Close Quarters

TEN

Senator Benson waited until he was well away from the encompassing aura of Langley before checking the courtesy window between himself and the driver was closed and dialling a number from memory. It rang three times before being answered in a clipped voice.

‘Two-One. Go ahead.’

‘I want a trace on a CIA Staff Ops Officer named Brian Callahan. Get me his movements over the past three weeks. Where he went, who he saw — everything.’

‘Will do. Anything specific I should look for?’

‘Yes. Sometime over the past few days he met with a non-agency asset — a freelance gun. Callahan’s Langley-based, so he must have travelled outside to find him. This wouldn’t have been done on the phone. I want anything you can get on the people he met.’

‘Sure. Shouldn’t take too long.’ The man sounded assured and relaxed. Professional. ‘Anything else?’

‘Yes.’ Benson was thinking about the young woman trainee assigned to be Watchman’s comms support. She might prove a weak link he could exploit if necessary. He had no hesitation about ruining a promising career if the situation demanded, and if she complained, it would be her word against his, no contest. ‘Build me a file on a Lindsay Citera. That’s C–I-T-E-R-A. She’s on the trainee program at Langley and comes from North Carolina. If there’s dirt, I want it.’

He disconnected and made another brief call. This time he left a voicemail message on a multi-user subscriber number which initiated an automatic alert to everyone on the group list. ‘The State Department has asked Langley to mount a rescue operation on their man Travis. I believe this could be a situation we can use. We need to meet right away.’

He switched off his cellphone and told his driver where to go, and sat back to think about what to do next. Howard J. Benson had two interests in his life. The first was to be seen to grow and protect the involvement and budgets of the US intelligence agencies in the ever-increasing threats to the country from terrorism and the twin evils of Moscow and Beijing. That interest did not necessarily include the CIA, for which he harboured a deep loathing for its cavalier and blatant disregard of conventions. To his mind they were a bunch of modern-day pirates who had done whatever the hell they liked in the name of America for far too long. News of this latest jaunt to recruit a freelancer to rescue a man in the field did nothing to change that viewpoint and he was already mentally composing his next report which would be severely critical of the Agency’s actions.

However, his reason for calling this latest meeting via the subscriber service was entirely different and served his other main interest, which was neither benign nor patriotic. It was to ensure that he and a small group of friends prospered from whatever was about to blow up in Eastern Europe.

All he had to figure out was the best way to go about accomplishing both aims.