The Red Cell André Gallo (essential reading .txt) 📖

which hit the man in the chest and punched him backward. He floated down to the kitchen floor.

Half an hour later, two police cars, sirens wailing, pulled up in front of the house.

Lying in bed that night, her mind was racing. Was the attack against a target one of opportunity? Was it specifically focused on her? How did the shooters know she was there? Was there a mole in the agency? Who else in the government knew she was going to be here? Who were these guys anyway?

10. Langley

LaFont stood by the picture window of her office on the seventh floor. As she looked out over the CIA campus, its greenery fading as fall approached, she ran over the points she was planning to make later that day with members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Mary, her secretary, stuck her head in the door and said, “They’re all here. Do you want them here or in your conference room?”

“Here will be fine,” LaFont said, refocusing on the present. As she returned to her desk, she picked up a note she had made to herself. Britt, her daughter Brittany, was starting at William and Mary, and her counselor had just suggested she change her major from marine biology to straight biology, deferring on a specialty until graduate school. She would call the counselor back at her home number that evening.

As they filed in, LaFont registered each in turn. Tom Nortsen, Near East Division’s chief, was an experienced operations officer with good judgment and unquestionable moral ethics. Nevertheless, she sometimes questioned the equanimity of his views on Arab-Israeli issues. The Saudis seemed to have won him to their cause during his two years in Riyadh.

Marshall Church, former senior operations officer who now worked as a contractor, chafed somewhat under the second-class status of a green badger. His Red Cell unit was a valuable addition to the agency, because it could hire high-quality temporary help at a fixed cost to produce out-of-the-box solutions and excellent results. His disease had slowed him down physically, but he was as mentally sharp as anyone else in the room.

Paul Kirk, counterintelligence chief, was Harvard smart, short tempered, and profane with a Boston accent. He had been spectacularly successful at turning his talent for countering Soviet spying efforts to the broader threat of the post-Cold War world.

Last, Robert Trent, head of the Counter Terrorism Center, was extroverted, twinkle eyed, and imaginative, sometimes overly so. She often wished he had stayed at the deputy level, where he could have received closer supervision.

“Your memos are piling up on my desk,” LaFont said, as the four men took seats on the sofa and two chairs, and she sat down behind her massive wooden desk. “One disaster after another. No solutions. No recommendations. We know the attempt to kill Steve Church came from Yosemani. The motorcycle driver is cooperating. Their knickers are still in a knot over his and Kella’s escape.”

Leaning forward, elbows on the desk, speaking with authority and confidence, she continued. “We also know our ambassador in Yemen was assassinated by Quds Force operatives. Al Qaeda wasn’t behind it, as the Iranians wanted us to believe. That means they’ve struck us twice and we haven’t yet responded. Marshall, I want action here.” She didn’t have to add the missing word: now.

LaFont took a sip of coffee from a cup on her desk. “Anyone else want coffee?” Nods from around the room. She pushed the intercom button and said, “Mary, please bring coffee for everyone.”

Marshall took a brief pause to gather his thoughts. Then he said, “We expect Yosemani to be in Brussels in about two weeks. Steve has assembled a team, and they will be on the ground in the next few days. After her near-miss in Romania, Kella is taking a few days off in Paris and will join Steve in Brussels.”

Mary brought a carafe of coffee and put it on a small table in front of the men. Marshall poured himself a cup, stirred some sugar into his coffee, and took a sip. “No surprise, the three men who attacked her in Sinaia were all Quds Force. The Romanians are interrogating the two survivors. As you know, Kella killed one, Charlie Pastor wounded one, and the Romanians captured the driver before he even reached the highway.”

“They obviously had obtained or been given the location of the base beforehand,” LaFont said. “Were they targeting the house because they had learned it was one of our locations, or were they after Kella specifically?”

“They were after Kella,” Marshall said. “Their orders were to get as much information as possible on how she and Steve made their getaway from Tehran to the coast, and then to kill her. They don’t know where the information on Kella’s travel came from.”

“What about that, Paul?” LaFont asked.

“The leak had to come from Bob’s double agent SCONE/1. She’s talking to the Hizballah, and now directly to the Iranians. There’s nothing double about that operation. It’s all one way, as far as I can see.” Kirk was famous for peppering his speech with four letter words but never in the director’s office.

“She has not had access to Red Cell activities,” Trent said, without his usual twinkle. “Although we moved her from unclassified translation duties outside of the building to classified work here on the fifth floor, she’s not privy to the identities of our targets.” He paused and added, “Besides, where else can you find someone with both Arabic and Farsi?”

“Compartmentalization is never airtight,” Kirk said, shaking his head. “Her cubicle is in the middle of the Counterterrorism Center’s analysis section. You can’t stop her from having lunch with her colleagues. It was a mistake to bring her into the building.”

“Nonsense,” Trent replied, raising his voice. “We’re getting good personality data on Hizballah from her. It’s the first time our information isn’t coming