The Devil's Handshake

43

Langley

The SAD situation room at Langley is one of the most secure rooms in America, with its numerous walls of screens hooked up to the world’s media and U.S. spy and communication satellites, it is a 24/7 one-stop shop of information flow.

Pouring a black coffee before returning to his seat, Ali began briefing the Director.

“We ready to go, the personnel carriers have arrived in Borama, but it does appear Ivan is on to the operation, unfortunately,” he reported.

“How long do we have?” questioned Young.

Both men had taken the loss of secrecy as part of the job and didn’t lose any sleep over it. It was one of the reasons they had gone to so much effort in the deployment of a false-flag operation.

“Navjot reports that contractors will commence the operation at dawn, at which point he estimates that they will have approximately twenty-four hours before reinforcements arrive in support of the Russian assets that are guarding the President.” Ali then went on to brief the Director as to the emergency extraction contingencies in place.

Having finished his explanation on how the Special Operations in Djibouti would be providing the extraction team for the SAD team if they needed to exit the country, the Director then asked Ali about Navjot’s reasons for deploying into the theatre. He wasn’t best pleased, to say the least, that the officer had done so.

“A lot of time and effort has gone into the investment of his GS legend if this operation fails and he gets taken a number of Agency operations in the region would be comprised,” lectured the Director.

Ever the politician, the last thing Young needed to do was to explain to the President at National Security Briefing that they had just lost one of their most senior officers during a regime change in East Africa.

“We will use one of our assets in Dubai if he gets taken as backup,” replied Ali before going on to explain how the asset would be used saying that while it was a risk they had additional contingencies in place to protect his cover identity if necessary, without explaining what.

He didn’t have to explain what that meant as Young knew full well what that meant he just didn’t want to look down that particular corridor.

“Okay, I am satisfied with that, keep me in the loop.” the Director said before exiting the room. Once he did so Ali turned to one of his young, bright analysts who had been tasked with keeping an eye on any Russian activity being reported in terms of troop movements.

“Nothing of any note, Sir,” replied the smart twenty-something MIT graduate in response to Ali question regarding activity.

“Let me know the minute anything enters Adwalland air space that remotely looks like a troop deployment!” said Ali to his young charge while he took another sip of his coffee having decided that would be the signal to pull everybody out.