Kill Shot

Chapter 21
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

THOMAS Stansfield was sitting behind his desk wearing khaki slacks and a blue oxford shirt. It was his Sunday uniform. He'd been to church with his wife and several of his children and grandchildren and was looking forward to heading back to the house on the Potomac for a nice egg bake and some time with his grandkids: Molly, Bert, and little Thomas. Molly was four, and in Stansfield's biased opinion, she already showed great potential. She was in fact the only person in the entire family who dared boss him around, which provided great entertainment for Stansfield's grown children. Stansfield himself was highly amused at the confidence displayed by this three-foot-tall towhead. Her little brother Bert didn't do much other than run around the house and run into things, and little Thomas was, well, little. He was only three months old and Stansfield didn't have much interest in them until they could verbalize their demands. His wife liked the infants, so they divided and conquered, and it was great fun.

His own kids were shocked by how hands-on he was, since he had been absent for much of their childhood. It had been a different time, of course. Dads were nowhere near as involved in the lives of their children as they were now. There had been some interesting debates about this at the family dinner table of late, and Stansfield for the most part let his kids voice their opinions and take their shots at him. They knew where he worked. Beyond that, they were smart enough to fill in the blanks and extrapolate. They'd been raised in multiple countries and again it was no secret who Dad worked for, but he never talked about it. It was a steadfast rule that he had not broken once during his entire career.

Stansfield was the kind of father who showed his disapproval by a few carefully selected words, and maybe a disappointed look. He never raised his voice, and after they reached the age of five or so, he never laid a hand on them. The truth was his wife had done an amazing job. It also didn't hurt that the genetics on the brain side were stacked in the favor of the kids. They'd all graduated from college, and three of the kids had postgraduate degrees. Not a single one of them had a drug or alcohol problem, and there had been just one divorce. All in all not so bad, and Stansfield liked to quietly remind them of this when they spouted off about the fact that he spent more time with his grandkids than he had with them. They had all turned out just fine in spite of him. He also liked to point out that the verdict on what type of parents they were was still out. Stansfield had a bad feeling that all of this hands-on parenting was going to come back and bite the next generation in the ass, but that was their problem and not his. His job, as he saw it, was to enjoy his grandchildren and spoil them rotten.

He looked at his gold Timex watch and noted the time. Kennedy was late, which was not normal, even more so because she was the person who had requested this emergency meeting. When Stansfield had walked out of church, he could tell by the look on his bodyguard's face that something had come up. He told his wife and the kids to head back to the house and that he would be back as soon as possible. He was used to these interruptions, and it normally wouldn't have bothered him, but he was hungry and looking forward to some downtime. He looked out the window at the tops of the colorful trees. It was a beautiful fall afternoon and Molly would be anxious to explore the woods with their lush bed of vibrant leaves. He was about to call Kennedy when there was a knock on the door.

As was his habit, he closed the file on his desk and concealed the secure cable that had been sent by his station chief in Thailand only an hour earlier. "Enter," he half yelled due to the soundproofing of the room. The door opened and Stansfield was surprised to see the number-two man at Langley. Paul Cooke was the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. "Paul, I wasn't expecting you. Come in." Stansfield stood and motioned to the couch and chairs near the window.

"Sorry to interrupt," Cooke said as he closed the door behind him. He was also wearing a blue Oxford shirt and a pair of khakis as well as a blue sport coat. "How have you been?"

Even though their offices were only a few doors down from each other, the two men did not talk much. Stansfield was not a chatty person, and his job required him to be guarded in all conversations. As the man who ran America's operatives and spies, he trusted very few people. The previous director had had great faith in Stansfield and left him to make his own decisions for the most part, and when he did get involved, he never consulted his deputy director. Cooke's job was to oversee the day-to-day operations of Langley and its ten-thousand plus employees. Stansfield took care of his small but important fiefdom, and Marvin Land, the deputy director of Intelligence, had a similar arrangement. The place was now in a sort of limbo, with Stansfield and Land running their own crucial departments until the next director was appointed and confirmed. So far, Cooke had let that old arrangement stand.

Stansfield said, "Just fine."

"I thought you had a standing rule to stay out of here on Sundays?" Cooke asked.

Stansfield offered him a small smile. "You know how it is . . . just because it's Sunday doesn't mean our enemies take the day off."

"Very true," Cooke said as he sat in one of the gray armchairs.

Stansfield leaned back into the couch. "What can I help you with?"

Cooke clasped his hands in front of his chin and seemed to consider where he should start. After another moment and a sharp inhalation, he said, "This thing in Paris . . . it's causing quite a stir."

Stansfield nodded. He wasn't a big talker and wasn't about to expand on the obvious.

Several long moments passed before Cooke continued, saying, "I had a strange meeting yesterday." He looked out the window as if he was unsure of how to proceed.

Stansfield gave him nothing more than a slight nod that told him he was welcome to continue. If Cooke had a story to tell, he was going to have to do it on his own.

"Franklin Wilson asked me over to his house."

The often overwrought secretary of state had undergone some type of reformation since his wife's decline in health. As far as Stansfield understood it, Cooke and Wilson barely knew each other. Asking Cooke to meet him at his house was a little odd. "On a Saturday afternoon?"

"Yes, I know." Cooke played along as if he thought it was all a little bizarre himself. "He is very upset about this Paris thing."

"A lot of people are upset about what happened in Paris . . . none more so than the Libyans and the French. Why is our secretary of state so distressed?"

"He's upset because he thinks you're not being honest with him." Cooke studied Stansfield for a hint of nervousness, but the old granite bastard didn't give him so much as a twitch. "Does that concern you?"

"I learned a long time ago, Paul, that I can't control what people say or do in this town. Franklin Wilson is a very opinionated man, who has been acting a bit strange since he institutionalized his wife. If he has a reason to be upset with me, he can pick up the phone and tell me himself."

Cooke crossed his legs and then uncrossed them. He would have to tell Wilson exactly what Stansfield had said about his wife. Maybe even play it up a bit. If the man had a hard-on for Stansfield now, he was going to want to gang-rape him after he heard this. "It goes a little deeper than that," Cooke said. He cleared his throat and then added, "He thinks you were involved in what happened the other night."

"The other night meaning . . ."

"Paris."

Stansfield stared back at him without saying a word.

"You don't have anything you'd like to say?" Cooke asked.

"I've found it best not to respond to wild accusations."

"Well," Cooke said with a big exhalation, "I'm just trying to give you a little heads-up. The man has the president's ear, for God's sake, and for some reason he thinks you were involved in the assassination of the Libyan oil minister."

"And he came to this belief how?"

"He wouldn't say."

"Interesting."

"That's your response?" Cooke asked, making no attempt to hide his frustration. "That is a very serious accusation. You're not going to deny it?"

Stansfield studied Cooke for a long moment. He sensed something that he didn't like. Cooke was fishing, and he got the specific feeling that Wilson had put him up to it. With the director's office open down the hall, who knew what delusions of grandeur were floating through people's heads these days. Cooke did not have the analytical abilities to run Langley, but he could certainly see Wilson waving the job in front of his face to get him to do his bidding. "Paul, you should remind the secretary that we're all on the same team, and he should probably think twice before he starts throwing around wild accusations that could seriously harm this country and our foreign policy."

"So you had nothing to do with what happened the other night?"

Cooke might not have known it at the time, but Stansfield could see that a line had been drawn. Any Langley man who was dumb enough to be a messenger for the State Department was dangerous. Stansfield looked Cooke straight in the eyes and said, "I had nothing to do with it. Are you satisfied?"

Cooke accepted the answer even though he knew it was a lie. "Well." He slapped his knees and stood. "I'm heading over to Paris in the morning. See if I can help smooth things over."

"What exactly do you have to smooth over?"

"That might be the wrong choice of words. I want to reassure our allies that we had nothing to do with this." Cooke started for the door and when he reached it, he looked back to Stansfield and said, "You're more than welcome to join me if you'd like."

Stansfield took the invitation with a reasonable nod. "I'll think about it. I'd have to move a few things around, but it might be worth the trip. It's been a while since I paid a visit to our friends at the DGSE."

"Good." Cooke left the office, closing the door behind him, a satisfied grin on his face.

Stansfield sat motionless for a minute or so, running the various possibilities through his head. Any way he looked at it, he didn't like what he sensed. The old spy's strength was his ability to take facts, plug in a person's motivation, and predict what he was after. Cooke was up to something. Stansfield considered the possibility that he had underestimated the man. He very quickly concluded that there was a good possibility that he had. Frowning, he decided that he would have to move quickly to deal with the situation. He ran down a list of trusted operatives he could call on. There were no files for these men; all of them were retired yet still very useful. Stansfield decided on an asset and then asked himself if he should have a talk with Marvin Land. Stansfield and Land had a great deal of professional respect for each other, as they had fought side by side against the Soviets. He wondered if Cooke had already tried to play Land. That would be an interesting yet very stupid move.