Page 31

He grabbed her jaw, opened her mouth, and crammed in the letter, balling it up until it was stuffed in her cheeks. Her eyes opened again and she began to fight once more.

Garrett said, “Over! Get her over!”

Leonardo and Raph swung their arms like they were tossing a sack of concrete, back and forth then back again, releasing her over the railing. The letter stuffed in her mouth muffled the screams as she plummeted down.

Garrett looked over the railing and saw her broken body on the pavement right outside the gate to the hockey park. Families watching the practice through the fence heard her impact, and in seconds there was a crowd, some looking up toward him.

He ducked back and said, “Let’s go, let’s go.”

They raced out of the apartment, hit the hallway, and before the door closed Garrett remembered the prayer beads, sticking his hand in the jamb to stop it from locking. He said, “Did you drop theMisbaha?”

Donatello said, “Shit. No, I forgot.”

He raced back in while Raphael said, “Why is that critical? We need to leave.”

Garrett held the door and said, “She was a lesbian. ISIS used to toss gay people off of roofs as punishment. It will prove the devout nature of the perpetrators. It’s a small thing that will pay big dividends.”

Donatello came back out saying, “I threw them under the couch. It’ll be found, but it looks like it was lost accidentally.”

Garrett let the door close, saying, “Perfect. If this doesn’t get some press, nothing will.”

Chapter 20

George Wolffe fidgeted in a chair just inside the portico for the West Wing of the White House, the badge around his neck having a prominent redVfor visitor. Meaning he was forced to wait on an escort because he was “uncleared” like other White House staff or officials from departments like State or Defense. It was a pain, but he knew it was necessary.

Every official badge to the White House went through extensive background checks and clearances, which was something he couldn’t do as the commander of Project Prometheus. Nobody in the established architecture of the United States government could know who he was, so every time he showed up, he had to act as if he were simply a visitor—like every other scum-sucking lobbyist who appeared in the building more than he did.

He saw the national security advisor, Alexander Palmer, coming down the hallway, glasses down his nose and a widow’s peak for hair. Wolffe stood up. There was no love lost between the two, even as they both held a grudging mutual respect. Palmer thought Wolffe was a loose cannon whose unit could potentially cause catastrophic damage to the administration, and Wolffe thought he was a political beast who cared more about the optics and poll numbers than any perceived good from Taskforce actions.

Luckily for Wolffe, the president of the United States believed in the Taskforce mission—even as he inexplicably kept Palmer on in the national security position. Charitably, Wolffe hoped it was just to keepa balance of viewpoints within the Oversight Council for Taskforce operations.

The two had come close to literal blows before. The only thing stopping the scuffle was Palmer knowing Wolffe would send him to the hospital, and Wolffe knowing such a thing was counterproductive to his unit’s mission—as much as he would like to have done so. Wolffe had grown up in the paramilitary branch of the CIA and understood knife-point politics like few others, and because of it, had resisted shoving his boot up Palmer’s ass on a number of occasions.

Palmer reached him and said, “You got any surprises up your sleeve?”

Wolffe was required to brief the Oversight Council about Taskforce operations on a quarterly basis. Since the advent of the pandemic, he’d still held to that schedule, even as operations were basically shut down, only it hadn’t been to the full council of thirteen over in the SCIF in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door, but to what was known as the “principals” of the council here in the Oval Office. Every time he came to brief, Palmer wanted to know what he was going to say before he said it, purely for political reasons.

They began walking toward the Oval Office without a handshake, both barely tolerating each other. Wolffe said, “No surprises today. Same ol’ same ol’. Nothing going on but servicing cover platforms and keeping the wheels greased. COVID has stopped us short like every other thing on the planet.”

They reached the door and Palmer said, “Good. Best thing that’s come out of this damn disease.”

Wolffe stopped short and said, “Seriously? You think our inability to operate is a good thing?”

Rebuffed, Palmer said, “No, no, that’s not what I meant. What I meant was that the pandemic has stopped the terrorists from doing things. Small blessings. Silver linings. That’s all I meant.”

Wolffe opened the door and said, “You are naïve.Wecan’t operate because of our cover relationships and inability to travel, and because of it, the terrorists have breathing space. Only one side has been stymied. And it’s not the good guys.”

Wolffe entered, seeing the principals of the council seated on two couches in front of the Resolute Desk. The director of the CIA, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the president of the United States. The ones who really mattered when discussing the intricacies of Project Prometheus.

Looking like a bespectacled accountant—which he had been in a previous life—President Hannister was sitting in an unassuming office chair to the right, reading an iPad. The others on the couches glanced at Wolffe expectantly when he entered.

Hannister laid the iPad on the corner of his desk and said, “Okay, let’s get this over with. I have a meeting in twenty minutes with a farm bureau from Nebraska. I’m assuming nothing is going on? Same brief as last quarter? No Taskforce activity?”

“Sir, no targeting activity. We have one team in motion in the UAE, but only doing signature work designed to support their cover. No teams moving on the continent due to travel restrictions targeting nongovernmental United States citizens—which, of course, is how we operate—but we’re still busting at the seams here in the United States doing cyber tracking and other threat analysis.”

He passed out a folder to each member, saying, “We have several potential threat streams right now, specifically with ISIS variants in Africa, but nothing that our other intelligence or special operations forces can’t handle. If something pops that can’t be contained by conventional assets, I’ll come back to you, but right now the threats are nascent, and we have a handle on them. My only concern is the people they’re talking to. The ones they’re radicalizing right now. They’re going to metastasize while we wait for travel authority.”

Hannister nodded and said, “Not a whole lot we can do about that right now.” He held up the folder and said, “You’re talking with SOCOM and CIA on this?”