“Be a totally different op.”
“I know.”
Seale unfolded his ankles, rose from his slouch in the chair to his feet, one hand brushing down his necktie. One of perhaps two handfuls of African Americans holding senior postings in the CIA, Seale had come to London as COS only four months prior, filling the post vacated by his predecessor and Crocker’s friend, Angela Cheng. Where Crocker ran to lean, even lanky, Seale went broader, exhibiting perhaps more strength than speed. The two men were roughly the same age, each sneaking up on fifty within the next year, each married, each with two children. Viewed together, they formed a strange complement, both physically as much as professionally.
“God, they try for the tanker and it goes wrong, Paul,” Seale said. “We’ll have the G-77 screaming at us like we were selling naked pictures of their mothers. And if the JI takes the Mawi Dawn, they’ll be sitting on two hundred thousand gallons of liquefied natural gas. That blows up, windows will be shattering all the way to Bangkok. It’ll be the Revenge of Krakatoa.”
“I know that, too.”
“Worse if they plow the ship into Singapore Harbor.”
Crocker grunted, shoving a cigarette into his mouth, not wishing to contemplate the scenario any further, nor to imagine the destruction. Bad enough that the Straits of Malacca were perhaps the most dangerous waters in the world, rife with piracy. Bad enough that Jemaah Islamiyah made its home in Malaysia, with a government filled with its sympathizers and supporters. Put the two together, add one supertanker filled with LNG and one box of disposable lighters, and, yes, perhaps Seale was overstating the potential damage.
But only slightly.
From the MCO Desk, Bill Teagle uttered a small cry of triumph. “Signal, sir! Audio only, but better than nothing.”
“Let’s hear it.”
There was a shriek of static from the speakers on the plasma wall, and then the voice of Andrew Fincher, Minder One, came through, choppy and littered with squeaks and pops from the satellite. Crocker could make out the sound of Fincher’s movement, the rustle of his clothing beneath his words.
“—on approach now . . . see lights on the second floor, no signs of movement . . . hold on . . .”
Crocker’s scowl deepened. It might have been the radio and the patch, but to his ears, Fincher sounded beyond nervous. When he glanced to Seale, now standing beside him, he saw from the other man’s expression that he’d heard the same thing.
There was another crackle, then Minder Two’s voice, as Poole transmitted. “Songbird, this is Nightowl. We’re at stage one, taking position, please stand by.”
“Nightowl, Songbird. Confirmed. Let’s make this fast, right? I’ve got a bad feeling here. I don’t want to be out here any longer than I have to.”
“Songbird, understood. Moving to position one, stand by.”
Silence from the radios.
“Your man Fincher sounds like he’s about three steps ahead of panic,” Seale murmured softly. “You want to tell me why he’s taking the lead and not Poole?”
“Fincher’s Minder One, he worked as the KL Number Two before coming into the Special Section. He knows the ground.”
“Four years ago he knew the ground. Poole’s ex-SAS, he knows the drill.”
“Which is why Poole’s the liaison with the brick and not Fincher.”
“Yeah, but Fincher—”
“I don’t have anyone else, Julian,” Crocker snapped. “Lankford’s in Gibraltar, and Fincher is Head of Section. If it was KL, I had to send Fincher with Poole. I couldn’t hold him here in reserve.”
From the corner of his eye, Crocker saw Seale frowning at him.
“Fincher’s a tool, Paul,” Seale said. “You can hear it in his voice—he’s not made for this.”
Crocker didn’t respond, instead fishing out his lighter and finally giving flame to the cigarette that had been waiting for the last three minutes. The fact was, he agreed with Seale, not that Fincher was a “tool” per se, but that he was wrong for the job.
A year and a half ago, after Chace had left, Crocker had scrambled to find a replacement, spending six weeks poring through personnel files. The traditional method of advancement among the Minders was promotion through attrition; Minder Three became Minder Two as Minder Two became Minder One and on and on, each agent replacing the next as his or her predecessor was promoted out of the Section, retired, or perished. The problem was that when Chace departed, she’d taken the lion’s share of operational experience with her. When she’d left, Poole had just under a year as a Minder, and Lankford less than half that.
Under those circumstances, Crocker had been unable, and in fact unwilling, to promote either of the remaining Minders. They simply didn’t have enough experience, let alone enough seniority.
It was Weldon who’d proposed Fincher, and it had been the second time the former Deputy Chief had tried to get Crocker to take the man into the section. The first time, Crocker still had Tom Wallace as Minder One, and Chace as Minder Two, and it had been a relatively simple matter to find an agent in training at the School who wanted to join the Special Section. This time, though, the board had shifted to Weldon’s favor, and Crocker had found himself powerless to block the move. SIS employed roughly two thousand officers, and of those two thousand, very few had what it took to be a Minder. To Crocker’s eyes, that included Fincher.
There was simply nobody else, and with the Deputy Chief championing him to C, Crocker had been left with no other choice but to accept Fincher as his new Head of Section.
It wasn’t that Andrew Fincher was a bad agent. He’d served three tours prior to coming aboard as a Minder, the first in KL, the second in London, on the Central Asian Desk, his third in Panama. He’d distinguished himself in both KL and Panama, resourceful and capable, but, in Crocker’s view, overly concerned with avoiding risk. What had helped Fincher more than anything was his penchant for making the right friends inside the Firm. Starting with his second tour, he’d begun to make it known that he’d very much like to come to work in the Special Section, and that had made Crocker suspicious. Once he was aboard, the suspicions were confirmed.
Fincher wasn’t a bad agent, but he was station-oriented and excessively cautious, two things that translated to a lack of initiative, something that a Minder, in Crocker’s view, had to have in abundance. He couldn’t send a Minder into the field on a job only to have the agent hesitate and dither before deciding on a course of action, or, worse, repeatedly clear his intentions with both Station and London. In a Special Operation, there just wasn’t the luxury of time. Worse, though, was the fact that Fincher didn’t see anything wrong with his caution, and in fact, Crocker suspected the man believed he was a better agent than he actually was. As far as Paul Crocker was concerned, all other factors aside, that alone made Andrew Fincher absolutely wrong for the work. He wanted his Minders to think they weren’t good enough.
In fact, it was what he needed them to believe for them to do their job.
Chace had been the shining example of the principle, marrying ambition, passion, and self-loathing in a seamless blend.
“Video, sir,” Ronald Hodgson said.
“Put it up, for God’s sake.”
The empty rectangle on the plasma screen flickered, then filled with a grainy image, dark enough that it took Crocker a moment before he could begin to discern details. He was looking at three men, all of them in plain clothes, all with their torsos clad in body armor, sitting in what he presumed was the back of the van they’d acquired for the operation. Two of the men held MP-5 submachine guns, fitted with flash suppressors. The third was Nicky Poole, wearing a radio headset, crouched by the side door, one hand to his ear, straining to listen.