Stephen Hunter - Dead Zero

Swagger watched them come into the bland green meeting room. He could almost ID them by Susan’s descriptions.

Walter E. Troy, “the Assistant,” assistant director, longtime spook, thirty years at the Agency, specialist in counterterror, a mover and a shaker who was said to be disappointed that he didn’t get the big boy job that instead went to an ex-congressman with big connections.

Jackson Collins, “Afghan Desk,” the fierce one, ex-Navy SEAL, radiating hostility, face too red, hair too brusque, all mil-spec in body language, tiny pig eyes, a squid, and thus on Swagger’s instantaneous must-fight list. Looked like trouble.

Arthur Rossiter, “Plans,” head of clandestine operations, the guy who coordinated and produced all the actual dirty tricks, guileful, willful, yet almost faceless and without any personal eccentricities, no color at all, could have sold encyclopedias, collected child porn, written novels, painted bad pictures.

And finally Ted Hollister, the only outside-the-agency presence, the National Intelligence director, technically the boss and coordinator of them all, but also a man in a job that didn’t exist until recently, so that no one had quite figured out what he could or couldn’t do and whether they had to return his calls or not. Hollister had clearly been chosen to succeed a less successful NID because of his very inside-Washingtonness, his charm, tact, discretion, a creature totally of the foreign policy/intelligence/Washington circuit where he’d thrived for years, when he wasn’t teaching at some prestigious university. Worked at the Agency for ten years, moved on to State, did Princeton, Yale, and Hopkins, then State again, well-known op-ed scribe for the Post and the Times, and now in the big job as the president’s number one whisperer. In the movies, his kindliness would instantly make him suspect number one.

Yet they all had their finger on the trigger. Any one of them had the power to go to a computer terminal, a cell phone, enter a code number, say a code word or whatever the mechanism was, and order a hit halfway around the world, without justification, explanation, recrimination. A word from them and somewhere far away a First Lieutenant Wanda Dombrowski sent five hundred pounds of thermobaric HE into someone’s back pocket and cratered a building, a mansion, a village, a hangar, a cave, even exploding the air around it. They were the real snipers.

“Good luck reading these Claudiuses, Hamlet,” Nick whispered to Bob, before he stood to greet them with a peace offering from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Bob, in his off-the-rack suit and black tie, sat next to Nick at the head of the table as Nick stood.

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming,” he said. “I know how busy you are-there is a war on, after all-and I appreciate your time. I am Assistant Director Nicholas Memphis of the FBI, chief of Task Force Zarzi, responsible for coordinating with you and with the Secret Service and with my own people on this issue. I’ll try to be brief. I’m here for two reasons: first of all, since you’re all involved in the state visit of Ibrahim Zarzi, I wanted to keep you in the loop about our efforts to apprehend the threat to him whom we have identified as Gunnery Sergeant Reyes Fidencio Cruz, USMC, currently AWOL from his service obligations, operating on motives unknown. And second, since I know rumors are swirling about our inquiries, I want to assure you that we are not contemplating a witch hunt against the Central Intelligence Agency, or any kind of examination of professional behavior in the crucible of the war on terror. Our investigation has brushed up against security issues, but the issues themselves are not germane. I will answer any questions you have, at length or in brevity, at any time.”

He waited to see if he’d made a sale, and got dull eyes back at him. The assistants seemed to be the dedicated reactors; several snorted, rolled eyes, shook heads, issued semaphores of hostile intent. The Great Men just sat benignly, unmoved.

“Let me-”

But a hand came up.

It was the old man in the bow tie, the National Intelligence director, Ted Hollister.

“Yes, sir.”

“Since I seem to be the only ancient mariner here,” he said, “I thought I would take the opportunity to identify for my younger colleagues the lanky fellow sitting next to Assistant Director Memphis. When you all came to work this morning, you bypassed the first-floor Agency museum. Had you entered you would have seen a Russian sniper rifle, recovered from Vietnam in 1975. It was our first look at a weapon that had been tantalizing us for years. I was very new to the Agency then, but I was in Saigon at the time, and I know that the weapon came to us through the good offices of a marine sniper named Bob Swagger. I do believe we are in the presence of Mr. Swagger.”

Swagger nodded.

“Sounds like you remember it better than I do,” he said, and there was some polite laughter.

“I mention that because I want all the Agency people and all the Bureau people-I believe I speak for the president on this and I also speak in an official capacity as National Intelligence director, though of course I have no idea what that means-to remember that we are all on the same side and that we have the same goal. I know there’s inevitable hostility between the entities, but I remind everyone, and that rifle in the museum should remind everyone, that we have worked together to great success in the past and if we remain civil and unconcerned with ego-driven issues like ‘turf’ and ‘perks,’ we can work this out.”

“Well said, sir,” said Nick, relieved that he had not yet encountered his first insurrection.

He then proceeded with the narrative: the threat, the response, the first encounter and death, the attempt in Baltimore-“That was Swagger,” Nick said, “he saved Mr. Zarzi’s life, no doubt about it”-on through the plans for the speech at Georgetown Friday night and the medal ceremony at the White House Sunday night.

“We have implored Mr. Zarzi to forego both these events. But he is a stubborn, brave man and insists on keeping to his schedule and living up to his engagements. The Secret Service has performed magnificently, I should add, providing the real manpower for the protection on the ground. We have helped, but our primary responsibility is to apprehend, not protect.”

He outlined the investigation so far; all the man-hours worked by the number of agents, the field offices filling reports-“More arrived even late last night from the Naval Investigative Service in the Philippines”-on the life and times of Ray Cruz; the proactive attempts at apprehension, such as the raid on the house in Baltimore, the nationwide law enforcement circularization of the Cruz photo and particulars.

“Mr. Memphis, you still haven’t released Cruz’s name and threat to the public. He still has freedom of movement. May I ask why, sir?” asked one of the assistants.

“Of course. We have found that such enterprises are of declining value. This is the Internet era where there’s such a profusion of information, it’s hard to make an impression, so the widely circulated picture and warnings don’t really justify themselves in terms of results, while the danger of overzealous reaction is magnified considerably. That’s why we beat the drums to publicize ‘most wanted people’ very reluctantly.”

“Can someone explain to me why FBI agents arrived at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada and interrogated Air Force Reaper pilots who are part of a joint Agency/Air Force program?” This was the hostile “Afghan Desk,” Jackson Collins.

This time Swagger answered: “That one was my doing, sir. I learned from Second Recon’s records that an explosion occurred in the city of Qalat in Afghanistan shortly after Sergeant Cruz radioed in that he was on-site. That explosion seems to be at the core of his motive, that and an ambush earlier that killed his spotter. It seems he believes the Agency used a missile or a smart munition to-”