Back Blast

21

Leland Babbitt knew relations between Townsend and the CIA had never been worse, but the fact that he was here, walking down the corridor on the seventh floor at Langley, meant he still had the juice, and this pleased him greatly.

The drive to McLean had passed in silence. For much of it complete silence, because the moment Babbitt pulled out his phone to call his office and inform them he would be running late, one of the young men sitting next to him in the back of the Yukon took Babbitt’s phone out of his hand and said, “Sorry, sir. Operational security. No calls until we leave headquarters.” The phone disappeared into the jacket of the helpful yet ominous CIA officer.

At Langley Babbitt was processed quickly and placed in an elevator that took him directly up to the top floor. As the elevator door opened he was met by Jordan Mayes, who shook Babbitt’s hand as if today were just any other garden-variety day, and the impending meeting was nothing more than another discussion about contracts, fiscal year budgeting, or logistical allocations.

Babbitt waited in a conference room for several minutes; he and Mayes made a little small talk but there wasn’t much to it, and then Denny Carmichael entered, wrinkled and rail thin, as always. Carmichael always looked to Babbitt like a combat-hardened Abe Lincoln, as if the sixteenth president had spent his twenties through his forties fighting in the Third World, as Carmichael had.

Regal yet menacing.

Patriarchal yet savage.

Denny sat down at the table, folded his hands in front of him. Babbitt knew he’d get right to it, because that was Carmichael’s way.

The head of the Clandestine Service said, “Very well, Lee. You win this round.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t want you talking to Congress. Our temporary discord is not as important as the long-term headache that would create.”

“So?”

“So, we’ll fold you back into the hunt for Courtland Gentry.”

Babbitt had wanted to hear just this out of Carmichael’s mouth, but when he did hear it, he instantly became suspicious. “That quick? You went from ‘fuck you’ to ‘all’s well’ just like that?”

Denny shook his head. “Negative. The ‘fuck you’ remains in place. Threatening to reveal intelligence pisses me off, but I’m nothing if not a pragmatist. I can’t stop you with a stick, so I’ll wave a carrot, see if that does the trick.”

Babbitt had won, and he knew it. He fought a wide grin and a fist pump into the air by focusing immediately on the job at hand. “Excellent. Obviously I’ve been out of the loop for the last several weeks so I’ll need to get back up to speed. Does the Agency have any new confirmed sightings of Court Gentry since Brussels?”

There was no hint of a pause from Carmichael. “No. None at all. Our analysts speculate he has melted back into Central Europe.” Carmichael turned to Mayes. “How about it, Jordan? Any intel more current than that?”

Jordan Mayes shook his head, an expression of gravity and disappointment. “The trail is cold, I’m afraid. We certainly could use some help.”

Babbitt appreciated the conciliation all around. He said, “Expect that to change in short order now that Townsend Government Services is back in action.” He cleared his throat. “While we’re all here together, let’s go over my terms.”

Carmichael’s eyes narrowed. “Your what?”

“Terms… I want in. Back in on everything.”

“What does that mean?”

“I want the suspension of all our contracts to be rescinded, our clearance to be reinstated.”

“I’m fine with that.”

“And I want to see submissions from you for new contracts. New opportunities on the horizon we can bid on. This Violator hunt isn’t your only big operation.”

Carmichael raised an eyebrow. “It seems as if you are trying to leverage your newfound position into increased government contracts.”

Babbitt smiled. He was all smiles now. He had the CIA right where he wanted them. “Face it, Denny, I’m the only game in town.”

“Of course you are.”

The meeting lasted another ten minutes. Babbitt had expected it to go even longer, but Carmichael said he had another appointment that could not wait.

Carmichael and Mayes watched Babbitt leave the conference room with an unmistakable saunter in his step.

As soon as the door shut, Carmichael looked to Mayes and sighed. “He’s got to go.”

Mayes just nodded, knowing exactly what his boss meant by the statement. “I concur. And it needs to happen soon.”

“How?”

Mayes had an answer ready. “Hightower.”

Denny blew out a chest full of air while he thought. “Will he do it?”

Mayes said, “Back in the Goon Squad, Zack Hightower would do anything we told him to. He sure as hell looked gung ho yesterday.”

“He did, didn’t he?” Carmichael drummed his fingers on his desk. “All right. Turn him loose. But no blowbacks on us.”

Mayes said, “Right.” He thought a moment. “Denny, we might want to look at this as something of an opportunity.”

“I’m way ahead of you.”

“I had a feeling you might be. Hightower terminates Babbitt, we float the intel in-house it was Gentry.”

“If nothing else it will light a fire under Suzanne Brewer and the targeting officers. Show them just how dangerous their target is.” Denny picked up his paperwork and reached for his glasses. “Talk to Hightower.”

Zack Hightower had spent the first part of the morning on the fourth floor of the Old HQ building, working with Suzanne Brewer on possible staging locations Violator might use here in D.C. Former haunts in the area, suitable locations to train and store materiel. They also discussed his knowledge of current and former SAD weapon caches on the East Coast, thinking it possible Gentry would try to raid a stockpile somewhere to acquire more equipment.

Zack had enjoyed this work for about half an hour, but since then he’d been bored. This was analytical shit, not his forte. He wanted to be out in the field, in the city, man-hunting.

At noon Brewer had a lunch of Chinese food brought in to the tactical operations center, and Zack was seated at a desk picking through his shrimp lo mein when Jordan Mayes stepped into the room and hurried over. “I need to speak with you.”

Zack put down his cardboard carton and his chopsticks, stood smartly, and stepped into the hallway. Mayes looked back to Brewer as he headed out himself. “I’ll have him for the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow, as well.”

Hightower fought a smile. “It’s party time!” he told himself.

The two men went upstairs to Mayes’s office. Once there, Mayes closed the door and walked over to a small sitting area. When he and Hightower were seated close together, he leaned closer still and said, “I have a problem.”

Hightower always sat ramrod-straight, but he tightened his posterior chain muscles even more. “Not for long. I’ll take care of it.”

“You know a man named Leland Babbitt?”

“No, sir. I do not.”

“He runs Townsend Government Services.”

Zack nodded. “I know those assholes.”

Mayes sighed, adopting a worried look on his face. “Babbitt has made himself a clear and present danger to our operation at the Agency. We have tried to dissuade him from this, but he persists. He has threatened to go public detailing some classified intelligence programs that, if revealed, would be devastating for our mission here.” He shook his head, an expression of disbelief. “There is no question but that these revelations will put good men and women in the field at great personal risk. Frankly, Zack, at this point, we have exhausted all of our options.”

Zack Hightower grasped instantly that he was being asked to assassinate an American citizen in the United States. He blinked hard at this realization.

But only once. “I’ll take care of it.”

“I need you to do this alone.”

“Of course you do. Don’t worry. I’ll get it done.”

“Denny and I are more than confident that you will. Of course I can help you with any equipment you might need.”

Zack smiled now. “Mr. Mayes, this might come as a shock to you, but I’ve already got a couple of tools that should be suitable for the task at hand.”

Mayes just said, “I had a feeling you might.”