Better still, because of their military background, they obeyed orders unquestioningly, unlike agents in CI-Soraya Moore a case in point-who always thought they knew a better way to get things done. Plus, these bad boys weren’t afraid of rendition; they weren’t afraid to pull the trigger. If given the appropriate order they’d kill a target without either question or regret.
Batt felt a certain exhilaration at the knowledge that no one was looking over his shoulder, that he wouldn’t have to explain himself to anyone-not even the new DCI. He’d entered an altogether different arena, one all his own, where he could make decisions of great moment, devise field operations, and carry them out with the confidence that he would be backed to the hilt, that no operation would ever boomerang on him, bring him face-to-face with a congressional committee and disgrace. As he wrapped up the pre-mission briefing, his cheeks were flushed, his pulse accelerated. There was a heat building inside him that could almost be called arousal.
He tried not to think of his conversation with the defense secretary, tried not to think of Luther LaValle heading up Typhon while he looked helplessly on. He desperately didn’t want to give up control of such a powerful weapon against terrorism, but Halliday hadn’t given him a choice.
One step at a time. If there was a way to foil Halliday and LaValle, he was confident he’d find it. But for the moment, he returned his attention to the job at hand. No one was going to fuck up his plan to capture Jason Bourne. He knew this absolutely. Within hours Bourne would be in custody, down so deep even a Houdini like him would never get out.
Soraya Moore made her way to Veronica Hart’s office. Two men were emerging: Dick Symes, the chief of intelligence, and Rodney Feir, chief of field support. Symes was a short, round man whose red face appeared to have been applied directly to his shoulders. Feir, several years Symes’s junior, was fair-haired, with an athletic body, an expression as closed as a bank vault.
Both men greeted her cordially, but there was a repellent condescension to Symes’s smile.
“Bearding the lioness in her den?” Feir said.
“Is she in a bad mood?” Soraya asked.
Feir shrugged. “Too soon to tell.”
“We’re waiting to see if she can carry the weight of the world on those delicate shoulders,” Symes said. “Just like with you, Director.”
Soraya forced a smile though her clenched jaws. “You gentlemen are too kind.”
Feir laughed. “Ready, willing, and able to oblige, ma’am.”
Soraya watched them leave, two peas in a pod. Then she poked her head into the DCI’s inner sanctum. Unlike her predecessor, Veronica Hart maintained an open-door policy when it came to her upper-echelon staff. It engendered a sense of trust and camaraderie that-as she’d told Soraya-had been sorely lacking at CI in the past. In fact, from the vast amount of electronic data she’d pored over the last couple of days it was becoming increasing clear to her that the previous DCI’s bunker mentality had led to an atmosphere of cynicism and alienation among the directorate heads. The Old Man came from the school of letting the Seven vie with one another, complete with duplicity, backstabbing, and, so far as she was concerned, outright objectionable behavior.
Hart was a product of a new era, where the primary watchword was cooperation. The events of 2001 had proved that when it came to the intelligence services, competition was deadly. So far as Soraya was concerned that was all to the good.
“How long have you been at this?” Soraya asked.
Hart glanced out the window. “It’s morning already? I ordered Rob home hours ago.”
“Way past morning.” Soraya smiled. “How about lunch? You definitely need to get out of this office.”
She spread her hands to indicate the queue of dossiers loaded onto her computer. “Too much work-”
“It won’t get done if you pass out from hunger and dehydration.”
“Okay, the canteen-”
“It’s such a fine day, I was thinking of walking to a favorite restaurant of mine.”
Hearing a warning note in Soraya’s otherwise light voice, Hart looked up. Yes, there was definitely something her director of Typhon wanted to talk to her about outside the confines of the CI building.
Hart nodded. “All right. I’ll get my coat.”
Soraya took out her new cell, which she’d picked up at CI this morning. She’d found her old one in the gutter by her car at the Moira Trevor surveillance site, had disposed of it at the office. Now she texted a message.
A moment later Hart’s cell buzzed. The text from Soraya read: VAN X ST. Van across the street.
Hart folded her cell away and launched into a long story at the end of which both women laughed. Then they talked about shoes versus boots, leather versus suede, and which Jimmy Choos they’d buy if they were ever paid enough.
Both women kept an eye on the van without seeming to look at it. Soraya directed them down a side street where the van couldn’t go for fear of becoming conspicuous. They were moving out of the range of its electronics.
“You came from the private sector,” Soraya said. “What I don’t understand is why you’d give up that payday to become DCI. It’s such a thankless job.”
“Why did you agree to be director of Typhon?” Hart asked.
“It was a huge step up for me, both in prestige and in pay.”
“But that’s not really why you accepted it, was it?”
Soraya shook her head. “No. I felt a strong sense of obligation to Martin Lindros. I was in at the beginning. Because I’m half Arab, Martin sought out my input both in the creation of Typhon and in its recruitment. He meant Typhon to be a very different intelligence-gathering organization, staffed with people who understood both the Arab and the Muslim mind-set. He felt-and I wholeheartedly agree-that the only way to successfully combat the wide array of extremist terrorist cells was to understand what motivates them. Once you were in sync with their motivation, you could begin to anticipate their actions.”
Hart nodded, her long face in a neutral set as she sank deeper in thought. “My own motivations were similar to yours. I grew sick of the cynical attitude of the private security firms. All of them, not just Black River where I worked, were focused on how much money they could milk out of the mess in the Middle East. In times of war, the government is a mighty cash cow, throwing newly minted money at every situation, as if that alone will make a difference. But the fact is, everyone involved has a license to plunder and steal to their heart’s content. What happens in Iraq stays in Iraq. No one’s going prosecute them. They’re indemnified against retribution for profiting from other people’s misery.”
Soraya took them into a clothes store, where they made a pretense of checking out camisoles to cover the seriousness of the conversation.
“I came to CI because I couldn’t change Black River, but I felt I could make a difference here. The president gave me a mandate to change an organization that was in disarray, that long ago had lost its way.”
They went out the back, across the street, hurrying now, down the block, turning left for a block, then right for two blocks, left again. They went into a large restaurant boiling with people. Perfect. The high level of ambient noise, the multiple crosscurrents of conversations would make their own conversation undetectable.
At Hart’s request they were seated at a table near the rear where they had excellent sight lines of the interior as well as the front door. Everyone who came in would be visually vetted by them.
“Well executed,” Hart said when they were seated. “I see you’ve done this before.”
“There were times-especially when I was working with Jason Bourne -when I was obliged to lose a CI tail or two.”
Hart scanned the large menu. “Do you think that was a CI van?”
“No.”
Hart looked at Soraya over the menu. “Neither do I.”