Vince Flynn: Executive Power

For the woman charged with protecting those secrets, and stealing those of her adversaries, it was a never-ending circle of suspicion. On this particular night an unshakable sense of foreboding enveloped her as she looked out over the dark landscape that surrounded the massive office complex. Nightfall had crept across the countryside, bringing to a close another day and with it more worries. She sat in her office on the top floor of one of the world's most notorious organizations, and pondered a multitude of potential threats.

They were not imaginary, exaggerated or petty. Dr. Irene Kennedy knew better than anyone the lethal nature of her foe. She had seen it with her own eyes. She had watched the tide of fanaticism swell over the last thirty years, watched it roll toward America 's shores like an increasingly ominous storm. She had been Churchillian in her warnings about the growing threat, but her dire predictions had fallen on deaf ears.

The people she answered to were infinitely more concerned with the issues that dominate the political discourse of a peacetime democracy.

No one wanted to deal with, or even hear about, an apocalyptic threat. They were more concerned with triangulating issues and with weakening their opponents through real or imagined scandals. She was even called an alarmist by some, but through it all she stayed the course.

It was an irony that didn't sit well with her, that many of the same Senators and Congressmen who labeled her an alarmist were the same ones who were now calling for her resignation. Some had even suggested that the CIA should be put out to pasture like some old plow horse that had served its purpose, but was no longer capable of doing its job.

The storm that she had predicted, however, was upon them, and the professional politicians who had ignored her warnings, and frustrated her actions at every turn, were not about to take an ounce of the blame. This unique breed of human was utterly incapable of accepting responsibility for any past mistakes, unless they wrapped it first in a well-timed act of contrition that would gain them sympathy.

Fortunately for Kennedy there were a few honorable Senators and Congressmen on the Hill who shared her commitment and concern.

These were men and women who had been with her every step of the way as she attempted to change policies and operational procedures in order to prepare for the coming threat. They and the President had come to her defense and stymied a plan to have her removed as the director of the CIA.

Now it was time to play catch-up. In the glow of the desk lamp Dr. Irene Kennedy looked down at the transcripts before her and was sickened by what she read. It wasn't in her personality to get angry; she had divorced intellect from emotion a long time ago. She was simply pained. Men had died. Good men with families and children and mothers and fathers, and they had died because people who should know better couldn't grasp the importance of operational security.

Even worse, they couldn't even keep a simple secret for just twenty-four hours.

Even after September 11 they lacked the commitment to protect their country. People simply didn't understand how serious the task before them was. Intelligent, educated people put the politics of their various agencies before operational security and because of it two men were dead, an entire operation involving hundreds of soldiers, marines, aviators, airmen and sailors was called off and a family of innocent Americans were still trapped in a hell that no adult, let alone child, should have to suffer through.

The entire episode was a monumental security failure and Kennedy had decided enough was enough. She would not lose her cool and begin screaming for people's scalps. That was not the way she'd been taught to perform her duties. She had been trained by one of the best.

Thomas Stansfield, the now deceased director of the CIA, was fond of saying that a master spy should be a closed book unless it wished to be opened. A day did not pass that his advice went unheeded.

Before her were two red folders. The one on her left consisted of e-mail intercepts between a high-ranking State Department official and an overseas Ambassador. It also contained some transcripts of phone conversations and other intelligence data. The folder on the right was much thicker. It contained bank records from the last several years for a variety of accounts spread around the Pacific, an in-depth biography of the person in question, and satellite images and intercepts.

Both folders held clear and convincing evidence that certain individuals, at home and abroad, were guilty of compromising the hostage rescue in the Philippines.

In years past, this was the type of information the CIA would have quietly disseminated to a few select individuals around Washington.

Since no administration liked scandal, that's where it would have ended. A few wrists would have been slapped. Some people might have been reassigned to less desirable posts or asked to retire early or find a job in the private sector, but rarely was anyone really made an example of.

This time it would be different. Kennedy was adamant about what needed to be done. The file on her left was going to be handled very publicly. When the press found out, the two bureaucrats involved were going to get a non-lethal dose of what those SEALs faced when they hit the beach over in the Philippines. They would be met with a landslide of lights and cameras, and where the cameras were in Washington, you could always count on politicians to show up.

As Kennedy looked out the window she knew which Senators and Congressmen would take to the airwaves. There were a handful from each party that couldn't resist. Their vanity made it impossible for them to ever pass up an opportunity to show their faces to millions of potential voters. There were a few others who knew TV time meant increased campaign contributions, and increased contributions meant reelection. Within those two groups there were those who would try to blame the President, there were those who would try to blame the previous President, and there were those who would try to blame the State Department for being a bastion of lefties who cared more about the UN than the national security of America. There were also those who would demand justice, when justice was the furthest thing from what they wanted. And finally there were those who would demand justice and really mean it.

All of this would be a side show to the main event, though. What Kennedy really wanted to do was remind everyone in Washington with a security clearance that this was serious business. It was not up to any given individual to decide what secrets they could and couldn't discuss.

These were not just bureaucratic rules, they were laws. And to break those laws would mean public embarrassment, prosecution, and if a judge and jury saw fit, jail time.

The other file was going to be handled more subtly, and in a much more final way. Kennedy knew just the man to take care of both problems.

She had been tempted to recall him from his honeymoon, but decided it could wait another twenty-four hours. Things were about to change in Washington, and Mitch Rapp was going to play a crucial role.

Kennedy knew Rapp better than anyone. She had recruited him, she oversaw his training and she had been his handler through the most stressful of times and delicate of situations. Over the years she had grown to love him like a brother. His sense of commitment and honor was of the highest order. When he got back from his honeymoon and found out what had happened he would need no direction, no prodding, no explanation of the bigger picture. The only thing he might need was restraint, and Kennedy had yet to decide if she would even attempt to calm him when he heard the news. There would be those at the White House who would want to keep this entire mess out of the papers. They would want to sweep it under the rug and have the offenders in question transferred to different jobs. That could not be allowed to happen this time, and Kennedy knew Rapp was the one man in Washington who would tell the President in the roughest and most graphic terms that heads needed to roll.