“Yes, Mr. Stolojan.” Lizuca tried desperately not to choke on the bit of pastry she’d been chewing.
“What are you doing?” Stolojan crossed to her desk, staring at the picture inset in the upper left of her computer monitor.
The picture of the evil-faced man looked back at her accusingly. “Research for Miss Vinchenzo,” Lizuca answered.
“She asked you to research him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you know who this man is?” Stolojan demanded.
“No.” She was going to say more but Stolojan cut her off.
“Does Danielle Vinchenzo know who this man is?”
“No, sir. I mean, I don’t think so. She said she didn’t have his name. She wanted to know if OneWorld had anything on him in the video archives.”
“This,” Stolojan said, reaching out and tapping keys on her keyboard, “is a waste of time.” The search ended with a sputter and the picture blanked. He continued tapping the keys, opening the files and locating the folder where she had stored the digital image. A few keystrokes later, the image was gone completely from the computer’s drives.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know, sir.” Lizuca felt terribly embarrassed. There was no way anyone else in the room could not have heard Stolojan chastising her. That hurt. She prided herself on being professional, a good employee, and a strong asset to the corporation.
“In the future, Miss Carutasu,” Stolojan said as he turned and headed back to his office, “I expect you to clear any projects Miss Vinchenzo might assign you with me before you begin them.”
“Yes, Mr. Stolojan.”
Stolojan spared her one more look at the door to his office, then turned and closed the door.
Even with the door closed, Lizuca knew Stolojan watched the news office. Spy cameras were spread throughout the building: in the main rooms, the bathrooms, the break areas. No one went anywhere inside OneWorld NewsNet that Stolojan didn’t have the ability to see them.
She kept herself from crying in her embarrassment through sheer willpower. Part of her couldn’t help wondering why Stolojan had shown such a strong reaction—at least, the reaction was strong for him—to the picture. It was as if he knew who the man was.
And that he didn’t want anyone else to know.
Lizuca brought up other screens on her monitor and busied herself with the mundane work that constantly lay at her fingertips. Inside her heart, she was torn. Even after just three days, she enjoyed
working with Danielle Vinchenzo very much, and Danielle had told her that, if she could, she would take her back to the United States with her when she went.
The thought burned within Lizuca, as did the realization that Danielle evidently thought the man she’d been researching was good story material. Danielle Vinchenzo had a nose for news. Lizuca looked at Stolojan’s closed door. Maybe Stolojan didn’t think the story had merit, but Lizuca believed in Danielle.
She turned her attention back to her computer and to the time/date stamp in the lower-right corner. What Stolojan didn’t know about her was the habit she had of e-mailing important things to herself that she didn’t want to lose. She still had a copy of the picture of the evil-faced man. And she had access to OneWorld’s vast video archives while offsite. All she had to do was retrieve the picture and continue her search on her own time. Perhaps she wouldn’t get overtime or the new dress immediately, but she trusted Danielle’s instincts.
If the story panned out and she was able to identify the man, Lizuca felt certain that something interesting would come her way.
The time/date stamp rolled over one more minute, putting her that much closer to the end of her shift. She awaited the time anxiously.
United States 75th Army Rangers Temporary Post
Sanliurfa, Turkey
Local Time 0620 Hours
Icarus was sold out by the CIA. Somehow, the thought didn’t surprise Remington as much as it should have. Maybe subconsciously he’d already figured that out. If Icarus was in place and secure, who else could have done the deed? He listened intently as Winters continued his story.
“We knew before the Rosenzweig assassination was supposed to go down that Icarus was a double. But the decision was made to leave him in place until Rosenzweig was safe.”
“Icarus could have burned the agency then,” Remington said.
“Yes, sir. But he didn’t. His information about the hit and the PKK terrorist cells involved was on the money.”
“Don’t you think that was strange? Doesn’t Cody?”
“No, sir. See, hitting Rosenzweig wouldn’t do much.”
“Because the fertilizer had already been invented and changed Israel’s political and economic situation in the Middle East.”
“Exactly. Assassinating Rosenzweig? Well, that would be more of a—” Winters searched for words.
“A consolation prize,” Remington supplied.
Winters nodded. “You could call it a political statement. And maybe a warning, a way of putting other people, other countries, on notice.”
“Why didn’t you wait for Icarus to cut loose from the PKK instead of burning his cover?”
“Icarus had already missed exfiltration ops. No one felt they had a handle on him.”
“Why did he miss exfiltration?”
“He said the PKK was suspicious of everybody after the assassination cells were taken off the map. Left messages in drops telling Cody that he couldn’t get away, that he was scared if he tried the PKK would kill him.”
“And Cody believed him?”
“No, sir. Icarus’s choice to stay deep only reinforced the idea that we were on the right track. Finally. Until the information popped about Icarus, rumors about the growing terrorist conglomerate and the Syrian link were just rumors. A ghost that couldn’t be laid to rest.”
“Only it wasn’t a ghost.”
“No, sir.”
“After you burned Icarus’s cover, why go after him?” Remington knew there was more to the story.
“Icarus knew too much.”
Remington’s look asked the next question.
Winters hesitated. “Part of Icarus’s assignment was to compromise the terrorist communications,” Winters said. “As he worked his way through the PKK organization, he planted back doors and viruses in their computer networks. They used their own hardware and they used cybercafés. If the agency couldn’t
