Page 35 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

R APP stared back at Hurley waiting for an explanation.

An explanation that the old operative didn’t appear in any hurry to give.

The silence stretched until the pretty waitress returned and asked whether they wanted their beers refilled. Hurley answered negatively for them both.

She nodded and left. Only once the sliding glass door leading to the outdoor patio slammed shut did Hurley turn toward Rapp. “You heard of the year of the spy?”

Rapp frowned. “Not much into movies.”

“It’s not a movie, you dipshit. It’s CIA slang for the tragedy of 1985. I get that you were still in diapers then, but I thought you’d know at least a little agency history.”

Rapp had not in fact been in diapers in 1985, but that was beside the point.

He was willing to afford to the codger some latitude, but Hurley’s grumpy-old-man routine was getting old.

“News flash—I don’t know much agency history because the guy in charge of my training didn’t think it was an important subject to cover.

Also, in case you forgot, you are that guy. ”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hurley said, “don’t get your panties in a bunch.

I’m just busting your balls. Nineteen eighty-five was the year we figured out that the entire US intelligence community was leaking like a sieve.

Hughes had already defected by then, but he was just the tip of the iceberg.

Our counterintelligence agents arrested fourteen American traitors, many of whom were spying for the Soviets.

Those shitbags helped to explain how we’d lost some of our Russian assets. ”

“Only some?”

Hurley nodded. “CIA counterintelligence worked the problem for a while, even going so far as to launch an official mole hunt, but nothing came of their efforts. Eventually we stopped losing assets, so the head shed decided to move on.”

“Seriously?”

Hurley sighed. “Your experience with our beloved agency is a bit one-sided. You’re strictly a field operative, which means you see the CIA at its very best—an organization staffed with cowboys and meat eaters.

The place Wild Bill Donovan imagined. But there’s another side.

One manned by risk-averse bureaucrats more concerned with their pensions and lucrative post-government jobs than stealing our enemies’ secrets.

Imagine what would happen to those pensions and cushy post-government opportunities if it turned out that our burned Russian assets were actually the result of a concerted intelligence operation that had been successfully run beneath their collective noses. ”

“That’s your theory?”

“Not theory. Fact.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I ran a little intelligence operation of my own. Wanna hear a story, kid?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Shut up and listen.”