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Striker was ready to throw his phone against the wall of the office in his McLean, Virginia, condo.
“Why are you surprised? I told you this would happen when you allowed Ghafor to go to Colombia,” he shouted at Kellen “Money” McTiernan, the man who had taken Striker’s job at the CIA when he left.
“The United States’ relationship with Colombia is stable now and was then, Griffin. There was no reason to refuse to let Ghafor go wherever he wanted to, as long as it wasn’t back to Pakistan,” McTiernan shot back.
There were at least three things in Money’s statement that pissed him off. Telling him anything about US–Colombian relations was his first mistake. Striker Ellis had been the CIA’s resident expert on not just Colombia, but all of South America before he left the agency.
Calling him Griffin, rather than Striker, was his second error. There were very few people who got away with calling him that, and Money wasn’t one of them.
Finally, saying that there wasn’t any reason Ghafor, former leader of the Islamic State, should’ve been permitted to go anywhere that wasn’t a prison cell or a morgue, made Striker’s blood pressure skyrocket.
“Where do you think he is now?”
“We’re not certain he’s in Pakistan.”
“You’re not certain. Is that what you just said? I thought you were supposed to have a genius-level IQ. Evidently, that is a misconception. Of course he’s in Pakistan, you idiot.”
Abdul Ghafor was the shit beneath the shoe of the worst scumbag on the face of the earth. He was personally responsible for the deaths of several American operatives, along with playing an integral role in the fraudulent presidential election that had resulted in a man who never should’ve been elected to one term in office, let alone two, taking oath.
That man would soon be impeached, and if the universe didn’t screw it up somehow, once he was out of office, he’d also be prosecuted and sent to prison.
It didn’t matter to Striker that Ghafor’s testimony had led to several other indictments of election fraud and money laundering; that the State Department let the man live was an affront to everything he believed in. Shipping him off to Buenaventura, Colombia, a hotbed of Islamic fundamentalism, was akin to asking for another catastrophic attack on US soil.
Striker put his hand over the mic on his phone when Owen “Ranger” Messick walked into his office followed by Caleb “Diesel” Jacks.
“Money thinks Ghafor might have returned to Pakistan.”
The look on both Ranger’s and Diesel’s faces clearly conveyed that they shared the same opinion of McTiernan Striker did.
“You’ll receive the briefing tomorrow at zero eight hundred,” Money said right before he disconnected the call.
“That sonuvabitch hung up on me,” said Striker, once again tempted to throw his phone. With his luck, he’d put a hole in the wall, and it would be one more thing he’d have to repair before he sold the condo he rarely lived in. At least not since he and Aine McNamara had broken up.
“You ready to head out, boss?” asked Diesel, propping his feet on Striker’s desk.
