Blowback Read online

  Especially when you knew that in an hour the bullpen would be bustling with two hundred or so operations officers, reports officers, analysts, targeteers, military personnel, and assorted ABC-warfare experts, all of them tracking the illegal trade of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons around the globe.

  Vanessa craved that energy now, to match her own restless drive.

  She flicked back her damp hair, and water droplets rained on the collection of darkly humorous cartoons and slogans tacked to the cubicle’s walls. After forty minutes at the range, she’d quickly showered and dressed, grateful for the clean slacks and sweater from her locker. She’d searched out her “usual” temporary tour-of-duty cubicle, or TDY, found it unoccupied, sat, and kicked off her shoes.

  Now she popped open a can of Red Bull and gulped the bitter-tasting liquid as she pulled up a file of grainy, flickering CCTV footage. Vienna Station (as conduit for anything from Austrian police, Interpol, or Europol) had come through on her blanket request for security video relevant to the assassination of XYTree/213. Footage routed to CPD analysts via secure link, copied to Vanessa. Pulled from closed-circuit security cameras in Prater, perimeter streets and intersections, and surrounding train, subway, and tram stations.

  For now she skipped the footage from Vienna airport terminals—she’d lay odds the killer had crossed the border by car.

  She chose two of the files from the Prater.

  She took another sip of the Red Bull. Even viewed via split screen, on simultaneous loops, it would take two lifetimes to get through all the footage.

  With a ping, a new cable landed in her inbox. Skimming, Vanessa wiped a drop of Red Bull off her chin. The pale officer from Vienna sending the security footage she’d requested from the Ringstrasse Hilton, the Iran delegation’s hotel of choice.

  Arash’s killer was a professional. He hired a punk to create distraction and confusion, and perhaps to draw them into the open. He took the kill shot in a public place and then he walked away. How had he known where Arash would be? Best chance, he followed him on foot from the hotel to Prater.

  But if I were you, Vanessa thought, closing her eyes to bring his image to consciousness, my first choice would be the Hilton. I would case the delegation hotel very carefully. And I would do it before they arrived . . .

  She pulled up the flash file to begin its loop. Minutes evaporated.

  “Hello,” she murmured suddenly, staring intently at the screen.

  She tracked Zoe Liang across the bullpen to the conference room that also served as Operation Ghost Hunt’s war room. Barely slowing, she entered to find the willowy, Asian CPD procurement analyst alone in the glow of screens and the constant hum of computers.

  Slapping a photograph from CCTV footage on the table where Zoe was monitoring a stream of computer data, she said, “You were working with a tech guy—”

  “I heard you were back,” Zoe said without looking up.

  “—and you were tinkering with facial-recognition markers—”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Good to see you, too,” Vanessa said. “I need to follow up before the lead goes cold.”

  “Fuck.” Zoe spun around in the chair, nailing Vanessa with her deep-set black-brown eyes. “What’s your problem this time? In a hurry to drive another asset underground or get him killed? Lately, your track record sucks.”

  Vanessa stared at Zoe, reminding herself this was the only analyst who hadn’t given up on Jost Penders. Zoe still occasionally tracked his accounts in Prague for any sign of activity seven months after his disappearance.

  “Maybe that’s fair,” Vanessa said slowly.

  “It’s fair.” Zoe turned back to the computer screen, ignoring the photo Vanessa had pulled from CCTV. “Chris transferring you from Prague to Nicosia wasn’t exactly a promotion.”

  Vanessa heard the triumph in Zoe Liang’s surprisingly deep voice—the relationship between the two women had been prickly from day one at CPD. They were almost the same age, but they came from different worlds. Vanessa knew Zoe had been born in China, abandoned to an orphanage, and adopted by American parents when she was five years old. Raised in New Jersey, she’d graduated top of her class at Harvard, was a whiz at math and languages, and spoke fluent Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Italian, and English—with or without a wicked Jersey accent. Zoe had made no secret of the fact she resented Vanessa’s successes and her closeness with Chris. But now Vanessa had fallen from grace and, at last night’s debrief, Chris had made clear she would work only with low-level assets.

  She pushed the photo a few inches closer to Zoe. “Anything else you want to say while we’re clearing the air?”

  “Yeah. You’re reckless and you take stupid risks.”

  “Think what you want of me. I don’t need you to like me—”

  “There’s no danger of that,” Zoe interjected sharply.

  Vanessa shook her head, and then she laughed, surprising Zoe and herself. “Fine. You’re sure as hell honest. And you’re the smartest analyst in CPD. And I need your help to track down the man who killed my asset.” Once again she found herself wondering if Bhoot had ordered the hit.

  She turned toward the collection of photographs and maps tacked to the largest wall of the ops room. CPD’s team had been working to identify Bhoot by tracking anyone remotely connected to his network. Vanessa had supplied a good number of the links—but the closest she’d come to a picture of Bhoot was a 1999 photograph of a mystery man meeting with Asad Z. Chaudhry, the Pakistani physicist. Before his “retirement” in 2001, Chaudhry had been tracked by the CIA and other intelligence agencies because of his successful efforts to provide weapons-grade nuclear expertise and equipment to rogue regimes such as Iraq, North Korea, Libya, Syria, and Iran. In the photo, taken in the Netherlands, Chaudhry was facing the camera while a younger man (probably early to mid-thirties, making him mid- to late forties today) with dark hair and an olive complexion avoided it. Only the left side of the younger man’s cheek and head were visible, revealing his left earlobe decorated with a diamond stud.

  The photograph had come to Vanessa through her asset Jost Penders, who had claimed the man meeting with Chaudhry was Bhoot.

  When Vanessa turned back to Zoe, the analyst was watching her.

  “Are you sure you’re not trying to rewrite the truth about Prague while you’re at it?” Zoe asked.

  Vanessa crossed her arms in front of her chest, tipping her head in challenge. “What truth is that?”

  “The truth being that you were never in control of your asset and he took advantage of you?”

  “You really don’t want to go there,” Vanessa said, her tone deepening in warning.

  Zoe shrugged grudgingly, but she picked up the photo. “From your Vienna footage? You think this is your hit man?”

  “It came from the Hilton’s security cams, inside an elevator,” Vanessa said. The frame revealed a conservatively dressed man, slender, medium height, shoulders of his jacket padded, face hidden by the brim of his hat. He was reaching out to press an elevator button, and his gloved hands stood out, seeming too large for his body. “He knew he was on camera.”

  “Shitty contrast, but the fedora’s classy,” Zoe said, handing the photo back. “And one of how many zillion fedoras in Vienna?”

  “Forget the hat,” Vanessa said, pushing the photo almost under Zoe’s nose. “Check out his left wrist, the exposed skin between his jacket cuff and his glove. See those marks?”

  Zoe stared closely at what Vanessa had noticed when she slowed the footage down frame by frame. The analyst made a low, catlike noise in her throat. “Maybe . . .”

  “It’s something,” Vanessa said, tapping her index finger against the photo. “The edge of a faded tattoo or one that’s partly removed or a scar.” She waited, eyes on Zoe, even as she marked the second hand jerking forward on the large wall clock. She
contracted her toes, pressing carpet—realizing then that she’d crossed the bullpen barefoot.

  “I can have it run through the NGI databases covering Europol and Interpol,” Zoe said finally. “Your take is Eastern European?”

  “Best guess. I have days and days of digital footage to go through . . .”

  Zoe shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Vanessa nodded, but her attention returned to the dates, event markers, mug shots, and surveillance photos, most of which she had carefully organized into a timeline on the wall. Chris called it her “mosaic magnus.” The steps had been agonizingly slow, but the CPD team was beginning to identify Bhoot’s closest allies, a network of black-market suppliers, scientists, technicians, and terrorists from around the globe. If they could do that, they reasoned, they should finally be able to connect the dots to the ghost himself.

  So just how close was this hit man to Bhoot?

  On her way back to her cubicle, Vanessa found Chris at his desk.

  Before she could open her mouth, he waved his hand and said, “We heard from the Poles. They’ve been contacted—let me finish—by someone who knows XYTree/214.”

  Vanessa nodded, instantly relieved that they had news, but also deflated. “Why hasn’t she made contact herself? It’s been thirty-six hours.”

  “Traveling with her child makes everything much more difficult; you know she’s been hiding for both of their safety. The Revolutionary Guards are everywhere; she has to move slowly.”

  Vanessa frowned. “Do the Poles have any sense—”

  Chris glanced at the set of world clocks displayed on his wall. “It’s afternoon in Tehran—my guess is there’s a conversation going on about how to move her at night.”

  Vanessa held her silence this time. There was nothing to say.

  For a moment, she honed in on Chris. “You get any sleep at all?”

  “At this point, it’s best to stay awake.”

  “How’s your son? I had a present for Dimitri, but I had to leave it when I couldn’t go back to the hotel.”

  “Well, if you had aborted the mission as ordered—”

  “You’ve already taken me off high-level asset assignments. Is there going to be more blowback around this?”

  “Other than a million hits on YouTube?” He frowned. “Don’t screw up again.”

  She bit the corner of her lip. “Anything new that hasn’t come in already?”

  “Not that I’m aware of, but maybe the DDO . . .” His voice trailed off.

  She saw it then—the extra crease between his wide-set brown eyes, the taut lines around his mouth. He wasn’t just exhausted and preoccupied, he was disappointed and pissed off. She didn’t think this anger had to do with her.

  “What’s going on?”

  For a moment it seemed he would engage with her the way he used to not so long ago—over the occasional after-work cocktail at a non-spook bar on the U Street corridor. Midway through his second martini, the alcohol loosened his normal professional reserve and freed his Greek volatility to shine through, so that he ended up advising Vanessa on life and work issues, mentoring her through some rocky bureaucratic terrain.

  But now he shook his head, waving her off. “It’s getting late. We need to head upstairs for the briefing.”

  “Coming?” she asked, when he made no move to leave his office—and she realized how much she missed their usual connection.

  “Just finishing up here. I’ll meet you on the seventh.”

  “Sure.” Vanessa stopped briefly at her cubicle to put on her shoes and grab her notes—but just as she was dodging out, she turned back to the monitor, caught for a moment in the hypnotic gray world of CCTV surveillance and rapidly moving images.

  Yassi Farah stumbled from the white glare of the subway into Tehran’s hazy neon shadows. Zari pressed close, her small, hot fingers clutching her mother’s hand.

  Yassi steadied herself even as people pushed past. The small bundle of vital possessions still hung knotted from her waist. She fixed the dark flowered scarf again over her daughter’s braided hair, so it covered most of her small forehead. Tonight of all nights, they could not afford to stand out.

  Almost two days ago—after receiving word from a neighbor who’d seen the news of Arash’s death on his illegal satellite—they slipped away from their home near Old Shemiran Road to hide in their landlady’s house. Waiting for the man who sat all day in the black car to leave.

  When he finally drove off, Yassi urged her daughter from the house into the danger of the open streets. She prayed they would survive this journey across Tehran to the gates of the Polish embassy.

  But eyes were everywhere.

  Yassi pulled Zari forward now into the flow of pedestrians. At the corner she turned, leading them down a side street, slowing at a bakery window where soft sheet loaves of sangak and barbari bread and buttery turnovers filled the display.

  “Mama.” Zari tugged on her mother’s hand. “I’m hungry.”

  Arash loved to bring home delicacies from the bakery, and he would fill a cloth satchel until it was a feat not to spill a loaf or a turnover.

  Shuddering, Yassi almost yanked Zari past the window. She could not allow memory or grief to deaden her when she needed every sense to be alert.

  For a moment she had to tell herself to breathe. In the crowds and darkness, could she possibly know if they were being followed?

  Their American spy had talked them through the protocol, she trained them both, but that was three years ago, and Yassi knew she was rusty now, perhaps dangerously so . . .

  Is that what happened to Arash? Had he been rusty and inadvertently careless?

  Could the American have done anything to save him?

  “Mami!”

  Yassi half-lunged back into the flow of pedestrians, stumbling to avoid trampling Zari.

  She’d almost collided with a very old man on crutches.

  That’s what she got for not keeping a pinpoint focus.

  She touched her daughter’s shoulder in apology.

  A shrill, angry voice rose above the others: Can you move?

  Yassi turned, this time actually colliding with something—a bulging sack. Cans and bottles clattered to the ground. A face emerged from beneath the sack, and round, dark eyes stared up at her—a filthy, ragged boy her daughter’s age. The boy muttered, scolding as other pedestrians stepped around them.

  Yassi stood frozen. She should be paying attention every instant! If she couldn’t avoid knocking over a child, what else had she missed?

  Move, old woman!

  Yassi took a breath. The sack knocked against her knees, and she stared down as the boy hefted his impossible load.

  Yassi felt Zari’s hand tugging on her chador.

  This boy was probably at least a year or two older than Zari but malnourished, a child of one of the city’s southern neighborhoods who had migrated north to forge a living. Where the boy came from, Yassi would indeed qualify as an old woman. She had just turned thirty-five.

  Voices of passersby merged into white noise.

  If they were going to stay alive, she had to get them the last of the way to the Polish embassy.

  A soft hiss as the elevator doors slid open to the seventh floor. Vanessa nodded at the fit, middle-aged woman waiting for her in the hall. Hildy B., the DDO’s secretary, renowned for her brightly patterned dresses as well as her crack organizational skills.

  “They’re waiting for you,” Hildy said crisply.

  Prompting Vanessa to check her watch: 0903.

  The CCTV footage . . .

  Damn. She made a rule of arriving at least five minutes early to any meeting—but on this of all days, she had managed to run three minutes late.

  The DDO was leaning casually against his executive desk, a flag from 9/11 framed on the wall behin
d him. “Glad you could join us.”

  A heavyset man, silver-haired, in a tailored slate suit filled one of two matching dark leather armchairs. Vanessa recognized Allen Jeffreys, Deputy National Security Adviser, an extremely conservative member of the former vice president’s inner circle. At the moment, he was busy speaking quietly into one of the DDO’s three office phones. It wasn’t unheard of for him to be sitting in on an Agency debrief concerning Iran’s nuclear facilities, but it was unusual.

  Chris and the others were seated around the conference table, laptops humming, folders open. Chris said nothing, motioning for Vanessa to join them.

  Vanessa dropped her file and notebook on the table in front of the only empty chair. Greeting her colleagues, she took stock: Zoe to Chris’s immediate left; continuing clockwise, the ever-rumpled Sid, a fiftysomething almost-annuity guy; and then a thin, ferrety-looking man, one of a sprinkling of CPD specialists on WMDs: biological, chemical, nuclear, pick your poison. Harris. The Agency operated on a first-name basis, claiming a sense of egalitarianism (Vanessa found it bogus) as well as security issues (valid on the security point).

  A striking, dark-eyed woman sat to Chris’s right. Vanessa recognized her as an analyst/targeteer in WINPAC, in the DI, the Directorate of Intelligence.

  “You two know each other?” Chris asked, gazing over his silver-framed glasses. “Vanessa, Layla—we’ve enticed Layla to make a move to CPD.”

  Vanessa remembered; Iranian American, smart, a hotshot, and on a steep upward professional trajectory the opposite of Vanessa’s current free fall. CPD had no doubt poached her from the DI.

  “Welcome, Layla,” Vanessa said, as she opened her notebook.

  “Thanks, Vanessa,” Layla said, neatly. “Following up on your summary cable, and the intel from XYTree/213, I was just beginning to update everyone on Baluchestan Province.” She clicked a laptop key, and Vanessa realized the Iran analyst had already begun a PowerPoint presentation. A series of satellite images filled a large, wall-mounted flat-screen monitor, one of three. As far as Vanessa could decipher, the images depicted open, desolate land crisscrossed by barely visible trails.