Mitchell silently let out his breath. With the door open, he knew that the conversation was not going to be about him anymore.
“Your timing is perfect,” said O’Reilly to Jackson.
“I aim to please, sir,” replied Jackson, with a wink at Mitchell.
“Coffee?” asked O’Reilly.
“No thanks, sir. I’ve already had four cups this morning.”
“Well then, I guess we’ll get straight down to business,” said O’Reilly as he opened up a drawer and then placed two blue mission file folders on top of his desk. “We have been asked to help with two different projects at the same time. They are more in line with Luis’ people, but with all of his law enforcement teams tied up helping to professionalize the new Libyan police force, these relatively straightforward assignments have had to come your way. Normally, I would only give a team one assignment at a time; however, we are really stretched thin right now with Lancaster’s team in Oman, so I will have to give you and your people these two jobs.” A second later, he slid the two folders over to Mitchell. “Luis and I have discussed these two jobs and feel that they shouldn’t be too onerous on you and your team if I augment you and Nate with Miss Nazaria from the intelligence section for a few days.”
“What are the assignments?” asked Jackson as blunt as ever.
“The first one is fairly straightforward. Sam and Cardinal are heading to Mongolia to look for a couple of missing grad students. They disappeared a couple of weeks ago and have been officially declared missing by the local authorities. The father of one of the students feels that there wasn’t enough done to find them. The man is very well connected and wants a more thorough investigation of his son’s disappearance than was done by the police over there. He honestly does not expect us to find his son alive. He only wants to know what happened, and, if possible, bring his son’s remains home. So we will do our best to try and put his mind at rest.”
“And the second one, sir?” asked Mitchell.
“We have been hired to provide close protection liaison and advice during the visit of Miss Atsuko Satomi to Washington. She is the daughter of Taro Satomi, one of Japan’s richest and most influential men. You may have heard of him. He owns an electronics company with offices all around the world.”
“Name means nothing to me. Looks like we got the booby prize, boss,” said Jackson as he looked over at Mitchell.
“How long is the assignment for, General?” asked Mitchell, trying to ignore Jackson’s last jibe.
“She arrives next week for a reception being held in the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery. Her father has donated several old and very rare Japanese paintings to the gallery, and she is coming to unveil them on behalf of her father. From beginning to end, she won’t be in the country for more than forty-eight hours,” explained O’Reilly.
“Sounds simple enough,” said Mitchell.
“Nothing is ever as simple as it looks,” said Jackson. “What’s the catch, sir?”
“Oh, nothing that you two fine gents can’t handle,” said O’Reilly, with a grin on his face.
Reaching for the file, Mitchell opened it; a red warning flag greeted him. Quickly skimming the file, Mitchell saw that Atsuko Satomi had been the target of no less than five kidnapping attempts in her life; the most recent one was barely six months ago.
Mitchell stood and picked up both files. “Sir, if you’ll excuse me, I had best read these over a couple of times before I brief the rest of the team on their respective assignments.”
“Very well, Ryan, please pop back in before you leave today and tell me what you are thinking. It doesn’t have to be a full mission brief, just a few thoughts will suffice for today,” said O’Reilly, offering his hand to Mitchell.
After shaking O’Reilly’s hand, Mitchell turned to leave the office, as did Jackson.
“Nate, if you wouldn’t mind staying behind a minute, I’d like you to fill me in on the training you had planned for the police today,” said O’Reilly.
Mitchell shrugged his shoulders and then left the office.
O’Reilly waited until he could hear Tammy and Mitchell engage in their usual small talk before walking over and closing the door to his office. Turning his head, he looked Jackson square in the eyes. “How’s Ryan doing? And don’t bullshit me.”
“Sir, honestly, I think he is doing just fine. I know he feels bad that the girl was wounded during the escape, but sometimes crap just happens. You and I both know that she’d be dead if Ryan hadn’t decided to bust her out from that camp when he did,” said Jackson firmly. “I’ve never once heard him complain about his own injuries either. He could have gone on sick leave for months after what he went through, but instead he chose to return to work the instant he was allowed. That says it all about Ryan Mitchell.”
O’Reilly heard what Jackson said, but he still wanted to dig deeper. “Do you honestly think he’s ready to assume his duties?”
“General, I’ve worked with a lot of men over the years, and I can tell you without a single doubt in my mind that Ryan is more than ready to get back to work. In fact, if you don’t let him do what he’s good at, he’s going to drive me insane.”
“Thanks, Nate, that means a lot to me,” said O’Reilly, reaching for the door. “I take it that’s my cue to leave.”
O’Reilly grinned and then offered his hand. With a quick handshake, Jackson strolled out of the room and walked over to Mitchell, who was still flirting with Spencer.
“You two ought to be ashamed of each other. You’re married,” he said to Spencer, “and you’re as good as married,” he said to Mitchell. “Now let’s get to work,” he said, pulling Mitchell away from Spencer’s desk.
“Come on, Nate,” protested Mitchell as he playfully waved good-bye to Spencer. “How hard can a simple babysitting assignment be?”
“Who knows? All I know is that you officers tend to either overcomplicate or oversimplify everything. Either way, we need to spend a couple of hours going over these folders before I allow you to make up your mind.”
Two hours later, after one too many coffees and a couple of glazed donuts, Jackson headed out to the ranges to catch Sam and Cardinal during the lunchtime pause to fill them in on their new assignment. With Sam and Cardinal’s flights already booked for the next day, a team of ex-police SWAT personnel came with him to finish training the Kosovar police.
While Jackson took care of business, Mitchell headed down into the basement of the complex. Walking down a long, empty corridor, he turned into an open office and walked into the “Office of Dirty Tricks,” more properly known as the intelligence section for Polaris. As usual, Mike Donaldson and Fahimah Nazaria were eating at their desks, while in the background CNN ran a story about an attempted suicide bombing outside of the French Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. On another large plasma screen mounted on the wall was a map of Oman, where Polaris’ second field team was engaged. Mike Donaldson, a tall, gangly Texan with a full head of white hair, who had been an intelligence officer with the U.S. Air Force, was the senior intelligence analyst at the complex. His protégé, Fahimah Nazaria, a brilliant young Iraqi-American with multiple honors and degrees, was a favorite of Mitchell’s team. Fahimah was still busy making her mark in the intelligence community. Donaldson was dressed in his usual blue slacks, shirt, and black tie, while Fahimah wore a long, dark gray outfit with matching headscarf. Seeing Mitchell walk into the room, Fahimah smiled, grabbed the remote, and switched off the news.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve come down here to steal Fahimah again,” said Donaldson as he suspiciously eyed Mitchell.
“Okay, I won’t, but the general has assigned her to my team for the next week or so,” replied Mitchell as he deposited himself in a chair next to Fahimah. A few months ago, Fahimah had been loaned to Mitchell’s team on the condition that as an analyst, she was to be kept out of harm’s way. It was an agreement that Mitchell had been forced to break on numerous occasions to get the job done. For her part, Fahimah, hearing that she was once again assigned to Mitchell’s team, was smiling like someone who had just inherited a million dollars.