No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(105)

There was quiet for a brief moment, then shouted questions. Kurt let them fly about the room like a presidential press conference, saying nothing, eyes on President Warren.

The room stilled, realizing he wasn’t playing their game. Warren, holding Kurt’s eyes, said, “Why don’t you include us in your recent endeavors. Give us a little perspective.”

Kurt smiled and said, “Here’s where we stand . . .”

He gave them everything he knew about the operation in Ireland, and the subsequent extrapolation of data, which was a dead end. He then told them about a new lead, a Croatian arms dealer in Dubrovnik, and the fact that Kurt had already redirected a team to his location. He asked again for blanket authority.

“I’m going to hit that guy in Dubrovnik, and then I’m going to turn that hit into another one in England or Ireland. I can’t come back here and sit, waiting on an answer. We need to be quicker than them. Quicker than their ability to react.”

Jonathan Billings said, “Where is this new information coming from? The thing about this guy you call ‘the Frog’?”

“Where is irrelevant at this point. I’m not going to spend the next hour talking about it. Trust me, it’s true. And every minute we sit here is another minute we lose the ability to succeed. I’ll give you a complete briefing afterward if you’d like, but right now, I need Omega to hit this guy. And Omega to hit everything associated with him. I can’t keep asking for permission. We’re too damn slow doing that.”

Billings said, “No way. You want too much. You want us to let you off the chain because you’ve never liked the oversight. I get the risk, but this is just you trying to get around us.”

Kurt caught the president’s eye and waited.

Warren nodded and spoke. “Jonathan, you came here after the Oversight Council was created. Do you know who did that?”

Billings, looking confused at the change of direction, glanced left and right, then shook his head no.

“I gave authority for the building of the Taskforce, and one man said it was a risk. Said that fighting our terrorist threat was good, but not at the expense of creating something that could get out of control. He demanded the creation of the Oversight Council. Demanded accountability. That man is now briefing you, so I’d hold my tongue before impugning his motives.”

Billings said nothing, staring at his hands. Then Alexander Palmer said, “There’s a reason for no blanket authority, and that’s because we need to evaluate each operation. Determine the pros and cons. We can’t do that here.”

Kurt said, “That’s based on disparate hits against different targets. I’m asking for the authority for a single target set: our hostages. I’m not asking to go hit a bunch of terrorists just because I can.”

Bostwick spoke up. “Wait a minute. Part of that is because you don’t have the ability to leverage the entire intelligence community. You don’t see what we do. You can’t conduct global operations because you don’t have global reach with your intel. You need to come back to us to see what else we’ve got. That’s the very reason we exist.”

Kurt said, “Ordinarily, I’d say you’re right, but not in this case. Your entire global architecture has gleaned absolutely nothing. I have the key, and I want to leverage it. I’m not coming back to you for shit, because that’s exactly what you have. I’ll do this myself. Without any help. And I promise you I can.”

“How are you going to conduct operations on separate continents, then tie them together?”

“It’s no different from what I did in Iraq, before the creation of the Taskforce. Get the intel, create a target package, hit the target knowing what we’re looking for, then turn to another target. I’ve done this before. Speed is the essence. Work faster than they can react.”

Bostwick said, “This isn’t Iraq. We don’t own the battle space. How can you coordinate that quickly over continents?”

“Seriously? It’s a damn radio call. Do you think I was more effective because I was in the same country? I was still talking on a radio. I have the best men in the world. They’ll do it.” He turned to President Warren. “Sir, you said it yourself when you ordered me on the mission—I can operate more efficiently across boundaries. Across our artificial stovepipes. It’s the reason you set me in motion.”

Billings said, “Before, when I asked you about this, you said you didn’t have the capability because of the cover concerns and how long it took to rectify them. What are you saying now? You can do this clean? Without the preparation?”

Kurt drew back, knowing this was the cut line. “No. I’m not. I’m saying I can recover the vice president of the United States’ son. The fallout is something else.”

Billings said, “Turn in your intelligence to others. We’ll get the HRT to execute the targets. Get the host nation to intervene. I see no reason to let you do this unilaterally.”

“We do that, we’ll fail. I’ve already seen what happens when we try to coordinate across agencies and other governments. You get dead men and missed opportunities. The reason we were successful in Iraq was that we owned the entire cycle, from capture to exploitation to follow-on target. No blinks. We held it all, and we crushed them. Because we didn’t need to turn to someone else for help.”