“Disabling Abraqa was almost an anticlimax,” Maggie said. “It was simply a matter of changing Kafka’s passwords on the private folders so that nobody would be able to log in and transfer funds.”
She watched Director Walder gaze out of his spacious fourth floor corner office which overlooked an expanse of trees. In his crisp blue shirt, with his hands in the pockets of charcoal gray slacks, he appeared to be studying something in the distance. She couldn’t get a read on him.
Ed sat next to Maggie in a desk chair, chunky legs crossed at the ankles, his mountain man beard in need of a trim and his glasses amplifying droopy lids from last night’s redeye from San Francisco. John Rae, never one to be intimidated, leaned back on two legs of a chair against the far wall, hands clasped behind his head. He wore a blue poplin suit, white shirt and black bolo tie, and a pair of his signature cowboy boots, these in beige. Now that the op was complete, he had shaved off his scruff, leaving a neat goatee and sideburns again. His hair was freshly cut. He did not look like someone who had spent the last few days running across Europe and the Middle East dealing with terrorists.
“Well, that’s a relief,” Walder finally said. “Abraqa was shut down without Kafka’s help.”
A relief? Someone certainly didn’t think so—whoever had attempted to short-circuit the process by killing Kafka before his debriefing with Maggie.
“Officer de la Cruz was adroit enough to harvest Kafka’s passwords when he logged onto her computer in Berlin,” Ed said.
“So we didn’t really need that rescue mission after all?” Walder said, turning to narrow a look at Maggie. His frizzy hair caught a scrap of morning light. “Once you got his passwords, you were good to go. Is that correct?”
“Yes,” Maggie said slowly. “But we were hoping to gather additional intel. And . . .” She cleared her throat. “ . . . we had an arrangement—Kafka’s parents were to be brought to safety.”
Walder gave her a flat-line stare, making her realize it wouldn’t have bothered him not to deliver on that promise.
“Are his parents safe?” he asked.
“Distraught to say the least,” John Rae said. “But alive. We’ve got a guard on their hotel door and have expedited their relocation process.”
“I see,” Walder said, turning back to the sea of green outside. “So where do we stand on Abraqa now, Maggie?”
Maggie looked around the room. Ed, Walder and John Rae—normally, three people she trusted implicitly, even Walder, with the less-than-perfect relationship she shared with him. Above reproach. Normally.
But since Kafka had been killed, she didn’t know. Caution weighed. “Five hundred thousand, thirty seven million dollars’ worth of Bitcoin assets frozen. Moved into a private wallet I set up. I’ve catalogued the nineteen banking entities involved and they are now on record.”
Walder turned back around, looked at Maggie, blinking.
“Weren’t we expecting more money?”
“About twice as much,” Maggie said. “Somewhere in the region of two hundred million Bitcoin, according to what Kafka told me in Berlin. Abraqa handles one billion dollars per year.”
Walder raised his eyebrows. “How do you explain the difference?” There was a tone of admonition in his voice.
Maggie looked around the spacious office again.
“I request that this be a Class Four discussion,” she said.
Walder nodded. “Very well. Everyone is on notice that what is said here does not leave this room.”
Everyone agreed.
“Continue,” Walder told Maggie.
“From what I’ve seen, more than half the institutions made withdrawals from their public wallets in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Meaning they got wind of Kafka being dead somehow?”
“I expected the raid at the Bunny Ranch to scare a few people off but I wasn’t expecting this.”
Walder frowned. The implications were serious.
“I think we’ve had a leak since Quito,” Maggie said. “Maybe longer.”
Silence hovered while everyone eyed each other.
“I’ve been here for a good while,” Walder said. “‘Mole’ is a word one doesn’t use lightly.”
“Agreed.”
“I know this agency better than anyone. It’s my life. I would know if something wasn’t right.”
“Certainly you would know better than anyone, sir,” Maggie said. “But no one is infallible. The Agency is a huge organization.”
Walder pursed his lips. “What do you suggest?”
“We start putting the nineteen institutions involved in Abraqa under the microscope. Find out who ditched early. Pull those threads. Follow the money.”
Walder thought that over too. “We’d have to make it look like we’re doing something else.” He didn’t want panic from the rank and file.
“We’ll call it due diligence,” Maggie said. “We can set up a financial front that’s looking to invest in Middle Eastern banks.”
Walder nodded.
“Maggie needs approval and budget, Eric,” Ed said to Walder. “And this needs to be Class Four from top to bottom. No approvals from the Senate Committee, nothing that gives the game away.”
“This is the time to find out,” Maggie said. For her part, Maggie had almost been killed in Ecuador when someone had gotten wind of her escape from a situation there.
Walder tapped his chin. “Nothing impacts this organization more than something like this.”
“Maybe it will be for the better. Maybe it will be a good thing.”
“It’s a good thing if we’re on the right track,” he said, eyeing her. “A patient should never be operated on unless they’re actually sick. I need to review the details, think it over.”
Maggie took a breath, nodded. “In the meantime, I’d like to continue my analysis.”
“Report any findings directly to me,” Walder said. “Only to me. No one else.”
Maggie caught the look of displeasure on Ed’s face. He was being cut out of the loop again.
“Let’s focus on where we are now before we conclude here,” Walder said. “This was a major setback for Jihad Nation—half a billion dollars of their funding cut. Significant indeed. But not the end of the line. Like the head of a hydra—you cut off one, two grow back.”
Ed said, “I just want to say that despite the results, this is still a major win. Kafka—one of their top people—out of action. Their banks scared off, if temporarily. A facility near Mosul disabled. Three terrorists removed. Jihad Nation are hurting. And with the minimal resources that were deployed. We also have half a billion of their money.”
Not if any new potential defector learns of what happened to Kafka, Maggie thought. She couldn’t help but reflect on an earlier op again, a mysterious driver who was sent to pick her up in Quito when she was on the run. He turned out to be an unknown agent, killed in an automobile accident. Someone had infiltrated communication between her and Ed. And that had never been resolved.
As much as she hated to admit it, the Kafka hit was classic Agency. Remove an agent in play. Make it look like a heart attack.
Or someone who wanted it to look like an Agency hit. Jihad Nation weren’t stupid.
So much of what she did came down to trust. Trust and instinct. For all of her electronic tools, things still boiled down to the basics.
“A victory,” Walder said.
“I just want to say one thing,” John Rae said. “I think what Maggie did deserves real recognition. Jihad Nation money frozen? With a skeleton crew? One helicopter when we requested two? Almost no casualties on our side. Nailing Hassan al-Hassan? And getting those women and Yazidi kids out of there? Putting the genocide up front and center. Talk about two birds with one stone.” He gave Maggie an appreciative nod. “More like a flock.”
Yes, she felt pretty good with that. Dara would have felt the same way.
Maggie’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Her private phone. A text. She pulled it out, even though she was in a meeting. Maybe it was Amina. She hoped Dara’s aunt was coping with the aftermath, now that the funeral was becoming history.
SEBI: Limo picking you up tomorrow at your place 8 PM. Courtesy of 999 Records. You better not stand me up!
Sebi’s record release party.
She thought for a moment.
She texted him back: I wouldn’t miss it.
Maggie pocketed her phone. “If we’re all done here,” she said. “I’d like to get back home.” A real flight. Business class. Not the jump seat of some noisy C-130.
Eric Walder turned around. “I see no reason why we can’t let you go.” He acknowledged Ed. “Do you, Ed?”
“No,” Ed said. “Maggie shouldn’t have to sit through the post-mortems. That’s what we’re for.” A smile tried to break its way through his beard.
Maggie gave him a wink.
She got up, headed for the door.
“Maggie,” she heard Walder say.
She turned, looked at him.
“Yes, sir?”
“Good work,” Walder said. “Damn good work.”
A red letter day.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
She closed the door behind her, left.
A moment later, she heard the door open and shut.
“Hey, Maggie,” John Rae said.
Maggie turned.
“Hey, JR.”
“What’s your hurry?”
“Just ready to get back home.”
“You knocked it out of the park,” he said. “I hope you know that.”
“We did.”
“Right,” John Rae said. “But Abraqa was your baby, from the get-go.”
“I inherited it from Dara. But thanks. And I couldn’t have done it without you and all the other little people.” She laughed at her own joke.
John Rae smiled and then his look turned softer and she knew he must be thinking of that night, not long ago, the two of them alone in her hotel room.
“Better savor it, Bud,” she said. “Because that’s all there was.”
He shook his head. “When I’m an old man sitting in my rocking chair, and I rock a little faster, you’ll know what night I’ll be thinking of.”
“Me too,” she said.
“I thought we might go out and celebrate tonight. Just celebrate. I’ve got a few friends, believe it or not, and they’d like to meet a bona fide hero. I’m buying.”
“I’d love to JR,” she said, “but I promised someone I’d be home tomorrow.”
“I see,” he said. “Everything OK? With you and me? Besides that one-time thing and all?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
Their eyes met.
Kafka had met the kind of end that was tailor-made for John Rae and his crowd. Although it made no sense, no sense at all. If anyone had championed her case, it was JR.
Maybe she just didn’t trust anyone anymore.
But she had seen him with Bellard. At Café Lepic.
Intuition and instinct. What nebulous companions.
What was she thinking? John Rae? No.
She just needed some sleep. Some down time.
“We’ll get together soon, hey?” she said.
“Ten four.”
John Rae raised his fist.
“Good luck with the guitarrista,” he said. “He’s a lucky man.”
“He was.”
They fist-bumped.