Within SH-219’s vaultlike doors, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence heard closed testimony on America’s intelligence activities. When called, emissaries from the seventeen elements of the intelligence community—a feudal patchwork of acronyms ranging from the CIA and the NSA to the INR and the TFI—briefed the committee and answered the senators’ questions.
CIA deputy director René Ambrose found the entire process farcical. Explaining complex strategic operations to elected officials, most of whom he wasn’t altogether convinced knew the difference between Indonesia and Malaysia, cast democracy in a dubious light. It irritated him, and he woke most mornings irritable to begin with. He didn’t care for politics, and as a rule, he didn’t appreciate being drawn away from Langley for this dog-and-pony show. But he was the deputy director of East Asia and Pacific Analysis, and his testimony on China and North Korea had become staples of the committee’s diet.
To add insult to injury, briefings were scheduled for mid to late afternoon, which meant a commute in the thick of the DC rush hour. Traffic irritated him. He’d been screwing a congressional press secretary named Lily for a little over a year, often meeting her at the Hotel George after his testimony. It was a tired affair, the sex tame and predictable, but he kept it up because she was discreet, showed no interest in his work, and was flexible to his calendar. And because traffic irritated him that much.
There were thirteen members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, nine in attendance to hear Ambrose’s testimony today. Eight and a half, if one were honest about Bill Russert of Tennessee, who was losing his battle with consciousness across the table. Good, Ambrose thought. He had worked long and hard to cultivate a droning monotone when he testified—the one he used with his wife when she got onto the subject of redecorating the bedroom. Ambrose paused for a sip of water, and Russert’s eyes fluttered opened momentarily. Ambrose fixed him with a courtesy smile until they drifted shut again. By legend, former director William J. Casey’s mutterings were so purposefully inaudible that the committee had headsets installed in the hope of catching the cagey CIA director’s testimony. Ambrose wasn’t so blatant about it, but then he was but a humble deputy director and you could only push it so far.
“If you’ll turn to page sixty-seven, table 8J projects China’s Air Force capacity over the next ten years. As you see, the Chendu J-20 is projected to give them long-range stealth bomber capacity by 2020. However, we believe this project is significantly ahead of schedule, and our estimates place the operational date no later than 2018. We further believe that its combat capabilities have been significantly underestimated by—”
“Mr. Ambrose, if I may? A question,” said Krista Washburn.
Senator Krista Washburn of Iowa was an insightful, principled lawmaker gifted with a brilliant mind. She had a reputation in the intelligence community as a policy wonk and a hard sell. She asked the right questions and recognized when the snow started to fall. She did not take kindly to the kid-glove treatment, and Ambrose admired her for it. Not that he trusted her; in fact, quite the opposite. Her competence made all their jobs more difficult. Ambrose paused his testimony and ceded the floor to her.
“Would you expand on how you’ve arrived at these estimates? This is not at all what we’re hearing from other agencies. In fact, we’ve heard testimony that the Chendu J-20 is behind schedule and that 2023 is more realistic.”
“We have solid intelligence that Chinese claims of setbacks are diversionary.”
“And what is the source of your intelligence?” she pressed.
“Senator, our intelligence is a composite, and can’t be sourced to a single asset.”
That was a lie, but one that he’d been selling to Congress convincingly for the last eight years to everyone but Senator Washburn, who was becoming increasingly disenchanted with it. However, it would be a cold, wintery day in hell before Ambrose even suggested the existence of Echo in the presence of these vultures. An asset of this quality, placed inside the Chinese Politburo itself, was irreplaceable and could not be jeopardized to satisfy Senator Washburn’s intellectual vanity.
“Over the last several years,” Washburn continued, “you’ve been out of step with the majority of our Chinese intelligence.”
“And have we been correct?”
“Remarkably so, but how? That is my question. How is it that you know so much better than your colleagues? What do you say to that?”
“You’re welcome?” Ambrose suggested.
Senator Washburn sat back and crossed her arms, and Ambrose looked for a conciliatory gesture he could make that did not involve Echo.
“Sir,” a voice whispered in Ambrose’s ear. It was his assistant, Kiara Hines—a smart, humorless woman. “There’s something you’re going to want to see.”
That was good enough for Ambrose. He apologized to the chairman and asked for a brief recess. Not waiting for an answer, he gathered up his leather, gold-trimmed, monogrammed portfolio and gave a curt nod to the committee and another to Krista Washburn, whose expression assured him this conversation was far from over. So be it. He followed Kiara out into the hallway of the Hart Office Building. She handed him the April issue of Finance magazine. Charles Merrick stared defiantly out from the cover. Ambrose felt a jagged fingernail drag across his ulcer.
“What the hell is this?”
“Page seventy-three.”
He flipped to the page and read the highlighted passage. When he was finished, not believing what he’d just read, he went back and read the interview in its entirety. Just to be sure he hadn’t imagined it. For anyone who knew to read between the lines, Merrick had just drawn a straight line between himself and Echo. A line that the CIA had spent years erasing. Ambrose closed the magazine and studied the man on the cover. Eight years in federal prison had been good to him. Charles Merrick was still a handsome son of a bitch—a little grayer perhaps, but if anything he looked fitter. There was no justice in the world. Certainly prison had done nothing to dim the arrogance in the man’s eyes. The caption beneath the photo read, “Unrepentant.” That was an understatement. Merrick had ruined thousands of lives and, based on a quick look at the article, had the audacity to blame them for it.
If only he had stopped there.
“Where is Damon Ogden? I mean, right this minute.”
“Langley, sir. In a meeting with Krieger.” Kiara checked her watch. “The car is ready. If we leave now, we can be back at Langley in forty.”
Ambrose thought about the Tuesday-afternoon traffic. He had Lily this evening, and there was still the matter of his testimony. If he left now, the committee would reschedule around him, but they hated doing it and would hold it against him. They might be the Committee on Intelligence, but they found the actual business of gathering intelligence mightily inconvenient.
“No, he comes to me. Get his ass down here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And, Kiara?”
She turned to face him.
“He’d better be here when I’m done in there.”