Matthew Hanley stepped out of Reagan National Airport into an overcast dawn, his coat already on and zipped. He’d not bothered with a tie; he didn’t feel the need to offer that respect to the man he’d come to talk to today.
He only carried a shoulder bag; he had a feeling that, like the last time he’d come for a meeting with the deputy director for operations, this would be a quick affair.
He’d be picked up in a government vehicle, driven around Arlington for a few minutes, then deposited back at the airport.
He’d rehearsed his words on the flight up, and for the few days since he’d first heard the CIA was stopping its investigations into the leaks, into the murders.
A text came as he stood there in the frigid air; Watkins said he was two minutes out, and Hanley should be ready to shuffle into the vehicle.
Hanley sighed. His fingers were cold, but he checked the news on his phone. There’d been no more targeted killings in the past four days, and this was good news. A cell of Russian spies in Brooklyn, some of them known GRU assassins, had been eliminated in a shoot-out, and although the news was saying the FBI and Homeland Security had conducted the raid, Hanley had learned from others that it had been a team of twelve Gauntlet security operators who were contracting with Homeland. Men just working in the area who came upon the Russians coincidentally.
Hanley didn’t believe this story for an instant, which meant he didn’t believe the subsequent story, which was that these Russians had been responsible for all the killings.
He wondered if the killing of the Russian fall guys meant the immediate crisis was over, but it bothered him greatly that Lewis Shaw had been assassinated, and his concern was that the conventional wisdom in the government was going to be that Lewis Shaw of the Office of the Directorof National Intelligence had been feeding the intel to the Russians, and everyone involved was conveniently dead.
Gauntlet Group, of course, had been lauded as American heroes by much of the press.
Scrolling the news for more information, he almost passed the breaking story on theWashington Post’s website. Paula Kerr, a Democratic senator from New Hampshire, had apparently been involved in a hit-and-run the night before after leaving a fundraiser. She was in critical condition up in Concord; other pedestrians had been hit by the same erratic driver, as well.
The damaged car was found overturned on a high school baseball diamond twenty minutes later, the driver inside it, his neck snapped. He was a twenty-four-year-old known user with two DUIs already, so no foul play was suspected.
The senator was not expected to survive.
Hanley didn’t know Kerr. She’d been the CEO of a tech firm before entering politics, and in the Senate, she’d shown little interest in intelligence affairs. She wasn’t on any committees Hanley paid attention to, so it didn’t seem related to everything else going on.
Still, a U.S. senator hit by a car, fighting for her life.
Jesus,Matt thought.
Just then, three SUVs pulled up to arrivals, two Suburbans with a Navigator in the center. A back door of the Navigator opened, and Hanley climbed in.
The last time he’d met with Trey Watkins, Angela Lacy, Ghost Town’s conduit to the DDO, had been in the vehicle and involved in the discussion.
This time, however, Watkins was alone, other than three security men in the vehicle with him, and that did not seem like good news to Hanley.
“Where’s Angela?” Matt asked.
“Reassigned. Same as Pace.” Watkins said nothing more.
“Where?”
“Undetermined, as of yet. For now, they’re at Langley, but I’ve asked them not to communicate with you.”
“What’s going on, Trey?”
The DDO shrugged. “Not a lot I can tell you, to be honest. Basically, I was taken to the woodshed by the DNI when she found out Jim Pace had been involved in a clandestine investigation into Gauntlet Group. She ordered me to order him to stand down, and she now has HSI taking the lead on everything involving the killings.”
“The DNI? Olivia Anthony? She has Homeland Security Investigations in charge?”
“Yeah. Says this is bigger than the CIA, the CIA shouldn’t be operating domestically, so we’re shut down.”
Hanley was incredulous. “How did she even know Pace was working on this?”
“Because there are photos of Jim Pace in Georgetown climbing out of the BMW he later used to kill one of the assassins, and there’s a photo ofyoucirculating that has you driving through the crime scene in a minivan in Washington Circle.”
“She knows about Ghost Town?”
“Yep,” Watkins said, looking out the window now.
