Seven time zones to the west, Sir Geoffrey Cornwell was on a Skype call, and Janna Ecklund was at the other end in Washington, seven in the morning her time. The gray-haired Englishman rubbed his neck, frustrated but maintaining his composure. “It is preposterous, Janna. I have three messages on my desk from news organizations asking for my comment.”
Janna was in total agreement. “I’m fielding a lot of queries, too, Jeff. The story is on the morning news shows over here: the CIA caught running drugs with the help of Excalibur, and our company promoting terrorism. Kyle’s name is being made public. We can’t let this stand, sir. We have to issue a statement.”
“Rubbish! That’s my statement, Janna. It’s all rubbish.”
She smiled. The old warrior looked ready to leap from his chair, locked and loaded for battle. “Actually, that is a perfect official response, sir. One word that leaves no room for interpretation. Should we give interviews?”
“No, absolutely not. We’re not going to cooperate with these vultures. Our public-relations people will release the statement, not us. Let their lawyers talk to our lawyers. Have you heard from Kyle?”
“No, sir. He’s pretty much off the grid on that manhunt. Director Atkins says the agency will probably call it off today and bring the team back. I suggest that we get him back into the office here, let him carry on normal work, and we stick with the ‘Rubbish’ comment. Kyle will demonstrate that he has nothing to hide.”
Sir Jeff paused. “That could be dicey, given the situation.”
“The other side is going to have to show proof and some solid evidence in order to move this thing forward, Sir Jeff. Months will pass before it gets a hearing on the Hill and subpoenas are issued. Meanwhile, we stay our course, as if the problem doesn’t exist. Rubbish. We will cooperate with any legal requirements, but we keep to the high road.”
A slow smile creased Cornwell’s weathered face. “Many things may happen during such a long time.”
Janna shook her finger at the camera. “Do not start thinking about interfering in a congressional investigation, you old rascal.”
He laughed. “And you don’t forget that it’s not my Congress, young lady. I am a citizen of Great Britain, and Excalibur Enterprises is a privately held company with many friends. The United States Marine Corps will be very unhappy to learn that we have changed our minds about opening that test facility at Twentynine Palms and putting it instead in Ireland because of a friendlier tax structure.”
“You won’t do that, and you know it. Remember, this is an unsecured line.”
“I’m just considering our options, Madam Vice President, and, as you Yanks say, we play hardball. We are legally innocent of all charges, and I will not stand by and let political fools freely besmirch our reputation.”
“Jeff, calm down,” she warned.
“No. I look forward to this fight, and to finding out what’s behind all of this. But first things first. Issue the news release—Rubbish! — and get Kyle back. If Director Atkins thinks we can help on that front, we will happily oblige.”
18
Marty Atkins, the director of intelligence, was alone in his office, elbows on his desk and his head in his palms early Wednesday morning. How in the hell had this thing jumped from a small deal to a big deal? One minute he was working quietly to put down a mad dog named Nicky Marks and here he was, a few days later, with a political inferno waiting for the touch of a match. A steaming mug of coffee was his only solace.
Atkins had barely mentioned the situation to the man in the White House during the president’s daily security briefing, but had brought the national-security adviser and the chief of staff up to speed on the summons from Congress. Both had already heard about it on the morning news, and would tell the president what he needed to know only when he needed to know it. He hadn’t asked about the plan to abort the mission, either, because the decision wasn’t appropriate for a White House intervention.
Still, the decision wasn’t his alone. Marty Atkins wasn’t at the top of the CIA pyramid and needed to get the final stamp from the director himself, who wouldn’t be in for another few hours, about eleven o’clock. The chiefs of all the alphabet agencies were spending the morning in a conference about the overall global-terrorism situation and homeland security.
His talk with Janna Ecklund over at Excalibur Enterprises had left him with a headache. Sir Geoffrey Cornwell wasn’t going to back down from a confrontation with anybody; that just wasn’t who the old commando was. Instead, her report that he was rethinking an important project in California meant the possible loss of American jobs while also throwing a wrench into Pentagon out-years planning.
Killing Nicky Marks had become a small-potatoes project. Atkins wanted to tamp down the sudden threat and get his snipers back under cover. When the director arrived, Marty planned to meet him at the door and get his autograph on the shutdown order, then hunker down before the coming storm.
The stubborn red sun that had hung in the sky all day finally settled behind the mountains, painting the underside of the drifting clouds with dusty golds and purples. By six o’clock, it was dim enough for Gibson and Swanson to get down to business.
Their ride turned out to be neither a swift jet nor a quick helo, but an updated USAF C-130 prop plane, as common as a piece of toast, older than members of its crew, and trusted as a workhorse. The four-engine turboprop could grind out almost any job. It had come in early in the afternoon and was immediately assigned for the snipers’ run up to Afghanistan.
By six-thirty that evening, the briefings had been completed, the weather and the target had been examined in detail, and the aircraft commander and the primary jumpmaster had run their final checklists. Swanson and Gibson climbed the ramp, which closed behind them as they strapped themselves into their seats and stuffed plastic plugs into their ears as the engine began to whine and roar. With final clearances, the aircraft began to move. Everything was a go. Swanson checked his watch. Outside, darkness gathered. The drop zone was two hours away.
Special Agent Lucky Sharif read the thorough biography that the FBI had assembled overnight on Tom King as if delving into a spy novel rather than doing a normal dull backgrounder. The most interesting thing was that the man wasn’t even the star of his own remarkable life. The analysts had to look higher up the family tree to discover the patriarch, Sir Horatio Kingsley, who was born in Alexandria, Egypt, on November 11, 1873, the son of a British Army officer. At the age of twelve, the boy had been packed off to England to get a top-tier education in public school and then at Oxford. He graduated with honors eight years later. At twenty-one, he followed his father’s footsteps back to Egypt as a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers. In 1894, Kingsley distinguished himself in battle at Omdurman, where befriended the young Winston Churchill, and later fought in the Second Boer War, during which he was wounded. Retired from active military service, Kingsley continued working for the government as an engineering consultant along the Nile Valley and the Suez Canal at the dawn of the twentieth century.
A son, Horace, came along in 1903, and a daughter, Margaret, the following year, and when the Great War began the family moved back to Alexandria, where the engineer was recalled to active service on the General Staff. There he met the enigmatic T. E. Lawrence, who milked Kingsley for every drop of information he had about Arabia and, in the process, became a lifelong friend. After the war, when it was time to draw the boundary lines of new countries in the Middle East, Brigadier Horatio Kingsley was named to the Sykes-Picot Commission. Nobody was really satisfied with the outcome, but Kingsley was knighted for his service and exited the military. At this point, he knew almost every leader of consequence in the region, plus his influential friends Churchill and Lawrence.