American Assassin

Chapter 12
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

KENNEDY parked in the east lot and entered the Headquarters Building at exactly eight-oh-three. She'd used the hour-and-a-half drive up from Lake Anna to try to prioritize her ever-increasing list of responsibilities, both official and unofficial. Much of her job was off the books, and that meant no notes and no files. She had to keep it all organized in her own mind, and every time she came back to HQ she needed to have her story straight. When the elevator doors parted on the sixth floor one of her bosses was waiting with a deeply concerned look on his face.

Max Powers nudged her back into the elevator and said, "Problem."

Powers was the Near East Division chief. It had taken Kennedy a while to get used to his style. Powers was famous for speaking in one-word sentences. His colleagues who had worked with him over the years called him Musket Max.

Kennedy stepped back and asked, "What's wrong?" Her immediate fear, as it was almost every time she entered the building, was that her black ops program had been uncovered.

"Beirut," Powers said, offering nothing more.

Beirut could mean a lot of things, but on this hot August morning Kennedy was aware of one thing in particular. "John?"

"Yep."

"Crap," Kennedy mumbled under her breath. John Cummins was one of their deep-cover operatives who had snuck into Lebanon three days earlier. An American businessman who worked for a data storage company had been kidnapped the previous week. This company, it turned out, was run by a Texan with big contacts in D.C. The owner was old-school, former army, and over the past thirty years he had freely and enthusiastically kept the CIA and the Pentagon abreast of all the info he and his people happened to pick up in their international dealings. A lot of very important people in town owed him, and he decided now was time to call in a few of his IOUs.

The Pentagon had zero assets in the region and the CIA wasn't much better. They were still trying to recover from the kidnapping, torture, and death of their Beirut station chief half a decade earlier. Langley did, however, have assets in Jordan, Syria, and Israel. Cummins, who had lived in Syria for the past three years, was the best bet. He'd built up some great contacts by passing himself off as a counterfeiter of U.S. currency and smuggler of American-made goods that were embargoed in the region.

From the jump Kennedy argued against using him. He was by far their most valuable asset inside Syria, and Beirut, although safer than it had been in the eighties, was still pretty much the Wild West of the Middle East. If anything went wrong Cummins would be lost. Someone with a much bigger title had overruled her, however.

"How bad?" Kennedy asked.

"Bad."

The doors opened on the seventh floor and Kennedy followed Powers down the hall to the office of Thomas Stansfield, the deputy director of operations. The door was open and the two of them breezed through the outer office, past Stansfield's assistant, and into the main office. Powers closed the soundproof door. Kennedy looked at the silver-haired Stansfield, who was sitting behind his massive desk, his glasses in one hand and the phone in the other. Stansfield was probably the most respected and feared man in the building and possibly the entire town. Since they were on the same team Kennedy respected, but did not fear the old spy.

Stansfield cut the person on the other end off, said good-bye, and placed the phone back in its cradle. Looking up at Powers, he asked, "Any further word?"

Powers shook his head.

"How did it happen?" Kennedy asked.

"He was leaving his hotel on Rue Monot for a lunch meeting," Stansfield said. "He never showed. He missed his check-in this afternoon and I placed a call to my opposite in Israel. Mossad did some quiet checking." Stansfield shook his head. "A shopkeeper saw someone fitting Cummins's description being forced into the trunk of a car shortly before noon today."

Kennedy felt her stomach twist into a wrenching knot. She liked Cummins. They knew all too well how this would play out. The torture would have commenced almost immediately, and depending on how Cummins held up, death was the likely outcome.

"I remember you voiced your opposition to this," Stansfield said, "but know there are certain things that even I wasn't told."

"Such as?"

The ops boss shook his head, letting her know he wasn't allowed to talk about it. "The important thing now is that Schnoz's Syrian contacts back his cover story. If they don't step up to the plate for him, this will end badly." Cummins was half Armenian and half Jewish and had a nose to make a Roman emperor jealous; hence his unofficial cover name was Schnoz.

"Double down," Powers chimed in. "Get the Texas boy on a plane with a couple suitcases filled with cash."

"It's a possibility that I already floated with the White House. They're getting nervous, though, and for good reason."

"They should be," Kennedy said. "They just burned one of our most valuable assets trying to do a personal favor that as far as I can tell has nothing to do with national security."

"Bingo," Powers said.

Stansfield was quiet for a moment. "I have a back channel I can use with the CEO. He wants this employee back, and I think when I explain to him what happened to our man, he'll offer to pay for both. It should help cement the idea that Schnoz was working as a freelancer."

"It better happen quick," Kennedy said. "We never know how long someone will be able to hold out. If they break Schnoz..." She stopped talking and shuddered at the thought of the damage that would be done.

"I know," Stansfield sighed.

"Rescue op?" Powers asked.

Stansfield looked slightly embarrassed. "Not going to happen. We knew it going in. Beirut is still radioactive."

"What if we get some good intel?" Kennedy asked.

"That's a big what if."

"But if we do," Kennedy pressed her point, "we need assets in place."

Stansfield sadly shook his head.

"Corner office or Sixteen Hundred?" Powers asked.

Kennedy understood the shorthand question to mean was it the director of CIA who was freezing them out or the White House?

"White House," Stansfield replied.

"Our friends at the Institute." Powers offered it as a suggestion. "They're in the loop?"

Stansfield tapped the leather ink blotter on his desk while he considered the Israeli option. The Institute was the slang Powers used to refer to the Institute for Intelligence, or as they were better known, Mossad."

"I'm told they knew before we did."

"Maybe let them handle the cowboy stuff ... if it comes to that."

The fact that it had not occurred to him to have Mossad handle the rescue spoke volumes about the complicated relationship. "If something concrete comes our way I'll consider it, but..."

"You don't want to owe them the farm," Powers said.

"That's right. They would more than likely demand something that I'm either unwilling or unable to give them."

"May I say something, sir?" Kennedy asked.

Stansfield wasn't sure he wanted to hear it, but he knew he needed to let his people vent. He nodded.

"This problem is never going to go away until we send these guys a very serious message."

"I assume you mean the kidnapping?"

"Yes."

"I told the director the same thing five minutes before you walked in the door, but it seems we lack the political will, at the moment, to take a more aggressive approach."

"Pussies," Powers muttered, and then looked at Kennedy and said, "Sorry."

"No need to apologize." She paused and then decided this was the right time to push her agenda. "You know what this means?"

"No."

"It's yet another example of why we need to get Orion up and running. How in hell can we expect our assets to operate in this environment? It's bad enough that we won't get tough with these guys ... it's inexcusable that we won't even consider a rescue op. He's one of our own, for Christ's sake!"

Stansfield was not surprised that she'd brought it up. He would have done the same thing if he was in her place, but during a crisis like this it was a common mistake to hurry things that needed time. "I want this to happen as badly as you do, Irene, but it can't be rushed. If we send a bunch of half-baked assets into the field, we'll end up spending all our energy trying to pull them out of the fire. Trust me ... I saw it firsthand back in Berlin. Just try to be patient for a few more months. If a couple of these guys can prove that they have the stuff, I'll greenlight it, and support you every step of the way."

Kennedy took it as a promise but couldn't get her mind off Cummins and what he was enduring. Her thoughts for some unknown reason turned to Rapp. She hoped he was the one. The weapon they could turn loose on these murderous zealots.