‘What did he want to know — about your sister?’
‘He asked about her debt problems, sir. But as I told him, it’s all on file.’
‘Yes, it is. You’ve been very open about that. What else?’
She frowned. ‘He said … I got the impression he knew that I sometimes help her out with money. I don’t think that’s on file, sir — but it’s a personal issue, surely.’
‘What did you tell him?’ Callahan found he was holding his breath. Or maybe it was the closeness of this room. But he was beginning to see a picture emerging … and a possible motive. He was aware, like many of his colleagues, that Benson had expressed concerns about the way the CIA conducted itself many times in the past, sometimes with good reason. But behind it was often the rhetoric of a crusader who wanted change for change’s sake.
She shrugged. ‘I told him I do, sometimes, when she’s really in a bad place. Karen, she’s … she doesn’t handle money well. I have to refuse her occasionally — but that’s not your concern, I guess. Does he have a right to know that stuff?’
‘No, he doesn’t.’ And in a virtual repeat of what he’d said to Sewell, he added, ‘It’s admirable that you help her, and I guess we all do what we can to help out family members.’ He hesitated. ‘This is none of my business, and you can tell me so if you wish, but I guess she probably doesn’t pay you back, right?’
Lindsay shook her head with a wry smile. ‘It would be nice if she did. But no, sir. Like I said, she’s not good with that sort of stuff. What goes into one hand goes straight out the other.’
He nodded. ‘I understand.’ He desperately wanted to tell her about the deposit to her bank account, but couldn’t. Learning that the security section had looked at her account might blow the trust that had grown between them at a critical time. Instead he was going to have to trust her to speak up about it later.
He made to stand up, then had a thought. It was one he didn’t wish to entertain, but that particular horse had already left the starting gate. He asked, ‘Has Senator Benson ever been in this room by himself?’
Lindsay answered with a slight hesitation. ‘No, sir, never. I make sure it’s never been left unattended.’
Callahan picked up on her hesitation. ‘But? You had a second thought there.’
She coloured slightly, as if unsure of herself. ‘Well, there was the time he came down with Assistant Director Sewell, not long after I started. You were overseeing another operation. Director Sewell was called away and Senator Benson stayed here, asking questions.’
‘I remember. You told me he was asking about Watchman.’
‘That’s correct, sir.’ She started to say something more, but paused.
Callahan noticed. ‘Tell me.’
She told him, and he listened without interruption, feeling a cold fury growing inside him. This was way beyond anything that he’d ever experienced before, and hinted at betrayal of the most sinister and underhanded kind. Benson had used his position and name to bully a young trainee into giving him information to which he had no right. And, if confirmation was possible, he suspected that Benson had done so to compromise an operation and threaten the lives of two men in the process. Exactly why was a mystery, but that would come out in due course … unless Benson was able to use his influence to block any chance of an investigation.
‘Anything else?’
‘More recently I found him here with my stand-in while I was on a comfort break.’
‘What was he doing?’
‘He was asking about the monitors, getting a tour from my stand-in about the technical side of what goes on here, the maps, the overlays and stuff. I switched them off the moment I got back. That’s why I thought he might have said something. Sir, I guess I might have been pretty blunt, I admit. I’m sorry, but he’s got such a high clearance and AD Sewell brought him down here, so I thought—’
‘What could he have seen?’ Callahan felt bad about interrupting her, but he was getting a cold chill up his back at the thought of what this could mean.
She looked puzzled. ‘Pretty much everything, sir. The maps, the routes for Watchman, the locations and coordinates … and a transcript of Watchman’s latest report.’
‘Specifically?’
‘About the run-in with the soldiers in Donetsk, getting Travis out … and where he was headed next.’
There it was. Callahan had to work hard to contain his anger. He was thinking about the hard time he’d gotten from Sewell earlier, and the accusations levelled against Lindsay which could have terminated her career before it got going — and could do still if he wasn’t careful. Yet the assistant director himself had allowed Benson to come down here unescorted and question personnel on vital information to which not even the president would have access.
It served to remind him of what Portman had said earlier about the man named Voloshyn who’d murdered the cut-out. Voloshyn knew exactly where to find Travis and the local cut-out. He could … by having access to the list of addresses … or by having been given the location of the hotel where Travis was dropped off.
He wondered how much Benson had seen and remembered from previous visits here … and what he might have talked about once he was out of the secretive atmosphere of this place. He had no idea whether the former senator possessed a better than average or even eidetic memory, but he’d never met a political in-fighter of Benson’s experience yet who couldn’t absorb details like a sponge when it suited them, and regurgitate them later when everyone else thought they’d been long forgotten.
What was certain was that Benson had contacts throughout the Intelligence Community, and if he wanted something, he would have ways of getting it. Things like photos, for example.
As he left the room and headed for the elevator to the upper levels, he wondered idly how hard it would be to get a drone in the air armed with a Hellfire missile and to order a strike on the senator’s home.
FORTY-FOUR
‘Watchman, we’re tracking a Mi-24 attack helicopter heading in your general direction from the east out of Sloviansk. The flight is not logged and the pilot is not responding to calls from Kiev air traffic control. Current distance from you is eighty miles, repeat eighty miles.’
‘Copy that.’ It was reassuring how with such ease we’d changed from normal speech to the rapid-fire truncated pattern normally found in battle conditions. Lindsay was telling me only what I needed to know, and I was confirming that I’d got the message.
What she’d told me didn’t sound good, although just because the helicopter was heading this way and observing radio silence didn’t make it a direct threat. ‘What’s at Sloviansk, anyway?’
‘It’s an air repair base, currently in the hands of separatist militias. They’ve also taken over the local government building, police and the local SBU office.’
The SBU is Ukraine’s security service. If the militias had taken over to that extent, any forces in the area would have also been overrun.
‘There’s something else,’ Lindsay continued. ‘I ran a search of all information on the area. The separatists in Sloviansk recently shot down a military helicopter containing a dozen Ukrainian soldiers and a general from their National Guard. They also took over the repair base which is housing six Mi-24 attack helicopters from the Air Defense Regiment. Reports say those helicopters are currently being tested and made air ready, thought to be with the help of Russian ground crews.’