A Hostile State by Adrian Magson (reading eggs books txt) 📗

in these events, but it doesn’t seem likely this time … at least, I can’t see one with the Russian angle.’ He smiled in Patel’s direction. ‘But that’s something I’d like you to monitor for us from here on in, Gina, in case anything should blow up.’

Callahan explained further, ‘The source, Tango, was employed in a senior administrative role in the security police. But their system has cut-outs so that only preferred and senior rank officers get to report on a governmental level. It’s how they get known and favoured when it comes to gaining key positions and promotions.’

‘Was?’ Ledhoffen again. ‘You think Tango is dead, then?’

‘We have to assume that, yes. Under the circumstances there’s every likelihood he was intercepted. If true it would probably have been by Hezbollah’s counter-intelligence unit. They’re not known for treating people kindly, especially suspected traitors.’

‘What about your contractor?’ she shot back. ‘What was his reaction when this happened?’

‘He did as I ordered: he left the area immediately.’

‘Without checking up on the source? That’s cold.’

Breakman made a noise and shook his head, but a look from Sewell stopped him saying what he thought.

‘I think,’ Sewell said, raising a hand, ‘there are two aspects here that we all have to be aware of. The first is to ascertain what happened to the source, Tango.’ He looked at Callahan and Jackson. ‘I take it you two have a way of doing that via someone on the ground?’

Jackson nodded. ‘It’s already underway. But they’re not active service personnel so it will have to be low-level and may take time.’

‘Same here,’ Callahan said. ‘If it was Hezbollah behind the shooting they tend not to broadcast the news until they’re ready to use it. They prefer to hide their bodies unless they can use them.’

‘Fine. Do what you can. The second aspect is more worrying for our whole community. Put simply, one of our experienced assets has found himself on somebody’s kill list. With the kind of work he does that’s not impossible but it is unusual. That means we all have to take note. This person operates alone and undercover so as not to get made by anyone – or, at least he hasn’t until now. And nobody sends out two shooters each with a target’s photo just on the off-chance they might stumble on him in the street. This has all the marks of a planned operation.’

‘Does this kind of thing happen often?’ asked Groll.

‘Less than you might think, thank God,’ Callahan replied. ‘If it did we’d have a war on our hands, which is why we train everyone to be as effective as they can. If they sense they’ve been compromised they get out and we work on finding a replacement once the dust has settled.’

‘So what,’ asked Ledhoffen, a frown edging her eyes, ‘is the agency’s view on what happened to the two shooters?’

Callahan looked at her but said nothing. He wasn’t sure if she was there solely to raise awkward questions or if it was another display of her inexperience. Whichever it was, it made him wonder what the point was and why she was being confrontational. He glanced at Sewell, but the senior man seemed unaffected by the exchange.

‘Two nil to us is my guess,’ growled Breakman, in the brief silence.

Ledhoffen bristled at that and said to Callahan, ‘Are you not going to tell us?’

‘I think we all know the answer to that, Ms Ledhoffen.’ Sewell sat back. He looked tired. ‘Let’s not pursue it further.’ He looked around the table. ‘This was intended as a general briefing only until more details emerge. My concern is that the asset’s presence in the country, planned at short notice, seems to have been realized very quickly and acted upon. That’s pretty unusual. Needless to say we do not discuss this with anyone else at this time. If you should come across anything further which might add to the discussion, let me know.’ He nodded at Callahan, Cardew and Groll in turn. ‘You three are our ears, so if you come across any chatter going on out there, report it to me for evaluation. Brian, I guess you’ll be debriefing Watchman as soon as he’s out of there?’ At Callahan’s nod he looked round and stood up. ‘Thank you, folks.’

Callahan made his excuses and left the room as soon as he could. On the way back to his office, it occurred to him with a sense of uneasiness how events could come back to haunt you long after first occurring. In this case it was the photo of Marc Portman resurfacing.

The original person who’d instigated it was no longer alive to talk about the how, and the person who had retrieved it from the CIA system had vanished like mist. It was too late to do anything about it except to think of a way of finding out where it had come from on this occasion and who had punted it into circulation with an active kill team.

One thing his instincts told him was that it hadn’t been lying around in a foreign security service archive, waiting to be used again. Whoever had let it loose again had done so for a specific purpose.

And therein, he thought, lay an oddity. In such a prime nest of secrets and suspicions as Langley, where everything and anything was fair game to be tabled at moments of forensic foraging like the attempted assassination of an important asset, nobody around the table just now had raised the most unmentionable of all subjects.

Was there an active leak inside the CIA?

THIRTEEN

We were on a stretch of road with no side turnings and no way of avoiding the roadblock. Going back would look too suspicious and the soldiers would be on us within minutes. Half a dozen armed soldiers in military fatigues were standing around a couple of olive-coloured Humvees parked across the centre of the road in a vee-formation.

They’d chosen a good spot; the road here was bordered by a wall