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“How about a Marine in a whorehouse?” Rapp looked at the blond-haired man sitting next to him. “Does that work for you?”
“Absolutely. Marines are pigs.” Scott Coleman laughed. The former Navy SEAL was in an unusually good mood, and it had everything to do with what Rapp was telling them.
Kennedy ignored the banter and got back to more pressing issues. “So, in essence, what you’re advising is that we take Scott’s company and use it as a logistical front for the new and expanded Orion Team?”
“Yes.”
“That’s been tried before and it blew up in the CIA’s face.”
“When?”
“The Vietnam War. You’ve surely heard of an outfit called Air America.”
“I was in diapers at the time. Different time, different war, different world.”
“I’m not so sure,” Kennedy persisted.
“Air America got busted, because they got too big, and a couple of corncob generals at the Pentagon didn’t like the CIA having their own air force. That combined with the press, the general mood on Capitol Hill, and the public’s attitude toward the war…it all contributed to their cover being blown.”
Kennedy raised an eyebrow. “And how exactly has anything changed?”
“Everybody, including and especially the Pentagon, are using civilian contractors, and they’re not just hiring engineers to build bridges, schools, and hospitals. They’re hiring firms left and right to provide diplomatic security, food prep services, cleaning services, trucking…you name it, and if it doesn’t involve actual combat, the Pentagon is using private contractors.”
“Scott?” Kennedy asked.
“I’ve seen my business grow from about two million a year to over twenty.”
“Tell her about Black Watch.” Rapp was referring to the private security firm that had been started by one of Coleman’s fellow SEALs.
“They’re going to do over two hundred and fifty million in business with the government alone this year. They have six thousand acres down in North Carolina that they’ve turned into a Disneyland for shooters. They have a race track to teach defensive driving, they have a state-of-the-art sniping range and shooting house, their own airstrips, planes, helicopters, armored personnel carriers…you name it. They have equipment that is forward-deployed around the globe. They’ve even built a damn lake to train SEALs on the underwater delivery vehicles.”
“Their philosophy,” interjected Rapp, “is that they can do it better and in a more cost effective way than the federal government.”
“That wouldn’t be difficult.”
“Well, they’re the first people to really try it, and they are succeeding.”
Kennedy knew about Black Watch. The CIA already used them to protect certain assets abroad. There was a very liberal, antiwar minority in Washington who thought of the group as nothing more than a bunch of overpaid mercenaries who were eventually going to give America a black eye. Kennedy thought those people tended to have a naïve view of the world. To them, anyone who carried a gun was bad. Even cops.
“So, where I’m going with this,” said Rapp, “is that we begin to use a series of companies to…” Rapp didn’t get to finish his sentence because the door to Kennedy’s office opened. He turned to see two men entering.
“Don’t bother getting up,” announced the new director of National Intelligence, Mark Ross. Ross was tall, thin, and well dressed, and exuded an air of importance. He marched across the long office trailed by a second, shorter man.
Rapp looked over his shoulder with undisguised irritation. He’d been in countless closed-door meetings in this office, and when the door was closed it was
for a good reason—especially this morning. This was a first. People did not simply barge in on the director of the CIA unannounced.
“Irene, sorry to intrude, but I was in the neighborhood and decided to drop by.” Ross reached the area where they were sitting and let his gaze fall on Rapp. “Mitch,” he said, placing his left hand on Rapp’s shoulder and extending his right hand. “Good to see you as always.”
Rapp nodded. He’d only met the new intel czar twice, both times when Ross was in the Senate. Kennedy had warned him to be cordial to their new boss. Rapp recalled her being unusually cautious about the former senator. Kennedy had explained that it wasn’t Ross as much as it was his new job. No one in Washington was quite sure how the new position of director of National Intelligence was going to play itself out, and that uncertainty had caused the political gamesmanship to begin. At the mere mention of politics Rapp tuned her out. He was more concerned about who Ross was and where he’d come from. If Ross was going to politicize intelligence they would butt heads big-time.
The skinny on Ross was that he had a firm grasp on national security issues and knew how to motivate people. It also helped that after graduating from Princeton he’d actually worked at the CIA in the Directorate of Intelligence. His claim to fame at the Agency was that right before leaving to get his law degree at Yale he prepared a report on a fringe Iranian religious figure known as the Ayatollah Khomeini. Ross predicted that Khomeini’s religious fervor and growing following was likely to lead to a full-blown revolution in Iran. He was one of the only people in the government who read the tea leaves correctly. On the surface Ross had an outgoing manner about him that was interpreted by some as self-assured and by others as arrogant. Rapp assumed that like most men who had been members of America’s most exclusive club, the U.S. Senate, Ross was a bit of both, depending on the situation. Now Rapp sat uncomfortably in the chair, with the man’s hand still on his shoulder, wondering if the former senator had any idea how much he hated being touched. He glanced down at the offending hand and briefly envisioned snapping one of the fingers.
“I see that pretty wife of yours on TV every day,” Ross continued. “You’re a lucky guy.” He took his hand off Rapp’s shoulder and looked at the third party in the room. It was obvious by the square jaw and athletic build of the man that he was not your average Langley bureaucrat. He appeared to be a Nordic version of Rapp, and Ross suddenly found himself wondering what he, Rapp, and Kennedy had been discussing.
“Mark Ross,” he introduced himself to the blond-haired man. “Director of National Intelligence.”
Coleman nodded. If he was impressed he didn’t show it. “Scott Coleman.”
