“I’m sorry,” Gavin repeated.
The remainder of the drive to the airport passed in silence.
26
The flight from Chicago O’Hare to Reagan National was only ninety minutes in duration, but thirty-five-year-old CIA officer Adam Yao climbed up the jetway looking like he’d traveled halfway around the planet. And with good reason. This flight to D.C. was the end of nearly twenty-four hours of commercial air travel for Yao that began on the other side of the world and had left his body clock utterly confused. Although it was mid-morning now, Adam’s brain thought it was somewhere around midnight. After sleeping poorly in coach as well as traveling across nearly half the world’s time zones he struggled with the task of putting one foot in front of the other, and he noticed he was leaning onto his carry-on as he walked for balance.
Adam Yao’s flight from Singapore to D.C. was a three-legged odyssey that took him through Tokyo and Chicago before depositing him bleary-eyed and achy here at Reagan National. It was just nine-thirty a.m.; he’d love nothing more than to check into a hotel for a few hours’ rest before making an appearance at work, but his instructions were to get himself to McLean, Virginia, as soon as possible.
He planned on renting a car, but as soon as he turned his phone on after touchdown he received word a driver was outside in the arrivals area. He had no checked luggage — rare for a man flying halfway around the globe — so he stepped out into the bright morning and found a black Lincoln Navigator waiting for him.
Adam was an operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, but he was no desk-riding embassy spook with diplomatic cover. He’d spent a good portion of his young career working in Hong Kong under non-official cover, meaning he worked out in the shadows. After Hong Kong he was transferred back to Langley for several months of desk work, but the very week he was cleared to return to NOC status he was wheels up for Singapore, desperate to leave the boring bureaucracy of federal government employment behind and get back to what he loved to do.
Work in the shadows.
While the home office of Yao’s employer, the Central Intelligence Agency, was here in McLean, CIA was not his destination this morning. Instead, he was driven to Liberty Crossing, a gated government building complex not far away from Langley HQ.
There are two main buildings at the Liberty Crossing property off Lewinsville Road; they are virtually identical, and they are referred to by those in government as LX1 and LX2. LX1 houses the National Counterterrorism Center, and LX2 is the home of ODNI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Though the CIA was Yao’s employer, ODNI was the umbrella organization over all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, and this made ODNI Yao’s masters as well.
His identification was checked at the front gate, he was brought into the building and checked again, his phone was placed in a tiny locker, he was scanned and wanded, and after all these measures, measures that he had endured countless times in his decade with a top-secret clearance, he was ushered into an office on the third floor of the building.
He waited alone for a moment. There was coffee in front of him, but he’d had so much this morning already on the flight over from Chicago that his stomach burned, so he didn’t touch it.
Adam did not have a clue why he had been recalled to the United States, and he certainly did not know why he was here at LX2 instead of the CIA building just a ten-minute drive away. He was pretty good at guessing when things like this happened, but at the moment he was more tired than curious, so he just sat there.
Until a side door to the conference room opened.
When it did Adam glanced up, then he immediately launched to his feet. Entering the room alone was Brian Calhoun, the CIA’s director of National Clandestine Service. Calhoun was the head spy at the Agency, nearly at the top of the pecking order and so many rungs above Adam Yao he’d need a pen and a sheet of paper to figure out just how many positions separated them.
He’d never met Calhoun, outside a brief handshake during a debrief last year, but Yao was a fan, and now he wished he’d bothered to check the knot of his tie in the bathroom. He imagined he looked like hell, and Adam Yao was a young man who liked to make a good impression with his appearance.
Adam chanced a look behind the director of NCS as he entered, thinking for sure Calhoun would be followed by a gaggle of underlings, but instead Calhoun shut the side door himself and crossed the conference room with a smile.
“Son, that flight was a bitch, wasn’t it?”
“Oh, I’m fine, sir.”
“Then you’re a better man than me. Singapore to D.C. always kicks my ass. Australia’s worse, but not much.”
Adam said, “I managed some sleep along the way. I’m good to go, sir.” It wasn’t true, but he assumed Calhoun wasn’t here to listen to him complain about air travel.
“Take a seat.”
Both men sat down at the large table.
“I talked to your control officers on the fifth floor. I’ve read pretty much every report you’ve filed for the last nine months. You are doing a hell of a job.”
“Thank you, sir.” Adam couldn’t help it. His mind was spinning, trying to figure out what this was all about. A promotion? That would have surprised him. He had not been at his new assignment for long at all. Unless someone above him he didn’t know had moved on, it didn’t seem likely they’d pull Adam out of NOC work to move him back to Langley. And unless he was being promoted to station chief, a half-dozen steps above his level now, then Brian Calhoun wouldn’t be involved in the promotion.
That meant, to Adam, that Calhoun must be here because of a new operation. A good NOC, no matter how deep he is in his cover and no matter what it is he is doing, knew he could be moved at any time. But again, Adam thought to himself, the damn head of the service shouldn’t be the guy doling out the op orders.
“Your work in Singapore is going nicely, so far. And what you did in Hong Kong was nothing short of magnificent.”
“Thank you very much,” Adam said.
“But we rushed you back home like this because we have a new opportunity, and we think you might be just the man for the job.”
“A new operation?”
“Potentially, yes.”
“Okay,” Adam said, a hint of confusion bleeding through into his voice.
Calhoun cocked his head. “Something wrong?”
Adam smiled apologetically and said, “You can understand my confusion, sir. Normally my control officer, or maybe a section head, would brief me. I find it more than surprising that someone like yourself is talking to me about a new assignment.”
Now it was Calhoun’s turn to smile. “Yao, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
As if on cue, the same side door opened and Mary Pat Foley, the director of national intelligence, entered the room. Adam rose to his feet quickly, and Calhoun did the same.
Yao never saw top-level IC execs without three or four attendants and subordinates. It was confusing to him to see both Calhoun and Foley unaccompanied.
“Good morning, Adam.”
“Madame Director.”
“I heard you flew in from Singapore.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And then we rushed you here without a shower?”
Adam reddened with embarrassment. “Is it that obvious?”
Mary Pat smiled without responding, then she, Calhoun, and Yao sat at the conference table. “How far did we get?” she asked Calhoun.
“He’s still in the ‘what the hell is going on?’ phase.”
Foley laughed. “Unfortunately, Adam, some government servants spend their entire career in that phase. Not you, though. I’ll explain everything. First, I assume Brian already gave you the whole obligatory ‘we love your work’ spiel?”