He would have liked to have held the ceramics factory, but it was too isolated a position to defend with fifty men and no heavy weapons. He knew better than to depend on the luck of an arrival of American Army helicopters over the battlefield the next time.
13
Adara Sherman sat at the conference table in Gerry Hendley’s office, across from both Gerry and John Clark. This was her big interview, and she was nervous, though the two men had gone out of their way to convey informality and friendliness. This was a serious meeting about a serious job, but they treated her the same as they would on any other day.
Adara told herself she was ready for this. She wanted this. She could ace any testing or training they had in store for her. Although well into her thirties, she was in better physical shape now than she had been when she climbed high in the Afghan Kush providing combat aid for Marines, and she knew it.
She also knew she just had to make it through this conversation, and she’d get the job she’d wanted ever since she first understood what was going on here at the mysterious Campus.
Clark switched from idle chitchat to the interview by saying, “We know you, obviously. We know how capable you are, what an intelligent young woman you are. You are brave, honest, a complete self-starter who requires absolutely no oversight.”
Gerry said, “Hell . . . we could all go home and you’d have this place running better than it is now.”
Adara smiled. “Kind, but untrue.”
Gerry said, “We do have one concern, actually.”
She found a way to sit up even straighter. “And what is that, Gerry?”
The two older men looked at each other. Their awkwardness suddenly made her uncomfortable. Finally Hendley said, “It’s Dominic.”
Adara’s stomach fell through the floor of the room. She blinked a little slower, and a little harder than she would have liked. “What . . . specifically . . . about Dominic?”
Clark spoke up now. “Obviously, your relationship with Dom presents a special challenge to our operation. It’s just something we haven’t had to deal with before.”
Adara Sherman looked down toward the floor. “So you know about that.”
Clark said, “We do. It’s obvious in the way you two act around each other.”
Her shoulders pulled back now. “I’m sorry, but I have to disagree. I am certain I act in an appropriate manner at all times around all the employees of the organization, Dom Caruso included.”
Gerry put his hands out. “Of course you do. But when Dom is in the room, you go out of your way not to look at him, not to engage with him in the same relaxed way as you do the others. He is the same way with you. You two are stiff and formal around each other. You have been hiding a relationship for a while.” Gerry added, “Even I could see it, and I’m the one guy around here who isn’t a spook.”
Adara nodded slowly. She wasn’t as confident as she had been one minute earlier, but she knew she owed her employers an explanation. “We were only keeping it to ourselves because we knew it would not get in the way of work, and we felt it would be unprofessional to act differently toward one another. Here, Dom is just another of the operations staff, and I’m just a member of the flight crew and the transportation and logistics coordinator for The Campus. We weren’t trying to be deceitful, just discreet.”
Clark said, “You aren’t in trouble. There is no rulebook here. Gerry did tell the boys to keep away from you when you joined the team, but that was more of a word of warning and less of an official conduct policy.”
Gerry smiled, “Thank God only one of the single guys made a move on you.”
Adara frowned playfully. “Who said Dom made the move on me?”
Gerry’s eyes widened, then he cleared his throat nervously.
Clark fought a smile. “Anyway, I have a great team in Ding, Dominic, and Jack, and unit cohesion is critically important. I have no doubts you will fit in with the boys, I’ve seen it ever since you started here. Honestly, I only wonder if Dominic will act differently if you are put in more danger as an operative. I would very much like to add you to the team. But not at the expense of losing Dom as an effective asset.”
“We have discussed this,” Adara said, “and he is fully on board with my application to the operational ranks.”
Clark shook his head. “No . . . he’s not. I could see it in his eyes when he nominated you. He’s scared about you getting hurt. And you shouldn’t blame him after what’s happened here.”
“I don’t blame him. Of course I know about his brother, though that was before my time. I was Sam’s friend, and I know he and Dom were close. But I want the opportunity to show him, to show all of you, that I will fit right in.”
Clark continued, “Having the four of you to call on would be a boon to our operation. Not all at the same time, though. I want you to know that if we bring you aboard, we will not have you and Dom working together. I think it’s better for everyone that way.”
Gerry said, “We make allowances for the fact Jack’s dad is the President. There are places we just won’t send Jack. With you it will be the same way. Some ops won’t be right for you.”
“Of course.” She nodded eagerly. She could feel the tide turning back her way.
Clark said, “And then there is the training. There is a lot you do know, but a lot you do not know. Are you prepared to undergo months of rigorous training?”
“Actually, I look forward to it.”
“Surveillance training will begin just as soon as we pull in a second new recruit.”
Adara blinked. “Wait . . . Somewhere in there, did you just offer me the job?”
Clark and Gerry looked at each other. Gerry said, “You damn well deserve a promotion around here, and since we don’t have a bigger plane to put you on . . . yes. You pass your training phase, and you’ll be an operative of The Campus.”
Adara reached out to shake the men’s hands. As Clark took it, he said, “You might regret this decision. I owe it to you to make the training ultrarealistic and tough.”
“I will give one hundred percent, every day.”
She stood to leave, but as she got to the door, Gerry said, “Adara, we’re going to bring Dom in right now and tell him. He’s going to act tough and unconcerned, but this will eat him up inside. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but I hope you understand he just feels that way because he cares.”
She nodded. “I do. Thanks, Gerry and John, for your understanding to both Dom and me. And I’ll keep everything transparent from now on.”
—
Mary Pat Foley had worked late at the office, then spent only one hour talking to her husband before they both went to bed, and now she woke suddenly to the sound of her ringing mobile phone by her head on the nightstand. Her husband, Ed, himself a former top American intelligence official, had enjoyed a forty-year career of late-night phone calls, but Mary Pat was the one still in government service, so Ed just sat up next to his wife while she fumbled with the phone.
“Foley.” She looked at the clock and saw it was four-fifty a.m. She’d miss out on her last forty minutes of sleep today.
The line was encrypted, she knew, because the director of the CIA was the man on the other end of the line.
Jay Canfield said, “Good morning, Mary Pat.”
“Morning, Jay.”
She’d just wait for it; there was no need to ask him to get to the point.
“You know I like to provide solutions to your problems, but I’m afraid I have a brand-new problem for you that is completely out of left field.”
“What now?”
“We picked up some SIGINT out of Indonesia. A U.S. consular affairs officer is preparing to pass some sort of classified material to North Korean officers in Jakarta.”
Mary Pat rubbed her eyes. “God Almighty. What an idiot. The North Koreans don??
?t even pay.”
Of course Canfield knew what she meant. Why would any American spy for North Korea? They had an ideology nobody but nobody outside the DPRK’s borders ascribed to, and they were notoriously cheap when it came to purchasing intelligence product.
“Yeah, this is a weird one, that’s for sure,” Canfield said.
“Who is he?”
“We don’t have his name. We picked up the North Korean side of a phone conversation. By context we can tell they are talking to a U.S. official at the embassy, not terribly well connected. Their previous interactions must have been done either in person or via some other method of comms. E-mail, perhaps. They told the American where to meet them with the information they demanded. We don’t know what information he is being asked to pass. From what we heard the American doesn’t sound like he wants any part of this, but he does sound like he’s ready for the transaction to be over and done with. I think he’s going to go through with it.”
Mary Pat said, “Sounds like a compromise of some sort. They have pictures of him that would ruin his life. Something along those lines.”
“I agree. I’ve already contacted Dan. This is FBI jurisdiction.”
“When does the pass take place?”
“Forty-eight hours from now. They are giving the mole time to retrieve the intel they are demanding. Dan Murray is flying a team into Indonesia to have them set up on the pass location and take it down, but they have to go in under cover. Working with the Indonesians on something this in extremis is just about impossible, and we need to roll this guy up quickly and quietly. Dan’s boys are flying in from Hong Kong. They should be on the ground around eleven a.m. East Coast time today, so that will give them a day and a half to prep for the snatch. We’ll be close by in an advisory role.”
“Okay,” Mary Pat said. “Keep me posted.”
She hung up the phone, looked over at Ed. He was looking back at her in the dark. “Is it bad?”
“It’s unrelated to the Musa al-Matari hunt. Some State Department guy is about to pass intel to North Korea.”
Ed nodded. “Definitely a compromised individual.”
“Exactly. Dan Murray has a special team racing in to handle it. I’ll go in early to clear some other items off my desk, because I’m sure there will be a meeting about this at some point today.”
“I’ll start the coffee,” Ed said with a tired smile.
Both of them climbed out of bed.
“Poor baby,” Mary Pat said with genuine sympathy as she headed to the bathroom. “You thought you would get to sleep in when you retired.”
“Not at all, dear. I’m a pretty smart guy, so I knew I wouldn’t get to sleep in till you retired.”
14
John Clark looked out over the one-man campsite, and wished he could stay here a couple days, because this was his kind of place. Yes, it was a simple affair: a pup tent, a fire burned down to coals, a cooler to sit on, and some fishing gear leaning against a tree. But it was just twenty-five yards or so from a beautiful lake, the pines surrounding it gave off a great smell, and the air was still a little cool this morning, even though it was summer.
While Clark eyed the camp with his binoculars from a hill a hundred yards away, he assumed the resident of the campsite must have been out fishing now.
It was just eleven in the morning on an overcast day, and he heard a rumble in the sky to his left. At first he thought it was thunder, but when he looked in that direction he saw a pair of C-17 Globemasters, massive U.S. Air Force transport aircraft, flying just a thousand feet or so above the terrain. While he watched, men began jumping out of both planes simultaneously. Round parachutes popped open instantly.
Clark mumbled to himself. “Eighty-second Airborne.” This was Fort Bragg, after all, their home. It was no surprise to witness a drop here.
He wanted to sit and watch the entire spectacle from the hill, it was an amazing sight to see, but he had work to do, so he began walking down to the little campsite. The last thing he wanted to do was surprise anyone down there, so he called out when he was still forty yards away, on the off chance the owner of the tent was still zipped up inside.
“Hello? Anybody home?”
But when he got to the campsite he found it empty and quiet.
He walked through the pine trees down to Mott Lake, peered out over the water looking for any sign of a fishing boat in the distance, but the lake was still and empty.
There wasn’t a soul in sight.
Just then, a voice right behind him, not twenty-five feet away. “Last time I saw you, we were on the other side of the world.”
Clark did not spin around at the voice. He didn’t know this man very well, and this man barely knew him at all. Clark didn’t want to do anything to put him at unease.
Clark smiled and turned slowly, his hands away from his body. “Ukraine. A bit more urban, a lot more noisy than it is here.”
The bearded man with the ball cap said nothing.
Clark asked, “How’ve you been?”
The man answered flatly. “Fair.” And then, “You’re going to have a tough time trying to sell me on the fact this is some sort of a chance encounter.”
Former Delta Force officer Barry Jankowski stood in the foliage, leaning against a tree. He wore a U.S. Army T-shirt and cargo shorts, but Clark could see the imprint of a pistol under the T-shirt in an appendix holster. The man’s right hand was close enough to grab the gun in a flash if he had call to do so.
Clark said, “No, Barry. I came here to talk to you. Wanted to do it face-to-face, and this area seemed like we might have a little privacy.”
“Oh, it’s sure private here. No tourists, no fishermen. No fish, as a matter of fact.”
“They aren’t biting?”
“I blame it on the C-17s over there at the Luzon Drop Zone. Fish can feel that rumble and it freaks them out.”
Clark cocked his head.
“Just a theory,” Jankowski said. “Some might even call it an excuse.”
Clark said, “You’ve got the drop on me, so I am in complete agreement with you.”
Barry smiled. “I’m not as skittish as you take me for.”
“I hate to disturb a man enjoying all this peace.”
“You can feel free to call me Midas. I’m not Army anymore, but nobody at Bragg has called me Barry since . . . since pretty much ever.”
“What about Bartosz?” Clark asked.
“Well, now. You really have been looking into me, haven’t you?”
“I’d appreciate a few minutes of your time. Maybe after we talk, the fishing will be better.”
“I got a heads-up the other day that your buddy Chavez was asking around about me. Should I be worried or flattered?”
“You have a beer in that cooler up there?”
“I’ve got a few, yeah. I guess it’s five o’clock somewhere. C’mon.”
—
A few minutes later the two men, one in his late thirties, the other in his late sixties, sat on low tree stumps and sipped cans of Miller High Life. They swatted the occasional mosquito, talked a bit about Fort Bragg, and finally Midas grew bored with the conversational dance between the two.
He said, “So . . . what brings you out here?”
Clark nested his beer can in some pine needles on the ground. “You’ve applied at the Agency.”
“From what I remember, you aren’t with the Agency anymore. In fact, right after that whole thing in Ukraine, I had some serious-looking dudes show up and tell me you and the rest of your gang don’t exist.”
“Where would this country be without the serious-looking dudes skulking around telling people that what they just saw didn’t happen?”
“Debatable,” Midas said, sipped his beer. “Yeah, I applied. I guess it takes longer when your name is Bartosz Jankowski than if your name is
Jack Ryan.” Midas raised an eyebrow. “Of course, Jack Ryan, Jr., isn’t Agency, either.”
“Just another guy who doesn’t exist,” Clark said.
“So I am told.”
“Look, Midas. My group . . . the guys you met, minus one who is no longer with us . . . we are an outfit that gets to do some interesting things. Important things. It is possible that you might rather work for us than for Langley. I can give you a list of men and women who know who we are, what we do. You will recognize some of the names.”
Midas did not hide his disappointment. “Is this because I didn’t get in CIA?”
“Not at all,” Clark said. “I won’t lie, I hear you are going to be offered the job in the National Clandestine Service, sooner or later. I’m not here because you didn’t get in. My organization is not the booby prize. We’re the unit that you don’t apply to. We’re the group that comes to you if we see something we like.”
Midas nodded thoughtfully, grabbed a mosquito out of the air in front of him with a hand fast enough to impress Clark. He asked, “This unit of yours. How big is it?”
“A small information technology and analytics section, a small admin section. In the operational ranks? Three.”
“Three hundred?”
Clark shook his head.
Midas’s eyes widened. “Three thousand?”
Another shake of the head. Clark held up his right hand and extended three fingers.
Midas looked at the hand. “Oh. Three, as in one, two, three.”
“Yeah, that three. We’re looking to expand to five. We are small, but we punch above our weight. We really do have a robust analytical side, and a logistics and information technology component that is absolutely second to none.”