Catherine took offense to the man’s insinuation. “The story isn’t the only thing I care about, you know. I’m American, just like you. I want what’s best for this country.”
“Okay.”
“Now it’s you who doesn’t believe me.”
Six shrugged. “You are an investigative reporter.”
“True, but I’m more than that.”
“What does that mean?”
Catherine King shook her head slowly. “You didn’t kidnap me to hear my sob story. Let’s just leave it like this. If Denny Carmichael is doing what you say he’s doing, I want to put a stop to it.”
“Then let’s work together. Look into Trieste. You can contact me through my RedPhone number.”
And then, with a quick nod, he pulled the car over to the curb and opened his door. He stepped out and walked between two cars parked in the next lane, and she lost sight of him for a moment.
By the time she climbed out of the passenger’s seat and looked around, he was gone.
Court walked for only a few minutes before arriving at his motorcycle locked to a rack outside of the Rhode Island Avenue Metro.
He slipped on his helmet, revved the engine, and began heading west through the city.
He was hopeful something would come from Catherine King’s investigation of Operation BACK BLAST, but he couldn’t allow himself to focus on that right now.
No. Now he had a new problem. He had to go back to his hide site in the middle of the forest, grab as much of his and Zack’s gear as he could fit into a small backpack, and then go purchase another vehicle.
It didn’t have to be anything fancy. It just had to get him to Florida.
Despite what he’d told the Washington Post reporter, Court was not from Dayton. He was indeed from a small town on the highway between Tallahassee and Jacksonville, and the fact Carmichael had dropped that little tidbit into the conversation, Court knew, was either meant as bait or as a threat.
If it was bait, then Court would be in real danger heading down to Florida.
But if it was a threat, if there was any chance at all something might happen to his father, his only close living relative, then Court knew he had no real alternative but to get involved.
He had to go.
He wasn’t worried that the CIA was going to hurt his father. But the other group out there, this mysterious proxy force of Middle Easterners; what was to keep Carmichael from sending them down to Florida to hurt his dad, to punish him for the actions of his son in some way, or to hold him hostage?
Court didn’t think much of his father. They hadn’t spoken in nearly twenty years. But his dad was his dad, and Court couldn’t let the same group of killers who murdered Max Ohlhauser get their hands on him.
56
A middle-aged secretary called for Denny Carmichael as he sat on the sofa outside the office of the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. “The director will see you now.”
Denny walked into the office of the D/CIA, a seventy-three-year-old former congressman and senator from Alabama who had also served in the directorships of Homeland Security, Defense, and even Energy. The man’s political career began in the state house in Birmingham, and it had never stopped, covering a period of fifty years.
Carmichael saw D/CIA as an intelligent man, but ultimately nothing more than a carpetbagger, a pol who took the reins of U.S. intelligence only because it was considered by others to be a coveted position, and his friend the president asked him to do so as a personal favor.
Despite the negative view the director of the National Clandestine Service held for the chief of the CIA, the man had left Denny alone, having gotten the hint from the former director of intelligence that the less one knew about the inner workings of Denny Carmichael’s NCS fiefdom, the better for one’s own tenure. Denny got things done… no need to dig into just how he accomplished this.
But now, as the two men shook hands perfunctorily and Denny sat on a sofa across from the handsome septuagenarian in the four-thousand-dollar suit, he worried that was all about to come to an end in the director’s mind, because D/CIA was finally getting serious heat from those above him.
The director said, “Not sure if you’ve heard yet, but I’m heading to Capitol Hill tomorrow morning for a closed-door session. I’m going to have to talk about this mess going on in the District. And I’m not going to get away with saying I don’t know a goddamned thing, even though the truth is that I really don’t know a goddamned thing.”
Carmichael said, “I understand, sir. Please know, I kept this situation off your radar for your own good.”
“I’m sure you did, and nine times out of ten I need you to do just that. But this time my willful ignorance has bit me in the ass, because I don’t know anything more than what I’ve seen on TV and read in the papers.”
“Yes, sir. Unfortunately, the enemy gets a vote, and this personality we are after has proven extremely difficult to remove from the chessboard.”
“Cathy King over there at the Post says it’s a homegrown threat. That true?”
Carmichael heaved his shoulders. “More or less.”
D/CIA cocked his head and looked at Carmichael through narrow eyes. “More? Or less?”
“He used to be one of ours. Former SAD Ground Branch.”
D/CIA winced as if he’d just put his hand on a hot plate. “Don’t tell me it’s the Gray Man.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“My predecessor told me about this one. He’s on the presidential kill list. Number one target, from what I remember. Is that right?”
Denny corrected him gently. “Actually he’s the number one target who is also a U.S. Citizen. He’s number nineteen on the list overall.”
“Right,” D/CIA said. “You know, I get to claim some plausible deniability with you and your exploits, since the president has supported your work for so long. I mean, hell, when POTUS is also president of your fan club, I can let a lot of things slide. But not this time.”
Carmichael said, “If you can run interference with Congress and do your best to keep the DOJ away from this, even for just a couple more days, then I give you my personal guarantee that we will terminate this individual, and there will be nothing more to do but handle a little after-action fallout.”
Carmichael expected D/CIA to open his drawer and pull out a bottle of Maalox. He wasn’t suited for this type of work. But the next thing the man from Alabama said surprised him greatly.
“What alternative do I have? I can already hear them in the congressional inquiries. Carmichael’s your top spook, they’ll say… This happened on your watch. Hell, the Republicans are already plucking the chickens and heatin’ up the tar.”
Denny said nothing. Must have been some sort of Alabama reference, he assumed.
D/CIA said, “I can take some heat and buy you some time. But not much. What else can I do for you, something that might make killing this man easier?”
Carmichael blew out an inward sigh of relief. Then he decided to press his luck. “There is one other initiative that might be helpful, sir.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Unmanned aerials.”
“Unmanned aerials? You mean drones?”
“Small ones. No more than three up at any one time. Crisscrossing the District. We have the best facial recognition suites known to man, but this personality has gone to great lengths to defeat them. If we were able to find, fix, and finish him from the air, then we could end this situation in short order.”