Travers hid his smile behind his sandwich when the reporter then said the aircraft had crashed into a desolate field high in the Allegheny Mountains, and all on board were presumed dead.
He left the diner minutes later and headed off in search of a bar. His first operation as a CIA black ops pilot had gone off perfectly, and he wanted to toast himself with a shot, or three, of Jameson.
78
Catherine King stepped off the elevator on the seventh floor of the CIA’s Old Headquarters Building. Her assigned control officer escorted her into a conference room—the same room she’d visited a week earlier to interview Denny Carmichael—then offered her a cup of coffee. When she declined, the young woman disappeared, and soon the door opened again.
Catherine had never met Matthew Hanley, the Acting Director of the National Clandestine Service, and she knew very little about him. All she knew of his CV was that he’d been a Green Beret, an SAD officer, and then had worked as station chief in Haiti. He’d been back here running SAD until yesterday, when he was tapped to take over NCS for the late Denny Carmichael.
She assumed Hanley knew the man she called Six, but she had no idea if Hanley still had any association with him, or even if Hanley had been involved in the manhunt for the ex–SAD operator.
But that didn’t really matter, because Catherine knew this morning’s meeting would not be about Six. It would be about Catherine. Or, more specifically, it would be about what Catherine planned on publishing. There was no other earthly reason why first thing in the morning on his first day in his new position, the new top spook in the United States would want to speak with an investigative reporter for the Washington Post.
When Hanley stepped through the door she found herself surprised. Where Denny had been lean and stately, Director Hanley looked like an old linebacker. She could tell from his eyes and his nose that he liked to drink, and she could tell by his frame that he liked to eat, but his ruddy complexion made her think he could handle both without ill effects.
He shook her hand gently and sat down. Smiling while he talked, he seemed night and day different from his predecessor.
There was significant chitchat at first—Hanley seemed to enjoy talking—but when he got down to business she realized he had a definite objective.
“Ms. King, I want to offer you a great opportunity.”
“An opportunity to do what, exactly?”
“An opportunity to help your country.”
She rolled her eyes. “By not talking about what happened at the safe house, you mean?”
“You can talk about it. I hope you will. But I hope you are . . . fair. Deliberate about what you say.”
“Have you read anything I’ve written?”
“Every week.”
“Then you know I am both fair and deliberate.”
Hanley seemed to consider a moment. Like he was playing chess and thinking over his next move. “I’m ready to make a deal. A really nice deal.”
“And I’m listening, Director Hanley.”
And then, for the next several minutes, Acting Director Matthew Hanley offered Catherine King unprecedented access to the inner workings of the CIA. Exclusives, tips, personal tours, and visits to places she could not have dreamed of getting into. Introductions to players, background intelligence on world figures, and data that she had never thought she would obtain from anyone in government, least of all from the top spy in U.S. intelligence.
Hanley finished his spiel by saying, “Denny Carmichael was not an evil man. I didn’t like him, never did. But that was because his methods were too top-down. He thought he was a puppet master and a king, and that’s not what this place needs at all. Everything bad that has happened, everything classified you’ve learned about in the past week . . . it was all Denny Carmichael. When he died . . . I’d like to hope that could all die with him.” He spoke in a pleading voice now. “Don’t destroy this Agency by reporting the crimes of a man who no longer needs to be stopped. Instead, watch this Agency closer than anyone in the Fourth Estate has ever watched us. Make sure I don’t become Denny. You can have a real positive impact on this organization, on this nation.” Hanley winked. “And you can probably write some damn fine stories in the process.”
Catherine kept her poker face, but she had already decided to be extremely sparing in her reporting. She knew the power of the media to destroy, and she knew that despite all the nuance in the world, a thorough piece on the front page of the Washington Post about rogue bands of assassins killing their way across the nation’s capital under orders from the number two man at the CIA would cause politicians to gut the Agency down to nothing.
She wouldn’t do that.
That the new guy running NCS just offered her unparalleled access almost caused her to jump out of her chair.