The younger man shrugged. “I wouldn’t actually have done it. I just needed to get my point across.”
Harper didn’t believe that for a second, but he wasn’t about to waste time arguing. Instead, he opened the folder and flipped idly through the pages. “There’s a lot of uncomplimentary stuff in here,” he said. “Flores is just the tip of the iceberg. For instance, a man called Steve Oliphant signed a sworn statement the day after the incident in which he accused you of physically assaulting Jacob Zuma.”
Harper looked up to see if Kealey grasped the full gravity of that statement. Judging by his indifferent expression, either he didn’t understand the serious nature of the charges leveled against him or he just didn’t care. Harper knew that he was dealing with the latter scenario. Kealey understood perfectly well what he had done, and he clearly wasn’t about to apologize for it. “He accused you of assaulting the South African president, ” Harper repeated. “I assume you can see the problem that causes.”
“If it does create a problem, it’s mine, not yours,” Kealey pointed out. “Besides, why does it matter? Who cares what this guy is accusing me of?”
“It matters because the aide says that you-”
“I saved that man’s life, John. Zuma himself says as much on page eighty-four of that so-called report, so the aide can bitch and moan as loud as he wants. I thought you said you read the whole thing.”
“I thought you said you didn’t read it at all.”
Kealey didn’t respond. Harper closed the folder and pushed it out of the way.
“It also says that after the firefight in downtown Johannesburg, you returned to Kerk Street in time to pull two of your teammates, Alex Whysall and Russell Stiles, from their vehicle, which was knocked out of commission by an IED in front of the courthouse. Both men credit you with saving their lives.”
Kealey shrugged. “Whysall and Stiles were marines before they signed up with Blackwater. They would have done the same for me. That’s what Flores didn’t understand, and that’s why he’ll have a hard time finding anyone else willing to work with him.”
“He’ll have an easier time than you,” Harper pointed out. “The South Africans weren’t the only ones to compile a full report. At the prompting of the State Department, Blackwater carried out its own investigation. The team as a whole was cleared of any serious wrong-doing, but you weren’t so lucky. The head office basically laid the blame for the entire incident at your feet. They accused you, among other things, of exposing your principal to unnecessary risk by ordering your driver to stop in a hostile area.”
“This isn’t news to me. I was there, and I know what happened. What are you getting at?”
“I’m wondering why you didn’t stand your ground. Why you let them pin it all on you.”
“Why would I fight it?” Kealey asked. “I took that job only as a favor to Paul Owen in the first place. Given Zuma’s high profile and the nature of the threat, he asked me to run the detail, and I accepted with several conditions. The first was that I didn’t have to sign a contract with Blackwater. The second was that I had complete control over the way I ran my PSD. Since he was willing to meet both conditions, I took the job. Believe me, I didn’t want it that much to begin with. Getting kicked off the team is no big loss to me.”
Harper took a second to break that statement down. Paul Owen had been Ryan Kealey’s commanding officer during the younger man’s time with the 3rd Special Forces Group. Later the two men had served together in the 1st SFOD-D, otherwise known as Delta Force. While they were stationed at Bragg, Owen was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and Kealey to major, the rank he retired with in 2001. Over the last few years Owen had been “sheep-dipped,” or “borrowed,” by the CIA to take part in covert operations abroad on several occasions. Most recently, he’d been involved with the recovery of the secretary of state in Pakistan. He and Kealey had worked on that assignment together, butting heads more than once in the process.
Harper had been as surprised as anyone when word trickled down eight months earlier that Owen, after twenty-two years in the army, had decided to retire as a lieutenant-colonel, even though he was scheduled to receive a long-overdue promotion to O-6. The reason for his abrupt departure became readily apparent when he signed up with Blackwater Worldwide less than a month after separating from the armed forces. Unlike most of the former SF operators who signed up with the company, though, Owen did not find himself back on the front lines. Instead, he took a high-level executive post at Blackwater North, the recently established training facility in Mount Carroll, Illinois, where he currently served as program director. Essentially, he was now in charge of the entire facility.
It didn’t surprise Harper that one of Owen’s first acts with the company had been to actively recruit Ryan Kealey for Zuma’s detail in Africa. It would have seemed like a smart move right from the start, and had he been in Owen’s position, Harper might well have done the same thing. Having a man with Kealey’s reputation on the payroll would only boost Blackwater’s already sterling reputation as the leading security firm in the world. Nor did it surprise him that Kealey had elected to fall on his sword rather than allow Owen to take the blame for what happened in Johannesburg. Harper was sure that Owen had tried to talk him out of it, but the retired colonel had more to lose than Kealey did, and Kealey would have been the first to remind him of that fact. Harper couldn’t help but wonder what Paul Owen regretted more-being forced to dump the blame on Kealey’s head or recruiting the man in the first place. It was a question worth considering, he knew, as there was a good chance he’d be asking himself the very same thing in the near future.
“So what are your plans now?” Harper asked carefully. “Assuming, of course, that the National Prosecuting Authority decides to overlook your role in the death of six uniformed SAPS officers, where will you go from here?”
Kealey leaned back in his seat. “That sounds more like a warning than a question.”
Harper shrugged. “Zuma is under a lot of pressure to hold someone accountable, Ryan. Remember, the South African people didn’t see the attack on the motorcade. All they saw was the aftermath, and they’re not exactly happy with the way it turned out. You’d be surprised at how many people were behind those six cops you killed. Now those people are screaming for blood. There’s no guarantee that Zuma won’t buckle under the weight of public opinion, if only to stave off the inevitable for a few more months, and if he does, there’s a good chance you’ll end up facing the sharp end of the stick. You can see why that would be a problem for us. The idea of you taking the stand in the Pretoria High Court does not make the director comfortable.”
“It won’t get that far.”
“What if you’re wrong?” Harper persisted. “Because I have to tell you, if it does get that far, the Agency will have no choice but to disavow. Do you understand that? If and when the NPA decides to file charges, you’ll be on your own. I won’t be in a position to help you.”
“So you’d prefer to help me now. Is that it?”
Harper had been doing his best to ignore the younger man’s combative attitude, but he could no longer contain his rising frustration. “Ryan, why are you making this so difficult? I am trying to help you, for Christ’s sake. I’m offering you a way out, and if you had any sense at all, you’d listen to what I’m telling-”
“I don’t need your help, John, and I didn’t ask you to come here. Besides, I know how this works. I can see through your bullshit. Maybe I couldn’t before, but I can now. You wouldn’t be offering to bail me out unless you wanted something in return, so why don’t you do us both a favor and get to the point?”
Harper exhaled sharply. Okay, Allison, here we go. God forgive us both, he thought, then reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the first photograph. He looked to make sure it was the right one, then placed it faceup on the table and pushed it across with two fingers. Kealey looked down at it but did not react.