Threat Vector

special agent in the FBI, so she reluctantly followed him to his car.

SEVENTEEN

They walked together down the ramp of an underground parking garage that was nearly empty so early on a Saturday morning, and, at Lipton’s direction, they climbed in the front seats of his Toyota Sienna minivan. He put the key in the ignition, but he did not turn the engine over, and they sat in the silence and the near darkness of the garage. Only the faint light of a fluorescent bulb on the concrete wall illuminated their faces.

Lipton was in his fifties, but he wore his gray-blond hair in a boyish flop that somehow did not make him look any younger, just less put together. His face was pocked with acne scars and frown lines and he looked like he enjoyed sitting in the sun as much as he enjoyed drinking — Melanie pictured him doing a lot of both at the same time. He wore his aftershave so heavy that Melanie wondered if he filled his bathtub with it and took a dip each morning. He talked too loudly and too quickly, and, she had noticed the first time they met face-to-face, he went out of his way to stare at her chest while they talked, clearly taking pleasure from the fact that she knew what he was doing.

He reminded Melanie of the uncle of an ex-boyfriend she had when she was in high school who spent way too much time staring at her and complimenting her athletic physique in a way that was obviously perverse but also carefully worded so as to be deniable.

In short, Lipton was a creep.

“It’s been a while,” he said.

“I haven’t heard from you in months. I assumed you had moved on.”

“Moved on? You mean out of the FBI, out of the National Security Branch, or out of Counterintelligence Division?”

“I mean away from your investigation.”

“Away from Jack Ryan, Jr.? No, ma’am. On the contrary, just like you, we are still very interested in him.”

“You obviously don’t have a case.” She said it with derision in her voice.

Lipton drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “The Justice Department’s inquiry is just an intelligence- gathering operation at this point; whether or not an indictment comes from this is yet to be determined.”

“And you are running it?”

“I am running you. You don’t really need to know anything more than that at this stage.”

Melanie looked out the windshield at the concrete wall as she spoke. “When I first heard from you in January, after DD/CIA Alden was arrested, you said exactly the same thing. The FBI’s National Security Branch was looking into Alden’s concerns about Jack Junior and Hendley Associates, suspicions that Jack and his coworkers were getting classified intelligence about national security affairs to make illegal trades on world financial markets. But you said it was all speculation, and no determination had been made by CID that any crime had been committed. Are you telling me that here we are, six months later, and nothing has changed?”

“Things have changed, Miss Kraft, but they are things you are not privy to.”

Melanie heaved a sigh. This was a nightmare. She had hoped she’d seen the last of Darren Lipton and Counterintelligence Division. “I want to know what you have on him. I want to know what this is all about. If you want my help, you need to fill me in.”

The older man shook his head, but he retained his little smile. “You are CIA on loan to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and you are, for all intents and purposes, my confidential informant in this inquiry. That does not get you a look at the case file. You have a legal responsibility to cooperate with the FBI on this, not to mention a moral one.”

“What about Mary Pat Foley?”

“What about her?”

“When we met, you told me she was part of the inquiry into Hendley Associates as well, so I could not reveal any information to her. Have you at least managed to clear her in… in this yet?”

Lipton just said, “Nope.”

“So you think Mary Pat and Jack are somehow involved in a crime?”

“It’s a possibility we have not ruled out. The Foleys have been friends with the Ryans for over thirty years. In my line of work you realize that tight relationships like that mean people talk to one another. We don’t know the details of the relationship between Junior and Director Foley, but we do know they have met a number of times over the past year. It is possible that, with her clearances, she could be communicating classified information through Jack to benefit Hendley Associates.”

Melanie leaned her head back against the headrest and let out a long sigh. “This is fucking crazy, Lipton. Jack Ryan is a financial analyst. Mary Pat Foley is… hell, she’s an American institution. You just said it yourself. They are old friends. They go to lunch once in a blue moon. I usually go with them. Even entertaining the possibility that they are involved in some national security crime against the U.S. is outlandish.”

“Let me remind you what you told us. When Charles Alden asked you for information tying John Clark to Jack Ryan, Jr., and Hendley Associates, you indicated your belief that they were, in fact, involved in something more than trading and currency arbitrage. You told me, in only our second conversation, that you believed Ryan was in Pakistan during the events that transpired there last winter.”

She hesitated for a moment. “I thought he was. He reacted very suspiciously when I mentioned it. There was other… circumstantial evidence at the time that made me think he was lying to me. But nothing I could prove. But even if he was lying to me, even if he was in Pakistan… that does not prove anything.”

“Then you need to dig a little deeper.”

“I’m not a cop, Lipton, and I’m definitely not an FBI national security agent.”

Lipton smiled at her. “You’d be a damn good one, Melanie. How ’bout I talk to some people?”

She did not return the smile. “How ’bout I pass?”

His smile faded. “We have yet to get to the bottom of this. If there is a crime being committed by Hendley Associates, we need to know.”

“I haven’t talked to you for… what? Six months? Why haven’t you been doing anything for the past half a year?”

“We have, Melanie, via other means. Again, you are just one tiny piece of the puzzle. That said, you are our inside man… I should say ‘woman.’” He said the last part with a grin and a quick glance down at Melanie’s tight Puma jacket.

She ignored his misogyny and said, “So, what has changed? Why are you here today?”

“What, you don’t like our little visits?”

Melanie just stared at Lipton. Her look said Eat shit. It was a look he’d received from many beautiful women in his life.

Darren gave her a little wink. “My superiors want movement on this. There has been talk of wiretaps, location-tracking equipment, even a surveillance team put on Ryan and some of his coworkers.”

Melanie shook her head emphatically. “No!”

“But I told them that was not necessary. Due to your… intimate relationship with the subject, any close surveillance would be an invasion of your privacy as well. My superiors were not moved by this. They don’t think you have been that helpful to date. But in the end, I bought you a little time to get us some actionable intel on your own, before the FBI orders a full-court press.”

“What do you want?”

“We need to know where he is, twenty-four-seven, or as close as you can get us to that. We need to know of any trips he takes, flight times and flight numbers, hotels he stays in, people he meets with.”

“When he travels for business, he doesn’t take me with him.”

“Well, you will just have to get more out of him through subtle questions. Pillow talk,” he said with a wink.