American Assassin

Chapter 18
STANSFIELD stood at the end of the dock, looked up at the moon, and ran through the list of transgressions. Although he didn't show it, and he never did, he was livid with what was going on down here. He had allowed Hurley far too much latitude, and while much of his anger was directed at the snake eater, more of it was directed back at himself. How had he not seen the signs earlier? This place, this operation, all of it was his responsibility. Kennedy had tried to warn him as respectfully as she could, but his days were filled with a hundred other pressing issues of national security. And he had a blind spot when it came to Hurley. Especially on the operational side of things. He'd known Stan longer than anyone at the company. He knew his long list of talents, and his short but potent list of faults.

There'd been a few bumps over the years, occasions when Hurley had let him down, but even the great Ted Williams struck out every now and then. They had met in Budapest in the summer of 1956 just as everything was heating up in the unwilling Soviet satellite. Stansfield was in his thirties and was quickly rising through the ranks of the fledgling CIA, while Hurley was in his early twenties, fresh out of training and thirsting for a fight. Stansfield saw firsthand in the run-up to the Hungarian Revolution that Hurley had a real aptitude for mayhem. He was talented, and wild, and a lot of other things, some good and some bad. But one thing was undeniable. He knew how to get at the enemy. Engage them, upset them, bloody them, and somehow make it back with nothing more than a few bumps. In the espionage business it was easy to fall into a safe daily pattern. Begin the day at your apartment, head to the embassy for work, a local cafe for lunch, back to the embassy, maybe a cocktail party at another embassy in the evening, a stop at a local cafe for a nightcap, and then back to your apartment. You could safely move about a foreign capital without ever risking your job or your life. Not Hurley. When he landed in a new place he headed straight for the rough part of town. Got to the know the prostitutes, the barkeeps, and most important, the black-marketeers who despised their communist overlords. Hurley fed him daily reports about the rising contempt among the citizenry and proved himself to be a first-class field operative. He became Stansfield's indispensable man.

Tonight, however, Stansfield was having his doubts. Budapest had been a long time ago. Sooner or later all skills diminished. The obvious transition was to move him behind a desk, but that would be like asking a race horse to pull a plow. It would kill him. Stansfield looked back up at the house. He had silently left the meeting and walked down to the lake on his own. A simple hand gesture was enough to tell his bodyguards to wait at the top of the small hill. Hurley would know to come find him. He did not have to be asked.

Stansfield could tell his old colleague was well aware that he had disappointed him. He was as down as he'd seen him in many years, and it could have been because of a variety of factors. At the top of the list was probably that shiner on his face. Stansfield had to bite down on the right side of his tongue when he'd found out that Kennedy's recruit had been the one who'd painted him. Hurley's fighting abilities were unmatched by any man he'd ever encountered. His tolerance for pain, his quickness, his mean streak, his Homeric ability to find the weakness of another man, no matter how big or strong, had become the stuff of legend at Langley.

Looking back on it now, Stansfield could see where the mistakes had been made. He had allowed Hurley to create a cult of personality down here. His own little fiefdom of Special Operations shooters. All of them were extremely talented and useful, but as a group they had the ability to create a toxic stew of contempt for anyone who had not walked in their shoes. Even Doctor Lewis, a snake eater himself, had voiced concern. Kennedy had repeatedly attempted to nudge him in the right direction. She had the gift - the ability to glimpse where it was all headed. She knew they needed to adapt, change course and tactics, and she had been trying to get Stansfield's attention. The problem was, as the deputy director of operations, he was in charge of it all. Every valuable operative they had in every major city all over the globe and all of the support people who went with them. Virtually all of it was compartmentalized in some way, and a good portion of it wasn't even put to paper. It was a never-ending chess game that was played in his head every day, all day long.

Stansfield heard the soft footfalls on the stairs coming down to the lake. He turned and made out the image of Hurley in the moonlight. The platform swayed as he stepped onto the L-shaped dock. Hurley approached his boss without a word and pulled out a pack of Camels. He offered his old friend one, knowing that he liked to acquaint himself with his old habit when he was away from his wife. The two men stood facing the lake, looking up at the starry night sky, puffing on their cigarettes for nearly a minute before Hurley finally spoke.

"I f*cked up."

Stansfield gave no reply. Just a simple nod of agreement.

"Maybe it's time I call it quits."

Stansfield turned his head a few degrees to look at Hurley and said, "I will tolerate a lot of things from you, but self-pity is not one of them. You've never been a quitter and you're not going to start now."

"I got my ass beat by a college puke."

"You got your healthy ego bruised is what happened."

"You don't understand. It should have never happened. I still can't explain how it happened. I'm not getting any younger, but even on an off day I'm still better than ninety-nine point nine percent of the guys out there."

"I know math was never your strong suit, but the answer is pretty obvious."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"If you can beat ninety-nine point nine percent of the guys out there and he bested you that means he's in the point one percent."

Hurley shook his head. "I don't see how it's possible. Not enough training."

"You don't see it, because you don't want to. I did a little checking on my own. Irene's find is an exceptionally gifted athlete. He's considered a bit of a freak of nature in the world of lacrosse. Did you know he's considered to be one of the greatest college lacrosse players of all time?"

"What in hell does that have to do with fighting?"

"A great athlete can learn almost anything, and do it a lot quicker than an average athlete," Stansfield said firmly. "Your big problem, though, is that you allowed your personal disdain for anyone who hasn't worn the uniform to cloud your judgment."

"Still - "

"Still nothing," Stansfield cut him off. "The boy is a three-time All-American and national champ. You got thumped by a world-class athlete."

"Who has no real training."

"You yourself said he's been taking classes."

"Rolling around some mat at a strip mall is not training."

Stansfield let out a tired sigh. It was his way of releasing pressure so he didn't blow. Some people you could gently tap a with a finishing hammer a few times and they would get the point. Not Hurley, though. You had to hit the man square in the forehead with a sledgehammer repeatedly to get your point across.

"Sorry," Hurley said meekly. "I'm still having a hard time buying this kid's story."

"You are possibly the most stubborn person I have ever met, and that's saying a lot. You have used that to your advantage many times, but it has also gotten you into a fair amount of trouble, and before you get all sensitive on me, this is coming from the guy who had to get you out of all that trouble over the years. I've called in a lot of favors to pull your ass out of the fire. So hear me when I tell you that this issue is moot. The kid beat you, and quite honestly I don't care how he did it, or where he learned how to do it. The fact is, he did it, and that makes him a very desirable recruit."

Hurley finally got it. "What do you want me to do?"

"Fix it."

"How do I fix it if I'm not even sure where I f*cked up?"

"Stop being so conveniently modest. You know where you made mistakes ... It's just not in your nature to confront them, so dig a little harder and they'll turn up. And by the way, I made a few mistakes of my own. Ultimately, you are my responsibility." Stansfield glanced back up at the house. "That last hour in there was one of the most embarrassing of my career."

Hurley was too embarrassed himself to speak.

"We're supposed to know better," Stansfield continued. "We're the veterans, and we just had two kids point out something that we both should have caught. There was a day when I knew better. To put it mildly, you are an organizational nightmare. You belong in the field. I think this," Stansfield held his arms out and motioned at the nature around them, "lulled me into thinking that you were in fact in the field, but you're not. You're too corralled down here."

"Then let me go active again," Hurley said in an almost pleading voice.

Stansfield mulled the thought over while taking one last puff. There were any number of saying, that could be applied to the espionage trade, but few were as appropriate as the phrase, "nothing ventured, nothing gained." At some point you had to jump into the game. Stansfield had grown weary of receiving secure cables telling him that another one of his assets had been picked off by these radical Islamists. It was time to start hitting back.

"Stan, these Islamists aren't going away."

"I've been telling you that for ten years."

"Looking at the big picture, they've been a minor irritation until now, but I sense something bigger. They are organizing and morphing and spreading like a virus."

"You can thank the damn Saudis and the Iranians for that."

That was true, Stansfield thought. Very few people understood the bloody rivalry between the Sunnis and the Shias. Each sect was growing more radical - more violent. They couldn't wait any longer. Stansfield lowered his voice. "Stan, in six months' time, I want you operational. Stop trying to run these kids down like it's a Special Forces selection process. Irene's right, I don't really care if they can survive in the forest for a week with nothing more than a fingernail clipper. I want them ready for urban operations. I'm going to task Doc to you full-time. Listen to him. He knows what he's doing."

"Okay ... and after six months?" Hurley asked with a bit of optimism in his voice.

"I'm going to turn you loose. We need to hit these guys back. At a bare minimum I want them lying awake at night worried that they might be next. I want you to scare the shit out of them."

Hurley smiled in anticipation. "I know just what to do."

"Good ... and one last thing. You're almost sixty. This is a young kid's game. Especially your side of the business. Our days are numbered. We need to start trusting these kids more. In another ten years they're going to take over, and we'll probably be dead."

Hurley smiled. "I'm not going down without a fight."