True Fiction (Ian Ludlow Thrillers #1)(5)
“For thirty years, I managed the CIA’s covert operations on a day-to-day basis,” Cross said. “In other words, I oversaw all of our surveillance, theft, sabotage, blackmail, smuggling, abduction, and killing.”
The committee chairman—the corpulent, onetime-failed presidential nominee, Senator Ramsey Holbrook—harrumphed with disapproval. “I wouldn’t characterize our intelligence efforts that way.”
“That’s one reason why the government shouldn’t be doing this kind of work, Mr. Chairman,” Cross said. “You can’t do something well if you’re in denial about what you’re doing. Add to that the bureaucracy, the limited budgets, the dated technology, and the fear of prosecution and what do you get? Fifty years of catastrophic intelligence failures. Meanwhile, the private sector, freed of those constraints, excels at the same work.”
“Theft. Extortion. Kidnapping. Murder,” said Senator Sam Tolan, a colorful Texas lawyer who enjoyed Stetson hats, Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, and fat cigars, preferably all at once.
“That’s right,” Cross said.
Holbrook harrumphed again and browsed through the thick binder of material from Cross that each senator had in front of him.
“What you’re proposing, Mr. Cross, is that we outsource our covert operations to you, Blackthorn Global Security. That’s an audacious proposal, to say the least.”
“But not unprecedented or unproven,” Cross said. “We’ve had a long and successful outsourcing relationship with the Pentagon, fighting in places the military isn’t authorized to be or engaging in activities they are prohibited from doing.”
Senator Bradley Hazeltine, a fifth-generation politician from North Carolina, nodded. He’d emerged unscathed from three separate Justice Department corruption probes during his three terms in office, despite his guilt. “I must admit that those of us in intelligence oversight have been envious of the ‘flexibility’ enjoyed by our colleagues on the Armed Services Committee.”
Envy was good. Cross could work with that. He continued his presentation, shifting his gaze from one senator to another as he spoke.
“Over the last decade, the nature of the threat to America has radically changed. It’s about terrorism now. Terrorists are swifter, more agile, and deadlier than armies. Borders are meaningless. Laws, ethics, morality, and accountability don’t exist. We aren’t on the same battlefield. We need to be or we’re finished. Blackthorn will bring the war to them—only with greater technology and precision than our enemies.”
“But with the same total disregard for legality, morality, and responsibility.” That remark came from Kelly Stowe, the California senator with the perfect tan and capped teeth who’d turned to politics after his acting career fizzled out. Stowe took a lot of flak for frequently saying dude in his speeches from the Senate floor.
“Of course not, Senator,” Cross said. “We’ll go much further than that.”
Stowe stared at him. “You can’t be serious.”
“Blackthorn will do whatever is necessary to protect our democracy.”
“What you’re describing is the antithesis of democracy,” Stowe said.
“Not if you want it to survive,” Cross said.
The room filled with a loud buzzing, as if a swarm of killer bees had suddenly invaded the chamber. It was the sound of every senator’s smartphone vibrating at once. A mass alert couldn’t be good news. The senators all reached for their devices and looked apprehensively at their screens.
The color couldn’t have drained faster from Senator Holbrook’s face if his throat had been slit. That was a fact, by the way, that Wilton Cross knew from personal experience.
“Oh my God,” Holbrook said, rising with difficulty from his seat due to the emotional strain and his enormous weight. “We have an emergency. We need to adjourn and reconvene at another time.”
“Of course,” Cross said.
The senators quickly filed out through the door behind the rostrum without bothering to give Cross any details about the emergency. He didn’t mind the slight. Cross was a spymaster. It was his job to already know what others knew. And he did this time, too.
He knew before it even happened.
CHAPTER FOUR
Blackthorn Global Security Headquarters, Bethesda, Maryland. July 17. 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
A floor-to-ceiling screen dominated the two-story, curved front wall in Blackthorn’s situation room. The media wall showed a collage of feeds from all of the US television news broadcasts and video, both live and recorded, collected from a multitude of surveillance cameras in Waikiki as well as photos and videos of the plane crash and its catastrophic aftermath captured from social media sites. The screen depicted so much activity, drama, and emotion that it radiated a frenetic, psychic energy that was contagious, jacking up the anxiety level of every Blackthorn operative in the room.
There were two dozen workstations angled toward the media wall. The workstations were dominated by large ultrathin touch screens where the Blackthorn operatives manipulated data and video windows like mah-jongg tiles that could be sent to a colleague’s screen or thrown up onto the media wall with a finger swipe.
Wilton Cross stood at the command console in the back of the room and watched the data gathering that his people were doing. He hit a button on his touch screen and Fox News anchor Shepard Smith took the center position on the media wall.