Patriot by M.A. Rothman (summer reading list TXT) 📗

Christina handed the paper back. “Hakimi … yeah, I remember there was some buzz a couple months back about this guy. Kind of the usual stuff, really. Anti-American, wanting to rally followers into war against the Great Satan.” She made air quotes for the last part, rolling her eyes. “Same old same old. I had him on a watch and was keeping tabs on him a while back. I want to say that he started off in Hezbollah but branched off into his own thing. I’ll have to look up my files to be sure. Won’t take me that long. Who was he calling?”

“Just have the first name. Abdullah. Since the number’s in NYC, going to have to run a FISA request to follow up on that. Is CTTF Operations running anything around the East China Sea?”

The Counter-Terrorism Task Force maintained several operational teams made up of CIA and Homeland Security operators. They worked alongside military assets on the ground to facilitate extended operations overseas. Most of the time, the regional mission centers were aware of their operations, but occasionally someone forgot to call someone, and the operation ran dark.

“Not that I know of,” Christina said. “We’ve got a team in Taiwan and one in Japan, but they’re on separate ops, running in conjunction with the Navy on some anti-piracy missions.”

“We have anything in the area we can re-task to check it out?”

Christina shook her head, the side of her mouth turning up in a half-grin. “You’re serious? Connor, you know Pennington has been on a killing spree, right? I know you heard about Jackson’s team. Completely decommissioned them to ride office chairs.”

“Yeah, I heard,” Connor said, crossing his arms. “But I also read the mission brief, and there were plenty of holes.”

“Oh come on, you’re not seriously siding with Pennington, are you?”

“I’m not siding with anybody, but there were holes in Jackson’s intel. I mean, that stuff’s kind of hard to argue.”

Christina frowned. “Maybe. You want me to run that through Utah for you?”

“Nah, I can take care of it, just figured if there was anything obvious about this, you’d be all over it.”

“You’re damn straight I would. Speaking of Pennington, did you get his memo this morning?”

Connor shrugged. “I checked this morning, didn’t see anything from Pennington.”

“Just came over, division-wide. He has everyone looking into silver purchases over the last six months. The price of silver bullion has doubled in the past week, and there are several firms buying large quantities like it’s going out of style.”

“Why the hell would he care about the price of silver?”

Christina raised her hands, palms up. “Hey man, I just work here. Boss Man sends out a memo, I go forth and fight the good fight. Anyway, it’s Pennington, what are you going to do? The guy’s wired all kinds of screwy.”

“That’s the understatement of the year. Have you started looking into it yet?”

“Ya, and there’s some obvious stuff. Some firms out of Istanbul picked up a couple hundred million in bullion last Thursday, right before the markets closed. Same thing happened on Friday, different firm though. Then a company out of Austria bought more Tuesday afternoon. Hundred and fifty million worth.”

“They know something we don’t?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. This is the kind of crap the SEC is supposed to be watching, isn’t it? Anyway, there’s a running pool on whether or not Pennington’s got investments tanking or not.”

“I wouldn’t doubt that,” Connor said.

Chad Pennington, the Deputy Director in Charge of Operations of the CIA, was a throwback to an era just after the Cold War when the agency had a drawdown of sorts and operations were cut back. In other words, he was an operations hatchet man. He’d risen through the ranks, but not as quickly as he’d wanted, even though the truth, as far as Connor was concerned, was it was a miracle he’d made it to his lofty position at all. He wasn’t the most intelligent operator, he’d never even been in the field, and his people skills were subpar to say the least. But he had drive and tenacity, and that had propelled him into his current office. Much to the disappointment of his subordinates.

Christina stood. “So,” she said. “You in for wings later?”

Connor laughed. “Evans already reminded me. Yeah, I’m in.”

Chapter Four

Two hours later, a knock sounded on Connor’s door and Christina entered with a large manila envelope. “I noticed you cc’d me on that Utah query,” she said, “so I picked it up for you.” She dropped the envelope on his desk.

“Thanks.” Connor picked up the envelope. The sealed flap had already been opened and the red string untied. He gave her a sideways glance. “You couldn’t help but open it, could you?”

Christina shrugged. “I was curious. And besides, I figured since you put me on the query, you wanted my view on things.”

Shaking his head, Connor pulled out the envelope’s contents and started leafing through them. “Anything interesting?”

“Some location data, that’s about it. No record of operations in the area, and I confirmed that the counter-terrorism guys have nothing going on there as well. Just a whole bunch of empty water. Maybe Hakimi’s out for a nice, relaxing cruise before he goes on his jihad.”

Connor laughed. “I highly doubt that. You were right, by the way—this guy Hakimi is kind of a mess. He was born in Beirut, but his father and mother were killed in a bombing at the American University Hospital just about a year later. Bounced around orphanages until he was fourteen, then he fell off everyone’s radar for five years before reappearing as a freedom fighter with Hamas.”

Connor pointed to one of the black-and-white eight-by-twelves pinned to the wall beside his desk. The grainy image was from a security camera positioned high above the ground. The poor quality of the camera and the distance made it almost impossible to make out much, but Langley’s photographic forensic team had told Connor, with a