not a master spy by any stretch of the imagination—but his security clearance made him privy to agency workings. Kennedy had taken him out to one of the best steak houses in town, hoping to butter him up for information. After polishing off a couple of bone-in rib eyes and nearly three bottles of French burgundy, Kennedy awkwardly brought up the memo.

“You didn't have to wine and dine me, dude,” Wes said. “I could have told you over the phone that Langley and all the cousins are in a tizzy about this so-called threat.”

“True, but I already know that.”

“What you
don't
know are the specifics of the threat, which you think I might have. And now you're greasing my wheels with prime-cut marbling
to get what you want. Does that about sum things up?” Wes said, taking a large draught of wine.

“Think of it more as a bribe,” Kennedy said. “I really want to get a jump on this for my TSA chiefs if I can.”

“I don't blame you. They don't jump very high, do they?”

“No, and after their F-minus report card, they're poking one another's eyes out pointing fingers.”

“Shocker. Can't imagine this is doing much for your business.”

“Let's just say I need to maintain a high level of relevance these days.”

“I wish I could help you, man, but that information is north of my clearance. I can tell you what I've heard round the watercooler as long as you promise to take it with a grain of salt.”

“Anything will help.”

“We've been butting heads with the bureau for weeks about this. We don't think they're doing enough. And we definitely don't think Homeland is doing enough.”

“Which makes this much more than speculation,” Kennedy said.

“This is intelligence.
Everything
is speculation, even when it's happening right in front of you. What is it about this one that's got your panties in a bunch?”

“Gut feeling, I guess. And
global intelligence sources
.”

“Sounds like they're trying to differentiate it.”

“TSA gets too many warnings and no one's paying attention. I doubt that little bit of language is going to help,” Kennedy said.

“Can I see the memo?” Wes asked.

“That would be a violation of my employer's NDA,” Kennedy said. “Unless you came by it accidentally. Like if it fell out of my jacket.”

Wes looked at the floor under the table and saw the memo.

“Promise me you'll never try to be a spy.” Wes laughed.

“Ha-ha. Going to take a leak.”

Kennedy went to the restroom and waited long enough for Wes to read the memo. He felt a little silly doing it this way, but he couldn't risk ruffling feathers at Homeland for breaking his NDA. They were already questioning his role and asking for more detailed accounting of his work with TSA. When he got back to the table, the look on Wes's face told him perhaps he had not been cautious enough.

“How about a cigar?” Wes asked.

“I could murder one,” Kennedy said.

He paid and they went for a walk. Wes took a long drag on his cigar, looked around to confirm they weren't being observed, and handed the memo back to Kennedy.

“What's up, Wes? You look a little spooked. No pun intended.”

“Based on what I've heard, this memo grossly underplays the potential threat.”

“Shit,” Kennedy hissed. “In what way?”

“Let's just say at this point I should probably see if I can dig up some actual facts for you.”

“You'd do that?”

“Yeah. You're the only person who's going to take this seriously and you might be the only person who can get
them
to take it seriously.”

They stopped by the river. The sluggish, murky green water looked like the back of a snake.

“Do me a favor?” Wes said.

“What's that?”

“Don't be a hero. You got lucky with that JFK thing years ago. Could have gone the other way and scrubbed all those people you were trying to save.”

“What's your point?”

“I get why you're doing this,” Wes said. “And I'm willing to stick my neck out a little to help you. But remember there's a reason even we separate the spooks from the cleaners. You get in over your head and you call in the cavalry. Dead is for martyrs and movie stars.”

T
he TSA training center was
a dank, fluorescent cinder-block hole that could easily pass for a CIA torture cave. Kennedy surveyed his ­pupils—newly recruited Transportation Security Officers, or TSOs, to staff the checkpoints at JFK and LaGuardia. All he could think was that if the country could see the people sitting in front of him, being hired to protect them, they would never set foot on another airplane. Many of them wouldn't cut it as crossing guards, let alone critical gatekeepers to the world's airways, expected to observe hundreds, sometimes thousands, of travelers in a ten-hour shift and spot the ones that just might manage to fly another commercial jet into the Pentagon. Glenn, their fearless leader, inspired even less confidence as he sat on a stool at the back of the room and dunked a stale cruller in a cup of swamp-­water coffee. With his swinish build and beady eyes, Glenn looked like a freshly shaven migrant from Middle-earth. Kennedy hated Glenn. The feeling was mutual. So he dispensed with pleasantries and got right to the PowerPoint.

“Good morning. Who's ready for a pop quiz?”

A collective groan passed through the room. Kennedy pulled a .45 caliber handgun from his pocket and pointed it at them. They all gasped, screamed, and hit the ground for cover. Kennedy laid the gun down on the table in front of him.

“That, ladies and gentlemen, is a successful act of terror in a nutshell. It happens quickly and unexpectedly, and it induces panic and chaos. By the time you realize what's happening, you've got a bullet in your head. Which is why in this business, an ounce of prevention is worth far more than a pound of reaction.”

He allowed them to settle back into their seats and observed. Those still dwelling on the outrage they felt from the gun stunt were not going to make the cut. His Israeli instructors had taught him that emotional control is the most important characteristic of a good security screener. You had to keep your head.

“Prevention begins with knowing your enemy. I'm going to show you pictures of actual weapons that TSOs—people just like you—found at airports around the country. Then we'll look at traveler surveillance photos. See if you can guess which weapon belonged to which person.”

Kennedy switched off the lights and fired up his laptop projector. The first image he displayed was a photo of the .45 he had just pulled on them.

“You're familiar with this item. When it was confiscated, it had a full fourteen-round magazine and one in the chamber. Anyone know where it was found?”

“Iraq?” someone joked.

“Right here at JFK,” he said. “Last week. If you read your confiscation logs, you would have known that. Perhaps Glenn will make that a job requirement.”

“It's posted every morning at seven. Right by the doughnuts.” Glenn grunted.

“Outstanding. Then at least I know
you're
reading them.”

Kennedy projected a new image on the screen with the same .45 and three surveillance photos of travelers—a young black man, a Caucasian man in his fifties dressed like a Hells Angel, and a middle-aged Hispanic man with a neck tattoo. Murmurs among the mostly black recruits vibrated through the ranks, followed by playful banter between them and a few Hispanic recruits.

“Anyone care to guess who this weapon belonged to?” Kennedy asked.

No takers. Most had the
Please don't pick me
look on their faces.

Kennedy pointed to a young woman immersed in her phone screen.

“How about you, Facebook?”

Roars of laughter. The young woman looked up defiantly.

“Take your pick,” she spat. “I'd pull every one of them out of line.”

The laughter quickly turned to grumbles of contempt. Kennedy displayed his next slide—a sixty-year-old grandfatherly man with thick glasses and a sweater-vest.

“And you'd be wrong every time,” Kennedy said.

“Ah hell no,” one of the young black men blurted out.

“How many times have you been stopped by the police without probable cause?” Kennedy asked him.

“I stopped counting,” the young man said cynically.

“Profiling. Many of you have experienced it because of your race. The majority of cases that involve police using excessive force are with ­minorities—”

“And the cops doing it are usually from the same minority groups,” a young black woman chimed in.

“Good point. So there's prejudicial thinking that goes with it. And let's not forget gender bias,” Kennedy said to Facebook girl. “Why do people profile?”

The room was silent, but he could see many were itching to answer.

“Come on. I know you have an opinion on this.”

“Racist motherfuckers,” one of the Hispanic men said boldly.

“That's only part of the problem. What else?”

“It's easier to just blame it on a brother than to do any actual work to find the guy that did it,” another young black man said.

“Especially when you think all brothers look the same!” his friend added.

“Exactly,” Kennedy agreed. “People are lazy and always take the easy way out.”

Kennedy switched the screen to a collage with pictures of Ted Bundy, Dennis Rader, Charles Whitman, and Timothy McVeigh—candid shots from their earlier lives, not mug shots or police blotter photos. They looked very normal.

“Does anyone know who these people are?”

Crickets. Kennedy placed a red laser pointer dot on the forehead of each person as he spoke about him.

“Two of the worst serial killers in US history, one of the most lethal school shooters in history, and one of the worst domestic terrorists our country has ever seen.”

“They look like perfectly good white people,” someone joked.

“That's the point. The smartest criminals don't broadcast their intentions. The only people who make bomb threats are the ones who do not have a bomb. No one knows a shooter's plan until he's already opened fire. A real terrorist has one goal and that is to kill as many people as possible with one act. This is why they strike when we are at our most vulnerable, when they know our guard will be down.”