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“High confidence, considering the source.”
“Who is your—”
Hanley interrupted him. “Also, you need to be looking at a German national named Martina Sommer. Commo specialist. She’s in Singapore, working at the tactical operations center of the enemy, whoever they are.”
Pace blinked hard now, gobsmacked at the volume and specificity of this information. “Wait…what?”
“I ran the name myself. There’s a Martina Sommer who was shit-canned last year from the Bundespolizei in Berlin. Communications specialist. If I were you, I’d try to figure out where in Singapore she is.”
“Okay, Matt. Let’s slow way the hell down here. Where on earth did you get—”
Hanley held up a finger to silence Pace again, then reached inside his desk and pulled a plastic baggie out. From the bag he retrieved a small broken circuit board and handed it over. Travers stepped forward, collected it, and handed it off to Pace, who immediately looked it over.
Jim Pace looked back up. “The fuck is this?”
“My asset pulled it out of an armed unmanned ground vehicle that tried to kill him.”
“An armed…unmanned ground…vehicle? Like…a robot?”
“Exactly like a robot. In Mexico.”
Pace nodded slowly as it all came together. “Tulum. The ex-MI5 guy who got iced. They said it was a fucking bloodbath.”
“That’s right.”
“And your man…he was there?”
“Smack-dab in the middle.”
“Jesus, Matt. Local cops said nothing recovered at the scene but bodies and shell casings. They’re calling it cartel violence.”
“If they’re saying that, then somebody got to the local cops. My asset says there were two unmanned ground vehicles, each armed with a high-powered rifle, and maybe four or five drones, some of which carried warheads, and they were all destroyed at the scene. Presumably the Mexicans hauled all that equipment off somewhere.”
Pace looked back down at the broken piece of tech. “Holy hell,” he whispered. Looking back to Hanley, he said, “You know I have to ask you, right?”
Hanley nodded. “I always liked you, Jim.”
Pace ignored the comment. “Who’s the asset?”
Hanley leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “Any chance we can just gloss over that part?”
This was not a particularly unusual request; often case officers and senior station execs tried to hold their agents’ identities close, so Pace was neither surprised nor offended. He said, “I don’t have to reveal it wide around the Agency, of course. But Deputy Director Watkins is going to want a little more context, if you don’t mind, as to how it came to pass that the brand-spanking-new number two man at Bogotá station suddenly whips out intel that every law enforcement and intelligence agency on planet Earth has been moving mountains to hunt down for the past week.”
Hanley glanced to the two Ground Branch men behind the seated case officer, then just shrugged as he returned his attention to Pace. “The asset is an American. An old colleague of yours, as a matter of fact.”
“Agency?”
“Used to be. He went private years back.”
“Private? Private what?”
“This and that.” When Pace said nothing more, Hanley said, “Assassinations, for one thing.”
Pace’s face darkened. His eyebrows furrowed as he began to understand. “You have got to be kidding me.”
Hanley released his hands from behind his head and leaned forward on his desk.
When he did not speak, Pace said, “You’re talking about Sierra Six?”
