“Yeah, but it still could be Joe freelancing for Rubicon and the Agency has nothing to do with this. He is getting ready to retire and it makes perfect sense if he’s using Agency resources while he can to set himself up with Rubicon. Talk to your friend who used to be Baghdad’s CIA station chief-the one who’s working for that private spook agency-and see what he can tell you about the Agency’s ties to Rubicon.”
“You mean Whitley over at Diligent? Already have a call in to him.” Iggy stood and reached across the table for his laptop. “Chronister mentioned taking Stone to BALI HAI. We got another intercept when he mentioned something called SHANGRI-LA. I couldn’t tell from the context if they were the same place or not, but I’d bet money they’re a couple of the OGA’s black prison sites.”
“What do you know about renditions and CIA prisons?” Camille craned her neck to read the e-mail that Iggy was responding to. It didn’t seem too important.
“You do know I pretty much set up the operational side of that program? Compared to what we do now, it seems what we started with was kind of quaint-grabbing tangos off the streets as long as they’re not in the US and dropping them off for questioning at whatever Third World country had outstanding charges against them.”
“Your personal contribution to human rights.”
“Ah, if the Agency’s not violating someone’s human rights, they’re not doing their job.”
“We’re going to work from the assumption they’re taking him to a black site. You ever been in one?”
“Pretty much all of them, first-tier and second-tier-Hotel California, Motel 6, Salt Pit, Bondsteel-even the party barge the Navy had floating out in the Indian Ocean for a while. A lot of the first-tier black sites are old KGB facilities-built like brick shithouses. But then there’s Bondsteel. You know that Halliburton built it back when Cheney was running the outfit?”
Camille shook her head and Iggy continued, “You have to get to Stone before he goes into one of those because he’ll never come out.” Iggy shook his head. “But I’ve gotta say, I’ve never heard of SHANGRI-LA or BALI HAI. They could be new or they might have changed the designations since I left the Agency.” Iggy chuckled. “SHANGRI-LA and BALI HAI make it sound like the Agency’s got some PR guy advising them now.”
“I don’t like the idea of messing around with the CIA, but I’ll do whatever it takes to intercept that rendition flight on whatever end we can get to it.” Camille tapped her fingers on the conference table.
“The Agency hardly ever runs those flights itself-hasn’t for years. Most of them are outsourced.”
“Any idea who has the contract?”
Iggy smiled. “Our friends-Rubicon.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
The Green Zone, Baghdad
Joe Chronister had run agents for thirty-two years and he still couldn’t figure out why they thought he was like some overpaid doctor, on call 24/7. He had no problem getting out of bed to meet with them if it was a real emergency, but they were usually like welfare cases, clogging the ER with the goddamn sniffles. CRAWFISH was one of his senior agents, in the old days keeping him informed about what the military was really up to and now snitching on the private military. Never once had CRAWFISH called him in the middle of the night. He yawned as he parked his car and walked onto a construction site where he had arranged to meet his mole in Black Management.
CRAWFISH was in the darkest corner of the site, leaning against a backhoe.
“This better be good. I was sleeping like a baby,” Chronister said.
“Passed out when you heard about the jailbreak, huh?” CRAWFISH said.
“I love Camille dearly, but she’s becoming a real pain in the keister.”
“She’s going to get worse. I thought you needed to know that she’s listening to you. I don’t know all the details because she’s starting to compartmentalize, working directly with Iggy, but somehow she found out about the Rubicon jailbreak immediately via sigint. I’m speculating, but I think it’s safe to assume you were the one the Abu Ghraib guards called first.”
“Listening in on my home phone, huh? That bitch.”
“I don’t know if she knows it or if she’s guessing, but she thinks you’re planning on moving Stone out of the country and she’s gearing up to go wherever she has to.”
“By herself?”
“With another operator.”
“Make sure you’re the one going with her. I think the world of Camille, but if she gets too close, she has to be eliminated. Under no circumstances can she come into contact with Stone again.” Chronister wasn’t quite sure which pieces Camille and Stone had, but his instincts told him that by now it was too many to risk them comparing notes. He wasn’t about to have the capstone of his career come crashing down because Camille butted in where she shouldn’t have. “Tell you what, I’ll cut her a break and try to throw her off with a wild goose chase to some godforsaken place like Ukraine, but if she somehow manages to find Stone, you’re going to have to take them both out.”
“I don’t want to kill Camille,” CRAWFISH said.
“You will if you have to.” Chronister wagged his finger and took a step closer. “Because I hear the JAG at Fort Bliss might reopen a cold case about a major stabbing her CO over thirty times.”
“He raped me. He was going to kill me.”
“Yeah, yeah, but you don’t have any proof of that and the Agency’s holding plenty of evidence, enough to send you to Leavenworth for life.” Chronister smiled to himself. He absolutely loved it when groundwork he’d once done to recruit an agent kept spinning off interest for years.
“Camille’s treated me well. Don’t do this.”
“That’s not what I hear. I hear you treat her like a real lady and she teases you-quite the little coquette. Then she slaps you in the face and fucks Hunter Stone, regardless of how he jerks her around.”
“No. That’s not true. She has a hard time accepting her feelings.”
“Bullshit. Give it up. Camille knows what she likes. She likes dick-Hunter Stone’s dick, to be precise. Face it, Pete. You aren’t even in the running.”
Chapter Sixty-Three
He [Bob Baer, former CIA case officer] says: “If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear-never to see them again-you send them to Egypt.”
– New Statesman [London], May 17, 2004 as reported by Stephen Grey
The Green Zone, Baghdad
The first calls to prayer were sounding when Joe Chronister drove away from his meeting with Pete. He hadn’t yet given up on a few more hours of shut-eye, but he had something to take care of first. Camille was listening and he had to assume that even his cell was compromised. Rarely did he risk his cover by visiting the Baghdad CIA station, but he was worthless without a secure cell phone and he wouldn’t mind shooting the shit with the guys over a cup of java. A few minutes later he was walking down the hall of the CIA station, peeking in every open door, looking for a familiar face.
Bill Copeland was sitting at a desk, studying a report. Copeland was one of the last of the old CIA bluebloods, with their Ivy League degrees and liberal leanings, who looked down at self-made types like Chronister. He knew his state school diploma and blue collar habits had held back his career, but he wasn’t about to kowtow to men who wouldn’t get their manicured nails dirty.