Cold Shot: A Novel Read online

  Kyra felt her cheeks flush. She hadn’t expected the CIA director to be quite so honest or blunt. She exhaled, a long, slow breath. “I can speak freely, ma’am?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve been a case officer. In my first two field assignments, I got shot, assaulted, chased, and almost caught shrapnel from an antiship missile that would’ve hit the Abraham Lincoln very close to where I was standing if the CWIS gun hadn’t shot it down. I admit, I don’t want to spend my life behind a desk but every field op I’ve run came this close to getting me captured. That’s not really what I signed up for. I thought I’d be working a cover job at an embassy or as a NOC, attending conferences, meeting with assets. I didn’t expect people to try to kill me quite so often.”

  Cooke nodded. “I do understand that. I know those stars didn’t come easy.” The director stopped talking and Kyra waited for her to start again. The silence dragged out and became painful. Finally she spoke. “You know, when the World Trade Center came down, it became obvious that we couldn’t go after terrorists and tyrants the same way we did the Soviets, but we couldn’t change overnight and a fair number of people around here fought it when we started. For a long time we were too dependent on case officers who still wanted to work the cocktail circuits and meet with assets in hotel rooms over crab and caviar. Change isn’t just hard, it’s painful, and we’re still not there.” Cooke stopped for a moment, embarrassed just a little by the passion in her voice. Then she looked the younger woman square in her green eyes. “I don’t mean to preach to you but we don’t just need people who can work the streets, we need people who can work the street and the bush. Different worlds, different tradecraft. You proved in Caracas and Beijing that you can work the street. And your file says you can work the bush—your Farm instructors still can’t figure out how you got away from the dogs during Hell Week. And a case officer who can do analysis too? That’s just gold. You’ve shown everyone that you’re up to it. We need people like you out there.”

  Kyra fumbled for a response and no good one came. “Have you had this conversation with Jon, ma’am?” she finally asked, deflecting.

  That stopped Cooke in her tracks. “Why do you ask?”

  “First, because he won’t like it, you approving me for a field assignment, even if it’s temporary,” Kyra said. “‘This is not a good idea,’ and all that.”

  Oh, Cooke realized. Have I had this conversation about you with him. “That sounds like him,” she agreed. “I can handle Jon. I presume there’s a ‘second’ to come after that ‘first’?”

  “Ma’am, I know you two are friends.” Kyra actually knew better than that but didn’t want to be too bold. “I’ve shared an office with him for over a year and sometimes I feel like I barely know him. I know he’s spent time in the field. He knew his way around the Lincoln like he’s spent serious time at sea. But he gave up the field for a desk and never talks about why. He’s an amazing analyst. He has a Galileo and a Langer Award . . . I’ve seem them. But he’s one of the most disliked people in the building and he could be doing a lot more than he is. You said you don’t want me working a job where I’m performing below my talents. What happened to him?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know. He was forward deployed to Iraq during the war, but he never talks about that with me. He came back, joined the Red Cell and never left, even when everyone else did,” Cooke offered.

  “He could do more,” Kyra said.

  “Yes, he could,” Cooke agreed. “But right now we’re talking about you, not him. Do you want to go? Do you want to be an operator or an analyst?”

  “Honestly, I’m not sure anymore, ma’am. And I’m not sure how to find out.”

  “You know how,” Cooke told her. “Your suggestion that we put someone on the ground is accepted. You’ve worked in Caracas so I’m sure the new station chief will be happy to see you come even if it’s only for a few weeks. She’s shorthanded right now anyway. Take the initiative. Get to Puerto Cabello, find some safe spot to hole up with line of sight on the dock, and report back what you see. I think the mission will be fairly low risk.”

  “‘Low risk’ is a relative term.”

  “True. But risk is the business, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Kyra stood to leave.

  “When you get back, you tell me what you want. If you want to be a case officer or an operator, I’ll make it happen for you. If not, I’m sure Jon would be happy to keep you . . . as happy as he ever gets about anything. You remember the first three rules from case-officer school?” Cooke asked.

  “‘Don’t get killed. Don’t get caught. Bring home the intel.’”

  Cooke raised her coffee mug. “Go thou and do likewise.” Kyra nodded and left the room. Cooke took a sip from her coffee mug and realized that it had gone cold.

  • • •

  Despite standing orders to the contrary, Cooke’s secretary almost stopped Jon dead at the door. Cooke had told her executive assistant that she’d summoned the Red Cell chief but agitated men didn’t get past the front desk as a general rule and the secretary had a button on her desk connected to the security station around the corner to enforce that policy. She let him in but not without a warning stare.

  Cooke was sitting on her couch when Jon stomped into the office. He didn’t bother to look at her or to close the door behind himself. The secretary, a woman of good sense, reached in and did it for him.

  “What do you think—?” he started.

  Cooke cut him off. “Whatever you’re about to say, you’re out of line.” It came out a bit quieter than she had intended but had the desired effect, mostly. Jon stopped short, saying nothing. He turned away from her and stared out the windows. Already, this meeting felt different and Cooke didn’t like it.

  “I’m so glad to see my opinion matters to you,” he said.

  “This isn’t about your opinion,” she corrected him. “You’re mad that I approved Kyra going to Venezuela.”

  • • •

  “The Venezuelans almost killed her the first time she was there so you’ll forgive me if that doesn’t seem like a bright idea. We don’t usually send people back into countries where they ran into that kind of trouble.”

  “Whether it seems smart to you or not is irrelevant, Jon. I’m the one whose opinion matters here. I’m the CIA director, in case you’d forgotten,” she reminded him. “I don’t have to discuss my ideas with you before I present them to anyone. But she volunteered, in case she didn’t mention it—”

  “She did.”

  Good for her, Cooke thought. Cooke had never thought Kyra was a coward. “A successful field op could get her career back on track.”

  “And why would choosing to be analyst be considered ‘off track’?” He was angrier than she’d ever seen him. This was not going like she’d expected . . . too much on the defensive. Jon had never been this aggressive with her.

  A soft answer turneth away wrath . . . where had she heard that? “She could be the best case officer of her generation. She could be running the Clandestine Service by middle age but not if she stays down in the Red Cell,” Cooke said. “And that wasn’t fair. I’ve never pushed you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  “And I’m doing fine.”

  “By your standards, Jon, not by mine,” she said. “And not by a lot of other people’s here on the seventh floor.”

  “I’m the one whose opinion matters there.”

  Cooke winced, hearing her own words turned on her. That was a first between them. “You don’t think she can handle it?”

  “I think this is a terrible way to find out. The failure mode on this could get real ugly, real fast—”

  “It’s a straightforward surveillance op,” she protested. “Minimal risk—”

  “There’s no such thing as ‘minimal risk’ in field ops. We’re kidding ourselves to think we can
even quantify risk,” he retorted, cutting her off. “But I thought you respected me more than this,” he said. His voice had an edge that was both sad and sharp.

  “My respect for you has nothing to do with this. It’s not personal,” Cooke assured him. She stood and walked over to him, closer than was professional, but the door was closed. She stared straight into his eyes to make the point.

  “If you’re determined to send her, she shouldn’t go alone.”

  Cooke pulled back, surprised. Are you asking to go? Suddenly the operation seemed more dangerous than before. “You don’t do field work anymore.”

  He answered nothing. Cooke tried to read him but he’d retreated into himself, which usually meant he wanted something he wasn’t willing to ask for. She held her silence, giving him the chance to finally open himself to her, but she’d seen this play before. As always, she was the one to finally break the silence. Another missed chance, she thought. “Jon, the Markarid was your theory. I was hoping you’d come with me to the White House—”

  “I don’t care about the White House,” he said, ignoring the professional temptation. “I’ve been there, I’ve briefed presidents and I don’t care if I ever do it again, much less with this one,” he replied, his voice heavy with contempt.

  Cooke nodded slowly. “Caracas station is gutted right now. The SEBIN tore the entire operation open last year and we had to pull almost everyone out. We’ve been sending people in slowly but it’s not even a skeleton crew. I’ll call the chief of station down there. She’s new to the place, but I can set things up,” she said in surrender.

  “It’s still not a good idea.” He started for the door.

  “Jon,” she called after him. He stopped and looked back at her over his shoulder. Cooke stood and walked over to him, put her hand on his arm to pull it away from the door. It took her another minute to figure out what to say, but he waited for her. “This is my decision,” she said finally.

  “I’ll call you from Caracas.” Jon pulled away, opened the door, and walked out, closing the door behind him. It saved Cooke from having her secretary see her exhale a long, sad breath.

  The Oval Office

  The White House

  Washington, D.C.

  The president of the United States was far younger than his predecessor and not much older than Kathy Cooke herself. Rostow was just out of his forties, one of the boy presidents that the country liked to elect when it decided that vigor was a suitable substitute for experience. Cooke had known Harrison Stuart, been nominated to her current job by the older gentleman, and had come to like him during their infrequent meetings. He’d been a septuagenarian who exuded the calm of a man whose ambitions had all been realized. She had been as sorry as he was happy to see his term in office end. For once, she believed, one of the honest and wise men John Adams had prayed for had actually ruled under the White House roof.

  Daniel Rostow felt like another animal entirely. He seemed to her like a man whose ambition could never be satisfied. The former governor of Oregon had been in the White House barely a year and his hunger for a legacy already was no secret at all. She’d watched him devour his intelligence briefings and she worried that he did so only because he was hoping each morning that the President’s Daily Brief would bring him the tidbit that would finally give him the opening to write his name into history.

  Cooke opened the lock bag while Rostow watched. “I apologize for the sudden request for a meeting, Mr. President. I appreciate your willingness to carve out a few minutes.”

  “Happy to do it,” Rostow said. Cooke didn’t believe it. The president’s daily schedule was carved out in five-minute increments so agreeing to this meeting meant three others with donors and political allies had been canceled.

  “Just don’t let it become a habit.” Gerald Feldman sat in a chair next to the president. Feldman had run Rostow’s campaign two years before and then surprised the pundits by taking the national-security-adviser job instead of the chief-of-staff position everyone had predicted. The Post had openly questioned whether he wanted to be the next Kissinger.

  “That depends on the world, sir, not on us.” Director of National Intelligence Cyrus Marshall sat to Kathy’s immediate right. The retired Navy admiral uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, anticipating the paperwork that his subordinate was about to dole out.

  “Calm down, Gerry. This is the first time she’s done this since we got here,” Rostow said. “The world’s been quiet.” Cooke thought she heard a strain of disappointment in the man’s voice.

  “I appreciate your patience, Mr. President,” Cooke said. “I promise, I don’t do this lightly.”

  Rostow took the file that Cooke offered with duplicates going to the other men and he opened the folder. The picture of the Somali pirate sat on top. The briefing took five minutes and the president never looked up from the photograph, no emotion playing across his face.

  “What’s your confidence that the Markarid is the right ship?” Feldman asked.

  “Our confidence is high,” Cooke admitted. “The damage to the superstructure and the missing lifeboat are compelling.”

  “What are you asking for?” Rostow asked.

  “A presidential finding authorizing a covert action. I want to send an officer to Puerto Cabello to put eyes on the ship and determine the nature of her cargo, if possible.”

  “Why not just use the satellites or a drone?”

  “Can’t read a ship’s name on the hull from straight up,” Marshall told him.

  Rostow let out an exasperated laugh. “Billions of dollars per satellite and they can’t read a vertical sign.”

  “The laws of physics are a cruel mistress,” Feldman quipped.

  “And the Venezuelans have a half-decent air-defense system, courtesy of the Russians and the Cubans, so sending out a surveillance flight would be problematic,” Marshall added. “There is a carrier battle group in the Caribbean at the moment and the Navy could detach a sub to ID the vessel, but she’d have to hustle and she’d be running in close proximity to all of the cargo ships running around Puerto Cabello. That would raise the chance of an accidental collision. Getting someone on site to give us a ground-level perspective would be cheaper and easier.”

  “Cheap as long as they don’t get caught. You had some trouble with that in Caracas last year as I recall. What’s the risk?” Feldman asked.

  “Low, we think. All of the dockyards in Venezuela are under government control, but Puerto Cabello is one of their largest so foreigners are a constant presence,” Cooke said. “We expect no contact with the target.”

  “When will the Markarid dock?” Feldman asked.

  “Imagery confirms that she’s on course to arrive tomorrow, late morning. She’ll enter the docks just before noon local time.”

  “Then you’re wasting time, aren’t you?” Rostow chided her. “Gerry, draw up the paperwork. Have it on my desk by lunch. Kathy, when can your team be on the ground?”

  “They’re ready to fly out today. I don’t think we can get a team on site before she docks, but we hope they can get there in time to observe the unloading.”

  Rostow smiled, and Cooke wasn’t sure she liked it. “Good,” he said. “Give me daily updates after they arrive. Thanks for coming.”

  • • •

  Marshall led Cooke out to the secretary’s office and closed the door to the Oval Office behind him. “Well done.”

  “Thank you,” Cooke replied. It was sincere. This director of national intelligence she liked. There were any number of people in this town for whom she could not say the same, including the two men in the office she’d just left. “I appreciate you supporting my request.”

  “Unlike my predecessor, I think it’s important for CIA and the DNI to cooperate. From time to time, anyway.” The gentle joke made Cooke smile for the first time in hours.

  Cooke nod
ded. “I guess you’ve heard the stories by now.”

  “I got an earful from the Senate chairman when I was nominated,” Marshall admitted. “They’re afraid of you, you know.” He nodded toward the Oval Office door.

  “Afraid of me?” She hadn’t heard that.

  “Rostow’s not a fool, Feldman even less, even if he does tend to politicize intelligence. The Hill likes you and that’s never to be underestimated. But the truth is you took down the last director of national intelligence in a straight-up political knife fight . . . got Harry Stuart to fire his own appointee. That’s not to be underestimated either. So, yeah, they’re giving you some latitude.”

  Cooke repressed a rueful smile. “Your predecessor was appointing political donors as CIA station chiefs. The one he installed in Caracas was talking too much to an asset who turned out to be working for the SEBIN. And then he sent a talented young lady on a mission that got her shot when she’d only been in the field for five months. That man was a fool that cost us our infrastructure down there and almost cost us a very good officer. Harry Stuart was just honest enough to call it for what it was.”

  “And you risked your job to snuff him. Bold.”

  “It helps to have a righteous cause.”

  “So it does,” Marshall agreed. “That young lady . . . she’s still with us?”

  “I’ve assigned her to this op,” Cooke said.

  “Wanting to put her back on the horse?”

  “She’s been back on the horse, sir,” Cooke replied. “She was the one who went into China last year and exfiltrated our prime asset after he was burned.”

  “I remember that report . . . that was a good read,” Marshall said, honest respect in his voice. “Let me know when your team’s in place.”

  “Yes, sir,” Cooke said.

  Leesburg, Virginia

  Kyra set her bag by the front door and checked the wall clock above the entry table. Less than two hours until the flight. Dulles Airport was twenty minutes away and the Greenway certainly wouldn’t be jammed at this hour unless someone was lying dead in the road. So long as the security lines weren’t backed up, she would make the plane without having to rush if she left now.