Vengeance

41 LANGLEY, VIRGINIA

Not long after landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Jake Harrison and Khalila Dufour were seated at the table in the seventh-floor conference room, joined by the usual CIA leadership — Christine O’Connor, DD Monroe Bryant, DDO Frank McKinnon, and DDA Tracey McFarland — wrapping up their discussion of the Natanz mission. Events had transpired as planned when it came to the issues that mattered: the centrifuge fabrication and uranium enrichment facilities had been destroyed, and no team members had been left behind, alive or dead, which would have provided incontrovertible evidence that the United States had been involved. The topic then shifted to Mixell.

“We still don’t have any leads,” McFarland explained. “At this point, we think it’s best you help out at the NCTC; see what you can find.”

The National Counterterrorism Center, located in the Liberty Crossing Building in McLean, Virginia, was staffed by fourteen government agencies, including the FBI and CIA, serving as the logistical hub for the collation and dissemination of terrorist-related information within the U.S. intelligence community. During their previous attempts to track down and thwart Mixell’s plans, Harrison and Khalila had discovered critical leads while at the NCTC.

Harrison and Khalila were soon on their way to McLean in Khalila’s car. Their trip was a quiet one, as had been their return journey from Bahrain. Khalila had resumed her typical aloof persona, with not a single mention of anything that had happened between them the last night in Bahrain. For Harrison’s part, he felt guilty, as if he had soiled Angie’s memory. It had been too soon to be with another woman and Angie deserved better, he told himself. Thankfully, Khalila appeared true to her word — the night in Bahrain was a one-time deal — as she had offered no indication that she was further interested.

After arriving at the NCTC, they worked their way across the main floor, filled with sixty analysts at their desks while supervisors observed from glass-enclosed offices on the second floor, until they reached the two workstations that had been freed up for them.

To help track Mixell down, the NCTC had released his image, captured as he left Fort McNair after assassinating the secretary of defense. It was clear that Mixell was either lying low or traveling with an effective disguise, because not a single shred of his existence had been detected since the assassination. Although law enforcement agencies had been directed to be on the alert for Mixell, the effort was suffering because the search for him hadn’t been designated a National Special Security Event by the Department of Homeland Security. There had been no determination on what Mixell’s next target was — person, place, or event — or even that there was a follow-on target. As a result, the NCTC wasn’t entirely focused on Mixell, spreading its resources across several potential terrorist actions.

Nonetheless, potential leads had been flowing into the NCTC from various law enforcement agencies and the public. Harrison sat beside Khalila and pulled up the files on Mixell, then began reviewing the evidence collected from the scene of the Secretary of Defense’s assassination and the leads that had been investigated thus far. Despite the lack of a focused NCTC effort, several hundred leads had already been run to ground, producing nothing. After categorizing those that remained, Harrison and Khalila each took half.

None of the leads seemed promising or even interesting. Harrison was trained to work out in the field, not pore over data scrolling across a computer screen for days or even weeks on end. He could tell that Khalila was similarly unenthused.

Harrison pushed back from the desk. “I’m getting some coffee. Want some?”

Khalila nodded. “Yeah. This is gonna be brutal.”