CIA director Walt Page and deputy director of operations Marty Bambridge, who was an officious, self-important bastard in just about everyone’s opinion, sat across the coffee table from McGarvey and the agency’s general counsel, Carleton Patterson, in the DCI’s office. The late afternoon sun streaming through the windows did nothing to dispel the somber mood.
“I imagine something new has come up, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked for this meeting,” Page said. He’d been the CEO of IBM before the president had tapped him to run the company, and by all accounts he was the best in a lot of years. But he was a strictly by-the-book DCI. He and McGarvey had formed a truce of sorts over the past year.
“Yes, and before I head to Islamabad I wanted to bring you up to speed,” Mac said.
“I’m not going to listen to this,” Page said sharply. He was suddenly angry. “If you make an attempt to reach Pakistan you will be subject to immediate arrest. I think I made that perfectly clear just a few days ago.”
“The situation has changed, Mr. Director.”
“This meeting is over,” Page said. He started to rise, but Patterson motioned him back.
“Perhaps we should hear him out. He’s almost always over the top, but he’s never been wrong.”
“Outside the law, in a word,” Bambridge said. He and McGarvey had never gotten along.
“There was another attempt on the SEAL Team Six guys in Norfolk. We think that there were four assassins, at least one of whom we know for a fact was an ex-KSK German commando by the name of Steffen Engel. Had they been successful, they might have wiped out at least ten of the guys plus their families.”
“You were there,” Patterson said.
“Yes.”
“Extraordinary.”
“How many people did you kill this time?” Bambridge demanded.
“None,” McGarvey said. He hoped that Bambridge would be included in the meeting; he wanted to get a few things out in the open with the deputy director. “We wanted to stop the attack and I wanted at least one of them alive.”
The DDO smirked. “We?”
“Doesn’t matter for the moment—”
“It goddamned well does, mister.”
“The German commando?” Patterson said mildly. He was an old man, and he’d been around the company through a half-dozen directors. His was one of the most respected voices in the OHB.
“I managed to take him down before he could make the hit. He had a cell phone, which I thought he and his teammates would have been given in order to communicate with their boss, the Schlueter woman.”
“The one you say was married to a SEAL officer. A still-serving SEAL officer,” Patterson said.
“That’s right,” McGarvey said. “I used the phone to call her, and told her that it was over and to go home.”
“What about your prisoner?” Patterson asked.
“He’s in an isolation cell at Gitmo.”
“Martinez is involved again?” Bambridge asked, fuming. “The son of a bitch needs to be fired.” But then something else dawned on him. “You were in Norfolk, so you flew with your prisoner not directly to Guantanamo Bay, but to Miami to see your old pal. And to do what?”
McGarvey wanted the DDO to figure it out on his own.
“You got his name, but you apparently got a connection to Pakistan. Christ.” Bambridge looked at the DCI. “They took him to Little Torch Key,” he said. He turned back to McGarvey. “Didn’t you?”
“Not only that, Marty, we waterboarded the bastard. And we got a name.”
“Torture has never been a reliable source of information. Everyone knows it except you.”
“Save it for CNBC. We didn’t give him a name and ask for confirmation; he came up with it on his own.”
“Who else was there besides you and Martinez?”
“That doesn’t matter. What does is the name.”
“It matters to me,” Bambridge practically shouted.
It was exactly the reaction McGarvey had expected.
“The name?” Patterson prompted.
“Ali Naisir. He’s a major in the ISI’s directorate of Joint Intelligence Miscellaneous.”
“Rencke,” Bambridge said. He was beside himself.
“I would tread with care, Marty,” McGarvey said.
“No one is above the law. Not you, not Martinez, and certainly not Otto Rencke.”
Everyone was silent for what seemed like a long time. McGarvey bided his own, letting all of them, especially Page, work out the ramifications.
It was finally the DCI who spoke. “You believe this information is reliable?” he asked.
“It all fits. Pam Schlueter, who had an unsuccessful marriage to one of our naval officers, apparently hatched a plan to strike back at him. But she wanted to do it in a very big way, and for that she needed some serious muscle, which these days costs serious money. I think she approached the ISI with her scheme to kill the SEAL Team Six guys who violated Pakistan’s airspace to take out bin Laden. Nothing the government in Islamabad could do about it, except swallow its pride. Which had to hurt like hell. Schlueter gave them salvation. She would organize a team to take out the SEALs—all of them—but as an operation totally independent of Pakistan. And they bought it because she had the motive and they had the money.”
“Has Otto found any traces of the money trail—any link no matter how small back to the ISI?” Page asked.
“Not yet. But he’s working on it.”
“The man needs to be reined in, Mr. Director,” Bambridge said.
Page ignored him. “You want to go to Islamabad to talk to him, nothing more?”
“If the connection exists—and I’ll ask him in such a way that he’ll tell the truth—it means that Pakistan is killing our people. Not just the SEAL operators who took out bin Laden but their families as well.”
“The proof?”
“I’ll find it.”
“Pakistan is the Wild West,” Patterson said. “Have you ever considered that you’ll get yourself killed one of these days?”
“All the time,” McGarvey said.
“Marty, Carleton, leave us, would you please?” Page said.
Bambridge was startled, but he and Patterson got up and left.
Page went to his desk and dialed a number. “It’s me,” he said when someone answered. “It’s the McGarvey situation. It’s come to a head as we thought it might. I’m bringing him over to brief you.”