Page 50 of Denied Access (Mitch Rapp #24)

M OSCOW , R USSIA

I RENE had thought that morale at CIA headquarters had been bad.

It hadn’t.

At least not compared to the gloom that permeated the “yellow submarine.” The enclosure was nestled within the US embassy and served as the CIA’s tiny secure workspace.

This was where the men and women who manned the agency’s most important station plotted surveillance detection routes, war-gamed recruitment pitches, and identified targets.

This was where assets were run, and stolen secrets disseminated in secure cables back to Langley.

This unassuming space was the agency’s equivalent of the Situation Room.

This was Moscow Station.

Or at least it used to be.

If before the yellow submarine had been the site of triumphant celebrations for missions gone right and a well of positive energy as audacious operations were plotted and war-gamed, now the vibe was decidedly different.

Rather than the command post for an advancing army, the sterile confines felt like a different kind of gathering.

A wake.

“Would you like more coffee?”

Irene shifted her contemplation from the folder of documents spread out on the conference table in front of her next to the fire-engine-red secure speakerphone with its flashing green light to one of its would-be warriors.

The woman hovering by her shoulder had been assigned the unenviable task of babysitting the Washington visitor until the acting chief returned from his meeting with the ambassador.

Relations between the State Department and CIA were almost always tenuous, as their guiding principles were quite different.

At his core, a good diplomat was the kid in high school who fearlessly interposed his body between two of his classmates about to come to blows.

State Department employees genuinely believed that every conflict could be resolved through diplomacy if the relevant parties negotiated in good faith.

While ambassadors primarily served as the president’s spokesperson to a foreign nation’s leadership, they also strove to strengthen the relationship between the two countries.

Stealing another nation’s secrets tended to have a detrimental effect on this goal.

“No, thank you,” Irene said. “Forgive me for asking, but what was your name again?”

“It’s Elysia. Elysia Nicolas. And there’s no need to apologize. If I’d been through what you’d just experienced, I’m not sure I’d be able to remember my own name.”

Irene filed that comment away for further consideration later.

The welcome she’d received from Lieutenant General Grigoriy Petrov had been abrupt, but not particularly traumatizing, though this was beside the point. The glimpse into the case officer’s mindset was much more troubling. The men and women of Moscow Station were afraid of their own shadows.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

It wasn’t that the case officers were inflicted with timidity so much as it was an oversize opinion of their adversary.

The blown operation had infected this place with doubt, and for an organization that relied on a certain bit of swagger, self-doubt was just as big a killer as Russian counterintelligence officers.

Maybe more so.

“How long have you been in Moscow, Elysia?” Irene said.

The pretty young woman pursed her lips. She was in her early twenties with shoulder-length brown hair and a runner’s build. She didn’t look young so much as innocent. Irene wondered if she’d ever looked so youthful.

“About four months I guess,” Elysia said.

“How much operational work have you done in that time?”

“Very little. I’m still learning the streets. I was scheduled to unload a dead drop last week, but the officer I was assisting called it off.”

“Why?”

“I thought the drop site was compromised. Turns out, I was right.”

Irene turned to see a newcomer standing just inside the yellow submarine’s soundproof door.

“Oh, hi, Duane,” Elysia stammered, her face turning red. “I was just getting Irene here up to speed. I thought—”

“I’ll take it from here,” Duane said. “Why don’t you go see if the coffee maker needs refilling?”

Elysia’s flush darkened. “Sure.” Dropping her head, the woman crossed the room in silence. Duane barely waited for the newbie case officer to exit before slamming the door behind her.

The steel latch engaged with an ominous click .

“Who are you and why are you here?”

Irene stared back at the man, considering.

Though she was not an agitator by nature, there was a reason why she’d been selected to serve as a handler for an assassin in the Orion program.

Probably the same reason that Stansfield had put her on a plane to Russia to work the Latvia situation instead of choosing any number of more senior executives.

“My name is Irene Kennedy. I’m here because the acting director thought you could use my help.”

Irene wasn’t sure what Duane had been expecting, but this apparently wasn’t it.

“Help? From DC? In case you’re not keeping score, our last operation was blown, the Russians are threatening to put the wife of one of my case officers on trial, and my boss and boss’s boss have both been kicked out of the country.

Oh yeah, I also just left an ass-chewing session with the ambassador, who’s pissed that us agency cowboys are making life impossible for his diplomats.

Anyway, you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not excited to see a babysitter from headquarters.

Maybe you could do us both a favor and climb back aboard your shiny jet. ”

As much as she hated to admit it, sometimes her uncle Stan’s way of dealing with a problem was the correct one.

Especially when the problem in question was a narcissistic asshole.

“Let me apologize for not being clear. I’m here because Thomas Stansfield has lost confidence in Moscow Station.

He wants me to provide him with an outsider’s perspective of the work being done here and the executives leading it. ”

Irene thought her directness might cause Duane to back down.

It did not.

“Fuck off. I work for Stansfield, not you. If he wants to talk, he can get off his ass and pick up the phone.”

“Irene? I know I’m joining this call late, but perhaps now might be a good time for me to say a few words?”

Stansfield’s disembodied voice echoed from the secure phone. Duane looked from Irene to the flashing green light indicating the line was open. Then he swallowed.

“Sir,” Duane said, “I didn’t realize—”

“Of course you didn’t,” Stansfield said, “but not because Irene didn’t try to warn you.

How someone with so little emotional intelligence graduated from the Farm is beyond me.

You aren’t fit to run a gas station, let alone Moscow Station.

Perhaps the archives room at CIA headquarters might be a better fit.

If memory serves, there’s a flight leaving Moscow for DC this evening. I expect you to be on it.”

“Wait a minute, sir. I can help.”

“If the way you treated Miss Nicolas is any indication, I don’t think your help is warranted anywhere. Your time in Moscow is over. Good day.”

Duane’s glare shifted from her to the phone and back again as if unsure who should be the recipient of his anger. She thought he might try to press his case again until his face hardened. “I’ll see you at Langley, sir.”

Without waiting for an answer, the case officer yanked open the door to the yellow submarine and exited the secure space.

Irene listened for the door to slam behind him before speaking.

Stifling a yawn, she did the time-conversion math in her head.

It was after midnight in Washington, DC.

If she was tired, her boss had to be exhausted.

“That was fun,” Irene said after clearing her throat.

“Difficult personalities are part of the job. The CIA asks a lot of our case officers and the type of people who fit our unique psychological profile aren’t the sort who make for easy management.

Bullheaded spies who are biased toward action will always be welcome as long as I’m in charge.

It’s stupidity that I can’t abide. Speaking of stupidity, please tell me that your favorite assassin didn’t take it upon himself to eliminate a target in London? ”

“Sir?”

“I had a meeting with the president earlier today. Someone killed Youssef bin Muhammad along with two innocent bystanders. Was it Rapp?”

“I haven’t spoken with him in a couple of days, but last time I checked he was in Barcelona. I left a message for him on the answering service to call me, but he hasn’t made contact yet. I can’t tell you with a hundred percent certainty that Mitch didn’t do this, but I think it’s highly unlikely.”

“Which is what I said to the president. He didn’t like that answer. I don’t either. Find out for certain, Irene. And fast. The Brits are livid.”

“Yes, sir.”

Irene had a feeling that the Brits weren’t the only ones livid.

If the Washington Post and New York Times articles she’d read during her flight to Moscow could be believed, Stansfield’s confirmation process wasn’t going well.

The pieces credited the usual anonymous sources, but the reporters were known to be well connected with congressional representatives of both parties.

The writers were useful barometers for Washington groupthink, and right now, the Senate didn’t seem to be trending in Stansfield’s favor.

As much as she wanted to ask her mentor how things were going, she didn’t.

Stansfield had sent her to Moscow for a reason.

She needed to concentrate on putting out her fires and leave the old spy to fight his own battles.

Except she was no longer sure which fires counted as hers.

“Sir, you asked me to helm the Latvian intelligence-gathering operation, but that no longer seems to be my number one priority.”

“Oh, I disagree. I think you’ll find that as chief of station, everything is a priority.”