“I was wondering that too.” Beck grabbed Sung’s backpack. Sung tried to stop him, but Beck lashed him, a hard flat chop that snapped the North Korean’s head sideways and sent him sprawling. Beck flipped over the pack. A pair of threadbare nylon pants, a thin cotton shirt, cheap black shoes, all drenched—
And, inside a waterproof bag, a plastic box, twelve inches by eight by four, three lights blinking red and green on its top. A transponder, broadcasting the Phantom’s location to every North Korean ship and jet within twenty miles. The man they’d come to rescue had betrayed them.
4
THE ELEVATOR’S DINGY STEEL DOORS GROANED OPEN. Exley stepped onto a threadbare brown carpet that probably hadn’t been vacuumed since Saddam Hus sein was alive. At the end of the corridor a discreet brass nameplate reading “Okay Enterprises” marked a black door. Exley touched her thumb to a security reader, and a deadbolt lock slid back with a heavy thunk.
The welcome scent of fresh coffee filled her nostrils as the door closed behind her. The office that greeted her was as absurdly ordinary as a dentist’s waiting room. Motivational posters and Thomas Kinkade lithographs covered the walls. Narrow wooden chairs sat next to a table of old magazines for visitors to thumb through. But no one ever read the magazines. No one ever visited Okay Enterprises.
“Mornin‘, Ms. Exley.”
“Mornin‘, Tim.” Tim was a solidly built man in his late forties. Today, as every day, he wore pressed khakis and a sport coat to hide his shoulder holster. He rarely spoke. Shafer, Exley’s boss, swore by him. Beside his desk, the coffeemaker burbled happily.
“Guess I got here just in time.”
“Brewed it figuring you were coming.” Tim’s accent was unplaceable, sometimes vaguely Southern, sometimes flatter, more Midwestern. He was already tipping steaming coffee into a plastic mug, camouflage print with “Operation Iraqi Freedom” stamped in white on the side. Shafer had bought the mugs at an Army-Navy surplus store. They’d originally cost $9.99 each but were marked down to a dollar. “Pretty good deal,” Shafer had said. “I wanted some with Rumsfeld’s face on the side, but I guess those got pulped a long time ago.”
Exley took the mug gratefully. “Thanks. Have a nice weekend?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He turned back to the Post on his desk.
I’ll take that as a yes, Exley thought. She and Wells had wondered about Tim’s personal life ever since Shafer brought him in. Was he married, divorced, a bigamist, gay? Did he live near the office? Did he spend weekends on Jupiter and come to Earth via warp drive every Monday morning? She’d never know. She wasn’t even sure that “Tim” was Tim’s real name. Shafer, who did, wasn’t telling.
“Tim’s a very private person,” Shafer said when she asked. “I’m sure you and John can respect that.” And he’d smiled his Cheshire Cat smile. But Shafer had given her one crumb. Tim had never worked for the agency.
TIM’S PEDIGREE, OR LACK THEREOF, was no accident. These scruffy offices reflected the unique and uneasy position that Wells, Exley, and Shafer occupied at the CIA. They still spent about half their time at the Langley campus, a few miles down the road. But Shafer intentionally kept this space as far outside the agency’s orbit as he could.
The agency paid for the suite, and CIA electronics countermeasures teams swept it for bugs every month. What Shafer didn’t tell them was that he had his own contractors sweeping the place as well, looking for devices that the agency might have missed — or planted. And instead of having the agency’s guards provide security, Shafer depended on Tim.
Naturally, Vinny Duto hated the arrangement. He had every right to be unhappy, Exley thought. Shafer was breaking agency regulations, and a dozen laws besides. But after what had happened in New York the year before, Wells, Exley, and Shafer were untouchable.
Of course, the aftermath of the mayhem in Times Square had been messy. Both Wells and Exley had been shot along the way and needed months to recover. And Wells faced another burden. The agency had never disclosed Exley’s identity, but Wells’s name had come out, though not his picture or biographical details. The agency had offered to announce to the world that Wells had died, and even give him a fake funeral. But Wells had rejected that idea, telling Exley that he didn’t want to have to explain to Evan, his son from his first marriage, that he was alive but pretending to be dead. Anyway the plan wouldn’t work, he said. Too many people, both inside and outside the agency, knew he’d survived. Instead he had to cope with moments like the one with the trooper.
For everyday life, the agency had given Wells a new identity, complete with driver’s license, passport, and credit cards. To confuse anyone who was looking for him, Langley had created fake websites that claimed to have the truth about him but were filled with disinformation. A few said Wells had died and was buried under a fake name at Arlington. Others claimed that “John Wells” didn’t exist at all and that the attack he’d stopped was a CIA plot to make the War on Terror seem relevant. Still others said he’d retired from the agency and was living under a CIA protection program.
Fortunately, Wells couldn’t be easily traced. Thousands of men shared his name, and the only pictures of him in circulation were twenty years old. But he couldn’t be completely disguised either. Too many officers at Langley knew him. So did his buddies from the Army and friends from high school and college. Enough fragments about his life were floating around the Internet that a steady stream of tourists now visited his childhood home in Montana.
Meanwhile, Duto and Wells circled each other warily. They’d never gotten along, and even the fact that Wells had stopped the New York attack didn’t end that hostility. Wells was uncontrollable, the anti-bureaucrat. What he’d done in Times Square made the rest of the agency look incompetent, almost irrelevant. But Duto, no fool, knew that he couldn’t attack Wells directly. So he’d gone the other way, giving Wells, Exley, and Shafer free rein. They had Top Secret/SCI/All Access clearances, the same as Duto’s own. They could crash any meeting, read any analysis, get the details of any operation they wanted.
At the same time, Duto had put them outside the agency’s usual chain of command. They reported directly to him, and he’d made clear that he didn’t plan to take responsibility for their mistakes. In a way, they’d become an agency within an agency, a mini-CIA. Exley and Shafer had been in a somewhat similar position years earlier, but now they were a lot more powerful.
Exley wasn’t sure how to use the carte blanche they’d been given, and she didn’t think Shafer did either. As for Wells. Wells spent his time these days working out, riding his motorcycle, and watching westerns. He was in great shape physically, if not mentally. Exley wished she could figure out how to get him out of his funk — a polite word for clinical depression. But she knew better than anyone that pushing on him would only backfire.
She tapped on Shafer’s door.
“Enter.” Shafer was stretched on his couch, poking at his laptop. He was legendary among longtime CIA employees for his fashion sense, and not in a good way. At various times Exley had seen him in red pants, a brown suit — something only Ronald Reagan could pull off — and her personal favorite, black leather boots more appropriate for a transvestite hooker. Shafer had worn those on one of Washington’s rare snowy days. When she asked Shafer where he’d found them, he told her that he couldn’t find his winter boots and had stopped at Nordstrom’s for replacements.
“These were on sale,” he said.