Goddamn.The Rush. He hadn’t thought of the term in months. But as he thought about it now, the Rush was why he’d been so easy for Tony Wyman to recruit. They’d been sitting in the rearmost leather booth at the Palm on Nineteenth Street. Tony had screwed the monocle into his right eye, squinted at the wine list, and ordered a bottle of La Lagune ’82. When it had been decanted, poured, and tasted, he’d inclined the rim of his glass in Tom’s direction, allowed the monocle to fall onto his vest, and begun his pitch.
You’ve outgrown the place,he said.Left it behind. That’s because you’re one of us. You live for results-to win.You love to steal secrets. I know because that’s how I feel-always have, always will. You get the same rush I do when your guy shows up and he’s holding paper. You love it when a false-flag recruitment produces a twenty-four-karat nugget. There’s nothing like that anymore, is there? He looked straight into Tom’s eyes.When’s the last time you felt like that?
Tom’s expression was neutral. But, of course, Tony was right.
What’s going on at stations worldwide? Nothing. Nobody goes out anymore. They’re all sitting in goddamn fortresses writing memos. So what are the NOCs doing? They’re all using business cover these days. Christ, doesn’t Tenet understand that gringo executives and salesmen won’t penetrate al-Qa’ida’s networks? Why the hell hasn’t CIA set up Islamic charity front groups in Germany and France and Holland and Pakistan, in Indonesia and Qatar and Sudan and the UAE and usedthemto penetrate the Islamists who want to kill us? We should be running our own madrassas, for chrissakes.
You know why. It’s because we don’t have qualified NOCs. But it’s also because it would be very, very risky, and risk-takers don’t receive performance bonuses these days. You want to be promoted? You stay on the reservation. You play it safe. You keep your head down. Better to spend your days writing e-mails querying about some arcane matter, or dabbling in the stock market, or buying investment real estate than sticking your neck out to recruit some penetration agent who might be a double. Recruiting’s risky, Tom. That’s precisely why the crowd on the seventh floor doesn’t like it. They weigh every single recruitment these days.“How will it look in theWashington Post?” That’s what they ask. Then they take a pass.Tony’s gray eyes bored into Tom’s head.You see it. All around you. And when you do, you’re pissed.
Tom had sipped his wine and said nothing.
I’m right,Tony had said.You can’t say anything because there’s nothing to say. But you know I’m right. Christ-even in Iraq, there are virtually no risk takers. Thirty-day deployments-that’s what they’re doing now. C’mon, Tom, how many recruitments do you think they’re making in thirty days? You know what’s happening in Iraq as well as I do. They’re spending all their time in the Green Zone, or hunkered down behind concrete barriers at CIA’s bases in Mosul, Kirkuk, Basra, or Sulaimaniya.
Tom’s eyes dropped. He’d felt exactly the same way. Too damn many of the people going to Iraq were doing it only to ticket-punch. Get the hazard pay. Make sure the powers that be at Langley checked the appropriate box next to their names so they’d be promoted on schedule. The guys doing the real work-the PMs21and the contractors-were treated like peons.
He looked up. Tony was speaking. Tom blinked. Tried to play catch-up.
I saw the writing on the wall,Tony was saying.So did Charlie and Bronco. We got out. And I can tell you that right now-right at this very second-4627 is doing more human-based intelligence gathering worldwide than you and all of your colleagues at CTC. You come with us, and you’ll get the old feeling back, Tom. The same emotional highs and lows. Now, I’m not talking sinecure, Tom. This ain’t the Agency. We pay for results-not just for showing up. But we love our work. Oh God, do we ever love our work. Wyman sipped his wine. He put the big goblet down on the white tablecloth and shot the cuffs of his brightly striped London shirt to display the blue enamel and gold tooling of White House cuff links.Hunkering down and flying a desk ain’t why you joined CIA, Tom.
Tom drained his wine and waited as Wyman refilled his glass.Useless. That was the word that best described the most recent two and a half years of his career. He’d languished at Langley. Skirted depression. Gotten fat on the junk food in the cafeteria. Felt…unappreciated.
No more.The Rush was back. Tom cast a satisfied, surreptitious look at Reuven’s back as the Israeli pulled a pair of latex gloves out of the dispenser box and stuffed them into his coveralls.God, how incredible it is to be working with a world-class operator again. Tom pulled his own gloves from the dispenser. Then he picked up one of the six prepaid, disposable cell phones that sat on the nicked porcelain counter and dropped it into a pocket. Finally, he clipped the laminated Eurec photo identity card onto his collar. Without a word of warning, he flipped the condom in Reuven’s direction.
The Israeli whirled, snatching the foil-wrapped package out of the air. “Thank you, kind sir. This will be put to good use, believe me.”
The guy’s still got it.Tom made a dismissive gesture. “C’mon, lover boy, let’s get started.”
19
9:27A.M. Tom let Reuven off the motorcycle. After the Israeli slid a key into the heavy lock and pulled the narrow reinforced steel door open, Tom wrestled the big bike over the threshold into the warehouse, dropped the kickstand, and switched the motor off.
They’d driven north and east along boulevard Victor Hugo into the industrial zone that took up much of the southern portion of the suburb of St. Denis, which sits due north of the eighteenth arrondissement and the Porte de la Chapelle. But they didn’t follow a direct route. Instead, Tom flew between the cars and trucks, backtracking, making random turns, gunning the bike along the railroad tracks that ran through the zone, even occasionally heading the big BMW against traffic on one-way streets to discourage all but the hardiest of followers. So, unless DST was using its aerial assets-which was highly unlikely given the fact that Tom was a relatively low-priority target these days-they reached the 4627 stowage facility clean of surveillance.
The Israeli pulled a small flashlight out of his pocket and shined it on the interior wall until he found the light panel. He opened the box, reached up, and threw the switches that turned the big overhead lights on. It was a cavernous place. Tom could hear birds in the rafters. How they got in without setting off the intrusion devices, Tom had no idea. How they survived, Tom had no idea. But every time he set foot in the warehouse, he could hear birds chirping.
He looked around-there was plenty of room for him to work. It was a good-size facility-sixty meters wide and double that in depth. The ground-floor ceiling was more than thirty feet high, with an industrial staircase along the sidewall leading to an upper-level storage area filled with tools and racks of clothes. The ground floor was cement, which made the warehouse feel cold year-round. In the right rear corner was a walled-off area containing a washroom and an office. Piled against the rear wall were the items he’d need: half a dozen ten-foot-tall scenery bays, holding what looked like prefab modular housing walls, stairways, and exteriors.