"Nice place," Brian observed as they headed for the elevators.
Bell smiled. "Yeah, in private industry we can hire better decorators." It also helped if you happened to like the decorator's taste in art, which, fortunately, he did.
"You said 'private industry,'" Dominic observed at once. This was not, he thought, a time to enjoy the subtlety of the moment. This was the agency he worked for, and everything here was important.
"You'll get fully briefed today," Bell said, wondering how much truth he had just relayed to his guests.
The Muzak in the elevators was no more offensive than usual, and the lobby on the top floor — where the boss always was — was pretty vanilla, though it was Breyers vanilla instead of the Safeway house brand.
"SO, YOU tumbled to this today?" Hendley was asking. This new kid, he thought, really did have his father's nose.
"It just jumped off the screen at me," Jack replied. About what one would expect him to say, except that it had not leaped off anyone else's screen.
The boss's eyes went to Wills, whose analytical ability he knew well. "Jack's been looking at this Sali guy for a couple of weeks. We thought he might be a minor-league player, but today he moved up to triple-A status, maybe more," Tony speculated. "He's indirectly tied to yesterday."
"NSA twig to this yet?" Hendley asked.
Wills shook his head. "No, and I don't think they will. It's too indirect. They and Langley are keeping an eye on his guy, but as a barometer, not a principal." Unless somebody at one place or the other has a lightbulb moment, he didn't have to add. They happened, just not very often. In both bureaucracies, an off-the-reservation insight often got lost in the system, or was buried by those to whom it did not immediately occur. Every place in the world had its own orthodoxy, and woe betide the apostates who worked there.
Hendley's eyes swept over the two-page document. "Sure wiggles like a fish, doesn't he?" Then his phone buzzed, and he picked up the receiver. "Okay, Helen, send them in… Rick Bell is bringing in those two guys we talked about," he explained to Wills.
The door opened, and Jack Jr.'s eyes popped somewhat.
So did Brian's. "Jack? What are you doing here?"
Dominic's face changed a moment later. "Hey, Jack! What's happening?" he exclaimed.
For his part, Hendley's eyes twisted into a hurt expression. He hadn't thought this all the way through, a rare error on his part. But the room had only one door, unless you counted the private washroom.
The three cousins shook hands, momentarily ignoring the boss, until Rick Bell took control of the moment.
"Brian, Dominic, this is the big boss, Gerry Hendley." Handshakes were exchanged in front of the two analysts.
"Rick, thanks for bringing that up. Well done to both of you," Hendley said in dismissal.
"I guess it's back to the workstation. See you, guys," Jack said to his cousins.
The surprise of the moment didn't fade immediately, but Brian and Dominic settled into their chairs and filed the happenstance away for the moment.
"Welcome," Hendley said to them, leaning back in his chair. Well, sooner or later they'd find out, wouldn't they? "Pete Alexander tells me that you've done very well down at the country house."
"Aside from the boredom," Brian responded.
"Training is like that," Bell said in polite sympathy.
"What about yesterday?" Hendley asked.
"It wasn't fun," Brian said first. "It was a lot like that ambush in Afghanistan. Ka-boom, it started, and then we had to deal with it. Good news, the bad guys weren't all that bright. They acted like free agents instead of a team. If they'd been trained properly — if they'd acted like a team with proper security — it would have gone different. As it was, it was just a matter of taking out one at a time. Any idea on who they were?"
"What the FBI knows to this point, they seem to have come into the country through Mexico. Your cousin ID'd the source of their funding for us. He's a Saudi expatriate living in London, and he may be one of their backers. They were all Arabian in origin. They've positively ID'd five of them as Saudi citizens. The guns were stolen about ten years ago. They rented the cars — all four groups — in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and probably drove independently to their objectives. Their routes have been tracked by gas purchases."
"Motivation was strictly ideological?" Dominic asked.
Hendley nodded. "Religious — their version of it, yes. So it would seem."
"Is the Bureau looking for me?" Dominic asked next.
"You'll have to call Gus Werner later today so he can fill out his paperwork, but don't expect any hassles. They have a cover story all cooked up already."
"Okay."
This was Brian: "I assume that this is what we've been training for? To hunt down some of these people before they can do any more bad things over here?"
"That's about right," Hendley confirmed.
"Okay," Brian said. "I can live with that."
"You will go into the field together, covered as people in the banking and trading business. We'll brief you in on the stuff you need to know to maintain that cover. You'll operate mainly out of a virtual office via laptop computer."
"Security?" Dominic wondered.
"That will not be a problem," Bell assured him. "The computers are as secure as we can make them, and they can double as Internet phones for times when voice communications are required. The encryption systems are highly secure," he emphasized.
"Okay," Dominic said dubiously. Pete had told them much the same, but he'd never trusted any encryption system. The FBI's radio systems, secure as they were supposed to be, had been cracked once or twice by clever bad guys or by computer geeks, the kind who liked to call the local FBI field office to tell them how smart they were. "What about our legal cover?"
"This is the best we can do," Hendley said, handing a folder across. Dominic took it and flipped it open. His eyeballs widened immediately.
"Damn! How the hell did you get this?" he asked. The only presidential pardon he'd ever seen had been in a legal textbook. This one was effectively blank, except that it was signed. A blank pardon? Damn.
"You tell me," Hendley suggested.
The signature gave him the answer, and his legal education came back. This pardon was bulletproof. Even the Supreme Court couldn't toss this one out, because the President's sovereign authority to pardon was as explicit as freedom of speech. But it would not be very helpful outside American borders. "So, we'll be doing people here at home?"
"Possibly," Hendley confirmed.
"We're the first shooters on the team?" Brian asked.
"Also correct," the former senator answered.
"How will we be doing it?"
"That will depend on the mission," Bell answered. "For most of them, we have a new weapon that is one hundred percent effective, and very covert. You'll be learning about that, probably tomorrow."
"We in a hurry?" Brian asked further.
"The gloves are all the way off now," Bell told them both. "Your targets will be people who have done, are planning to do, or who support missions aimed at causing serious harm to our country and her citizens. We are not talking about political assassinations. We will only target people who are directly involved in criminal acts."
"There's more to it than that. We're not the official executioners for the state of Texas, are we?" This was Dominic.
"No, you are not. This is outside the legal system. We're going to try to neutralize enemy forces by the elimination of their important personnel. That should at the least disrupt their ability to do business, and we hope it will also force their senior people to show themselves, so that they can be addressed, too."