85

 

NATIONAL COUNTERTERRORISM CENTER, TYSON’S CORNER, VIRGINIA, MONDAY MORNING

They sat round the gleaming table, coffees and waters to hand. Canning held his mug like he was warming his hands over it. He held it to his lips, but took no sips. He really shouldn’t drink it. Not even one sip. His dyspepsia was getting worse. Like some kind of warning level, it had gone from code pink to code red. That meant zero coffee, so he just inhaled, wet his lips. Agents Del Russo and Peters flanked him, drinking their coffee with the carefree abandon of the untroubled, noted Canning with a scowl. Moira Zucker sipped a Diet Coke. Chris Furlong fiddled with a nicotine patch. Pauline Southward took neither coffee nor water. Ramrod straight, she sat with a small black box before her.

She turned to Canning.

“I have another Sheikh Ali intercept!” she announced, failing to keep down the excitement in her voice. “It’s in English this time.”

She hit a button. A disembodied voice filled the room, rich, smooth, languid.

“What have they found, the Pattern of Life team?”

“New person in her life. Perfect insurance policy.”

“Really? Who?”

“Her new lover. Daniel Soren Jacobsen.”

“And who exactly is Mr. Jacobsen? Someone powerful from what you imply.”

“Power sex. Out in the open. Whole world could have seen. I saw.”

“Really?

“At it the whole time. His place. Inside and out. All over.”

“He sounds like the perfect insurance policy. You see, our clever doctor is turning out to be quite invaluable. I would like to keep her alive if at all possible.”

“Yeah, well then what I would advise is that I work up an extraction plan for him.”

“Meaning?”

“Work out how we would kidnap him. The how, the where, and the where we would take him. Just in case she decides to go to the cops. We’d get warning of her plans from the bugs. We could move in, get him, keep her sweet. No need to kill her. Not yet anyway.”

The voices fell silent. Southward clicked off her machine.

Canning forgot his code red and rapidly drank his coffee, half of the cup in four quick gulps.

“So we have an unnamed party, acting on behalf of the Sheikh, surveilling someone, this ‘clever doctor,’ who knows something dangerous,” he summed up. “And we have a kidnap plan. Against one Daniel Soren Jacobsen.” He rubbed his hands over his bald head, mused.

“This is the first concrete proof that the Sheikh is more than the legit businessman he purports to be. Good job, Southward.” He threw the analyst a brief smile. Involuntarily, she let her formal demeanor crack and flashed him a big smile back.

“Let’s assume this is connected with the terror threat,” continued Canning.

“OK, Chief,” said Del Russo. “So we find out all we can on Daniel Soren Jacobsen, find out the identity of the clever doctor at the same time.”

“Let’s start with that,” agreed Canning.

“What, just watch him?” asked Southward.

“We can’t go in and protect him, warn him off,” replied Del Russo. “There’s too much at stake.”

“What, we throw him to the wolves?” demanded Southward.

Zucker pursed her lips, her disapproval patently directed at what she regarded as Southward’s undue squeamishness.

“Who is he anyway? Ol, go run his name,” said Canning.

*   *   *

Five minutes later, Peters came back into the room.

“Er, sir, I think you need to make the request.”

“Why? You too busy, Ol?” scowled Canning.

“I don’t have that level of access. The guy’s file is beyond Top Secret. He’s Special Access Program.”

“Shit, who is the guy?” murmured Canning. “Clear the room,” he instructed. He logged on, got access, read the file, whistled quietly. He logged out, called the team back in.

“You need to hear this, but your ears only, or I will personally see to it that your balls are removed.” He glowered at Furlong, Peters, and Del Russo, then turned to Southward and Zucker. “You too. Your balls are just as big as these guys’.”

“Yes, sir,” Southward nodded, concealing a smile.

Zucker, to Southward’s astonishment, gave Canning a wink.

Canning spoke slowly, in his low guttural voice.

“Guy’s a freakin’ hero. Awarded the Medal of Honor! Silver Star. Purple Heart. Afghanistan. Three tours of duty.” He fell silent. The rest he would not share. He looked out, beyond the gray skies of Virginia, saw instead the dusty valleys and craggy badlands thousands of miles away in the east. Where Daniel Jacobsen went in to the most extreme situations, targeting the most dangerous, most wanted individuals from the pack of cards. Kill or capture, it was called; sometimes it was both. One of the other side’s best makers of IEDs came to an unfortunate end. And there was more. A lot more. Jacobsen had saved probably tens of dozens of lives in Afghanistan.

Canning dragged his gaze back to the room. “Let’s just say, these guys go in to try and take him, they’ll end up dead.”

“Black Ops,” mused Southward.

“Doesn’t make him superman,” said Peters. “He might be the one who winds up dead and we’ll have just thrown one of our guys to the wolves,” he said, unconsciously echoing Southward. “We could warn him,” he added with a flash of defiance, locking eyes with Canning.

“Too much at stake,” said Canning, revealing the political ruthlessness that ran through his veins. He was ex-army, had risen to four-star general. His loyalty was no longer to the tribe but to the anonymous cruelty of the big picture and the exigencies it demanded.

He leaned forward, gave Peters a hard-eyed scowl, shared it round the room.

“If we extract Jacobsen, any chance we had of getting close to these fuckers and preempting a West Coast Nine-eleven gets blown out the window, so we say nothing, we do nothing.”

“Leave him to his fate,” said Peters, jaw clenched.

Canning eyed his team. “His fate’s in his own hands. I guess we’re gonna find out just how good Daniel Jacobsen really is.”