Andrew Britton - The Assassin

“Look, John,” the director continued, his voice dropping a notch. “You and Kealey go way back. I can understand that, and I know what he’s done for us. Believe me, I do. But things have changed, and right now, he’s doing more harm than good. Perhaps it would be best for everyone — including him — if he just stepped down. Christ knows he’s been through enough.”

Ford’s smug expression disappeared, and she turned toward Andrews in surprise. Clearly, she’d been expecting him to take a much harder line.

“I can’t ask him to do that.” The other man frowned, and Harper’s anger boiled over. “Jesus, did you ever think about what would have happened if Vanderveen had succeeded last year? What if he’d gotten all three — Brenneman, Chirac, and Berlusconi? How would that have reflected on us?”

“I hear you, but-”

“I know exactly how it would have played out, Bob. The dollars would have skyrocketed, but we wouldn’t have seen a dime. Everything would have gone to Homeland Security or the NCTC, and rightfully so. The oversight committees would have been screaming for blood.” And you would have been out of a job, Harper didn’t add.

He paused and looked away, trying to rein in his emotions. “Kealey is the only reason we managed to avoid all of that. He didn’t ask for a damn thing in return, except for a full-time place in the Agency. I’m not inclined to take that away from him because of a minor spat with the FBI, and I don’t give a shit about what they’re saying on al-Jazeera. The man deserves our support.”

“I don’t think you can discount the Bureau’s position that easily,” Ford began heatedly. “They have a right to-”

“No,” Andrews said, cutting her off. “John’s right on this.” Realizing she was on the losing end of this argument, Ford sat back in her chair and glared at her subordinate.

“Kealey does deserve our support,” the DCI continued. “Still, I think you know that something’s wrong with him, John. He wanted to stay busy after what happened last year. He wanted back in, and I signed off on it. Against my better judgment, I might add. Your recommendation had a lot to do with that.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“That’s debatable, but irrelevant. In any case, it boils down to a simple question. Is he operating at the necessary level?”

The DCI paused to let the rhetorical question sink in. Somewhere along the line, Harper reflected, Andrews had mastered the art of making his words — however inflammatory — seem reasonable. “You’ve known him a long time, John. What is it now? Seven years? Eight? I have a hard time believing he could have lasted that long in his current state.”

Harper pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded reluctantly, deciding it was best to defuse the situation. “I’ll talk to him.”

Temporarily satisfied, Andrews gave a little nod and exhaled slowly, as though relieved.

“And the laptop?” Harper asked.

Andrews waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll talk to Davidson myself to get the ball rolling, but I’d be surprised if it comes to anything. More importantly, I’d be very reluctant to let Kealey take the lead on any new information. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

The DCI lifted his heavy frame out of the chair, ending the meeting with an abrupt handshake. Ford didn’t move from her seat. There was no Glenlivet on offer this time, Harper noted wryly as he stepped toward the door, and he definitely could have used the drink.

“She’s got it in for you in a big way.”

Kealey had used the time at Headquarters to shower and find some clean clothes. He’d also removed his thick beard. The result shaved years off his appearance, though it also revealed his hollowedout cheeks, a clear indication of the weight he’d lost in recent months. The Suburban they were riding in was currently mired in traffic, stuck on the Key Bridge. Harper had used the time to fill him in on what had gone down at the meeting.

“I don’t get it with this woman,” Kealey replied, a hint of anger coming through. “Where is she coming from?”

Harper shrugged. “Ford was confirmed while you were in the field. Her connections got her the job, but she’s an outsider. She has this idea that the operations directorate is slowly but steadily destroying the whole organization. She pounces on our every mistake. Unfortunately, now she seems to be focusing on you.”

“For what? I’ve never even met her, for Christ’s sake.”

“Come on, Ryan. You can only milk your previous successes for so long.” Harper paused and looked away. The words felt wrong, but they would help Kealey in the end. That was how he rationalized it; that was how he justified his callous tone. “That crap you pulled in Fallujah was completely against protocol, and what you did in Alexandria won’t help. By straying outside the lines, you’re just giving her what she needs to bring you down.”

The younger man flared. “I had to do something, John. If I hadn’t intervened, we would have lost our only lead. Hell, we probably still did. Doesn’t it all seem a little too convenient for you?”

“Yeah, as a matter of fact, it does. But that won’t work as an excuse if the Bureau decides to make it an issue.”

Kealey fell silent, knowing that the other man was right. He didn’t bring up the thing that bothered him most: the look he’d seen on Mason’s face just before Foster’s rounds punched into his chest. It had been a look of pure recognition, Kealey thought, but if he was right, it brought up an interesting question: who had Mason been looking at? If Foster really was nothing more than a gopher — and he was too young to be anything else — then it had to be Crane.

It didn’t necessarily mean anything. Perhaps she’d been involved in one of his prior arrests. Maybe Kealey had misinterpreted the look altogether. Still, it bothered him, as did the timing of the raid itself.

The traffic had started to clear. The driver merged onto US-29 North, then took a slight right onto K Street. From there, it was just a few minutes to Harper’s brownstone on Q Street, just off Dupont Circle. As the heavy truck pulled up to the curb, Harper gave instructions to his driver, pushed open the door, and stepped out. Then he turned back to Kealey. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Talk to Kharmai if you find time. And Ryan?”

“Yeah?”

“Try to keep your head down, okay? For one night, at least.”

Rachel Ford sat behind her rosewood desk, head down. Her elbows were propped on the polished surface, her fingers, with their short, functional nails, doing little spirals at her temples. The room was dark except for the weak light of a freestanding lamp in the corner. She had just taken a double dose of Maxalt and was anxiously waiting for the medication to kick in; hopefully, it would relieve what felt like the first pounding beats of an earth-shattering migraine. She was tired and annoyed, and sorry that she, of all people, appeared to be the only person on the seventh floor with any balls whatsoever. The director had caved under Harper’s intense defense of his protege. She knew she should have expected it, but she was furious nonetheless. She winced as her head thumped, the pain drilling up from the base of her neck, and wondered what else she could do to convince Andrews that Ryan Kealey was nothing more than a hindrance to the Agency.

There was a time when she wouldn’t have interfered. During her two terms as the ranking member on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Ford, along with twenty of her peers, had been responsible for overseeing seventeen of the nation’s most visible entities, including the Departments of State and Defense, the National Security Agency, and, of course, the CIA. During her tenure, she had rarely been given the entire picture by the officials who were called to testify before her panel. She had pushed on occasion, when she thought it was necessary, but for the most part, she had cut those officials a great deal of slack. Because of her prominent position on the committee, her leniency had set the tone for many of those proceedings.