Ghosts of War (2 page)

Washington, DC

Present day

C
olonel Kurt Hale held his badge against the access panel and was granted entry with a chirp and a green light. The drop bar in front of him silently rose. He put the car in gear, rolling downward into the garage, the darkness forcing him to remove his sunglasses. He swung around the deck, pulling into a spot labeled
CEO
, sitting right next to a small atrium housing an elevator. Adjacent to the glass doors was another smart-card reader and a simple brass placard proclaiming
BLAISDELL CONSULT
ING
, looking like a hundred other such power signs littering the lobbying/consulting landscape of Washington, DC.

What was beyond the elevators was anything but a lobbying firm, unless the chosen form of persuasion was a flashbang or an assault rifle.

Kurt killed the engine and said, “Probably should enjoy this. My next parking spot won't come with a label.”

Removing his tie in the passenger seat, George Wolffe said, “Aww, come on. It wasn't that bad. You want this to be realistic, maybe we should invest taxpayer dollars for some fake stockholders to scream for your head.”

A quiet man with a whimsical sense of humor, George had lived a lie his entire professional life. His business cards read
CHIEF OPERATIONS
OFFICER
, which fit into the Blaisdell Consulting charade and was a title that rolled off his tongue more comfortably than his real one: Deputy Commander, Project Prometheus.

Because nobody spoke the true name out loud.

Kurt shook his head and said, “No. This was different. It's been four months, and the Taskforce hasn't conducted a single operation. Even if they don't come right out and say it, mentally they're shutting down. Guy George scared the piss out of them, and they'll use the upcoming election to pull the trigger on us.”

“What if Hannister wins?”

Kurt scoffed and said, “Well, that would be something, but only in an alternate universe. He's getting obliterated in the polls on just about everything, even his personality. Did you see that hit piece from Politico asking if people could tell the difference between him and a wax figure of himself at Madame Tussauds? He's cooked, and with him, so are we.”

George opened the door and said, “Well, they have a point. He
is
about as exciting as a ball of yarn.”

A little melancholy leaking out, Kurt said, “This place was just hitting its stride. What a waste. Fucking Guy George.”

Halfway out the door, George Wolffe sat back down, seeing the strain the last few years had brought his friend. Having walked the tightrope of clandestine operations, eschewing the very oversight rules he had once championed, George saw that Kurt felt responsible for the debacle they were now in. Before it had always been for the greater good. Now Kurt Hale could no longer make that claim.

George said, “Hey, cut that out right now. Guy wasn't your fault. You did what you could. At the end of the day, he was right. The real heat came because of that asshat Billings. You tried to save him, tried to do the right thing, and it's going to cost us. But it isn't a done deal yet.”

Kurt tapped his hands on the steering wheel and said, “I hope you're right, because I don't think I can go shine a seat in the Pentagon for real. Pretending to do it is bad enough.” He turned and looked at his longtime friend and ally. “What will you do? I mean, if worse comes to worst?”

“Go back to the CIA, I guess. Although I've burned most of my bridges there. Probably end up as a reports officer in one of the new Mission Centers looking at climate change.”

Kurt laughed and said, “Well, at least they know where we stand.”

George pushed open the door a second time and said, “That's true. Nobody on the Oversight Council can say you play politics. Even if that briefing may have been one of your last.”

Project Prometheus was decidedly unique, operating outside the normal intelligence community and defense establishments, which is to say, it operated outside the view of just about anyone in the United States government who usually oversaw such activity. A polite way of saying it was an illegal organization, albeit one sanctioned by the president of the United States. But it wasn't completely autonomous.

A panel of thirteen individuals, each handpicked by the president from both the government and the private sector, approved all phases of operations. They required quarterly briefings on all activity, and Kurt and George had just come from one such update. One that had been less about counterterrorism operations and more about damage control.

It had been brief and brutal, but Kurt Hale, for all his tactical acumen at special operations, understood the reasons why. Four months ago a Taskforce Operator named Guy George had gone rogue, applying his lethal skills on a personal vendetta and killing three members of the government of Qatar. The officials had provided financial support to the nascent growth of the Islamic State in Afghanistan, and part of that support had caused the death of his brother.

And Guy's unilateral response had precipitated the death of the United States secretary of state, Jonathan Billings.

It was a killing that had been splashed throughout the world stage, with the subsequent investigation one would expect. All that would have been fine and good, except Kurt Hale had launched a Taskforce team to prevent the killing, without sanction, and the fallout was
threatening to expose the extralegal force, along with a possible jail cell for every member of the Oversight Council.

Kurt had tried to start the meeting off by asking for authority to continue surveillance of a suspected financier in Mali, and had learned how naïvely optimistic he had been.

The president himself, Peyton Warren, had cut him off, saying, “Kurt, come on. We're nowhere near ready to continue with operations. Get to the heart of this meeting. What's the state of play with the motorcycle rentals in Norway?”

Kurt had absorbed the rebuke, and saw that everyone in the room was hanging on the answer. Afraid for the skin they had in the game.

“Sir, there's been no change from the last update, and honestly, there won't be a change. The bikes were rented under aliases with credit cards that end in a PO box in Sacramento, California. We had four cutouts before that. There is no way to find a link between who rented the bikes and who was riding them.”

Alexander Palmer, the president's national security advisor, said, “Yeah, but that in itself looks strange. It
looks
like an intelligence operation, which is something the Taskforce said would never happen.”

Kurt said, “Whoa. Wait. We can ensure we get out clean before an operation, but that statement is predicated on our operational footprint. A slow burn to build the infrastructure and accomplish the mission. This was a hostage rescue—something we don't do. Secretary Billings put his
own
life in danger, and I had the assets to attempt saving his life.”

He paused a beat and saw his words were having no effect. Exasperated, he said, “It didn't work out, and now you want to accuse me of not preparing? Maybe I should have just sat on the sidelines. Let the suicide bomber destroy the peace talks. At least then I wouldn't be having this conversation while letting other terrorists go free.”

P
resident Warren held his hand up and said, “Okay, okay, calm down. Nobody's faulting the effort, but the fallout is something different. We've officially entered the silly season of a presidential election, and the questions arising from Billings's death are almost overpowering. I can only shrug so long before it looks like I'm hiding something.”

Left unsaid was that the shrug was tainting his vice president, Philip Hannister, the man who'd recently picked up the proverbial election staff and was running for the president's seat. Forget about the opposition—he was now getting hammered by his own party as ineffectual and/or a liar.

Kurt said, “Sir, it's the best we can do. There's no way to crack what happened. No way the Taskforce will be exposed, but those questions are going to remain. All we can do is shrug. Deny. Hell, ask them to look. They won't find anything.”

Palmer shook his head at the pat answer and said, “What about the diplomatic security guys? The ones protecting Billings? They saw Taskforce activity.”

Kurt was incredulous. “You're asking
me
to explain that? I don't own them. You do. Who's the next SECSTATE? Who's the acting now? Read them on and start getting control of your own house.”

And in the facial expressions of the Council he saw how far the fear had seeped. How little power he actually held.

President Warren said, “I've got a man I'm thinking of. Woman, actually, but I'm not reading her on to Project Prometheus. The last
two nominees got hammered hard enough at the confirmation hearings until they quit, and honestly, I'm not that confident on this one. I don't see the need to expand the circle at this stage. Anyway, by the time she gets through the confirmation process—if she gets through—it won't matter.”

Won't matter? Why?
The answer was clear, even as he asked it. The president was saying,
We're shutting this experiment down.

Kurt tried one more time. “Sir, what happened in Norway shouldn't stop us from continuing. We have a couple of targets that pose a clear and present danger to US interests. I'm just asking for Alpha authority. Asking to explore.”

President Warren said, “No. I'm not even putting it to a vote. Jonathan Billings's death has caused a firestorm, and like it or not, your attempt to prevent it is wrapped up in that. If we're exposed, it'll be catastrophic. You're still on stand-down.”

“Sir . . . did you see the reports of Russian ex-KGB trying to sell uranium to terrorists in Moldova? This is not the time to stop Taskforce activities. If anything, we've become more necessary.”

Palmer scoffed and said, “Come on. The FBI caught them. We found them through traditional channels. The world is returning to level, where traditional means matter more than Taskforce efforts. We didn't have the Taskforce during the Cold War, and we did okay.”

Kurt chose his words carefully, not wanting to antagonize a Council member. “Maybe. Maybe not. The FBI broke up a one-time plot, but the shitheads were then put into the host country's justice system. Ex-KGB. How hard do you think that was? They're going to be released in months, if they're not out already, and we got no intelligence from it. Let me hunt those guys and we'll do some real good.”

Kurt waited on someone from the Oversight Council to back him up, but no one did, preferring to stare at their hands or the tabletop. The silence stretched out for a beat, then was broken by President Warren. “You may have a point, but at this stage we just can't risk it.
Too many people are curious and looking into our activities. They haven't found anything yet, but they might, and I can't give them another thread to start chasing. What happens if something goes wrong on the next operation?”

“Sir, it won't.”

“And you can promise that? You did, in fact, recruit and train Guy George, did you not?”

Kurt had no answer to that, because there was none. The unit, which had begun as an idea in a presidential candidate's head, had come full circle. President Warren no longer believed.

After an uncomfortable silence, Kurt said, “Sir, whatever Guy did, at the end of the day, he was right. Secretary Billings is dead because he was stupid, not because Guy George was wrong. Let's not forget that had he not done what he did, the peace meetings would have been destroyed, and Billings would still be dead. The only reason the Taskforce
could
react was because of Guy.”

The words held no sway, and Kurt quit trying, spending the rest of the meeting answering multiple questions about the death of Secretary Billings and the status of various cover organizations that might be exposed. After the meeting, he'd walked down the granite steps of the Old Executive Office Building, in the shadow of the White House, feeling like he'd failed his men.

Driving back to their office, he'd all but mentally given up, but now, entering Blaisdell Consulting, he felt a newborn drive for the unit he'd helped create. A gnawing desire to save it from destruction.

He exited the car, seeing that George had already keyed entry and was holding open the door. George said, “Hurry up. I don't want to explain an alarm because I was acting like a gentleman.”

Kurt slid through the door, walked across the atrium, and pushed the elevator button. When George reached him, he said, “The hardest thing is going to be telling the men. I have a team waiting on an EXORD for a simple bugging operation, and I have to tell them no.
They aren't stupid. They're going to understand something's not right.”

George barked a laugh and said, “If you mean Johnny's team, I'm sure his stint in Jamaica isn't going to cause any angst. All that means is he gets another day of poolside fun.”

“I was thinking about Pike. The active-duty guys can take care of themselves, but Pike and Jennifer deserve an answer with enough time to prepare. If the Oversight Council turns off the tap, everyone else can go back to where they came from. Pike and Jennifer are going to be hung out to dry.”

The elevator doors opened and George said, “You going to tell him today?”

“I hope to. He's up here doing some sort of business development for his company. I asked if we could meet, but I don't know if I'm going to make it now. Too much crap going on.”

George keyed the access panel, then pressed the button for the third floor. He said, “I wouldn't worry about Pike landing on his feet. He'll figure something out—if it's even necessary.”

They rode in silence for a moment, then Kurt said, “You remember all that studying we both did on the Office of Strategic Services? Not wanting to repeat any mistakes they made when we stood up the Taskforce?”

“Yeah?”

“Don't you think it's ironic that in the end, we're going to end up just like them? Disbanded and thrown to the wolves because the threat is deemed not worthy?”

The car came to a halt and the elevator doors opened. George exited and said, “We aren't there yet. There's a lot of time before the election, and something may happen to alter any calculations of our worth.”

Kurt simply nodded, exiting the elevator. George caught his arm,
made sure nobody else was in the hallway, then said, “You believe that, right?”

“Of course I do. I just don't know if it will matter in the end. Politics trumps security every time.”

George let the doors close behind him and said, “Until security drives the politics. Remember, there are a lot of assholes out there who need killing, and only one organization designed to do that.”