Page 51 of Denied Access
Her question was an honest one and not driven by any inflated sense of her own importance. Stansfield had been in the CIA since the organization’s inception. He was well-respected among the rank-and-file officers and had spent the majority of his time as an agent runner in the field. He knew where the bodies were buried both figuratively and literally, but to paraphrase the old Chinese proverb, they were living in interesting times. The CIA was beset with scandals both abroad and at home, and Stansfield was only the acting director.
In times of crisis, this distinction mattered.
Stansfield’sactingtitle gave him less weight when testifying before an adversarial Congress and a diminished standing within the organization he was charged with leading. A director’s word was law on Langley’sseventh floor, but an acting director was more curiosity than dictator. The career executive bureaucrats who led the CIA were not immune to the political contagion infecting Congress, as Paul Cooke had so aptly demonstrated. Until Stansfield was properly coronated as DCI vis-à-vis a formal Senate confirmation, he was at best an interloper and at worst a rival to others seeking the agency’s top job.
If leadership was a lonely enterprise, helming the nation’s premier intelligence organization was doubly so. Irene’s charter now focused almost exclusively on the Orion project, but more and more, her additional duties consisted of acting as an aide-de-camp and confidante to Stansfield. Hurley certainly had a longer history with Stansfield, but he had proven unsuited to office politics so Stansfield had removed Stan from the agency’s active rolls in favor of transforming the contrarian operative into a contractor. While this was undoubtedly good for both the CIA and Hurley, it limited his ability to play the role of organizational insider. In a moment when Stansfield was under attack on all sides, it made sense that he would want the confidants he could trust implicitly close by. As far as Irene could tell, that category currently held a singular person.
Her.
“I appreciate the offer, but no. I need you in Russia, now more than ever. The situation in Latvia is getting worse. The ethnic Russians in Daugavpils are demonstrating in the streets against the Latvian government and the Russian president is making noise about sending in peacekeepers. We need to get to the bottom of this and my confidence in Moscow Station is at an all-time low. Max Powers has been an adequate Near East Division chief, but the chief of station in Moscow is his Farm classmate. They’re old friends.”
“You think Max has a blind spot to Moscow Station’s failings?”
“I’m not sure. What I do know is that a potential conflict is brewing between Latvia and Russia. A conflict that could easily spill over to the other former Soviet republics and potentially NATO. It doesn’t strike me as a coincidence that the agency station most suited to provide insightinto what the Russians are actually thinking has been completely sidelined.”
Irene turned Stansfield’s words over in her mind. “The false-flag operation in Latvia and the burned operation in Moscow are related?”
“The Russians play the intelligence game better than anyone else, Irene. At the moment, I’m flying blind. I need you to be my eyes.”
“I’m on it, sir,” Irene said.
“I know you are. My intuition says that we are perilously close to an armed conflict in Europe. We just won a cold war. I’d rather not start a hot one. Good luck.”
Stansfield ended the connection.
Irene considered her mentor’s words as she placed the red secure phone back into its bulky cradle. She was not a military historian, but she did know one thing about her nation’s martial history: When it came to wars, the United States did not often get to choose when to fight them.
CHAPTER 26
PALMA, MALLORCA
RAPPhad never been so happy to see Stan Hurley’s craggy mug.
Okay, that wasn’t exactly true. While it was good to see Hurley standing on the pier’s edge with his hands on his hips like Patton surveying the battlefield, it was the sight of dry land rather than his mentor that flooded Rapp with a sense of relief. If Rapp never boarded a boat for the rest of his life it would be too soon.
“Hey, kid,” Hurley said. “You don’t look so good.”
“Rough crossing.” Rapp leaped from the fishing trawler’s deck to the pier before the boat had finished docking. His stunt elicited chuckles from the crew, but he didn’t care. Had he thought it would have gotten him to dry land faster, he would have swum ashore.
“I always thought the turning-green thing was a figure of speech, but damned if you don’t look like a celery stick.”
To Rapp’s dismay, putting his feet on the pier’s weathered wood planking had not done much to steady the swaying. Though he knew the island wasn’t experiencing an earthquake, his inner ear wasn’t so sure. Perhaps that had something to do with the twelve hours he’d spent transiting the Iberian Sea as the remnants of a rare Mediterraneanhurricane, ormedicane, battered the fishing trawler. The fishermen crewing the vessel hadn’t seemed overly bothered by the rough seas, but Rapp had spent a good part of the trip retching over the side rails and questioning his life choices.
“I need something to settle my stomach,” Rapp said.
“I know just the thing. Follow me.”
“Beer? Really?” Rapp didn’t bother to hide his skepticism as he eyed the refreshments the dirndl-clad waitress had just deposited on their table. The sizzling links of white sausage, Brotchen rolls, eggs, and cheese all looked reasonable enough, but the stein seemed a bit out of place.
“I made my bones running agents in Germany and Austria,” Hurley said. “The Bavarians have a thing calledBrotzeit, which is kind of like a second breakfast. You can’t haveBrotzeitwithout ahefeweizen. It’s the law. Now drink up.”
Rapp was willing to concede that he was no old German hand. Even so, he remained suspicious. With an eye toward his still-rumbling gut, he took a cautious sip. And then another. Whether the wheat beer was some sort of magical stomach elixir, or the anxiety of the last twenty-four hours was finally beginning to fade, he didn’t care. Almost as soon as the alcohol swirled down his throat, the world stopped listing, and his appetite returned.
With a vengeance.
“See?” Hurley said with a smile. “Sometimes we old spies actually know a thing or two. Now, fill me in.”
Rapp tore open one of the crusty rolls and loaded it with sliced meat and cheese as he thought. Stranger even than the idea of pairing eggs with beer was the notion that he and Hurley were sitting in a German-themed cantina overlooking the Playa de Palma discussing espionage. Judging by the plethora ofBundesflaggedraped across buildings and flying from flagpoles, this section of the Spanish island catered to German tourists and Hurley looked to be in his element. It didn’ttake much for Rapp to imagine his mentor skulking from shadow to shadow, one step ahead of the Stasi as he emptied a dead drop or completed a brush pass with a jumpy East German asset. He and Hurley were seated on an otherwise empty patio situated on a small rise with a breathtaking view of the crashing surf. The beach and a floating dock were just steps away, and the morning sun shone from a cloudless blue sky. But despite the day’s warmth, Rapp could still feel the Cold War’s chill overshadowing their conversation.
