Direct Action (4 page)

9:56
A
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. The butt of the damn 229 dug into McGee’s kidneys. McGee compensated by adjusting his own butt in the seat. Today he’d earn his salary—the contract that paid him six thousand dollars a month. The money was direct-deposited by a small engineering firm in Enid, Oklahoma, into an account in the Northwestern Federal Credit Union of Herndon, Virginia. The credit union in turn sent the funds directly into a bank account in the Cayman Islands.

Six grand a month wasn’t a lot of money for putting his life on the line. But then McGee’d never worked for money. The recruiters knew that about him when they’d pitched him to go undercover because they’d already done a psychological profile and they knew just which buttons to push.

Once he’d signed the papers, McGee referred to himself as an IC, or independent contractor. His status was known formally as an A-contract with a GS-12 pay grade. Although he didn’t know it, 4627 was charging CIA fifteen hundred a day for McGee’s services.

The recruiters showed up about ten days after he’d extracted from Baghdad. DO spooks. He knew they were for real because they’d been allowed inside the Delta compound, and because they were accompanied by a tall, thin, bearded guy Jim McGee knew as the Kraut.

The Kraut, whose real name was Bernie Kirchner, was one of the CIA paramilitaries with whom McGee had served in Afghanistan. The two of them had been through some tough times. “We shared a shitload of roasted horse in our three months together,” was the way the Kraut put it as they shook hands. Bernie was visual confirmation of the spooks’ bona fides.

Except they weren’t exactly from Langley. They said they were retired CIA and they worked for something called the 4627 Company, which was handling an Agency outsource contract. That’s when McGee understood this was all about wink-and-nod stuff. Hell, W&N was okay with him. He’d worked with a few CIA wink-and-nods in Afghanistan. Not a month ago, some big Washington risk-assessment firm had just sheep-dipped three of Delta’s most senior people to work on a cross-border program in Iran. Then there was the financial end. Wink-and-nod paid a lot better money than CIA, where you’d hire on as some GS-9 contractor. Besides, no one got into the Delta compound unless they were active. Ever since the Ed Wilson fiasco, there had been safeguards. So these guys could call themselves whatever they wanted to. McGee would play along.

The lead spook was a tough old bird who called himself Rudy. He was seventy if he was a day. Rudy told McGee he’d spent his entire career at CIA doing counterinsurgency. Said he’d started with the Cubans and finished with the Kurds. They played a short round of who-do-you-know, and Rudy knew them all.

Rudy was missing part of his left index finger. When McGee asked how it happened, Rudy’d deadpanned, “Moray eel had it for breakfast.” He paused. “I had him for lunch.”

McGee knew the real thing when he saw it, and Rudy was it. The second spook was a thirtysomething youngster dressed in Eurochic and Levi’s who said his name was Tom. Tom had an engaging smile and a laid-back, surfer-dude attitude. But from the way he moved, the way he held himself, the way his eyes took everything in without appearing to even move, McGee understood Tom was a case officer—maybe even one of the few good ones.
Tom unzipped a black canvas briefcase, brought out a sealed brown envelope, and laid it on the table. Then he spoke to McGee in rapid, flawless Arabic. “Inside this envelope is a nondisclosure form. If you understand what I’m telling you, slide the envelope across the desk—don’t lift, just slide—open it, read the form, then sign. After you do, we can tell you why we’ve come to see you.”
“It is my pleasure to do so, sir,” McGee answered in Arabic. Then he dropped a big index finger atop the heavy brown paper, drew the envelope to his side of the table, slit the end with the thick sharp blade of his Emerson folder, read the one-page boilerplate agreement, and signed. They’d wanted to see if he understood Arabic well enough to respond properly. He’d just shown them he did. It also meant the job—whatever it might be—was somewhere in the Middle East.
Well, McGee liked the Middle East, and working for a CIA front company was all right by him. He was thirty-nine, he’d had twenty-two years of Soldiering, and it was time for him to go. Time to make some money for his family. He had an ex-wife and two teenage boys to support, and he was dedicated to them.
Besides, it had been a long ride. He’d begun his Delta selection process just as the Unit was preparing to leave for Somalia. He’d finished his specialized schools—denied area operations, Arab language, State’s VIP protection course, safecracking, and other miscellaneous black arts—just as four of Delta’s Spanish-language specialists left for Colombia to help track down and kill El Doctor, the notorious Medellín drug cartel boss Pablo Escobar.
He’d spent most of 1994 and 1995 commuting between Jordan, where he instructed the Royal Jordanian Army’s elite Black Beret commandos in close-quarters combat and hostage rescue, and Israel, where he trained and then worked with Sayeret Duvdevan, Israel’s Special Forces counterterrorist unit.
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He’d been posted to Beirut under State Department cover to help protect the ambassador right after the 1998 Africa embassy bombings. McGee’s time as a part of a Mistaravim, or undercover Arab-speaking Israeli unit, had given him the skills necessary to operate in Beirut’s southern suburbs observing Hezbollah, and in the Bekáa Valley, where he spied on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps personnel headquartered in Baalbek.
McGee’s familiarity with the Middle East—especially Israel and Lebanon—was what the Langley guys were interested in. It was all very straightforward stuff, Rudy said. “We’re talking ‘Espionage 101’: you keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Nothing more than you did in Lebanon—except this time you’re not reporting to ISA
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but to us.”
Tom checked McGee’s signature on the nondis, then provided some background. There was, he said derisively, only one Arabic-speaking case officer currently assigned to Tel Aviv. She worked under embassy cover but her Agency affiliation was known to the Palestinians with whom she liaised. Moreover, the fact that she was a woman compromised her ability to work in Gaza even if her status hadn’t been acknowledged. From the way Tom described the situation, McGee understood that things at Tel Aviv station were FUBAR’d.
So, McGee asked, what’s the problem?
The problem? Rudy didn’t mince words. “CIA is effing eyeless in Gaza. The station chief refuses to recruit agents. That’s the problem. Full stop.”
The younger guy had shot Rudy a look. But when McGee pressed him, Tom had gone even further. CIA had no unilateral sources in the entire Gaza Strip. No access agents. No penetration agents. Not one single unilateral asset. CIA had trained more than twelve hundred Palestinian security personnel over the past half decade. But between bureaucratic infighting, blockheaded, risk-averse management, and just plain incompetence, Langley hadn’t managed to recruit a single one.
And therein lay the rub. All hell was breaking loose in Washington because CIA hadn’t had unilateral agents in Iraq before the war. There’d been satellite photos, of course. And signals intercepts by the thousands—so many that No Such Agency’s Arab-speaking translators were still working on material from 2001. But all of the human-source intelligence on which George W. Bush had based his decision to invade Iraq—all of it; every single report—had been supplied either by defectors provided by Iraqi resistance groups or through CIA’s liaison relationships with the Brits, the Germans, the Israelis, the Saudis, and the Jordanians.
That dependence on liaison, Tom growled, caused huge problems. When McGee asked how, Tom explained.
“Let’s say,” he said, “CIA gets a liaison report from MI6. The report says a trusted MI6 agent working in the Middle East has information that Saddam Hussein has developed mobile chemical weapons labs. The info-bit fits CIA’s preconceived picture about Saddam’s weapons-ofmass-destruction program. But it’s uncorroborated. Uncorroborated is unacceptable. But Langley doesn’t have any unilateral sources in Iraq. Instead, they e-mail the liaisons: Anybody out there hear anything about an Iraqi mobile weapons lab program?
“ ‘We did,’ Mossad answers. ‘Our military intelligence organization, AMAN, says it’s highly probable Saddam has mobile chemical/biological weapons labs moving around the country. We rate AMAN’s information source as highly credible.’
“Then CIA goes to the Iraqi defector groups. ‘You guys have anybody who knows about weapons laboratories built into tractor trailers?’ And the Iraqi National Congress or the Iraqi National Accord, figuring that CIA wants a positive response, tells CIA, ‘Sure, we hear about mobile chem/bio weapons labs all the time.’
“CIA says, ‘We want to interview a defector with firsthand knowledge.’ So INC flies a defector to Washington, where he’s interviewed and polygraphed. The defector’s polygraph, which shows no deception, is consistent with everything about mobile weapons labs CIA has learned so far.
“But the White House isn’t satisfied. The president says, ‘I won’t go to war unless we’ve nailed this down one hundred percent.’ So CIA goes to its pals in Berlin and asks about mobile weapons labs. BND, the German intelligence agency, tells CIA it interviewed an Iraqi defector pseudonymed CURVEBALL who confirmed that Saddam had mobile labs. He’d even worked on the program.
“Langley insists they want to talk to CURVEBALL. ‘Sorry,’ say the Krauts. ‘You know the rules: he is our unilateral source and we don’t compromise sources and methods.’
“No access is generally a no-no,” Tom continued. “But in this case, CIA shrugs its institutional shoulders because it doesn’t matter: the Agency now has multiple-source corroboration without talking to the BND’s source directly. Then Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet briefs the president again. And when Bush asks if Tenet is sure about his info, because the U.S. is going to war based on what CIA has uncovered, Georgie boy says, ‘Mr. President, this is a slam dunk.’ Three weeks later, a line about mobile biological weapons labs gets inserted into Secretary of State Colin Powell’s United Nations speech. When Powell asks Tenet if the information is solid, Tenet says something to the effect of not to worry, we got a triple confirmation. We’re talking twenty-four-karat.
“But what CIA doesn’t know is that London got its information from a unilateral MI6 Israeli agent—a lieutenant colonel working for AMAN. And CIA has no idea that the Brits’ agent just happens to be the same guy at AMAN that CIA’s Mossad liaison queried. CIA doesn’t know because just like BND, MI6 doesn’t reveal its sources and methods to liaison agencies. CIA also doesn’t realize the defector INC flew to Washington is CURVEBALL—the same guy who told BND about mobile weapons labs.
“Worst of all,” Tom said, “CIA can’t confirm any of the information because it doesn’t have any fucking unilaterals in a position to know about mobile weapons laboratories. Not in Iraq. Not inside the INC. Not in AMAN or Mossad. Not a single fucking agent under unilateral American control anywhere.”
The unfortunate result: all of CIA’s allegedly high-grade information about weapons of mass destruction, mobile biological warfare laboratories, missiles with chemical warheads, and nuclear-bomb programs was currently unraveling day by day. None of it had been accurate in the first place. It was a colossal humiliation for CIA and DCI Tenet. Worse, the situation was going to become a huge embarrassment for the administration, which was heading into the 2004 election year with a number of independent watchdog commissions tearing chunks of political flesh out of the White House.
And now, Tom said, the same goddamn situation was developing in Gaza. There was huge pressure on the White House to reactivate its Road Map for Peace between the Palestinians and Israel before the 2004 elections. But once again, CIA had no unilateral sources on the ground. And even if they had, the ambassador in Tel Aviv didn’t allow CIA to recruit unilaterals from its Israeli and Palestinian liaison relationships.
But McGee, Tom said, could slip in under the radar. He wouldn’t come under the ambassador’s formal chain of command. He knew what to look for—and how to dig it out without being observed. He knew how to operate in a denied area—how to disappear in plain sight. He’d done it in Lebanon. He’d done it in Baghdad. And compared to Beirut and Baghdad, Gaza was a piece of cake.
McGee’d find a way to gather intelligence on the AQ terrorist cells—if there were in fact AQ terrorist cells. He’d seen how the Seppah operated in Lebanon. He’d be able to tell if they’d set up shop in Gaza. If things went well, he’d even be able to spot potential agents from among the mid- and high-level Palestinian security officials with whom he’d liaise during his official duties. He’d note their vulnerabilities, assess their potential, and pass their names on. After they’d been vetted, he’d recruit them—or pass them on to someone else who would get the job done.
When McGee asked about cover for status, Rudy explained he’d be hired as a part of a DynCorp security contingent for the Tel Aviv embassy. He’d work full-time for DynCorp. In fact, the salary, per diem, and bonuses were his to keep.
“You’ll report to me,” said Tom. “Encrypted e-mail using steaganography backed up by one-on-one meetings with a control officer. Like Rudy said, this is Espionage 101, Jim. Basic, keep-it-simple-stupid intelligence gathering.” He gave McGee an encouraging smile. “C’mon—even you Delta guys can do it.”

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Sayeret Duvdevan, or Unit 217, is an IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Special Forces unit that specializes in counterterrorist snatch operations. Its members speak Arabic and often pass themselves off as Arabs in order to get close to their targets without being noticed. The history of the unit precedes the creation of the Israeli state. In the 1930s and 1940s, Arab-speaking members of the PALMACH (“crush companies” in Hebrew) operated inside Arab villages to gather intelligence, posed as Arabs in order to smuggle weapons, and mounted clandestine military operations against the British.
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Intelligence Support Activity, or ISA, is the former unit designator of the intelligence-gathering component for special operations and black ops. The current designator, ]]]]]]], is classified.