Page 46 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)
W ASHINGTON , DC
T HOMAS Stansfield was not easily impressed.
He’d seen the very best the European continent had to offer. The magnificent architecture, breathtaking museums, and awe-inspiring cathedrals. There were not many places that still inspired a sense of awe in him.
The Oval Office was an exception.
While the president’s workspace was relatively small compared to other heads of state, there was something uniquely American about its simplicity.
From the giant Presidential Seal embroidered into the royal-blue carpeting, to the Resolute desk’s air of stoicism, to the sculptures and artwork that were selected based on the current president’s preferences, there was no question that this office was home to the nation’s chief executive.
But marble busts, oil paintings, and the other trappings of office were only part of the reason why Stansfield always felt a sense of reverence in this place.
The ghosts of his predecessors still inspired awe in a heart that was not yet jaded despite all that he had endured on behalf of that nation he loved.
Thomas Stansfield understood realpolitik not as a diplomat, journalist, or politician, but he had experienced the visceral evil that humankind was capable of unleashing firsthand.
More times than he could count, he had been asked to influence the government of a remote country that most Americans couldn’t find on a map.
And when the political warriors who’d demanded this action lost their nerve, he was left to tally the butcher’s bill.
The Bay of Pigs was not the only instance in which political cowards had left good men to die on a battlefield of their making.
And yet.
And yet, Stansfield’s heart remained optimistic and his spirit unbent.
This was not because he believed in the perfection of his nation or its leaders.
Far from it. But he did believe in his fellow citizenry and the nobility of America’s founding principles even though the men who enshrined those principles had been flawed human beings.
As with Lincoln, Stansfield agreed that the better angels of our nature existed, but in this moment, the heavenly cherubs seemed to have taken a back seat to something else.
The devils of politics.
“The president will see you now.”
The president’s long-serving administrative assistant delivered the news with an even cadence, but Stansfield wasn’t fooled.
Though he had held a variety of roles during his many years of government service, he was first and foremost a spy.
Deciphering a conversation’s subtext was part and parcel of the job.
The woman was on edge and the source of her anxiety waited on the other side of the still-closed door.
Feeling like Daniel about to be cast into the lion’s den, Stansfield got to his feet and brushed an imaginary speck of lint from his trousers.
“Thank you. If we don’t get a chance to speak later, I hope you have a wonderful day. ”
Stansfield delivered his rejoinder with genuine sincerity.
Though she didn’t have his nearly five decades of government service, the president’s assistant had been guarding the Oval Office for as long as he could remember.
She was pleasant to talk with and competent at her job.
Stansfield was fond of the woman and truly did wish her a good day.
But that was not why he’d spoken.
The president’s secretary was a reliable barometer of his mood, if one knew how to read her.
The assistant excelled at keeping tension from her voice and maintaining neutral facial expressions, but there was a single tell to her otherwise ironclad facade.
If the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was in any mood but one, Stansfield’s greeting would elicit a thank you or at the very least a smile.
On the rare occasions when the president was truly angry, the waves of emotion emanating from the Oval Office buffeted even his steadfast secretary.
If this was the case, she might nod, but there would be no smile and certainly no spoken reply.
Today she stared at him wearing an expression he’d never seen before. It brought to mind the look a prison guard might give an inmate on death row.
A look reserved for a dead man walking.
“Where is your operative?”
Stansfield paused as he pondered both the question and the tenor in which it was delivered.
By his standards, the Oval Office’s current occupant was an average president.
He was blessed with neither Reagan’s oratory gifts nor FDR’s vision.
He was not the sort to admonish his fellow citizens to ask not what their country could do for them but what they could do for their country and neither was he the kind to forcefully demand the unconditional surrender of America’s mortal enemies.
Instead, Stansfield judged the nation’s commander in chief to be an even-keeled man with a steady hand.
Hopefully, this assessment was still correct.
“I’m not sure I understand, sir,” Stansfield said.
Since he wasn’t offered a seat, Stansfield remained standing.
Nor was he offered a handshake or even a simple hello.
Instead, the president glared at him from behind the Resolute desk in the manner of a senior officer calling a junior leader on the carpet for a particularly poor decision.
Or perhaps a defender observing the lead echelon of an advancing army from the firing port of his own bunker.
The temperature in the Oval Office always felt cool, but today the air was positively frigid.
“Your operative. The one from the Orion program.”
Stansfield had never sought the CIA’s seventh-floor corner office, but neither had he avoided the job of DCI.
He wasn’t a natural bureaucrat and had no aspirations to run for elected office, snare a lucrative board position with a prestigious company, or write a tell-all at the conclusion of his government service.
His life’s work was dedicated to furthering the mission espoused by the CIA, and the OSS before it.
He didn’t have aspirations for greatness, but he did possess decades of lessons learned the hard way.
Lessons that could benefit the organization he loved were he permitted to implement the changes those lessons necessitated. He wanted the director’s job.
But not at any cost.
“Mr. President, I cannot speak to my predecessor’s position, but I do not utter the names of clandestine officers flippantly. You are the commander in chief and there are no secrets from you, but if perhaps you could add some specifics to your question, I might be able to better answer it.”
Stansfield believed every word he’d just uttered.
Almost every word.
He wouldn’t be a spy if he didn’t recognize the necessity of occasionally bending the rules.
As head of the executive branch, the president held absolute declassification authority.
There were no secrets from him, but the same couldn’t be said of his staff.
The Orion program existed as a means to visit extrajudicial justice on terrorists who had American blood on their hands.
Terrorists who had proven to be unreachable by conventional means.
Stansfield assumed that every modern president had learned from Nixon not to record conversations in the Oval Office, but assuming wasn’t the same as knowing.
Unless the president specifically ordered him, he did not intend to discuss the Orion program, let alone the assassins employed by that program.
Especially an assassin named Rapp.
“You haven’t seen the news?”
Stansfield shook his head. “No, sir. I was en route back to Langley from the Hill when I received instructions to head here.”
Stansfield had spent the first part of the day attending private meetings with numerous senators to try to shore up support for his nomination.
He had used the commute back to his side of the Potomac to catch up on cables and the assorted paperwork that came with running the CIA.
He neither listened to the radio nor engaged in phone conversations, preferring to make use of what he was already realizing was a precious commodity—time alone with his thoughts.
“I’ve been on the phone with the British prime minister for the last forty-five minutes,” the president said.
“Candidly, I don’t particularly like him and I’m sure the feeling is mutual, but personal animus aside, this might be the lowest point in our nations’ relationship since the redcoats burned the White House. ”
Though Stansfield still thought his decision to send Irene to Moscow was the correct one, he was already feeling her loss.
His adopted daughter occupied no position on the agency’s organizational structure, but in the storm of dysfunction engulfing the CIA’s executive leadership team, Irene had become his island of calm.
She had always been a gifted case officer with a good head for fieldwork.
This was why he’d harbored no misgivings about placing the Orion team under the leadership of a relatively junior officer.
Lately her role had matured into one of trusted advisor.
A de facto chief of staff who could see around corners and find the answers to questions that her boss had yet to ask.
Questions like why the president had requested his immediate presence at the White House, for instance.
Stansfield had assumed the president had wanted to hear how critical senators were feeling about his confirmation vote and war-game next steps.
A logical but incorrect assumption. Irene would have ferreted out the meeting’s agenda instead of relying on suppositions.
Stansfield had made a rookie mistake in a job that could ill afford such errors.
“Is this something to do with Latvia?” Stansfield said.