Locked On Part 25

"He did. Some in the Justice Department know about it, but not many."

Kealty turned to Mike Brannigan. "Mike. Tell me you didn't know."

"I had no idea, sir. It must have been sealed. Whoever has given us this information, if it is true, must have gotten the information illegally through-"

"Can he do it?" Kealty asked. "Was that legal, just waving a wand over a CIA black operator to say, 'no harm, no foul'?"

Brannigan did speak up with some authority now. "A presidential pardon can clean your slate for most any federal crime. Civil, state, and local charges aren't affected, although I a.s.sume with a CIA operator, that wouldn't be a factor."

Kealty's chest heaved with excitement, but then he deflated. "Okay. So . . . if Ryan gave this meathead a pardon, sure, we could leak it, if we did it carefully. That will be embarra.s.sing for Ryan, but we won't be able to get to Clark. And without Clark in hand, up on charges, it won't be anything other than one-day news. You know how Ryan is. He'll wrap himself up in the flag and salute the camera and say, 'I did what I had to do to keep your kids safe,' or some bulls.h.i.+t like that."

Thayer shook his head. "Ryan pardoned him for his actions with the CIA. But there is one murder in the file that, apparently, did not happen as part of his CIA duties." Thayer looked down to the pages in his lap. "He supposedly killed an East German named Schuman, 1981, in Berlin. The file I have doesn't have a word on it. I checked other avenues, as well. As far as the CIA is concerned, even internally, this never happened."

Kealty connected the dots. "So if he is off the hook for killings while working his CIA job, and this murder was not a CIA job . . ."

Thayer said, "Then the full pardon is irrelevant."

Kealty looked to Brannigan. "Is that enough to pick him up on?"

Mike Brannigan looked stunned. "Mr. President. I am only just hearing about this. I really need to get together with my staff, some key people at FBI, and look over any information you have on Clark. I can tell you DOJ is going to need to know that this information would be admissible in court before they will go any further. I mean, who the h.e.l.l is this source?"

Kealty looked at the attorney general. "If you can corroborate information in Benton's file through CIA or other sources, then you won't need Benton's file anymore. The source becomes a nonissue. It's just a nudge in the right direction."

"Mr. President, I-"

"And Mike, I know you will do the right thing."

Wes McMullen, the chief of staff, had been silent throughout the conversation, but now he leaned in. "Isn't there a law that says we can't out a CIA agent?"

There were shrugs around the room, then all heads turned to Brannigan again. "I believe that is for active employees. If we know, and I mean one hundred percent know, that this guy is out of the intelligence services, then he's fair game."

Kealty looked relieved by this, but McMullen still had reservations.

"I'm worried this is going to look like sort of a lame Hail Mary. Like us digging up some thirty-year-old murder to try and pin tangentially on Jack Ryan here with just a few days until the election. I mean, really?"

Kealty said, "It's not a Hail Mary. The information was dumped in our laps. I will stress this, and I will ask the question: If this was handed to us and we did nothing, how would that look? We came into this term promising to right the wrongs of the Ryan years, and boys and girls, I am still the President of the United States."

Wes McMullen tried another approach to put this toothpaste back in the tube. "Clark has a Congressional Medal of Honor. They don't just hand those out in a box of Cracker Jack, sir."

"So? Big f.u.c.king deal! We throw in a line about how while we honor his military service we cannot condone acts of murder, blah, blah, blah! I'll mention that I am the G.o.dd.a.m.n commander in chief, for Christ sakes! Stop fighting me on this, Wes! I'm going forward. Mike, I need cover to do so."

Brannigan gave an unsure nod. "If we can get some bit of corroboration from CIA, anything, really, then I'll be able to, at least, bring the man in for questioning."

Kealty nodded. "I'll talk to Kilborn at CIA and tell him Justice Department investigators want to talk to everyone who worked with this John Clark."

Thayer said, "If we can get this to stick to Clark, it will affect Ryan, as it pushes the narrative that he acts above the law."

Kealty was standing and pacing now over by his desk. "f.u.c.k, yes, this will affect Ryan! This needs to come out in the next twenty-four hours so that I can use it on my last swing through the Rust Belt. I can ask the crowd if a President Ryan would just whack the president of Mexico the next time he doesn't get his way on a trade issue. It speaks to his past, it speaks to his present insofar as he is supposedly so strong on foreign affairs, but are you really strong on foreign affairs if you have to resort to sending out your goon squad to kill others, and then cover it up with a secret pardon?" Kealty was nearly breathless, but he thought of something else and spun in his patent-leather shoes to the three men on the sofas. "And it speaks to the future of this country if we allow a man who works with and cavorts with a bloodthirsty killer like this John Clark to take over the Oval Office."

Kealty looked to his chief of staff. "Wes, I'm going to need that line. Write that down and hang on to it."

"Of course."

"Okay, gentlemen. Anything else?"

Thayer said, "Clark has a partner. He was mentioned several times in the file. He is tight with Ryan, as well."

"Does this guy have a full pardon?"

"I don't know."

"Okay, let's get to work on him, too." He saw a look of reticence in Thayer's eyes. "No? Why not?"

"Domingo Chavez is the guy's name. He's Mexican-American."

"s.h.i.+t," Kealty said, thinking it over. "There goes f.u.c.king Arizona and New Mexico. Won't affect Texas. I didn't have a prayer there." He gasped. "California?"

Thayer shook his head. "You could carpet-bomb Mexico City with B-52s and you won't lose California to Jack f.u.c.king Ryan. Still . . . you will lose a s.h.i.+tload of Hispanic votes, all over the country, if the FBI goes after a guy named Chavez."

"Okay." The political wheels in Kealty's head turned. "Bury the Mexico angle on the Ryan story. Let's go after Clark and Clark alone."

Everyone agreed.

"All right. Mike, you go to Kilborn for access to CIA personnel, but Wes, I want you to get Deputy Director Alden over here tomorrow first thing. I want to see if he knows anything about John Clark. Alden is a suck-up. He'll play ball with me in a way Kilborn won't."

Melanie Kraft did not mind working late in the operations center of the National Counterterrorism Center. Her work consumed her, especially after she'd been handed a project by her boss, Mary Pat Foley, the week before.

Mary Pat had tasked her with learning everything she could about a brigadier general in Pakistan's ISI named Riaz Rehan. A curious tip to CIA from a one-time-use overseas e-mail address implicated the general as a former operative in both Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed. This was interesting, but NCTC needed to know what Rehan was up to now.

Melanie had worked the question from several different angles, and she'd struck out several times a day in the past week. But she'd been working the Rehan question all day, and she felt like she had something to show for it.

It was after midnight when she thought she had enough to go to the a.s.sistant director, and she knew Mary Pat was still in her office. She tapped on the office door, softly and somewhat reluctantly.

"Come in."

Melanie entered, and Mary Pat's tired eyes widened. "Dear Lord, girl, if you look that tired at your age, I must look like the walking dead."

"I'm sorry to bother you. I know better than to troubleshoot theories with the boss, but my brain is fried and there isn't anyone else to bounce this off of."

"I'm glad you popped in. Want to go grab a coffee?"

A minute later they were down in the cafeteria, spinning stirrer sticks in hot coffee. Mary Pat said, "Whatever you have has got to be more stimulating than what I'm working on. DHS is asking me to help with a report for Congress. I'd rather be doing something substantive, but you kids get to do all the fun stuff."

"I'm working on Rehan and his department at ISI."

"Joint Intel Miscellaneous, right?" Mary Pat asked.

"Yes. A misleading name for the division that runs all Pakistan's foreign spies and liaises with all the terrorists around the world."

"A lot of sneaky people work in government around the world," Foley said. "It's not below them to hide something nefarious behind bureaucratic-speak."

Melanie nodded. "From what I can tell of Rehan's organization, his department's operational tempo has been through the roof in the past month."

"Impress me with what you've found out."

"The general himself is such a cipher, I decided to dig into his organization a little more, maybe find something that can lead to an understanding of what they are doing."

"What did you find?"

"A thirty-year-old Pakistani was arrested two months ago in New York; he got in a fight buying a knockoff watch in Chinatown. In his possession NYPD found twelve thousand dollars, and thirteen prepaid Visa cards totaling thirty-seven grand, and a debit card for a checking account in Dubai. Apparently this guy was withdrawing cash with his debit card and then going to bodegas and drugstores and using the cash to buy the prepaid cards. A couple here, a couple there, so as not to attract attention."

"Interesting," Mary Pat said as she sipped her milky coffee.

"He was deported immediately, without much of an investigation, but I've been looking into the guy, and I think he was JIM."

"Why?"

"A, he fits the mold. Heavy Islamic family ties to the FATA, he served in a traditionally Islamist unit in the PDF, and then left that unit, going into reserve duty. That's common for ISI employees."

"B?" Mary Pat asked, not exactly sold on the circ.u.mstantial nature of Melanie's inference.

"B, the Dubai account. It's registered to a sh.e.l.l corporation in Abu Dhabi that we've tied to contributions to Islamist players in the past."

"A slush fund?"

"Right. The sh.e.l.l corporation has some transactions in Islamabad, and the bank itself has been used by different groups. Lashkar men in Delhi, Haqqani men in Kabul, Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen in Chittagong."

"Is there another shoe still to drop here?"

"I am hoping you will tell me." Melanie hesitated, then said, "Riaz Rehan, we have determined, was the man known as Khalid Mir. Mir is a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative."

"Right."

"Well, Lashkar men working in India on missions that have been linked to Khalid Mir have been known to use prepaid Visa cards bought with cash in New York."

Mary Pat nodded. "I think I remember reading that in the past."

"And Riaz Rehan was also known as Abu Kashmiri, a known high-level operative for Jaish-e-Mohammed."

"Yes?"

"Well, a three-man Jaish-e-Mohammed cell that was killed after an ambush in Kabul was found to be using prepaid Visas purchased in New York."

Mary Pat shook her head. "Melanie, lots of terrorist organizations have been using these prepaid cards in the past years. It is the easiest way to move money without leaving a financial trail. And we've picked up other shady Middle Eastern characters in New York with loads of cash on trips to buy prepaid cards, presumably to pa.s.s them out to others to create an untraceable conduit of operating funds."

"That's my point exactly. The other people who have been picked up and deported. What if they were working for Rehan, as well?"

"The ones we were able to tie down had no known a.s.sociation with JIM."

"Neither did Khalid Mir or Abu Kashmiri. I am just saying, if Rehan uses this MO, then the same method of operation might mean the same man is behind it. I am starting to think Rehan has more ident.i.ties than the ones we know about."

Mary Pat Foley looked at Melanie Kraft a long time before speaking, as if she was trying to decide if she should. Finally she said, "For the past fifteen years there have been rumors. Just little whispers here and there that there was one unknown operative, a freelancer, who was behind all of the lower-level attacks."

Melanie asked, "What do you mean all of them?"

"Lots. An incredible amount. Some of our forensic guys over at Langley would point to little pieces of tradecraft that were used across all the operations. Everyone started using Dubai accounts around the same time. Everybody started using steganography around the same time. Everybody started using prepaid phone cards around the same time. Internet phones as well."

Melanie continued to look incredulous. "Playing the devil's advocate, it's not uncommon at all to find similar tradecraft in operations from unconnected groups. They learn from each other's ops, they pa.s.s field manuals around Pakistan, they get advice from ISI. Plus, when they do evolve individually, it is at a similar pace, using technology that they can get their hands on. It just stands to reason that, for example, all the groups started using long-distance phone cards around the time they became popular, or thumb drives when they became cheap enough. I don't buy this ghost story."

"You're right to be skeptical. It was an exciting theory that explained things the easy way, without any more work than saying, 'Forrest Gump probably did it.'"

Melanie laughed. "His code name was Forrest Gump?"

"Unofficial, he never got an official designation. But he was a character who showed up everywhere something happened. The name seemed to fit. And remember, some of these groups I am talking about had nothing to do with one another. But some at the Agency were convinced there was one common thread running through them all. One coordinator of operations. Like they were all managed, or advised, at least, by the same individual."

"Are you saying Riaz Rehan might be Forrest Gump?"

Mary Pat shrugged. Drained the rest of her coffee. "A couple months ago he was just another low-level general running an office in the ISI. Since then we've learned a lot about him, and it's all bad. Keep digging."

"Yes, ma'am," said Melanie, and she stood to return to her desk.

"But not tonight. Get out of here. Go home and get some sleep. Or better yet, call Junior. Have him take you to a very late dinner."

Melanie smiled, looked down at the floor.

"He called today. We're getting together tomorrow."

Mary Pat Foley smiled.

John Clark was new to trout fis.h.i.+ng, and he recognized he had a lot to learn about it. On a couple of occasions he'd managed to catch a few rainbow and brown trout in his neighbor's creek, though the streams and brooks on his own farm had so far yielded him nothing but frustration. His neighbor had told him there was good trout to be caught on Clark's own property, but another local contradicted that, explaining that what were called trout in the little streams like those on Clark's farm were actually just creek chubs, a member of the minnow family that grew up to a foot in length and could be feisty enough when on the line to fool amateur anglers into thinking they were battling a trout.

John figured he'd get a book on fis.h.i.+ng and read it when he had the time, but for this afternoon he just stood out here alone in his waders in his neighbor's creek, whipped his line back and forth, dumped the fly in a slow-moving pool, and then repeated that process, over and over and over.

It looked a lot like fly-fis.h.i.+ng, except for the fact that he hadn't caught a d.a.m.n thing.

John gave up for the afternoon and pulled his line in an hour before dark. Though he hadn't managed to fool any fish into biting his fly, it had been a good day nonetheless. His gunshot wound had all but healed, he'd gotten a few hours of fresh air and solitude, and, before his afternoon of relaxation, he'd put a first coat of paint on the master bedroom of the farmhouse. One more coat this coming weekend and he'd bring Sandy out so he could get a thumbs-up from her to begin painting the living room.