82

LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Marcus woke up in a sleeping bag on the floor of his office.

He glanced at his watch and saw it was 5 a.m. He’d only gotten three hours of shut-eye, and that was all he was going to get. But there was no point in complaining. Everyone else on his team was keeping the same hours. So were Dell and Annie, though they had foldaway cots in their offices, a luxury the rest of them didn’t have.

He closed the blinds in his office and changed, grateful to Pete for having sent some guys over to his apartment to grab a bunch of clothes and some toiletries. Stepping out to the men’s room, he washed up and brushed his teeth but didn’t shave. He welcomed any growth that could cover up what Kairos had done to his face in Lebanon.

When he reached the kitchen, planning to make a pot of coffee, industrial strength, he found Jenny had beaten him to it.

“Bless you,” he said as she handed him a mug.

“Have you checked your messages yet?” she asked.

“No, why?”

“Noah called you about twenty minutes ago. When he didn’t get you, he called me. He’s on his way.”

“What’s he got?”

“He didn’t want to say on an open line.”

By 5:30 a.m., the senior staff gathered in the conference room. The support staff wouldn’t be in for another hour.

Noah looked terrible. His shirt was wrinkled and stained. He hadn’t had a haircut in weeks. The dark circles under his eyes worried Marcus most. Nevertheless, Noah was in high spirits.

“We have a lead,” he began, almost breathless. “Five, actually.”

Powering up the audio-visual system, Noah patched in his Agency laptop and uploaded a file. An instant later, images of digital memos in Arabic flashed on the plasma screens.

“I found a computer belonging to Zaid Farooq in the mountains of garbage that the SEALs brought back from Libya,” Noah explained.

“The Kairos intelligence chief?” Jenny asked. “Part of the Troika?”

“That’s the one,” Noah confirmed. “Whether he was killed in the strike remains to be seen. But regardless, this computer was badly damaged. Partially melted, even. Still, I was able to pull some fragments of files and even some emails. The most recent stuff I could find dates back almost six months, so this was probably not Farooq’s current computer. In fact, it’s an older model from Dell that—”

“TMI, Noah,” Marcus said.

“Right, sorry. Anyway, so this document, the one here on the screen, describes five Kairos training bases spread out across Yemen.”

New images flashed on the screen.

“These emails describe significant activity at three of the camps, including upcoming travel plans by Badr Hassan al-Ruzami.”

“When were they sent?” Marcus asked.

“Some last July. Others in August. Another in October.”

“So the camps could all be abandoned by now,” Callaghan said.

“Or this could just be more of the Libyan’s diversions,” Pete said, “breadcrumbs they hope we’ll find to lead us on not one wild-goose chase but five.”

Marcus ignored the cynics. “Jenny, get Prince Abdullah on the line at Saudi GID. Let’s see what they know about these locations. Pete, talk to NSA, and, Geoff, talk to DIA. Let’s pull together any satellite imaging the U.S. government has on this. And, Donny, wake up your buddies at the Pentagon. I want drones up over each of these sites by noon.”

Everyone sprang into action.

Then Marcus said to Noah, “Walk with me.”

He led the younger man to the kitchen and poured him a fresh CIA mug of coffee. “Good work.”

“Thanks.”

“Now go take a nap on the floor in my office. I’ve got a new sleeping bag in there and a great down pillow.”

“I can’t. I need to get back to Andrews. There’s more out there. I can feel it.”

“No, you need to sleep. That’s not a request. It’s an order. When you wake up, we’ll get you a good hot meal and then you can go back. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” Noah said, visibly grateful despite his protests.

When Noah had turned off the lights in Marcus’s office, Marcus went back into the conference room. Jenny already had Prince Abdullah on the line.

“So glad to hear you’ve been cleared, habibi,” the prince began, addressing Marcus, “and you, too, habibti,” he added for Jenny. “You Americans have a crazy system of government. I don’t know how you get anything useful done over there. You really would do well to ditch democracy and establish a kingdom.”

“Been there, done that,” Marcus replied. “Didn’t work so well for us. But listen, Jenny and I might have something, and we need your help.”