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the State Department. The deputy DCI knew Greengrass to be thoughtful, competent—traits he’d demonstrated in his previous roles with the NSC and as the U.S. ambassador to Greece, a position he’d held from 1997 to 2001. Nevertheless, it was unclear how effective the fifty-year-old diplomat would be in the current situation, given his lack of experience on the Asian continent.
“Of course, Elliot,” Brenneman said. “By all means, let’s hear it.”
“Sir, I think I should travel to Islamabad to meet with President Musharraf immediately. We’ll work to keep it lowkey, but we really need a diplomatic presence on the ground. And by that, I mean we need an envoy prepared to stay in Pakistan for the duration.”
The president considered for a moment, then nodded his consent. “I agree. Putting an envoy in place will send a few messages. First, it will show that we’re not afraid to wade back in with both feet, and second, that we intend to play a very active role in the investigation.
“And that falls to you, Emily,” Brenneman said, shifting his gaze once more. The forty-two-year-old Susskind was, by a slim margin, the youngest person in the room. She was also a Princeton grad, a mother of two, the seventh director of the FBI, and the first woman to hold the title. Her propensity for blunt speech frequently put her at odds with the president and his senior advisors, as did her left-of-center politics, but everyone in the room respected her opinion, as well as her considerable influence on the Hill.
“As I understand it,” the president continued, “the Bureau has, shall we say, a limited presence in Pakistan.”
“Unfortunately, that’s putting it lightly, sir. We maintain small offices at the consulates in Lahore, Peshawar, and Karachi, but they’re negligible in terms of manpower. Even the main hub at the embassy in Islamabad is minimally staffed…We have less than fifty agents in the entire country, and that’s after we expanded our legal attaché program in ’99.”
“Well, we need to change that, and sooner rather than later.” Brenneman set down his pen and studied the FBI director. “Obviously, I’ve already spoken to President Musharraf. He’s assured me that his government is committed to finding whoever was responsible, as well as to the safe recovery of Secretary Fitzgerald. In keeping with this promise, he’s agreed to allow a team of investigators into the country. They’ll be given everything they need as soon as they can get there.”
Susskind was visibly surprised. “After all the walls he’s put up recently? He changed his mind that fast?”
The president nodded. “As far as he’s concerned, the severity of this incident takes precedence over any diplomatic squabbling, and it has nothing to do with our missing tourists. That’s a separate issue entirely. According to him, that is.” Brenneman frowned, his forehead creasing thoughtfully. “Personally, I’m not so sure. Anyway, our team will be given full authority to conduct an extensive extraterritorial investigation. In other words, Emily, send your best, because they’re not coming home until the job is done.”
“I understand, Mr. President.” Susskind was already jotting notes on a legal pad. “I’ll get you the names by midday.”
“That’s not good enough. By that time they need to be in the air.”
“Yes, sir…I’ll make it happen.”
“Good,” Brenneman said. “Next, I want to talk about possible suspects. I realize we’re in the early stages here, but a number of agencies have been looking at one man in particular for the last couple weeks. His name came up in relation to our missing tourists, but given the similarities between those incidents and the abduction of Secretary Fitzgerald, I think he’s worth mentioning. Jeremy, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Thayer nodded and got to his feet. He left the room for a moment, then returned with a stack of briefing folders. The folders were distributed quickly, and the national security advisor retook his seat.
“Ladies and gentlemen, what you’re about to see—for those of you who haven’t been made privy to this information—is highly classified. It is not, I repeat, not to be circulated freely within your respective agencies. As it stands…”
Tuning Thayer out, Harper flipped open the folder. What he saw was the State Department’s file on Amari Saifi. It was the same file he’d helped compile with help from people at State, Langley, and the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean, Virginia. Scanning the documents inside, he saw nothing new, and he would have already been alerted if anything substantial had changed. As a result, his thoughts began to drift as Thayer droned on and on. Before long, he found himself thinking about the way he’d left things with Kealey in Oraefi.
It still bothered him, which wasn’t entirely a bad thing. In fact, it came as something of a relief to the deputy DCI. It meant he hadn’t resigned himself to the indiscriminate use of the people who worked for him. The people who used to work for him, he reminded himself. Ryan Kealey’s five-year relationship with the CIA had always been hard to define, but there was one constant factor: his involvement always stemmed from some kind of national crisis, save for his first assignment in Syria. And he had always come through. He’d served as a full-time employee in the Operations Directorate for less than six months, none of them concurrently. Most of the time, he was listed as an independent contractor, but even that was rare. It was rare to see his name on paper, anyway. Plausible deniability, as always, was the key factor. Unfortunately, it was lost once a name popped up on any kind of official document, even on something as insignificant as an internal memorandum.
And that was the smallest threat to a field operative’s anonymity. What had transpired in New York City ten months earlier had garnered worldwide attention, and once Kealey’s role in that incident had been made public, he’d immediately acquired a certain degree of unwanted fame. The exposure had been mostly limited to his name and background, as there weren’t many pictures of him floating around, but needless to say, his days of undercover work had come to a screeching halt. Still, it could have been worse. Kealey had wanted out, anyway, mostly because he wanted to devote himself to Naomi Kharmai’s recovery, and Harper had let them go. Given the sacrifices they had made, it was the least he could do.
Only that was all in the past, and things had changed. Once it became clear that Amari Saifi had played a key role in the recent wave of abductions in Pakistan, the president had immediately asked for Kealey’s help in tracking him down. Harper couldn’t fault the president—Kealey’s record spoke for itself, after all—but it did put Harper in the uncomfortable position of having to call his old friend out of retirement. Moreover, he had had to figure out a way to accomplish that task, which at the time had seemed just short of impossible.
Nevertheless, he had managed to do it. He didn’t regret asking more of a man who’d already given so much. Nor did he regret the methods he’d used to lure Kealey back into the fold. The story he’d spun in Oraefi wasn’t entirely a lie; Naomi Kharmai had trained extensively at the Farm and was more than capable in her new role as a field operative. Her instructors had all given her top marks, though to be fair, they didn’t have the full story on their prized student. But to Harper, that was immaterial. He knew that Kealey’s participation was entirely reliant on Kharmai’s—that he was only doing it to watch out for her—but if that was what it took to get the younger man into the fold, then so be it.
In truth, he was deeply concerned about their underlying motivations, but as long as they were prepared to see it through, he was willing to set his reservations aside. He had set the wheels in motion, and that was that. If Saifi was, in fact, responsible for Secretary Fitzgerald’s disappearance, the stakes had just been raised dramatically, and while Harper despised clichés, he had to admit that one was applicable here: drastic times called for drastic measures, and that meant taking advantage of every resource, no matter how it was acquired.
CHAPTER 12
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Twenty minutes after the briefing folders were handed out, the meeting came to a gradual close. The assembled officials got to their feet, following the president’s lead, and started to file through the door. As Harper