“Is that all he took?”
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Did Reynolds say who the man was? Did he give a name?”
“No. He just said that someone would be down for the disks. The guy showed up a few minutes later, and I handed them over. Then he said he wanted something to carry them in. He looked like he was in a hurry, and I didn’t want any problems with Reynolds, so I just emptied my ruck, stuck the disks in, and sent him on his way.”
“But you didn’t give him the backups,” Holland pointed out. “Why not?”
Sadowski shrugged. “It wasn’t a normal request. More importantly, it was against protocol. I didn’t like it, so I decided to cover my rear end, just in case. Believe me, when you join the Corps, CYA is one of the first things you learn about.”
“And let me guess. The disks you have in that bag are just another set of copies.”
The marine didn’t take the bait. “Actually, these are the backup disks themselves. Your call caught me off guard, sir… I didn’t think to make any more.”
“Right,” Holland said dryly. “That’s why it took you two hours to get back to me.”
Sadowski opened his mouth to argue, but Holland held up a hand, cutting him off. “Relax, Sergeant. I’m not blaming you. I would have done the same thing in your position.”
The marine nodded, clearly relieved to be off the hook. He seemed to have forgotten that Holland had no actual authority over him. Reaching down, he grabbed the bag at his feet and placed it square on the desk. Holland pulled it toward him and withdrew the contents. There were four disks in all, each in a clear plastic jewel case.
“Why so many?” he asked. “How long was he here?”
“Not long. Maybe half an hour or so, but those recordings cover every camera we have, including those with a view of the street. I figured you would want everything.”
Holland looked up. “You knew from the start that you were going to give them to me?”
“No,” Sadowski admitted. “When I talked to you earlier, I was still on the fence.” He didn’t bother to say what had changed his mind. Instead, he nodded toward the small stack of recordable disks. “What are you going to do with them, sir?”
Holland had already thought this through. “First, you and I are going to go down to Post One. That’s the only place in the building that has a multiplexer, and I don’t want to have to flip from camera to camera, scene to scene. We’ll watch these together. You know this place better than anyone, and you might be able to spot anything out of the ordinary. I want your input.”
“And then?”
“That depends on whether or not I can identify him. Maybe seeing his face again will jog something loose. If I can pick him out, I’ll pass the name up the line, along with a detailed report. If I can’t…Well, we’ll just have to see. Either way, I’m going to send these recordings to Langley. They’ll run the video through the facial recognition software. Also, if the man’s name is anywhere on file, they’ll find it.”
“But you’re sure-”
“It’s in there somewhere,” Holland said, anticipating the question. As he stared at the small pile of disks, he knew they contained the information he had been seeking all day. It was strange to be that close and yet still not know. “ He’s in there somewhere. I’ve never been more certain of anything. And once we find out who he is, we’ll have some answers.”
CHAPTER 11
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA
Jonathan Harper sat in the corner booth of the small bar and fought the temptation to stare at the door. He had ordered food, but he had no appetite. He had ordered a drink, but it remained untouched, as he did not want the alcohol to affect his judgment, to lower his guard. He had never been more conflicted.
Part of him-a very big part-wanted the man he was waiting for to make an appearance, as that was the whole reason he had traveled 8,000 miles to the South African capital. Another part of him wanted to get up and leave before he was forced to confront his old friend, a term he used-at least these days-with more than a little uncertainty. He’d been wrestling with this inner conflict for the past seventy-two hours at the very least. Much of that time had been spent debating the pros and cons of traveling to Pretoria, but even now, with the decision made, he still wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing. His apprehension was only natural, he knew, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear, and the moment of truth was fast approaching.
It had been almost a year since he had last seen Ryan Kealey, but he could remember their last meeting with crystal clarity, if only because of what it had led to. At Harper’s request, they had met at a restaurant in downtown Washington. It was three months after an operation in Pakistan that had ended with the recovery of a senior U.S. official and the death of Amari Saifi, an Algerian terrorist who, with the help of a former Pakistani general, had struck at the heart of the U.S. government.
Brynn Fitzgerald, still acting secretary of state at the time, had been kidnapped after a bloody attack on her motorcade that left 18 people dead. One had been the head of her security detail. The other had been Lee Patterson, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and a college friend, who’d caught a bullet between her eyes.
It had taken Kealey and his team four days to track Fitzgerald down, and then they had moved in to extract her, assisted by a team of 24 Special Forces soldiers and some heavy support from the air.
The mission was successful, but Fitzgerald’s rescue had not been without serious cost. Kealey was gravely wounded in the rescue attempt, and a fellow operative, Naomi Kharmai, died as an indirect result of the operation. She was killed-or presumably killed, as her body was never recovered-by Javier Machado, a retired CIA case officer with extraordinary connections throughout Europe and Southeast Asia. Machado had offered to help Kealey find Fitzgerald in exchange for a favor, but when the favor had proved too costly, Kealey had improvised, and Kharmai had paid the ultimate price.
Over the past couple of months Harper had realized that was still accruing unwanted interest. For he’d become increasingly convinced it was Patterson’s death that had sent Fitzgerald down the slippery slope of illogic into the place where fools like Stralen thrived.
At any rate, once the smoke cleared, an in-depth investigation-headed by the FBI and supported behind the scenes by the CIA-was launched into Kharmai’s death, but not in time to bring any closure to the matter. The one person who might have been able to provide some meaningful answers, Machado, had already disappeared without a trace, abandoning his home in Spain, his wife, and his surviving daughter in the process. Kealey, after a lengthy convalescence, had disappeared in turn, and that was when the bodies began to pile up. An Arab fundamentalist in Paris, a money launderer in Antwerp, a smuggler in Karachi…It was the start of a series of killings that, over the course of the next several months, were to work their way across much of Machado’s former territory. Presumably, the trail ended with Machado himself, although his body-like that of Naomi Kharmai-was never recovered.
This missing link did not affect the way Harper viewed the outcome. He knew Ryan Kealey better than anyone else, and there was no doubt in his mind that he had managed to track the Spaniard down. To the deputy director’s way of thinking, the absence of a body only served as additional proof that Kealey had managed to locate-and eliminate-his primary target. Harper had never been more certain of anything.
He caught himself staring at the door again. Giving in to his jangling nerves, he lifted his scotch, drank half of it down, and thought back to the last time he had seen the younger man. It was three months after Naomi’s death, a month before the killings began.
Toward the end of October a private ceremony was held at the White House, the purpose of which was to posthumously award Naomi Kharmai the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civil award in the country. Kealey refused to attend the ceremony, though he reluctantly agreed to meet Harper in the city later that day. When he finally arrived at the agreed upon restaurant, more than an hour late, Harper was shocked by his appearance. The bullet that nearly killed him had stripped at least thirty pounds from his already lean frame, leaving him looking more like the walking dead than one of the country’s top counterterrorism agents. They ordered food, though Kealey left his meal untouched as Harper brought him up to speed on recent developments in the ongoing
