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He reaches forward and slams the video-disconnect button so hard the plastic case flies into the air.
In the bubble room aboard theUSS Wasp,Jordan Langlois looks over at Santiago Sanchez. The green dot of light on top of the video screen, indicating a live connection to an identical screen in Langley, is now off.
But both men know better than to say anything in front of the supposedly dead video screen.
They move their chairs so their backs face the screen.
Quietly Langlois says, “What a prick.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s been a few hours. What are you thinking, Sanny?”
“Dunno. Jeremy went rogue—and Amy went rogue with him, at the last minute. Must be something important, something big. What are you thinking, Jordan?”
“I could go for a cheeseburger.”
“Christ, yes.”
After leaving the bubble room and returning to his floor, Ernest quickly walks to the outside office just next to his own quarters. To Tyler Pope he says, “That news-media leak I was discussing earlier. Remember?”
“Yes, sir,” Tyler says. “A news tip that a contract force working on its own has lost a team working in Lebanon. You told me to release it in…” He glances up at the clock. “In about nine hours.”
Ernest says, “Do it now.”
He opens the door, turns, and says, “But before that, try Horace Evans again.”
Tyler says, “I’ve tried three times before, sir.”
“Do it again,” Ernest says. “I need to know just what the hell they’re doing over there in Lebanon. And if we can’t get the information from Horace, try any other asset we have in that part of the world.”
He goes into his office, closes the door—no slamming the door in public, so that no gossip or rumors ever spread about one’s temperament—and goes to his desk, staring at the phone.
Ernest’s supervisor is Malcolm Rooney, his division commander from Iraq. Ernest recalls the meetings and briefings he had with General Rooney before taking the job, and how adamant the general was about what Ernest could do for him and the Company once the proper time came.
Still, he waits.
And Ernest doesn’t have to wait long.
After ringing for permission, Tyler comes back into his office, looking concerned, and says, “We might have a lead on what that Brit is doing—and perhaps why Amy Cornwall is now with him.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone we’ve known for years,” Tyler says. “Code name BROKER. He was believed to be in that area of northern Lebanon…and Beirut tells us they hear MI6 has been after him for quite a while. But there’s a complication, sir.”
“Always is. What is it?”
“BROKER belongs to us as a confidential asset,” says Tyler. “He’s on Langley’s payroll.”
Chapter15
WE KEEPup a steady pace as we descend the trail, heading to the village Jeremy says is our destination. As we move along and at times when we take a break, Jeremy tells me a tale that belongs around a campfire in the deep dark woods of Maine on Halloween night, not out here in the open in these rugged mountains.
At one point I take off my tan-colored boots, wincing, and Jeremy says, “Feet hurting?”
“You know it,” I say. “I’m dreaming of getting home and relaxing in some Birkenstocks.”
He raises an eyebrow. “What, you take a size fifty or thereabouts?”
