“There is nobody else. You’re the best.”
Viscovich took a sip of her wine, but remained silent. She didn’t want this job. No good would come of it.
“I’m willing to double your fee.”
“I’ll bet you are,” she replied. Holding up her glass to get their server’s attention, she signaled that she was ready for another one. “You?”
He nodded and Viscovich motioned for a full round.
There were a dozen large oysters in front of them. She chose one and added some mignonette sauce. Then, she raised the shell to her mouth, tipped her head back, and let it slide down her throat.
Jordan watched, his appreciation for how she consumed her oysters a bit too obvious.
“Is there a problem?” she asked.
“No, I was just thinking—”
“I know what you were thinking. Knock it off.”
He held up his hands. “This is just business. That’s all this is.”
“You’re damn right that’s all this is.”
Reaching down, she prepared another oyster and was about to eat it when she set it back onto her plate. “I understand why I get the kinds of jobs I do from you. It’s not necessarily because they’re hard, though most of them are, but rather because if I get caught, the Agency can deny any knowledge of me.”
“Correct.”
“And I’m okay with that,” she stated. “But this is different. Why does the Agency want to run covert surveillance on its own Deputy DCI?”
“I told you it’s—”
She raised her hand and cut him off. “Don’t bullshit me, Andy. Not if you seriously want me to consider this job. And if that’s what you want, you must have come here knowing that I’d expect an explanation.”
He saw their waiter approaching and waited until he had set the drinks on the table and had walked away before responding.
“Ryan is leaving the Agency.”
“Interesting,” she replied, pouring what was left of her wine into the new glass and then taking a sip. “What do you care?”
“Have you heard of the Carlton Group?”
Viscovich smiled. “Everybody worth their salt in our game has heard of the Carlton Group.”
“That’s where she’s going.”
“Again, why do you care?”
Jordan loaded up an oyster with horseradish and cocktail sauce. “Because she’s not going alone. She’s going to be taking key people with her.”
“Is that a crime?”
“It depends.”
“Then why not bring in the FBI?”
“It’s tricky,” he said, as he raised the overloaded oyster to his mouth, slurped it back, and continued to talk as he chewed. “Ryan may be sharing some things with her new employer that neither they nor the FBI should be hearing.”
Viscovich ignored the man’s poor table manners and redirected. “So use your own people to surveil her.”
“Therein lies our problem. Lydia Ryan has been at CIA a long time; everybody likes her. She’s got friends everywhere. We can’t do this internally.”
“It sounds like you’ve got a pretty serious problem.”
“Tell me about it.”
Taking another sip, she swirled the wine in her glass and asked, “Who knows about your investigation?”
“It’s a tight circle,” he said as he loaded up another oyster. “And needless to say, none of what we have discussed here goes any further.”
Viscovich rolled her eyes. “Give me a break. I know how this works. Is the Director involved?”
Without missing a beat, Jordan looked up from his oyster, smiled at her, and lied. “DCI McGee? Of course. He’s running the entire investigation. One hundred percent.”
“Good. From what I hear, he’s a reasonable man. He’ll understand I expect you to triple my fee,”
Jordan squinted at her.
“And,” she added, “I want an official finding, signed by the Director, on his letterhead, authorizing me to do what you’re asking.”
He shook his head. “No way. He’ll never go for it.”
“Those are my terms. You either meet them, or I walk.”
For several moments, he pretended to think about her demands. Finally, he said, “I think I can probably get McGee to agree to that. But for triple your fee, it’s going to need to include another surveillance package.”
“That depends. Who’s the target?”
“Ryan’s new boss,” said Jordan. “Reed Carlton.”
CHAPTER 29
* * *
* * *
LIBYA
Completely blacked out, Harvath’s two-vehicle convoy pounded through the desert, using their night vision goggles to guide them.
Night vision goggles, though, depended on ambient light—something they had too little of.
Usually on an operation like this, the vehicles would have been outfitted with infrared headlights or some other sort of IR. But this wasn’t a normal operation, and Harvath had known that even under the best of conditions, the dirt roads were going to be tough to follow. Fortunately, he had come up with a solution.
Keying up his radio, he had asked the drone team to “sparkle” the roads for him.
Onboard the Reaper was a powerful infrared laser that acted like a giant laser pointer. It not only helped illuminate their route, but it also helped direct them where they needed to go.
Light on the infrared spectrum was invisible to the naked eye and could only be seen with night vision. It was a very useful tool, which gave them an exceptional advantage.
The advantage, however, was short-lived.
Harvath’s plan had been to stay on the desert roads until just south of the tiny fishing village of Abu Kammash, not far from the Tunisian border. There, provided no one was on their tail, they could cut back south along the coast and pick up the road that would take them back to the safe house.
That plan was scrapped when the drone team alerted Harvath that his convoy had vehicles converging on it from multiple directions.
How the hell was that possible? “Off sparkle,” he ordered.
“Roger that. Off sparkle,” the drone team leader replied.
The effect was like someone turning off a streetlight. Their visibility instantly dropped. Staelin, who was piloting their Land Cruiser, had no choice but to slow down.
They went from doing more than sixty miles an hour, to less than twenty. Harvath, who was riding shotgun, leaned forward to get a better view through the windshield, but it was no use.
Behind them, Haney slowed the technical. Compared to how fast they had been going, they were now moving at a snail’s pace.
“What are the hostile vehicles doing now?” Harvath asked over the radio.
“Same thing you are,” the voice replied.
Harvath had been afraid of that. It looked as if they had night vision as well. It was the weak spot in his plan. And while he couldn’t know for sure how the Libya Liberation Front had gotten their hands on such highly restricted technology, he had a pretty good idea.