Page 191 of Secrets Beneath the Waves

“Nothing significant.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” I say, needing answers.

Hawke looks away. I don’t like pressing a superior, but there’s too much at stake right now to simply let it go.

“We were working with the joint team of French special forces and half a dozen Malian commandos,” he finally says.“Our objective was to intercept a high-value target who possessed information we needed. The plan was to meet in Kidal at night, but instead of meeting our target, we were ambushed. We’ve always assumed there was a leak, but we never found out who turned us in.

“So it’s a threat,” I say.

“I’ll do some digging.”

I nod, unsure what to believe at this point. If the message is for Hawke, he’s played this game too long to give away what he’s thinking.

“What about you?” he asks. “Did you find anything?”

“Info on tonight’s gala for starters,” I say, happy to change the subject. “There will be plenty of high-profile executives and industry leaders, making it primarily a prime networking opportunity. In the invitation it says that the event is to ‘connect elite professionals with prestigious global security companies.’”

“Sounds exclusive.”

“It is. I’m just not sure why Oumar had tickets to the event, or who Elijah Rourke really is.”

“What have you found out about him?” Hawke asks.

“On the surface, Elijah Rourke is a high-end risk consultancy specialist who works with multinational corporations, NGOs, and a few government clients and individuals. His specialty seems to be intelligence analysis and high-value asset protection and security. His bio is actually extremely impressive and includes working with NATO and various unnamed high-profile clients.”

“That explains why he would be at a function like the Louvre gala tonight,” Graham says, before taking a sip of his coffee.

I hand him the notes I’ve downloaded and printed out. “All I know is that he’s somehow involved in high-risk relocations. I’ve highlighted what I can on the file. Multiple unauthorized bordercrossings, shell companies operating out of. . .somewhere. . .and then at the bottom it’s highlighted. ‘Do not pursue.’”

“Hold on.” Hawke sets his coffee on the table, moves the stack of papers aside, and pulls out a photo of Rourke. “Is this him?”

I nod. “Do you know him?”

Hawke’s shoulder’s slump. “Yes, but I know him as Patrick Kerr.”

“Patrick Kerr?” I scoot back my chair. “Then maybe you can tell me what’s going on? Everything I find on the man in the CIA database is heavily redacted or marked high-level clearance, and the stakes are too high for us to go to that gala without knowing what we’re walking into.”

Hawke shuts then door, then pulls out a chair and sits down. “It is essential that everything I’m about to say stays between the three of us. Do you understand?”

Graham and I both nod.

“Kerr or Rourke—whatever alias he’s going by—is an unofficial asset for the CIA,” Hawke says.

I try to take in the information he’s just given me. “I can’t say I was expecting that. How do you know him?”

“Rourke has always had a knack for facilitating asset relocations and high-level extractions. He’s the perfect asset to expedite unofficial assignments when we need them dealt with.”

“So he’s paid to do the jobs the CIA can’t or won’t do?”

“You’re catching on,” Hawke says.

I might be catching on, but I’m not happy with what I’m hearing. I’m not naïve enough to believe these ‘unofficial’ divisions don’t exist, but for me they’ve only been rumors up to this point. Field sources Hawke is talking about are used for things like moving burned assets when the agency can’t protect them, buying intelligence through gray-market intermediaries, and running back-channel ops.

“If you’ve met him,” I say, “maybe you need to be the one attending tonight. Seems like you’d have a much better chance at actually getting information out of him.”

“If I walk into that party, Rourke will shut down, and I end up in a closed-door meeting with half the Intelligence Committee. But you—you’ve got enough cover to get close, and enough plausible deniability if it goes sideways.”

I frown. Now I really don’t like this.