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“What about Hargrave? He’s Wilson’s boss. You two have a good relationship. Maybe he can tell us what’s going on.”
Kennedy exhaled sharply and gave Nash a look that said her patience was gone. “Do you honestly think that I haven’t already thought of that?”
“No . . . I just . . . I’m trying to make sure we don’t make a mistake we’ll regret.”
Kennedy had heard enough. “Mitch is laid up and I don’t know when I’m going to get him back, and Stan has just been told he has a few months to live. You’re the next guy on my bench. I need you to execute for me, not question my orders.”
Nash didn’t like being shut down like this and his face showed it.
The fact that he couldn’t simply suck it up and follow an order was the breaking point for Kennedy. “Forget it,” she said, “I’ll find someone else to handle it.” Not waiting for a response, she left him in the corner and motioned for Scott Coleman to follow her.
She repeated the orders to Coleman, who received them without protest. After Kennedy was done explaining what she wanted, Coleman had a better idea.
“The guy’s right here . . . on base. I’ll put him under surveillance starting now and see what I can find out.”
“And call Marcus.”
“First thing I’ll do. Anything else?”
Kennedy thought about it for a second while she looked back down the hall at Mike Nash, who seemed to be pouting. For the first time, she understood Hurley and Rapp’s recent frustrations with the man. When this was over, she was going to have to reassess his role moving forward. Turning back to Coleman she said, “That’s all for now. Let me know the second you find anything.”
CHAPTER 33
THE image of a bloodied and battered Joe Rickman was all over the Internet. Thanks to an alert analyst in the CIA’s Ops Center, Kennedy was spared having to learn the information from Al Jazeera. The analyst who was working the night shift was surfing her way through a series of hard-core jihadist websites when she stumbled across the video. Ten minutes later she had a voice match on Rickman and the alert went out. For reasons Kennedy could never quite understand, Bagram and Kabul were eight hours and thirty minutes ahead of D.C., not eight hours or nine hours. The thirty minutes threw her off, so when Eugene told her that it was 10:13 in D.C. it took her a second to run the calculation—it was 6:43 a.m. in Bagram.
Eugene handed Kennedy the secure phone and she sat up in bed.
“It’s Brad,” he informed her.
Kennedy rubbed the sleep from her eyes and said, “I’m here, Brad, what’s up?”
“Irene, it’s not good.”
Kennedy was billeted in one of the base’s VIP trailers. She motioned for Eugene to turn on the TV. “I’m listening.”
r /> “It’s Rick. It’s all over the Internet.”
Kennedy felt a lump in her throat as she assumed the worst. “Is he alive?”
“Barely. His face is unrecognizable. We had to do a voice analysis to make sure it was him.”
“But you’re sure it’s him?”
“One hundred percent.”
Kennedy heard the stress in her deputy director’s voice. Brad Stofer had been in his new job for just eight months, but he had been at Langley for twenty-six years. He was a pro, and if he was bothered by what he had seen, it meant it wasn’t good. Kennedy also knew that voiceprints rarely came back with a 100 percent match. She feared the worst. “Describe it to me.”
“It’s four minutes and thirty-seven seconds long. It’s heavily edited. His arms are tied above his head. Looks like he’s hanging from the ceiling. They were smart enough to cover the walls with sheets. Two men handle the interrogation. It starts out with a lot of head slaps and then they bring out the rubber hoses. He’s a bloody mess by the end of it.” There was a long pause and then Stofer added, “It’s fucking horrible.”
Kennedy started to think about what Rickman was going through, and then she got a grip on her emotions. Now was not the time to lose it. “What does he say?”
“The audio isn’t great, but our people say they can clean it up. We should have a good copy in the next thirty minutes. I’ll get it to you as soon as it’s ready.”
“Brad,” Kennedy said in a slightly impatient voice, “how bad is the damage?”
“Bad . . . some names are thrown around.”
“Which ones?”
