Page 17 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

Like Stansfield, Hurley was off his game because his judgment had been inadequate.

Stan’s number two man in the Orion program, Victor, had proven to be a traitorous murderer who had passed the program’s classified kill list to Cooke, who in turn was preparing to sell it along with information on program operatives to a pair of terrorists when Rapp intervened.

If it also came to light that Rapp had decided to assassinate four people without Stan’s go-ahead, Hurley’s future with the agency might just be over.

This contingency would have beggared belief only days ago, but Irene was willing to bet that Stansfield was now considering this exact course of action.

“No, sir,” Irene said. “As per his last directive from Stan, Mitch has stayed off the radar. He calls the message service every twenty-four hours to check for instructions, but otherwise he’s a ghost.”

“A ghost with Greta?”

Irene shifted in her seat.

This topic was a source of friction. While he was certainly no stranger to the stress that came with living a clandestine existence and the torrid romances that often resulted from this lifestyle, Stansfield viewed Greta differently.

The Swiss girl’s grandfather was one of his oldest friends and a comrade in arms. After learning about the relationship from Hurley, Stansfield had provided more than one thinly veiled hint that perhaps Irene should issue an ultimatum to her assassin to end the dalliance.

These suggestions had not taken the form of orders yet, which gave her a bit of latitude, but Irene recognized the thunderclouds gathering on the horizon all the same.

“I think that’s a safe assumption,” Irene said.

“You didn’t ask?”

“No. Orion program members are trained to operate without supervision. Rapp is no exception.”

Irene wanted to respond with something much more pointed.

That Rapp was an exception in every sense of the word certainly wasn’t lost on Stansfield.

Neither was the notion that he was treading on the toes of one of his most capable and trusted case officers.

Irene wasn’t conflict-averse, but she was judicious about where and when she picked a fight.

With her boss just minutes from leaving for a meeting with a bunch of salivating jackals and a roomful of cameras, now was not the time to address Stansfield’s double standards toward Rapp.

But that fight was coming.

“Sorry,” Stansfield said with a sigh. “I know I’m taking my frustrations out on the messenger, but this thing with Cooke has me worried.

If the truth of what he was doing in that hotel room becomes more widely known, the congressional outrage will make the Church Committee look like a PTA meeting.

But that’s a problem for later. I believe you were going to bring me up to speed on something in Eastern Europe? ”

Irene stared at Stansfield.

Her mentor smiled back. “Yes,” he said, “I do still have a mole or two down in the Counterterrorism Center. Unfortunately, the quality of their reporting isn’t what it used to be. I knew you were headed this way with information about Europe, but not the specifics. Now, out with it.”

Irene filed Stansfield’s revelation away for future consideration, determined to figure out who in her basement office was the informant.

And just that quickly she realized she’d been played.

The cover sheet on the folder in her right hand bore the alphanumeric designator indicating the reporting inside concerned the Near East Division, which included both Europe and Russia.

Maybe the old spymaster still had a source or two in the basement, or maybe he was just trying to keep her on her toes.

Either way, Thomas Stansfield was still a formidable opponent.

She hoped the waiting senators would soon learn this lesson firsthand.

“This reporting comes from an American clandestine special operations team on an intelligence-gathering mission in Latvia,” Irene said.

“They witnessed a bombing at a popular bar in downtown Daugavpils. Latvian media is calling the incident probable domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of a nationalist militia who intended to target Daugavpils’s ethnic Russian population.

This is a plausible explanation, since tensions between ethnic Russians and Latvian nationalists remain high.

The bloody crackdown against protesters in the Latvian city of Riga and the ensuing skirmishes between Soviet or Russian paramilitary forces and Latvian border guards are both still fresh in the minds of the general populace. ”

“Plausible but incorrect?”

Irene nodded. “Our special operations team saw the altercation between the alleged Latvian nationalists and the bar’s patrons prior to the bombing.

One of the nationalists was critically injured after the explosion.

Rather than take him to a civilian hospital, his comrades evacuated him to the Russian air base at Lociki. ”

“That is an interesting development,” Stansfield said.

“It gets better. As per their standard task organization, one of the special operators is a linguist. He heard the nationalists speaking with Russian accents as they rendered first aid to their injured comrade.”

“Hmm. So you think this is a false-flag operation?”

“I think we should find out. The runway at the Russian air base is twenty-five hundred meters long. That length will permit Russian Il-76 military transport aircraft to land fully laden.”

“Meaning that if the Russians intended to use the Latvian government’s apparent inability to protect their ethnic Russian citizens from domestic terrorism as an excuse to launch a ‘peacekeeping’ operation into Latvia, the Lociki air base would make an excellent spot to establish a beachhead.”

“Exactly.”

Stansfield removed his glasses and twirled them in his right hand. “How do you propose we handle this development?”

Irene was a bit taken aback by the question, but she didn’t let her surprise keep her from answering.

“The special operators have done great work, but this has now evolved beyond the capacity of a two-man clandestine team. I think the CIA should be running point on this. We can take over the spec ops tasking from JSOC and then decide what other assets need to be brought to bear. We need to understand what the Russians are doing in Latvia and whether they are planning to use this bombing as a pretext to invade a sovereign nation.”

“Let me get this straight,” Stansfield said with a frown.

“You want to undertake a high-risk collection operation against the Russian Federation on another nation’s soil at the exact moment our agency is squarely in Congress’s crosshairs?

Maybe we should stay out of the limelight and let a different agency take lead. Perhaps DIA?”

Were it not for the serious expression on his face, Irene would have assumed that Stansfield was joking.

Had someone else relayed this conversation, she would have instantly discounted them.

Thomas Stansfield did not subscribe to Hurley’s view of operations, which was often heavy on execution and light on planning, but neither was he risk-averse.

Or at least he hadn’t been.

Maybe the Cooke affair had affected him more than she’d understood, or maybe his mind was on his looming testimony. Either way, Irene knew that her course was clear.

Like her mentor, she did not back down from a fight.

“We are the Central Intelligence Agency,” Irene said.

“Our mission is to collect and analyze foreign intelligence so that our political leaders can make informed decisions. The situation in Latvia is rapidly evolving and may turn into a shooting war. The president will need answers, and there’s no time to fight a turf battle with a dozen members of the intelligence community.

Max Powers should be helming this. He’s the Near East Division chief and both Latvia and Russia fall within his area of responsibility. ”

Her last sentence seemed to hang in the air and Irene half wished she could take the words back.

Who was she to be lecturing Thomas Stansfield on the importance of proactive intelligence operations?

Legendary was too generic a term to describe her boss.

Some of the operations he’d undertaken during World War II were still classified at the code-word level.

If he was expressing caution, there had to be a good reason.

Something she hadn’t seen or an angle she didn’t understand.

Irene mentally girded herself for the dressing-down she was certain was coming.

“Well said.” Stansfield gave an approving nod. “For the most part. There’s one aspect of your assessment with which I disagree—Max cannot be the one to run this. Moscow Station has something major in the works, and I need him solely focused on that operation for the next forty-eight hours.”

“Okay,” Irene said, sorting through the implications of Stansfield’s instructions. “Do you have someone else in mind?”

“Of course,” Stansfield said with a smile. “You.”