“There you go. We’ve been operating in one form or another for the better part of two hundred and fifty years. Longer than the CIA. In fact, both the bureau and the agency were formed to be scapegoats for the Outfit. Somebody way back when realized that they’d sometimes need a legitimate funnel to get information to Congress. Kind of hard to tell a subcommittee that our unnamed super-secret agency got us intel. Seeing as we don’t even exist. We’re ghosts.”
“More like the boogeyman,” Connor said. “Okay. I understand who you are. Sort of. But what do you want with me?”
Richards opened a glass door leading into a conference room. “Let’s talk about that.”
Chapter Seventeen
It was an ordinary conference room: long table surrounded by chairs, a few flat-screen TVs on one wall, and thick glass on the opposite wall looking out on the main chamber. When Thompson shut the door behind them, it silenced all the noise coming from outside.
“All right,” Connor said, his hand on the back of one of the chairs. “What’s this all about? I know you didn’t bring me here just to give me a tour and show me all your cool toys.”
“Correct,” Thompson said. “We brought you here to offer you a job.”
“I already have a job.”
“A new one,” Richards said. “We want you to help us take down this terrorist cell.”
Thompson took a seat at the head of the table. He swiped his hand over the table’s black mirrored surface, and a keyboard appeared. He typed in a couple of commands. The office windows turned opaque, then the TV screens blinked to life.
Connor’s military service file appeared on one of the screens. It included his photograph from the day he completed the Special Forces Qualification Course, a list of his various medals and citations, and a record of every operation he’d ever been a part of.
Connor stepped closer and scanned the list, stopping when he saw an entry for Operation Osprey, complete with dates. He pointed. “That operation was supposed to have been redacted from every official record.”
“The key word there is official,” Thompson said. “Our records are a lot more complete.”
“Apparently,” Connor agreed.
On another screen was Connor’s CIA record, listing all the compartments he’d been cleared for and the investigations he’d been a part of. Additional panels showed emails, photographs, and files located on Connor’s secure work computer.
“We’ve been following your investigation into Hakimi’s phone call and his activities in the East China Sea,” Thompson said.
Connor turned away from the screens, crossing his arms. “How in the hell did you get past the firewalls and get access to the CIA’s secure computers?”
Richards laughed. “The Outfit’s reach sometimes even scares me.”
“All right,” Connor said. “You’ve got a neat place here, and that toilet trick is one I’ve never seen before, and you seem to know your way around classified records. But so what? You expect me to just up and leave the agency? Just like that?”
Thompson leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “Do you want to go back to your office at Langley? Slog through endless phone calls hoping for that one piece of actionable intel, only to be told you can’t act on it?”
Richards chimed in. “Or perhaps you want us to call that reporter for you.”
“You’re trying to do the right thing,” Thompson said. “You’re trying to do the work that could save millions of people’s lives. But you’re coming up against the same thing our organization was established to circumvent.”
“Red tape,” Connor said.
Thompson nodded. “Red tape. You’re out there trying to save our asses, and instead you get shut down by managerial decisions that are either based on budget considerations, or, as in this case, based on purely arbitrary crap. Am I right?”
Connor wanted to argue, but found he couldn’t. “Pretty much.”
“You developed a solid lead, based on actionable intelligence, which you followed up on in person to verify, and it was still shut down. And the whole international-domestic obstacle—frankly that’s one of the dumbest things this country’s ever done. Segmenting our intelligence services leads to incomplete investigations and fragmented intelligence due to piss-poor communication. You only need to look at one incident in recent history to prove that point.”
“9/11,” Connor said.
“That’s right.”
“So where were you guys on that one?” Connor asked.
Thompson rubbed his chin. “What can I say? Sometimes we miss too. By the time we tracked down all nineteen of them, the planes were already in the air and seconds away …”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“But that tragedy forced us to look at our procedures and change some things—namely real-time international transit surveillance. We’re now tied into about ninety percent of the world’s air transit system. We know who’s flying when and where and with whom. Facial recognition is coming online more slowly, but we have mobile units for that. And the delays aren’t due to bureaucracy, but to infrastructure. A lot of the systems needed to run what we do are simply more advanced than what’s available in a lot of places.”
“Point is,” Richards said, “we’re in a much better position to act than anyone else in the world. And we don’t have to deal with any of the bureaucratic crap.”
“So,” Connor said. “You already know everything I know. Why do you even need me? Why not just save the day yourselves?”
“Because we could use your skills.” Thompson jabbed a finger at Connor. “You have language skills. You’re combat proven. And you want this, even if you don’t admit it quite yet. You want to investigate the mosques, ports, and what Hakimi found in the East China Sea, and for better or for worse, in your current position you’re not permitted to do any of that. The truth is, the management of the CIA, in cooperation with some high-level senators, is playing politics with our nation’s security. They’re concerned about the ‘optics’ of investigations that are specific to religions or nationalities,
