Flash Point

23

The task force members had gathered in the fusion room, where they waited for Joe Kinkaid. The computers in the room hummed from the satellite photos and data being manipulated by eager agents; a live CNN broadcast played in the back of the room, showing footage of an Israeli air strike into Lebanon. Sami watched it abstractedly. It looked so much like other strike footage he had seen he couldn’t help wondering if they ever just pulled out footage of a similar Israeli air strike and showed it with a new date on it.

Now his attention focused on Joe Kinkaid, who’d just come into the room, looking more rumpled than usual. Sami could tell that Kinkaid wasn’t interested in the latest news reports or anything else. He was very unhappy, and very angry. “I didn’t tell you what Ricketts was doing,” he began, forgoing any preliminaries.

Sami stared, wondering what was coming.

Kinkaid continued, “He was involved in an operation to kidnap the Sheikh.”

Sami looked around to see how many of the task force members were in control of their expressions. Kinkaid wasn’t looking for any reaction as he went on. “He had excellent intelligence of the Sheikh’s whereabouts and set up one of the most creative covert ops I have ever heard of. The Sheikh was about to walk into the trap this morning, while you were all sleeping soundly in your beds.” Kinkaid reached for the cigarette pack in his shirt pocket, forgetting that it hadn’t been there for ten years. “Apparently the Israelis had the same intelligence we did. The air strike they conducted this morning was against many targets all over southern Lebanon, but one of the targets was the place where the Sheikh was supposed to be this morning. Ricketts was standing right in the middle of it. There was some thought that the explosives Ricketts was… using, might have gone off at the wrong time. But we don’t think so. The Israelis hit the building with two one-thousand-pound laser-guided bombs and blew it to hell.”

Sami winced. He had enjoyed his evening conversation with Ricketts. It had ranged from the general untrustworthiness of the Israelis to the stupidity of Syria and various terrorist groups. They had discussed Islam, Judaism, Christianity, the future of the United States in the Middle East, and the Agency’s role in the area. Sami had asked Ricketts what guided him through all the confusion. Loyalty to the United States had been his response. Not the answer Sami had expected. Ricketts had actually said loyalty to the U.S. Sometimes it was tricky, but that was his guide. And look where it got him, Sami thought.

One of the members of the task force from the Directorate of Intelligence, the same directorate Sami was part of, asked angrily, “When are the piss-ant Israelis going to start telling us when they have an operation this big going down so we can stay out of the way?”

Kinkaid agreed. “That was the first question that occurred to me too. I think their answer would be ‘when are the piss-ant Americans going to tell us they’re conducting a covert op we might want to know about?’ I don’t think we can blame the Israelis for this one.” His frustration boiled over. “I mean what are the chances two countries are going to act on the same piece of intelligence at exactly the same time? Minuscule. Can’t happen. But it did.”

“Now what?” Sami asked.

“Now it’s going to be harder than ever to get to him, and what’s worse, we’ve probably stirred up the hornet’s nest. Let’s just hope the Sheikh doesn’t know about Ricketts’s operation or he’ll blame everything on the U.S. He’ll probably think the Israeli attack was our idea. Oh, and by the way, the Sheikh hadn’t arrived yet when the bombs hit. They missed him, and now he knows they were trying for him, which means he knows he has an intelligence leak. It’s about the worst possible result.”

“Think he’ll be on to Ricketts?”

“I don’t think there’s any way Ricketts would leave a trail. I think we’re okay there. But now we’ve got to get smarter on how to get this guy. He’ll be twice as paranoid as before.”

Sami was stuck on something else. “Anybody talked to the Israelis lately? ’Cause it looks like they really wanted this guy too.” Sami looked at the others. “The Sheikh had to be after the woman on the bus.”

“How do you figure that?” Kinkaid said doubtfully.

“It wasn’t the bus driver.” Everyone nodded. “And probably not the soldier…”

“Well, possibly—”

Sami replied, “No way. He was” — he opened a thick file and looked for a piece of paper — “nineteen years old.” He looked up. “Unless he’s somebody’s son, he probably hasn’t done enough to piss off someone of the Sheikh’s stature to make him take that kind of risk to get him. And it couldn’t have been that Navy Lieutenant…”

“Lieutenant Vialli,” Kinkaid said.

“Right. Couldn’t be him. Nobody knew he was going to be there, including his Commanding Officer. That leaves her. What does the report say about her…” He read from the paper again. “Deformed hand. The report on the Navy investigation says—”

“What are you, an analyst all of a sudden?” someone called out.

“Just thinking out loud. Want me to stop?”

“Go on,” Kinkaid said.

“Says she told Vialli and a Lieutenant Woods her hand was deformed from birth. Now we learn she was involved in an accident of some kind a year and a half ago. What kind of accident? I don’t know. I’m just saying, maybe she’s the one they were after.”

“What does that do for us, though?” Kinkaid asked.

“If they were after her, the Israelis know why. And if they know why, then they know more about this guy than they’re letting on. I’ve read what they’ve given us. It’s something, but overall…” He stared directly at Kinkaid. “It’s a pile of shit. They’re holding back on us.”

Kinkaid had stopped listening. He hadn’t been able to think of anything else but Ricketts since he’d gotten the news. He had agreed to make the arrangements for the secret memorial service and to give a eulogy. It was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do. Ricketts had always been the one Kinkaid fantasized about being. Of all the people at the CIA, Ricketts did what intelligence officers were supposed to do — he actually made a difference. Kinkaid could cite chapter and verse, but he wouldn’t be able to, because most of the people who would be at the service didn’t even know about the mission. Over the years Ricketts had become his friend, in a thorny, challenging kind of way, the only way Ricketts knew how to have friends. He thought everything was calculated to gain some advantage, even friendship… Suddenly realizing that he hadn’t heard what Sami was saying, Kinkaid forced himself back to the present. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“The Israelis — they’re holding back on us.”

Kinkaid mumbled, “Maybe…” Then he apologized again and headed for the door.