“Show me a badge and some ID.”
The man reached into his pocket, but instead of retrieving a badge case, pulled out a cell phone, pressed one button, then put it to his ear.
“This is Madison,” the man said into the phone, then listened for a few seconds and asked, “You Gage?” Gage nodded.
Madison holstered his gun, looked behind him down the hallway, and said, “Lower your weapons,” and then handed his cell phone to Gage.
Gage held it down by his side and asked, “You have a search warrant?”
Madison pointed down at the phone. “Ask him.”
“I’m asking you.”
“I’m not a lawyer.”
“Then I’ve got my answer.”
Gage raised the cell phone and asked, “Who is this?”
A male voice answered, “I’m a friend who’d like you to ease on out of there and let us do our work.”
“I’m not interested in playing games. Tell me who you are.”
“I’m not authorized to do that.”
Gage disconnected and pulled out his own cell phone. He yelled down the hallway, “Viz, these guys are either CIA or something close to it,” and watched Madison stiffen.
Madison’s phone vibrated. Gage answered with, “You’ve got five seconds to identify your agency, or I’ll make a call on my phone and whoever is on the other side of this thing will know where I am and what I came for.”
“Don’t.” This time it was a female voice. “Stand by. I need to go up the chain of command.”
Gage pointed at Madison, then past him toward the lobby. “Collect all your people down there.”
Madison didn’t move.
“Look, pal,” Gage said, “the war is over. It’s only a question of the terms of surrender.” He pushed a couple of the phone’s buttons, and then said to the woman, “You’re on loudspeaker. Tell him.”
She spoke again, now issuing an order. “Stand down.”
Madison kept his dignity by saying, “No problem,” then turned away.
“How far up the chain are you ready to go?” Gage asked her.
“That depends on what you found.”
“I found most of the answers I was looking for. And they’re probably the same ones you came after.”
“Hold on.”
The phone line went silent.
Gage watched the agent lying on the floor use the wall to leverage himself onto his feet. Moments after that, another agent limped out of the office, grimacing and holding his side.
The office lights came on and Viz appeared at the door.
“How bad is the damage inside?” Gage asked.
“Things got knocked around, but nothing broken.”
Gage pulled out his digital camera, with which he’d taken photos of the office before they disturbed it, and then walked down the hallway and handed it to Viz.
“Put everything back the way it was.”
Gage glanced into the office. Arndt was standing behind the desk, his arms wrapped around his chest, biting his lower lip.
“It’s okay,” Gage said to him. “Things are under control.”
The phone came alive with a rush of static. “Would you be willing to come to Washington?” Gage looked at his watch. He wanted Arndt present at whatever meetings took place to reassure him that he’d done the right thing in throwing in with Gage and to give him confidence that he’d be protected when Wycovsky realized what he’d done.
“No,” Gage said. “I’ve got someone to protect. We’ll have to do it here.”
CHAPTER 59
Is there any way the CIA hasn’t screwed this up?” Gage asked John Casher, as they faced each other in the living room of a midtown hotel suite. Scattered about the room were Arndt, Viz, Madison, and a CIA deputy director. “A false accusation. Delivering up Ibrahim to be tortured. Hennessy driven to suicide, or set up to be murdered.”
Gage pointed at Arndt sitting on the couch with his shoulders slumped, forearms on his knees. “A fifty- billion-dollar intelligence budget, and it falls on this kid to do your work for you? “
“I’m not going to argue,” Casher said, “but I don’t have evidence in front of me that’ll let me believe you.”
Gage could feel a lump pressing up against his sole: the memory card on which he’d saved images of documents and downloads of Wycovsky’s files. He had no reason to think that the CIA would do any better with that information than it had with everything else Except that Casher hadn’t been appointed director until years after Ibrahim’s indictment, and the fact that he came to meet Gage himself might mean-might mean-that he was trying to find a way to set things right.
“I don’t have to show you anything,” Gage said. “But I’ll tell you what I believe.”
“That’s a start.”
“I think Wycovsky gave the orders to transfer the money from Ibrahim’s Manx trust to the Hong Kong law firm and then to the terrorists who bombed the Spectrum facility in Xinjiang.”
Casher’s gaze drifted toward the deputy director sitting at the dining table. Her eyes fixed on his. Her face didn’t change expression.
“But I guess you knew that,” Gage said.
Casher shook his head. “We only suspected. That’s what we went in tonight to try to find out. But it still doesn’t get Ibrahim off the hook.”
Gage felt a slow rage begin to build. He pointed at Viz leaning against the wall by the kitchen, then at Arndt, and said, “Let’s go.”
Arndt rose to his feet. Viz pushed off and started toward the door. Gage turned to follow behind them.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Casher said, gesturing to Madison to block their way.
Gage spun back and glared at Casher.
“What are you going to do? Bind and gag us and send us off to Saudi Arabia, too?” Gage hardened his voice. “Don’t try to play cards you don’t have in your hand. If I want out of here, there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Casher opened his mouth to argue, then closed it and looked from face to face, everyone staring back at him, and then said, “You all go into the bedroom.”
Everyone moved except for the deputy director.
“You too,” he told her. “I’ll fill you in later.”
As soon as the door closed behind them, Casher said, “I don’t know who Wycovsky’s client is, so I can’t clear Ibrahim. It’s as simple as that.” Casher pointed at the dining table. “Let’s sit down. I’m beat. There’s a lot going on.”
They sat down across from each other.
Casher folded his forearms on the table and leaned forward.
“We know from UK phone records that the director of the Manx trust made back-to-back calls to Wycovsky and Ibrahim many times in the months before the trust was set up and then again just before the bombing.”
“But no calls directly between Ibrahim and Wycovsky.”
Casher shook his head. “But we wouldn’t expect there to be. It would make it too easy for someone to connect the dots.”
“You did anyway,” Gage said, “or at least thought you did.”
“Then who was Wycovsky’s client?” Casher asked.
