The Chimera Secret

6

To say that the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, General William Steel, was in deep shit was something of an understatement and nobody knew it more than he. Sitting in his office in the brand new headquarters in Fairfax County, he was the commander of perhaps the most famous of all America’s many clandestine intelligence agencies.

And it was that fame that was ruining both his day and his career.

He had just received a call from the President of the United States, who that morning had received, as he always did, a daily briefing from the CIA. Within that report, compiled by analysts to give the President a broad-strokes picture of the current state of affairs around the world, was a single paragraph detailing a covert program that had been running for six years. William Steel had not authorized the program; it had been initiated during the tenure of his predecessor. The President also had not authorized the program, it had been created by his predecessor. Both men had inherited it, and it had blown up spectacularly in their faces to become a problem that could end both their careers.

Thus, the phone call had not been especially cordial.

The President rarely swore. He shouted profanities even less. The message had been clear: make the problem go away. Right now.

The problem with making the other problem go away was that it was a covert operation conducted not on the dusty plains of Iraq, the bitter mountains of Afghanistan or in the dangerous alleys of Pakistan, but in the picturesque hills of Idaho. Worse, the problem was compounded by a further issue: the program was one department within a larger CIA-funded and controlled program that had been running covertly for no less than forty-eight years.

William Steel sat in his leather chair, his thick hands folded on the desk in front of him and his eyes vacant as he mulled over the complex dilemma he faced, his craggy and graying features creased with the burden of responsibility.

A sharp knock at his office door snapped him out of his reverie, and he sat up straight as a tall, sepulchral-looking man strode in and closed the door behind him. The man walked across to a seat opposite Steel and sat down before regarding the director with frosty blue eyes set into an emotionless face.

‘How bad?’

The man’s voice was disarmingly soft, more like a doctor than an experienced field agent. Truth was, Steel did not like Mr. Wilson at all. A product of the agency’s darker years after the political and military fallout of the Vietnam War, Wilson was a lethally capable trained assassin.

‘You’re here, aren’t you?’ Steel replied.

‘What would you have me do?’

No hesitation. No emotions. No concern, hubris or doubt that Steel could detect. Wilson was all business. Christ, the man didn’t even seem to blink. It was like sitting in front of a goddamned waxwork.

‘Congress has started another investigation into CIA-sponsored paramilitary programs,’ Steel said. ‘After what happened in 2009, when one of our counterterrorism programs was busted open and terminated by Congressional meddling, we want to shut down some of our more sensitive operations until the dust settles.’

‘I’m not an administrator,’ Wilson replied without rancour.

‘One of the programs is almost a half-century old,’ Steel explained. ‘You of course know about it.’

Wilson’s eyes narrowed. ‘Project MK-ULTRA.’

‘The same,’ Steel confirmed. ‘The other is a subsidiary of the same program being run out in Idaho. That’s where the big problem is. We’ve lost all contact with the team on site.’

Wilson leaned forward in his seat. ‘You know what they’ve got up there,’ he said, revealing for the first time a hint of concern. ‘What they’ve been doing.’

‘I do,’ Steel confirmed, ‘and if word gets out about it, it won’t just be the end of my career or the President’s. It’ll probably see the end of this agency. We’ll lose our independent status and with it protection from Congressional control. With the bleeding-heart liberals running operations our ability to protect the United States from our enemies, to do the things required to maintain security, will be totally compromised.’

Wilson nodded, his icy gaze never leaving Steel’s.

‘You didn’t bring me here to send me to Idaho,’ he said. ‘You can use a paramilitary team to clear up the mess there and—’

‘We already sent two teams,’ Steel cut him off. ‘We lost contact with the first of them last night. A second team is in the field at the moment and have tied up some loose ends, but they’re under strict orders not to let anybody approach the site.’

Wilson stared at Steel for a long beat. His frosty eyes finally flickered as though a ray of sunlight had penetrated their glacial depths.

‘It’s escaped,’ he said. Steel nodded but said nothing. ‘Has the second team you sent maintained security?’

Steel bit his lip before replying.

‘They removed one player who had obtained information regarding the site, a civilian. But the Defense Intelligence Agency got to the paperwork before we could intervene,’ he said. ‘It appears they’ve got some kind of outsourced team that investigates events passed over by the FBI.’

Mr. Wilson glanced out of the office windows.

‘So they killed a civilian, and now we’ve got independent investigators crawling around out there?’

‘Nobody’s on site as far as we can tell,’ Steel said, ‘at least, not yet. They’re probably trying to put the pieces together as we speak. If the DIA sends anybody, they can be dealt with. I’m more concerned about the possibility that Congress picks up the trail too. If the committee assigned to investigate projects that have been withheld from Congress lays its hands on hard evidence of what’s been going on, we’re screwed. It’ll all be over.’

Wilson nodded.

‘What would you have me do?’ he asked again.

‘Derail the investigation in any way that you can,’ Steel replied. ‘Hinder, obstruct and otherwise block all avenues of investigation in Washington DC that lead to either MK-ULTRA or Idaho either via the Defense Intelligence Agency or Congress.’

‘That could prove difficult,’ Wilson pointed out. ‘I won’t have deniable access to either the DIA building or Congress. If I’m seen, I’m useless to you.’

‘I’ll put pressure on the DIA director and the Congressional committee myself,’ Steel said. ‘You will apply your own pressure more discreetly.’

Steel let the word hang between them.

‘I want assured immunity,’ Wilson said, ‘in writing from both yourself and the President.’

Steel raised an eyebrow.

‘I can give you assured immunity from prosecution if this all goes belly up, but the President will—’

‘Will want his own ass covered,’ Wilson cut the director off. ‘So get the Defense Secretary, or the Joint Chiefs or the goddamned Director of National Intelligence to sign the paperwork. Either way, you want me to take down American citizens on your watch, you sign the paperwork and you get it to me. Otherwise, I don’t budge.’

General Steel had of course expected Wilson to demand some kind of immunity from prosecution. But it wasn’t the first time that the CIA had been forced to consider the killing of American citizens. A previous intelligence chief had once testified before the House Intelligence Committee in 2010 that the US intelligence community was prepared to kill US citizens if they threatened other Americans or the United States. Assassinations, both on American soil and abroad, occurred regularly. That was the nature of counterterrorism: sometimes, people had to die so that the majority might live. The CIA’s charter was a pure white canvas of idealistic patriotism, but that canvas was regularly stained by the harsh reality of blood spilled in the name of national security.

But targeting members of Congress or their colleagues was another matter entirely.

‘I’ll get it done,’ Steel said finally.

There was no other option. The danger of seeing the CIA shut down was simply too great. Steel knew that threats to disband the agency dated back to the Kennedy administration. As recently as 2004, senators had repeated a need to end the agency and see it broken up into smaller departments overseen more closely by Congress and other intelligence agencies. With public concern about the lack of information regarding CIA policies and activities, a $44 billion per year budget and the potential for the abuse of unchecked executive power, a scandal now could bring the agency down around General Steel, an outcome he intended to prevent with all of that unchecked power.

Wilson stood and looked down at the director.

‘Focus on the outsourced investigators at the DIA,’ he advised. ‘That’s the weak link in their investigation and the easiest way to trip them up. We need controllable government agents up there in Idaho, not freelancers.’

Steel nodded. Both the CIA and the DIA employed contractors that accounted for almost 50 per cent of the total workforce. The travesty of the situation meant that civilians were exposed to classified information which could then be leaked to the media, and the only retaliation the agency could mount would be expensive and complex court battles instead of more discreet internal investigations and punishments.

‘I’ll arrange a meeting with the Director DIA, Director NSA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff,’ Steel confirmed. ‘With luck I might be able to get this back under our control.’

‘It’s already too late for that,’ Wilson replied coolly. ‘This is damage limitation. The Idaho site needs to be removed from play entirely and anybody up there eradicated along with it.’

Steel sighed heavily but he knew that Wilson was right. Cutting the head off the Hydra was no longer an option: only total destruction would suffice.

‘What about that thing they have up there?’ he asked.

‘That’s your problem,’ Wilson replied. ‘I’ll take care of this end. I know for a fact that we’ve had at least one Congressional official under surveillance for some time. They’ll come in handy right now.’

Steel stared at Wilson in amazement.

‘Who?’