No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(19)

“What about the vice president?”

“Surprisingly, I haven’t heard much from him. They’re really hoping to keep that under wraps. Can’t see how that’ll happen, though.”

“This meeting is Oversight Council only, right?”

“Yeah. Something’s broken free.”

As they pulled into the lane for White House security, George considered his words, then said, “I hate to be a CIA stickler about sources and methods, but we’re starting to blend Taskforce activities with the traditional intelligence architecture. The pressure to share is going to be enormous, and we’re going to be compromised.”

Kurt showed his identification to the uniformed Secret Service manning the gate at the West Wing, waited until he was checked off a list, then pulled through. He said, “Maybe. Maybe not. We can use the director of Central Intelligence. Thank God he’s a Council member. We can feed all of our intelligence into the CIA, and they can sanitize it for the FBI. Hopefully they’ll do the same in return.”

“That’s not going to be timely. And what happens if we find one of them? Are we going to conduct an assault? Or call for someone else?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“We need to start. If we conduct a rescue, successfully or not, we’re going to end up splashed on the world stage. We might be able to hide who did it from the public, but we won’t from all of the other elements involved. And some of those elements will forget the gratitude in one news cycle, especially if the press continues to push. After all of the other crap that’s happened in the intelligence world, they’ll throw us to the wolves to save their elective ass.”

Kurt parked and said, “Yeah, I know. I’m worried about having to make a call like that. As bad as it sounds, it might be better to let them go. I’m not sure their lives will be worth all the lives that will be lost if our counterterrorist capability is eviscerated.”

“Maybe you should bring this up to the president. He knows the stakes.”

“Maybe. But not just yet. We aren’t at that stage, and odds are we won’t be. Police work is what will solve this, and we can’t do direct interface. Waiting on the CIA to feed us what the FBI learns from a host-country liaison is way too slow. Someone will beat us to the punch. Or it’ll just all go bad without our ability to help.”

George climbed the cracked granite stairs in the Old Executive Office Building, replying, “I hate to say it, but we’d better hope so.”

Kurt rounded the corner, seeing the Secret Service flanking the conference room doors, knowing that meant President Peyton Warren was attending this meeting. Knowing that couldn’t be good news.

They showed their badges and passed into the room. Unlike the bedlam last time, there was stone quiet, all eyes on them as they entered. A discomfiting feeling, given that Kurt had no idea why he’d been summoned.

He looked at the president and said, “Sir, I . . . uh . . . is the Council expecting a briefing on something? Because I don’t think I got the memo.”

“No. We’re expecting some biometric results, then an update. You can give us yours while we wait.”

Kurt nodded at George to take his seat, then said, “Well, I don’t have a lot. I’ve got four teams in the air, each headed to a disappearance location. Honduras, England, Okinawa, and Belgium.”

“What’s taking so long? We gave the order to launch over two days ago.”

That came from Secretary of State Jonathan Billings, the same prick who had pulled Pike Logan from his operational capacity. Worried about Pike’s habit of pushing the envelope, he now wanted it both ways. Wanted the envelope pushed to the point of compromise. Or maybe he just didn’t get it.

Kurt said, “Sir, I don’t have a division of commandos sitting around waiting to launch. I had to redirect teams that were on operational missions. Two on Alpha, one on Omega, and one running Assessment and Selection.”

The Taskforce called every stage of an operation a different Greek letter, each representing an escalation of potential actions. Before a mission moved to a different stage, the Oversight Council had to sanction the elevation.

Alpha meant the introduction of forces to explore a potential target. Basically, poke around a little bit and develop whether he or she was actually out to harm the United States. Omega, the last letter in the alphabet, meant that the target was an imminent threat and the Oversight Council had granted permission for hostile action, either to capture or kill the target.

In this case, nobody seemed concerned about the potential threat or the Omega authority given. It didn’t matter that a team that had been granted permission to remove an impending danger to national security was now being redirected to hunt for hostages. Something that wasn’t even in their mission profile. Instead, Billings was pressing the time lag.

Kurt looked around the room for the secretary of defense, knowing he understood the intricacies involved with moving forces on the chessboard of global operations. For the first time, he noticed the man was absent.

Focusing back on Billings, Kurt said, “Sir, it takes time to get them redirected. It’s not like they can just jump on a plane. It takes time to close out cover contracts and get deployment assets on station. Time to assess whether the redirect will spike host-nation intelligence services. Time to establish a new cover mechanism in the redirect country. Time to ensure the new cover status they’ll be operating under will withstand scrutiny. It’s what I talked about before. This isn’t our forte. We’re not an alert force that can turn on a dime.”