Clark shook his head. “No… he’s not. I could see it in his eyes when he nominated you. He’s scared about you getting hurt. And you shouldn’t blame him after what’s happened here.”
“I don’t blame him. Of course I know about his brother, though that was before my time. I was Sam’s friend, and I know he and Dom were close. But I want the opportunity to show him, to show all of you, that I will fit right in.”
Clark continued, “Having the four of you to call on would be a boon to our operation. Not all at the same time, though. I want you to know that if we bring you aboard, we will not have you and Dom working together. I think it’s better for everyone that way.”
Gerry said, “We make allowances for the fact Jack’s dad is the President. There are places we just won’t send Jack. With you it will be the same way. Some ops won’t be right for you.”
“Of course.” She nodded eagerly. She could feel the tide turning back her way.
Clark said, “And then there is the training. There is a lot you do know, but a lot you do not know. Are you prepared to undergo months of rigorous training?”
“Actually, I look forward to it.”
“Surveillance training will begin just as soon as we pull in a second new recruit.”
Adara blinked. “Wait… Somewhere in there, did you just offer me the job?”
Clark and Gerry looked at each other. Gerry said, “You damn well deserve a promotion around here, and since we don’t have a bigger plane to put you on… yes. You pass your training phase, and you’ll be an operative of The Campus.”
Adara reached out to shake the men’s hands. As Clark took it, he said, “You might regret this decision. I owe it to you to make the training ultrarealistic and tough.”
“I will give one hundred percent, every day.”
She stood to leave, but as she got to the door, Gerry said, “Adara, we’re going to bring Dom in right now and tell him. He’s going to act tough and unconcerned, but this will eat him up inside. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, but I hope you understand he just feels that way because he cares.”
She nodded. “I do. Thanks, Gerry and John, for your understanding to both Dom and me. And I’ll keep everything transparent from now on.”
Mary Pat Foley had worked late at the office, then spent only one hour talking to her husband before they both went to bed, and now she woke suddenly to the sound of her ringing mobile phone by her head on the nightstand. Her husband, Ed, himself a former top American intelligence official, had enjoyed a forty-year career of late-night phone calls, but Mary Pat was the one still in government service, so Ed just sat up next to his wife while she fumbled with the phone.
“Foley.” She looked at the clock and saw it was four-fifty a.m. She’d miss out on her last forty minutes of sleep today.
The line was encrypted, she knew, because the director of the CIA was the man on the other end of the line.
Jay Canfield said, “Good morning, Mary Pat.”
“Morning, Jay.”
She’d just wait for it; there was no need to ask him to get to the point.
“You know I like to provide solutions to your problems, but I’m afraid I have a brand-new problem for you that is completely out of left field.”
“What now?”
“We picked up some SIGINT out of Indonesia. A U.S. consular affairs officer is preparing to pass some sort of classified material to North Korean officers in Jakarta.”
Mary Pat rubbed her eyes. “God Almighty. What an idiot. The North Koreans don’t even pay.”
Of course Canfield knew what she meant. Why would any American spy for North Korea? They had an ideology nobody but nobody outside the DPRK’s borders ascribed to, and they were notoriously cheap when it came to purchasing intelligence product.
“Yeah, this is a weird one, that’s for sure,” Canfield said.
“Who is he?”
“We don’t have his name. We picked up the North Korean side of a phone conversation. By context we can tell they are talking to a U.S. official at the embassy, not terribly well connected. Their previous interactions must have been done either in person or via some other method of comms. E-mail, perhaps. They told the American where to meet them with the information they demanded. We don’t know what information he is being asked to pass. From what we heard the American doesn’t sound like he wants any part of this, but he does sound like he’s ready for the transaction to be over and done with. I think he’s going to go through with it.”
Mary Pat said, “Sounds like a compromise of some sort. They have pictures of him that would ruin his life. Something along those lines.”
“I agree. I’ve already contacted Dan. This is FBI jurisdiction.”
“When does the pass take place?”
“Forty-eight hours from now. They are giving the mole time to retrieve the intel they are demanding. Dan Murray is flying a team into Indonesia to have them set up on the pass location and take it down, but they have to go in under cover. Working with the Indonesians on something this in extremis is just about impossible, and we need to roll this guy up quickly and quietly. Dan’s boys are flying in from Hong Kong. They should be on the ground around eleven a.m. East Coast time today, so that will give them a day and a half to prep for the snatch. We’ll be close by in an advisory role.”
“Okay,” Mary Pat said. “Keep me posted.”
She hung up the phone, looked over at Ed. He was looking back at her in the dark. “Is it bad?”
“It’s unrelated to the Musa al-Matari hunt. Some State Department guy is about to pass intel to North Korea.”
Ed nodded. “Definitely a compromised individual.”
“Exactly. Dan Murray has a special team racing in to handle it. I’ll go in early to clear some other items off my desk, because I’m sure there will be a meeting about this at some point today.”
“I’ll start the coffee,” Ed said with a tired smile.
Both of them climbed out of bed.
“Poor baby,” Mary Pat said with genuine sympathy as she headed to the bathroom. “You thought you would get to sleep in when you retired.”
“Not at all, dear. I’m a pretty smart guy, so I knew I wouldn’t get to sleep in till you retired.”
14
John Clark looked out over the one-man campsite, and wished he could stay here a couple days, because this was his kind of place. Yes, it was a simple affair: a pup tent, a fire burned down to coals, a cooler to sit on, and some fishing gear leaning against a tree. But it was just twenty-five yards or so from a beautiful lake, the pines surrounding it gave off a great smell, and the air was still a little cool this morning, even though it was summer.
While Clark eyed the camp with his binoculars from a hill a hundred yards away, he assumed the resident of the campsite must have been out fishing now.
It was just eleven in the morning on an overcast day, and he heard a rumble in the sky to his left. At first he thought it was thunder, but when he looked in that direction he saw a pair of C-17 Globemasters, massive U.S. Air Force transport aircraft, flying just a thousand feet or so above the terrain. While he watched, men began jumping out of both planes simultaneously. Round parachutes popped open instantly.
Clark mumbled to himself. “Eighty-second Airborne.” This was Fort Bragg, after all, their home. It was no surprise to witness a drop here.
He wanted to sit and watch the entire spectacle from the hill, it was an amazing sight to see, but he had work to do, so he began walking down to the little campsite. The last thing he wanted to do was surprise anyone down there, so he called out when he was still forty yards away, on the off chance the owner of the tent was still zipped up inside.