“Yes, sir,” I said. The DDO probably didn’t hate my guts, but he hated not knowing who I really was or what I had really done for the Agency for twenty-seven years. And what he probably hated even more was the certainty that I had run the kind of black ops that he had only dreamed of running, even while he turned his nose up at outside undercover guys like me. That’s what you did when you spent your career shining a seat with your ass: you talked down to the guys in the trenches.
Not me. I had total respect for the deputy director of operations of the CIA. I had total respect for how a guy in his position could torch a mission — even one as vital as this one — just to show how much power he wielded.
“You communicate straight through my office. You got it?” he said, leaning against the table. “I’ll decide what the general and his team need to know. We clear on this, Mr. Conlan?”
Oh, so now it was Mr. Conlan. How very interesting. No problem. I had anticipated this request, and I wanted to demonstrate my sincerity. I reached into my pocket and palmed a fifteen-dollar dual-band Hop 1800 GSM disposable phone. I slid it across the table and into Wiseman’s bony hand. He held it up as if I’d offered him a peanut butter sandwich when he was expecting caviar.
“What’s this? A joke?”
“I want to be able to get you on a secure line at a moment’s notice,” I said. “I know you’re used to people going through channels, which I’m happy to do, but our timetable might make that difficult.”
I nodded in the direction of the phone. “Do you mind? It means keeping it with you at all times.” I didn’t say, Take it or leave it, even though it may have entered my mind to do so.
“I want to hear from you every day, Jake,” he said. Now I was Jake. Pretty soon we’d be sending the general out of the room. “Do we have a deal?”
“Count on it,” I said. I pushed back my chair and came to my feet. Tom did the same. “Now I’ve got a plane to catch. Thank you, gentlemen.”
The deputy director of operations shook hands with Tom and placed a hand on my shoulder as we exited the room. “Show the bastard,” he said. I assumed he meant The Twelver, but maybe I had missed something along the way.
“Keep that phone close,” I said as he shuttled down the hall with two waiting aides.
Tom and I went in the other direction. I heard him chuckle. “Say, you wouldn’t have one of those really cool disposables for me, would you?”
“And waste another fifteen bucks? Forget it.”
We were outside and a long way from the building before he said, “You’ll have a phone waiting for you when you land. It’s got everything on it that you asked for. And some things you didn’t.” He looked at me. “You didn’t say anything about a weapon.”
“Already done,” I replied.
“Send me a postcard.” Translated: you know where to send intel.
“We’ll do lunch in a couple of weeks,” I said and headed for my car. I turned over the engine and put some music on: The Who’s “Goin’ Mobile.”
CHAPTER 3
It was five thirty in the morning. A sliver of gray light bleached the horizon. Perfect timing. You don’t bring a plane like the Blackbird SR-71 into one of the busiest airports in the world during the middle of the day if your goal is anonymity.
The plane taxied onto the brightly lit parking tarmac and halted.
We had crossed the Atlantic at Mach 3, with my six-foot, 185-pound frame crammed into the copilot’s chair in the cockpit of a plane I would have sworn had been put into mothballs years ago. No pretzels, no hot coffee, no bantering with flight attendants of the opposite sex. But the average commercial flight to Paris from D.C. takes a good eight hours, and we did it in close to three and a half, so I wasn’t complaining. After all, how many people can say they’ve experienced Mach 3 speeds with one of the best pilots on the planet at the controls. And most important of all, the nuclear clock was ticking, and we had to shave every second possible.
My canopy popped open. A couple of U.S. Air Force techs pushed a gantry up against the sleek, viperlike fuselage. One reached into the cockpit and helped me undo my seat harness and uncouple the oxygen fittings from my helmet and bulky pressure suit.
“Good trip, sir?” she said, easing me out of my seat.
“‘Surreal’ doesn’t really describe it,” I quipped. I clambered out of the cockpit and onto the gantry. I descended the metal steps with the visor of my mirrored helmet cracked just enough for me to get some fresh air. This way, I was just another flyboy back on earth; no use drawing attention to myself.
Two guys in flight suits escorted me from the gantry into the back of a nondescript cargo van. They weren’t wearing name tags. The techs hadn’t been, either. No surprise. We might as well have landed in Area 51, because you don’t exist on a mission like this.
A guy with sergeant stripes helped me out of my helmet and pressure suit. He said, “Welcome to France, sir,” and slid a plain black carry-on out from under a bench.
“Good to be here. Thanks for the ride.” The van was already in motion. I opened the carry-on and unpacked a dress shirt, business suit, and black wingtips. An American businessman on the streets of Paris might not be as common as an American tourist, but no one gave a second glance to a guy with a briefcase in his hand.
I fished my NSA-modified iPhone from the carry-on, did a quick function check to make sure the apps I’d requested were there, and dropped it into my pocket. I tucked an envelope stuffed with euros and dollars into the interior pocket of my suit jacket. I examined two passports with two well-vetted IDs and found a pocket for them as well.
“Hungry?” the sergeant asked.
“Starving.” My last meal had been six hours earlier, at Langley, and not much of one at that.
“Thought so.” He handed me a sandwich. “Chicken salad. Best I could do.”
“You’re a godsend.” I unwrapped the sandwich and devoured it. He poured coffee from a thermos and passed me the cup. “You’re fast becoming my favorite person,” I told him.
“Enjoy it. ETA ten minutes,” he said.
I counted the minutes off in my head — an old habit — and hit it right on the number. As the van came to a halt, I checked my tie and ran my fingers through my hair. The sergeant gave me a thumbs-up and threw open the van’s rear doors. They opened onto a service door at Terminal 1. A maintenance tech — by the looks of him, an agent from the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, the French equivalent of the CIA — held the door open and acted as if I were invisible.
I towed the carry-on along a narrow corridor and exited through a plain door into the terminal lobby. I’d been dropped on the other side of customs, free and clear. I was leaving the womb of safety and emerging into the cold world of peril. It was game on, and I could hear music inside my head: Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird.” Showtime.
I melded into the crowd and walked toward the passenger-pickup zone. For the casual observer, I projected the nonchalant air of an American businessman back in France, yet every fiber of my being was on high alert and would be for, well, as long as it took.
I stopped for coffee and a newspaper at a small kiosk, paid in euros, and carried my cup to a deserted seating area with a view of the sun breaking above the horizon. I had ten minutes to kill. I opened the paper, but only for show. I hit the Eavesdropping app on my iPhone, clicked the browser, and checked e-mail. There was only one, and only one word at that: pristine. Excellent. My backup was in place.