Blowback, p.7
Blowback, page 7
“Benjamin, this is Liam. Status?”
Just the sounds of the water slap-slapping against his paddleboard.
“Benjamin, status?”
He peers out to the north. Hazy and hard to see the boats out there.
“Benjamin?”
His voice comes into his earbud. “Liam…we’re a go here.”
“Did that patrol boat come by?”
“Affirmative on that.”
Liam picks up the monocular aiming device. “Damn…everything okay?”
Benjamin says, “Yeah. A twelve-pack of Corona and a hundred-dollar bill made everything all right. They’re off to harass some other poor fisherman. Starting countdown…now. Forty seconds.”
He and Benjamin go through the countdown one more time, and he aims the monocular device at the near window, the light-green reticle centered on it, the interior GPS software keeping it right on target.
“Thirty seconds,” Benjamin says.
“Roger that,” Liam says, as he pulls the trigger.
A laser beam flashes out from his device—invisible to the naked eye—and strikes the center of the window. He keeps it in place, and Benjamin continues the countdown all the way to “Zero, away.”
Liam keeps quiet.
Aiming.
A little flash of light from the horizon, like a quiet burst of heat lightning.
Now.
From the deck of the fishing ship on the other side of the horizon, a modified AGM-114R Hellfire Romeo bunker-buster missile is launched, and instantly locking on to the invisible targeting laser held in Liam’s hands, it punches through the stone cottage’s window and explodes less than a second later.
Liam sees the windows and door blow out of the cottage, and the stone roof crumple and then collapse in a burst of smoke and gray dust. The shock wave even makes his paddleboard sway in the warm water.
Benjamin says, “Liam?”
Liam puts the aiming device down, starts paddling away from the destroyed cottage.
Liam says, “Nothing finer.”
CHAPTER 25
Arlington, Virginia
NOA HIMEL SITS by herself in a wing chair next to a wide wooden desk in a comfortable, first-story home office in a two-story brick home in the Bluemont neighborhood of Arlington, just about fifteen minutes away from Langley. Built-in bookcases are filled with leather-bound volumes and antiques from Turkey, Greece, and southern France rest in decorative cases. Framed photos and certificates hang from the walls. She’s pulled her chair opposite an old-fashioned swivel chair and away from the desk so it’s facing the open door.
In her career she’s met contacts in dingy cafés reeking of cigarette smoke, alleyways ankle-deep in raw sewage, and the top of parking garages where a sharp wind always seemed to cut her through.
Tonight’s meeting place is definitely a step up.
She’s looking into the entryway of the fine house. A stairway goes up from the main front door, and on the other side is a living room, dining room, and empty kitchen.
Noa patiently waits. Once she worked with an operator named Callaghan, who could spend hours like this, just waiting. She asked him one long night how he spent the time, and laughing, he said, “My grandmother told me I should take time like this to contemplate my sins.”
And she replied, “Ever run out of time?”
“Never,” he replied, with a smile.
Poor Callaghan, she thought, killed in a Taliban-led ambush three years ago in some now-forgotten FOB—Forward Operating Base—in the ’stan.
The front door opens. Noa checks the time. It’s ten past eleven at night.
She also checks the 9mm Beretta pistol in her lap.
A man comes in, nearly stumbling. He takes off his rain jacket, tries twice then succeeds in hanging it up on a coatrack, and he moves to the kitchen before he seems to sense a presence in his office.
He comes in, carrying a leather briefcase. “What…who…what the hell is going on here?”
Noa reaches over, switches on a green-shaded lamp. The room comes into sharper focus.
“Joshua Mooreland,” she says. “So nice to make your acquaintance.”
He steps in closer. Late fifties. Dark-gray suit, white shirt, unbuttoned, dark-yellow necktie undone. Eyes blinking. Thick gray-and-white hair, metal-rimmed eyeglasses, fleshy jowls, red face.
“Who the hell are you?” he demands, words slightly slurred.
“Noa Himel,” she says. “Directorate of Operations.” She moves her chair around so it’s facing the desk, waves the pistol. “Have a seat.”
“You…you bitch, who the hell do you think you are?” He drops his briefcase on the floor. “I’m making a call right now to DDO Jordan to get your ass fired.”
She lets him vent. He goes to his desk, picks up a phone, looks puzzled, drops the receiver into the cradle. Goes to his right coat pocket, takes out a mobile phone. Thick fingers work on the screen.
Nothing happens.
Something approaching comprehension appears on Mooreland’s face. He sits down heavily in his swivel chair.
Noa says, “Some work associates of mine are outside, ensuring we have a nice, adult, calm conversation without any disturbances.”
He says, “Why the pistol?”
“Due to your sketchy record, Joshua. I can call you Joshua. Correct? Or would you prefer Mr. Mooreland? I understand you asked female subordinates to call you Mr. Mooreland when you asked them to parade in your office to give you a little fashion show, whenever you desired it.”
He says, “That was consensual. Nothing was ever proven.”
“The way you treated local embassy staff in Bogota and Mexico City, was that consensual?”
He turns away for the briefest of moments. “There was evidence that they were in the employ of the Russians. That I was…entrapped.”
“Entrapped,” Noa repeats. “How convenient for you. Well, that’s why I came in here the way I did. I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of being entrapped. I’m sure you understand.”
He stares at her and she stares back.
First one to talk loses, she thinks.
He says, “What’s this all about…whatever your name is.”
“Noa Himel,” she says. “I’ve been detached to serve in a special unit to clear out the deadwood at the Agency. After a special review, it’s been determined that you’re number one on the list. You’ve had a dull and fairly unimpressive career, bouncing from station to station, division to division, from Athens to Buenos Aires. You barely made the minimum work effort, were always late in submitting reports, and you exaggerated the capabilities of agents you recruited for your division.”
Mooreland says, “Whatever’s in my record only reflects what my supervisors put down on paper. There are other accomplishments that have not been officially recorded. You know how it is.”
“Like the six times you came into work so drunk you had to return home? Or the two times you entered an alcoholic rehabilitation program, promising to halt your drinking, only to have you leave said programs weeks ahead of schedule?”
“Those programs were interfering with my work,” he protests. “I had to return to Langley.”
Noa says, “I don’t know how—perhaps you and your supervisors attended the same schools or belonged to the same fraternity—you failed upward, being transferred and shuffled off to some other poor station chief. Joshua, I’m here to tell you that it ends tonight. Now.”
Mooreland says, “Who the hell are you to make such a threat? Damn you, when he was director, Keegan Barrett tried to get rid of me and here I am, still here.”
For an older man, Mooreland then moves quickly, hand reaching under the desk, and Noa realizes he’s reaching for a weapon.
CHAPTER 26
THE EXPRESSION ON Mooreland’s face quickly goes from triumph to despair, as his empty hand slowly comes back from underneath the desk.
Noa says, “Joshua, you were probably hoping to grab that .357 Colt Python revolver you keep in a holster attached to the underside of your center desk drawer. You think I was going to meet with a sexual predator like you, even armed, and leave a weapon within reach?” Noa shakes her head. “Nice try.”
He seems to regain some composure. “I’m not going anywhere. And once I get my phone service back, I’m contacting the Office of the Inspector General, to make a formal whistleblower complaint. Once that happens, young lady, I’m golden. And I can’t be touched.”
Noa says, “Joshua, not only are you a lousy analyst, a pig around women, and an overall drag on whichever division you’ve been assigned to, there’s been at least two instances where you were investigated for unauthorized contacts with foreign agents.”
Like a metronome, he automatically replies, “I was investigated in both cases. I passed the polygraph testing. I was cleared.”
Noa says, “Just like Aldrich Ames, damn the man, who also passed polygraphs. Joshua, as a smart man, I’m sure you know that Scotland has a different kind of judicial system than their brethren to the south. Instead of having ‘guilty’ and ‘not guilty’ decisions, they have a third. ‘Not proven.’ That’s when the jury feels there’s not enough evidence to convict, but there’s enough evidence to think you probably did it. I’ve read the reports on your investigations, Joshua. If we were headquartered in Aberdeen instead of Langley, that would have been the Agency’s conclusion.”
“Go to hell,” he says.
“Perhaps someday, but not tonight,” Noa says. “You had unauthorized contacts with a Russian agent and an Iranian agent, supposedly random meetings at a bar in Athens and a trade show in Vienna. Following those meetings, networks we were running in both cities faded away, just at the same time your bank accounts were getting fatter, you got your teeth capped, and you purchased a new Jaguar.”
“That’s all explained in the reports,” he says. “My wife and I…we had a lot of gold and jewelry that we decided to sell. It was just gathering dust. We sold it, got cash, and that was that.”
“Yes, your third wife,” she says. “Supposedly she handled this all on her own, finding the jewelry stores to buy the jewelry, receiving the cash, and losing the receipts and forgetting the names of the stores in the process. Extremely convenient.”
Mooreland says, “Now. Get out. Right now.”
Noa shakes her head. “Not going to happen.”
“Bullshit.”
“Nope, not at all,” she says. “This is how the next hour or so is going to proceed, Joshua. There’s a legal pad on your desk. Find a pen. Start writing down the illegal contacts you made with foreign representatives, what and when you passed on to them, and how much you were paid. Refresh your befuddled mind to the best of your ability and sign and date each page. Begin now.”
He tries to regain his voice. “Or what? What can you possibly do to me?”
Noa glances at an old grandfather clock gently ticking in the corner. “Start writing now, Joshua, and when you’re finished, you’ll resign tomorrow and go find a small town out West somewhere to disappear. You’ll receive your full pension and benefits. But it’s now…eleven-seventeen p.m. If you refuse to start writing, for every minute that passes, you lose five percent of your pension.”
There seems to be a lot going on behind that old man’s tired eyes.
Noa says, “Approaching minute one, Joshua.”
He waits.
Waits.
Curses and picks up the pen, starts scribbling on the yellow legal pad.
Nearly two hours later, Noa takes the folded legal pages, puts them into her bag, and stands up.
“Your resignation sometime today, Joshua.”
He’s slumped in his chair, staring out at the office with the plaques, certificates, and collected artwork.
“I need to know something.”
“I’ll try.”
“Suppose I hadn’t cooperated, had stood hard, even with my pension zeroing out,” he says. “What would you have done?”
Noa smiles, puts her pistol away in the bag as well. “Simple,” she says. “I would have blown off your damn head, and claimed self-defense, and I would have been believed.”
CHAPTER 27
Washington, DC
LIAM GREY IS drinking his fourth Sam Adams of the night at Bullfeathers on 410 First Street SE, listening intently as the young woman sitting across from him—Molly Tafer—is telling him about the challenges of selling advertising for the Washington Post during this increasingly digital age. He met Molly a half hour ago after dropping in here following a late-night briefing with President Barrett and Noa Himel at the White House, and with the events of the past few weeks, he needs to unwind.
Molly is bright, open, with shoulder-length blond hair and wearing a black, knee-length skirt, and a simple light-pink blouse. She’s still working on her first vodka martini.
Over the noise of the bar—packed with lobbyists, staffers, and politicians from both sides of the aisle—Molly says, “My grandfather Jack worked at the Post, also in ad sales. He told me that he could make his quota by noon, then have a three-martini lunch and snooze the rest of the day away. Can you believe that? Me, I have to scramble to place pop-up ads that drive both revenue and website clicks.”
Liam shakes his head in sympathy, and then she says, “Tell me again what you do at the State Department. Is there a lot of travel?”
“Nah, not as much as you’d think,” he says. “In fact—”
A hand is on his shoulder, and a woman behind him says, “Don’t believe him, Molly. He travels a lot, and never tells you where he’s going, how long he’s going to be away, and when he comes back, he keeps his mouth shut.”
Molly brightens up in recognition. “Kay! Good to see you. Say…you know Liam?”
Liam feels his face warm and thinks of that old famous Casablanca line. Of all the gin joints.…
Kay Darcy circles around. Her thick black hair is pulled back in a ponytail, she’s wearing jeans and a button-front blue blouse, and her smile is engaging yet sharp.
“Liam?” she asks sweetly.
He smiles. “Yes, Molly, we know each other.”
Kay says, “Once upon a time we were husband and wife. Before his job conflicted with my job, being a Post reporter.”
The night quickly takes an odd shift with Molly suddenly remembering she has to meet some friends at another bar, and Liam finds himself with his ex-wife, Kay, whom he hasn’t seen in at least eight months.
Kay cheerfully sits down across from him and says, “How far did you get?”
“Apparently not far enough,” Liam says. “Is this your new hobby, interfering in my dating life?”
His ex-wife laughs. “She’s a good girl, smart about advertising and income stream and internet clicks, but not smart enough to deal with a guy like you, Liam.”
“And what kind of guy am I?”
“Oh,” she says, “let’s not play that song again. We both know the music and lyrics by heart. Let’s talk about other things. How’re your mom and dad?”
“Doing all right, enjoying the sunshine and their gated community in Florida,” he says, once again remembering how those brown eyes and tanned complexion—and, to be honest, those sweet curves—utterly entranced him the first time they had met. It had been at a Saturday seminar at Georgetown University run by the State Department on emerging economies in West Africa, and by evening’s end, he had made two acquisitions: her phone number and a healthy dislike for any emerging economies.
“And yours?” he asks.
“Still waiting for me to leave journalism and get a real job,” she sighs. “They don’t like having their daughter being a quote, enemy of the people, unquote. Mom and Dad want me to move to California, find a job in Silicon Valley, and make a gazillion dollars, so I can support Mom in the way Dad can’t.”
He smiles at Kay’s wit, recalling the six-month frenzy of their early relationship, followed by two years of pretending to be an up-and-coming power couple—her in journalism, him at the Agency—until her working late nights and weekends and his long absences slowly rotted everything, like an underground stream washing away a home’s foundation.
“Buy you a drink?” he asks.
She pats his hand. “Oh, aren’t you the sweet devil. No, I’m meeting someone here for dinner.”
“A date?”
She smiles. “How about none of your damn business?”
Liam says, “Ouch, good point. How are things at the Post?”
Kay shrugs, looks around at the crowded bar, and Liam feels a slight pang for the woman he had wooed and loved and promised to spend the rest of his days with, now here, looking for someone new to roll in.
She says, “Oh, you know how it is. Trying to report stories when nobody wants to talk to you. Trying to determine if a source is leaking you information because they want to see the truth come out, or wants to back-stab somebody on the same floor where they work. Trying to defend the First Amendment when so many people have given up on it, doing my part to ensure democracy doesn’t die in darkness, trying not to forget filing my expense reports.”
“Makes for a full day.”
“Sure does, sport,” Kay says. “And you? Subverting freedom anywhere?”
“That was last month,” Liam says. “Right now, just following my oath of office, defending the nation against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Her eyes flash at his last sentence. “Funny you should mention that.”
Oh, God, he thinks, not again. During their marriage, Kay always teased and needled him about becoming a source for her or somebody else at the Post, and the fiftieth or so time she had tried, it had resulted in a night-long vicious fight that turned out to be the first of many.
“Kay…”
“Come on, Liam, hear me out,” she goes on. “Covering the military and intelligence agencies, you hear a lot of rumors, a lot of chaff, a lot of crap. Just help me out.”
