chapter 30
WASHINGTON, D.C.
NASH hopped on the Beltway and circled back around the city in a counterclockwise motion. He'd made three seemingly random stops: a gas station, a coffee shop, and a drugstore. Both his phones were turned off and the batteries removed. The internal GPS computer on the minivan had been disabled long ago. This way if they ever tried to pull his records there would be no record of his stopping at these various locations every week. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on New York and D.C., none of this had been necessary. In Saudi Arabia and Syria, yes. He was used to being followed when he operated over there, but not here in America.
When they'd decided to launch their own operation in America, though, everything changed. For political reasons, the FBI wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of sending deep-cover operatives into mosques. The idea had been suggested by many people, more times than anyone could count. The folks at the bureau knew it was the right thing to do in terms of national security, but they also knew whoever signed off on it would be crucified up on the Hill, so the bureau found a middle ground. Their solution was to stay out of the mosques and instead focus on Muslim charities. It was a good start and early on they had a lot of success, especially on the money side. That's what the bureau was really good at. They could investigate the hell out anything. Throw a hundred bright and motivated agents at a problem and inhale it. Collect every little bread crumb until they'd pieced together an amazing picture of what was going on.
With the charities, they found out that a lot of these seemingly innocuous organizations were actually fronts for more militant terrorist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and al-Qaeda. Just like organized crime, the groups adapted. They changed the way they did things and slowly withdrew behind the walls of their mosques, and the FBI stopped at the imaginary line. A line shrouded in the First Amendment. The right to practice one's religion, to say what you'd like, and associate with whomever you saw fit. They'd beat this one to death - "they" being all of the men and women who staffed the National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC. The nerve center of the fight against terrorism in all its emerging forms.
The few who dared to speak out said that this was not about the First Amendment. The decision to stay away from the mosques was political correctness at its apogee. It was a fear of being painted bigots for spying on minorities practicing a minority religion, and it was born out of the illogical, emotion-based, feel-good philosophy of the sixties. Because Islam was different, they dared not criticize it. One of Nash's counterparts at the FBI summed it up best one time when he said, "If four abortion clinics were blown up tomorrow, killing hundreds of people, and a group of white men who were all part of a Southern Baptist antiabortion group took credit for the attacks, do you think we would hesitate for a second to send undercover agents into their churches?"
The question was never answered. The word came down from on high that they were to continue investigating the charities, but they were to stay away from the mosques. That had been nearly two years ago and that had supposedly been when Kennedy, Stan Hurley, and a few select senators got together and agreed that something needed to be done. They pulled Rapp and Nash in and gave them their walking orders. Everything would be funded off the books. A budget of ten million was provided to start with. The initial million was culled from safety deposit boxes at an old bank in Williamsburg. More was flown in from overseas and not a single receipt was kept. Everything was shredded every step of the way. Kennedy had placed her trust in Rapp and Nash that they would spend the money wisely, and they did. The hardest part had been recruiting the agents. They started with four and hooked them with service to their country and a pile of cash. One million per guy, all tax-free, and they could choose to keep as much or as little of it offshore as possible.
They targeted four mosques. One in Washington, one in Philadelphia, and two in the New York area. They were now up to eight agents, and the intel was pouring in. It was where they'd first learned that al-Qaeda was training commando teams to send to America for coordinated attacks against individuals and infrastructure. The last six months had been an intelligence bonanza. They were steadily connecting the dots of a terrorist network that was being built to help fund and support jihad in America. Two cells had been intercepted and a third had finally been confirmed. And now he was being asked to pull the plug on the entire thing. Roll it up and make it go away. Get ready for the investigation.
Nash pulled through the security checkpoint at the NCTC and parked in the underground garage. He didn't know what he dreaded more, going upstairs or having to go before the Intelligence Committee later in the afternoon. At least with most of the people on the Intelligence Committee he knew where he stood, which was pretty much that he didn't respect three-quarters of them. Upstairs was filled with people he liked. People he respected and people he was going to have to lie to yet again. The internal conflict was wearing on him, which made him think of Hurley and his comments on how it was all tied together.
Nash put his phones back together, turned them on, and headed for the elevators. When the doors opened on the sixth floor, he forced himself to get out. He walked across the carpeted hallway, held his card up against the black pad, and waited to hear the click that would allow him to enter the bullpen. It came and he opened the door and stepped into the big room. Men and women from virtually every federal agency that had anything to do with law enforcement, intelligence gathering, and the military were present. They were sprawled out across the gymnasium-sized room in working pods designed to make them more efficient. On the far wall was a massive screen the size of a neighborhood movie theater. It was flashing images from eight different news organizations.
Nash didn't look at them, but he could feel the hush spread through the buzz of the room and knew that one by one they were turning to note his arrival. Nash had spent much of the day bracing himself for what was about to happen. His voice mail was full, and he hadn't bothered to clear it. He figured he'd wait until he could sit down at his desk and call it up on speakerphone. Besides, the people who really mattered knew not to call that number.
Nash broke left and headed down the side of the room. He passed several glass-walled offices and kept his chin down. He'd made it to within a few feet of his own office when he heard his name barked by an all-too-familiar voice. Nash slowly turned and faced Art Harris. The forty-two-year-old was the bureau's deputy assistant director of their CTC division. He was almost six feet tall, had receding close-cropped hair, and mocha-colored skin. He was extremely fit for a man who spent his days behind a desk.
Harris had one hand resting on the hilt of his 357 Sig and the other held a copy of the Post. "You want to tell me what in the hell this is all about?"
"Good afternoon, Art."
"Don't good afternoon me. Explain this."
"There's nothing to explain."
"Bullshit."
Nash pointed at Harris's hip. "Are you gonna draw on me, cowboy?"
Harris, feeling slightly foolish with everyone watching, took his hand off his gun. "Don't change the subject. I asked you a direct question."
"I wasn't aware that I answered to you, Art."
"Don't play games with me, Nash. I'll have your ass transferred out of here by sundown."
"Please do. Although I might miss watching you play wet nurse."
Harris shook the paper. "Stop dodging my question."
"It's all bullshit, Art."
"Fiction?"
"Yep."
"You know I'm no fan of the Post. They usually manage to put their little spin on most of the propaganda they put out there, but I don't recall them being in the business of just making shit up whole cloth."
"I don't know what to tell ya."
"How about the truth?"
Nash sighed and said, "Art, I don't know how to say it any other way. I have no idea what that reporter is talking about."
"If I find out that you're lying to me, I'm going to nail your ass to the wall."
"You arrogant prick." Nash took a couple of steps toward Harris. "You gonna start investigating people based on what's printed in the Washington Post? Because if that's the case, maybe we should investigate you guys for being a bunch of nutless pussies."
Harris took three quick steps forward and got right in Nash's face. "You want to take this down to the parking garage?"
"You wouldn't stand a chance, and you know it."
"Don't be so sure."
"I'm sure," Nash said as he backed away. "Why don't you call that reporter and find out why he's printing lies about the CIA. Maybe you could indict him for treason." Nash slipped into his office and slammed the door. With a smile on his face, he walked over to his desk and looked down at a printed call list. The damn thing was a page and a half long. His wife had called three times. Nash quickly picked out which ones were the most important and then checked his watch. He had about an hour before he'd have to leave for the command performance with the Intelligence Committee. He would have done almost anything to get out of it, but he knew he had no choice. He'd have to sit there and take their pompous shit, and then lie to them, and thank them for their thoughtful and patriotic stewardship.