“I’m worried about the Chinese reaction,” Cooke said with a frown.
“You think Tian wants to get rowdy?”
“APLAA says no, but I’m not sure I believe it,” Cooke said. “Have somebody connect with Pioneer. I want to make sure we’ve got some advance notice if they’re wrong.”
Barron bit his lip at the mention of the “Pioneer” crypt, which itself was classified Top Secret NOFORN. NO FOReigNers, not even the friendly ones, had access to it. Some sources and methods were too sensitive to tell even allies that they existed, much less share the information they yielded. “I’ll talk to Carl Mitchell,” he conceded. “He’s the station chief out there.”
Cooke saw the hesitation in his face. “You haven’t run this by anyone in the Directorate of Intelligence,” she realized. The DI was the CIA analytic division.
“No,” he admitted.
“Not even Jim Welling?” Cooked asked. Welling was the director of the DI and Barron’s equal. The two men even worked out of the same vault on the seventh floor, just down the hall from Cooke’s own.
“That’s one source I don’t want burned,” Barron admitted. “It’s personal. I don’t even want Jim to know about him, much less some DI analyst. They’re all a bunch of glorified journalists, just looking for the next big thing to write about in an intel assessment for some politician who can’t keep his mouth shut.”
“Same team, Clark,” Cooke said.
“Mistakes get made,” Barron said.
“They do, but your people have blown more ops than DI analysts ever have.” She knew that would offend the NCS director’s pride, but he knew it was the truth. “I want your people to cooperate,” Cooke told him. “If an analyst asks about sources and methods, the one answer your people aren’t allowed to give is no. If they don’t like that, they’ve got my phone number.”
“I won’t let it come to that,” Barron promised.
“You know, this clash of civilizations between the DI and the NCS needs to stop,” Cooke said. “Analysts and case officers need to be working together, not sitting around in little cliques like kids at the prom.”
“If you can manage that, the president should nominate you for secretary of state,” Barron replied. “By the way, I saw Stryker sitting out in your waiting room. I’ve told my people to play dumb if anyone from the DNI’s staff asks about her. Have you decided where to stash her?”
“Oh yes.” Cooke sounded very satisfied with herself. “A nice safe harbor where nobody will go looking.”
“Want to let me in on the secret?” Barron asked.
“You sure you want to know? Mistakes get made, after all,” she said.
“Touché.”
Cooke told him. All Barron could do was shake his head before leaving for his office.
Kyra knew Clark Barron on sight. He’d addressed her class during the graduation ceremony at the Farm the year before. Many of the men who had held his post — there had never yet been a woman chosen for it — had been disliked by the rank and file. Some of his predecessors considered that to be a job qualification. Barron argued in the speech that if charisma was a valuable trait for a case officer, a manager who didn’t have enough to connect with his own troops must not have been very good in the field. He left unspoken, though not unnoticed, the insinuation that those unlikables must have climbed to the top using other, less respectable skills. Kyra had liked him instantly.
Barron moved past the door into the hallway without a word. A minute later, Cooke stood in the doorway to the waiting room. “You’re Stryker?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kyra answered. She rose and fought the urge to stand at attention.
“Let’s take a walk,” Cooke said without preamble.
Kyra followed Cooke out to the hallway. The director steered Kyra to the right. The corridor was empty, leaving their conversation as private as if they had been sitting behind the door of Cooke’s office. “Have you found a place to live?”
“Yes, ma’am, a condo in Leesburg just off Route Seven.”
“Long commute,” Cooke remarked. “General George Marshall’s house is out there in Leesburg. Dodona Manor. Interesting place if you like military history.”
“I was a history major at the University of Virginia,” Kyra said. “I prefer the Civil War, though. Shelby Foote and Michael Shaara.”
“The Killer Angels. A great book, that one,” Cooke said with approval. “You couldn’t find anything closer to headquarters?”
“Not on a GS-twelve salary, ma’am,” Kyra said. “And I don’t think a promotion is coming anytime soon.”
Cooke cocked her head, nonplussed, and looked at the younger woman. Bold honesty? she thought. Or no sense of self-preservation? Cooke had read the girl’s file. Stryker’s sense of self-preservation was just fine, so the former, Cooke decided, probably with a healthy dose of anger and resentment in the mix. “You deserve one, but no,” she admitted. “I know it feels like you’re getting hostile treatment—”
“Yes, ma’am, it does,” Kyra admitted. “I just expected it to come from the enemy and not our own people.”
Cooke repressed a sigh. “Have you called the Employee Assistance Program yet?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Any reason why?”
Kyra kept walking but said nothing for a few paces, long enough that Cooke looked over. The younger woman finally spoke. “I don’t walk to talk to a counselor, ma’am. I’m fine.”
“That would surprise me very much,” Cooke told her. “Don’t make me turn it into an order.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“It will help. So will getting a little satisfaction. Sam Rigdon might be a station chief, but he’s not one of our people,” Cooke said. “Your exposure was his fault and we’re not going to let the DNI sacrifice you to save him. But I want you to understand how bad this might get. Washington Post headlines and Sunday morning talk shows if it leaks,” Cooke advised her.
“Are you trying to scare me, ma’am?”
“No. I just don’t want you to drop out on me when the shooting starts,” Cooke said. “You’ve got a chance to do something for the Agency now. Lose the attitude and be patient. I’ll get you back into the field. I can’t tell you when or where, but I can tell you that Clark will remember that you took the bullet.” In more ways than one, she thought. “We’ll get you right again. You understand me?” Cooke opened a stairwell door and the two women began their descent to the lower floors. The stairs were grubby and dark, and red pipes erupted from the walls, clashing with the yellow cinderblock.
“I think so, ma’am,” Kyra answered.
“Either you do or you don’t. If you fold on me when the moment comes, then we’re both done here. Clark Barron too, and probably a few others.”
“I won’t resign,” Kyra assured her. “But if you’re not sending me to the field, where are you sending me?”
“You’re going to the Directorate of Intelligence,” Cooke said.
“You’re hiding me?”
“That’s one way of putting it. You have a problem with it?” Cooke asked.
“I’m not an analyst,” Kyra replied, dismayed. “I don’t know how to do that job. And I’ve never heard much good about analysts anyway.”
“Have you heard of the Red Cell?” Cooke asked.
“No, ma’am, I haven’t,” Kyra admitted.
“It’s an alternative analysis unit… not your usual DI shop,” Cooke said. “George Tenet created the Red Cell on September thirteenth to make sure the Agency didn’t suffer another September eleventh. Their job is to ‘think outside the box’—to find the possibilities that other analysts might overlook or dismiss.”
“Devil’s advocate? War-gaming?” Kyra asked. That, at least, could be interesting.