The End Game (A Brit in the FBI 3)

He didn’t want to leave her, but he had had no choice. He had to stop Matthew Spenser, put an end to COE.

His phone rang as he pulled out of the parking lot. “Yes?”

A female voice said, “The DI wants to see you now.”

“Good, I want to see him, too. I’ve got vital information he needs. Tell him I’ll be there in fifteen, Gladys. I’m off-campus.”

“Hurry. When he got back from a meeting at Tango Two’s place, he was on the warpath. I’ve never seen Temp like this. It’s something big, Carl, really big.”

“So is my news.”

He knew about Trafford’s meeting with the other muckety-mucks and the vice president, not surprised Callan Sloane was now loaded for bear, given the explosion at Bayway.

Ten minutes later he parked in the orange lot on the CIA campus and hurried toward the new headquarters building, not even glancing at Kryptos—Jim Sanborn’s encrypted, elusive cypher-sculpture. When he passed the wall of stars, all he could think about was seeing Nessa’s name on that wall, a single star to show her worth to the Agency. Like her father’s star.

When he stood in front of Gladys, with her double strand of pearls and gray silk blouse and ladylike pumps, he smiled. All the analysts liked her; she was always in their corner. She said immediately, “Is Vanessa all right?”

It hurt to say the words. “It’s still uncertain” was all he could manage.

“All of us are praying for her. Now go in, Carl.” As he walked past, she handed him a folder. “I don’t know what it’s all about, but like I told you, it’s big. Good luck.”

Director of Intelligence Templeton “Temp” Trafford stood in the window overlooking the CIA campus. A light rain had begun to fall, and the window was misting. Trafford was always impeccably dressed, but this morning, meeting with the VP, he was more formal than usual. Carl recognized the silk tie and polished presidential-seal cuff links Trafford kept in his lower drawer, next to the Grey Goose vodka.

Trafford turned. “Is Vanessa okay?”

Stiff back, stiff voice. “She’s back in surgery. Her doctors—they don’t know, or won’t say.”

“How did Spenser find out she was a spy?”

“A text from me. Spenser heard the phone ding. He lost it, shot her. Look, Temp, she managed to tell me about an assassination attempt before she coded, but not the target, or targets, not the where. Do you know anything about this?”

Trafford said, “Yes, partly. We’ve received word of a major assassination threat, so maybe it’s the same one, I’m not certain.”

“Who?”

“The vice president, Callan Sloane. Possibly others as well, still unidentified.”

Carl couldn’t believe it.

Trafford drew in a deep breath. “I imagine her buddy in the Mossad tipped her off. It gets worse. The assassin is Zahir Damari.”

Carl whistled. “Damari. Who put out the contract?”

Trafford said, “Mossad believes it’s Iran, so that means it’s probably Hezbollah, since they’ve been threatened by her from the beginning—a vice president of the United States dead set against them and all they preach, and a woman to boot?

“As for Hezbollah, they’re particularly dangerous, since they have no desire for a peaceful world, only chaos and destruction and anarchy in the West, well, and the world, if they could pull it off, and the takeover of Shia.

“Callan has always preached no nukes in Iran, so obviously they would want deniability. Her ties to Israel aside, all the terrorist states also are well aware of her disagreement with the president on the peace talks. To have her eliminated, they’d cheer.”

Carl said, “But if it’s proved they paid to have her assassinated, don’t they understand the president would be forced to retaliate? Big-time?”

“But retaliate against whom, exactly? Don’t forget, Carl, Hezbollah gives them plausible deniability. So the president hits Lebanon, so what? Tehran gets off scot-free and without their biggest roadblock.

“In addition, we’re nearly certain now that the man calling himself Darius is Zahir Damari. The photos Vanessa took of him match body type, height, and skin tone, plus the timing’s right. Did he change his face when he went to Matthew Spenser? We don’t know, so that makes the facial parameters sketchy. And as you know, Damari is a quick-change artist.”

Carl said, “Well, if Darius is indeed Damari and he managed to get himself embedded in COE, the FBI can nail him with this recent photo. Their guys Savich and Drummond have been working on a supplement to the NGA database.”