Back Blast

12

Carmichael returned to the Highlander parked on King Street, then he began a new SDR that would lead him, eventually, to the helicopter and DeRenzi at the airport. He’d be back at Langley by three p.m., and only then would he and Mayes both breathe a long sigh of relief.

As he drove he thought of the unprecedented challenge before him: find one man in a metropolitan area of six million. Killing the Gray Man had been a top priority for the past five years, and still he had failed to accomplish it. In those same years he had directed human intelligence assets all over the globe, assassinated high-value targets in remote locations, successfully executed major intelligence operations against world powers, thwarted terrorist attacks on the homeland, and even had a hand in winning a regional war in Africa.

But Courtland fucking Gentry somehow managed to remain alive. He’d been a hard target for a long time, but now Carmichael was certain Gentry had miscalculated. Whatever it was he thought he would accomplish here, there would be no escape from the United States.

Not with Kaz and his men involved.

Carmichael had allowed Kaz to run a small team of operatives in D.C. for three years now. Carmichael had even helped Kaz steer clear of FBI counterintelligence schemes designed to identify and arrest foreign operatives in the U.S., alerting his Saudi colleague to sting operations. And no one knew. Not the FBI, not the director of the CIA, not even Jordan Mayes. Mayes was aware his boss had a good working relationship with the director of Saudi intelligence in the U.S., but he had no idea of the quid pro quo that existed between the two men.

It was entirely against the law, an unsanctioned relationship, but Carmichael wasn’t interested in rules; he was interested in results.

In return for this, Kaz fed Carmichael intelligence of the quantity and quality no American intelligence chief had ever been given by an Arab nation. Kaz had personally passed Denny al Qaeda bank account numbers in Dubai, names and addresses of high-value targets, recorded intercepts of suspected ISIS officers working in Iraq, and many other items the CIA would have no access to otherwise, but an intrepid Saudi could obtain through his connections in the Islamist world.

Kaz’s intelligence had not decimated the jihadists, not by any stretch of the imagination. AQ always seemed to find new avenues for funding, and ISIS found new men to put into leadership positions. But Denny was more than satisfied with the product he was getting from Kaz. That he had to keep the close affiliation under wraps was unfortunate, but Denny knew he would never in a million years receive authorization to allow foreign operatives to work freely in the USA. The closed minds of the FBI and the political minds of the White House would be horrified if they knew.

Denny understood the intel business; you had to pay to play. And he also understood what Kaz wanted. Kaz wasn’t here in the U.S. running ops against the U.S. No, he was working against his country’s enemies. Economic intelligence against other oil-producing states. Political intelligence against those of Saudi Arabia’s Middle Eastern neighbors who swam in the waters of the United Nations, the American media, and D.C.-based think tanks.

Denny had known Kaz a long time, and although he couldn’t say he trusted the man — Saudi Arabia was always looking out for the interests of Saudi Arabia, after all — Denny felt like he understood the man’s motivations. Kaz wasn’t running around America with a team of assassins knocking off congressmen. Allowing the Saudi intel chief some latitude to pursue his nation’s objectives in the United States was, as far as Denny Carmichael was concerned, a fair price to pay for what he was getting in return.

As he drove back over the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on his way to Prince Georges County airport, Denny allowed himself a moment of pride and satisfaction. He saw himself as the chess master, controlling the pieces on the board.

The moment faded as he thought about Gentry. Not because Gentry was the problem at hand. No, he thought about Gentry now, because in the fifteen years Denny Carmichael had worked closely with Murquin al-Kazaz, there had only been one major misstep in the relationship. One time where intel from Kaz had led, for one reason or another, to an unmitigated intelligence disaster.

That time was years earlier, and the end result of that intelligence failure was now running free on the streets of America, wholly unaware of what he did to bring the full force of the U.S. intelligence community down on him like so many missiles from the sky.

Murquin al-Kazaz sat quietly in the suite at the Kimpton Lorien for twenty minutes, using the time to send text messages and to clear other matters out of his inbox. Then he, too, left the suite, wiping the door latch with a handkerchief on his way out.

He was picked up on Duke Street, two blocks from the hotel. He folded into the back of a Jaguar sedan, and then he was off to his office in the center of a small motorcade of unmarked Land Rovers and Escalades.

Kaz stared out the window silently as they returned to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, just across New Hampshire from the Watergate complex. His offices were there at the embassy, taking up a large portion of one wing of the building.

Saudi Arabia had a robust intelligence apparatus here in D.C., for three main reasons. For starters, many young Saudis came to the U.S. to study, and here they learned English and the ways of America. Kaz therefore had a large selection of good intelligence officers to choose from to staff his stable in D.C.

Secondly, Saudi Arabia had an incredible amount of money. Liquid funds. Easily accessible U.S. dollars. Good intelligence work did not rely on money alone, of course, but money was an effective lubricant to all manner of espionage. Kaz had a budget of millions with which to buy equipment, rent real estate, and bribe men and women in all social strata in the U.S.

And the third reason Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service was so damn effective in the U.S. was because of the special relationship between CIA’s Clandestine Service Director Denny Carmichael and U.S. Station Chief for the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency Murquin al-Kazaz.

The secret pact between the two men stipulated that Kaz could only use his operation here in the States to target other nations, not the U.S. itself. And Kaz was not allowed to work against any of the U.S.’s main allies. Both men understood this to mean Israel, because Denny could not very well have Kaz getting caught in the District, for example, conducting surveillance on the home of the Israeli ambassador.

Denny’s understanding of their agreement was that Kaz and his men were free to do other types of collection. They might use long-distance listening devices against the Russian consulate to learn about oil pipeline deals, they could run collection operations on other Middle Eastern embassies to obtain information on diplomatic and military affairs important to the Saudi kingdom, and they might surveil foreign nationals dangerous to Saudi interests who were here in the District to visit think tanks or speak to aid groups or conduct protest rallies.

Denny knew there was plenty for Kaz to do without conducting operations against Americans.

Until now, that was.

But despite Denny Carmichael’s understanding of the agreement, Murquin al-Kazaz had his own ideas about just what his men would do here in the U.S. He took advantage of the protective wing of America’s top spy, and he used Denny’s secret sanction to run lethal direct-action missions here in the United States. His men had killed an Israeli blogger, a prominent author who wrote books critical of U.S.-Saudi relations, and a German businessman in the defense sector who stood in the way of the Kingdom obtaining a lucrative contract for aircraft engines.

All the murders had been passed off as muggings, car jackings, automobile accidents — and Denny had not suspected a thing. He never understood that his friend and partner Murquin al-Kazaz was actually more like a fox in a henhouse.

And now Kaz was being asked by the most important man in American intelligence to devote all his energies to finding and killing a single American operative, inside the United States of America. At first blush it had nothing to do with Kaz’s overarching mission here in the States, but Kaz would do as Denny requested, because Denny Carmichael’s survival was in the interests of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.